AN: Based on the 1872 novella.
Laura and Carmilla had spent many nights exploring the schloss' gardens together and tonight was no different.
"Did you ever have anything quite so marvelous as this back home?" Laura asked her companion innocently, attempting to learn more about the girl's mysterious past while passing it off as a simple, conversational remark. She gestured to the sprawling grounds, illuminated by starlight.
"Nothing half so beautiful as this, no," Carmilla replied, leaving it at that. She knew what Laura was trying to do and although she did desire to tell Laura all, the hour was not quite yet right for her to do so. So for now, Carmilla would hold her tongue, as much as it pained her to.
"Dearest Carmilla," Laura frowned when Carmilla refused to elaborate on her answer. "We have been together for months now. When will you confide in me? When shall I receive your permission to know you just as well as you know me?"
"Darling, darling," Carmilla laughed airily at her hostess. "As I have promised you many times before, there shall indeed come a day in which you shall know all, but you shan't know a single thing a single second too early!"
"But why, Carmilla? Why?" Laura demanded. She was usually not half this bold, but tonight seemed to have given her increased passion and fervor about her mysterious house guest. She wanted to know Carmilla fully. She wanted to love Carmilla fully. But how could that be if she was kept in the dark about the girl's past?
Their relationship felt woefully unequal in Laura's eyes just because, while Carmilla seemed to know everything about her, she knew nothing about Carmilla. The thought shamed her. It embarrassed her. And she felt as if it were unfair of her to still be so ignorant to all of Carmilla's legacy while Carmilla knew everything about her. It was an unbalanced love that Laura still knew so little about, even though she desperately craved to know every last detail. Or was Carmilla really so cruel and distrustful that even now, months later, she still did not consider Laura a worthy confidante? Carmilla verbally disavowed such a claim, but her actions spoke otherwise, and Laura did not know which to believe.
"How am I to consider myself your friend if I should not know anything about you? I hardly know who you are and it has been months! You are still almost a stranger to me, although you profess to love me deeply. Is it fair that you should bear the brunt of our relationship and know all while I know nothing? I wish to know more, for us to be more equal. I wish to share in our story and bear this burden as well," she continued to plead, but Carmilla only gave her a languid smile, resting her head on Laura's shoulder. But no further answers were forthcoming.
At last, however, the two young girls took rest upon a stone bench towards the edge of the garden where they could overlook a nearby path that servants and farmhands sometimes treaded to travel back and forth between the schloss and its sprawling grounds. Because it was night, the path was quiet and dismally empty, but Carmilla and Laura were not looking out through the iron gates at that pathway. Instead, they only had eyes for each other, and each girl considered the other a far more interesting and pleasurable sight than the forest just beyond the garden's gates.
"I suppose I can tell you one thing that I possess here that I never had back home," the raven-haired girl whispered at last as she and Laura continued to gaze deeply into one another's eyes, blind to all else.
"You will?" Laura's own eyes widened a little and she leaned even closer towards Carmilla, hardly daring to breathe in case one single exhale should somehow change Carmilla's mind and cause her to retract such a tantalizing offer.
"Yes," Carmilla nodded, then she took Laura's hand in her own and held it tight, dark eyes sparkling with a passion that was deep and intense, as if only the serenity and silence of the night kept it from coming out in an unchecked torrent. Then she gave Laura her much-coveted answer: Life.
"In the land from which I hail, in the land of the west, we lived only in one lonely black castle. It was tall and marvelous, yet dismally dark and empty. For all of its riches and treasures and wonders, I loathed the place. It was always far too quiet and sad and lonely. Servants and subjects bustled in and out, perhaps, but it was all the same to me, tasteless and changeless, bland and flat. I was miserable there. There was no life within that castle. None at all. No so much as one single beating heart. No fresh or flowing blood, no rosy cheeks, no sparkling eyes, no colorful complexion. No life. None at all..." Carmilla's face was unreadable, but Laura could somehow already sense that her mood had changed.
"The darkness was amicable enough for a while, almost pleasurable and peaceful, an escape from the vitality and vigor and violence of life, but after a spell, it became desperately hollow and boring. It filled me with a loathsome restlessness. I longed for life again. But there seemed to be no end to my misery. At least not within those darkened hallways..." Carmilla gave another mysterious look, eyes narrowing, but this time, Laura could not read her. She did not know what Carmilla was attempting to convey through that one subconscious facial shift. Amusement? Anger? Bitterness? Resentment? Fear? Desire?
Laura desired to know, but she did not dare ask, lest she make some remark that caused Carmilla to close off from her once again. Laura did not think she would be able to tolerate Carmilla choosing to withdraw from her again. Not after the forbidden fruit was finally being given to her after having dangled tantalizingly in front of her for all of these days and nights together. The fruit was in her grasp now, she would not be so foolish as to throw it away, or reveal her presence, in case the God of the garden caught her and struck her down for indulging in this knowledge.
Laura remained still and silent, waiting for Carmilla to continue. To finally hear the girl disclose to her, even if it was only a morsel, felt wonderful upon Laura's soul. It filled the burning desire within her heart and soothed the restless frustration and made her glow with delight that Carmilla should finally consider her worthy of her trust. Now at last, Carmilla's actions were reflecting her words, and her earlier promises were finally coming to light. It filled Laura with relief, satisfaction, pride and hunger all at once. It filled her with life. It filled her with life to finally hear Carmilla confess something to her. She already knew that, by the time this night came to an end, she and Carmilla's souls would be even more intertwined than they had been before this starlit stroll through their little arcadian paradise.
"But then I came to you," Carmilla continued on. "Fate brought the two us together to be one. In you, my life has been returned, and in you, I have found that which I so desperately dreamed of, that which my own home could never supply. In you, my dearest companion, is Life."
"Life," Laura breathed the word back unwittingly. There was something so refreshing about the way Carmilla spoke the word that Laura had to say it herself to taste it the way her companion did. It was a very sweet and breathy flavor to it. Life.
"Life," Carmilla agreed. "There was nothing quite so nice in my home. It was the one luxury we could not afford. Though I wished to indulge in it."
"Well, now you can," Laura promised, finally squeezing Carmilla's hand back. "Now you can, every day. In this place, in my home, you may have as much life as you wish. Here, you may indulge in it freely and fully and forever. I promise!..." a new fervor that usually only sparkled in Carmilla's dark eyes began to shine within Laura's as, at long last, she was finally able to offer something back to her mysterious friend.
"I shall," Carmilla promised passionately. "Here, I know I will be full. I know I will be content. Here, I know I may indulge in life. Especially yours. Your life is the one I want the most. It is the one I value the most..." there was something in the way Carmilla said this that made it seem as though there was more to it than met the eye, but Laura was blind now, blinded by love and passion, and she could only agree to it all.
"Yes, Carmilla, yes," she murmured. "My life is your life, have it, take it! For I do not want it, unless you are there to share it as well..."
Carmilla gave the girl an unreadable smile as though truly contemplating Laura's reckless but well-meant offer. Then she nodded.
"Very well," she said. "We shall share lives. My life will be your life and your life will be my life."
"Very good," Laura's own smile was much more readable, relieved and excited and hopeful. The high of finally being on more even footing with the girl she loved sent her pulse pounding. She felt good in knowing that she and Carmilla were finally equals, and that she could give Carmilla just as much as Carmilla had given her. She finally had something Carmilla wanted, and she could finally provide it, after their relationship being one-sided for so long, with Laura taking and taking.
Laura could feel her blood rushing through her veins and reddening her cheeks as she continued to contemplate her guest. Her guest's eyes were locked on her, but they darted all over her body. While Laura could only stare at Carmilla's face, breathless, Carmilla's eyes roved every little last inch of Laura's. This was her new body now, this girl belonged to her. This was her new life. Laura was her new life. And for the first time in quite a while, Carmilla finally, truly, felt alive again as well. She had her life back at last, and it was all thanks to Laura. Now, sitting under the cover of the stars at that little corner of Eden, two lives were beginning again, intertwined forever and ever, even unto the grave and beyond and back again. It was life, endless and unbounded. It was life eternal. And most importantly, it was theirs.
AN: Sorry if this seems too flowery and poetic, but I was trying to capture the original book's style.