The Gift of Stolen Time - Part 10
Title: The Gift Of Stolen Time
Author: Dark_Kurai
Pairing: Cara/Kahlan, touches of Cara/Dahlia
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Spoilers: Should be none, plays after 2x22.
Summary: Follow-up to A Tear, A Word, A Smile - When Zedd opens a magical portal to ease their travels after the victory against the Keeper, something goes wrong that forces Cara away from the Midlands for some time...
A/N: And here we are again! I don't have anything to say, so I'll just leave you to the next part :]
10.
The first year on Darza:
For the first time in history, a human being had managed to change Cara's mind with the old crafty tactic of pouting.
For a long time the Mord'Sith had believed herself to be immune to Noa's pout. The girl had tried to use this trick often whenever Cara forbade her to do this or that, but after realizing that it didn't work she stopped it... or started to nag her through other means. Nine out of ten times it was the kid who lost and she was a surprisingly good loser, always back to her happy-go-lucky self after a short amount of time, but sometimes even Cara had to give way after understanding that maybe, for example, refusing to show Noa how to ride properly resulted in a chaotic tangle of horses and reins.
That is, until Cara found out that Noa hadn't actually ever really tried to use her pout.
The matter of conflict was the use of the older woman's Agiel. Noa's first contact with the weapons hadn't been a pleasant one, but knowing that Cara used to train other children and even carried the pain-inflicting weapon all the time with the exception of bathing intrigued the kid to no end. So when Noa had disclosed the wish to learn how to carry an Agiel, Cara's first reaction, surprisingly, had been to refuse.
That was when the girl had started to sulk. And boy, could she sulk. It went on for a whole week, with Noa refusing to talk, meet her eyes, smile, move around or train properly. It was when she started to say that 'she wasn't hungry' and went to bed without food that Cara started to crack.
She had tried commanding. This worked at least once before Noa went back to not doing what she was supposed to do. But when the Mord'Sith was forced to cook her own food because Noa refused to make a meal due to her being not hungry, Cara started yelling and issuing threats. That worked even less than ordering Noa around.
Faced with a willful, petulant child that she couldn't raise her hand against for the first time in her life due to some inner personal and odd refusal, Cara was at such a loss that she couldn't help but agree after almost threatening to leave the kid in the middle of nowhere. In the end, Noa had gotten her will through the power of sulking, which vanished the very second the older woman told her in a exasperated, defeated tone that she could use her damn Agiels.
Every time she went hunting, Cara left one of her weapons lying on the ground near her backpacks. It took days to get used to the girl's screams and force herself not run back to slap the leather rod out of her hands. But Noa was stubborn as a mule, soon the screams vanished and although Cara returned to the camp to find a deeply exhausted, sore Noa sitting with puffy eyes in front of her bedrolls, it showed that the girl had applied the use of compartmentalizing to deal with the pain of the Agiel quicker than expected.
"Once you get used to it, it's not so different than trying to block out the blows and kicks," the girl confessed one night when Cara implied about her process.
A few weeks later, Noa could walk around with the rod in her hand without showing if she was aware of the excruciating agony cursing through her veins. The Mord'Sith was impressed enough that she offered Noa a compliment, causing the girl to smile more brightly than the sun in its zenith. But from that point onwards she kept both Agiels close to herself again after Noa was content with her learning.
Half a year later they had a comfortable routine in their trading business.
When they entered Rorsh, a slightly larger settlement west of Vhep, the villagers were abuzz with the knowledge that the strange travelers and merchants, a woman looking like a Red Lady and a one-eyed kid, carried metal wares from the city. They offered them food and little trinkets, but Cara, as always, refused all but the items they really needed, everything else was useless baggage. Noa went off to find some new leathers for Squiggly's saddle, while the Mord'Sith started haggling in the tavern after learning that the tavern owners were the local holders of all day to day wares in most of the places they visited.
"I need more from you than just a few bottles of booze. Don't try to mess around with me," Cara replied after hearing the price the tavern owner was willing to pay for the block of iron.
"Look, I don't have any more coins to spare. The locals are busy eating away the hair on my head." As if to underline his words, his hand went across the bald skin above his forehead.
"Sure, and the new set of benches and tables behind me was given to you by the Goddess because of your honest, reliable work. Let's see if she drops down a block of metal in front of your door, too," she spat sarcastically, lifting the heavy weight in its satchel from the ground and turning towards the door.
"Stop! Fine, stop, I'll pay up. Spirits, you're ruining me."
Cara turned back to the grumbling man with a smug look on her face.
"Oh, I'm sure you'll survive..." Throwing the amused words in his scowling face felt good, but before she could top it up with another barbed comment, a ruckus outside the door caused her to pause.
Normally the proceedings of the villagers didn't interest her in the least. She was doing her job and she was damned good at it, since no one was able to haggle with less mercy and a better poker face than a Mord'Sith. Yet there was a tone in the people's voices that caused her palms to turn clammy inside their red gloves. Distracted, she tilted her head to listen what was going on outside the building.
Awareness hit her when a loud, bowling voice issued "Kill the witch!"
Forgetting the money that the tavern owner had placed on the bar, Cara turned and ran, rushing out the door to find a whole mob making its way towards the village center, a small square between the farm houses where a well and a raised platform stood. They were dragging something in between their midst, but Cara was unable to get a glimpse until they reached the wooden stage, making their way on top of it.
A cold feeling pooled in her belly. When a big, burly man stepped aside, the Mord'Sith could see a dizzy Noa hanging from the hands of two farmers, all the hate and anger focused in her direction.
And the bandage around her head was gone.
"Here it is, the reason for the Dry Storms which torment us every few months! Can you see the blemish on her face?" The man's words were answered with a load roar from the enraged crowd.
He went further, spreading his arms to make them heed the importance of his words. "Those monsters are the bane of our existence, touching and reaching into goddess forsaken forces! The sign of her unclean soul, it is so vast that it is pouring out of her very body! Look at the color of her eyes, look at this abomination!" He pointed an accusing finger at his captive.
People screamed and shouted, women cried and clutched at their children. It was as if the Keeper himself had opened the doors to the underworld wide and issued the end of the world, so devastating was the wrath and anguish the people showed in the face of Noa's bi-colored eyes. The child itself was in a state of daze, a thin trail of blood trickling down her hairline indicating why she was so spaced out.
Cara knew they must have caught the girl by surprise. Noa was as fast and agile as a ferret, her training having given the girl's natural talents a good boost. If Noa had been aware of someone trying to hit her, she would've ducked and ran without anyone able to catch the quick-footed young blonde. But with Noa nearly knocked out cold, all talent in the world wouldn't help her escape the clutches of the two villagers that kept her from running, their grips hard enough that bruises were bound to form.
When she was able to see this even from afar, the cold dread in Cara's belly slowly turned into red-hot fury, while more and more villagers poured into the square, attracted by the unusual and loud happenings.
"We need to end this and clean ourselves from this bad sign! We'll do justice and have the gracious Goddess shine her light on us once again! Free us from this bad fate," the burly man shouted with vigor towards the very heavens, people raising their fists in approval and reiterating his saying until the whole centre was echoing with the repeat of "Free us! Free us!".
The killing of an innocent child was turning into a religious sacrifice to their beloved Goddess. When someone pulled a dagger made from bone and offered it to the sermon spewing man, Noa seemed to regain her bearings and became aware of her current situation. After finding herself surrounded on all sides by hateful villagers, her eyes opened wide in fear, she struggled and started screaming in heedless panic, louder than the chant of the combined people.
A thoughtless blow to her chin from one of the men that held her, to stop her screaming and squirming, caused Cara to snap. With an angry growl she charged at the masses, pushing and punching her way through the villagers towards the platform where the riot created by her hands attracted their attention.
"Leave her alone, you idiots!" she shouted at the man with the dagger and Noa's other captors, her eyes blazing with the promise of danger. "She's just a normal kid!" Grunting she threw a young man to the side and pushed a wailing woman into the arms of two others. Shock gained her an advantage.
"Don't let her get through!" the man agitating the folks screamed enraged, his skin turning red. He waved around his weapon. "Bind her, before she reaches the abomination and frees her! She's going to doom us all!"
His words had an astonishing impact, as suddenly people started to throw themselves at Cara from all sides, hindering her however they could. The Mord'Sith was forced to draw her Agiels and soon pain-filled cries branded against the border of the village.
But instead of causing her opponents to shy away from the agony educing rods, it was as if throwing oil onto an already out-of-control burning fire. Cara had underestimated the people's fear and hate of magic and was now forced to endure the eruption that followed.
"She wields magic!"
"The harlot has magic weapons!"
"Don't let let get away!"
"Kill her!"
Cara was a well-trained fighter, who could fell a great number of equally trained enemies in one fight. She could defeat dozens without breaking a sweat and make it look easy to boot. She had bested the Seeker in the future. By the Creator, even her own Sisters needed to outnumber her a great deal to force her to her knees and even the last time they had managed to do so was only by catching her by surprise.
But with a whole town of rabid, fanatical villagers swarming her from all sides without tactic or break, even Cara found herself getting overwhelmed by the sheer number. It reminded her of her last cowardly act of running away from the Apothics and she roared in rage at being unable to win one damned fight in a world she was stuck in since over a whole year.
One after the other they came at her. The Mord'Sith struck a young woman under the chin, then pivoted around to slam her elbow into an older farmers gut. Dropping down to avoid a badly aimed swipe with a walking stick, she rushed forward and pushed her shoulder into a young man's ribcage, causing him to stumble and take down another two attackers with his fall.
Without time to deliver a heart-stopping amount of pain to any of her enemies, most of the fallen people stood up again groaning and wounded, but after they were back on their feet without swaying they rushed at her again and again. Fear, hate and anger made them reckless. Cara managed to keep them off long enough to always throw a random item or even whole bodies towards the stage, keeping the burly man from getting the idea to kill the still kicking Noa with one simple stab.
The girl herself was yet keeping up quite a fight, turning and twisting into impossible positions and making it hard for the two men to keep their hold on the slippery girl. Even holding a cat or a snake was easier than subduing this screaming monster.
"Stop squirming, you cursed brat!" one of her captors shouted after receiving a bruising kick to the shin.
Cara was now about two feet away from the stage when of all possible people a young boy of mere five summers tackled her ribs while she held off two shrieking harpies of women. She forced the child away out of reflex with a well-placed kick, but her surprise at being attacked by someone this young caused her to be unprepared for the sudden assault of three villagers charging at her from all sides while she was busy with the two women in front of her.
Accepting a harsh blow to her back to bury her foot in one woman's side with a snarl, she stabbed her Agiel into one attackers shoulder. He dropped with a painful gurgle and she turned to pay back the hit on her back, when another enemy scored one in the rear side of her knee. All strength left her appendage at this lucky shot and with horror the Mord'Sith realized that she was losing ground. With her leg failing, Cara barred her teeth at another young woman while she fell to her knees, causing the brunette to retreat in fear.
But it was only one in a dozen. And now that they could taste the oncoming victory, the almost crazed villagers combined their strength and hacked on her frame with everything they could get their hands on. Blow after blow found its way through her defenses and soon Cara was unable to do anything but shield her face from the attacks.
She only looked up when the desperate screams Noa issued reached her ears. "Cara, Cara," she cried again and again, her cheeks wet with dirt and blood and the only fear in her eyes that of seeing Cara hurt for trying to get to her.
"Run," Cara mouthed, unable to shout out another tone next to her harsh breathing and the steady buzzing in her ear. Then a brutal blow caught the side of her head and she felt her body hit the muddy ground.
The last thing she heard while her vision grew black was Noa crying her name in such blank despair and anguish that it drowned out any other sound and feeling but the image of her friends standing in the bleeding sunlight atop the Pillars of Creation. Her heart twisted.
Then silence reigned.
_____________________
We never talked much, Cara thought while floating along without the added baggage of her body. She felt light and unhindered, as if her body was made of clouds and dreams. Noa and I. A soft sort of wonder infused her at these strange, random thoughts, but before she could grasp it, another took up residence in her mind.
Kahlan's smile reminds me of sunshine after freshly fallen rain. Noa's of the first day of snow. She remembered the girl's freckles shining in the morning light. They were light and pale in relation to her golden tan, different than Kahlan's darker ones on her milky white skin. Even Richard's and Zedd's smile had a brief flash in her memory, both of them good-natured and goofy and simple like plucking berries from bushes.
I feel proud and warm when I receive those smiles, another edge of her unconsciousness offered up. Here, in this inbetween state, awkwardness and hiding feelings had no place. There was plain understanding and uncouth truth, fresh awareness and freedom of thought sans barriers.
I feel good when I'm with them. I feel home. It was nothing much, this fact. Others would have laughed at it, knowing it was common sense and general knowledge. But for Cara, these words, this innocent truth, meant the world to her. It gave her a reason, not only to stay alive, but to live. To live in happiness.
To fight her way back out of this worry-free heaven and back to wakefulness. Back to the harsh reality of soreness and hurt enveloping her body like a familiar and old, worn blanket.
Groaning slightly, Cara could feel hands shaking her body, jerking her already aching limbs. Opening her tired eyes, she grew slowly aware of the frantic voice shouting her name over and over.
"I'm awake, damnit," the Mord'Sith managed to rasp, dry lips barely forming the vowels. She felt as if an entire village had stomped across her frame.
Waitaminute. An entire village had stomped across her frame.
Dragging her lids up with a burst of energy, she nearly winced at the light that shone unhindered into her pupils. Her head was already throbbing, but now the hammering moved towards the front of her face and behind her forehead. When the blurry images finally started to sharpen, she could see the frame of a frantic blonde kid forming above her head.
"Cara, Cara, please, are you alive? Please be okay!" Noa sobbed, repeating the words in this or a different order without end. When she saw that Cara was awake and very much alive, she stopped babbling in near panic, her mouth closing, only to leave out the occasional hiccup or sniff. Her face was a disaster, wet and blotchy and with tear- and blood-stained cheeks, but for the Mord'Sith it was the most beautiful image since watching the newborn Night Wisps dance through the air.
"I'm going to hang them, each and everyone," Cara groused and slapped Noa's hand away when the girl tried to help her up. Bad enough that she had been knocked out by illiterate villagers, needing the help of a child to find her bearings would be the cherry on top of her humiliation. Closing her eyes at the sudden dizziness befalling her at the upright position, she blinked and took a deep breath.
Only to nearly choke at sight of the carnage around her.
"By the Creator...what happened here?!" Cara gasped out and stared in confusion at the village square.
The ground was littered with dead bodies. They were everywhere, atop of each other, propped against the wall, even hanging from the platform, most of their faces distorted in inhuman rage. Even the children hadn't been spared by the craziness. A shaking Noa huddled close to her, seemingly scared out of her wits by the amount of brutally mangled corpses.
"I..I don't know...it happened so quickly...you fell down and I thought they would kill me every second, but suddenly they...they turned on each other and.. it was horrible. The ones that didn't have weapons or anything to attack with.. they killed each other with their bare hands.. they were in a frenzy." Noa looked past the carnage with a void in her gaze. "I..I survived by hiding under the big man's body. I don't remember much." She rubbed a sleeve across her face in a upset gesture, worn and haunted.
Still in shock at the sudden turn of events and that both of them were alive despite the odds, Cara placed a comforting hand on Noa's neck and watched as the movement appeared to calm the distraught child. There was an eerie silence in the town, the calm of death slowly creeping into every street and building. The total void of sound caused Cara to get restless.
"We need to get away from here," she said pointedly, dragging Noa with her into a standing position. They made their way towards the horses, carefully stepping over dead bodies as they went, the kid's hand clutching the Mord'Sith's one tightly.
I never imagined myself to lead a child away from a battlefield. Leaving Noa standing beside the calming presence of the horses, she went back into Rorsh to fetch the iron she had dropped at the start of the battle, even entering the tavern to pick up the wooden coins the owner had laid out for her, so all traces leading back to them were erased. And it wasn't as if he needed the money anymore. She had spotted his corpse beneath that one of a younger woman while returning to the horses.
After leaving behind the horrible scene, the two rode next to each other in silence, the other mounts trailing behind. They went on like this for hours, not even stopping to make a break in the afternoon to clean their skin and bind their wounds. It was near the evening when Noa broke the quiet.
"Cara?"
The Mord'Sith swept her head over her shoulder, looking back at the child that appeared to be deep in troubling thoughts. Already deep bangs were forming under her protégée's eyes and her face looked drawn and pale.
"Am I a monster?"
Clenching her jaw, Cara turned back to the road ahead of them.
"No. You aren't."
Since her back was turned towards Noa, she never saw that the girl didn't believe her words.
_______________
A/N: So, next time: Year two!
Author: Dark_Kurai
Pairing: Cara/Kahlan, touches of Cara/Dahlia
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Spoilers: Should be none, plays after 2x22.
Summary: Follow-up to A Tear, A Word, A Smile - When Zedd opens a magical portal to ease their travels after the victory against the Keeper, something goes wrong that forces Cara away from the Midlands for some time...
A/N: And here we are again! I don't have anything to say, so I'll just leave you to the next part :]
10.
The first year on Darza:
For the first time in history, a human being had managed to change Cara's mind with the old crafty tactic of pouting.
For a long time the Mord'Sith had believed herself to be immune to Noa's pout. The girl had tried to use this trick often whenever Cara forbade her to do this or that, but after realizing that it didn't work she stopped it... or started to nag her through other means. Nine out of ten times it was the kid who lost and she was a surprisingly good loser, always back to her happy-go-lucky self after a short amount of time, but sometimes even Cara had to give way after understanding that maybe, for example, refusing to show Noa how to ride properly resulted in a chaotic tangle of horses and reins.
That is, until Cara found out that Noa hadn't actually ever really tried to use her pout.
The matter of conflict was the use of the older woman's Agiel. Noa's first contact with the weapons hadn't been a pleasant one, but knowing that Cara used to train other children and even carried the pain-inflicting weapon all the time with the exception of bathing intrigued the kid to no end. So when Noa had disclosed the wish to learn how to carry an Agiel, Cara's first reaction, surprisingly, had been to refuse.
That was when the girl had started to sulk. And boy, could she sulk. It went on for a whole week, with Noa refusing to talk, meet her eyes, smile, move around or train properly. It was when she started to say that 'she wasn't hungry' and went to bed without food that Cara started to crack.
She had tried commanding. This worked at least once before Noa went back to not doing what she was supposed to do. But when the Mord'Sith was forced to cook her own food because Noa refused to make a meal due to her being not hungry, Cara started yelling and issuing threats. That worked even less than ordering Noa around.
Faced with a willful, petulant child that she couldn't raise her hand against for the first time in her life due to some inner personal and odd refusal, Cara was at such a loss that she couldn't help but agree after almost threatening to leave the kid in the middle of nowhere. In the end, Noa had gotten her will through the power of sulking, which vanished the very second the older woman told her in a exasperated, defeated tone that she could use her damn Agiels.
Every time she went hunting, Cara left one of her weapons lying on the ground near her backpacks. It took days to get used to the girl's screams and force herself not run back to slap the leather rod out of her hands. But Noa was stubborn as a mule, soon the screams vanished and although Cara returned to the camp to find a deeply exhausted, sore Noa sitting with puffy eyes in front of her bedrolls, it showed that the girl had applied the use of compartmentalizing to deal with the pain of the Agiel quicker than expected.
"Once you get used to it, it's not so different than trying to block out the blows and kicks," the girl confessed one night when Cara implied about her process.
A few weeks later, Noa could walk around with the rod in her hand without showing if she was aware of the excruciating agony cursing through her veins. The Mord'Sith was impressed enough that she offered Noa a compliment, causing the girl to smile more brightly than the sun in its zenith. But from that point onwards she kept both Agiels close to herself again after Noa was content with her learning.
Half a year later they had a comfortable routine in their trading business.
When they entered Rorsh, a slightly larger settlement west of Vhep, the villagers were abuzz with the knowledge that the strange travelers and merchants, a woman looking like a Red Lady and a one-eyed kid, carried metal wares from the city. They offered them food and little trinkets, but Cara, as always, refused all but the items they really needed, everything else was useless baggage. Noa went off to find some new leathers for Squiggly's saddle, while the Mord'Sith started haggling in the tavern after learning that the tavern owners were the local holders of all day to day wares in most of the places they visited.
"I need more from you than just a few bottles of booze. Don't try to mess around with me," Cara replied after hearing the price the tavern owner was willing to pay for the block of iron.
"Look, I don't have any more coins to spare. The locals are busy eating away the hair on my head." As if to underline his words, his hand went across the bald skin above his forehead.
"Sure, and the new set of benches and tables behind me was given to you by the Goddess because of your honest, reliable work. Let's see if she drops down a block of metal in front of your door, too," she spat sarcastically, lifting the heavy weight in its satchel from the ground and turning towards the door.
"Stop! Fine, stop, I'll pay up. Spirits, you're ruining me."
Cara turned back to the grumbling man with a smug look on her face.
"Oh, I'm sure you'll survive..." Throwing the amused words in his scowling face felt good, but before she could top it up with another barbed comment, a ruckus outside the door caused her to pause.
Normally the proceedings of the villagers didn't interest her in the least. She was doing her job and she was damned good at it, since no one was able to haggle with less mercy and a better poker face than a Mord'Sith. Yet there was a tone in the people's voices that caused her palms to turn clammy inside their red gloves. Distracted, she tilted her head to listen what was going on outside the building.
Awareness hit her when a loud, bowling voice issued "Kill the witch!"
Forgetting the money that the tavern owner had placed on the bar, Cara turned and ran, rushing out the door to find a whole mob making its way towards the village center, a small square between the farm houses where a well and a raised platform stood. They were dragging something in between their midst, but Cara was unable to get a glimpse until they reached the wooden stage, making their way on top of it.
A cold feeling pooled in her belly. When a big, burly man stepped aside, the Mord'Sith could see a dizzy Noa hanging from the hands of two farmers, all the hate and anger focused in her direction.
And the bandage around her head was gone.
"Here it is, the reason for the Dry Storms which torment us every few months! Can you see the blemish on her face?" The man's words were answered with a load roar from the enraged crowd.
He went further, spreading his arms to make them heed the importance of his words. "Those monsters are the bane of our existence, touching and reaching into goddess forsaken forces! The sign of her unclean soul, it is so vast that it is pouring out of her very body! Look at the color of her eyes, look at this abomination!" He pointed an accusing finger at his captive.
People screamed and shouted, women cried and clutched at their children. It was as if the Keeper himself had opened the doors to the underworld wide and issued the end of the world, so devastating was the wrath and anguish the people showed in the face of Noa's bi-colored eyes. The child itself was in a state of daze, a thin trail of blood trickling down her hairline indicating why she was so spaced out.
Cara knew they must have caught the girl by surprise. Noa was as fast and agile as a ferret, her training having given the girl's natural talents a good boost. If Noa had been aware of someone trying to hit her, she would've ducked and ran without anyone able to catch the quick-footed young blonde. But with Noa nearly knocked out cold, all talent in the world wouldn't help her escape the clutches of the two villagers that kept her from running, their grips hard enough that bruises were bound to form.
When she was able to see this even from afar, the cold dread in Cara's belly slowly turned into red-hot fury, while more and more villagers poured into the square, attracted by the unusual and loud happenings.
"We need to end this and clean ourselves from this bad sign! We'll do justice and have the gracious Goddess shine her light on us once again! Free us from this bad fate," the burly man shouted with vigor towards the very heavens, people raising their fists in approval and reiterating his saying until the whole centre was echoing with the repeat of "Free us! Free us!".
The killing of an innocent child was turning into a religious sacrifice to their beloved Goddess. When someone pulled a dagger made from bone and offered it to the sermon spewing man, Noa seemed to regain her bearings and became aware of her current situation. After finding herself surrounded on all sides by hateful villagers, her eyes opened wide in fear, she struggled and started screaming in heedless panic, louder than the chant of the combined people.
A thoughtless blow to her chin from one of the men that held her, to stop her screaming and squirming, caused Cara to snap. With an angry growl she charged at the masses, pushing and punching her way through the villagers towards the platform where the riot created by her hands attracted their attention.
"Leave her alone, you idiots!" she shouted at the man with the dagger and Noa's other captors, her eyes blazing with the promise of danger. "She's just a normal kid!" Grunting she threw a young man to the side and pushed a wailing woman into the arms of two others. Shock gained her an advantage.
"Don't let her get through!" the man agitating the folks screamed enraged, his skin turning red. He waved around his weapon. "Bind her, before she reaches the abomination and frees her! She's going to doom us all!"
His words had an astonishing impact, as suddenly people started to throw themselves at Cara from all sides, hindering her however they could. The Mord'Sith was forced to draw her Agiels and soon pain-filled cries branded against the border of the village.
But instead of causing her opponents to shy away from the agony educing rods, it was as if throwing oil onto an already out-of-control burning fire. Cara had underestimated the people's fear and hate of magic and was now forced to endure the eruption that followed.
"She wields magic!"
"The harlot has magic weapons!"
"Don't let let get away!"
"Kill her!"
Cara was a well-trained fighter, who could fell a great number of equally trained enemies in one fight. She could defeat dozens without breaking a sweat and make it look easy to boot. She had bested the Seeker in the future. By the Creator, even her own Sisters needed to outnumber her a great deal to force her to her knees and even the last time they had managed to do so was only by catching her by surprise.
But with a whole town of rabid, fanatical villagers swarming her from all sides without tactic or break, even Cara found herself getting overwhelmed by the sheer number. It reminded her of her last cowardly act of running away from the Apothics and she roared in rage at being unable to win one damned fight in a world she was stuck in since over a whole year.
One after the other they came at her. The Mord'Sith struck a young woman under the chin, then pivoted around to slam her elbow into an older farmers gut. Dropping down to avoid a badly aimed swipe with a walking stick, she rushed forward and pushed her shoulder into a young man's ribcage, causing him to stumble and take down another two attackers with his fall.
Without time to deliver a heart-stopping amount of pain to any of her enemies, most of the fallen people stood up again groaning and wounded, but after they were back on their feet without swaying they rushed at her again and again. Fear, hate and anger made them reckless. Cara managed to keep them off long enough to always throw a random item or even whole bodies towards the stage, keeping the burly man from getting the idea to kill the still kicking Noa with one simple stab.
The girl herself was yet keeping up quite a fight, turning and twisting into impossible positions and making it hard for the two men to keep their hold on the slippery girl. Even holding a cat or a snake was easier than subduing this screaming monster.
"Stop squirming, you cursed brat!" one of her captors shouted after receiving a bruising kick to the shin.
Cara was now about two feet away from the stage when of all possible people a young boy of mere five summers tackled her ribs while she held off two shrieking harpies of women. She forced the child away out of reflex with a well-placed kick, but her surprise at being attacked by someone this young caused her to be unprepared for the sudden assault of three villagers charging at her from all sides while she was busy with the two women in front of her.
Accepting a harsh blow to her back to bury her foot in one woman's side with a snarl, she stabbed her Agiel into one attackers shoulder. He dropped with a painful gurgle and she turned to pay back the hit on her back, when another enemy scored one in the rear side of her knee. All strength left her appendage at this lucky shot and with horror the Mord'Sith realized that she was losing ground. With her leg failing, Cara barred her teeth at another young woman while she fell to her knees, causing the brunette to retreat in fear.
But it was only one in a dozen. And now that they could taste the oncoming victory, the almost crazed villagers combined their strength and hacked on her frame with everything they could get their hands on. Blow after blow found its way through her defenses and soon Cara was unable to do anything but shield her face from the attacks.
She only looked up when the desperate screams Noa issued reached her ears. "Cara, Cara," she cried again and again, her cheeks wet with dirt and blood and the only fear in her eyes that of seeing Cara hurt for trying to get to her.
"Run," Cara mouthed, unable to shout out another tone next to her harsh breathing and the steady buzzing in her ear. Then a brutal blow caught the side of her head and she felt her body hit the muddy ground.
The last thing she heard while her vision grew black was Noa crying her name in such blank despair and anguish that it drowned out any other sound and feeling but the image of her friends standing in the bleeding sunlight atop the Pillars of Creation. Her heart twisted.
Then silence reigned.
_____________________
We never talked much, Cara thought while floating along without the added baggage of her body. She felt light and unhindered, as if her body was made of clouds and dreams. Noa and I. A soft sort of wonder infused her at these strange, random thoughts, but before she could grasp it, another took up residence in her mind.
Kahlan's smile reminds me of sunshine after freshly fallen rain. Noa's of the first day of snow. She remembered the girl's freckles shining in the morning light. They were light and pale in relation to her golden tan, different than Kahlan's darker ones on her milky white skin. Even Richard's and Zedd's smile had a brief flash in her memory, both of them good-natured and goofy and simple like plucking berries from bushes.
I feel proud and warm when I receive those smiles, another edge of her unconsciousness offered up. Here, in this inbetween state, awkwardness and hiding feelings had no place. There was plain understanding and uncouth truth, fresh awareness and freedom of thought sans barriers.
I feel good when I'm with them. I feel home. It was nothing much, this fact. Others would have laughed at it, knowing it was common sense and general knowledge. But for Cara, these words, this innocent truth, meant the world to her. It gave her a reason, not only to stay alive, but to live. To live in happiness.
To fight her way back out of this worry-free heaven and back to wakefulness. Back to the harsh reality of soreness and hurt enveloping her body like a familiar and old, worn blanket.
Groaning slightly, Cara could feel hands shaking her body, jerking her already aching limbs. Opening her tired eyes, she grew slowly aware of the frantic voice shouting her name over and over.
"I'm awake, damnit," the Mord'Sith managed to rasp, dry lips barely forming the vowels. She felt as if an entire village had stomped across her frame.
Waitaminute. An entire village had stomped across her frame.
Dragging her lids up with a burst of energy, she nearly winced at the light that shone unhindered into her pupils. Her head was already throbbing, but now the hammering moved towards the front of her face and behind her forehead. When the blurry images finally started to sharpen, she could see the frame of a frantic blonde kid forming above her head.
"Cara, Cara, please, are you alive? Please be okay!" Noa sobbed, repeating the words in this or a different order without end. When she saw that Cara was awake and very much alive, she stopped babbling in near panic, her mouth closing, only to leave out the occasional hiccup or sniff. Her face was a disaster, wet and blotchy and with tear- and blood-stained cheeks, but for the Mord'Sith it was the most beautiful image since watching the newborn Night Wisps dance through the air.
"I'm going to hang them, each and everyone," Cara groused and slapped Noa's hand away when the girl tried to help her up. Bad enough that she had been knocked out by illiterate villagers, needing the help of a child to find her bearings would be the cherry on top of her humiliation. Closing her eyes at the sudden dizziness befalling her at the upright position, she blinked and took a deep breath.
Only to nearly choke at sight of the carnage around her.
"By the Creator...what happened here?!" Cara gasped out and stared in confusion at the village square.
The ground was littered with dead bodies. They were everywhere, atop of each other, propped against the wall, even hanging from the platform, most of their faces distorted in inhuman rage. Even the children hadn't been spared by the craziness. A shaking Noa huddled close to her, seemingly scared out of her wits by the amount of brutally mangled corpses.
"I..I don't know...it happened so quickly...you fell down and I thought they would kill me every second, but suddenly they...they turned on each other and.. it was horrible. The ones that didn't have weapons or anything to attack with.. they killed each other with their bare hands.. they were in a frenzy." Noa looked past the carnage with a void in her gaze. "I..I survived by hiding under the big man's body. I don't remember much." She rubbed a sleeve across her face in a upset gesture, worn and haunted.
Still in shock at the sudden turn of events and that both of them were alive despite the odds, Cara placed a comforting hand on Noa's neck and watched as the movement appeared to calm the distraught child. There was an eerie silence in the town, the calm of death slowly creeping into every street and building. The total void of sound caused Cara to get restless.
"We need to get away from here," she said pointedly, dragging Noa with her into a standing position. They made their way towards the horses, carefully stepping over dead bodies as they went, the kid's hand clutching the Mord'Sith's one tightly.
I never imagined myself to lead a child away from a battlefield. Leaving Noa standing beside the calming presence of the horses, she went back into Rorsh to fetch the iron she had dropped at the start of the battle, even entering the tavern to pick up the wooden coins the owner had laid out for her, so all traces leading back to them were erased. And it wasn't as if he needed the money anymore. She had spotted his corpse beneath that one of a younger woman while returning to the horses.
After leaving behind the horrible scene, the two rode next to each other in silence, the other mounts trailing behind. They went on like this for hours, not even stopping to make a break in the afternoon to clean their skin and bind their wounds. It was near the evening when Noa broke the quiet.
"Cara?"
The Mord'Sith swept her head over her shoulder, looking back at the child that appeared to be deep in troubling thoughts. Already deep bangs were forming under her protégée's eyes and her face looked drawn and pale.
"Am I a monster?"
Clenching her jaw, Cara turned back to the road ahead of them.
"No. You aren't."
Since her back was turned towards Noa, she never saw that the girl didn't believe her words.
_______________
A/N: So, next time: Year two!