"I want my life!" Elle shrieked madly, digging the knife a bit deeper into Carmilla's neck. "She took it from me! She stole everything from me! My life! My world! My family! My faith! My hope! My joy! My chance to be free and to be somebody! She took all of it without remorse and now you expect me to forgive her? Look! She killed 100s of girls and has found a happy end with you while I and them have rotted away in a Hell we didn't deserve for decades! How can you possibly agree with it!?"
"We don't, Elle, we don't," Laura spoke gently, using a totally different tone than Elle had. "We don't think it's fair but that's why we're here. We came for true reconciliation," she said, taking a step closer to Carmilla. Despite her calm outward appearance, the fear for Carmilla was clear when one looked into her brown eyes. "We came here to set you free. All of you!"
"True reconciliation ?! No you didn't! We all know that's a total farce! A LIE!" Elle roared. "You only came here to save Carmilla! You came here to save yourself! If this revamping hadn't happened, would you have come at all?" the ghost demanded in a fury. The question was directed at both Laura and Carmilla, but neither had an answer. Elle gave a twisted cry of triumph. "You call yourselves heroes and claim that you have come to set us free! But even if these other foolish girls believe you, I don't! I see the truth! I know you came only for yourselves. Oh Carmilla, you are still as selfish as you ever were! But no more! Your reign of terror must end!"
Elle thrust the knife forward, but just a hair before the blade did more than nick to the ex-vampire's exposed neck, an arrow shot Elle's shoulder. While the ghost girl collapsed to ground in shock and pain, Carmilla pushed forward and fell into the relieved arms of Laura.
"That's enough of that," the shooter grunted. It was Mel, a dark grin on her face as she lowered her crossbow. Elle looked at her in outraged disbelief. "Oh come on!" Mel sneered. "Did you really think we'd let you kill lady McFangs? No. I may not like her either, but I dislike you even more. You want your life back, we get it. But life isn't all about you and sometimes you lose things you just can't get back and even if it's not your fault, you have to get over it."
"Isn't all about me?! Can't get back?! Get over it?!" Elle was livid, getting louder with every word despite the arrow sticking from her shoulder. "Of course it's not all about me! If it was, I'd be free by now! And yes I can get it back! Carmilla pays my fee the same way I paid hers! She traded my life for hers! It's only fair that she returns the favor! And I am absolutely not going to get over it! You didn't just get over Carmilla revamping!"
"Listen! Elle! Please!" Laura interjected before Mel could reply.
"No! Not you! You had the chance to go, but you sacrificed it! You have everything I so desperately want and you just threw it away!" Elle wailed. "No more! I will not listen to you ever again! You've already had your chance but you've used it up!"
"No! No! NO! Just stop it! Stop for five seconds and think!" Laura screamed over Elle. "Carmilla is here now! She's the sacrificial ceremony! You have her right where you want her! She's trying for true reconciliation What are you so mad about?! You won!"
Laura was so loud the whole room silenced and even Elle looked humbled by her pure rage and ferocity.
"I see that," the ghost girl said, voice far softer and more composed now. "But if she goes through with this ceremony, I lose my life," she paused to look longingly at the glowing green brooch. "I want to live first and she hasn't paid enough yet. If this ceremony happens, that life will be gone and I will too," she said. For a moment, the others could see the frightened child that Elle truly was. As evil as she had been, every action she made was out of fear and a desire for something that was technically owed to her and had genuinely been stolen from her.
"Well you already have my payment, Elle," Carmilla finally spoke up, voice soft and resigned, laced with guilt and grief. "Your ghost hasn't stopped haunting me since the moment you left."
"Well serves you right that- wait, what?" Elle's scowl faded as Carmilla's words sunk in.
"For 150 years, your ghost haunted me," Carmilla repeated. "I saw you everywhere, waking and sleeping, above ground and under it…" the vampire paused. She was, of course, referring to the roughly 70 years she spent buried alive because she had initially refused to surrender Elle to her mother, the ancient Sumerian goddess named Inanna. "Listen to me, Elle, I have been tortured by the memory of you for decades and I've hated myself for just as long. Do you really think these past 150 years have been good to me? It's not like I was out prancing around in bliss the whole time. While you've had righteous anger, I've only had shame and guilt and grief. Laura, here, is the first good thing to happen to me since you!"
"But at least you finally got your life!" Elle whined.
"True," Carmilla acknowledged. "But it was still not as grand a life as you think. I only ever made it so because I was trying to hide. There was actually a whole lot to cope with following finding Laura and it was a lot of junk I wasn't ready to face," the vampire paused to scratch the back of her neck embarrassedly. "I had hoped that everything would just blow over but, obviously, whatever dies in my life simply cannot stay dead. But I did, at one point, at least try going to a psychologist. That was how all this began!"
"What?" Elle's eyes narrowed, not in anger but in confusion.
"I, uhhh, kind of summoned you all after that psychologist appointment," Carmilla confessed. "Apparently my thoughts of you were so strong and there were so many loose ends to tie up that I was able to bring you from limbo into this world and that was how you were able to start contacting us," she explained. Elle blinked as Carmilla's story finally began to sink in.
"So all of this was because of you and your guilt?" she asked slowly. Carmilla nodded, pained. Elle shook her head, expression changing to astonishment. "And you came back anyway? You brought us back and then you came back for us to help us?"
"Kicking and screaming, but yes," Carmilla joked bitterly. "I guess my conscience just got the best of me, huh?" Elle only shook her head in wonderment again. It was the first time anybody had seen anything other than bitterness and rage on her face and, for a moment, they could all see the playful, languid girl she once was. They could see how Carmilla might've fallen for somebody like that…
"The Ash Moon!" one of the girls cried suddenly and every head turned to the window. A beam pierced the glass, but it was getting dim.
"Elle?" Carmilla was the first to turn from the light. She reached out silently to the girl still on the floor. Seeing Carmilla reach out made Elle hiss on reflex, but since she was on the ground against the wall, she couldn't go anywhere.
"Oh, come on Elle! Surely even you wouldn't be willing to spend eternity here to get your revenge!" another girl cried.
"Besides, didn't you hear? Carmilla said she was sorry!" a third said. "She came back for true reconciliation!"
"But I want my life! If this ceremony happens, I lose it again!" Elle cried.
"But it isn't just your life!" a fourth girl cried. "It belongs to all of us!"
"Besides, what makes you so much better than us?" a fifth snapped.
"And why must we go back to the nightmare world for you? If you want to talk about unfair, here it is!" a sixth agreed.
"True fairness would be for us all to go on, not fight over who gets to remain at the cost of all the others!" a seventh echoed.
"Besides, sometimes, there are things more important than justice. Sometimes, we just have to take what we get," an eighth said, repeating Mel's words from earlier. "It's not fair, but it's all we have and we don't want to waste anymore time brooding over it! So get over your selfishness and let's go before we're stuck here forever!" she finished. The 100s others nodded in agreement. Elle continued to glare at the large mass of ghosts, but her resolve weakened the longer the intense stare-down continued. As badly as she wanted her life back, the other ghosts had a point that technically, Elle had nothing that made her more worthy of Carmilla's spark than any of the others. Besides, she was technically powerless. Her voice really didn't matter right now. She was shot, injured, and slumped up against a wall. What threat did she pose now?
"Fine, whatever. So be it," she grunted, then she took Carmilla's still-extended arm. Carmilla lifted her up gently. It was strange to be so close after so long. It was especially odd considering that the last time they were touching, Elle had been holding a knife to Carmilla's throat. Now, their hands were intertwined and nobody was trying to kill anyone. It was kind of nice, actually. But at the same time, Carmilla still felt funny, touching her ex after so much time and animosity had passed between then. Carmilla gave Elle an awkward half-smile that she made no effort to return. Carmilla turned away then, hurt and embarrassed. She gestured to Perry who nodded and took the hands of those beside her: Lafontaine and Mel. The others linked arms thereafter, Carmilla holding to Elle and Laura who held to Charlotte and Emily who held back onto Lafontaine. Then, once the circle was full, Perry began to chant. As she did so, the locket of Carmilla's spark morphed into a cake.
"What?" Kirsch was amazed.
"Just go with it," Laura sighed. Carmilla gave a sad smirk. Then, as Perry continued the chant, one by one, everyone blew out a candle. As they did so, they vanished. Living and dead, they vanished every time a candle was blown out. Soon, only Carmilla, Laura, Elle and three candles remained.
"So I guess this is it. 150 years of hatred finally put to rest," Elle murmured.
"I guess. I'm sorry it took so long," Carmilla replied sadly.
"Oh well. I suppose I'm just lucky," Elle deadpanned. Despite the seriousness of the situation, both Laura and Carmilla laughed.
"I haven't seen this side of you before," Carmilla said.
"Nor have I," Elle replied. "But that's what decades of damnation does to a girl, eh?" Carmilla nodded dryly and she and Elle both chuckled morbidly. They may not have been friends, but they were eerily similar now, having suffered similar and similarly cruel fates.
"Ok, you two are getting creepy," Laura said, interrupting their odd bonding session.
"Jealous?" Elle almost teased. It was so weird seeing her like this.
"Maybe a little," Laura decided to indulge. Elle laughed.
"I think I might've quite liked you," she said.
"Same," Laura agreed, Carmilla only watched with a relieved smile that things seemed to be ending well enough, but now that meant they had to give Elle up again. Carmilla felt no romantic attraction to Elle anymore, but she did deeply regret surrendering her to death once more.
"Don't worry," Elle said, as though reading Carmilla's mind. "After all, girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, don't you see-each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structure. So says Monsieur Buffon, in his big book, in the next room."
"You still have that old thing?" Carmilla chuckled.
"It was always our favorite," Elle replied and Carmilla agreed. "I used to think that we'd spend our whole lives reading to each other," she said and Carmilla agreed once more. It was a bittersweet exchange, but it was long overdue and Laura watched proudly.
"But I guess that life and death had other plans," Elle sighed. "and we know very little of the resources of either."
"I'm sorry," Carmilla repeated.
"I know," Elle replied. "I suppose I can forgive you too. I only ask that you take care of her," Elle gestured to Laura. "And you look after Carmilla and make sure you both live your lives since I never got to."
"Of course," Laura promised. "Take care Elle. I'm sorry our relationship hasn't always been the best, but thank you for protecting us anyway."
"Oh, it wasn't out of any sense of morality or honor," Elle smirked. "My protection stemmed from vengefulness. I didn't really care about any of the girls in whose dreams I walked. I was just doing it to get my revenge on Carmilla, but we all know how that turned out after I found you," the ghost trailed off bitterly before shaking her head. "But thank you anyway," she said. "You take care too," then she leaned forward and finally blew out her spark.
(This is the end of the story, but I've got a headcanon and an author's note for you. Headcanon first:
The ghosts weren't real, rather, they were literal manifestations of Carmilla's guilt, hence why they all showed up at Elle's schloss in matching Victorian wear despite looking like they had come from every place and every time in history. This would also explain why Elle appeared to be the leader and why she was the least forgiving. It was because Elle meant the most to Carmilla. It would also explain why dream-Elle seemed kinder than real-Elle. And perhaps, all along, those dreams were caused by Carmilla. Perhaps the dreams were sent by her subconscious to protect the future victims while the real Elle had been dead all along and has since moved on even though Carmilla hasn't. Carmilla seems to have an affinity for dream and magic anyway, so perhaps Elle was never real and it was all just Carmilla's psyche, evolving from a surreptitious protector to a vengeful spirit because Carmilla had yet to forgive herself.)
Author's note next:
AN: You all don't understand how pissed I was at how the Carmilla movie ended. The whole plot centered around forgiveness and reconciling with your past and yet the girl most in need of this lesson ends up being shooed off just because the runtime ran out. I think aside from how the official Carmilla series ended, nothing has frustrated me more than Elle's quick and forgiveness-less send off. I mean, I loved the movie, but I really wish they'd redone the ending somehow to give poor Elle some real closure. As evil as she was, she still deserved closure. I mean, if you think of it, she's pretty much S1 Carmilla 2.0 so if Carmilla was able to change for the better, why was Elle written off as a one-note villain? Sorry, I just liked Elle's character too much to let her become a simple villain instead of something more complex. Besides, if you read the Carmilla book, that Laura doesn't seem like she could ever be capable of sinking to the levels the movie says she does. (Sorry to all of you who disagree with me, but I have a right to my own opinions). I will admit, though, that Elle may seem a bit OOC even with the suspension of disbelief and I will apologize for that, but nothing else.