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oathkeeper-of-tarth · 2 years

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The Four Long Rests Of Ramiel

This is a cleaned up and expanded version of a piece I wrote quite a while ago, because if I don’t write and edit something that isn’t a work email or academic text I am going to quite literally die.

Anyway, this is some more Blorbos From My DnD Homegame and I’m not expecting anyone but me to be really invested in this, but they’ve been on here before and I’ve done my best to hopefully make this all not too obscure and unintelligible to an outside observer. Any thoughts and comments will, as always, be appreciated to bits and put in that collection I keep to gaze upon on bad days (yes, it’s an actual thing I have).

Commemorating how a little over a year ago in our Curse of Strahd campaign my character got caught by the land’s vampire lord while trying to heist an ancient dragon skull from his spooky castle in order to bring back a fallen order of noble knights (long story), stubbornly refused to give up the whereabouts of a legendary vampire hunter upon capture, and was subsequently brutally murdered despite her friends’ and dashing love interest’s very impressive efforts to save her. It was very peak DnD dramatic and great and the aftermath was wild, and then I wrote some of it up while processing it all and shared it with my fellow players and DM, the absolute champs.

The original comically long title of this was “The Four (But Actually Three So Far) Long Rests Of Ramiel The As-Of-Yet-Untitled, Recently Deceased”, alluding to the fact that the Raise Dead spell states: Coming back from the dead is an ordeal. The target takes a −4 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks. Every time the target finishes a long rest, the penalty is reduced by 1 until it disappears. Yes, it was a fun stretch of sessions.

Spoilers for the Curse of Strahd adventure abound, as well as bits and pieces from the Eberron setting. A warning for (temporary) character death and related recovery, and some vampire-typical bloody violence, but nothing beyond an AO3 T rating.

In brief, Ramiel, the POV character, is an Aasimar Paladin, Lava is a Vedalken Artificer, Elgath is a Goliath Fighter. Rudolph van Richten and Ezmerelda d’Avenir are NPCs from the module and Ravenloft setting who ended up playing pretty big roles in our story, and also… I just think they’re neat.

Length: ~7700 words.

—

The Four Long Rests Of Ramiel

Fingers curled around her throat, the grip utterly merciless and unflinching, claws catching on already torn skin and flesh. The heavy rain, richly mixed with dark red, trailed freely down to her collarbone, painting the fabric of her shirt.

“One last chance,” ground out of a fanged snarl stained with her own stolen blood, an undercurrent of impatient rage tainting the cool, cultured voice from before. “Where is Rudolph van Richten?”

She couldn’t turn her throbbing, spinning, definitely concussed head to look towards her companions, try to see how they were doing. Her legs kicked out feebly and her feet could find no purchase. Her fingers tingled with the last remnants of (useless, useless) magic and slipped harmlessly off the clawed hands that were closed like a vice around her. When she forced out words, her voice was barely above a rasp, but the (futile, futile) determination in it was clear: “You’re never getting that from me.”

A burst of incredible, overwhelming pain, and then, for a little while, nothing.

Her eyes flutter open, barely.

Every part of her hurts, every breath a hard-won, costly victory. She can barely stand to tilt her head, the slightest of movements stretching and pulling at her ravaged neck and resounding like a drum within her skull. Her eyes burn and her eyesight blurs, and her shoulders, back, and ribs feel as if someone smashed them to bits then pieced them back together without much thought or care.

But she is alive.

She is also cold. So, so cold. But it is not a sharp wintry chill, nor the insidious misty seeping of Barovia’s dreary atmosphere. It is something deep and hollow, settled somewhere in the core of her bones.

Her vision clears up just enough to allow her to recognise the face hovering over her, but it is entirely beyond her lips to form the name, and beyond her strength to lift a hand and see if she is real or some cruel, cruel trick of the mists. Ezmerelda, worry battling with relief etched in every line of her expression. And then, next to her, the old doctor himself, alive and well, putting away the remnants of a finely made scroll. Ramiel feels a vague suggestion of relief wash over her, drowning out some of the confused jumble - doubly so when her other two travelling companions burst into the room, bringing with them an odd sense of lightness from some wellspring far beyond her understanding.

She keeps losing moments here and there, little stretches of time fluttering by and missing her entirely. There are vestiges of dragons and knights all around the cobwebbed halls of their hideout, and though tattered and ravaged by time and intruders both they seem to be exuding something new, something that she feels come over her like a balm.

Then there is a flurry of No time to explain what happened and We’ve lit the beacon but we have to go quickly and He’s coming around her, and she goes along with it because she cannot do anything else.

Well, she can’t really do this, either. So she waits, and clings to the one constant presence beside her. When she can finally manage to lift her arms even a bit, she fumbles under her shirt and feels her own heartbeat with one hand, clutching at Ezmerelda’s wrist with the other. Something warm and solid and real, to keep her from drifting off, from dissipating into the mists again.

The others are doing their best to hurry, mounting up, packing away what little is left to pack. The flight cannot wait. Soon enough Ezmerelda all but picks her up, getting her to her feet, and helps her stumble out of the crumbling old mansion they were hiding in and to the waiting wagon. She sets her down on the driver’s seat with some effort.

“It will pass in a few days,” van Richten says, adjusting his spectacles after briefly looking her over once again, bedside manner kept to the purely professional and matter-of-fact. “No cure for it but riding it out, I’m afraid.”

There’s something she needs to tell the man who just saved her life, but she cannot for the selfsame life of her hold on to a thought for more than a split second. She makes the mistake of focusing on the stabs of alternating pain and cold as he goes on to explain something about circulation and, oh, probably her heart?

Ezmerelda sees her wince and shiver and, in the midst of departure preparations, rushes over to the other side of her wagon, purposefully marching back with an armful of what seems to be the thickest blanket she had stashed away in there. She wraps it around Ramiel almost as if making a statement, then hops up on the driver’s seat next to her.

Van Richten shakes his head at the sight and at the pampering, and climbs up onto his horse. But it is not unkind, and the twist of his lip seems, while fairly inscrutable in Ramiel’s present state, far from disapproving.

The entire wagon jolts briefly, then she sees Ezmerelda take the reins and call out her Drovash! to get her magical horses to appear in a display that still never fails to make Ramiel slightly jealous. She in turn rests her head on a warm, solid shoulder as they begin their travel, wagon pitching slightly as it turns back onto the road. The rest of the world is still mostly a blur, so she closes her eyes.

She is jolted awake rather rudely some unidentifiable amount of time later, as the wagon suddenly and dramatically picks up speed.

“Wha–?” Ramiel mumbles, head heavy and mouth full of cotton.

“We’re under attack,” Ezmerelda explains brusquely with another sharp tug on the reins. “Hold on.”

Ramiel does her best to do just that. She catches flashes of her companions on their horses, weaving in and out, moving to protect the wagon from mounted attackers, and takes stock of herself as best as she can. She is in no shape to contribute to any encounter, perhaps - but she does have one last thing to give.

Ramiel remembers, more clearly than she would perhaps have liked to, one of the final, brutal attacks atop the castle tower, and the way her usually silent, stoic companion forced his way in between her and the vampire and willingly took it entirely upon himself.

“Elgath!” She can see his mountainous form, almost comically large atop his horse, galloping in parallel with the wagon. Ramiel tries to call out to him, but despite her efforts the weak rasp is barely audible over the sounds of battle and fleeing horses. “Hey! Elgath!”

He notices, at last, after throwing a javelin at some foe Ramiel can’t see, and pulls his horse over, not missing a beat. Exhaustion from all his recent sleepless, cursed nights makes his broad shoulders visibly tense under the furs of his cloak.

“I saw what you did, when… the bite. Thank you.” It’s not a time for soulful confessions of gratitude perhaps, but something in her will not allow it to go unsaid. She reaches over, puts a hand on his arm. “Here. It’s not much, but…”

It’s surprisingly easy to draw upon the very last of her healing power and allow it to flow out.

Why him? The doubt pipes up, and she doesn’t want to think who it sounds like. You could have healed yourself and perhaps been somewhat useful. Just look at the state of you. Pathetic.

Relief is visible on his often closed-off, stony features, and Ramiel knows it was the right decision. He gives a small nod. “Thank you.”

Then he’s gone, riding off again, spear at the ready.

Ramiel sinks back in her seat, the last of the warm, tingling energy leaving her hand. She feels she’s missing half the battle and the chase and the general chaos around her; whinnying horses and growling, snapping wolves and rough battlecries and whooshing crossbow bolts mixing into a cacophony beyond her understanding. Her head pounds in time with the hoofbeats of the magical horses pulling the wagon.

She fumbles for the hilt of her rapier at one point, trying to ground herself in the familiar and ever-reassuring feeling of holding a sword. To little effect. The attackers aren’t getting any closer. The confrontation - chase - ambush is dragging on, and what she needs is rest.

Ezmerelda half-stands on the seat, cursing under her breath in some language Ramiel doesn’t know, catches the reins in one hand to free the other, then turns and snaps up a handful of fire, slinging it out behind herself. The little mote of flame goes wide, and the cursing briefly intensifies before she sits back down.

Ramiel shakily lets go of the sword, careful to not let it tumble off onto the road, and goes for the Krezkian hunting longbow she frequently finds herself very thankful for. Nocking an arrow is already a struggle. The first shot hits one of the attacking berserkers surprisingly accurately, but it bounces and clatters weakly to the ground, piercing nothing.

Another. Shaky hands and weak fingers do not make for good archery, but something inside her, that one well of determination that fuels her every action and that is currently working near what she fears might be its very limit, allows her to get off a good enough shot to fell the last of their pursuers.

She manages to sit back down and place the bow behind her, and remembers very little after that.

She will manage, later, to gather up and piece together the vague flashes of making camp; sombre discussions of both the immediate and pending threat of wolves; of getting some warm and oddly comforting soup tasting of home in her that Lava provided a surprisingly poetic lecture about; of falling asleep curled up into Ezmerelda’s side, clinging to her rather desperately and caring very little about who noticed that fact.

To call the awakening rude would be an understatement of historic proportions.

It’s unclear, at first. It’s dark and cold, and she doesn’t understand why she’s awoken (they said she didn’t have to take any of the watches, and she agreed after only a bit of protest, so why now?), or where Ezmerelda is, or–

Wolves, so, so many wolves, encircling. Elgath, exhaustion coming off of him in waves, raising the alarm, Ezmerelda standing a little ways behind him, slightly dazed, rapier in hand but not at the ready–

And then, the Devil himself.

“I am here for Rudolph van Richten, as you have doubtlessly been informed.” His voice is perfectly level, tone perfectly courteous, but it carries through the night and into Ramiel’s still vaguely ringing ears like a clarion. “No? My, how unfortunate.”

Lava steps up, robes crumpled and askew but his bearing entirely proper, and does his best to channel all those fancy diplomats he loves talking about observing during his many travels. He tries to stall, to avert looming, imminent disaster, but even his razor-sharp and lightning-quick mind, his greatest and most trusted weapon, fails to find a way.

Strahd knows. There is no doubt he sees right through the unlikely Dusk Elf persona the doctor is currently travelling under. The act of asking is merely another test - or an opportunity. Lava’s shoulders slump in visible defeat at this understanding, buckle under the burden of an impossible, inescapable situation, and he chooses to bargain for their lives.

He raises a hand mutely, gesturing to the other side of their small camp. Strahd’s gaze follows, and then he strolls over to where van Richten is now sitting up, so very calm, as his magical hat of disguise is plucked from his head and his countenance shimmers and once again becomes his own. So remarkably at peace with his impending doom.

Ramiel is anything but. I died to stop this! she wants to scream, but instead chokes out some inarticulate sound of futile anger. She fumbles out her holy symbol, channels the only power she has left. No impressive words of rebuke come out, just a desperate cry of “No!” as she clumsily tries to throw herself between them.

Strahd bats her arm away, unaffected, not even sparing her a look as he delivers more ultimatums, more thinly veiled threats, entirely secure in his triumph.

You can’t have him, she wants to shout back, but that would be a lie, just as much as I promised is achingly true. She wants to jump to her feet, dash forward to some end, just so she can feel she’s doing something. But Lava waves a hand, features uncharacteristically pained and apologetic, and an invisible force shoves her back down, for her own sake.

She watches them go, powerless, with a thousand flavours of We’ll come for you, we won’t abandon you to this fate– stuck in her throat. They all do, quietly standing by in various stages of dismay, as Strahd struts down the hill and beside him the feigned slow steps of a feeble old man snap back into the more brisk, business-like pace they have come to expect from the doctor.

And then they are gone.

Ramiel tears her gaze away from the dark trees and looks to each of her companions. Lava, mumbling pleas for forgiveness at what he has been forced to do; Elgath right next to him, with an expression of numb shock; a distraught Ezmerelda, hands clenched into trembling fists.

Well. There is one thing Ramiel can do, at least.

She gets back up, every part of her protesting her efforts to remain on her feet. The two-three dragging steps she takes feel like a gargantuan achievement. She takes one of Ezmerelda’s hands in her own, and soon feels the grip returned almost uncomfortably firmly.

“Ezmerelda,” Ramiel calls out weakly, weaker than she might have liked, and to little response. She presses on anyway. “Stay close to me, alright?” As if she hasn’t been doing so all along. “You know it will take a day to clear up. The charm,” she almost spits out the word. “But you don’t have to actually feel it.” Then, more quietly, “I don’t want you to feel it. I can help.”

I couldn’t stop you losing him, but I can give you this small mercy, at least.

Ezmerelda seems to jolt out of whatever thoughts she was stewing in and back to awareness at that, and gives a weak nod. “That moment before you woke up was enough. I– he– he has no right…”

She shakes her head as if trying to shake off the hateful, violating influence, and then looks a bit lost. Ramiel wants nothing more than to never have to see her like this again - to never see any of them cruelly torn into by one of his visits, each in their own way.

Soon. Soon. Soon.

It’s Elgath who breaks the silence next, voice more gravelly than usual. “Not much point in keeping watch anymore, but, well…” He gestures vaguely. “You should all try to go back to sleep.”

He’s right, of course. But Ramiel feels like she never wants to sleep again, never be caught unawares, never not be providing every little scrap of protection she possibly can.

The most she manages is to see Ezmerelda fall into a fitful sleep first. The sheer exhaustion and the mounting toll of their ordeals wins not long after.

The fangs sunk in and in and in, as if they were endless, first burning upon puncture, then chilling. Muscles seizing against the intrusion, but only making it worse. Then, the horrible, slow drain.

“I hope it burns on your tongue,” she managed to spit, struggling fruitlessly in his grip.

The glimmering red eyes of the Devil met hers as he pulled back, having had his fill for the moment. His deceptively young face twisted into a wicked, self-satisfied smirk as he lightly dabbed at the bloody corner of his lip. “Oh, be assured it’s actually quite sweet.”

Disgust coupled with frustration mounting, she let out what could only be termed a growl, and succeeded in freeing her right arm. She received only a mocking, glinting, fanged smile in return for her efforts.

She darts awake, gasping violently, her hand flying up to her neck. Her fingers just about brush against the tears and bruises, but then another hand takes hers, firmly but not unkindly, and pulls it away.

“Hey, hey, hey, stop. Calm down. You’re fine, you’re fine. Listen to me. Hey.”

A voice, stern but concerned. Ramiel knows that voice well. She… is fond of that voice. The presence of its owner has been the one unfailing source of something resembling joy here in Barovia, for such a brief, but such an important time.

She breathes in slowly, and feels her drumming heartbeat slowly return to a normal pace, and Ezmerelda helps her sit up properly.

Ezmerelda, who has been painfully obviously insistent on staying by her side from the moment her eyes opened on that musty floor, to the first weak, stumbling step as she helped her up, and on throughout the entire dismal aftermath of their ill-fated expedition to Castle Ravenloft. What feels like the continuation of the steady, stubborn buildup from a palpable but unacknowledged tension intertwining with the rising trust of repeatedly facing peril and fighting side by side. A supposedly indulgent night during celebrations at the camp outside of Vallaki becoming two, and then three, and then turning into a yearning for as much time together as could be eked out.

“I’m so sorry I woke you up,” Ramiel whispers, only mostly coherent. “You should go back to sleep. You first, and then…”

“Never mind all that,” she is interrupted impatiently as Ezmerelda waves her concerns off. “It’s almost light anyway. What happened?”

Ramiel shudders, and makes a weak, vague gesture towards herself. “A nightmare? I could still feel… in my neck…”

Ezmerelda looks at her, frown deepened by the play of pre-dawn shadows and the remnants of their campfire embers. She is, for once, inscrutable. Then she appears to come to a decision.

“Here.”

She reaches up and unties the striking red bandanna from around her head, decorative medallions glinting as she untangles them and puts them away somewhere in her coat. She leans over to instead wrap the cloth around Ramiel’s neck, slowly and gently, like trying not to startle a wild animal.

It’s warm. She ties it lightly enough not to cause pain, but tightly enough to be felt as a reassuring presence, to provide a sense of comfort and protection while hiding the jagged reminders from immediate sight. It brings back to mind the sound of thunder and the smell of lightning splitting the musty castle air - the sudden appearance of Ezmerelda at her side, staring the Devil right in the eye. Seemingly fearless, electricity surging and arcing and crackling around her, whisking them both away to some desperate hope of safety.

Ramiel catches one of her hands as she pulls back from her work, and presses a kiss to it in lieu of thanks.

Neither of them say anything more. Ezmerelda pulls them both down to lie on the bedrolls, as what passes for dawn in Barovia slowly breaks.

This, this was unpleasantly familiar.

The mists pressed in and in mercilessly, but also seemed to be tearing her apart. Her will alone, sheer determination, was keeping her together in some incomprehensible way, but the strain was almost unbearable. She could see them all; her companions, herself, even - or, well, what was left of her there - not a very pretty sight. Trying to get the horses to cooperate, bickering, exhausted, half out of their minds with shock and grief and worry, doing their best.

Her nonexistent hand went to her nonexistent heart, as if to grasp at the spike of feeling that seemed to go through it briefly.

Then… the mists swirling and roiling all around, and so many strange creatures, strange things she had no way of making heads or tails of. Lava striking some odd, convoluted, ill-advised bargain. An old woman leading them all to some kind of circle, and then…

A tearing.

She tried to scream, but there was nothing left to scream with.

As they climb higher and higher on the twisting mountain paths, the newly lit silvery beacon rising from Argynvostholt comes to dominate the ever-misty vista. It lights up the night as they travel, and remains steadily shining over them during the morning as they settle in for their brief daylit rest. Looking at it feels simply and pleasantly good, resolutely buoying in a way that’s impossible to explain. Ramiel doesn’t understand how it works - it is tragic they never had the time to get the full story from Argynvost’s most devoted knights, fallen or otherwise - but what it represents is more than clear. Hope. And hope is something the dreary lands of Barovia - and they themselves - have been sorely lacking.

It brings to mind Irian, the eternal Dawn. The plane of beginnings, of newness, of ever starting afresh. Of brimming as-of-yet untapped potential. Young and untouched, fresh springs bubbling over with clean, healing waters, feeding meadows that have never been trod upon. An early dewy morning that stretches on forever, somehow. Light, bright and searing. Growth and flourishing and all that starts and doesn’t end.

It never, ever ends.

Ramiel’s never been there, of course, but she’s dreamt of it, seen it. Witnessed its effects in their world, and, over the years, recognised the ways it forms and informs her own being, though the exact nature of her ties to it remain a mystery.

The Silver Flame, on the other hand, burns, but it doesn’t burn hot. It envelops and protects. Incandescent, glorious, impenetrable. Surging when it is time to drive off threats, leaping and searing bright down her blade when she lifts it in battle, if the cause is just. She’s been instructed in the texts, of course, in the many interpretations of the words of the Keepers, trained and prepared for the weight of duties that come with the ability to so readily become a conduit for the flame. When she dies, she can only hope to join the efforts to bolster and feed the blaze with her very being.

There is no end to duty, either, or to true devotion.

Neither Dawn nor Flame were to be found in the gloomy, isolated lands of Barovia, more a prison than a county or a kingdom. There was little save for what Ramiel happened to bring in herself - two sources of divinity, gleaming gold and bright silver intertwining, flowing through her and burning in her, shaping the meanders of the river of her life. It feels bitterly right, then, that a silver beacon of hope burns brightly across the horizon, and that she paid for it in blood, and more besides.

When they discussed their immediate plans, settling on a desperate last-ditch attempt to find a powerful mage hiding in the mountains, she told them all about what she saw, during her time… in between. The disgusting, creeping creature haunting them unseen, the parade of eldritch knights - all doubtlessly important, but nothing she could make sense of herself. There is more there, however, that she has to tell someone. That she feels will try to claw out of her chest otherwise.

The mood is dour enough - no sounds of Lava muttering to himself during his incessant tinkering as long, blue fingers move over metal and wood and spring faster than anyone can follow, or of Elgath scribbling in one his notebooks, jotting down the events of the day in quick shorthand, then moving on to slow and deliberate, almost ritual-like, tracing and retracing of runes new and old. No conversation is struck up beyond what is utterly necessary for continued travel.

While certainly not in the sorry state she was in the day before, the toll the steep, far from well-trodden mountain road is taking on Ramiel is considerable. She dearly misses the comforts of the travelling wagon they were sadly forced to abandon. And yet, when they stop for the day and set up camp, she finds herself wide awake long after everyone else seems to have fallen more or less peacefully asleep. While she’s in no state to toss and turn so much as rearrange herself achingly slowly and very, very carefully, she does manage to send a rather sharp elbow into a soft side.

Ezmerelda’s beginnings of a snore turn into a startled grunt, and then a quiet, “What–?”

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Sorry. Go back to sleep,” she whispers, and tries once again to make herself comfortable in the bedroll.

“I might if you stopped squirming about for five minutes.” The irritation has very little real bite, however. Ezmerelda seems to consider something for a moment, then gives a long-suffering sigh and sits up slightly, her long coat folded behind her in an improvised cushion. “Something on your mind?”

Ramiel smiles wryly. “Am I so transparent?”

The only response from Ezmerelda is a shrug, and an attentive look with only the slightest, barest trace of annoyance, once she blinks her light doze away fully. Go on, her eyes seem to say, as they catch the silvery reflection of the beacon.

“You know, when I was… gone,” Ramiel starts, awkwardly, hesitantly. “I tried to hold on… to myself? But even so, every last drop of my determination wasn’t enough. You brought me back in Argynvostholt of all places, and I can’t help but think of those knights, restless and undying. I can’t help but think, it could have been me. Relentless, rage-driven, determined beyond death, just like them. Could still be me, honestly. I felt it.”

Ezmerelda hums thoughtfully. “Would you… want to? If it came to that?”

“I… I don’t know,” Ramiel admits slowly. “I’ve thought about it, and I thought that yes, I would. If it meant taking him down for good. But…”

She pauses, swallows. Rubs at her neck - carefully.

“But there is something the Lady I squired under once said, about our oaths, about why she fights, and I will carry those words with me for as long as I live, because she was right. She said: I don’t fight because I hate what’s in front of me. I fight because I love what’s behind me.” [1]

She lets the words breathe a little before continuing. Tries not to spiral into thinking of the possible fates of the ever-fearsome Lady Herleve the Hawk, and the weight of not knowing that’s always at their heels, like a shadow, waiting for a moment of distraction.

“I do want to stamp out the evil plaguing this place, more than anything– but I’ve sworn no oath of vengeance and destruction. My oath speaks of protection and devotion and… I mean… I haven’t…”

It’s something that’s been troubling her for a long time, and doubly, almost burningly so since her brief death and sudden return, and the words don’t come easily at all. “I haven’t really sworn any oath. I was supposed to, soon. But there was the attack, and the retreat, and then we ended up here and I…”

She thinks of the crumpled bit of parchment she keeps stowed away in an inner pocket, with the carefully written-out lines of the knighting ceremony and official vows she’s pored over embarrassingly often for such a brief bit of text. She thinks of how instead of a formal errand, earning a knightly title and partaking in the final ritual - not grand, perhaps, but always deeply meaningful - she laid two long-dead children to rest in the haunted house that was their first real taste of the cursed land that entrapped them.

“What I mean is… all this, and I’m not even a real knight. Hah,” it’s a very bitter chuckle that escapes her, almost involuntarily.

Ezmerelda raises an eyebrow, tilts her head. “I don’t see anything unreal about you. What are you talking about?”

Ramiel frowns and fumbles for words. “I know it shouldn’t necessarily ‘count’ and all that, and… while I understand what’s important, that this is really no time for such petty concerns, I still–”

“I mean, it clearly counts in all the ways that matter, Miss Endless Well of Healing and Protection,” Ezmerelda cuts her off. “Where else would that be coming from?” She shrugs, feigning casualness, even as some of her words traitorously slip into a determined, even passionate cadence. “Realest knight I’ve ever met, anyway.”

Ramiel gets just a bit choked up. Instead of a reply, she opts for a hug. It is returned.

“Now please go to sleep,” she hears Ezmerelda mumble exhaustedly somewhere near her temple.

This time, snuggled into a warm shoulder, she does so without much trouble.

For the briefest moment, they both stopped in their tracks, trying to orient themselves, listening. Hearing nothing but the patter of the heavy rain outside and the occasional drip upon the elaborate interior stonework from their own soaked clothes, and the drumming of their own hearts in their ears.

Then, a terrifying hollow thud from just above them, followed by heavy footsteps, and their respite was cut painfully short.

“We need to run, now,” Ezmerelda gasped out, eyes wide, curls plastered over her forehead with both rainwater and sweat, chest already heaving with exertion but making to pull them both down the corridor.

“He’s too fast,” Ramiel managed through gritted teeth, almost tripping over some royal carpet or other, turning to look over her shoulder - only to confirm her fears.

Strahd’s expression was mild, neutral, almost peacefully nonchalant as he effortlessly pursued them with inhuman speed. Then, a corner of his lips quirked upwards.

I am inevitable, he seemed to say, without saying a single word.

Not a breath later, his claws came down upon her again.

There is, somehow, a perfectly tailored room for each of them in the conjured mansion. The four of them slowly make their way down the impossibly long hallway, freshly bathed and pampered and enveloped in decadently fluffy robes, bellies full of food, heads abuzz with plans and new knowledge and the wild, wild events of the day. The odd mostly-invisible servants have left them alone, for now.

They briefly stop in front of the first door to wish Lava a good night as he goes into his chambers. From the glimpse Ramiel manages to catch, it looks more like a library than a bedroom, with a delightful ceiling of bright blue sky matching the tone of the Vedalken’s skin perfectly, and only the odd fluffy white cloud floating about. Elgath’s, next, seems slightly colder than the rest of the house, a cool but not uncomfortable breeze of high mountain air wafting over them as he opens the door. With a murmur of farewell and silent questions on being able to actually get a good night’s sleep in a properly sized bed written plainly on his broad face, he is gone too.

Then it’s just the two of them and the muffled sound of their slow footsteps shuffling along in the outrageously thick carpet.

Ramiel can tell the next room is hers. She doesn’t even pause to think twice, but instead takes Ezmerelda’s hand tightly, and gives her a light tug towards the door.

“Listen, if you want your privacy, I understand, of course, but…” She starts but trails off, words sticking in her throat strangely and uncomfortably. Though the past few days have done much for her overall state, she can feel that insidious chill clawing its way through her chest again at each parting. As everything quiets down, all the odd magical pampering has yet to fully mask the deep-seated aches.

She manages, finally, in a very small voice. “I don’t… I don’t want to sleep alone.”

Ezmerelda pulls her into an embrace and holds her tightly. “I’m glad to hear that,” she murmurs in her ear, “because I’m not letting you go again.”

The room they enter is very simple, and very comfortable and comforting in its simplicity. The only thing that stands out is one far corner of it, looking like a segment of a warm, slightly bubbling pool plucked right out of a bathhouse.

Ramiel walks over to it briefly, running her fingers over the surface of the water, watching the ripples form. “You know, before today I’ve never taken a bath and not relished it. Never just hopped in and gotten clean just to get it done with.” She wrinkles her nose, knowing she must look rather childish and petulant, and tries to spin it into a joke. “It’s horrible.”

The bathrobe is so soft. The bed is absolutely decadent. Ramiel has never seen or felt anything like it in her life. She can’t find it in herself to enjoy even a moment of it.

“Do you know of this man? He seemed to think we should have heard of him. A ‘Magnificent Mansion’ - what in all the worlds…”

Ezmerelda shakes her head. She’s been noticeably subdued since the odd, frantic energy of a feast-like dinner combined with an impromptu magic circle workshop wore off. There is a bit of collarbone peeking out of her robe, leading to a slip of bare shoulder and a thin, dark line of an old scar, one that Ramiel has yet to hear the story behind. The small silver pendant carefully shaped by Ramiel’s own hands to resemble a lightning bolt glints in the muted ambience of the room.

“He was so calm,” Ezmerelda manages after a long silence, sitting listlessly on the edge of the large bed, rather unlike herself. “That’s what I keep thinking about. He just… stood there.”

Ramiel sits down next to her, and the sight of the Doctor and the Devil facing off in the dark forest flashes in her mind’s eye.

She then remembers her conversation with Ezmerelda in the inn from a mere week ago, the almost desperately simple and honest I don’t want Rudolph to die and the quiet He is family to me and more besides, in a moment of such clear openness and vulnerability Ramiel would have been ready to swear she’d pluck the moon out of the sky, if this could somehow help.

“We’ll get him back.”

Ezmerelda’s brow furrows, in anger, frustration, or sorrow, or some mix that seems too painful to parse, as she bursts out, “He’s in that fucking castle, if he’s even still alive, going through gods know what while we’re sitting here after attending a damned conjured banquet, and the last time we went there you died! He killed you! That bastard killed you with his bare hands and I couldn’t do anything about it!”

Her hands are clenched in the rich bedspread, and her chest is heaving with rage she can’t quite direct. Ramiel places a gentle hand under her chin, lifting her face up to meet her eyes. “I promised, remember? I don’t make those lightly.” She tries to give a wry smile, to twist something into some sort of light, joking air. “I guess I owe the good doctor my life now, quite literally. So don’t you worry about that promise going unfulfilled.”

“I’m… I’m not.” The reply is simple but carries so much weight and faith in it Ramiel feels an odd pressure form behind her eyes, like she might want to cry, just a bit.

Ezmerelda sighs. “I trust you. Even with - quite honestly - a lot of evidence to the contrary sometimes… But I hear you say these wild things with such ridiculous certainty and conviction: oh, we’ll find the powerful mystery mage and get him on our side, and we’ll get the mighty sword of sunlight and we’ll march right up to the castle and free van Richten, and, and– I can’t help but believe them.” She sounds almost exasperated at herself.

“Then you know I mean it when I say I’d rather die than let you down.” Ramiel has never felt more serious in her life. It takes even her herself by surprise, a bit.

“I’d rather you didn’t die. Again. Please,” Ezmerelda’s voice is quiet and soft and rather uncharacteristically vulnerable. “But I suppose you wouldn’t be you if you didn’t say these things while utterly, utterly meaning them. You wouldn’t be the person I…”

She trails away, swallows with some effort, and looks away.

Ramiel feels words almost burning in her chest, fighting to come out. “Well, let me say a few more things, then,” she starts, and Ezmerelda jolts a bit at the fierceness of the tone.

“You came all this way for him, and you are about to stroll right back into the den of the beast for him. Even after you’ve been apart for, what, years, and even after his latest plan almost got you killed. I won’t pretend I know why, but I do understand why. Because if there’s one thing I understand in this life, it’s loyalty and devotion. And you just… you have that in spades. I know… what you said back at the inn,” she allows herself the briefest bit of hesitation. “I don’t necessarily want to pry and interrogate you about your history and whatever you feel you need to be making up for, and… that’s all fine, that’s all yours to know. But I think - and I’ve told you this before, and I still mean it now - you keep selling yourself short.”

“You don’t even know–” Ezmerelda begins.

“I don’t need to,” Ramiel insists, gazing into her eyes with a steely determination she’d, for a few brief days, feared might have slipped beyond her grasp. “I don’t need to.”

She sees Ezmerelda is about to scoff and try to dismiss it all and put on a tough front, so she presses on. “There is a lot to be admired about you. A lot I admire. Now, if he can’t see it? His loss. But I hope he will. You’ll see. He will. In fact, I think he already does. And when we get him back he can tell you so himself.”

She puts an arm around Ezmerelda’s shoulders as if pulling her in to share something in confidence, and continues in a more quiet, but no less determined tone. “And then, when we stake that monster together, van Richten can tell you just how proud he is of you, and how very lucky he is to have someone as amazing as you to carry on the fight against the darkness.”

Ezmerelda shakes her head, not entirely convinced. But there is something like the ghost of a smile hovering around her lips. Ramiel takes that as a victory, at least for tonight.

This time, Strahd stops to take her in, just like he did on the castle wall, in the pouring rain. But then he turns oh-so-slightly and instead sets his gaze on Ezmerelda. A cruel, vicious understanding dawns on his face.

“Oh,” his voice and lips curl around the syllable as if it is a delectable morsel served up for his taking and slow consumption. “I see how it is.”

Ezmerelda, suddenly very painfully aware of his full attention being on her, reaches for her rapier.

She is too slow.

This time, when she finally, mercifully jolts awake from the nightmare, she finds she is crying.

Ramiel turns over and shoves her face between neck and shoulder, allowing herself the selfishness of waking their owner up, and lets the hot, stinging tears fall as silently as possible. There is a hand stroking soothingly down her back, she notices blurrily after some time. There is one gently resting on the back of her head, right where…

It stops, at some point; the burning flow dries up all on its own. Enveloped in the (warm, non-threatening, comfortable) darkness, she allows herself a soft confession into a battle-hardened shoulder that is by far the best pillow she has ever felt under her cheek.

“I don’t want to die here.”

It’s not a noble or inspirational sentiment, it is not some platitude about honour, it is not an observation upon the value of oaths and the trials of keeping them. It is barely above a whisper, but it is the truth, as she has been sworn to tell it.

“I thought, you know, I kept saying it’s fine if it’s me, I just can’t allow it to be anyone else. Not like… like Vallaki. Not Lava, who has so much to go back to, or Elgath, who has so much to see, so far to go. Not you. But it can be me.”

She takes a shuddering breath, and the arms around her tighten. She feels glad about the hold, thankful for how her face is hidden, how she doesn’t have to meet anyone’s eyes.

“But now I… I don’t–” Another heavy breath, and she manages to press on. “I don’t want to die here. I can’t let so much be left unfinished. No single one of us is expected to complete the work, but neither may any one desist from it,” she completes the recitation from memory, holding up the words in front of her like a shield. [2]

But that’s not it, either, is it?

“There’s so much I need– I want to do! I want to actually take my oaths. I want to see what happened with our home. I want to find out what happened with… with my family. It’s been so, so long. I should have… no,” Ramiel cuts herself off sternly, well-practised, “that’s a pointless path to take.”

Then, she manages a brief smile, as her thoughts turn to the more whimsical. “I want to fly on an airship - I’ve never, you know? I’ve seen them, but never up close. And I want… I’ve always wanted to see Irian - the plane? The sanctuary, the baths. All of it. I mean, I don’t know how to get there, but I’m sure I could find a way.”

“But this place…” She shudders. “This is the wrong place for anyone to die.”

Ramiel turns to lie on her back, gazing at the ceiling which she only now notices is lined with small, sparkling, clearly magical constellations. She finds, to her surprise, she recognises them - Aasterinian, Io, and there, the long tail of Bahamut… an odd but not unwelcome bittersweet little taste of home. The familiar skies with ships soaring by on wheels of fire.

“I want to fly,” she says finally, almost reverently, reaching up with one hand, seeing the stars glimmer between her fingers. Thinks of the many, many dreams she’s had of gliding through the air on powerful golden wings, and of the pale reflection of them she is capable of manifesting for but a painfully brief time.

“I’d love to see you fly,” Ezmerelda, quietly listening for so long, adds in a murmur.

Ramiel smiles, and allows warmth to fill her. “I’ll have to make it spectacular, then, just for you.” Then she lets out a small chuckle at her own expense. “Maybe one day I’ll even figure out how to take you with me.”

“I’ll take you up on that,” Ezmerelda replies, forcing a casual air. “I’ve been to a great many places, and I’ve done quite a few things, but I can’t say I’ve ever flown before.” Her expression darkens a bit, then, her eyes narrowing, an intense, steely purposefulness creeping into them. “A victory lap, right from the top of Ravenloft’s tallest tower.”

Ramiel nods, the determined mood catching, in odd contrast to their lush, comfortable surroundings, and her most recent dream spikes chillingly into her thoughts. “I’m not letting that monster lay a hand on you.”

She can tell her eyes are burning alight by the way the shadows dance across Ezmerelda’s face when their gazes lock. She can tell that there is light seeping out of the thin scar on her jaw and out of the visible remnants of her more recent wounds. She can feel the roiling in her gut, the burning in her chest that’s always been hers, but that she has only recently come to truly know and harness.

Ezmerelda places her hands on Ramiel’s cheeks, cups her jaw with a gentleness not many would give her credit for, and rests their foreheads together. Then, she moves only slightly and comes in for a soft kiss.

“I was so relieved,” Ramiel whispers when they part, “when he looked at you, looked between us, and utterly failed to see anything.”

Ezmerelda looks at her curiously, a small frown furrowing her brow, but says nothing.

“No, but, see. He doesn’t understand. He never will. He can’t. For all his raging at his cursed fate, for all his efforts, all the poor people who have suffered because of him… Or maybe even because of all this, his cursed, tarnished, cold and rotted heart is incapable. He doesn’t understand it.”

“What doesn’t he understand?”

“Love.”

Ezmerelda stops and looks at her quietly, mouth very slightly agape. Her gaze is heavy with the implications she is gathering and sifting through, ever so carefully and tentatively.

“I mean,” Ramiel swallows and tries for a lighter note. “He failed where even our famously dispassionate Vedalken friend didn’t.”

“Oh?” It is possibly the shiest and most hesitant Ramiel has ever seen her.

She raises her hand to cup Ezmerelda’s cheek and pull her closer, one thumb stroking gently. For once, the words seem to come as easily as they are always supposed to for some kind of radiant and inspiring divine champion.

“He looked at me and he looked at you and he couldn’t see the most obvious thing in all the worlds.”

Ezmerelda makes a few unsuccessful attempts at a question before she manages to breathe one out. “And what… what would that be?”

“That I love you.”

Ezmerelda flinches away briefly, almost as if she’s been burned. But then she all but throws her arms around Ramiel and holds her tightly - and the kisses she presses everywhere she can reach do everything to dull any pain and discomfort this incurs.

She reaches the lips last, the kiss long and deep and loaded with meaning and intent and promise and fierce, fierce determination, and the I love you too she remembers to speak out loud only later.

—

1. G.K. Chesterton paraphrase. ↩

2. Paraphrase of a quote from Pirkei Avot that @docholligay has embedded in my brain and quite honestly life forever, much love ↩

#curse of strahd #dungeons and dragons #dnd #tabletop #gonna take my horse to the old svalich road #fanfiction #my fic #oathkeeper writes things #ezmerelda d'avenir #rudolph van richten #oc #aasimar #*slaps sentient STR 8 glowstick* this gal pal can fit so much suffering in her #still mostly lurking around here love you all #ramiel

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