FQL of recent answerage:

Lestat here. Deb Chowning Thomas asks: “Lestat, i would love to meet your mother. Do you ever see her? I would love to hear of her adventures.” Trust me, Deb. You do not want to meet my mother. Meeting my mother is one of those ideas that sounds good, but isn’t. My mother isn’t calculatedly cruel but she is almost entirely indifferent to human beings, and even those immortals around her. And you’ll likely never hear a story of her adventures, but she will never take the trouble to tell such a tale, even to herself, let alone anyone else. I do love my mother and I do see her often of late, but I could never call it deeply satisfying or even a pleasure. Sentient and articulate beings bore my mother. She is truly more interested in the physical world, and the animal world than she is in human personality or art or culture. But who knows? Maybe I’m wrong about my mother. Maybe she does have some great story to tell about a love, a tragedy, a triumph or what mortals call “a learning experience.” But I see no indication of it. Let’s put it this way, she seems consistently annoyed when I’m around her, and eager to slip away. That’s the dominant theme with her. And that’s how she’s been since her first nights as an immortal. But maybe I need her too much to really understand her. Good question, Deb. Thanks. But if you do ever encounter my mother, run. I doubt she’s ever bothered to stalk or chase or hunt down an unwilling victim. Just doesn’t interest her.

viaticumforthemarquise, thoughts?

Gallery

merciful-death:

Prince Lestat by Hetherian
The Vampire Armand by Hetherian
The Vampire Gabrielle by Hetherian

The Rules of the de Lioncourt Family

viaticumforthemarquise:

1. We do not talk about Lestat’s sister. 

2. We do not talk about Lestat’s sister. 

3. If someone says, ‘stop,’ attempts an education, tries to get out—send them to the dungeon for Augustin to beat with a flay.

4. Only two brothers to administer a beating—more and we might kill Lestat, and where’s the fun in that?

5. One beating at a time. (they last longer that way)

6. No shirt, no shoes. We can’t afford them, anyway.

7. Beatings will go on as long as they have to. Now go to the Great Hall and play chess with your father.

8. If this is your first night with the de Lioncourt family? Good luck. You’re fucked.  

Considering the fact that you have been around for a couple hundred years, do you still consider yourself to be a mother to the children who did not follow you into immortality? Do you still consider yourself a mother to Lestat even though he is immortal with you? Keeping in mind the role that a mother has with her children – I’m sure your relationship is entirely different now.

viaticumforthemarquise:

Now, listen closely, because I’m only going to say this once:

One does not stop being a mother. 

Ever.

Your children may die, they may vanish, they may move on to lives where they never need nor see you again—but you never stop being their mother.

You may wish with all your heart to revoke the rights and so-called privileges of motherhood. You may wish them dead or wish them to love you more than they are capable of doing. 

You may wish to love them less, to wrap your heart up safely from them, from not only their cruelties and their kindnesses but from the sweet, milky memories of them that cannot be lost no matter how you might try or no matter how often you turn their tattered photos over and over in your mind. 

Do you comprehend what I am saying to you? No matter who I become, no matter what lands I traverse or who I might meet or how rarely I speak with my goddamn son—I will always be the mother that bore those children. That identity will always remain within me, even if sometimes it is the smallest part of who I am. 

And in regards to Lestat: 

The love I bear for him need not be repeated here, as I have addressed it. 

The pain we cause each other need not be repeated here, as I have addressed it. 

The total devotion I have for him need not be repeated here, as those who might read have no right to do so. 

And the intricacies of our bond are ours. And they contain within them every label we’ve ever held between us, every touch we’ve ever shared, and every memory we’ve crafted—from the moment he began to move within my womb to the last night I visited with him in New Orleans this past summer.

He is my son.

I am his mother. 

And within those titles live worlds of who we are to each other. 

Did you know the full extent of Lestat’s abuse at the hands of your husband?

viaticumforthemarquise:

Did I know?

That is the question, isn’t it?

Without addressing precisely which abuse you are curious about, I will simply make an assumption. 

For a long time—no, I did not know. 

For years I had no idea what was happening. 

Once I knew…well. So much was clear, wasn’t it? The panic attacks, the anxiety, the irrational fears and night terrors. But there was little I could do to stop what was happening. Lestat’s age compounded with my total lack of power in that house made sure of that. 

What do you want from me?

Tears?

Apologies?

I can offer neither. The past has past. The Marquis is dead. The damage is done. 

Leave my son’s childhood, what tattered pieces remain of it, to those who can keep it. 

How long did it take for Lestat to start walking as a child?

viaticumforthemarquise:

Oh, Mon Dieu. That child was a terror. He was mobile by approximately four months, a terrifying three months before any of his brothers had been, rolling and crawling as quickly as he could propel himself to do so. 

By six months he was walking and was causing trouble as one could not believe, opening and falling into cupboards, climbing up into trunks (and vanishing until we could find his location via his tearful cries later), and finding his way into every mess and mud puddle and body of water he could locate. 

Keeping him alive was a heroic effort in itself. 

Give you unsolicited advce: You should’ve stayed with your husband. You took a vow to never leave him, doesn’t that mean anything to you?

viaticumforthemarquise:

Dying in Paris was infinitely better than dying in the Auvergne. 

And no, it does not. That vow was a vow not of my choosing, a coercion from my mother to a man I could not love, who chose to treat me like chattle and violently abuse my youngest son. 

My greatest regret regarding him is that Lestat ever found the letters I’d hidden regarding him—to see my son return to his abuser to “rescue” him caused me more pain than I can describe.