Dubai, to New Orleans. To Lestat, in the middle of a hurricane.
A wire transfer, wealth passing from Louis' account to Daniel's.
In the wake of a hurricane, a text message: Are you home safely?
No answer.
Louis is uncertain what to make of the silence. He is uncertain if it is unwelcome, the texts that follow after. The scattering of voicemails Louis permits himself. The handful of emails to Daniel's account. All these attempts met with silence, an absence that cultivates an anxiety that solidifies into a heavy weight in his chest. Louis carries it with him back from New Orleans, back to Dubai. He keeps it held close, worries at it, trying to understand the cause of it.
Perhaps Daniel is tired of vampires. Perhaps Daniel has had enough of Louis. Can he be faulted?
The penthouse changes around him. Wall repaired. Bookshelves lowered. Paul's portrait, Claudia's dress. Color and greenery. Markers of what has passed, changes that fill the absence that Armand's absence created, that Daniel has left.
Daniel, who still has not answered him. The silence hurts, slices at Louis even as he reorders his life. Is it so simple? To be done, to close himself off and leave Louis in the past? Is it anger, over what was burned?
He is considering dispatching staff, earmarking separate details for Daniel and for Lestat both. This is weighing on his mind, the invasive quality of it set against the ever-present ache of what Louis doesn't know, can't know without them answering his calls.
A possibility Louis still turning over and over in his head when he boards a plane to the United Kingdom. Business goes on, in spite of the wreckage Louis is attempting to piece through. His meticulously amassed empire requires all the usual tending, and so Louis devotes himself to it. Gallery invitations, private showings, these things lined up long before Louis' life was blown apart.
He is not unaware of the Talamasca. It is still a surprise to be approached directly. A surprise to be directly approached by Rashid, stepping out of a crowd of art collectors to inform him, I can escort you to Mr. Molloy, if you wish to see him.
And what is Louis meant to say? In what world would he say no?
prequel fodder.
A wire transfer, wealth passing from Louis' account to Daniel's.
In the wake of a hurricane, a text message: Are you home safely?
No answer.
Louis is uncertain what to make of the silence. He is uncertain if it is unwelcome, the texts that follow after. The scattering of voicemails Louis permits himself. The handful of emails to Daniel's account. All these attempts met with silence, an absence that cultivates an anxiety that solidifies into a heavy weight in his chest. Louis carries it with him back from New Orleans, back to Dubai. He keeps it held close, worries at it, trying to understand the cause of it.
Perhaps Daniel is tired of vampires. Perhaps Daniel has had enough of Louis. Can he be faulted?
The penthouse changes around him. Wall repaired. Bookshelves lowered. Paul's portrait, Claudia's dress. Color and greenery. Markers of what has passed, changes that fill the absence that Armand's absence created, that Daniel has left.
Daniel, who still has not answered him. The silence hurts, slices at Louis even as he reorders his life. Is it so simple? To be done, to close himself off and leave Louis in the past? Is it anger, over what was burned?
He is considering dispatching staff, earmarking separate details for Daniel and for Lestat both. This is weighing on his mind, the invasive quality of it set against the ever-present ache of what Louis doesn't know, can't know without them answering his calls.
A possibility Louis still turning over and over in his head when he boards a plane to the United Kingdom. Business goes on, in spite of the wreckage Louis is attempting to piece through. His meticulously amassed empire requires all the usual tending, and so Louis devotes himself to it. Gallery invitations, private showings, these things lined up long before Louis' life was blown apart.
He is not unaware of the Talamasca. It is still a surprise to be approached directly. A surprise to be directly approached by Rashid, stepping out of a crowd of art collectors to inform him, I can escort you to Mr. Molloy, if you wish to see him.
And what is Louis meant to say? In what world would he say no?
He gets in the car. They go.