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Ashes curses, retreating backwards. They’re looking her in the eyes, projecting an aura of defiance, but they’re tucked close to themself and as she advances they move away unconsciously, stumbling over their feet and the tools scattered on Aurora’s deck. “Look, Unc- doc, I didn’t do nothing!”
Immortality corrupts- Carmilla is damned hundreds of thousands of times over. But still, she keeps hoping that maybe her next Mechanism will retain the moral goodness she saw in them when she was making her choice. Ashes hadn’t even waited a month before committing mass murder. Carmilla doesn’t remember what she’d accused them of to justify hurting them in the moment but the real reason was that she was just- angry, and tired, and she’d failed again.
“Fuck- ask Jonny, okay?” Ashes points vaguely in his direction, but they’re so flappy and shaky it’d be impossible to tell what they were doing without their words.
It’s that deflection that makes Carmilla snap- she grabs Ashes’ collar, pushing them back against the wall. She’s stronger than a human, and if she isn’t careful she’ll use too much force. She’s not being careful here. Their head hits the metal, and they bite back a yell, teeth catching on their tongue and cutting it open in a mess of blood that for a second is so eerily familiar it hurts. Carmilla advances, getting an arm up over their throat. It’s hypocritical to be so defensive of Jonny when she’s hurt him just as much as Ashes, but in the moment she doesn’t care.
Ashes is blatantly terrified, a look she hadn’t seen much on them what with their blithe air. They’ve- they haven’t gone quiet, but they’re clearly restraining themself from shouting. It hadn’t been hard to find something they could get in trouble for- they’d been testing her boundaries, trying to figure out the new situation. Carmilla’s proving their theories right.
It’s easier to blame some fault in their mechanism for the destruction of their planet, instead of a messed up tangle of things Carmilla failed to see choosing them. If it’s their mechanism, Carmilla can do better next time. Control morality more directly, perhaps. She’s going to try and make a child that turns out right, and keep trying until it kills her (or them.)