pain and suffering
Jun. 30th, 2010 05:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swatkatI am sad I won't be doing ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
femslash10. femslash09 was incredibly fun. Meanwhile, I'm not writing, fan fiction or Other Important Things, and it is a terrible, terrible thing. Have some random post-finale Cara torture so that you can feel terrible too.
[your dreams of crumbling cities]
C/K&C/D(ish)
*
There is an ache in her chest, a curious hollow feeling she cannot name.
She tells herself it is nothing, and ignores the way it plagues and pesters as they make their slow, circuitous—interminable, Cara thinks—way to Aydindril, amid a hundred celebrations of the Seeker's great victory over the Keeper of the Dead. They indulge countless townspeople who wish for nothing more than to catch a glimpse of the Seeker, to thank him. They dine with rich lords and ladies who fawn over Richard and his courageous heart, and ply them with gifts they always refuse. No one speaks of Darken Rahl.
Everyone treats Cara with deference. There is that, at least.
The feeling persists.
She would chalk up to illness, but it's not her body that betrays her. Cara knows this, as surely as she knows that she is Mord'Sith.
Her dreams at night are vivid, unsettling: there are faces she has never seen and voices she has never heard; images, broken, missing pieces of a puzzle. She wakes up and they're all gone, she forgets and cannot remember.
They stop one night at a tavern, at the earnest request of the tavern-keeper, and Cara has the dubious honour of manhandling an inebriated Zedd back to his quarters. Not half hour ago she witnessed Kahlan do the same with Richard, pink-cheeked and smiling as Zedd roared, 'When I was his age, I could drown a barrel of ale and still stand upright,' banging his own cup on the table and spilling wine all over.
It is, of course, very evident now where Richard inherits his inability to hold his drink from. Cara cannot say she is surprised.
'Watch your step,' she tells Zedd as he nearly stumbles and falls, again, and Cara grips his shoulder a little harder.
'A Wizard's fate, Cara, is to play with lives,' Zedd says, 'whether we wish to or not.' The ale has made him philosophical.
'The only thing I wish, Wizard, is for you to be quiet and walk faster,' Cara says, being in no mood for drunken philosophizing.
Not that Cara is ever in the mood for drunken philosophizing.
'The ancient Wizards knew what they did was true and just,' Zedd continues blithely. 'I'm not so sure, myself.'
He is muttering something inconsequential about dark magic and undoing when Cara all but throws him upon his bed and instructs him to rest.
A nicer person—Kahlan, certainly—would have lingered and ensured he was asleep and well. Cara is not a nice person. Cara does not wait.
Her own quarters are suffocating, her bed too soft—Cara tosses and turns until it becomes too much to bear, and then she flings away the sheets and heads downstairs and outside, ignoring yet another hopeful smile from the tavern-keeper's daughter. She is pretty—quite pretty—but what Cara needs right now is some fresh air. Some time, to settle her mind.
She isn't certain how long she has been outside when she hears a sound in the dark—footsteps, someone stumbling—and whips out her Agiels, prepared for a fight.
'Cara, it's me,' says a familiar voice, and Kahlan steps into view, a little sheepish.
Cara puts the Agiels back in her belt, oddly disappointed. A fight, she thinks, would have been most welcome.
'I didn't mean to intrude,' Kahlan says, and then proceeds to intrude even further as she settles herself on the log beside Cara without so much as waiting for an invitation.
Cara could protest, but the company is not entirely undesirable.
'Are you all right?' Kahlan says after a moment's silence.
'Why shouldn't I be?' Cara retorts, perhaps a little harsher than she intended to. She does not mind Kahlan's company, but she could do without the intimate conversation.
There is an expression on Kahlan's face, familiar, the one that means Kahlan wishes to discuss how she feels and there's nothing Cara can do convince her otherwise. Cara braces herself, and sure enough, Kahlan says, 'You looked a little lost.'
Cara grits her teeth and says nothing, and Kahlan continues, 'I – I've felt the same way, sometimes. After everything.' She lets out a small, embarrassed laugh. 'It's a lot to take in, and I - ' She does not finish the sentence, and looks away.
Cara knows what this is about.
'Richard is alive,' she tells Kahlan, firm. 'It's over.'
'I know,' Kahlan says. 'I know,' she repeats softly, almost, as if, to reassure herself.
She does not look reassured. She looks pained. She looks lost. It's not an expression Cara wishes to see on Kahlan's face.
'Stop thinking about it,' she says sharply.
'I will,' Kahlan says. 'In some time.'
Cara understands.
Kahlan's smile when she looks at Cara is melancholy, and there's that cursed feeling again, furious, all-consuming, gripping Cara's chest with an iron fist until she finds it hard to breathe.
Kahlan gave it a name: loss.
Cara stares at the night sky and wonders what it is that she has lost.
It's nearly daybreak when they head back to the tavern.
'Try and get some sleep,' Kahlan tells Cara, laying a gentle hand on Cara's arm.
Her bed is still too soft. Her dreams, again, are vivid, unsettling. She wakes up and it's just the same—she has forgotten and cannot remember.
*
femslash10. femslash09 was incredibly fun. Meanwhile, I'm not writing, fan fiction or Other Important Things, and it is a terrible, terrible thing. Have some random post-finale Cara torture so that you can feel terrible too. [your dreams of crumbling cities]
C/K&C/D(ish)
*
There is an ache in her chest, a curious hollow feeling she cannot name.
She tells herself it is nothing, and ignores the way it plagues and pesters as they make their slow, circuitous—interminable, Cara thinks—way to Aydindril, amid a hundred celebrations of the Seeker's great victory over the Keeper of the Dead. They indulge countless townspeople who wish for nothing more than to catch a glimpse of the Seeker, to thank him. They dine with rich lords and ladies who fawn over Richard and his courageous heart, and ply them with gifts they always refuse. No one speaks of Darken Rahl.
Everyone treats Cara with deference. There is that, at least.
The feeling persists.
She would chalk up to illness, but it's not her body that betrays her. Cara knows this, as surely as she knows that she is Mord'Sith.
Her dreams at night are vivid, unsettling: there are faces she has never seen and voices she has never heard; images, broken, missing pieces of a puzzle. She wakes up and they're all gone, she forgets and cannot remember.
They stop one night at a tavern, at the earnest request of the tavern-keeper, and Cara has the dubious honour of manhandling an inebriated Zedd back to his quarters. Not half hour ago she witnessed Kahlan do the same with Richard, pink-cheeked and smiling as Zedd roared, 'When I was his age, I could drown a barrel of ale and still stand upright,' banging his own cup on the table and spilling wine all over.
It is, of course, very evident now where Richard inherits his inability to hold his drink from. Cara cannot say she is surprised.
'Watch your step,' she tells Zedd as he nearly stumbles and falls, again, and Cara grips his shoulder a little harder.
'A Wizard's fate, Cara, is to play with lives,' Zedd says, 'whether we wish to or not.' The ale has made him philosophical.
'The only thing I wish, Wizard, is for you to be quiet and walk faster,' Cara says, being in no mood for drunken philosophizing.
Not that Cara is ever in the mood for drunken philosophizing.
'The ancient Wizards knew what they did was true and just,' Zedd continues blithely. 'I'm not so sure, myself.'
He is muttering something inconsequential about dark magic and undoing when Cara all but throws him upon his bed and instructs him to rest.
A nicer person—Kahlan, certainly—would have lingered and ensured he was asleep and well. Cara is not a nice person. Cara does not wait.
Her own quarters are suffocating, her bed too soft—Cara tosses and turns until it becomes too much to bear, and then she flings away the sheets and heads downstairs and outside, ignoring yet another hopeful smile from the tavern-keeper's daughter. She is pretty—quite pretty—but what Cara needs right now is some fresh air. Some time, to settle her mind.
She isn't certain how long she has been outside when she hears a sound in the dark—footsteps, someone stumbling—and whips out her Agiels, prepared for a fight.
'Cara, it's me,' says a familiar voice, and Kahlan steps into view, a little sheepish.
Cara puts the Agiels back in her belt, oddly disappointed. A fight, she thinks, would have been most welcome.
'I didn't mean to intrude,' Kahlan says, and then proceeds to intrude even further as she settles herself on the log beside Cara without so much as waiting for an invitation.
Cara could protest, but the company is not entirely undesirable.
'Are you all right?' Kahlan says after a moment's silence.
'Why shouldn't I be?' Cara retorts, perhaps a little harsher than she intended to. She does not mind Kahlan's company, but she could do without the intimate conversation.
There is an expression on Kahlan's face, familiar, the one that means Kahlan wishes to discuss how she feels and there's nothing Cara can do convince her otherwise. Cara braces herself, and sure enough, Kahlan says, 'You looked a little lost.'
Cara grits her teeth and says nothing, and Kahlan continues, 'I – I've felt the same way, sometimes. After everything.' She lets out a small, embarrassed laugh. 'It's a lot to take in, and I - ' She does not finish the sentence, and looks away.
Cara knows what this is about.
'Richard is alive,' she tells Kahlan, firm. 'It's over.'
'I know,' Kahlan says. 'I know,' she repeats softly, almost, as if, to reassure herself.
She does not look reassured. She looks pained. She looks lost. It's not an expression Cara wishes to see on Kahlan's face.
'Stop thinking about it,' she says sharply.
'I will,' Kahlan says. 'In some time.'
Cara understands.
Kahlan's smile when she looks at Cara is melancholy, and there's that cursed feeling again, furious, all-consuming, gripping Cara's chest with an iron fist until she finds it hard to breathe.
Kahlan gave it a name: loss.
Cara stares at the night sky and wonders what it is that she has lost.
It's nearly daybreak when they head back to the tavern.
'Try and get some sleep,' Kahlan tells Cara, laying a gentle hand on Cara's arm.
Her bed is still too soft. Her dreams, again, are vivid, unsettling. She wakes up and it's just the same—she has forgotten and cannot remember.
*
