Fire and Water (Written by Fae and I)

A lonely evening in the garden brings two hurt souls together as secrets are revealed beneath the stars...

Night was always a comforting time for Bonnie, in an oddly disconcerting way. The damp and the dark set her nerves on edge yet the sound of night and the moon looking sadly over her was good company. She sighed, the heavy weight on her chest lifting briefly as she wandered through the garden, a thousand thoughts running through her head but none of them registering until she caught her own eye, looking down at a perfect reflection on the surface of the pond. The eyes looking back at her held many emotions but the most prominent and the most recognizable were shame and guilt.

“Don’t gimme that,” She muttered ruefully, “I’ve had enough of it.”

The reflection sneered back at her… was that how she looked at Laurie?

“Stop it,” Bonnie growled, baring her teeth defensively. This was meant to be a breath of fresh air - peaceful - but the air was catching on her lungs with cold barbs and the humidity stuck to her skin, to her collar, and to her eyes; there was no other reason for the dampness there.

“Please…” She implored once more, softening her glare.

“Am I interrupting something? Should I leave you two alone?” A voice behind Bonnie chirped.

She whipped around with wide eyes to face Carmilla who stood at an unnaturally intimidating 5”4 in the same dress as the party though more tattered than before. One sleeve was torn entirely off and Bonnie struggled to remember if that had happened during the fight.

....the FIGHT....

Bonnie took out a gun in a blink of an eye. It was a small pepperbox pistol that was usually strapped to her waist, this time however it had been neatly pressed to the thigh of her trouser leg. Raising it with some shake in her confidence, she aimed it straight at Carmilla’s head. The vampire looked calmly into Bonnie’s eyes.

“Why’re you doing this?” She sighed “I could have said nothing and torn out your throat before you let out a sound.” She moved diagonally away from Bonnie toward the edge of the pond, folding her legs beneath her and gently tapping the surface, sending ripples through the water.

Considering her for a breath, the artificer holstered her gun and mimicked her sigh before joining her at the water's edge, this time paying no heed to her reflection. “Okay...then, what do you want?”

A beat of silence then a forced laugh that sounded more like a choke, not staring at anything but the middle distance she said, “That is a more complicated question than you realize but I suppose the most accessible at the moment is a few minutes of your time.”

Bonnie watched her from the corner of her eye before swallowing and turning to face her on the damp grass. “You wanted to talk to me last time too, didn’t you? That night before my birthday…”

Softly, “...Yes.” Carmilla turned toward Bonnie looking her fully in the face and looked for all the world like she had never asked for help until now. The moon cast half light shadows across Carmilla’s cheeks and gave her a half healthy glow. “I do think you are the most willing to listen…” she turned back to the pond, “Even if only for curiosity's sake.”

“Yer not wrong…” Bonnie shrugged in admittance before offering a small smile, “Sorry about my-” She paused, “...Kit. He’s very protective.”

“You forget I did know his Father, if only for a short amount of time,” Carmilla’s body wreaked of tension and an ache for a lost fight, “Morris Men, or whatever name they want to call themselves, do not leave this world peacefully and they often take down others with them.”

Bonnie stiffened visibly and stared at the vampire with a glint of desperation in her eyes. “Do you ken how to save ‘em?” She asked, her voice barely above a whisper, a glimmer of hope seeping in.

The Vampire let out a heartbroken laugh, “Do you think I would still be sitting here if I knew? The Morris man would have burned me alive to save his own soul.” She looked emptily to her own reflection in the pond, now still, “He probably would have let my sisters live.”

Her breath stilled in her chest for a moment before she exhaled shakily and curled her knees up to her chest, disappointed as the hope faded but also increasingly aware of the agony in Carmilla’s voice. “I’m sorry…” She offered in weak comfort. “I didnae mean to bring up pain for ye.”

“I think I must run much the same as one of them, I am at a point where only rage moves my body and keeps me sane. The only thing left is anger but at least I know more control.” And in her anger, tears began to fall down her cheeks. Carmilla sat there, in the mud, her torn dress, the scarred skin below normally covered areas caught in the moonlight, and she looked like a broken child after a lost war. She brushed the tears aside with a silent calm as though this was a normal occurrence, the sorrow deep beneath barely surfacing above the rage.

“I understand,” Bonnie sighed, shifting her head on her knees to watch the vampire, “I dunnae relate but...I can understand that ache.” Her voice was soft and surprisingly open to the perfect stranger. “At the moment, I think I’m fueled by guilt.”

“Be careful that does not turn into anger, it is a very easy door to find and it is always open.”

Her eyes narrowed as Carmilla’s words sunk in and she nodded, lowering her knees so she could sit cross-legged, “I’ll take your word for it. But-” She glanced over with a smirk, “I doubt you came to have a wee heart-ta-heart. What do you need from me?”

The wind whistled a low tune in the silence between them and Carmilla spoke in the same low song.

“I think-” She spoke a whisper lower, “I thought that you might listen, that you might help, and that in the end I might be able to help you in turn.”

A sigh slipped the tieflings lips as she stretched up to crack her back, “Seems I’m the helping hand for a lot of people, now-a-days.” After the satisfying pop of her spine, she placed a hand down between them and leaned closer to murmur, “But of what use are you t’me?”

Carmilla looked down at the hand put voluntarily closer to her and glanced up through the loose pieces of hair curling around her cheeks. “I know history and I know things that have been… lost.” A tense moment then a bit awkwardly and rushed “I am no historian and I am not perfect in memory but I was at Glassrooke for a reason. I grew up there when I was a child, younger than you are now. It was a place built on education and on… forgotten children.”

“Forgotten children?” Bonnie repeated, her smirk morphing into a frown as Carmilla spoke, “What do you mean?”

“War and plague had left Europe scattered, it left families moth eaten and children were left with no comfort. And up rose St. Lazarus, a monastery built to rebuild the great families, Frankenstein, Lavenza, Murray, Shelley, Liddell, Wolfstein, many others, with the assistance of the surviving and thriving Ushers, Van Helsings, Doyle, and Tepes among other benefactors. The noble families were brought in as an effort to save the lines which were deemed valuable, especially in those who still had claims to land and if they happened to marry into their wonderful-” Carmilla chews and spits out this word, “families. Well, then all the better.”

“Wait, wait wait-” Bonnie turned fully, muddying her trousers as she did, her palms raised in confusion. “That’s a whole load of names I recognise, and…” She faltered for a moment, her mind whirring back to the poisonous garden and the tombs. “They’re all there at the school...these tombs. One of them-” Her bright blue eyes pierced into Carmilla’s, “One of them reminded me of you.”

Carmilla looked back, “A wonderful tomb I suppose, one I have not had the pleasure to rest in.”

Bonnie swallowed nervously, reminded in that moment that she was conversing with an immortal, cursed, being of darkness but she shook it off and offered a small, “Sounds tiring.”

Carmilla continued, “I entered the monastery when I was maybe five, I did not keep track then and it is useless to keep tally now. But I went in with my four older sisters, and whatever happened in those ten something years I cannot say much, I did not pay full attention to my surroundings as much as I should have.”

“Was it...where ye’ changed?” Bonnie asked tentatively, unsure of the vampire’s boundaries.

“No. That was,… after.”

There were so many questions on the tip of Bonnie’s tongue, and she stumbled for a moment unsure of which to pick, unsure whether she would answer, or even if she would grow tired and just snap her neck. But she risked it for a very soft, “Did it hurt?”

Carmilla strangely, had a small smile on her face. “It was like falling asleep and waking up with your body half asleep. Nothing touching it quite the same, no cold or heat, or pain.” The smile drops, “Nothing at all. Just the rage and hunger.”

“Do ye’ regret it?” The tiefling continued, shuffling slightly closer, as if they were sharing secrets, but to her they were whispers - answers - she didn’t even want the stars to hear - not yet.

“It is not a decision I can regret because it was a choice made for me.”

At that Bonnie bit her lip, sensing the tension as her next question slipped out, “The person who made that choice...do ye’ hate ‘em?”

Carmilla debated for a moment, “At this point I do not know. He was a teacher, a parent, a researcher, a… monster.” Carmilla’s hand dropped from her lap to the space in between the two, breathes away from Bonnie. “Would you burn your Father’s bones if it meant the same act never happened again?”

“Dracula…” Bonnie breathed, and for the first time in a long time, it felt like she was breathing clear, crisp air. “Yer father was Dracula. That’s why you were- are here....”

Carmilla’s head shook from side to side, “More of a Foster Father, my blo—my…biological Father died before I had memories to mourn. Dracula Tepes, was a man possessed by a singular lust for knowledge, as were most administrators of St. Lazarus. Dracula was one who led an experiment which led to the end of that home… and the death of one of my sisters.”

Bonnie swallowed - she was never very good with emotions. “I’m sorry. About your sister…” She murmured, before hesitantly laying her hand atop of Carmilla’s, grazing her thumb across her pale knuckles. “I’ve...never lost anyone, I cannae imagine how that feels.”

Carmilla drew her hand away, a sudden chill rolling off of her, “The others were killed by a party of bric a brac people who promised us safety if we helped them take down Dracula.”

Ah. Bonnie laid her hand in the empty spot between them, not daring to move away as she hid her fear delicately and straightened. “Ma’ father and his friends...that’s who ye’ mean, ain’t it?”

Carmilla nodded her head slowly, “Morris took every killing blow. He had excellent aim except once.” Slipping the corner of her dress down further on her left side she revealed a pucker of a bullet wound, long sealed.

Bonnie had to refrain from wincing, but she couldn’t quite keep her eyes from flicking to the old wound with inherited guilt. “Kit is nae like his dad, y’know...I get that’s why ye’ gunned for him in the study but…” She looked back at her, hoping she would see the earnesty in her eyes, “He’s good.”

The wound was re-covered, “Every man is good but with time enough they all end up with the same blind faith. Dracula believed he had victory in a decrepit castle with a failing family. Abraham believes stamping out every trace of vampirism will bring back his lost friend. Your Kit? That boy ready to take every hit and fight every devil for the sake of his friends? His fight is not with the world, it is with himself.”

They say the truth hurts and Bonnie would argue that it doesn’t just hurt, it stings. Like salt in an open wound. She chewed on her bottom lip, trying to ignore that sting but the wound had always been there - she already knew. “I want to help him,” She sighed, before hardening her gaze, her hand gripping the grass beneath them, “But you dunnae care about that...or him. I dun think you care about me, but there is something. You didnae lay a hand on me. You still haven’t, despite my family’s involvement. Why?”

“I realized something almost a year ago I think. It was when I decided to go to Glassrooke. It was an excellent plan and a simple one. ‘I will go home.’ I thought to myself ‘I will go to the place Van Helsing would hate to step foot in. St. Lazarus, or Glassrooke, I suppose. But then I noticed something.” Carmilla stretched her shoulders back with a sigh, clearing the air of any evidence of her confessions moments before, now talking with a bored and emotionless rhythm. “Imagine my surprise when I came to school to find another Lavenza. A healthy Lavenza. You knew her, or of her.” Carmilla turned to Bonnie and the tiefling knew that for all her talk of rage and anger, the Vampire was not lying when she said she was consumed. “She died.” Matter of fact still but with the brimstone and hellfire.

“You were there.”

Coal and gasoline.

“And I do not think I would have put the pieces together had not your little group been there.”

Match and tinder.

“But what convinced me most was your ability to curb a Van Helsing.”

Bonnie released a breath she didn’t realise she had been holding, her eyes wide. Elizabeth. Victor. Faelynn. Shakily, she turned back to the pond before shifting onto her knees and leaning down to splash some water into her face. The icy cold shot some of the nerves back into her, twisting her head on straight - the eyes on her back, the whole time. “So...yer interested in me because I have a backbone?” Bonnie glanced over her shoulder at Carmilla before falling back into a sitting position. “Because I said no to Faelynn?”

“Because you loved her and you said no.”

Her heart throbbed and Bonnie inhaled sharply before looking her in the eyes, her own blues glassing over with unshed tears. “An’ what of it?”

“You would have done a lot to get her to look at you the way you wanted her to but you would not move heaven and hell the way that boy did.”

“Of course not,” She shook her head, rubbing at her eyes as she did, “Elizabeth asked him not to and he did it anyway...he robbed her of her dying wish.”

“Men seem to have a trend with Lavenza girls in that way.”

Bonnie shot her a look of genuine sympathy. She had seen the pain in Elizabeth’s eyes, the horror and the pure terror. Her voice still echoed in her head now and then. It was agonising. “But all of this...it still doesnae answer my question. What do you want from me, Carmilla?”

“I want you to burn the bones of Dracula. Get rid of them, scatter the ashes, dance on his grave wherever you choose to put it, laugh once a year thinking of him. I do not care what you do after you burn them.” Carmilla sat upon her knees and looked down into Bonnie’s eyes, again nothing but ash and heat. “Because I want Lavenza women to stop dying for some simple man’s higher research.”

“But...but the bones…” Bonnie shook her head, crossing her legs and sat forward as she spoke, the thoughts running through her mind now on the tip of her tongue. “I thought they could help me understand the parasitic arcana, with that I could help Harvey and I thought maybe I could learn about myself- my blood.” Bonnie looked up at Carmilla, pleadingly, “If I burn them, do I lose the answers I’ve been cravin’?”

The moonlight scatterered the ashes in Carmilla’s eyes and she looked soft leaning above Bonnie. “If you do not, then it leaves Glassrooke open to fire and flame.” Carmilla reached a hand to cup Bonnie’s chin slightly, “And before you ask, this is not a threat or promise from me. This is me seeing someone trying to repeat an experiment.”

The tiefling breathed heavily, almost leaning into the touch as she blinked back tears. Why could nothing be simple? To think, she’d had everything in her grasp, answers in reach only to have them snatched away. It was almost laughable. But she didn’t doubt the vampire before her, not for a second, and so she gently withdrew her face and stood up, sighing deeply as she rubbed away the tears that spilled down her cheeks.

“Okay...I’ll do it. I’ll go get ‘em now.”

The old girl sat still on the ground with wide eyes. The ashes turned to something akin to a hearth, warmer but not harmful. Carmilla seemed suddenly unsure for the first time since Bonnie had come into contact with her. Hands twisted in her lap and played with bits of torn dress.

“I will… um… wait… here?”

And for the first time that evening, Carmilla saw Bonnie laugh. The tiefling snorted as she smiled down wearily at her and waved a hand dismissively. “You ken you can come inside right? No need to dirty ye dress even more,” She gave pause for a moment before raising a brow, “Actually, if ye want, you can have one of mine - it looks like it’s been through the wars.”

The vampire looked down at herself and seemed to pause for a moment. A small glance to Bonnie’s pants told the tiefling everything she needed to know. Carmilla did not speak again but shifted slightly down into a sitting position and peaked her toes out from under her dress and dipped them into the likely freezing pond.

Bonnie waited a moment before rolling her shoulders, “Alright then, but the invite stands. I’ll be right back.” And with that, she headed back to the house, carefully casting Spider Climb as she crawled up the wall to her window and slipped inside with ease.

She was quick and quiet as she made her way along the halls, having abandoned her shoes to make light steps towards her father’s study, lockpick in hand. Her familiarity with her home and the regular routes of the staff that take night shift - and tattle on her - had her outside the door in minutes, and it took only a few seconds of jimmying the lock for the latch to lift.

As quietly as she could, she slipped inside and drew the door closed before heading over to the door behind the desk. She stilled, heavily breathing as she stared it down, briefly acknowledging the scuffs on the floor left from their fight. Swallowing the rising lump in her throat, she knelt down and began to pick the lock, remembering from her frantic worry last time that she needed to dip further to the back of the mechanism to unlock it.

Within seconds, the door was open, revealing the dark room and the box in the centre.

“What the fuck am I doin’?” Bonnie muttered to herself as she approached the box cautiously. The lid was still nailed shut but with a flash of blue, she used her arcana to alter the lock pick into the right tool for the job - a crowbar.

“This is madness…” Her voice barely reached her own ears and she hooked the crowbar under the lid and pressed down, hard.

The lid cracked with a snap and the smell of dust sank through the air. Pale blue light from the crowbar illuminated the room with a spektorly glow. Inside the box were the remains of a skeleton, faded, black, charred. Did these really need burning a second time? They sat curled and jumbled together in a previously white sack, all the broken pieces and none of them lost. Bonnie moved the crowbar slightly above the crate to get a better look and saw the skull, the teeth, long and slightly curved down but to a still sharp point. Silence held the room in a too long embrace. Bonnie reached down and gathered the sack together, doing a once over of the crate to ensure no pieces were missing.

“Right, off to hell with ye, I guess,” Bonnie muttered to Dracula’s remains, raising the bag up to her eyes before sighing heavily, “What a waste.”

The trek back was quick and practiced. Footsteps hushed as the secrets at the pond. Nearing back to the pond Carmilla sat where Bonnie had left her, twirling stray pieces of grass. She turned and stared at the sack with a blank expression.

“Dunnae ken why ye need to burn ‘em again, but here,” The tiefling gently dropped the bag in front of her companion, arching her back afterwards to loosen the knots there. “Heavier than they bloody look too.”

Carmilla crouched to the ground and slowly, carefully reached to the mouth of the bag and without looking inside, moved her hand around and brought out the skull. The moonlight shrank away from the dark lines and scratches in the bone. “Suppose it would give me some piece of mind or something like that.”

With that the Vampire shoved the skull back in the bag and dragged it slightly closer to the pond where there was a slight hole made in the silt and sand. A fire pit. Bonnie realized, maybe Carmilla hadn’t been as idle as she had thought. The bones spoke to the empty air with scratchy voices in the bag and the wind replied back with rustling leaves as Bonnie and Carmilla prepared a fire.

The work was quick and soon all that was left to do was to set a spark and watch the flames. Carmilla stood next to Bonnie, a dark shadow next to the bright pink, match in hand, ready to strike. The old girl watched the pile with a still and pained face. A few more seconds and the spark snapped into the air, the stick fell to the sack and no sudden burst of flame appeared. No explosion. No dark unnatural smoke. The fire slowly ate at the sack, bite by bite, soon unpacking the meat inside and relishing that too. Flames stayed low, sparks flew high and Bonnie spared a look to the Vampire. Silent tears fell down Carmilla’s cheeks as she stared into the reds and oranges and the occasional pop of blue.

“What is it they say? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust?”

“...in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life…” Bonnie finished, her brows knitting together as she watched the tears stain Carmilla’s face and with a confidence inspired only by her earlier cheek, the tiefling took the vampire's hand and gave it a squeeze.

After a moment, Carmilla squeezed back.

“He was not always the madman of the mountains and blood.” They stared deep into the flames, “He was kind once. And then he told us one day during the lesson how Van Helsing, not Abraham, he was still a boy, had found a vampire’s grave and was ‘going to put his death to good use.’ Soon after, Dracula somehow got infected. At first, he said he had clarity, he told us we were going away from the school but we could not take Angellica, one of my sisters. We thought she would follow later. She did not.” Carmilla took a shuddering breath, “And as time wore on, so did his mind. By the time of your father, he had lived 150 years and was determined… to give us a mother.”

Bonnie froze, her eyes widening as she stared at the fire, at the charred ash of the man who had traumatised her mother so dreadfully. “My mother...he wanted...her,” She whispered before turning to look at Carmilla with distraught eyes, “Why her?”

“I will never know. It might have been the wrong place at the wrong time. Towards the end he had thought I was 8, Valerie 12, and Katerine 13. I knew no reason would reach him anymore. So I—“ Tears had stopped but she seemed to debate whether to tell Bonnie something, “I let your father escape back home. I do not know what I had hoped it would accomplish. Perhaps it would send a ripple of good into the world.” The light reflects off her eyes, flickers of heat twisting the yellow around the dark. “I wonder… If I just made another ripple…”

“Thank you.” The words spilled from her before she even realised but Bonnie didn’t mind so much as her own tears spilled down her face. “Thank you, for showing mercy...and-” She smiled weakly, “For helping us...even now.”

They stood there for a minute as Bonnie let that silence between them ring before sniffing, breaking the calm air and scrubbing her face dry with her free hand, quite vehemently so. “God- I’ve become such a crybaby, so fucking soppy,” She muttered, laughing in spite of herself.

Carmilla let out a wet laugh too as the flames went lower and the ashes and dust started to get picked up and tossed about by the hands of the wind. Carmilla took a step forward, hand still holding Bonnie's and let out a kick aimed at the center of the pile. A scattering of ashes was thrown high into the air and began to swirl about among the trees. Their slow descent was crooked and lazy and ended mostly in the pond.

“How do you feel?” Bonnie asked softly, giving Carmilla’s hand another squeeze.

“Warm, I think.”

“Good. Me too.” She sighed, sniffing again and looking up. “It’s nae over though is it? Whatever changed me...when I was born...It’s because of him. And whoever it is at the school...they won’t stop will they?”

“No but I think we might have fucked up their plan a bit more than they bargained for.” Dark eyes looked at the ashes in the pond and Carmilla spoke softly again, “The three things I know they did last time that somehow ended with St. Lazarus crumbled and scorched are these: A Lavenza girl died, not on accident. They needed the bones of something twice dead. And they need a token of the tea party. That last bit I have no idea what it means but the other two…” A frustrated look passed over Carmilla’s face, “I am not confident I am seeing the whole picture or if I have all the pieces but I would rather someone able to look around unnoticed to see for themselves. I had that ability for a while at Glassrooke but—”

“It’s not safe for you,” Bonnie nodded firmly, “Van Helsing and Faelynn are quick on the trigger-” She had the grace to wince slightly, her hand twitching, “So best you steer clear. On the other hand...I’m a fast learner.” The artificer smirked and admired her nails quickly, checking they were all still intact after their little cremation. “I can do it, instead.”

“I am sorry I can’t do more but… The Iron Library is reopening soon. It fell with St. Lazarus and if they have the same books or more, then you might be able to defend yourself with knowledge. Just—“ Carmilla’s hand tensed around Bonnie’s hand minutely and with a start the artificer realized the vampire might be a person who attaches themselves rather quickly.

“I’ll be careful,” She reassured her, “I promise.”

Carmilla gave a firm squeeze of Bonnie’s hand and let go. She took a step back, dust and ashes still on her boots.

“Where will you go?” Bonnie asked, flexing her hand by her side as the odd warmth departed.

The vampire stared up at the sky, and answered honestly, “I do not know. Keep sprinting through the woods avoiding Van Helsing. Finding families that might take care of a stray cat… No plans really, I did not think I would get this far.”

“Well...okay, now this is gonna sound strange-” Bonnie held up her hands in mock surrender as she gave an awkward smile, “But...I’m pretty sure we’re allowed familiars at the uni.”

A beat of silence.

“Do I have to wear a collar?”