LOTS - CARA/KAHLAN

It’s All Fun and Games Until…

merrykk

Title: It’s All Fun and Games Until…

Fandom: Legend of the Seeker

Pairing: Cara/Kahlan

Length: ~2800

Rating: G

Spoilers: 2x19 “Extinction”

Summary: Cara needs Kahlan’s help with the baby night wisps. Fluff. For legendland’s Big Bang Alt, themed “sweet”.

It’s All Fun and Games Until…

merrykk

Cara felt like her heart was in her throat, no longer pattering in her chest with the exertion of her run but dully beating with twisted grief. She could barely breathe, eyes stinging, as she stepped back in failure from the fallen mother night wisp. And then, in a swirling cloud of blue lights, she was breathless in an entirely new way. If emotional whiplash had been deadly, she would have died with a peaceful smile on her face. “The babies survived,” she whispered, as if it wasn’t real until she’d said it and they hadn’t disappeared.

The tiny night wisps danced around her head, their voices like soft baby coos as they ducked in, even kissing the tears from her cheeks. Cara couldn’t move in her overwhelming relief, and yet somewhere in her mind, she remembered the only other birth she had ever been at. She thanked the Creator that these children did not cry for her as they were taken away, wails echoing down the hall as she declared herself ready to return to her duties.

And she was glad that Kahlan was not here to see her reach up, grinning like a fool when the tiny blue things drew near as if nuzzling against her fingers. Their sounds were clear in any language: comfort and joy. Cara hadn’t failed, and her tears were sweet again.

Then—“Kahlan,” she murmured, remembering that they had a mission to get back to.

The hundreds of baby wisps crowded in closer, their wordless humming now questioning, almost worrying.

“No, it is nothing about you,” Cara told them. “You’ll be safe here to grow up, but I need to go back to Kahlan.” She frowned at the next question. “Because I have to.” Her jaw went momentarily slack at the conversation she was hearing. “Yes, of course I want to as well.” More humming. “What?”

Cara had never been so speechless. “What? No, I’m not your mother, your mother—” She stopped her words short, frowning suddenly at herself. They were just infants, after all, not ready for such information. “Fine, yes, I’m your—mother. And, you’re clearly capable of taking care of yourselves, so…” She turned and started walking out of the glade. Then, pausing, “No, I’m not abandoning you, I’m letting you go free.”

Over half the swirling cloud of new wisps had drawn back to the flowers, accepting her pronouncement, but nearly half a hundred still circled Cara with trembling voices. Cara stared at them, her joy dissipating for a few seconds of confusion. They wanted her to be their mother. Somehow they’d mistaken her words as maternal. It was a nightmare.

There was only one thing to do—walk out of the glade. She put one foot in front of the other, eyes straight ahead, hoping that maybe the situation would resolve without input. Step, step, another step. There was the humming again. Cara turned around, denying any irrational fears that might be coming up to the surface. “What?” The night wisps stopped, hovered, kept on humming. “Yes, I’m upset that you’re following me. Why? Because—” she waved her hand, brow creasing “—I’m no mother to tell you what to do. I have a mission. Yes, yes, it’s very important.”

The night wisps chirped and whistled their lack of acceptance, and Cara gritted her teeth. They couldn’t have that much determination. A few more steps and they’d grow scared, or bored, or tired, and they’d go back home. Cara just walked forward, ignoring the humming pleas that followed her.

Hands at her side, head tipped slightly downward, Cara kept walking. The hums started dying down, and rolling her eyes, Cara didn’t jinx her luck by looking back. She did, however, let out a sigh. She would be glad to leave this mission behind, just in case any more painful memories surfaced to wipe out that one special moment. Then she almost leapt out of her leathers. “What are you doing?” she demanded, turning to see that the night wisps still followed in a silent–but–dedicated cloud. “No, I am not blaming you for anything. Why are you so worried? Just go—be children.”

She should have guessed that they wouldn’t remain silent. Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Cara couldn’t just ignore them, “Because it’s not safe. There are a thousand creatures who would eat you.” She blinked. “Of course I wouldn’t let them, if I had a choice. But I can’t take care of all of you.” They were getting more articulate; Cara sighed, thinking that it was just her luck to get the manipulative ones. “Technically, yes, if I let you free then you are free to follow me. Silently. Are we settled?”

The silence was a blissful answer. Fully ready to be back on track, Cara turned and exhaled heavily as she went walking back towards Kahlan. There were worse things, she supposed, than to be thought of as the mother for several dozen night wisps. It wasn’t as if they were physically demanding. In the space of a blink, nearly ten of the little blue lights were floating in front of her face. She stared. “No, you may not nest in my hair,” she blurted out, “what is wrong with you?”

Then they were all around her, wibbling with their tiny high voices. “I didn’t mean it, all right,” she said quickly, raising a frustrated but mollifying hand. She added, “I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with you.” The wisps seemed reluctantly satisfied, and returned to float around her head.

A few more steps, though, and Cara’s mind started spelling out the future…she couldn’t count on being able to end this any time soon. She would succeed, of course, eventually. But in the mean–time…

She spun around and stopped short. “All right. There is no way I can let you stay out unprotected in the open. You will attract gars. Yes, they are monsters. No, of course I would be able to fight them off, I am not useless, it’s just that I have no intention—would you let me speak?” Finally the hum died down, as they waited expectantly for her words. “I will create a free space in my pack, and you may all gather there. Silently. For the remainder of the day, understand? You are not allowed to speak before dark. I—no, I don’t care that it makes you sad. I don’t. I’m your mother, and I’m ordering you to stay silent.” Pursing her lips, Cara readjusted the things in her pack to leave an open space at the top. “Come on, in you go, and no arguing. Ah! I said no arguing.”

A thrill of victory ran through her when they didn’t protest. She gathered the top of the bag together, breathed out into the now–peaceful forest, and carefully swung the pack now full of contentedly compliant night wisp children over her shoulder. There was nothing she couldn’t handle. Tonight, once she had peace and alone time, she would finish the rest of this.

And yet, in a few minutes she pulled Kahlan up from the riverbank and the other woman asked, “Did you make it?”

Cara looked at her, and all she could see was the glade where a hundred healthy night wisps danced around, shining like a thousand stars. A smile crossed her lips, and maybe it was the night wisps’ probing influence, maybe it was just the rightness of the moment, but she only spoke the truth. “I wish you could have been there. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

* * * * *

Cara fell to the back of the group for the rest of that day, and every so often a burbling question would sneak out of her pack—it was against orders, and Cara always frowned, but the urge to answer was just too itching. It was good that, for a while, Kahlan was distracted by talking to Richard about Darken Rahl.

“Yes, you’re very beautiful,” she muttered her answer, trying not to move her lips. In between uninvited questions, the crunching of pebbles hid the slight grinding of her teeth. “It doesn’t matter whether I’m happy. It doesn’t matter whether you’re happy either.” Crunch, crunch. “I’d rather fight D’Harans.” The noise got a little too loud, and she hastily added, “That doesn’t mean I hate you. I didn’t say that. Stop putting words in my mouth. I’d rather fight D’Harans than most things, it’s how I’m trained.” Crunch, cru— “Creator no, I am not teaching you to fight D’Harans!”

“Cara?” Kahlan fell back a few steps.

Cara hissed, and hoped the night wisps were listening as keenly to this, so they would know to not speak a word. “What?”

“You look distressed,” the Confessor said, falling in step with Cara and giving her a soft look.

“Why would I be distressed?” Cara asked her, blinking and trying to loosen the tension in her mouth, disguising it by adjusting her pack’s straps. “We saved them, we succeeded.”

“You looked sad when we had to leave the grotto,” Kahlan said, tucking her hair behind her ear to look at Cara more keenly. “I thought maybe you regretted not getting a longer goodbye.”

If only Kahlan could know how dread wrapped around Cara’s heart at that. There was no safe way to answer that now, with so many listening ears, and so grudgingly she went for simplicity. “They were just night wisps.”

Surprisingly, thankfully, not a sound peeped out of her backpack, and all Kahlan did was give her a long knowing stare before being called away by Richard.

Cara braced herself for the barrage of worried questions from her “children”, and yet heard nothing. And more nothing. For the next half hour, silence reigned. Assuming that they had finally grown up enough to realize the dangers of Kahlan’s questions if they were discovered, Cara was pleased at their obedience and breathed out in relief.

As the day wore on, however, she started to feel more uncomfortable. From such talkativeness to such quiet was unnerving. Remembering Kahlan’s first information about how wisps needed communication to live, Cara wondered if the simple presence of family would be enough. Against her will, her heart flip–flopped just a little, and so she bit her lip and didn’t protest when the merry band settled down for an early evening. She just drew aside into the woods and opened her pack, “Are you—”

A cloud of blue fluttered outwards, surrounding her with fluttering needy cries. “What?” she asked, almost worried before she could be annoyed, blinking hard at the too–bright light of all of them. “What do you mean, do I love you?” She should never have let it go this far, her mind told her, even as her heart was strangely conflicted.

The tiny things were so fragile. That was what Kahlan had said, but she had never had to deal with forty of them. None of them were trying the wise councilor route, thank the Creator, but these neverending questions to satisfy their love–starved infant hearts were bad enough. And the memories were starting to press against the barriers she’d raised. Cara just couldn’t—couldn’t—

Each floating blue wisp began to droop at Cara’s answering silence. “Fine,” she said at last, quietly. “I care for you.” They couldn’t let it stand at that, of course. “As a mother, yes.” Though she should be suspicious of her speed in understanding the next part of their emotional turmoil, as conveyed through sensitive chirping…well, she did understand. “Oh.”

She’d gotten herself into a disaster.

* * * * *

Kahlan had noticed Cara’s caution all evening, but had assumed that it was just her way of processing the raw emotions of the past day. Such experiences came on Cara by surprise, so it seemed, and rarely enough that she needed time to recover. Kahlan would spoon her later, when she wasn’t bristling with the overflow of emotions.

So it surprised her when, that night, Cara approached her first.

“Kahlan, I need to talk to you,” she said bluntly, beckoning towards the woods.

Curious, and with her heart fluttering just a little more than was probably required, Kahlan followed quickly and without a word. With the former Mord’Sith, anything was possible.

Finally, Cara stopped in the middle of a glade and turned with a sigh, settling her weight more on one foot than the other.

“Is something wrong?” Kahlan asked.

Cara raised her eyebrows but didn’t answer. For a few seconds nothing happened, then Cara spoke to the air. “Now you’re cautious?” To Kahlan’s shock, at those words a few dozen night wisps rose from Cara’s backpack where it sat on the ground, swirling around her leather–clad form with anticipatory humming.

“Cara?” she gasped.

“As is clear, I…need your help,” Cara said, jaw set as she gave Kahlan a straight look despite the awkward twitch. “I need you to tell them that you are their father.”

And somehow Kahlan was even more shocked. She stared. The baby night wisps that were gathered around Cara waited. Cara’s lip quirked. “What?” Kahlan asked.

Cara sighed, gesturing with her hand as she grated out the words. “The children think of me as their mother, and since they refused to listen to me to go back to their safe home, I bargained a deal that their father would have the final word.” She gave Kahlan a pointed look. “So, tell them.”

Kahlan’s eyes narrowed for a second before realization dawned on her. Oh Cara. It was not entirely unexpected, both the simple attachment of the night wisps—always such a quickly–loyal race—and also Cara’s straightforward response to the sticky situation. Everything had to be put right for her to be at peace. And yet—“Cara, why didn’t you go to Richard?”

The night wisps started babbling then, asking Cara who Richard was, and despite the amusing use of the word ‘mother’ (that Cara was endearingly not protesting), Kahlan had to ask about the more stunning fact: “They don’t know who Richard is?”

Cara opened her mouth, then shut it, brow wrinkled.

“But they know me?” Kahlan asked, slightly confused.

The night wisps were quick to speak to her, saying that they knew her well, that Cara had spoken of her more than once during this day, that they knew Cara thought highly of her, cared for her. Before Kahlan could process any of it, Cara was waving her hand, eyes wide in a frustration meant to hide embarrassment. “Ahhhh,” she spoke towards the enthusiastic blue beings, “just because you can talk doesn’t mean you should.” Then, turning to Kahlan with a slight flush in her cheeks, she added as if it was more important. “Oh, and they remembered you from before.”

“Right,” Kahlan said, slowly as she realized that Cara’s reputation could use a little help, and now was probably not the time for teasing.

“Apparently they are stubborn and need parental guidance,” Cara said, not quite meeting Kahlan’s eyes, and fingers twitching. “So? As their father?”

Kahlan couldn’t help it. “Well, I suppose you have only your influence to blame for all this.” Cara glared sharply, and Kahlan smiled innocently back. “Well, night wisps? Children?” Her smile grew at their soft hum, and her heart swelled at the sight of the new generation. There was something so precious here in these lives. “You need to grow up safe, of course. Your mother is right, you should return to the grotto.” She paused, unable to stop smiling at their words. “Yes, she’s very amazing, and I have no doubt that she could protect you. But there are others who need her protecting, and you should take care of yourselves. The grotto will keep you well until you are old enough to understand more.”

There was a flutter of protest, but only for a second. Grudgingly, the baby night wisps sighed. Cara breathed out, her tight stance slumping a little in relief. Still, she added, waving one red–gloved hand, “Yes, listen to your father. Didn’t I tell you so?”

And with one long sigh they swirled a last time around Cara’s head, making Kahlan smile with how Cara didn’t even flinch, then flew off and back up the trail.

Cara raised a hand to cover her face with a slight dry groan.

“So, how was your day?” Kahlan asked with faux–innocence, enjoying the moment for all it was worth.

“We will never speak of this again,” Cara muttered, walking past her with a grimace.

Kahlan turned to watch her stalk off, and the smile lingered on her face. She shook her head, heart warmed more than usual as she filed away this memory among her most cherished of Cara. Some days seemed too good to be true for them. When this was all over, she would make sure that she and Cara stopped back to visit the night wisps’ grotto. After all, it was what any good parents would do.

~ ~ ~