Chapter Text
It took 334 years for Carmilla to find her soulmate.
It took a shorter time to find who she thought was her soulmate, and what felt like an eternity to get over her.
Carmilla had assumed that her numbers fading from her arm to leave a dull grey smudge behind meant that she’d found her. She promptly forgot about how there had still been hours and minutes and seconds – an extortionate amount, it seemed – printed on her arm before they had faded away. She cared not for it. She was too busy delighting in Ell’s presence.
She looked into Ell’s eyes and found an escape – from Mother and the clan, from her nature, from the anchor of obligation that had been bestowed upon her.
Ell had looked into her eyes and returned the love. Then she had regarded Carmilla with disgusted horror and fled upon being told by Mother what she really was.
Vampire. Blood-sucking fiend. Creature of the night. Trapped, she would’ve added. Trapped for all eternity. She’d given up on thinking she was allowed an escape. Ell had shown her that much, at least. Still, Carmilla knew Ell’s reaction had been justified, if Mother had had anything to do with it.
And her mother was always good at reinforcing those sorts of ideas. Mother was always good at punishments, too. For trying to escape with a human, Carmilla had been sealed in a blood-filled coffin, while the vampire clan she was tied to wreaked havoc on the village where Ell had lived. Carmilla had known where Ell was at the time – a certain part of her, at least – and the fact only made her more distraught.
If she was as heartless as her mother, she might’ve admired the craftiness of her punishment. Carmilla was thankful that that statement was merely conditional on the impossible. As it untrue it may have been, however, she was still re-enrolled into the clan after her coffin was broken open by the bombs of the last human Great War. She was less heartless, yes, but she dared not let it show.
Until.
The numbers reappeared. The hours, minutes and seconds returned, steadily tickling. (They had reappeared when she was sealed, but Carmilla had been in such a soul-crushing frenzy that she hadn’t noticed.)
Until.
After so long, Carmilla entertained the idea of breaking free.
Until.
With the numbers getting smaller – not hugely so, but enough to instil something other than impatience in her – she realised that she had changed.
Carmilla Karnstein, for the first time in a long time, felt hope.
It was easier than expected.
That probably should have worried her, but Carmilla was past caring about the repercussions Mother might inflict. For now. Yes, for now, she was too caught up in the idea of freedom. She could even go as far to say she was ecstatic – a word she thought she’d never use to describe herself. It wasn’t like she was permanently under her mother’s gaze; Mother was old, and Carmilla was the first of a previous round of turned vampires. This new bunch – the third group after her own – were “much more modern, much more interesting, much more… wild”. Carmilla was almost offended. But, obviously, she’d been thankful to see Mother occupied by the new near-untameable vampires.
There had been a slight problem, and his name was William Luce. He was a newly-turned vampire – a kitten, to use the correct terminology – and the clan’s leader (including Mother) had paired the two together so Carmilla could supervise his introduction into the new world to which he belonged. They had been sent to check up on the enemy clan that Mother was hoping to go to war with – a war that Carmilla was not going to welcome. William, of course, had been enraptured by the idea; if he could prove himself to Mother with this war, he would be satisfied.
Carmilla made sure to call him “Momma’s Boy” every time she had to address him. It made him hate her even more (though technically Carmilla was far superior to him, so Will could do little more than seethe) – but, oh, the satisfaction of it! There was truth in the nickname, though; the only thing stronger than his allegiance to his new mother was his appetite for blood (a flaw all new vampires had to learn to grow out of).
That was why Carmilla had picked the park to spy on the enemy clan. There was plenty of land there for Will to feed discreetly, and the winter meant that they could spy earlier and run into more humans. She knew he was hungry, too – really, being Will’s supervisor for the past few weeks had played into her hands quite well.
So there Carmilla was – sat on a bench, hidden by the tree’s shadow, trespassing on land she shouldn’t have been on, while the moonlight illuminated the faces of the vampires she was supposed to hate as they gathered outside a terribly conspicuous building. Her numbers had been whittled down to approximately a year now. She’d be relieved when they landed on 0.
Relieved, but also worried. Worried for her soulmate, who was yet to know what Carmilla was. She hoped they could cope with it. She didn’t want a repeat of Ell.
Carmilla was dragged back to the present by her phone vibrating. Of course, that would be William. She snapped it up in her hand and answered the call.
“Momma’s Boy,” she drawled. “Get into trouble already? If you’re not careful, I might have to tell Mother.”
“Don’t be so cocky, Kitty,” William laughed on the other end of the line. “I know you’re jealous of my bond with her.”
“You got me there,” was her dry response. A few centuries ago, she might have been. Mother had shown her the world; they’d gone to places Carmilla hadn’t even imagined could exist. And Mother had looked at her as if she were a glittering diamond among stones.
That was before the clan. Before Ell. Before the return of her numbers.
“Anyway, I was checking on your side of things. We need to know what they’re saying; we can’t wait around any longer. We can’t lose this war because of your blatant refusal to do what you’re told.”
Carmilla heaved a sigh at him. She’d come to expect those sort of words. Maybe one day he’d realise that nothing he said actually hurt her. “They’re not saying anything of any worth,” Carmilla informed him as she listened. “Just acting on traditions, swearing to secrecy. All of the boring stuff no one does anymore.”
There was silence on the other end. Carmilla couldn’t help it; a small smile formed on her face. “Will?”
“Kitty, there’s a human here,” Will groaned, his breaths ragged from the anticipation. “I can smell them. Oh God, I’m so thirsty.”
“Will, you just need to keep focused.” There was little feeling behind her words.
“Carmilla, I—” he moaned in pleasure at the scent. That was enough for him. “Tell Mother I’m sorry.”
The line went dead. Carmilla ended the call on her phone, a full-blown smirk on her face. This was it. This was her chance. Now she could run, and the clan wouldn’t care enough to find her. They’d had runaways before – always the older ones, the ones dissatisfied with clan life. They were never heard of again, and Carmilla was glad of that. She could be a runaway, too. She could rebuild her life.
She could do it. She could escape.
Carmilla rose from the park bench, put her phone into her pocket, and left.