Home / Fan Fiction / V(cough) C(cough) fic / The Chosen of God Part 13

DISCLAIMER: The following stories are all non-profit, amateur efforts not intended to infringe on the rights of Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, David Geffen, Warner Brothers, Geffen Pictures, Knopf, Randomhouse, the city of New Orleans, the U.S. Constitution, any copyright holders that I might not have thought of or even a certain author who shall remain nameless but who has a set of initials which are, coincidentally enough, just one letter off from spelling "B.S."

Part Thirteen
by: The Brat Queen

Characters: Lestat, Armand
Spoilers: Up to TotBT
Description: In response to Jester of God, Lestat tells his life story.

Rated R for upsetting adult content

Warning: CoG contains triggering elements. If you know what "triggering" means you may wish to not read this. If you don't then just be warned that it and Jester of God are very similar.

For the record it was originally going to be Nicolas, or Magnus, or my father, or Louis, or something else. Something that seemed appropriate to speak of, given all I had said before. But I need to pause. I need to stop a moment and talk about something else.

Mojo.

I met Mojo during my time with Raglan James, as you know. He was a stray, or a lost pet. I was never quite sure. I assumed James had stolen him along with the house but found no proof. Whoever owned him before I did remains a mystery to me to this day.

To say I have a love for animals and for canines is an obvious statement. They were my only true companions in my father's house and in my mortal life my only friends. To say that I have a liking for dogs is to be pedantic.

But Mojo was different.

Imagine the meeting. There I was, a wretched creature, aching to die, trying to undo my own evil nature, locked inside a monstrous shell that had so little to do with my enhanced body and had everything to do with my very soul.

Hate was my watchword. I was filled with it, seeped in it, lived it to my very pores. It was a hate begun with my concert and only added on to as the years went by. By the time of my meeting with James it was all that I was. It was my reason for being, and my reason for seeking him out.

I hadn't given up. That point was long gone. I merely was. And what I was, was despair.

To those that know of him, Mojo was known for a talent, a quirk of behavior that cemented him into my reader's minds: Mojo, the dog that knew Lestat no matter what form he took.

This was true.

When I made the body switch with James, Mojo stayed with me. Everything about me was different - my movements, my scent, my sound - but Mojo stayed by my side. He knew me. Knew who I was and that I was not James.

But, to me, it went beyond that.

Mojo knew me.

I cannot describe it, and even now as I look over the words that I am putting down here I feel they are painfully, pathetically inadequate for my task, but please God understand what this dog meant to me.

Mojo was my friend. He was perhaps my one true friend. A living creature of heart and soul who understood me for who and what I was and remained by my side in spite or perhaps because of it.

To have this dog come to me, to have him lick my hand, to have him stay by my side no matter what - it reminded me. Reminded me that I, too, had a soul and a heart and was not this created sum of my sins as I had told myself.

Mojo saw the man that I was. The man I had been, years ago, when two mastiff pups trusted their lives to me and the man that I still am today who is, at his heart, good.

He never rescued a child from a burning building, he never stopped a criminal or diffused a bomb, but he did something important in spite of all that.

He saved me.

He lit within me the spark of what I am and because of him I fought and struggled and determined not to give up, not to turn myself into this depression, not to become the evil everyone assumed that I was. I was Lestat, I was his, I was good.

When I killed him this Sunday it tore my heart from me.

His health was failing, which we all know. The clock was running out, which I bitterly resented. But this was fate, and it was inevitable, and not even my own supposedly God-like powers could deny it.

Mojo remained loyal to the end, as per his demeanor. That he did not die last December is, I believe, due solely to the promise that I extracted from him that he hang on for just one moment longer, that he not leave me before the year 2000. I wanted to start that year with him, I needed to have that memory of him at this crucial time. I was selfish in this but he forgave me. His health stayed constant and even well enough that he could be with me and stay with me as Louis and I moved houses and changed climates yet again and I could look at him and deny to myself the fact that he was mortal and he was elderly and he was leaving me.

Not by choice. No. Not mine nor his. But it was coming. And when it came I did what had to be done. For him and him alone would I make this sacrifice. It was merely painful irony that the sacrifice I had to make was him.

The decision hung over my head for months. I spoke of it to no one save Louis, and to Louis only because he spoke of it first, trying to somehow ease the path for me and for Mojo, trying to make sure that the end came before it was too late to be an ending of mercy.

From me Louis gained a few terse words and little more. The reality of Mojo's life was mine to worry about and, childlike, mine to assume that denial meant the event could somehow be averted. If no one pointed out his grey fur, his waning appetite, his pain-filled gait, it did not exist.

But it did, and I could not let that be.

I set upon the decision the night before after a mere chance conversation with your Child resulted in my helpless weeping at what was to come. I had known that the time was soon, and had guessed it to be sometime in the next few weeks, but knew at that moment I could put it off no longer. It did not serve Mojo, who only sought to serve me.

The next night he and I set out alone. I took him out into the countryside not long after rising. Using my own abilities I eased his pain and allowed him to walk without discomfort. We went out together, following the fading sun's rays and kept on until we reached a spot that was far away from the rest of the world.

I sat down against a rock and stretched my legs out before me. He sat as well, sprawling his pony-sized body across my lap, with his sweet, pink tongue lapping easily at my hand.

We stayed this way for hours. Long past the sunset, long past the navy blue of the sky, long past the appearance of every single star the universe had to offer. We sat this way together and did not move except for his mouth on my hand and my fingers stroking his fur.

I talked to him, sometimes aloud, sometimes silently. I told him of my love and devotion and how I would have followed him into the ends of the earth had I only been called to, and if it were only possible.

Mojo, always an exemplary example of his breed, understood.

He had understood, I think, his death long before I had, knowing it in perhaps the same way as he had known everything else he had needed to in order to be with me and comfort me all these years.

He understood, then, that the time had come and that it was my gift to him to do this. As he had saved me from my own death, so would I save him from his life. Because I loved him, I would not let him feel hurt, or sorrow, or regret that his final memories were those of being locked inside a pain-filled body.

I had debated how to do it. I thought about taking his blood, but that was horribly wrong. I then considered snapping his neck, but that was too violent.

Instead, I merely let him go. I held him in my arms and bid him farewell and released his soul into whatever Heaven might await him. Louis tells me he is now free and well enough to chase butterflies. Perhaps he does.

I took his body into the mountains. A small coffin was prepared but I ignored it, even though I had bought it for him. It was not right. Instead I carried him myself, holding him in my arms until I reached this safe place that could be his graveyard. I dug out the hole for him and carefully placed him in. I allowed myself one last glimpse of him and prayed to whatever God that cared to take care of him. I then covered him over with dirt and let his body sleep in this final rest as his ancestors might have done with nothing but the earth itself to protect him.

A small cross sits upon the spot now and his name is upon it. Woe to anyone who disturbs him.

It has been hard for me, since I have come back. My tears from the night before have exhausted me and I find my heart cannot bear to think of this anymore than I have to. Instead I remain somewhere between denial and despair, able to move about my day only if I distract myself, and convince myself that in truth he is just lurking around the corner, just hiding in the kitchen, just outside for some air, and not gone from me forever.

He can't be.

You had your cat, mi fratello. I had my dog. He was my soul and my humanity and he was my friend. There were none ever like him and there will never be another.

He was Mojo. May God please love him as much as I did.

Lestat.

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