Disclaimer: These characters belong to the exceedingly talented Anne 
Rice.

<fortuita@hotmail.com> for feedback.

In Following, Look Up, Ahead
By Fortuita

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, o uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be 
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven
	From Ode to the West Wind, Percy Bysshe Shelley

'Don't hurt me now,' I want to beg. But you would use that to bind me 
more tightly to you. And every time you break, and rage, I weaken a 
little further. 
  You can't have me for a partner. Well, I can't be that for you. But 
something drives you, and you demand you must have me for something. I 
am yours, Lestat, always was. 
  So rage and storm, smile and love. Hunt. Live. Guard yourself, as 
you feel you must. I can't keep up, but as long as I can, I'll try to 
stay a step behind. 
  And when you destroy me, or take a path too harsh and long for me, 
try. ON this plodding path, beneath you, it is that I fear. You fly 
and burn, out of my reach, alone. I don't know you then, and cannot be 
even what I am now, a weak uncertain comfort. 
  Alone, Lestat, try. Do for yourself what I, fading, cannot.

***