Chapter Text
There was no compromise for Laura:
She was five years old, and she wanted a tiger for her birthday.
Not only were tigers the coolest animals ever (they were even the mascot of her favorite cereal!) but they were fluffy. And, most importantly, she could ride one.
Her dad couldn’t tell her things were ‘too dangerous’ if she had a tiger to protect her!
Laura pointed this out in a presentation a week before her birthday. With charts, diagrams, and picture. Along with glitter. Lots of glitter.
“...And, as you can see from this graph, fathers who gave their children animals as presents showed substantial and immediate rise in their approval ratings that stayed constant for at least several months--”
“Okay!” Mr. Hollis laughed, “Okay. Laura, if you want a tiger, I’ll get you a tiger.”
Laura jumped on him, hugging him tightly. “Thank, thank you, thank you daddy!”
“Of course, kiddo! You only turn five once.”
Laura thought she would have the best birthday ever.
She was wrong.
Instead of her real, fluffy, giant tiger...she got a small, floppy, (although admittedly still fluffy) stuffed tiger.
“...Is this a toy for my real tiger, Dad?”
His huge smile stopped reaching his eyes. “Laura, honey, you didn’t think I could get you a real tiger, did you?”
“Why not?”
He went through all the standard reasons that Laura had already thought of, of course. Where would we keep it (the garage, obviously), how would we feed it (he could share Laura’s food, she didn’t even touch her vegetables anyway) and what if the tiger is dangerous (it wouldn’t be dangerous if she was his friend).
In the end, after Laura expertly refuted all of his arguments, Mr. Hollis sighed, running a hand down his face.
“...Okay, Baby Bear, I’ll make you a deal. You can have a real tiger--”
Laura was about to jump in the air and do a happy dance--
“-- If you can catch one yourself.”
Laura’s eyes widened.
Really? Catch one herself?
That was...was…
Laura’s face broke into a huge grin.
A great deal.
***
Laura had only one request. “Dad, can you help me set up the net trap?”
Because he liked outdoors stuff and camping and things. Although he had stopped doing that stuff when Laura’s mom died, apparently. Laura had no recollection of her other than he stopped going camping because it was ‘too dangerous’ when he had a daughter to think about.
But he still knew how to make traps for animals.
“What are you putting in the trap, Laura?”
“A slice of my cake,” Laura said, “my chocolate cake.”
Mr. Hollis stifled a laugh and suggested Laura should consider putting some meat in the trap. Laura shook her head.
“ Everyone loves chocolate, daddy. Tigers eat meat when they’re hungry, but even if he’s not hungry he’ll want a slice of cake.”
She nodded curtly. There. Her trap was set.
“Okay, Baby Bear,” Mr. Hollis said, taking Laura’s tiny hand in his own fist, “Why don’t we go inside. You need to go to bed, and you can check the trap in the morning, okay?”
“Okay, daddy! What do you think I should name my tiger, huh? Do you think Tony would be too easy? Ooooh! How about Bagheera! Like in the Jungle Book...I don’t want to name him after the tiger in that, he was mean…”
She continued babbling until she was tucked into bed, and fell asleep dreaming about riding around the neighborhood on her new friend.
By the time Laura woke up, it was five in the morning. Way too early for her to wake up, especially on a Saturday, but she was just so excited. Of course her trap was going to work.
In fact, what if it already worked?
Tigers walked around at night, right?
And there was never a bad time to eat chocolate cake, right?
She got out of bed, rubbing her hands together. It couldn’t hurt to check.
She tip toed down the stairs. Poked her head around corners just in case her dad was already up.
Slowly, carefully, Laura stood on tiptoe to grab the handle of the sliding glass door that led to the backyard.
“Hey, tiger…?”
Laura gasped.
Of course she thought it would work, but she was still surprised when it did.
“A TIGER--waaaaaaaiiiiit.”
There it was. Struggling in the net trap, hanging from the tree above the picnic table where Laura had placed the slice of cake and set the net trap. But it was definitely not a tiger.
No reason to be scared of it when it was trapped, even if it did sound kind of annoyed.
“Hi!” Laura exclaimed. She walked toward it, “My name is Laura. I caught you, see!”
As she walked closer, she could see in the morning light that there was chocolate around its snout. “Did you like the cake? It was for my birthday.”
She raised her hand, grinning. “I’m five now, see! My dad told me I could have my own pet tiger if I could catch one for my birthday. But...”
Laura hopped on the picnic table, looking up at the animal, their faces only inches apart. “Except you’re not a tiger. Not that there’s anything wrong with whatever you are...it’s just, tigers are really cool looking, and you’re cool looking too but you’re just black.”
The cat stopped struggling. It looked like it was glaring at her. Laura frowned.
“Hey, I’m sorry--”
“I’m a panther,” the cat growled.
Laura’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped.
“What?”
“A panther. That is what I am,” the cat repeated.
For a moment, Laura said nothing.
“...Okay,” she finally said, “this is way better than some boring old tiger!”
***
All Carmilla wanted was to eat a piece of cake.
Instead, she was being held captive by a five year old.
In all fairness, it was kind of her fault. She was walking through the neigborhood, trying to find someone to feed on (without killing, of course; she’d just moved into town, a death this soon was more trouble than it was worth). And then...cake. Chocolate cake. In retrospect, it was rather idiotic to just waltz into someone’s yard to eat a slice of cake they left behind.
But, then again, who ever heard of net traps in the urban jungle?
And then she got stuck in that net and spent all night as a panther trying to claw out to no avail.
And now... she didn’t even know why she talked to her. She was tired, kind of annoyed at the universe in general, and really wanted the kid to just. Shut. Up.
Plus, panthers were much better than tigers.
“Yes, yes, I am,” Carmilla said, rolling her eyes, “Now can you let me out so I can go?”
“But you can’t go! What’s your name?”
“Tell you what, kid. Let me go and I’ll tell you my name.”
Laura’s eyes narrowed. “Nuh-uh.”
“Why not?”
“Because then you’ll run away!”
“...Look, can you just untie me, kid, please?”
“My name is Laura,” she said, pouting, and Carmilla couldn’t believe this was how she would end. Starving to death because she was captured by a toddler. “And I can make you a deal?”
“Deal. Okay. Great.”
“I will let you go... if you promise to have a tea party with me.”
Carmilla almost preferred the starving option.
“A... tea party.”
“Yeah! I’m not missing out on the chance to hang out with a talking black cat. ”
What the…?
“I’ll bring all my friends,” Laura continued, “Right now. And I’ll have tea, and my leftover cake and cookies from my birthday party. And then you can go.”
“One tea party, and you will let me go?”
“Well, yeah,” Laura shrugged, “I mean, I can’t keep you in that net forever. And I’m not going to force you to stay if you wanna’ go. My dad says you can’t make people be your friend, you can only be yourself and good people will want to be your friend.”
Carmilla tilted her head, and Laura stared back in earnest.
“How do you know I won’t just run as soon as you untie me for the party…?”
“Because we made a deal, and I trust you.”
Carmilla should have said to herself that she needed to get the hell out of dodge...but the way Laura was looking at her, and saying that, she couldn’t. It was just one stupid tea party. Lap up some fake tea, munch on a few cookies, go free.
“Fine.”
“YAY!”
Laura sprinted back into the house. Carmilla kept shifting uncomfortably in the net. It was maybe ten minutes that went by until Laura came out balancing plates, cups, and a little tea kettle. She placed it all on the picnic table.
“Back in a mo’. I need to get my friends next!”
Laura bounced on her feet, running back into the house. Carmilla huffed. This was going to be the most painful tea party of her life--and those little luncheons she had to do with Maman weren’t exactly fun.
Finally, finally, Laura showed up with an armful of stuffed animals.
“These are all my friends,” Laura announced, “here, let me help you.”
She placed the stuffed animals carefully on the picnic table seats, standing on the table to untie Carmilla. She fell to the ground with an oof and scramble to her paws.
“Thanks.”
“Sit!”
Carmilla carefully maneuvered so she was sitting at the table. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”
“Wait, let me introduce you to my friends. This is Lois,” Laura pointed to a stuffed rabbit, “Clark--he’s a wolf, but him and Lois are still best friends--Mr. Lazy the sloth, Buffy the bat, and Blue the bear. I’ve had Blue since I was a baby.”
Carmilla squirmed uncomfortably. Laura poured some tea--actually, it was water--into her cup.
“I’m not allowed to use the stove, and we didn’t have any tea,” Laura said apologetically, “It’s still super early and I don’t want to wake daddy up to make it.”
“Fine.”
Carmilla bent down and delicately lapped up water from the tiny cup. Laura giggled.
“What?”
“Sorry, it just looks super funny.”
Carmilla took Laura in for a moment. “So...these are your friends?”
“Yep!”
“Your other friends couldn’t come…?”
Laura had been bright and bubbly this entire time, but Carmilla saw her face fall slightly. “No. These are all my friends. None of the other kids want to play with me much.”
Carmilla tried not to care. She was a random five year old. Why care?
“They think I’m weird,” Laura continued, “And I mess things up a lot. I used to have one friend named Betty, so it was okay, but she had to move,” Laura looked down at her cup, “But these guys are all really nice, so it’s fine!”
Carmilla stared at this little girl, feeding cookies to a stuffed rabbit that was apparently her only company; her dinosaur pajama pants; her one missing front tooth.
And she buckled, because she had nothing better to do.
Completely because she had nothing better to do.
“...Hey. You know, I don’t really have that many friends either.”
“I have friends,” Laura grumbled.
“I mean...uh...human friends.”
Laura looked up. “I’d be your friend,” she said sincerely.
Why did this girl have to be cute? Why did Carmilla have to meet the one girl cute enough to make her feel pity?
“...You know, you’re not that annoying,” Carmilla said slowly, “I could come back…”
In all of Carmilla’s several hundred years, she could never recall another time that she had seen a look of such poor, unbridled joy light up someone’s face.
“ Really?”
She had spoken too soon.
Way too soon.
But it would have been hard enough saying no to Laura before she grinning like an idiot and hopping to her feet.
“YAY!” She ran over to wrap her tiny arms around her thick neck, “We are going to be best friends, I promise! What do you like to do? What do panthers do for fun? Do you guys pounce like tigers? I always wanted to try pouncing! Could you teach me? I mean, if you do-- oh! And can you give me a piggyback ride? Dad won’t let me ride a pony, he says it’s ‘too dangerous’, but you’re smarter so I’m sure he’d be okay with it. ”
Carmilla’s ears flattened. She’d probably show this girl she wasn’t actually a panther. Eventually.
At the moment, she took in Laura’s grin--one tooth missing and her hands clenched in little, excited fists--sighed, got up, and bent down so Laura could climb on.