#mind gift

pairings: armand x f!reader, past lestat x f!reader

word count: ~1.4k

chapter warnings: captivity, food denial/starvation, stalking, abduction, blood, physical violence, psychological manipulation, mind control, non-consensual use of the Mind Gift, emotional abuse, mentions of death and suicide, bad use of french.

author's note: French glossary at the end. This is alternate canon and intentionally plays loose with the show timeline. This is my first published fanfic, English is not my first language, and this is not proofread. Please be kind ♡

fic summary: It's the 1940s. Paris still smells of fire and war when Armand catches the trail of Lestat’s discarded fledgling. He means to find out what Lestat saw in her, but he just might find something else instead.

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You woke in a cold sweat.

The thin padding of the carpet did little to spare your spine, but the throb in your head had dulled significantly. The blur of the world had focused enough to maintain your vision, allowing you to see a wooden ceiling.

You raised your head slightly, scanning the room for clues as to your whereabouts. Dark carpet. Heavy curtains. A small table in the corner. A big bed with wrinkled sheets. A loveseat. A vanity. A hotel room, perhaps?

You then realized that despite there being a perfectly good mattress as well as a loveseat, your captor had left you to enjoy a sore back by placing you in a heap on the floor.

‘Salaud.’ 

Speak of the devil...

Hey nonny!

(thx for the compliment^^, but I think there’s lots of "experts“ here :) - but I hope I do make sense.)

Ok, a… not so much tough as a bit difficult to explain one! (Sorry it took a bit longer.) There’s also some meta woven into this, because the gifts do not really develop in a linear way.

BOOK SPOILERS AHEAD for those who want to skip this one.

So let’s break it down a bit.

Marius is a roughly 2000 year old vampire, sired by the God of the Grove. His sire exchanged blood with him several times to ensure his strength. He is also the keeper of Those Who Must Be Kept (or was) and has drunk from Akasha several times.

Armand is Marius’ fledgling, Marius hadn’t made fledglings for a while before his Amadeo, so he got quite powerful blood.

Lestat was made by a 300 year old vampire who had never made another one before. He was deemed too strong for a fledgling (ironically by Armand‘s coven). And he then went and drank from both Marius and Akasha, resulting in a severe power-up.

Louis is Lestat’s fledgling, the third one made (in the books in a relatively short time). Of those three, he is the weakest, at least at first (though he should be physically stronger than Claudia).

Now, for the details :)

Generally, all the vampires have the same capacity for their gifts. The dark gift itself (the vampiric life) comes with side effects: the mind gift, the spell gift, the cloud gift, the fire gift. There’s also an intensified version of the last one, the killing gift, which only a handful vampires hold/held. And of course "true“ immortality, no starvation or beheading etc killing you off anymore. @nijah-archive wrote a nice summary of them here.

Marius At the time of the show (book canon or Dubai do not make that much of a difference for him imho)… Marius has severe skills in mind gift, fire gift (discovered more or less by accident) and in cloud gift. He is closing in on being truly immortal. He obviously knows how to use the spell gift (he has lots of human servants and influences the habitants of an island etc) but does not use them to the extent that Armand does (for example). He is stronger than others his age because of his exposure to Akasha‘s blood.

Armand has severe powers focused on mind gift and spell gift. He is 500 years old in (book) IWTV - and spent most of that time in a cult, telling him he is a child of Satan. Others have noted it, and I do think it is likely, that he spent a lot of his time disassociating, and therefore developing these particular skills further. He can call those who wish to die, and he can trap others in illusions. He is also a master manipulator. When he encounters Lestat he immediately falls for him, and tries to win him over with a combination of threat, spell gift and mind gift, literally hurting Lestat’s lover Nicki, and trying to bind him in illusions, while force-feeding on him. (That didn’t go over well). The show gives us Armand with the cloud gift, and the ability to withstand the sun. Personally I take these simple facts (and Fareed being there, and the sheer fact that there is a MARIUS painting in the apartment) as certain hints, which would mean that Armand himself also got a certain power upgrade fairly recently. EDIT: A helpful anon pointed out that he had it after/since Memnoch, so this should be noted here. It does fit with the timeframe imho. The time itself is not "enough“ for this kind of power upgrade, supposedly it takes a few thousand years to withstand the sun. He can likely not use the killing gift, though it is highly likely that he got the access to the fire gift, too. He might also not be truly immortal yet, sun-resistance or not.

Lestat, as stated before, was turned with significant power (too). Off the bat he focuses on the physical skills though (although it might be reasoned that he just didn’t know better). When Gabrielle is turned, it is immediately apparent that she can hear the other vampires better. Lestat strains to improve his skill (and he does). He can call humans and animals to himself (mind/spell gift). He is also mentally strong enough to break out of Armand’s spell gift by sheer will. Later he regularly scans and listens in on others, and is exceptionally able to lock down his own mind completely (that has been noted several times in the books), and "rebuffs“ others mentally meaning he has significant access to the spell gift and mind gift, but/and uses it differently. The power upgrade through Marius and Akasha (IN The Vampire Lestat) did not immediately bring out the other skills for him (in the books he is simply too young), however it meant that he would survive Claudia’s attempted murder, and what happened after. Marius also showed him the telekinesis part of the mind gift. In the books, the events of Queen of the Damned leave Lestat truly immortal, and equipped with fire gift, full mind gift, and ability to withstand the sun (he tries that one out later, and then uses it for tanning ^^). Over the course of the books he drinks from other older vampires several times, as well as from… supposedly God. His strength is beyond scale, however it IS noted that he is no match in sheer physical strength for the truly ancient ones (several thousand years old). In the show… well Lestat is 130 years older (than in the books). He would have had more experience with the vampiric gifts in general, which explains (imho) why he can access the power upgrade ones. It is noted that Nicki happened over 100 years ago, which leaves a significant gap. We know he did indeed encounter Marius through the Those Who Must Be Kept mention. If Lestat went and slept (as in the books, just longer) then his blood would have distilled somewhat before Marius woke him. (Which would make Louis somewhat stronger than in the books, too (imho).) Show Lestat has the cloud gift and a very powerful mind gift/spell gift already, though it does seem as if it takes a significant amount of power still (bleeding ears and he seems weak after). Probably indicating fairly recent acquisition, which would fit with the show/book timeline and an encounter of Marius/Those Who Must be Kept just prior to coming to the US. His little trick to stop the time is actually "just“ a rather clever combination of mind gift (telekinesis) and spell gift. (As it is something that obviously can come in very handy it doesn’t really surprise me he would have developed it, bc. he is often very practical/matter-of-fact with his gifts.)

Now Louis. Supposedly Louis is one of the weakest vampires. The most human-like. And in the books he keeps the possibility of suicide-by-the-sun as a kind of trump card till Merrick, refusing several offers for ancient blood. In the show Louis says he could hear Claudia calling for help, and he does call out to her, mentally. However she is able to lock him out, instinctively, which indicates that his mind gift is not overly developed. And he apparently does not hear or notice any other vampires close by either (contrary to Lestat who can hear them on long distance). Louis also gets a severe power upgrade after/at the end of Merrick. Show/Dubai Louis quite apparently has drunk from powerful sources, Armand obviously, and maybe others. (He always had an affinity for setting things on fire, so when he demonstrated the fire gift there were lots of "uh ohs“ by book readers :))) However he obviously is not strong enough to withstand the sun and the cloud gift is also very unlikely (though not impossible as of now). As I said before it actually sets the show in a very specific time slot book-wise if we can take the shown skills as literal hints.

So in summary:

The gifts and the powers of them depend a bit on their respective usage and affinity. And the personal approach. And circumstance :)

Obviously the access (time or powerful/old blood) has to be a given, i.e. Lestat in the books only tries out the cloud gift after knowing he has it.

It’s practice IF and WHEN you can.

And, it depends where you put the focus. Lestat also knows the killing gift because Akasha taught him in order for him to serve her. But it’s a skill based on the mind gift and fire gift.

Louis barely has any gifts for a long time because Lestat tries to keep him as human as possible, for a lot of reasons. It will be interesting to see if the show addresses that. Him developing (or adopting) the fire gift with the power through blood is not surprising, unfortunately (coughs).

If we (hopefully) get our seasons we will likely get more displays of these skills, too.

This is what Sam said:

There were a lot of micro-rewrites that were happening as the scripts were coming out, and I knew this was the plot twist from quite early on because I needed to know when Lestat knew. We did multiple options, and usually they put in that I did know. So you can go back and watch the series and see, “Oh, Lestat can hear what they're saying to each other in their heads here.” But definitely by episode six he can hear the entire conversations that they're having. That was a fun thing to do. When they're having those mind conversations, the lines are being read out for us on set. So we're all reacting to them in a specific way.

Now, as pointed out (and discussed...) there are parts of the books and show that support this, and parts that contradict.

For ME, personally, it is something else though...

Because - they are reacting to those lines being read in a specific way - and yes, you can see that in the show.

Jacob, Bailey and Sam, who are all extremely good actors, are reacting to it.

Which leaves us with in-universe reactions to the telepathic communication that Louis and Claudia do, totally apart from the blatant display(s) of it in episode 2.

OK, so... (need to expand a bit on this):

After his turning Lestat concentrated mostly on the physical aspects of his powers.

First, he traveled with Gabrielle, who he could not hear directly, then after he met Marius he went over the Atlantic and lived a as-human-as-possible life with Louis and Claudia... who were also both his fledglings, so he couldn't hear them directly.

In the books there are not that many vampires in the US at the time... so there had been no need to use the mind gift that way.

Then, the attempted murder, Paris, healing, and eventually he went to earth - not much need for the mind gift there either.

After the concert and the interlude with Akasha he uses the mind gift to pick the various stories from the others' minds, with Maharet for example:

I'd sat silently, scanning her mind as she talked, for all the little things she was leaving out.

Lestat ... prefers to lock down his mind to actually reading minds the whole time.

He states in TtotBT that:

I could also call to other immortals over countries and continents with my preternatural voice, and I could effortlessly read the minds of vampires and humans.

But... he hates that. He says a bit later, also in TtotBT:

I closed my eyes, letting my head drop just a little to one side, bracing myself perhaps for the full effects of this power which I so loathed. First came an amplification of the hearing again, as if I had thrown a modern technological switch. The soft purring sounds of the world became a chorus from hell-full of sharp- edged laughter and lamentation, full of lies and anguish and random pleas. I covered my ears as if that could stop it, then finally I shut it off.

In Memnoch, he notes that thoughts can be projected carelessly (what I call broadcasting):

I had projected the thought, carelessly, yes, obviously with purpose.

And in Prince Lestat, he says this in regards to the voice:

I have always been able to tune him out. No problem. Either you learn to tune out telepathic voices when you are a vampire or you go straight out of your mind. I can tune out the cries of the living just as easily.

He also notes that despite the limits on the telepathy (the mind gift):

There are physical limits to telepathy in our world. Of course. But then voices, pleas, messages, thoughts, can be relayed through other minds, and conceivably, this poor slob could be mumbling to himself on the other side of the planet.

And, he notes there that he is able to fully lock down:

I noted this and locked my mind like a vault.

All of this is to say - it's not a general thing that Lestat can not lock his mind, or does not have the power to read. I believe he didn't care enough at times to lock down. Or push beyond resistence. And maybe he wanted them to read him, too, because sometimes the things you cannot voice are clear in your mind (in regards to David).

Raglan James caught Lestat in a very vulnerable phase, too - Lestat didn't care much about anything else, he wanted to be mortal again, he loathed his powers at that point, as he very clearly states there:

I loathed it. Without doubt, I was grieving for my old selves-the mortal boy, the newborn revenant once determined to be good at being bad if that was his predicament.

I think that state of mind... left him a bit hare-brained, then. I think that is the main "reason".

Which made it easy for strong mind readers to influence him, or read thoughts from him. For me it simply fits with his state of mind then, the premise of the story.