Capturing Midnight: A Post Blood Canticle RP

[boo radley]

(haha I speak French almost fluently so I can understand what you're trying to say if you mess up And... I'm lost...)

[alldrenched]

(Oh, Rowan and Michael ended up in an elevator with Mona and Stella, and Rowan ran, and was chased by Stella and Michael, but then she took off into the air with Lestat. David went outside to wait for Pieter and Pieter is in a storage closet which looks like a hotel suite because of Julien, and Julien is telling him the warnings he was attempting to tell Stella before she died, about Lasher returning perhaps)

[boo radley]

(ahh okay haha)

[boo radley]

Stella, Vittorio thought. Stella, Stella and Stella. Yes, he realized it, he needed her. She could help him. She was the one that he talked to the most, anyway. Stella!

[alldrenched]

Stella was clutching Michael still, Michael who sat straight on the bench and stared as if it in trance. No, she couldn't leave him now, she looked around, Lestat and Rowan were gone, far away now likely, perhaps in another state already. Louis was, well, she wasn't sure now, and Pieter and David had left in the elevator, and Mona had sped off in the Porsche. Stella could call out to any of them with he mind now, except of course to her Mona, but she did not, she feared for Michael, yes, he never should have run.

Her hatred of Rowan was stronger now that even she had expected, the rage filled her it seemed, and she knew now that she would kill her if she could, and likely would the next time she saw her, Lestat's wrath be damned.

She hugged Michael, though he was so stiff now, so rigid,and more like stone then she was. His scent was delicious and far more wonderful to her now than it had ever been in life. She curbed her lust, terrible as it was now, growing in an unfed fledgling, but she would not do to Michael what she had to Pieter. Michael surely would not survive even a taste.

Michael woke from his trance it seemed, something in him had the instinct to run again, this time away, away from Stella, for a moment she was a beast, a jaguar in the jungle, stalking in the trees, and then, she was his Stella, her eyes a deeper brown, her hair almost black and laid out in curls like she had been styled for a wedding. The teal nylon scrubs hung on her as though she were willfully imbuing them with a sensuousness they refused to accept. Beautiful and beastly she seemed, monstrously gorgeous, her eyes glinting like an adolescents when they met his. Her soft features reminded him of Mona's, though her beauty was totally her own.

She was talking now about going back to First Street, she was thinking of an EKG here before that. He nodded to both and she led him through the big automatic glass doors.

Stella paused, she could have sworn she heard her name, or perhaps picked up the thought of it.

[boo radley]

Vittorio was pacing anxiously inside the empty hospital room, Stella's dead blood now wreaking some odor, even though it wasn't there... it remained. And he kept thinking. Stella, Stella.

Meanwhile Louis took a stroll when he came upon Jacqueline. "Oh, I forgot."

"Thanks," she said. "What happened?"

Louis looked at his glossy nails. "She died."

"What?" Jacqueline stood up. "What do you mean she died?"

"And yet she lives," he said simply.

"So she's a vampire, then." Louis nodded. She took a deep breath. "Right. Right. Then we'll... Then I'll... just be alone." She was alone, now. They'd abandoned her time and time again, of course, she didn't belong, really, she was just there. And now she was the odd one out. She turned to leave.

"Don't do it," Louis said. In his mind, Jacqueline sensed sadness, abandonment, the same things she felt. "You don't understand. You're entering a world you're safe from, you shouldn't be in. And yet you're already in it." There's no way out, he thought.

"No, there isn't, is there?" Vittorio walked out. There was Stella's face, a vampire face, flashing in his face, and then there was Jacqueline, the mysterious French girl whom, despite barely knowing her, he felt he could trust, and Louis, whom Lestat seemed to trust well enough, and he knew why, everyone knew why. "We're meant for this. Destiny. You," he said to Jacqueline, "You are something I can't yet understand. The reason being that you're perfectly human, and you want to die and live again. Why go through the pain, the anguish? We feed to be human, twice, three times a night, and we want to stay what we are, yes. But that is only because we have gotten used to it."

"I said nothing," said Jacqueline. No, that was a lie, she told Louis what she wanted to be. And already things were happening... the mind-reading, the strange feelings around vampires. And other beings. The feeling that she could have those powers by merely standing next to them.

"I know," said Louis. "Perhaps you didn't. And yet you are." He looked at her. Her soft skin. Talamascan skin. "Why did you join them?"

I didn't, she wanted to say, but she couldn't. Why believe her? Her mind was a muddled mess, more than anything any of them had ever seen.

Vittorio was unsure of what to say to her. "Please," was all he could think of. Then, again, Stella. Whom he had seen for a night. Or was it two? And then she was gone again. Gone. Stella. Tonight, he would go back to New Orleans. Perhaps he would talk to the others. David, Lestat, all of them. The new world that was appearing in front of him, unfolding, and in it, new vampires and more threats. He looked at Louis. The two of them, one thought. Stella.

Jacqueline heard Stella and mingled emotions in their minds. Confusion, chaos, longing. Not just for Stella, for a greater purpose to all of this. Yes. That was it. She would help them with finding Stella, and after that... "But Lestat!"

"Into the air with Rowan," said Louis, who immediately wished he hadn't said it. "Ils partient. Pardon." He didn't mean it. Shouldn't have said it. Now she would ask of him more questions.

"Rowan?" she asked. Stella, she thought again, alongside Vittorio and Louis. The stronger the thought, the faster Stella would come, and the faster her answers. "Oh."

[alldrenched]

Stella had run the EKG machine, yes, it was simple enough after she had seen it being done in another room. My god, she thought, she learned so fast, or she understood instinctively. His heart was weak, but stronger than she had expected, with one blood pressure pill at home he would be fine again, though his heart was broken.

Hatred, yes, kill Rowan, and die by Lestat's hand, likely enough, worth it, terribly, painfully worth it. She felt her parents here, she felt their grief, it was drowning out everything, and she closed herself off from them, not hearing it, and thus not railing against Jacqueline's foolish want, though she knew of it already, she had read it from her face when she was still alive.

Stealing a car, that was easy too, and no where near as messy as she thought it would be.

Doors, Open, she instructed, she had sat Michael down and thought, Car, Start, and it roared to life. Yes, this was far more powerful than the skills she had worked so hard to hone before. She could maybe warm a pot of coffee, or slide a fork across a table, parlor tricks really, and then it exhausted her at times. This power was something she would have to test she thought as she slammed her foot on the gas and whipped through the one way streets and sudden dead ends of down town, around the circle and onto St Charles Avenue.

The trees that lined the streets were littered with plastic bead, caught in their branches, which sparkled like jewels until fall, when their strings finally rotted away and they fell. Beautiful it seemed, with the Trolley bumping and rattling along beside them briefly, even at this hour. She made the turn across the tracks onto First Street. She pulled over across the street in her inconspicuous stolen car.

Stella peered up at the wrought iron gates, and the dangerously cracked sidewalk. Cars lined the street and the doors were open, she could see inside that the great mirror had been draped. Her own wake it seemed, what a sight. She could not enter First Street now, she knew it too well, and nothing could will her to, not even Michael.

Michael stepped out of the car, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. "Goodbye, Sweetheart," he was crying, yes, just a bit, but the tears were welled up there.

She didn't know what to say, she couldn't say tell my parents I love them, no, and she couldn't say goodbye either, she wouldn't leave forever, that was her house, and she wanted to see them, she wanted to see him. She felt a terrible pain, this grief, this sudden realisation that she wasn't meant to see any of them again, but that couldn't be, she would, she would, but she might drive them crazy. "Goodnight, Michael," she said softly before he closed the door and she sped off without seeing him walk in.

She parked the car a few blocks away, across from Coquette's, and the cemetery. She got out of the car, leaving it there, still running because she hadn't the sense to think, Car, Off. She climbed the wall of the cemetery, or more truly, she jumped it. Yes, she realised with that, that she had the power to fly, though she was young. Lestat's blood in her, Lestat's strong blood that ran through her Mona.

She collapsed in the dirt next to the Mayfair Mausoleum and she sobbed, it was empty here, she let her cries crest. As her tears fell on the cut flowers that laid under her the flowers grew, their petals becoming monstrous before dropping. Then the sobs ended, she understood it all now, there was nothing too engrossing for her to look at, nothing so beautiful that she could not think now, and she realised what she was, and what it meant:

She would never die, and never truly feel pain. She would never be able to find Mona through thought, and they would never communicate like that again. She would hate Mona, this she feared most of all, but also expected, she would hate Mona, for a time. She would see this world change radically through history, but always be apart from it. She would never, or was never meant to, see her parents again. She would never make love or eat again. She regretted now that she had not done enough of either, and she particularly regretted that she had not been up to see the sunrise in months perhaps, she could barely remember it now, and it would forever be her last sunrise. Sun, she had savored it in life, and it would be only caught on film for her now, only half seen in footage.

Her heart was sinking, but she would not let it, she thought of those who had lived so long, Marius, Maharet, Gabrielle. Yes, they fought something, and they needed something, that is how they lived. If she thought now only on what she lost she would will herself dead, or she would go mad like Nicolas. She stood now, and pressed the dirt off of her scrubs. Now was the time for action, and for searching out others like her, the others who she had loved before.

She left the cemetery and made her way to a clothing store along Magazine street near Washington. She broke in and stole herself new clothing, shedding the rough scrubs.

She slipped on a silky violet dress, she thought of Julien, yes Julien's words echoed, she remembered more of what he had told her, "Mon bonbon, green is lovely, but wear violet for your Oncle Julien." He had looked so sad, "And play the record, for fear that I am still here, lost, without knowledge of who I am." It was a terrible grim thought, "Julien," she whispered lovingly into the night air before she let loose from the earth and took to it.

It was a terrible feeling, so inhuman, she closed her eyes and she was outside of Lestat's now abandoned house. She opened her mind and called to them, to Vittorio and Louis and David and Marius.

[Jacksbonnielass]

Lestat landed them on the rooftop of a hotel, in San Franciso. He had flown them all the way here, holding Rowan close and telling her to hide her face in his jacket if the flight bothered her. He pulled back looking her over, "Are you alright chere?"he asked, he'd forgotten about the others, wanting to get Rowan out of there the minute she ran to him.

[alldrenched]

Rowan nodded,"Yes," it was an auto-response, and a lie. Everyone lied when asked that though, she thought. Seeing Michael, that had been terrible, oh his face as she disappeared, it had made the flight seem marvelous though it was usually terrifying to her. She looked around, though it was summer a cool breeze was blowing around them on the rooftop. It was beautiful, from here she could see the winding streets and the bay, all glowing in the darkness.
San Francisco, she recognised it at once, her heart ached at the beauty of it all. She looked at Lestat, she was melting against him, the awful encounter in the hospital, even Stella's mortal death was washing away as she pressed against him. Away from there, far away, back where she was raised, where she lived in cold routine before Michael, before she found her family, before Lasher. It would be good to stroll these streets, climb these hills. She thought of her house on the bay, her house that should be ready for them now, and the Sweet Christine had been brought back from dry dock near her house in Destin.

Her house, she thought of it,"Let's go home," she said as though it were clear where she meant. That beautiful glass house that swayed when it stormed terribly. A house that sat on stilts right in the water, so modern and so crisp.

[boo radley]

Louis looked at Vittorio. Stella had heard them. But Mayfair... Mayfair was infested with vampires, and Jacqueline was not well-known. Just a Talamascan with sweet-smelling blood. "Come," he said.

Jacquline took Louis's and Vittorio's hands. Cold. Clammy. And yet they were comforting. They rose and left, Jacqueline in Vittorio's arms, as they ran to Stella.