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day 28, prey drive

Vampire pirate who feeds on their human crew.

Maybe their crew didn't have a choice about joining them.

Perhaps when the pirates capture a ship the captain samples each of the captured sailors. The ones who taste good are added to their crew and the rest are slaughtered. Or maybe they're sold off at the nearest port.

Of course, this vampirate makes sure their crew is well-fed and taken care of. They can't have scurvy or other illnesses and ailments ruining their collection of hard-working blood bags.

However, keeping people alive doesn't mean they can't or won't get hurt for acting out. You can't have your crew plotting to kill you after they start to think you're getting weak and soft, now can you?

Who would a vampire such as this entrust to be their first mate? Who could this vampire trust to watch over their crew during the day while they sleep?

"What's wrong?

You think people shouldn't be treated like this?

Well, I have to agree. People shouldn't be treated like this.

But you aren't a person, are you?"

Robotic whumpee glitching instead of stammering.

Their arm getting damaged so their elbow keeps glitching open and closed over and over again.

Them having the knowledge of different ways of communication - different spoken languages, mores code, sign language, etc - and frantically trying to use them in order to beg for the mercy of a complete stranger.

Robotic Whumper not understanding/caring that living beings feel pain differently than them.

Robotic Caretaker having been damaged to the point of not being able to remember all the ways to take care of someone.

The Blackmuir Reign Snippet: The Knight and the Boy

CW: **whump of a minor** in the past, but resulted in permanent mutilation/injury (the boy doesn’t speak because of the fairly recent removal of his tongue) hurt/comfort, fear of punishment, communication issues, past abuse and threats, serious hand injury (Rudy).

-

“You do know your letters, don’t you?”

The boy’s eyes flew to his, realizing his mistake. He’d been caught reading the ornamental inscription of an antique dagger. It was a dirty trick, but Rudy knew he’d be interested in a blade like that one and brought it to show him. He’d watched his eyes to see how they landed on the script, if they followed from left to right with any comprehension.

“It would do everyone some good if you would answer questions on paper for us, you know. We could keep it to yes or no.”

The boy looked away, all the color drained from his face. The dagger sat innocently on the tabletop. By my side or in my enemy’s, the hilt read in an earlier from of Muirish. Most native speakers still found it intelligible, if stilted.

Rudy sighed, re-tucking the end of the bandage that wound around his hand. The last two fingers no longer moved. If that was going to change or not, time would tell. It had been worth it to see the brute who would cut out a child’s tongue bleeding lifeless in the dirt. He only wished he’d had the luxury of making it last a little longer. Of making it painful.

“King Therrin is a good man, you know. He grew up as a ward in the far south. Not some spoiled, unworldly Prince waiting to inherit a Kingdom. I wouldn’t have ridden against the crown to take the capital with just anyone.”

The boy flashed a glance from under his floppy copper hair, so like that of the dead Usurper. He seemed to perk up at talk of battles, of riding in the vanguard against terrible odds. Rudy had seen him mesmerized in the Great Hall, hanging on the every word of a bard’s new song about the siege.

“Look at this. What if I placed an apple here.” He took a red and yellow apple from its wooden bowl (sour little things they were, this far north). “And a cup here…” He placed a pewter cup opposite the apple. “Apple means yes. Cup means no. You point at the apple or the cup to answer, and I don’t tell the King you know your letters. Would you answer some questions for us then?”

The boy stared at the apple. His mouth grew pale and tight whenever he was afraid, and Rudy didn’t know if it had anything to do with what happened, like he was clenching his jaw and holding his lips tight together to protect where he’d been hurt. His little heart began to pound— Rudy could see the rhythmic shiver of his tunic at the armpit.

“Someone told you not to talk to us,” he said flatly. Not a question. “Someone who hurt you.”

Quick green eyes met his. It was the loudest yes he’d ever heard, but still the boy did give an answer in any tangible way.

Rudy would gladly tell him he put his knife through the Tongue Cutter’s throat and opened it like gutting a trout if he did not think it would steal an innocence he could not put back. He wanted the boy to have no inkling of responsibility for that death. The blood was on his hands, and his alone.

“What if the King wasn’t there?” Rudy tried instead. “Would you answer questions for me?”

Rudy thought the apple might spontaneously combust from the intensity of the gaze on it.

“What if we start with you writing your name on a piece of paper? Your name is yours to give to anyone you please, is it not?”

He had pushed too much. To his dismay, the boy began to cry— a sudden welling of tears he turned away to swipe at with his sleeve as if embarrassed.

“Alright now, hey,” Rudy soothed. “It’s just me, little one. You’re not in trouble. We’re just looking for a way to talk to you.”

He placed a hand on the boy’s head and he turned quickly, nearly throwing himself into the Knight’s arms.

Rudy folded him against his chest and held him gently, loose enough he could get away if he wanted. The boy sobbed once— a hoarse, strained sound from a voice that has fallen into disuse and hugged him back tightly, as if someone were going to try and pull him away.

Rudy thought of the Tongue Cutter’s knife, how it had felt as he pulled him closer by his blade to kill him. He wondered if the boy had been cut by the same knife that sliced the flesh of his hand.

I’d have let him cut my sword hand too, if it would take back what they did to you.

He pulled away just far enough so he could take the little foxlike face in his hands. The boy looked up at him, openly trusting even though it was a Knight who had hurt him, in the same garb and armor as Rudy wore.

“I won’t tell the King you know your letters,” he promised. “And no one’s going to hurt you. Do you know that? I won’t let them.”

The boy nodded sharply, giving a tiny whimper on an exhale that would break the heart of even a soldier as weathered as himself.

“And what is this thing?” Rudy asked, plucking at the sleeve of the plain, shapeless tunic the servants in the kitchens had given him to wear. “If you dress in a potato sack, you’ll get confused for the potatoes. That’s what happened to the last kitchen boy, didn’t they tell you?”

He looked down at his ill fitting tunic and grinned through tears.

“They’ll throw you right in the soup,” Rudy said, and pulled a clean linen from his pocket he intended as spare bandage for his hand. He swiped gently at the boy's cheeks with it, then let him take over himself. He took the linen a little sheepishly, dabbing it on his eyes until they were dry.

“Come,” Rudy said. “Let’s get you away from those kitchens for a while. Have you ever swung a steel sword? Even in practice?”

His eyes went bright, excited as any young boy at the prospect of wielding something dangerous. He shook his head no, he hadn’t, and dropped his gaze to the hilt of Rudy’s broadsword.

“Not that one,” Rudy laughed. “That’ll flip you right over. There’s lighter ones in the yard, to learn on. Come on. I’ll take you.”

The Blackmuir Reign: Rivyr’s Bedtime Story

CW: recent harm to a child, whump of a minor, fantasy violence and gore, fiction-within-fiction warfare and dragon-fire, bruising/abuse mentioned, mouth trauma, fluff, big scary knight taking care of a kid

Summary: Rivyr’s first night in Castle Blackmuir, Rudy sits up with until his bed is ready.

-

Rudy took a swig of dark Muirish ale.

Same as last time, it was like drinking skunk and stewed mushrooms. He wiped his beard on his sleeve, wondering if he’d ever warm up to the taste, of if he’d dream of blond Perry brews and southerly strongwine the rest of his days here.

The servant cleaning up the empty pitchers and cups in the solar was giving him a wide berth, glancing at him from the corner of their eye every few seconds, as if he were a sleeping bear and not a Knight.

“When you get to the kitchens, ask if they’re ready for the boy, will you?” Rudy said, nodding to the sleeping child on the wooden bench next to him. “I’d like to get the poor thing abed. He’s exhausted.”

The servant nodded hurriedly. They snatched up the last empty cup that was not Rudy’s ale and hurried out the way they had come with their dishes.

Rudy didn’t know if the servants in the castle were skittish because Henry mistreated them, or if they were just naturally wary of a new regime. Either way most of them acted that way around him. Around all of Therrin’s men.

As the servant shut the solar door with their hip, one of the pewter cups dropped from their overful arms and clattered noisily to the floor. The Truly boy jumped out of sleep, scrambling to sit up and banging his head on the table with a sharp crack.

Rudy reached out to right him so he would not topple off the bench, but the boy flinched away from his touch with a whimper that went right to his heart like a splinter.

He pulled his hand back.

The Knight that had handled him in the hall today had been so rough. Truly or not, he was still a child, barely old enough to be a first-year squire. The top of his head had hardly come to the Knight’s chest. How much force could possibly be required to control him, even if he had been difficult? The yellowing bruising along his little jaw made Rudy clench his own til his teeth creaked.

He looked so confused at the turn of events that Rudy felt the urge to explain. “You’re alright,” he nodded solemnly. “A servant dropped a cup and it startled you. You’re okay, little one.”

He whimpered again softly, gingerly touching the place he’d just hit his head.

“May I see that?” Rudy asked. “You bonked yourself pretty good there.”

The boy hesitated, but slowly lifted his hand away from his rust-brown hair, newly washed and soft where it had been filthy and matted this afternoon.

Rudy sifted through his hair around the spot, looking for blood on his scalp, any concerning swelling. He watched warily through his eyelashes, like it might be a trick.

Satisfied he wasn’t hurt, Rudy ruffled the un-bumped side of his head. “You’ll live.”

The boy didn’t smile.

“We should have a bed for you soon. They’ve just got to fetch some clean linens and make it up for you. It’ll be straw, and on the floor. But it’ll be yours, and it’ll be warm. If you need more blankets, you can ask. And if they don’t get you any, you can tell me, and I’ll see it done.”

The boy’s eyes roved over the thick black aketon Rudy wore over his tunic, landing on the sword at his hip.

“I’m a Knight,” Rudy said with a grin. The boy had not asked, but the question was in his light brown eyes, cautiously curious.

“But we’re in peacetime now. The fighting is over. You don’t have to worry. I’m just here to make sure things go how they’re supposed to. To make sure everyone’s safe. Like you.”

The boy looked at him with open hope. The splinter in Rudy’s heart burrowed deeper. He wondered if the boy’s silence was from some threat, or trauma. Perhaps Lord Burn’s Knight had broken his jaw, which would account for some of the bruising. He’d have a healer look at him tomorrow.

The boy studied the tapestry on the wall behind him, following the lines of the black dragon depicted there, spouting red fire faded yellow from years of morning sunlight.

“Do you know the story of Queen Isobel’s dragon?” Rudy asked.

He shook his head no and shivered with a sudden chill. Rudy pulled his silver trimmed cloak from his back and draped it over the boy like a blanket, tucking it around his narrow shoulders.

“Three hundred years ago, all the land north of the Draer river belonged to a wise Queen named Isobel,” he said. “And all the people loved their Queen.”

The boy laid his head on Rudy’s arm, looking at the tapestry as he began the story. It was a childlike gesture of companionship. Of guardianship, rather. Of trust.

Trust for him— a big, heavily armed Knight like the one who had hurt him and pushed him to the floor of the throne room like a calf for branding.

Rudy cleared his throat and continued.

“There was a long, terrible war, and soon the battle was on Isobel Queen’s very doorstep. This very castle we’re in now, under attack. Isobel knew if the enemy breached these walls, her Kingdom would be lost. So she called on her boldest, most loyal Knight to help her in her darkest hour.”

The Truly boy pulled the black cloak closer about his chin, tucking his legs underneath him on the bench. Rudy slowed down on the next part, making his voice as even and soothing as he could.

“The Knight’s name was Willem, and he was as famed as he was brave, and loyal to his Queen. But when Willem saw the battlefield he was dismayed, for the armies set upon them had a secret weapon. The Cyclops. You see him? Behind the trees, there’s one.”

Rudy pointed. The boy followed his finger until he found the ugly rendering of a fifteen foot monster in the tapestry, its one gorgon eye bulging, swampy green.

“There was a whole family of giant Cyclopes, ten at least. And the Cyclopes would scoop men up and bash their skulls together, and drink them like soup. They were going to tear down the archers from their scaffolds and break down the wooden doors with their fists.

“So Willem went up into the hills, to a dark and quiet cave in the side of the mountain. No one who had gone inside had ever come back out to tell the tale, and Willem stepped on men’s bones as well as dry rat husks as he entered.

“It was the lair of a great and terrible dragon, the Orm of the north.”

The dragon on the tapestry had a great spiked body like a demon, but the dished and delicate face of a seahorse. Its jaws were unhinged wide like a serpent, teeth like a hundred curved swords.

“Willem wanted something from the great Orm’s lair. A sword that was rumored to have been lost a century before, hoarded by the dragon's infamous greed. But before he found the sword, Willem came face to face with the dragon itself.”

The Truly boy lifted his chin, looking up at his storyteller in anticipation, though still he did not speak.

“‘What seek ye?’ said the dragon to the Knight. ‘I seek a lost sword’, said the Knight to the dragon. ‘A sword that will turn the tide of the war’. But the dragon didn’t care about the war, or Queen Isobel. The dragon had lived in that cave on the side of the mountain since there were no people in the valleys below, nothing but the long grass and the blowing wind.

‘For your boldness’, said the dragon, ‘I will kill you quickly with my breath of fire, and not roast you slowly, like I did the last who disturbed me.’

“Then the beast took a great breath, and its belly rumbled with the sound of a hundred roaring fires. ‘Wait!’ said the Knight. ‘What is that in your scales there? You favor one paw, as if it pains you.’

“It was the sharp head of a lance, and a foot of the handle, splintered and stuck in the dragon’s great paw.

“Try as it might, the dragon could not pull out the lance with its teeth, and the lance had pained it with every step for nigh a decade.

“Willem offered to help. The dragon was wary of a trick, and watched very closely as the Knight took a step closer, and closer, until he could feel the heat of its breath on his mail like an oven.

He took hold of the broken lance in both hands, and with one heave he removed it from where it was wedged in between those powerful scales, into the soft paw beneath.”

The boy blinked slowly, his eyes staying closed for a second longer each time. Rudy lowered his voice another notch.

“The dragon had forgotten what it was like to be free of pain. It flexed its talons and whipped its tail like an over excited puppy, so it clipped the cave ceiling and a spray of rock clattered down. ‘I know not of a sword that will help you,’ said the dragon. ‘But if you’ll climb on my back, we’ll finish the battle.’”

The boy blinked himself awake to listen.

“And they rode down the mountainside, the dragon’s wings so wide the army below thought there had been an eclipse. The Cyclopes shaded their big ugly eyes and the army looked up just in time to see the flash of dragon fire before they were turned to ashes where they stood.

And Isobel,” Rudy said, fixing the cloak when it slipped so it covered the boy's shoulder again, “reigned for forty-five more years. And good thing Willem helped that dragon, since Queen Isobel is King Therrin’s great great great grandmother.”

The boy’s breathing had evened out, and he leaned heavier into Rudy’s arm with sleep.

-

When the servant came back to tell him the bed was ready, Rudy scooped the Truly boy into his arms and carried him down to the servants quarters, lying him in his little straw bed and covering him warmly with blankets.

Literally Whump Tumblr collabs lol

@whumpsday @whump-queen @lost-in-labradorite-halls @hidden-dreamland @a-crumb-of-whump

The Blackmuir Reign Masterlist

Summary: Therrin Blackmuir, previously a child ward of the noble Osier family, takes advantage of a volatile political situation to reclaim the throne for his line, the Blackmuirs. He finds an unexpected prisoner in the deepest cell of the dungeons, someone who does not expect merciful treatment from him.

Read The Blackmuir Reign on Ao3

Art:

Therrin and Rudy’s horses

Therrin and Saxon, castle Osier

Chapters:

One (King Therrin)

Two (Matteo)

Three (The Whipping Boy)

Four (Cutting the shackle)

Five (Matteo’s story)

Drabble (Matteo had a Nightmare)

Six (The Whipping Boy II)

Drabble (Matteo sees the gallows)

Seven (Patience)

Drabble (Therrin and Saxon: The Whipping Boy III)

Eight (The Illusion of Choice)

Drabble (Rudy and Matteo)

Nine (King Henry’s Ghost)

Drabble (Rivyr’s Bedtime Story)

Drabble (You Need Not Fear Me)

Drabble (Rudy and the tongue cutter)

Ten (The Letter)

Drabble (The Knight and the Boy)

Eleven (Saxon Receives the Letter)

Twelve (Drunk Matteo)

Thirteen (the Wergild)

Fourteen (Upon Whose Table)

Fifteen (the Pirates & Matteo)

Sixteen (Isidor & Matteo)

Seventeen (Therrin and Saxon, presently)

Eighteen (Rudy rescues Rivyr)

Recap

Nineteen (Matteo’s bad tooth, Isidor)

Twenty (The Gift Horse)

Twenty one (interrogation, Isidor)

Twenty two (The Gift Horse pt 2)

if you like whump, you should! i made that gifset for a month-long whump giffing challenge and i was honestly spoiled for choice, there's 27 more posts in my febuwhump tag 😂

Guys I'm so weak for the whole attack dog/master dynamic.

Whumpee's naked chest moves in an uncoordinated manner; like his lungs are struggling to pull in adequate air and bashing against his ribcage in protest.

The cold, salty water Whumper drenches him in runs into his eyes and the open wounds he'd acquired on his most recent botched mission, making them sting and throb and burn; gasoline on a flame.

His whole body arches, quivers, ropes around his ankles and wrists tethering him to the steel chair below him even as he thrashes, head tilted back and mouth falling open in a agonising cry.

This is his penance more than it is his punishment.

His fingers, bound behind him, tremble like they're itching to rub over the bloody gashes and cuts, to alleviate some of the god-awful burn. His arms shake from the strain, aching and desperate to wrap around himself in a self-soothing guesture. His cries fade into whimpers, soft moans of discomfort.

He doesn't deserve any solace from the pain.

His breath hitches as he breathes in, once, twice, until he's gasping for air, making pathetic, desperate little sounds Whumper snarls at.

"You're a f#$%ing disgrace." Whumper snaps, irritable. His hand is at his side, almost manically rubbing against his expensive slacks; a small amount of water, brown with the blood and grime from Whumpee's body had splashed onto his skin. "Tell me, Whumpee, because I'm really curious." Whumper starts, digging in his pocket for a book of matches to light the cigarette between his lips. "Why the f#$% would I own a faulty gun?"

Whumpee knows Whumper too well to take the question as rhetorical. "You- you wouldn't, sir." He replies softly, through laboured breaths.

Whumper blows smoke out the side of his mouth, folds an arm over his chest. Whumpee watches the way it wrinkles his expensive suit, almost winces. "No, I wouldn't. So then, Whumpee, why do I own you?"

Whumpee hangs his head, tears pricking at his eyes.

They're Whumper's words, but this is Whumpee's own flagellation.

"Please." He whispers, cracked lips barely moving. "I can do better. I'll - I'll do better, sir."

Whumper snorts, walks closer, dress shoes sloshing noisily in the water pooled around the base of Whumpee's chair. The sound startles Whumpee; makes his heart race and fingers throb just thinking about scrubbing those shoes until his skin cracks and bleeds. "Then next time, don't f#$%ing miss." He pulls the cigarette from his mouth, presses it hard into whumpee's abdomen.

Whumpee screams, trying desperately to twist away from the pain but finding no respite. Whumper eyes the long line of Whumpee's throat as he shakes, straining and glistening with sweat and water and blood. He pulls the cigarette away and allows it to tumble to the floor, tangles a hand in Whumpee's hair and yanks his head back, watches his adam's apple bob with rapt attention. The way he goes limp in Whumper's hands, pliant, yielding; it makes Whumper's heart skip a beat, makes him disregards how angry he usually is to get dirt and gunk on his hands.

He leans down, lips brushing Whumpee's ear. "Or I'll have to show you how I deal with mechanical faults."

I really like (bear with me now, I don't know what it's called) physical position whump. Like, showing power dynamics through position. Let me explain;

TW : non/con touching in a <borderline?> sexual way

tw implied murder, implied captivity, sadistic whumper, psychological whump

"Do you know that game, two truths one lie?"

Whumpee nodded nervously. "Yes, sir."

"Why don't we play a little, then?" Whumper's saccharine smile did nothing to ease their anxiety, but they forced themself to return it anyway. "One. I have every intention of hurting you and your friend horribly."

Whumpee swallowed and nodded. That one was likely a truth.

"Two. Caretaker will walk out of here alive."

They opened their mouth to say something– and then closed it. They hoped that was a truth.

"Three. You will walk out of here alive."