Home / Fan Fiction / V(cough) C(cough) fic / Stand Alone Stories / I Must Understand

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."

I Must Understand
by The Brat Queen
July, 2000

SPOILERS: TotBT but also Lady Black Death's "Elements" series. If you haven't read that this won't make much sense. This is a tweener story which takes place between "Elements" and "Revelations". It is written with LadyBD's permission and encouragement.

SUMMARY: Lestat comes to terms with his new role in the universe.

He had come to terms with daylight. That, in fact, had been the easiest part about it all. It shouldn't have been, but somehow his adventures with Raglan James had made it so. He could appreciate it, enjoy it, even admire it, but he was not surprised by it.

In truth he found that little surprised him anymore. He couldn't allow it to. A permenant sense of en garde had settled into him since the entire affair had started. Perhaps because of Parry's tricks, perhaps because of the instinct inside of him which could not let go of its distrust of the word "Satan", or perhaps because by this time he had truly learned that Fate would not let him pass by for long without sticking yet another knife in.

But what could he do?

He accepted. He moved on. He followed Louis. It was consistant enough, and allowed him the delusion that he could keep the one person he cared about in his sights.

*But it's not about you anymore, is it? Oh no, Lestat, it's not about you or him. It's about the cosmos, or the Great Universal Plan. Not you. You don't matter. He doesn't matter either, probably. But at least you can try to hold on to him. Hold on to yourself too, Lestat, so you'll even know when this damned thing is finished.*

That was the strange thing, though. He didn't truly feel that he was loosing himself. When he had joined with Louis he didn't feel lost. He just felt *more* of himself.

Which made no sense.

But even still…

Unable to understand his role in all of this in spite of hours spent with Louis patiently explaning it, Lestat had finally come out of his home in Louis' - Satan's - realm to stand upon the Earth once more. He wanted to see, he *had* to see how it worked in the grand scheme of things.

And, true, as always he wanted to know just how powerful a monster he truly was.

His travels on the human realm brought him to a watering hole in Guatemala. No one could see him as he stayed back, hidden in the trees, but he watched as families came up to it, buckets in hand, to collect the precious but disease-ridden fluid. He watched, using his own eyes alone to study their multi-colored garments, the small, dark hands of the children and even the rough green shrubbery that outlined the pond. He watched, not knowing why his instincts had brought him here but certain that now, more than ever, he should listen to them.

*Your power is perhaps the strongest of all, Lestat,* Louis had told him. *So strong I could not dare trust it to anyone but you.*

But *why*?

A mother and her two sons gathered around the small pond, pulling heavy buckets of brakish water out of it. The children played, splashing one another.

*This isn't me,* Lestat thought. *This is disease, corruption, not -*

*Look,* a voice inside of him whispered.

Lestat paused. *Look,* it said again, *with your vampire eyes.*

Only then did he understand.

He stepped back, turning off the part of him which controlled his vision, which had kept him from falling into accidental trances for over 200 years. He turned off that control and, as his instincts dictated, *looked* at the scene in front of him. Not as a human, not as a vampire, but as what he had become…

And in a dizzying whirl of sensation he *saw*. Not the pollution or the disease but the *Need*. The need which drove the mother to the pond, the need which made the children greedily drink from that which could kill them, the need that caused the roots of the shrubs to steal under the earth and leech away what moisture from the pond that they could, the need which drove the nearby animals to eat the plants in spite of the sharp needles that pierced their tender mouths, the need which drove insects and parasites to burrow deep into the animals and steal away whatever nutrients they could from their weak forms, the *need* which drove them all to do it again and again in a cycle of life and death that stretched on forever and ever…

*This is life,* he realized, knowing in his heart that he had discovered no less in his recent time as a mortal, *nothing but a struggle to fulfill one's desires, a constant battle to stay alive…*

*Look again.*

And he did, letting himself fall deeper into the vision, moving past the need of *this* woman, *this* pond, *this* part of the world and *this* time in it….

And saw the universe stretch out before him. Not in its entirety but in its immediate form as the world and galaxy that he knew being born before his eyes in an explosion of colors too astounding to name, and saw that *need* being born in the heart of the first single-celled plant that swam through the newly-created oceans, saw it in the very elements that had caused hydrogen to bond with oxygen in the first place, saw that the earth itself would not have formed if not for this *need*, this lack of energy, chemicals, sustinance, comfort, health, happiness, safety that caused everything ever created to reach out and seek something, anything, that would *fill that void*….

And then saw what happened if a hand reached in and took it all away.

Then, and only then, did Lestat understand.

Because sometimes things could no longer be.

And so it fell to one hand to take them away. One hand to take away underwater sustinance and force animals to evolve onto land, one hand to take away the warm caress of sunlight and end the rule of reptilian giants, one hand to take away the protection of fur and claws in order to make man *think*, one hand to take away all of humanity's security and comfort and push them to fight and squabble over every scrap of victory so that the world could *turn*…

It was not death, nor anger, nor corruption. Those things were not his domain. It was not his task to end things, to stir things up or to infect them. It was his job, simply, to take away.

Because sometimes things got too greedy for their own good.

The vision began to fade and as Lestat felt himself returning *to* himself, he smiled.

Yes, this was something he could understand.

Louis had been right all along.

The family was still in front of him. One of the boys - a child of perhaps no more than three - was drinking from his rusted out bucket, the grey water dribbling down his chin.

Lestat shook his head, still smiling. *This,* he realized, *will never do.*

He reached out with his hand. The motion required hardly any thought. He acted as though he had been born to this.

He knew, without doubt, that he had.

The water was first. He watched with satisfaction as the heat of the sun beat down and drew it up into the air, drying out the pond with a speed that even the humans could see. The mother cried out, reaching out to grab her children and pull them away. She tripped, falling backwards over the plants that surrounded them. The shrubs withered underneath her, turning grey then brown then black as their very DNA misfired and kept them from surviving in the light of the sun or drawing what moisture they could from the air.

The animals were next, falling down to the ground with thick, heavy thumps. Their eyes stared out at nothing as their skin shrunk down and wrapped itself around their twitching skeletons. A heady buzzing filled the air as insects fled the collapsing forms and angrily tried to settle on anything which had a pulse. They fluttered ineffectively around the mother and her children, suddenly unable to cling on to them or sink their mouths into their still-living skin.

Every hint of color around them faded away, sucked into the vaccum that centered around the once active pond and now spread through the forest in a steadily increasing circle which fell everything in its path.

Only the mother remained with her two children. The red and blue and purple stripes on their shirts stood out in sharp contrast to all that was around them.

Lestat stepped out from his hiding place. He walked over to them, taking his time. He watched them, feeling as though their brightness, their continued vitality, was an insult. Almost as though it pained him.

If he could feel pain, that is.

The children had passed out. They lay limply in their mother's arms. She held one in each hand, looking up at Lestat with dark eyes that spoke of fear and anger both.

Need, he realized, came in so many forms.

He moved his hand again and the boys disappeared, their bodies fading and shrinking like the animals around them, their souls still alive but ready to be captured by whatever entity it was that bore the responsibility of Death, whenever it came to take them. Another gesture provided the same fate for their brothers and sisters back home. One final gesture took away the womb that could give birth to any more.

*Yes,* he thought, feeling satisfied as he saw the loss overcome her. *Not a hunger, but a lack. A lack of whatever is needed, a lack of what they desire, what they must have to survive. Because for some to succeed it is necessary for others to fail.*

And this, he found, amused him. A small laugh escaped him which was soon followed by another and another on top of it. He let it overtake him, loosing himself in the laughing fit and enjoying what he knew for certain was true unholy pleasure.

He left the woman, laughing still, and continued to try his new ability out on the land, watching as the scales of power tipped and swayed in response to anything his hand touched, doing nothing that would be earth-shatterning, nothing that would attract the attention of the evening news, but doing just enough to let himself be felt.

It was, he felt, the least he could do. After all if the time had come for Famine to ride the land it was only common courtesy to give warning.

It was just too bad Lestat did not know who to give warning *to*.

But that was a worry for another day, and not Lestat's responsibility besides. All Lestat had to do was take everyone's pleasure away.

Lestat felt he could be very good at that. Very good indeed.

As far as he was concerned, it was justice.