Home / Fan Fiction / V(cough) C(cough) fic / The Chosen of God Part 8

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Part Eight
by: The Brat Queen

Winner: Best Lestat '98-'99!

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.

I'm uncertain as to when my father decided he wished to take me.

I can speak of my memories, of course. For what they are worth in all of this.

My earliest known memory is of him. This says much, to me. I also know my earliest forgotten memories are of him as well. This also says a great deal.

Shall we turn the clock back again? Revisit the young Lestat from before?

Alright then, let's. Put Lestat back in his bed, lying on his stomach, facing out so that he looks toward his window. Only now erase his age. No longer a teenager, but a child. A boy. Arguably an infant, at that.

And yes there are those who would take a child so young. And children younger still. Although I don't suppose I need to tell you that, Armand.

I do not tend to hunt them, though.

The age? 3 or 4. Barely aware of the world around me, my young senses are now being filled with the thought of my father.

I understood none of it, of course.

To this very day, and you may ask Louis if you'd like, I dislike anything behind me.

This is naturally where he approached me most often.

I don't know why I didn't adopt the habit of sleeping on my back. Perhaps I never wanted to see him. If I could not see the door open or him steal into my room, perhaps it wasn't happening. Dreams have held stranger content, to be certain.

My earliest memory is that as I lie on my stomach, my father is behind me.

I know there is physical contact between us. The memory supplies me with nothing else. Right now, I don't care for it to.

At the time, I merely lay still. I did that for years.

What his words were to me then I do not know. He must have talked, but whatever he chose to say is now lost to me. Perhaps words of endearment. Perhaps words to soothe me and keep me quiet. Not that he needed to bother, my room was far away from anyone else's in the castle. And perhaps that was by design.

It was only as I got older that I was expected to participate.

6 years old? 8? Again the mind fogs. But I remember reaching out to him. I am sitting on my bed, he is perched on the edge of it beside me. His rough hand is around my wrist as my hand moves, no longer something I control, toward him. Fingertips stretch out as far as they can to caress, touch, feel the change of shape and form as he guides me.

My heart still beat wildly then. A pounding so harsh and thick that I thought I would faint from it. It was early enough still that I could remember this.

Or remember each time the sun went down.

By day the world was different.

Understand that this was never something acceptable. Never something that would be made public to anyone at all. That it was done was par for the course. You know this. But this was not a thing to tell the world.

During the day I lived in a fog.

Imagine it, if you can. Imagine that at night a lover comes to you, tells you everything you want to hear, swears to you that you are everything you wished you were, and then during the day he vanishes.

Not only he, but everything around him as well.

The difference between my father during our times together and in front of others was literally night and day.

By night he was my lover. Or so he fancied himself. I know that he felt I was made to be with him and, therefore, he with me. He obsessed, he terrified, he controlled, but he always acted as though I were his beloved.

By day he was once more Le Marquis. And I again the damned son.

But this was not something that was acted. This was not a play for the benefit of family. This was an entire shift in the reality of the world. Valere made sure of it.

I began to doubt my sanity.

As I sit here now it is impossible to describe. Impossible to show what it is like for a child to be told everything he knows about the world is wrong. Think of how many times I would question myself. Think of how many times I would look to my brothers - my mother - and wonder if they knew, if this happened to them to, if this was just something I was meant to go through.

Think of me and my father. Think of me knowing his darkest secret as he beats me to near-death time and again. Think of me trying to comprehend as he shouts insults and curses at me that contradict everything he purrs into my ear at night.

Think of him treating me at night, telling me that my wounds are such horrible things and that he will take good care of me to make sure I recover well. Treating me as though he were not the very man who had placed them on me.

For a while I wondered if this was true.

For a while I wondered if there were not only two versions of my father, but two versions of the world as well.

It's my shame to admit that I preferred the second one. The world of darkness, but honesty.

The concept of my sanity was always a subject of question. The habit was begun by my father and quickly picked up by my brothers as well. Whether my brothers did it to mock me or because they held the honest belief that I did not know what I was talking about I could not say.

I can guess, though. I believe that Augustin knew only that I was problematic. And Charlot simply knew how cruel it was to torment me.

It was never thought of that I was completely out of my mind. Should that have ever been believed I would have been banished to a sanitarium - Valere made sure I knew this as well. Rather, it was a habit to know that Lestat's words were not always the right ones. Not that I exaggerated, not that I made up stories, but rather that I did not speak properly. And even then not all the time, just sometimes.

It was a habit so ingrained that it was natural for Augustin to question my statement of killing the wolves. Surely I'd meant I'd chased them off, or that there had only been 3, or that they had been wounded but not killed, or deer but not wolves.

You see what I mean? Just a little word, here or there, that I might have misspoken.

Setting up such a thing thus made it very easy for my father to dismiss me when I would, stupidly, tell everyone at the breakfast table that I had seen him last night.

All it takes is a small change of wording for that statement to become perfectly benign.

After years of living in my father's house I finally learned to adapt to this form of doublespeak. It takes practice, but can be done. And now that I am a vampire I find it very useful to have a mind which can easily comprehend both the ordinary and the extraordinary. Taking in concepts that seem wholly impossible based on one's understanding of the universe becomes remarkably easy once you discover you know absolutely nothing about the universe you inhabit.

Not that I would recommend this as a prerequisite for our breed, of course.

To this day, though, memories of it linger. Language is always one of my weaknesses. Louis has learned to be patient with me as I ask him again and again to tell me what he just said - to rephrase it, please, so that my mind can understand. It is not that I did not hear his words, only that it is hard for me to connect words with meaning, particularly when emotions are at stake. And I, too, have learned little verbal tricks to get people to restate things for me so that I can be given another chance to hear it without seeming an utter imbecile.

Darkness, too, is something I am not overly fond of. Louis can enjoy reading by a single candle, I need the entire room ablaze. I mislike shadows that fog my vision, even though my vision is so much better than it was.

And, too, there are doors.

You remember how I was about doors in the brief time we lived together, I'm sure.

My preference is for privacy, always. Not that I mind eyes upon me in what others would consider intimate moments - as you know I can strip down and dress again in full view of everyone in a room without even realizing I'm doing it - but that I need to know when the eyes are there. The door to my bedroom, or study, or office, or anywhere is always kept only slightly ajar. And I am usually hidden behind it. Having my door open fully does not terrify me, but neither does it make me happy. Seeing something like that still puts a small, sick tilt on my heart. Not enough to hurt me, just enough to remind.

And amazingly enough, even with all such reminders around me, I still found it very easy to forget.

L.