Chapter Text
In many ways, Wyll Ravengard grows up in plush comfort.
His whims are catered to by attentive servants who make sure he is fed, clothed, and content. He never grows hungry, never wants for much. His education is seen to by the best teachers his father can find, attending lessons for music and dance and even sword fighting. He’s well-cared for but rarely spoiled, his father reminding him to never grow too pampered.
Many of his peers call Wyll kind, strong-willed, sometimes even arrogant as all young boys of his station are. He’s smart and generous for his age, running into most challenges head first and intent on succeeding. A stubborn boy with a good heart—his mother’s heart, his father will say quietly when there is no one else to hear his voice grow soft.
But from the moment that Wyll Ravengard was born he has been wracked by pain so severe that the medics had thought he would die before he ever reached his first year.
It was insistent. Unrelenting. Wyll had cried and cried the moment he was brought into the world, and then he did not stop even as several tendays passed by.
He had nearly starved in the months following his birth, unable to stop screaming and crying long enough to even eat. He had been condemned to sleeping spells often so that he could rest, a healer and maid at his side at all times.
When he was awake his small heart raced without reprieve, the healers afraid he would fall into shock or seizure. He screamed his throat raw, cried until his face was a violent red, until he almost suffocated from loss of air.
His father had been terrified, having just lost his wife and now being told that he may soon lose his baby boy just as well. Ulder Ravengard had sat with his child in his arms and could do nothing about the way the poor little thing cried.
But Wyll eventually prevailed through his most vulnerable years, and as he grew older the medics that swarmed him concluded that there was nothing wrong with him.
It was his soulmate’s pain that haunted him at every moment.
And it did not stop as the years dragged along. Wyll would wake screaming in the middle of the night, a maid rushing to his room only to find him sweating and writhing on the bed but with no visible injury. No, it was his soulmate out there somewhere, their pain transferred to a small Wyll who could barely understand what was happening.
His father had held him in those early years, sword-worn hands gently holding the back of his head, smoothing down his spine as Wyll could do nothing but cry.
“It hurts,” he would cry like the child he was, sniffling and sobbing into his father’s shoulder, small fingers scrambling at his back.
“I know. But you are strong enough to make it through this,” Ulder would tell him, his voice firm and level, and Wyll would always believe him when he said it like that.
And Wyll would lay in his bed when it was over, pulsing and aching with the aftershocks, and then he would begin to weep again—from fear that his soulmate was surely dead, from grief that they were suffering so greatly and Wyll was unable to stop it.
He didn’t feel very strong at all, then.
But the pain would come again eventually, both a relief and a burden, and Wyll barely saw a reprieve from it for the first decade of his life. He would be put to sleep when it was at its worst, unable to stand or talk as he felt his flesh peel from bone, his limbs broken, nails pulled from their beds.
There was an empty pit in his chest, a dark chasm of coldness that never left. And prevalent even over that cacophony of agony was always something else— hunger. He felt starving, ravenous, his gut twisting with a hollow writhe. As if he had not had a meal in months, a deep prick in his stomach. It was just as much of a companion as the pain, familiar as the years passed.
Wyll was scarcely allowed outside of the manor’s walls on his own, at risk of passing out in the streets. He was accompanied by maids regularly even while aside, his tutors visiting him at erratic hours when his mind was as clear as it would ever get.
He could rarely focus, the bone deep ache in his body nearly constant, pestering and prickling. His back seared with old scar wounds he could not see, his stomach turned with hunger that was not his own, his mouth pulsing as if it held unfamiliar teeth.
It did not take long before Ulder Ravengard began to seek out other means of soothing Wyll’s pain. Ways that were more permanent, where Wyll would be capable of getting through his day without passing out from tremors.
Ulder Ravengard wants to sever the bond.
“It is what is best for you, Wyll,” his father says, his hand on Wyll’s trembling shoulder and his face wavering from its usual stony expression, “It may have its risks, but I can not stand to see you suffer any longer.”
And little Wyll Ravengard, just on the cusp of eleven years old, cries and begs for his father to allow him to keep it. His father tells him that his soulmate will likely not live for much longer, that Wyll is suffering for someone who will never even survive long enough to meet him.
But Wyll insists that they will, that he believes in them, that he couldn’t bear knowing that they must be entirely alone without Wyll being on the other side of their bond. He doesn’t want to break it, no matter how much excruciating pain it puts him in.
So Ulder Ravengard gives in, though Wyll knows that he does not like the idea. He searches for alternative remedies in the ensuing months instead, contacting a great many of sorcerers and wizards all across faerûn.
Some attempts do not work, spells failing or magical artifacts rendered useless. Ulder Ravengard proposes breaking the bond entirely after every failed experiment.
Wyll says no each time, stubborn and teary eyed, and his father looks at him with pity. But Wyll is stubborn and persistent through the misery. This would not take his soulmate from him—nothing would, if he could help it.
The solution eventually comes in the form of magical clasps, golden bands attached to both of Wyll’s wrists. They block the bond, stopping Wyll from feeling the pain that comes through so long as he wears them. It also means that Wyll’s soulmate won’t feel him either—it is almost relieving. Wyll would never be able to stand adding to their pain, knowing that they were so thoroughly drenched in it already.
And the blockers work, the pain subsiding and Wyll’s days growing painless. It is almost strange to feel normal when he was anything but for the start of his life.
His father is relieved and his maids are just as grateful, no longer having to care for the little Ravengard boy who could scarcely stop crying.
Wyll reaches his teen years with little fuss, growing into himself, feeling happier now that he was no longer racked by incessant and unbearable pain.
But he does not stop thinking of his soulmate afterwards. He would never dream of such a thing. They were likely still suffering, even if Wyll could no longer feel it, still stuck in whatever Hell Wyll had been forced to feel with them.
He dreams, as any young man would, of what his soulmate must be like. He ponders their voice, what colors their eyes must be, how much older they were than him. He thinks of a grand romance, wooing and courting them, offering them something good after everything they’ve been through.
Wyll catches the attentions of several lords and ladies in the court when he attends the sporadic party over the years—but he turns them each down with a gracious smile. He is promised to someone else, no matter how his father encourages him to find someone, how his maids gossip to him about who was single and looking for someone his age and temperament—even if they told him of all the men and women who did not have a soulmate either.
As if he had lost them already, his bond forever broken, as if he should already be in mourning and find someone new. But Wyll hasn’t lost them yet—he won’t, so long as he was alive to search for them. His soulmate was still out there, alive even through everything, and Wyll was not going to give up on them.
And as he grows older he finds himself training with the sword far more frequently than his noble peers. Under his father’s tutelage he learns quickly, led with a firm hand and Ulder’s sparse praise. He is to follow in his father’s footsteps, becoming a Flaming Fist and then Duke. As any proper Ravengard would, Ulder’s only son and heir.
(A part of him yearns to grow stronger solely for the half of his soul on the other side of his bond—strong enough to protect them, to not feel so damned helpless.)
He slips the bands from his wrists on occasion to feel the influx of pain just to know that his soulmate was still alive. It’s worth it even if it often sends him to his knees, blinding him or sparking a violent wave of tremors through his body.
(And sometimes, even if he did not want to think of it, there was a horrid ache in his hips and thighs. Burning and pervasive, enough to send a wave of tears to his eyes for several reasons.)
But they were still alive, and that’s all that mattered. There was someone left to find on the other side and Wyll grasps onto that fact with both hands and does not let go.
_______
Wyll is twenty-three years old when he finds his soulmate.
The ironic thing is that he’s not even looking for them, at least not right then.
The Flaming Fist had been tipped off about one Cazador Szarr—a powerful noble that had been under secret investigation for the past year. And his palace was linked straight back to at least hundreds of missing persons cases in Baldur’s Gate over the past century or more.
The Flaming Fists and Harpers both infiltrate the castle, Wyll and Ulder Ravengard included amongst their ranks.
They find over seven thousand spawn and a Vampire Lord held inside.
It is a long, arduous fight. A Vampire Lord is no easy mark, not by any means, even if they had attacked during the day. Wyll has never killed one on his own, and certainly not alone. But left outnumbered by a small army, Cazador Szarr eventually falls.
They lose a number of their own people, an inevitable outcome, but his father clasps Wyll’s shoulder when the fight is over. There is sweat on Ulder’s brow, his armor stained with blood.
“Cazador may have kept more spawn. I suggest that we search the manor for them,” he says solemnly, face still set with the severe expression of a commander, not a father.
“What should we do with them?”
“Kill them.”
Wyll nods and breaks off into a small group to search the rest of the castle. One of the women who follows after him he knows well—Karlach Cliffgate, a Harper that works closely under Jaheira herself.
“Ooh, I’ve never met a spawn before,” she whistles at his side, a great ax slung across her broad shoulders. “Never killed one, either.”
“Careful, we’re unsure exactly how many Cazador had kept, nor where they are hidden.” Other than the ravenous ones kept in the cells, at least. The entire lower level smells like blood and death, as if he were standing in a room filled to the brim with corpses. And to some extent they were, he supposes, undead spawn staring at them with glinting red eyes as they pass.
But with the possibility of more spawn on the upper level, Wyll stays on his guard. Much of the rooms they check are empty, pristine beds left seemingly untouched, the decor draped in deep reds and blacks. It smells thoroughly of blood here too, though the scent is significantly more muted, covered in perfumes. It makes his nose twitch, slowly making his way through the halls, boots making thudding clicks against the wood.
His hand stays on his sword as he walks, Karlach’s imposing figure at his back, flanked by two other Flaming Fist members. Wyll reaches the end of one hall, hand reaching for the door knob, and finds that it’s locked.
“Allow me,” Karlach grins, urging him out of the way, and slams her ax down onto the handle. She looks back at him, cat-like eyes glowing gold with amusement, “After you.”
Wyll can’t help but chuckle quietly, pushing the door open, but his breath immediately catches when he takes in the contents of the room. It smells putrid, like rats and their droppings, dried copper and sweat. Piles of hay lay on the floor, chains attached to the walls, torture racks lined in a row.
And in the middle lies a naked pale figure, thick metal wrapped tight around his ankles, his shoulders moving with his soft breaths. A large scar spans over his back, the points of his ribs visible through his thin flesh. He looks pitiful, small and curled over the hard floor.
Karlach goes to take a step forward, perhaps to offer it a swift death by cutting the poor thing’s head off in their sleep, but Wyll stops her with a hand on her wrist.
“Wait. Just—I—I need—” Wyll trails off, an indescribable feeling bubbling inside of him.
He approaches the prone form of the man, the others hanging back in confused silence. Wyll kneels at his side, catching sight of the man’s face, stained with streaks of old blood. His silvery curls are dyed red, mangled hands cradled closed to his pale chest and his fingernails bloody where they’ve been pulled out. He is an elven man, with pointed ears and a straight nose, sinew and muscle clinging to his bones despite his obvious malnourishment.
Wyll sucks in a sharp breath, eyes tracing along the intricate scars that span over the man’s back. Wyll reaches for his own shoulder, thoughts sparking with the memory of aching scars that were not his own, of being wracked with pain for someone he feared would die before they ever met.
“You doing alright there, mate?” Karlach asks nervously, “That’s one of the spawn, ain’t it?”
Wyll looks at the deep puncture wounds that mar the man’s throat, the deathly pale pallor to his skin. It’s unmistakable.
“Yes, yes it’s one of them,” he croaks, fingers tentatively brushing the golden bands that stay on his wrists.
He’s probably wrong. He has to be wrong—what would his father say? A vampire spawn? He cannot even imagine it.
But Wyll swallows and he slips off the bands, his eyes set on the flicker of the spawn’s lashes in his unconsciousness, and the moment the gold clinks to the floor he can feel it. The hunger, the shattered bones in his hands, the aching and cold feeling that seeps low into his flesh.
And that empty feeling in his chest, he understands now—a heart that cannot beat. He gasps and it is not from the aching pain.
“Wyll?” Karlach is immediately on guard, an urgency tinting her voice.
“I’m alright, I—I’m alright,” he assures her, his voice quiet, and several things rise in him at once.
Relief is at the forefront—his soulmate is here, right before him after all these years, still breathing despite everything. He had not given up hope, not exactly, but there had always been a deep seated fear in him that had taken root ever since he was a child—that his father was right, that everyone was, that they’d die before Wyll could ever find them. But he has, now, and his chest shudders with realization.
And then dread soon follows at the thought of his father’s face the moment he sees that his son is irrevocably bound to a monster.
Wyll swallows and makes a decision.
He unclasps his cloak and wraps it around the spawn’s body, his form entirely limp as he moves them like a doll. The spawn shivers and shakes but his eyes stay closed, Wyll’s hands aching from their shared injury.
“What’re you doing? Didn’t your father—”
“He’s my soulmate,” Wyll says succinctly and Karlach immediately falls silent, “I know it likely sounds absurd, but please trust me—”
“Shit,” she hisses, turning around to shoo away the Flaming Fist members, “Out, out, go report to Duke Ravengard or something. I don’t fucking care.” She slams the door shut behind them and Wyll represses the urge to wince
Wyll swallows, preparing to try and explain himself to her—but then Karlach’s ax comes down on the chain attached to the vampire’s ankles, the metal shattering under the force of her strike.
Wyll can’t help but blink in surprise, glancing up at Karlach’s pinched face.
“Don’t look so shocked, soldier. I ain’t doubting you.” She rolls her shoulders, as if she were gearing up for another fight, “We’re gonna get his scrawny ass out of here, but I don’t think your father is gonna be very happy about it.”
Wyll frowns, taking his soulmate into his arms after he’s slipped his bands back over his wrists. The man is terribly light in his hold when he stands, wrapped in Wyll’s cloak and his curly head limply landing against his shoulder.
“No, he won’t be,” Wyll murmurs, his eyes catching on the slack face of the man in his arms. Blood is crusted on his pale lips, lashes wet and tear tracks running lines down his cheeks. His skin holds no ounce of life, as pale as the early morning sun, as if he had not had a sip of blood in a very long time.
Wyll wraps the cloak around him just a little tighter.