This story comes
from an online discussion about Marius' feelings towards Lestat. Writing in his journal, Marius admits to himself the reasons behind his bringing Lestat to his island hideout in Greece.
Written in 2000, this story was inspired by characters and situations
created by a certain author who discourages fan fiction.
To contact Wiebke (and especially if you would like to link to
this site or any of the stories), email wiebke@juno.com.
Having reviewed the last six months of my journal entries and judged them in light of the events tonight, I question how I could have been so foolish. Did I think I would forget him?
If I did, after tonight I know I cannot. Rationalize it as I will, compartmentalize it whatever fashion, beat it down with all my might, his face, his voice, his youthful spirit has been indelibly marked into my soul. And rather than let stand all that I have written previously, let me now, with the full knowledge which was brought to me tonight, write out the great truth, that which I was unable to admit to myself.
I thought I could admit to anything. I thought I had rid myself of those weaknesses which lead men to hide their pain behind excuses and falsehoods, to built their palaces on sinking swamps, as it were. I told myself I was rational, not romantic, and I could see with clear eyes always, no matter if it was an affair of the world or the heart - my heart included.
I was wrong and what could bring about this realization but the power of love? Love and that other wild force of nature, Lestat de Lioncourt.
It has been six months since he left my island in the Aegean. Or rather, it is six months since I made him leave.
"Is it absolutely impossible now?" he asked me. "Quite impossible," I told him, and I know it was true, but all the same, oh, how I wish it were not, and how I rail at that very impossibility.
Not meant to be, I think at times, but then I snap back. Who do I suppose is making these plans for what is meant and not meant to be? Is the very thing that I am "meant to be" or is it all nothing but a cosmic accident as told in the ancient scrolls? How difficult it is to accept such a thing as fate, but in a case such as this, even powers such of mine seem helpless against its power.
Lestat attracted me to him for several reasons and I told him that when he asked me, but above and beyond the reasons I gave him, in all my honesty, was one overriding reason. Yes, I loved him, I still do, let me admit it here as plainly as I possibly can. Forget the subterfuge of my fascination for his questing mind. Forget what I told him about his remarkable place on the cusp of the new age. Forget even my desire to heal his broken soul and set him out into the world stronger and more able to cope. Yes, toss these aside for above all, I brought him to me out of love.
I loved him the first moment I ever came close to him, shadowing him one night as he roamed, for the moment abandoned by his mother, his Gabrielle, and his mind on fire with the world around him as well as the thought of someday, somehow, finding me, Amadeo's master, Marius himself.
To hear myself in his thoughts! What's more, to hear those thoughts coming from a being who did not speak my name as if it were made of acid, who did not seek to destroy me or capture me or pry from me the secrets which I have been forced to protect for all these centuries. No, Lestat wanted only me, not the secrets, and if it was his beauty or his mind or even his flattery as he thought of my very name, I do not know, but I know it was love from the very beginning.
It was love that made me follow him throughout Europe on his journey. That and a desire to know as much about him as I could, to understand the ways of the object I desired. Every thing that was of him became a fascination I flew to him as a moth to a flame. The possibility of love blazed so brightly to me in my loneliness it seared my heart, and I thought, "How long can I burn in this way?"
Finally it was finished. He buried himself in the earth. All my desire to be with him, to talk with him, to share myself with him, came to the fore. That night in Cairo was the perfect moment and so I took advantage. I came in my red velvet and raised him up into my arms. I wanted to give myself to him absolutely and of course he allowed it. He was half mad, but he was mine and he took me as if I were a god, his only master, and how I relished the opportunity to give to my beloved and restore the beauty he had lost, to heal that which had been so terribly broken.
After that I knew I had him, it was far too obvious. I was the world in his eyes and filled his heart to overflowing simply by existing - let alone by speaking with him, by sharing my wisdom, my stories, by simply being gentle with him. Kindness he received for the first time without a price, without a feeling of pain. No one had ever taken the time to teach him anything or to set out things before him in a straightforward way. And so all I was, all I did, he worshipped.
It was in this knowledge of my power that I first came to see that events would not allow me to have as I wished. Yes, "quite impossible" was right. He was so young, so battered, still on the bring of that great abyss of immortal time. I could be selfish and bring him to me or I could set him on a path to grow stronger.
I know all too well what it is to be selfish, to become the world to someone to the point where their own life does not matter to them and they cannot survive without them. I saw this with my Amadeo, whom, for all that I loved him, should not have been taken so very young and if events had not worked against us, would never have been taken.
As a mortal boy, he needed more time, time to grow older and see the world as a man. Later, he needed time and he would have needed that very same lifetime I required of Lestat. Perhaps several lifetimes. Instead fate cruelly divided us and threw me into the flames, away from my beloved, to suffer again the torments of my secrets, my lonely and dark secrets, which never bring more than torment to my soul.
In those moments I was selfish, I admit it, but it was for
love and who I am to fight love. I could not fight it any longer,
Amadeo had me from the moment I laid eyes on him and worked
on me through the years until I felt myself splitting in two.
I only gave because I had to, I could not lose him, not in that
way, not only such a short time. Centuries I had waited and
my love was to be snuffed out like a candle only barely used?
With Lestat it was different. I could stop it before it began, and so I did. Or so I tried. I believed I had succeeded. I gave myself to him, yes, and I shared my secrets. But I only went so far. Into my arms, into my bed? No, that would no do. Instead I passed on to him my wisdom and my decision that he was to leave me. Start a life in New Orleans, I advised him, knowing it was what was required but cursing the ill fortune that had forced me to be the instrument of this advice.
I told him it was for his own good, of course, but now, after tonight, I realize it was for my good as well, and that it is my curse. For what would he have gained with me, his lover? He would still require the strength that only a lifetime of true struggle out in world could bring him, and meanwhile there was the greater shortchange. My secrets are simply too great and because of them, I cannot share myself.
I wish it were not so, but I know it is, particularly when I find myself considering such brash, rule-breaking fledgling as Lestat, he who within a single day had already wreaked havoc in my little universe and disturbed the secrets.
So on the one hand I rejected the selfish impulse to keep him with me, but on the other hand, I fed the selfish desire to preserve my own life and safety. Have I gained myself or lost myself? I cannot think but that I have lost, for why must it fall to me to be the keeper of these secrets? Of what value is this never-ending life if I must be a slave or the acolyte? I rail at the non-existent gods for this cursed fate.
Meanwhile he is gone already to the New World. I know not what he does. The distance is too great for even me to monitor and even if I could, I would not. Best he be alone and leave me to lapse back into the barrenness that is my life. Perhaps I spoke the truth to him and I will indeed be allowed to see him again and perhaps he will have grown strong enough to handle a love such as mine and the secrets which I bear. Perhaps by then I will discover a way to loosen the chains of my burden and indulge in that sweet happiness which surely I deserve after so many centuries alone. If there was a God I could pray to, I would do so.
Until then, I will remember the lesson I learned tonight, when, opening the diorite sarcophagus for the first time since I moved it from the island, I discovered that which I had forgotten: the mask, the gloves and the blanket. All covered with finely made gold plate, laid there by myself in a moment of hope, before I realized how doomed were all my plans. May my current hope not be similarly misplaced.