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“...lue”
Darkness. Darkness was the only constant now. Since Nicki. Since Gabrielle. Lestat felt numb in his self-interment, a clump of dirt clinging to the inner corner of his eye like a doomed man to a lifeboat. He’s felt numb for years, if truth be told, he just didn’t want to acknowledge it. Nothing has been real since Mag-
Don’t think about it.
—since the tower. His newfound unlife afterwards has been nothing but a fanciful sort of dream, where Lestat is only playing the leading role as The Vampire, stalking the streets of Paris and bewitching any beautiful violinists and dirty wretches who come his way. It wasn’t the same innocence as the role of lovestruck Lelio, to be sure, but he’d been eyeing that of the Arlecchino for some time now, anyways. No one can be the young lover forever. Nicki made sure of that. Well, he supposes that’s a lie now. He’ll always be young in looks, if never again in the mind. The tower made sure of that.
“...o blue”
Lestat twitched in the darkness. The dirt clump rubbed up against his cornea. His skin cracked from the caked-over grime. He was a corpse in truth now, not just in theory. Maybe he had been too harsh on the gremlin, he could now see the appeal of wanting to lie down until the sun burns out and the catacombs crumble around you. Lie until the body remembers itself and starts to decay, despite whatever hellish blood flows within you.
The thought of his own impossible corpse brings to the forefront unwanted memories of others’ very real and tangible corpses. In the tower. Piles of other blonde, fair-skinned bodies in unnatural, skewed positions. A mess of legs and arms reaching towards him, beckoning him to join them. Each had a matching set of puncture wounds in their necks, arms, calves, thighs. Lestat matched each of those nameless boys perfectly, aside from the fact that he was still breathing.
It was dark there, too. The stench of rot and its audience of flies buzzing in approval were his only companions.
And Magnus. The thought came unwilling, unbidden; his brain traitor to his own sanity.
“...so blue”
Yes, the other boys’ eyes had also been blue. Blue like his, and each wide open in fear, ecstasy, or some combination of the two. Each day passed in that horrid chamber was one of pain and God’s silence. There, he met true loneliness.
He wanted to rip his eyes out.
“...es so blue”
It was almost a blessing whenever Magnus came, whether it was to drink from Lestat, pet his hair, or just stare at him for hours on end. Almost. Even now, years later, it was hard to say if he preferred the empty, blue eyes of the corpses compared to the black pits embedded into the vampire’s face. Lestat could never tell if his iris was that dark in truth, or if his pupils were always dilated, gazing down at Lestat just as the wolf looks at the deer. Unfortunately for him, this wolf couldn’t be killed.
The flies always seemed to fall silent when Magnus was there, his heavy breathing being the only sound Lestat could comprehend in those helpless moments. He still dreams it, sometimes. He still feels that cold hand, sometimes, even now that he’s in the dirt.
At the end of it all, Lestat was so sure he would puke Magnus’s blood up, his stomach being so small and shriveled it surely couldn’t handle that noxious liquid. Against his best wishes, his body managed. And then he woke up, changed. Eyes now impossibly blue.
“Eyes so blue”
Now, there’s light. Light, and a strange noise just at the edge of consciousness. Lestat opens his eyes (still blue), causing the dust to fly and the dirt to trickle down towards his nose. He could feel each crease of grime in his skin, cracking and breaking at his face’s miniscule twitching. He felt as stiff as a corpse, and could only inwardly scoff at the hilarity.
“Eyes so blue”
A voice, echoing. Lestat awoke more fully, his pulse rushing. The first thought plummeting into his head was wonder at how Magnus could’ve possibly survived the fire. Lestat saw him burn, saw him die. He thought, for one horrid moment, that everything which happened previously had only been some strange premonition, and that now the monster was here to rip him from his bed and kill him again.
However, it took one brush of Lestat’s hand to realize that he was not in bed, but rather laid upon a cold stone floor, dust and dirt all around him. The ceiling of the room was vaulted and lit by sconces on the wall. Was he in some sort of church? A crypt?
As the blood flowed through him once more, the noise that had been an undercurrent in his senses now became clearer: a piano, echoing across the cavern. After years of only darkness and Magnus, the sound was enough to bring a single red tear to his eye, replacing where the dirt had sat previous.
There was a voice accompanying the music, humming and speaking absently to themselves. Lestat rose with all the graces of a man still human, having to catch himself multiple times from tripping and falling back onto the floor in his anticipation to get closer to the sound.
Stumbling forward, he only had enough energy to reach the open door to the room adjacent before he fell. He hasn’t fed in so long, it was shocking he could even get as far as he did.
Gripping the doorframe as Magnus once gripped him, he slid down onto his knees, head pitched over in exhaustion. The only sounds were his own gasping and the sweet melody of the piano, like birdsong upon the wind. Lestat could do nothing but listen, and keep listening. Clutching onto a lifeboat, indeed.
For the briefest of moments, there was peace.
Abruptly, it stopped, and Lestat felt he could weep. He sagged closer to the floor as echoing footsteps replaced the piano’s notes. A cold hand brushed his shoulder, sending a spear of panic through him. Magnus was all he could think. However, this hand did not grip and draw blood, but rather held him firmly, making sure he did not topple over in his misery. A voice might’ve said something, but if so he was too tired to hear.
Suddenly, there was a form in front of him, and Lestat tasted blood flow between his lips. Like a man woken with a bucket of cold water, Lestat shot out and gripped the arm at his mouth, trying to suck out as much blood as he could from the gash in it. For a moment, there was nothing else except Lestat and the blood, until the figure in front of him cleared their throat pointedly, pushing Lestat off.
“Careful, child, I don’t wish to collapse as well.” The voice was masculine and calm, almost musical in its quality.
Lestat finally looked up at the man, the vampire, in front of him. He stood tall, taller and leaner than Magnus ever was. He wore a cloak of red velvet brocade, embroidered with delicate patterns. His hair, long and blonde, cascaded like a river down his back and shoulders. However, it was clear the man was not human—he stood in front of Lestat too straight, too still, like a marble statue brought to life. And his eyes…
His eyes were bluer than Lestat’s, and sharp with the knowledge of a predator. This man was old, it was clear. The time Lestat spent studying the man was only the briefest of pauses, yet his steady and piercing gaze was enough to unnerve him all the same.
The man then smiled at him, breaking his statuesque illusion, like frost melting off grass as the day breaks.
“Come, let’s wash the dirt off of you. I believe we have much to discuss.” The words reminded Lestat of Armand, and then there was sudden and complete clarity as to who this being was.
And Lestat could do nothing but rise and follow.