Disclaimer: Not mine.

AN: I'm gonna attempt to participate in lesdemonium's fandom advent calendar thing, no idea how long that'll last, but here's my first offering.

And for a couple I've been MEANING to write something for for quite a while. Better late than never right?

*o0O0o*
* i can't read the soul in your eyes. but i see it *
*o0O0o*

A Confessor cannot read a Mord-Sith's soul, to Kahlan it feels as if there is nothing there. And so it is easy to forget they have souls at all.

When Kahlan meets Cara it is no different at first.

She is a necessary ally, but one whose heart is beyond Kahlan's power to view. It is as much that lack of ability as the blood on Cara's hands that make Kahlan distrust and dislike her.

/there is blood on Kahlan's hands too, blood and so many hearts she could weep if she ever let herself. The hearts are the worst, she can wash off the red from her blades and know that they deserved their deaths, but the worship in their eyes sticks to her. She hates how much she loves it/

And then she learns that her sister had died to Cara's hands and rage consumes Kahlan whole.

/it crawls from the inside out, black like storm clouds of a hurricane, as powerful as an earth shake that levels mountains. It's her, it's still her, it's the darkness lurking at the edge of her mind coming forth to make these children drop to their knees in front of their goddess. To rip to shreds the soul that robbed this world of her sister/

She almost refuses to see the crack in Cara's armor, as she stands over her, her neck under Kahlan's hand, the power of confession at the tips of her fingers, boiling to get out and consume Cara whole. The hunger to watch this woman, this monster - this hurt little girl, - writhe in pain and beg her Mistress to forgive her as she dies is all consuming.

But Kahlan sees it, sees the open agony in Cara's eyes.

/did her sister have eyes like that as the light left them? She could ask and she'd answer, between the screams, she would answer/

She still cannot read her, not in the way of a Confessor, even now in this moment the wall of a Mord-Sith holds. But she's seen eyes like that a hundred times, they are grief and loss and regret. They are… shame.

The Mord-Sith do not feel shame. And yet Cara does, Kahlan can see it burning Cara from the inside out.

And she cannot kill her, not kill her and expect to still call herself Mother Confessor.

Confessors are justice, not vengeance.

/they're vengeance too. When that's all that's left, they're the retribution, the judgement. And the executioner/

The hunger of the Con Dar is still there, it doesn't care that Cara's crying with regret.

But she's not just that one side of herself, she's Kahlan Amnell too and she is unwilling to betray herself in this way.

/her sister is dead, all her sisters are dead, and she will not let this Mord-Sith finish the job. She is the Last Confessor and if she did this she would never be able to wear white again, and she must, it is her duty to their memory/

She stands back but does not break her eye contact with the woman who is more than her red leathers after all and it's here that Kahlan truly meets Cara for the first time. She might have seen Lord Rahl's warrior by the Boxes of Orden, been introduced to an ally of the Seeker by Richard.

But it is then, as the truth of everything lays like broken, scattered toys between them, that Kahlan Amnell meets Cara Mason.

/there is wonder in Cara's eyes, not worship, and something inside her thrums at it: in anger or pleasure, hatred or a greeting. Not in forgiveness though. Never that/

/not yet/