fic: Nightmare 2/4
Title: Nightmare
Series: (2/4) part 1 part 3 part 4
Fandom: LotS
Pairing: Cara/Kahlan
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I own nothing. No infringement intended.
Summary: The morning after, Kahlan wakes to find Cara missing
….
Part 2
….
Kahlan became aware, slowly, of the sunlight as it danced across her eyelids and the birds chattering high in the trees above her. She curled her fingers into the sleeping pad, feeling them dig into the dry soil underneath, then relaxed with a sigh. She loved mornings. Living outdoors, away from the amenities of Aydendril was a hardship, but waking up outside, that, that, was glorious.
As her consciousness returned so did her memories, which jolted her into full awareness. Creator preserve me, Cara! With a gasp, Kahlan opened her eyes and levered herself into a sitting position. The brightness was disorienting, making her squint and she let out a hiss of displeasure. “Cara?” A few blinks helped bring the camp into focus.
Zedd and Richard, sitting side by side feeding tinder to the fire, looked over at her. Zedd’s gaze dropped immediately back to the tiny flames they were tending and Richard grimaced. “She left to go hunting,” Richard’s expression turned sympathetic. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” Kahlan answered shortly, running a hair over her hair. “Hunting! You let her go hunting, by herself, after what happened!” Kahlan’s nostrils flared in a rush of sudden anger, which swept away the ache of disappointment at not finding Cara watching over he- them. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down as Richard spread his hands placating.
“Kahlan,” his tone was pleading. “She needed some space. You know how she gets; I thought it was best to give her some time alone.”
Kahlan glared at him as she got to her feet. “I’m going after her,” she said, her tone challenging, waiting for him to argue with her.
Richard dropped his pile of tinder on the fire, nearly snuffing it, and dusted his hands on his pants. “I’ll help you track her down. Besides,” he gave Kahlan a measuring look. “I think we need to have a talk too.”
Kahlan straightened, her face loosing a little of its expressiveness, which is how Richard knew she was nervous, even if it wasn’t quite her Confessor face. He tried to smile, but knew he probably didn’t do the most convincing job. Still it got Kahlan’s shoulders to relax slightly.
Kahlan nodded her acceptance stiffly, her face still relatively expressionless. Her motions remained graceful and formal as she followed him into the trees.
Behind them Zedd eyed the barely smoldering coals with a frown. A quick flick of his fingerings had the mess cheerfully burning again but the added heat felt oppressive. “Wizard’s First Rule,” he muttered, ignoring the grumblings from his stomach. “When will I learn?”
….
Richard kept his eyes on the ground. Cara was, thankfully, not trying to hide her trail and he studied the evidence of her passage as he spoke, breaking the awkward silence. “Have you thought about what you are going to tell her?” He asked.
Kahlan’s heart lurched, a nervous twisting feeling in her stomach. Her hands twitched as she fought the desire the cross her arms defensively. “Tell her?” she replied warily.
“Kahlan.” Disapproval pulled the corners of his mouth downward. An equivocation might not be a lie, but it wasn’t truth either.
“Richard,” Striving for calm, Kahlan folded her hands together and raised her chin. A certain tightness in her fingers was the only thing that gave her away. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
“Not my business!” Richard dropped his hand from the dewless branch he had been examining, snapping off a few leaves.
“No. It’s between Cara and me.” Anger crept into her voice, coloring it out of the pale confessor tones of neutrality. “No one else.”
“So you don’t think it has anything to do with what’s between you and me?” Richard let the leaves flutter from his fingers to the brown forest floor, unnoticed. He reached out to rest his hand on her arm, her body still and frozen under his fingers. “Kahlan…” Richard let his voice trail off, swallowing before continuing. “You can’t be with both of us. And I know it’s not going to be me.”
Kahlan jerked away from his fingers, eyes widening as she was shocked out of her anger. “Richard, what?” She caught his hand as it fell. “Why would you…?”
“It’s the truth, Kahlan.” He sighed and squeezed her hand before pulling free.
“But, Richard.” Kahlan shook her head in denial. She hadn’t expected this. “I love you.” She looked up at him, tears shinning in her eyes.
He swallowed the grief in his throat. “And I love you. But it’s not as it once was. Maybe,” Richard ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe we got too used to being platonic. But even,” he hurried to fill in the suddenly offended silence. “Even without that, our love never compared with what you can have now. Perhaps it could have grown into that, but…” He gave her a sad smile.
Kahlan almost reached out to him again. She didn’t bother denying her love for Cara, but she didn’t understand how he was so sure that she loved her more. Kahlan didn’t even know, herself, who she would have chosen. Either way, it felt like her heart would break, was breaking. “What are you talking about?”
“She almost brought you back.” Richard shuddered at how close it had been. “When she was confessed, she disobeyed you; she tried to give you the breath of life before the magic released her.”
Kahlan’s eyebrows pinched together. “How is that even possible?”
“Because she loves you.” Richard grasped Kahlan’s hands, letting her read the truth in his eyes. “Her love for you let her survive confession, but more than that, she loves you unconditionally. There’s nothing left for your magic to do, Kahlan, she’s already as devoted to you as she possibly could be. I talked with Zedd about it before you woke, she immune.” He cut her off as she opened her mouth to protest. “Or she could be. Your touch affected her a little; all she needs is to know her love is welcome, that she can stop denying her feelings.” His mouth curved upwards. “You deserve it Kahlan. You deserve to love without fear… you both do.” Still smiling, Richard ran his thumbs over Kahlan’s knuckles. “I only wish I could have loved you that much,” he added ruefully. “Maybe, someday, I could have.”
“But you don’t,” Kahlan finished for him. “And she does.”
Richard nodded. “So, have you thought about what you are going to tell her?”
Kahlan smacked his shoulder with the back of her hand. And slowly, her whole face smiled. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business, Richard,” she told him with a little, joyful, laugh in her voice.
…
Richard let the silence last a little as he adjusted to the new feel of relationship between them and between Cara and Kahlan. It was surprisingly comfortable. Enough so that he felt he could tease a little. “Fine,” he pouted at her playfully before turning back to Cara’s trail. He waited long enough to let her think he had accepted her denial to share her plan for her talk with Cara before adding, “I can see which one of you I’m going to have to get details from.”
“Richard!” Aghast, Kahlan could feel the heat in her cheeks as her face turned scarlet. “You wouldn’t!” She hoped he wouldn’t. Because if he did…. And Cara would tell him. She had no filter about that sort of thing.
A matching redness rose in Richard’s cheeks. “I didn’t mean. Not about that,” he sputtered. His blush grew as images of the two of them together presented themselves, crowding forward in his skull. Think about something else! He commanded his brain frantically as Kahlan narrowed her eyes at him. Think about Zedd! Richard suddenly hated himself. Oh spirits ew! He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Never do that again! Ever.
“Good!” Kahlan replied, more emphatically than she meant to. Unknowingly, her mind wandered the beginnings of a path very similar to Richard’s. I’m going to have a love life, she thought, both bemused and embarrassed.
They fell silent as Cara’s path led them through a small grove of evergreens. Richard trying desperately not to think of anything at all, and Kahlan caught up in a reality she had never believed would come to pass and was suddenly happening. I’m going to have sex. With Cara. Her blush grew and she didn’t duck under then next tree branch quiet low enough. Ow. She pressed a palm against her forehead, her mind still stuck on sex. With Cara.
It was both arousing and frightening, and, until this moment, impossible. A confessor’s touch was death, of the spirit if not of the body. To Cara it was supposed to be both, and somehow, somehow it was neither. Amazement made her pause for a moment, trying to savor the feeling. It should be a dream, but it wasn’t. It was real.
And it was also terrifying.
Sex was death, it always had been. Even alone, Kahlan had hated the aching throb between her legs and hated it even more when she gave in to that particular need. Hated the build of magic with her pleasure as her fingers rubbed. The way she was unable to ignore the growing burn of her power as she tried to picture faces, an arm wrapped around her middle, fingers stronger and less impatient than her own stroking against her clit. Even as she pictured a loving kiss against her collar bone or a whispered ‘I love you’ her magic broke as she did, pouring from her, seeking, destroying, just as it poured from her in battle. Black eyes stealing away her fantasy with a ‘Command me, Confessor.’ Her moment of pleasure combined with the violence she unleashed, a soul dead D’Haran kneeling at her feet, only in these times it wasn’t a D’Haran, it was Richard or Cara, dead, dying, destroyed. Often these sessions ended with her curled into a ball, her fingers, still sticky with release, gripping into her arms as she hugged herself, sobbing for what she could never have. A burning hole of grief and longing in her chest as tendrils of ecstasy still pulsed through her body from her orgasm. Pleasure with pain. Always.
It was the stuff of her nightmares. Kahlan dreamed of fleeing banelings, her legs mired so she couldn’t run. Of her friends lying dead, herself dying, as the Keeper crushed the stone of tears as her heart finished its final beat. Of her hands tied, stumbling forward, as the sounds of Dennee crying seemed to come from all around her. But she also dreamed of soft hands trailing along her spine, winding in her hair as her hips rocked against the most exquisite friction. In these dreams she cried with both desire and dread, knowing what was coming as she toppled over the edge: The soul dead eyes that regarded her worshipfully, accusingly. As Cara’s had.
If Cara had known what type of dream she was waking Kahlan from…. Her worst nightmare, yes, but more than that. Dream and reality had blended as Kahlan came with her hand around the blond’s throat, Cara’s voice whispering “Command me, Confessor.” And then Cara had fallen away from her, limp body sprawled in the dirt, and it had all been real. Kahlan’s breathing hitched, her hand pressing harder against the growing bruise on her forehead, making it hurt.
If Richard and Zedd were wrong. If she had to see those expressive green eyes black and blank a second time. Stop pretending that my life means as much as yours! Cara’s voice rose from her memory. Kahlan’s jaw tightened. If I have to send myself to the Keeper to free you, so be it. If they were wrong, Kahlan wasn’t afraid to die for Cara again. She would rather die, permanently, than have a shell of the woman she loved at her side for eternity.
Strangely, the prospect of what would happen if they were right about Cara’s ability to withstand confession was equally terrifying. As much as Kahlan feared her body’s inevitable reaction to the Mord’Sith’s touch, she feared Cara’s reaction to her touch equally. Kahlan had never had to worry about pleasing a lover before. Even after she had fallen for Richard, she had never really believed they would find a way to be together. She had assumed, vaguely, that her mate would be confessed already. She could do as she pleased, and whatever she did they would like. If she wanted them to come, she could command them to come and they would. With Cara…. The blond was more than experienced, she was Mord’Sith. She could use pleasure to dominate, to manipulate, as easily as pain, and sometimes used both together. Every touch from her fingers was artwork and every touch she had received had come from the equally skilled hands of her “sisters.” Kahlan shook her head. Mord’Sith have absolutely no filter about the most surprising subjects. Cara had spoken about it at length, back when she had first joined the group and was still testing their limits. I can barely stand to touch myself, Kahlan thought, ruefully. How could she measure up to that? She was sure Cara would need more than the jerky, hesitant strokes Kahlan used on herself, designed to get it over with as quickly as possible. Touching Cara or being touched by Cara; it was a dream come true, beautiful and impossible, and it was a nightmare. And, spirits help her, it was real.
Kahlan nearly walked into Richard’s back when he stopped walking. She glanced around, for whatever clue he had noticed, and the muted whine of Cara’s agiels reached her ears. Pain pierced her chest as her heart stuttered, before she realized the suspicious lack of combat sounds. No clanks of swords or bodies, no screams of pain. Oh, Cara.
Kahlan touched Richard’s shoulder gently. “I’ve got this,” she whispered as she passed him.
He nodded sympathetically, hesitating before turning away. “Let her know I’m happy for her, too,” he added, turning back around.
Kahlan nodded, feeling a momentary pang for loosing him amid gratitude for his friendship. Yet, thoughts of Cara quickly arrested her attention, and she set out after the blond without waiting for him to go. Her heart hurt for what her Mord’Sith was doing to herself.
Soon, seeing a splotch of red through the green trees, Kahlan quickened her pace. When the figure suddenly crumpled to the ground and her agiels fell silent, Kahlan dashed forward, desperately leaping into a run.
No, no, no, no, no! "Cara!"
( part 3)