InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "What happened to the fidler?"

Beauty (i_tame) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2011-07-21 22:32:00

Entry tags:

honour bellaforte, lestat de lioncourt

Truth from Art [Lestat]
After Eric left her place of employment, Beauty scoured her memory for any hint of where she could seek Mssr. de Lioncourt out. Beauty had only seen the Mssr. de Lioncourt at one place: the City Opera House. Granted, she'd seen him but once, which was during the City Masquerade, but she truly didn't know enough about him to look for him any other place. She quickly convinced herself that it was there where she should look to find him.

She closed up Bookmark Books directly after the 9th chime from the grandfather clock in the back of the store. Typically, her path took her straight to her cottage deep in the City Commons -- but tonight, she dared to move deeper into the city itself. As she navigated the dark and twisting streets, she kept her head down and her arms curved around herself protectively. She still recalled the trouble that Errol had saved her from in these city streets. The thought was still unnerving. But what was even more unnerving was going even a single day more without as much knowledge as she could find about this Eric and his strange friend Red. Mssr. de Lioncourt had some of those answers. She had to try to find him.

Warm lights within the City Opera House welcomed her just as her nerve was failing. She had only taken a few steps upwards when the golden ornate doors swung open. Quickly, she sidestepped into the marble columns lining the entry up toward the doors. And she waited. And she watched.

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i_tame
2011-08-02 02:14 am UTC (link)

When she felt the press of his arm against her, she jumped, too high strung to immediately recognize what the touch was, and who it was from, and that it was not dangerous. But she was far too caught up in her motives to apologize, although later she would regret the slip of etiquette. But now -- but now --

"I don't know what he did, I don't know, but he asked... I finished wrapping his book, and -- Oh, his eyes turned into a field of stars, and I was suddenly telling him... everything. I ... I would...Things I never would have said were... I told him he was a predator and he told me I was 'very astute' and I said so many awful things to him, but he only... agreed. And he promised not to hurt me, he gave his word, but I don't know what he did to me, and I don't ever, ever want to feel that way again. You have to tell me what you know about him, please, so I can... I can..."

But how did one defend oneself against someone who pulled your will right out of you and turned it into his own? She was crying, without realizing it -- great fat tears that could have been rain if there were a cloud in the summer night sky.

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i_liveforever
2011-08-02 06:16 am UTC (link)

A field of stars?

Oh, balls.

Lestat stopped walking. Beauty was in no shape to continue walking while this hysterical. And Gabrielle de Lioncourt, cold-hearted thing that she was, had actually managed to raise at least one son that could not stomach the sight of a crying woman.

"Honour," he said, carefully, a hand resting on each shoulder. The instinct to wipe away the tears was there, but he did not do it. There were rules, and decorum, after all.

He tried to rationalize the level of honesty that was necessary here and judged it to be a tightrope, one he did not want to be responsible for walking. Tell her too much and she might become more hysterical, or not recover. Tell her too little and she might find out later, and never speak to him again. Neither was a thing that Lestat wanted. He intensely disliked his position, and that he was in it because of Eric.

"I know very little of Eric," he said. "I know where he calls home. I know he's very, very smart. I will answer any direct question you ask. Do you remember stories, or folk tales, from back home? About beings with powers, or myths?"

He circled his arm around her again then and tried to nudge her into walking once more.

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i_tame
2011-08-08 04:02 am UTC (link)

He centered her with the use of her formal name. Only now did she realize he'd been calling her "Honour" all along. No one did that. She often forgot to respond to it. But now, witih his hands on her shoulders, his eyes staring her down, she couldn't ignore it. And it calmed her better than she wanted to admit. Realizing she was crying, she hastily dashed away the wetness with her fingers.

But what he said next was far more reassuring. He was going to help. Despite the fact that it was a terrible breach of decorum, talking about somone else behind their back, Beauty was relieved to hear it. "Thank you," she breathed, then took a breath and fell in step with him. She listened carefully to everything else he said, and when he asked her that strange question -- seemingly drawn from nowhere in their conversation -- she frowned.

"Of course," she said carefully. "From the time I was old enough to learn, I've been in love with books. When we lived in Paris, I spent most of my free time at the bookseller's. I remember the stories... but what does that have to do with Eric?"

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i_liveforever
2011-08-08 05:05 pm UTC (link)

Lestat did not want to have this conversation with Honour. He truly did not. He thought it likely to make him 'the bad guy,' and he did not want that. But how was that new? He was the bad guy.

He sighed. "If someone had taken the time to write it, there would be such a story about Eric."

He braced himself for the inevitable panic that would come from his companion. Happily, they were nearing the coffee shop he'd visited when Willow had dropped in. He nodded toward the building. "Let me buy you a cup of coffee. Or tea"

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	i_tame 2011-08-09 04:32 pm UTC (link)
	What did he mean, exactly? She frowned at the tip of her shoes, trying to do the arithmetic with the words he'd just said and her experience with Eric. The answer wasn't clear to her. "What sort of story?" she asked at last, as he guided her toward the cafe that he just pointed out. Tea sounded delightful. She set a hand on her stomach and willed it to behave. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_liveforever
2011-08-10 05:08 pm UTC (link)

"That requires a bit of explanation," Lestat said. And some verbal tapdancing, Lestat. You're a moron.

Once they reached the shop, he nodded at the girl at the door and she told him he could sit at any table. Lestat decided on one in the back, away from most of the patrons, and asked if she could bring them a pot of tea to share, of the lady's choosing.

He pulled the chair out for Honour and waited for her to sit.

He was chiding himself for bringing a nice girl to a public place so that he could explain to her that the things that go bump in the night were real, and Eric was one of them. And maybe that he was one of them. This could not go well.

Perhaps, he thought to himself, he was a masochist. Surely that was it.

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i_tame
2011-08-11 04:01 am UTC (link)

"Chamomile, if you please," she said softly on the heels of Mssr. de Lioncourt's order to the lady who set them far from everyone else. But even without the soothing tea, Beauty was calming down. Her face was still a mess, but she wasn't crying anymore. And she didn't feel like nothing was possible and everything was against her.

Perhaps she didn't fully trust Mssr. de Lioncourt. Perhaps he did still make her uncomfortable. But he was helping her. And, she reminded herself sternly, he had done nothing at all but be kind to her. She took the seat he pulled out for her and gave him a small smile of gratitude.

"I would love to hear your explanation," she said. "I promise I won't cry again." And although she meant it to sound humorous, she was afraid she'd failed miserably at that.

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i_liveforever
2011-08-16 09:09 pm UTC (link)

He sincerely *hoped* she would not cry again.

Lestat sat quite still in his chair and waited for the tea to arrive before addressing the explanation itself. It would not do for the waitress to overhear something about all of this, possibly causing her panic or hysterics. One hysterical woman was really enough.

"Most faery tales have some basis in reality," the vampire began. "As do myths, and any kind of story of that nature. There are several of these types of things which are completely true, although the general population dismisses them as fiction."

Could he tell her what Eric was, what he was? Why had Eric not glamored her? Wouldn't that have been easier.

"Some of those things, the true stories, are about creatures that are not human, but live among humans."

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i_tame
2011-08-22 03:36 am UTC (link)

Beauty stared across the table at the pale, pale man sitting just an arm's reach away. She squinted, mouth pursing. There were tales like that at home and she had read even more in her time in the City, but she couldn't immediately think of any myths that matched what Eric had done to her. She didn't want to sound ignorant, but she didn't know how else she could categorize herself. At length, she took a breath, then said the only thing she could:

"Your pardon, monsieur, but I'm afraid I just don't understand."

But an uneasy feeling was creeping in through her skin and into her stomach, settling like a weight that wouldn't go away. She suddenly did not want the tea that sat gently steaming in the porcelain teacup in front of her.

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i_liveforever
2011-08-23 06:25 pm UTC (link)

Lestat sighed. This was going to, in no uncertain terms, suck.

She might hate him after this. But perhaps that was better. She'd be aware of creatures like him, and like Eric. She'd be safer.

"Imagine a young man. Very well-to-do. Very attractive. Loved by those around him, the townspeople..." Lestat waved a hand. "That young man caught the attention of a creature that was not human, but lived among humans. The creature was a vampire. And it made the man like it was--something that, while it looked mostly like a man, would never be such a thing again, and would always, always exist just outside of humanity."

He sat back in his chair. Waiting.

"Now, imagine that young man is me."

His face was very serious. "Or Eric."

He really hoped she didn't start screaming.

"And before you run, or ask me anything further, please listen to this one important fact: Eric and I are not the same. We are the same type of being, yes. But we are not, for lack of a better word, the same... species. I do not condone everything he does and he conducts himself in a way I would not."

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i_tame
2011-08-24 04:05 am UTC (link)

The tea sat steaming, forgotten in its vessel. No mathematical prowess was needed to add two and two. Mssr. de Lioncourt had said many things tonight that she didn't understand, but she caught enough of it to know that he was claiming not to be human. And he was claiming that Eric wasn't, either. She breathed quietly, slowly, expecting to wake up. But that was foolish and she had never been a fool. Even as she denied the possibility, her mind was attributing Eric's strangeness to his alleged nature. And Lestat's.

"And what," she said softly, "Is a vampire?"

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i_liveforever
2011-08-26 08:58 pm UTC (link)

Oh. Dear. God.

"It's...."

Lestat decided to just tell her.

"A vampire is a creature that began life as a human being. But somewhere along the line, that human being was drained of blood, and asked to drink the blood of a creature which feeds on human beings. After drinking this blood, the human dies, then rises again as a predator."

He sighed. "A vampire is a walking dead man that must drink blood to survive."

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i_tame
2011-08-29 01:38 am UTC (link)

Her eyes grew progressively wider, her breath progressively shallower, and her heartbeat progressively more rapid as he explained in very clear and precise terms the nature of both himself and the man who had sniffed her hair in her bookshop. "And you have... You can do things with the minds of others," she stammered. "You can make them tell you things. You can... Can..."

It was unbelievable. She was sitting here across from him like they were two normal people -- and he was a monster. And she'd let another monster into her bookstore. She could have been his dinner! What had stopped him? And why did he say he'd never hurt her?

Why was she still alive?

She hadn't realized she'd asked that question, aloud, to Lestat, until his expression across the table changed. Her muscles were tensing, ready for flight. She wanted to run, but something in her throat was choking her. She could hardly get a breath.

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i_liveforever
2011-09-02 06:22 pm UTC (link)

Lestat shook his head.

"Some of us can make people do that. Not all."

He knew she was upset, but facts were facts. He very, very rarely even attempted such a thing and didn't want to be lumped in with Eric, who'd obviously scared her quite a bit.

"Some of us can do it but choose to be respectful. Some can't do it at all. What Eric did was not right."

He could hear Honour's muscles changing. The blood was reacting differently inside her. She was scared.

Great. "I won't be upset if you choose to get up from this table, right now," Lestat said. He held his hands near the tea for warmth. "But please know that I absolutely do not intend to harm you. Ever."

The ever was sharp and final.

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i_tame
2011-09-06 12:46 am UTC (link)

She couldn't keep herself still. Her hands were clamping on and off the side of the table, and her breath was so fast now that it seemed to her that she wasn't taking any at all. Her will kept her from altogether screaming, when that was all she wanted to do. Beauty had never been this terrified in her entire life.

But she heard what Mssr. de Lioncourt said -- so similar to what Eric had said -- and she nodded in automatic polite gratitude. Thank you for not hurting me, Mister Monster, her internal voice said and she outwardly laughed at it, a thin, tittering thing, swallowed a second later in what was near panic.

Answers and protection were what she'd gone looking for tonight. Answers, she'd found, but she was a far cry away from protected. Regardless, she couldn't endure sitting here a moment longer. With some strength she didn't know she had, she managed to stand (not leap) from her chair. "Thank you, Mssr. de Lioncourt," she said. "Forgive me for excusing myself."

And that was as polite and kind a parting word as she could manage at this point. As soon as she'd cleared the patio and was out onto the street, Beauty ran for her home.

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