Work Text:
"Are you lonely yet?"
The way Rada al-Saran said those words was frustratingly teasing—light and playful despite their context. For a moment, it sounded like the old Rada al-Saran, the one who Verandis could banter and make jests with, the one who had been more than just his friend, but his brother.
But this was not the old Rada he had known millennia ago. This was the Rada that had fallen to darkness and ambition. His lust for power was insatiable, probably even matching that of their sire Molag Bal, whom Verandis had more than willingly cast aside.
And yet, Verandis let himself hope for a mere moment that this were the case, that Rada had given thought to all this and was here to let him go.
The way he entered the cavern that was serving as Verandis' cell proved otherwise: he stood tall and haughty, and was smiling at him in a gloating way that could only happen between captor and captive. The torches set around the walls made firelight glisten in his red eyes, and his vampirism held a pallor over him that even his dark skin could do nothing to dissuade.
"What do you mean by that?" Verandis asked as calmly as he could. Every part of him wanted to yell and fight and snarl, fury at the man who had been his best friend boiling hot in his stomach. He remained calm. For now. This was the first time Rada had visited him since his imprisonment, and he didn't want to squander this chance to talk.
Rada came to a stop facing him, hands folded behind his back. Verandis noticed that he was out of the range of space his silver chains allowed of him. They didn't allow much. He couldn't even stand! Still, he made sure to face Rada with as much dignity as he could afford, trying to ignore his own partial nudity and the fact that he was being made to sit upon the rocky ground.
"Well, you surround yourself with the lesser of our kind and keep mortal pets." Rada spoke the words like they tasted bad on his tongue. "And now, here you are without any of them. No one but yourself and the silence." His top fangs flashed in the torchlight. "And me."
Verandis shook his head, hands balling into fists on his thighs. Here lay their most contentious issue, and Rada was waving it in front of his face, clearly trying to antagonize him.
"They are not my pets, Rada," Verandis responded with a scowl. "There's a different word for that. I'm not sure if you remember the word 'friend' at all?"
Rada frowned, and then, with a shake of his head, paced in front of him. He idly kicked a pebble in Verandis' direction.
"I knew the word once," he said. "Or, I thought I did. But your best friend in the entire plane of Nirn—nay, every plane of existence!—betraying you does something to make the definition seem a farce. There is no such thing as friends. I had hoped you'd grown old enough to know that."
Verandis' nostrils flared in anger before he could close his eyes and take a small breath to console himself.
"I did not betray you, Rada. I—"
"So, choosing the mortal world over me does not count as betrayal?" Rada snapped, cutting him off. "You turned your back on me and our kind for those who would only walk this plane for mere centuries, if we're talking of Altmer such as yourself. And humans? Well, only decades." He was clearly seething. His pacing was increasing in speed, his voice raising in volume. He then stepped towards Verandis, either forgetting the length of his chains or simply not caring. "They are all temporary, Verandis! We are not! We are eternal!"
Verandis opened his mouth to argue about how time did not diminish the value of a life, but Rada went on.
"Look around you!" Rada spread his arms. "This very place I am keeping you in is proof of the fleeting existence of mortals. The Dwemer built this place, and yet they are gone, gone for so long now that other mortals know almost nothing of them."
Verandis decided not to respond to any of his provocations, despite the ways in which they grated at him and truly made him angry.
Instead, he asked in a calculated tone: "And where are you keeping me?"
Something about ignoring his words stirred Rada's already-flaming fury into an inferno, and there was swift movement and a flash of pain in Verandis' face. It took him a moment to realize that Rada had kicked him right in the face and that he was now flat on his back with blood trickling from his nose—blood that didn't belong to him, blood that he would have to replenish eventually.
Rada snorted in derisive amusement as Verandis pushed himself up with a hand on his nose, trying to hold in a groan. He didn't know whether or not it was broken, but it certainly wasn't what he would call fun.
"That is of no concern of yours," Rada snarled. Verandis' blood on the tip of his boot looked out of place, given that he was dressed as a noble. Or, maybe it looked perfectly in place like that. "What your main priority should be is when you'll next feed."
"I would prefer to go without, actually," Verandis responded. He was glad he at least couldn't grow hungry or intoxicated from the scent of his own blood; it was all he could smell. "Knowing your preferred sources of blood."
Rada laughed, a cutting sound. "You act as if it is cruel to kill a cow for its meat, as the mortals do."
Verandis was quite done taking all this. With a snarl, he tried rising up to his feet to strike Rada, and was very much stopped short.
His chains were heavy, especially with the element of them being silver. Ever since having them on he had felt a cold leeching his strength and magic from him.
The chains on his wrists and ankles, however, were not the worst part. The worst was the silver collar around his neck and the chain there. They'd all been driven into stakes in the floor to keep him from even standing.
And so now he was before Rada on his knees, choking on the pull of the collar. Trying to stand had had him strangling himself. Now, he had no choice but to shuffle backwards. As a vampire at his full strength he had no true need of breathing, but he wasn't at his full strength. He wasn't even at the strength of a mortal human warrior. No, he was weakened and restrained, and would be far too easy to kill.
But Rada was letting him grasp at the collar and catch his breath. His laughter hit like hammers on an anvil in his ears.
His friend…
Rada had been his friend…
Verandis turned his head away, not in shame, but in hurt and despair. Blood was trickling quite readily from his nose, and when he licked his lips he could taste it. Not the same as mortal blood at all, and completely useless to him.
"Go."
Verandis said the word firmly, as if he had any power in this situation. He was beginning to admit to himself that he was afraid. He was deep underground in some lost Dwemer ruin that even he didn't know the location or name of, imprisoned by one of the most powerful vampires in existence, brought down to such a weakened and vulnerable state. What did Rada want from him? Why not just kill him? He was alive for some purpose, even if a very simple one. Perhaps Rada's thirst for vengeance…
That doused Rada's laughter, Verandis' panting breaths the only sound in the stunned silence.
"Excuse me?"
Verandis knew Rada had heard him correctly. He was testing his defiance, wanting to see if he had the gall to repeat himself.
He did.
"Go."
Rada came close to stand right over him, movement as violent as a storm. His very anger was like lightning around him. Verandis could reach out and touch him now, but decided against it. A scuffle in this situation was the last thing he needed, because Rada was right: he did have to worry about his next feeding. Any injury he sustained would last till then.
Verandis made himself look up at him, and told himself that the way he was shaking was because of fonts of untapped rage and the effect of the silver chains that bound him, not fear. He could not show fear to the great Rada al-Saran.
"You are beneath me in every way there is," Rada intoned, words almost a growl. "I go when and where I please, and some deluded, chained up jest of a vampire certainly doesn't decide that for me."
It took a moment for Verandis to figure out what to respond with. He wondered, as words came to him, if Rada had increased in impulsiveness in their millennia apart, if he could come out the other end of this statement with his life. He'd died before and wasn't so quickly ready to do it again over this.
The words left him anyway.
"I liked you better as a Redguard legend."
The words struck true, Rada giving a face that reminded Verandis of the one mortals made when impaled in the chest with a spear or some other weapon. He had hurt him, truly hurt him.
That had been the idea, but now, watching Rada actually stumble back from him a little, Verandis was wracked with guilt. This had been his friend. Brothers couldn't be closer than what they had had. He'd never felt a love for anyone as intense as he had for Rada since he'd betrayed him and formed the Gray Host to dominate the world. He had love for those who aligned themselves with him as Ravenwatch. Each one was special and family to him. He had love for his mortal friends.
But nothing like the love he apparently still held for Rada. He'd impaled himself as well with those words, tearing open wounds he'd thought long closed. He'd been wrong in that belief.
As I've been wrong in so many.
Rada hurried to compose himself. Verandis was expecting him to strike him again, but he didn't. Instead, he looked him in the eyes and sneered:
"And I liked you better as a dead fool."
Verandis, despite his own gushing wounds and the very real anguish in his chest, managed to express anger and scowl at him.
No more words were shared between them, as Verandis had nothing to give to that, and Rada needed to tend to his own injuries.
Rada strode out of the cavern looking as proudly as he'd strode in, but Verandis knew the truth now. He knew Rada's weakness, his bane.
It was him.
And Rada was his.
Once completely sure he was alone, Verandis sat back on his heels, and did something he hadn't done in centuries.
He cried.
He had nothing to sustain himself with but the bitter taste of his own spilling blood and the stinging saltiness of ancient tears.