#silhouettesemerging

[inthiseverymoment]

silhouettes emerging: chapter iii

having theatre-kid-ed her way into this mess, isabelle realizes she needs to theatre-kid her way out. or, as the case may be, theatre-kid her way in even deeper.

iwtv oc x armand, this chapter ~2.8k

this one takes place entirely in flashback and prose for Melodramatic Anne Rice Reasons. don't worry, we'll get daniel's thoughts (spoiler alert: our boy is Less Than Convinced) and some good good analysis in the next chapter

...currently realizing that, if last chapter was "y/n gets noticed at a concert", this chapter is the fight song by rachel platten moment. but, again, IT'S IWTV SO IT'S DEEPER THAN THAT

ok it is three forty eight am enjoy

chapter ii fic masterlist

“I’m not sure why he insisted on keeping her in here. It’s not like she’s different from any other once-fresh meat.”

“Did you hear what they were saying before we caught her? She wanted a job.”

“A job! Here! Mon Dieu, the humans are getting bolder and bolder these days.”

Liquid voices were beginning to work their way into Isabelle’s consciousness as she awoke, her eyes eventually opening to reveal a few members of the last night’s cast and crew.

Last night?

Last week?

Last hour?

She didn’t know.

Suddenly feeling as if she hadn’t breathed in too long, she gasped in a lungful of air and was overwhelmed by a tantalizing smell combining rust, hair gel, potpourri, and…night itself, if that could even be said to have a smell.

Backstage.

Despite being in grave danger, just knowing she was in a dressing room environment sent a shiver of comfort through her that she tried to ignore.

Isabelle’s breath alerted the others to her presence, and as her vision gained focus, she began to recognize them one by one as they looked over her. Given her condition, all she could do was string the occasional tired word together.

“So. I take it…you are…real.”

A moment’s silence, and the vampires burst into debatably-natured laughter.

“That’s a new one,” tittered a slim woman with dark, perfectly rolled curls.

“And I realized that, and now you’re going to kill me? That’s how it is?”

“She’s a quick young thing,” a woman with hair like her own said between drags of her cigarette. “Almost wish we didn’t have to drain her.”

“I mean, you really don’t-”

“I’m afraid we do,” came a familiar drawl, and Santiago seemed to dramatically part his Red Sea of castmates. “Our Great Laws state that no vampire can allow a mortal to live who has had the vampire’s true nature revealed to them. Being that you now know the true nature of the entire Théâtre des Vampires…ah, well. The Laws must be followed. Too bad, my sweet, really. It’s what they say: so full of artless jealousy is guilt-”

“It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.”

However much terror was running through her veins at the thought of imminent death, the second half of her favorite Hamlet quote had come through her lips low, calm, and controlled. She breathed in something like relief; here was one thing to hold onto. Santiago, who’d clearly been expecting to continue grandstanding, regarded her with something like a challenge flashing through his cold eyes.

“Stars, hide your fires-”

“Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

“Anger’s my meat: I sup upon myself-”

“And so shall starve with feeding.”

Her adrenaline turning from fear to the high of competition, she would have stood to face Santiago if it were not for her realization that she was tied to her chair. He was advancing on her, an attempt at intimidation, but she matched him play for play and quote for quote; these words were her comfort, her lifeline, her blood.

“Run when you will. The story shall be changed:”

“Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase.”

“Or if I live, is it not very like-”

“-the horrible conceit of death and night-”

“-together with the terror of the place,” they finished in unison before Santiago started up again-

“No, sure, my lord-”

“My mother cried,” they said together, reaching the crest of their increase in volume to the point where they were both shouting-

“But then there was a star danced,” she concluded on her own,  more conviction in her voice than she had ever felt before, “and under that was I born.”

A long, long, long silence seemed to pass as the other cast members stared at them both with endless amusement. Eventually, Santiago allowed himself the smallest of chuckles.

“Yes, we’ll have to fog this one’s mind quite a bit for the next performance. Otherwise, she’ll get the audience on her side, and we can’t have that.”

…What?

No.

Nononononononono-

Eventually, she realized she was saying this repetition out loud-

“Someone get Armand,” she cried out. “You can’t do that to me. He wouldn’t allow it-at least I thought-what happened to the sympathy you had for me? That speech, to that girl? She was always entirely an act-I didn’t know all of you were-I-Armand!-please, please don’t-merde, I’m begging now-I’m saying-”

“Do not take her mind,” a measured yet half-flippant voice came from the staircase, and she turned to see him there.

Was he watching this whole exchange?

An ember of shame threatened to burn within her for wielding power through words that weren’t truly hers and then, at the threat of losing what she valued most, crumbling and calling out desperately to someone she’d met only hours ago; but it was soon swallowed up by more pressing matters-namely, the fate of her agency and life.

“People come to the Théâtre to be entertained,” Armand was saying as he descended the staircase. “It is not often that one of our victims puts up a true intellectual fight, and our audience will appreciate the chance to see it.”

“Maître, it won’t work otherwise, she wouldn’t fall for the-”

“Not too fast, Santiago,” came the interruption, and the maître in question silenced his leading man with only the lift of a hand. “We don’t want to spoil the surprise for her.”

“I-”

A blush painting her wearied face, she had to search for words for a moment as the vampires turned their piercing eyes to her. It took quite a bit of willpower to regain her composure, but regain it she did.

“I was there for the last performance. It will not be a surprise. You-you read their minds, I suppose, point out their flaws, and make them wish for the death you provide. Is that it?”

A beat, and then an outburst-

“Fog! Her! Mind!” Santiago said in the verbal equivalent of an exasperated eyeroll.

“I will not,” Armand held firm, “and neither shall any of you.”

He stepped behind Isabelle’s chair and touched two fingers to her temple, and an odd wave of something seemed to wash over her as the rest of the cast dispersed to their coffins, whispering all the way.

“That is a protection,” came Armand’s whisper to her. “I’ve stopped them from getting into your thoughts-”

“What, so that you can turn around and do it yourself?”

She ripped herself away from him as much as she could in her current position, her breath finally falling into tears, and he somehow seemed genuinely wounded.

“You do not trust me, then.”

“Why on earth,” she choked out a laugh, “would I trust you? It was your voice in my head last night, you who took me where I could see the bloodstain, you with so much power-apparently both hierarchical and supernatural-over everyone else here.”

“My promise regarding the audience was simply so that they would spare you. I have a plan, Isabelle-”

“And, whether that’s true or not, I suppose you could make me believe it somehow? How-”

Isabelle broke off, trying to keep from heaving a sob. The sudden longing for her tiny apartment with dripping ceilings and creaking tables overwhelmed her, if only for a return to when she was hers, when she was safe.

“How can I trust anything about you?”

After a moment, he swallowed hard but silently, then looked her in the eye for the first time since their last night’s conversation.

How she ever could have seen those eyes for even a moment and not realized that this man was something more than human was quite a mystery now. The deciphering of him that Isabelle had delighted in as an audience member with a crush had turned into a full-throated attempt to read his every flicker of the eyebrow, with her life now on the line. And all this time, the man in question had been silent.

“I’ll prove it,” he said simply.

Finding nothing more that he could do, Armand turned and retreated, going back up the staircase with every quiet footstep ringing.

He’d saved her last night. He’d claimed to save her now. And he was apparently planning to save her tomorrow from the death that his cast-his coven-hoped to carry out.

She was left alone with many questions, above them all being:

Why?

~

Isabelle’s day on the chair as the vampires slept had been spent half in silent contemplation, half in fruitless attempts to escape from her surely-supernaturally-assisted bonds. There was, needless to say, a lot to grapple with, but one thought nearly as alarming as losing her memories was the knowledge that-

If these people-people?-weren’t trying to kill or otherwise disarm me, I’d…

I’d adore them.

She’d never felt anything like this before. Immersive theatre that delved into grief and every facet of humanity, both beautifully artistic and unapologetically messy, was an idea she could only dream of for most of her life. The thrill of finding herself a little bit infatuated with half the cast throughout each play, then seeing all of those same bright eyes turned towards her; the offbeat adrenaline rush of a Shakespeare-off; the fact that she was no longer the most dramatic one in the room, not by a mile; so much about this group was intoxicating.

And the short conversation she’d had with Armand before everything fell open, as well as the restless dreams she’d had of him that she was sure he’d somehow placed there, still took the forefront of her musings.

Why is it that the first time I have genuine reason to feel wanted, it’s under…

Her leftover makeup had started to flake, and the rope was near biting into her wrists after the hours it had spent there.

…these circumstances?

Last night, she’d thought that a performance gig here would be her last chance, and this now seemed to be true in a whole new fashion. It took quite a lot of figuring, hoping, and crying to come to terms with the extremely high likelihood that there were only two ways that this night would finish:

Either Isabelle de la Rue, once Bella Ditell, would be killed…

…or she would be embraced.

It was clear that, for a few fleeting moments, in even the slightest way, these vampires respected her a little bit. They clearly thought she was dangerous enough to necessitate intervention, that she had enough presence of mind and will to live to stop her from falling for Santiago’s beckon to death. They now knew, too, that she was clearly a performer by trade and by passion. Armand had mentioned her possibly being of entertainment value, and that had sparked something of an idea; as little as she wanted to be valued only for that, if this was the only way to survive, she would show them that they wanted to keep her around.

The audition of a lifetime.

~

Hours later, she was behind the very same curtain that she’d been on the other side of only a day before. In any other circumstance, this would be a dream-to see a show at a theatre company one night and be part of said company the next.

Apparently, manifestations need to be more specific.

The redheaded woman who’d expressed not wanting to kill her held one of Isabelle’s arms, and the other was taken by a pretty-boy type who had played a woodcutter in an earlier skit. They both seemed surprised at her silence, but didn’t address it.

Probably makes it easier for them. Not to see their victims as people, and all that.

But when they dragged her onstage after a very long monologue for Santiago-as-Death, Isabelle did not stay silent, and she also did not scream.

She sang.

It was an aria of a mythical queen awaiting her death, one that she’d known for years. She felt an odd sensation of multiple telepathic attempts to shut her mouth being ricocheted away by whatever spell Armand had placed, and with the knowledge that this might be the last aria of her life, she poured her entire being into it. Santiago played along in character, partly amused and partly furious, and the sound of this half-chaotic French made her head spin even further, and everything whirled around at once-

All of a sudden, Isabelle was a capella no longer.

She glanced into the wings and made eye contact with the pianist, who grinned at her.

I won’t let myself imagine that anything comes out of real sympathy, that’s too dangerous-they’re playing with their food, is all.

Still…

What a moment!

Roughly half the audience was laughing in disbelief, but the other half seemed genuinely tuned in to what she was doing. She reached out to them, to her fellow humans, every trace of desperation and brazen hope sparking up in her eyes. She even managed to find and share a moment with the girl she’d met the previous night, who had seemed greatly worried upon recognizing her but now smiled at her and leaned forward to take her hands-

-until Santiago grabbed hold of her waist from behind and dragged her upstage.

A few audience members gasped, but Isabelle continued singing, looking between them and her reaper with more fire than she had ever trusted herself to possess.

Unable to stop her voice by supernatural means, Santiago skipped to the end of his usual blocking, straight to the part where he held the victim by the throat. This nearly choked her, and the tears that had started during her frenzied aria threatened to break loose.

A cold shiver ran through her every bone.

This is it.

It didn’t work.

She tried to turn her head, intending for her friend in the front row-her first friend-to be the last face she’d see.

If I go out, I’ll go out singing.

Santiago’s grip tightened, and-

“Arrêt!”

Out of pure surprise, the bony grip around her neck released, and she looked over Santiago’s shoulder to find the source of the voice she already knew.

Armand, now in full makeshift costume, was holding a very real prop sword to his leading man’s throat.

He began to speak in French, with every dramatic inflection of the rest of his coven, but broadcasted a more earnestly spoken translation to her as he did so:

You will not harm her.

Apparently greatly enjoying the improvisatory nature of how tonight was shaping up, the offstage orchestra struck up a soaring, string-soaked theme.

As Orpheus meant to save Eurydice, I mean to claim my love from the hands of Death. Only I, I will not falter. I will not doubt.

He now lowered his sword and looked straight to her, directly, intently.

I will give her reason to trust.

Whether it was the torrent of Purcell-assisted emotion and the promise of certain death that preceded this, her go-with-the-moment theatrical training, the single curl falling in front of Armand’s face, or some overwhelming combination of all three, Isabelle slowly moved to take his hand, deeply affected by the way he seemed to have genuinely expected her not to.

He kissed her birthmark again, and she started to cry.

Never one to miss a chance at upstaging a scene, Santiago swooped in once more, but was repelled. By the way each vampire looked at the other, she knew this was a battle being fought with eyes and telepathy alone, one which the maître would undoubtedly win.

Mighty Reaper, Armand’s speech and translation continued, cliché as it may seem, my love-my lark-is too strong in her soul and in her love to fall to you this early. With the two of us fighting against you, life will…

These words seemed almost to stick in his throat; understandable, she thought, after years-possibly centuries-of existing by the opposite mantra.

This time, life will prevail.

She shook her head, looking to Armand in total bewilderment. Why was he doing this? Why was he saying all of this?

Why me?

This he heard, and this he answered.

She of the ever-winding, ever-sparking mind, she of the soaring and unafraid voice-both of which you, Death, wish to silence-is the only one I ever wish to hear.

What followed was a kiss so tentative, then so tender, then so deep, that the sound of the violins seemed to be circling around the pair in swooping whirls that caught in each contour of their breath.

For the first time in her life, Bella Ditell allowed her guard to fall.

The audience, caught off guard by something resembling a ‘happy ending’ and having quite a lot of fun with the dramatics of it all, roared their appreciation. Above every sound was the delighted, encouraging wolf whistle of the young woman in the front row.

Perhaps it was wrong. Perhaps it was horrid. Perhaps it was everything she’d feared wrapped up in everything she’d hoped, or perhaps it was the opposite.

But now, at least, at last, Isabelle had the chance to find that out for herself.

[inthiseverymoment]

silhouettes emerging: chapter ii

a very eventful first visit to the théâtre des vampires

iwtv oc x armand, this chapter ~2.9k

a few hours ago i thought this chapter wouldn't have much to it and might have to be merged into another. lollll

my apologies for the ever-so-slightly true idea that this is, just a little bit, the vampire equivalent of "y/n goes to a concert and is discovered bc she's Different"

but hey it's iwtv so it's gonna be deeper than that

also, i was not expecting how much FUN it would be to write santiago omg. also, there’s an interview where mara said they put a ton of work into the ceiling and it turned out gorgeous only to never be used in a s2 shot, so i made sure to mention it so that this hypothetical episode would be sure to feature it

enjoy! like comment share etc!

chapter i fic masterlist chapter iii

Nineteen Thirty-Six, Paris, France

This could have been one of the nights she’d dreamed about.

That was the mantra that would not leave her mind as she took her time with each step down each cobblestone road. A curtain of stars, the smell of fruit-tinged alcohol, and French murmurs made it all too clear that, if there was someone beside her or if the destination of this walk was her own stage, she couldn’t ask for anything more.

Despite all she’d gone through in the city so far, Isabelle vowed to let herself enjoy this act of taking herself on a date to the theatre. This was the last performance opportunity in her area that she hadn’t auditioned for yet, and waitressing at a cafe near her tiny apartment didn’t give her even a fraction of the money to travel elsewhere in search of other gigs, so-try as she might to let the worry melt away-she was very much aware that this night was something of a last chance.

She was greeted at the box office by a man in powdered makeup who smiled at her with impressively realistic costume fangs. The others that filed in appeared to be half already-devoted fans of the company, with painted faces of their own, and half eye-rolling skeptics who scoffed at being dragged along with their friends or partners. With her slightly nervous eagerness, she felt somewhat in between the categories as, one by one, they all spilled through the door into the Théâtre des Vampires.

…My God.

She had seen stunningly intricate and opulent performance halls before, as a rejected hopeful, but something about this one took her breath more than all the rest put together. A massive chandelier hung from the ceiling, which itself was covered in murals that made her head spin to decipher. There were large, swooping statues of angels doing decidedly un-angelic things. Staircases were beautifully formed yet falling slightly apart; chairs were squeaking with age yet divinely comfortable; it was a perfect mix of well-worn and splendid.

Isabelle took her seat among the buzz of anticipatory audience members that never failed to make her heart glow. When the theater darkened with a booming clank and the spotlight sparked to life, standing in it quite suddenly was a caped man who seemed almost to have been born with “stage presence” written across his chest by the Fates themselves.

“Welcome-to the displacement of reason, and the excretion of pathetic desires,” he began, calculatedly gesturing. “By that I mean-”

And as he bowed, the devotees joined in in rapturous chorus-

“Good evening!”

“Good evening,” she repeated softly, a schoolgirl’s giggle fluttering into her chest. The powder-faced young woman in the adjoining seat grinned and nudged her shoulder.

“First time?”

She nodded, attention torn between the first person to speak kindly to her since she’d arrived and the leading man who had now begun to fly on a wire above the audience.

“Oh, you’re going to love it. Santiago up there-he’s one of the greats, you’ll never forget this performance as long as you live.”

This Santiago was making quite the show of his speech. As the lights and chandelier flickered, he floated straight above them, and Isabelle could have sworn she saw the rope detach from his jacket for a moment-she gasped-

“Look,” she said to her seatmate, and pointed up.

“Hm?”

“Didn’t you see?-”

But by now, Santiago’s course had taken him past them and up to the rafters, and the other girl shrugged, turning back to the performance.

As the leading man proclaimed that his audience was about to see “the highest form of art in the lowest of ways,” the crowd laughed in delight, and the spotlight followed him all the way, its large beam eventually half-illuminating the most beautiful person Isabelle had ever seen.

“Have you repressions that need airing?” the speech continued.

…Apparently, yes.

She was dumbstruck. It would be shallow to say that Bella Ditell-no, Isabelle de la Rue now-cared too much for appearances, and she did not want to be shallow. No, there was something else that had her incredibly curious about this stranger. It was something like the way he carried himself, something like the thousands of thoughts she could nearly see passing across his eyes as they glinted amber in the spotlight. The sound of Santiago’s speech blurred to nothing in her mind as she watched this young man scan the audience, tired, bored, generally disregarding.

I must be the only one looking back at him.

She figured this because, when his gaze went over her as it did all the others, he stopped-then blinked-and looked back. For a moment, Isabelle felt a strange sense of being read, deciphered in the same way she was trying to decipher him.

Whether it was the newness of anyone putting in the effort to decipher her at all, or the supernatural nature of the story being played out, there was either way an unfamiliar, undeniable rush of something.

The stranger smirked, and the spotlight followed its target away from the rafters and back towards the stage.

Near the end of his monologue, Santiago seemed to rally the previously coughing and chattering audience into a captivated silence with his declaration that everything about to happen was entirely real and that they would one and all be held accountable.

“Complicit…”

Her worst fear in one word-

“...repugnant…and appalling!”

She was, apparently, not the only one who was slightly bothered-

“And…”

Despite every instinct, she found herself leaning forward, awaiting a judgement she had never consented to be under-

What on Earth have I walked into?

“I love you for it.”

Stunned, she took in a breath.

Having given a wink to Isabelle’s blushing seatmate, Santiago was then looking straight at her, a certain yet intrigued tilt to his head, before turning back to the rest of the audience.

“And I welcome you…even as you disgust me.”

~

Twenty Twenty-Three, New York City, United States of America

“So that must have been new for you too,” Daniel probed, “being from such a strict moral background.”

“Indeed,” said Isabelle, half-breathless with memory. “That idea of being celebrated for the wrong or messy parts of yourself was entirely foreign to me.”

“And you said the plays were different back then. Different how?”

“When Louis talked about the Théâtre,” she began, “he said the plays always either ended in death or ‘some kind of cruel, barely motivated violence’. In the mid-thirties, most of them were the former. The stories were a little bit deeper, everything was more motivated, it was really more about the horror of grief and the unknown rather than laughed-off brutality-”

“Is that the truth?”

She blinked.

Is it?

“The plays…changed gradually. At the time when I was turned, they were as I describe, and a maker cannot get into the mind of their fledgling. So…a tentative yes on that.”

But she was shaken. No matter how hard and fast many of the vampiric powers and limitations were, there was always a possibility from the moment she stepped into that building that any given thought might not have been her own. If it weren’t for the many, many years she had spent coming to know her true self, free of both her emotionally repressive hometown and supernaturally oppressive coven, if it weren’t for the way she had come to recognize what a memory felt like when one of them had gotten into her mind, if it weren’t for that, she would have been living in a state of constant terror.

“Though the Théâtre was better than it eventually became, there was still a sense of horror to it,” Isabelle continued as Daniel scribbled away. “I found it so…so, so beautiful. And I hated that I found it beautiful, because it was so deeply unsettling-each contrasting thought only bolstered its opposite. Like I said, the final play, the one with the human victim, was done with more intimacy and less shock value, and had the whole audience breathless.”

She almost smiled in remembrance, and Daniel set his pen down to shoot her a look.

“So the small-town girl enjoyed seeing her first slaughter?”

For a moment, the shame returned, and she was sure he could see it flicker in her face.

“That night’s victim,” she confessed slowly, “was the girl that had ruined my reputation only one week before.”

“Ah,” was Daniel’s only reply, a bit delayed but with plenty of thought.

“Of course, I had thought at the start that it was yet another place she’d gotten a role, that she was playing the ‘scared woman’ remarkably well despite my surprise that she’d perform in a venue like this. But as the play went on, it seemed more and more real, as the introduction had promised. There truly was something supernatural in the air, and besides, I had never seen her act that well before. For some combination of a thousand reasons, my drunk-with-stage-lights mind started to believe.

“This was the one whose doting and shallow parents owned an opera company, who had dug her nails in hard during our first handshake, who had handed me a camera and sugar-sweetly asked me to take a photo of the rest of our dance class that only I would be excluded from, who had mocked every single girl who didn’t fit into her shiny, plastic norm over and over as it flew completely under the radar of everyone in power.

“And I saw her tremble in Santiago’s arms. The deeply privileged girl who had everything in life handed directly to her was suddenly at the mercy of a group of misfits that had been cast into the shadows all their lives. It was…”

She was quiet for a moment.

“It’s okay,” Daniel said.

“It was the most incredible thing I have ever seen.”

The journalist nodded and gave half of a smile, as if this was the confirmation that he was indeed in the presence of a fellow vampire.

 “Santiago offered someone else’s life in exchange, as he did when Louis and Claudia first went, but this time, instead of picking someone in whichever front row seat was most convenient…”

She trailed off, heartbeat picking up as she once more became lost in the memory.

“Yeah?”

“He gave her the choice.”

~

Nineteen Thirty-Six, Paris, France

“If you were to trade your life for one of these,” Santiago was whispering, every syllable ringing through the deathly quiet auditorium, “who?”

For the first time since they’d met, Isabelle saw the girl’s face in something other than triumphant composure, now streaked in mascara and worry. She was squinting in the light to get her bearings, and, with shaking breath, began looking through the audience.

It did not take long for her eyes to find her and widen with relieved malice.

“Her,” she choked out, pointing decisively. “Her, take her. She is nothing. I’ve wanted her gone for weeks. You know-”

-here the audience began to gasp as she started to laugh through her tears, and Isabelle’s blood ran cold-

“-you know, this near-death may actually be the best thing that’s ever happened to me, because once she’s gone, I’m safe again, I’ll know I’m the best again, I’m-”

Remembering that she was indeed in front of an audience, the young woman collected herself for a moment and nodded at Santiago as if he would join the rest of the world in doing her every bidding.

Santiago, for his part, regarded her for a long while, then looked at Isabelle for what felt like an eternity before his gaze traveled back to the rafters. Isabelle followed it up toward the stranger, who apparently held some sort of sway over the whole thing-the director, perhaps-and she awaited judgement with far higher stakes than what could not have been only an hour before.

Somehow, though, she felt…safe.

Something told her that she would not die that night.

The stranger almost, almost smiled, then gave a slight shake of his head.

This the girl saw, and she started shaking far worse than before as Santiago turned back to her with a positively villainous smile.

“Dearest,” he drawled, “I usually tell the forsaken audience member to remember this moment, to remember that they cannot trust their fellow mortals. But this one in particular does not need to know that after all that she has endured.”

The young woman in the seat next to Isabelle was looking at her with eyes like full moons, and she herself was near tears.

How does he know?

“Half out of flippant disregard for all you view as below you, half out of jealousy of the many who possess a thousand times your emotional and vocal range,” Santiago continued, “you have subtly tortured oceans of young artists like yourself-like what you think you are. You believe that, because you do not allow yourself to think or feel deeply, you are more mature. And do you know where that will lead you, darling? Straight to an empty, vacuous, golden cage of a life. Anything you shall accomplish-sorry, anything Mommy and Daddy’s money shall accomplish-will not matter a single bit, not with that kind of a conscience, miniscule as it may be, gnawing endlessly at you. Perhaps, though, not endlessly; because, no matter the accolades, no matter the societal power, one thing still awaits us all.”

He smiled slowly, basking in the rich girl’s terror and entirely silent auditorium.

“You know what it means to be loved by your sycophants and audiences filled with shallow old donors who believe screamed, flat high notes and deeply false tears equate to art. But I ask you this, my sweet: do you know what it means to be loved by death?”

The violin soared to a climax.

The vampire bit.

The young tyrant screamed.

Then the curtain fell in front of them, and the audience’s complete silence continued, interrupted only by muffled hisses from behind that curtain which seemed to have far more than one source.

Isabelle was snapped out of her reverie by her new acquaintance’s hand on her wrist and French-accented whisper.

“It is captivating, no?”

Slowly, silently, she nodded.

“They’re great actors,” the girl continued under her breath.

“Are you positively sure it’s not real?” Isabelle whispered back.

Then the curtain rose to reveal the cast, now heavily bloodstained as if they had all devoured their victim, and they bowed to the audience’s few stray claps which slowly but surely grew into a roaring applause.

“Oh, surely not,” the powder-faced girl said as she began the standing ovation. “But it is such fun to believe.”

The next few minutes were a complete blur of wonder, catharsis, and guilt.

Not guilt for what she thought she may have witnessed, but guilt for not feeling as guilty as she should have.

Feeling more feeling than she had felt in quite a long time-

Viens à moi.

-she pushed through the crowds to find someone to talk to about being hired-

Viens à moi.

-unsettling or not, this was still her last potential job, and selfishly or not, she had on some level adored what she’d seen-

Viens à moi.

-and all this time, amongst the chatter of the audience as they all left, she heard an occasional maddening whisper without an origin.

Some thought told her to duck into a hallway behind a pillar, which she did, and was confronted-as she had hoped-by the unfairly beautiful stranger from the rafters.

“Bonsoir,” she greeted, and found herself taking in a breath and starting to ramble before the man could reply. “Tonight…tonight was the most stunning theatre experience I have ever had. I’m not sure if you’re hiring, it feels odd to say that I’m not sure if you’d hire a human, but I think I could be something here. I can sing opera and jazz and popular song, I can play the piano and clarinet, I’ve done Shakespeare and a few horror plays back home, I can scream like the best of them, I know enough French to get by and am willing to learn more-”

“I figured as much,” the stranger interrupted gently, and they started to walk back through the hallway and the now-empty auditorium. “You are one of very few who seemed to enjoy our show for something greater than the novelty.”

“You’re the director, then?”

“Maître of the company,” he replied. “Armand.”

He then kissed her left hand in greeting-not only kissed her hand, but the birthmark on it, the birthmark her grandmother had tried in vain to scrub away, the birthmark which she had secretly cherished since childhood.

Through this flood of memory, she could have sworn she saw him smile.

“Isabelle de la Rue,” she said with a valiant attempt at matching his lilting accent. This Armand-Armand-tilted his head thoughtfully as they continued to walk.

“Is that a stage name?”

“It is. You’re the first to call that out. They called me Bella back home, which I always found somewhat infantilizing, because that was the way it was intended-and as for my last name, I wanted to separate myself from my past as much as possible.”

“You want freedom.”

“I do.”

The only thing that could draw her focus from Armand’s disarmingly earnest expression was that, from this angle at which there were no seats, her line of sight could go straight behind the curtain to a large splatter of blood at the center of the stage floor. Noticing that her eyes had gone wide, Armand turned to follow her gaze, then took her hand and briskly began to lead her away, continuing to look over his shoulder and urgently signal as if telling whoever was behind them to stop, stop, not this time.

That was the last thing she remembered before her world, having just been rocketed into glowing chandelieric light, went black.

[inthiseverymoment]

silhouettes emerging: chapter i

the interview begins.

iwtv oc, this chapter ~1.4k

backstory time babyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

i always found the typical formatting of multi-paragraph monologues to be a bit odd, but there def won't be as many of those once we dive into the flashbacks in proper. next chapter, i promise-for now, gotta set this story up

enjoy!!

prologue fic masterlist chapter ii

Twenty Twenty-Three (The Next Day), New York City, United States of America

“You okay?”

She didn’t hear him. Unblinking, she found herself staring at the journalist’s laptop. The book surely didn’t include everything; there must be so much more in there, and the desire to know overwhelmed her-

“Earth to the soprano?”

“...Right.”

“Louis burned my laptop after what happened in Dubai. So the one in front of us isn’t ‘the’ one, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

They were in his apartment for the full interview, away from the prying ears of the city, and Isabelle was beginning to wonder whether the impulse to tell her story was indeed as good as she’d thought. It was a remnant of her human life, the self-righteousness that many called naive, the instinct to always get the truth out no matter the cost, to be included.

But her time at the Théâtre des Vampires was something she largely looked back on with shame, a shame that had grown even darker when she’d learned everything behind the horrors that had happened there once she had disappeared.

Do I really want my name on this?

I saved myself, I got out, but didn’t do anything to actually stop them once I was gone.

Despite the near-century of vampirism under her belt, her frozen state of early-twenties idealism still perpetually burned in constant guilt.

“I’ve thought a lot about Louis since your book, actually,” she said, remembering the conversation at hand. “Calling himself the ‘reticent vampire’, refusing to drain humans at the beginning, every grasp to hang onto humanity. I know how that feels.”

Daniel only nodded as he set up the microphone, and after a moment of semi-awkward silence Isabelle spoke again.

“I did like the part where Lestat killed the tenor.”

“I’ll tell him for you.”

She wasn’t quite sure what that meant.

It must have been easier for Louis and Armand-they always had the upper hand.

Being around so few vampires for so long, as she had generally isolated herself from them after leaving the Théâtre in a desperate attempt to live as human a life as possible, it was easy to almost forget the depth of her powers. Although she and Daniel had the same ancient blood within them, she had been around for quite a while longer, and she swore to herself to remember all that she held.

Daniel sat across from her and, on her nod, hit his space bar.

“I’m here with the vampire Isabelle de la Rue, who has a few corrections against the increasingly unreliable account of the vampire Armand. Namely, that he had, indeed, made another vampire prior to our last years’ interview, who now…sits in front of me.”

He blinked, as if still getting used to that idea himself.

“Ms. de la Rue, how long have you been dead?”

“Nice opening question,” she smiled.

“Hasn’t failed me yet.”

Then, with a polite laugh and something of a hum-

If I can face myself enough to say it all out loud, I suppose that’s the first step.

She took a breath.

Here we go.

“I was born in 1914. A typical story: small-town girl, only child, cloying upbringing, the arts as escapism. I was one of very, very few kids in my area growing up, and those who were there never liked me much. Too sensitive, they said, which of course only made me even more so. I liked school, because it was the one place I could be absolutely certain I was doing the right thing and no one could tell me otherwise. To be the only one who solved an equation or understood Shakespeare almost made up for watching them make plans with each other right in front of me. I didn’t know what I had done wrong there, and no one bothered to tell me; looking back, it probably had to do with wanting it too much. My parents and the adults in the neighborhood saw my struggle as being above my peers, especially when I started to sing and play the piano. But I didn’t want their ‘isolated gifted girl’ pity. I wanted to find people like me.”

“A desire for community so great that it left you vulnerable to a murder coven.”

“We’ll get to that,” came her half-shaking laugh. “I grew up, and grew extremely tired of the labels. Besides my writing, I didn’t have much of a chance to figure things out beyond what my family and the town put on me; I was only seen for what I could do, not who I was.

“And, contrary to popular belief, I always knew who I was.

“I needed to get out.”

“And Paris was ‘out’?”

“Eventually. Once my parents realized that no ‘polite young man’ from our town would look at me long enough to take me off their hands, they allowed me to go off and try my fortune as a performer, and I was gone before I could finish the word goodbye.

“In all that loneliness of childhood, my hope lay in tales of the great salons of 1920s Paris, where artists and thinkers would come together to create. That idea of a room draped in burgundy and pearls, wine and quotes flowing, relationships forming and breaking and healing all within a few hours, perfume and jazz in the air mingling with the light of endless stars-that romanticized ideal was all I had. A place where I could imagine not having to worry about what was right, a place to live in each moment. That was what I wanted.

“I wasn’t entirely surprised at the disillusionment that followed. At each theater or music club where I did manage to get an audition, I would come at it with the utmost hope, ready to make a home out of each dusty chair and creaky floorboard, but there was always something keeping me from it. Too tall, too eager, couldn’t kick high enough-that’s all par for the industry-but there was often a lot more going on. A leading lady that I had taken a few dance classes with spread rumors that I was an escaped thief, got her manager and her many friends to believe it, and there went my hope of artistic community. One director-clearly abusive, judging by the haunted eyes of the chorus girls I saw in passing-said he didn’t hire uglies with a mouth on them so he wouldn’t hire me, that people paid to see the girls shut up and look pretty. The most powerful theatre producing team of the time told me they couldn't figure out what to do with me-which is fine-but what stuck with me for decades was being told that they thought I hadn't figured myself out either.

"Racist producers I refused to work with, places steeped in favoritism where an outsider couldn’t even get a foot in the door, one place that apparently just didn't want redheads on their stage-simply put, I could not find a job.”

“You were a starving artist.”

“Precisely. And without even the friend group to make a La Bohème.”

“So your very last option…”

She nodded.

“And back then, the Théâtre wasn’t exactly the way it had become by the time Louis and Claudia got there. When the victim was killed, the other vampires didn’t immediately appear all at once and swarm, they’d have their fill offstage; for the initial draining, it was going for more of an intimate moment, just Santiago and whoever it was and a single violin. The stories got kitschier over time-audiences didn’t want to think at the theater quite as much during the war, but beforehand, most of the plays were actually quite lovely.”

“Lovely save for the nightly murder,” Daniel deadpanned. “A wonder that someone so caught up in morals, so desperate to be ‘absolutely certain of doing the right thing’, would wind up there of all places.”

She wasn’t sure how she looked at him then, something between a glare and a plea, but it must have had some kind of effect.

“And I’m about to hear the real story?” he continued after a moment.

Near-solemnly, she let out a breath.

Isabelle was aware that both she and Daniel knew what it was to be frozen in amber, to be caught in an entrancing web of both fabricated deceit and real sympathy. She wanted him to know that she would tell the truth.

She wanted him to know that she was not the same as her maker.

She also wanted to prove that to herself.

“I promise.”

[inthiseverymoment]

silhouettes emerging: prologue

the vampire isabelle de la rue, upon realizing that she has been erased from history, decides on a whim to set the record straight.

iwtv oc, prologue ~500 words (short n sweet)

welcome to our framing device! my girl is a study of the messy morals of iwtv, deceptive artistic communities through the tdv, the purple-prose-ish-yet-strikingly-earnest storytelling style, and being hopelessly in love with assad zaman. WOOT WOOT

i am not sure how many chapters this'll wind up being but A Lot Is Going To Happen, I Can Promise You That

enjoyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

fic masterlist chapter i

Twenty Twenty-Three, Chicago, United States of America

“...That motherfucker.”

Instinctually, she did a double-take, despite knowing that what the page held wasn’t truly a surprise at all.

She’d been intrigued upon seeing the book in a shop window-something told her that this one was different from the thousands of fictions regarding her kind. That something had proven to be right when she glimpsed the familiar name of Louis de Pointe du Lac on the back cover’s summary; heart pounding in her ears with a somewhat delicious anticipation of decades-held secrets being blown open, she bought the book without another thought. Along with every other possibility, a teenage hope of seeing her name somewhere in this illegal chronicle thrummed in the back of her mind.

But, Isabelle realized, of course it would make sense that her maker would erase her from any history he told these days. The one that quite literally got away did not fit within the life that Armand was trying to fabricate for himself and his apparently-no-longer lover, and keeping up the lie that he had never thrown the Dark Gift upon anyone probably made him a more alluring character to whomever this Daniel Molloy was.

The author was witty, that was certain. She could practically hear the snark in every narrating line that wasn’t Louis’ pensive recollection, and she’d laughed to think of how those three personalities must have meshed and exploded throughout that interview.

She also knew that she needed to set a few things straight.

I’ve been wanting to go back to New York anyway.

~

Twenty Twenty-Three (One Week Later), New York City, United States of America

“Frankly, given the amount of telepathic ‘fuck-you’s from around the world I’ve had the pleasure of receiving, someone else wanting their story told was the last thing I expected.”

“Well, not all of us revere the Great Laws above all else.”

“Glad to hear it.”

They sat at an outdoor restaurant in Brooklyn, appearing to all the world like a pretentious, nighttime-sunglass-wearing, book-toting father and daughter. In truth, each was sizing up the other; trust was not a thing easily earned to the slightly jaded vampiress nor the world-weary journalist.

The former was beginning to wonder, though, at it seeming more possible with every second that she wasn’t the only supernatural one at the table.

She glanced at his nails, then back up to meet his eyes.

“You too?”

“Yeah.”

A beat.

“Armand?”

“Yeah.”

Another beat. This time, it was Daniel who spoke first.

“...You too?”

She almost laughed.

“Yeah.”

Apparently by habit, he lifted an incredulous hand as if to remove his glasses, then remembered himself and lowered it with a sigh.

“That motherfucker.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“So that’s why you wanted to meet.”

“I have a lot to tell,” Isabelle said, “if you haven’t heard enough already about the toxic-theatre-kid subsection of vampirism.”

Daniel considered for a moment, then-

“You’re okay if my main intention with your story is to throw it back in his face?”

Despite herself, she nearly smiled.

“Absolutely.”

[inthiseverymoment]

Silhouettes Emerging,

an Interview with Another Vampire,

Chronicling the Entrapment and Escape of The Vampire Isabelle de la Rue.

work in progress!

prologue

chapter i

chapter ii

chapter iii