Okay gang, first of likely several long text posts from me: this is a vignette I wrote while watching IWTV season 2 about Armand's thoughts and feelings about Claudia that may or may not ever get incorperated into a fic I officially post, so... get analyzed through prose, nerd
I saw myself in Claudia in that moment. Not the being I had become, but the potential of that boy in Delhi had he had the courage to hold onto himself. Claudia was who I could have been had I not been a coward, and she died for it. Her refusal to give any ground that was rightfully hers brewed jealousy in those around her, regardless of how much more powerful, how much more ancient they were than this vampiress who had clawed herself into their lives like she deserved the pedestal she found. And she did deserve it. Her brash acknowledgement of what was left unsaid terrified the liars around her who had survived centuries on stolen secrets that were not theirs to keep. Her unbridled power, which she did not care to obscure, lit resentment for those who had for so long been forced to hide in the masks I had created to keep them safe.
Even in her death, Claudia was a fighter, more clever, more brave, more unapologetically compassionate than I could ever hope to be. She held her companion in her arms, protected her coven with her mind and body, swore revenge I knew she had every intention of collecting on while keeping every eye on her. Becoming the spectacle, the scapegoat, Santiago had molded her into in the eyes of the audience, and capturing that gaze, twisting it so she held the reins of every conscience in the room even as she burned. I have survived in shadows. Given up all of myself, found new identity after new identity to cling onto to continue moving. I have compromised every moral principle, every stated law, every promise or secret that has ever been confided in me to keep going.
There is something inside of me that claws at the cage of my mortal form. Not the vampire. Not the beast, the bird of prey that soars under my skin, along my veins craving the hunt, searching for a victim. Nestled inside me is something else. Alongside the demon lies a restless, desperate boy willing to do anything, sacrifice anything to find comfort. The comfort of a mentor, of a lover, of a family, a coven, anything to find rest. He is driven by fear, a fear of vampire loneliness perhaps, but foremost, the fear of oblivion. Not the oblivion of death. I've made my peace with death, after all, it comes for us all in the end. Immortality does not overwrite the end of life, simply staves it off a little longer. The concept is not frightening, it never truly has been. Not for the boy in Delhi, nor the boy in Venice, or Rome, or the man sent to Paris. Death, rather, has always been a fascination, an obsession I've held in its nature of true incomprehensibility. None can describe death to the living, not truly, just as the undead can never truly prepare a mortal for an eternal life in the grasp of the Dark Gift. Death is a door, and behind it, perhaps there lies a comfort that can no longer be found in this world for me. Perhaps a freedom from the tribulations of immortality could be found past the veil of existence. I do not crave death though, I cannot. Because what comfort could be found in a state of unbeing which I have been deprived of for over five centuries. I cannot crave death because I cannot comprehend myself becoming one with it. Too many years spent alive has blinded me to any conception I may have had of myself as a mortal prone to that oblivion. No.
The oblivion I fear is much closer than death could ever be to me. This oblivion has caressed my skin, breathed down my neck, nipped at my heels since before I can remember my name. The fear of meaninglessness. The fear that I will walk the surface of the Earth for all eternity without a purpose, without a goal. No focus put in front of me for my hands to untangle, my claws to cut, my teeth to snap. No matter how much pain I have endured across my many lifetimes I have always done it with a purpose, chosen or not, but in the end the choice of a life, free will? It's irrelevant. Arun had a purpose - tasks to perform, a price to be won. Amadeo had a purpose - a master to serve, a beauty to be captured. Armand had a purpose - a coven to lead, a world to protect, and now - a love to chase.
Claudia inspired awe and rage and jealousy in everyone she came across, and I was no exception. Her life was forfeit as soon as she was made, I felt no guilt in taking it a few years earlier than she would have taken it herself, still cannot manage to dredge up anything but performed grief for Louis' sake. My purpose rests on Louis’ shoulders, and he cannot love one who played a hand in destroying the one he loved most. It is a losing game, but playing knowing I'm bound to lose is better than surrendering my seat entirely. Without the game I become that oblivion. In another world I would flip the table, end the game and claim that courage Claudia had cultivated before she knew just how vast the world before her was. Take hold of my destiny even if I were to ruin it in the process. In another world Claudia stays at the table, silent, and gets to keep playing. Claims the long life I have been granted just to continue hiding. In this world she outlasts me, and I haunt her in my jealousy. In our world, where I cower and she sings, she haunts me in my jealousy. Maybe there could have been a time we would have complimented each other. Both burned by the same brand before we were old enough to know what love was supposed to be. But it is not this one, nor any in this world where I have clawed my way through three, four, five, and six lifetimes to find a muse. One of tragedy and heartbreak and love doomed to fall.
I suppose in that way Claudia and I are the same, even in this world. Even now, as her ashes mix with the foundations of a city that could have been her salvation but brought her, in the end, to oblivion. We both are doomed to the fate we were tied to as mortals. The Dark Gift saved Claudia from a fire, only to burn for the transgression of daring to revel in its boons. I was gifted immortality to free me from the fragilities of my mortal existence, and now I bind myself with those same chains to persevere past the oblivion I fear above all else. Perhaps in that way I do miss her, in the same way I miss the man I could have been. The woman she could have become. Perhaps I do mourn, because who else could understand her doomed soul like the one who set it free.
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