Room 418, Wednesday Night After Radio

[wrongkindofsith]

Instead of her usual post-radio bed-flop (talking that much was draining, all right?), Cara was pacing, fingers drumming restlessly against her thighs.

She mightn't have worn a hole in the carpet yet, but given the tension in her shoulders it was only a matter of time.

[Expecting one.]

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[redandblueblur.livejournal.com]

The moment the agiel touched his skin, Clark felt pain. It was nothing like he'd felt from any colored meteor rocks and he couldn't help crying out from the shock of the sensation. It took all his willpower not to pull back or curl in on himself as his body so desperately desired. Instead, Clark pushed through the pain enough to look up at her face. "Wha-- why?"

[wrongkindofsith]

Cara broke the contact, rubbing the spot with her thumb, and reminding herself it wouldn't be a good idea to praise his endurance. "You need to understand. The agiel is the weapon of the Mord'Sith," She paused before adding. "We don't just use them in battle."

[redandblueblur.livejournal.com]

The pain was gone as quickly as it had begun, leaving Clark to shake off the strange hum it had left rattling through him. "Okay...so you use a weapon that really hurts. I mean...I'm invulnerable and that hurt." Magic so confused him.

[wrongkindofsith]

This was going to take a while, Cara forced herself to meet Clark's eyes as she explained. "The magic of the agiel causes pain to any who touch it. It never stops."

[redandblueblur.livejournal.com]

"What, like, it hurts you, too?" He had actually assumed the handles offered some level of protection.

[wrongkindofsith]

In response, Cara stripped off a glove before taking hold of the agiel again, holding up her hand so Clark could see the dark lines of magic as they radiated along and under her skin.

"As much now as the first time I ever felt its touch." From her tone, she could have been talking about the weather.

[redandblueblur.livejournal.com]

Okay, even Clark could admit that was weird. "So why do you hold it?"

[wrongkindofsith]

"Because I'm Mord'Sith." It was as simple and complicated as that. "I've been trained to have the strength and endurance to wield it."

[redandblueblur.livejournal.com]

There was some thinking involved prior to Clark's response. "Then, you mean you don't feel the pain anymore? I'm sorry, Cara, I don't get what this has to do with you not thinking you're a good person."

[wrongkindofsith]

It took all of Cara's self-control not to face-palm. Instead she moved to straddle his lap, hoping the proximity would help get the point across. "I feel the pain, every second of it. There's only one time I've only ever felt anything worse." And she was most definitely not going to talk to Clark about that. "Mord'Sith training enables us withstand the pain, embrace it, it makes us strong. Understanding pain enables us to serve the Lord Rahl the way we do."

[redandblueblur.livejournal.com]

Clark welcomed the closeness, if only because it meant she wasn't going to leave before he could understand what she was talking about. "Okay. So pain is not painful to you but it helps you do your job?"

[wrongkindofsith]

That was close enough. "Yes. Knowing how to use it, to cause it."

[redandblueblur.livejournal.com]

"So you hurt people for a living?" This was the part where Clark started hoping he was understanding her wrong.

[wrongkindofsith]

Cara licked her lips before continuing."The Mord'Sith serve the Lord Rahl in many ways." Any way the Lord Rahl wanted. "But amongst our duties, we're his torturers."

There, she'd said it.

[redandblueblur.livejournal.com]

Clark stared for a moment, not really believing what he was hearing. "And your friends, do they torture people, too?"

[wrongkindofsith]

And it wasn't like Clark had even heard the worst of it. "No. Richard and Kahlan, they're not like me."

[redandblueblur.livejournal.com]

"Okay." Clark was processing.

Slowly.

"Have you tortured anyone here?"

[wrongkindofsith]

"No." Though Cara didn't really see how where she'd tortured people was relevant. "There'd be no point to it, and Richard doesn't like the idea of torture."

[redandblueblur.livejournal.com]

"And Richard is the Lord Rahl, right?" Clark verified. If the man she served didn't like torture, Clark was failing to see the problem again.

[wrongkindofsith]

"Richard is the true Lord Rahl." And any time he wanted to hurry up and actually claim his throne would be fine by Cara. "He has my loyalty. But he didn't know this until last year, and Darken Rahl... didn't share his views."

To put things lightly.

[redandblueblur.livejournal.com]

Okay, so she'd done a lot of bad things in the past. Clark reached out to try and take hold of her hand. "Cara, listen. No one's perfect. But I'm not going to judge you by what you did in the past. You get to decide who you are now." Johnathan would be so proud.

[wrongkindofsith]

Cara gripped his hand hard enough her knuckles turned white. "I don't understand." She was not crying. Clearly there was some other reason her face was suddenly damp. "I'd understand if you never wanted anything to do with me, but not why any of you keep doing this."

[redandblueblur.livejournal.com]

The hand she wasn't trying in vain to break reached to wipe away the tears he'd never expected from her. "Your expectations for me are maybe too low," Clark suggested. "Sure, I've run from my problems before, but I learned from it."

[wrongkindofsith]

That's because Cara was usually very good at repressing them, the same way she was very firmly pushing away the memory of the last time someone wiped her tears. "What could be so bad that you'd run from it?"

[redandblueblur.livejournal.com]

"You might not consider it so bad," Clark admitted, still ashamed of how he'd acted. Cara deserved to hear his little story, especially if it would help her understand why he wasn't running now. "You remember how I'm an alien? Well, the ship that brought me to Earth years ago started freaking out and sending me a message. I tried to resist, but my birth father burned this symbol into my chest and I thought the only way to make it all stop was to destroy the ship. Turns out, the explosion reached my parents and uh, my mom miscarried the baby they'd always wanted." He'd been able to tell the story pretty calmly until the last part when he had to look away. "It wasn't the first time some part of me had hurt them, so I ran off, thinking they were better without me around destroying their lives."