BBA - Ficlet 1 & 2
Title: Try again!
Wordcount: 813
Warnings: General spoilers for the 2nd season of Legend of the Seeker including the finale + maybe small book spoiler + author's note.
A/N:I wrote this story based on some prompts given by a friend - she wanted an explosion, and for the thing to blow up to be a cow. So, warning; a cow will blow up sometime during the story. IDEK!
“Try again!” Zedd’s voice came as expected. Richard sighed. Ever since he got his Han back from Nicci and Zedd had decided to take it upon himself to teach his grandson how to use his powers, those two words had nearly been repeated beyond recognition.
“Zedd, I can try a hundred times, and I still won’t be able to do it!”
“Nonsense! Even a child can do it. Why, when I was only ten years old, I turned my first cow blue under the watchful eye of my father, may his spirit have found rest in the Halls of Eternal peace.” Zedd looked expectantly from Richard to the cow and from the cow back to Richard. “Well?” He raised a bushy eyebrow.
Richard sighed again and concentrated on the impossible task set to him, speaking the incantation Zedd had taught him earlier. As had been the case all morning, nothing happened. The cow chewed on a mouthful of grass, as brown as ever.
“I don’t think you’re trying hard enough,” Zedd said with a frown.
“Oh I’m trying hard enough,” Richard grumbled. “Anything to end this lesson and get on with other, more important things.”
“What could be more important than to learn how to become a Wizard?” Zedd huffed.
“Being with the woman I love...” Now, that was something Richard didn’t mind trying over and over again. And unlike these pointless lessons with Zedd, it involved very little frustration and a lot of sheer joy. His face must have taken on the goofy smile he tended to wear nowadays when thinking of Kahlan, as Zedd’s hand firmly smacked him upside the head.
“Welcome back to the world of the living, my boy. Now try again!”
Richard scrunched up his face and said the incantation for what must be the hundredth time that day.
“Stop!” Zedd yelled. “Richard, what are you doing?”
“Trying to turn the cow blue,” Richard replied pliantly.
“No you’re not!”
“I’m not?”
“No. You were scrunching up your face. You do not make grimaces when saying this incantation. It could make all sorts of strange things happen.” Zedd said gravely.
“Fine!” Richard tried again, making sure to keep his whole face still, with the exception of his lips. Nothing happened.
“Try again!”
Richard threw his hands up in exasperation. “I think that maybe I’m not supposed to be a wizard. Maybe Nicci should have kept my Han, and good riddance.”
“Exactly!” Zedd exclaimed. “When you’re not thinking about the task at hand, you’re thinking about everything else. Your mind is going in all sorts of directions, and none of them where it should be going. You, my boy, need to start focusing more on the solution and less on the problem!”
Richard supposed that his grandfather was right. He tried once more, really tried this time. He forgot about the impossibility of a blue cow. He refused to let his mind wander while he spoke the incantation. It certainly gave results.
“Well?” Zedd did not look impressed.
“Well... if the cow eats enough of the blue grass, it will eventually turn blue?” Richard tried.
“Not likely,” Zedd rolled his eyes in a nearly perfect imitation of Cara, spoke an incantation of his own and turned the grass back to green again. “It’s a simple thing, turning a cow blue. Definitely not powerful magic of any kind. I don’t understand why you’re having so much trouble with it.” Zedd eyed him thoughtfully. “Well, what do you say? One more try and then we end today’s lesson?”
“One more try,” Richard agreed, and mumbled the incantation.
The explosion knocked them both off their feet. “Dear spirits!” Zedd exclaimed. “You were supposed to turn the cow blue, not blow the cow up!”
“I... I didn’t do it on purpose,” Richard stammered, staring at the spot where the cow had been chewing peacefully only moments before.
“Bags! What an old fool I have been!” Zedd suddenly mumbled to himself, and Richard wasn’t about to argue with him. “I should have noticed the tell-tale signs, but it’s all obvious now. It's the only logical explanation for how you could use a pretty much harmless spell to blow something up. Richard, you’re a War Wizard!”
“A what?” Richard blinked.
“A War Wizard,” Zedd repeated, bony arms flailing so as to make his point for him. “The gift doesn’t work the same way for you as it does for other Wizards! That’s why you have been having trouble performing the simplest spells. However, whenever your need is great enough, you’ll be able to use your magic to your advantage!” Zedd looked over at the spot that Richard was still staring at. “Meanwhile, no more turning cows blue. I guess we should go see about reimbursing the farmer.”
“I guess so,” Richard agreed, still shocked, but also secretly happy about not having to attend Zedd’s Wizard-lessons anymore.
Title: Shopping Spreeeeeeee (gone wrong)
Wordcount: 1000
Warnings: None
Kahlan was fuming. The Wizard had gone too far and worst of all, Richard had sided with him. She chose to completely ignore the small rational voice at the back of her mind that kept whispering that just because Richard had refused to let her confess Zedd did not necessarily mean that he thought what Zedd had done was right. As she moved along the road in the direction of the last village they had passed through the day before, she suddenly became aware of footsteps behind her and whirled around, hands going to her daggers. Then she realized that it was just Cara. She frowned.
“Lord Rahl asked me to go with you,” the Mord-Sith informed.
“Men!” Kahlan huffed, walking again, Cara now at her side.
“You’re upset?”
“Of course I am upset!!” The nerve of them all! She clenched her fists tightly, wondering why she put up with them at all. Apart from them being her family, that was. And also, saving the world was slightly more important than her hairbrush had been. But those were details she didn’t want to consider at the moment.
“I guess that’s why he sent me and didn’t follow you himself,” Cara said interrupting her thoughts. “He probably figured you were less likely to confess me at this point than any of them… and no, the absurdity is not lost on me.”
Kahlan eyed Cara trying to decipher whether the Mord-Sith was making a joke. Unable to read Cara’s face, she looked back at the road ahead. “He figured right,” she grumbled. “I swear we spend more time waiting around while Zedd picks up his snacks from all over the place or while Richard saves damsels in distress, than you people do while I brush my hair.”
“Well, 100 strokes every morning and night is a bit excessive. In the Mord-Sith temples-“
“Excessive?!” Kahlan was shocked. “Cara, it’s just the right amount for the type of hair that I have! And anyway, it doesn’t justify him grabbing my hair-brush and throwing it through that magical portal he conjured up. It. Isn’t. Right!” She glared at Cara. Cara did not look convinced, however.
“Did it mean something special to you?”
“Yes! No. No it was just a hair-brush, but that’s not the point. It’s the principle of the thing!”
“Would be worse if it had been an item of sentimental value, wouldn’t it?” Cara asked.
Well, when she put it like that... Kahlan’s anger mostly dissipated. She only held onto enough of it to follow through with what she’d already decided to do the moment Zedd’s portal had closed. She was going to the village, and she was buying a new hairbrush. The quest for the stone would just have to wait, rifts in the Veil or no.
The village wasn’t very large, but it still had some shops along the main street. Kahlan found that she had to bodily drag Cara into the first one... in addition to making some biting remarks concerning how, exactly, Cara planned to protect her for Lord Rahl if she wouldn’t even go into the shops with her. Once they were inside, Kahlan looked at all the dresses and grinned. Next to her, she could hear Cara stifling a groan. The Mord-Sith was scowling at the dresses, all tense and ready to defend herself should they decide to attack her.
“They won’t bite,” Kahlan assured.
“They might,” Cara muttered. But she relaxed her stance. Slightly.
Kahlan moved closer to the dresses. She touched one. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“I like the color,” Cara remarked. Kahlan felt pleased till the Mord-Sith added; “It’s sure to draw every unfriendly eye your way. At least the rest of us won’t have to worry about getting hit by arrows or dacras anymore.” Kahlan rolled her eyes at Cara’s smirk. She admired a couple of the other dresses in silence, while Cara waited impassively at the door.
“So Cara” she said finally. “I think it’s about time we got you a new traveling dress.”
Cara frowned. “That implies that I have one to begin with, which I don’t. What would I need a new one for?”
“You’re a woman.-“ Cara opened her mouth to protest, but Kahlan did not allow it. “Yes, I know that you’re a Mord-Sith, Cara. But you’re also a woman! The two are not mutually exclusive, you know. And women like to have different outfits to choose from.”
“Be that as it may, I only wear dresses when rescuing you calls for it.” Cara bit off.
Kahlan sighed. “Now you’re just being difficult.”
“I am being Mord-Sith,” Cara huffed.
“Yes, that too,” Kahlan agreed.
Not long after, they left the shop behind as Kahlan didn’t really need another dress to carry around, and Cara was much too stubborn to see how useful a traveling dress actually could be. They stopped at the inn for a short meal, then visited some of the other shops before heading back to Richard and Zedd.
Both the Seeker and the Wizard looked relieved to have them return unharmed and, in Kahlan’s case, calmer. Zedd muttered an apology for the incident with the magical portal, which Kahlan accepted gracefully. She did, however, realize that she had completely forgotten about getting a new hairbrush during the time spent at the village. She could hear Cara sigh.
“That’s excellent news!” the Wizard exclaimed, delighted. He hurriedly continued at Kahlan’s glare. “After you had left, I realized that I had been more than unreasonable. So I racked my brain trying to remember the magical words that would allow me to summon your hairbrush back. I got it wrong a couple of times.” He vaguely pointed in the direction of a big mirror, two fiddles and a horse. “But in the end I succeeded. I am the First Wizard after all.” He proudly handed her the hairbrush, and she couldn’t help but hug him before she continued the 100 strokes that he had so rudely interrupted that morning.