Cara sped towards the final man, using her adrenaline to the maximum so as to catch up to him and the girl. She sped around the corner, and saw him with the girl in his grasp. She wasn't fighting back, wasn't kicking; she was only struggling – trying not to hurt him.
She pushed the Agiel into the man's side, and he screamed in agony like swine, letting the girl go – who then collapsed to the ground clutching her side as though she too was in pain.
Cara paid no attention and kicked at the man, itching for him to fight back. She kicked him onto his back and straddled him, pinned his arms to his side with her knees as she place the Agiel against his neck before someone grabbed her hand and pulled it away.
"Stop!" The girl shouted, panting as she clutched Cara's hand as though she were the one who'd been tormented.
"Why?" Cara asked. "Wasn't he going to hurt you- is he not 'the enemy'?" She mocked words she'd heard Richard say before.
"Yes- but that's not the point." The girl looked in her eyes, but before she could speak, the man had pushed the two of them off of him and away, before he began attacking Cara. Cara swung at him, hitting him in the head with the Agiel, before she kneed him in the stomach, and finally, as he begun to fall, she then swiftly landed a kick with the side of her calf to his back so he fell face forward in the dirt.
The girl was unconscious on the ground from the man slamming her away from him, resulting in her being pushed into a large rock that sat off the edge of the road. Her body lay in an awkward position as she soundlessly slept in a black dreamscape.
Cara, with no one to stop her, slammed her leg down on the man's neck, cracking it- killing him instantly without the fight she felt that she had deserved from him. The chase had been fun, but not as fun as what she had expected the confrontation to be. With an internal sigh she looked down at the limp body and nudged his shoulder with the Agiel – just check if he was dead. There was a spasm from the muscle locking up – but the face remained passive, no reaction, he was dead.
Richard and the others then span around the corner, shouting at her, "Cara, don't kill him while-" they stopped as they realised they were too late. They're sprint fell to a light job as they came to her.
"What?" She demanded as she placed her weapons back into their holds. "'Don't' what?" They looked at each other before looking at the girl. Zedd walked over to her and checked her vitals.
"She'll be fine, she's only unconscious – most likely before she was able to stop Cara."
Cara raised an eyebrow and looked at the other as though they had begun speaking a foreign language, "She tried to stop me, though I have no idea why," she looked at the girl, "who is she?" She resisted the urge to nudge the girl with her boot. She didn't trust her.
"What would be a better question," Zedd replied as he lifted the girl up and examined her. "She's already healing, the concussion will be gone in a few seconds."
"What are you on wizard?" Cara demanded loudly, "What is going on, why didn't you want me to kill him?" The girl's eyes shifted beneath her eyelid, she groaned and touched a hand to her head, muttering in comprehensibly as the wizard helped her to stand up on her feet.
"She's a Healer of the Blood Cara." Cara raised her eyebrows.
"They're a myth!" She exclaimed.
"Your face is." The girl replied. Kahlan, Richard and Zedd all let out a small laughed at the girl's comment as she finally opened her eyes. "Oh!" she exclaimed in a happy surprise, "it's you!" She grinned, "I didn't think I'd see you again." She laughed and went to take a step towards Cara before stumbling and collapsing on the ground again. "Oww," she groaned.
"Are you ok?" Kahlan asked, worried that the girl had been hurt more then what Zedd had first thought.
"Apples," she muttered crawling in the ground, "I need my apples, or a carrot, or…" she went on to list fruits and vegetables before Kahlan held out an apple from her bag. Richard just looked at the girl strangely, in all of his most wildest thoughts and dreams, he never thought he see a girl crawling on a dirt path, asking for fruit. It was surreal!
"Here you go," Kahlan offered with a smile as she held the apple out to the girl.
"Thank you," she muttered before sinking her teeth into the apple as she held it like it was the first thing she'd eaten in days.
"Why is she eating an apple?" Cara asked, looking at the outlandish behaviour of the girl. Never in all of her years as a Mord'sith had she ever been so weirded out.
"Healer's of the Blood gain their strength back from the Creator's foods that she gave them, the virtuous women eat-"
"You're getting the story wrong," the girl stood up and brushed dirt from her curls as she continued to munch on the apple, "It's not your fault, one of the women wrote our story don't purposely wrong so that when we're sought to be contained and controlled the people didn't know how to fully do so. I mean, it's true that we gain our strength from eating fruits and vegetables but that's only for something minor – a quick fix really, but we truly gain strength from helping others, healing, and we're not always women – we can be male, in fact the males are the better healers. Also, we're not all virtuous, most are but a rare selection isn't."
The elder looked at her strangely, "I thought that the breaking of chastity stole your powers."
She shook her head and ate the last of the apple before answering, "depends on what 'type' of Healer, it's all very confusing and there are too many ifs and buts to the whole thing, it's just easier to say 'sometimes' instead of a definite answer, I'm sure the same could be said with most things."
"So why couldn't I kill the guy?" Cara drummed her fingers against her folded arms impatiently.
The girl looked at her before walking over to the corpse, "you would have killed me had I been able to feel the pain, by magic I am bound to the patients pain, what they feel when I am awake, I feel so I know the best methods as to help them." Cara stared at her. "Because I can do that, I am able to save more lives – a lot of the people I help can't tell me exactly how the pain feels but because I know it's easier to help them."
Richard looked at her, "but if you were a mid-wife-"
"I felt my mother's pain. From birth only the strongest of the Healer's survive birth, later we sit in on other Healer's so we are able to learn about the pain, I almost bit my tongue off when I sat in on a woman who gave birth to Siamese twins, it tore the woman, but she survived, so did the children – but before Healers can be a midwife, they must first birth a child, they are the selection that are not bound by the rules of chastity."
"So… lunch anyone?" Zedd asked.
-I-
"I have a question!" The girl declared. Everyone hushed and looked at her, "what are your names because if I call you by a characteristic, I'll just confuse you all."
"What do you mean?" Richard asked as he bit into a sandwich.
The group was sitting in a circle, with Cara and Richard sitting on a log, Kahlan leaning against the log and Zedd and the girl sitting across from them on the grass. Each had their own food, wether it be leftover stew, sandwich, or in the Healer's case- bits and pieces of fruit she had cut up.
"Well, Wizard here would be Gramps, Confessor would be Girlie, you'd be Muscles and the Mord'sith would be Blondie," she smirked, "if it makes it easier for you all to tell me your names, my name is Aria." She smiled with open lips, showing off her teeth.
"Kahlan."
"Richard."
"Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander, but you can call me Zedd." She smiled at them before looking at the unspoken woman who avoided eye contact.
"Cara." She finally said, angry at the girl, "you happy?"
"Much." Aria sat up straighter before Richard began to look at her weirdly, "Why are you looking at me like I suddenly sprouted leather wings?" She stared back at him worried. Richard looked between her and Cara.
"You two have met before, haven't you?"
"She gave me the apples." Cara said, before sending a warning look to Aria that no one else caught. "Right?"
"Five apples, picked them off a tree, gave them to her, blah blah blah!" She sighed, "I know this is going to come out of no where and everything, but do you mind if I travel with you guys? At least to the next town or somewhere where I can hide better? I'd rather not have to deal with those men again and I just know that the 'High Councillor'-" she said speaking mockingly at the title, "-will send more."
The foursome looked at each other, as though they were all silently communicating, as they did so, Aria ran her fingers through her hair and detangled the knots that were caused from the fight.
"It would be good to have a healer if someone got hurt."
"Oh, that reminds me, one of you has got a minor infection from a wound that haven't properly been treating - I don't know which of you but mostly likely you're getting an itch from it and by tomorrow it'll be oozing and smelling kind of bad." She rummaged through her bag and pulled out the root; "if you shred pieces of this off and place it on the wound with new dressing it should be fine."
None of them owned up. She stood up and walked around each of them twice before walking to Kahlan. "Can I see your shoulder?" She showed her shoulder, minor scrape but nothing to what she was looking for. "Try and not get sweat on that," she kept moving and looked at Richard, "remove your shirt."
"What?"
"Don't be scared, I'm a healer, there's nothing I haven't seen before, now - Shirt. Off." He complied to her wishes and removed his shirt, muttering as he did so. She looked at his lower abdomen and handed him the root, "that bandage is six hours overdue for a change, I assume that someone sliced you with the very corner of their weapon a long time ago, it should have been healed by now but obviously you haven't been looking after it."
"I've had worse."
She stared at him with cold eyes, "I will force you to do this you realise, now, dressing, clean, now." He jumped, as her eyes seemed to place icicles upon him. She looked as though she were furious mother.
"I'll help you," Kahlan murmured as she stood up and took him by the hand to a stream near by.
"Damn men are as worse as Mord'sith."
Cara turned to her. Raising her eyebrows she asked in a cool tone, "you've dealt with the Mord'sith?" Aria jumped at the words before realising what Cara had meant, laughing she nodded and sat back down where she had been before.
"Only the special ones." Cara narrowed her eyes at the girl before turning away.
Zedd too, narrowed his eyes at the girl, trying to work her out, before he decided that the girl would tell more of her story in due time. There was no need to rush her, at least, not yet anyway. The wizard returned back to his food as Aria cocked her head at Cara.
"What are you looking at?" Cara demanded, trying to frighten the girl. Aria did flinch at her words but still refused to look away. Instead she hopped up onto the log and whispered in her ear so that Zedd was unable to.
"I know your secret." Cara stared at her and Aria kissed her cheek before hopping up once more. Again Cara was unable to dodge the woman's lip on her cheekbone, but somehow, some part of her expected this. She looked at Aria, judged her; she was touch-y feel-y for a reason that Cara was sure she didn't want others to pick up on. And just like that, she realised something as well about the woman.
She didn't tell her, just looked the girl up and down to make sure she was right. The girl didn't notice, her eyes were on the reappearing form of Kahlan and Richard – just as the Wizards were, but Cara was sure now. Sure she knew a secret of the girl, something that she didn't want them to know.
And although she wasn't satisfied with how she snuck up on her – she probably wouldn't for a while. She at least trusted the girl more then she usually would have.
"Shall we leave Seeker?" Kahlan looked at her good mood, and concluded that something had happened while she was gone, but decided not to speak on it lest the bad mood return.