These are my text responses from DnD Ask https://vk.ru/ask_dnd
Art by @arundamber
Question: How Rahadin came in your life and undeath? Part 2: In Death
ㅤㅤㅤ…Rahadin stood motionless, his back pressed against the rough stone, and watched. The mist had been creeping past him up the slope for some time now – he knew its nature, which promised nothing good: a clinging, treacherous veil, like murky water in which someone’s terror had been stirred. But now he was not watching the Mists. His gaze, sharp and anxious, was directed higher up, towards where the storm howled, and where a dark figure moved in the moonlight.
ㅤㅤㅤStrahd was in no hurry. He walked like a man who had made his choice and now only had to perform the final part of the ritual, trudging through the snow wearily, almost blindly, as if his legs did not belong to his body. Rahadin saw this from afar, through the lenses of his telescope, which he held so tightly that the knuckles of his fingers turned white from the strain.
ㅤㅤㅤHe also made out what Strahd was carrying in his arms. Something fragile, pressed to his chest with a striking, almost prayerful tenderness.
ㅤㅤㅤIt was a body, lifeless, female, with red hair.
ㅤㅤㅤRahadin knew that silhouette; he had caught a glimpse of this young woman in Berez before. Hiding shamefully, he had also seen how Strahd, who had come to the village under the name of Vasili, looked at her – a gaze in which obsession, hope and an old, inescapable pain were mingled. He didn’t know exactly what had happened to her today, but he knew this: when "Vasili" left the village, cries of terror rang out behind him. That was precisely why he had dropped everything and followed him, trying to stay in the shadows, driven not by curiosity but by a heavy, unsettling foreboding.
ㅤㅤㅤRahadin realized what his lord was about to do even before Strahd had climbed to the very edge of the snow-covered cliff. He realized it when Strahd froze at the edge of the abyss, threw back his head, and let out a sound that made the blood run cold in his veins. It was a cry of pain — a heart-rending, animal howl of pure anguish, torn from the very depths of a shattered soul. It echoed off the cold stone, mingling with the howling storm, confessing to the heavens a suffering that could not be shown there, in the village.
ㅤㅤㅤWhen the ringing cry died away in the icy air, Strahd looked at the rising mist. As if bidding farewell, he leaned down and touched his lips to the woman’s cold lips. He lowered her body, placing her feet in the snow, and embraced her waist, as if inviting her to a final dance.
ㅤㅤㅤWhenever Rahadin realised, it was already too late.
ㅤㅤㅤStrahd stepped forward without loosening his embrace. He did not stumble. He did not slip. He simply stepped off the edge – with a quiet, terrifyingly single-minded determination.
ㅤㅤㅤFor a moment, it seemed as though the mist, rising to meet him, had embraced him in mid-air, enveloping him in white, insubstantial tentacles, and pulled the slender, shapeless silhouette of the girl from his tightly clenched hands. But the mist did not take Strahd himself. It let him fall.
ㅤㅤㅤThe sound that reached the elf was short and dull – exactly like a sack of wet meat hitting the ground.
ㅤㅤㅤRahadin reached the spot in about five minutes. Perhaps less – he couldn’t remember how he ran down the slope, losing his footing, slipping on the rocks. He stumbled, hurt his knee, got up, and ran on. He knew there was no point in hurrying now; he wouldn’t make it in time. But for some reason, he kept running anyway.
ㅤㅤㅤA single body lay beneath the rock. Strahd von Zarovich was broken, like a discarded puppet. His head lay at an impossible, repulsive angle. The hands, which only moments before had clutched what was most precious to him, were spread out to the sides, clawed fingers digging into the ground as if clinging to something slipping away. Nothing remained of Marina’s body but a simple wooden stake. Not a scrap of fabric, not a strand of hair. She had truly been swallowed whole by the mists—the same mists that had once taken away his master’s very first, fateful love.
ㅤㅤㅤA few steps away from the body, Rahadin sank to his knees on the frozen ground. Not to pray — he had no one to pray to. Simply because his legs could no longer support him. He stared at the contorted face, pale as marble. The face of his master, who had once ordered him to leave forever, the face of the one he knew better than any living creature.
ㅤㅤㅤHow many minutes he spent like that – one? ten? – he did not know. Long enough for his fingers to go numb. Long enough for the pain to become a faint background hum. All he could hear was the blood pounding furiously in his temples. His stomach felt empty and cold, as if a snowstorm had blown its way inside.
ㅤㅤㅤWhen he finally moved closer – step by step, cautiously – he crouched down beside him. For the first time in years, Rahadin allowed himself to touch him. Fingers in a thin leather glove rested on the icy forehead, brushed a strand of dark hair aside, closed the sightless eyes. He felt no emotion now. He moved like a healer, like an officer, like a brother. Inside, there was only a black, starless void, colder than any mountain snow. This was how the death of the man he had raised felt.
ㅤㅤㅤHe acted with an accuracy honed over centuries, as if by reflex. He summoned his ghostly steed – a pale shadow of his former warhorse. He hoisted Strahd’s body onto his arms, as if lifting a wounded man from the battlefield. He settled him in the saddle with meticulous care and fastened the girth.
— Forgive me, my lord, — he whispered almost inaudibly, adjusting the dead man’s cloak. — I shall take you home.
ㅤㅤㅤAnd he led the horse down into the valley, towards the rising mist.
ㅤㅤㅤThe mist parted before him as if for its own, silently seeing him off.
ㅤㅤㅤCastle Ravenloft greeted the horseman and his gruesome burden with darkness and deathly silence. When Rahadin rode into the castle courtyard and dismounted, the ghostly horse vanished – silently, like a shadow – leaving a heavy, motionless body in his hands.
ㅤㅤㅤHe had not been here since that very day. There were no burning torches, no guards, no signs of human life. Only the creaking of rusty gates, the howling of the wind through the battlements, cobwebs in the corners, and the rustling of swarms of rats in the empty halls. Grandeur had turned to dust, glory to dried blood on the stone floor.
ㅤㅤㅤRahadin did not light the lights. The moonbeams filtering through the dirty stained-glass windows of the throne room were quite sufficient. He carefully carried Strad’s body here, to the foot of his throne, and laid it on the brocade torn from one of the armchairs in another room. He gently straightened the broken neck and smoothed the folds of the cloak. He found the candlesticks, took wax candles from an old supply, and arranged them in a circle. The result was something between an altar and a funeral bed. Unsightly, meagre, not as it ought to be, but solemn enough.
ㅤㅤㅤAnd only then, when the last candle was in place, when the golden, flickering light illuminated the corpse’s pale skin, did he realise that his fingers were trembling.
ㅤㅤㅤHe stood in the middle of a gigantic, empty stone shell, alone with the body of the man to whom he had devoted half a century of his life. It was all over. Strahd was dead. Sergei was dead. Barov, Ravenovia – they were all dead, and those who had survived were too far away. Only he remained here – too long-lived and unwanted by anyone. Utterly useless and broken.
ㅤㅤㅤThat was when Rakhadin could bear it no longer. He did not fall to his knees, nor did he sob. He simply sat down on the step by the throne, bent over and covered his face with his hands. And – for the first time in decades – he began to cry.
ㅤㅤㅤTears flowed silently down his usually impassive elven face, like rain on stone, washing away the last remnants of his composure.
ㅤㅤㅤAfter sitting there for several minutes, he closed his eyes and sank into a trance – not for rest, but for remembrance. This was how his kin remembered the departed; this was how he had decided to commemorate the man. Perhaps he hoped to find at least some semblance of comfort, at least some answer, at least some reason to carry on living.
ㅤㅤㅤImages flashed before his mind’s eye. A six-year-old boy, a ten-year-old prince with clenched fists, a twenty-five-year-old young commander on a crusade, a mature man preparing his officers for a crucial battle. A gaze brimming with ambition. Laughter – rare, but sincere. A friendly pat on the shoulder after a successful hunt or a difficult strategic decision. A life, a whole human life, stretching from childish curiosity to burnt-out despair, passed before him once more. He had raised, taught, protected, warned, served and obeyed. He watched as Strahd frowned when he made a mistake. How proud he was when he triumphed. How he gradually became a man – cruel, clever, cold, yet so alive.
ㅤㅤㅤRahadin always followed in his footsteps, and in the end he had come here after his lord – to death and emptiness.
ㅤㅤㅤThe hours flowed like water. The candles crackled and burned down, solidifying into bizarre drips. The moonlight shifted slowly.
ㅤㅤㅤWhen a heavy, familiar hand rested on his shoulder, Rahadin did not open his eyes. He knew it was just another image from his memory, an obsessive and sweet ghost. All the von Zaroviches loved to lay their heavy hands on his shoulder from time to time.
ㅤㅤㅤThe familiar voice was quiet, hoarse, devoid of its usual commanding firmness… But absolutely real. The elf slowly, with incredible effort, as if breaking through thick ice, emerged from his trance and raised his head.
ㅤㅤㅤStrahd stood before him.
ㅤㅤㅤPale as a snow statue, tense, and with an expression so bewildered it was as if he had just been born. He looked at Rahadin with silent puzzlement, as if not understanding where he was, and above all – why Rahadin was here too.
ㅤㅤㅤHis neck, it seemed, had healed completely, leaving not a trace of the horrific fracture.
ㅤㅤㅤTears were still streaming down Rahadin’s face. He made no attempt to wipe them away. Slowly, as if in a dream, he raised his hand and touched Strad’s forearm. The skin was cold as a gravestone, but beneath it he could feel a strange, unnatural power, pulsing with its own quiet, lifeless rhythm.
ㅤㅤㅤThe thought struck him like lightning, tearing through the mournful fog. He did not think “resurrected”, “undead” or “he has become a monster”. Just “alive”. In Rahadin’s devastated, forsaken soul, a bright torch of wild, irrational joy flared up.
— You… You’re alive, – his own voice sounded foreign, trembling; the words rushed out too quickly, disjointedly, racing one after the other. — Thank you!… Forgive me. Forgive me, I didn’t leave as I was ordered, I saw everything, I found you, and I just couldn’t… – He took a deep breath, trying to regain even a shred of composure. – Promise me! Promise me this won’t happen again! It’s pointless!
ㅤㅤㅤHe spoke without taking his eyes off Strahd, peering into his crimson, bottomless eyes, searching in them for a glimmer of the man he had known for so long. His plea contained terror, despair, and supplication.
ㅤㅤㅤStrahd looked at the tears on the elf’s face, at his trembling hands, at this blatant violation of the logic of survival of all living things. He slowly removed his hand from the other’s shoulder. His face, distorted a moment ago by bewilderment and confusion, had almost calmed. Gradually, the old, familiar firmness began to emerge in him, now honed like a blade, hardened by the chill of the grave.
— It’s pointless… Yes, indeed.
ㅤㅤㅤHe blinked, slowly, as if finally shaking off his numbness. Accepting the fact that he hadn’t died. He hadn’t even been seriously injured.
— You, – he added sternly, and there was neither anger nor warmth in his voice – only the icy, lifeless clarity with which one speaks of indisputable facts, – disobeyed my final order. It shall not happen again.
ㅤㅤㅤRahadin straightened up, clenching his teeth, wiping away the last of his treacherous tears with the back of his hand. He nodded in agreement.
— That was the last time I gave you a choice – to serve or to leave. – continued Strahd. His gaze swept across the empty, dusty throne room, over the extinguished candles surrounding his own makeshift funeral bier. — You won’t have another choice. Now you’re here forever.
ㅤㅤㅤRahadin met his lord’s gaze directly. In his dark eyes there was neither fear nor servile submission. There was only weary, unyielding resolve and that same sincere joy which now even to himself seemed bitter and terrible, like a curse.
— I never needed this choice, my lord, — he said quietly, and every word sounded as firm as an oath carved in stone. — Never.
ㅤㅤㅤStrahd looked at him for a moment in silence. Then, slowly, with his new, inhuman grace, he turned and took a step towards the throne. He did not sit down – he simply stood before it, his back to Rahadin. He sighed, thoughtfully and heavily.
— Get the castle in order, — he commanded. — And I must return to Berez. During my absence, they have probably decided there that I am satisfied with the murderers’ deaths and that punishment for their deeds will bypass the accomplices. The time has come to dispel that delusion.
ㅤㅤㅤRahadin bowed his head briefly. His shoulders, no longer bearing the weight of unbearable grief, straightened once more, restoring his figure to its usual, measured bearing.
ㅤㅤㅤHe thought that, in truth, there had never been a choice – from that very day when a little human boy had gazed at him with curiosity for the first time by his father’s throne.
ㅤㅤㅤThe chamberlain of Castle Ravenloft bowed respectfully one last time and left the hall to carry out his orders. Walking through the familiar corridors was easy. For the first time in many months, he knew once more who he was, where he was, and what he must do next. He knew that the helplessness of the Dylisnia archers on that fateful day had been no accident. He knew that his master simply did not know how to die.
ㅤㅤㅤ…And that meant there was still much work ahead of him.
