"Carmilla dear, I didn't know you were the self-sacrificing type," The older woman chastises as she circles the down cast woman before her. The rest of her "family" stand or sit around the room of which Carmilla stands in the centre of, her demise will be in front of them all and her punishment at the mercy of her mother.

Carmilla keeps her head hung low and avoids meeting the eyes of anyone in the room because it's true, she is not the self-sacrificing type but oh how love makes her do foolish things. She tried to tell Laura that she was not the hero type, she tried to warn her to stay out of it because now look where they've ended up. Now she is the hero but being a hero brings only pain and loneliness. Laura and her friends are safe but they believe her to be dead, and for the crime she has committed against her mother she may very well end up that way. Her mother is not going to be so merciful the second time around.

"This is twice now that you have crossed me for the sake of a young and foolish girl, what do you have to say for yourself?"

"Nothing mother," Carmilla answers have been short and to the point since her trial began. She fears saying much more than a few because she doesn't want her mother to hear that she still has hope things will work themselves out.

"Not even going to try and deny what you've done?"

"I've done what I've done. There is no denying it."

"Good girl," her mother strokes her hair once and although Carmilla detests the motion she remains still, "But your deed will not go unpunished."

"Of course not Mother. I expect nothing less."

"Apparently you have not learnt your lesson and forgotten your place. I warned you to not let your little pet interfere and what's the next thing that happens? She's waltzing in the door with her little gang of children and staking your fellow brothers and sisters!" Mother's voice rises higher and louder as her anger at the recent memory grows, "They killed twenty six of our own and they got away with merely a scratch!"

Carmilla wants to speak out and say that there were broken bones, fractures, stabbings and lacerations amongst Laura's group, but she is wise enough to keep quiet about the extent of the mortal's injuries. Especially given how such injuries are of little bother to a vampire, and taking into account the causalities they have suffered this night. "I did not lead them here Mother, their friend led them."

"No what you did was far worse than that!" Mother rounded and yelled into Carmilla's face, staring at her with a focused gaze while others spoke up around them.

"You sided with them!"

"You're a traitor!"

"You helped the humans!"

"You killed one of your own!"

Mother put her hand up to silence them again, the point had been made.

"They're not very happy with you Carmilla," The statement is short but she knows what it means, it means that whatever punishment they deliver will pass unquestioned. No one will stop them, no one will come to her aid, she is alone now, truly alone. Love cannot help her here.

"I did my best to keep her away and I told her not to do what she did but the girl doesn't listen. I only wanted to get her and her friends out before-"

"SILENCE!" Mother commands and Carmilla obeys, "I do not care for what you were 'trying' to do, only what you did do. Your little pet is not the only one who doesn't listen. You were warned and I have been more than lenient in the past but just because you are the oldest of my children does not mean you get away with treason!"

The crowd in the room cheer and holler their agreement as their Mother steps away from Carmilla and moves to the corner of the room, waving her hand dismissively. Those remaining step up and surround Carmilla who now looks up as she understands what is about to happen.

"You are no longer one of us. Be gone. You know the price of being on enemy territory. "

Carmilla had thought that banishment would have resonated a lot more with her, she expected to feel a sense of loss at the place that she had been calling home for three hundred years but she finds that oddly, she feels nothing. Well, nothing of the sort. Instead Carmilla is focused, calm and ready to face her brothers and sisters.

Banishment is one thing, but first she has to get out alive. However the task is not so simple and she is very aware that few have ever escaped to live in banishment. What Carmilla doesn't know, is Mother's end game for her.

She does not beg. She does not plead. But she does raise her fists and prepare for the fight of her life as the first punch comes from behind.