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madame_dennaPairing: Denna/Kahlan
Rating: R
Words: ~850
Warnings: character death, explicit violence and torture, dubious consent & content
Summary: Kahlan needs to cope with a new and different life. After an apocalyptic battle in a world in which Darken Rahl has won and she has lost almost everything. Except for Denna. Kahlan can't quite decide if it's a good thing, or the worst. After all, Denna is there to help.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. They are not mine and - of course no money is made.
I don't own any of them, but I have a distinctive feeling Denna might own me...
A/N: This is it. It's done. Voilá.
- Part I - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5
..
Kahlan wakes with a gasp, then coughs and sputters. The water from her lungs is gone as well as Denna's chambers.
Pain throbs heavily behind her temples and she thinks she might have gone blind.
Strong arms reach for her and press her down onto a mattress. A scent floods her nostrils and the masculine note almost turns her stomach.
Kahlan screams and thrashes--until there is only darkness.
---
She is not blind. Has gone insane instead.
"You were unconscious for days." He tells her when she comes to again. His voice gentle and soothing and it seems so perfect--so right. When her eyes land on the other man in the room, she takes in the deep lines on his face--that weren't there the last time she saw him.
Kahlan can almost believe them.
"I know it may seem hard to understand, but you were under a dangerous spell. We have prove that Darken Rahl himself--with help of course--brought this monstrosity about!" Kahlan watches as Zedd's long white hair swings in stride with his animated body language.
Almost.
She cackles for a long while.
Richard joins her laughter; careful and with a sidelong-glance to the wizard, then back to her. Zedd just stares at her--stunned into silence--evaluating her.
Then it morphs and she heaves, sobs, laughs again.
This can't have been just a vivid dream--a laugh. A feverish nightmare--a sob. A spell of Darken Rahl's most powerful wizards--another heave.
It can't be. She was there in the temple. For months. Every fiber of her being refuses to believe a single word they say.
"Liars!" she accuses, roaring "filthy liars!" Her chests constricts; she can't breathe. Her face is wet with tears.
"Kahlan no, it wasn't real!" Richard tells her, stepping closer.
“Leave me be!” She is still screaming on the top of her lungs, but she doesn't even realize in her frenzy. "This isn't real! It's not…. I can't be back... I saw… “
She wrestles a hand through her hair, and tries to make a sense of what is happing around her.
"I saw.. "
She drowns at the bottom of an ocean--and there is only blissful darkness.
---
"I'm not really here, so relax, Confessor." Cara sits on a chair next, feet propped up on the end of her bed. "Just a figment of your imagination."
"Cara!" It's Zedd's voice coming out of the adjoining room. Kahlan watches him enter through the open door with wide-open eyes. "Don't tell her something like that! Kahlan is just not entirely well yet." He takes a bite of persimmon that sits in his hand. "Be patient."
Cara rolls her eyes and stands. "Good, when you're awake old man--you can watch her."
At the door, she hesitates briefly and turns to Kahlan. With Zedd currently out of earshot, she tells her: "Glad you're back," and sighs, "it's about time."
When Cara is gone, Kahlan closes her eyes tightly. Hands find their way over her ears--and she starts humming to shut out the current world around her.
This isn‘t real.
Eventually the tune fades out--as does her consciousness.
---
It had been real. It had been. She knows it was.
Kahlan has been fooled before. There is no sense in hope for her anymore. And she can't risk it. Denna has made her learn that lesson. She knows it by heart by now.
Oh, Mistress Denna.
Come back to me.
The world turns black once more.
---
"How was it like?" Richard asks one afternoon, leaning against a wall--keeping his distance. A window is open and from outside the ringing laughter of children carries into the room. "The spell I mean." He pauses to wrestle a hand through his short brown hair. "You can talk to me Kahlan. It's me--Richard.
A horse neighs in the distance and Kahlan turns on her bed. Away from Richard--away from the questions she has no idea how to answer.
If... How would she ever come back from this?
You have nowhere to hide.
Kahlan closes her eyes and listens out for a certain voice among thousands, sounding rough and velvet-like.
---
Richard tries to reach out for her--careful and moving like she is a frightened animal he wants to catch--but Zedd holds him back.
He must see the devastation in her blackened soul.
All that happened--unspeakable things. Was it real?
Think of me and only of me.
It's been a week and Kahlan starts to wonder.
---
Nowhere to go.
It's still Denna‘s voice she hears in her mind day and night, even if the blonde Mord‘Sith has not spoken to her in days.
She wonders if Darken Rahl killed her. Destroyed everything she was.
---
The days pass and Kahlan barely sleeps--does not wake to Denna's blue eyes staring back at her.
It's what she always wanted. Everything and more.
Is it not?
At last - Kahlan is home.
.
.
..
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
(But is she? Really?)
.
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Date: 2018-10-21 03:28 pm (UTC)