#nik re-reads TVC

[faerywhimsy]

"You have to understand the age," Gabrielle continued,

"You think I live in the past. You don't understand that I actually change with every era, I always have as best I can," said Armand crossly (MtD)

"through its literature and its music and its art. You have come up out of the earth, as you yourself put it. Now live in the world."

I didn't die. Not by any means. I awoke to hear her playing, but she and her piano were very far away. In the first few hours after twilight, when the pain was at its worst, I used the sound of her music, used the search for it, to keep myself from screaming in madness because nothing could make the pain stop. (TVA)

No answer from Armand. Flash of Nicki's ravaged flat with all its books on the floor. Western civilization in heaps. "And what better place is there than the center of things, the boulevard and the theater?" Gabrielle asked.

His eyes were large, childlike. "I want to be in the vital center of things the way I was years ago in Paris in the Theater of the Vampires. Surely you remember. I want to be a canker in the very eye of the world." (QotD)

Armand frowned, his head turning dismissively, but Gabrielle pressed on. "Your gift is for leading the coven, and your coven is still there." He made a soft despairing sound.

"It was a battle for us to achieve what we've achieved here. It's far easier to wander in despair, isn't it, to drift from place to place, never making a commitment. But I forced it. I brought Louis and Benji and Sybelle here. I insisted on it." (PL)

"Nicolas is a fledgling," she said. "He can teach them much about the world outside, but he cannot really lead them. The woman, Eleni, is amazingly clever, but she will make way for you." "What is it to me, their games?" he whispered. "It is a way to exist," she said. "And that is all that matters to you now."

"Come inside," said Armand softly. Antoine felt Armand's arm around him. Such strength. "Don't be afraid," said Armand. There stood the incandescent Sybelle smiling at him, and beside her the unmistakable Benji Mahmoud in a black fedora with his small hand extended. "We'll take care of you," said Armand. "Come inside with us." (PL)

Armand may have cursed Lestat, but Gabrielle gave Armand the framework by which he lived the whole series after.

[faerywhimsy]

TL;DR

Nobody: ....

Me: So Benji Mahmoud could have been an incredibly important and dynamic character, with relevant ties to multiple themes Prince Lestat did a good job pulling on. I would have been real happy to have seen more of his character and, since I didn't, I guess I'll settle for writing about it here.

Hyperlinks go to the posts I thought of as I wrote this.

I've been feeling pulled to post a lot of head canons that involve Benji lately and I think I'm starting to kinda stumble across why it all of a sudden feels important to me.

Like a lot of things in this fandom, it actually starts with Daniel.

Daniel is the only character we see in the original TVC trilogy, in real time, being human and then being brought into the blood. He's just Some Guy who happens to start all this shit that blows out 13 books. And that's relatable. Most series have that character through which the reader comes into the world of the story. It's an established narrative technique.

And then we get the final TVC trilogy, the three books we never thought we'd get because Anne kinda finished the series a decade before and went on to bigger and better things.

*cough* not *cough*

So we get the final trilogy. In which we are introduced to a blond, male character, human when we meet him but, oh no, he gets involved with vampires and ultimately ends up begging to be turned, then spends the rest of the series as a vampire.

Stop me if you've heard this story before.

Now I've got nothing against Viktor. His romance with Rose seems sweet, and he's always going to have a bit of the centre stage just because he's the literal genetic clone of our main protagonist, Lestat. It's a bit hokey but, you know, so is a lot of what we ended up with in the later books. We're just grateful it didn't all end with Blood Canticle and now weed out the things we like.

It's just... I can't help thinking an existing youthful vampire from TVC would have given deeper resonance to the story than introducing a new character with a similar trajectory did.

What might the last trilogy might have been like if Benji—the third human-turned-vampire we meet between these two characters—had been just a little bit more utilised. Not as a love interest, or a plot point, but for himself. Cause just his placement in time and circumstance offers a lot of narrative potential.

We first meet Benji Mahmoud as an important character in Armand's recovery after he attempts suicide. He asks to be made into a vampire, but isn't obsessed by it, pretty much accepts it and moves on when Armand tells him it can't be done. ("Oh, never. I don't have such a power. It's never done." "Then who made you?" "I was born out of a black egg." - TVA)

There's a lot of a sense that he and his companion Sybelle are replacements to a writer who no longer wished to write about Daniel in Armand's emotional trajectory, and I know that put me off both these characters for years. But the side effect is, we get a continuity to show Armand doesn't just stop after Daniel walks out on him, and can choose to read that Armand was hurting and traumatised when recounting these events to David.

Back to Benji. When Benji is turned, he is 12 years old and it's the end of 1998. There's a reason I like both of these things: 12 years old is just about the youngest I've heard any us fans picking up the TVC series of books (omg that's way too young for this content, my friends, I mourn all our brain chemistry), and the birth year of 1986 makes Benji not just a millennial, but lot closer in age and experience to a lot of us than the far off birth year of 1952 for Daniel-the-Baby-Boomer. I also think it would have been a lot easier to remember to read Daniel as not a millennial had there been another character front and centre who was.

The way I see it, Benji could have added so much nuance as a character of TVC if he'd been fleshed out. Most of the time if I remember to think of Benji in canon, he seems like the faded middle child, a plot point with a name in Prince Lestat, nothing resembling a fully fleshed out character.

And that makes me sad. Sad for his character, and sad for us. I'm not saying get rid of Viktor, don't get me wrong, I'm just saying that in a cast of 183282 vampires, there was surely enough room to do more with Benji than give him a radio show recorded within the walls of Trinity Gate.

Like, just off the top of my head: Did he ever leave those walls? Was he still as much of a smart ass with a commentary on everything after 20 years in the blood? What did he figure out that he liked to do with his time when he wasn't recording? Did he remain close to Sybelle? How did he feel about forever holding the visage of a 12 year old? What kind of evil doers did he hunt? What was his relationship with Armand? What did he think of Daniel? Was it a bit awkward coming face to face with his maker, Marius, after so long? Was he included with the guys whenever Armand, Lestat and Louis caught up? Is he more like Daniel at court, really fitting in more amongst the more ancient characters, or does he prefer coming across as one of the wiser young ones when he visits Auvergne?

Hell, if Viktor is basically Lestat's son and Benji is kinda Armand's son, what do the interactions of that Next Generation look like??

Conversely, what were Armand's thoughts beyond the immediate aftermath of Benji and Sybelle having been brought into the blood? Did he lose interest in Benji after Marius turned him? Was he protective of him? Were there times when he looked at Benji and felt woefully guilty about Claudia who died for the offence of being a child vampire? Was Benji a way for Armand to heal the mistakes he had made with both Claudia and Daniel in different ways before him? Louis and Benji live in the same house for at least 10 years together; what were their interactions like and did Armand have any thoughts on those?

[faerywhimsy]

Re-reading That Fight between Armand and Lestat (TVL) because I want to make myself sad - and then write fic to make other people sad (you're welcome). And is it wrong that all I'm thinking is that Armand is so desperate to give to Lestat the illusion that

"it seemed that none of the other things had happened. There was no crypt under les Innocents, and he had not been that ancient fearful fiend. We were somehow safe. We were the sum of our desires and this was saving us, and the vast untasted horror of my own immortality did not lie before me, and we were navigating calm seas with familiar beacons, and it was time to be in each other's arms."

Because, for Armand, the reality is and always has been that he is nothing more than

"a broken child on the gravel path, only yards from the passing traffic, the ring of horses' hooves, the rumble of the wooden wheels. And in this broken child were centuries of evil and centuries of knowledge, and out of him there came no ignominious entreaty but merely the soft and bruised sense of what he was. Old, old evil, eyes that had seen dark ages"

and that reality is hard enough for Armand to bear that he wants only to give joy to Lestat who he already loves (I'm not saying he went about it the right way, mind you, but that's a different post).

Lestat is originally able to make the connection between the vision vs the reality of Armand way back when, but it isn't until Prince Lestat that he finally articulates that the original meaning he attributed to this and so much else was not truth.

"Armand isn't the moral cipher I once thought he was. So much of what I thought about us, our minds, our souls, our moral evolution or devolution, was just wrong in the books I wrote. Armand's not without compassion, not without a heart."

I wonder if Armand wished Lestat severed his head from his shoulders in that early moment between them. And how much it would have pained him if he'd scanned for Lestat's mind shortly thereafter and found how quick Lestat found a solace and a mentor in Marius.

[faerywhimsy]

Vamptember Day 12 - "Love never dies a natural death"

Today I'm back to my nonsense about my beloved Bianca Solderini.

Here is a chronology of our girl Bianca: Marius' briefly human companion after Santino abducts Amadeo, burning down the Palazzo and leaving Marius a blackened shadow of his former self. Marius brings Bianca into the blood. They occasionally argue to the point where Marius cloud gifts her to a place she can't return to him again, before he feels really bad about it and brings her back again—

While there's an argument to be made that—just as The Vampire Armand was Armand's burn book—Blood and Gold was Marius' maudlin self pity after seeing Armand in Queen of the Damned, I'm still sore about that.

Bianca accepts his temper is just a part of Marius and stands loyal by him for centuries. But they come to a permanent separation after Bianca overhears the way Marius throws her aside for the possibility of being with Pandora again. Like, does Bianca comfort him on the night Pandora rejects, bringing Marius to her cold grave. "It is early for you, but I must go and I can't leave you this way." <3

Less than a page later, as soon as Marius is himself again, my girl, like a boss, informs him in no uncertain terms that she's finally put up with enough and is leaving.

"I heard the things you said to her. And I'm leaving you."

This is around the mid-17th century.

So it's not impossible Bianca goes immediately from Marius in Dresden to Armand in Paris in that brief, possible interaction in TVA before Armand comes across Louis for the first time. Likely she's licking her wounds and building her courage. But then Armand scares her away.

This actually does make a great deal of sense from Bianca's PoV. Marius had regularly been utilising the Telamasca to keep tabs not just on Pandora, but also on Amadeo (now of course Armand). Through Marius, Bianca understands Armand has spent the last hundred years making himself coven master to the Children of Darkness. At his worst, he has completely eschewed any softer feelings or the lessons Marius left him with over only killing the evil doer. In fact, the more innocent the mortal, the more pleasure Armand seems to take in the killing.

Secondhand knowledge is confirmed by reality at the dawn of the 20th century: Armand has changed from the Amadeo she loved into a man Bianca has no ability to recognise.

And then... We don't see Bianca chronologically in canon until Lestat finds her and Allesandra in Paris in Prince Lestat.

It's the century between that visitation at the turn of the 20th century and the end of it that captivates me. Bianca isn't at all present or mentioned by the time we have Queen of the Damned in 1988. Other characters that she's later seen with in Prince Lestat are present for Akasha's Burnings.

And so my investigation begins.

Maybe Bianca had not forgiven Marius by the time Pandora and Santino (🙃) were searching for Marius at the beginning of Akasha's reign of terror. And that's why Bianca did not come to his aid. (It's not like Armand pulled himself away from Daniel either.)

That explanation suffices, or else more simply: The first burning passed over Bianca and her still relatively new fledgling. They were grateful and saw no need to involve themselves in happenings that were by majority occurring on the other side of the world. It's just... they were not so lucky when it came to the second Burning.

"But I'll tell you that, why I am suffering," Bianca said, drawing near but talking in a normal and not a confidential voice, her arm slipping around me [Lestat]. "I lost one I loved in the attack in Paris, a young one, one I'd made and lived with for decades. But this was the Voice at work, not the one he'd brought out of the earth to do his bidding."

This moment where Bianca is just... comfortable enough to slip her arm around Lestat? It's so incredibly maddening to me because the two of them have never before had an interaction on the page before Paris.

How does this moment between Lestat and Bianca come about? There are two obvious options that immediately come to mind for an explanation, then, of the affection evident between Bianca and Lestat (outside of the love every vampire in this universe has for Lestat).

1) more happened between Armand and Bianca directly in the years between 1998 (TVA) and 2013 (PL) when Lestat and Armand were on better terms (??)

2) Armand told Lestat of his beloved Bianca Solderini before Lestat went into the ground

Picture this: Lestat is weakened from Louis' and Claudia's attack on him. He asks and is refused healing blood from Armand. Fair enough. Maybe Armand makes a throwaway line, "I wouldn't give my healing blood to even my beloved Bianca Solderini if she had treated me as you have!"

It's entirely possible Armand would have mentioned her here, after all. Remember he thinks he sighted Bianca in Paris earlier in the decade.

And so Lestat, hurting and humbled, wanders back towards New Orleans. But it just so happens that Bianca has also found herself in this part of the world at the same time. She has come across the occasional immortal on her travels up till now but, with them, a quick scan of the mind always shows little more than whether or not there is an intention to harm.

Lestat's mind is different in two ways: He is clearly far from his best but, also, there are familiar figures in this immortal's mind. Marius, and Armand.

They stare at each other in shock, hardly able to parse that they have two such influential figures on each of their lives in common - yet they have never before met. Bianca immediately offers him aid, and Lestat's mind throws up the memory of the words Armand threw at him.

She doesn't completely recoil. Bianca's used to Marius' temper. She knows how unkind men can be and does not jump to assume either Lestat or Armand must be the right. She's just tired, so tired of being alone. So she asks Lestat to give her stories of Armand and, in exchange, she will offer him a little of her blood that is almost as powerful as Armand's.

Lestat accepts this deal, and Bianca hears about Armand from someone other than Marius for the first time in almost 400 years. She ends up in tears with it. Lestat cannot stand the idea of yet another blood drinker flying into a rage over what is only truth to him. He knows he will not survive it, even with the small amount of blood she has granted him.

That will be just enough to get him safely the rest of the way back to New Orleans.

And so, while Bianca mourns, Lestat takes his leave from her, apologising, thanking her for her kindness, but asking her not to follow him.

She doesn't. Bianca wishes Lestat well and thinks on him often while he sleeps.

Because he is the last blood drinker she holds company with for several decades. By the 1950s, she finds herself in California, at which point the mind of a human girl captivates her. She is strong, this girl, recently sent away from her family to give birth to a baby she was forced to then give up for adoption.

But this girl refuses to fall down to depression despite the current isolation from her family, her younger brother, her old friends. She's getting her diploma in night classes, and Bianca finds herself quietly stalking her, curious at her thoughts and her resilience.

She's not as subtle as she thinks she is, and the girl confronts her one night, telling her that if she's going to be appearing out of nowhere every night, the very least she can do is buy her a soda.

The first time Bianca reaches for her hand, the girl pulls it away, before realising she doesn't need to worry anymore about what others might think of her holding another woman's hand. Bianca asks her where she would like to go in the world if she could go anywhere. Her eyes light up at the idea of being able to leave California behind her.

And this is the fledgling Bianca mentions in passing. The reason Bianca does not appear in Queen of the Damned is explained: Bbecause her fledgling refused to go back to California, and Bianca wouldn't make her. Lestat gave her the highlights after it was all over. He even visited the two of them on one of his visits to France.

The hug Bianca gives to Lestat in that moment of Prince Lestat, then, gets to be a quiet moment of recognition between them. Bianca is glad to know Lestat is okay because she can't help but think of their first meeting, and this time it is Bianca who's the one that's utterly bereft, while Lestat is as fit and healthy as Bianca was on their first meeting.

Their roles have quite reversed.

@vamptember

[faerywhimsy]

TD;DR

No one: …

Me: So I know Lestat's the main character of Prince Lestat, but did any of the other beloved characters see the warning signs of the Voice/Amel in the world before it started going around compelling the old ones into killing younglings.

Sorry, killing young ones. And what might those warning signs have looked like?

Prince Lestat is meant to be read as a sequel to Queen of the Damned and, structurally, its many view points succeeds in that goal. However, thematically, there was so much a missed opportunity in actually seeing many of our favourite characters still existing in the aftermath of maybe as little as a decade still scrambling with the grief and loss and so many abruptly silenced minds...

None of them were... doing well... post-Akasha. But then the tension begins to build again.

Slowly, at first. Disconnected fragments across the continents of the world.

Because it's not like these immortals have ever been the best at communicating directly:—

The Coven and the Courtiers - A Guide (QotD 1.5)

Khayman is with Maharet, never straying too far from the jungles of the Amazon, when he picks up the first murmurings of malcontent from the spirit they moved from Akasha into Mekare. It is not happy within its new host. But perhaps it wasn't happy in its previous host either. Akasha sat as a statue under Marius for centuries before ever waking up. Khayman wonders if they're going to have that long again.

Marius is in Brazil with Daniel. He cannot help himself from scanning nearby minds, even as he claims a hope to remain on the sidelines of their world after the disastrous end of his two millennia caring for the Mother and Father. Marius is therefore one of the first who hears word of a very early and isolated Burning that doesn't seem to have any connection back to Akasha. But it would be foolish to ignore them completely, especially when the last Burnings are still so recent.

Pandora's returned to Arjun in India, but he has begun to act strangely. Because of the veil between their minds, she can only ever understand it through the words he offers for explanation. He wishes for the sanctuary of the earth. Inwardly, Pandora wonders if it was her urge to rush to Marius' aid when he was encased in the ice. She doesn't think it was her alliance with Santino, who is now of course dead to them all. She watches Arjun—before he goes into the ground—because he is the love of her life. She watches him because something deep within tells her something's not right.

Mael was filled with a profound sense of purpose during the first Burning. He would look after Maharet and Jesse. Yet, he had failed in that. Since the Burning, Khayman has taken over as Maharet's consort and companion and that's left Mael with... nothing. His maker Avicus has a new coven in Geneva now, with immortals as old as Gregory and as young as Davis. If Avicus thinks of Mael at all, he has no cause to think it. He's had a very long life but, without any sense of purpose calling him, there is no long any care in him. Not for himself, not for any his kind.

Bianca's in Paris with her new fledgling. They never imagine anything could hurt them. Why would they? The first Burning passed them over without so much as coming near them. There's a rumour passed around Europe lately that bringing one into the blood no longer seems to be happening the way it used to. Tales of mute zombies with hearts that won't beat—truly dead things in the place of fledglings—abound. But even that's easy to ignore when Bianca and her own fledgling feel so young, and in love, and immortal.

David is one of three who were mortal during the last interaction with a Queen of Vampires. He and Jesse talk about it sometimes. Jesse has kept up contact with the Great Family in South America, just as David kept some of his contacts within the Talamasca in Britain, younger ones who didn't mind seem to mind when he became a vampire. The same ones Marius' maker Teskhamen has also given his life into the hands of. They're the ones to bring David's attention to Burnings-related incidents as they start making the news on human television stations. They're the ones to ask him if this is something they should be worried about.

Gabrielle alone is able to say that—when the Queen descended on them the last time—she was the one in risk of losing her only remaining son. She knows many think her cold, but they don't know the pain of burying a child born of their womb. Gabrielle has hardened herself because it's the only protection she's found for her heart and her time in Turkey with the ancient handmaid Sevraine has not her changed utterly. Oh, Gabrielle's not blind, she knows her son will not let this world come to an end. Nor is she—first fledgling of Lestat—unaware of the Voice that whispers to him now.

Killer is in Philadelphia and is only just a century in the blood and one of the youngest outside the "Coven of the Articulate" to have survived Akasha's massacre. Killer makes up part of the Fang Gang, the coven that lies closest to Armand in New York City, less than two hours away. He may only be notable for his proximity to Armand, and his prior connection to Davis, but even he senses the change in Armand as word begins to trickle back to Trinity Gate and the Fang Gang are forced to disband.

Armand knows already he will protect his chosen family at all costs, from any future threats or Burnings. Was there a moment he considered taking them all underground where none would find them should anything resurface? Yes, though he'll never admit it. There was always that concern that the Sacred Core residing in Mekare would corrupt her. Is that what they are starting to see now?

Louis can hear nothing for himself, of course. But Lestat's visits to Trinity Gate begin to grow more and more sporadic and Louis can see Armand grows steadily more tightly wound as the world around them changes again. But still Louis counsels his love and companion to pause. Wait. Be vigilant, but if Khayman and Marius have told them they are already watchful of possible threat, they are likely not the only old ones to do so.

Benji's too much like Armand; he will protect the ones he considers his tribe. He never really understood how the old ones isolate themselves, hasn't really had enough interaction with them to recognise it in any real way. For him, immortals live like they do in Trinity Gate. Benji's radio show begins slowly, like a modern analog of Armand's Théâtre des Vampires, in that no human hearing it will believe, but blood drinkers will find what they need.

I was going to suggest Lestat's probably one of the youngest immortal to actually hear Amel's voice. Then I remembered how strong in the blood Daniel's always been depicted for his age. So yeah he's mad, but that's not helped by the fact Amel started yammering at him from the same point as Lestat. "He rages," said Daniel. "When he's gotten into my head, he's raged."

Cause it's a psychic blast, people. Even Lestat acknowledges, "the Voice is working on a number of fronts".

In any case, all of this is more or less the outline of what I've been thinking of as the QotD 1.5 head canon, something that's being played out in How They Get to Trinity Gate as we get to the pointy end of the fic.

[faerywhimsy]

First Impressions - Fear, Madness and Armand: Lestat with Armand in The Vampire Lestat vs. Daniel with Armand in Queen of the Damned

I couldn't think. Pages turning, paper crinkling. Soft sound of the newspaper dropping to the floor. Go back to the tower at once. I went to pass the library quickly, when without warning Armand's soundless voice shot out and stopped me. It was like a hand touching my throat. (TVL)

The fourth night, Daniel had awakened and known at once that someone or something was in the room. The door lay open to a passage. Water was flowing somewhere fast as if in a deep underground sewer. Slowly his eyes grew accustomed to the dirty greenish light from the doorway and then he saw the pale white-skinned figure standing against the wall. (QotD)

I turned and saw him staring at me. Do you love them, your silent children? Do they love you? That was what he asked, the sense disentangling itself from an endless echo. (TVL)

The voice had been gentle with a trace of an accent. Not European; something sharper yet softer at the same time. Arabic or Greek perhaps, that kind of music. The words were slow and without anger. "Get out. Take your tapes with you. They are there beside you. I know of your book. No one will believe it." (QotD)

I felt the blood rise to my face. The heat spread out over me like a mask as I looked at him. All the books in the room were now on the floor. He was a haunt standing in the ruins, a visitant from the devil he believed in. (TVL)

Then you won't kill me. And you won't make me one of you either. Desperate, stupid thoughts, but Daniel couldn't stop them. He had seen the power! No lies, no cunning here. And he'd felt himself crying, so weakened by fear and hunger, reduced to a child. (QotD)

Yet Armand's face was so tender, so young. The Dark Trick never brings love, you see, it brings only the silence. (TVL)

"Make you one of us?" The accent thickened, giving a fine lilt to the words. "Why would I do that?" Eyes narrowing. "I would not do that to those whom I find to be despicable, whom I would see burning in hell as a matter of course. So why should I do it to an innocent fool - like you?" (QotD)

His voice seemed softer in its soundlessness, clearer, the echo dissipated. We used to say it was Satan's will, that the master and the fledgling not seek comfort in each other. It was Satan who had to be served, after all. (TVL)

"You will go mad in time from this knowledge. That's what always happens. But you're not mad yet." No. This is real, it's all happening. You're Armand and we're talking together. And I'm not mad. "Yes. And I find it rather interesting... interesting that you know my name and that you're alive. I have never told my name to anyone who is alive." Armand hesitated. "I don't want to kill you. Not just now."(QotD)

Every word penetrated me. Every word was received by a secret, humiliating curiosity and vulnerability. But I refused to let him see this. Angrily I said: "What do you want of me?" It was shattering something to speak. I was feeling more fear of him at this moment than ever during earlier battles and arguments, and I hate those who make me feel fear, those who know things that I need to know, who have that power over me. "It is like not knowing how to read, isn't it? " Armand said aloud. "You're taking these things from my mind..." I said. I was appalled.(TVL)

Daniel had felt the first touch of fear. If you looked closely enough at these beings you could see what they were. It had been the same with Louis. No, they weren't living. They were ghastly imitations of the living. And this one, the gleaming manikin of a young boy! "I am going to let you leave here," Armand had said. So politely, softly. "I want to follow you, watch you, see where you go. As long as I find you interesting, I won't kill you. And of course, I may lose interest altogether and not bother to kill you. That's always possible. You have hope in that." (QotD)

Armand was speaking again, but in silence. They never satisfy you, the ones you make. In silence the estrangement and the resentment only grow. I willed myself to move but I wasn't moving. I was merely looking at him as he went on. You long for me and I for you, and we alone in all this realm are worthy of each other. Don't you know this? "This is madness," I whispered. "Is it madness?" he asked. "Go then to your silent ones." (TVL)

"And maybe with luck I'll lose track of you. I have my limitations, of course. You have the world to roam, and you can move by day. Go now. Start running. I want to see what you do, I want to know what you are." (QotD)

[faerywhimsy]

Here again spouting more of my VC nonsense in my impromptu The Vampire Lestat re-read. Armand first curses Lestat, then we spend the rest of TVL kinda seeing everything Armand's predicted come to pass on top of Lestat.

"Oh, but it's always a travesty, don't you see?" Armand said with that same gentleness. "Each time the death and the awakening will ravage the mortal spirit, so that one will hate you for taking his life, another will run to excesses that you scorn. A third will emerge mad and raving, another a monster you cannot control. One will be jealous of your superiority, another shut you out." And here he shot his glance to Gabrielle again and half smiled. "And the veil will always come down between you. Make a legion. You will be, always and forever, alone! "

But when Lestat comes crawling back to Armand almost two hundred years later, he's not just there. He's ballsy enough to ask of Armand something that he would be freely be given if Lestat would just love him and, oh I don't know, let Armand stick around. Maybe not lie as much?

I told Armand briefly of the years in Louisiana, of how they had finally risen against me just as he had predicted my children might. I conceded everything to him, without guile or pride, explaining that it was his blood I needed now. Pain and pain and pain, to lay it out for him, to feel him considering it. To say, yes, you were right. It isn't the whole story. But in the main, you were right. Was it sadness I saw in his face then? Surely it wasn't triumph.

@cbrownjc pointed out to me: Is it any wonder Armand is irrational with fury when Lestat has come to learn by this point Armand is "the only one that I could turn to" yet still rejects him??

Because, he doesn't want to stay in Paris, you understand.

He tries hard not to be "lofty or righteous" at the same times as he actually goes there and reminds Armand he had given him a tower and gold and actually the whole damned Theatre of the Vampires while he was at it.

Ugh, ugh, ugh!

Not gonna lie though, I kinda love that Armand at his most done with everything is also Armand at his most beautifully gentle.

"You don't understand," I said. "I can't go there. I will not be seen like this by the others. You must stop this carriage. You must do as I ask." "No, you have it backwards," Armand said in the tenderest voice.

Fucking delicious.

[faerywhimsy]

Shit, this re-read of TVL has quickly turned into The Armand Show, because of course it is. But can we please sit and talk a bit about both 'slave' and riches when it comes to Armand? (The more I look at it, the more I'm glad we have a PoC actor cast into the TV series. I've seen consensual M/s stuff discussed by PoC and it always forms a really powerful discussion).

I'm not even going to look at the times it's implied by Armand's calling Marius 'Master'. This post does a really good job of pulling in a LOT more Master/slave language than this one is going to.

Sidebar: And, I mean, yes, Lestat is a self proclaimed "slave of my own obsessions and fascination" but it's also explicitly different because he is the seventh son of a wealthy land owner and was never in any danger of literal slavery.

So.

"You've been the slave of everything that ever claimed you." "I was the leader of my coven!" "No. You were the slave of Marius and then of the Children of Darkness. You fell under the spell of one and then the other. What you suffer now is the absence of a spell. I think I shudder that you caused me so to understand it for a little while, to know it as if I were a different being than I am."

Sure, yes, I agree with @uncivilcivilservice that something in both Armand and Lestat's souls do seem to recognise the other on first meeting. But there are huge differences in their psyche and, honestly, just lived experience. This, and wealth, are just two of them.

Lestat identifies here that the kind of slave, or the thing he means by the word 'slave' when applied to him is a different thing to how he applies it to Armand. Lestat is a slave to his own ego; Armand is a slave to others. The endless people pleaser. The only person Lestat consistently seeks to please is himself.

He's not wrong, though, is the thing.

When I see Armand using the word in TVA, I wonder if it's more of a reclaiming thing for him.

"Amadeo, you play the devil." "Don't you want me to, Master? Didn't you like it? You took my blood and it made you my slave!" Marius laughed. "So that's the twist you put on it, isn't it?"

I've touched on the moment Lestat is basically all, 'go buy yourself something nice, just leave me alone' but I just find myself... needing to go... a little deeper here. The specific passage in question:

"You can take this tower for your lair," I said. "Use it as long as you wish. Magnus found it safe enough." After a moment, he nodded with a grave politeness, but he didn't say anything. "Let Lestat give you the gold needed to make you a gentleman," Gabrielle said.

A kind reading of the text might indicate this moment is Lestat offering something to Armand from the goodness of his heart. A slightly less charitable reading would probably point out that, with riches such as Lestat has grown up with, he likely doesn't appreciate the value in what he offers here to someone Armand.

It's only money and land. I can see Gabrielle's aware of it though; she's the one who's cognisant that wealth alone can turn one into a gentleman.

The last obvious reading is, of course, Lestat is here using his gold to buy Nicolas' wellbeing.

"If you will not go to them," I said slowly, "then do not hurt them. Do not hurt Nicolas." And when I spoke these words, Armand's face changed very subtly. It was almost a smile that crept over his features. And his eyes shifted slowly to me. And I saw the scorn in them. I looked away but the look had affected me as much as a blow. "I don't want him to be harmed," I said in a tense whisper.

Probably, there's an argument for a combination of all three.

Suffice to say: this moment's incredibly fraught. Not just from Lestat's motivations, but from Armand's acceptance. Armand's swift cycle through expressions in the above passage—especially from a character so renowned for his blank expressions—is incredibly telling.

I could go into another longer diatribe here, but honestly this post is long already. So I've condensed what I see in this moment of fraught contrasts between Lestat and Armand to the following 3 points:

The one who has been a slave finally being given money for his freedom, instead of being bought as he was by Marius vs. the strings that are clearly evident and expected in Armand's behaviour should he accept Lestat's money,

Money as an established exchange for sex; something Armand is no stranger to vs. BOTH Lestat declaring he wants nothing further to do with Armand and that the physical act of sex is not something TVC vampires are capable of, then finally

Bribery, which is more or less the simplest of these points, but kinda has its claws woven into both previous points in different ways.

Yup, these two boys are not even playing from the same book when they meet each other at this point in their stories.

[faerywhimsy]

Hmm >.>

[Armand] I never imparted to Louis my own bitter history; I confessed to him the awful anguishing secret, however, that as of the year 1870, having existed for some four hundred years among the Undead, I knew of no blood drinker older than myself.

Hmm <.<

[Lestat] I thought of the traveler's tales that Marius was alive, seen in Egypt or Greece. I wanted to ask Armand, wasn't it possible? Marius must have been so very strong... But it seemed disrespectful of him to ask. "Old legend," he whispered. His voice was as precise as the inner voice. Unhurriedly, he continued without ever looking away from the flames. "Legend from the olden times before they destroyed us both." "Perhaps not," I said. Echo of the visions, paintings on the walls. "Maybe Marius is alive."

Lestat:

"I cannot stop thinking of Marius," I confessed.

Lestat:

"That is merely another mystery," I said. "And there are a thousand mysteries. I think of Marius!"

Lestat:

"When a being reveals his pain in such a torrent, you are bound to respect the whole of the tragedy. You have to try to comprehend. And such helplessness, such despair is almost incomprehensible to me. That's why I think of Marius. Marius I understand. You I don't understand."

Lestat:

"I am not Marius, but I tell you since I set my feet on the Devil's Road, I have heard of only one elder who could teach me anything, and that is Marius, your Venetian master. He is talking to me now."

Geez, no wonder Armand didn't tell Louis about Marius or any blood drinker older than himself. I wouldn't have either.

(Easy as it is to see Armand's PoV, I can't help but wonder if Marius was so eager to talk to Lestat cause he could see through him Armand was finally willing to walk away from Satanic worship. Was he hoping Lestat might agree to bring Armand with him...?)

[faerywhimsy]

Hello, I would like to linger on the topic of Armand and love in (primarily) the setting of TVL.

"What do we have now! Answer me! Nothing but the love of each other and what can that mean to creatures like us!"

Working backwards for a hot minute, this is the last appearance we have from Armand in The Vampire Lestat. It comes immediately before Armand tosses Lestat out of the very tower Lestat so graciously gifted to him.

Symbolism? Oh my heart, I lived for this sort of stuff during my English degree.

Anyone who's read a single page of TVC knows that love is pretty much prized above all things in the world of these vampires. It's... pretty much the only thing all of them by some unspoken agreement seem to hold dear. Even Rhoshamandes (one of many scions of Akasha) from the Prince Lestat at least appears to gain something from the affection between him and his fledgling Benedict. But I'm definitely getting ahead of myself.

Sorry guys, strap in if you wanna. This is gonna be another long meta post.

To go from the end right back to the beginning, something about Lestat does seem to bring Armand back to 'life'. And, in response, just the sight of him makes Lestat gasp. Armand is "perfect", "dazzling", "incarnate beauty". His voice is "teasing", his eyes are "fathomless". I've read bodice rippers with prose less purple than this.

Okay, fine, it turns out a lot of this is all a mind fuck from Armand to Lestat but I've already written a longer interpretation of that over here (and thank god because it just wouldn't have fit here). Just because we're seeing Armand's use of the mind gift does not necessarily invalidate some feelings behind it. Armand is one tightly wound, fucked up ball of crazy at this point in the eighteen century, and everything of him this early kinda has to be read through that lens.

All night you've been searching for me, he said, and here I am, waiting for you. I have been waiting for you all along. Dear God, this is love. This is desire. And all my past amours have been but the shadow of this.

Ultimately, Lestat's rejection of Armand after this is pretty brutal. He (correctly) manages to ascertain how much of a threat Armand poses to him, despite their both being of the blood. Later he even marvels at how he was able to overcome Armand in the brutal beating that followed. (My personal head canon is simple: Armand let him).

Yet still, Armand asks to be loved by Lestat and, thereafter, begs Lestat to be allowed to travel with he and Gabrielle. So when you read the disavow of love Armand makes—after Lestat has left him and returned to him, only to promise to leave him once more—it feels pretty clear Lestat went and fucked Armand all up and down. (I also wanna mention that meta post I think about often and is basically my head canon, on Armand's PoV in The Vampire Armand that shows him again rebounding hard in the wake of being rejected yet again. Let's face it, this is realistically an immutable part of Armand's character.)

How much of an impact did Lestat's rejection of Armand have? Allow me to put it this way: It takes him almost two hundred years for Armand to find his heart again after Lestat, but no more than forty years after Daniel before he finds some solace and makes house with Louis in Trinity Gate (kinda important to me to make this point given the consensus in fanon is Daniel is Armand's great love story).

Finally, there's a part of me that can't help but wonder how things might have gone differently, had Lestat not brashly come back with impossible demands of Armand. Would Armand have been capable of forgiving Lestat if he hadn't come talking about how little he actually needed Armand after he used Armand for a draught of his healing blood?

When Lestat first sees him again, he uses such words as "brilliant light burning in him", "thinly veiled excitement", "caressingly", "soft and compassionately" to describe Armand's attention. This is moments before Lestat goes off at the mouth.

And... just... damn, man. Maybe it would have been best to face Marius and his measly "condemnation" is all I'm saying. At least Marius wasn't in love and the worst he (probably??) would have done was turn his back on Lestat. No wonder, honestly. These are all immortal blood drinkers we're talking about, not a high end wine tasting.

[faerywhimsy]

Following up of 'first impressions' post. Here's Leave Takings: Lestat and Armand in The Vampire Lestat vs. Daniel and Armand in Queen of the Damned

"What will you do now?" I asked. I spoke to make it clear to Gabrielle. [...] "Will you leave Paris or remain?" For one moment Armand's face was wretched. It was defeated and warm and full of human misery. (TVL)

And beyond, the Villa of the Mysteries at the very edge of ancient Pompeii. "But how did we get here!" Daniel turned to Armand, who stood beside him dressed in strange, old-fashioned velvet clothes. For one moment he could do nothing but stare at Armand, at the black velvet tunic he wore and the leggings, and his long curling auburn hair. "We aren't really here," Armand said. "You know we aren't." (QotD)

How old was he, I wondered. How long ago had he been a human who looked like that? He heard me. But he didn't give an answer. With his eyes closed, and his hand open beside him, he appeared the abandoned offspring of time and supernatural accident, someone as miserable as myself. What had he done to become what he was? Could one so young so long ago have guessed the meaning of any decision, let alone the vow to become this? (TVL)

"So you would have me break my vow. You would have what you think you want. But look well at this garden, because once I do it, you'll never read my thoughts or see my visions again. A veil of silence will come down." (QotD)

And silently, Armand said, Love me. You have destroyed everything! But if you love me, it can all be restored in a new form. Love me. This silent entreaty had an eloquence, however, that I can't put into words. "What can I do to make you love me?" Armand whispered. "What can I give?" (TVL)

Armand stood so close to him they were almost kissing. They had stopped beneath a dying tree in which the wisteria grew wild. Its delicate blossoms shivered in clusters, its great twining arms white as bone. And beyond voices poured out of the Villa. Were there people singing? "But where are we really?" Daniel asked. "Tell me!" "I told you. It's just a dream. But if you want a name, let me call it the gateway of life and death. I'll bring you with me through this gateway. And why? Because I am a coward. And I love you too much to let you go." (QotD)

Armand was now beside me. He was closing his arm round me, and pressing his forehead against my face. He gave that summons again, not the rich, thudding seduction of that moment in the Palais Royal, but the voice that had sung to me over the miles, and he told me there were things the two of us would know and understand as mortals never could. He told me that if I opened to him and gave him my strength and my secrets that he would give me his. (TVL)

"Say the word, my love," Armand said. "I'll do it. We'll be in hell together after all." "But don't you see," Daniel said, "all human decisions are made like this. [...] What does it matter if you give it to me and it's wrong! There is no wrong! There is only desperation, and I would have it! I want to live forever with you." (QotD)

Armand had been driven to try to destroy me, and he loved me all the more that he could not. That was a tantalizing thought. Yet I felt danger. The word that came unbidden to me was Beware. Instinctively I avoided Armand's eyes. There seemed nothing in the world I wanted more at this moment than to look right at him and understand him, and yet I knew I must not. (TVL)

Armand turned, reached back to take Daniel's arm. The smell of freshly turned earth rose from the flower beds. Ah, I could die here. "Yes," said Armand, "you could. And you will. And you know, I've never done it before." (QotD)

With him, I could speak, yes, with him I could dream dreams. Some reverence and terror in me made me reach out and embrace him, and I held him, battling my confusion and my desire. "Leave Paris, yes," Armand whispered. "But take me with you. I don't know how to exist here now. I stumble through a carnival of horrors. Please..." I heard myself say: "No." (TVL)

Daniel opened his eyes. The ceiling of the cabin of the plane, the soft yellow lights reflected in the warm wood-paneled walls, and then around him the garden, the perfume, the sight of the flowers almost breaking loose from their stems. Something came back to him, something he had known long ago - that in the language of an ancient people the word for flowers was the same as the word for blood. He felt the sudden sharp stab of the teeth in his neck. (QotD)

"I might have destroyed you tonight," I said. "It was respect which kept me from that." "No." Armand shook his head in a startlingly human fashion. "That you never could have done." I smiled. It was probably true. But we were destroying him quite completely in another way. "Yes," he said, "that's true. You are destroying me." (TVL)