#vilentines

with gabrielle having joined their little ragtag coven on the road, lestat's teetering journey to fame across the not - so - great country felt at least somewhat stabilized by a mother's presence ; someone who, on some level, understood just how deeply the music they composed rang in his damned soul – a support to rest on, should his boundless emotions, or rivaling locals, or even daniel's relentless questionings actually manage to run him weary when he was not reclaiming his rightful spot onstage. over two and a half centuries of age, & beneath all that bravado & glamour, they remain in their heart of hearts, a child from auvergne in need of his mother – every bit as beautiful in her cold & brutal nature as she'd been when last they'd crossed paths.

           ❝        hundreds,      ❞        answers lestat, raising gabrielle's hand high to spin her ‘round with grace.            ❝        some with lyrics, some without. most of them scrapped. none of them quite stage ready. you will know them when you hear them, love. and there will be hundreds more, i’m sure. you were, after all, my first muse.      ❞       

Lestat felt empty and numb, like everything that made him what he was had been drained away and only a shell was left. An echo of a man, who had burned alongside Nicki. That poker through his chest, Armand's immense strength, keeping him there and burning him alive. Lestat felt like perhaps he'd burned, too. Why hadn't he? He could have laid down alongside him, held him, sacrificed himself to the fiery end with the man he loved. But he hadn't. He had just watched as the flames lapped at Nicki and scorched and burned and the smell overwhelmed him and he was brought back to the tower and Magnus' self immolation. Strange that he should lose Nicki the same way.

He watched and did not look away and he felt nothing, not really. He should have felt horror, grief, something... anything. And then he felt a hand on his arm, and he tore his gaze away, as the outline of Nicki's body collapsed into ash, and there was Gabrielle. She looked almost sad. His unshakable maman. And then she was speaking, though he could not hear, and she was leading him away and he frantically shook his head, tried to turn back to the fireplace, but she stopped him, and he allowed it. He had no strength to fight. It was all gone, just like Nicki. And so he followed her, to the room where they stored their coffins and she was still speaking but he only caught fragments of it.

It was like someone had stuffed cotton in his ears. Something about sleeping, together. His body moved like it knew what to do, stepping into her coffin. Laying down. Her on top of him, as he clutched at her smaller body, like she too might be lost. And she closed the lid and the darkness surrounded them both as she tried to soothe him and he gazed at the inside of the lid until the deathsleep took him. His dreams were full of wolves and fire. The witch's place and the tower and now Nicki, burning, pleading for help. All his fault. He woke, gasping and crying out, reaching in the darkness for nothing.