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whumpsday · 5 days ago

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Castle Ravenloft

The Castle Masterlist | < Prev

A collab by me and @not-a-space-alien!

Tags: vampire hunter whumpee, kidnapping, captivity, stoic caretaker, fantasy setting, a bit of caretaking in one of my stories for once? | Words: 2.5k

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Cassian felt like he was dreaming again. What had just been his most painful nightmare yet was starting to feel more and more like a sweat-soaked fever dream. Inescapable and endless, the dream played on, conjuring richly decorated yet dilapidated corridors. Exquisite paintings and busts layered with dust passed Cassian’s bleary eyes as he was carried through the halls of Castle Ravenloft.

The dark stone walls looked familiar in a way Cassian didn't like. He didn’t expect to be back here so soon, even less so on terms that were not his own. But his head lolled and he hung limply from Rahadin’s shoulder as he was carried to a large high-ceilinged room with a fireplace.

Rahadin ended up carrying Cassian to the exact place he'd been in when he’d visited the castle the first time—the dining hall. A warm, cozy fire glowed from the hearth, giving the room an unexpected comfort that seeped into Cassian’s bones after the crisp chill outside.

Rahadin set Cassian in one of the armchairs, then knelt down and started wrapping bandages around Cassian's now-slightly-less-destroyed leg.

Yes, definitely a fever dream. Rahadin was speaking matter of factly now, it was almost gentle, when compared to his usual icy, bored drawl.

"Dinner will be ready soon. Do you think you can eat?” Rahadin asked.

The smell of something delicious wafted out from a kitchen nearby—a far cry from old Father Donavich's well meaning but ultimately very lacking, sad soup.

“If not, I'll take you to get washed and new clothes first. If so, we'll dine right here."

Okay, Rahadin still sounded bored. But he wasn’t hissing threats into Cassian’s ear—he wasn’t glowering at him as though his eyes could pierce Cassian’s skin like sharp silvery daggers.

In fact, they didn’t seem that piercing at all right now, from Cassian’s blurred perspective, half laying on the furniture he’d been deposited on. He gazed up at Rahadin, puzzled. Bandages and a meal were the last things Cassian had expected after the evening’s events. It all sounded too good to be true.

Cassian thought of making a break for it. He glanced back at the entrance way—but no. His leg was still too fucked up. The potions had closed the wound just barely, but there was no telling whether it could support any weight so soon.

He thought of the alternative.

Washed? New clothes? Cassian was honestly incredulous. The fraction of his mind that could still reason was certain he was here to meet an awful brutal end. In the castle of a monster, it was easy to assume he’d be taken to the kitchens and roasted alive for dinner, certainly not to be fed dinner.

His brow furrowed in suspicion, but he couldn’t deny that whatever smell was wafting in from the nearby kitchen was making him dizzy with hunger. After what must have been weeks of living off of Father Donavich’s meager bone broth, Cassian would be grateful for a real actual meal.

And maybe another one or two of those healing potions.

Shit, he'd take five in his state.

Rahadin sighed. "By the look on your face, I'll take that as an answer for dinner."

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Rahadin left and came back a moment later with a small cart, upon which was a platter of food—a succulent-looking roast, full and hearty vegetables, soft-looking bread, and a bowl of fruit. Rahadin transferred the plates over to the table, then slid plates over for himself and Cassian. He started casually taking food for himself.

Cassian frowned at him, suspicious.

Was this some sort of trick? He’d expected to be thrown in some dingy cell or drained to a husk by now. Or given more sad, meager soup. Porridge maybe. Certainly not whatever this was— waited on like he was at some kind of five star hotel. Cassian couldn't even afford food half this nice back home. Now they were going to treat him like some honored guest? After Strahd had harpooned his leg and dragged him, kicking and screaming to the castle?

Cassian was beyond stunned, to say the least. He didn't know what to think.

But he was also exhausted. Even with the slight healing, his body had been worn to shreds from the night’s events, and Cassian had been running on less than empty for a while now. The food smelled delicious.

"Help yourself, unless you need me to feed you."

Cassian frowned at Rahadin, but took the hint and dug in.

“Um, thank you,” he stammered between bites.

It was delicious—it was also probably poisoned, some paranoid part of him thought. But Rahadin was eating too. And Cassian was not exactly in a position to look this unexpected gift horse in the mouth. So he allowed himself to enjoy it. To feel grateful for the tiniest fraction of good fortune.

And water. Blessed, glorious water. It spilled down his shirt when he tried to chug the glass too fast.

Then Cassian saw Rahadin display an emotion for the first time—he smiled.

Rather, the corners of his lips turned upwards slightly. More like an evil smirk. It was unclear if Rahadin was capable of a smirk that wasn’t evil.

Rahadin very politely cut through his roast with a table knife.

"Usually I am the only one in the castle who eats real food. I'd almost forgotten what it's like to eat at a table together with someone else."

Rahadin didn’t want to say he enjoyed it. He wasn't sure if he enjoyed anything anymore. It was not unpleasant, at least.

“Did you really make all this yourself?” Cassian asked. He was more than a little amused at the mental image of Rahadin cooking. Rahadin didn't look like he had a flavorful bone in his body. He looked like he ate plain porridge and flavorless hardtack for a living. By choice.

"Yes. There is typically no one else in the castle fit to do any cooking. I've gotten quite good at it over the years." Sometimes there just wasn't much else to do.

Cassian was learning a thing or two about Rahadin that evening, and it wasn’t entirely unwelcome. If he was going to be stuck here until he managed to find a way to escape, Rahadin didn't seem totally awful. At least. Not completely.

Rahadin sighed.

"Enjoy my cooking until such a time that the master sees fit to switch you over to.... the typical blood diet."

Cassian’s train of thought slammed hard on the breaks. He was sure he must have heard him wrong. Some symptom of the concussion he no doubt had.

“The.. the what..?”

Rahadin chewed the roast, then furrowed his brow at Cassian.

"Blood,” he said dryly. “The master may decide to turn you into a vampire spawn at some time in the future."

Rahadin casually took a sip from his glass of water, completely unemotional about the bomb he'd just dropped.

Cassian dropped the fork he was holding. It clattered loudly against the plateware.

“He what—?”

Cassian looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Like a man who’d just been read his own death sentence. Like a man come face to face with his worst imaginable nightmare.

He'd heard this was a possibility. That first vampire spawn they’d encountered in this land had warned him this could happen. Doru, the preacher Father Donavitch’s son, who they’d found starving and feral in the basement of that old church, had warned him. Doru had been reduced to that state due to some curse Strahd had placed upon him that forbade him from ingesting blood. Doru was the reason they’d ended up in Strahd’s castle gates that night in the first place, attending a dinner party to try to negotiate to lift Doru’s curse.

When he was no longer rabid and starving, Cassian remembered asking Doru how he’d been turned. Doru had warned him. A bite. A grave. A call.

It’d happened to Escher too, from what he had heard, although he’d hardly said much to the blonde vampire. Doru seemed alright, but Cassian always felt so bristled around Escher. Something about him. Besides, Cassian wasn’t here to befriend vampires. They were the enemy. They all wanted the same thing, after all. And they would say or do anything to get it.

But the series of warnings flashed through his head as he assessed his current situation. Even that dusk elf paladin girl, Veruska, had warned Cassian that something bad would happen to him, if he kept on ‘like this’ or whatever she had said. Really, he hadn't been that bad while traveling with the group, in his own completely unbiased opinion.

But Veruska had warned him of a dark end. Of consequences. Of the universe correcting itself. Was this what it all meant? Was this the inevitable dark end he had dug himself to fall into? Was he trapped in a pit of his own making?

He cursed whatever he’d done—everything he'd done, to garner the vampire lord’s attention. He was a fucking fool for assuming he’d just be killed. Like it would be that easy.

But why?

Doru hadn’t even said why he’d been turned. Cassian couldn't fathom a reason, given that Strahd turned Doru just to starve him until he lost his mind completely.

“Why would—why would he do that?” He asked Rahadin when he finally found his breath again.

Rahadin shrugged. "His reasons are his own. He does as he sees fit."

Cassian frowned again. Rahadin was really going to give him absolutely nothing to work with, wasn’t he.

“What am I doing here anyway?” he asked, like he was going to get any further with more questions. Well, it felt better than saying nothing at all. In Cassian’s mind, to argue with a brick wall was better than not to argue at all.

"You are eating dinner," Rahadin said. "And after that, you will be washed up and given new clothes. Then the master will attend to you in whatever way he sees fit. You are here for his benefit, as are we all. Now, you should know my cooking is best enjoyed in silence."

Rahadin’s fork clinked on the plate as he cut more roast.

Cassian took the hint again, for what it was. An invitation to shut the fuck up before he dug himself deeper.

And shut the fuck up he did. For the rest of the meal, in fact. There was too much new information swirling around his likely concussed head for him to be of much conversation that didn't revolve around said intrusive narratives, and Rahadin had made his position clear—that was all he would speak on the matter.

Frustrated for the lack of information but grateful for the momentary, albeit confusing hospitality, Cassian finished the meal with Rahadin in silence.

He thought of Rahadin’s words.

‘You are here for his benefit.’

It unnerved Cassian.

What use could he possibly have for Strahd beyond his own blood? Which should, by the way, be gone by now, and certainly not fed and treated like a guest and expected to live in any sort of way around vampires—surely, right?

But, Rahadin. He wasn’t a vampire, was he. He ate food the same as Cassian did. But he worked for Strahd.

As they were finishing up, Cassian decided it was worth a try.

“Can I ask you something,” he didn’t wait for a response. “Why do you, you know. Work for him?”

Rahadin paused in the middle of loading their plates back onto the trolley. He then continued, his hands moving more slowly.

"I have faithfully served the von Zarovich family for hundreds of years. They are part of me.”

Cassian didn’t know what to do with that. That basically told him nothing, apart from the fact that there would indeed be hundreds of years worth of stubbornness to go up against if he wanted to get anything useful out of the elf right now.

“Now, come.” Rahadin said. “Follow."

Rahadin left the comfort of the fire’s warmth and strode out and into the cold, stone hallway, beckoning Cassian to follow with a flick of the wrist like a dog.

Cassian squinted at the gesture. But he relented, eyeing the rafters and the windows on the way out, looking for any possible way to slip out later in the evening.

The castle was old, decrepit, and looked like someone had not only preserved the natural spider webs but added more. Rahadin walked Cassian into a bathroom with no window and barely any light. He gestured to a washbasin filled with water– cold, by the looks of it. There was soap and towels nearby.

"Wash yourself.” Rahadin ordered with that same bored unamused drawl. “I will get you some clean clothes."

Without waiting to see if Cassian would obey, he left.

Cassian was at least grateful that Rahadin hadn’t decided to stick around and watch him bathe.

He glanced around the dimly lit room for any easy way to escape, and, when none presented themselves beyond the door through which he had entered, he opted to accept it for what it was.

A gesture of unexpectedly, almost suspiciously good hospitality.

Maybe Strahd didn’t want to eat him if he was all filthy from being dragged through the dirt. It made sense, he thought, disrobing and stepping into the cold water.

The chill was welcome on his fresh wounds. The water stung but he knew it would be worth the pain. He grit his teeth and hissed as he rubbed soap into the layers of dirt and blood on his skin, enduring the sharp burn where the roughness of the road had torn and bruised its tanned expanse.

He was grateful for the water. And the soap.

He was grateful to rinse his face. The blood and dirt from the road had done a number all over him, but washing his face felt particularly like a blessing.

He was grateful for the fresh clothes. His own clothes had been torn half to shreds, practically falling off him in bloodied strips when he’d removed them, and now lay in a tattered bundle on the floor.

He caught himself in the irony, feeling momentarily grateful for things that Strahd had ruined in the first place.

No, Cassian couldn't allow himself to lose perspective yet, not on a few basic niceties. It was Strahd who had done all of this. Strahd who had harpooned his fucking ankle and dragged him all the way to the castle like a piece of fucking meat.

Curse his fucking water and his soap and his stupid clothes. Cassian would rather wear his old ones, dammit.

But looking down at the puddle of tattered bloody garments on the floor, he sighed defeatedly, and decided a little following along could be worth it in the long run. Usable clothing and a clean slate meant he would heal faster, could escape faster, it was all part of a plan. He didn’t know which plan yet, exactly, but he knew he would think of something.

The clothes were fine--made of satin and embroidered with gold patterns. They were, Cassian noticed, the kinds of clothes that Escher wore.

Fuck Strahd, fuck this, he thought as he put on the clothes he’d been given.

He would think of something. Before it was too late.

He had to.

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