FIC: Unbreak Me (Legend of the Seeker: Cara & Kahlan) [PG-13]
fandom_stocking fic #4: This one was written for alyse, and it actually got me back in the mood for Cara & Kahlan, and Cara/Kahlan - I think I'm going to have to go and look for some fic soon. LOTS was a fabulous fandom; I miss it a lot.
This is what I wanted to happen, back when Unbroken first aired, rather than Zedd using ~powerful magic~ to change Cara's backstory. I'm still bitter that excising such a crucial part of her history was treated as of no consequence ...
Title: Unbreak Me
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Characters: Cara & Kahlan
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "Love is a weakness," Cara drawls. "I've told you that before." - Goes AU during Unbroken.
Originally posted here at AO3. Comments welcome in either place.
~*~
The very worst thing, Kahlan decides, is how very much Cara is still Cara. Even under the influence of insidious magic, even broken to Darken Rahl's will, she is still the woman Kahlan knows. The bluster is all hers, the swagger, the provocative purse of her lips.
Richard and Zedd are contemplating untried ancient magic, and even she has caught herself thinking that perhaps the only way out of this is to confess Cara after all.
To kill her.
"No," she says abruptly, interrupting her companions' debate. Their heads turn, and Zedd opens his mouth to speak, but she forestalls him. "No. Hasn't she had enough magic used on her already? Look at her. The woman we know is still in there."
Both men turn toward the tree where Cara is bound, scowling in their general direction. Richard winces, because it's true.
Zedd looks at Kahlan her with sympathy. "She's in the grip of the darkest magic," he says kindly, patiently, as if she might have forgotten. "That can't be broken by mere words."
"I don't believe that," Kahlan says, more firmly than she feels. "This is Cara! She's broken through a lifetime of Mord'Sith conditioning already - she's grown so much, inside. No magic could be as deep inside her as her whole life." Put like that, she almost manages to convince herself. "She's done it once, she can do it again. We just have to reach her." Somehow.
"You really think that's possible?" Richard asks, a note of hope in his voice.
"I don't know," Kahlan has to admit. To Richard's credit, his face doesn't fall. She wants to cup his cheek in affection, but her heart is clenched too tightly. Conflicting feelings hold her still. "But we owe it to her to at least try."
~*~
Kahlan strolls back toward the tree, her step deliberately steady, her face expressionless. She is a Confessor - she is the Mother Confessor - and Mord'Sith have nothing on her when it comes to giving no feeling away.
Sometimes it breaks her heart, the way she and Cara are the same. Even if Cara would never admit it.
Richard and Zedd are scouting, trying to find out where Darken Rahl went with the Stone of Tears. They've decided to give it half a day before they'll resort to magic against magic, and Kahlan will make the best of it. The first round went nowhere, but she has to keep trying.
"I knew you wouldn't be able to stomach it," Cara sneers. "You're pathetic. You're not even trying to make me talk. What, you think you'll just bat your eyelashes at me and I'll be turned from my path by your soulful eyes?" Her eyes rake over Kahlan's body in a disdainful leer.
Kahlan doesn't let herself react. "I wouldn't be so cavalier in your place," she retorts. "It could be black eyes coming for you." I could confess you, just like I confessed your Dahlia.
Cara merely laughs in her face. But there's pain beneath it, and they both know it. This point goes to Kahlan.
"You know better than to think I won't, if I have to," Kahlan cautions. They must get the Stone of Tears, after all, or the world will fall to the Keeper. Nothing can stand in the way of that, nothing. Not even if she has to murder her best friend.
Cara snorts, incredulity plain in the curl of her lip and the toss of her head. Blonde hair falls into her face as she leans forward in her bonds - not very far; she's secured quite well.
"For the Stone of Tears? Please. Lord Rahl will mend the Rift himself, and the Underworld will be sealed." She laughs again, a dirty, vicious sound. "You won't have that convenient excuse, Confessor."
Kahlan blinks. She can't read a Mord'Sith, doesn't have her Confessor powers' assurance that Cara isn't lying, but she knows this woman, and something in her gut is certain that just now, she's sincere.
Still, Rahl may have been lying to her. "You can hardly expect me to rely on that," Kahlan retorts. "I'll do what I must."
"Oh, I'm sure you'll tell yourself that," Cara huffs. "You've no scruples killing my sisters" - the shadow of Dahlia is clear in her eyes - "and maybe, just maybe, you could bring yourself to kill me in a fight, but in cold blood?" She bats her eyelashes, mocking. "I don't think so, Confessor."
"Love can be the most deadly thing of all," Kahlan quotes one of her teachers, almost tonelessly. Her skin feels like a vise, containing her too tightly, and her power simmers under it. If she must, she will.
Cara, oblivious or deliberately provoking - Kahlan can't tell which - merely purses her lips and stretches in her bonds, somehow giving the impression of a woman eminently at ease with herself. "It's a weakness," she drawls. "I've told you that before."
Cara remembers everything; it's her perceptions that are skewed. Her judgment that's inverted. She argues the same way she always has; yet she arrives at the opposite conclusions.
But two can play at provocation. "You loved Dahlia," Kahlan lobs back, and doesn't let herself flinch from Cara's wordless, furious snarl. She keeps her gaze on Cara's eyes, firmly, steadily, hoping to see something there - something that used to be there, beneath the bluster and the sarcasm, beneath the Mord'Sith's discipline and mask.
She keeps looking and doesn't turn away. Perhaps that is why she's too slow when Cara -
Abruptly Kahlan finds herself on her back, a knife at her heart. Her own hand has already wrapped itself around Cara's throat before she fully realises what's happened.
How did Cara manage to break free? They'd all three of them checked the ropes that held her, earlier, and there should have been no way. It turns out she underestimated Cara after all - they all underestimated her. But Cara underestimated Kahlan as well. They are locked in a stalemate of mutually assured destruction.
Kahlan smirks up at the Mord'Sith and wraps her free arm around Cara, locking her in place. Cara's hand is confined between them; there's no space for a quick strike. Cara won't win this simply by being a fraction of a second faster.
"Shall we die together?" Kahlan demands. "Because that's the best you can have. I won't let you go."
"I hate you!" Cara screams, howling frustration at her enemy.
Kahlan smiles sadly. It's true now; she can't deny it. And Zedd was right after all; they should have done it his way from the start. Too late. Kahlan was a fool to think she could reach her.
"There's no one a Mord'Sith should hate more than a Confessor," she quotes Cara's own words back at her. But I don't, Cara's voice continues in her memory, laced with an emotion too intimate to name. I don't, I don't, I don't. Now she does.
Something uncertain and confused flickers over Cara's expression. "I was trained to ..." Her voice trails off, and she blinks, shakes her head.
Don't give me hope now. "You were trained to hate us, I know," Kahlan continues for her, wearily. She doesn't dare close her eyes, doesn't dare miss the moment that may kill them both, but oh, she wants to.
Cara's body, slim as it is, is a weight on top of her, Mord'Sith leathers smooth and cool where they touch her naked thigh and arm. The knife awkwardly held between them is clenched in a gloved hand, but Kahlan's own gloveless hand is on Cara's bare throat. Her magic - already simmering close to the surface - seems to tingle and sting in a way it's never quite done before.
Skin against skin: Mord'Sith magic, Confessor magic, whatever insidious darkness Rahl used against Cara - there's altogether too much magic in too close a space.
Above her, Cara is holding so still, it feels almost like trembling. Her eyes are widening.
"Do you feel that?" Kahlan says, despite herself, and Cara's blue eyes shiver downward for a moment, almost as good as a yes.
"I ..." Cara blinks, then continues hesitantly, as if trying out the words, "I don't want to die without ..." She swallows against Kahlan's hand, and her eyes are bright.
Kahlan's heart seems to be trying to burst. "You never forgot the words. You never forgot anything." She has to be certain.
Cara gasps, and then she does start to tremble. Kahlan holds her tightly, never loosening her grip on Cara's throat. Dark veins spring out on Cara's face and throat, as if there were an agiel rather than Kahlan's hand at her neck.
Confessor magic is death to a Mord'Sith, but it's based in truth and love. Perhaps its true antithesis is the kind of magic that can turn a person's mind, make her think and feel the opposite of her true self.
Perhaps.
Or perhaps Cara can sneer and snarl and play the villain, but killing someone she - yes - loves is another matter entirely.
Perhaps Cara is just Cara, and too irrepressible to be held by anything, even magic so dark and powerful a Wizard of the First Order can't break it.
"Cara?" Kahlan whispers, allowing herself to dare hope after all. "I've got you, Cara."
Cara keeps trembling, almost convulsing, and Kahlan doesn't let go. Doesn't let go at all, until suddenly the dark veins on Cara's face appear to be moving, appear to be slithering down her body and draining into the earth. Cara collapses like a puppet, and goes completely limp on top of Kahlan.
Kahlan frantically feels for a pulse at Cara's neck, and finds it strong and steady, if rather too fast. She breathes slowly, in and out, and finally closes her eyes in relief. Then she opens them again, rolls Cara onto her back, and takes the knife from her loose hand. She sits down beside her friend and watches, just watches, for much too long, until Cara abruptly shoots up into a sitting position, looking around in momentary confusion.
She looks at Kahlan, and Kahlan holds her breath.
"... Kahlan?" Cara sounds uncertain, and she looks it, too, when she lifts a hand to push her hair out of her face. "Am I ... Did I ..." She scowls, suddenly, at herself, and her face flushes dark. "I gave him the Stone of Tears."
But it isn't until she looks away, unable to meet Kahlan's eyes, that Kahlan is completely sure.
"Cara!" She doesn't know if she wants to laugh or cry, so she does both. She shifts closer and reaches out, pulls Cara into her arms. Hugs her tight, even as Cara holds herself still, struggling not to bristle against the effusive emotion. "You're all right," Kahlan says, inanely. "You're all right."
After a moment, one of Cara's hands comes up, awkwardly, and pats Kahlan's shoulder. And then - wonder of wonders - Cara's arms close around her, hugging her back. Hugging her. It seems almost incredible.
But Cara is all right, and anything is possible. Anything.
~end~
This is what I wanted to happen, back when Unbroken first aired, rather than Zedd using ~powerful magic~ to change Cara's backstory. I'm still bitter that excising such a crucial part of her history was treated as of no consequence ...
Title: Unbreak Me
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Characters: Cara & Kahlan
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "Love is a weakness," Cara drawls. "I've told you that before." - Goes AU during Unbroken.
Originally posted here at AO3. Comments welcome in either place.
~*~
The very worst thing, Kahlan decides, is how very much Cara is still Cara. Even under the influence of insidious magic, even broken to Darken Rahl's will, she is still the woman Kahlan knows. The bluster is all hers, the swagger, the provocative purse of her lips.
Richard and Zedd are contemplating untried ancient magic, and even she has caught herself thinking that perhaps the only way out of this is to confess Cara after all.
To kill her.
"No," she says abruptly, interrupting her companions' debate. Their heads turn, and Zedd opens his mouth to speak, but she forestalls him. "No. Hasn't she had enough magic used on her already? Look at her. The woman we know is still in there."
Both men turn toward the tree where Cara is bound, scowling in their general direction. Richard winces, because it's true.
Zedd looks at Kahlan her with sympathy. "She's in the grip of the darkest magic," he says kindly, patiently, as if she might have forgotten. "That can't be broken by mere words."
"I don't believe that," Kahlan says, more firmly than she feels. "This is Cara! She's broken through a lifetime of Mord'Sith conditioning already - she's grown so much, inside. No magic could be as deep inside her as her whole life." Put like that, she almost manages to convince herself. "She's done it once, she can do it again. We just have to reach her." Somehow.
"You really think that's possible?" Richard asks, a note of hope in his voice.
"I don't know," Kahlan has to admit. To Richard's credit, his face doesn't fall. She wants to cup his cheek in affection, but her heart is clenched too tightly. Conflicting feelings hold her still. "But we owe it to her to at least try."
~*~
Kahlan strolls back toward the tree, her step deliberately steady, her face expressionless. She is a Confessor - she is the Mother Confessor - and Mord'Sith have nothing on her when it comes to giving no feeling away.
Sometimes it breaks her heart, the way she and Cara are the same. Even if Cara would never admit it.
Richard and Zedd are scouting, trying to find out where Darken Rahl went with the Stone of Tears. They've decided to give it half a day before they'll resort to magic against magic, and Kahlan will make the best of it. The first round went nowhere, but she has to keep trying.
"I knew you wouldn't be able to stomach it," Cara sneers. "You're pathetic. You're not even trying to make me talk. What, you think you'll just bat your eyelashes at me and I'll be turned from my path by your soulful eyes?" Her eyes rake over Kahlan's body in a disdainful leer.
Kahlan doesn't let herself react. "I wouldn't be so cavalier in your place," she retorts. "It could be black eyes coming for you." I could confess you, just like I confessed your Dahlia.
Cara merely laughs in her face. But there's pain beneath it, and they both know it. This point goes to Kahlan.
"You know better than to think I won't, if I have to," Kahlan cautions. They must get the Stone of Tears, after all, or the world will fall to the Keeper. Nothing can stand in the way of that, nothing. Not even if she has to murder her best friend.
Cara snorts, incredulity plain in the curl of her lip and the toss of her head. Blonde hair falls into her face as she leans forward in her bonds - not very far; she's secured quite well.
"For the Stone of Tears? Please. Lord Rahl will mend the Rift himself, and the Underworld will be sealed." She laughs again, a dirty, vicious sound. "You won't have that convenient excuse, Confessor."
Kahlan blinks. She can't read a Mord'Sith, doesn't have her Confessor powers' assurance that Cara isn't lying, but she knows this woman, and something in her gut is certain that just now, she's sincere.
Still, Rahl may have been lying to her. "You can hardly expect me to rely on that," Kahlan retorts. "I'll do what I must."
"Oh, I'm sure you'll tell yourself that," Cara huffs. "You've no scruples killing my sisters" - the shadow of Dahlia is clear in her eyes - "and maybe, just maybe, you could bring yourself to kill me in a fight, but in cold blood?" She bats her eyelashes, mocking. "I don't think so, Confessor."
"Love can be the most deadly thing of all," Kahlan quotes one of her teachers, almost tonelessly. Her skin feels like a vise, containing her too tightly, and her power simmers under it. If she must, she will.
Cara, oblivious or deliberately provoking - Kahlan can't tell which - merely purses her lips and stretches in her bonds, somehow giving the impression of a woman eminently at ease with herself. "It's a weakness," she drawls. "I've told you that before."
Cara remembers everything; it's her perceptions that are skewed. Her judgment that's inverted. She argues the same way she always has; yet she arrives at the opposite conclusions.
But two can play at provocation. "You loved Dahlia," Kahlan lobs back, and doesn't let herself flinch from Cara's wordless, furious snarl. She keeps her gaze on Cara's eyes, firmly, steadily, hoping to see something there - something that used to be there, beneath the bluster and the sarcasm, beneath the Mord'Sith's discipline and mask.
She keeps looking and doesn't turn away. Perhaps that is why she's too slow when Cara -
Abruptly Kahlan finds herself on her back, a knife at her heart. Her own hand has already wrapped itself around Cara's throat before she fully realises what's happened.
How did Cara manage to break free? They'd all three of them checked the ropes that held her, earlier, and there should have been no way. It turns out she underestimated Cara after all - they all underestimated her. But Cara underestimated Kahlan as well. They are locked in a stalemate of mutually assured destruction.
Kahlan smirks up at the Mord'Sith and wraps her free arm around Cara, locking her in place. Cara's hand is confined between them; there's no space for a quick strike. Cara won't win this simply by being a fraction of a second faster.
"Shall we die together?" Kahlan demands. "Because that's the best you can have. I won't let you go."
"I hate you!" Cara screams, howling frustration at her enemy.
Kahlan smiles sadly. It's true now; she can't deny it. And Zedd was right after all; they should have done it his way from the start. Too late. Kahlan was a fool to think she could reach her.
"There's no one a Mord'Sith should hate more than a Confessor," she quotes Cara's own words back at her. But I don't, Cara's voice continues in her memory, laced with an emotion too intimate to name. I don't, I don't, I don't. Now she does.
Something uncertain and confused flickers over Cara's expression. "I was trained to ..." Her voice trails off, and she blinks, shakes her head.
Don't give me hope now. "You were trained to hate us, I know," Kahlan continues for her, wearily. She doesn't dare close her eyes, doesn't dare miss the moment that may kill them both, but oh, she wants to.
Cara's body, slim as it is, is a weight on top of her, Mord'Sith leathers smooth and cool where they touch her naked thigh and arm. The knife awkwardly held between them is clenched in a gloved hand, but Kahlan's own gloveless hand is on Cara's bare throat. Her magic - already simmering close to the surface - seems to tingle and sting in a way it's never quite done before.
Skin against skin: Mord'Sith magic, Confessor magic, whatever insidious darkness Rahl used against Cara - there's altogether too much magic in too close a space.
Above her, Cara is holding so still, it feels almost like trembling. Her eyes are widening.
"Do you feel that?" Kahlan says, despite herself, and Cara's blue eyes shiver downward for a moment, almost as good as a yes.
"I ..." Cara blinks, then continues hesitantly, as if trying out the words, "I don't want to die without ..." She swallows against Kahlan's hand, and her eyes are bright.
Kahlan's heart seems to be trying to burst. "You never forgot the words. You never forgot anything." She has to be certain.
Cara gasps, and then she does start to tremble. Kahlan holds her tightly, never loosening her grip on Cara's throat. Dark veins spring out on Cara's face and throat, as if there were an agiel rather than Kahlan's hand at her neck.
Confessor magic is death to a Mord'Sith, but it's based in truth and love. Perhaps its true antithesis is the kind of magic that can turn a person's mind, make her think and feel the opposite of her true self.
Perhaps.
Or perhaps Cara can sneer and snarl and play the villain, but killing someone she - yes - loves is another matter entirely.
Perhaps Cara is just Cara, and too irrepressible to be held by anything, even magic so dark and powerful a Wizard of the First Order can't break it.
"Cara?" Kahlan whispers, allowing herself to dare hope after all. "I've got you, Cara."
Cara keeps trembling, almost convulsing, and Kahlan doesn't let go. Doesn't let go at all, until suddenly the dark veins on Cara's face appear to be moving, appear to be slithering down her body and draining into the earth. Cara collapses like a puppet, and goes completely limp on top of Kahlan.
Kahlan frantically feels for a pulse at Cara's neck, and finds it strong and steady, if rather too fast. She breathes slowly, in and out, and finally closes her eyes in relief. Then she opens them again, rolls Cara onto her back, and takes the knife from her loose hand. She sits down beside her friend and watches, just watches, for much too long, until Cara abruptly shoots up into a sitting position, looking around in momentary confusion.
She looks at Kahlan, and Kahlan holds her breath.
"... Kahlan?" Cara sounds uncertain, and she looks it, too, when she lifts a hand to push her hair out of her face. "Am I ... Did I ..." She scowls, suddenly, at herself, and her face flushes dark. "I gave him the Stone of Tears."
But it isn't until she looks away, unable to meet Kahlan's eyes, that Kahlan is completely sure.
"Cara!" She doesn't know if she wants to laugh or cry, so she does both. She shifts closer and reaches out, pulls Cara into her arms. Hugs her tight, even as Cara holds herself still, struggling not to bristle against the effusive emotion. "You're all right," Kahlan says, inanely. "You're all right."
After a moment, one of Cara's hands comes up, awkwardly, and pats Kahlan's shoulder. And then - wonder of wonders - Cara's arms close around her, hugging her back. Hugging her. It seems almost incredible.
But Cara is all right, and anything is possible. Anything.
~end~