My daughter, ma fille. (Claudia)

[lestat2]

Bourbon Street. So ridiculously loud an garish, like a tainted version of Disneyland - yes I've been to Disneyland at night - and all the mortals stumbling around like buffoons but then again, wasn't I like that once upon a time? Maybe I would have enjoyed it here as a mortal. I was sitting at a metal table out on the street, karaoke blaring behind me. The neon lights glowed upon my dark purple tailored shirt, the shirt itself brought out the vivid colour of violet that surrounded my piercing pupils.

I relaxed in my chair, stirring an alcoholic drink that I wouldn't touch but then I felt a shiver creep up my spine. I looked up from the table and out at the crowd from behind my sunglasses. Something was there, like a void, a vampire but one of my own. I could not hear their thoughts and why were they hiding within the crowd. I saw a flash of blond and thought of Gabrielle. I stood, hoping to see my mother, it had been a long time since she had last came to visit me, sometimes it felt as though we weren't even related anymore.

My heart clenched with warm mortal blood as I saw the height of this vampire and the extent of those curls. No, it was impossible. I stood there completely still behind the table, my hand over my heart as I stared straight ahead. 'Demon, be gone.' I thought within my mind. This wasn't possible. It was then I caught the full vision of her face and I averted my eyes, not wishing to see such madness. She looked solid, real. Mon Dieu, she looked real!

Should I run or stay still behind this table? I couldn't think straight. No longer was she a wispy memory or spirit. She was solid and real. It cannot be true, there's no way a vampire can just come back from the dead and yet over the years many things I thought were untrue turned out to prove me wrong. I looked up again and she was still out there. Mustering my confidence with a human gulp, I sat back down and extended my hand towards her, as though reaching out for her to come forward.

Claudia. My brilliant child. Our beloved daughter. She would kill us all if she could, but she could not hurt me now, I was beyond any harm that anyone could throw at me. Physically and mentally, I was indestructible and I had seen more horrific things that could drive a whole nation mad. Yet there was still this fear that bubbled within me and I doubt it would ever fade. My own daughter had attacked me, I'd loved her albeit a little harshly at times but I'd loved her and in return she stabbed me and watched me bleed. I also feared that she might attempt to become as strong as I.

"Claudia, if that is you... come closer, mon amour. The past is behind me." I said out loud, letting her vampire hearing pick out my American voice over the roar. MY voice still hinted French though of course but mainly American.

[Claudia]

There were many things about New Orleans that brought both pleasing and painful memories. There were days, in my 'youth', where everything seemed surreal. Two loving & doting fathers. Until the relationships strained. I too, had cause in that. But my Louis, I would always love my Louis. It was Lestat with whom I'd had a tumultuous relationship. Though, even now I thought of him. My feelings were quite torn.

I had been gone for so long, from this world. But I'd found my chance, my way back to the world of the living. And the dead. For I hadn't been alive for a very long time. I still bore the scars the portrayed my true death. Though they were healing, the more I fed.

I had clawed my way back through the veil once, rage & hatred filling me. It was Louis who called me, through Merrick's magick. Again Merrick's energy called to me, years later. She was ushering another through the veil. They both reeked of my fathers, and I seized my moment, shoving my essence through the veil as they passed.

But I did not arrive at Blackwood Farm, non. I was instead awakened to find myself where I had met the sun for the last time. Burns covered my flesh, marring my image. I remember howling in rage, before leaving that accursed place, the place that was once the Theatre Des Vampire. The place where I had been burned alive along with Madeleine. The place Louis later set fire to, his vengeance.

I left Paris as soon as I could, feeding nightly on 3 or more victims, trying to heal myself. The pity that came into the eyes of the mortals who looked upon my scarred visage, angered me more. Perhaps as much as that of women grown & ripe, full of curves that I'll still never possess. But from where I'd been, beyond the pale, I'd seen much. I'd seen Louis change, his near suicide, and what it has done to him. But I still see my Louis. And Lestat, he had traveled lengths greater than any immortal. He had risen to Heaven, descended to Hell. His handsome features marred, much as my cherubic ones.

So much has happened, so much time has passed. And I now find myself in New Orleans, walking amongst those mortals milling through Bourbon St. There was so much life here, surrounding me, and yet I could sense a familiar presence. Almost too familiar. And then, the unmistakable tone of his voice called to me. I stilled, like a small marble statue. Dare I turn? Dare I face the one who cursed me? The father I'd tried so hard to deny, the father I had tried to extinguish from our little family. So very slowly, inhumanly so, I turned. Blond curls framed my face as I looked, and found perhaps my deepest fear. I did not fear death, for it had come to me twice. Why should I fear a third? La mort nous vient tous.

I whispered his name, a name that had not crossed my lips for an age. "Lestat." I canted my head, letting the hood of my cloak fall, setting the fall of curls free. Small scars were still visible upon my face, unseen to mortals. "That may be. And yet the past surrounds us." My slippered feet carried me toward him. He was as enthralling as ever, and I found my arms raising as I neared him. As was my face, so were my arms scarred, the remnants of sun-kissed skin on one too young to bare. Reminders of my true death. These scars, however, were worst still, but none were as sharp & stinging as those on my heart. Those that plagued my soul. After closing the distance between us, an eternity frozen in time, I lifted my hand to lay it upon his marble cheek. He was no longer as pale as I, but a beautiful bronze that attributed to his entrancing features. "Mon Père, mon Dieu." It was then that tears began to fill my eyes. "What world is this? What kingdom? What shores of what worlds?"

[lestat2]

I closed my eyes as her little scarred hand touched my cheek. I lovingly gathered her up with one arm as though she was nothing but a feather and placed her in my lap. She was crying, I'd never been good with dealing with tears. "Do not cry." I told her, hoping that I did not sound too stern, it was hard to break out of old habits and I could easily slip back into them after all this time. I gently wiped the blood tainted tears away from her soft eyelashes with a quick movement of my thumb. "There's nothing to be afraid of here. You are in a magnificent new world with bright coloured lights and amplified sounds, it cannot harm you. New Orleans has changed drastically since you last saw it." I said with a large devilish smile.

I held her frail little body protectively, my hard arms holding her close and the mortals around me looked at me with discontent, horrified that I would bring a child to this place, but they didn't understand that this wasn't a girl but yearning woman with many desires that she could never fulfill. Bourbon street only seemed to rub this in her face. "I failed you twice, mon amour. I made you this way and I failed to protect you from the hateful vampires that once lived in this world. I was a terrible maker from start to finish. I was young and foolish, I was a monster and perhaps I still am." I had always known my mistake in making Claudia into what she was, there were days I had laid in my coffin thinking about the horrible deed I had done and how it had topped all others.

She had a chance at survival before I had taken her away from the orphanage, she could have grown into a beautiful woman and had a wonderful life and all the while I tried to kid myself that I had given her a wonderful gift instead. A wonderful gift it was to me, a mortal actor who had experienced life, but she had never been given a chance at mortality, she had never tasted wine or made love with a man, her little body had never experienced blissful pleasure and it made me want to weep. I was a horrific monster. If I had ever sinned, this surely had been at the top of the list.

"I had tried to ignore the terrible thing that I had done to you by spoiling you with expensive presents, trying to pretend you were an eternal child but you never were, you grew up quicker mentally than any mortal child could. You once asked me why I'd buy you a doll every year and in a way I was trying to preserve some sort of mortality, I was lying to myself. I also knew no other way that I could show you that I cared, I wasn't like Louis, it came naturally to him."

"I found it easier to give you a present or to teach you something new but sometimes I wished you would come join me in my coffin, the two of you were so close from the beginning and the only time I ever really held your attention was when I use to take you out to feed." I said, my fingers touching her neck where Armand must have taken away her head. Never had I been open with her, I never use to talk about such things back in those days but a lot had changed since then.

"I had always felt I was fighting a losing battle. Then one night, you played on all my hopes, you embraced me and still I snapped at you, you offered me a gift, you never gave me gifts. I thought perhaps you didn't hate me as much as it first seemed. I loved you and I followed you into that parlor blinded by it. When I came back to you a few nights later, I was furious but never would I have tried to destroyed you. I understood your cold vengeance upon me but I wanted to punish you all the same. I never would have destroyed you. You are my fledgling and I had wronged you." My fledglings meant the world to me and I would protect them until the end of earth.

I had stopped talking, I had said enough. My face was blank of emotion, I was locked up tight like I had always been. My face had been blank through my entire speech.

"Let's leave this place, ma cherie." I said looking at Bourbon Street and the sinful women that barely wore a thing.

[Claudia]

I hadn't been held like this for so very long, let alone by Lestat. Had he ever held me so lovingly as he did now? The brush of his thumb wiping away my tears sent a shiver through me. "Oui, it has changed much, like you and I both. But I cry not for fear of this place, but from the fear of my own memories." I wrapped my arms around his neck, my face nestled against his shoulder. For all appearances, I was a child clinging to my father, and in that moment, I truly was.

As he spoke of failure, I could not but help recall my own short comings. "We are both monsters, Father. And I believe we shall always be. But I have failed you just the same. Hatred filled me for all that I could never have, all that I could never be. I blamed you, and yet I did not so much blame Louis. It was wrong of me. I should have blamed you both equally, or none at all. You are no more terrible than I, or perhaps I am as terrible as you." I smiled then, my dainty fangs peeking between rosy lips. "And for all that we are, we cannot escape our true nature. And we cannot change past mistakes. Qu'est fait est fait. What's done is done. Let us leave remorse behind, for it does no good but to leave a longing in our hearts. I have longed for that which I cannot be for too long."

Though I meant every word I had spoken, it did not lessen the pain of watching scantily clad women walk by, knowing they were all that I would never possess. My anger, my resentment, my hatred for them may never change. Just as I never shall. What I never expected to hear from Lestat were the words crossing his lips now. Was he, the Father of Lies, now speaking heartfelt truth, making apologies for our past. "You are not blame alone. I was no easy child." A small laugh, child-like in it's tone bubbled up past my lips. "Perhaps we are too much alike. Like father, like daughter. For you made me in your image."

When he spoke of Louis and how I'd crawl into his coffin in midday, and how he wished I had chosen him, the tears returned, filling my eyes but yet to fall. "I did not know. Had you said something then, things may have been different. I never denied your affections, I simply did not understand them. Nor did you have the patience to explain. I understand now."

The time for talk was done, he'd said all he meant to say for now. The air had been cleared, after centuries. I hugged him tightly, burying my face in his neck. "We have wronged each other in unforgivable ways. We are damned, Louis was correct. I forgive you father. Can you also forgive me? Can this be the start of a new life for both of us. A blank slate. For I hope we have both grown from our lurid past." I slipped my tiny hand into his. "Oui. I cannot stand to watch them anymore." My voice took on a sinister tone. "Would that I could rip out all their throats." However much I had changed, I could not shake the resentment that was buried so deep within my being that I would never, ever grow up.

[lestat2]

I smiled at her. "If I had ever produced a daughter as a mortal, I believe she would have been very much like you. There were times where I thought you do fit perfectly into my family, a perfect little de Lioncourt. Claudia de Lioncourt, that's who I see." I told her, my brat princess with her blond hair and spoilt ways. Her thirst for knowledge of the world and others much like my own when I left Paris. Her love for music and fine fashion. Whether I bred this into her or whether it was part of her since the day she was born, I wasn't sure but it was as though she was a projection of my own soul. A much more darkened version perhaps, she held so much dark where as I had always been an optimist who found joy in all that I could.

"Oui, little patience. My first thirty years on earth had a terrible impact on me, I was bitter from the lost of my beloved friend and fledgling and also the loss of my maker. I was with little patience after that. Oui, I was only thirty when I first found Louis and not long after I found you." I said solemnly but then I lit up as though someone had flicked a switch. "I'm two hundred and fifty this year, ma cherie, a quarter of a millennium. You must be around two hundred and twenty now, or must it count as only around seventy years old?" I wondered how that work, considering how she had not been on earth for over a century and a half. I was surprised she was not insane. I still wasn't sure how she was even here but I was not going to question it just yet.

Instead of letting her walk through the crowds I picked her up and carried her securely back to our home on Rue Royale which was only a few blocks away to where we were on Bourbon. The night air was sticky and hot in July and ripe with mosquitos, the glow of the antique looking street lamps shone down upon us.

I was excited to show her little things such as the installed electricity, the television, the stereo, all hidden within antique cabinets of course, I was like an excited child and an eager mentor, ready to show her this new world. Also she would have to read the vampire chronicles, to catch up on things she had missed. I saw how she scrutinized the golden colour of my skin, did she realise that I had tried to end my life or did she think I had found away to change my colour which didn't involve cooking myself.

I unlocked the door with my mind and pushed it open with ease. Louis was not here, perhaps he was staying in the Garden District haunting the local book store there, spooking the son of our publisher Anne Rice, who had recently had a signing there. I placed her down and flicked on the lights. "Mortals have created artificial light without the need of fire, it's wonderful and vampire friendly."

[Claudia]

By calling me such, giving me his last name, he showed me how much he had cared all along. Lending credence to his words, a side of him I'd never gotten to know in our life together. I smiled then. "Never have I heard such words from you Lestat. I do think a part of me has longed for just that." He claimed me once more as his own, and oh, how very much alike we were.

"I do not know how it works, but I believe myself to be two twenty, for I have existed this long, though not for over a century in this body." I sighed, an expression of an emotion more than the need for breath. "We have much to talk of, I suspect. As when I resided in the ether, a being of spirit and not flesh, I saw much. I was still the same as I am now, as I ever was. The anger that tugs at my soul no less after all this time. And yet, some small part of me, très petit, has changed." I made a gesture with finger & thumb to illustrate the minuscule part of me that had come to learn patience as well. "I am at war within myself. I suppose that comes and goes with age, non?" I grinned again, gazing at my father, whom I had not the courage to face for so long.

He lifted me, cradling my small form against him, and proceeded to lead us away from the bustle that was Bourbon Street, and toward a familiar destination. The scent of jasmine grew as the crush of bodies was left behind us. I was relieved to be far from so many that were the basest cause of my wrath.

The world had grown, and only now was I once again a part of it. I was still apart from it also, given my condition as one who carried the Dark Gift. But I had spent more than a century in true death, in spirit alone. The new ways were still foreign to me, though I had watched it all come to pass from beyond the veil. Now I could experience it. With Lestat, and my Louis, or so I hoped. Dare I be so foolish as to hope?

Lestat had always been the teacher, for Louis & I both. And though I had at times despised him for other reasons, I had always admired that much. Without his lessons, I would know have survived as long as I did. I was an abomination. I was never meant to be. It was clear now, why they'd imposed laws amongst our kind. One of them being my very creation. And a great reason behind my death.

The door opened, and Lestat ushered us into his home. I gasped. "I have missed so much. All this I have seen, almost as if from within a dream. Behind the veil, we can watch, but we cannot touch. We cannot be a part of the world that we must look on. Mon dieu, but how had I longed for this. Another chance at life, or what life we have."

I took everything in, absorbing my surroundings with but a complimentary glance before turning to Lestat and placing my palm against his cheek once more. "I have seen the trials you and Louis have faced. I had wrong him, even in my death, I was cruel. My spirit was in turmoil in death, as it was in unlife. I watched, helpless, as you both tried to meet your end in the sun. I rejoiced when you both failed. I watched as you nursed him back to health. As he took from you what he'd refused for so long. You've become a legend, as have we all I suppose, in our own ways. There are chronicles, are there not? I witnessed your descent into Hell, your ascension to Heaven. I felt what you felt, and my spirit also changed then. I learned much. I began to yearn, and to plan. All that matters now is that I am here. With you, père." I removed my hand from his cheek, and replaced it with a soft kiss. "Me pardonner, mon amour. S'il vous plaît. For all I have done to wrong you. We both, are not the same creatures as we were."

[lestat2]

"You asked me earlier if I forgave you. Of course I do. My love for you is unconditional, nothing you could do could ever change that. There may be years where I hate you but when it comes down to it, your welfare is the most important to me." I said to her and her stories of death chilled me, what a terrible existence which I would wish on no one. "There are the chronicles that you can read, I hope that you might better understand me through them."

Her lips were upon my cheek and moving her chin, I wrapped my arm around her waist and claimed her lips. It was a kiss that I would give a lover, she was a woman, she spoke like one and often acted like one, so her appearance did little to deter me. In my minds eye, she looked very different to how a stranger might view her. It was a soft kiss and I could feel her hard fangs beneath her lips. I hoped to show her that I did realise that she wasn't just a little girl and I wouldn't drive her mad by treating her like one.

I was on my knees in front of her as we spoke and interacted, and although I forgave her a long time ago, I still had terrible flashbacks of her holding a knife. I swallowed out of reflex at the thought, but she was not holding a knife and I was being ridiculous. "You'd never do such a thing again, would you, Claudia?" I asked her, I expected her to know what I was speaking of.

"You know, if you wanted to, there are ways of straightening your locks of hair in this day and age, you could tie it back or into a bun. There's stores full of make up if you wished to experiment and perhaps we could tailor your clothes to make you look more like a teenager." I told her, trying to think of ways that might help ease her eternity. No longer would I force her to only wear childish dresses and curl her hair like a doll. "But I shall play no part in your appearance, I will not meddle, it's up to you what you wish to do now."

[Claudia]

A tender smile curved my lips. I had never dreamed he would truly offer me forgiveness, that I would hear those words. A great weight was lifted from me then. Perhaps all I needed was to be forgiven. Perhaps it was what we all needed, for those we loved, however fiercely, to forgive us our sins. Our weaknesses, and any pain and strife we may have caused them, intentional or otherwise.

When his lips sought my own, I was shocked, but fell quickly into the passion he freely gave to me. Never had I been kissed so, least of all by Lestat. It was a gesture of lovers, an intimate moment unlike any we'd shared before. For that infinitesimal moment, I was grown, a woman in full bloom. I would treasure this memory and this feeling for each day that I walked this earth. And beyond, should I find myself once again crossing the veil.

"I look forward to reading these chronicles. It seems there is quite a lot that is told of us. I did not watch these writers as I did those whom I considered family. But I was able to witness some of the process. And what light are we painted in? Despicable monsters of the night? Or poor, lonely and misunderstood creatures?" A childish giggled bubbled forth. "And are there not movie adaptations as well? In fact a whole slew of movies and books dealing with our kind? I have heard talk on the streets, seen posters and billboards, but I have yet to gather the courage to see them. Or perhaps it is not courage I lack, but fear of how we are portrayed. It seems like the idea of the Theatre Des Vampire has taken root in the modern world. No longer are we creatures of myth and legend." Again I laughed.

We spoke at length, and though Lestat was most often stoic, he seemed to lose himself in thought, caught up in some distant memory. I had never been able to read his mind, but upon his utterance, I knew what he was asking. "Non, père. It would be foolish to even attempt such a thing. Not simply because of the magnificent being you have become, but also because... Because you have given me redemption with your forgiveness. I cannot betray that now. I can only hope that we build the trust that should have bonded us as family so very long ago. Non, I can never betray you again. I do not wish to hurt those who know me best, as I once did. That anger is long passed. Though some of my old wrath remains." Lestat knew all too well how much I despised women, how I envied them their long & lithe limbs, their curves and grace and stature.

I leaned forward, kissing each of his golden cheeks. "Merci père. You are not meddling. I would very much like to try these things. This world is new to me, regardless of how long I watched from beyond the pale. It is time I see what it has to offer. Is it not?" I graced him with my old smile, a smile I had not worn since my death.

[lestat2]

Not meddling. Not meddling apparently, hmm. I stared at her for a few minutes before I took her hand and led her to her old bedroom. It was furnished with a bed and some furniture, it was a guest room and yet rarely anyone slept in here. "When we renovated the house we were at a lost of what to do with your room, so it's just a room and nothing more. It's like the room knew you were coming back and wanted no other purpose." I was walking to the window when I almost tripped upon a pile of books and fury decided to spring up inside of me. I kicked the books into the wall with such force that their bindings were almost ripped apart.

"Blast it, Louis! That fool is always leaving his books all over the god damn house, I'm always tripping over them and he's never even here. I should burn them all!" I threatened but it was an empty threat, at the moment at least. When I'd been a temporary mortal I had quite happily burnt down his house. I sat down on the edge of the bed, at the end of my tether and buried my head in my hands.

"He's never here. I don't know what to do. I really don't." I said and oddly I found myself on the verge of tears. I had so much to show and teach Claudia, she was back, she was alive and yet here I was acting like a sentimental idiot. All I could think was, I wish Louis was here. How did he expect me to cope here alone especially with Claudia now here? I couldn't take care of her. I didn't know where to start. She would be so demanding and I had never waited on anyone in my life.

I sat up straight with a stony face. "I'm being ridiculous." I said, getting up. "Why should I care? He can rot for all I care." Grabbing a book and chucked it to her, it was titled 'The Vampire Lestat'. "Read. Learn." I found my patience thinning already, which was also Louis fault. His mess had put me in a right mood and had reminded me of how he wasn't here. She'd have all the answers she wanted from my conversation with Marius.

[Claudia]

My hand was nearly lost within his as his long fingers wrapped around mine. Much was updated, but I knew the walk we took by heart and memory. He led me to my old bedroom. Images flooded my mind of times past. My room full of the finest furnishings. An ornate vanity with a velvet stool, dolls lining and surrounding my satin covered bed. Like much of the house, it too was no longer the same. It was still furnished lovely, and was obviously not in use, but a guest room. Hearing Lestat speak of the room, a smile curved my cupid bow lips. "Then a purpose it shall have." I would reclaim the room, as I had reclaimed my life. And I would reclaim my family. This time we would be as we always should have been.

I took in the surroundings, walking to the bed and lifting myself to perch on it's edge. I was startled, nearly off the bed when I heard Lestat trip and begin one of his rants. So much like the old Lestat. But to hear him speak of my beloved Louis in such a manner spark my own rage in turn.

I was up off the bed and before Lestat, hissing up at him. Though he towered over me, I had stood up to him always. "You will not speak of Louis that way! You will NOT destroy any more of him or his possessions! I will not tolerate it! I will not abide it!" I screamed up at him, my curls bouncing as I shook with rage.

He turned, unphased by my rebuttal and sat himself on the edge of the bed. My head canted to the side as I watched him. He wasn't angry, so much as....alone. I had yet to see Lestat in such a state, and was almost stunned. And I understood with perfect clarity. I walked to him, my small hands wrapping around his, bringing them from covering his face. "Mon père. Mon père." I shook my head, curls tossing. He seemed to recover, for a moment.

"Oui, you are being ridiculous." But I should have known by that stone-faced expression he so often wore, that he was not finished. I caught the book he tossed to me, and tossed it right back onto the bed. "STOP THIS! Can you not ever be honest with yourself? Father of Lies indeed. Do not blame others for your own loneliness. You drive us away! You are an erratic fool. It is I who am a child, YOUR child, and yet YOU are the one acting like a kid in tantrum! Your mannerisms betray the age I appear. Ridiculous indeed. Do you question why we left you? Why I insisted on your demise so that we could be free? Already you have me in chains again, and would Louis too, if he were here. I'm glad he's gone from you. You deserve to rot, mon père. Not Louis. Not I. Or did these last centuries teach you nothing!?!" I cried it all out to him as I stalked from the room, voice high pitched and ringing through the empty house. I quieted my tone as I walked away, intending to leave once more, perhaps forever. "If I had known that this is how it would be, how it ever had been, that nothing had changed, I would not have returned. You will never change Lestat. Perhaps neither will I." I reached for the knob, intent on returning to the streets in search of a mortal woman to vent my wrath upon.

[lestat2]

"You're not a child, Claudia." I said in return, all the menace and spite that might have been in my tone had slipped away. My voice only sounded tired and sad. I'd being trying my best to treat her like an adult, treat her as an equal. "I shall treat you like a child, if that's what you want?" I carried on but I could remember the pain I had felt when I use to treat her like my little child, and give her expensive dolls and she would only yell at me. I followed her through the house as she yelled, trying to desensitise myself to the immortal I had spilt my heart to only half an hour ago.

"You should know by now that I mean not what I say! You should take it with a pinch of salt. I'm in love with Louis. Surely you should have seen how well I've treated him over the past few years. I am just wounded he leaves without a word." I tried to tell her over her rant.

I had her in chains? Hurt flashed in my eyes and I tried to keep my mouth from falling open as I let out a noise as though I'd been punched in the stomach. I shook my head.

Don't get angry, don't get angry, don't get angry. Being angry was a defense mechanism when I felt hurt, it was just so easy to slip into, such a mortal thing it was and I had tried so hard to control it the past few decades and my new powerful blood seemed to calm me a little. I sat down on the bottom steps of the black steel spiraling stairs looking abandoned as she reached for the front door to our town house.

"Chained. I asked you if you wish to come back here and you agreed. I showed you your room so that you knew it was still here for you but I did not tell you to reclaim it. You tell me I have you here in chains but all I have done is invited you in. I cannot understand how we could possibly ever be together if all you feel is trapped around me." I spoke calmly, staring off into another room from the metal step that I sat on, I was not sure if she had left and whether I was speaking to an empty house.

I felt a lone blood tear track down my face as I thought of all of my fledglings and their abandonment. Gabrielle, Nicolas, David, Louis and again Claudia. I could not understand what more I could do to make them close to me. I knew I was harsh at times, but time and time again they left, it could not be just that. What was so wrong with me that everyone left me? Even Marius had sent me away. Akasha drove me away with her mad ideas.

Mon Dieu, I hated myself. I may put on a brave face, I may flaunt myself, I may make it seem as though I stare at myself in the mirror for hours upon hours with a love for myself, I may put on a grin, I may kiss your hand and make you weak at the knees but this was an act and that was all it was, an act. I'm an actor and I have been acting my entire life and inside I weep more than Louis has in an eternity. I hated myself. I hated my anger, my weaknesses, my foolishness, my failure to change. I hated my damn books, I hated my adventures and all my failures, I hated my smug face that stared back at me in mirrors. Hate. Hate. Hate. It's all my fault that they leave. I wanted to scream. To shatter every possession in this place.

"I love you both. I will not force you to stay but I beg you not to leave. I can't help the way I am but I try so hard, I really do." I choked quietly, my eyes trailing across the floor to the door where her little feet still stood, she was still there, I thought she might have left. Perhaps she had not forgotten everything I had said before. "Am I to treat you like a child or a woman?" I asked her, though it would barely matter if I would never see my little daughter again. Claudia de Lioncourt.

[Louis de Pointe du Lac]

She lay there next to me, cold and unmoving, long brown hair flowing out and over her shoulders, softly she whispered my name "Louis" while still caught in the darkness of the death sleep. It would be another hour before Merrick would awaken.
We had gone to see the new vampire movie Twilight that evening at her insistence. "I do not like vampire movies" I had told her. She had replied in a mocking tone that had so reminded me of Lestat, it had made me cringe with distaste at the thought of spending my eternity with someone so demanding of their own feelings and an utter lack of the needs and desires of others...yes...so like Lestat, and she had tricked
me into this life with her, as he had.

Tricked. First by Lestat and his alluring beauty, his caressing
whispers..."Come join me Louis...drink from me and live forever...and you will never feel pain"...

Ah but you lie monsieur le vampire, you lie, for you never told me of the eternal pain of grief over the loss of a loved one, a golden haired child of our own creation. She was my cherubic princess, my companion as no one can ever be again. And when Merrick brought her forward and through the veil, only to have me lose her again, I lied. I couldn’t bear the words said by Claudia's ghostly apparition, "I used Louis because he was the simple one" I couldn't bear knowing that my dearly beloved loathed me with such passion that even in death she would seek her vengeance.

And so, I lied and said I was over her, much like a modern school boy would say such words when deep down they are drowning in the worst pain imaginable.

And there laying next to me in the darkness was the punishment of that lie. Slowly I lifted myself and smoothed my clothes. She had insisted I dress more modernly in t-shirts and jeans, but this clothing held no appeal to me, and I missed the gifts of poet shirts that Lestat would bestow upon me. In truth I missed him, and although his mockery and laughter still rang in my ears, I yearned to hear his voice once again, we were connected he and I. Through the blood, and through the loss of our beloved daughter, for we both did love her.

One happy family he used to say. Using those words to guide me I left the lavish apartment Merrick had gotten us, I briefly thought of leaving her a message that I was leaving her and going back to Lestat, but I left no such message for I had no more words left to say to her. And onto New Orleans I went, the shadows of the night casting over my long frame as a full moon filled the night sky. I smiled at the glory of the night, yes…this would be a good night for flying!

[Claudia]

I stopped, stilling. I stamped my foot and turned, quite indignant. "No! I do not wish to be treated as a child. But you've kept me as such. At times, the way you speak to me, the way you speak of Louis, makes me feel as if I am still that child you took away and brought into this....this life." I spread my arms, gesturing to include my small stature. I was the child who would never grow up. And there are still foolish mortals who wish for themselves such a thing. They would despise it as much as I, should that wish be granted.

I sighed. "I do know. I do know that you don't always mean what you say, Father. But your words sting. Little knives in my heart when I hear you speak so." Wringing my hands, I stared down. "You have loved us, and you have wronged us. Just as I have loved you and wronged you. We are damned Lestat, by our own making as well as that of our makers. We are volatile creatures. Perhaps we are meant to be alone." I knew how that loneliness ached, the chasm it created between those you loved and oneself.

I rushed to him now, wrapping my arms around him, pressing myself to him. "I spoke as quickly and as harshly as you. I'm sorry Father. I do not know what possesses us at times. What causes us to treat one another like enemies one moment, and dearest lovers the next." I kissed the tear off his cheek, salt and blood and nothing more. "I am a woman, oui. And I am a monster. But I am yours. Yours and Louis's." I pressed my lips to his, my small hands framing his handsome, chiseled face. "My heart longs for you, my Father's, my loves." I whispered it, my breath light upon his lips.

I clasped his hand tightly in mine, though my hand was dwarfed by his slender fingers. "Come Lestat, let us go back into town. Let us feed. It has been so very long since we've killed together. I miss it so. Let us leave this pettiness behind us, these awful, hurtful things we say. We don't mean it. Let us be as we once were, when I was still young, and we were happy." There was only one integral part missing, my beloved Louis.

I pulled Lestat to his feet, wrapping my other hand around his so that I held one of his hands within both of mine as I lead him toward the foyer and the door. I walked beside him, urging him along. "When Louis returns, I will greet him. I will offer him my life, such as it is. I will apologize for the way I've treated him." For I did feel badly about my actions, my words to him when Merrick brought forth my spirit. But if not for her actions then, I would not have been close enough to the veil to break through years later, and be here now. "I want to stay with you. With you both. I love you, like I've loved no other, like I have loved Louis. You are both my father's and my lover's. Can't it be so again?" I aid my cheek against his arm for a moment, before reaching for the door once more and opening it to the night. "The city lays in wait for us. What shall it be? A tawdry woman? A vagrant?"