[Legend of the Seeker] Don't Play With (Powerful) Magic
Title: Don't Play With (Powerful) Magic
Author: hibernate
Pairing/character: Cara/Dahlia
Rating: Adult-ish / R
Wordcount: ~8300 words
Beta: Infinite gratitude to the awesome
shopfront and brilliant swatkat24 for truly invaluable beta work. ♥
Summary: Cara and Dahlia meet post-Tears. It's not exactly love at first sight.
Also archived on AO3.
1.
After they defeat the Keeper and save the world, Kahlan and Richard insist on being entirely insufferable. Enough so that Cara is almost grateful when a miserable little thief attempts to steal one of their horses, and she has to go deal with it. Cara drags the girl into camp by her disheveled coat after an appropriate amount of Agieling, and drops her down in front of the others.
"I caught a rat nibbling on our things," she says, and perhaps her smile is a little bloodthirsty, but after two weeks of Kahlan and Richard giggling like children and going for 'walks', it feels very good to hurt someone.
Cara pokes the girl with her shoe. "She tried to steal my horse. Can I kill her?"
"No!" says Richard quickly. "No killing."
"Some people have been struggling after the war," Kahlan says. "I'm sure she needed money for food and that's why she tried to steal. Isn't that right?"
The thief lifts her head, brushing rumpled, brown hair out of her eyes, and smiles in a way that is no doubt meant to look innocent and sweet. Cara is dismayed when Kahlan and Richard smile back, because she is in no way fooled: there is something very calculating behind the girls smile.
Cara is contemplating using her Agiel again when she notices Zedd's open-mouthed stare. "Dahlia?" he asks, incredulous.
The thief's smile disappears.
"You know her?" Kahlan asks, her eyes wide.
"How do you know my name?" the girl asks at the same time.
"It's..." Zedd shrinks back. "It's complicated."
Kahlan shoots him a sharp glare, no doubt aware he's keeping something from them. It doesn't always take a Confessor to tell, and Cara's suspicions grow when Zedd glances at her. "Cara," Zedd says instead of explaining further. "You know this woman. She's from Stowcroft. Her name is Dahlia."
The girl turns her face to Cara, eyes narrowing as if she's trying to remember. Something deep within Cara stirs and she tenses, aiming one of her Agiels toward the girl again. She does not think about her life before the Mord'Sith.
"I don't have many memories of my childhood," she says, and it's true. What is the point in dwelling on what was lost, especially when she has gained so much? "She means nothing to me."
Kahlan stands up, and Cara jerks when her hand is suddenly on Cara's arm. "Put the Agiel away. She's harmless."
"There is some food left," Richard offers.
Cara sighs, very patiently. It's something she has had to learn since traveling with the Seeker. "Whoever this woman is, she did try to steal my horse," she points out. "Give her food if you must, but I am not leaving her wandering free to try again. I'm getting some rope. Do not let her out of your sight."
*
Cara feels much better with the thief tied up.
After Richard and Kahlan fall asleep, Zedd steps closer. "You grew up together in Stowcroft," he says. "Don't you remember?"
"No," Cara says curtly.
"But don't you think it's strange that you should meet again?" Zedd tries again, a strangely hopeful tone to his voice. "Like this? It's beyond coincidence. It's almost like... fate."
Cara stares at Zedd. "Are you ill, Wizard? You are acting strangely."
Zedd turns to the girl instead. "Dahlia? You remember, don't you?"
There's a pause before the girl replies. "They say getting taken by the Mord'Sith is the same as death," she says. "I knew a Cara once." The glare she shoots Cara holds nothing but resentment. "She died."
"She's right," Cara says, as much as it pains her to agree with the thief. "I am Mord'Sith."
Zedd's sigh is exasperated, and somehow Cara thinks she has not heard the last about this.
*
Cara stays awake all night. Her knots are solid, but she is not taking any chances. The thief stays awake too, alternating her hard stares between Cara and the dying fire.
It is only in the morning, after the others have woken, that Cara briefly leaves to wash herself in a nearby stream, but when she gets back she finds someone has untied the thief's ropes and she is standing up in the middle of the camp, rubbing her reddened wrists. Cara seethes, hands on her hips, and glares at Richard.
Sometimes the Lord Rahl makes it very difficult to serve him.
There is no time for any arguments, though, because the air crackles before Cara can speak, and then the girl is shrinking to her knees, gasping.
"What's happening to her?" Richard cries, spinning around, sword half-unsheathed. But there is no enemy to fight.
"Her eyes," Zedd says, his eyes wide with disbelief. "It's Confession!"
Cara watches as the girl's eyes turn black and she grasps for her neck, but there is nothing there. Kahlan is standing on the other side of the camp, mouth open in shock, her blue eyes showing no sign of her powers. "I'm not doing anything!" she cries.
The girl crumples to the ground, twisting in torment.
"No," Zedd says softly. "Not this time. In another world you did."
"What?" Kahlan says, her eyes shifting between Zedd and the girl.
Cara watches the girl in confusion. "She is not Mord'Sith. Why is she in pain?"
The girl weeps and cries out for her Mistress. Kahlan is by her side in an instant, grasping her hand and mumbling comforting words.
"How can this be?" Richard asks, falling to his knees at the girl's side.
Before Zedd can answer, the girl exhales one last time, her features softening in death. "Quickly, give her the Breath of Life," Zedd says.
Cara moves to do so, but stops when her hands touch the girl's wet face. "It's too late. She is cold. How can she be cold?"
Zedd slumps forward a little, hesitating before answering. "I fear this is the result of magic... and it may be my fault."
Cara rises, shoulders rising up with tension. "What did you do?"
Zedd fidgets and hums, as if trying to find the right words. Cara narrows her eyes, because she is rather sure she's not going to like whatever it is he's been keeping from them.
Then, suddenly, a sound she is intimately familiar with reaches her ears. The sound of a taut string released, the whistling of arrows, and then something crashes into her like a wave, making her double over before pain blossoms from her midsection.
She doesn't even realize she's on the ground until Kahlan's frantic face is hovering over her. Her hands feel numb, but she tries to move them anyway, to grip the two arrows embedded beneath her breasts. Then she dives headfirst into darkness.
2.
When Cara comes to, she has her hands wrist-deep in soapy water. Lifting them up, it is apparent that she's clutching a dirty plate.
She's cleaning dishes. Even worse, she's in a dress.
A pink dress.
It is hardly the first time Cara has been in the Underworld. Usually she does not stay for long as her Sisters are quick with the Breath of Life. Even so, she has certainly tasted her fair share of the Keeper's treatment. Even now, with the Rift sealed and the Underworld in balance, she never expected anything other than suffering after her death.
Though clearly the Keeper has become more creative in his punishments.
Cara sets the plate down and wipes her hands on her dress. Outside the sun is shining and it all seems very ominous in its innocence. It also seems eerily familiar, and with a start she realizes she's in Stowcroft, not far from the house she grew up in. When she turns around, she nearly runs into the apparition of two people she used to know. Though why the Keeper would have her see Zedd and Shota, she does not know. There are other people she would have expected, not them.
"Do you think this is my first visit to your realm, Keeper?" she says. "None of the faces you can conjure up will matter to me."
Zedd smiles, although it is a little tight. "This is not the Underworld, Cara. You're not dead."
"Not yet anyway," Shota says. "To be honest it doesn't look all that good."
Cara narrows her eyes. "What is this trickery?"
"He did a spell," Shota says, and gives Zedd a very pointed look. "A very dangerous spell that alters the very fabric of reality, and should never be attempted at any time. By anyone."
"It was a desperate situation!" Zedd protests. "Darken Rahl had the Stone of Tears and Cara was in the grip of dark magic."
Shota puts her hands on her hips. "I told you after we first tried the spell together that this magic was too dangerous. Even with the two of us, it was simple luck that spared us any consequences. And now you use it on your own, twice."
"The fate of the world was at stake. The only other solution was to let Kahlan confess Cara!"
"Then that's what you should have done."
"I-"
"Stop squabbling!" Cara says, fists clenching as she longs for the pain of her Agiels. "Tell me what's going on."
Zedd looks at her, grave. "The changed worlds I created with my spell are not stable. I thought my powers were enough, but the realities are falling in on each other. That is how Dahlia was confessed and you were shot. It did happen, just not in the world you remember."
"You would have died," Shota says, "had I not performed the spell that brought us here." At Cara's suspicious glare, she continues, "Don't misunderstand, your life means nothing to me. But who is to say what would happen if you die? This world is spun around you, after all."
"What do I have to do to get back to the real world?"
Zedd and Shota exchange a long look. "What's real is in the eye of the beholder, " Zedd says. "But if you mean getting back to the world where we defeated the Keeper, it will be no easy feat."
"You do not have magic," Shota says. "There is nothing you can do but try to stay alive until we've put things back where they belong. If," - she rolls her eyes - "that's not too difficult for you."
Cara grits teeth. She is never letting anyone pull her into any different worlds without her Agiels again, whether it's to save her life or not.
*
It is rather horrifying to learn that this is what she would have become had she not been Mord'Sith. It is not something Cara has ever considered before, and the idea that this could have been her life: a house, children and the shackles of domesticity, it makes her feel... tainted.
"What about the second spell?" she asks Zedd. "Shota said you performed the spell twice."
Zedd looks a little sheepish. "Dahlia."
"The thief?"
Zedd nods. "Before I changed it... she was taken by the Mord'Sith, like you. It was through her deceit you were captured and broken."
Cara huffs. "I'm not fooled so easily."
Zedd searches out her eyes and gives her a serious look, as if this is something that should matter to her. "I was lead to believe that she was someone important to you. Someone you trusted."
Cara can not imagine trusting a thief with anything, let alone her life. She rolls her eyes. "That's absurd."
The look Zedd gives her back is thoughtful. Before he can bother her more on the matter, Cara decides to change the subject. "Is this going to take long?" she says. "Because if it is, the least you can do is get me out of this dress."
"I think it looks very fetching on you," Zedd says with a smile. "And I really don't think this is the time for any more-"
"Now," Cara growls.
"One leather suit coming up," Zedd says quickly. A tingle runs down Cara's back as she feels the magic surround her, but then the landscape around her suddenly shifts.
When everything has settled, she's still in the pink dress. Only this time tied to a tree, which is not really much of an improvement. Kahlan is by her side, but she's looking at her with eyes that show no recognition.
"Zedd?" Kahlan calls, but the Wizard is nowhere to be seen. However, they are not alone. The guards behind her suddenly fall to the ground, pierced by arrows, as three Mord'Sith swagger towards them. There is a sharp ache building where the arrows had hit her before.
One of the Mord'Sith takes out Kahlan with a swift strike to her temple.
"Cara Mason," another Mord'Sith says, and Cara is stunned when she recognizes her thief. Her hair is tied back in a tight braid, the red leather neat and hugging every curve. This Dahlia is every inch a Mord'Sith and Cara finds it hard to look away.
"Do you remember me?" Dahlia says. "Do you remember how we played as children? Is it not appropriate that I should be the one to free you from the burden of your meaningless existence?"
The edges of Cara's lips point up in a smile. It is not what Dahlia expects, and Cara can see how it throws her. "Do you think I'm afraid of you?" she says. "Do you think your leather and your Agiel to scare me?"
Dahlia slowly breaks out in a hard smile, something like approval on her face as she unsheathes her Agiel. "I am going to enjoy this."
Cara turns her wrist in a final twist, and then she's got one hand free. She expected more from Kahlan, but all things considered she is rather grateful for this Kahlan's lack of knot-tying skills.
Cara backhands Dahlia before the woman can react. Dahlia falls to the ground, and within a moment Cara has reached for one of Kahlan's daggers and cut through the rest of her ropes, before sending the dagger flying into one of the Mord'Sith. She stalks over to the other one and takes her out with a well-placed punch that makes blood gush from her mouth, and a final kick to the head once she's down.
Dahlia is on her feet again, snarling and wiping a trail of blood from her nose. Cara attacks and Dahlia blocks her punch easily, but Cara catches her wrist as she counters, twisting the joint and stomping down on the side of Dahlia's knee until the grip on her Agiel loosens and Cara can grab it from her. Something makes Cara aim for her head and not her heart, the power of the Agiel forcing Dahlia into unconsciousness rather than death.
Agiel still in hand, Cara casts a quick look at Kahlan's unconscious body as she hikes up the pink dress over her knees and runs.
Then she stops, cursing aloud, before turning back. This Kahlan does not know her, and all Cara wants is to leave this horrid place where she wears pink dresses and nothing is as it should be. But it's still Kahlan.
Cara sprints back, but then, before she's reached Kahlan, she finds herself back at the house. She's still clutching Dahlia's Agiel, and almost falls over when the world abruptly changes around her.
There are two children playing on the porch and it takes her a moment to remember that they're hers. Or perhaps more accurately, they belong to the other Cara, the one who was never taken by the Mord'Sith and lived her entire life in Stowcroft.
She doesn't want this. She's never wanted this. Not even as a child did she play with dolls. She's given birth to a son and not even then did she want to be a mother. That the other Cara would choose this life feels like a betrayal.
The children don't even look much like her.
Maybe they take after their father, whoever that might have been. A man from Stowcroft, no doubt, someone unimportant, who mattered to no one. His name had been James and he used to look at her as though she was someone important.
"Cara?"
She flips around, Agiel ready, but it's only Shota. "Where's Zedd?" Cara asks gruffly. The witch woman's presence is apparently necessary, but she is not on the list of people Cara trusts.
That list is not particularly long, but even so.
"I don't know," Shota sighs. "The spell I performed is not strong enough. We can't seem to stay in one place. I just payed an unexpected visit to one of your Mord'Sith temples." Shota smiles sardonically. "They weren't very happy to see me."
"It's happening to me, too" Cara says.
"Listen to me, Cara," Shota says. "The world we want to preserve is the one you come from. Where the Keeper was defeated and the Rift sealed. Don't let yourself be seduced by anything in this or any other world, no matter how alluring."
Cara rolls her eyes at the lecturing tone in Shota's voice. "The idea of becoming a mother and a wife is hardly tempting to me."
"I'm sure," Shota says, a small smile on her lips. "Still, don't try to remember anything from this life. The memories will hold power over you. Focus on the world where you belong."
Cara doesn't reply to that, but something still makes Shota's face soften slightly. "You are remembering things, aren't you?"
"Nothing that matters." Cara glances over at the children again. Sam has his father's eyes and she remembers holding a newborn, which cannot be right because she never held her son after he was born.
"Be careful," Shota warns. "You must-" She breaks off and cries out as a blade launches itself into her upper arm.
Cara quickly looks over in the direction the knife came from as Shota, with a last glance at Cara, uses her magic to transport herself away. Dahlia is stalking towards her, a cruel smile on her lips. "I believe you have something of mine," she says, and Cara clutches the Agiel, hard.
"Go inside, children," Cara calls, smile matching Dahlia's.
This is going to be just what she needs.
*
There is considerable power behind Dahlia's strikes. Cara has always enjoyed the dance of exchanging blows, especially with an opponent who can hold their own. Although Dahlia cannot entirely match Cara's force and lacks her stability and swift ferocity, something which Cara gleefully uses to her advantage, Dahlia's range is wider and she is much faster than Cara expects. More than that; where Cara relies on instinct, allowing her body to take over, Dahlia's approach is calculating, honing in on vulnerable spots in a way that Cara has never needed to bother with.
Dahlia finds the ache under Cara's heart where the arrows pierced her before Cara is even aware of the pain herself. She crashes down over the vegetables she replanted earlier that day, and something within her is suddenly very, very angry.
Dahlia's fist is red and Cara realizes that she's bleeding. Dying from invisible, magic arrows is not the way she wants to lose a fight.
Dahlia is a competent Mord'Sith, but Cara has her Agiel and it's more of an edge than she needs. Only, as she has Dahlia crumbling to the ground, lip splitting open, it is no longer the soft grass outside her house in Stowcroft. They're in a forest and Dahlia lands hard on a stony slope.
"This is magic," Dahlia whispers and rises slowly, creating distance between herself and Cara.
It is an excellent time to finish her off, but the small hairs on the back of Cara's neck are suddenly standing up. "We are not alone," she says, bending her knees in preparation.
Moments later, the attack starts.
"What are they?" Dahlia says as she fights using only her own limbs, but to great effect.
"Banelings," Cara says. The pink dress keeps tangling around her legs; she swings Dahlia's Agiel with more force than strictly necessary.
"Banelings?" Dahlia shouts, as she snaps the neck of one of them. "That's a story made up to scare children."
Cara doesn't bother to point out the obvious.
It is odd to suddenly stand back to back with the person she just tried to kill, but it is necessary. There is no sense to fight a war on two fronts. Dahlia has obviously come to the same conclusion. Mord'Sith are skilled at dividing their minds and focusing only on the task at hand.
Cara has missed fighting with another Mord'Sith. It is easy falling into familiar patterns of movement, adapting to someone who's been trained to move in the same manner. It doesn't take them long to send the seven banelings back to the Keeper.
Cara turns to Dahlia. "We need to burn them."
It is only a momentary lapse of attention, but it is enough. Dahlia smacks her elbow across Cara's face and twists the Agiel out of her hand before she can react.
"Mine," she sneers, backing off quickly. She lets go of some of the tension in her body when Cara makes no move to strike back. "You are Mord'Sith," Dahlia says.
"Yes," Cara says and Dahlia accepts it with no further questions.
*
The world remains the same for days.
It does not take long for Cara to recognize lands she has walked through with Richard, Kahlan and Zedd. Yet she can only assume this is still not the world she belongs to. There is an ever so slight feeling of difference that is impossible to shake. Sometimes it's as though she remembers walking this path twice over, everything subtly different.
She does not trust Dahlia, but after walking for two days and nights, practicality takes over and the third night they take turns sleeping.
They're both alive in the morning, which has to count for something.
They don't speak much and there is no sign of Zedd and Shota. On the fourth day they arrive at a mountain, stone walls rising before them, and Cara knows this place. Her fingers burn with the memory of clutching the Stone of Tears in her hand. It is a false memory, but the feeling of triumph that goes with it is seductive. She suddenly has an overwhelming urge to fall on her knee and recite the devotions, and not for Richard. A sudden burst of magic courses through her, and while she hardly believed Zedd before when he explained how she had been rebroken by Darken Rahl, it now seems entirely inevitable.
She grabs on to Dahlia's arm as the mountain and the forest disappear and something else takes their place. Dahlia gasps, and Cara very nearly does too, because she's... home.
It's the bathhouse of Jandrolin. Cara is in a fully armored leather suit, hair tied up in a long braid that rests comfortingly on her back, Agiel holstered at her thigh. She feels... younger.
Dahlia turns to her, staring as her mouth falls open. "Cara?" she says, and her voice sounds nearly disbelieving.
Cara quickly releases her arm, and Dahlia shakes her head, frowning. "This is not right," she says. "This isn't... I'm... I remember things that cannot have happened."
"They are false memories," Cara says.
Dahlia looks at Cara again, eyes still wide. A blush suddenly creeps over her pale features and she looks down, lips slightly pursed. "They are very intense."
"Do not indulge in them," Cara warns. "They will keep you from returning to your real home."
Dahlia wets her lips and looks up at Cara again. "I will not... indulge."
Cara is not entirely sure she likes the tone of Dahlia's voice.
3.
The temple bears much resemblance to the one she spent many years in. It is confusing the way the unbidden memories of this place are so very similar to the real ones. Cara tries not to linger on them.
It's easy to fall into the habit of life at the temple. This life is seductive in its familiarity. She says her devotions, and repeats to herself that it's not real, it's not real, Darken Rahl will fall and she will join Kahlan and Richard and Zedd. It echoes so true inside her that she knows that must be what happens in this reality too. But not for a long time yet. The Seeker has not even started to make his mark on the Midlands and Darken Rahl reigns supreme. It seems like there is not much to do but wait. She does not have magic; Zedd and Shota are the ones who must repair the worlds and she can only hope they are elsewhere doing just that.
Dahlia seems to be avoiding her, which suits Cara fine.
They've been in the temple for six days when they are sent out to dispatch a general who has earned the disfavor of Lord Rahl. She does not recall this general from her world, but she has been on countless similar missions. Lord Rahl trusts no one as he does his Mord'Sith.
They are four; Cara, Solvig, Garen and Dahlia. It turns bloody, and Cara revels in it. It is easy to forget in battle, in moving with her Sisters, it is easy to let everything else slip away. She is Mord'Sith and this is instinct and training and everything she is meant to be.
When they are back at the temple, her younger Sisters wash away the dried blood and clean her cuts. Cara stays in the warm water for a long time, letting the heat wash away her thoughts.
Finally, Cara and Dahlia are the only ones left. It is as it should be.
In the heat and the steam and with the embrace of water around her sore muscles, she loses the will to keep this world at arms-length. As she steps up from the water, Cara remembers how she and Dahlia used to dress each other, and without speaking they fall into the same routine. Dahlia's fingers, tying the laces of Cara's leathers, are familiar and sure.
Yet they haven't done this before. The memories of it are not real, and when Cara dresses Dahlia and braids her hair, her fingers still as she reaches the chest buckle of her armor.
Dahlia has the most peculiar look on her face.
"Don't let the memories of this world tie you down," Cara warns, trying to separate the false from the true. "This is not your life, nor mine."
"Don't you remember?" Dahlia says, tilting her head.
"Remember what?"
"Turn around and I will braid your hair," Dahlia says instead of answering.
Dahlia's fingers run through her long hair, and Cara closes her eyes.
"Don't you remember?" Dahlia says again, her voice low, and Cara can feel her breath on her ear. When her fingers touch Cara's neck, a shiver runs through her.
"We were taken from Stowcroft on the same day," Cara says.
"I remember growing up with you and without you." Dahlia's next words are very quiet, "I prefer it this way."
But Dahlia does not know what the future holds for this world. Cara thinks Dahlia would not wish for this world if she knew that her Lord would fall.
Cara herself does not know anything beyond what Zedd has told her either: Darken Rahl getting the Stone and herself being broken again by magic. And Kahlan confessing Dahlia, she realizes suddenly. It hasn't happened yet, but still the memory of it hits her with unexpected strength, making something inside her ache.
Dahlia has finished her braid and Cara turns around, her eyes meeting Dahlia's. She can't seem to look away, as more memories bloom like drops of blood in water.
The next moment, Dahlia's lips are on hers.
The world feels changed. They are still in the bathhouse, but everything is different. Dahlia's mouth is soft and pliant where the rest of her is hard. Cara remembers those lips on her skin and clutching her hand as a child in the dark and the way Dahlia's eyes would find Cara's when it became too much. It's hard to breathe suddenly, and Cara pulls her head back.
"Don't you remember?" Dahlia says for the third time. A hand slides down Cara's leather-clad back and it makes her shiver again.
This time she does remember, and the smile she gives Dahlia is one she reserves for her and her alone. "I could never walk into this bathhouse again without thinking about you."
Dahlia answers with her body, pressing herself tight against Cara; breasts to breasts, hips to hips. Her mouth is hot on Cara's, and though she's probably trying to hold back, Dahlia can't hide the way her body shakes slightly, even through their leathers.
Cara steps back, licking her lips. Glancing at Dahlia over her shoulder, she turns to leave. Dahlia follows without a word, and Cara can feel her gaze rest on her as they make their way to Cara's chambers.
Once there, Cara turns to face Dahlia and she thinks for a moment that maybe there is a reason why this shouldn't be. But it is fleeting. Mord'Sith do not deny themselves the needs of the body. And Cara would never deny herself Dahlia; her mouth or her hands or her eyes.
"Do you remember?" Dahlia says, and her tone is suddenly very teasing, a crooked smile aimed at Cara. And oh, Cara remembers and Dahlia knows it. There is no need to say anything else, but Dahlia has always liked to put things in words where Cara prefers to use her body.
"I wanted you for a long time," Dahlia says as Cara circles closer. "I watched you in the bath and imagined what it would be like to touch you."
Cara growls. There is no purpose in retelling stories from their youth, and so she moves in to silence Dahlia with a kiss. It's not as effective as she hopes; Dahlia breathes into Cara's mouth and Cara can feel her smiling. "It was never the same with anyone else."
Cara makes quick business of Dahlia's leather, untying the laces roughly and sliding them off until she's gloriously naked. Dahlia's smile as she lets herself be undressed is roguish. When Cara brushes her hands on the side of her breasts her eyelids flutter, but the smile only grows wider. "You spent months refusing to look me in the eyes. I thought you were angry with me. I couldn't bear it."
Grabbing her braid, Cara pulls her head back roughly. "I was there," she says. "I don't need you to tell me what happened."
In return, Dahlia slaps her across the face. The sting on her cheekbone feels like a caress; it'll probably leave a mark. Cara gleefully lets go of Dahlia's braid to strike her back in much the same way. They both grin, and then Cara is kissing Dahlia again, mouth on mouth, and leather pressing against Dahlia's pale skin.
Dahlia's hand skitters down Cara's side until it settles on her backside, tugging Cara closer. "Why aren't you naked?" she whispers.
"You have tied my laces too well," Cara says.
"Then I'll untie them myself."
The leather is the last thing separating them, and when it is gone, so is the last remnant of her control. She pushes Dahlia down on the bed hard, in an attempt to regain it. She means to keep her distance as she straddles Dahlia's thighs, but Dahlia pulls her down until there is nothing between them.
Cara keeps her smile predatory even as her heart races and her breathing becomes labored. Dahlia's breaths are heavy too, as Cara fits her body to hers, pressing a thigh between her legs. There is slickness there, and Dahlia gasps, hips jerking, as Cara presses against her. It's something Cara will never tire of, coaxing those small sounds from Dahlia, watching her lose her words and her thoughts and surrender to the moment.
For a moment she stills, breathing over Dahlia's mouth, because it suddenly seems foreign that she has done this before. It feels like the first time she's touching Dahlia, even though it can't possibly be, not when she remembers doing it uncountable times before.
Dahlia takes advantage of Cara's pause, hands searching out places that makes her blood run hot with impatience. Cara slides down Dahlia's body, sighing as she kisses her neck, her collarbones, her breasts, her wounds and her bruises, because it feels both like the first and the thousandth time.
When Cara employs her lips and tongue between Dahlia's thighs, Dahlia is already trembling and it does not take long before her hips start setting their own rhythm, urging Cara on.
Dahlia's hand twists on her braid. "Cara," she cries, and pulls hard.
Cara knows, and maybe another time she won't obey, but this time she'll allow Dahlia this weakness. She crawls slowly up Dahlia's body until she can kiss her, and then her hand takes over where her mouth left off. Dahlia squeezes her eyes closed and lets out small gasps and moans as she clutches Cara closer. Dahlia has always wanted this most of all, Cara's body pressed against hers as she comes. The feeling of her tightening around Cara's fingers, the sounds she makes, it is familiar and new all at once.
When Dahlia sinks back to the bed, Cara leans on an elbow and looks down on her as she recovers her breath. Dahlia's cheeks are flushed and the braid a mess. It's making Cara feel rather pleased with herself.
"Stop smiling," Dahlia says, face mock-stern. "It wasn't that good."
Cara raises an eyebrow at her, lips pursing. "It was obvious how you felt about it."
At that Dahlia launches at her, pinning Cara down on her back with a ravenous smile, and Cara finds she doesn't mind at all.
When she is spent, Cara lets herself relax beside Dahlia. It is right that battle should be followed by pleasure and rest. It has been much too long since she allowed herself the pleasure of another person against her. Though during her first few months traveling with the Seeker she would on occasion find a willing body at the taverns they passed, since Leo there has been none.
Cara frowns, shaking that last thought away. She is Mord'Sith, and with her Sisters and Dahlia close by there is never any reason for frustration. She has not met anyone called Leo, at least no one whose name she bothered to ask for, and the Seeker is nothing but a myth. What's real is this: Lord Rahl, her Sisters and Dahlia.
Cara sighs as her shoulder blade brushes against Dahlia's back, and closes her eyes.
*
Cara wakes up in shackles. She's hanging from the ceiling and everything hurts. If there has ever been anything other than this, it's lost to her now. The world has shrunk down to the feeling of metal around her wrists, the strain in her muscles, and the intermittent, all-consuming agony of the Agiel.
Darken Rahl is before her and he's smiling. "Nice of you to join me again, Cara," he says. "Did you have a pleasant nap?"
He presses the black Agiel to her side again, and again, and again, until not even the chains or her aching muscles matter, and there is nothing but complete clarity.
*
"Cara?" Dahlia says, her look disoriented. They are in the woods, hidden behind thick bushes, waiting. "Something is wrong. How did we get here?"
There is an ache between Cara's ribs suddenly, and she gasps, pressing a hand below her heart. When Dahlia grasps her hand to look, the leather glove is covered in blood. "Who did this to you?" Dahlia says, eyes wide with worry.
Cara rises. "It's nothing," she says.
"Don't," Dahlia says, as Cara begins to move. "Something is wrong," she repeats.
For a moment it feels like there is something important Cara has forgotten. But the feeling passes quickly, and she disentangles herself from Dahlia's grip to step out in front of Kahlan and Richard, unable to hold back a smile at what is to come.
It happens the way Cara imagined it would. She has sparred with Richard and fought beside him enough that she knows the way he does battle. She knows he will hesitate and she knows that is when she'll strike him down. The dark magic is like fire inside her, pushing her forward, and it is glorious. The compass falls, burned, from its tie around his neck and Richard screams.
In the corner of her eye, Cara sees Dahlia fall to her knees in front of Kahlan and for a moment she is paralyzed, even as she realizes that Kahlan isn't confessing her.
Dahlia looks at Cara as she lays her Agiel on the ground, and then there is a sharp pain in Cara's head as she plunges into unconsciousness.
4.
Cara is tied to a tree. It is not the most dignified moment in her life.
Dahlia has her hands tied behind her back, and Kahlan is holding her arm not particularly gently, a dagger aimed at her throat. Dahlia looks petulant, but she isn't struggling. "It's magic," she says.
"You betrayed her," Kahlan says, pulling angrily at her arm. "I should confess you right now."
Dahlia bares her teeth. Cara can tell how much it pains her to be this close to the Mother Confessor and the Seeker and not act on her instincts. But Dahlia had put her Agiel down willingly. There is no sense in that.
"Something is wrong," Dahlia says, jaw clenching. "In the world I come from, Cara was never Mord'Sith. I... forgot for awhile, but this is wrong."
"Where is Zedd?" Richard wonders aloud as he stares at Cara. "He should be back by now."
Cara can still feel the magic bubbling inside her, so much more for being close to Richard and Kahlan. It's like liquid fire, burning her from the inside out, chanting 'Lord Rahl, Lord Rahl, Lord Rahl' in her blood, because he is the only way to make the magic tolerable.
"She was not broken the traditional way," Dahlia continues, "but by magic. I don't believe it can be undone." The word 'magic' is spoken with contempt and a hidden fear that only Cara hears. Mord'Sith do not like magic, and Cara thinks maybe she didn't before either. But it is different now that it is inside her. It makes her feel like laughing.
"Everything can be undone," Richard says. "The real Cara is still in there."
"But she isn't who you think she is," Dahlia says. "Cara, don't you remember? You lived in Stowcroft, you worked as a school teacher. I think you had children."
As if she could ever forget. "That wasn't my life," she says with contempt. Dahlia ought to know that much, after all this time.
(She'd been wearing pink.)
"What do you mean?" Kahlan says, inching the dagger closer to Dahlia's neck. "Tell me everything you know."
Dahlia ignores Kahlan. "Remember this, Cara. I was sent to kill you. I very nearly did."
"I have always been Mord'Sith," Cara snaps. "That world was no more real than this one." She looks at Dahlia as the memory surfaces. There is a part of her struggling against it, even as the memories separate in her mind. One world where they grew up together, where Dahlia's trembling hand found her own in the dark; another where she loved a man and bore children and never dreamed of leaving the small village where she was born.
And a third, where she was alone.
Cara's eyes find Dahlia's. "You are the one who was never taken," Cara says, and she focuses on the memories she knows are true. Growing up alone, the way all Mord'Sith do. There is only this: Lord Rahl and her Sisters. It is as it should be.
And then she's back at another tree entirely.
She's in pink again. The magic from before is gone, and Cara feels the loss of it in every part of herself. She looks at Kahlan, whose eyes are sad, but cold. "I'm sorry," Kahlan says, but when she turns her head, her her expression becomes confused. "Zedd?"
There is no Zedd.
But there are others. And there is a whistling in the air of arrows, and the pain that follows feels like a relief.
She sees Dahlia's eyes widen, her jaw going slack in shock, and then Cara sighs and welcomes the darkness that leads the path to the Underworld.
*
Yet again death eludes her.
It has held a magnetic allure to her for a long time, long before she left her Sisters, but in the end, being alive is probably a good thing. Cara breathes in and she knows she's back where she belongs.
Kahlan's face above her is stunned, even as she runs her hands over Cara's unharmed rib cage. "I could have sworn..." she says.
Cara sits up, but she doesn't bat Kahlan's hands away. She doesn't like it when people fawn over her, but she'll allow it sometimes, if it's Kahlan.
"Shota?" Richard says. Cara follows his gaze to see Shota and Zedd standing on the edge of the camp, looking very much like they've returned from a month spent trawling around a swamp. "What?"
"Magic," Zedd says. "Very powerful magic. But I think it's over now."
"No thanks to you," Shota remarks.
"Nor you, I might add," Zedd shoots back.
There is a sound as the girl, the thief, Dahlia gets to her feet. She looks around at them, eyes wild, gasping for breath.
It is confusing to suddenly have the memories of three very different lives. Cara doesn't know what to think as she looks at Dahlia and the immensity of the possibilities almost takes her breath away. But Cara is Mord'Sith, and she knows how to separate her mind, how to tuck little pockets of the world away inside of her to deal with at another time.
This Dahlia is not the one she once knew, in another life. This Dahlia is not the Mord'Sith sent to kill her. Cara looks at Dahlia, and recognizes the panic in her eyes. This Dahlia is not Mord'Sith, nor has she spent her life around wizards and magic and Seekers and Confessors.
With a final wild stare, Dahlia turns and runs.
5.
Cara feels out of place in Aydindril. She stays for Richard and Kahlan's wedding, but her bones ache with the need to wander, even as something else that is duty and more than that compels her to stay.
But Darken Rahl is alive and in power, and Cara knows him too well to trust that he will let things be. While Richard may be content to wait, Cara believes that the best defense is to attack before the opponent has a chance to. Waiting has never been something she is good at.
It's possible she takes her short temper out on the others on occasion.
She has not spoken with them about what happened in the other worlds. There is no point in allowing things that never actually happened to occupy her mind, though it is hard to shake the small niggle that all she had to do to escape it was to die. Had she known, she would have managed that before Zedd and Shota could bat an eye, saving herself from knowledge she would rather have been without.
To make matters worse, she suspects Zedd has told Richard and Kahlan everything he knows, because they sometimes give her glances that seem far too knowing. It makes her eye twitch.
One day, Zedd interrupts her while she's sparring with the palace guards, asking her to accompany him for a meal in the city.
Cara would rather continue with the task at hand - as long as the guards show this level of incompetence she is never going to be able to trust them to protect Kahlan and Richard properly. She has accepted it as her personal duty to do something about it.
Nevertheless, Zedd is insistent.
"Are you going like that?" he says once she has reluctantly agreed.
"What?" Cara says, looking down at herself. She's in her usual leather, and maybe she's a little dusty and sweaty, but Zedd has certainly seen her looking worse.
"Don't you want to wash off first?" Zedd says, and Cara narrows her eyes.
"No," she says. "I don't."
Zedd's sigh is a little exasperated. "Fine. I suppose it'll do."
"Do for what?"
Zedd just smiles secretively. It's the most ominous thing Cara has seen in awhile.
*
Cara expects them to eat at Ambrosio's, but instead Zedd has them walk across half the city until they reach an entirely unimpressive tavern.
"What is so special about this place that we had to walk all this way for it?" Cara says as they make toward a table in the back. She's thoroughly tired of Zedd's whims and strange behavior this day.
"I hear there's good company to find here," Zedd says and smiles in a way that that makes him look very pleased with himself.
Cara gives him a suspicious look. She's so busy doing so that she nearly walks into a woman who's standing at the table that Zedd steers her towards. She turns her head to nod an apology, because it's the kind of thing that makes the others happy when she does, but instead is left frozen when she sees the woman's face.
"Dahlia!" Zedd says and moves to place a hand on her shoulder. "What a coincidence!"
Cara tears her eyes away from Dahlia to glare at him. "Wizard," she says sharply, her hand brushing by one of her Agiels.
If he picks up on her tone, he doesn't show it. "Sometimes fate needs a push in the right direction, that's all," he says.
Cara actually thinks Zedd does a little too much pushing of fates in various directions.
Dahlia takes a step back, and Cara's eyes are drawn to her again. Dahlia fidgets and shifts her weight from side to side. Cara crosses her arms.
Neither speak. The silence stretches out, painfully.
Dahlia has her hair loose, and it falls just past her shoulders. It highlights the fact that this isn't the person Cara remembers, always with her long hair slicked back in a tight braid. But she also looks nothing like the disheveled thief from before. Her clothes, leather and linen, are neat and clean - almost a little too much so, as though she has dressed up for a special occasion.
"Nice leather," Cara says, because it's obvious that Dahlia has made an effort and Kahlan has taught her that it's polite to acknowledge that.
"I- I seem to have acquired a taste for it since, well." Dahlia blushes as she stutters her response. It is not how her Dahlia would ever speak.
They fall into silence again. At some point Zedd has left, Cara realizes, and she wants nothing more than to slink away herself, but she can't seem to get herself to move. "Why did you try to steal my horse?" she says instead, cringing at how childish and petulant her voice sounds.
"I was in a hurry," Dahlia says vaguely.
"Richard was... upset, when he realized you had his coin purse in your possession when you departed."
That makes Dahlia grin. Cara doesn't like thieves, but Richard's consternation when he had realized what had happened had been amusing, if only because it meant she had been right about keeping Dahlia tied up. It's a good thing the only things Cara values of her own possessions are her Agiels, otherwise she'd never dare to let Dahlia out of her sight.
Not that she's planning on seeing her again. That would be ridiculous.
The woman is a thief, and none of the things Cara remembers actually happened. There was no one there to ease the pain during her first years with the Mord'Sith, and she is all the stronger for it. Strangely, when she tries to picture it lately, the memory of clutching Dahlia's hand in the dark always seems to intrude.
"You favor the blade," Cara says and nods towards the knives part-hidden under Dahlia's coat.
"I'm not a warrior, not... here," Dahlia says, and then she raises her chin. "But it's a dangerous world."
Cara quirks an eyebrow at her. "Especially if you're in the business of liberating people from their treasures."
Dahlia tilts her head and shoots a crooked grin Cara's way. "I prefer to think I'm liberating the treasures from their people."
"I'm not sure the people in question would agree," Cara says.
That makes Dahlia laugh. "What is this sudden morality?" she says. "As Mord'Sith we took whatever we needed without a moment's hesitation, have you forgotten that?"
Dahlia's face glows as she laughs, and it is a brand new sight. The Dahlia Cara remembers would smile at her, often, but never did Cara hear her laugh like this. Cara can't stop staring, even as Dahlia sobers quickly, her face becoming troubled, probably with the realization of what she just said.
They fall into an awkward silence once more.
"Do you want to sit down?" Dahlia asks finally. "If we are not going to talk we might as well eat."
"No," Cara says.
Dahlia's face falls. "Oh."
"This is a terrible tavern," Cara says. "I know of better ones."
Cara is hungry after hours of sparring with the guards; she tells herself that is the only reason why her stomach flutters as Dahlia breaks out in a smile.
Author: hibernate
Pairing/character: Cara/Dahlia
Rating: Adult-ish / R
Wordcount: ~8300 words
Beta: Infinite gratitude to the awesome
shopfront and brilliant swatkat24 for truly invaluable beta work. ♥
Summary: Cara and Dahlia meet post-Tears. It's not exactly love at first sight.
Also archived on AO3.
1.
After they defeat the Keeper and save the world, Kahlan and Richard insist on being entirely insufferable. Enough so that Cara is almost grateful when a miserable little thief attempts to steal one of their horses, and she has to go deal with it. Cara drags the girl into camp by her disheveled coat after an appropriate amount of Agieling, and drops her down in front of the others.
"I caught a rat nibbling on our things," she says, and perhaps her smile is a little bloodthirsty, but after two weeks of Kahlan and Richard giggling like children and going for 'walks', it feels very good to hurt someone.
Cara pokes the girl with her shoe. "She tried to steal my horse. Can I kill her?"
"No!" says Richard quickly. "No killing."
"Some people have been struggling after the war," Kahlan says. "I'm sure she needed money for food and that's why she tried to steal. Isn't that right?"
The thief lifts her head, brushing rumpled, brown hair out of her eyes, and smiles in a way that is no doubt meant to look innocent and sweet. Cara is dismayed when Kahlan and Richard smile back, because she is in no way fooled: there is something very calculating behind the girls smile.
Cara is contemplating using her Agiel again when she notices Zedd's open-mouthed stare. "Dahlia?" he asks, incredulous.
The thief's smile disappears.
"You know her?" Kahlan asks, her eyes wide.
"How do you know my name?" the girl asks at the same time.
"It's..." Zedd shrinks back. "It's complicated."
Kahlan shoots him a sharp glare, no doubt aware he's keeping something from them. It doesn't always take a Confessor to tell, and Cara's suspicions grow when Zedd glances at her. "Cara," Zedd says instead of explaining further. "You know this woman. She's from Stowcroft. Her name is Dahlia."
The girl turns her face to Cara, eyes narrowing as if she's trying to remember. Something deep within Cara stirs and she tenses, aiming one of her Agiels toward the girl again. She does not think about her life before the Mord'Sith.
"I don't have many memories of my childhood," she says, and it's true. What is the point in dwelling on what was lost, especially when she has gained so much? "She means nothing to me."
Kahlan stands up, and Cara jerks when her hand is suddenly on Cara's arm. "Put the Agiel away. She's harmless."
"There is some food left," Richard offers.
Cara sighs, very patiently. It's something she has had to learn since traveling with the Seeker. "Whoever this woman is, she did try to steal my horse," she points out. "Give her food if you must, but I am not leaving her wandering free to try again. I'm getting some rope. Do not let her out of your sight."
*
Cara feels much better with the thief tied up.
After Richard and Kahlan fall asleep, Zedd steps closer. "You grew up together in Stowcroft," he says. "Don't you remember?"
"No," Cara says curtly.
"But don't you think it's strange that you should meet again?" Zedd tries again, a strangely hopeful tone to his voice. "Like this? It's beyond coincidence. It's almost like... fate."
Cara stares at Zedd. "Are you ill, Wizard? You are acting strangely."
Zedd turns to the girl instead. "Dahlia? You remember, don't you?"
There's a pause before the girl replies. "They say getting taken by the Mord'Sith is the same as death," she says. "I knew a Cara once." The glare she shoots Cara holds nothing but resentment. "She died."
"She's right," Cara says, as much as it pains her to agree with the thief. "I am Mord'Sith."
Zedd's sigh is exasperated, and somehow Cara thinks she has not heard the last about this.
*
Cara stays awake all night. Her knots are solid, but she is not taking any chances. The thief stays awake too, alternating her hard stares between Cara and the dying fire.
It is only in the morning, after the others have woken, that Cara briefly leaves to wash herself in a nearby stream, but when she gets back she finds someone has untied the thief's ropes and she is standing up in the middle of the camp, rubbing her reddened wrists. Cara seethes, hands on her hips, and glares at Richard.
Sometimes the Lord Rahl makes it very difficult to serve him.
There is no time for any arguments, though, because the air crackles before Cara can speak, and then the girl is shrinking to her knees, gasping.
"What's happening to her?" Richard cries, spinning around, sword half-unsheathed. But there is no enemy to fight.
"Her eyes," Zedd says, his eyes wide with disbelief. "It's Confession!"
Cara watches as the girl's eyes turn black and she grasps for her neck, but there is nothing there. Kahlan is standing on the other side of the camp, mouth open in shock, her blue eyes showing no sign of her powers. "I'm not doing anything!" she cries.
The girl crumples to the ground, twisting in torment.
"No," Zedd says softly. "Not this time. In another world you did."
"What?" Kahlan says, her eyes shifting between Zedd and the girl.
Cara watches the girl in confusion. "She is not Mord'Sith. Why is she in pain?"
The girl weeps and cries out for her Mistress. Kahlan is by her side in an instant, grasping her hand and mumbling comforting words.
"How can this be?" Richard asks, falling to his knees at the girl's side.
Before Zedd can answer, the girl exhales one last time, her features softening in death. "Quickly, give her the Breath of Life," Zedd says.
Cara moves to do so, but stops when her hands touch the girl's wet face. "It's too late. She is cold. How can she be cold?"
Zedd slumps forward a little, hesitating before answering. "I fear this is the result of magic... and it may be my fault."
Cara rises, shoulders rising up with tension. "What did you do?"
Zedd fidgets and hums, as if trying to find the right words. Cara narrows her eyes, because she is rather sure she's not going to like whatever it is he's been keeping from them.
Then, suddenly, a sound she is intimately familiar with reaches her ears. The sound of a taut string released, the whistling of arrows, and then something crashes into her like a wave, making her double over before pain blossoms from her midsection.
She doesn't even realize she's on the ground until Kahlan's frantic face is hovering over her. Her hands feel numb, but she tries to move them anyway, to grip the two arrows embedded beneath her breasts. Then she dives headfirst into darkness.
2.
When Cara comes to, she has her hands wrist-deep in soapy water. Lifting them up, it is apparent that she's clutching a dirty plate.
She's cleaning dishes. Even worse, she's in a dress.
A pink dress.
It is hardly the first time Cara has been in the Underworld. Usually she does not stay for long as her Sisters are quick with the Breath of Life. Even so, she has certainly tasted her fair share of the Keeper's treatment. Even now, with the Rift sealed and the Underworld in balance, she never expected anything other than suffering after her death.
Though clearly the Keeper has become more creative in his punishments.
Cara sets the plate down and wipes her hands on her dress. Outside the sun is shining and it all seems very ominous in its innocence. It also seems eerily familiar, and with a start she realizes she's in Stowcroft, not far from the house she grew up in. When she turns around, she nearly runs into the apparition of two people she used to know. Though why the Keeper would have her see Zedd and Shota, she does not know. There are other people she would have expected, not them.
"Do you think this is my first visit to your realm, Keeper?" she says. "None of the faces you can conjure up will matter to me."
Zedd smiles, although it is a little tight. "This is not the Underworld, Cara. You're not dead."
"Not yet anyway," Shota says. "To be honest it doesn't look all that good."
Cara narrows her eyes. "What is this trickery?"
"He did a spell," Shota says, and gives Zedd a very pointed look. "A very dangerous spell that alters the very fabric of reality, and should never be attempted at any time. By anyone."
"It was a desperate situation!" Zedd protests. "Darken Rahl had the Stone of Tears and Cara was in the grip of dark magic."
Shota puts her hands on her hips. "I told you after we first tried the spell together that this magic was too dangerous. Even with the two of us, it was simple luck that spared us any consequences. And now you use it on your own, twice."
"The fate of the world was at stake. The only other solution was to let Kahlan confess Cara!"
"Then that's what you should have done."
"I-"
"Stop squabbling!" Cara says, fists clenching as she longs for the pain of her Agiels. "Tell me what's going on."
Zedd looks at her, grave. "The changed worlds I created with my spell are not stable. I thought my powers were enough, but the realities are falling in on each other. That is how Dahlia was confessed and you were shot. It did happen, just not in the world you remember."
"You would have died," Shota says, "had I not performed the spell that brought us here." At Cara's suspicious glare, she continues, "Don't misunderstand, your life means nothing to me. But who is to say what would happen if you die? This world is spun around you, after all."
"What do I have to do to get back to the real world?"
Zedd and Shota exchange a long look. "What's real is in the eye of the beholder, " Zedd says. "But if you mean getting back to the world where we defeated the Keeper, it will be no easy feat."
"You do not have magic," Shota says. "There is nothing you can do but try to stay alive until we've put things back where they belong. If," - she rolls her eyes - "that's not too difficult for you."
Cara grits teeth. She is never letting anyone pull her into any different worlds without her Agiels again, whether it's to save her life or not.
*
It is rather horrifying to learn that this is what she would have become had she not been Mord'Sith. It is not something Cara has ever considered before, and the idea that this could have been her life: a house, children and the shackles of domesticity, it makes her feel... tainted.
"What about the second spell?" she asks Zedd. "Shota said you performed the spell twice."
Zedd looks a little sheepish. "Dahlia."
"The thief?"
Zedd nods. "Before I changed it... she was taken by the Mord'Sith, like you. It was through her deceit you were captured and broken."
Cara huffs. "I'm not fooled so easily."
Zedd searches out her eyes and gives her a serious look, as if this is something that should matter to her. "I was lead to believe that she was someone important to you. Someone you trusted."
Cara can not imagine trusting a thief with anything, let alone her life. She rolls her eyes. "That's absurd."
The look Zedd gives her back is thoughtful. Before he can bother her more on the matter, Cara decides to change the subject. "Is this going to take long?" she says. "Because if it is, the least you can do is get me out of this dress."
"I think it looks very fetching on you," Zedd says with a smile. "And I really don't think this is the time for any more-"
"Now," Cara growls.
"One leather suit coming up," Zedd says quickly. A tingle runs down Cara's back as she feels the magic surround her, but then the landscape around her suddenly shifts.
When everything has settled, she's still in the pink dress. Only this time tied to a tree, which is not really much of an improvement. Kahlan is by her side, but she's looking at her with eyes that show no recognition.
"Zedd?" Kahlan calls, but the Wizard is nowhere to be seen. However, they are not alone. The guards behind her suddenly fall to the ground, pierced by arrows, as three Mord'Sith swagger towards them. There is a sharp ache building where the arrows had hit her before.
One of the Mord'Sith takes out Kahlan with a swift strike to her temple.
"Cara Mason," another Mord'Sith says, and Cara is stunned when she recognizes her thief. Her hair is tied back in a tight braid, the red leather neat and hugging every curve. This Dahlia is every inch a Mord'Sith and Cara finds it hard to look away.
"Do you remember me?" Dahlia says. "Do you remember how we played as children? Is it not appropriate that I should be the one to free you from the burden of your meaningless existence?"
The edges of Cara's lips point up in a smile. It is not what Dahlia expects, and Cara can see how it throws her. "Do you think I'm afraid of you?" she says. "Do you think your leather and your Agiel to scare me?"
Dahlia slowly breaks out in a hard smile, something like approval on her face as she unsheathes her Agiel. "I am going to enjoy this."
Cara turns her wrist in a final twist, and then she's got one hand free. She expected more from Kahlan, but all things considered she is rather grateful for this Kahlan's lack of knot-tying skills.
Cara backhands Dahlia before the woman can react. Dahlia falls to the ground, and within a moment Cara has reached for one of Kahlan's daggers and cut through the rest of her ropes, before sending the dagger flying into one of the Mord'Sith. She stalks over to the other one and takes her out with a well-placed punch that makes blood gush from her mouth, and a final kick to the head once she's down.
Dahlia is on her feet again, snarling and wiping a trail of blood from her nose. Cara attacks and Dahlia blocks her punch easily, but Cara catches her wrist as she counters, twisting the joint and stomping down on the side of Dahlia's knee until the grip on her Agiel loosens and Cara can grab it from her. Something makes Cara aim for her head and not her heart, the power of the Agiel forcing Dahlia into unconsciousness rather than death.
Agiel still in hand, Cara casts a quick look at Kahlan's unconscious body as she hikes up the pink dress over her knees and runs.
Then she stops, cursing aloud, before turning back. This Kahlan does not know her, and all Cara wants is to leave this horrid place where she wears pink dresses and nothing is as it should be. But it's still Kahlan.
Cara sprints back, but then, before she's reached Kahlan, she finds herself back at the house. She's still clutching Dahlia's Agiel, and almost falls over when the world abruptly changes around her.
There are two children playing on the porch and it takes her a moment to remember that they're hers. Or perhaps more accurately, they belong to the other Cara, the one who was never taken by the Mord'Sith and lived her entire life in Stowcroft.
She doesn't want this. She's never wanted this. Not even as a child did she play with dolls. She's given birth to a son and not even then did she want to be a mother. That the other Cara would choose this life feels like a betrayal.
The children don't even look much like her.
Maybe they take after their father, whoever that might have been. A man from Stowcroft, no doubt, someone unimportant, who mattered to no one. His name had been James and he used to look at her as though she was someone important.
"Cara?"
She flips around, Agiel ready, but it's only Shota. "Where's Zedd?" Cara asks gruffly. The witch woman's presence is apparently necessary, but she is not on the list of people Cara trusts.
That list is not particularly long, but even so.
"I don't know," Shota sighs. "The spell I performed is not strong enough. We can't seem to stay in one place. I just payed an unexpected visit to one of your Mord'Sith temples." Shota smiles sardonically. "They weren't very happy to see me."
"It's happening to me, too" Cara says.
"Listen to me, Cara," Shota says. "The world we want to preserve is the one you come from. Where the Keeper was defeated and the Rift sealed. Don't let yourself be seduced by anything in this or any other world, no matter how alluring."
Cara rolls her eyes at the lecturing tone in Shota's voice. "The idea of becoming a mother and a wife is hardly tempting to me."
"I'm sure," Shota says, a small smile on her lips. "Still, don't try to remember anything from this life. The memories will hold power over you. Focus on the world where you belong."
Cara doesn't reply to that, but something still makes Shota's face soften slightly. "You are remembering things, aren't you?"
"Nothing that matters." Cara glances over at the children again. Sam has his father's eyes and she remembers holding a newborn, which cannot be right because she never held her son after he was born.
"Be careful," Shota warns. "You must-" She breaks off and cries out as a blade launches itself into her upper arm.
Cara quickly looks over in the direction the knife came from as Shota, with a last glance at Cara, uses her magic to transport herself away. Dahlia is stalking towards her, a cruel smile on her lips. "I believe you have something of mine," she says, and Cara clutches the Agiel, hard.
"Go inside, children," Cara calls, smile matching Dahlia's.
This is going to be just what she needs.
*
There is considerable power behind Dahlia's strikes. Cara has always enjoyed the dance of exchanging blows, especially with an opponent who can hold their own. Although Dahlia cannot entirely match Cara's force and lacks her stability and swift ferocity, something which Cara gleefully uses to her advantage, Dahlia's range is wider and she is much faster than Cara expects. More than that; where Cara relies on instinct, allowing her body to take over, Dahlia's approach is calculating, honing in on vulnerable spots in a way that Cara has never needed to bother with.
Dahlia finds the ache under Cara's heart where the arrows pierced her before Cara is even aware of the pain herself. She crashes down over the vegetables she replanted earlier that day, and something within her is suddenly very, very angry.
Dahlia's fist is red and Cara realizes that she's bleeding. Dying from invisible, magic arrows is not the way she wants to lose a fight.
Dahlia is a competent Mord'Sith, but Cara has her Agiel and it's more of an edge than she needs. Only, as she has Dahlia crumbling to the ground, lip splitting open, it is no longer the soft grass outside her house in Stowcroft. They're in a forest and Dahlia lands hard on a stony slope.
"This is magic," Dahlia whispers and rises slowly, creating distance between herself and Cara.
It is an excellent time to finish her off, but the small hairs on the back of Cara's neck are suddenly standing up. "We are not alone," she says, bending her knees in preparation.
Moments later, the attack starts.
"What are they?" Dahlia says as she fights using only her own limbs, but to great effect.
"Banelings," Cara says. The pink dress keeps tangling around her legs; she swings Dahlia's Agiel with more force than strictly necessary.
"Banelings?" Dahlia shouts, as she snaps the neck of one of them. "That's a story made up to scare children."
Cara doesn't bother to point out the obvious.
It is odd to suddenly stand back to back with the person she just tried to kill, but it is necessary. There is no sense to fight a war on two fronts. Dahlia has obviously come to the same conclusion. Mord'Sith are skilled at dividing their minds and focusing only on the task at hand.
Cara has missed fighting with another Mord'Sith. It is easy falling into familiar patterns of movement, adapting to someone who's been trained to move in the same manner. It doesn't take them long to send the seven banelings back to the Keeper.
Cara turns to Dahlia. "We need to burn them."
It is only a momentary lapse of attention, but it is enough. Dahlia smacks her elbow across Cara's face and twists the Agiel out of her hand before she can react.
"Mine," she sneers, backing off quickly. She lets go of some of the tension in her body when Cara makes no move to strike back. "You are Mord'Sith," Dahlia says.
"Yes," Cara says and Dahlia accepts it with no further questions.
*
The world remains the same for days.
It does not take long for Cara to recognize lands she has walked through with Richard, Kahlan and Zedd. Yet she can only assume this is still not the world she belongs to. There is an ever so slight feeling of difference that is impossible to shake. Sometimes it's as though she remembers walking this path twice over, everything subtly different.
She does not trust Dahlia, but after walking for two days and nights, practicality takes over and the third night they take turns sleeping.
They're both alive in the morning, which has to count for something.
They don't speak much and there is no sign of Zedd and Shota. On the fourth day they arrive at a mountain, stone walls rising before them, and Cara knows this place. Her fingers burn with the memory of clutching the Stone of Tears in her hand. It is a false memory, but the feeling of triumph that goes with it is seductive. She suddenly has an overwhelming urge to fall on her knee and recite the devotions, and not for Richard. A sudden burst of magic courses through her, and while she hardly believed Zedd before when he explained how she had been rebroken by Darken Rahl, it now seems entirely inevitable.
She grabs on to Dahlia's arm as the mountain and the forest disappear and something else takes their place. Dahlia gasps, and Cara very nearly does too, because she's... home.
It's the bathhouse of Jandrolin. Cara is in a fully armored leather suit, hair tied up in a long braid that rests comfortingly on her back, Agiel holstered at her thigh. She feels... younger.
Dahlia turns to her, staring as her mouth falls open. "Cara?" she says, and her voice sounds nearly disbelieving.
Cara quickly releases her arm, and Dahlia shakes her head, frowning. "This is not right," she says. "This isn't... I'm... I remember things that cannot have happened."
"They are false memories," Cara says.
Dahlia looks at Cara again, eyes still wide. A blush suddenly creeps over her pale features and she looks down, lips slightly pursed. "They are very intense."
"Do not indulge in them," Cara warns. "They will keep you from returning to your real home."
Dahlia wets her lips and looks up at Cara again. "I will not... indulge."
Cara is not entirely sure she likes the tone of Dahlia's voice.
3.
The temple bears much resemblance to the one she spent many years in. It is confusing the way the unbidden memories of this place are so very similar to the real ones. Cara tries not to linger on them.
It's easy to fall into the habit of life at the temple. This life is seductive in its familiarity. She says her devotions, and repeats to herself that it's not real, it's not real, Darken Rahl will fall and she will join Kahlan and Richard and Zedd. It echoes so true inside her that she knows that must be what happens in this reality too. But not for a long time yet. The Seeker has not even started to make his mark on the Midlands and Darken Rahl reigns supreme. It seems like there is not much to do but wait. She does not have magic; Zedd and Shota are the ones who must repair the worlds and she can only hope they are elsewhere doing just that.
Dahlia seems to be avoiding her, which suits Cara fine.
They've been in the temple for six days when they are sent out to dispatch a general who has earned the disfavor of Lord Rahl. She does not recall this general from her world, but she has been on countless similar missions. Lord Rahl trusts no one as he does his Mord'Sith.
They are four; Cara, Solvig, Garen and Dahlia. It turns bloody, and Cara revels in it. It is easy to forget in battle, in moving with her Sisters, it is easy to let everything else slip away. She is Mord'Sith and this is instinct and training and everything she is meant to be.
When they are back at the temple, her younger Sisters wash away the dried blood and clean her cuts. Cara stays in the warm water for a long time, letting the heat wash away her thoughts.
Finally, Cara and Dahlia are the only ones left. It is as it should be.
In the heat and the steam and with the embrace of water around her sore muscles, she loses the will to keep this world at arms-length. As she steps up from the water, Cara remembers how she and Dahlia used to dress each other, and without speaking they fall into the same routine. Dahlia's fingers, tying the laces of Cara's leathers, are familiar and sure.
Yet they haven't done this before. The memories of it are not real, and when Cara dresses Dahlia and braids her hair, her fingers still as she reaches the chest buckle of her armor.
Dahlia has the most peculiar look on her face.
"Don't let the memories of this world tie you down," Cara warns, trying to separate the false from the true. "This is not your life, nor mine."
"Don't you remember?" Dahlia says, tilting her head.
"Remember what?"
"Turn around and I will braid your hair," Dahlia says instead of answering.
Dahlia's fingers run through her long hair, and Cara closes her eyes.
"Don't you remember?" Dahlia says again, her voice low, and Cara can feel her breath on her ear. When her fingers touch Cara's neck, a shiver runs through her.
"We were taken from Stowcroft on the same day," Cara says.
"I remember growing up with you and without you." Dahlia's next words are very quiet, "I prefer it this way."
But Dahlia does not know what the future holds for this world. Cara thinks Dahlia would not wish for this world if she knew that her Lord would fall.
Cara herself does not know anything beyond what Zedd has told her either: Darken Rahl getting the Stone and herself being broken again by magic. And Kahlan confessing Dahlia, she realizes suddenly. It hasn't happened yet, but still the memory of it hits her with unexpected strength, making something inside her ache.
Dahlia has finished her braid and Cara turns around, her eyes meeting Dahlia's. She can't seem to look away, as more memories bloom like drops of blood in water.
The next moment, Dahlia's lips are on hers.
The world feels changed. They are still in the bathhouse, but everything is different. Dahlia's mouth is soft and pliant where the rest of her is hard. Cara remembers those lips on her skin and clutching her hand as a child in the dark and the way Dahlia's eyes would find Cara's when it became too much. It's hard to breathe suddenly, and Cara pulls her head back.
"Don't you remember?" Dahlia says for the third time. A hand slides down Cara's leather-clad back and it makes her shiver again.
This time she does remember, and the smile she gives Dahlia is one she reserves for her and her alone. "I could never walk into this bathhouse again without thinking about you."
Dahlia answers with her body, pressing herself tight against Cara; breasts to breasts, hips to hips. Her mouth is hot on Cara's, and though she's probably trying to hold back, Dahlia can't hide the way her body shakes slightly, even through their leathers.
Cara steps back, licking her lips. Glancing at Dahlia over her shoulder, she turns to leave. Dahlia follows without a word, and Cara can feel her gaze rest on her as they make their way to Cara's chambers.
Once there, Cara turns to face Dahlia and she thinks for a moment that maybe there is a reason why this shouldn't be. But it is fleeting. Mord'Sith do not deny themselves the needs of the body. And Cara would never deny herself Dahlia; her mouth or her hands or her eyes.
"Do you remember?" Dahlia says, and her tone is suddenly very teasing, a crooked smile aimed at Cara. And oh, Cara remembers and Dahlia knows it. There is no need to say anything else, but Dahlia has always liked to put things in words where Cara prefers to use her body.
"I wanted you for a long time," Dahlia says as Cara circles closer. "I watched you in the bath and imagined what it would be like to touch you."
Cara growls. There is no purpose in retelling stories from their youth, and so she moves in to silence Dahlia with a kiss. It's not as effective as she hopes; Dahlia breathes into Cara's mouth and Cara can feel her smiling. "It was never the same with anyone else."
Cara makes quick business of Dahlia's leather, untying the laces roughly and sliding them off until she's gloriously naked. Dahlia's smile as she lets herself be undressed is roguish. When Cara brushes her hands on the side of her breasts her eyelids flutter, but the smile only grows wider. "You spent months refusing to look me in the eyes. I thought you were angry with me. I couldn't bear it."
Grabbing her braid, Cara pulls her head back roughly. "I was there," she says. "I don't need you to tell me what happened."
In return, Dahlia slaps her across the face. The sting on her cheekbone feels like a caress; it'll probably leave a mark. Cara gleefully lets go of Dahlia's braid to strike her back in much the same way. They both grin, and then Cara is kissing Dahlia again, mouth on mouth, and leather pressing against Dahlia's pale skin.
Dahlia's hand skitters down Cara's side until it settles on her backside, tugging Cara closer. "Why aren't you naked?" she whispers.
"You have tied my laces too well," Cara says.
"Then I'll untie them myself."
The leather is the last thing separating them, and when it is gone, so is the last remnant of her control. She pushes Dahlia down on the bed hard, in an attempt to regain it. She means to keep her distance as she straddles Dahlia's thighs, but Dahlia pulls her down until there is nothing between them.
Cara keeps her smile predatory even as her heart races and her breathing becomes labored. Dahlia's breaths are heavy too, as Cara fits her body to hers, pressing a thigh between her legs. There is slickness there, and Dahlia gasps, hips jerking, as Cara presses against her. It's something Cara will never tire of, coaxing those small sounds from Dahlia, watching her lose her words and her thoughts and surrender to the moment.
For a moment she stills, breathing over Dahlia's mouth, because it suddenly seems foreign that she has done this before. It feels like the first time she's touching Dahlia, even though it can't possibly be, not when she remembers doing it uncountable times before.
Dahlia takes advantage of Cara's pause, hands searching out places that makes her blood run hot with impatience. Cara slides down Dahlia's body, sighing as she kisses her neck, her collarbones, her breasts, her wounds and her bruises, because it feels both like the first and the thousandth time.
When Cara employs her lips and tongue between Dahlia's thighs, Dahlia is already trembling and it does not take long before her hips start setting their own rhythm, urging Cara on.
Dahlia's hand twists on her braid. "Cara," she cries, and pulls hard.
Cara knows, and maybe another time she won't obey, but this time she'll allow Dahlia this weakness. She crawls slowly up Dahlia's body until she can kiss her, and then her hand takes over where her mouth left off. Dahlia squeezes her eyes closed and lets out small gasps and moans as she clutches Cara closer. Dahlia has always wanted this most of all, Cara's body pressed against hers as she comes. The feeling of her tightening around Cara's fingers, the sounds she makes, it is familiar and new all at once.
When Dahlia sinks back to the bed, Cara leans on an elbow and looks down on her as she recovers her breath. Dahlia's cheeks are flushed and the braid a mess. It's making Cara feel rather pleased with herself.
"Stop smiling," Dahlia says, face mock-stern. "It wasn't that good."
Cara raises an eyebrow at her, lips pursing. "It was obvious how you felt about it."
At that Dahlia launches at her, pinning Cara down on her back with a ravenous smile, and Cara finds she doesn't mind at all.
When she is spent, Cara lets herself relax beside Dahlia. It is right that battle should be followed by pleasure and rest. It has been much too long since she allowed herself the pleasure of another person against her. Though during her first few months traveling with the Seeker she would on occasion find a willing body at the taverns they passed, since Leo there has been none.
Cara frowns, shaking that last thought away. She is Mord'Sith, and with her Sisters and Dahlia close by there is never any reason for frustration. She has not met anyone called Leo, at least no one whose name she bothered to ask for, and the Seeker is nothing but a myth. What's real is this: Lord Rahl, her Sisters and Dahlia.
Cara sighs as her shoulder blade brushes against Dahlia's back, and closes her eyes.
*
Cara wakes up in shackles. She's hanging from the ceiling and everything hurts. If there has ever been anything other than this, it's lost to her now. The world has shrunk down to the feeling of metal around her wrists, the strain in her muscles, and the intermittent, all-consuming agony of the Agiel.
Darken Rahl is before her and he's smiling. "Nice of you to join me again, Cara," he says. "Did you have a pleasant nap?"
He presses the black Agiel to her side again, and again, and again, until not even the chains or her aching muscles matter, and there is nothing but complete clarity.
*
"Cara?" Dahlia says, her look disoriented. They are in the woods, hidden behind thick bushes, waiting. "Something is wrong. How did we get here?"
There is an ache between Cara's ribs suddenly, and she gasps, pressing a hand below her heart. When Dahlia grasps her hand to look, the leather glove is covered in blood. "Who did this to you?" Dahlia says, eyes wide with worry.
Cara rises. "It's nothing," she says.
"Don't," Dahlia says, as Cara begins to move. "Something is wrong," she repeats.
For a moment it feels like there is something important Cara has forgotten. But the feeling passes quickly, and she disentangles herself from Dahlia's grip to step out in front of Kahlan and Richard, unable to hold back a smile at what is to come.
It happens the way Cara imagined it would. She has sparred with Richard and fought beside him enough that she knows the way he does battle. She knows he will hesitate and she knows that is when she'll strike him down. The dark magic is like fire inside her, pushing her forward, and it is glorious. The compass falls, burned, from its tie around his neck and Richard screams.
In the corner of her eye, Cara sees Dahlia fall to her knees in front of Kahlan and for a moment she is paralyzed, even as she realizes that Kahlan isn't confessing her.
Dahlia looks at Cara as she lays her Agiel on the ground, and then there is a sharp pain in Cara's head as she plunges into unconsciousness.
4.
Cara is tied to a tree. It is not the most dignified moment in her life.
Dahlia has her hands tied behind her back, and Kahlan is holding her arm not particularly gently, a dagger aimed at her throat. Dahlia looks petulant, but she isn't struggling. "It's magic," she says.
"You betrayed her," Kahlan says, pulling angrily at her arm. "I should confess you right now."
Dahlia bares her teeth. Cara can tell how much it pains her to be this close to the Mother Confessor and the Seeker and not act on her instincts. But Dahlia had put her Agiel down willingly. There is no sense in that.
"Something is wrong," Dahlia says, jaw clenching. "In the world I come from, Cara was never Mord'Sith. I... forgot for awhile, but this is wrong."
"Where is Zedd?" Richard wonders aloud as he stares at Cara. "He should be back by now."
Cara can still feel the magic bubbling inside her, so much more for being close to Richard and Kahlan. It's like liquid fire, burning her from the inside out, chanting 'Lord Rahl, Lord Rahl, Lord Rahl' in her blood, because he is the only way to make the magic tolerable.
"She was not broken the traditional way," Dahlia continues, "but by magic. I don't believe it can be undone." The word 'magic' is spoken with contempt and a hidden fear that only Cara hears. Mord'Sith do not like magic, and Cara thinks maybe she didn't before either. But it is different now that it is inside her. It makes her feel like laughing.
"Everything can be undone," Richard says. "The real Cara is still in there."
"But she isn't who you think she is," Dahlia says. "Cara, don't you remember? You lived in Stowcroft, you worked as a school teacher. I think you had children."
As if she could ever forget. "That wasn't my life," she says with contempt. Dahlia ought to know that much, after all this time.
(She'd been wearing pink.)
"What do you mean?" Kahlan says, inching the dagger closer to Dahlia's neck. "Tell me everything you know."
Dahlia ignores Kahlan. "Remember this, Cara. I was sent to kill you. I very nearly did."
"I have always been Mord'Sith," Cara snaps. "That world was no more real than this one." She looks at Dahlia as the memory surfaces. There is a part of her struggling against it, even as the memories separate in her mind. One world where they grew up together, where Dahlia's trembling hand found her own in the dark; another where she loved a man and bore children and never dreamed of leaving the small village where she was born.
And a third, where she was alone.
Cara's eyes find Dahlia's. "You are the one who was never taken," Cara says, and she focuses on the memories she knows are true. Growing up alone, the way all Mord'Sith do. There is only this: Lord Rahl and her Sisters. It is as it should be.
And then she's back at another tree entirely.
She's in pink again. The magic from before is gone, and Cara feels the loss of it in every part of herself. She looks at Kahlan, whose eyes are sad, but cold. "I'm sorry," Kahlan says, but when she turns her head, her her expression becomes confused. "Zedd?"
There is no Zedd.
But there are others. And there is a whistling in the air of arrows, and the pain that follows feels like a relief.
She sees Dahlia's eyes widen, her jaw going slack in shock, and then Cara sighs and welcomes the darkness that leads the path to the Underworld.
*
Yet again death eludes her.
It has held a magnetic allure to her for a long time, long before she left her Sisters, but in the end, being alive is probably a good thing. Cara breathes in and she knows she's back where she belongs.
Kahlan's face above her is stunned, even as she runs her hands over Cara's unharmed rib cage. "I could have sworn..." she says.
Cara sits up, but she doesn't bat Kahlan's hands away. She doesn't like it when people fawn over her, but she'll allow it sometimes, if it's Kahlan.
"Shota?" Richard says. Cara follows his gaze to see Shota and Zedd standing on the edge of the camp, looking very much like they've returned from a month spent trawling around a swamp. "What?"
"Magic," Zedd says. "Very powerful magic. But I think it's over now."
"No thanks to you," Shota remarks.
"Nor you, I might add," Zedd shoots back.
There is a sound as the girl, the thief, Dahlia gets to her feet. She looks around at them, eyes wild, gasping for breath.
It is confusing to suddenly have the memories of three very different lives. Cara doesn't know what to think as she looks at Dahlia and the immensity of the possibilities almost takes her breath away. But Cara is Mord'Sith, and she knows how to separate her mind, how to tuck little pockets of the world away inside of her to deal with at another time.
This Dahlia is not the one she once knew, in another life. This Dahlia is not the Mord'Sith sent to kill her. Cara looks at Dahlia, and recognizes the panic in her eyes. This Dahlia is not Mord'Sith, nor has she spent her life around wizards and magic and Seekers and Confessors.
With a final wild stare, Dahlia turns and runs.
5.
Cara feels out of place in Aydindril. She stays for Richard and Kahlan's wedding, but her bones ache with the need to wander, even as something else that is duty and more than that compels her to stay.
But Darken Rahl is alive and in power, and Cara knows him too well to trust that he will let things be. While Richard may be content to wait, Cara believes that the best defense is to attack before the opponent has a chance to. Waiting has never been something she is good at.
It's possible she takes her short temper out on the others on occasion.
She has not spoken with them about what happened in the other worlds. There is no point in allowing things that never actually happened to occupy her mind, though it is hard to shake the small niggle that all she had to do to escape it was to die. Had she known, she would have managed that before Zedd and Shota could bat an eye, saving herself from knowledge she would rather have been without.
To make matters worse, she suspects Zedd has told Richard and Kahlan everything he knows, because they sometimes give her glances that seem far too knowing. It makes her eye twitch.
One day, Zedd interrupts her while she's sparring with the palace guards, asking her to accompany him for a meal in the city.
Cara would rather continue with the task at hand - as long as the guards show this level of incompetence she is never going to be able to trust them to protect Kahlan and Richard properly. She has accepted it as her personal duty to do something about it.
Nevertheless, Zedd is insistent.
"Are you going like that?" he says once she has reluctantly agreed.
"What?" Cara says, looking down at herself. She's in her usual leather, and maybe she's a little dusty and sweaty, but Zedd has certainly seen her looking worse.
"Don't you want to wash off first?" Zedd says, and Cara narrows her eyes.
"No," she says. "I don't."
Zedd's sigh is a little exasperated. "Fine. I suppose it'll do."
"Do for what?"
Zedd just smiles secretively. It's the most ominous thing Cara has seen in awhile.
*
Cara expects them to eat at Ambrosio's, but instead Zedd has them walk across half the city until they reach an entirely unimpressive tavern.
"What is so special about this place that we had to walk all this way for it?" Cara says as they make toward a table in the back. She's thoroughly tired of Zedd's whims and strange behavior this day.
"I hear there's good company to find here," Zedd says and smiles in a way that that makes him look very pleased with himself.
Cara gives him a suspicious look. She's so busy doing so that she nearly walks into a woman who's standing at the table that Zedd steers her towards. She turns her head to nod an apology, because it's the kind of thing that makes the others happy when she does, but instead is left frozen when she sees the woman's face.
"Dahlia!" Zedd says and moves to place a hand on her shoulder. "What a coincidence!"
Cara tears her eyes away from Dahlia to glare at him. "Wizard," she says sharply, her hand brushing by one of her Agiels.
If he picks up on her tone, he doesn't show it. "Sometimes fate needs a push in the right direction, that's all," he says.
Cara actually thinks Zedd does a little too much pushing of fates in various directions.
Dahlia takes a step back, and Cara's eyes are drawn to her again. Dahlia fidgets and shifts her weight from side to side. Cara crosses her arms.
Neither speak. The silence stretches out, painfully.
Dahlia has her hair loose, and it falls just past her shoulders. It highlights the fact that this isn't the person Cara remembers, always with her long hair slicked back in a tight braid. But she also looks nothing like the disheveled thief from before. Her clothes, leather and linen, are neat and clean - almost a little too much so, as though she has dressed up for a special occasion.
"Nice leather," Cara says, because it's obvious that Dahlia has made an effort and Kahlan has taught her that it's polite to acknowledge that.
"I- I seem to have acquired a taste for it since, well." Dahlia blushes as she stutters her response. It is not how her Dahlia would ever speak.
They fall into silence again. At some point Zedd has left, Cara realizes, and she wants nothing more than to slink away herself, but she can't seem to get herself to move. "Why did you try to steal my horse?" she says instead, cringing at how childish and petulant her voice sounds.
"I was in a hurry," Dahlia says vaguely.
"Richard was... upset, when he realized you had his coin purse in your possession when you departed."
That makes Dahlia grin. Cara doesn't like thieves, but Richard's consternation when he had realized what had happened had been amusing, if only because it meant she had been right about keeping Dahlia tied up. It's a good thing the only things Cara values of her own possessions are her Agiels, otherwise she'd never dare to let Dahlia out of her sight.
Not that she's planning on seeing her again. That would be ridiculous.
The woman is a thief, and none of the things Cara remembers actually happened. There was no one there to ease the pain during her first years with the Mord'Sith, and she is all the stronger for it. Strangely, when she tries to picture it lately, the memory of clutching Dahlia's hand in the dark always seems to intrude.
"You favor the blade," Cara says and nods towards the knives part-hidden under Dahlia's coat.
"I'm not a warrior, not... here," Dahlia says, and then she raises her chin. "But it's a dangerous world."
Cara quirks an eyebrow at her. "Especially if you're in the business of liberating people from their treasures."
Dahlia tilts her head and shoots a crooked grin Cara's way. "I prefer to think I'm liberating the treasures from their people."
"I'm not sure the people in question would agree," Cara says.
That makes Dahlia laugh. "What is this sudden morality?" she says. "As Mord'Sith we took whatever we needed without a moment's hesitation, have you forgotten that?"
Dahlia's face glows as she laughs, and it is a brand new sight. The Dahlia Cara remembers would smile at her, often, but never did Cara hear her laugh like this. Cara can't stop staring, even as Dahlia sobers quickly, her face becoming troubled, probably with the realization of what she just said.
They fall into an awkward silence once more.
"Do you want to sit down?" Dahlia asks finally. "If we are not going to talk we might as well eat."
"No," Cara says.
Dahlia's face falls. "Oh."
"This is a terrible tavern," Cara says. "I know of better ones."
Cara is hungry after hours of sparring with the guards; she tells herself that is the only reason why her stomach flutters as Dahlia breaks out in a smile.