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I'm going to be going to Athens tomorrow or sometime this week to see Armand. Sadly enough, I'm scared to. Part of me wants to flee, to play the coward and hide away. Surely in a few decades more I'll be brave enough, right? But what if he isn't here in a decade or two?
I still remember what I was doing when I saw that grainy picture. I had just risen and not fully awake as I stumbled up the busy street. Drunks (or those who passed as them) weren't much of a surprise in the city. I had passed a few people talking about the people bursting into flames outside some church, not paying much attention to it until I saw that picture on the paper. I snatched one up, staring at it in stupid wonder. It was a man burning. I lied to myself, saying the man in the blurry picture just happened to have the same shade of hair as Armand, that his hair was that colour because he as on fire.
But I knew it was him just as surely as I knew my own name. I fled then, probably the first time I ever had used my abilities to escape and go as fast as I could. When I finally stopped, I was somewhere out in the country. I just started screaming my rage out to the skies. You see, I didn't understand the -why- of any of it. Why didn't he talk to me first? Why didn't he tell me, warn me? Why did he leave me here alone? What had I done to drive him to this or make him believe that I wouldn't care if he were gone?
I don't remember much about the rest of that night, just screaming until I couldn't anymore, the paper in tiny tatters when I was done.
I had gone on in the world from there, wandering and empty, passing nights without much care. Still in a state of shock one might say. Imagine my surprise when I went past a bookstore and saw it. The Vampire Armand. It took me an hour or so to read it from cover to cover. It ended up in pieces at my feet as well, the wind freezing the pink tears on my skin. I had been laughing, I do remember that. Laughing and screaming again all at the same time. I had to learn it from a book. A book. Not a word, a note, a message... a book that was handed to the entire world to read.
I don't remember when Marius came and picked me up, took me away, or how he quieted me. I think I went on until I lost my voice and clawed at my face. It's mercifully blurred. I just remember starting to build them, wanting to construct a perfect world where things like this didn't happen.
Maybe I'm afraid because I don't want to go back to that. I don't know if I could. I've never been that strong out of all of us. I'm not smart like David, patient like Louis, daring like Lestat, strong like Armand, wise like Marius, or anything else. I'm the court jester, the wastrel, the worst of all.
I am Daniel. And that is why I am afraid.
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