meridian_rose

Title: An Abnormal in the Midlands
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker/Sanctuary crossover
Pairing/Characters: Cara, Helen Magnus
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 995
Prompt: For a

legendland crossover challenge
Summary: Helen Magnus appears in the Midlands tracking an abnormal and Cara finds herself helping out
Warnings: None

Cara sat leaning against a tree trunk. Kahlan was presiding over a trial in the nearby village, while Richard and Zedd had gone fishing. Cara had witnessed their fishing expeditions before. She had no desire to do so again. She'd told them she was going to collect firewood and herbs for the fish, and would do so, but right now she was enjoying the afternoon sun.

A short distance away the air shimmered, then split apart. Cara was on her feet in an instant, agiels in her hands. Some sort of magic portal, she was guessing, and that never boded well.

A woman stepped out of the portal. Pretty, pale skinned, with long dark hair, the newcomer was wearing a black dress and a long dark coat, along with long black boots. She was holding some sort of tiny box in one hand. She noticed Cara.

"Hello," the woman said brightly.

Cara said nothing, just raised one eyebrow.

"I don't suppose you've seen a nightbolt, have you?" The woman glanced at the box and then around the woods. Her accent was cultured; it reminded Cara a little of Darken Rahl's.

"I don't know," Cara said evenly, shifting her stance slightly. "What does a nightbolt look like?"

The woman shrugged. "About this big," she said, stretching out her arms. "Wings. Green eyes." She frowned. "Please forgive my manners. I'm Dr Helen Magnus, of the Sanctuary Network. The nightbolt is an abnormal I'm tracking."

"Cara," she replied, and, feeling this was somewhat lacking in the face of the other woman's introduction, "Mord'Sith."

"Call me Helen," Magnus went on, frowning at the box in her hand. "Where exactly are we, Cara?"

"The Gerrant Woods," Cara said, and, reasoning the portal might have transported Helen over a significant distance, "the Midlands, near the easternmost border of D'hara."

"D'Hara?" Helen asked. "I'm not familiar with that place. Still, you're not too bothered by the rift?" She glanced over her shoulder.

Cara followed Helen's eyeline to the portal. "I have seen magical portals before."

"Excellent! Now, magic…that does complicate things a little. Let's see." Helen smiled. "I'm from another world. There are abnormals there, what you would probably term magical creatures. One of them, a nightbolt, was causing a problem in the city where I live. I was tracking it with this –" she gestured to the box with her other hand – "until it opened up a rift in time and space and disappeared. Henry, one of my staff, managed to jerry-rig a device that opened up a second rift which is what I just came through. I need to find and subdue the creature, and take it somewhere it will be safe."

"You hunt magical creatures," Cara said, the one thing she thought she understood clearly from Helen's explanation.

"Yes," Helen agreed. "Now it can't have gone far because I shot it with a tranquilizer – er, sleeping potion. So, the nightbolt – possibly you might think of it as a dragon –"

"It sounds like a gar," Cara said. She pointed. "A gar would head over that way, where the trees are not so thick, and where it might seek shelter at the foot of the mountains."

"Splendid." Helen pressed a button on the box and the portal vanished. "Would you care to help me?"

Cara shrugged. It was better than fishing, and Richard was always insisting on helping people, no matter how strange they were. "Very well."

Cara led the way and Helen followed. "So, Cara, what is it you do?"

"I am in service to Lord Rahl," she said proudly.

"In service? Do you mean like the army?"

"I protect him," Cara clarified.

"I see. A bodyguard." Helen kept up with Cara's punishing pace, to the Mord'Sith's secret surprise. "This is a fascinating place."

Cara held out a hand and Helen stopped and fell silent immediately. Cara's opinion of Helen went up another notch.

"Up ahead," Cara said softly, "to your right."

"I see it," Helen whispered. "One moment."

Cara kept one eye on the gar, which was sleeping in a small clearing, and one on Helen, who slipped the box into a pocket of her coat and pulled a long blade from her boot.

Helen crept forwards but as she reached the gar it awoke and screamed its displeasure. One wing knocked Helen to the ground. Cara advanced fearlessly, agiels in her hands and applied them to the gar. Helen struggled to her feet and dodged the gar's tail. Cara moved one agiel to beneath the creature's neck and it howled in pain but its struggles grew fainter. Helen struck the gar on the rump with the blade and after a few moments the gar collapsed, eyes shut. Cara stepped away.

"Thank you," Helen said breathlessly.

"You're welcome." Cara nudged the gar with one boot. "Is it dead?"

"No. Just sleeping." Helen brushed her hair back from her forehead. "Well, time to get back."

She took out the box again and moved her fingers over it. It glowed, and emitted some odd noises, and then another portal opened, just in front of her.

"Let's just get this thing out of your world and back to mine," Helen said. Cara helped Helen drag the gar to the portal. Once the head was through, the body quickly followed – perhaps Helen's friend Henry was pulling it from the other side.

"It was a pleasure," Helen said, holding out one hand. Cara shook hands, regarding Helen coolly. "I'm sorry I can't stay and explore your world some more. Maybe another time."

"That would be acceptable," Cara said.

Helen stepped into the portal and it vanished. Cara headed back to where she'd been sitting when the stranger had first arrived. She wasn't sure if she'd even bother to tell Richard about her adventure, though she had liked Helen's no-nonsense manner. It sounded a little odd even to her, and she had just lived through it. Magic, Cara thought, was a very odd thing.