#dalyria has a far more scientific/methodical mind in my interpretation of her so she has been unable to do this

[agrazza]

Dalyria POV excerpt/drabble

So I have cut out a lot of exposition/backstory/being-stuck-in-Dalyria's head from ch. 40 of "On Darkness", but some of it is actually not too bad? It just doesn't fit the vibe of the chapter. And I think it stands alone well enough as an exploration of the sibling dynamics from the house-spawn's time with Cazador. Also, a few of you expressed interest in Dalyria POV. So anyway I've decided to post some of the material that (probably) isn't making it into the chapter below the cut. Warning for Cazador. Rated: Strong T Summary: Dalyria (now free in the Underdark) recalls what life was like under Cazador's thumb.

Losing a patient had gotten easier, after two centuries with Cazador. He cared so little for the living, after all.

Dalyria was fairly certain that in the time before being turned into a vampire, she had taken the loss of a patient very hard. Not particularly because it was sad, though it was, but because she’d seen it as a failure. Failing to heal someone, failing to solve the puzzle of an illness, failing to keep someone alive… It hadn’t even been a question of professional pride, exactly, though that had certainly played a part. Patriars only wanted the best, after all.

But it had been more of a matter of a personal pride. She was good at her work, and wanted to be better. It was nice, to have a good reputation, but she cared most about her own improvement, always striving to be better and know more than she had before.

She’d been so very prideful, back then. So full of herself. So eager to test the limits of what she could accomplish.

Cazador had twisted that desire up in her. He coaxed and commanded her to precision with her scalpels, punished her if she made undue mess, was exacting with exactly how much pain she was expected to give. Or to take. Her pride in her own work became a fear of her master; there was no predicting his most mercurial moods, and like the rest of them, she’d always been quick to obey. What was the point in doing otherwise, when he could simply force obedience with his magic if you didn’t comply quickly enough? It was easier, and less painful, to do it right the first time.

Sometimes, she was still surprised to find the compulsion gone. She would catch herself, about to do something, or not do something, solely based the small voice in the back of her mind that constantly reminded her of what Cazador’s opinion would be of her every move. And then she would remember, like a breath of fresh air that she didn’t deserve, that his opinions didn’t matter anymore. 

If she were brave enough, no one’s opinions mattered anymore, except her own.

It was different for her and the other house-spawn, after all. The rest of the spawn had been trapped, too, but theirs had been a prison of loneliness and silence; of piercing, aching, all-consuming hunger. One evening of terror and pain, and then a lifetime of drudgery and darkness. It was horrible, certainly, and Cazador’s children had all those curses as well, but they also had the ongoing torture, and the guilt— the indignity and humiliation of their bodies and minds being used for another’s whims. The spawn in the prison had to suffer the loss of their life once, for an age; the house-spawn suffered it again and again and again. 

She thought she might have preferred the dark, had she the choice. Of course, what had happened to the imprisoned spawn was horrible. Many of them had gone rightfully mad. Some were vicious, furious, and desperate. The hunger alone was enough to torment a person, and the unending imprisonment was a torture all on its own. But she’d seen some of them come out of it with bonds formed with their fellow prisoners. Cazador hadn’t had enough cells to separate all the spawn, and she knew that some— not all, but enough to make it a statistical trend— were still rooming with their fellow prisoners now in the keep they’d settled, even in freedom. The horror they had experienced together had broken some, but it had strengthened others. There was camaraderie, in shared pain.

The house-spawn had never had that luxury. They’d fought each other for every scrap of ‘affection’ Cazador would deign to dole out, hoping for just another drop of insect- or vermin-blood, never sated, never satisfied. And if it wasn’t the vicious hunger, it was the pain. Pleasing the master meant you might escape a flaying. Playing along with his games meant that you might have to wield the knife, but at least you wouldn’t be the one screaming that night. Informing on a sibling who was disobedient— in spirit, if not in practice, as it was near impossible to truly disobey the master— would mean a respite, maybe even a few mouthfuls of rancid blood or a night of safety from Cazador’s vicious and numreous hungers. Any house-spawn caught conspiring together, even on something as minor as sharing a hunt or finding brief enjoyment in something that hadn’t been explicitly allowed would be punished more than usual.

And Cazador had liked his punishments. Oh, he played at doting father, pretended to expect them to be obedient and dutiful, but he enjoyed the ‘discipline’ most of all. He made rules that were impossible to follow to the letter, had exacting, meticulous standards, exerted his compulsions in such a way that left them just enough room to  stumble, and he relished the opportunity to catch them failing him. The best way to avoid his wrath was to point out when another of his house-pets had fallen short of his expectations in a more egregious way.

And Cazador had particularly taken pleasure in disciplining his dearest ‘children’ in the name of improving them, of making them great. Dalyria had always been deeply, shamefully thankful that she’d never been Cazador’s favorite. Petras and Leon had always hoped that earning more favor would mean that, eventually, they might receive a blessing in the midst of cruelty. 

Petras had always been furiously jealous that Cazador sent Astarion and Violet to lavish parties, used the two of them to bribe patriars who liked a pretty face in their beds, dressed them in finer clothes than he gave the others. A cushier sort of prostitution than the scraps they all normally had to go begging for in the slums. 

Leon had always hoped for the few privileges that the Cazador’s whims would grant them; music lessons for Violet, books for Astarion, the days when he would suddenly play at doting father and give them a mockery of affection. They were all so desperate for anything other than suffering that even a bare scrap of generosity from the master was a shameful luxury. 

Sometimes, Dalyria had wanted to be jealous too, had hated whatever sibling currently had Cazador’s favor and wished she could believe his lies, just for a few moments. But Cazador was only generous when it suited his cruelty later. A gift never truly belonged to one of them; they were all for Cazador’s use. Cazador was a jealous, petty master, and the more he gave his precious pets away, the more he had to reassert his own sense of superiority when his jealousy reared its head. He pretended he was above it all, that such feelings had nothing to do with the necessary discipline to improve his wayward charges. 

But Dalyria had seen through him. She had listened to Astarion’s screams even when he performed perfectly, had watched Violet go mad as her flawless music filled the cold dead halls, and she knew Leon and Petras for fools. There was no satisfying the master, no blessing to found in that house. And there had been no friendship to be found with her so-called siblings, any of whom she would stab in the back without second thought to spare herself a few moments of agony.

The other spawn, the ones locked below in the dark, had never lain awake at night, listening to the only people who might have possibly understood her sob and scream with pain because she had handed them over to Cazador for the price of a dead rodent. They had never been asked to flay their cell-mates, or watch them be flayed, or to compete against their fellow prisoners for the prettiest prize for Cazador’s bed, or made to watch the master enact every cruelty of his vicious imagination on his favorite pet, only to know that it was their turn next. The other spawn had received the one real blessing Cazador had been capable of giving— his forgetting them. 

So yes, sometimes she was envious of them. Perhaps, she even hated them a little. It seemed fair enough; they certainly hated the house-spawn back, for the role they had played in their damnation.