Evaline | L. Lioncourt ✔

[01] Ghosts Of The Past

The thick network of nettles over the broken glass windows blocked the sun's rays from penetrating in the mansion and Lestat could not have been more grateful for that. Sunlight seared at his skin so it was a blessing indeed that the room he was staying in was naturally darkened.

He had not even moved from his armchair in days, for the burns on his body had not fully healed yet. All he needed was a deep sleep in his coffin but his current retreat lacked that necessity.

Instead he had kept confined to an armchair, a ragged shawl draped over him which he would throw over his eyes whenever the light became too much to handle.

And deeper than the apparent burns were the scars on his heart for he had been dealt to death twice by the very man he had once loved. What he had given him was the dark gift as it was referred to in the Old World, and as a result the latter had chosen to separate their paths, stating that he had been condemned to Hell.

Releasing Louis du Lac from his mortal bounds had been one of the greatest mistakes he had made. And even greater than that mistake was using Claudia as a pawn to keep him with him. His plan had worked for about half a century till everything fell apart. 

Though the tables had turned as such that it wasn't Lestat who had condemned Louis to hell, as he so proclaimed. Instead he was the one in hell himself, with no one to tend to his wounds and no one to provide him company.

About fifteen years had passed since he had last laid eyes upon them both. Fifteen years since he had stepped foot out of the mansion's sanctuary. Almost two decades since his fingers had touched the piano keys, stringing out the notes that he longed to hear again. 

And though Lestat had always been surrounded by an entourage of nobles and scholars, the only companions he had in his decayed retreat were the shadows dancing from one wall to another, all but a trick of the faded light. 

With no other way to pass the eternity laid out in front of him, his eyes looked out for the shadows, relating each dark figurine to someone he had met in the past. And as he recalled the memories he had, he would at times laugh and at other times, a sadness would cloud his face for those times had passed and so would the one he was entrapped in eventually.

The question was when exactly would that happen. Time still passed, without a shadow of doubt, but for a vampire like him time held no meaning for no hour was any different from a century passing in isolation.

The only thing he had to keep himself sane was his own voice which still reminded him of what he had been. And with the steady deliverance of a theater actor, he would at times break out into his favorite French or Shakespearean plays, his voice replicating the tremor and treble of each scene perfectly.

"Et tu, Brute! Then fall, Caesar!"

At that exclamation his voice turned to a bitter laugh, echoing through the dusty halls of the mansion. A laugh so bitter and broken that even the lingering shadows seemed to shrink to a pallor. 

"How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport, that now on Pompey's basis lies along. No worthier than the dust!"

His eyes swept over the dust settled around him and his laugh only grew worse, louder yet painful. For in his eyes he was no different from a corpse thrown to the ground after being stabbed fatally.

"O mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, shrunk to this little measure?"

The scorn his voice held could not be rivaled by any other for it fit the lines perfectly yet mocked his own self as a consequence. 

"Pardon me, Julius! Here wast thou bay'd, brave hart; here didst thou fall; and here thy hunters stand, sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy lethe. O world, thou wast the forest to this hart; and this, indeed, O world, the heart of thee. How like a deer, strucken by many princes. Dost thou here lie!"

No painter could paint a picture so tragic unless the paintbrush was that of pity and the shades were of shame, dipped off in the water of distress to cleanse. 

And as his voice thundered and reclined throughout the lines he narrated from memory to an audience of dead rodents, he couldn't help but think about the irony that even after so many centuries of leaving his mortal life behind, he was yet again condemned to recall those days. While all else had failed to settle him the only sound he could count on was his own voice churning out the lines of the plays as he did back when he worked in the theater.

He had done all in his power to leave that life behind, foiled himself well with the company of aristocrats and striving to rise higher so much that he had earned the title of the brat prince. Yet again he was sunken low to his very beginning. He had been stripped of his beauty and charm and the only saving grace he had was his voice.

He recalled how his first audience had recoiled when Caesar had fallen uttering those words. And he who had been in the attire of Cassius uttered his lines with perfect deliverance, ensuing applause.

Though as he reenacted the play again with his own self playing all the characters simultaneously, he knew well that it applied to his life a little too much. The only difference was that Caesar had been subjected to death, the worst punishment as it was considered back in the days.

Stabbed to death by the hand of a trusted friend.

"But death is not the worst punishment, O Caesar," his voice had turned to a rasp from all the exertion, but the bitter laugh hadn't yet died down, "the worst is when thou cry out for death but it flees from thee. When an eternity of misery mocks thee in thy face and thou art helpless."

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