#madeline: 'obviously there is something weird going on there but its none of my business'

[talesfromthecrypts]

I'm a fierce vampire trapped in the body of a little girl. I'm reminded of it every night of my existence, buttoning up this dress and singing and smiling, while the mortals laugh and point.

Interview With the Vampire 2.04 "I Want You More Than Anything in the World"

[bywandandsword]

Ok so, just now for that last post the generator shot out ‘Simple Country Protagonist of Noble Birth’, and that’s essentially one of my OCs so here’s her story if your interested

The takes place in the 1880-90s. When the story starts, Simon’s been on the run for almost five years, dressed as a boy, and half the time she forgets that she’s not one. She spent six months riding up and down the river on the steamboat and got off in Missouri to find other work, hopping from job to job, always reading the papers for any news from New Orleans, and has gotten very good at pretending to be just another young man looking for work. She spent a few months riding the rails, with the vague notion of California or Canada or where ever, just always on the move. Margaritte’s family down south has gotten very powerful, and even more so when she married again, this time to an oil baron turned senator. Simon doesn’t know if Marg is still hunting for her, but isn’t about to risk being found. At the start of the story, she finds herself in Kansas, following a river she was told would lead her to a road, which she could follow to a railway, but either she’s lost or it’s way father than she anticipated, she’s almost out of food, and it’s late September, so it’s getting cooler than is comfortable for someone without a jacket at night. That’s when she sees a farm, miles away from anything, and all the residents are having their lunch outside, enjoying the some of the last few pleasant sunny days of the year. Well, this is too easy, Simon thinks, she’ll just take a bit of bread, a bit of meat and cheese, maybe a better knife, and be on her way with none the wiser, just like she’d done a dozen times in the last few years, she’s long gotten over any moral debate about stealing. Only this time after she grabs what she wants, an incident involving an insistent horse leads to her being discovered. The oldest son Michael (who has two younger twin sibs), wants to take her into town right then and hand this thieving boy over to the law. The father, an older man named Mr. Elias Blez, sees how travel worn and ragged the youth is, how he didn’t take anything but food, and knows that winter is almost upon them, and thinking they’ve been needing a bit of help around the farm anyway, makes Simon a deal. If Simon agrees to work for them as a farm hand until May, they’ll let him leave with as much food and supplies as they can spare and won’t turn him into the law. Mr. Belz also makes it clear that if Simon does try to run, he wouldn’t make it out of the county. It’s black mail, but Mr. Belz think’s its ultimately going to prevent Simon dying of exposure or worse somewhere. Simon, who doesn’t feel like she has much of a choice, agrees. Almost immediately, Mrs. Johanna Belz figures out that Simon isn’t a man, but Simon is like, “We already have an agreement, I won’t be treated any different because of this realization” (cause guess who doesn’t ID as a woman anymore but who doesn’t have the vocabulary to say she’s genderqueer!) and the family hesitantly agrees to let this weird half-feral runaway be. So, she helps them do the last of the harvest and the culling and the rest of the winter preparations. Michael expects Simon to rob them blind and run away any moment now. Simon is secretly glad to have a place to stay for the winter and actually grows to care a great deal for this family, though she still puts up the distanced grumpy front she started with. They go into town sometimes and Simon always presents as male. As winter goes on, Simon gets the first taste in a long time of what it’s like to be in a family again and all the feelings she’s suppressed start bubbling up. Once, after a long day, a family friend and his kids brings over some food, booze, and instruments and the two groups have an impromptu party. Simon gets shnockered and when she gets pressured and dared to sing something, she grabs the fiddle and preforms an old diddy her father used to play in French, then a piece by Bach, then a waltz. And once she’s felt the shape of French in her mouth, her first language, she doesn’t release it easily, the more she drinks the more French she speaks and the more the Belzs wonder how the hell a ragged vagabond they found stealing from them acquired training in classical violin and learned French. 

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Flashback: Her full name is Marie Simone Madeline Lereau de Saint-Maxent, but everyone just called her Maggie. She got this absurdly long name cause she happens to be the eldest child of the wealthy merchant Saint-Maxent family, living in New Orleans. Her father is gone a lot for business and she’s an only child but she has her mother and tutors for company and spends most of her childhood receiving a strict, classical education, even spending a few summers at a boarding school in Paris. When she’s 14, her mother gives birth to her younger brother, Jean René, but she dies shortly after. Obviously everyone is devastated, but Father decides his children need a mother and, as was commonly done at the time, he marries a recently widowed woman with three children of her own, Margaritte. It starts out pleasant as it could be, but as Maggie ages, and Father refuses to change his will to prefer Margaritte’s children over Maggie and Jean, Marg gets manipulative and controlling of Maggie, though never towards baby Jean. The years roll on in this tense way until, when Maggie is 17, Father, Maggie, and two of Marg’s children catch the Fever. Father dies, but Maggie and the other youths recover. Marg uses this as an opportunity to force Maggie to sign paperwork denouncing her claim to the inheritance, and produces a forged will to back it up. She’s paid off the police and the lawyers to make it stick and threatens that if Maggie turned up dead, no one would know that she didn’t die from fever too. Maggie refuses and that night, men sent by Marg break into her room and try to drag her out, but she manages to get free of them, grab one of their guns, and kills one of the assailants. The others flee. She grabs as much clothes, money, and just, stuff that she can fit into a bag and runs. She catches a train that night to Baton Rouge. She’s still got the gun and the whole train ride, she’s processing wtf just happened and cleaning the blood off her hands and worrying about her brother and wondering if it was really fever that killed her father or poison, but by the time she gets to Baton Rouge, she’s together enough to think. She uses her mother’s maiden name, gets in contact with a friend, the son of a family servant, and rents a room in a low-key b&b and waits for the newspapers. Sure enough, they report that all members of the Saint-Maxent family had died, except the youngest, and that Marg find herself a fortunate and exceedinglyy wealthy new heiress. Her contact reports that Marg’s men are still looking for Maggie and offers to help her disappear. They sell what valuables Maggie brought with her, except the gun, she cuts her hair, starts going by Simon. She buys some of men’s clothes clothes, using enough money to bribe her way onto temporary employment on a steam boat headed north. 

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Simon doesn’t say anything more about it until almost February. By this point, she’s grown to love and trust the Belzes and their community and vice versa, Michael has grown to trust her too (especially after Plot and Hijinks), and when he stopped being a dick to her, she befriended him and has feelings for him but like hell is she going to admit it to herself much less anyone else. She’s starting to think this might be someplace she can stay, actually build a life, a home. Then Marg’s name shows up in the paper. I haven’t figured it out but for business reasons Marg has bought a house in the closest big city, maybe Kansas City or Dodge City? and is using it as a base of operations for a branch of her business. But that means she and many of her people are less than a stones throw away, practically breathing down he neck, and Simon just fucking has a panic attack. What if her step mother comes to their town? Are they still looking for her? What if someone identifies her? What if one of her men recognizes her? And what’s happened to her brother, who’d be about ten? Well, Mrs. Belz finds Simon clutching the newspaper, hyperventilating, and after that, the truth comes pouring out. Everyone is shocked. I haven’t actually thought much past this scene, where Simon tells her story to the very shocked Belzes, but Stuff will happen. The Belzes talk her out of just bolting for Canada, Simon will eventually encounter Marg again face to face after she rogues into the house for some reason. Marg has a delicate little pistol, but Simon still has that old blood stained revolver. Way after this, Michael will fistfight one of the goons, and the story will eventually be brought to light, but I have no idea how that will all play out or the consequences.