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mx-lamour · 3 months

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4 - Bloodstain

Strahd von Zarovich sat before the hearth. Despite its blazing warmth, he felt cold. He was slumped heavily in his chair, long legs stretched out in front of him lackadaisically; his steepled fingers barely touched his chin as he stared through the dancing flames. There was nothing to be seen within them—not that he possessed that particular ability.

It had been nearly a year since that fateful night, when he had plunged the Ba’al Verzi dagger into Sergei’s chest. When he’d sucked the blood from his brother’s wound, and washed it from his hands. Nearly a year since Leo Dilisnya had enacted his treasonous plot to execute Ravenloft’s mass of guests. When Strahd himself had been struck through with enough arrows to kill him several times over, and still had not died.

It had been nearly a full year since Tatyana had fled from his embrace and flung herself from the overlook. His heart ached to think of it.

One more night.

He still had not found her body.

A fervent rap at the window excised Strahd from his reverie. His frown deepened. There should be nothing there to make such a noise. No trees handy to brush their limbs against the glass. A bat would have the faculties to avoid collision with a solid surface, and not many other creatures had occasion—nay, nor the desire—to venture this high up on castle grounds.

. . .

The place was devoid of movement; devoid of life.

Janath should be here at his post. But, even as the thought occurred to him, it seemed unlikely. A thick layer of dust coated the floor. The remains of delicate spiderwebs draped from the walls.

A chill ran along Alek’s spine. He listened hard within the stairwell, but could hear neither the rustling of his men in the barracks below, nor any sign of the hundreds of guests who should be inhabiting the rooms above. The stairwell itself was unfathomably dark.

Alek ducked his head back out of it, fear welling up past his initial shock, and strode into the chapel. What he saw there did little to reassure him. Several of the gorgeous windows were smashed. Whole pews were overturned. The trappings of the altar were strewn about the floor, among fragments of colorful glass. Alek carefully rifled through the mess in the moonlight, until he discovered a means to light the torch he plucked from its iron mount on the wall.

The rapid clapping of his boots against the stone floors echoed in the halls through which he ran. He checked a few of the guest rooms, just to be thorough, but their desolate interiors only added to his growing dread. They would all look the same, all smell of the same stale air. He climbed another flight of stairs, taking them now two at a time, racing toward Strahd’s quarters.

Alek hesitated, heart in his throat. What if he found only more of the same? Only cobwebs and dust and broken things, and… had there really been bloodstains on the floor beneath his feet?

A dozen possibilities flashed through his mind, of what might be waiting for him if he crashed through the door of Strahd’s study. But worst of all was the empty room.

He went a longer way, to stall the inevitable. From the outer walk, he reasoned, he would be able to look in through the windows, to see into both the study and Strahd’s bedroom. Outside, there was no dust nor blood—although a passing rain could have washed it all away.

Alek peered into the first window, Strahd’s bedroom. The darkness inside was too thick to peer into. Holding his torch up to the glass only showed him the reflection of his own desperate face.

But there was a light ahead, he realized. The flickering glow from the next window mimicked that of his own torch. The hearth must be lit. New hope seized Alek like a breath of fresh air. His chest ached with it. How long had he been holding his breath?

He hurried to the lighted window and looked inside. And there was Strahd, slouched in front of the fire, hands steepled, deep in thought. Alek couldn’t remember the last time he felt such palpable relief. He rapped his knuckles on the glass.

. . .

Strahd turned his head. And froze.

“Strahd!” Alek’s muffled voice called through the glass. “Open up.”

Strahd’s elbows slid from the arms of the chair. He braced himself to stand, but found himself reluctant to do so. Was this a ghost? Had Alek’s ghost come to haunt him? Or…

His eyes darted toward his bedroom, and the closet within, where Strahd had stashed the body of his chief of security, and the corpse had… disappeared.

“Strahd!” Alek called again, now slapping his palm against the window.

Perhaps he had survived, after all. And now he had come back… to do what? Why had he not appeared before? Where had he been, then, when Dilisnya and his men had massacred the castle’s inhabitants?

Hope and anger both roiled within Strahd, and together they propelled him to his feet. The anger flattened when Alek finally climbed into the room, and immediately tugged Strahd into a strong embrace. Just as quickly, Alek drew back, but his hands retained a firm grip on Strahd’s shoulders. “What happened?” he gasped.

Didn’t he know?

Strahd grasped Alek’s arms. “What do you remember?”

The full force of his gaze wiped all expression from Alek’s face. “The wedding is tomorrow.”

Strahd blinked against the stab of pain that pierced his chest.

“I was doing the rounds,” Alek explained, regaining his momentum. “The keep should be full to the brim with people! But between one step and the next, everyone was gone. My men, the servants, all the guests…” He let out a shaky breath. Strahd finally noticed, with astounding clarity, the man’s racing pulse. Alek squeezed Strahd’s shoulders tighter and whispered, “We’re the only ones left.”

Strahd gently extricated himself from Alek’s grasp, turning back toward the hearth to think.

He didn’t remember, then. Alek didn’t remember coming here, to Strahd’s study. He remembered nothing about the deal Strahd had made with Death, nor the fight which ensued between them. He didn’t remember Strahd running him through, slitting his throat, drinking his life’s blood…

It was impossible. How had he survived, unless he had become like Strahd himself? But his lungs still drew air. His heart still pumped warm blood through his veins. Alek was well and truly alive.

An abrupt choking sound behind him.

Strahd whipped around. Alek staggered back, clutching his stomach, brow furrowed with pain and sudden confusion. They both looked down. A vibrant splash of red seeped into Alek’s shirt beneath his hand.

Strahd watched in horror as Alek sank to his knees, defiantly swallowing the urge to vomit up the blood undoubtedly pooling inside his gut. He even tried to stand again. Couldn’t yet fathom he was dying. Where had the wound come from? Even as he thought it, Strahd already knew the answer.

Unable to right himself, Alek settled himself onto the floor instead, a bloody pantomime of lying down for a nap. His eyes were barely slits as he struggled to remain conscious, but he kept them fixed on Strahd’s face.

“It’s… all right,” Alek whispered, despite the scent of fear on him. He coughed with the effort, and the blood pooling in his cheek dribbled onto the floor. “...found you.”

Strahd flinched outright as a torrent of hunger rolled through him. A thin red line drew itself across Alek’s throat.

His own throat burning, Strahd dropped to his knees. His eyes were burning, too, stung by the sight of Alek’s precious blood—so much of it—pooling around his head like a dark halo, staining his blond hair. Strahd crawled toward him weakly.

From the open window, a delicate fog crept in. It crawled along the floor, too, slowly enveloping Alek’s body like a shroud. Strahd reached for Alek through the unusual cloud. He thought, for a moment, that his hand touched cloth and flesh… but then only the cold, hard floor.

When the fog dissipated, Alek’s body was gone.

. . .

Strahd drowned the rest of the night in books, though he didn’t dare open the accursed tome with the Heart’s Desire spell swimming in its pages. Instead, he sought other ghosts—any information he could find on hauntings and their infinite peculiarities.

What he found failed to be of any use. The writings nearly always described the spirits as transparent or wisp-like, except for the erroneous mentions of skeletal undead. There were accounts of spirits who seemed to be stuck in a particular moment in time, like an image of the past impressed faintly upon the present, ever doomed to repeat itself. But even this was incongruent with the events he had just witnessed.

Alek was alive, or had been for those fleeting minutes. He was no hazy specter, but as solid and real as Strahd himself. He was intelligent; he acted on new information, rather than simply going through the motions of a past event.

The one detail that did align were Alek’s wounds. The fatal wounds of his death a year prior had blossomed on his body again this night without warning. Strahd wondered: Had it been the same hour, the same moment that Alek had first suffered them? Strahd had not the proper knowledge to mend such wounds, but if he had…? What then? Would Alek still be here, whole again, by his side?

Strahd slammed the book shut and shoved it across the table. It did not quite fall off the edge.

Had he been given a second chance, only to squander it?

Then another thought occurred to him: Tomorrow.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

. . .

Strahd waited on the overlook, a thick black cape draped over his shoulders.

It was tempting to wait within the desecrated chapel, where he and Tatyana had finally shared their first—and last—kiss. Perhaps it would no longer be their last, but that would depend entirely on the success of his actions now. He could not know when or where she would appear, so he would prepare himself for only the worst possibility. Alek had apparently run through most of the castle before he had found Strahd in his study, but to rely on that same variable of time in Tatyana’s case might be foolish. He might linger in the chapel only to watch through the windows as she appeared in the garden beyond, already in full sprint toward the balcony.

Would she think to stop in time? Strahd couldn’t be certain.

So he waited, in the space that should be her intended path, with his back to the sheer drop of the cliff face below, ready to catch her in his arms and hold on tightly to her forever after.

He waited.

And waited.

Until the predicted hour had passed, and prickling apprehension began to crawl under his skin.

And still, he waited. Because he could not be sure when or where Tatyana would appear. He only knew that, if she did appear, he could not allow her to die a second time.

Strahd waited, stock still, eyes searching, until the peaky light of dawn crept in over his shoulders. Let it, he thought. He could not bear to leave this opportunity behind.

But the early rays of the morning sun grew swiftly hotter, until Strahd could no more endure their radiant light than he could the overwhelming ache of grief. He dissolved himself into mist to escape both, and reconstituted himself within the shadows of Ravenloft’s desolate halls. Grimly, with his incredible hearing, he listened for any other sign of life. Perhaps Tatyana had materialized within the chapel after all, and had come inside to look for…

But he heard nothing.

Strahd retreated numbly to his crypt, to welcome deathlike slumber.

. . .

Another year passed. Almost.

A rapping at his study window provided Strahd an uncanny feeling of deja vu.

“Strahd!” Alek’s muffled voice called through the glass. “Open up.”

This time Strahd wasted no time. He unlatched the window and Alek climbed through, just as he had before, tugging Strahd into a swift embrace. “Everyone is gone!” he said, as though Strahd couldn’t have known. Alek drew back, though his hands still clasped Strahd’s shoulders. “My men, the guests, the servants—all of them. We’re the only ones left.”

“I know,” Strahd replied, grasping Alek’s arms. He gazed at Alek’s alarmed face, looking into his pale eyes.

Alek’s racing heart slowed, and he sighed. But a light crease formed between his brows, mirroring Strahd’s deeper concern. “I’m going to die,” he whispered.

Strahd glanced down at Alek’s throat. Swallowed the hunger rising in his own. “No,” he said firmly.

“What happened?” Alek urged.

Where to begin?

“There’s no time to explain.” Strahd turned, pulling himself halfheartedly from Alek’s grasp to run his hand across a shelf of books. Alek followed close behind him, curious.

“What—”

“Alek!” Strahd clenched his fist. “...hush,” he said, deliberately gentle, releasing the tension in his fingers to pull forth one of the tomes. He flipped it open on his arm and rifled through the pages.

“What are you looking for?” Alek whispered, unable to contain himself.

“A spell,” Strahd said impatiently.

Suitably cowed for the moment, Alek pursed his lips. He glanced back at the window briefly.

Strahd shook his head angrily as he flipped through the symbols and incantations. A spell to mend a small tear in an object. A spell to reduce an object or whole person in size. A spell to acquire for oneself a temporary boost in stamina. None of them were quite right.

“Damn it all!” he cursed aloud.

Alek coughed and staggered. One hand flew out to catch himself on the book case; the other clutched at his stomach.

Strahd reached out to grasp the front of Alek’s shirt, keeping him upright. He skimmed through another page before dropping the open book to the floor. He would have to improvise.

“Stay with me,” he commanded.

Alek nodded, defiantly swallowing back the blood and bile that rose in his throat. His knuckles were white on the bookshelf.

Strahd pushed Alek’s hand away from the wound, and shuddered when a sudden wave of intense blood-thirst threatened to blind him. He lost the strength to hold up both himself and Alek; together, the men fell to their knees.

Strahd muttered a string of words that Alek couldn’t recognize and that Strahd had half made-up as he spoke. A sickly glowing swirl of muted colors hovered in the space between Strahd’s fingers and the wound.

“It’s all right,” Alek rasped, clenching his jaw against the racking cough that followed.

“I’m afraid it’s not,” Strahd whispered. He abandoned the wavering, half-baked spell, knowing it would do no good. Knowing what would happen next.

Strahd pulled Alek into his arms—Alek held him weakly in turn—and when the thin red line appeared in his throat—

Strahd drank.

Mouth open and pressed to Alek’s throat, Strahd drank from the well of his life a second time.

It sickened him. Not in the way that the blood of animals seemed to. Strahd had experimented with that after assisting a pack of wolves in their own wild hunt one night. Not only had he found no sustenance in it, but he had been subjected to the cramped roiling of a poisoned gut and could not keep the stuff down.

This was not the same kind of sickness, for the taste of Alek’s blood was satiating almost to the point of ecstasy. No, the sickness he felt now had nothing to do with his body.

Alek’s heart had stopped beating, but still Strahd held the man in his arms, his face buried against the curve of Alek’s shoulder. He didn’t notice the tendrils of mist spilling in through the open window. He didn’t notice when it swirled around himself and the man who had truly been his closest and most trusted friend, covering them up like a shroud.

He didn’t notice, until the body in his arms began to fade from his grasp, gradually slipping away, until there was nothing left to hold onto.

Strahd sat there for what could have been minutes or hours, staring at the empty floor. His lip quivered, his shoulders lurched. He grit his teeth.

Then he rose. As he always would; as he always must…

And closed the window.

. . .

The following years were much the same. Again, Strahd hoped that Alek’s coming would precede Tatyana’s, and he waited for her, in the chapel, or in the garden, or there on the overlook again, all to no avail. Until he had satisfied himself that she would never grace him with the beauty of her presence again, no matter how long he waited. Only then did Strahd turn his attention back on Alek Gwilym with the full force of his convictions.

He scoured the contents of his library many times over, forcefully entreating his boyars to turn up any other magical book or artifact they could find. Unfortunately, as Barovia had been barred from any exit or entry by its dense misty borders, there was very little to be found.

Strahd attempted to learn healing magic, so that he might try again to seal Alek’s wounds and prevent his ultimate demise. However, his fears were realized when he discovered himself wholly antithesis to it. Any attempt to repair a tear or cut, either human or animal, was met with disastrous results. Instead of the soft knitting of flesh he remembered from the work of Ilona’s wizened hands, the wound would fester and grow.

He practiced necromancy, then, and found that he could create a semblance of life within the dead. But only a semblance of life. The corpses became mindless, shambling things, beholden to simple commands. Try as he might, Strahd could not master a true resurrection.

There were a string of years thereafter, in which Strahd couldn’t bear to let Alek inside. Instead, he held Alek’s gaze through the window, attempting to hold him steady. But, though his body calmed itself under Strahd’s thrall, Alek continued to look worried.

One year, Alek raised his hand and pressed his palm against the leaded glass.

Trembling, Strahd’s hand rose to meet it.

“It’s all right,” Strahd murmured, before Alek could say it himself.

Alek died. Strahd’s claws left deep grooves in the window pane.

It was not all right.

. . .

Rather than waiting in his study again for the inevitable, Strahd set out to track down the exact point of Alek’s return.

He found him closing the door on an empty guest room. “Alek,” Strahd whispered, and Alek startled. Then his face lit up. He bounded toward the end of the hall where Strahd stood, partly obscured by shadow, and sighed heavily in relief.

Then he noticed Strahd’s face in the torchlight, and backpedaled. “What happened?” he gasped. “I heard—”

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” Strahd said smoothly.

Alek glanced around anyway. “Everyone is gone. Ravenloft is in ruins…” He gestured to Strahd, shifting his eyes most notably to Strahd’s lightly pointed ears. “What happened to you? Where have I been?”

So the passage of time had become obvious to him.

“I do not have all the answers,” Strahd said. “Tell me—You were patrolling the grounds—Where?”

Alek led him back through the castle, down a flight of stairs, to a landing near the chapel. “I’d stationed Jarath here,” he explained. Strahd could not put a face to the name, but it had obviously been one of the guards. “I thought he’d left his post, and that’s when I noticed… everything else.”

Rather than the frantic worry he’d built up by the time it took him to reach Strahd’s quarters in previous years, Alek now looked deflated. He had failed, he knew, and the weight of his failure pressed upon his shoulders.

“Alek…”

Strahd swallowed thickly. It would happen any moment now.

“It’s all right,” he said roughly, placing a hand on Alek’s shoulder. Strahd pulled gently, and Alek leaned forward with little resistance, wrapping a firm arm around Strahd.

“At least I found you,” Alek muttered.

Grimacing, Strahd bared his fangs. Alek flinched when they pierced his flesh, but Strahd drank quickly, holding the man fast to his breast, and spared him the rest of his wounds.

He watched the mists envelop Alek and spirit his body away. As the white swirls tumbled through his fingers, like the fine sands of an unfathomable hourglass, Strahd whispered to himself, “Next year.”

. . .

This began a string of years in which, when Alek asked again “What happened?” Strahd tried to explain it to him.

In the first of those years, Strahd sat him down in the ruined chapel and spoke quietly and earnestly about all that had transpired, and all that would happen to him once their time was up. The words tumbled out of him, low and soft, and Strahd had never seen Alek so deeply heartbroken. They gripped each other’s hands while tears flowed down both their faces, Strahd’s tinted a ridiculous orange-pink with the blood that sustained him. He felt that not nearly enough time had passed before the wound in Alek’s abdomen appeared, met with only a pained grunt while his eyes remained locked on Strahd’s face.

Alek removed a long hand from Strahd’s grasp to caress that face, pallid and sharp-eared, yet still the same Strahd that he had known only this morning—or rather, twenty-seven years before this morning—and brushed his thumb across Strahd’s cheek.

“It’s all right,” he said, before Strahd could object.

And then he said something else.

The roar that filled the chapel after Alek disappeared rattled what was left of the chapel windows. It sent scores of bats flapping and screeching into the night. Strahd screamed until his throat was raw, and then he dropped his head into his hands, and sobbed.

. . .

The second of those years… didn’t count. Knowing that the night was upon him, Strahd fled to his aerie in the face of Mount Ghakis, a narrow channel in the rock that even he could only reach in the form of bat or mist, and closed himself off to the possibility. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the wind howling past the mountain’s peak.

But there was no wind.

There was always wind, this high up, in this godforsaken place.

Not tonight.

Whether he truly could or not, Strahd thought he could hear the sound of footsteps running through Castle Ravenloft. He thought he could hear Alek calling his name, his voice echoing through the empty halls. He thought he could hear Alek’s heartbeat growing faster, until the rush of his blood filled Strahd’s ears and his whole body contorted with the pains of his thirst. He hadn’t forgotten to feed, early that evening, but it felt like he hadn’t done so in months, or even years.

Then it was over, and the silence and the absence of physical hurt was even more unbearable.

“Take me,” Strahd demanded, lying in his makeshift crypt deep in the top of Mount Ghakis. “Take me!” But even as he said it, pounding his fists against the top of the stony recess, Strahd knew he had nothing left with which to bargain. Death already held both of the men in its sinister claws. It held everything in Barovia—Strahd, and the land he had bound himself to; it held them prisoner.

That year, Alek could not tell him it was all right.

. . .

It was better, then, to face him head-on.

“Strahd! What—”

“There is nothing left, Captain Gwilym,” Strahd said coldly. Skeletal undead filtered up from the stairwell leading down into the catacombs, from the adjoining hall and the chapel itself, until all of Ravenloft’s previous guests and traitors alike had been exhumed and were crowding around the two men, offering no outlet for escape.

If nothing else, the stench was horrible. Alek recoiled, pressing his back against the wall as the corpses shuffled closer, and drawing his sword from its scabbard. Despite its age and decay, he recognized the one called Jarath.

“A great curse has befallen Ravenloft,” Strahd declared.

There were others Alek knew. Some of their old comrades, Strahd’s boyars. Old Gunther Cosco was among them, and Ivan Buchvold. Victor Wachter’s wife, Oleka, though Victor himself was nowhere to be seen.

“There were few survivors. You, yourself, were not among them.”

“But I’m here,” Alek argued. Then he realized his mistake. “How did this happen?”

“I sold my soul to Death. The Strahd you knew is no more.”

Alek was speechless. His eyes roamed the assembled horde, but now that they had gathered around him, each one stood inert. He looked on Strahd again, heart pounding. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “Why?”

Strahd should have expected him to ask.

“I sought the love of one who would not give it.”

Alek frowned. Hadn’t he always…? “Strahd, I—”

“It had nothing to do with you.”

Alek’s eyes narrowed. The confusion was gone from his face. “You should have let me die on that cliff,” he spat. “Spared me from seeing this.”

“I hadn’t known,” Strahd whispered.

“I would have helped you,” Alek raved. “We could have faced it—whatever happened—together. No matter what.”

“I know that now.”

“Strahd, I—”

Strahd held up a hand. “Please.”

Alek balked. His heart broke with the low fracture in Strahd’s voice. Strahd did not beg.

“Any moment now, you will die, from wounds that I caused thirty years ago.”

Alek’s lips mirrored the words ‘thirty years’ but he gave no voice to them.

“I killed you, Alek.”

“But I came back.”

“Temporarily. You find yourself in this same moment every year, and every year, you die again.”

“Is this where I died?” Even as he said it, Alek winced, and clutched at his stomach. He looked down at the red welt sprouting on his clothing.

“No,” Strahd told him. “That came later.”

Alek looked back up at Strahd accusingly. “You stabbed me.”

“That is not the worst of it.”

Alek choked, and this time he did not try to hold back the spurt of blood that spilled over his chin. He breathed heavily. “I got in a few good scrapes, didn’t I?”

Strahd laughed weakly. “Pierced my heart.”

Alek laughed, too. “Damn right… rat bastard.” He coughed again. “How…?”

Strahd understood his meaning. “I opened your throat, and drank your life’s blood.”

A wide look of bewilderment crossed Alek’s face. He nodded once, cringing through the pain in his gut. “Will you—ugh!” he groaned, sliding down to the floor. “...again?”

“You will have little use for it now.”

Alek huffed. His eyes glistened. “I dare you,” he said through gritted teeth. “Do it.”

Strahd did.

. . .

The more Alek fought, the longer he lived. So, Strahd rallied him, in any way he could think to do so. This often involved a repeat of his stunt with the animated remains of Ravenloft’s guests, to frighten him just enough that his instincts as a warrior would take hold, the adrenaline would override the confusion, and he would cling to his life for all it was worth.

If the wound in his gut were to heal, Strahd wondered, would the wound in his throat never open? He found tentative hope in the idea.

But no matter how hard he struggled against it, the wound Alek suffered year after year could hardly mend itself. It could almost work, and that was more infuriating than if it had been a fast-acting wound, like Alek’s own dagger in Strahd’s chest. But even wounds that could be mended through non-magical means required rest to do so, and rest was not a resource that was available to Alek. As soon as he slipped into unconsciousness, the slit would open on his throat, and his blood would spill. From that point, the only choice left to make was whether or not Strahd would drink from that crimson fountain.

He set about his search again for more books. There were hardly any clerics in Barovia anymore, Strahd realized with dismay. Ilona had been the best he knew, but he had sent her away on that fateful night, almost forty years ago, and had not thought to contact her again. He reasoned that it had been out of respect for the old woman, who had since passed away, but now he wondered if it wasn’t some other force that had kept him at bay. Perhaps Ilona had found a means of shielding herself from the thing he had become.

An exhaustive year passed, in which Strahd had made no progress on his errand. He was no more knowledgeable or effective in the healing art than he had been before. There was no way that he could fathom to use the solstices to his advantage, either—midsummer was also infuriatingly near, but never within reach. Alek’s visits were always weeks ahead of it.

Strahd had suggested to Alek—when he’d thought of it, the year he’d grabbed Alek by the wrist and pulled him up to the library himself, so the man could help research his own antidote—the idea that he might be able to find a means of magically keeping him awake.

Alek had been more terrified of that than the idea of dying again and again. Even without a grievous injury, being forced into wakefulness for days, if not longer, would almost certainly do more harm to his human body than it would do good.

Strahd couldn’t find it in himself to push the matter. Even he needed to sleep.

So, in that year of exhaustion, in which Strahd had again made no further strides, he decided to wait for Alek to find him. There was something else he wanted to try.

Even though Strahd was waiting for it, it seemed his cold heart leapt into his throat when the rap of knuckles on his scarred window finally came.

“Alek!” he gasped, flinging the window open.

Alek climbed through the opening again, and when he threw his arms around Strahd, this time Strahd wouldn’t let him draw back. “I’m glad you’re here,” he murmured, pressing his cheek against Alek’s. Alek’s face was cold from the blustering wind outside, but his chest was warm and his heart fluttered rapidly against the desolate cage of Strahd’s ribs.

“I’m glad I found you,” Alek replied, after only a moment’s hesitation. “Everyone is gone,” came the echo of years past. “Ravenloft is in ruins! What happened?”

“None of that matters. Not now that you’re here.”

“Strahd…?” There was a vague tone of suspicion in Alek’s voice. He craned his head back to look at Strahd’s face. The pale, pointed ear his own sharp nose brushed against did not escape his notice.

Strahd turned into the movement.

He pressed his lips fervently upon Alek’s.

Alek grunted in surprise. His brow furrowed, breath stuttering as his mind fought to reconcile his recent terror with this new development. Only this morning, he thought, Strahd had been unusually stand-offish with him—even for Strahd. Alek, of course, did not know that the morning he was remembering had happened forty-five years ago.

But who was he, to look a gift horse in the mouth? Alek relaxed into a heady feeling of relief and kissed Strahd back just as passionately, until the need to breathe finally forced him to retreat.

“What happened?” Alek whispered again, stroking long fingers over Strahd’s hair.

“I was a fool,” Strahd whispered back. He grasped Alek’s hand and kissed it, too.

Alek laughed breathlessly. “It’s not often you admit it.” Then he grew serious. Strahd finally allowed Alek to step back, though he made sure that Alek’ hands remained firmly on his shoulders. He took one good look at Strahd’s face and asked, “How long have you been here alone?”

The wound came too fast. Alek buckled, still gripping Strahd’s shoulders.

Strahd pulled Alek back into his arms, holding him close, holding him upright. “Too long,” he admitted, through gritted teeth. “Year after year, I am forced to watch you die. Just like this. I can find no remedy. I have tried everything in my power…”

“I want to stay,” Alek said, swallowing hard.

“I know.” Strahd’s voice was thin. Alek’s body was growing weaker, heavier, in his arms. “Tell me it’s all right.”

“I don’t know… if it will be.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

“Can I tell you that I…” Alek coughed, and shuddered. “...that I love you?”

Strahd turned his head, muffling himself through Alek’s hair. “Not if you go.”

“I’m sorry,” Alek whispered.

“So am I.”

“Maybe… I…” But it was too late. Alek slipped into bleak unconsciousness, and the blood he had left to spill pooled between them, soaking into the front of both their shirts.

Strahd wept. He kissed Alek’s jaw, his cheek, the unresponsive corner of his lip and that blasted mustache. Through his tears and his kisses, Strahd scowled at the approaching Mists, with a glint in his eyes like the bright red fire of fresh hell.

Strahd was the Lord of Barovia. He had gotten them both into this diabolical mess, and—one way or another—he would get them out. This was his solemn oath.

The Mists seemed to pause, their wispy white tendrils swirling pensively in the air. But they took Alek anyway. Nothing, not even the bloodstain on Strahd's shirt, remained. And the next year…

They did not give him back.

* * * EDIT - Epilogue: #3 - Sweet [Ao3 Collection] [prompt list by @syrips]

#the dark powers compelled me to write this #i had no choice #bloodstain #stralek #strahd von zarovich #alek gwilym #unfiltered unedited 15 pages ho fuck #this took the terrifying unit of 13 hours to kick out #i skipped a prompt maybe i'll get back to no. 3 #vampentine's 2024 #ravenloft spoilers #i have a love hate relationship with gene dewesse

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mx-lamour · 3 months

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1 - Wine

“I never drink… wine,” Alek intoned, as deeply as he could, thoroughly butchering Strahd’s native accent in dramatic caricature. He blinked, setting down his glass of the dark red liquid, and thumped a fist gently against his own chest to produce a stunted belch which left him looking a bit perplexed.

His little display would have been terribly insulting, but for the fact that it was, on all counts, simply inaccurate. Strahd reached across the relatively small table and lifted the glass from Alek’s hand. “Why do you think I stock my cellar with wine, if not to drink it?” he challenged. Strahd swirled the contents lightly, observing the slight syrupy cling about its edges.

Alek’s eyes narrowed, an eyebrow raised conspiratorially as he leaned in—or rather swayed—closer. “You do it for me, I’d bet.”

“Indeed?”

“I’ve had…” Alek fell back again, peering down at himself as though to assess whether he was, in fact, still attached to all his limbs. “...all of it,” he said vaguely.

“All of it?” Strahd echoed, a faint smile pulling at one side of his mouth.

Alek’s elbow thumped against the table top, and he jabbed a finger in Strahd’s direction. “’Cept that. Drink it, or I’m right.”

It was true that Strahd did not often imbibe, and when he did it was very little. He found that his head ached too quickly, and he had seen the ill effects of alcohol on some of their eldest comrades. Altogether, the risks often outweighed the benefits. But Strahd could easily stoop to this particular challenge. He raised the glass to Alek, then drank deeply from it, tipping his head back. He deposited the empty vessel back into Alek’s waiting hand, whose dilated gray eyes were now wrought with suspicion.

Alek looked into the glass, then back at Strahd. “I’m still right,” he decided.

Strahd did not bother to argue. Alek was drunk. And what did it matter who drank most of the wine in his cellar, so long as Strahd had given it freely? Exquisite drinks were a feature of etiquette, a tool in diplomatic relations, denoting a status of wealth and refinement, which often served to inspire awe or intimidation, depending on the visitor. That anyone appreciated Strahd’s selection beyond that was of little consequence.

Alek’s finger absently traced the rim of the glass, stationed once again on the table. Strahd was pulled out of his musings by the eerie feeling that he was being appraised at this moment.

“Are you satisfied?” Strahd asked dryly.

An easy grin lit upon Alek’s face. “Of course.” He added, cryptically, “Some get better with age.”

Then Alek rose from his chair, managing to remain mostly steady in doing so. “I had better leave you to…” He waved vaguely about the room. “...before I do something foolish.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” said Strahd.

Alek balked at this news, and then he laughed, sheepishly. “Forgive me, then.” He leaned on the table, scooping up Strahd’s hand from its surface to press his lips against Strahd’s knuckles. Strahd’s heart skipped. His mind seemed to be at once racing and absent of thought. The gesture was unusual between them.

“Good evening, my lord” Alek said with a flourish, further baffling the incomprehensible moment.

Alek had made it halfway to the door when a soft correction of “...Strahd” reached his ears.

He paused, glancing back at Strahd over his shoulder, expression lopsided but fond.

“I know.”

Then Strahd was left alone, with a vague feeling of driftlessness and a budding headache. Resting his elbows on the table before him, Strahd pressed his knuckles to his lips.

* * *

[Ao3 collection]

[prompts list by @syrips]

#vampentine's 2024 #stralek #alek gwilym #strahd von zarovich #i strahd #dracula reference #thank you i needed the excuse to write this nonsense after what i read today

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mx-lamour · 3 months

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12 - Pale

[Based on @terrified-spider's CoS concept for Alek 🫀]

There was no amount of vengeance Strahd could wreak on Leo Dilisnya's remaining men that would bite back this other feeling, which rose like black bile in his chest. No amount of blood would drown it. No amount of violent rage, with sword or claw or hammered fist would tamp it down. And no amount of dragging, throwing, pacing, staring, teeth grinding could wear it out either.

Alek's body still lay in his closet.

Strahd von Zarovich was covered in gore. Castle Ravenloft was smothered in red ichor and corpses, and soon enough it would be rancid in the great hall. But the doors to his own quarters opened on a pristine setting. Aside from the knowledge and the slowly congealing filth Strahd tracked in with his soles, the room belied a quiet night like any other. It would not have seemed out of place, in that moment, to peel off his soaked shirt and sit by the hearth as though he had just come in out of the rain.

The image of Alek Gwilym, snow-damp and wind-chapped, hopping on one foot and then the other to pull off his boots and seat himself down by Strahd's fire, sprang unbidden into his mind.

Regret was its name, this other dark emotion which threatened to throttle him if he could not think of a way to appease it.

Perhaps he could bleed it out. Surely he had consumed enough life for two men. More, in fact. And if he could give back to Alek the blood he had taken… would Alek's life then be restored to him, the way it had worked in Strahd the night before?

The only way out of this mess now was to trudge ahead and try to find the other side. Strahd could not fall backward in time. Could not undo his own reckless mistakes. So, he conceived of only the next best possible option, and moved stoically forward with it.

Strahd pulled the carcass of his old friend out of its slumped position in the closet, wedging his hands under Alek’s arms to drag him out onto the middle of the floor, heavy and stiff. A light sheen had formed on the cold and pallid skin, making it clammy to the touch. The creases of Alek’s clothing were still damp with rain and sticky with coagulated blood, his matted hair plastered to the side of his face and neck. His dry, clouded eyes cracked open to stare mournfully at nothing.

But maybe it was not too late.

Strahd knelt down beside the corpse, to pick the soiled hair free of Alek’s sharp features, pushing it aside to reveal the wound in his throat. Made by the man’s own knife, the cut was clean and straight, but in the time that had passed, the skin around it had begun to shrink back and the incision gaped, revealing glossy strands of mutilated tissue and the severed vein beneath. Strahd prodded gently at the wound, as if to close it up again, but the membrane moved too readily and tore. He flinched back.

Strahd retreated to the table in his study, where the accursed book in dark crimson leather binding still sat. His dagger lay there, sheathed, beside it. Strahd picked up the dagger, and flipped the book open. Its page still blurred, the inscriptions swimming before his eyes. Page after page of useless chaos. He closed it once again, with a delicate touch more carnally vindictive than if he had picked it up and flung it across the room.

Kneeling over Alek again, Strahd pulled the dagger clear and set its sheath down on the floor. He set the blade against his wrist. “Don’t look at me that way,” he muttered, and drew the thin edge up, along a brief span of his forearm.

Blood welled and dripped from his arm, but the wound closed too quickly as he brought it close to Alek’s face. Setting his own jaw, Strahd pried Alek’s mouth agape. He pressed the blade into his wrist again and left it there, leveraging his own flesh open to spill the contents of his life down Alek’s throat.

Alek’s mouth filled with blood until it spilled from the corner of his lips and dribbled over his cheek. Strahd cursed. He dipped his fingers into the pool between Alek’s jaws to move his tongue. Blood continued to stream down over his hand, like a potter adding slip to the contents of his turning wheel, pulling a vessel up out of a heap of mud, until it was clear that Alek’s body would not take more, no matter what he did to maneuver it, and the waste flowed over his chin.

Strahd examined Alek’s face. Carefully, he checked the corpse’s eyes. He bent his ear close to listen for breath, and watched the gaping wound on Alek’s neck fail to recover. No color beyond the fresh haphazard smears of red upon his skin returned to those sharp features. Strahd’s stern gaze did little to convince the body to animate.

Irritation simmered at his own foolishness. Strahd cleaned the dagger and tucked it back into its sheath. Perhaps it would take time, he thought. Perhaps…

He looked to the window, where the barest light of creeping dawn had begun to turn the black sky gray.

Perhaps tomorrow, then.

Strahd picked up Alek’s body, now more limber than it had been, and hefted it over his shoulder. Holding fast to the man’s long legs, he descended to the catacombs and laid the body down inside a crypt. Whatever happened, this would be his bed, for as long as he would sleep. In the cave-like darkness, Strahd watched again for any sign of movement. Just as gingerly as he had opened them, Strahd closed Alek’s eyes again. He positioned Alek’s hands over his stomach, as though he really had just fallen asleep, their blood on his face be damned.

. . .

Strahd woke from his own deathlike slumber to the sounds of war. He leapt to his feet, senses alert, adrenaline high, before he could remember all that had happened. He snatched up his dagger, the only weapon near to him, and didn’t question why he had been lying in the catacombs—only accepted it as a fact of the moment, and stalked toward the dungeons, where he heard the voices of men shrieking in abject terror.

And only then did he remember who the occupants of his dungeons were, and why they were there.

He rounded a corner and stopped short. For a flash of an instant, relief shot through him, for there before him was the back of Alek Gwilym, standing on his own two feet.

But he also had his arm shoved through the bars of a cell door, and at his feet lay one of Strahd’s prisoners, the face mutilated and horror-stricken, the throat ripped out. The other man inside had ceased to scream and was blubbering instead, pressed bodily against the back wall of his cage.

“Alek.” The prisoners went quiet at the sound of Strahd’s voice, muffling their already helpless whimpers.

Alek’s face turned toward him. His eyes, now paler than ever before, had an animal wildness about them, but their pupils locked on Strahd, boring into him quick and sharp like arrows.

It was him, then. And yet… it was not.

Alek slipped his arm out of the bars. The ends of his fingers were like claws, which clacked against the iron. As he turned more fully into view, Strahd noticed other changes—and lack thereof, not least of which the wound in his throat, which remained raw and open, catching on the collar of his clothing when he moved. But Alek’s teeth, like his claws, had lengthened. Unlike Strahd’s own fangs, which could be easily hidden, the ones in Alek’s maw were long and sharp, jutting out past his lip. And it wasn’t just his corner teeth; those were the shortest of the lot, far surpassed by the vicious, almost rodent-like incisors.

Strahd fell back by only half a step, but it was enough.

With a furious yell, Alek launched himself at Strahd. He was fast and strong, and Strahd staggered as Alek barreled into him, baring those hideous teeth and lunging for his throat. Strahd’s heels scraped across the stone floor with the force of the impact, but kept his footing. He was strong, too. If he were still human, he would have been dead in a moment.

Instead, with great force of his own, he heaved Alek back and drew his dagger. They fought, Alek swiping at Strahd with his claws. Cuts and parries with the dagger. Strahd ducked and weaved, where Alek seemed to be singularly focused and all too clumsy about it. Alek’s hands and arms opened up with wounds that didn’t bleed and were slow to heal—but they did heal, Strahd noted. He glanced at Alek’s neck again.

That moment of distraction opened him to Alek’s raking fingers. The claws slashed across Strahd’s own throat. Strahd choked. The dagger clattered to the floor. His hands flew up to brace against Alek’s chest again, to push him back as he dove toward the blood which flowed down over Strahd’s own collar. Alek snarled at him. Strahd gurgled, staring Alek down while he waited for the wounds to close. He coughed, and cleared his throat.

“That’s enough,” Strahd said.

To his relief, Alek stepped back, though he was seething, the blood he had already drunk foaming on his parted lips. His jagged hands hung limply at his sides.

He made a horrible, muffled lisping sound that might have been Strahd’s name.

“You’re angry,” Strahd said.

Alek practically hissed.

“You are hungry.”

Alek turned his razor gaze on the nearest cell. The man cowering inside it looked frantically between the two monsters. Strahd produced the key.

“No… no, please.” The man’s words cracked between a whisper and a voice. Only minutes prior, this had been the only thing he wanted—more than anything—for that cell door to open. But now he couldn’t think of anything he wanted less. “My lord, I beg you,” he pleaded. “Don’t.”

Strahd unlocked the door.

“No. No, no, no! Please—god, no!”

He watched Alek descend on the prisoner, rending the throat with his teeth as he had with the first. Strahd felt no small degree of annoyance that Alek had stolen that recompense from him, but he supposed that Alek was also deserving of the opportunity. While he slurped, Strahd regarded the rest of his collection in the adjoining cells. They all cowered, watching with wide eyes and bated breath, their hearts thrumming like drums in his ears.

He unlocked each of the barred doors. “Go on,” he said gently. “Run.”

The people eyed each other warily. Seeing no better alternative, they slunk past him cautiously and padded quickly through the doors, glancing at Alek’s hunched and preoccupied form in the shadows on their way out. Perhaps the prisoners thought to grasp at a fragment of hope in that dark dungeon, when the cursed Count Strahd had suddenly thought to exercise his benevolence and spared them from such a gruesome fate.

Little did they know.

Strahd and Alek set upon them like a wild hunt. Strahd quickly drank his fill, but Alek kept going. He was a ruthless creature, running them down one by one and savaging each with great frenzy, until there were no living humans left to find.

Only when half a dozen men at least had all been devoured and wrung dry did Alek seem to have the capacity to calm himself. His gait changed, and he seemed to stand a little taller. He scoured the immediate area as though he were back on patrol. Then he caught sight of Strahd again, and his expression seemed almost… cheerful, if not a bit embarrassed. The look in his milky eyes was somewhat more familiar, if not the grin itself.

Strahd went to him. Alek looked as though he had something to say, but he shrugged his shoulders, at a loss. His lips struggled around the new configuration of his teeth.

And then he rubbed his neck, and winced. Perplexed, he touched the spot again, dabbing at it with the heel of his hand.

Strahd gestured, and Alek let his hand fall away. He lifted his chin for Strahd to better inspect what was bothering him. It was the wound in his throat. Strahd frowned. It had healed somewhat at the farthest ends, though not nearly enough for the kind of regenerative properties that Alek should possess, especially after such a feast. He had scratched it with those claws of his, and now the edges were ragged.

Seeing that his own shirt had been torn from his duel with Alek earlier, Strahd ripped away a strip of the linen and wrapped it securely around Alek’s throat. He wasn’t sure what good first aid would really do in this situation, but it might at least prevent the wound from tearing open further.

Even as he did so, he noticed Alek’s eyes begin to glass over again. The sight remained sharp, but the personality inside was retreating. Perhaps bracing itself against the back wall of his skull.

Strahd wiped a bit of bloody spittle from Alek’s chin. It made little difference.

He dared to wonder, for the first time in many years—if not, indeed, the whole of his life…

What have I done?

* * * [Ao3 Collection] [prompt list by @syrips]

#vampentine's 2024 #alek gwilym #tragic #curse of strahd #strahd von zarovich #nosferatu

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mx-lamour · 2 months

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Side-by-side

I posted these two separately, but they were definitely made to be together. Because the Moon/Blood Moon prompts were so similar, I'd really been wanting to create some kind of juxtaposition between the two. Sure thought I was going to do it in writing, but thanks to all you lovely people (I assume you know who you are) I'm building more confidnce with drawing, too! Aah! ♡♡♡

I feel like I should turn up the brightness/contrast on Strahd or something, but... he's a darklord. This is what he gets for now.

Lineart! This is absolutely their relationship dynamic. I love them. 🥺

#stralek #alek gwilym #strahd von zarovich #i strahd #vampentine's 2024 #these guys #did i schedule this post for a reasonable hour? yes i did #it's not 4am i swear #tired and my neck hurts #worth it

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mx-lamour · 3 months

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16 - Darkness

[tw: suicide]

The only sound in Strahd’s quarters was the soft rustle of paper. He sat at the table in his study, glowering down at the book in front of him. The pages might as well be completely black, for all the good they did him. His eyes seemed to cloud over while he read. The lack of focus was becoming increasingly difficult to shake off.

Strahd needed that focus, now more than ever. He strained to hold onto it until he became dizzy with the effort, and still, when he turned to the next page, he could remember nothing from the one that came before it. There must be some spell to help him. Nothing else had worked. Time was running out.

Tatyana would be wed tomorrow. She would be lost to him. Oh, he could ask the happy couple to stay with him in Castle Ravenloft, and surely they would, but would that be any better—every day observing her light, unable to stand within it? The alternative was to watch her ride away from him, perhaps never to return.

Sergei should have stayed a priest. It was his duty, by birth; all he had worked for and was meant to achieve. Did none of that matter?

Tatyana could yet be his. Strahd was lord and master here. He could draw upon that power to drive the two of them apart and claim the girl for his own. He could use force, if not reason, as he had done so many times to reclaim this land…

But what would be the point? If she would not give it willingly, it would hardly be her love that he would receive. Her fear, her subservience—that, she might give him, but never her love.

Strahd’s hand drifted over the page in front of him. He closed the book. The sun had gone down. The shadows were deep. He sat back in his chair, limbs heavy, heart slow.

No voices filtered through the darkness. There was nothing there to fill the void, neither in the drafty room nor Strahd’s own aching heart.

He could not put words to the torment brewing within the cavern of his skull. To attempt it would be even more unbearable. What would it change, if he did? Forty-five long years were already behind him. Lost, because he had not been able to see the alternatives that might have once been possible. Now, it was too late.

Strahd’s head hung low. His eyes fell slowly to the dagger at his waist. He reached across his body and unsheathed it, tipping the blade up in front of his face. Strahd examined the edge of it, dully glinting in what little light still filtered in from the stars outside or torches in the hall. Light which didn’t quite reach him.

If death would take him one day anyway, Strahd would at least go on his own terms.

. . .

Before Alek’s patrol came to an end, he looked in on Strahd’s quarters. The rooms were dark, so he surmised Strahd must be sleeping. Good. Alek had seen how tense Strahd was leading up to the wedding. He knew how often the man remained awake, late at night, hunched over his books. Strahd would do well to rest before the ceremony.

He was about to close the door again, but something made him hesitate. There was a chill in the air that didn’t feel right. Cautiously alert, Alek scanned the room again, peering deeper into the shadows.

There—the form of a man, slouched in a chair. He could have passed out at his work, Alek reasoned, but there was still something off about the figure. If Strahd was going to sleep, he should do so in his bed, or he would have one hell of a crick in his neck come morning. Alek would wake him. He pulled a torch from its sconce on the wall.

The flickering light illuminated the scene within. It did not take long.

Strahd’s arms hung limp at his sides. His dagger lay on the floor, having slipped from his fingers, amid thick splotches of blood. His head lolled back at an angle, mouth slightly agape, eyes open. Alek met the blind gaze, only to find it empty of its soul. He had seen that same look a hundred thousand times… but never in this determined face.

Alek nearly dropped the torch. It might have set the rug on fire.

He reached out and pressed his fingers to the side of Strahd’s throat, under his jaw. He didn’t know what he expected to find. There was no pulse.

“Strahd,” Alek whispered.

No answer.

Someone must have done this. Who? It would have to be someone already in the castle. Someone they trusted. How else could they have gotten so close? There was no other trail, no tracks of mud nor blood. The assassin must not have been injured. They had taken Strahd unaware, if he hadn't even had the chance to fight back.

Alek took a long look at the strong cut across Strahd’s throat. He went to fetch Ilona himself.

. . .

“Why isn’t it working?” Alek asked, when the glow of the cleric’s magic began to fade from her hands.

Ilona’s expression was grave. She looked almost frail, standing there over the blood-drenched front of Strahd’s body in her nightdress, her long gray hair undone. “I can extend my hand, but the soul must be willing to take hold.”

Alek frowned. His lip curled. “What are you saying?”

Ilona turned her face to him, so he could read the full extent of her grief. She touched his arm gently.

“No.” Alek gripped her arm in turn. He shoved her forcefully back toward Strahd. “Try again.”

“There is only so much—”

Alek held her in place. “Try. Again.”

. . .

Ilona touched the body one last time, to stave off its decay. “This is all I can do for him now. I am truly sorry, Alek. I wish there were something more, but Strahd is unreachable.” She sighed. Ilona had long known Ravenia, Strahd's mother, and so had known Strahd himself since he was a child. “If you will stand vigil with him," she told Alek, "I will give the news to his brother in the morning.”

Alek murmured, “Where else would I go?”

Ilona pursed her lips. Her own eyes were glossy with unshed tears. “I know how much he meant to you,” she said quietly.

Alek nodded minutely. His throat bobbed as he swallowed.

Ilona retreated gracefully, to prepare for the funeral to come.

Then there was only Alek, and the man to whom he had dedicated eighteen years of his life. It should have been more. Many more. He lifted Strahd’s body, in its gentle repose, almost as though he truly were sleeping, and carried it into Strahd’s bedroom. He laid the body down on the luxurious bedding, fussing over the way his clothing tucked and wrinkled around him. He touched the underside of Strahd’s wrist again, just to be sure.

“You should have let…” Alek squared his jaw, looked away. "I would've..." When he gathered himself again, he said, “I should have known.”

Alek had walked into Strahd’s quarters unannounced on numerous occasions. He had stumbled in after long journeys and settled himself by Strahd’s hearth, unbidden and hardly admonished. He had a habit of invading Strahd’s space. Apparently, not enough. Now he climbed onto Strahd’s bed and settled himself, scabbard and boots and all, on his side next to Strahd’s eerily still form. Gingerly, he touched Strahd’s cheek with the back of his finger.

Alek’s breathing became ragged as he continued to look on the man he undoubtedly loved. He held his ground for as long as he could, but soon enough the tears spilled over, pooling gracelessly on the side of his nose and dripping sideways down onto the blankets.

Alone in the night, he leaned his forehead against Strahd’s cold shoulder, and wept.

* * *

[Ao3 Collection]

[prompt list by @syrips]

#vampentine's 2024 #stralek #sorry these old men keep going through it :(((#curse of strahd #strahd von zarovich #alek gwilym #au fanfiction

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mx-lamour · 3 months

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Ok, but when I made this reference in #4 - Bloodstain, I hadn't actually remembered the full verse...

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

from Shakespeare's MacBeth

#vampentine's 2024 #fanfic writing #shakespeare #the scottish play #gothic #writing reference

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syrips · 3 months

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prompt 1 - Wine

my kb broke help

#tw: alcohol #tw: wine #strahd von zarovich #vampentine's 2024 #jojo strahd #transparent background #syrips art

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mx-lamour · 3 months

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9 - Kiss

[Sonnet time! + audio!]

1 He tells a story of his homeland, far beyond the reach of Strahd von Zarovich. The name means little in this foreign war against the the Tergs and other Goblyns, which in turn mean nothing much to him who knows that only gardens tended grow to height and this one calls him, so he willing goes to make his bed and cull the weedy blight. When someday settles down this solemn place, his duties sparse in times of earn-ed peace, perhaps he’ll speak again of home and taste the nectar of his hard-won harvest feast. When Alek Gwilym goes to fight for this, he sometimes dreams of one begrudging kiss...

2 I vowed that I would heed thee for all time A promise I would pride myself to keep Protect and guard thee as if thou were mine And I would sow, that thou might always reap

Alas, thy deepest hunger waits for her Whose quiet beauty piqued a jealous rage One heart so tangled with another, turn’d And trap’d thy soul within a misty cage

If only thou hadst spared my tender wound So vicious made upon the waxing night Had not then slaked on blood which there did bloom And stolen all the years which were thy right

If only thou didst ask for my whole life The whole I'd give—though not, myself, a wife

3 The lips of every enamored lay would sure be tempting on this stormy night. To sate himself on loving flesh--but, nay, a plot of gruesome treason lays in sight. There is no room for error, now he knows what young malignant traitor lurks within the castle walls—and then the darkness grows and bounds upstairs to head him off again. To witness there his lord’s own deep unrest but glimpsed in candlelight through window yon, has carved the heartbeat hollow in his chest; replaced it with ensuing dread—No dawn will light upon the face of either man when darkest powers gain the upper hand.

4 My love, I will not wander from thy side Command me now to leave thee, all alone, And I would find it hardest to abide What dark despair hath gripped thee to the bone?

Please open up thy window glass to me And leave us not to horrors of the night I know not what might muster hope to thee But we’re together now, love… It’s all right

Upon thy face I read a thousand frights However time doth lead me here again Despite the hour of the ageless night I’ll find a way back to your side, old friend

Thou tellest me I’ll not remember this… Wouldst thine own heart forget thy fervent kiss?

* * * In the end, this was relevant to #4 - Bloodstain [Ao3 Collection] [prompt list by @syrips]

#vampentine's 2024 #curse of strahd #stralek #strahd von zarovich #alek gwilym #i strahd #sonnets #creative writing #fan poetry

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mx-lamour · 3 months

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8 - Cloak

[That's right, we've got audio this time babyyy!]

At first glance, the cloak was black, and that was all. It hung over Strahd's impeccably squared shoulders and draped long and straight past his ankles. It was made of fine wool from only the blackest of sheep and overdyed besides, to achieve an even richer, deeper shade.

What most did not see, at first glance—which was the most opportunity most people ever had to look—was the way the color faded brownish toward the hem. The protective woven trim along its bottom edge had twice been replaced, but even now it was beginning to fray again from frequent use, with bits of mud and dust crusted along the join of stitching, despite diligent efforts to brush it carefully out. The brownish hue was of the natural dark wool, scrubbed raw of its additional dyes by the combined menace of rain and sleet and sunlight, by kneeling and sitting and otherwise battering the fabric with his legs as Strahd walked. It was faded this way around the collar line as well, not only by precipitation from the sky but perspiration from his body also, where it clasped around Strahd's neck at the front with intricate loops and buttons, although the effect there was somewhat hidden by the folds of its hood, whether drawn up to protect Strahd's head or swooping back to rest upon his shoulder blades in comfortable disuse.

Most also did not notice the stains of iron blood in splatters on the parts which covered up Strahd's chest and arms, but this was by design. Black would always be a practical choice for a noble man engaged in war. But, unlike the careful dyes, these evidences of the lives he’d claimed would never, it seemed, fade.

Hardly anyone had seen the inside of the cloak, except perhaps a passing glimpse, when a long leg kicked its front gores brusquely forward, and the center part flapped open to reveal a secret corner near Strahd's feet. The lining from the shoulders down was sturdy linen, and this had been dyed red. A lord could afford his indulgences.

Deft hands slipped beneath the old wool cloak, prying deep into its scarlet depths. They found Strahd's waist and settled there.

What the cloak would see, if it had sight, was a partner of its own, a well-worn and half shorter cape in marled gray and fawn. It draped about square shoulders and fell upon long arms, but sometimes only one of them, clinging by the collar to a rope which tied beneath the other. The shabby cape, of slightly newer stock but less well-kept, having been tossed about on chairs and bedposts, trampled in snow and singed by fire, and snagged by wind and steel on blood-slick fields and rugged roads, was worn by Strahd's second in command. Its lining held no secrets, and neither did its shell.

The soft rustle of fabric underscored the tender smack of joining lips. A light breeze whispered ancient nothings to the spires of the pines.

Strahd stumbled on the frayed edge of his concealing garment. Awkwardly, it tugged him down, scattering its winged entrails wide upon the ground. Alek followed, laughing low, and unhooked the buttons at Strahd's throat. He kissed him again ardently, and Strahd forgave himself the lapse in form. He allowed his face a surreptitious grin, gently grasping Alek's jaw.

Through their kisses, Alek pulled the cord on his own cape, which slid softly off his shoulder. It landed as a heap upon the pool of red. Leaning on one arm for balance, Alek scooped up his small sacrifice and placed it behind Strahd's head. He then sank down, himself, to slide one knee beneath Strahd's thigh and guide it up onto his hip. Strahd's heel snagged the fraying edge again, forming subtle ripples in its wake.

Their other garments hardly mattered, none of them so constant as a cloak, but each left one by one with reverence, until the only thing between the two men’s souls was their own skin and bones. Like a curtain in an open window, billowing gently with the breeze, they undulated against each other, breathing now in stuttered gasps.

Strahd’s arm replaced the rope that had been tied across his second’s chest, and Alek’s lips replaced the loops which often rested near the base of his lord’s throat. Strahd’s moan was deeply that of velvet; he tipped his head back on the wool, the fibers catching on his hair. Alek’s fingers clawed in crimson linen—he hardly spoke at all, which was very much unlike him. While trees around them swayed and groaned, their branches stroked each other.

The sky above was clear and crisp, unshrouded were the stars; they winked like faraway jewels, glass beads held high by silver thread. And then they vanished. Strahd’s eyelids, like a hood, pulled down on his dark gaze. The winding fabric of his loins further twisted and wound tight. The inside of his weathered cloak would find new secret stains, not least of which his sweat, which pooled cooly down along his spine, and soaked into the centerline, while Alek kissed his breast.

When all was done and quiet, Strahd reached out both his arms to draw the edges of the great cloak inward, wrapping them around the back of his beloved guard. Alek laid within it, his body draped on Strahd’s, a cloak within a cloak, the only one to have borne witness to this much of such a lovely scarlet lining.

* * *

[Ao3 Collection] [prompt list by @syrips]

#vampentine's 2024 #stralek #cloaks are sexy #strahd von zarovich #alek gwilym #podfic #oops all poetry #creative writing #fanfic writing #metaphors #prose poetry #costume things #personification #if walls could talk but it's capes #wordplay

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mx-lamour · 3 months

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5 - Dinner

[The sucessor to #2 - Charmed]

Alek's hunger ravaged him while Sasha Ivliskova walked the halls of Castle Ravenloft. He felt the need to eat both more and more often, to steel himself for the time he spent with her.

He had gotten Strahd positively blood-drunk, too. The blood had to go somewhere. It didn't keep half as well as the meat would have—if there had been any left to store. Better that it went into Strahd than to puddles congealing thickly on the floor.

This meant that they were consistently eating more meals together. Strahd bristled, at first, from the frequent interruptions—frequent still only meaning nightly—but it became difficult to argue against the intrusion once he was well fed. It almost seemed that the thirst had ceased to plague him altogether. He found that his focus on other projects, when Alek wasn't knocking on his door to eat, was much improved.

It did mean that their larder was quickly dwindling, and that Sasha was regularly left unattended, and that there were more opportunities for her to stumble too early upon their true nature, if she thought to go looking for them. But it was the only way that Alek could bear to be near her, and he delighted in her company.

Strahd noticed how Alek was becoming attached to the girl—had been, from the moment he returned with her. It placed a new variable on his experiment that he had not expected, which came in the form of a dark, prickling sensation behind his eyes.

Strahd and Alek began to watch over the girl in shifts, until she became more acclimated to their usual late schedule and would sleep as Strahd did for most of the day.

The daylight… Strahd envied Alek his ability to walk about whenever he pleased, without consequence. Sleep itself seemed to be optional for him; although Alek indulged himself with it often enough, he was not beholden to the pattern of waxing and waning hours to which Strahd was forced to adhere. His limbs did not grow heavy and sluggish as Strahd’s did when the sun rose too high in the Barovian sky, despite the darkness of his rooms inside the castle.

The sun had barely ducked below the horizon, drawing the curtain on a serene day in late summer—Sasha’s first sunset at the castle had not been her last, after all—when Strahd walked briskly into the garden to stake his claim on the night.

Alek and Sasha were strolling together through the weeds, her hands tucked into the crook of his elbow. She gazed up at his handsome, mustached face with rapt attention. Alek smiled warmly down at her, a glimmer of mischief in his gray eyes as he spoke low and conspiratorially about something that had once happened to him, or some rumor he had heard long ago. He leaned in to murmur closer to her ear, his soft smile growing into a suggestive grin.

Sasha’s eyebrows lifted high. A hand flew up to cover a wide smile, which pushed a pinprick dimple into her cheek when she laughed.

A dark shroud seemed to bind itself around Strahd's chest.

Sasha's eyes met Alek's, and her fingers curled absently away from the space between them, their faces hovering so close to one another’s…

Strahd cleared his throat, startling them both. Neither had noticed his approach. “Good evening,” he said smoothly. “I trust you had a pleasant afternoon.”

“Oh, yes.” Sasha's gaze darted briefly from Strahd back to Alek, before falling to the toes of her shoes. Bashfully, she added, “Thank you,” that welt of a dimple still marring her cheek.

The corners of Strahd's eyes tightened as he forced an amiable expression. “Wonderful. But perhaps we should let the good Captain return to his duties.” He said pointedly, “The keep won't mind itself, you know,” but that was hardly true. Sasha took his proffered hand.

Strahd's peaceable facade vanished when the girl was not looking. He all but glared at Alek, as his hand slipped around the girl's shoulders to guide her away. Alek caught the red glint in Strahd's eyes, like hot coals. His brow furrowed slightly. Was something wrong?

That night was not the first time that Strahd had tasted Sasha’s blood, but it was the first time he took so much of her life essence at once, pulling harder and deeper from her veins, just to see how much she would endure. Merely a rational progression of his experiment.

Alek was furious. “Would you have been satisfied if you had killed her?” he accused. “Will you do the same with Tatyana when she comes along—if she does? You’ve hardly been this rough with those who have deserved it.”

“Are you finished?”

Alek’s hand went instinctively to the dagger on his hip. Neither of the men bothered to carry a full sword and scabbard within the comfort of their own abode, but Alek was never without at least a small blade somewhere on his person.

Strahd fixed him with a mute stare tantamount to heckling.

A tense moment passed.

Alek relaxed his grip on the hilt. “Fine,” he said brusquely. “I suppose you won’t be needing dinner, then.”

“No.”

“Wonderful.” Alek swept his arm out, eyes like flint, and stepped aside with militant precision to gesture down the hall he knew very well led to Strahd’s library.

Strahd hesitated, stiffly reeling against Alek’s blatant dismissal. Of course that was where he was headed. In the end, he squared his shoulders and strode forward, past his own second in command. It would be far more humiliating to turn on his heel and slither past Alek another way. Strahd would not rout.

Alek sat on the edge of Sasha’s bed, watching the soft rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. There was nothing much he could do for her, apart from checking that she was comfortable and allowing her to rest. Given enough time, her blood should eventually replenish itself.

He wasn’t sure why Strahd had waited so long to test her like this, and maybe that was why Alek had been angry with him. Strahd’s choices seemed erratic, his mood increasingly hostile. He could only guess at the reasons. Could it be that the girl was too similar to Tatyana? That he had been too afraid of failure? If that was what had stalled Strahd before, then what had changed?

Sasha moaned softly and shifted in her sleep. “Ay, bach,” Alek whispered absently, adjusting the blanket around her. He patted her hand. “Rest easy now.”

Had he only been too well-fed? It seemed ridiculous.

. . .

“How long will it take for her to change?” Alek asked early the following evening, while Strahd carefully sucked the last dregs from the limp body held sensuously in his arms.

“It may have already begun,” Strahd noted, licking his lips. He scooped up the knees of the fresh corpse and laid it down bride-like upon the table.

“Already?”

“What did you imagine would happen?”

Alek stood. “Have you looked in on her?”

“She’s your pet,” Strahd said tersely.

Honestly, the man was becoming more petulant by the day. What were these Barovians putting in their blood?

Alek fled their modest dining room to visit Sasha again. Strahd should be more concerned about her, he thought. This was his experiment. What did he plan to do if the change wasn’t successful? Or—and this had been Alek’s concern all along—what did he plan to do if it was? If Sasha did become like Strahd, what would he do with her then? He seemed equally possessive and dismissive of the girl; it was impossible to read his intentions toward her. Alek had thought he was better at reading his old friend.

Sasha was awake when Alek opened the door to her bedroom. There was a distinct pallor to her complexion, but she smiled at Alek when he entered. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“A little tired, that’s all.”

Alek resumed his place on the edge of the bed. Sasha touched his hand. Hers was colder than he remembered.

“Yesterday, in the garden,” she said wistfully, “were you going to kiss me?”

Alek chuckled softly, taken aback. “I would have liked to.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Well… I thought it might be impolite, in front of Lord Strahd.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Sasha said, with growing enthusiasm. She squeezed his hand tighter. “I must tell you, Lord Strahd has also kissed me…” Pulling aside the neckline of her shift, she touched her throat. “...here.”

“Yes, I know,” Alek assured her.

“And you’re not upset?”

“No… Not about that, anyway.”

An exaggerated look of concern came over her. She seemed entirely too lucid, but her gaze had a far away quality to it. “You are upset!” she cried.

“I’m not upset with you,” Alek said. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Oh, Alek,” she sighed. “Will you kiss me now? I would very much like it if you did.”

There was something odd about her request. An uncanniness which tingled at the back of Alek’s mind, setting him on edge. It felt like a trap.

But the request itself was innocuous enough. And he did want to kiss her. She was a lovely young woman, even in her present state. She posed no threat to him, even if she was becoming a vampire, as Strahd was. Alek himself was no mortal man.

He leaned down to kiss her.

Alek realized, as he bent closer to her, that Sasha still smelled entirely human. His empty stomach roiled, even as his mouth pressed over hers.

A new energy seized the girl, and she grasped his face in her hands, pulling him deeper into the kiss. Alek groaned. His insides coiled in angry knots as he fought back the urge to bite the tongue out of her mouth. With effort, he broke free of her lips.

“I want you, Alek,” she whined, tugging the front of his shirt, trying to draw him nearer again. “Be my husband. Share your love with me.”

Alek swallowed thickly. “I would,” he said, petting her hair, pushing it back from her forehead. “Believe me, I would. But I would eat you up, and not in the most pleasant sense.”

“It can’t be so bad,” Sasha pleaded with him.

“It can.” Alek gently extracted himself from her cloying hands.

The girl’s face contorted in frustration. “Don’t go, Alek, please!”

Her fury was nothing compared to the gnashing maw deep within his gut. “Sasha, you need to rest. Everything will be all right if you rest now.”

“No!” she shrieked. “I can’t stand it!”

Alek did not know what to do. His instinct, really, was to knock her unconscious. But he was already struggling not to hurt her. Hitting her would certainly not have eased the suffering for either of them. “Shall I call Lord Strahd?” he asked instead. “Would you like to see him?”

This calmed her somewhat, though she seemed conflicted. “I want you,” she moaned.

“I know, Sasha. And I’m flattered. Let me call Lord Strahd for you.”

Sasha sighed heavily in defeat. She made no move toward him. “All right,” she agreed mournfully.

“Thank you.” Alek dared to kiss her lightly on the forehead.

Strahd was entirely too smug when Alek returned to the dining room and found him still there, sitting with his long legs propped up on the table. “Go on,” Alek muttered.

“So it has begun, then.”

“I think you should go to her. She is… hungry.” It was the only word that came to mind. Alek eyed the corpse still lying on the table. His stomach seized. “I am hungry,” he amended.

“You did fail to dine with me,” Strahd observed unhelpfully. His mood seemed to have improved, at least. He had apparently retrieved a book from his library and returned with it to the dining room while Alek was away. He opened it now. It was not a spellbook, but instead seemed to be a volume of folklore. “There is no need for me to see her now,” he said. “Let her rest for a few days. It will clear her head—and yours.”

* * * EDIT - Part 2: #6 - Corpse [Ao3 Collection] [prompt list by @syrips]

#vampentine's 2024 #idk i love thier little spats #stralek #strahd von zarovich #alek gwilym #lamour dms cos #crypt 20 lore #sasha ivliskova #i was torn about posting this in two parts but #it's more about the daily habit for me rn

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mx-lamour · 3 months

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18 - Velvet

There were many things about their undeath and imprisonment that the devil Strahd and ghoulish Captain Gwilym despised and utterly lamented. They even quarreled with each other, sometimes separating themselves for months or years, during which time each would face new hardships and pitfalls on their own, Alek pacing the whole of their shrunken world while Strahd wore down the familiar castle halls. Their vindictive departures only made them both more restless in the end.

It was early dusk when Alek slipped back into Castle Ravenloft, evading its traps by rote. He took stock of the still-waning sun and ducked down into the catacombs.

He was not quite sure why Strahd insisted on sleeping inside a coffin. It would seal him away from any errant sunlight, of course, but he hardly needed the extra protection this far below the fortress. He could just as easily board the windows, draw the curtains, and sleep in his own bed. It would certainly be more comfortable.

Not that the coffin had any shortage of luxuries, as far as Strahd was concerned. It was a fine nearly-black walnut, with narrative carvings set into its sides. The interior was roomy enough for some movement, since an animate being inhabited the box, not merely a corpse, and it was upholstered throughout with the soft pile of crushed red velvet. Alek spoke a word of power, which Strahd had taught him for this purpose, and lifted the lid without consequence.

Strahd lay on his back, head resting on a small velvet pillow, hands folded over his stomach. He was not a perfect noble image of the resting dead; his lips were parted, brow slightly creased, and his chin was tucked too far down toward his neck. If he were still a living man, he would almost certainly be snoring. Alek touched Strahd's chest. The line on Strahd's forehead deepened. He drew in a miniscule breath, just to speak, but all that became of it was a soft grunt muffled deep within his throat. It was early yet. Strahd's limbs were as lead.

His tired groan grew stronger when he was forced to shift, pressing his shoulder back against the bottom of the box for leverage and bending up his knee. Alek climbed in, wedging himself along Strahd's side.

“Good evening,” Alek whispered.

Strahd pursed his lips and swallowed thickly. His throat was dry. He tried to clear it. “Make yourself at home,” he mumbled roughly.

“Don't mind if I do.” Alek kissed the corner of his mouth.

Strahd cracked one dark eye open blearily. “Have I been forgiven, then?”

Alek rubbed his fingers absently along Strahd's collar bone. “You don't need my forgiveness.”

Strahd's frown deepened. He raised a hand to rub his other eye, now that his arms were barely light enough to operate. He settled the hand over Alek's wandering fingers, and fully gazed upon his face. “I suppose not,” he murmured. “What possessed you to return?”

“You did,” Alek said. “I could never leave your side for long.”

“I feel each minute pass when you’re away.”

Alek chuckled softly. “That's a bald-faced lie.”

Strahd's lips curled into a small half-smile. “Not always.”

He shifted again, rolling further on his side to slide his hand up along Alek’s arm, curving it around the other man’s bicep and over, to splay his fingers out on Alek’s back. Strahd pulled him close, angling deep into a languid kiss. Alek held him, too, stroking down his chest to snake his arm behind Strahd’s shoulder blade, grasping the nape of his neck beneath the smooth black hair which carded through his fingers. The soft sounds of their reunion echoed lightly among the crypts.

“I brought you something,” Alek murmured in the space between their parted lips.

“Do tell,” Strahd said before he closed the gap once more.

Alek grinned. The taut pull of his mouth was more difficult to properly kiss, but Strahd continued to try, until they both were laughing quietly. “I will show it to you, if you’ll release me for a moment.” He kissed the space between Strahd’s stubborn brows. “I have it here.”

Strahd obliged by loosening his hold. Alek propped himself up, craning over the edge of the coffin to reach for the backpack he had dropped beside it. He produced a book, and handed it to Strahd. “It’s not a spellbook,” Alek explained, “but it looks old. I’m not sure I recognize the language.”

Strahd took the book and settled back to examine it. Alek curled around Strahd’s shoulder to look with him, draping his arm across Strahd’s chest. Strahd used the crook of Alek’s elbow to stand the book upright. He muttered a short phrase and traced over the embossed title in the faded cover with his fingers. Enduring One Who Grows seemed to be the translation, though the two foreign words upon it were of slightly different ilk. Perhaps a name, then, not a title. The frontmost pages, with their table of contents in tight brown lettering on yellowed pages, described the tome’s contents, presumably written by this Enduring soul whose name adorned the cover.

Strahd glanced sidelong at Alek. “You’ve brought me poetry,” he teased.

Alek’s eyebrows rose. Of course he had—why not? “Read one,” he suggested.

Strahd opened up an arbitrary page. In a low voice reminiscent of their velvet surroundings, he read:

'Poor wounded soul, could he have grasped before,' my sage replied, 'what now he sees is true, and blindly trusted in poetic lore

Strahd frowned, but continued on:

then he need not have so insulted you. But as there was no other way to learn I urged him to a test that grieved me too. Tell us who you were, that he, in turn, can set your honor freshly back in style among those he will teach when he returns.' The trunk: 'Your speech, by raising hope that I'll regain repute, makes words arise in me. I mean to talk, if you will stay a while: I was the one entrusted with the keys to Federigo's mind, and it was sweet to share his thought and guard his strategy for noble ventures secret in my keep — so faithfully I filled this glorious post, I gladly sacrificed my health and sleep...'

Alek bent his arm clumsily to steal the book away again. He angled it to better glance at the page, himself, but still could not understand the native words without the aid of Strahd’s comprehension spell. He gave it back.

Strahd thumbed the edges to find a different page. He read:

Two ladies to the summit of my mind Have clomb, to hold an argument of love. The one has wisdom with her from above, For every noblest virtue well designed: The other, beauty's tempting power refined And the high charm of perfect grace approve: And I, as my sweet Master's will doth move, At feet of both their favors am reclined. Beauty and Duty in my soul keep strife, At question if the heart such course can take And 'twixt the two ladies hold its love complete. The fount of gentle speech yields answer meet, That Beauty may be loved for gladness sake, And Duty in the lofty ends of life

“Not exactly what I expected,” Alek admitted.

“Yet, the poet endures,” Strahd replied wistfully. He closed the book and let it rest upon his chest.

Alek brushed his nose along the side of Strahd’s neck. “Sometimes I regret handing you literature. We might not be in this mess.”

“This mess?” Strahd eched, caressing the long fingers toying with the ends of his hair. He brought Alek’s knuckles to his lips.

Alek grasped Strahd’s jaw and turned his face to better kiss the dour line of his mouth. “No, not this one,” he conceded. “Not always.” He brushed his thumb across Strahd’s chin.

“I welcome your return, with or without any book,” Strahd said quietly. “How long will you stay?”

“I never go far,” Alek murmured. “I suspect you know that. You watch me, don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” Strahd admitted.

“When you miss me.”

“Yes,” was the answering whisper.

Alek hummed in acknowledgement. “Now that I am here, allow me to distract you for a night. Whatever other chaos you have brewing can wait.”

“I need to feed,” Strahd objected. “I thirst. If I could drink only from your fount, I would. I cannot.”

“Flatterer. Do you have anything in stock?”

“No.”

Alek snickered. “You’ve been moping.” Again, he kissed Strahd’s petulant frown. Tossed the foreign book of poetry gently to the floor, and positioned himself to lay bodily on top of Strahd. “You must know it’s your own doing,” Alek told him. “Now you’re trapped, and you have only my body for sustenance. Maybe you’ll starve, but I think you’ll enjoy it. You saw me coming. You watched me walk home to you. You’ve been waiting for this.”

“Yes,” Strahd breathed, though he hated to admit it. It didn’t matter. If anyone knew, it would be Alek. Alek would leave, but every time, he would choose Strahd again. When he turned around and wandered back, it hollowed something jagged in Strahd’s chest, begging to be filled by nothing but the fair man’s footsteps over Ravenloft’s threshold.

Strahd hugged Alek’s body to himself, dragging up his shirt to rove his hands beneath it. Alek’s skin was cool to the touch, like Strahd’s own, like everything, but his back was familiar and strong, his weight a tether tying low Strahd’s errant mind. He was showered with the most attentive kisses, moaning plaintively when Alek nipped his throat.

The love they made was slow and deep, rejoined again at last within their little deaths, wound together in a velvet coffin of their own design.

* * * First Poem: excerpt from "The Thorn Forest" Second poem: "Of Beauty and Duty" both by Dante Alighieri [Ao3 Collection] [prompt list by @syrips]

#vampentine's 2024 #empty closet fic #strahd von zarovich #alek gwilym #stralek #fanfic writing #poetry #dante's inferno

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