Before we get started, we're down to our last few submissions again! Please feel free to send any snippets of unfinished fic to be.compromised@gmail.com, so we can make people tell you that you're awesome!


Today's snippet is from cybermathwitch. Take it away, Koren!

A/N: So there was a prompt during the prompt-a-thon made by anuna_81: Sword of Truth AU anyone? Where Natasha is Mord'Sith. (and Tony can be the wizard, and Steve can be the Seeker, and everyone else can help them out...) *g*

So... yeah, that happened. I already had the first bit on my computer before ever reading the prompt, actually.

Additional Note: So here's the thing. I'm a huge fan of the TV series, but not so much the books (I made it to book three, then I was done) so this is very much series canon and interpretation. Apparently my doing AUs is a thing? IDEK, I have no excuse except that the idea of Natasha as a Mord'Sith = perfect.

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Getting across the border wasn't nearly as difficult as she’d thought it would be. In fact, it was almost ridiculously easy, and that has her nerves jangling at her more than anything else. Well, that and the ‘evil’ that seems to be seeping out of the very ground along the wall. People, most normal, average people, think that she’s evil, but that’s because they really have no idea. She’s dangerous, she’s unpleasant, and she might even be damaged beyond recognition, but true evil? That’s something else entirely.

Which is why she’s here.

She knows her first loyalty is supposed to be to the Lord Rahl, but in her mind, that extends to all of D’Hara, because the King is his country and the country is it’s King. And to her mind, the current “Lord Rahl” is running the country into the ground. So she’s broken all the rules, and most of her training, but she’s determined that she’s going to fix things. It’s not like her to aim for such noble and lofty goals, and really, she’s already regretting it. She was regretting it the second night out, but by then it was far too late, and they knew she was gone.

*****

"You didn't have to come with me, you know." She pushed through the dense forest without turning around, certain that he was still following her despite her words. Of course he had to come with her if she was going to go.

"You know that's a lie. What would I do if I remained in D'Hara?"

"Fall to another woman's clutches? Be someone else's plaything?" She did look then, and there was a slight twist to her mouth. It took very little of the sting out of what she'd said.

His expression was as it ever was, calm and even. He looked relaxed, and it belied that central core of strength that sometimes terrified her. People - men especially - were supposed to be malleable. Easy to break and reshape under her not inconsiderable skills. He was... none of those things.

When they'd brought him to her and thrown him, bound, at her feet, they'd told her she could break him, then do with him as she pleased. He'd disobeyed direct orders from the Lord Rahl, they'd said, and an example had to be made. She'd put on her best red leathers and started her work, expecting nothing unsual, everything the same.

But he would not break.

After two weeks, she could not break him, and that had been intolerable.

Her discomfort and uncertainty must've shown on her face - that any emotion was visible at all spoke volumes about how unsettled it had made her - and finally, he spoke.

He'd made an offer she found herself unable to refuse, that he would play the part, let her save face among her sisters (and possibly with herself) - he would give himself to her and whatever she would do with him. His will would not be broken but it would still become hers.

In a moment of weakness she'd accepted.