5 Legend of the Seeker ficlets, various characters and pairings, all rated PG

[alyse]

legendland Hiatus Challenge

I chose the challenge option of writing at least the equivalent of 15 drabbles.

Breakdown:

- 2 ficlets at 300+ words = 6 items
- 3 ficlets at 400+ words = 12 items

Total word count: 1,900 words

Disclaimer: Legend of the Seeker (TV) belongs to ABC Studios/Disney. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fanfiction, written solely for love of the show.

-o-

Title: Rhythms
Author: alyse
Rating: PG
Pairing/Characters: Kahlan/Richard
Word Count: 331

Kahlan is used to the rhythm of the Midlands. In spite of Rahl's best efforts, life goes on and Kahlan intends to make sure that it stays that way.

She's a Confessor and welcome in most places she travels, even if that welcome is tinged with fear as well as respect. She's a necessary evil, where Rahl is an unnecessary one; they need her but they don't adore her. She's never believed that they would.

But when she becomes Richard's Confessor, the rhythm changes. People smile now to see her, welcome her with open arms and open minds. The first time she dances with Richard - the first time she's danced outside of official functions, when she felt like doing so instead of it being expected - it's slow and sedate, an intricate stumble of steps. She guides Richard through it, but he learns quickly. It's not long before he can match her, step for step. It's not long before he leads.

And then the rhythm changes. The villagers in the next village they dance in spin and stamp, laugh and shout. There's no restraint, no carefully thought out steps. The music is fast and furious, loud and raucous, and Richard spins her through it until she is giddy and breathless. His body is hard and warm against hers, his eyes bright and his smile soft, and that's all she can see.

Now, when they fight for their lives and the Midlands, in those pauses and lulls where she checks where he is against those they still need to kill, she watches him for as long as she is able. The light of battle is in his eyes with each parry and thrust, each spin and kick, and the look on his face is fierce. She strikes her own blows, moving fluidly, matching him step for step.

It's not until the battle is over and Richard looks over at her, his eyes bright and his smile soft, that she runs out of breath.

-o-

Title: Night Wisps
Author: alyse
Rating: PG
Pairing/Characters: Cara
Word Count: 313

The thing about Night Wisps, Cara is beginning to realise, is that they get everywhere. Now that their forest is gone, burnt to ash and dust by Rahl and his troops, the Night Wisps have scattered, finding their homes wherever they can.

It's amazing how many of them think that their 'home' has to be somewhere close to Cara.

She wakes up each and every night to the soft sound of singing in her ear, and every day something flits at the edge of her vision, cooing and soaring as though their fragile and too brief lives depend on it. Cara holds the opposite opinion - that their lives depend on them not doing it - but Kahlan was not at all amused by her suggestion that they stop at the nearest village and buy a fly swatter.

Unlike Cara, Kahlan is patience personified with the Night Wisps, but then Kahlan would be. She's the Mother Confessor, after all; she's patient with everyone, up to and including Cara. Only, it's more like she's not the Mother Confessor but the Maiden Aunt Confessor. If Kahlan ever grows bored of the Night Wisps, she can always hand them back.

Cara doesn't have that option.

The real kicker is that Cara never really wanted to be a mother. She doesn't have a maternal bone in her body, and she's more than okay with that. Having children has never factored into any decision she's made, and the one child to which she gave birth is thankfully being raised by someone else.

Given that, she has no idea how, in the name of the Spirits, she ended up being the surrogate mother to an entire race.

Someone, somewhere - and she suspects the Creator might be behind it, because that's the kind of lesson-teaching, cryptic nonsense that seems right up her street - is having way too much fun at Cara's expense.

-o-

Title: Fear
Author: alyse
Rating: PG
Pairing/Characters: Cara, Dahlia
Word Count: 400

Don't be afraid.

The words are a constant litany in Cara's mind, like the prayers to the Creator her mother taught her when she was small. She repeats them over and over again in her head, but she never says the words outside of it where the Mistresses could hear it.

Her father will come for her. She holds onto that thought with both small hands and all of her heart. He will come and he will save her, sneaking her away right from under her Mistress' nose in the middle of the night (because he is a farmer, not a fighter; even at eight, Cara knows this much, and she never entertains the thought that her father will strike her Mistress down with a sword). And they will run and run, and they will go home to her mother and her sister, and be happy and free. As long as Cara is brave enough to wait.

Don't be afraid.

The thought keeps her going when her Mistress hurts her, hitting her with the stick she carries ('the agiel' is whispered inside Cara's head, and the sound is sharp, buzzing with fury, hard and vibrating with pain). Don't be afraid she thinks in the dark when the rats come, with their squeaking and their squealing, and their sharp, yellow teeth, and the only thing she has to hold them off, to kill them with, is something that hurts. Don't be afraid, but the words never make their way past her gritted teeth.

Dahlia is cold and frightened, and hates the dark as much as, if not more than, Cara. She clings to Cara in their small, fetid cell, and her fingers are so tight on Cara's arm that they hurt; every morning Cara has bruises, but not ones left by the Mistresses in red leather. These are small and hold the shape of Dahlia's fingertips; Cara traces them when she's tired and weakening, when the rats come, or the kicks and the threats. She presses down on the shape of them until the pain comes, dull and aching, and holds onto the thought of her best friend, the sister of her heart.

"Don't be afraid," Dahlia whispers in the dark, and her fingers may be cold but her breath is warm against Cara's ear. "Don't ever be afraid."

And Cara wishes she was brave enough to say the words back.

-o-

Title: Autumn
Author: alyse
Rating: PG
Pairing/Characters: Zedd/Salindra
Word Count: 412

Salindra is the colour of late summer and early autumn; her hair is as gold as the wheat that ripples in the gentle breeze, and her eyes are as blue as the cornflowers that grow amongst it. Her soft skin holds the warmth of the sun-baked earth at the end of a long, hot day, just as night is falling, and her voice is low, the sleepy sound of twilight.

Zedd's not a complete fool, just an old one. He knows that her skin is soft because of the potions and poultices that she uses to keep it that way, and that the blush in her cheeks owes more to the miracle of cosmetics than to any shyness on Salindra's part. The heat in her eyes when she looks at him is probably just as artful, but it burns against his skin anyway. She is not the cold of winter, not by any stretch of the imagination, no matter how hard, or made of ice, she thinks herself.

She's autumn through and through, full of bounty and plenty, as rich and ripe as a bumper crop; her life doesn't hold the hope promised by spring, with its offer of new beginnings and fresh shoots. Winter is looming around the corner, ready with cold winds that can rip a man's soul from his body, and a woman's, too, if she's unwary and unprepared.

He can't blame her for gathering what she can while the bloom of youth is still on her skin, like the dew on an autumn apple. He's under no illusions that her life has been easy, or will grow more so as the years pass. Because she is autumn, and winter stretches out, long and hard in front of her.

Zedd understands her better than she can ever imagine, with her witty tongue and warm eyes that hide a mind behind them that is as sharp as a tack. For all that he looks young to her, with a face as fair as hers, Zedd has lived through more than one spring and summer, and is now well into his own autumn; winter is just over the hill for him, too.

Salindra is the colour of late summer and early autumn; Zedd's knees no longer ache the way that they did, and his hair is no longer the colour of iron and snow, but it's hardly surprising that he still thinks that autumn is the most beautiful season of all.

-o-

Title: Recipe for Disaster
Author: alyse
Rating: PG
Pairing/Characters: Cara, Zedd
Word Count: 454

For some reason, Zedd seems to think that she needs to learn how to cook. It doesn't matter how much Cara protests about it, or how hard she rolls her eyes at him, it doesn't deter him.

The only thing she can think is that being around ~powerful magic~ for so long has addled the little brain he has left that age hasn't already done for.

"I don't see why I -"

"Patience, Cara." Zedd smiles at her, soft and gentle, and Cara has to resist the urge to take the knife he's given her to peel root vegetables and shove it somewhere that may not actually be painful but that will at least shut him up for five minutes, and probably make it difficult for him to ride a horse for a while.

She grits her teeth and tries for reason. "You know how to cook..."

"Yes, of course I do, dear one. I'm merely trying to pass some of those skills on to you."

She waves that off, not missing how Zedd eyes her knife warily.

"And Richard can cook..."

"Yes," Zedd sits back on his heels and gives her a look that's heading towards exasperated, "I believe his father taught him most of his skills in that area."

Another hand wave. "And Kahlan. Can cook. Which means that all three of you can cook."

"Yes."

"So if I'm travelling with you, there is not exactly a shortage of people who can cook. If I'm not with you, I don't care about cooking. I'll eat it raw if I have to. I've done it before."

"And what," asks Zedd, with a beady look in his eye, "if we are with you but are unable to cook? What if we're all deathly ill with a summer cold, and in desperate need of the sustenance that only freshly cooked chicken broth, made with love, can bring? Wouldn't you at least try to cook something then?"

"That depends on whether you're looking for a quick, merciful death."

Zedd sighs and shakes his head sadly. "Let's start again, Cara. If you can read and follow simple instructions, you can cook." He's known her how long now, and he hasn't yet realised that Cara follows no one else's instructions? About anything, never mind cooking. "Now, this is allspice. Would you like to tell me what dishes this works with again?"

She pauses, eyeing him just as beadily, and then she sighs, throwing her knife down onto the flat rock she's been using to prepare the vegetables. She's smart enough to know when she's beaten. "Fine," she huffs. "But skip the allspice and let's go straight to you telling me how to do that 'death by chocolate' thing."