| Fan Fiction |
| By Lidia: |
| And So I Wait |
| Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine. I briefly took some quotes and sentences of description out of "The Vampire Lestat", but only a couple. '***Note: This story is based on when Lestat was pushed from the tower by Armand. Just more detail, more of what Lestat thought during and afterwards. More of a retelling. There was also a void of two years after he had fallen, and when he had boarded the ship to Louisiana. It won't be a description of two years, but just a little of what he was thinking and what he did after he had fallen. He was really delusional anyway, makes for good specs.*** Rating: PG Title: And So I Wait The rain outside pattered madly against the carriage walls, adding to my insanity at the moment. My inability to recognize small objects, to think clearly. I looked out of the small glass window among the folds of black silk that lined the walls. The country flew past as the horses galloped at a speed that was considerable, taking into fact that the roads were slippery, and any wrong move could cause a collapse. Armand had forced me into this carriage again, and I being so weak, had been unable to protest. The little, yellow silk dress that I held between my scarred, skeletal hands was damp from the moisture of the air. The blood stains that littered the rich fabric had a faint perfume which wafted up to my nostrils. I tried to avoid this smell, that was oh so familiar, but I could not. Even as I condemned my daughter, as Armand had forced me to do, I felt the love for her that I had felt everyday during the sixty five years that we lived in hate and love together. Louis' eyes penetrated my arrogant exterior. I had managed to look strong before them, for just a few precious moments. I had managed to right my tongue and say the words that ended my daughters life with an air of confidence. And I suppose it just added more hate for Louis. A bigger reason to deny any love he had ever felt for me. He was stronger than I had imagined of course. So weak in the beginning, but time had not worn on him. A slight shade paler, more of a prenatural shine in his eyes, his hair reflecting light so easily, set aside these small infractions and he looked as if he had not changed at all. How I missed him. I missed him as any maker might miss a fledgling, or as a lonely lover might miss the person that they love. I regret my scorn to him, my heart aching as I remembered all the mistakes I had made. All that I wanted to take back. I tried not to remember Claudia's face as the vampires around her carried her to the sun. "Scatter the ashes!" I had said�"scatter the ashes�" But now I was here on this fast paced carriage, watching the country land pass at great speed. Glancing every so often at the calm faced cherub to my side. We stopped outside of an old tower, I strained in my memory to remember why it looked so familiar. But it was as if I was on the outside, only viewing the exterior, having no access to old memories, old feelings. We went up and up through the long winding stairs. My steps ungainly, gripping the rail with my free hand, my other holding onto the dress. I did not wish to lose it. We made it up onto the roof quickly, and I was left wondering how I had moved so fast. As my legs shook beneath me, I could not understand it. Armand had yet to give me his healing blood. The blood I had very nearly begged for, wanted so badly, needed to recover from my scars�so I could again�see Louis. "They will scatter the ashes�won't they?" I asked, my voice faltering as I spoke to the young boy in front of me, getting close to the railing. And I felt a certain forbidding in me, not to get close to the edge of the roof. The feeling that something was going to happen to be made my heart beat increase. The rate accelerating almost dangerously high. Had a been mortal, I think a stroke would have ensued by now. "Didn't you want justice?" Armand asked, his black wool cape close around him in the wind, his face dark with the power of the recent kill. What did it have to do with justice? Why did I hold this thing, this little dress? I felt the urge to fling it from the roof top, to let the last memory of Claudia fall with the soft material. I wished that I had never made her, yet I loved her strongly, would have felt a piece of myself missing had I not made her. I now would have rathered Louis to have left me and come back, then have all that was happening now take place. If only I had let him go. He would have seen that he needed me, wanted me as I him. He would have come back�right? And as I looked out at the battlements beneath me, and I saw the city stretching far out in front of me, I recognized the old tower. Magnus' tower, the very land he had given to me, which I had given to Armand. How had I not realized where I was, how could I forget the very place I had been born to darkness. The city looked as if it had come to get me. It reached out its long arms to embrace the tower, and the air stank of factory smoke. Armand stood still at the stone railing watching me, and he seemed suddenly as young as Claudia had seemed. Oh Marius, why hadn't I listened to you? Remember your words, so wise they had been. And make sure they have had some lifetime before you make them; and never never made one as young as Armand. But I am the Vampire Lestat, I had thought myself wiser than Marius' words, and hell, I had wanted to see what would happen. I wanted to throw caution to the wind and see what could possibly happen if I made one so young. Could a child become a vampire? No, for the child would grow�in mind, but not in body, and she would condemn her maker, as she condemned me. With her eyes she had maimed my soul as surely as I had hers. In death she had said nothing. She looked at those around her as if they were giants jabbering in an alien tongue. I noticed the redness of Armand's eyes as I stared at him. The gentle curves and slopes of his child's face. What suffrage could he possibly have that would make him feel emotion. He was a cherub�a stone cherub. And where was my Louis? The one I loved, the one I wanted? "Louis--where is he?" I asked. "They didn't kill him. I saw him. He went out into the rain�" He had hadn't he? Out into the rain� "They have gone after him," he answered. "He is already destoyed." Liar, with the face of a choirboy. "Stop them, you have to! If there's still time�" I watched with agonizing fear as he shook his head. It couldn't be! "Why can't you stop them? Why did you do it, the trial, all of it, what do you care what they did to me?" "It's finished." Under the roar of the winds came the scream of steam whistle, splitting my brain, backtracking my thoughts. Losing it�Not wanted to go back. Louis, come back. "And you don't mean to help me, do you?" Despair. Always the despair. Hadn't it been so recently? He leaned forward, and his face transformed itself as it had done years and years ago, as if his rage were melting it from within. The young feeling such hatred. "You, who destroyed all of us, you who took everything. Whatever made you think that I would help you!" his face coming closer to mine, the face all but collapsing on itself. I moved back further from him, his wrath fierce. "You who put us on the lurid posters in the boulevard du Temple, you who made us the subject of cheap stories and drawing room talk!" "But I didn't. You know I�I swear�It wasn't me!" "You who carried our secrets into the limelight--the fashionable one, the Marquis in the white gloves, the fiend in the velvet cape!" "You're mad to blame it all on me. You have no right." I could barely continue, my tongue faltering over trivial words. I was losing my train of thought, I couldn't contain what I was thinking. Pain shooting through my skin as it stretched caught my attention, and I couldn't quite understand his words, though I heard him. "We had our Eden under that ancient cemetery. We had our faith and our purpose. And it was you who drove us out of it with a flaming sword. What do we have now! Answer me! Nothing but the love of each other and what can that mean to creatures like us!" "No, it's not true, it was all happening already. You don't understand anything. You never did." and he hadn't, he could never. It was as if he couldn't fathom such thoughts, that it wasn't only I who had caused this downfall. It was he, along with his coven. Their inability to accept changes had caused the entire destruction. When they could have changed slowly along with customs, they hadn't. And now the blame fell on me. And he wasn't listening to me, as if the gods had chosen to make things worse, though I couldn't see how. And it really, in the end, didn't matter if he was listening, he had made up his mind on what to do. I dreaded what he was thinking, for I hadn't a clue of what it was. He drew closer to me, and in a dark flash, his hand went out, and my head went back, and I saw the sky and the city of Paris upside down. I was falling through the air. The cold wind freezing my skin. And I went down and down past the windows of the tower until the stone walkway rose up to catch me, and every bone in my body broke within its thin case of prenatural skin� *~*~*~*~* I opened my eyes slightly, then closed them again as the dirt irritated my sensitive sight. How had I gotten into the earth? I tried to move my limbs, but the dirt packed around me ceased any movement I tried to make. I felt a soft mammal crawling past, and I was able to bring it close to me. My unfailing charm to all, even animals, almost made me smile�almost. It came close enough for me to sink my fangs into its soft skin. The fur tasted rank and I found myself almost recoiling, but the blood continued to draw me to it. I groaned as my lips stretched around the animal, feeling the scars on my face stretch, blood seeping before healing. *~*~*~*~* I was yet to weak to move, and night after night I awoke, unable to recall what I had done the night before. Each night reliving the fall, waiting for my inevitable death, but I did not die. Even as I lie in starvation, feeding occasionally from the passing animals, I did not die. I had started to move myself towards the surface, using my talon hands to dig further up. In my dreams during the nights after I had exhausted myself, I saw past experiences, new experiences, madness, dwelling within my head. And there was no escape, for I was here, alone, no one here with me, and nothing else to do�but think. *~*~*~*~*~*~* Dreams�all I could do was dream. I dreaded the nights, wishing quickly for the days. The soft soil surrounding me was crawling with warm blooded creatures, from which I fed often. Slowly I became stronger, moving my limbs upward, straining to reach the surface, to be able to feed from a human again. Feel that hot, surge of blood pumping into my mouth was what I craved. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw a set of green gems. Louis' eyes staring back at me, with that eternally haunted expression so evident. He had been so needful of me when he was just a fledgling, but did he need me now? Of course not. All those times he had come to me, begging for me never to leave him. Yet he had done to me, what he dreaded I would have done to him. Left me. Of all the mistakes I'd made, Claudia had been the one that had finally finished me. If only she had done the job right, killed me rather than make me live through this. All I could think on was all the people I had let down, lost over the years. All the times I had yelled at my two beautiful fledglings, frustrated that I could not share with them what I desperately needed to give out. I damned Marius in my thoughts, for putting such a burden on me. Hadn't he known that it would ruin me? That in my quest for love, for new children, I could never truly get close to them, share my past with them. For if I shared a piece, I would have to tell it all� The nights of my mortal years, hardly remembering the days, drowning in wine and actresses among the light. Mortal passion with Nicki, watching his form as he played the violin. What would it have been like for us had I not been stolen away. Had Magnus merely looked over me and found me unworthy. Or perhaps throwing me in with the other blonde haired, blue eyes boys in his tower. Would I have died then? What would have become of Louis, of Claudia? Armand's expression before he pushed me from the tower served to make me all the more hopeless, that if I did get up from this, walk again among mortals, that he would come after me. Hurt me while I was still weak, still healing. Yet through all of this, I loved him still. The unfeeling monster, trapped in a young boys body, so much like the woman, trapped in Claudia's barely six year old form. But in all of this, in my memories, my jumbled thoughts, illusions took shape before me. What would it have been like had I loved Louis as I always wanted to. Able to earn the love I sought after, had we been happy? My heart ached when these thoughts dwelled in my head, for the truth of it all was that I would never have another chance. I threw it away, and what hurt most of all, was that I never got to tell him the truth. Why I had pushed him away, why I had ridiculed him, and never shared anything with him. Delusions of a happy family, memories of Claudia before she had grown to realize that she would forever be a little child. What if�what if�what if? *~*~*~*~* Three weeks had passed since I had gotten myself underground to avoid the sun's rays. And each night creeped past, maddening me to the point of pain. I had managed to crawl to the surface, weak and crippled, the scars crisscrossing my skin lined with dirt and grime. My hair matted in dirty clumps about my head. I made my way towards the city, towards the smells of blood. Whores screamed when I had them cornered, very nearly snarling as I took their life. Several times, I took the dark haired ones, sometimes taking a man that reminded me dearly of mon Louis. I sobbed each time, knowing that my love was now dead, destroyed. Never could I hold him, drink of him as I wished. I knew that one day, possibly soon, maybe in a few centuries, I would be healed. I would be able to be my old self. But my soul would forever be crippled, for I had found love, and thrown it away. It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. What old bastard had said that? What ludicrous lies. Once one has loved, never can they live again, if the one they have loved is gone. It was two years of ridiculous speculation of past memories, past feelings. Stronger as the nights passed, I was finally able to board a ship which would take me to Louisiana. That place would surely haunt me more than Paris, but I wished to go. And as I sat among the passengers, guarding my face against their probing eyes, I thought of what I might become in the future. Would I be my old self? The hell raising fiend so many admired, loved? I could not know now�not right now. And as I looked out at the waters�the black waters, I felt complete. Perhaps I had gotten over some of the memories that haunted me. I wanted to get to Louisiana, to conclude that chapter of my life�and so I wait� The End *~*~*~* I sort of lost my train of thought towards the end, it wasn't what I imagined before I wrote it, but oh well, at least I finished it. Sorry its not that good. Feedback appreciated, good or bad!!-- Lidia Vans Fan Fiction Home |