Evaline | L. Lioncourt ✔

[00] Decayed Sanctuary

The ivy vines had tightened their hold over the ancient mansion, hiding it from view. The gate, despite being unlocked, let in no trespassers due to the nettles creeping over the corroded iron.

Dull green overlapped the grey hues of the once flourishing mansion. And from first glance, one could never imagine that such a ruin had once been the host to the most magnificent of gatherings, overflowing with aristocrats and nobles, an emblem of high society.

Yet now it was just a ruin, littered with corpses of rats and other such rodents. For no human had stepped inside since years and it was instead inhabited by a decaying creature of the night.

A creature so helpless that it dared not venture out of its sanctuary.

And just like the desolate mansion, none could ever imagine that the creature seeking refuge in its loneliness was once a feared yet desirable gentleman. A vampire. Immortally beautiful, possessing inhuman capabilities and a patron of literature and music of the finest caliber.

And the name he bore contrasted strikingly with his current state. For he was none other than Lestat de Lioncourt.

The vampire prince of the dark.

Yet nothing like the Lestat upon whom poetry was composed and sonnets were written, nothing like the ever charming yet demanding gentleman from Paris who could easily woo any lady and charm any soul, who had inflicted his sinister terror on New Orleans in the late 1700s.

Instead he was reduced to a wraith like form, a creature barely existing upon the blood of the putrid life that scurried on the floors of abandoned debris. Rats, lizards, toads, snakes... Insatiable to his taste yet providing barely enough for his survival.

The skin stretched tightly over his bones, ghostly pale yet showcasing each sharp edge underneath. The network of purple veins was ever prominent under the translucently haunting skin. And the perfectly sculpted mouth that had succumbed hundreds to their death by a single kiss was chapped by thirst, bitten raw by his own fangs.

Though in the days past he had never stepped into a room without an enticing fragrance emanating from him, yet now the only scent that hung around him was that of wretched decay.

In the days past, his attire had always been extremely presentable, tailored to the most extensive of taste, following the highest fashion; brocades and frills paired with buckled vests and leather boots. Yet in the current pitiful state, the garments that clung to his body were ragged and filthy, reeking from a stench of rotten flesh.

Even his golden locks that he had flaunted immeasurable amount of times were reduced to a tangled mess, clumps of dirt hanging within.

Lestat de Lioncourt was unrecognizable under the disguise of the pathetic recluse that had hidden his former beauty underneath, deep enough for it to never break out to the surface.

And as he reclined on a withering armchair, counting his days off in his head for so long had passed that he wasn't even sure what century it was, an ear splitting noise echoed through the mansion and he almost fell to the floor, agonized by the piercing sound.

"Stop!" He had clamped his bony hands over his ears, his brain rattling from pain, "stop it!"

But there was no one to put a stop to whatever had made that noise as it raged on, driving him near insane as he screamed out. The veins stood prominent on his neck, his eyes whirling in a crazed frenzy till he curled himself into a small heap, burying his frail body deeper in the moth eaten cushions.

Nothing about him reflected the old Lestat. Nothing except his voice that still thundered akin to a storming sea striking against the masts of the wrecked ships. And deep down he hoped against hope that a day would come when he would finally become something like himself.

Something if not exactly like him but still closer to the vampire Lestat he had once been.

***