LOTS - CARA/KAHLAN

Reverse

Dark_Kurai

Title: Reverse

Author: Dark_Kurai

Pairing: Kahlan/Cara

Rating: PG–13, I guess, for a teeny–weeny bit of blood and some naughtiness

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but boy do I wish I did.

Spoilers: Nope

Summary: There is a bond that reaches even into other realities. (AU)

Warning: Again, English is nooot my native language, so please don’t howl with anger at the mistakes you come across. I’m also half–asleep, so it also might be laziness… sowwy.

Author’s Note: I had an idea and it got stuck. I had to get it out, otherwise it would have become infected and inflamed and yeah, you know, the icky stuff. It is a bit (a lot) out of character I guess, but they aren’t really the characters they are and should therefore act different and.. I’m…confusing myself here. Just.. read it yourself.

Reverse

Dark_Kurai

“So, my dear Mother Confessor…how about we start with a name?”

No reply. The woman did neither blink nor twitch, her head held at average height, her body somewhere in between rigid and relaxed. Cautious, maybe.

The Mord’Sith was amazed by the Confessors impressive stoicism and display of remarkable strength after enduring a whole day of torture. When they had finally stumbled across the convoy escorting the ruler of Aydindril, it was the Mother Confessor who stood the longest, killing one Sister after the other. It was only due to the sacrifice of two courageous Mord’Sith, who managed to distract the white–clad woman for vital seconds, that they managed to capture her, otherwise it might have never been possible to rush up from behind and strike her down.

A coward’s act, sure, but it was duty before honor. Now they had the highest of the Confessors bound to the ceiling of their dungeon, still dressed in the flowing rivulets of her standing’s clothes, but silent as stone.

They had tried to break her. There hadn’t been much time, because they had reached the first temple only after nightfall and forces from Midlands capital city were already hot on their heels, but breaking the Mother Confessor was actually not their prime mission. Lord Rahl had ordered them to collect vital information about the city’s inner design, so that his army could strike quickly and mercilessly at the weakest spots. Breaking their captor quickly and efficiently would have been a nice cherry on top, though.

But how disappointed would she have been if the famous Mother Confessor would have succumbed to mere torture in just a matter of hours. Imagine her inner delight when they had requested her ’talented hand’ (what they really meant was that they didn’t work well under pressure and in their helplessness crawled up to her superiority) in extracting the information from their subject. It had been six hours since they started torturing and the stubborn woman had not even graced them yet with a single scream.

So they needed her help. She was not like the other Mord’Sith, her strength lay in her unholy patience and almost otherworldly ability to pry open her victim’s defences by using techniques that turned towards pain only as a last resort. Not that it made her less ruthless. She was the closest to disobedient as a Mord’Sith could be, with her quick thinking and intelligence, which made her incredibly dangerous and valuable at the same time. She was Lord Rahl’s strongest weapon. The troupe of hand–picked guards he always send with her was not meant for her protection.

Intrigued by this newest opponent here in the solitude of the dungeon, the Mord’Sith sat down on a stool directly in front of the Mother Confessor, crossed her legs and presented her best, white–toothed smile.

“As far as I remember Aydindril protocol, it should only be proper procedure to have the Mother Confessor introduce herself to a worthy and equal opposite. You don’t want to act against the law, hm?” Her voice was calm and nice, with a note of respect and curiosity. She could see her opponents head turn slightly sideways, intrigued.

A soft rattling of chains filled the silent room. They were alone, away from annoying guards and her incompetent sisters.

“I would hardly deem a Mord’Sith worth my equal, much less when she states and twists the law of a place that she doesn’t belong to. Name a reason why I should introduce myself.”

So it talks, she thought with a mental laugh. Nodding her head in approval, the Mord’Sith recrossed her legs, imitating a thinking pose.

“Very well, then I will offer something in return. State your name and I will give you mine. A name for a name, that should be worthy enough, no?”

The Mother Confessor sniffed, beautiful and regal with her head held high. This was a different treatment than the lady from the Midlands had become used to from this place and although her face was still stoic and controlled, there was a hint of wonder and interest at the unusual Mord’Sith in front of her.

“You will not get the information you’re after from me. I will not betray my land and people,” she finally said.

“I am merely asking for a proper introduction. I doubt that, with this, you will state anything I don’t already know.”

“Very well,” she said and the answer managed to create a smile on the Mord’Sith’s face that confused her opponent further.

“My name is Cara Mason, Mother Confessor of the Midlands and head of state of Aydindril. It is not my pleasure to meet you.” Two different sorts of eyes clashed.

“Mistress Kahlan Amnell, servant of the Lord Rahl and Mord’Sith. It is my pleasure to meet you and I can assure, it will be yours, too.” Standing up in a fluid motion, Kahlan lazily trailed a circle around the captured woman. Instead of following her with her gaze and stiffening from the lack of view at her enemy once she stood behind her, Cara stayed eerily calm and focused.

But there was something that Kahlan was unable to put into words. It hung in the air since the moment their eyes had met and before the first word had been uttered.

“As you were made quite aware, we actually have little time for pleasantries and chatting. But I must admit, I wouldn’t like to bypass my chance to talk to such an important personality.” Coming to a full stop directly in front of Cara, the Mord’Sith let her gaze wander up and down the bound woman’s body.

Smaller than most Mord’Sith, Cara’s figure belied her fighting skills, as Kahlan could prove. The long, wavy hair flowed down her back and shoulders in an untamed, free rush of gold, covering skin kissed by the sun in a most pleasant way. Her hauntingly cyan green, nearly slanted eyes captured a gaze like a spell, crushing lies and untruths without mercy, holding back the softer, underlying current of compassion and sense of duty.

Kahlan felt herself drawn and captured, pierced down to the soul, although her conscious mind whispered that not even a Mother Confessor could look past the mask across her features, but…yet. Cara was a piece of wild beauty and completely different than she had imagined how the head of Aydindril would be, even different than any other Confessor her path had taken her across.

Stepping closer, slow and careful, with a sway of her hips that could’ve flared any living man’s libido, Kahlan slipped her gloves off in a sudden need to touch the rich color of Cara’s skin. And when she dragged the tips of her fingers over a curved cheekbone, down towards her jaw and closer to the pulse point, it was there that Kahlan found an answer to every question she had yet to ask both herself and the other woman.

A face, a pair of eyes, even a body could hide behind practical stoicism…but a heart couldn’t. Kahlan had found truth in the fast flutter of a heartbeat.

“Tell me, my dearest Cara…” she husked towards the blond whose eyes flickered at having been found out, “would you give a question for a question?”

No change in the patiently drumming heart rate.

“Or an answer for an answer?”

She took a step nearer and warm flooded her skin even through the leather her body was clad in.

“Or maybe…a kiss for a kiss?”

A stutter, not only in the steady beat under her finger, but also in the countenance the Mother Confessor displayed proudly by the soft release of moist air from between her full lips. There was a pull, created by difference and similarity and something entirely else between both woman, that had called for both Kahlan and Cara the moment the Mord’Sith had stepped through the dungeon door.

Kahlan resisted and touched the pad of her thumb against the bottom lip of her captor.

“Demand your answer, Kahlan Amnell, so that I can refuse you. Not even you will gain anything about Aydindril from me,” Cara breathed against her hand, so calm and sure and proud that the Mord’Sith could only marvel at the strength this woman possessed. She knew without doubt that no pain or pleading could break her, not within the window of time that was left.

“I can assure you that Aydindril is the furthest thing from my mind right now,” she whispered back, face so close that she could see every swirl that was left in the green iris, almost hidden behind the deep, pulling black of dilated pupils. The sweet breath that had graced her lips during Cara’s words made it hard to think about anything beyond the seductive length of the other woman’s lashes or the teasing flash of sharp teeth.

“Are you willing to endure a beating for your failure?” came the answer from her opponent, guards and time windows long lost in the press of long limbs against each other.

“Are you willing to make one worth it?” Kahlan teased right back, presenting the opening for attack or defeat.

Almost gently Cara surged her head forward, capturing Kahlan’s lower lip in a sweet gesture between her teeth. She bit, quickly and with a dangerous, primal surge in her eyes, until a drop of blood spilled out and ran down the Mord’Sith’s lip. Flicking her tongue out, Cara captured the quelling red liquid with the tip, before dragging it lazily across Kahlan’s mouth and back into her own, sucking in her own lower lip in an almost seductively shy way.

They were reveling in the thick, rippling heat dragging its way between them, foreign and unwanted, but needed, undeniable. There was death and pain in every countable way where skin nearly touched skin, lust, want and passion in their fingertips, endless possibilities in the rhythm of their heavy breathing.

Cara leaned herself forward as much as she could, chains pulling taut, to husk into Kahlan’s ear, “You’re playing with your demise, dear. This is beyond your skill.”

“I’m courting death every day the second I open my eyes, playing with the inferno that is the Mother Confessor should be an acceptable festivity for a change.” Tangling a hand in the golden locks, Kahlan trailed her lips down the soft skin of the other woman’s neck, nipping her pulse point and the skin further down, close to the body warmed metal of the Rada’Han. “Don’t forget, you are still my guest to play with.”

“There is another Rahl to serve,” Cara gasped out when Kahlan stroked the sensitive back of her neck. Pulling one knee up, she encased the leather clad hip of the Mord’Sith in a shower of white, dragging her close as much as the chains holding her arms above her head would allow.

“There is only one true Lord Rahl.” A snarl, nearly close to regret when one listened too closely.

“Then we have to make sure it stays that way,” came the reply, heavy and rough with the option presented that Kahlan could grasp and choose and making the Mord’Sith doubt who exactly was extracting things from whom. “Because mine is as true as yours will ever be.”

They were teetering on a very thin edge and one wrong move could destroy both, none or either.

“What will you choose?” Cara placed the ultimatum with a breathy voice, chest heaving with the need for air and touch when Kahlan’s ever searching fingers found her collarbone and dipped deeper, flaring a want that went bone–deep. “Him…or everything else?”

Their eyes locked into a battle of wills when the Mord’Sith took a purposeful step back, both women full of hunger and strain, close enough that the lack of warmth hurt like a physical separation of skin and flesh.

Sounds of fighting reached their ears and the time window closed with a final, retorting snap. Like a rope pulled taut, time slipped back into place like a late runner, quickly gaining speed and making up for the lost trail. But their gazes never strayed from each other, not even when the door burst open behind Cara and dozens of enemies pointed their swords at the unmoving Mord’Sith and not even when chains and Rada’Han fell to the floor in a violent clatter.

“What will you choose?” Cara asked again, her voice suddenly loud and booming, filling every crevice and crack of the dungeon room. The white of her dress was unblemished and her unwavering believe made her larger than life, standing inside the circle of her own people like a cruel, breath–taking goddess. Two Mord’Sith were forced to their knees in front of her, chocking and snarling when the Mother Confessor placed both her hands on their throats and flipped her sight down enough so that she could look at them with impassive distaste, a slight curl of her lips.

Kahlan could only watch with fascination and tendrils of horror how the blonde woman’s eyes turned midnight black, the last trace of the cyan green gone to an altogether different kind of darkness than the one she had created in Cara’s pupils with the power of passion and hunger. The doomed Sisters screamed and cried in unholy agony, their bodies falling to the floor writhing in pain and sorrow created by magic that swept over them with even less mercy than all consuming flames or brittle cold.

But Kahlan held no fear and no regret, because she was Mord’Sith and the only of the Sisters who really seemed to understand what it meant to be whole and broken. There was respect in Cara’s eyes when she looked back up.

It took a snap of the leader’s hands and the soldiers left in silence, slinking away like formless shadows, calmed away in the shining light of their head and ruler. Black eyes inched closer and soon a strong hand gripped her throat, thumb and forefinger pressing lovingly against her jawbone. No light reflected in the magic of a Confessor and yet she gleamed the brightest. It was a contrast so achingly beautiful it send a warm breeze through dead and frozen corners of Kahlan’s heart.

“I will ask one last time, Kahlan Amnell, who courts death in its purest form,” the Mother Confessor spoke, calm and still like a lake at the darkest hour, “who is it that you choose?”

And Kahlan knew the answer, which was everything and nothing at all, clinging to her skin and filling the very air around her now that she was able to understand it. Her flesh itched and burned where Cara’s power trembled just beneath the skin of her fingers, only reigned in by an iron will and compassion and more.

Leaning forward, Kahlan closed her eyes and grasped Cara’s wrist and wonderful soft, feathery hair with both hands, then pressed her lips against those of the Confessor. The kiss was slow, deep and reaching further than any of them had gone before, creating moments and feelings that would change the tide of history.

I choose you, it said and Cara understood, reciprocated.

Black reversed back to green and a new age of Rahl would be born, forged by the bond of a Confessor and a Mord’Sith.

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A/N: I can totally see Con!Cara and Sith!Kahlan having the hots for each other. And Sith!Kahlan is soooo cooool… so the only logical way is to stick Cara with the fancy dress role. We already know that she looks fantastic with long hair, so yeah… (And I also believe that Confessor Cara would be a lot more spunky than AU!Cara..)

Anyone that wants to spin this further? *puppy dog eyes*

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