Title: Survivor
Author: BardWisp
Pairing: Kahlan/Cara
Word Count: 3,550
Warnings: Character death.
Disclaimer: I own nothing here.
Summary: This was supposed to be an ordinary errand. Until they find themselves in a completely twisted situation.
A/N1: I'm sincerely grateful for all the comments. I'll try to be more regular about updates. That being said, be prepared. This one is sad.
A/N2: Special gratitude to Cloud Auditore Fair, my lovely beta.
Survivor
- II -
She felt it coming.
The burning of skin, an all-consuming pain exploding in her chest. A multitude of shades blurring her sight as it rushed through her veins with a devastating force. Her heartbeat increasing, slowing, halting before a warm blinding light spread out and engulfed her entire being. Setting her free.
It hurt.
Then, all of a sudden, it ceased; the pain, the light, everything.
There were no green flames, though, nor did the Good Spirits come to greet her. Only blackness. And then a familiar voice calling her name.
"Mama?" Kahlan heard the sound of her own voice echoing through endless void and turned around frantically.
She could not see; not her own body, not a thing, only dull murkiness. But she had heard a voice, her Mother's voice. She was sure of it, if nothing else.
"It's not the time yet." Her Mother's voice reverberated strangely in the dark, startling the Confessor somewhat. "You have to go back."
"I don't want to. I, I want to be with you."
"She's the one calling for you. She needs you, Kahlan."
"I won't leave your side again, Mama."
Kahlan didn't understand. Who needed her? Was she dreaming? She couldn't remember. All things had lost their meaning in this place save for her Mother's kind voice.
"You'll soon remember." Her Mother said, as if sensing her confusing, "Now go back, my child."
"Remember what? And to where should I go?"
"To breathe. To life, Kahlan."
Once upon a time she was a carefree child. Full of dreams and blissfully unaware of the darkness lurking about, disguised as compassion and justice – she simply adored her Father.
And she loved her Mother so much that she used to cry her eyes out when her Mama would go missing for more than a couple of hours, but then she would remember it was her responsibility to take care of her little sister, as her Mother instructed her to. Her Mother's words, it was all that mattered when she was a four and a half year old.
It was on the day she had almost drowned in a lake near her house that things began to change.
The lake's waters were dark as midnight and she had underestimated its depth, just as she did with its pitfalls in the form of smooth, slippery rocks. She'd been so confident that she would be safe stepping on their inviting solidity.
Her Mother, a guide of unwavering wisdom and gentle strength, told little Kahlan that she should take that unfortunate episode as a lesson. A lesson in how life was for a Confessor.
"We are survivors, Kahlan. Life is not something just granted to us without a cause. We have to choose wisely, to be deserving of it. But very often, choosing will be harder for the ones like us, so we have to fight. I want you to fight with every fiber of your being, with each breath that you take, my little one. Even when it gets too dark and frightening, don't stop fighting and always go to that which makes your heart beat faster and more alive than it was the moment before."
Kahlan had never truly understood the meaning of her Mother's words then.
Now, she did.
And whilst the remembrances of the treasured days of her innocence began to fade away, her foggy mind connected with reality again. She remembered how to breathe.
"Breathe, Kahlan. Breathe."
And breathe she did. Drinking in the warmth of that distant voice invading her mouth, Kahlan held onto the thin thread of hope like she did all those years ago. As she sucked it into greedy lungs like a shipwrecked man would. She was so hungry for it, devoured it all until her eyes snapped open wide, tingling with renewed sight.
She found herself staring into darkness again, only it was not an amorphous one this time, but a dripping stoned blackness charged with the scent of blood and rain.
She was back in the cave.
A roaring sound could be heard coming from somewhere to her left.
The skies were going to turn out into oceans, she wondered, still somewhat dizzy.
Suddenly, her body jerked up, trying to stir off the fog of inertia on its own volition.
She could not move, though. Something was weighing her down and the pointy thing stabbing at the swell of her right breast told her it was more than her own weakness preventing her from rising.
A gasp left her as she felt it, the feathery touch of full lips on the curve of her neck made her shiver at their unexpected coolness.
Then it came to her, "Cara."
Leaning on her right elbow with some effort, she struggled to disentangle her upper body from the warm cocoon of blankets she was wrapped in, where she'd been lying in only her corset and underclothes. Cara's doing, she mused. Her other arm came to encircle the Mord'Sith's shoulders as she tentatively lifted herself off of the ground with Cara's still form somewhat nestled against her chest.
Due to that blackout-blow to the head she had suffered, the Confessor had been mostly groggy during the time in which the Mord'Sith carried her through the woods, it was true, but she had not been completely oblivious to the world. The way Cara had cared for her wounds back in the meadow, and later when the blonde had warily dragged her into the cave, relived her from her damp clothes and protectively encased her freezing body with their joined mantles. All the time, as she wandered between unconsciousness and pain, this one thing had been quite real and insightful to Kahlan: Cara's devotion to her.
And Kahlan knew, without having to see it thoroughly, that the Mord'Sith was severely injured. She had felt it on her own sore body each time the woman hissed and then mumbled a scant apology, or cursed it all to the Keeper when she would lose her footing while hauling the Confessor about. Kahlan had even managed to flutter her eyes open once, a fleeting moment of full awareness before the shadows of the night and in her mind grew too dark for discerning, and she had glimpsed the ugly bleeding torn on Cara's left side.
Lightning flashed and thunder boomed in the skies, reverberating through the cave's dark walls and haunting her thoughts as she held the Mord'Sith in her arms, as she fought back the sense of dread growing inside of her.
Hard, rocky ground and loose layers of the coarse fabric of their entangled blankets scratched at the skin on the back of her not bandaged thigh as she, managing to skid backwards and sit with her back against the cave's sidewall, tried to take a look at the other woman's injured shoulder. Before she could focus her attention there, however, utter fear gripped at Kahlan's throat as the Mord'Sith's head lolled back down and away from her loose embrace.
Tears rolled down her cheeks unraveled as her face contorted into a mask of desolation – the sudden raw knowledge that she was holding onto the dead weight of this woman, this beautifully broken woman who had literally given her last breath to ensure she would survive to see another sunrise, tore at Kahlan's very soul. The unmerciful sharpness of a new forged blade to her own heart wouldn't have been this terrifying a vision as the one she had just witnessed.
And just like that, bittersweet and tragic as it might be, the epiphany happened.
Kahlan loved this woman.
Yes, she had always felt a sort of odd pull toward the gruff blonde with a serious case of lack of social skills, which was a paradox in itself. For not only the woman was Mord'Sith, but the one who had killed her little sister, not to mention her fellow Confessors.
She had, and not without a certain amount of jealousy, trusted Cara's ability to protect Richard from the beginning, even though she would not let the ratifying words cross her lips then. She would give the world now for a chance to tell them to Cara just once.
In truth, for so long she had been a reticent admirer of Cara's passion and wit, as she was often heartened by the blonde's obstinate pride and resolute sense of loyalty, that she had thought it better to keep things that way. Daydreaming and trying not to think too hard about anything related to her life before and after one particular leathered-clad woman. Theirs was a difficult relationship even when they had reached a common ground. But, during this time in which they were treading on thin ice toward each other, dancing in a rhythm only known by the ones in silky white and red leather, Kahlan had come to care for the blonde woman in ways that she wouldn't dare to name. It was awkward, preposterous even, and so she found that she could easily dismiss it all to the always so welcomed and required idleness when one is faced by, and have to face back, the abysses of life on an almost daily basis.
There were many reasons why she should hate this Mord'Sith.
But the thing that shook Kahlan to the core was that she just realized, right and here in this dark, damp hole, that there was not even one reason for her not to love Cara. How could anyone with a heart not love Cara? Cara who would always be there for the ones she held to heart, who just asked without asking for a chance to be more, to be a part of something prized.
A choice, however, that Kahlan had not made. A chance that, for all her twisted reasoning, Kahlan hadn't dared to take. How many times she had shut Cara out, so afraid of what could happen if she lowered her guard with the frustratingly unreadable woman.
But not allowing it the possibility of becoming an actual act did not prevent it from being real. All her confusing and denying, it was what seemed out of place now, just inconceivable, vanished as if it had been swallowed by the hungry earth outside in the same way it was swallowing the bitter waters rushing down from the skies.
Was it too late for caring, for choosing? What would Cara think, what would she have done, if she knew the true nature of Kahlan's feelings for her? Would Cara ignore her until she realized the lengths of her foolishness for mistaking a Mord'Sith as someone who was capable of caring, of love?
"Would you?" She murmured in daze against tangles of wet blond hair, desperately pulling the Mord'Sith's flaccid body against her chest.
She got no response.
"Cara, I'm here. See? You brought me back. I'm here..."
Too late to realize the obvious.
"… I'll take care of you, I promise. Promise me you will… Just rest now… Remember to breathe…" The Mother Confessor was in a chaotic state of mind, murmuring nonsensical things against the Mord'Sith's head as she numbly rocked the woman's body back and forth.
The despair had come, drained her, and gone.
Listening to the melancholic tune of the rain now falling quietly outside, sitting in the same position for Spirits knew how long, she held onto the woman she had failed to save; Kahlan didn't feel like living at all.
She felt as if she was sinking and sinking into those dark waters again, into her tears, but had nothing left to give.
Just as she was dry, empty and cold, she was raw, torn flesh bleeding without blood.
Tasting the familiar tang, she realized she had been kissing a bloody cut on Cara's head.
The Mother Confessor was losing her mind.
"I'm so sorry..." She mumbled as she pulled in Cara's right arm and rested it over the Mord'Sith's motionless chest, her pale fingers closing around gloved ones that still kept their slack grip to a dead Agiel – the same Agiel that had taken her breath away with its searing touch a while ago.
She easily pulled it free from Cara's fingers and pressed its blunt end to her own heart.
The utter lack of pain hurt too much, so very deep.
Kahlan sobbed in grief, putting the Agiel aside without sparing another look at it.
No. No choice would be granted to her.
And it was not even dark as midnight yet.
It was not supposed to end like this. If only she could take it all back…
Take it back that she had stayed behind to attend to a foolish dispute between meaningless local farmers. That Cara had agreed to a categorically denied but visibly needed respite and had remained by Kahlan's side because the Confessor had asked her so, while insisting that Richard and Zedd should head on to a larger village beyond those same and, until then, unremarkable woods, where they could wait for the women and restock their supplies. That she had been so worn out and lazily triumphant, by having finally banished the Keeper of the Underworld to his own pit of misery, as to let her guard down that easily.
They had been only a day behind the men and on their way to reunite with them in said village, where the foursome would steal some time away from the festivities that the villagers were likely to impart on them so that they could plan what was left of their trip north, to Aydindril, and from there on.
Until that strange mist came upon them.
The horses, whinnying and stomping their hooves wildly in a startling attempt to get rid of their riders, did exactly that before running away into the hazy tree line.
There was an overwhelming moment of complete stillness and then they came, howling and swirling their huge blades like there was no tomorrow. At least for the bastards, there wouldn't be.
Though, getting beaten down by those soulless beasts and being now trapped in this hellhole in the midst of a summer storm with Cara like this was not the way Kahlan had intended this day to end.
If only she'd had the chance to see it coming, to turn the wheels of time back to...
She knew what was like to wish the impossible.
Spirits help me, but I would damn it all to the Underworld for a chance to do things right.
"To be deserving of your devotion, of your…broken, brave heart…" The words left her in a hushed undertone, her teeth clattering together as she tried to smile at the vapor floating above Cara's face.
She thought the Mord'Sith would grumble and be secretly charmed by the tiny tufts of warm air, for they looked like the "morons' little heads" she had befriended not long ago – the way she had once described the baby Night Wisps to Kahlan.
Kahlan thought. Thought of all these small but significant things that should have made Cara worthy of her fighting, of her courage, of her love.
The pain and sorrow that came with the memories of their time in Dunshire ripped her heart apart all over again, her guts twisting painfully as a fresh wave of tears spilled free, as she mourned all the things that she had lost without even having.
Tear by tear, the feeling of hopelessness began to give way to a dangerous one.
Anger.
She was angry at the world for being so cruel, angry at herself for her selfishness, angry at Cara for leaving.
She was becoming even angrier at being angry at Cara.
It was too much. She lost it.
"Come on, wake up!" She hissed furiously at the Mord'Sith's paled face, shaking her shoulder with some force.
She didn't care that it was the one shoulder with the piece of wood pierced in.
If anything, pain was a welcomed ally if it could lure the stubborn Mord'Sith back to life.
If anything, it would.
The pale blue of her irises misted with black as Kahlan pushed against the stony wall behind her, her middle curling in over Cara's as she pressed her right ear to the other woman's chest.
"You can't die on me like this!" She growled.
But not a sole beat could be heard underneath bloody leathers and marred skin.
Looking back at the slack face before hers, she grabbed the sides of Cara's head and shouted, "Damn it, Cara. Open your eyes!"
Kahlan shook the Mord'Sith's body more forcibly once, twice, a third time as a pitiful wail left her constricted throat. Her control over her magic was running lower and lower and she didn't care one bit.
"You are the strong one, remember? Nothing can stop you. Nothing can… Please…"
She caressed Cara's cooled forehead with her left hand, a trembling thumb trying to wipe the drying blood there, fingertips barely touching semi-lidded eyes, then slightly parted lips. They were so cold.
"Please. Open your eyes, Cara." She pleaded lowly, what rested of her restraint was breaking down.
Green eyes did not open, would not stare back into her blackened ones.
So Kahlan just waited, waited for it to come and take her misery away.
She didn't have to wait long.
It happened with a vengeful rage erupting from that dark place locked inside of every Confessor, that ever constant and primal tingling that tasted like dark wild honey and tales of old was now just boiling under her skin, corrupting all her rational thoughts. Only this time the searing and sudden pulse flared up with all the might of one Kahlan Amnell – the most powerful Confessor to ever walk the lands since Magda Searus herself.
A ghost of a whisper, a name, left her lips before her entire body convulsed, dark hair swiping around as the Confessor's head jerked back up with an earsplitting cry tearing out of her throat. Soon after, a concussive explosion of magic pulsed from her shaking body, the hot bolt of light rippled around and beyond at such a blinding speed that it quieted even the wild crackles of thunder and the rain stopped falling for a few stilled moments.
It had never felt like this before, the release of her magic.
She was not spent when her vision cleared, as her head slowly leaned down until she was facing Cara again.
She did not feel spent, just… alone.
Utterly alone.
And alone as she was, the Mother Confessor closed her eyes, absently pulling off the flimsy piece of fabric she had forgotten was still partly bandaging her now-healed head. Opened again, her eyes were of a paler shade of blue surrounded by tiny red veins that could not be seen in the dimness of the cave.
The bitter irony that this place had the likeness of a grave did not go unnoticed by Kahlan. Places of death, it seemed, had a strange way of revealing the liveliest aspects of this particular Mord'Sith.
Except it did not happen, not this time, how she wished it would. The impossible way she wished it to end.
Dying was not an option for the Mother Confessor, Cara had seen to it herself, and hoping against hope would not bring Cara back. Actually, as a woman that was not in the least fond of bland silliness, the blonde would likely scoff at the very idea of wishing things that she couldn't have. She would roll her eyes out of her head if she knew of being used as excuse for such a display of weakness.
Kahlan smiled, teary, "It was never your strong suit. You just like doing things the harder way." She breathed, eyes drifting over the limp woman's features one last time.
I wish… I didn't have to let you go.
Bending down a little more, Kahlan pressed her lips softly onto Cara's forehead.
And wept.
Wept because just then, with her lips touching the Mord'Sith's skin, she remembered that Cara had tried to say something to her. That Cara had tried to kiss her.
That she had known a first taste, but would never get a last.
And because, once again, a thin thread of hope fluttered against her skin.
To be continued...
(Who knows? Maybe there's still hope.)