New Beginnings

2. Laura

Laura hummed to herself softly as she wandered with an absent mind through the peacefully quiet rooms of their cottage. Their cottage, she wasn't sure if she should be getting used to calling it that but more and more she found herself slipping into it, trying out the phrase to see how she liked it. The fact she would find herself smiling whenever she said or even thought the two words suggested she did. Carmilla would often notice and ask her what she was so happy about. So far in response she had either come up with some other explanation or avoided the question by initiating activities more exciting than simply exchanging words.

She wasn't sure why she hadn't told Carmilla the truth of what had been making her smile so often. Perhaps it was the fact they didn't know who the cottage really belonged to, if anyone.

They had found it abandoned a few miles from Silas completely by accident when the two had gone walking with no particular destination in mind, only a need to be alone, away from any living creature that had two legs and could talk. Away from anything that could interrupt them. It was the day after what could only be described as a 'Final Battle' had been fought in the pit. The final showdown between them and Inanna that they had somehow survived and ultimately emerged triumphant in.

They barely spoke but the silence was comfortable, not stilted, their hands almost having conversations of their own as they intertwined together during their meandering trek.

They stopped to rest multiple times, Laura nesting her head on her lovers chest as Carmilla held her, listening contentedly to her newly beating heart. They barely said a word, but somehow still so much was said. They couldn't lie against a tree forever but they didn't want to go back either so they continued onwards. The logic didn't really make much sense but neither questioned it in the least. Neither wanted to.

Without the threat of the Angler Fish Old One and other lovely Silas things infecting the mood like the last time they had left the University, the mountainous Austrian countryside was truly beautiful. The sun shone brightly on green fields and pine trees. The hills they hiked over were full of life, peaceful woodland creatures coming out to play now that the White Witch was dead. Or in this case the evil God was now a, well, God again.

It struck Laura as a great irony that if her story at Silas was one of accepting that Disney-esque stories weren't true and that life was filled with grey morality and the need to compromise then how strange that it had ended with her hugging the final villain and frolicking with peaceful creatures like some caricature of a Disney Princess.

She chose to air this thought to Carmilla, who laughed without reservation, which like her smiles, Laura had decided was a wonderful thing that she would endeavour to make happen as much as possible.

"Forgot you weren't around when a God mentioned you'd changed that story. Got your happy ending after all, Laura, the moral of the story is you are amazing. Book closed."

They'd embraced in that moment, kissing as the sun shined down on them, animals running all around, birds chirping. Then one of those birds chose that moment to poop on Laura's head. Oh well, can't get everything right. She was about to suggest that it was finally time to head back when she saw it. On a flat plain at the foot of one of the larger mountains lay the cottage.

Nothing special, your run of the mill cottage. Modest size, thatched roof with a brick chimney, stacked up firewood underneath an, admittedly overrun by vegetation, balcony overlooking what looked to be once a well-kempt garden. To Laura it looked like some kind of heaven, a perfect place where she and Carmilla could spend some time alone. Perhaps she had died after all?

They rushed back to Silas as quickly as they could and staked a claim on their prize in their own manners. Laura calmly advised her father and friends that she and Carmilla would be staying there for a time before moving on, while Carmilla calmly advised everyone else that she would brutally murder anyone who came near. They both had their ways and they smiled at each other as they went about them.