pointedulac @ 2011-04-20T12:56:00

2011-04-20T16:33:31Z

Full name: Louis de Pointe du Lac
Age/DOB: Appears 25, is actually 245 / born 4 October 1766

Race: Vampire
Occupation: Antiquarian, specializing in French antiques
Birthplace: Loudon, France.

Personality: Louis is the exquisitely human vampire who still feels the world with a keenness not lost after over two hundred years of immortality. He is, to be trite, a sensitive soul, taken by poetry, beauty, art, music, religion, or even just rain on the flagstones. Perpetually the intellectual, he very rarely acts in haste, and has an acutely moral sense of the world, and of the Dark Gift. He’s deeply concerned with the meaning of his condition, of immortality, of life itself, and continues to struggle with that meaning over the years. He believes in love and loses faith in it. He believes in God, and feels abandoned by him. And yet, he continues to be in love with the world, with beauty, with possibility, for all that he aches with every disappointment he’s known, and mourns every loss he’s ever felt. Louis is intense in all thing – in his love, in his grief, in his curiosity, in his despair.

To his core, Louis is patient, if often passive, and he wants to fully understand everything – which often hampers his ability to act decisively. He is unguarded and expressive, his thoughts often showing on his face (especially to other vampires), and while he has a gentleman’s reserve to him, he is easily read. He’s slow to anger, but when that anger is roused, it is a cold and terrible thing, calculated and severe. He is equally slow to forgive, and carries his hurts with him as long as his losses. However, his forgiveness, when earned, is gracious and complete.

Perpetually the gentleman, Louis demonstrates the French colonial sensibilities so carefully cultivated through his mortal life (though there is something of the middle class in him, forever trying to prove himself the aristocrat and never managing the thoughtless decadence of a son of the elite). He’s consistently considerate, gentle, and sympathetic, articulate in his speech, refined in his manners, and restrained in his dress (at least, when he remembers to dress with any intention; he has a forgetful streak that, when caught in contemplation, means he will wear his clothes to rags if not reminded). His first language is French, and he speaks it with the gentle accent of Louisiana, acquired through his mortal life. He is highly educated and vastly well-read, a great lover of literature, and his tastes range from the classics to theology, from poetry to post-modernism. The way to remain in touch with the modern world, as far as he can tell, is to stay in touch with its art and its thought. Technology leaves him cold, and some of it honestly bewilders him. Books, however, are beloved companions, and he hoards them rather obsessively.

In appearance, Louis is as lovely as he has always been – and consistently unaware of it. He is tall, very slender, with dark, wavy hair that comes about to his shoulders. He seems human – less so than he once did, but still more markedly human than most of his kind, and he moves with an effortless grace and refinement. His eyes are a deep green, rich and endlessly expressive, and his face is often described by other vampires as sweet. He, like so many of his kind, tends to favour clothing that’s reminiscent of the age in which he was made – high, white collars, dark riding jackets that flare at the hem, slim trousers, boots. But Louis is just as prone to forgetting his appearance entirely, going for months in the same shabby black sweater and denims, wearing them to tatters and dust. It depends on what holds his interest; his physical world is always subject to the fascinations of his mental and spiritual one, and that is one thing that will never change.

Biography: Born in 1766 in Loudon, a small town in western France best known for demoniac possessions in a nunnery, Louis’s life was fundamentally shaped by Louisiana rather than the town of his birth. A land grant enables his family to emigrate to the colony of Louisiana in, newly acquired by the Spanish, and Louis’ father establishes a sizable indigo plantation outside of New Orleans in 1770, which he names Pointe du Lac. Monsieur Pointe du Lac dies with his eldest son still young, leaving Louis the master of a plantation and head of a family when he is only ten. Louis grows into his responsibilities, and his care for his family and their holding is marked. However, he is closest to his younger brother, Paul, a devoutly religious young man. Paul sees visions of the Virgin and St Dominic during prayer, and in 1791, he informs Louis that God is calling them to sell the plantation and take up the missionary cross. Louis refuses Paul’s demand, leading to an argument, and immediately afterwards, Paul is found dead at the bottom of the stairs. Louis’ mother blames him for Paul’s death, and Louis, despite not having touched his brother, feels responsible as well, utterly beside himself with grief and guilt. He abandons the plantation, moving the entire family to New Orleans, and falls into drunkenness, gambling, and whoring, in the hope that someone will kill him, for he doesn’t have the will to end his own life.

Louis nearly has his wish. A robbery is interrupted by Lestat de Lioncourt, who instead of stealing his purse, drains his blood and leaves him for dead. But it is not to be. Lestat finds Louis the next night, and offers him the Dark Gift. Louis considers for an entire day, and then accepts the following night after seeing his last sunset.

Louis, Lestat, and a man purported to be Lestat’s blind father, move into the Pointe du Lac plantation. Louis is at once utterly enthralled with Lestat and yet repulsed by Lestat’s coarse manners and savage killing; Louis prefers to live on the blood of animals. He struggles with his immortal condition, and with Lestat; the two are often in conflict during this time, primarily over Lestat’s treatment of his supposed father and over a woman named Babette Freniere. When Lestat kills the men of her family, Louis gives her advice on how to retain her plantation, and falls in love with her in the process, seeing in her all the things of humanity he adores, their fragile strength, their singular will. However, soon after, the slaves of Pointe du Lac revolt against their masters, claiming they’re evil, and they burn the plantation. They flee, going to Babette for shelter. She sees Louis in his true vampiric state, and she declares him Satan. She goes mad, and Louis is presumed dead by his sister, his last mortal connection, and he is “buried” in St Louis No 1 cemetery.

Louis and Lestat return to New Orleans. Their tension continues, and their arguments are passionate and bitter, as only lovers can really argue, locked into an apparently eternal struggle. Lestat indulges in sensual pleasures and hedonistic killing, and Louis cannot abide his casual cruelty to mortals. During an epidemic of yellow fever, Louis stumbles across a child clinging to her dead mother. Struggling with his dark nature, with the hopelessness of it all, with his own certain sense of meaninglessness and damnation, Louis drinks from the beautiful little child. Lestat finds them and taunts Louis for giving into his thirst, into the very thing he has despised and derided in Lestat himself. Louis flees, but when he returns to their hotel suite, he finds Lestat there with the child. There, Lestat convinces Louis to finish drinking from the little girl, and then Lestat makes her into a vampire. Thus, Claudia enters into Louis’ life: his greatest love, his deadly beauty, his eternal doll, his deepest heartbreak.

The vampire family moves into an elegant townhouse on the Rue Royale. Lestat teaches Claudia about her vampire nature, her predatory skills, her ability to seduce, and he exalts in how clever she is, how deadly and beautiful, how talented at music. But Louis cultivates her sense of aesthetics, teaches her literature and poetry, and the two are exceptionally close. Louis relies on her, and she is the emotional centre of his world, and Claudia has him wrapped around her finger, with Louis giving in to her every whim and desire. They are happy, and Louis feels more at peace than he ever has felt before. But domestic bliss cannot last, and Claudia’s mind matures, even as her body is perpetually that of a young girl. She begins to question her nature, and she and Louis begin to plot against Lestat, to escape him and be on their own. One night, after nearly seventy years as a family, Claudia orchestrates her plan – feeding Lestat two dead boys and after he drinks down death, she slashes his throat – and it seems as if Lestat is dead. Louis feels guilt and remorse, his love for Lestat warring with his love for Claudia. But he takes the body of his maker to the Bayou St Jean, dumping it in the murky waters. Louis and Claudia prepare to leave for Eastern Europe, seeking more of their kind in order to understand their Dark Gift. But on the eve of their departure, Lestat returns with a musician he has turned. They struggle, and in the end, Louis throws a lantern on Lestat, burning him, the musician, and the Rue Royale townhouse, and severing his ties to New Orleans. He and Claudia flee to Europe, finally free.

Europe does not hold what they hope it might. They wander across Eastern Europe, Germany, and finally come to France, appearing as father and daughter. But Claudia is unhappy, eternally a little girl even as her mind becomes that of a woman, and it makes their relationship uniquely strange. In Paris, they encounter the Thêatre des Vampires, and there, Louis meets Armand. He falls in love with Armand, and Armand is equally infatuated with him. Armand is impossibly lovely, and seems to offer the world on the plate, all the knowledge Louis desires, everything he could want. The pressure mounts, and Claudia becomes aware of it, of Armand’s desire for Louis, and his for Armand. She pressures Louis to create a companion for her before he leaves her, and unable to deny her, he gives in, creating Madeline, a dollmaker. The trio lives together for only a short while until the coven at the theatre strikes – Louis, Claudia, and Madeline are taken and put on trial for their attempts to murder Lestat. Lestat has survived, and accuses Claudia of ringleading the two attempts on his life. Claudia and Madeline are exposed to the sun and Louis is bricked into a coffin in a wall. Claudia burns to death, and Louis suffers the most exquisite agony of all when he is freed by Armand and returns to the theatre only to see her ashes and her bloodied yellow dress in Lestat’s hands.

Unable to leave the love of his immortal life unavenged, Louis returns to the theatre and slaughters the entire coven with a scythe and burns the theatre to the ground. He and Armand leave Paris and travel together for a while, but the world has no enchantment left for Louis, and Armand cannot hold his affections. The two part, and Louis returns to New Orleans in the mid-19^th century, a shadow of his former self.

Louis drifts for a long time, turning up over a hundred years later in San Francisco to give an interview to a young man about his life. Daniel Malloy publishes the story, and Louis finds his life turned into Interview with the Vampire. But he is not the only vampire in print, and he reads Lestat’s own account. In 1985, the two reunite, the shabby, dusty romantic and the glittering rockstar. That rockstar music wakes the Mother of All Vampires, and Louis finds himself drawn into the ensuing drama, spared Akasha’s wrath only because Lestat loves him, even still. He goes to the Sonoma Compound with the other surviving vampires, and hears the truth of vampiric origins from the Red Haired Twins. In the end, Louis aligned himself with the Twins, speaking out against Akasha. He survives the showdown between the Twins and Akasha, and as the dust settles, it seems that the world has changed. He does not, however, accept the powerful blood offered to him by Maharet and Lestat, more interested in discovering his strength with age. Deep down, he suspects that with power, he will lose his humanity, and he cherishes that more than strength.

Louis does not remain at Armand’s Night Island, but instead departs for New Orleans once more, unable to escape the city’s pull – and the account Jesse tells of meeting Claudia’s ghost there. He searches for her there, though it is Lestat who finds him. The two renew their relationship, but only sporadically. Louis’ attention is focused on finding Claudia’s ghost. In the 1990s, through the mediation of David Talbot, he meets Merrick Mayfair, who summons Claudia’s spirit in the Rue Royale townhouse with Louis offering himself as the blood sacrifice. The reunion is hardly peaceful. Claudia’s spirit rails at Louis, telling him she used him, that she never loved him, and attempts to kill him. She does not succeed. Louis is traumatized by the event. He has fallen in love with Merrick, however (due to her magic), and he makes her into a vampire. He then puts himself into the sun, attempting to die. It is Lestat who finds him and revives him, giving Louis his blood, and he drinks the power he was always afraid of having. The Talamasca demands Merrick’s return, forcing David, Lestat, and Merrick to flee New Orleans. In the end, Merrick is more involved with Lestat than her own maker, and Louis leaves Lestat, David, and Merrick.

Alone, grieving Claudia even still, Louis remains in New Orleans, in the Rue Royale townhouse. In an effort to distract himself, and to connect with the humanity he fears he is losing, he begins to amass antiques, books, and art, the French world he once knew. The collection develops into a small, high-end business in the storefront below the townhouse, buying and selling through an intermediary, though he keeps the best pieces for himself, re-creating the 19^th century in his home. He keeps himself at a distance from his mortal business manager, Estelle Morrow, though he carefully guides her and utilizes her to manage his affairs during the daylight hours. She is the one who ensures the business revives after the devastation of the hurricane, and she is the one who has restored the townhouse from the water damage from the storm. Louis has taken all of this in stride, quiet, isolated, fixated by turns on his grief and on the emergent beauty as the city renews itself after the storm. The rumour of the artifacts in the museum has him enthralled, especially the possibility of perhaps bringing Claudia back, righting the wrongs she accused him of (and he believes he has committed). He remains paralyzed by his lack of information and his uncertainty about bringing Claudia back, and he has set on research and contemplating, trying to understand the possibilities and potential failings of his proposed course of action. He is as he ever has been – quiet, passive, and obsessive, waiting to understand before he can move, still the dusty scholar in a shadow of bygone centuries as the modern world passes below his windows.

Abilities/Powers: Ostensibly, Louis has developed new powers with the influx of Lestat’s blood. He has not attempted to learn what they might be. He remains weak, now by choice, unable to read thoughts or enthrall others, except on accident. He lives as if he were mortal, detached from his preternatural condition save when it drives him to kill, and only then taking those who seem to desire death and come to him rather than hunting with any purpose.

EXAMPLES
First person: New Orleans never really changes. Not the Vieux Carré. New businesses come and go, electric lights take the place of gas, cars rattle down the streets instead of carriages, and the prostitutes wear less and smell less of jasmine than they once did. But the tourists clatter along in carriages, looking for romance or a touch of the Old World in the New, and the olive blossoms are forever the same. The ivy forever drips off the iron galleries. The paint still peels from the walls in slow curls. The mosquitoes still buzz around the globe of the lamp. Water has seeped into everything, and between the flood and the humidity, perhaps we shall wash out into the river, forever lost to the tide, to the bayou, to the press of time.

I feel disconnected from this place, and yet, never more at home. The townhouse is back to how it was, when we were all happy here. It is as if the storm never came. As if the fire never burned everything to ash. As if she might walk through the door in her taffeta gown, smelling of floral perfume and her eyes as bright as gems. As if he might come back and mean to stay for longer than a few weeks. As if anything could be as it was once more. But the tide is relentless, and this current beats me ceaselessly into the future, no matter how I try to stay in the safe shoals of the past.

Third person: The black-haired man was a shadow along the fence of Jackson Square. The wrought-iron cast draping shadows like long fingers across his face, pale in the moonlight and the light that shines from Decatur Street, the glare of the modern world intruding into a space he remembered as the Place d’Armes. His jacket was long for modernity, and the breeze from the river played with the fall of it, the dark velvet moving like a heavy banner. He was too still for all that the wind played with the fabric of his clothes, fine but aged, and with his long, loose hair, not even seeming to breathe as he stared up at the spires of the cathedral. It was as if he was one of the statues in the square, or a ghost, a memory of days long past left there to speak silently to a world that had faded away.

Laughter, from across the square, and a woman staggered on too-high heels across the uneven paving stones; she was not laughing. The statue turned, and watched, his gaze sharpening.

“No, just go, I didn’t want to go to that bar anyway!” she announced. “Just fucking go, Amanda, I don’t care.” Her mascara was running down her face, and she tugs on her too-short top, trying to get it to cover her breasts and her stomach together. It was too much to ask for the tiny bit of fabric, and she shivered in the wind. She seemed to get her feet, though she kept looking back, as if her companions might come. They didn’t. And instead, she came to the black-haired man.

“I’m sorry!” she exclaimed, but he caught her arms and righted her before she could fall.

“You’re fine,” he replied, the words rolling, low. “Are you all right?”

“No,” the woman told him. “I hate it here. I hate her. I don’t know why I came here. I just want to go home.” She looked like she might burst into tears.

“It’s all right,” he assured her.

She sniffled. “I’m Jess,” she said.

“Louis,” he replied. He smiled. “Here, let me walk with you for a while. I’ll make sure you get where you need to be.”

“I just want to get away,” the woman said, pleadingly.

“Don’t worry,” he said, guiding her down the alley beside the cathedral. “You’ll get away. Very far away, I promise.”

MISC
General plan: Claudia. Louis really wants to bring Claudia back, and that will be chaos of the first water. I also imagine he’s going to fairly obsessive about researching the objects, which will probably bring him into contact with Marius, and possibly in conflict as well, depending on how things play out. Lestat is going to be another point of orbit for him as well, as Louis is intent on finding the happiest bit of his past, and that included both of them. I also am keen to explore what powers he actually has gained from Lestat’s blood, and yet again, this might bring him to Marius, who is the mentor extraordinaire. I am thinking he might be able to hear thoughts, or perhaps be able to enthrall people more easily, but I’m open to mod discussion on that front, to be sure.