Written for legendland.
Weather Forecast
There were times…
"Mama, mama, look! I'm the Seeker of Truth—whoosh! I killed a gar, that was attacking some innocent people! See?"
Nicholas zoomed around the room, waving his play wooden sword and stabbing the innocent air, while Kahlan, curled in the window seat, watched in sympathetic exhaustion.
Nicholas was Kahlan's most important responsibility, but she would have watched him with the same fascinated attention even had he not been her sole hope of seeing Richard again. She saw so many echoes of herself in her son—he had her eyes, and the same sharp intelligence behind them, too.
She tried to pretend he was Richard's, but there was no mistaking the determined set of his jaw, the arrogant smirk on that bright, alive little face…
Which was currently pink and pinched with what Kahlan recognized as the high energy she associated with imminent collapse from exhaustion. Nicholas had been bouncing off the walls all day, because of the rain still streaming down the window behind Kahlan's back.
With a sigh, Kahlan made to rise, but her husband entered the nursery just then, gave Nicholas one evaluating glance, and swept the boy into his arms.
"Bed for you, my little prince," he said affectionately.
"NO!" Nicholas protested vehemently, squirming and trying to hit his father with the wooden sword. "Don't wanna!"
Darken twisted the play weapon out of his son's hands. "Goodnight, Nicholas," he said firmly, holding the little boy's gaze until Nicholas reluctantly quieted.
Kahlan watched him tuck Nicholas into bed. So far he hadn't taken any notice of her presence. On the whole, she approved—Nicholas came first.
Their son was asleep in minutes, all that pent-up energy finally spent.
Only then did Darken turn to Kahlan, offering her his arm and pulling her up out of the window seat without waiting for her permission.
"My wizards tell me tomorrow should be sunny," he said quietly. "Thank the Creator."
Kahlan almost agreed, before she remembered that this was Darken Rahl. She couldn't agree with him, even about something as trivial as the weather—he was still the tyrant she had given her life to defeat.
But there were times it was easy to forget that she didn't belong here—that Darken and Nicholas weren't her real family.
At times like these, she would always look back and remember the way life was supposed to be. When she watched over a very different Seeker of Truth, a man who owed nothing to the D'Haran Empire her son would one day inherit.
And yet…every day, it seemed, she lost a little more of the desperation that had inspired her plan in the first place. There were times when it seemed easier to forget she had ever been anything but Lady Kahlan Rahl.