Work Text:
“And so we meet again, little mage.”
The ‘little’ is a bit much, you think; he’s only an inch or so taller than you. Shorter, if one counts your hat. But only the constant muttering of curses and cantrips under your breath is keeping Strahd’s spawn at bay, so you have no breath to spare for a riposte.
Your fingers flick and flutter in counterpart to your muttering. Not for the first time, you wonder whether the gestures are necessary to your casting, or whether they are necessary only for the quiet they bring to your mind, quiet which lets you conjure forth the marvels that had first caught Pip’s attention.
At the thought of Pip, one of your hands starts to burn. You want to look down and see what has afflicted it, but you can’t look away from Strahd’s hypnotic eyes. You wish that you’d been a little less confident — or a little more selfish — in drawing up your battle plans, and had allowed yourself to have Pip at your side. After months of fighting and fucking together, he was almost a part of you, and you trusted that, if he were here, he’d take care of whatever vicious creature had snuck through your defences to seize your hand in vice-like jaws.
But Pip isn’t here. He is on the plains below the castle, commanding your armies. He is…
Your hand hurts too much to let you think, and you falter in your spellcasting. In the moment of your distraction, the circle around you tightens, Strahd almost nose-to-nose with you, his breath rank with old blood and older evil. The chattering of vampire spawn, so close now, is a deluge of noise, threatening to wash you away. It is too loud to be comprehended, and for a moment, you lose the sense of it, and it becomes no more than the crackling of a nearby campfire, the wind through trees.
“Shh, now. You’re alright. You’re safe.”
And you relax a moment, because you’re not alone after all. Pip has abandoned his post to be with you, and you aren’t facing Strahd alone.
Pip has abandoned his post to…
But the voice comes again, crooning soothing nonsense, and it isn’t Pip, not at all. It’s lilting and feminine, soft around the edges where Pip is always so precise, his words so fastidiously clipped. Pip isn’t here. He’s…
And still that voice, maddening now. A soft murmur somehow drowning out Strahd and all his creatures. It’s a trick, you realise, some conjuration of Strahd’s, made to lure you into letting your guard down. You try to lash out, as though you can wave the words away, but your hand is so heavy you can’t lift it from your side, can’t move it at all, and it hurts, a wrong, sick kind of hurt that fills you with dread.
You push away the pain, and you push away the voice. You realise your eyes are closed, and try to open them, but you can’t. You don’t need to, not really, for the image of your foe has branded itself upon your retinas. You wonder whether you’ll see him there forever, each time you close your eyes. You give up the battle with your eyelids, knowing there is a much more pressing fight at hand. You can’t stop, not to rest, not to draw a breath, not even to think. Your fallen foes are piled high around you, but still they won’t stop coming, and so you can’t stop firing, spell after spell after spell, no matter how depleted you grow. You can’t hold out forever, but you know that Pip will find you. Soon, he’ll find you.
But no, that makes no sense. Pip knows exactly where you are, in the highest tower of Castle Ravenloft, as you know where he is, outside on the battlefield. You aren’t sure where that vision came from, the mounds of scorched and dismembered undead, but you banish it and bring your focus to bear. Focus had never been your strong suit, but to let yourself be distracted when facing down Strahd… You flex your fingers in the rhythmic pattern which had always pinned down your flyaway mind, but only one hand answers your instruction, and the other…
Pip is holding your hand, so tightly that his claws break skin. You can feel the heat of your own blood, running freely from your joined fingers.
““Woaken!” he cries “Let’s go! Me and you, we’ll run away! We’ll, we’ll leave all of this behind. We don’t have to do this. We can disappear in to the Svalich woods. You and I; we’ll find a shack, somewhere, raise some chickens, together…?”
You turn to tell him that it’s too late now to flee, that Strahd would cut you both down before you made it out of the room, but Pip isn’t there. You think you see a flash of him, beyond the doorway, giving the lie to what you were about to say, and involuntarily you raise your hand as if to draw him back to you, but your hand isn’t there. Panic wells up and you scream, you cry out for Pip.
But it’s okay, you were mistaken. He hasn’t left you. He wouldn’t leave you. Pip is by your side, and he takes your hand, and you surrender to him and to everything. Better to die, running away together, with hope in your hearts for a long life full of love, than to die here alone, and death seems your only option.
You turn to tell him that you’ll leave with him, but he opens his mouth, and fire emerges from between his lips, his draconic heritage turned not upon Strahd or his minions, but upon you. You’re burning up, and the flames have come so fast and hot that you only feel heat; already the damage is too deep for pain. The burns do not hurt you, and the only pain you feel is in the hand that Pip still holds, too hard, and too tight.
You pull away from him in confusion and betrayal, and watch, in horror, as your arm rips free of your hand, leaving the sundered meat still clutched within Pip’s claws. You part your lips to protest, and a bitter, liquid chill spills into your mouth.
“Let’s get some of this down you,” comes the maddening calm of that unfamiliar, feminine voice. “It’ll help you rest easier.”
You swallow, not in compliance, but to avoid choking, and the frantic grip you have on your awareness slips away. The last thing you hear before the blackness holds you close, is that voice again, further away now.
“Poor bastard,” it says.