[ Adrian is not treated unkindly, so far as Trevor knows, in any way save for the complete theft of his free will. His prison is a childhood bedroom and the thick, silver-woven curtains covering the door intended more to keep him safe from the conspiracies of Dracula's court than to keep him in. He will not be hurt. Dracula makes this clear when they first arrive, when the collar is placed on him and the whip pulled away and he looks over the burns that the Vampire Killer has made upon his son's arms and orders the skin to be stripped from Trevor's wrists to match. Makes it clear that Adrian will not be harmed within his walls.
Time passes. Enough that the marks from it are just tight, too-shiny scar tissue. The vampire Carmilla makes her appearance and sends Dracula's court into disarray. It makes Trevor's job far less pleasant, so far as it was ever pleasant before. 'Keeping the court in line' becomes less about being an agent of punishment when they step out of line and more about being a demonstration of what became of what Dracula might make of those who stand against him. He sees Adrian only rarely, each time stealing away to his star-painted prison in desperate search of medical treatment from anyone other than Isaac.
(He thinks he can feel himself becoming less and less human every time he receives treatment from the forgemasters. One day he won't be able to touch the Vampire Killer, and then it'll be too late. He doesn't know what he'll do then. He promised to survive.)
But there is news, from the Transylvanian border. Better news than he could have hoped, and everything that he's been waiting for. A speaker magician leading the other refugees in battle, destroying their captors in a single night.
For the first time since they came here, he draws back the silver curtain to Adrian's prison without getting blood anywhere. ]
no subject
Time passes. Enough that the marks from it are just tight, too-shiny scar tissue. The vampire Carmilla makes her appearance and sends Dracula's court into disarray. It makes Trevor's job far less pleasant, so far as it was ever pleasant before. 'Keeping the court in line' becomes less about being an agent of punishment when they step out of line and more about being a demonstration of what became of what Dracula might make of those who stand against him. He sees Adrian only rarely, each time stealing away to his star-painted prison in desperate search of medical treatment from anyone other than Isaac.
(He thinks he can feel himself becoming less and less human every time he receives treatment from the forgemasters. One day he won't be able to touch the Vampire Killer, and then it'll be too late. He doesn't know what he'll do then. He promised to survive.)
But there is news, from the Transylvanian border. Better news than he could have hoped, and everything that he's been waiting for. A speaker magician leading the other refugees in battle, destroying their captors in a single night.
For the first time since they came here, he draws back the silver curtain to Adrian's prison without getting blood anywhere. ]
Hey. 're you- you know. Yourself?