AN: A random idea I had for a Lion King AU. More of a summary than anything else, but I figured why not, I'll still share.
Disclaimer: I do not own Carmilla.
Laura could be Simba, with Carmilla being Nala. Mufasa could be Mr. Hollis, and The Dean could be Scar. Instead of Mr. Hollis and The Dean being related, The Dean could be the Royal Adviser who tricks King Hollis into naming her ruler of the Kingdom until Laura grows up if anything happens to him.
So The Dean gets this in writing, kills off Mr. Hollis, tries to get her minions to kill of Laura, but Laura escapes. So the Dean just declares herself Queen until the Princess can be found, and sends off troops on wild goose chases.
Mean while, Carmilla knows what her mother did, as does Mattie and Danny, but none of them are taken seriously when they try to tell someone. They're told the King died of a sickness, not poison, and are sent on their way. Mattie learns to live with it, though she hates her mother, Danny runs away and joins the resistance against her, while Carmilla actively rebels. Her and Laura had grown up together, and she was fighting for her.
Laura, who's probably only about 9 or 10, runs off and, after surviving a few weeks on her own, eventually find Perry and LaF, only like 15-16, in another kingdom. The two of them spend their time growing flowers to sell to florist, and between Perry's loving care and LaF's experimental breeding, they had the most prizes flowers in the world, and live a very comfortable, very care free life. They take her in and raise her as their own for the next 10 years. They never get the story out of Laura about what happened (Laura's sure it's her fault, so she keeps the quilt inside), but they try to teach her to let go of the past so she can move onto the future. Laura helps them with the flowers, though more often then not she spends her days relaxing, swimming, and having fun, trying to forget what she did.
10 years later, Carmilla runs away from the castle, unknowingly in the same direction as Laura. She's pissed off mother one too many times, and she's trying to avoid punishment and finally get free from her Mother's oppressive rule.
She crosses the border at the same place Laura did, and what do you know? She finds LaF and Perry's cabin, where Laura's lying in the grass by the blue flower plot, watching the clouds roll by. Laura, thinking Carmilla's here to seal some of their flowers, tries to fight her off. And, of course, looses, because Carmilla's been training for the last 10 years while Laura's been tending flower beds.
But Carmilla and Laura recognize each other, and it's a great reunion. Perry and LaF welcome Carmilla into their home, and offer for her to stay.
But Carmilla tries to get Laura to come back and fight for her throne, because The Dean is destroying the kingdom by making all sorts of horrible decisions. Laura refuses, because she still feels like she's the reason why her father died, and Carmilla tells her and the others the truth.
Laura, realizing what Carmilla said is true, hates the Dean with every fiber of her being, but what can they do? She looses to Carmilla, much less trained knights. How can she reclaim her kingdom?
Carmilla begins training her during the day, and sends out messages at night, eventually getting in contact with Danny. The resistance, while small, has been a thorn in the Dean's side for years now, foiling plans and causing mayhem. Carmilla tells Danny that she knows where the Princess is, has found her, and is readying her for war.
Danny, with Mel, Kirsch, and Theo, secretly spread the news- the Princess has been found. She's coming to reclaim her kingdom. The Dean shall fall.
People start joining the resistance, getting ready to rise up when Laura returns. The Dean finds out, but to her it doesn't matter. She's the Queen, and no little specks will remove her from her throne, no matter how many there are. So she sends out a handful of minions to slaughter a few villages, and calls it an effective warning.
More and more people just join, ready to have their rightful Queen back.
Meanwhile, Laura and Carmilla continue to train, only taking breaks to tend the flowers with Perry and LaF. Perry and LaF can't do much to help, but they do what they can, giving money and food to Carmilla to send on to the rest of the resistance, taking messages back and forward over the boarder with their flower shipments, anything that will help.
And Laura and Carmilla train, and train, and train, until one day Carmilla finds herself with a sword at her throat and hers knocked across the yard, Laura breathing heavily.
Carmilla knocks the sword aside and pulls her into a kiss. The only one they share, because both of them agree that they have other, more important things to worry about. And that they can revisit this if they live.
It's been almost two years since Carmilla found Laura, and finally, they're ready to fight. Laura and Carmilla, both wanted criminals, sneak back into the kingdom with LaF and Perry's help, and meet up with the resistance. The plan is to spend a few weeks detailing their rough plan of attack, and then going for it. Laura and Carmilla are introduced to JP, a mason and a scholar. He's studied every bit of information about the castle he could get his hands on, and after Laura helps to fill him in on the parts of her childhood she remembers, he can figure out which secret passages would be best for them to use.
Two days later, a small portion of the resistance, led by Theo, turn on them, causing a great deal of damage before they are stopped. It turns out Theo had been approached by Vordenburg, the Dean's right hand man, and they were given a better offer.
Danny gets badly injured, almost killed, and while she survives she's out of the fight. Along with a good number of their other troops.
But Laura steps up and takes charge. She has no clue what the hell she's doing, but she's doing something, and it works. Mel and Kirsch advise her on the attack plans, the two more often then not at each other's throats as they argue until they find a compromise. JP figures out which secret entrances are most likely to be unguarded, and directs the others' attention to them for the attack. Perry and LaF do all sorts of spy stuff for them, getting them information on the troops- many of whom will probably defect when Laura shows up, only a small handful actually loyal to the queen.
Carmilla gets a message sent in with them to Mattie. And Mattie only replies "Long Live Queen Laura."
So Laura learns on the job what it is she has to do, and together, with her friends, she begins the battle that will end the war.
The night before the battle begins, Laura and Carmilla go 'stargazing.' There's no promises for tomorrow, just that night, with the hopes that both will survive to address their obvious feelings. But that night isn't about the future, it's about their fear and anger and sadness and everything else they feel, and the comfort they find in Laura's room, curled around each other as they slept.
Just like LaF and Perry said, a good number of the troops defect and join them when, in the middle of the night the next day, the resistance comes pouring out through the secret entrances, brandishing anything long and sharp as a weapon. The small handful of loyal soldiers are overwhelmed, eventually, but not before taking many with them.
Laura looses sight of her friends, of Carmilla and LaF and Perry and Mel and Kirsch and JP, and has no clue how to even begin finding them. So she just fights whoever shows up before her, screaming as she swings her sword and kills for the first, the second, the third time in her life. She fights and she kills and she cries but she doesn't stop, because she has to end this.
She eventually makes it to the staircase that will lead to the upper levels, to the Queen's chambers, and she ascends.
And is stopped at the top of the stairs by Mattie, holding a very familiar sword, one she hasn't seen in 13 years.
It's her father's sword, and Mattie hands it to her and takes the one she had been using, just pointing to a door at the end of the hall. Mattie then goes back down the stairs to join the fight and perhaps find her little sister.
Laura enters the room, only to have flaming coals from the fire thrown at her. She avoids them, but within seconds the wooden door and the giant piles of silk and wool cloth around her are set aflame. The smoke burns her eyes and closes off her throat, and even though she knows the Queen is in there she can't find her, can only swing her sword wildly and hope she hits something.
The sword is knocked out of her hands, into one of the burning piles, and Laura finds herself with the tip of another pressed against her throat.
The Dean, silently, raises the sword to kill her, but it's a move Carmilla has used on her a thousand times, one she's been trained to defend herself against, and Laura dodges. Ignoring the heat and the pain, Laura thrusts her hand into the flames, screaming as she grabs the heated metal, only able to hold on and pull the sword out from its flaming bed by the sheer knowledge that if she doesn't, she will die. Twisting, still on the ground, she swings the sword up-
And impales the Dean through the chest.
The Dean is sent stumbling backwards, clutching at the sword sticking out of her, only to stumble back too far. She falters, leaning back against the half wall, half open window, and falls.
Laura, unable to breathe, her arm numb from pain, passes out.
And wakes up in the resistance's infirmary, in a bed next to Danny, with Carmilla next to her, holding her hand.
Not everyone survived, but all of her friends did, with varying amount of damage. And Laura just starts sobbing, because her friends are okay, her friends are safe and alive and they might be battered and bruised and Kirsch might be missing a few fingers and LaF an ear and JP part of his right leg, and all of them would have scars that would last for a life time, but they're all alive.
And so what if her right hand and arm is scarred from the burns- it could have been worse. Perry used a bunch of the flowers she and LaF had grown, revealing their medicinal purposes, to take care of them, heal them, and all of them were going to live.
A few weeks later, after everyone had healed and could move on their own (JP with the help of an expertly fashioned leg he and LaF had put together. They had even been able to make some new metal fingers for Kirsch, who loved them. Danny still needed help, but only from a crutch, and occasionally from another member of the resistance, Betty, she had become close to), Laura presented herself before her people, and was crowned Queen.
A year later, she married Carmilla, and together, the two of them, along with their royal court- Mattie, LaF, and Perry, the royal advisers; Danny, Mel, and Kirsch, the three captains of the guards, and JP, the royal historian- they ruled their kingdom well, and brought in a new era of peace.
At least until their daughter comes along and started some new shit, but that's a different story.