#Sasha Ivliskova

[yarrow-leaf]

an old sasha & strahd doodle… >.>

[countess-strahd]

need more bride/bride CoS shipping. enough of ludmilla being the eldest and in charge and a trusted leader without having an insanely charged and morally dubious relationship with anastrasya. volenta lies awake at night yearning for sasha's touch and cursing strahd (haha) for locking her away. patrina and ludmilla had their differences but found ways of reconciling them; she approves of rahadin's violent retribution for patrina's death. like c'mon give the ladies some love! and toxic gay corruption arcs!

[vanhelsingapologist]

Peer pressure works.

[generic-cleric]

Sasha Ivliskova, commander of the Ebon Gargoyles. I gave Sasha "Bride" status, along with a winning personality ✨

This was supposed to be an expression challenge for casual funsies and I was soooo not casual about it.

Obligatory plug for my Patreon where you can find the behind the scenes stuff like time lapses, process pics, and tik tok stills for this piece and others!

Close ups below the cut!

[mx-lamour]

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]

[anae-art]

Hello!!!

I love your take on the consorts design!!! it's close to the original design, yet brought to a perfection!!! in my upcoming game I will be using your art as their tokens (with creddit abviously XD)

Since you are DM-ing, what is your take on Sasha Ivliskova?

In 5e she is only described in her crypt being locked away, while in D&D 3.5, journey Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. she has a story and an image of her.

I was curious if you're going to use her in your campaign.

In any case thank you for your time!!!

Hi! Thank you very much! It means a lot to me that you like them! (Now I'm asking my players not to read this) As for Sasha, to be honest, I didn't even know that her story was written down in more detail in the previous edition! Thank you for the information, I will be able to learn more about it now. My other game master and I are mainly relying on the 5e manual for the Curse of Strahd only adding and subtracting things as we happen to be more suited to the players. At this point I wasn't planning to use her (In my previous campaign we didn't even manage to get to her crypt) but if the players manage to get to her and express interest in her I think the theme of strahd brides and how they are perceived by him can be further developed. Thank you again and have a nice day!

[curseofthebloodcountess]

9 and 11??

9. Did you genderflip any characters or make anyone more queer?

The first thing that I’ll say is that even though sexuality is a spectrum, I find the idea of someone being “more” or “less” queer uncomfortable. If they’re queer, they’re queer. I mean that with all the love in the world, as a queer woman myself. 

If the question is whether I have made characters queer that weren’t explicitly queer in the original text, the answer is yes. My NPCs tend to be assumed bisexual or pansexual as a baseline. If they develop in a way that indicates asexuality or an exclusive preference for the same/a different gender, then I jot that down and call it a day. I’ll let players know on a need-to-know basis about a character’s sexuality (ex. Characters are lifelong BFFs, characters are sexual partners, characters are family) or just in OOC conversations for fun, but it’s not really a big deal. In part, I think, because all of my players are queer. 

As far as gender flipping goes, I am notorious for my Countess Strahd. I have made Strahd a woman for purposes of this campaign and have done surprisingly little gender flipping besides. I swapped Kasimir and Patrina’s roles in the Dusk Elf genocide: Kasimir is the one who tried to marry Strahd and was killed for it. Patrina is the leader of the Dusk Elves and the survivors are all women. This feels like it should be a radical statement about war and survival or maybe sexual violence as an ever-present threat, but it’s just how the world shook out.

The only other places of note that I’ve flipped genders is in characters I felt I could do more with than canon did. The first is Sasha. Sasha is a very gender-neutral name. They are nonbinary (they/she) and they were a leader in Strahd’s military 20+ years post-Sergei’s death. Strahd had just lost Marina and learned of reincarnation and convinced herself that Sasha was Alek reincarnated. Sasha, confused, played the part to the best of their ability. In her desperation to be the one Strahd wanted, she attacked the western Argynvostholt settlement (what would later become Sturmhold Keep)... right as Strahd learned that Argynvost had been Alek’s father. She entombed Sasha for her crime (a crime Strahd herself committed in attacking Argynvostholt itself, killing Argynvost, and killing her own son, Godfrey Gwilym) but honored Sasha with the title of “wife” instead of “bride” - one of only a small handful of True Vampires in the Valley. Sasha has revealed some of this to PCs throughout “Blood Countess” and “Real Housewives of Ravenloft” - or at least what they know. She doesn’t know that she isn’t Alek, only that Strahd has “replaced” her multiple times (most recently with Escher) in a quest to find Alek. She wants to be let out of her tomb to appeal to Strahd’s better nature and reclaim her place in the Barovian Military (hard to do - Anastrasya now occupies that place) and maybe her heart (impossible).

Meanwhile, in Krezk I’ve also made Ilya a trans woman. She wants to prove to her family that she is a woman and undergo the coming-of-age trial young women undergo in my Krezk, serving Baba Lysaga in the woods under the geas spell. If she succeeds, Baba Lysaga will bless Krezk for a year and her community will recognize her as a grown woman. If she fails, Baba Lysaga will kill her. She is the last of her parents’ children, so while they are not against her being a girl, they do not want her to undergo the trials. Ilya (workshopping the name Liya) will want to recruit the party to accompany her. She also is required to receive a blessing from the Abbot before embarking on her journey and may try to persuade him to let Vasilka accompany her. These changes are small, so I don’t get to talk about them often! I’m happy I get to!

11. What, in your opinion, is the wildest change you made from canon?

I’ve touched on changes before, but one of the changes I’m eager to implement is the Tome. I used the Interactive Tome as a base to build it, but I had changes to make because my Strahd’s backstory accounts for her being a woman, a half-elf, a conqueror, a defender-against-dark-gods, a grieving mother, a queer woman… and all of that creating a perfect storm within the context of “I, Strahd” and “Curse of Strahd” events that lead to her scrambling to buy herself more time, more power, and more love. I think people would be amazed to see how I maintained Strahd’s essence as a character despite the changes made. 

[mists-of-ravenloft]

I just checked my queue and it’s around 350 posts, 90% of which I think is interview with the vampire. Contemplating sharing things I’ve written for Ravenloft or campaign resources just to counteract how far I’ve swung into being an iwtv blog lol. It wasn’t my intent to go this far into it, but it’s hard to beat the momentum of a new-is fandom.

[calebisdrawing]

Sasha Ivliskova

Strahd’s first but least talked-about bride. Love that she gets a bit more to do in Curse of Strahd:Reloaded.

[survivors-of-barovia]

Well, guess who’s finally posting again! Sometime ago we had a battle with Sasha, one of Strahd’s brides and hooo it was very depressing She’s a really tragic character and her end was a sad one too so I did my best to capture this moment of acceptance, rage and resolve

[yarrow-leaf]

Still toying around with Anastrasya’s and Sasha’s designs a little, since my party met them recently :} ♥️⚰️🦋

[marusea-a-random-dm]

Minor Curse of Strahd spoilers!

In our campaign, Godfrey was left on a lookout and well, Sasha decided to not lose her chance of replacing him. Last session my players found out that all this time, Godfrey wasn't himself and all of the time he said, that "Strahd is at the castle" was a lie.

So my player made this little meme!

[mx-lamour]

6 - Corpse

[The latter half of #5 - Dinner]

For the next few days, then, Alek only looked in on Sasha during the daylight hours. She slept soundly during that time—almost too soundly, but the subtle movement of her breathing assured him that the girl was still alive. He left water and some honest food with her, within easy reach, should she wake and feel strong enough or willing to consume it. 

There might be teeth marks in it later, but she hardly ate more than a nibble. It worried him. Alek's instinct told him that, if she was changing, she might need blood instead. She might need blood anyway, in a sense; the girl was ghastly pale. But Alek's body insisted she was still human. Or, at least… human enough.

Late at night—or early in the day, depending on one’s frame of mind—Alek asked Strahd for his observations. Strahd was cagey in answering. He continued to insist that Alek leave the girl alone.

“Come sit a while,” Strahd bade him. He pulled a chair closer to the hearth. “I can hear you pacing clear across the grounds.”

Alek sighed and sat down, even kicking off his boots to stretch out his legs and warm his toes by the fire, which was mostly lit for the sake of light. Summer was fading, but it would take a while longer for any real chill to nip the air. Still, the gesture was comforting.

Strahd began to speak of other things. He started on about logistical matters, but gradually eased in personal details that he had discovered about his various boyars, their families and their dealings with each other, attempting to pique Alek's interest with a bit of gossip.

It did not take terribly long for Strahd's goading to work on him.

Soon enough, Alek had lured Strahd in turn, and they sat together by the fireplace, reminiscing on all manner of things. Old battles and tom foolery. Trying to embarrass and outwit each other. Their voices rose in exuberant debate over unimportant details. Alek even managed to coax a peal of laughter from the dark lord.

“You are incorrigible,” Strahd bluntly accused.

Alek grinned. “Pot, kettle,” he retorted. Once they’d sobered themselves again, he remarked, fondly, “It's been too long.”

Strahd quirked an eyebrow in response.

“I haven't heard you laugh like that in… what? Fifty years? Maybe longer. That's hard to believe.”

Strahd leaned back in his chair. Alek could see the distant shadow creeping over him while he thought about the intervening time.

“Strahd.” Alek clapped a hand on his shoulder, jostling him gently. “I'm glad.”

Strahd glanced sidelong at Alek, then down at the hand on his shoulder. He frowned, not discontentedly, but with bemusement, as though he were examining an intricate piece in an important puzzle. 

When he looked back up, Alek offered a reassuring smile, almost proud. He patted Strahd's shoulder again and withdrew his hand, settling in to enjoy the low embers crackling in place of the flames.

They observed the rest of the evening in companionable silence, until the dawn encroached and Strahd was forced to withdraw to his crypt. Alek dozed lightly in his chair.

. . .

Alek had finally decided to visit Sasha again at night, to see if she would wake. She was already sitting up when he opened the door, and when he stepped into the room, she tossed back the blanket and leapt up to meet him.

“It's been so long!” she cried, welcoming herself into his embrace. “Oh, how I've missed you!”

Alek hugged the girl close, chuckling at her enthusiasm. “You’re feeling well now, I take it.”

“Much better,” she agreed, squeezing him tightly around the middle. Then she stepped back. “But no thanks to you,” she added, pouting. “And you never sent Lord Strahd down to see me, either. It was very unkind.”

Alek thought for sure that Strahd would have visited her sometime within the last several nights. “You haven’t seen him at all?”

Her eyes were like polished glass, and sharp at the edges. He swore they had been gentler once. “No. I have been locked in this room—”

“It wasn’t locked,” he murmured.

“I don’t know how else you would explain it. I thought to come looking for you, but the door wouldn’t budge.”

“Stiff hinges,” Alek replied lamely. Strahd must have put some kind of enchantment on the door, if it would only open from the outside. There was a chance that Sasha had not been strong enough to open it, but Alek knew he wasn’t so otherworldly powerful that he wouldn’t notice a sticky door if he encountered one. And, if the vice grip Sasha had just had on his waist was any indication, she should have been able to handle hers just fine.

Sasha sized him up. She sighed, and the pout of her lip softened. “Oh, I can’t stay mad at you,” she lamented, picking at the deep slit in the collar of his shirt. “You came for me. The rest hardly matters, does it?” She drifted closer, peering up at him sweetly through the fringe of her lashes.

Alek’s hands found themselves sliding over her hips. He braced himself.

This was a bad idea, he thought. And yet… Old memories ran fresh through his mind. Hadn’t some of his worst ideas been some of the best?

. . .

Strahd thought he felt a small tugging sensation at the corner of his mind, as though he had forgotten something important. As though he had left a candle burning too close to something he shouldn’t have…

A feeling of dread crept over him. He tried to examine the feeling, to pull on the snagged thread, but the thought refused to reveal itself fully. And there was nothing worse than grasping at some crucial piece of information that simply would not come.

Strahd stood, balancing his fingertips against the top of his desk, and closed his eyes. He bowed his head, as though he were examining the lines of a battle map beneath his hands. That prickling sensation, behind his eyes. That was part of it. The apprehension constricting his chest could be anything yet, so that, he ignored.

There was something else. A tenuous thing. A fog of an image, or a feeling, still too hazy to make out.

Distantly, he heard Sasha shriek.

. . .

She giggled when Alek flipped her around.

[To cover my own butt, I'm guessing you should hop over to Ao3 for the rest.] ↓↓↓ * * * [Ao3 Collection] [prompt list by @syrips]

[mx-lamour]

2 - Charmed

The young woman’s eyes grew wide. “You live in the castle?”

Alek’s handsome smile was self-deprecating. “Not exactly.”

“It’s… impressive,” she said bravely. Her long brown hair slipped over her shoulder as she leaned forward, craning her head in an attempt to spot the topmost tower from the carriage window. The looming fortress was too tall; she could barely see the top of the curtain wall, let alone the spires it surrounded.

“I think you mean ‘intimidating’,” Alek said, though he puffed up a bit at the compliment. Those were his grounds, in his care. And though they had fallen into some disrepair over the past several decades, there was only so much one man could do with a place that big. Strahd could only be bothered to maintain the rooms he most often used, and he was not keen to have craftspeople skulking about. There were enough things already skulking about in the castle.

It had looked marvelous once, but it was now at least no worse than when they had first usurped the place from its previous tyrant, all those long years ago. It was, however, infinitely more dangerous to people like this young woman, sitting in the back of a jet black carriage.

“I meant no disrespect,” she said, settling back into the richly upholstered seat. Her face still wore a mask of bewilderment.

Alek tucked her soft hair gently behind her ear. “I take no offense.” He chuckled lightly. “You would have been correct to say so.”

“It is rather much,” she admitted, taking Alek’s hand in hers. She held it as the carriage crept across the rickety bridge, enchanted to accommodate Strahd’s vehicle and not much else, and carried them forward at last onto castle grounds.

The increasingly treacherous sight was always a relief to Alek, even if his errands no longer left him so wind-chapped and haggard as they once did. Hungry—so hungry it seemed his own stomach would sprout teeth and devour him from within if he didn’t fill it—but this was often the case; hunger followed him no matter where he walked. This was the place he and Strahd had earned, for better and worse. It was where they had lived, died, and continued to exist, together. No matter its current state, it was home.

“Just in time,” Alek noted when the carriage pulled to a stop before the main doors. The horses snorted and stamped, shaking off the long journey. He helped the girl step down, and the illusion of a man in a dark coat tipped his hat to them, just as it had before they first climbed in. The carriage and horses rode away to stable themselves, revealing the creeping shadow of dusk upon the wide courtyard behind them.

Alek paused. He turned the girl to face the dwindling sunset. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

She leaned back against his chest, humming in consideration. “It is, isn’t it? I never really stopped to look. Sunset has only ever been a warning against the coming darkness.” The girl bit her lip. “I’m glad we’re here,” she said nervously. “Let’s go inside.”

Alek guided her through the ornate, towering wooden doors to the main hall, with its tall statues and crumbling frescoes. As he crossed the threshold, he looked back over his shoulder, to see the final crest of orange light dip beyond the curtain wall, throwing the courtyard into shadow. If it was the first sunset the girl had dared to watch, it would also be her last.

. . .

Strahd had not yet known, when Marina of Berez was lost to him, that Tatyana would continue to be reborn; but after Alina, he had begun to suspect that a pattern would form. The first of his beloved’s reincarnations had been murdered, but the second girl’s undoing had been a sudden and unexplainable fever. In this, there was yet no fathomable pattern, except for the body’s inevitable disapparition into the mists. So, Strahd set about thinking. He brooded on the topic for long, motionless hours, for days at a time, trying to imagine every possible obstacle to his and Tatyana’s union, so that he would be prepared to circumvent any but the most desirable outcome.

These moods pained Alek nearly as much as his lord. Strahd’s helplessness in uniting with Tatyana was mirrored in Alek’s continued inability to drag him back from this precipice of despair. His only recourse was to tend to the dilapidated fortress; testing its traps, tending its livestock, and pretending as well as he could that the corpses that now made up his own retinue might listen to more than just his most basic commands. Some of the bodies he had known in life, but their souls had long departed, their faces decayed—beyond recognition, if he had not been there to observe the gradual change. Alek still sometimes wondered why he had been spared the same degradation, but he dared not think on it too hard. Strahd did enough of that for both of them, and more.

Strahd had finally emerged from his stupor one evening, looking as though he had never been in it. This renewed glow of life in him was in no small part due to the body he dropped in front of Alek in their private dining room, long cleared of detritus from the wedding that never fully took place, as well as most of the other trappings an ordinary dining room might have. All that remained was a sturdy wooden slab of a table and the two decoratively carved and cushioned chairs. The fresh corpse was pale and discolored, completely drained of blood.

It made field dressing the body much less of a mess.

While Alek tucked into the raw flesh—once again convincing himself that humans were a lot like deer, and Barovia a unique kind of wilderness—Strahd told him of the experiment he wished to conduct.

Aside from Leo Dilisnya, who Strahd had turned entirely out of spite and vengeance, only to seal him into a tight stone crypt to pass on tenfold his own agonies of entrapment and starvation, and aside from dear Marina, who had been murdered before the results of Strahd’s efforts could ever truly be known, Strahd had not yet attempted to create another like himself.

He wanted a control test. Strahd would try to turn someone like Tatyana, without the added stakes of her being the true object of his tragic affections. He thought it best to collect someone of her same height and build and temperament, the reasonable conjecture being that, if he succeeded and she survived, Strahd could rule out both his own impotence and the potential weaknesses of the girl’s mortal form.

“You will seek out one who fits this description,” Strahd ordered. “With your ability to mingle in daylight with the people of Barovia, I think you will have a better chance than I of finding a suitable match.”

With a placated stomach and Strahd’s renewed conviction before him, Alek readily agreed.

. . .

Of course he flirted with the young woman, when he found her. She was indeed lovely, and he was still a man, despite everything. It would certainly be easier to get her into the castle if she liked him. He could have simply ordered her father to hand the girl over on behalf of Lord Strahd, of course, but it was altogether more pleasant to play the courtier and have her go willingly.

And had he really forgotten how good it felt to kiss someone like this? Her lips were soft and supple, the taste headier than he remembered from any of his past lovers. And her scent—gods help him—her scent was delectably sweet. He wanted… He wanted to…

He wanted to bite her. To feel her tender flesh give beneath the blunt force of his teeth, that invigorating split of skin and tear of sinew, the satiating slide of that slick, battered tissue down his throat to fill the yawning pit in his stomach.

Alek startled. He pushed the girl firmly away to arm’s length, as if to only look upon her once more. If his dead heart could pulse, it would be beating at his ribs. As it was, the frantic emotion flying through him had few outlets. He pulled a lungful of air into his body, and released it shakily.

“My apologies,” he said to the flustered young woman. “I do not wish to be too forward.”

“Oh. I, um… thank you,” she murmured. Her eyes flitted to the handsome man’s face but could not hold it through her own embarrassment. She twisted the hem of her apron around her fingers, and looked down at the delicate embroidery instead, smiling to herself.

The girl’s name was Sasha Ivliskova. Despite her namesake, she lived in Jarvinak, which had no contact with the river Ivlis, which itself ran just past the village nestled in Castle Ravenloft’s shadow. When Alek expressed curiosity in the association, she said vaguely, “The river used to be… longer? Is that right?” and could offer no further reference to her family’s history with it. Clearly, the link was not recent, if there had in fact been any link at all.

Jarvinak, though, bore some familiarity. It was the fifth town Strahd and his entourage had visited early on in their tour of the new lands, after finally taking the castle. Despite Strahd’s and Alek’s predictions, much to their surprise, the burgomaster there was not at all flustered by nor overcompensating toward his new lord. The man had been paying attention to the trajectory of the war and was scrupulous in his accounts; had hoped for a seamless transition that would bypass any ill effect on himself or the people he presided over. Good thing, because the road had been long and Strahd was quickly losing his patience for townsfolk of all kinds. Jarvinak’s burgomaster had well earned the head that remained on his shoulders for the decades that followed. Even luckier, considering the events that followed only a few short years later, the man had never had occasion to come face-to-face with the Lord of Barovia a second time.

. . .

“Sasha…” Alek declared, once she was through the doors and inside the main foyer of the castle, “Welcome to Ravenloft.”

Several sconces along the walls came to life, lighting the dark place with an orange glow not too dissimilar from the sunset the two of them had just witnessed. The lights followed a path leading up a grand staircase, from which the steady tap of footfalls approached.

Strahd stepped out of the darkness, a strapping sight to behold, with his lean all-black attire, and even blacker hair slicked back to fall behind his shoulders. He paused on the stair, one foot lingering on the step behind. His eyes roamed over Sasha briefly, and then he glanced at Alek. The barest quirk of his brow told Alek he was pleased.

Then he swept down to meet them on the landing. Alek could feel Sasha’s heart racing under the hand he held lightly at her back. No doubt, Strahd could hear it. “Sasha, is it?” He took her delicate hand in his and bowed low to kiss it. “I am Lord Strahd von Zarovich.”

Sasha’s racing heart quickly soothed itself, once she looked into Strahd’s eyes and saw the flicker of red within their depths. A trick of the firelight, perhaps.

“You are most welcome, indeed.”

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

[mx-lamour]

Why have I seen NOTHING about Sasha Ivliskova?

[mx-lamour]

Fellow CoS DMs (and players),

I call upon ye once more, to tell me all your Brides of Strahd lore!

There's nothing in the module. I do not know how to work with this.

(I do have some stuff for past love interest Patrina Velikovna and forgotten bride Sasha Ivliskova. It's the Main Three plus Escher I'm worried about.)

Thanks in advance team. ♡