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fembuckTitle: A Light That Never Went Out
Author: Janine
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Pairing: Cara/Dahlia
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own them.
Summary: After defeating the Keeper our band of heroes heads back to D'Hara, and on the way Cara meets a familiar face.
xxx
Part 7
Three Days Later
It surprised Dahlia how quickly she had become accustomed to Cara's crotchety yet charming presence in her life, but there was no denying how happy it made her to see the blonde as a large smile pulled her lips up when she glanced out of her kitchen window and her eyes fell upon a vision of red and gold slowly sauntering up the path to her cottage.
The urge to run to the door and fling it open was great, but Dahlia fought against the desire and instead calmly wiped her hands on a cloth and then moved to set the table for lunch, waiting patiently – if a bit anxiously – for Cara's arrival at her door.
When the rapid series of terse knocks sounded Cara's arrival, Dahlia took her time walking to the door, but she couldn't completely wipe the smile she had been wearing since first spotting Cara off of her face ... at least until she opened the door, that was.
The soft smile touching Dahlia's lips disappeared the moment she caught sight of Cara up close, and instead of the bright 'Hello!' she had planned on leading with, Dahlia found herself frowning and scrunching up her face as she declared, "You're filthy!"
Cara's eyes narrowed in displeasure, but before she could reply, Dahlia eyes widened in alarm and she gaped at Cara, exclaiming, "And bleeding!" before following that up with, "In the name of Rahl, what happened to you?" in a tone that was both concerned and incredulous.
"It doesn't hurt," Cara muttered glancing down at herself and frowning slightly when she had to admit that she was really quite dirty.
For days she had refused to help Richard with his projects around town as a form of protest, but having nothing to do with her days eventually became a burden on her, and so, Cara had joined Richard earlier that morning and begun to work.
"Oh, then by all means keep on bleeding all over everything," Dahlia replied sarcastically before reaching out for Cara's arm and dragging her inside of the cottage. "I'm surprised you managed to make it up here without fainting."
"Mord'Sith don't faint," Cara declared, turning to glare at Dahlia as the brunette manhandled her into the kitchen.
"Without other Mord'Sith around to breathe on you when you pass out and die from marching around with heavily bleeding wounds, you're just as susceptible to effects of blood loss as anyone else," Dahlia said moving over to the kitchen counter to pour some water from a jug into a large bowl.
"It's not heavily bleeding," Cara said frowning as she looked down at her hand.
She'd seen heavily bleeding wounds before, ones that she'd suffered and ones that she had inflicted, and she knew that this wasn't heavily bleeding. It was perhaps more than a surface wound, but it was not anything that would have stopped her from being able to adequately defend herself.
"You're overreacting."
Dahlia paused next to Cara and breathed in deeply, a thoughtful expression coming over her features as she did.
"Possibly ... a little bit," she admitted with a sigh as she put a bowl of water down on the kitchen table and then sat down in the chair beside Cara. "But it is going to need stitches, and it should have immediately been cleaned and wrapped. Walking through a village with an open wound like this is the perfect way to get an infection," Dahlia said carefully taking Cara's hand into her lap so that she could begin to clean the wound.
"I'm not going to ... " Cara begam derisively.
"Let me guess, Mord'Sith don't get infections?" Dahlia interjected glancing up at her.
Cara glared at her and said nothing and Dahlia smiled faintly before going back to cleaning the wound.
"I've been cut before, you know," Cara muttered peevishly a minute later. "I know when a wound is dangerous."
"Of course," Dahlia breathed out, pausing in her work for a moment as she thought about the scars that littered Cara's body. "I'm sorry," she murmured a moment later, starting to work again. "You've survived things I couldn't imagine. You probably could glare an infection into submission."
Cara smirked.
"I could certainly agiel one into submission."
Dahlia shivered.
"If that's how you would have fixed this, then I'm glad you bled halfway across Ragora to get to me."
"It works," Cara defended militantly.
"It also explains why you have so many scars," Dahlia said realizing that if not for Mord'Sith field triage, many of Cara's previous wounds probably wouldn't have scarred.
"There were no lovely village girls waiting to berate me and stitch up my wounds on the battlefield," Cara said cantankerously, though her mood softened when Dahlia simply responded to her surliness with an amused smile. "An agiel might be a crude tool, but it's quick and when people are trying to kill you, quick keeps you alive."
Dahlia nodded, acknowledging the truth of Cara's words.
"Well," she said as she placed the bowl of bloody water back on the table and then reached for a bottle of salve, "you have a lovely village girl waiting to stitch up your wounds now, so you can reserve your agiels for unruly drunks."
Cara sighed and slumped back in her chair morosely as Dahlia began to apply the salve.
"I wouldn't have done permanent damage to him," Cara muttered darkly.
"Poor, Ca. Kahlan never lets you have any fun," Dahlia said with mocking commiseration as she reached for a needle and thread. "Would you like a drink to ...?"
Cara looked over at her sharply.
"Sorry," Dahlia said. "I know. Mord'Sith don't need painkillers."
Cara didn't dignify that with a response, and smiling faintly, Dahlia went to work stitching up Cara's hand.
"Is this ayala root?" Cara asked about halfway through as she sniffed at the jar of salve.
Dahlia looked up at Cara in surprise. "It is," she breathed out impressed.
"Mord'Sith medical treatment isn't all agiels and the Breath of Life," Cara explained a bit smugly as her eyes met Dahlia's.
All Mord'Sith were given rudimentary healing lessons so that when they tortured and trained they could keep their subjects healthy enough to endure more torture and training – though Cara kept that to herself, understanding that as a healer it was unlikely that Dahlia would appreciate the reason for her knowledge of medicines.
"What other healing plants do Mord'Sith use?" Dahlia asked curiously, glancing up at Cara for a moment before she quickly returned her gaze to her work.
"If I answer do you promise to feed me?" Cara asked.
"I'll feed you even if you don't, but I'd like it if you answered," Dahlia replied lightly, offering Cara a soft smile.
"We drink Tura leaf tea," Cara informed her.
"How healthy," Dahlia breathed out. "It's excellent for your skin and digestion. What else?"
Cara related to Dahlia what she could remember of the healing plants she had been taught. Truthfully, the art of healing had never much appealed to her and if it had been necessary to treat the wounds of one of the unfortunate souls who met her agiel, Cara had often forced one of her lesser sisters – which was to say any of her sisters – to prepare the medicines for her and also apply them.
"All done," Dahlia announced minutes later, "not that you care one way or the other since you're so tough," she continued, grinning up a Cara before she dipped her head down and pressed her lips to against the newly stitched flesh.
To be honest, even though villagers throughout D'Hara and the Midlands spoke with reverent fear about the levels of pain Mord'Sith could not only endure but also enjoy, it still came as a shock to Dahlia that Cara's voice hadn't wavered – nor had she so much as winced – as the needle passed through her skin again and again. Dahlia had stitched up many tough, hardened farmers and laborers, and even after being fortified with alcohol the toughest of them had at least clenched their jaws and began to sweat as they used all of their concentration not to flinch and swear. That Cara could be so unmoved by pain was impressive, but it made Dahlia ache for her more than it awed her, and she had not been able to stop herself from pressing her lips to Cara's flesh, offering a small token of comfort for all of the pain Cara endured through her life.
"Was I a good patient?" Cara asked curiously as Dahlia gathered her supplies and cleared them off of the table.
Dahlia looked over her shoulder at Cara, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"Very brave, irritable but quite impressive," Dahlia replied before tipping the bloody water from the bowl out of her kitchen window.
"So you would say I'm deserving of a reward then?" Cara asked.
"Oh, I see where this is going," Dahlia said smirking as she cleaned her hands in a fresh bowl of water and then moved to the other end of the kitchen to retrieve the lunch she had prepared. "Lunch, as promised," she declared a few seconds later, brining the items over to the table.
"I'd rather have you," Cara said ignoring the food in favor of taking Dahlia's hip into her bandaged hand, using it to tug Dahlia onto her lap.
"I'm sure you would," Dahlia responded, feeling her body begin to respond to Cara's tone and touch, but ignoring it. "You may not be bleeding anymore, but you're still filthy," Dahlia said drawing her finger across Cara's neck and then frowning down at her dirty finger tip.
"I've been working hard improving the functionality of your town," Cara said.
"More likely you grew bored of being a lay about and decided that hammering things was more agreeable than wandering around town scaring teenage boys for entertainment," Dahlia said knowingly as she slipped off of Cara's lap and then took a seat at the table.
Cara shrugged and Dahlia let it go by without comment knowing that it was as close to an acknowledgement as she was going to get.
"You don't like gooseberries," Cara commented as Dahlia began to serve the food.
"No, but you do," Dahlia said before she paused and looked at Cara thoughtfully. "At least you used to."
"I still do," Cara said before Dahlia could worry herself further, "Though I've not had any for a long time."
"Then I'll get more," Dahlia said smiling as she sat down again. "You can have them until you're sick of them."
Cara was silent for a moment and then, almost shyly, she looked up at Dahlia through her eyelashes and said, "I'd be nauseated in no time if you put some into a pie."
"If you wash up before you come over tomorrow you can have me and pie," Dahlia responded, her voice a little muffled from biting down on her bottom lip to stop herself smiling adoringly at Cara.
Cara's fingers brushed against one of her agiel's to center herself as a happy smile threatened to tug up the corners of her lips.
"I'll do what I feel like doing," Cara eventually grumbled in response, though she was already devising a plan to sneak back to the tavern mid-day without Richard seeing her – because if he saw her he would question her incessantly about it and, Lord Rahl or not, it was none of his damn business.
"Of course you will," Dahlia responded easily, bringing a bit of bread up to her lips to hide her smile as she began to mentally catalogue the supplies she would need to gather to make the pie.
To be continued ...
Thank you so much for comments! Not only do they make my heart happy, but they get my fingers tapping away. I'm sorry I wasn't able to respond to the comments on the last chapter individually (damn you RL), but I wanted to just let you all know that they really were appreciated. So, once again, thank you, and I hope you enjoyed the update :D
