He has a name now! (Thank you @anarlossethedunadan!)
Contents: sleep deprivation, torture, stress position, beating with a metal rod, royal whumpee, defiant whumpee, multiple whumpers
The young king tried to sleep, uncomfortable though his bonds and the cold stone floor were. But every few hours, as best he could guess, a guard or soldier came by, banged loudly against the bars of the cell, then left. It seemed he would not be allowed to sleep.
Eventually, the soldiers from before came, stopping at his cell. He tried to get to his feet, face them standing, but his exhaustion coupled with having his hands bound behind his back threw off his balance. He was yanked up and dragged down the hallway, not allowed to walk on his own. He glared at them.
“I can walk, you know.”
They ignored him.
They hooked his bonds to the same device as before. He tried to steel himself for the pain, but the wrench of the chain on his already tender and aching arms forced a cry from his throat.
Bent over, shoulders aching as he tried to hold what he could of his weight on his tiptoes, he found himself again wishing he had just been executed.
The general took the lead this time. He grabbed the young man’s hair, forcing him to look up. “Let us start simply. Tell me your name, boy.”
The young king hesitated. He did not want to give them any satisfaction of answers, yet was refusing to answer something they already knew really worth the pain they would enact if he did not speak.
He saw the general prepare to strike him and he choked out, “Cinn. My name is Cinn.”
The blow came anyway, the impact radiating through his body. He gasped in pain.
“Wrong. You have no name, until you choose to beg for the name of ‘slave’.”
Cinn clenched his jaw. Hot tears pricked at his eyes but he met the general’s icy glare with his own. “My name is my own, and I know it whether you recognize it or no.”
That was most certainly not the answer the general sought. He held out his hand and a soldier — the one who had lost his brother — handed him a metal rod. The soldier’s smile looked almost giddy in anticipation.
Cinn tried to brace himself but he had no leverage. The first blow hit his ribcage, hard, and he felt something crack. He screamed. The next blow hit his legs, then across his spine.
The blows after the first were measured, not dealing debilitating injuries, yet each made his body jerk in pain. His vision began to dance with dark spots.
A blow struck his right arm, wrenching it harder against the ropes. His shoulder flared in agony.
Then his left was struck, and with a sickening pop it dislocated again. His cry of pain was a strangled howl. Tears streamed down his face beyond his control.
Suddenly the suspension slackened and he was dropped again to the floor. The soldier came over, pressing a knee heavily against Cinn’s back. He grabbed the young king’s arm and re-located it roughly.
“Look at me,” the general commanded from above him.
Cinn strained to look up.
“What is your name?”
Cinn spat a gob of bloody saliva at the general’s foot. “Cinn.”
The swift kick in response turned his world black for a time.
Tags: vampire whumper, vampire hunter whumpee, kidnapping, leg whump, joint dislocation, gore, the most dangerous game | Words: 2.3k
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The nightmare trotted along the Old Svalich Road, following the procession of ghosts towards the dark castle that loomed in the distance. Strahd's arms snaked around either side of Cassian to steer with the reins, giving Cassian another up close view of his talons, bejeweled in an array of exquisite rings, some of which were still smudged with dried blood.
The journey was a slurry of deep misty blues and glowing greens. Strahd took the time to lovingly describe how some of the ghosts had met their end as the horse passed them by.
"You see that fellow missing his head? I tore it off in one fell swoop, then tossed it off the cliff into the village below. Some peasant got a nasty surprise that morning, I'm sure. Oh, that woman with the arrows sticking out of her body, I had Rahadin string her up and use her for target practice. I don't even remember what she did at this point.”
Ah yes, Rahadin. The elf who had greeted Cassian and his party of travelers that night they’d visited Castle Ravenloft. The night he’d first met Strahd.
Rather, to say that Rahadin had greeted them was too generous. Rahadin had met them at the door with a bored unamused demeanor. The dusk elf had an aura like a thousand dying souls—literally. The sound of tortured shrieking had filled Cassian’s ears when he’d drunkenly leaned in too close that night to admire Rahadin’s fine fur overcloak.
Cassian had hoped not to see more of Rahadin. He’d seen enough, in his opinion.
Strahd continued, bringing Cassian’s train of thought back to the ghostly procession before him.
“Oh, and I'd almost forgotten about that gnome with the ax! I must have killed him two hundred years ago at this point. His face was at just the right height for the wolves to tear off."
On and on and on, about how he'd mangled, mauled, maligned, and murdered each of the individuals whose restless souls unthinkingly stumbled down the road, fruitlessly hoping to continue their unfinished business.
Cassian felt trapped like a terrified bug, tangled in the web between Strahd and his horse’s flaming mane—no choice but to feel the vampire lord’s hulking body around his own. Strahd’s large clawed hands gripped the reins and reminded Cassian of just how easily they could rip through his flesh. How easily that hand had gripped him and pressed his head to the side and forcibly exposed his throat and fucking bitten it to shit—- Cassian was slightly hyperventilating now. He couldn’t get out of this—he was so so fucked.
He could jump off the moving horse.
What, and break his ankles while he was at it?
End up writhing there on the floor with agony while Strahd finished him off?
No. The only way to survive this would have to be to play along for now. Cassian was terrible at playing along—a heart on his sleeve sort of man whether he wanted to be or not. Right now, beaten down and bruised and weakened and exhausted, his face was transparent as a pane of glass, revealing everything that went on inside.
He clung weakly to the saddle, thinking of the broken bones that awaited him if he were to fall.
The ghosts haunted his future. Was this Strahd's way of telling him what he would become?
Then why hadn’t he just done it already? Why not finish the job?
Cassian would ask, but he didn’t exactly have a death wish and certainly didn’t want this piece of shit vampire lord to be the one to reintroduce him to his maker.
So he clung there, the whole time. He wanted to ask Strahd why he was still alive. Why he hadn’t just killed him. He didn’t ask that. Instead, when Strahd was in between stories about various ghosts he'd murdered, he asked something else.
“Why are you taking me?” Another desperate whisper.
Strahd caught the panicked desperation in his voice and relished it. He could hear the human's heart thud-thud-thuding rapidly, like a scared butterfly bashing itself against a cage. He'd finally cracked the point at which Cassian could be reduced to a scared mess.
Excellent.
"I told you I was in the market for a new consort," Strahd purred in his ear. "How do you think I get them? By taking applications? No, I take whoever catches my interest and see if they're worthy of it. You're such a beautiful, proud creature. I want to see what it takes to tame you. I'm a conqueror, Cassian. I saw Barovia, a beautiful, noble land and claimed it as my own. I saw Escher, a beautiful, fierce man, and claimed him as my own. Just as your heart yearns to run free and wild, my heart aches to dominate the most untouchable corners of the sky."
Strahd's hand stoked down the side of Cassian's face.
"It's the only thing that makes me feel alive again."
The remaining blood rapidly drained from Cassian’s face as Strahd spoke. Consort—
”No-” He couldn’t do to Cassian what he had done to that blond vampire, Escher— Cassian had only seen a brief moment between Escher and Strahd, and it had made his stomach crawl. Strahd had wasted no time parading his consort out on the night of the aforementioned dinner party.
Cassian’s traveling group was only there to negotiate for the freedom of Doru, another one of Strahd’s forsaken spawn. The company that Cassian found himself in seemed to like to collect downtrodden vampire spawn like trophies. When Strahd had brought Escher out as ‘entertainment,’ Cassian figured out very quickly, with a dawning horror, what Escher’s place was in the castle. Strahd had grabbed Escher’s face and kissed him roughly in front of everyone. Manhandled him like he was a doll, a plaything. Cassian knew that was just the tip of the iceberg. Strahd was just showing off.
Though he remembered barely feeling bad for Escher at the time, vampire that he was, the whole display just grossed Cassian out nonetheless.
Escher didn’t live at the castle anymore though. The party, bleeding hearts as the rest of them were, had somehow managed to negotiate for Escher’s relative freedom as well. Escher was back at the camp at the old church, along with Doru, the first vampire they’d gone to negotiate for.
It hadn’t sat right with Cassian. Strahd had just… let Escher go. Just like that. The whole thing had seemed way too easy.
But he supposed it made sense now, if Strahd was looking for a replacement.
But Cassian imagining himself in that position? His hands were shaking horribly now at the thought of it. He tried twisting around in the saddle, pushing against Strahd’s chest.
“No- no you can’t! I swear fuck, fuck— Just take me back—take me back—“ he said furiously, halfway between a desperate plead and an urgent demand.
Strahd chuckled, pulling the reins of the horse up with one hand to stop, using the other to hold Cassian by under the elbow as he squirmed and writhed. They were far enough away at this point that Strahd was sure Cassian wouldn't be able to stumble all the way back to the village on his own, the lights of the town were distant in the valley below them by now.
"Go on, then." Strahd pulled Cassian off and dropped him to the ground.
"Run, then, if you want to go back so badly."
Cassian could hardly believe it. He was really just gonna let him go? Surely this was a trick. He'd start running and then get trampled by that hell beast.
But he didn’t have a choice. His choice was to either run for his life or willingly ride up to certain doom with Strahd like some kind of fucking accessory. That would prove Strahd right. That Strahd really could just take him.
No. No way he'd give Strahd the satisfaction. Cassian took off towards the distant lights of the village, trying to run quickly despite his aching everything.
He willed his feet to move faster, faster, until his chest hurt he was breathing so hard.
He was getting dizzy. The distant lights were starting to waver and haze into one another.
He grit his teeth and growled, desperately trying to break for it, to at least make it through the trees so Strahd couldn't spot him anymore.
Then he tripped on a root in the path and landed flat on his face. He had enough warning to turn his head to avoid smashing his nose directly on a rock, but that meant the temple of his head bore the brunt of the force instead. He groaned in pain, clutching his head in the dirt.
Strahd sat smiling on his horse and watched as Cassian ran, ran, ran. An admirable attempt, from such a limited creature.
A few moments after Cassian ate shit, lying there in the dirt, he heard the thunderous beat of hooves flying rapidly towards him. Fast enough to trample and kill him. And it wasn't slowing down.
Before Cassian could react, the nightmare burst through the trees, whinnying menacingly. The flickering fire of its mane illuminated Strahd's torso--his body was twisted to the side and his arms stretched to pull back a longbow, aimed directly at Cassian, like a hunter pursuing their prey. It wasn't an arrow knocked, though--it was a barbed bolt curved like a grappling hook.
The bolt whizzed through the air and sunk directly into Cassian's leg, between the tibia and fibula, and the head opened up to wedge itself firmly between the two bones to make itself impossible to remove. A terrible hoarse scream ripped from his throat.
He’d take a hundred bumps on the head. He'd take anything rather than this, fuck, Cassian might even take being bitten again over this. It was so painful and invasive—wedged in between his fucking bones. He didn’t even have time to fully process the horror of it, as the horse charged right at him—if the harpoon hadn’t killed him the beast surely would.
Just as it looked like Strahd's nightmare was about to trample Cassian with its heavy hooves, it leapt gracefully over him and landed on the other side, continuing its all-out sprint.
This was the point at which Cassian realized the crossbow bolt in his leg was attached to the horse with a rope. The slack rapidly whipped away from him and then the rope went taut, ripping his leg from its socket and yanking him in the direction Strahd had disappeared and dragging him to follow.
Cassian felt his joint crack and cried out again, wailing in pain, sure his awful cries could be heard through the dark night if it weren’t for his shredded vocal cords. Instead, his cries of agony filled only his own ears, rushing through him with the pounding heartbeat that shook his body with tremors.
He wailed hoarsely the whole time. The horse dragged his limp body over rocks, through thorned bushes and through mud and through brambles. He was knocked off of trees and boulders, whipped around like a toy race car. Like a hollow tin can tied to the carriage of a newlywed couple.
Cassian's merciful reprieve didn't come until the walls of Castle Ravenloft loomed high overhead. Cassian was completely limp now, sobbing in pain by the time the castle’s mighty edifice shadowed them from the moon’s beam. The nightmare slowed to a trot, then a walk. The gates opened, and Cassian was dragged through the gravel pathway inside.
The rough gravel tore his shirt up, causing it to ride up and scraping his raw back along the sharp rocks. That was the least of his worries though—he felt like his leg was being amputated—slowly sawn off or ripped from the rest of his body in the most agonizing way imaginable. It was pure hell. He wished he’d just ridden the horse with Strahd. He wished it so so vehemently.
Silence in the night air, except for the heavy snorting of Strahd's horse. The vampire lord’s boots crunched in the dirt as he dropped down and walked over, then squatted, tilting his head to match Cassian's disoriented eyeline.
Cassian was a mess. Covered in bruises and blood and tears, he cowered at Strahd’s feet, shaking and leg no doubt broken. Cassian was surprised it was even still attached.
"Still alive, are we?"
“Please— why— why are you doing this—?” He pleaded, the hurt clear in his voice. The anger still tormented inside him, but at this point Cassian was feeling more miserable and desperate than he was enraged. There were tears of agony in his eyes, they flowed freely now, alit like crystals in the moonlight when he gazed up into Strahd’s shadowed visage.
Strahd's response was to laugh at him.
"Because I wouldn't want you if you can't even survive the trip home. Good work, you passed the first test!"
Cassian wanted to fucking sob into the dirt. A test? This wasn’t his grand plan. This wasn’t even a piece of it. It was just a test. The first of what sounded like many. Cassian didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t scramble away, every cell in his body hurt like hell, he was so beaten up he could barely move at all. He could only let out an agonized groan.
Strahd stood and snapped his fingers at someone out of view.
"Rahadin, make sure he doesn't die and get him cleaned up, will you?"
He turned on his heel and walked away, cape flowing behind him.
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Next >
YAYY GUYS Rahadin is in the next one!!! I love him so much
Let me know if you want to be tagged in updates <3 there is lots more on the way!
Stede helps Ed treat a dislocated shoulder during the Co-Captains Era.
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"Ed?" Stede asked, closing the door to the cabin behind him, "Why are you lying on the desk?"
The desk. Not just Stede's desk anymore. Stede relished the fact. He and Ed were co-captains and co-users of the desk. Ed had been teaching him to plot a course earlier in the week. But now the charts were arranged in much the same pattern as before, paperweights holding down their corners and navigational instuments on top, only... on the rug in the middle of the room. They'd been supplanted on the desk by Ed who lay in his shirt-sleeves on his stomach with one arm hanging down straight over the side in a patch of late afternoon sunlight.
Ed made a non-commital noise, began to shrug, then appeared to change his mind about the movement at the last second. "My shoulder got dislocated on the raid. It'll go back in eventually hanging down like this. A bit of weight might help, though, if you could grab my flask from my jacket pocket."
Oh God. Ed sounded much too casual about this. Stede felt himself start to panic, swore he felt the blood begin to drain from his face, but then he stopped himself. He wasn't the one with the dislocated shoulder. And he had a duty to Ed.
"Of course!" Stede knew he was speaking a bit too loudly and moving a bit too quickly as he made a beeline for Ed's jacket where it lay on the couch. He felt the adrenaline making him awkward and clumsy and winced at his own obvious lack of competence - surely Ed deserved a more practiced nurse.
But Ed said nothing about it and his eyes were soft and fond when Stede skidded to a halt with the flask in front of the desk. There was no amusement in his gaze, no teasing. Ed merely looked grateful and for a moment Stede thought he might drown in the warm feeling that flooded his chest and truly become no use to Ed at all.
Ed made a grabby motion with his good hand. "Give us a sip first, would you?"
Stede unscrewed the cap with clumsy fingers and handed it to Ed who half sat up to take it and haphazardly pour a trickle of rum into his own mouth. "Now take the lanyard and loop it over my other hand. The weight will pull my shoulder back in place faster."
The flask had a waxed loop of braided rope at one end that could be wrapped around ones wrist. "I've lost too many of these things overboard," Ed had told Stede once by way of explanation.
Stede walked around the desk and kneeled by Ed's hanging arm. He tried to be as gentle as possible looping the rope around Ed's wrist and letting go of the flask so that it hung towards the floor. Ed still groaned.
On instinct, Stede ran a gentle hand over Ed's good shoulder. He felt warm and slightly damp with sweat through his shirt. Stede could see sweat beading on the back of his neck under the fall of his hair.
"Thanks, mate," Ed said, voice slightly strained. "You're welcome to stay, obviously. Your cabin. But you don't have to. I'll be alright now."
Our cabin, Stede wanted to correct him, feeling unexpectedly stung. But he stopped himself. "Can I get you a cool cloth?" He asked instead. "You're a bit sweaty. Not that it's... not that it's a problem or... but it looked uncomfortable."
Stede could see the tension bleeding off Ed in the moment after he asked. But then Ed just said "Sure. Thanks, mate."
When Stede came back with the cloth and a bowl of cool water, Ed's eyes were closed, his expression both somehow blank and tight with pain. Stede cleared his throat and the dark eyes blinked open (Ed had remarkably long lashes, Stede realized, and freckles he hadn't noticed before).
"Do you want me to...?" Stede mimed a sponging motion with the cloth.
"Sure."
Stede brought the damp cloth to Ed's forehead and felt him shiver slightly as he traced his hairline, wiping away sweat and grime, then moved to the back of his neck where his hair was sticking to his skin. He moved Ed's hair away from his neck and shoulders so that it fanned out over the desk instead, a cloud of starlight, and felt Ed sigh, relaxing marginally.
When Stede was done, he set the bowl aside and settled on the carpet near Ed's face. Ed opened his eyes and gave him a lopsided smile.
"Thanks. The waiting's the worst bit. Your body wants to tense up but of course that's not going to help so you sort of have to just... lie there."
"Mmm," Stede said and nodded. He wouldn't know but he was certainly ready to take Ed's word for it. He cast about for anything he could do to help. "If it would help take your mind off it, I'm... quite well versed in reading aloud to pirates." Stede felt silly as soon as he suggested it but Ed's smile was immediate.
"I'd love that, mate. It's real hard to hold a book like this."
please for the love of god stop telling disabled people they need to fucking exercise. I was on the ground nearly sobbing because my shoulder popped out so suddenly and painfully that it shot up my neck and down my arm and I couldn't move it at all to pop it back for a few minutes because of how painful it was and I got told I "need to exercise and gain some muscle mass." like what the hell is going through your mind that that is the solution to this problem??
Hi! I'm so happy to have all of you here. On this blog, I will document my experiences, troubles, treatments, interventions, and life with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Secondary to my EDS I have gastroparesis, dysautonomia, ASD, hip dysplasia, OSA, Iron Deficiency Anemia, POTS/OH, and more. I display my life with these disorders in order to raise awareness for EDS in the public eye AND in the medical feild!
Trigger warning for ganglion cysts and joint dislocation below the cut. If ANYONE has any knowledge about ganglion cysts or other types of cysts in joints PLEASE read. I need help and to know what’s going on and google is being trash. My doc appointment is weeks out and I need to know if this is an urgent care situation.
Please reblog this so more people who may be able to help can see it.
So I had this ganglion cyst in the joint at the base of my big toe. It swelled while I was in a rainy state and my toe dislocated. It was out of place for a week with no hope of going back in until the cyst deflated again. A few days ago there was this intense snapping feeling and I felt the joint go back together. It was also incredibly painful which is strange since joints going back in is something I’m extremely familiar with and this felt very different. Today the side of my foot started hurting horribly. I removed my sock and started to apply tigers balm to dull the pain but when I touched the skin something HUGE moved. I could feel all around it and it moved when I touched around it or on it. It was roughly the size of my thumb and shaped like a banana. After I was done applying the tigers balm I felt a muscle spasm in the previously dislocated toe coming on. It scared me so I taped several toes together so the big toe couldn’t move. Then the mass moved to the center of my foot. I could see it through the skin. My muscles around it started spamming visibly through the skin and it seemed to disappear from site but I could feel it go up in my foot towards the middle. I can no longer see it. I am still having extreme muscle spasms in the spot where it was on the side of my foot and in the center of my foot. It looks like my foot is breathing. Now there is extreme pain in the base big toe joint. I’m terrified it’s going to find its way back in somehow. Is this possible? Also I can’t find anything on ganglion cysts disconnecting and becoming free floating. I think this happened when it popped out of the joint. It’s still solid (soft and moveable but still solid) and I don’t believe it ruptured. My skin around the base big toe joint as well as on the side of my foot is turning red in a marbled pattern. I cannot afford urgent care or a doctor but I am willing to borrow money (it will be extremely difficult) to get this looked at sooner if I must. Please, if anyone has had a similar experience or knows something about this please reply to this post, reblog it, or dm me. I’m terrified.
Also, I am not putting any weight on the foot at this point at all. I’m terrified it will move to a hard to excise/aspirate spot and making any aspiration or surgery more difficult and possible dangerous. My sister found crutches and a wheelchair so I’m using those.
Does anyone know of an online store preferably made by disabled people where I can buy a cane that is more personalized/not just plain black and boring? Mine is kinda falling apart, and I thought maybe it would be nice to have a new one that feels like something For Me rather than just the most generic/cheapest model.
