#listen i didn't randomly pick armand to be my perfect mermaid he IS water to me!

[hekateinhell]

What do you think Armand (as a vampire*) enjoys most about the beach? What does he like the least?

*I had to clarify because the mermaid Armand from your fic would probably have very different answers. 😂

Oh, I love this question! Off the bat, I would say his favorite thing about the beach is the water.

I'm neurotic enough that I thought about this before several years ago when I first read VC. My pattern orientated brain just hyperfixated over Armand & The Water. Whether by choice or force, Armand has spent the largest and most significant chucks of his life by some body of water!

He was born by the Dnieper River in Ukraine, spent his years with Marius in Venice over the Adriatic Sea, and then lived in Paris for three hundred years. Les Innocents--or the Holy Innocents Cemetery as it was actually called in real life--is right by the Seine River, and there's also the grand Fontaine des Innocents which still exists today!

Look at it, imagine Armand in the dark trying to brood and not enjoy anything every time he happened upon this hedonistic thing.

After Paris, he travelled around the world with Louis--all the countries mentioned in IWTV are by a sea or an ocean. Then they lived in Manhattan for a long time (an island surrounded by the Hudson, Harlem, and East Rivers). From there was the four decades watching over Lestat's living grave in New Orleans by the Mississippi River. Then when he settles with Daniel, it's Manhattan again, and of course... Night Island on the Gulf of Mexico. And finally, he ends up back in Manhattan in Trinity Gate.

All that to say, I don't think it's a coincidence that Armand chooses to live near water whenever he can. Furthermore, he tells us what he did love about the water as a brand new baby vampire in TVA!

What astonished me now was that I could see beneath the water! There was enough life for my vampiric eyes to see the huge anchors lodged in the mushy bottom of the lagoon, and to see the curved bottoms of the galleys. It was an entire underwater universe. I wanted to explore it further, but I heard my Master's voice - not a telepathic voice, as we would call it now, but his audible voice - calling me very softly to return to the piazza where he waited for me.

And right before that:

I floated under the sky for a while, until all the pain was gone from me.

I've thought a lot about Armand and his sensory overstimulation (entirely separate meta), and I definitely headcanon that sometimes he likes to go to the beach and go out into the water and float aimlessly for a bit when he needs a break. In my head it's sort of like a sensory deprivation tank, but of course there's more going on in the water (more beauty too).

Mask off, me being an absolute fucking NERD: Armand has always been my Water element, Louis my Fire (too easy, much too easy), and Lestat my Wind. 🥹

What does Armand like the least about the beach? Sand. It's too close to dirt, and I don't think he likes to be dirty; he had nightmares about dirt and dirt being under his fingers when he was in Venice (not to mention the trauma associated with being underground for him). I don't think it's like a pathological aversion or anything, but I do think that would be his least favorite thing here!

#i know you didn't sign up for this nobody signed up for this and yet here it is #listen i didn't randomly pick armand to be my perfect mermaid he IS water to me! #i imagine him making out with lestat by that fountain in the present day in case anybody was wondering (you weren't) #you ask and hekate answers #armand #mildly meta #vc #the vampire chronicles #armand & the water #quotes