Title: No Greater Death Than Living Without You [K/C]
Title: No Greater Death Than Living Without You
Author: lm_quin
Pairing: Cara/Kahlan
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word Count: +3000
Disclaimer: I own nothing, though i certainly wished i did xD
Summary: Kahlan is finally ruling on the Midlands after having defeated the Keeper. But things prove to be quite the challenge when Rahl declares war on the Midlands. The battles go on for months until one particular cold morning something unexpected happens that will change the Mother Confessor dramatically. K/C.
The clash of swords around them made hearing almost impossible. The battle for the Midlands had begun no longer than two months ago when Darken Rahl returned to the land of the living, professing his undying hatred to his younger brother and his betrothed, the Mother Confessor. The merry band had done the impossible to delay the inevitable and soon they had found themselves caught in a war so big that not even the ancient prophesies could have dared to speak about.
The amount of fallen soldiers, on both sides, was uncountable and every dusk the numbers duplicated. Zedd, who had been named healer, had long given up on writing the names of the dead and instead had focused on cleaning the battlefield after the curfew by disposing of the bodies as best as he could.
At the end of the day, tiredness and hopelessness would creep into Kahlan and Richard’s uneasy sleep and often woke them up in the middle of the night. War had worn on them, and rising every morning proved to be a great challenge for them all.
It was during a particularly cold winter morning on the battlefield that something they had not expected happened. Darken Rahl himself, surrounded by a handful of his most trusted Mord-Sith, made his way down the hill towards where Kahlan was fighting.
The Confessor had been too focused on keeping one particularly strong D’Haran from getting too close to her that she hadn’t noticed Rahl approaching her.
When he raised his newly acquired Keltish sword to strike her from behind it was little what Kahlan could do to stop him. She plunged one of her daggers deep into the D’Haran soldier’s side and whipped her head around to face the new threat but when she did it was too late. Darken Rahl had the tip of his sword already pointing to the grey sky above and was lowering it toward her with all his might.
Kahlan closed her eyes in fright and surrender, hoping that at least the Creator would grant her a quick death. She could hear rather than feel her heart hammering in her chest, stronger with each passing beat. It was thundering in expectation, the last beatings it would ever give.
The Mother Confessor gave out her last shuddering breath, before Rahl’s sword slashed her in halves, and she quietly gave up, handing over her life to the warm arms of the Creator.
In her mind’s eye she could already see the Creator’s gentle smile and inviting arms spreading wide in her direction, getting closer and closer to her frail body lying on the hard ground. She smiled in spite of herself, for she knew that a whole new kind of life awaited her. Kahlan embraced the moment and accepted that her time on the Earth had come to an end.
A war cry snapped her out of the happily absorption she was in and forced her to face once more the cruel reality that the land of the living could be. She looked up in astonishment, not quite believing her eyes.
It took her but a moment to jump to her feet and scream in anguish, hot tears rapidly making her way down the length of her cold cheeks.
Darken Rahl had somehow turned his back on her, having changed not only his position but also his target. The sword that had been directed to her own body was now buried deep into her Sergeant at Arms’s stomach.
Rahl turned his head slightly to watch the Mother Confessor of the Midlands run as if her life depended on it towards his latest victim. He smirked proudly as he watched her fly past him and land on her knees in front of the fallen warrior.
“Please, don’t” Kahlan begged, her hands cupping the warrior’s cheeks tenderly “Please, Cara I beg you. Don’t you do this to me” She cried, no longer caring for her life as she carelessly kneeled in the middle of the battlefield.
Cara’s misty green eyes met Kahlan’s blue ones and it was all it took for the Confessor to bend over, practically falling to the ground in an intense wave of angst.
The Mord-Sith grunted with effort at the unimaginable pain invading her from her wound but somehow managed to bring a hand up to lift Kahlan’s chin. She forced the brunette to hold her gaze as she struggled to breathe.
“Always re-remember” Cara cuffed and brought her hand to her mouth only to take it out with blood staining her red leather glove “that I love you” She whispered this last sentence, her eyes shutting closed.
“No!” Kahlan yelled in resignation. She simply refused to lose Cara, not now, not on this cold winter morning “You said you’d never leave me!” She cried, gripping the blonde by the upper arms with desperate urgency “You promised!”
Cara cuffed again, blood spilling from her lips and descending to her chin. The Mord-Sith frowned, clearly in more pain than what her training had prepared her to endure and shook her head back and forth in a silent plea for Kahlan to understand.
Kahlan didn’t.
Understanding meant accepting and Kahlan simply wasn’t ready to lose her. Not when she had just found her.
“You will be ok, I promise” The Confessor breathed out, more to convince herself than an actual fact “I will not allow you to leave me, not again” She cried, brushing her tears away with her thumb “I love you too much to lose you”
Cara smiled weakly at Kahlan’s vow and that sight nearly torn Kahlan in half. When she had led her army into this war, when she had led Richard, Zedd and Cara into this battle, she had never thought something like this could ever happen. She had relied too much on luck, or even the prophesies. She had trusted too much on their own power to actually acknowledge how fragile and simply human they all were. But it was something easy to forget when your friends are no other than the Seeker of Truth, a Wizard of the First Order and the ex leader of Darken Rahl’s most powerful weapons: the Mord-Sith.
In the long year they had been travelling together, the four of them, she had somehow stopped seeing them as mere mortals and began watching them in a whole new different light. She had learnt to love them as friends, siblings… family and in doing so she had forgotten the fact that the people she so blindly worshipped were mere humans with great souls and destinies, but humans none the less.
And now, as she kneeled before her former enemy and new lover, she realized just how foolish and naïve she had been. To trust the Creator to keep her loved ones out of harm’s way.
Cara panted heavily, air no longer filling her lungs properly, and she fell forward, landing safely on the Mother Confessor’s arms.
Kahlan cradled her delicately against her chest, Cara’s head on the crook of her arm, and she looked at her, the Confessor’s black curtain of hair bathing them both in a protective cocoon.
Cara opened her eyes ever so slowly, pain sweeping through her in waves, making her purse her lips and frown. But this Mord-Sith wasn’t just any Mord-Sith. Cara was so much more, or so Kahlan liked to repeat her over and over as they waited for Morpheus in each other’s arms. And because she was more than just another Mord-Sith, Cara stared at Kahlan’s watery eyes and held her stare, swallowing the inmense pain she was feeling, and raised a trembling gloved hand, which the Confessor gently took in hers, and led to her lips to kiss it.
“Do-Do you remember what I told you…” Cara grimaced, her face contorting with pain but she bit her lip and went on “…that day at the Night Wisps birthing ground?”
Kahlan whimpered, more tears falling down from her eyes. Of course she remembered. That was the day when both their lives had changed forever. It was also the day when she had nearly lost Cara at the hands of a Baneling.
Kahlan shook her head to vanish the haunting thoughts rising there and focused on Cara again.
“I do” She whispered, her voice almost inaudible.
The blonde smile just before her lips twitched in pain again. Kahlan’s heart skipped a beat at the sight and dreaded herself for not being able to do anything. She was helpless.
“If I only had thirty seconds to live…” Cara’s voice was joined by Kahlan’s in unison “…This is how I’d want to live them…” Cara smiled at hearing Kahlan repeat the words she had whispered to her as she lied on the cold ground that day at the Night Wisps’s birthing ground and allowed her to finish by herself “…Looking into your eyes” Kahlan burst into tears again, hurt tearing up her soul as she clutched to Cara’s body even tighter.
“Spirits, Cara!” She exclaimed, a torrent of tears descending down her face and onto Cara’s skin “You cannot do this to me. I need you. I need you so much, I can’t. Please” Kahlan begged, breaking Cara’s heart in halves.
No matter how much she wanted to tell Kahlan it would all be alright she knew it wouldn’t and she would never be capable of lying to her, much less on this cold winter morning as she laid wounded in her arms.
“I guess my wish has-has come true” Cara breathed out as she stared into Kahlan’s sky blue eyes “I couldn’t have asked for… a better way to die” She said as pain forced to close her eyes again “I love you, Kahlan Amnell” Cara whispers and Kahlan lets out a mournful cry “I will… always… be with you” And that’s the last thing the Mord-Sith says before her head falls weightless to the side and her heart stops beating.
Kahlan felt the weight in the body she cradled in her arms change and she gasped unbelieving. She forced Cara’s head to face hers again and was met by a pair of ghostly green eyes, a sight that caused her to jump backwards a few inches. She shook her head, not quite believing what was happening. The clash of swords and screams of pain no longer reached her ears, all around her was dead silent, as if she had been hit in the head and gone deaf. Her eyes were fixed on a red form that laid limp on the hard ground, lifeless.
The Mother Confessor crawled back to the inert body on the ground and put a hand over the woman’s shoulder, turning her around to face her. The sight that greeted her was more than what she could bear.
Cara.
Cara’s pale face, Cara’s ghostly eyes, Cara’s clammy skin, Cara’s blood on her stomach and in a pool in the floor around her.
Cara.
Her Cara.
“So sad” A mocking voice broke the solid silence. She knew that voice “I almost feel sorry for you two. Poor lovers, a tragic ending to one of the little birds”
Kahlan’s body tensed like a predator about to attack a helpless lamb. She could feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins like an unstoppable force of power about to explode. She embraced it and as she let go into it, she smiled.
When Kahlan spun around to face Darken Rahl she was no longer the woman, no longer the weeping girl mourning over the loss of her one true love. She was Kahlan, the Mother Confessor of the Midlands and she was blood thirsty.
She couldn’t help but to grin maliciously when she saw Rahl shrinking a little at the sight of her. Of course he had seen her in the Con Dar before but the Creator knows that not had him, or any other soul on this planet, seen her so driven into madness before. It was as if the Con Dar had been but a child’s game all along and this, how she was right now, with her irises swirling like waves of pitch black trying to tame the bloodshot of her eyes and her dangerous and deadly snarl, had been her most hidden and mortal weapon all along.
Kahlan hissed like a snake and shot her arm upwards, clearly aimed to Rahl’s neck, as she began walking to where he was standing, seemingly too shocked yet to move.
Suddenly, a group of five Mord-Sith appeared from behind Darken Rahl and stood before him, acting as their master’s shield against the unstoppable force heading towards them.
Kahlan stopped for a second to take in the sight of the five women dressed in red leather and an image flashed through her mind. Cara’s image.
A searing force born out of the most profound pain seemed to rise within her, colliding in her insides, struggling to get out. Kahlan didn’t put up a fight; instead she allowed this power to surge forward and explode like a hurricane of anger and pain, all combined into one.
The next thing she knew she had all five Mord-Sith kneeling before her with her heads bowed in utter respect and submissiveness.
“Command us, Confessor”
“Kill your Lord Rahl” Kahlan grunted with clenched teeth and threw her head back, screeching with laughter.
The Mord-Sith all got to their feet and surrounded the astonished Darken Rahl. He made a few attempts at dissuading them but they were confessed, there was nothing he could do or say to stop them. His own personal legion of shaped weapons had now turned against him and Kahlan would see to it that he died at the hands of one of them, sealing his fate in the same fashion he had sealed Cara’s.
Rahl drew out his sword and a dagger in his free hand, rotating on the spot to acknowledge all five Mord-Sith, for he knew that they were quick and effective. If he wanted to make it out alive he had to keep them all in sight and be as fast as a feather.
But it was just a matter of time.
“Attack!” Kahlan yelled, impatience getting the best of her. She simply couldn’t stand the sight of him a second longer than she had to.
And the Mord-Sith complied. They all launched at him at the same moment, coming from every direction. Rahl had but seconds to react as one of them agieled him from behind.
Kahlan watched as Darken Rahl unceremoniously killed three out of the five Mord-Sith and then toppled forward, one of them having stabbed him on the back without him seeing her.
The Confessor walked down to his lying body slowly, enjoying the knowledge that each passing second led Rahl closer to his end, and when she stood before him he raised his head to look at her. Dread and rage surged from the pit of her stomach, quickly spreading throughout her entire being as she contemplated this man before her, this killer.
Kahlan kneeled before him and used a hand to bring his chin closer to her own face.
“You killed my soul and now you will burn in the Underworld for eternity” She spat and shoot her hand to grip his neck, his eyes widening in fret “Goodbye, Darken Rahl” She hissed and snapped his neck with a loud pop.
She then stood and took some steps backwards, admiring the sight of that murderer’s lifeless body on the ground. As she stayed motionless contemplating, taking in the sight of him, she felt the Con Dar fade and slowly return to her normal self again.
Kahlan shuddered, breathing unevenly, and forced herself to turn around and face her worst nightmare. When she did a searing light coming in diagonal from the skies illuminated Cara’s limp body and extended in width. The light was so powerful that it forced Kahlan to cover her eyes and tear her gaze away.
“Kahlan” The most beautiful voice she had ever heard called her, making her uncover her eyes and look above. The light no longer hurting her “Kahlan” The voice called her again and the Mother Confessor was struck by a dazzling face, irradiating warmth all around her.
“You” It was all that Kahlan could muster as she found herself speechless by the sight of such beautiful creature.
“Yes, me” The girl replied, smiling broadly and filling Kahlan with an overwhelming sense of peace “I’ve been watching you, Kahlan” The voice said and Kahlan’s eyes widened in amazement “You are but the most pure being on this earth and you have been entrusted with a responsibility that few could ever think of bearing. You are the Mother Confessor and you represent all that is good and right on this world” Kahlan gasped, her eyes shining with renewed tears at the peace and joy she was being filled with “You are my earthly messenger, Kahlan and you have served me well. I never heard you asking anything in return for all that you give daily to your people and all those around you. And it’s on this very same day that I choose to make an appearance before you, this day upon all the rest because it was today that you lost everything you loved and craved for. I choose this day, Kahlan to be the one giving you everything without asking anything in return. Let me reward you for all the joy and happiness you have brought to the Midlanders in your rule. Let me be the one restoring the light in your eyes” Kahlan sobbed and allowed the tears to flow freely from her eyes “This is my gift to you, my child” The girl said and closed her eyes, turning into white searing light and bathing all around her until she couldn’t see anything anymore.
The flash of light lasted but a second and then it was gone, replaced by the sudden calm that precedes a storm. All around her it was eerie quiet, as if the hill had been frozen in time. Nothing was moving, not a soul or a tree.
“The battle has ended” Kahlan whispered to herself as she took in the devastating sight of all the dead bathing the hill until the line of the horizon.
Unconsciously she searched for familiar faces, maybe the ones of Richard or Zedd. But she saw none. Not enemies’ or allies’. She was lost in her own thoughts when a strange feeling crept up in her.
She was being watched.
Kahlan turned her head slowly in the direction of her observant and could only make out a vague shape of a human being in the distance. There was mist covering the hill, or maybe it was smoke from the destruction. She wasn’t sure. She could only discern a person’s legs but nothing more.
Suddenly the person began walking to her.
Kahlan instinctively reached for one of her daggers and stood still, waiting for the person to reveal himself.
The wind blew and the mist dissipated, the vague shape finally acquiring full human form. The sight revealed caused Kahlan to fall to her knees, overtaken by the most overwhelming sensation she had ever experienced. Tears sprung from her eyes as she slowly got to her feet again and began walking toward the person as well.
The Mother Confessor gave two tentative steps first before letting out a painful sob and breaking into a run, desperate to cross the space separating them. She watched the other person stop walking and spread her arms wide to her, in a silent invitation.
Kahlan whimpered and smiled bitterly, throwing herself to Cara’s arms and clutching her tightly.
The Mord-Sith embraced her just as fiercely, her hands caressing Kahlan’s back and hair, trying to discern if she was only dreaming.
“Is this…real?” Cara asked weakly, disentangling her arms from Kahlan’s body to look at her blue eyes.
Kahlan chuckled and kissed Cara, surprising both of them in doing so.
“It’s very much real, I’d say so” She said, unable to contain a smile from appearing in her lips.
“Good” She said in that sneaky voice of hers which caused Kahlan to chuckle even louder, her heart growing bigger at that melodious sound: Kahlan’s laughter “I wouldn’t want it any other way” Cara grinned and captured Kahlan’s lips in her own, knowing that no matter what it took, she would never leave Kahlan again.
FIN