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Consent and Slavery in Akielos and Vere

A somewhat scattered discussion of the fact that both are heroes come from cultures where consent is barely even a thing.

Please note that I am approaching this subject as a big fan of the books. I’m happy to engage with other fans, but if you strongly dislike the books, we really have nothing to say to each other. Also note, I’ve only read the trilogy once, and none of the short stories as yet! So I’m open to correction regarding plot points I’ve forgotten, quotes I’ve misremembered, etc.

Slavery

For all that we mostly see the horrors of slavery through Damen’s eyes in Vere, it seems to only be Akielos and the culturally similar Patras – the “good guys,” from Damen’s standpoint – that practice slavery as such. The Veretian court enforces the servitude of those given to them as slaves, but are obviously unaccustomed to them. This is even a plot point; Damen struggles to ensure good treatment for his countrymen, whose deeply-entrained obedience to all commands is wildly abused by the Veretians, who clearly find it a novelty.

The “pets” of Vere are technically not slaves at all, but contracted sex workers. The difference is academic in some cases—particularly that of Nicaise, who is far below any decent age of consent and has already been a pet for some time—but pets’ possession of their contracts does give them some control over their own fates. This is seen in action in the character of Ancel, a pet who seeks to ingratiate himself with men more powerful than his current master, in hopes of persuading one of them to take his contract, and thus move himself up in the world.

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aberrant affairs

Laurent Revere comes down the wide, glossy staircase wearing a sheer, silk shirt that matches the pink in his cheeks and lips, and jeans that are too tight to be appropriate. His golden hair is neat, styled with care, and it shines brighter than the chandelier he stands under. He’s still wearing his ring, a giant cut of diamond that is obnoxious, yet tasteful.

“Goddamn,” Lazar mutters under his breath. His mouth is open, and his gaze is glassy.

Jord agrees. Goddamn. No one should look this sinful two days after their husband’s death.

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Capri Au?

I had a Thought. And I don’t know where it’s going. but.

***

Damen can only watch in distaste as the pets in the arena simulate combat, followed by simulated rape. He turns his face away only for the Regent to yank on the chain attached to his collar. Scowling, Damen takes the hint and moves to watch again.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance soon,” the Regent says mildly, and Damen can practically hear the cruel smirk in his tone.

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the postcards

Everything is a game.

Damen remembered those words, spoken to him in the hours that blended between dusk and dawn. They’d been a mumble in his ear, soft and unsuggestive, a throwaway comment that Damen hadn’t thought much of when he’d turned his head and was pulled in for a kiss. 

It had been three months since Damen had heard those words. Most days, they became all he ever heard anymore. 

Damen often thought about what had spurred it on, as if that small block of time would bring answers to everything else. He remembered that night perfectly, everything from the way Laurent had shown up with his hood up looking years younger than he was to the way he’d pressed Damen’s wrists to the mattress and rocked in his lap for what felt like hours. Maybe it had been; time was always immeasurable with Laurent. 

They let the TV play when they were finished. Laurent’s legs were tangled with Damen’s and his neck was damp with sweat. His skin was warm and his breathes were slow, and Damen luxuriated in the way his body splayed against his own as he wound his fingers through his hair, listening. 

The postcard being spoken about was from Patras. Stripes of bronze and purple on one side with the pointed tower of the capital on the other, it’s angles sharp and rustic. The handwriting was just as sharp, a graceful cursive that looked equal parts practiced and effortless, letters looping around the address of that month. 

Damen hated it. He hated the friendly demeanor of it, a keepsake from a trip that was really a map to death. He hated how the postcards were piling up. He hated that he felt as if he was always waiting for one of his own.

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pen pal

Laurent starts writing emails to inmates in Marlas Penitentiary in his third year of university. The only reason he considers doing it at first is because of Auguste, who writes in one of his weekly emails in the middle of a long, sour summer: These emails help, you know. They keep me sane.

The sadness Laurent feels at reading that is immeasurable. He has to go for a run afterwards, because running is more productive than crying. If Laurent starts crying, he won’t do anything else for the rest of the day. Or week.

He keeps writing to Auguste every week, but as he does so, he feels like he could do more.

A few weeks later, Laurent tells Auguste about it over the phone. Laurent never lies, or keeps things from Auguste. The last time he did, he ruined Auguste’s life. 

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I’ve been thinking about how it’s not really Laurent who’s responsible for portraying Auguste as a golden hero who could do no wrong. It’s actually mostly the regent, and the rest of the Veretian court following his example. It’s also Damen through his power as narrator.

Damen is the first character to describe Auguste. He introduces him as a noble warrior of indomitable spirit, a beacon of strength in the chaos of Marlas. An honorable man. A worthy foe. Even six years later, the impact he had on Damen is clear, and it’s also clear Damen respected him enormously.

Then throughout book 1, the regent and the court constantly hold up Auguste as a foil to Laurent’s shortcomings. Auguste was willing to serve his country as a soldier while Laurent is a coward who weasels out of border duty. Auguste was a true leader while Laurent just seduces and manipulates people. Auguste had honor, Laurent has none. This even goes on for more day-to-day events: the regent makes a point of reminding everyone that Auguste was actually good at hunting while Laurent has won only by killing a horse, and a random groom echoes his sentiments, telling Damen that Auguste tamed horses while Laurent kills them.

By the end of book 1, it was so well established that the world thought Auguste was the perfect warrior, perfect prince, perfect man, that I suspected that there would be a plot twist in book 2 that he was secretly evil or something. But at this point, Laurent has only mentioned Auguste indirectly, to say that he hasn’t believed in Akielon honor since Damianos killed his brother.

For all that Paschal says Laurent had hero-worshipped Auguste, we get a more human, less hero-worshippy picture of Auguste from Laurent than we do from any other character. Most of the time, when Laurent mentions Auguste, it’s to tell anecdotes of things Auguste said to Laurent or did with him–ordinary stories that suggest nothing more than that Auguste was a good brother. Laurent tells Damen that Auguste had no gift for practicing or recognizing deception, which in modern terms seems like a polite way of saying Auguste was a bit naive, and in Veretian terms might straight up mean Auguste was bad at politics. And he tells him Auguste preferred women, also not a trait valued in Veretian men.

This is significant, because it makes it far more striking when Laurent does make sweeping statements about Auguste’s greatness. It’s not that Laurent in general has an Auguste-shaped blind spot in his ability to judge character–instead, he’s talking about Auguste like that for a situation-specific reason. 

The two times I can think of when Laurent sounds more like he’s talking about Auguste as a hero rather than Auguste as a regular person are in his sword fight with Damen in Kings Rising, when he nonsensically insists Auguste would have beat Damen in a duel; and in Prince’s Gambit, when he calls Auguste the best man he ever knew. 

Laurent calls his brother the best man he ever knew and tells Damen he reminds him of him, and the fact that he always speaks of Auguste in down-to-earth terms makes the compliment more personal, more meaningful. There are similarities between Damen and Auguste readily apparent to anyone who knew the two men only slightly, or only by reputation. Both are great warriors, both are natural leaders, both are brave and loyal to their countries. But Laurent isn’t just saying Damen is like Auguste, the best man he ever knew, because Damen is a brave and honorable warrior. That’s not how Laurent talks about Auguste. No, Auguste is the best man Laurent ever knew because of who he was with his family, with the people he cared about, and Damen reminds him of that Auguste as well.

In terms of the sword fight, I think it makes the scene all the more heartbreaking. Throughout the trilogy, we hear again and again how good a fighter Auguste was. Laurent does this too, but not nearly to the same level. Laurent says he was not a fighter, like Auguste was, but it’s more a contrast of his and Auguste’s motivation to train than it is commentary on Auguste’s skill. Jord tells Damen you only need to be half as good as Auguste to be ten times as good as anyone else. In contrast, when Laurent explains he knew he would have to be very good to beat Damen, he doesn’t just say ‘because Damianos beat my brother,’ as Jord might have. He says it’s because Damianos was known to be the best fighter in Akielos and beat a large number of the best Veretian fighters.

From anyone else, Laurent’s insistence that Auguste was better, good enough to beat Damen might sound like disbelief that anyone could beat Auguste because Auguste was so impossibly talented. From Laurent, who doesn’t belabor his brother’s skill, it sounds like simple refusal Damen could beat Auguste because that would mean Auguste would die, and there’s a part of him that still can’t accept the world would let that happen.

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I was going to reflect more on why it’s so useful for the regent to talk about Auguste as the perfect prince in this post, but it was already so long I decided to talk about that separately.

From a purely pragmatic standpoint, it’s a really effective approach for the regent, because it allows him to attack Laurent’s character in what is perhaps the one way Laurent won’t fight back against. Typically, when the regent attacks Laurent, Laurent is quick to counter, exposing the flaws in the regent’s argument or revealing his hypocrisy. But when the regent attacks him through Auguste, what is Laurent going to do? Say his dead brother wasn’t actually that great after all?

If, for instance, the regent framed Laurent’s refusal to serve on the border simply as a matter of a hypothetical king’s first duty being to defend his people in battle, Laurent could debate that on philosophical grounds, could argue that a king is far more than a simple soldier and is more needed at the seat of government than at the border. But the regent isn’t talking about the responsibilities of kings in general, he’s talking about Auguste, and what a hero he was for defending his country in war. How is Laurent supposed to argue with that, or say it wasn’t important?

But of course, the regent doesn’t just attack Laurent through Auguste out of rhetorical pragmatism. It’s also on a personal level an extremely cruel thing to do. Not only must it be extremely painful for Laurent to hear again and again how little like Auguste he is, but this strategy probably also has the side effect of making Laurent even more emotionally isolated.

Laurent doesn’t talk about Auguste much. The only times I can recall Laurent talking about Auguste with someone who isn’t Damen, in fact, is when he’s responding to people accusing him of having unnatural feelings for Auguste. (Which, yikes.) Damen thinks Laurent is hesitant to talk about Auguste with him because he killed Auguste, but actually it seems like it’s the opposite–Damen is the first person Laurent’s been able to talk about Auguste with in years.

And no wonder: if everyone at court mainly talks about Auguste to point out Laurent’s shortcomings, of course it discourages Laurent from talking about his brother. For Laurent to mention Auguste is probably to invite a lecture on how Laurent is a failure.

So instead Laurent has to stand by and listen, while the endless platitudes remake the Auguste he knew into a flawless golden statue. While his brother’s legacy is turned into a weapon to destroy him.

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“I hated you,” Laurent says, tracing the scars with his fingertips.

Damen starts, then goes still under Laurent’s touch. “I know,” he says after a long moment, his voice slow and rough.

Damen tends to doze off after sex, in the interval between his climax and Laurent returning to their bed, molding himself against Damen’s warm pliant body. Maybe he’d already been asleep.

Maybe Laurent should’ve kept his mouth shut.

“I hated you so badly,” he says. “I’d been hating you so badly for so long. I couldn’t—”

Damen doesn’t move. He stays exactly where he is, curled up on his side with his back to Laurent. Head bent forward, resting on his hands. The curve of his neck looks both appealing and achingly vulnerable. Laurent wants to touch it, wants to kiss it. Wants to cover it with his mouth and his hands to shield it from the world.

“I fixated on you,” Laurent says. He doesn’t want to say these words. He needs to say these words. He’s been holding them inside for too long. They’ve been growing larger in the space between them, even if Damen hasn’t noticed. “People die in war, in battle. In honest combat. I must’ve known, on some level, that it was foolish to hold you—you personally—responsible, but I did. It was easier, blaming you.”

Damianos, prince-killer. The image of his face forever etched into Laurent’s memory. The whisper of his name. All those years Laurent had carried it with him, a maddening undercurrent to his pulse. Damianos, prince-killer. Damianos, who had slain the man Laurent loved more than anyone.

“And then they brought you in front of me,” Laurent says, “trapped, chained, forced down onto your knees, utterly unable to make sense of what was happening to you. Refusing to believe it.”

The way Laurent had felt, after Auguste’s death.

Damianos, prince-killer, who had unwittingly removed the last obstacle standing between Laurent and his uncle.

Damen is breathing hard, Laurent realizes. Curled up on his side, holding still, taking deep shuddering breaths that make his back tremble under Laurent’s hand.

Laurent should’ve kept his mouth shut, but it’s too late now.

“I hated you for so long,” Laurent says, as his fingertips find a thick, ragged line of scar tissue that runs diagonally down one of Damen’s shoulder blades. The lash must’ve cut especially deep here. Too deep for Paschal’s healing salves to assuage it. “If I hadn’t—”

I would never have been able to forgive you.

I would never have been able to forgive myself for forgiving you.

“I had to,” he says, “I’m sorry,” and he leans down to press his lips to the scar, feels Damen shudder under him.

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so i read @laurent-ofvere​ maya’s wonderful tag: 

…and, naturally, this was born

damen/laurent au where damen tortures laurent with a vibrator during a meeting

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May I ask for a daemons AU of Captive Prince? Original canon or other settings are fine, I'm kind of curious to see what their daemons would be. :)

Eleonore’s claws dig so tightly into his shoulder that they prick his skin even through the layers and layers of fabric. She doesn’t like it when Laurent drinks. Her vision feels clouded; she feels unsafe, more easily spooked.

Laurent sympathises.

But there is no possible way that he will get through this sober.

“Have you taught him some manners, since last time?” Laurent says.

He is not expecting a reply, and none is given, nor is it needed. The Prince of Akielos is covered in bruising which shows even on his brown skin, and there are deep, raw cuts on either edge of the cuffs around his wrists. He has struggled.

“Look at me,” Laurent orders now.

Damianos does. His eyes are a clear brown, full of pride and hatred. There is blood matted in his hair.

The first time Laurent saw this man’s face, he was thirteen years old and Eleonore was close to settling; on most days she was flipping between either a white hare or a cat. Not long after the deaths of Laurent’s father and brother, she regressed. People murmured that the Prince’s daemon was flighty, that being so abnormally slow to settle spoke of a weakness of character. It took a year for her to narrow her focus again, and that time, it was to birds. And then one day she was a falcon, which she had never been before. She never budged from there. Like Laurent, she knows what it is to set her mind to something and refuse to waver.

“Your orders, Highness,” says one of the men. “What shall we do with him?”

Off to one side is the daemon in the shape of a dog: muzzled, collared, chained. The pain and indignity from that must have been horrific, Laurent thinks idly. Akielons are wretched barbarians, they enslave daemons along with people, but the taboo against touching them is as strong as it is here in Vere. The man holding the chain looks ill at ease.

“Your daemon,” Laurent says, addressing Damianos directly. “Her name?”

The daemon in question is as tall as a man’s waist, with long hunting legs and a coat of brindled dark brown and tan. She growls, long and deep in her throat, but makes no attempt to move.

“Anastasoula,” says Damianos. He is lying. He adds, in Veretian, “Careful, sweetheart. She bites.”

“It was an oversight not to muzzle you,” Laurent says. “But one I can rectify, if need be.” He makes his voice petulant to match the decadent droop of his eyes. He is skating on ice over the churning lake of his fury. He makes a small gesture, and the man holding the daemon’s chain gives it a short tug.

Damianos winces and casts a desperate, hopeless look at his daemon. She is at Laurent’s mercy, and Laurent is feeling the furthest thing from merciful. His head aches with wine. He would like to take a sword and run this man through, and watch him bleed out onto the floor. He would like to put his foot on that muscled throat and press slowly, painfully down. His brother’s killer is here in front of him, and Laurent is doing nothing. Nothing at all.

Eleonore taps her head against his ear in a soothing way that means, patience. Other than that, she is motionless, and silent. Only the silvery thread of her emotions betrays her concern for Laurent, and her rage, which glides beneath his. She is a predator. She knows how to be still, when a trap is being set.

“Let’s try this again,” Laurent says.

Damianos’s rage, when he lifts his eyes to Laurent, is as clear as the ugly bruise that covers most of one cheek. His daemon’s brief whimper of pain has become a growl again. Messy. Obvious.

“Your Highness,” Damianos says, in a voice like crushed stone.

“Better,” says Laurent.

***

NOTE: Damen’s daemon (hah) is actually called Lysandra, and she is a Cretan hound. Anastasoula means resurrection; Damen is being unwisely melodramatic. Eleonore is, funnily enough, an Eleonora’s falcon.

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MERMAN LAURENT AU PROMPT PLS: first date OFFICIALLY on land when they’ve found a way for Laurent to have legs temporarily lol. Or sweet love in a house they live in together practically, near the sea obvs so that Laurent won’t have trouble just going back anytime. Or just them being fluffy having a walk around the beach...IDK WHAT DO YOU FEEL

“How,” Laurent said, “Is that comfortable?”

Damen lifted his eyes to see where Laurent was looking, following the direction of the carrying sound. Dark, thin heeled boots clicked against the pavement as a young woman crossed paths with them and made her way down the stalls, oblivious to the way they both watched her walk. It was true that walking in such high heels were difficult for some, but such details weren’t really relevant. Not for Laurent, who still got excited over simply walking.

“You get used to it,” Damen said.

“The way I’ll get used to these?” Laurent asked. He lifted one foot as he said it, pointing his toes out and rotating them a little. To the unbeknownst eye, the action looked rather strange. Laurent didn’t care. Damen didn’t care. He was too preoccupied with Laurent, and the wonder that still hadn’t left his eyes.

Damen nodded, smiling. He couldn’t stop smiling. The first time Laurent had stood on dry land he’d stumbled over like a newborn giraffe, just barely gripping Damen’s arm for support. Damen hadn’t been above teasing him, even when Laurent had leveled him with a glare and dared him to dive down the center of the ocean.

I can lift you Damen had suggested. He’d done it before, more than once. But it was different, like this. He was distracted by Laurent’s legs, how long they were, how they would look wrapped around Damen’s middle –

That would entirely defeat the purpose Laurent had said, cutting off Damen’s train of thought. He’d then raised his chin, and tried again to walk, and then tripped a second time.

Now, Damen laced his fingers between Laurent’s and swept the side of his knuckles with his thumb. He did it because he wanted to, and because he wanted to see the way Laurent’s cheeks pined with color. Laurent looked down at their hands, and then the ground, before looking off to the crowds of people.

“Where should we go next?”

Damen pressed his lips together, hanging his head back. He shrugged. “The Ellosean sea?”

Laurent tugged at his hand. “Stop being a bore.”

Damen resented that. He tugged back, turning Laurent to face him. “It won’t be so boring when you sprout a tail in the middle of the marketplace.”

“Certainly not boring,’ Laurent agreed.

Damen breathed out a frustrated sound. Their timing was finicky, something Laurent well knew. It was never exact, and there was so internal signal that he was about to morph back into his usual form. Coming to a place so public had been a risk of it’s own, but Laurent wanted to see more of his world, and Damen wanted to give him everything.

Everything only became a problem when Laurent chose to ignore logistics. Or rationality. Or Damen altogether. 

“Come on.” Laurent gazed up at him. He was still considerably smaller than Damen, even standing upright. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

Damen didn’t know where to begin. “You cause an uproar,” he offered. “You scare a child. You scare someone with a poor heart. Or,” he said. “You get sold. Best case scenario to a fish market, but just as likely to the block.”

None of the talk of chaos seemed to unnerve Laurent. If anything he looked exhilarated. Damen often wondered if his recklessness was a merman thing, or if he simply liked courting danger. It was probably a little bit of both, considering his penchant for always swimming around the human eye.

Damen sighed. He closed his eyes and considered all the possible escape routes, and then he opened them with a resigned slump to his shoulders. “Do you want to go to the sweets section?”

Laurent grinned.

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Revolutionary boys Will and James 😌

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jokaste watching/telling kastor what to do while he's fucking kallias

The fig was perfectly ripe in Jokaste’s hand. She turned it over, running her thumb over the plum skin as she leaned forward.

“He likes that,” she said, lifting it to her mouth. “Don’t stop.”

Sweetness coated the inside of her lips as she watched, careful to not make any noise while she chewed. It wouldn’t matter, she supposed, the sound of fucking was certainly more consuming than eating. Still, she saw no need to turn slovenly.

Kastor wouldn’t have noticed, even if she had taken three figs in her hands and swallowed them all down in succession. He was too occupied, focused, all of his attention on the blue-eyed beauty panting on his back.

“Very good,” Jokaste said, her eyes following the way Kastor pushed the slave’s thigh up, pushed his cock deeper inside him. The slave’s mouth fell open, moaning like he was trained to. “See how much he likes that?”

Probably, he didn’t like it. Odds were the slave didn’t even know what his own preferences were, not that that mattered. He still took it like he was grateful for it, and Kastor still gave it to him like this was something everyone was getting enjoyment out of.

Jokaste crossed her legs as she took another bite.  It was odd to see Kastor like this, in a position so intimate to allow eye contact. Kastor liked his slaves on their stomach, just like he liked his woman and his men. But Jokaste had said she’d wanted it like this, and like usual, he continued to bend to her will.

She tilted her head, watching Kastor’s arms flex and his brow line with sweat. The muscles in his back rippled, he looked like a man driven solely by his pleasure. It was an attractive look. She wondered if that was how Damen looked when he took her.

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Pacat opens up on twitter about ethnical and racial elements depicted in the Captive Prince series and how it was based on her own experiences and background.

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Lazar sucking off Laurent? or Laurent sucking off Lazar? Laurent, Lazar, blowjob. That’s my prompt.

written in the same verse as this

“Good,” Lazar kept his eyes open. “You – yeah, just like that.”

He didn’t receive any kind of response. He didn’t expect it; Lazar was definitely the more talkative of the two. He liked to pull off and mumble against his partners’ thigh, to take their hands and tell them to hold onto his head. To tell them how hot they looked, how they felt. He liked it that way. Silent fucks were boring.

Not Laurent, though. Nothing was boring with Laurent. Not in the beginning when he was inexperienced but eager, not now when he instigated more often than Lazar did.

He had Lazar’s length most of the way down now, his fingers curled around the base. He could take more, Lazar knew that he could, but this was one of those nights where his focus was on making a show of it, pulling back so that his tongue laved around the head. He was sloppy about it, intentionally so.

“Fuck.” Again, it was an effort for Lazar not to close his eyes. Laurent looked too good like this to miss, his lips stretched around Lazar and his hands on him, working him in that precise way of his. He looked like he was made for this, like he knew how good he looked when he sucked cock. Lazar had taken a picture of him once, on his knees with his head bent. When he’d shown Laurent the photo after he’d glared, deleted it, then kissed Lazar hard on the mouth before leaving wordlessly for the night.

“You’re doing – that’s good.” Lazar twisted the blanket between his fingers, careful not to touch him. It was very rare when Laurent let him hold his hair, even more rare when he let Lazar fuck his mouth. It was fine, it wasn’t for everyone, but the sounds Laurent’s lips made and the soft, muffled moan was too much, and he couldn’t think of anything else.

“Laurent, baby –“ Lazar groaned, pressing his head into the pillows. “Fuck.”

Laurent pulled off abruptly, eyes raising to watch Lazar as he did. His lips were tight and the friction was slow, it made Lazar groan again with a press of his teeth into his lip.

Laurent wiped his mouth off with the side of his hand, breathing out. “Stop talking,” he said, moving his hair out of his face, before taking Lazar back in his mouth.

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“Just a little longer, he thought”. Chapter 20 #CaptivePrince vol.2 by C. S. Pacat ‘cause I WAS CRYING IN DESPAIR WHILE READING AGAIN THIS BOOK (especially this part of the book. Or all the book I’m not sure). Laurent was so damn cute in chapter 19. WELL. Goodnight !

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Saw people reblogging a really old Laurent drawing recently and realized I haven't drawn him in awhile so it's time to fix that 👀🌟