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Tatyana was her name, once upon a time, before everything went terribly wrong.
It was countless centuries ago, or so I am led to believe, though I would be the first to admit that my current state of being does not lend itself to keeping precise track of the passage of time. Unfortunately, my current state of being also does not lend itself to much of anything, least of all admitting to matters that have little relevance any longer.
Tatyana was her name. Everyone loved her.
Strahd loved her, or claimed to. I prefer the term obsession myself.
Love does not drive one to murder their own brother on the eve of his wedding. Love does not lead one down the path to the dark arts, nor does it resort to charming the object of its so-called affections.
If it were ever really love, then perhaps Tatyana would have reciprocated.
Perhaps she would not have thrown herself to her death, only the first of countless others.
We are cursed, all of us, every last soul trapped within the Barovian mists, because of him. Because of Strahd.
In another life, perhaps, it could have been different. Strahd himself thought so when he met a woman who looked identical to Tatyana.
Her name was Marina.
I myself only heard the name in passing, only bore witness to her a single time. Yet I knew at once that it was her. I expect Strahd did too.
An obsession such as his does not die so easily as the object of it did.
Strahd certainly desired to have me destroyed, as if killing me once was not enough. He likely would have desired my destruction even more, if he knew the truth about who I was. Who I still am, I suppose, on some levels.
I scarcely recall my old name, these days. On the rare occasion that I happen to hear it spoken, it takes time to remember that it once was mine. That, many years ago, I was a man like many others. I lived and laughed, loved and fought and lost.
Of course, to associate that name with me is to associate myself with him as well.
The rest of the matter may be summed up, quite simply, in that it has been a very long time indeed. In the early years, I could still feel everything that I now lacked. Phantom sensations, perhaps. Phantom pains.
The early years are now nearly as far behind me as my mortal life.
Strahd remains, no matter what attempts to slaughter him are made, due to his deal with the dark powers that be. Tatyana remains, in a sense, though I cannot help but notice the ever increasing changes with every new incarnation.
I remain as but a shadow of my former self. Ironic, considering my state of being.
Especially ironic, given that I once wielded my current form as a weapon. That was back, of course, when I—when it—still had a solid blade. Crystal, it was, as beautiful as it was devastating.
Of all the grievances I hold against Strahd, the destruction of my blade should be a rather minor one. I will never be whole again, because of him. I am not unchanged.
Yet I linger on, as I always have. As I suppose I always will, until the curse Strahd brought upon us all is broken.
(I know, just as well as he does, that the curse will only be broken with his demise.)
It is rather ironic, in a sense, that I find myself in the very crypt where my former body is interred. I feel little connection to it now. In the early years, I wondered if perhaps Strahd still felt something for his kin... before reminding myself that this was the very same Strahd whose obsession with Tatyana drove him to commit fratricide and claim my beloved for his own.
The fool thief who carried me then was certain, so very certain, that he could slip in and out with a portion of Strahd's riches, the inhabitants of that castle none the wiser to his deed. His skeleton lies not far from the one that once was mine, and I can only speculate at how long it has been since the last shreds of flesh and cloth rotted away from his bones.
I linger near it, for the servants of Strahd do not venture into this crypt often. On the rare chance that they do, I can only hope that I escape notice, for I am... limited, greatly so, in my capabilities without a wielder.
For all I know, Tatyana may have been reborn countless times since last I caught sight of her. I know better than to hope that any incarnation of her will be particularly long lived, or to hope for much of anything at all where she is concerned.
(I have much time to myself, in the darkness of that crypt. Rather too much time to myself. Time to consider Tatyana, and Strahd, and my own past self. To wonder—could things have been different? If I had never met Tatyana, Strahd would never have met Tatyana. Could she have lived a normal life? A happy life? If nothing else, a Strahd-free life certainly would have been longer.)
I nearly don't notice—nearly—when someone else enters the dungeon. Three someones, to be precise—a paladin, a rogue, and a barbarian. The barbarian notices the skeleton of my former wielder, and myself beneath it. It is she who reaches to take me in her hands, eyes glimmering with curiosity.
Consciously or not, she accepts her position as my new wielder. Her memories lie open to me. I spare little thought for her time prior to Barovia, racing instead through them for any sign of a woman with red hair and a familiar face.
I find her. In this time, she bears the name Ireena. She has a brother, and had a father, both of whom seem to have cared about her very much. Her brother had tasked the trio of adventurers with escorting her to a safer place than her hometown.
(If I was still capable of scoffing, I would have at that foolhardy thought. There is not a single place in Barovia truly safe for Ireena, only those slightly less unsafe than others. But I am incapable of emoting at all anymore, and so I keep my disapproval to myself.)
(...Mostly to myself; my new wielder finds herself frowning as she rejoins the others, and when they ask her about it she cannot begin to explain why.)
Strahd did not murder Marina himself—but he did not kill Tatyana, now, did he? The blood of both women is on his hands, as that of her every incarnation has been since. I wish I knew their names. I wish I had been able to do something, anything, to protect them.
I know only three: Tatyana, of course. Marina, doomed through no fault of her own... and now, a third. Ireena. Daughter of the late burgomaster, sister of a young man named Ismark.
She, too, is likely quite doomed. But perhaps, this time, something will change. I can certainly hope.
Here in Barovia, hope is hard to come by. Ireena maintains it, despite herself, despite everything. Marina always had, and so had Tatyana before the end.
And so, I endeavor to as well.
For the first time in centuries—possibly longer, though I hope Strahd's reign of terror has lasted only centuries—there might be a legitimate chance to dethrone him, to put an end to the curse that plagues all of Barovia. For the first time ever, in this form, I find myself legitimately hoping that it might be over soon. For Tatyana, for Ireena, for every doomed woman between them.
There have been many doomed women between Tatyana and Ireena; of that I am quite certain. I see shades of Tatyana in her hair and in her smile, yet Ireena herself is more stubborn than Tatyana ever was, more impulsive, more shy around my new wielder.
(A part of me wonders—is it that Tatyana was never so stubborn? Or did I merely never see that side of her, before the end? Before Strahd ruined everything?)
The trio of adventurers—two from beyond the mists, one who fell not so very long after the man who once was me—are plotting the demise of Strahd von Zarovich. Via trickery or strength of arms, little by little, his allies begin to fall.
Ireena grows closer with my new wielder by the day.
I am not jealous. I am a sword; I am incapable of emotions such as jealousy in my current state. Furthermore, jealousy is what drove Strahd to become what he is today, what he will be until someone (perhaps these adventurers, perhaps someone else) finally puts an end to him.
...I suppose that, in a few ways, my new wielder reminds me of my former self, lifetimes upon lifetimes ago.
It is on a night like any other when I am left, entirely by accident, upon the ground floor of the inn where the adventuring party is staying. The trio of singular purpose has decided, perhaps accurately, that the safest place for Ireena is with them.
Ireena and my current wielder share a room, a fact I could not help but notice the first time that it happened.
Perhaps it is more surprising than it should be when Ireena comes creeping down the staircase, looking for the bag that her new lover has left beneath the table. She spots it before long, catches sight of my hilt where it has fallen out of the bag, and reaches out to take it in both hands.
"Hello there," Ireena murmurs, and I wonder—despite knowing that such a thing is impossible—if she knows. She has no way of knowing that the blade her lover wields holds any sentience at all, never mind that it used to be someone of… some importance to her, once upon a time.
(She does not even know that her name, once, was Tatyana. Though there is far less of Tatyana in her than there was in Marina; time has taken its toll on the soul of my beloved, and I cannot help but wonder if Strahd would still pursue her so relentlessly if there was no longer anything left of the past except his own memories.)
She chuckles to herself, in the darkness of the inn where even the employees have turned in for the night, and examines me with a soft smile.
"You truly are," she says, "a beautiful blade. Though… I suppose blade might not be the right word, given that your blade seems to be always made of light. I don't suppose you would be willing to show me..."
She trails off, a determined look entering her eyes, and raises my hilt as if she were holding a sword before her in both hands. I oblige her, allowing the memory of sunlight to form a blade as I have since her name was Marina. The sunlight reflects in her gaze as she gasps, beholding me now with an appropriate reverence.
For her new lover, the blade is longer. For her, for the way she bears it aloft, the blade is precisely the length that my old sword was, before it became me and I became nothing more than a shattered memory.
"Incredible," she whispers, and I cannot help but feel warmer than I have in many years. "Well, I suppose… I should return you, and her bag, before I’m missed.”
I agree. I do not put out my blade, though, and she does not move to stow me.
"...I'm worried," she confesses. "Perhaps more so than I ever have been before, though... I suppose I always have been a little scared of the future, I suppose that now I simply possess a tangible reason why. My protectors told me that he had laid claim to me, as if such a thing were normal or even desired. In truth, given how… blunt… some of them can be, I am rather surprised that they made it out.”
I did witness something of a rather disastrous dinner party in the memories of my new wielder. I would not tell her, if I could, that I suspect Strahd allowed them to leave, allowed them to return to Ireena, knowing that he had the outlanders precisely where he wanted them all along.
"They intend to go back." Ireena blinks hard, holding me closer than is necessarily safe. Were my radiance close enough to burn her, I would not allow it to. "I fear for them. All of them. Should they fail—"
Should they fail, then Ireena will undoubtedly meet with as terrible a fate as every other woman from Tatyana to her. Should they fail, there will be nothing she can do to prevent such a fate from occuring to her, to prevent her face from becoming yet another in a long line of long-lost loved ones.
Ireena is not my wielder. I attempt to send some reassurance, or what passes for it in Barovia, nevertheless.
Perhaps it works, because Ireena closes her eyes, sighs, and says, "I suppose worrying about it will not do any good, will it?”
It won’t, but she can hope. We both can hope.
Strahd von Zarovich lies dead. Not one of his countless duplicates, not the dragon he had polymorphed himself into, but Strahd himself lies dead at last.
(My brother, in a life long since lost, lies dead. Briefly, I wonder what our mother would have thought of what we became.)
Strahd von Zarovich lies dead. My wielder sheathes the blade that I am, laughing and joking in unambiguous relief with her companions, and I know that Ireena awaits her. That the mists surrounding Barovia have cleared at last.
Ireena may live a longer life than Tatyana, than Marina, than every other. Perhaps she will be the last. I hope she will be the last; Tatyana should never have been swept up in our tragedy to begin with, and yet she found herself the unknowing catalyst.
…I could move on. Perhaps I should move on. I am the Sunsword, but the Sunsword’s power does not come from its sentience.
Yet I think of Ireena, her hair and her smile. The way that she lights up around my new wielder, in a way so very much like Tatyana had once lit up around a doomed fool named Sergei.
Ireena could be happy. Ireena should be happy. Should I allow myself to fade away, as I have contemplated countless times, there will be nothing I can do to ensure that happiness.
To be certain, Sergei von Zarovich will fully move on one day.
That day will not be today. Not yet.