#oc: Nikolai | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

write-kin · 7 months ago

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(i am equal parts a monster and a fool)

me? actually writing something related to the CoS campaign cal is from? amazing.

strahd's in a good mood. cal learns that may not be the best thing for him.

CW: betrayal of trust, mention of past abuse, manipulation, restraints, strahd doing strahd things

“Cal.”

Nestled among the discarded tomes and dusty shelves of the castle library, Cal raises his head. He’s been nose-deep in an archaic bestiary for hours, curled up in an armchair he’d claimed as his favorite nap spot and reading corner.

The light filtering through the doorway is blocked by a large, imposing figure.

Cal smiles.

He’d recognize his Lord anywhere.

Strahd strides into the room, eyes exhausted, skin paler than usual, arms folded behind his back and red eyes glinting sharply as he looks around, relaxing when he senses Cal as the only presence in the room.

Well, there are the spiders and the rats. Cal supposes that makes him the only thing in the room worth Strahd’s notice. It makes him glow inside.

Cal lays the book aside, moving from his reclining position to stand. Strahd shifts, raising an arm towards him. It’s a practiced gesture, and Cal knows it’s also an invitation. He slinks towards Strahd, before internally pausing, weighing the values, and stepping slightly lighter, slightly faster, to wrap his arms around his Lord.

Strahd pauses, before he returns the gesture quickly, allowing Cal the time to hug him, to try and make up for just how touch-starved the smaller vampire was.

“Your Majesty!” Cal exclaims, and his heart sinks a little when Strahd laughs, but the hand in his hair, gently tousling it, says that he didn’t mess up. That Strahd finds this endearing.

“Have I been gone so long from you, Cal, that we are no longer on a first name basis? It’s alright. You do not need to use a title with me.” Pulling away from Cal’s embrace, Strahd smiles, the nice smile that only Cal gets to see, where he sort of has a dimple on one side and his exhaustion looks just a little bit lessened.

“I have neglected you for too long. But it was not baseless.”

Strahd has been in his dungeons, what passes for a makeshift laboratory down there, for months at this point. Cal has seen him rarely, and interacted less. So to be called by his Lord, spoken to directly, and with purpose, causes relief to wash over him. He’s remembered. He is loved.

This is the happiest Cal has seen him in almost a year, maybe two. And however much he appreciates seeing Strahd happy again, seeing the light in his eyes, there’s that underlying fear. Strahd is not a man guided by positive emotion. He is rarely upbeat, rarer still genuinely happy. Something must have caused this, and the fact he has no idea what it is sends a chill down Cal’s spine.

“I think you’ll appreciate what I’ve been up to. Not all my experiments have been brutality alone, you know.” Strahd’s smile turned a bit wicked, a flash of fang. He steps back, taking Cal’s hand, inviting him to follow. Cal does.

“As I was saying- you remember your area of expertise when you came here, yes?” “Of course. Magic items.” “Exactly. Now, I much prefer you as you are, with your current handle on magic, but I do think your knowledge and passion in this area- as well as the fact you are my best counsel in the magical arts- means your input will be… irreplaceable in this particular work.” Cal is too busy feeling his heart swell with pride to recognize any foul implications. Irreplaceable, he’d said. My best counsel.

“I’d be happy to help.” He said, trying not to betray how excited he was.

Strahd finds one of many entrances to the catacombs and unlatches it, beckoning Cal in first, their shared excitement in magical research almost palpable. Though for entirely different reasons.

Strahd’s hand covers his eyes as they walk, His Majesty’s pace brisk and purposeful. Cal stumbles a bit- he’s more than a foot shorter than Strahd, and not as practiced on the stone floors of the dungeon. It almost feels like he’s being dragged sometimes, because Strahd does not stop walking, no matter how Cal may trip or lose his footing. But Strahd wouldn’t do that, so Cal laughs it off internally, and tries to regain his footing.

He’d been down here once or twice before- healing, mostly, or the odd time he’d conquered his fears and tried to explore the dungeons on his own, though those ended fairly quickly due to his own cowardice. Strahd covered his eyes whenever he brought Cal down- something about not needing to see this right now, it not being the time, and a sensitive person like Cal not needing to see what went on down there- ‘Necessary, but upsetting actions’, as Strahd had put it.

Muted groans and wails faded into eerie silence before Strahd led him to a room, eyes sparkling in the dim torchlight as the two vampires entered together.

This room is a bit better lit, with a chair in the center, a ritual circle written around it in chalk.

A table with some bookshelves beside it is behind the chair, on the side of the room closest to the door.

While it’s lightly furnished and decorated, clearly better treated than the cells down here, it’s obvious that it’s been modified- the chair is the star of the show, as it were. The chair itself is made of wood, bolted to the floor. It’s not a bad chair, either. Well-polished wood faded to a dull luster, a comfortable looking cushion on it. Good stuff.

He’s torn from his sudden and ill-advised examination of the furniture by a voice.

“I had to recreate all of this as best I could,” Strahd explains, taking Cal by the hand and guiding him into the chair, “off of… witness testimony, schematics, and the understanding of the function behind the design.” He chuckled darkly when he said ‘witness testimony’.

Cal isn’t sure what exactly he’s looking at until he sees the cuffs. His gaze travels down from there, to a familiar ritual circle on the floor. It’s like something had been keeping him from putting it together, but his sitting down, the familiar perspective causing the ‘click’ of the mechanism that sends it all flooding back.

“At first, I worried cutting your hair would ruin the whole design of the thing. Luckily, that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

“This is-” “Yes.” Cal felt sick. He’d seen this hundreds, if not thousands of times before. This wasn’t in that cold, stone room, with the chair that had the cuffs bolted into it. This was not a group of priests standing around him, whispers he couldn’t make out. He was no longer a scared child led to that place like a sacrificial lamb.

Why did he feel so small, then? Strahd doesn’t seem too concerned, giving Cal a reassuring pat on the hand before kneeling down to begin securing the restraints.

“Now, I’ve gotten the steps to this down. I suppose you’ll tell me if I’m doing anything incorrectly?” “Strahd, I-” “Mm?” Strahd looks up, a smug little smile on his face, one that’s self-assured enough to make any protest Cal has die in his throat.

“Yes, Calamine?” He asks, and his voice is almost nice, even as the tone in which he uses Cal’s long-name is dripping with poison. “I assure you, I’ve researched this extensively. If you wish to back out, of course, that is fine. You risk nothing but my disappointment.” Strahd’s voice has drifted closer and closer to the edge of danger, and at the final word it’s teetering on the edge. If Cal was alive, he’d feel his heart beating wildly in his chest.

“Nevermind. It’s nothing.” “Very good.” Ankle. Ankle. Wrist. Wrist. A belt across his waist. They’re all familiar to him. Strahd straightens up, and Cal notices he’s done something different. Cal’s hands are palm-up, instead of palm-down, and Strahd paid special attention to it. He felt like he should say something, but when he worked up the courage to do so, his Lord has vanished.

It’s only a few moments before his footsteps return, but they drag on for far longer than they have any right to. When Strahd returns, he’s dragging a chair, looking for a moment more beast than man before he sets it down before Cal.

His Lord sits down, crossing one leg over the other in a relaxed position. It’s far more casual than when he was subjected to this at the Convent, but to Cal that’s almost worse- this is a man who he truly believes cares for him.

Strahd pauses, looking over everything, and the tension is almost too much. Cal wants to yell, to scream, to thrash or to beg, but instead he just lets the feeling boil inside him, putting a lid on the metaphorical pot so it can’t boil over. It’s alright. It’ll be over before he knows it.

“Right. I trust you’re comfortable?” Cal glances around.

“Um. As I can be.” Strahd laughs again, and it’s a good sound, even if the anxiety in his chest squirms louder at it. He sweeps an arm out, eliciting a small laugh in response from Cal- just the two of them, and he knows the Count’s grandiose nature is just to relax him.

“Let us begin, then.”

Cold, dead lungs inhale a useless breath, and let it out.

“What is your name?” “Calamine.” Strahd puts his chin in his hand, leaning forwards. “Let’s try… full name. Go on. Take a last name.” “... Bjornson?” Cal says, before he can think anything through. Strahd’s eyes narrow in disapproval. Wrong answer. That’s not his last name, after all. It’s Bryn’s. And it is a last name his Majesty seemed to think that Cal should sooner forget.

“... von Zarovich?” Cal corrects, and Strahd’s hands meet at the fingertips as he leans back, hands splayed. Cal’s currently trying to keep himself calm, but he can barely make out the faintest hint of a smug smile as Strahd settles into his own chair, chin resting on the tips of his fingers. “Acceptable. What is the date?”

“I don’t know. It’s winter, sometime in the mid-season, because it’s been snowing consistently. 1484.”

“Where are we?” Strahd offers. “Castle Ravenloft.” Cal replies without thought, and he feels a familiar prick within his mind, like a needle pressed into his skull. Strahd’s intrigued expression says he’s doing something right.

“How long ago since you last fed?” “Two nights.” Another prick, the sensation small and painful, but settling into a dull familiarity.

“On who?” “Not sure.” Another.

After that, it was hazy. Was the next question about something he’d liked, or something he’d done? How many were there? How long had it been?

It’d been so long since he’d been subject to this. He thought he was safe here. That, maybe, Strahd hadn’t wanted him for this, whatever this was. He could be taken on his own merit, his own person.

He could feel each and every moment as he answered the questions, and felt the sensation of them slipping away, the crushing realization that you won’t be able to form a memory, that the moment is as good as gone. And then that vanished, just to be realized again a moment later.

In the vague haze of losing things, he was almost thankful for it. Probably better to let it slide out of his metaphorical grasp. If he was lucky, he’d forget the feeling of betrayal.

Apparently, that rush of emotions was present in whatever quasi-magical slumber he’d been in, because he felt cold tears on his face when he awoke, restraints loosened enough he could slip out of them.

He couldn’t make himself slip out of them.

At first, he doesn’t see Strahd, but a scream from what sounds to be a nearby room starts, a shrill sound, quickly cut off with a ‘thud’, and then footsteps enter the room behind him.

“Ah, there you are. Worried I’d come back and find you turned to ash. I’d have to drag out your coffin and keep an eye on it.” Strahd laughed to himself, seemingly in a better mood than he’d been in for a long time, like his day was only getting better.

He helped pull Cal’s wrists from the restraints, unlatching the ones around his ankles, leaving streaks of blood and bone fragments on Cal when he did so, Strahd’s own hands and clothing coated in splatters of them.

“Luckily not. I wouldn’t want you to miss this. Here, come- hm, no, wait. I don’t want you standing up and falling over. I’ll bring it to you.”

Strahd moves, and Cal blinks. All at once, the exhaustion hits him, like he’s been hit with a battering ram. His limbs feel like lead, as if he’d put some great strain on them, and his eyelids were heavy. His head felt a bit light, woozy, like it always did after this. Just a little more intense than he remembered.

Strahd approaches him, placing a hand on Cal’s shoulder

“Look at that,” Strahd says in awe, voice a half-whisper as he leans over Cal’s shoulder, holding the vial out so they both can see it. “Like bottled sunlight.” And it is. It’s warm. It doesn’t burn, doesn’t spark up small flames on his skin, though he instinctively flinches like it would.

The warm light looks unnatural as Cal glances up at Strahd, whose smile is twisted into a near-manic grin. He exhales softly. It’s a soft golden glow, looking like sand, casting warm light on both of them. Like the sun.

“Nikolai told me, you know. He told me more than he thought he did. I bet it’s nice to finally be able to see this, hm?” Cal’s stomach sinks at the name, but he’s too tired to speak.

Maybe he’s out of ‘practice’, maybe the fact that this was just another reminder of the man who had been taken from him in their youth, whose very existence Strahd used to keep him in line.

Not that he’d ever think of acting out, of course. It was just important to his Lord that Cal knew to keep himself this way, hands-folded and soft-spoken obedience, tucking his desires and regrets neatly away so they weren’t a bother when Strahd was in a bad mood.

It was a sour taste in his mouth, a brief and all-too-powerful reminder of things he’d rather forget.

“I always thought it was needlessly cruel, you know. Take all of this from you, and not even let you see it.” Strahd sighed, straightening up and moving to work on something behind Cal. The clinking of bottles, and Cal can make out the shifting of soft glowing light as his vision blurs a bit.

“There. Now, Nikolai also told me you liked to sleep after these. So-” Strahd presses two fingers to the center of Cal’s forehead, brushing away some hair. “Sleep.”

It takes just long enough for Cal to register what’s happening before he slumps over, giving into the warm sensation that washes over him, the sleep he’s been desperately avoiding for so long. His head rolls to the side, which elicits a small laugh from his Lord. The worry falls from his once-furrowed brow, and he’s just… calm.

Strahd scoops him up, and after a moment, adjusts how Cal is held. He adjusts his cape, so Cal’s face presses into the fur that lines one shoulder. Instinctively, Cal smiles in his sleep, moves an arm up to tangle his hand into the fur. It’s something he’s done tens of times before, in the arms of another.

He’s worlds away right now, in the arms of the man Strahd stole him from, sleeping in the embrace of a monster hunter in a bear-fur cloak in his dreams.

The hands that untangle him from the fur, lay him back down in the armchair, rest his head on a pillow, and gently ruffle his hair are, to him, Bryn’s hands.

In his dreams, the hands do not hesitate to lay a blanket over him, unlike the real ones, which do it as an afterthought.

It is not Bryn’s voice that mumbles about looking into leather straps to stop him from biting his own tongue off, or of experiments, of Cal’s future potential as he walks off.

Perhaps it’s a good thing he’s not awake enough to hear it.

#whump #whumpee: cal #oc: cal #ask to tag #whump writing #oc: nikolai #(mentioned)#other's ocs: bryn #whumper: Your Majesty #(pseudonym because eventually i wanna scrub the serial numbers off of s.trah.d)

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