This is a work of non-profit speculative fiction. No infringement on the copyrights of Anne Rice or her publishers is intended.

Spoilers: for The Vampire Lestat

"...As we stole away to the seashore
We smelt the brine, felt the wind in our hair
And with sadness you paused.

Suddenly I knew that you'd have to go
My world was not yours, your eyes told me so
And yet it was there I felt the crossroads of time
And I wondered why.

As you turned to go I heard you call my name
You were like a bird in a cage, spreading its wings to fly
"The old ways are lost" you sang as you flew
And I wondered why."

-- "The Old Ways", Loreena McKennit

"...My love goes with you. And try to remember the things I've told you. When we meet again we'll have much to say to each other--"

My own words, scarcely an hour past. "Ah..." I whispered softly, the whisper snatched from my lips by the breeze that swept the cliffs. "But who will remind you, old man?"

He had never looked back. My brave strong young one, the lines of bitterness and grief etched in every line of his posture, every stiff movement. But he had never looked back. Had not wanted me to see him cry. And I... I had not been able to bear to look away. The tears had burned hot, slow paths down my cheeks as I watched him descend the cliff stairs to the harbor. Watched him board the ship.

Dear gods, I had no concept until that moment how much it would hurt to send him away.

I had wanted desperately to call out to him. Selfish. To make him look back, to meet those gray eyes one more time. To let him see my own tears, to have him see how much this meant to me, when I could not find the words. Only those self same tears had locked the cry within the safety of my throat, unspoken.

And so the child was braver than the man.

The ship was long gone. The winds had been with them, my own doing, and I could no longer see the shadow of the ship upon the dark waters below. Nothing but the breeze and the waves and the emptiness.

He was gone.

I had sent him away.

Lestat.

It was neigh unto another hour before I could bear to turn away, to loose that last tenuous link. He was gone. Off, to the New World. And I had tried so hard to be strong for him in those last minutes, to stand firm for both of us. "When the time is right, I'll find you," I had told him. Moonlight in his shining hair, and oh, the pain in his face. I had wanted so badly to take him in my arms - and why, some inner voice raged, why was now not the right time? Why must it be later, why must it always be later? I could feel that voice still, like a pressure inside, beating at me with dark fists like the brush of a thousand wings over my heart.

And never had my home seemed so silent, or so alone.

Barely a handful of nights together. I was crying again as I closed the door behind me, the tears dripping into the lace of my shirt, staining it crimson. Angrily, I ripped the cravat from around my neck, using the crumpled linen to wipe at the betraying tears. "Ridiculous," I spat, my voice harsh in the silence. "Stupid. This is idiocy. You barely even knew him. Stop it!"

Struggling, trying to get some sort of grip upon myself. Sucking the sobs back into my own chest, holding the pressure there, refusing to let it go. It only made the pain worse, made it crest inside of me like a dark wave of pressure, grief unshed and mercilessly unrecognized. Every nerve tingled with it, finding release in the physical pain. I gasped, staggered, dropping down into a chair.

Where I had sat only two nights before, across from him. Hours, talking...

Ah gods...

I squeezed my eyes shut, gritted my teeth. This was ridiculous. I had barely known him. This had been but the briefest second in my life, and in the years that stretched out before me - nay, in the centuries - I would put these few short nights easily behind me. His features would fade from my memory's eye, his voice from my ears. Lestat would just be a name, an idea, a dimly remembered amusement - some brash young fledgling that had once caught my attention with his antics. Nothing more.

"Liar!" I barely recognized the growl as my own, looked in astonishment as the wood of the chair's arm splintered beneath my clenched hand. For a moment I sat, shocked by my own outburst. Surely I had not done that...

But I had. And in those moments of stillness, of surprise, the wave smashed into me, knocking my breath and my resistance away. The sob tore through my throat, my eyes burning with the tears that flooded my vision. Gone. He was gone. I had sent him away, and he was gone, and I would never forget...

"Oh gods... oh sweet mercy... Lestat..." I slipped from the chair, dropping to the cool tiles of the floor, curled in upon the grief that washed through me. Why? Why why why why why? Why did it happen this way? Barely a week together... oh it was unfair, it was monstrously unfair! I pounded my hands upon the tiles, feeling them crack under my palms, the sobs breaking the painful keening that wound up through my throat and burst from my lips.

I could still feel that last embrace, feel him tremble in my arms. And then I had let him go. Had given him a little push away. Why? Why had I done it? How could I have done it? It was unfair to him, to do this to him. To send him away now. And it hurt... Ah gods, I had never thought it would hurt so much.

I would not see him again. I would not speak to him again. He was gone, and sweet words not withstanding, we might never meet again. He was gone. I had sent him away.

And all the gods help me, I loved him.

Only now could I admit it. Voiceless, it beat within me. Wordless, it cried. Some tiny, fragile kernel within me screamed in agony, bereft of life in the very moment of its birth. Something I had not felt in far too long, something I had nearly forgotten.

I had loved him. For all of his impetuous, headstrong, reckless and infuriating nature, for all of his unsurpassed hubris, for all of the trouble he carried in his wake, for the damnedest brat that he was... I had loved him.

And in those few short nights he had touched something in me that I had thought dead. Something I had not felt in nearly three hundred years. He had swept into my quiet and orderly world and turned it upside down, had blazed through my life like a fiery shooting star. But in the touch of his hand, the curve of his devil-may-care smile, I had felt something I had thought long lost. In that last, bitter embrace, I had felt my heart shatter. I had felt the tears well up. Don't leave me... please, young one, don't go. Don't go. Lestat.... I love you...

He had not wanted to go. I had made him. Now, kneeling upon the smooth tiles, my breath ragged, the tears drained from me, my whole body hurting with the force of my grief, I raised my voice and screamed it out. "Why? And for what?"

But I knew why. It sat beneath me, in the dark embrace of the earth. And for that, I had forced him away. I had let him go, when my whole soul wanted nothing so much as to draw him back into my arms, to hold him and be held. And instead I was alone, as I was always alone, the silence ringing in my ears like the drone of a thousand hornets, maddening.

I was on my feet. I tore the coat off as I went, almost running, the halls and doors of my home passing by me like the rush of strangers. The grief burned in me like an icy fist, my heart bleeding its grief. And close upon that, nipping at my heels, was anger. Mindless fury. Why? Why should this have happened? Why should I be made to suffer once again, why should Lestat?

The door blew back before me, my feet barely brushing the stairs. Blazing light, the soothing sweet scent of incense, of flowers. And his throat, the Father's throat, like a column of forged metal, that hard and cold. Beneath my hand, beneath the blade I held and could not remember snatching up, the edge just touching that holy skin.

"Why?" I demanded, my voice harsh and strained. "Why? Why do you demand this of me? Who in hell are you to force me this way?"

No answer. The blank stare of dark eyes, not so much as a flicker of motion or thought in their depths. Nothing at all. I tore away, dashing aside a vase that shattered upon the floor, one of the ones I had brought just that evening to replace what he had smashed in his fury. "And where is that fury now?" I spat, rounding on his still figure. "You moved for him! You made me send him away, god damn you!" I thrust my hand out, shaking, to point to the still form of the Mother. "Shall I take her a way, then? As you forced him away? I could do it! Would you move for that? Would you stand then, and attack me? Would you?!"

My own voice, echoing back to me. Nothing else. I could have screamed at a wall with more result. It only fed my fury, my lips curling back over my teeth, my entire body trembling with suppressed rage. I stepped closer, my face only inches from that sill countenance, my words hissed. "You made me send him away. Who in hell are you, to do that?"

No answer from the statue before me. And that was answer enough. "No one," I spat. "You are no one. You are nothing. And I am NOT your slave, damn you to hell!"

And in the next moment my hand whipped out, the blade of the knife slipping easily into flesh, as though it only pierced paper. So fragile, for all its hardness. So easily sliced through, past bone and muscle, to lodge within the chest. Blood spilled out, down the white skin, staining his garments.

Stunned, shocked, I backed away. I was trembling, my legs barely holding me up. "Oh gods," I whispered. "What have I done?"

But there was the answer, right in front of me. A knife, thrust hilt deep into the chest of the Father of us all. A blade piercing that first preternatural heart, the flow of blood already ceased, the wound healed around it.

And I was still standing.

There was a knife in the chest of the Father and I was still standing.

Rage and grief drained out of me, leaving only shocked numbness and a slowly dawning fear. The two before me did not stir, serene and immobile upon their seats. The last drops of blood dripped down upon the back of his hand, where it rested upon his thigh, yet Enkil did not stir. I had attacked the Father, I had wounded him, yet no hand from on high struck me down. No godly retribution. No answering explosion of pain within my own chest.

"But are you afraid of him, Marius?" Lestat had asked.

"Oh no, Lestat," I had replied. But it had been a lie. In truth, I was, if only because my own existence was bound so tightly with that of the Mother and Father. And now, in rage, in despair, I had done the unthinkable. I had jeopardized that existence, as surely as that crazed elder who had once left them upon the sands of Egypt as the dawn sun rose over the horizon.

And somehow, through the grace of merciful gods, nothing had come of my folly.

Slowly, barely daring to breath, I reached forward. My hand trembled as I touched the handle of the knife. Quickly, before my courage could flee from me, I jerked the blade free.

More blood. I watched, stunned, as the wound closed before my eyes, healing in seconds. After a minute I could not even see where the wound had been, but for the blood stains.

The Father did not rise. The Mother did not rise. And my heart did not stop in my own chest, pierced by a phantom blade that passed through all of the generations, spreading out from the source. By some miracle, nothing at all happened.

After minutes more I dared to breath. To step away. And then, slowly, stiffly, I wiped the knife blade upon my own sleeve. And very deliberately I turned my back upon them both, going to fetch water and towels. Numbly, I brought them back, wiping the blood from Enkil's chest, picking up the pieces of the vase, returning the shrine to a pristine state. Sprinkle more incense upon the coals. Brush back the Mother's hair. Things I had done a thousand times.

I did not know what I was feeling.

Finally, finished, I turned to leave the shrine. And at the heavy doors I paused, looking back to those two motionless figures.

"But are you afraid of him, Marius?" Lestat had asked.

"I was," I whispered, my voice loud in the stillness of the shrine. "I was. But not now. And never again. What is done this night is done, and cannot be changed. But if ever we come together again, young one, if ever we meet and speak and love again... it will be different. And nothing, not him, not anything, shall stand between us then. Never again."

"One fault he must admit to. He had an acid tongue of late in speaking to them. He was no longer the High Priest when he entered the chamber. No. There was something flippant and sarcastic in his tone..."

--"The Queen of the Damned"

END