A seabird overhead flies, veers, drops into the lake. A block or so south, an early morning jogger trips over his feet, blood flowing from his nose, capillaries in his eyes bursting. A brown-out makes bathroom lights flicker, forces alarm clocks to reset, to burn out laptop chargers.
Because Lestat is trying to escape, for all that he is still and limply clinging to Armand in his arms. He has made his appeals, so he could capitulate into begging. Of course, he does not. The roiling of feeling is more akin to a tantrum, and internal throwing about of objects, of memories and thoughts and epithets, clawing in at soft tissue. These truths, the things that make them the same, feel like shackles. No better than Armand. No better than Magnus. Than Marius.
Still. No matter how much older, how different he believes and knows himself to be, he is still more animal than whatever vampires are eventually meant to become. Still driven by impulse, instinct. Survival at any cost.
The sun breaks. Humans feel it as a gradual thing. Vampires do not. Though the air is teased, first, with a kind of hair raising discomfort in those last grey hours, the actual emergence of the day itself is as immediate as a gunshot.
It would take a little time for Lestat to dissolve into ash, but not long. Maybe a minute, maybe a couple, but it should take no time for skin to blister, to smoke, for eyes to go blind, for pain. None of this happens, but he reacts anyway. He can feel it, exposure to the daylight, and it's almost the stuff of nerve endings that compel a person to react faster and stronger than otherwise physically capable that sees his body suddenly come alive again. A wild bite to Armand's arm like a wolf snapping to rend flesh more than drink blood, and loosened again.
He has to get away. It was one of the few lessons his maker shared with him, was it not? Escape the sun, stay in the shadows, rise at night. Here, a tomb. Lay in it.
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Because Lestat is trying to escape, for all that he is still and limply clinging to Armand in his arms. He has made his appeals, so he could capitulate into begging. Of course, he does not. The roiling of feeling is more akin to a tantrum, and internal throwing about of objects, of memories and thoughts and epithets, clawing in at soft tissue. These truths, the things that make them the same, feel like shackles. No better than Armand. No better than Magnus. Than Marius.
Still. No matter how much older, how different he believes and knows himself to be, he is still more animal than whatever vampires are eventually meant to become. Still driven by impulse, instinct. Survival at any cost.
The sun breaks. Humans feel it as a gradual thing. Vampires do not. Though the air is teased, first, with a kind of hair raising discomfort in those last grey hours, the actual emergence of the day itself is as immediate as a gunshot.
It would take a little time for Lestat to dissolve into ash, but not long. Maybe a minute, maybe a couple, but it should take no time for skin to blister, to smoke, for eyes to go blind, for pain. None of this happens, but he reacts anyway. He can feel it, exposure to the daylight, and it's almost the stuff of nerve endings that compel a person to react faster and stronger than otherwise physically capable that sees his body suddenly come alive again. A wild bite to Armand's arm like a wolf snapping to rend flesh more than drink blood, and loosened again.
He has to get away. It was one of the few lessons his maker shared with him, was it not? Escape the sun, stay in the shadows, rise at night. Here, a tomb. Lay in it.