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rycroftmanor · 2 years

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Whumptober Day 8: Back from the Dead

(Characters: Warren, Alessia, Matthias. Warnings: Blood, Injury, Possible Suicidal Ideation. Word Count: 1283)

Warren didn't know how long he had been lying there. He had struggled at first, he thought, fought to escape, but the monster's grip had been like iron. He remembered crying out when the blade had met flesh, carving deep, uniform lines at his pulse. How long ago? Hours? Minutes? Days?

His breath came out in shallow pants, barely audible even to himself. The only other sound was the slow, steady dripping of his blood falling into a metal bowl.

A hand, only barely colder than his own, grasped at his arm. Warren didn't have the strength to flinch away. Even if he had, he would have been stopped. Fingers pressed down on his wounds. Blood ran faster, drips becoming a weak stream. A faint whimper managed to force its way through Warren's throat, one that went ignored.

Time faded back into a haze after that. The fog was almost welcome. If Warren couldn't think, he couldn't be faced with the horror of his situation. He could simply be, until he finally stopped.

"Matthias!" a voice, female and unfamiliar, snapped, breaking through the haze. "What are you doing?"

The grip on Warren's wrist vanished. "Darling, I thought you were out." Warren's chest tightened at the monster's voice. It sounded almost... normal, like any other man who had been caught by his wife. How could something so human come from something so unnatural?

"I was. What have you done?"

"Well, I thought I would go ahead and drain him. Best to get it over with, yes?" It spoke with false confidence, trying to hide nervousness from the woman.

The woman's words were stone and steel. "Leave. Now."

Footsteps hurried away, cut off by a door slamming shut. Warren felt something in his chest relax. It was gone. Knowing the monster wouldn't be looming over him as he died was a blessing.

A face leaned over him, an older woman with neat blonde hair tied back in a sleek twist and narrowed eyes so dark they could have been black. Her brows were furrowed and her lips tight as she looked Warren over. Sharp nails pricked the skin around his sluggishly bleeding wrist. She huffed softly as she inspected the wound.

"That husband of mine," she scoffed. "After all these years, he still doesn't think in the long term."

The woman let go of Warren's wrist and slid her hands under his arms, hauling him up into a sitting position. He sat slumped, remaining upright only by the grace of her hand on his back.

"Honestly," she continued, "I thought he would have enough brains to realize just why you were brought here. There's no need to risk ourselves by going out hunting if we have a tap at home. But no, he had to be impatient. Darkness forbid he ever wait for anything. How that man managed nearly two centuries without me I will never know."

Warren's chest tightened. A tap? The woman wasn't going to help him. She was a monster, too. His eyes stung. Please, just let it end. Let it be over soon.

A cold hand pressed against his cheek. The woman firmly gripped his chin and tilted his face this way and that, regarding him as if he were a trinket at the shops. Her hand slipped to his dark hair, twisting a messy strand between her fingers. She continued her inspection, through which Warren let himself drift. She was probably trying to decide if he was worth draining herself or if she should let gravity and his own pulse finish the job for her. Either way, he would be gone. There was nothing left for him to worry about.

The sound of her voice pulled him back from the void. "Yes, that could work. It might even make hunting easier. You're certainly pretty enough. It's just a shame about your eyes."

His eyes?

The woman leaned in and buried her face in the crook of his neck. A sharp stinging pain flared in his throat as she began drinking from him. Somehow, this was even worse than the slow drip through his still-bleeding wrist. Faster, more intense. The edges of Warren's vision grew fuzzy, then dark. Eventually, she leaned back, dark eyes bright with new life. Her lips were red and shiny, coated in a macabre gloss, and moved as if she was speaking. Not that he could hear her.

Finally, his vision went black, and there was no more.

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The next thing Warren was aware of was burning. Burning veins, burning throat. God, his throat. His tongue felt like sandpaper in his mouth. A thirst unlike any he had ever felt before tore at him like a wild animal. Something pressed against his lips, smooth like glass and curved and he could hear something sloshing around inside. He took greedy gulps, barely registering the taste of whatever it was he was drinking. Even if he had, he wouldn't have been able to name what it was. It didn't matter. All that mattered was smothering the burn in his throat.

Once it was empty, the cup was removed from his lips. He chased after it, eyes still closed. A hand pressed against his chest and held him in place.

"That's enough," said a woman's voice.

Wait.

Warren knew that voice.

He opened his eyes, blinking against the sudden influx of light, to see the monster of a woman standing in front of him, almost exactly as she had been when he last saw her. The blood on her lips was gone, as if it had never existed. Other than that, she was the exact same, not a hair out of place.

"There you are," she said. "I was beginning to wonder if you would ever wake or if you had been drained too much for it to work."

What did that mean? And why was he still here? He was supposed to be free! Why couldn't she just let him go? There was no reason to keep an empty corpse around. Except he wasn't a corpse, now was he? He was awake, blinking and breathing and -

Where was his heartbeat?

Warren palmed at his chest, trying and failing to feel the steady ba-dum he knew should be there. Why couldn't he feel anything? What was happening?

She grabbed his hand and yanked it away from his chest, squeezing it none-too-gently. He was pulled to his feet and across the room, where a large mirror was hung on the wall. Here, Warren got his first look at himself since he had been taken.

His clothes had been changed, his hair brushed. The cut on his wrist was healed, not even a scar left behind. But what really drew his attention was his face. More specifically, his eyes.

Gone was the amber brown he inherited from his mother. Now his eyes were dark, so dark they could have been black.

The woman stepped behind him, meeting his newly-black eyes in the mirror. "Welcome to eternity," she said, fangs flashing as she spoke.

And as Warren's mouth parted to demand answers, he saw his own matching fangs reflected back at him, coated in a bright, wet crimson.

#rycroft manor #rycroft fic #warren heywood #alessia rycroft #matthias rycroft #tw blood #tw injury #vampires

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rycroftmanor · 2 years

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Rycroft Manor

The Setting

Nestled deep in the forest surrounding the sleepy town of Faywick lies the historic Rycroft Manor, four stories of dark wood and twisted iron, with a sweeping grand staircase, a massive ballroom, and perhaps even a secret passage or two

The Players

Alessia Rycroft: the polished Lady of Rycroft Manor, she is a harsh taskmistress who demands perfection in all things

Mathias Rycroft: the eccentric Master of Rycroft Manor, he fancies himself a modern Renaissance man and seeks to elevate his 'art'

Dakota 'Kota' Pierce: a self-described hermit on the edge of town, he longs for companionship, no matter how willing

Warren Heywood: a protective older brother who raised his sister after their parents' passing, he spends his days working odd jobs for the town

Fawn Heywood: Warren's younger sister, her curiosity gets her into more trouble than she would care to admit

Thea Morrison: friend/love interest to Fawn, she is loyal and blunt, often to the point of being rude

The Premise

Each new story resets the board, telling its own tale with the same pieces. Not every character will be in each story. All stories will, however, contain at least one whumpee. At the top of each story post will be the title, the word count, the characters, and any warnings that apply. Any stories that do connect will be tagged accordingly

The Author

Bia, mid 20's, she/they. Rycroft Manor is my way to both express my interest in whump and get back into the habit of writing original fiction

The Common Tags

rycroft manor (all posts)

rycroft fic (all stories)

rycroft art (all art)

(Individual character names for posts they appear in)

This Blog Will Not Contain

Major Character Death (defined here as the POV/main character dying)

Non-con

Explicit Sexual Content

Graphic Gore

Feel free to ask questions or send me suggestions through the ask box, though I do reserve the right to choose which requests I take. Also please feel free to ask me to tag any additional warnings I may miss

#pinned post #rycroft manor

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