Misfortune

Ev was back at the guardhouse when Cain dragged his way back to the Solveig fortress. Fortunately for Cain (but possibly unfortunately for Evan, who certainly wanted a repeat performance of Cain's wall-scaling feat), the doors weren't locked and he was able to walk in through the front entrance without being barred. Once that was done, he made his way to the meeting room, hoping that Crowe had better things to do and he would be able to report to his sire quickly before holing up in his room for the foreseeable future.

Fortunately, it did not take long for Cain to locate his sire. Lord Solveig was waiting for him in the antechamber of the great hall, looking vaguely annoyed. "You certainly took your time coming back," he commented, his voice as hard and cold as his expression as he took in Cain's haggard state. It wasn't a true reprimand, but Cain felt the way it pulled at him nonetheless, a soft expression of displeasure that his instincts wanted to rectify.

Ignoring the niggling pain that tugged in his chest, Cain said, "It seemed wise to practice caution, given how close the region was to the Frozen Peaks." It wasn't the only reason, of course, and Solveig knew that, too. But it was also clear from how he operated that he was well aware of how vehemently Cain was likely to deny any weakness, and really, it made no difference to the clan head whether Cain admitted his weakness or not, as whether Cain lived or died was no matter to him.

Instead, Solveig addressed the information Cain presented with a slightly raised eyebrow. "Do you think Thomas was falling in with the unseelie?" This was, after all, news to him. He hadn't known which way Thomas had fled, and likely hadn't expected Thomas to run towards the Dark Fae, as they notoriously disliked vampires. Solveig was likely hoping that this information would put to rest the troubling news Cain had brought back the last time he had been sent out with an enforcement duty. He probably wanted to hear the news that whoever had betrayed the Solveig to that wizard had truly been working alone, and no others were seeking to work with the Fae, be they seelie or unseelie, and Thomas had gone there for no real reason.

Of course, Cain could promise no such thing, because two unrelated incidents shouldn't be considered evidence of one another. The mage in the tower had been trading information with one of the Solveig vampires, and another Solveig vampire had tried to escape the clan. They were only tangentially related, at best. Certainly not related enough for Cain to risk the wrath of his sire by making an uneducated guess about the motives of Thomas or the members of the Winter Court.

When Cain made no move to answer one way or the other - for there was no good to be had in contradicting the Lord Sire of the clan, either - Lord Solveig sighed, and asked, "Did you at least retrieve the thralls he was meant to be bringing here?"

Cain had not been tasked with retrieving the thralls. He hadn't even looked for them. The pull in his chest grew more insistent as Lord Solveig's ire grew stronger. Lowering his head, Cain tried to appear as contrite as possible. If his sire caught sight of his eyes, though, he would know the truth. Cain was furious. He had been sent on one mission, not three, and yet the sire was acting as if he had told Cain he wanted all these other tasks performed. Cain had been repeatedly warned against overstepping, and yet when he followed orders exactly, he was just as likely to be berated. There was no winning, no way to truly please the Solveig Clan head.

"Well, I suppose you did manage to kill the traitor, so you're not completely useless," Solveig said, and a bit of the pressure in Cain's chest eased as the powerful vampire turned and began walking away. "I will send for you when I have need of you. Oh, and go get rid of whatever lingering divinity is hovering about you, it smells incredibly off-putting."

Cain grimaced. He'd washed the splatters of Thomas' purified blood away several times now, but the magic of the thrice-blessed blood seemed to linger. Or perhaps it was the divine energy that had overwhelmed him when the high priestess of Brinn had spared him a fate similar to that of Thomas. (Or had she? Cain still felt as though there was something off about his hunger. He'd been able to drink the blood from the flask he brought, but it had felt very distasteful and off-putting. That could have been due to the fact that it was cold, congealed, and over a week old, though, so he wasn't going to jump to conclusions until he'd tried again with something a bit more fresh). In any case, he'd done all he could to wash away the purified blood. Any lingering scent would hopefully fade over the next few days, and Lord Solveig would put it out of his mind. In any case, it wasn't a request that was likely to pull at Cain the way his duties always did.

The dismissal quite clear, Cain turned and left the antechamber, heading for his room. Despite his weariness, he took the time to ensure no traps had been set, and that no one had been inside his room in his absence. All appeared to be in order, though he grimaced at the sparseness of his wardrobe. Perhaps Grace had managed to retrieve some of his borrowed tunics by now. As much as Cain wanted to learn the answer, he knew that Grace would likely still be asleep, as she was one of the early morning thralls, and it was still rather early in the night. He supposed the next best move would be to retrieve some blood from the kitchen, and see if that piqued his appetite in a way that the old, clotted blood in his flask had failed to achieve.

Locking his room once more, Cain made his way down to the kitchens, taking his usual route through the servants' halls to avoid dealing with the other vampires. The thralls seemed to be avoiding him even more than usual, and it took him a minute or two to realize that this was because he was wearing a fairly agitated scowl. Once he managed to school his expression into something more neutral, he found the thralls much more comfortable upon his approach. It shouldn't matter to him - the thralls weren't exactly fragile, and they certainly had faced the wrath of countless vampires in their time within the walls - but he knew that this space was intended for the human thralls more than it was intended for the likes of him. He was using this space despite knowing that it was something of a safe haven for all the humans living within the castle keep. The least he could do was not disturb the relative peace of this space.

He reached the kitchen in short order, and made his way to the warm blood as quickly as possible. He filled a mug, using one of the nearest ladles, before tossing it into the vampire sink. There were separate dishes for humans and vampires, which made sense, as it would likely be disgusting for a human to drink from a cup that had contained human blood in it. He knew that back when he had been a human, he wouldn't have wanted such a thing. It didn't matter what he wanted, now, since he could only be sustained by the blood of a human. But if he had a choice in the matter…

He took a sip of the blood, and nearly spat it back into the cup. He managed to temper his expression before anyone noticed his grimace. What was wrong with the blood? Why did it taste so… awful? It didn't burn the way the thrice-blessed blood had, but it tasted worse than the horrific combination of an alcoholic and a terminally ill human's last dregs of blood. It was more than just disgusting, it was borderline undrinkable! Cain wanted to wipe his tongue off on his hand, but he knew that would be far too noticeable. Instead, he looked around for a familiar face, eventually settling on the young boy with distant demonic ancestry. He was fumbling his way around the kitchen, so Morgan had clearly stepped in and reassigned him to a place where he wouldn't be interfacing directly with vampires - which was good, because the boy would have gotten himself killed before long - though admittedly, Cain didn't think this placement was much of an improvement. Perhaps the boy was just bad at being a thrall. He certainly hadn't found a place where he shone, not if his current fumbling was any indicator.

Cain had to wrack his brain for a few moments before the boy's name returned to him. "Liam," he said, not too loudly, but with enough volume that the boy could hear from several paces away.

The boy nearly jumped out of his skin, turning around with a yelp. "Aiee!" his eyes widened. "I… Sir Einhardt!"

Again with the sir… Cain didn't understand where it was coming from. "Hello," he said, aiming for neutral, but fearing the lingering blood on his teeth likely made that impossible. "Can you tell me where this blood came from?"

Liam looked surprised. "It's the usual blend, sir."

Cain was almost certain it was not the usual blend, but he didn't want to argue about it. "Ah. I see. Perhaps I'm just craving something else," he mused. "No, no," he said immediately, seeing the way the boy's gaze intensified slightly at his words, "not that something else." He wasn't sure what something else he could be seeking, though. The kitchen blood had always been perfectly satisfactory for him before!

Still carrying the mug of blood with him like an idiot, Cain wandered out of the kitchen, concern bubbling in the back of his mind. He sniffed the blood. It smelled terrible. He took another sip, forced himself to swallow, and felt his stomach churn uncomfortably. It was so strange, because when he ate human food, it was always bland and tasteless. Blood typically tasted good, unless it was tainted in some way. This tasted like a tainted blood, but unlike most cases, Cain couldn't put his finger on what, precisely, was wrong with the blood. It just wasn't… satisfying. It tasted horrible, but not in a concrete sort of way, but rather in the way that it wasn't what he wanted, and so it tasted bad. He couldn't understand why he would feel that way about something as essential to his very being as blood.

Well. He had a theory. But he was trying very hard to ignore that theory. The one that had been nagging at him ever since Thomas had drank his blood and pronounced it good. Was Cain's blood becoming pure? Was his blood-hunger inverting? Or was there truly something wrong with the blood? The worst part of it was he didn't trust any of the vampires in the castle enough to ask them about it. It would be admitting a weakness - perhaps a fatal weakness, even, if he really was experiencing the first symptoms of inverted blood-hunger.

Stumbling his way back to his room, Cain locked himself inside and forced himself to drink the entire mug, grimacing at each swallow. It sat heavy in his stomach, like human food waiting to be expelled, and not at all like a normal feeding would feel. He didn't vomit, which was a small mercy, but he felt bloated and still almost dizzyingly hungry. The blood didn't seem to be doing much. It helped, a little, but he had the feeling he would need to drink almost the entire pot of blood to feel any effect at all.

He knew that feeding directly from a thrall was far more potent than the kitchen's blood mix, but that was a desperate measure, and not one he was willing to attempt yet. He decided to try and sleep, hoping that the blood was simply slow-absorbing, and would leave him invigorated by the time he awoke, hopefully long after the day had passed. As he lay down on his bed, he had the briefest passing thought that he'd forgotten to leave a message for Grace asking about his tunics. But it wasn't as though the matter was urgent, so he could always send for her whenever he awoke. Hopefully that wouldn't be for at least the entire night and most of the following day.