#damianos king of my heart

[cringeblogname]

reason number 7274827449271 CaPri is a comedy

[foxholeprince]

[tototalks]

Currently obsessed with my brain-worm headcanon that Akielon Homer creates an epic about Damen and Laurent in honour of their ascension, except it’s just wildly exaggerated stories of Damen’s bravery and how great Akielos is.

Like it starts:

🎵 “Sing, O muses, of the rightful king of Akielos, as he laid waste to his ambitious kin, the charlatan king, Kastor. In fits of bravery he swift took the sacred citadel of Ios and won the favour of the famed beauty of Vere, the quick-witted prince, brother of Noble Auguste.” 🎵

And Damen and Laurent are listening like okay fair enough, that’s a thing that did happen. But then as it goes on it gets further and further from the truth in more and more hilarious ways.

🎵 “Thus heedfully did lion-hearted Damianos vanquish a hundred dastardly assassins with only his mighty hands, sent by the Veretian Regent, Proclaimer of Cowards. This done, he saved in turn the life of fair-haired Laurent of Vere, who, overcome with gratitude, prostrated at the feet of his Akielon king, now lover eternal.” 🎵

And Laurent is sat there like wtf, I literally took down one of those THREE assassins high off my tits, and made you wait until RAVENEL to get anywhere near my bed, and Damen is sat next to him grinning like and idiot and trying not to choke on wine when he starts laughing at the particularly endorsed bits.

Ofc, much to Laurent’s disdain, this epic gets extremely popular in Akielos.

(It’s also hilarious to think about how Pallas could literally be called Pallas Pallas as Athena is in the Iliad lol)

[lucky-clover-gazette]

kings rising highlights & annotations

chapter 5

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

Meetings of this kind could take months to arrange; the speed at which it happened now was dizzying, if you did not know Laurent.

i like how damen has immediately fallen back into his book 1 & early book 2 habit of giving laurent backhanded compliments

He sat on the audience throne, with a single oak seat empty beside him and Nikandros standing behind him.

you know, damen, i can think of someone who has recent experience with oak chairs…

When prince met prince there were protocols to observe. You did not greet each other alone in a diaphanous tent. Or thrown to the ground in chains in a palace viewing chamber.

and yet, given the choice between protocol and hanging out with laurent in a tent… i think damen is seriously struggling with which he would truly prefer. if not already decided, in his heart

The last time Akielon and Veretian royalty had met ceremonially had been six years ago, at Marlas, when the Regent had surrendered to Damen’s father, King Theomedes. Out of respect to the Veretians, Damen had not been present, but he remembered the satisfaction of knowing that Veretian royalty was bending its knee to his father. He had liked it. He had probably liked it, he thought, about as much as his men disliked what was happening today, and for the same reasons.

“he had liked it.” ouch. but also showing the subjectivity of damen and laurent’s shared history

It was not like the ecstatic entries Laurent had made into the towns and villages of Vere. No one swooned or cheered or threw flowers at his feet. The camp was silent.

Laurent strolled in, beautifully;

He came down the path that was cleared for him, as though walking unmolested through an Akielon camp was simply his right.

because it is, because he made it so 💅

Damen’s own men watched as a man might watch his enemy sauntering into his house, unable to prevent it.

“sauntering” perfect word choice

‘My brother of Akielos,’ said Laurent.

i know the “brother” thing is part of the “language of kings,” but it’s extra awkward between laurent and damen because 1) damen killed laurent’s actual brother and 2) they’ve literally fucked

Everyone knew that in the Akielon language, princes of foreign nations addressed each other in the fraternal.

and everyone also knows that damen killed laurent’s brother, and that damen and laurent fucked, so it’s weird for them too!

‘Our brother of Vere,’ said Damen.

oooh, damianos has to use the royal “we” since he’s king, further removing himself from his individual identity as damen. part of the kingship/“kingdom or this” theme, which we’re seeing a lot in book 3, for obvious reasons

He recognised Guion, the Regent’s most loyal Councillor, who, sometime in the last three days, had switched sides.

don’t worry about it

Damen lifted his hand, offering it palm up, with fingers outstretched. Laurent lifted his own hand calmly, resting it atop Damen’s. Their fingers met. He could feel the eyes of every Akielon in the tent on him. They proceeded slowly. Laurent’s fingers rested infinitesimally above his own. He felt the moment when the men around him realised what was going to happen. Reaching the dais, they sat, facing outward, the twin oak seats now twin thrones.

of course they had to make this announcement in the most dramatic, shocking, and tense manner possible. like idk, someone could have explained the alliance with words first, just to make sure everyone’s on the same page when the two leaders sit down beside each other. i get that this wordless performance might simply be the appropriate protocol, but damen and laurent still somehow manage to make it feel inappropriate for the occasion.

‘We have called you here today to witness our accord,’ said Damen, in a clear voice that carried over the noise.

i think i read somewhere that pacat compared this scene to a wedding, and that would totally make sense, both with the way its written and the way damen and laurent are allergic to conventional romance story plot beats. like yeah, this WOULD be their wedding, wouldn’t it.

‘Today we mark the alliance of our nations against those pretenders and usurpers who seek to assail our thrones.’

same energy as suspended twitter user donald j trump saying “i would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, september 11th.”

Laurent settled in as though the place had been made for him, and adopted the posture he typically favoured, one leg straight out before him, a fine-boned wrist balanced on the arm of the throne.

cunt (affectionate)

Explosions of outrage, furious exclamations, there were hands on the hilts of swords. Laurent did not look particularly concerned by this, or anything.

Coiled and personal, Laurent’s gift was a Veretian whip, made of gold.

i remember reading this for the first time and saying “GIRLLLL” out loud to my cat

He remembered Laurent’s hand giving a little tug on the rod, infuriating, more than that. He remembered having his legs kicked apart, his hands bound, the thick wood of the post against his chest, the lash about to fall on his back. He remembered Laurent, arranging himself against the opposite wall, settling his shoulders there, positioning himself to watch every slightest expression on Damen’s face. His gaze swung to Laurent. He knew he had flushed, he could feel the heat in his own cheeks. In front of the gathered generals, he couldn’t say, What have you done?

there is a strategic advantage to this move on laurent’s part (to be revealed in a minute), but it’s also just him being a petty bitch and trying to make damen flustered/triggered on the throne

Inside the tent, Akielon men and women were looking at one another questioningly, others craning their necks to see.

and actually, this gesture from laurent also tells damen something else: “you thought i was evil for flogging you, my brother’s killer? then refuse my offer for revenge against men who murdered your people, in front of your bloodthirsty nation who want to see it happen. where’s your moral high ground now, bitch.”

‘The whip and the men are Vere’s gift to Akielos,’ said Laurent, and then he turned his melting blue eyes on Damen. ‘The first fifty lashes are my gift to you.’

wouldn’t be the first time laurent gifted damen laurent lashes out of spite. which i’m sure laurent is very smug about, saying this now.

He couldn’t have stopped it, even if he had wanted to.

i do think some of laurent’s revenge here is putting damen in the same powerful/powerless position he (laurent) had been in for seven years in arles. just because laurent was a prince, doesn’t mean he wasn’t a captive too. ultimately, it was laurent's innate responsibility to his people, felt as a prince, that kept him from just leaving entirely. but in order to stay and survive, he had to play dirty and adapt with his uncle's depraved court.

now a king, damen finds himself similarly bound to his duties, in a time of war without the support of his father. and laurent gets some kind of satisfaction in reminding damen of this fall from grace by forcing him to endure the depravity of his own court.

A part of Damen’s mind recognised how perfectly this gift had been judged, the exquisite virtuosity of it: Laurent was delivering him a backhanded blow with one hand, and with the other, caressing his generals as a man scratches a dog under the chin.

isander foreshadowing. the ethical implications of that entire thing are going to be soooo tricky to unpack when i get to it

Damen heard himself say, ‘Vere is generous.’ ‘After all,’ Laurent held his gaze, ‘I remember what you like.’ The stripped men were tied down.

jesus FUCKING christ.

okay. here’s the thing. there’s literally no plausible interpretation of “i remember what you like” that makes this diplomatic or professional. the contrast of damen being so careful and disciplined with his language, and laurent just shooting out these insanely personal disses like it’s no big deal, is SOOOOOOO…

like. what the fuck is the audience thinking when they hear that line. it would be like watching a broadcast of two real-life world leaders doing a diplomatic ceremony, and one of them is like "i look forward to our partnership" and the other goes, at full volume and in the same exact tone of voice, "i know. you told me that last night."

Damen felt his pulse speed up as he realised he was going to watch Laurent have ten men flayed alive in front of him.

although i do seem to recall damen saying to himself back in like book 2 that he’d seen plenty of akielion soldiers flayed (flogged? is it the same thing?) as punished, and even commanded it once or twice, so…

‘Furthermore,’ said Laurent, his voice pitched to carry, ‘Fortaine’s bounty is yours. Its physicians will tend to your wounded. Its storehouses will feed your men. The Akielon victory at Charcy was hard-won. All that Vere gained while you fought is yours, and it is deserved. I will not profit from any hardship that befalls the rightful King of Akielos or his people.’

laurent is so smart. he knows how to work a crowd, even when it’s full of people who despise him. and he’s not even breaking a sweat.

You will lose Straton. You will lose Makedon, Nikandros had said, but he hadn’t counted on the fact that Laurent would arrive, and begin, dangerously, to control everything.

Bloody and pulped, the men, who were no longer men, were cut from the whipping blocks. That took time too, because more than one handler was needed to lift each man, and no one was quite certain which of the men were unconscious and which were dead.

you know, maybe no one should flay or flog anyone else. like, as a general rule. have we thought of that?

Damen said, ‘We have a personal gift too.’

the return of the antagonistic lamen “yes, and!” one of the few things from book 1 i truly miss

(also, i’m glad damen didn’t come into this tableau full intending to be professional and respectful. like he planned some petty freak shit too, in advance. he is still ant with a bindle, but he has his pride. he’s always had pride, even as a slave, especially as a slave. and if damen can’t have laurent as a lover or a friend, he can at least “enjoy” engaging in weird mind games with him instead. in a way, it’s kind of enrichment for them both.)

Last night, in the evening darkness of the tent, he had pulled this gift from his packs and looked down at it, feeling its weight in his hands. Once or twice before, he had thought about this moment. In his most private thoughts, he’d imagined it happening with the two of them alone together.

okay, never mind, i massively overestimated the spiteful pettiness from damen here :( he wanted to do this in another way, lovingly and privately. he's only doing it here and now because he has to, in order to earn his army's respect. ant with a bindle, through and through.

it’s okay buddy, you can marry laurent again post-canon. and then you won’t even be figuratively divorced while doing it!

He hadn’t imagined it like this, the private made public, and painful. He didn’t have Laurent’s ability to hurt with what mattered most.

and that's why this series works. see my long essay about damen as the heart of the series in chapter 4.

‘Every man here knows that you kept us as a slave,’ said Damen. He said it loudly enough that all those gathered in the pavilion tent could hear. ‘We wear your cuff on our wrist. But today, the Prince of Vere will prove himself our equal.’

THE ROYAL “WE” 💀 💀 💀

you know, technically it was kastor, an akielion, who made damen a slave and gave him specifically to laurent. they didn’t even have slaves in vere before akielos gifted them one. just sayin

He gestured and one of his squires came forward. It was still wrapped in cloth. He felt the sudden tension in Laurent, though there was no outward change. Damen said, ‘You asked for it, once.’ The squire drew back the cloth to reveal a gold cuff. He felt rather than saw the tightness in Laurent. The cuff, unmistakably, was the twin to the one Damen wore, altered last night by a blacksmith for Laurent’s finer wrist. Damen said, ‘Wear it for me.’ For a moment he thought Laurent wasn’t going to do it. But in public, Laurent had no recourse to refusal. Laurent extended his hand. And then waited, palm outstretched, his eyes lifting to meet Damen’s. Laurent said, ‘Put it on me.’

the fact that this isn’t even damen being mean, but just painfully earnest and hurt and yearning, clearly not what laurent expected at all… :( damen is refusing to play dirty, no matter how hard laurent goads him. and he doesn’t even want to hurt laurent, in fact he almost seems to long for him. that’s probably what surprises and confuses this self-loathing mean girl era laurent the most. he keeps trying (and succeeding) to push damen away, but damen still refuses to push back.

also, lamen hr complaint #7, made by everyone present besides damen and laurent. nothing specific, but just a vague feeling of "uh, was it professional to make us watch and participate in this?" after the fact

Every pair of eyes in the tent was on him. Damen took Laurent’s wrist in his hand. He would have to unlace the fabric and push the sleeve back. He could feel the devouring gazes of the Akielons in the tent, as hungry for this as they had been for the whipping. Rumours of Damen’s enslavement in Vere had spread like fire through the camp. To see the Veretian Prince wear the gold cuff of a palace bed slave in turn was shocking, intimate, a symbol of Damen’s ownership.

i love how these books manage to make things unbelievably hot, even when they have nothing to do with sex. they might as well be fucking right now and it would feel less intimate and personal. which actually might be the entire point of the veretian pets and akielion slaves being so horny on main all the time, to serve as a contrast to the deep eroticism of this.

Laurent’s blue eyes remained cool, but under Damen’s thumb, Laurent’s pulse was rabbit fast.

laurent came here expecting to control a crowd, not to be emotionally compromised and vulnerable in front of one. and he’s probably even more flustered/upset about the fact that damen was able to make him feel and react like this so publicly, without even appearing to have malicious or vindictive intent. what laurent serves as poison, is what damen serves him back as medicine. and while laurent can handle an angry crowd just fine, he has no means with which to defend himself from damen’s endearing love and care.

He pushed back the fabric. It was more bare skin than Laurent had ever shown in public, on display to the entire tent.

“you look like a whore” <3

another accidental damen reverse card, calling back to the way damen was publicly exposed in book 1. not even meant to hurt laurent but still probably landing like revenge.

‘Help me regain my kingdom, and I’ll see you King of Vere.’ Damen fitted the cuff to Laurent’s left wrist.

his teeny tiny little wrist…

‘I’m overjoyed to wear a gift that reminds me of you,’ said Laurent.

he may be flustered, but he’s still That Bitch.

The cuff locked into place. He didn’t withdraw his wrist, just left it leaned on the arm of the throne, laces open and gold cuff in full view.

it’s like they have those matching t shirts that say “i’m hers” and “i’m his,” except damen’s would say “i’m his” and laurent’s would say “i’m terrified of attachment” and then “i’m his” in significantly smaller text

Horns were blown the length of the ranks, and refreshments were brought. All that had to happen now was for Damen to endure the rest of the welcoming ceremony, and at the end, sign their treaty.

damen and laurent just invented divorced marriage! truly trailblazers of their time

A series of display fights were performed, marking the occasion with disciplined choreography. Laurent watched with polite attention, and underneath that, possibly real attention, as it would suit him to catalogue Akielon fighting techniques.

they should have a homoerotic fight sequence instead of a first dance

Across from Makedon, Vannes was taking refreshments. Vannes had been the Regent’s Ambassador to the all-female court of the Vaskian Empress, who it was said ripped men apart with her leopards for public sport.

VANNES HIIIIIII VANNES!!!!! THE GIRLS ARE HEREEEEEEE!!!!!!

(can you tell that i'm getting tired of the almost entirely male cast)

He thought of the delicate dealings with the Vaskian clans that Laurent had engineered, all along their ride south. He said, ‘Are you going to tell me what won Vannes to your side?’ Laurent said, ‘It’s no secret. She is to be the first member of my Council.’

laurent feminism win. any person of any gender can be politically valuable.

(i have more complex thoughts on women in this series, which i’ve written about before. i do think laurent feels a genuine sense of solidarity with most women in this series, specifically the disempowered ones like loyse and the sex workers at the brothel. but vannes is a special case, because she’s cruel and sadistic just like the men in power, so i don’t think laurent promising her a place in his council has anything more to do with her gender than the fact that the misogynistic regent wouldn’t do the same.)

‘And Guion?’ ‘I threatened his sons. He took it seriously. I had already killed one of them.’

“i had already killed one of them.”

laurent says this flippantly, but it's kind of freudian slip. laurent admits here that he sees himself as directly responsible for aimeric’s suicide. which is… a very laurent thing to think, and then to weaponize against himself inside his own head. i think a big part of the reason laurent is able to take insults so carelessly, and even insult himself as a deflection, is that he knows that nobody knows him better than himself, and that he’s thought worse things of himself than anyone else possibly could.

‘If this is truly an alliance between equals,’ said Makedon, ‘it’s a pity we can’t see a display of Veretian fighting.’ You are seeing one right now and you don’t even know it, thought Damen.

wait the first dance thing was a joke, but maybe i just vaguely recalled it actually happening??

also, love that thought from damen. perfect read of the scene, although i think people are probably a little more aware of their freakiness than damen seems to assume.

‘Or a contest,’ Makedon said. ‘Veretian against Akielon.’ ‘Are you proposing to challenge Lady Vannes to a duel?’ said Laurent.

kind of a desperate thing for laurent to say. a weak snarky deflection, basically admitting that he does not want to fight damen in front of everyone right now.

Blue eyes met brown. Laurent was relaxed on the throne, and Damen was too aware of what Makedon saw: a youth, less than half his age; a princeling who shirked battle; a courtier with lazy, indoor elegance.

despite appearances, damen knows that laurent is an excellent fighter and a suitable match for himself. again with the backhanded compliment!!

‘But we are like brothers.’ Laurent smiled. Damen felt Laurent’s fingertips touch his; their fingers slid into one another.

“alive brothers, to be precise. not that i’d know anything about having one of those, right, husband?”

side note, i 100% see post-canon laurent calling damen “husband” just as much as his actual name. it’s the perfect mix of condescending, performative, affectionate, and possessive. between them it would almost feel like an inside joke, which we all know damen and laurent enjoy. perfect.

He knew from long experience when Laurent was repressing everything into a single hard kernel of distaste.

for a second i was like, “why is laurent so against this, when he’s a good fighter?” but then i remembered that he got fucking stabbed in the shoulder like two days ago

Heralds brought the document, ink on paper, written in two languages, side by side so that neither one was atop the other. It was simply worded. It did not contain endless clauses and subclauses. It was a brief declaration: Vere and Akielos, united against their usurpers, allied in friendship and common cause.

not the marriage certificate…

He signed it. Laurent signed it. Damianos V and Laurent R, with a big loopy L.

oh of COURSE laurent makes a big loopy L, and of course damen makes specific note of it.

also, help. what the fuck do the letters stand for. they don’t have last names. i thought “V” could be like a roman numeral or something, but what the fuck is “R.” i know i could look this up and probably figure it out on my own, and so i will momentarily, but i did just want to say here that i’m stumped.

okay, got it. apparently R stands for “roi,” the french word for king, and v stands for “vasileus,” the greek word for king. fair enough!

‘To our wondrous union,’ said Laurent.

CUNT

And the Akielons were filing out too, the officers and the generals, the dismissed slaves, until he was alone with Nikandros, whose eyes were on him, furious, and with all the flat knowledge of an old friend.

nik private twitter vent #9, he livetweeted the lamen divorce wedding. also, a note on the nik private twitter bit: damen follows him, and is just happy that nik has a space to express himself :)

‘You gave him Delpha,’ said Nikandros. ‘It wasn’t—’ ‘A bedding gift?’ said Nikandros. ‘You go too far.’

to be fair, laurent would totally be down to negotiate land ownership with weird sex games

‘Do I? I remember Ianestra. And Ianora,’ said Nikandros. ‘And Eunides’s daughter. And Kyra the girl from the village—’

HE HAS A LIST.

‘That’s enough. I won’t talk about this.’

nikandros: why does the prince of vere call you babygirl damen: that’s enough. i won’t talk about this

‘You don’t need to talk, I have seen him,’ said Nikandros. ‘I don’t care what you’ve seen. It’s not what you think.’

nikandros saw that laurent was blonde and immediately heard the vine boom sound effect

‘I think he is beautiful and unobtainable, when your whole life, you’ve never had a refusal,’ said Nikandros.

not wrong, but not right either. damen genuinely loves and respects laurent, like as person and not just as a fuck. and pretty much anyone damen has wanted to have sex with in life has immediately agreed, because he’s a prince. being disinterested in sex without deep personal connection, and being a prince himself, laurent is different from damen's previous partners. he's less unobtainable, and more just, like, evenly-matched.

‘You have committed Akielos to an alliance because the Prince of Vere has blue eyes and blond hair.’

… multiple things can be true. those aren’t the only reasons.

damen likes blondes #9

And then, in a terrible voice, ‘How many times does Akielos have to suffer because you can’t keep your—’

nik private twitter vent #10:

Damen was angry, he wanted to smash the glass beneath his fingers. To let the pain of the glass cut into him.

having a “hurt” by nine inch nails moment. a “no children” by the mountain goats moment. yeah, i should make the lamen divorce playlists

‘Do you think—for a moment that I’d . . . Nothing,’ he said, ‘is more important to me than Akielos.’

i don’t want to be neglectful of the “kingdom or this” theme, because it does come up a lot. it’s just that, at this point, i don’t have much to add.

‘He is the Prince of Vere! He doesn’t care about Akielos! Are you saying you aren’t swayed by the thought of having him? Open your eyes, Damianos!’

nikandros, the slave sex user, should shut the fuck up about damen yearning for his “unobtainable” equal. damen isn’t the only one here with a blind spot.

‘You want him. It’s natural. He looks like one of the statues Nereus has in his garden, and he’s a prince of your own rank. He dislikes you, but dislike can have its own appeal,’ said Nikandros. ‘So bed him. Satisfy your curiosity. Then, when you have seen that mounting one blond is much like mounting another, move on.’

this is fucking infuriating. laurent is so much more than his pretty appearance, and a lot of his insecurity and problems with vulnerability revolve around the way people view him as a sexual object. his relationship with damen was founded on mutual respect and personal understanding. and damen knows this, and i’m sure he’s infuriated too. looking forward to his response.

The silence went on a moment too long.

looking forward to his response.

He had no intention of putting any of it in words. I told him I was a slave, and he pretended to believe me. I kissed him on the battlements. He had his servants bring me to his bed. It was our last night together, and he gave himself to me. He knew all the while it happened that I was the man who killed his brother.

right, damen is still confused by laurent more than anything else at this point. he doesn’t know where either of them stand. the only thing he recalls here is a sense of disorientation, trying to align what he’s learned about laurent’s internal workings with the way he’d interacted with damen physically and emotionally. and the puzzle pieces don’t fit, so he doesn’t want to think or talk about it. and he doesn’t really blame nikandros for his confusion or crass description of laurent, because damen still doesn’t understand how laurent could have even allowed any of the sexual things between them to happen in the first place.

also, unfortunately, i think we can gather from the way nikandros speaks here that damen has spoken this way about partners in the past. and that’s probably part of why it doesn’t bother him as viscerally as it bothers me.

‘Yes I lay with him,’ said Damen. ‘It was one night. He barely relaxed the whole time. I will admit I—wanted him.

and this probably isn’t how damen is used to talking about sexual partners, so it comes out awkward and insecure and weirdly earnest. better than being a douchebag, so i’m calling it character development.

'But he is the Prince of Vere and I am the King of Akielos. This is a political alliance. He approaches it without emotion. So do I.’

ngl this is frustrating, esp when i’m reading so slowly and taking notes… not a problem with the writing at all, but just 😬 😬 😬 how many times do i have to point out that these two men are emotionally unintelligent and needlessly evasive before they figure out their shit, put down their defenses, and talk to each other

‘It’s not the same.’ ‘Laurent is not Jokaste?’

😬 😬 😬

i am trying not to waste too much of my time with this scene but he’s wrong, we all know nik is wrong by implying they’re the same because we know laurent better than nik does etc etc etc oh my god this is exactly why there’s a trial scene at the end and damen gets to be laurent’s defense attorney isn’t it

‘I do. I know,’ said Damen, ‘who he is, and that it means I cannot have him.’

you’re literally a king, if anyone is qualified to CHANGE THAT it’s you

‘No. Listen Damianos. You trust blindly. You see the world in absolutes—if you believe someone a foe, nothing will dissuade you from arming up to fight. But when you give your affections . . . When you give a man your loyalty, your faith in him is unswerving. You would fight for him with your last breath, you would hear no word spoken against him, and you would go to the grave with his spear in your side.’

this is true, at least. nik knows damianos well, he just doesn’t know laurent or our damen. but as i myself have commented, damianos and damen are ultimately both the same guy, even though he’s evolved throughout the series.

‘And are you so different?’ said Damen. ‘I know what it means that you are riding with me. I know that if I am wrong you will lose everything.’

“i will fight for him just as you fight for me, so i suppose that makes us both noble fools.”

He said, ‘The Prince of Vere.’ When he looked at Damen again, it was a sidelong glance under his raised brows, and for a moment they were boys again, on the sawdust, throwing spears that fell six feet short of the men’s hide targets.

“i can’t believe you hit that.”

‘Can you imagine,’ said Nikandros, ‘what your father would say if he knew?’

this feels more playful than the previous conversation, a bit lighter. both an admonishment and like a “ooooooh you’re so baaaaad >:)”

‘Yes,’ said Damen. ‘Which girl from the village was called Kyra?’ ‘They all were. Damianos. You can’t trust him.’

having a hard time reading this. my best interpretation: damen’s question is a reference to the chillest part of the previous conversation, nik’s list, in order to un-harsh the vibe. poking fun at nik for keeping a list, and poking fun at himself for having a type.

nik’s response is still pretty unchill, implying that all the people on that list are interchangeable and harmless. unlike laurent, who damen needs to get over because he’s untrustworthy and dangerous, despite also being pretty and blonde.

‘I know that.’ He finished the wine. Outside, there were hours of daylight left, and work to be done.

damen has been pretty consistently self-aware about the fact that he can’t trust laurent to be entirely honest about his intentions or plans, but he (damen) still cares for him (laurent) regardless. and he’s been living with that conflict and just kind of saying “this is fine” like the dog in that meme. this scene, i think, is nikandros basically walking into the room and trying to extinguish the fire. which nik is uniquely capable of doing, because he understands damen enough to notice the things that his friend is ignoring.

‘You’ve spent a morning with him and you’re warning me off. Just wait,’ said Damen, ‘until you’ve spent a full day with him.’ ‘You mean that he improves with time?’ ‘Not exactly,’ said Damen.

damen loves his blonde nightmare malewife so much <3 nik is going to scream into a paper bag

[vividxpages]

The apricot trees stand proud and in full season when the letter arrives.

It is a warm summer night, a sky full of stars over the heads of Nikandros' family. He sits at the head of the table, the senior of the household and he is surrounded by his sons and their wives, his many grandchildren chasing each other through the gardens or still remaining seated to enjoy the last bits of dinner.

To his right, his wife takes a sip of wine and smiles at him and Nikandros thinks about how thankful he is to be granted with all of this. To live another day in a long life that has seen more days of peace than war.

He overlooks the small company they make as someone new arrives in the patio, all business and quick steps into his direction.

The Kyros is an old man now.

Over the course of his life, many letters have come and gone through his hands. Messages from the capitols, strategic correspondences on how to rebuild two countries into one. The first wedding invitations and swearing-ins in the new and rewarding peace times.

But the messenger is pale, jaw clenched and fidgeting with his hands as he approaches the table.

Nikandros nods at him and with a little less hesitation, the messenger from Arles stops the head of the tables and hands him an envelope with a respectful bow.

His hands are calm and steady as he breaks the sigil, his eyes roaming over the short message before they start at the beginning and some place deep inside of him starts to translate words into facts into reality.

Nikandros,

Although I wish my words would find you in a more adequate way, I see fit to inform you that my beloved husband and your king has passed away peacefully in his sleep.

I do not have the words, I am not sure I will have them tomorrow or on any day I will live without him. But I want you to know that in our last, happy days together, he often mentioned how he could not wait to see his most trustworthy and loyal friend again soon.

Until we see each other, soon.

Laurent

Silently, Nikandros puts the letter down on the table and watches as his thumb brushes over the parchment, its broken dark blue sigil. He doesn't feel their textures on his skin nor does he hear what his wife speaks to him, until he feels her hand on his shoulder.

He looks up and meets her and their children's concerned gaze, the younger ones in their family proceeding to eat dinner as the messenger quickly disappears down the path he has come from. Nikandros doesn't remember having dismissed him.

His love frowns and Nikandros watches himself take her hand, pressing a apologetic kiss to her knuckles before he rises and excuses himself with a short phrase that sounds like gibberish to his own ears.

He is eerily calm as he walks away, feet aimlessly carrying him into the wilderness.

At the top of the hill, he sees two of his grandchildren, cavorting through the meadow and laughing with each other. Their laughter echoes over the grounds of his home, endless and forever taking up a place in his heart.

A window to the past that isn't just the past anymore, but a time where Damianos has been alive.

His feet carry him right into the apricot tree grove and it will take almost the whole night until the Kyros returns home again, composed and with plans to leave for Vere in the early light of a new day.

[saucyjothoughts]

What would be each of them's go-to song for sex?

I wasn't initially going to answer this because opinions are going to be completely different for every boo (and I don't know any Slovenian music they might be into) but I ended up spending way too long thinking about it so here we go.

Bojan:

Come Together - the Beatles

Kris prefers the Godsmack cover but Bojan prefers the classic.

Wicked Game - Chris Isaak

So erotic and full of emotional turmoil that it's cliché - perfect for Bojan.

Lube - Adam Lambert

We know Bojan loves Freddie Mercury and Queen so it's not a big leap to find Adam Lambert's queer lustsongs.

Beggin' - the Maneskin cover

This song slaps and you can't tell be Bojan doesn't appreciate the opportunity to think about Damiano David when he's coming.

My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion

You know why.

Jan:

Toxic - Britney Spears

Jan probably has multiple Britney songs in his sexytimes playlist but this is his favourite.

FMLYHM - Seether

Fuck Me Like You Hate Me.

Shut Me Up - Mindless Self Indulgence

I love the idea of Jan finding this song/band as a teenager and being briefly obsessed. This song is still in his playlists.

Good Boy - Zee Machine

Kinda niche and Jan is always looking for new, lesser known artists. The fun 80s pop sounds that he likes, and shamelessly gay.

Beautiful Dangerous - Slash ft Fergie

You can't tell me Jan hasn't idolised Slash as some point and this song has such dirty female vocals.

Jure:

Hit That - the Offspring

Jure gives me strong Offspring vibes and this song gives slutty stray cat vibes with a perfect thrust tempo.

You Could Be Mine - Guns n Roses

I really wanted to give Jure some GNR and this song is probably in his sex playlist and his motorbike playlist.

Batshit - Sofi Tucker

He particularly enjoys being physical to this song when enjoying recreational substances.

I Was Made For Loving You - the Yungblud cover

This is a brilliant fucksong and I think Jure would love these raspy, raw vocals.

Shake That - Eminem, Nate Dogg

Jure loves an ironically misogynistic party song with a good beat. He also loves ass.

Bonus:

Community Property - Steel Panther

Not sure if this would be in his sex playlist but I'd love to see him try to play it during soundcheck and have Bojan shut him down as soon as he realises what the song is about.

Nace:

Slow n Easy - Whitesnake

I think Nace would appreciate the classics. And the way this song builds echoes how I imagine Nace fucks.

Suck My Kiss - Red Hot Chili Peppers

We know Nace loves Flea and this song is hot.

Crazy - Aerosmith

So smooth and soulful. And have you seen the video?

I Wanna Know What Love Is - Foreigner

Emotional sex and finally feeling like you belong? Yep, that's a Nace song.

Kiwi - Harry Styles

Hard liquor mixed with a bit of intellect. It reminds him of someone.

Kris:

Apocalyptic - Halestorm

A song about breakup hatefucking.

Feeling Good - the Muse cover

I just love how powerfully this song builds and relaxes and plays, especially for a man who loves edging.

I Wanna Be Yours - Arctic Monkeys

There had to be some arctic Monkeys in here somewhere, and of course it's this song for Kris.

I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself - the White Stripes cover

A perfect lapdance song. The yearning is real.

Kitchen Light - Xana

A heartbreak fucksong for the king of pining. It's not about anyone in particular. Nope, definitely not.

[therisingkings]

The Witness

Auguste was dead, but his spirit lived on, watching over his brother, witnessing.

Read it on Ao3

TW: Heavily implied canon pedophilia.

*****

“Wait.” The word fizzled out into empty space. “Wait, not yet.”

He was watching the scene from outside his body—from somewhere beyond. He watched Damianos of Akielos pull the sword out of his gut, watched himself fall to the earth, watched his men come swarming in.

Auguste of Vere could do nothing but watch as he died. “This isn’t right,” he said. “This isn’t right.”

He was alone, though, nothing more than a whisper of wind, and no one could hear his pleas.

His body was brought to the royal tent and laid beside his father’s, who had fallen mere hours before.

“No,” Auguste said, and if he could have recoiled, he would have.

Laurent was brought into the room.

“There’s been a mistake. Laurent, I’m right here.” Auguste tried to reach for him, but he didn’t have a physical form in this strange in-between realm.

Laurent’s face crumpled, his knobby knees folding beneath him.

“Please,” Auguste begged anyone who could hear him. “Please, he’s just a boy. He doesn’t deserve to lose his brother. He’s just a boy.”

Laurent was alone in that tent, surrounded by the dead. His face was turned towards the ceiling, shoulders back as he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

“I don’t want to watch this,” Auguste said and his own heart, if he still had one, was breaking. No one had loved Laurent like Auguste did and no one ever would again.

Look, a voice whispered.

Laurent’s body shook with the force of his grief.

A figure opened the flap of the tent. It was their uncle, who, Auguste knew, would reign as Regent until Laurent was of age. Laurent, who would be king. Laurent, who would be content with a life of horses and books.

Look, the voice said.

Laurent turned on his knees, into his uncle’s embrace.

“It will be alright,” Uncle said, stroking his blond hair.

Something nasty twisted in Auguste, but he wasn’t sure where it came from.

“Please don’t leave me, Uncle,” Laurent begged, all wide blue eyes and puffy cheeks. He was barely growing out of his baby fat and into his new gangly limbs. His voice had not broken yet.

“I’ll never leave you,” Uncle promised.

Auguste tried to reach out, to scream at Laurent that he was still here, that he was not alone. “It’s all just a bad dream,” Auguste insisted to no one and nothing. “I’ll wake up and I’ll be king tomorrow.”

No, said that voice that was at once everything light and everything dark. This is not your story any longer. It is his.

*****

Auguste wished he had a stomach if only so he could vomit.

He’d trailed Laurent like a dog as the days turned into weeks, then into months. The battle was over. Delfeur was lost. Uncle took over as Regent and set up cleaning efforts. The dead were buried. The injured were mended.

Auguste watched his own funeral. His body was wrapped in fine linen, then cast out to sea. An archer—not Huet, who Auguste would have liked to light his pyre— drew back his bow and launched a flaming arrow onto the floating stack of wood and flesh.

Auguste felt none of it. That was not him, burning in the open ocean, that was a vessel.

And now he was adrift.

Laurent was crying again, getting snot all over Uncle’s jacket.

Uncle rubbed his jeweled hand down Laurent’s back. “It is alright, my boy. Come, you do not need to be here any longer.”

Then he led Laurent to the bedroom, and Laurent was only thirteen and achingly naive and didn’t yet have an instinct for wrongness. When Uncle asked, he obediently disrobed, then knelt and did as Uncle said with a confused knit to his brow.

“Get your filthy hands off of him!” Auguste roared, over and over again. “He is a child. He is your blood.”

Uncle couldn’t hear him as he took his sick pleasure from poor, innocent Laurent. Laurent, who didn’t know better. Laurent, who had just lost his brother and would do whatever Uncle, his only remaining family, asked if he promised not to leave too.

“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” But all Auguste was here was a voice, and not even that could be heard.

Laurent cried once it was finished, then cried each and every time it happened again, even when Uncle poured unwatered wine down his throat. Uncle made him clean up, fetch them water, telling him that he would leave if Laurent kept acting like a child.

So, slowly but surely, Laurent quieted his tears to sniffles, and he grew. His voice began to break, his jaw sharpening, and Auguste felt the first glimpses of hope. Surely, Uncle would not want him now, when he was starting to look like a man.

And he was right.

Uncle got a new pet— a boy named Nicaise with startlingly bright blue eyes.

On the night Laurent found out, he collapsed outside of Uncle’s rooms and begged him to take him back. “I’ll do whatever you want,” he sobbed. “Please, please don’t leave me.”

Inside the room, Uncle fucked Nicaise until that boy cried too.

“Laurent, he’s manipulating you,” Auguste tried to tell him. “No adult should ever ask those things of a child, especially a grieving one. That is wrong. You’re a smart boy. You don’t need him.”

And Laurent didn’t. As it turned out, Laurent didn’t need anyone.

He became as sharp and as beautiful as cut glass. At fifteen, he reformed the broken Prince’s guard and took up the starburst banner. He trained with his guard every evening, out of the prying eyes of the palace.

Auguste wanted to tell him that there was no need, that the war was over, that he’d protect him, but what a foolish hope that was.

As Laurent grew into his shoulders and wit, he also grew into his anger. Auguste could see it festering in him. Anger at Damianos, at Uncle, at the world. Auguste couldn’t blame him for one bit of it.

Gone was the bright, shy boy that Laurent had been. That boy had died at Marlas too. In his place stood a man Auguste did not know, with glaciers for eyes and a tongue as sharp as a knife. All kindness had been brutally stamped out of him by Uncle, by the court, by himself. The only person he spared was the boy, Nicaise. Not even his guards, whom he showed respect to, were beyond his ire.

Laurent was sixteen the first time Auguste watched Nicaise stumble, stiff-limbed and wincing, into the physician’s office. His lip was split, the bruise taking up too much of his small face. His eyes widened when he was Laurent, who had sprained his ankle in training and was desperately trying to hide it.

Auguste watched Nicaise’s spine lock up, his little shoulders lifting. “I-I’ll come back some other time.”

“Nonsense,” said Laurent, waving a hand. “Have a seat.”

Pascal finished wrapping his ankle before gesturing Nicaise forward.

If Auguste could have held his breath, he would have had as Laurent’s cool gaze skimmed over the boy.

“Did my Uncle do that to you?”

Nicaise flinched. “N-no.”

“If you want to stay in court, you’ll need to get better at lying.”

And so it began.

Laurent poured all of his knowledge, all of his newfound wickedness into the boy. Nicaise began to follow him around like a lost puppy, eyes huge, hanging on his every word.

Auguste ached. Laurent used to look at him like that.

But just as surely as Laurent had changed, Nicaise did too. The moment there were other people around, he became a spitfire of a boy, vicious and calculating, a mirror of Laurent in every way.

But when they were alone… Laurent let Nicaise win at chess. Laurent held Nicaise while he cried. Laurent became his brother.

Auguste’s heart hurt in a different way now. Like a scar, rather than a wound.

Then came the Akielon slaves, and with them, their Prince.

[kybelles]

in which babianos gets his heart broken

read on ao3 | check out this amazing art by @cxinis which i adore

~

A peal of laughter, quickly followed by the sound of running; distract Theomedes from the report he’s been reading for the past ten minutes. He blinks and casually leans off the balcony. The noise belongs to a sight he became accustomed to recently.

Next to him, Konstantin makes a tiny noise of disapproval. “I can warn them off if you wish, Exalted.”

Theomedes huffs a slight chuckle. “What is the point? They will behave for five minutes and then it’ll start over again.”

Konstantin looks a bit exasperated. “I assure you, I didn’t expect this kind of behavior when I brought my boy to the palace. He is usually much more serious.”

“Well, my boy has the ability to charm even the toughest people,” Theomedes says, pride coloring his voice. “So I can’t say I’m surprised.”

After a brief moment of Damen whispering something into the ear of Nikandros, they start running barefoot again; this time in the direction of trees.

Konstantin isn’t merely lying about his son’s character to excuse his recent adventures with Damen. The first time Nikandros arrived to be presented properly in front of Theomedes, he introduced himself with perfect manners and showed utter respect. Then Damen, who was almost vibrating with excitement, stepped forward and caught Nikandros’s hands.

“Greetings, Nikandros of Dice!” he exclaimed in front of the whole palace. “You and I are going to be best friends!”

Thus, they quickly became best friends indeed. Theomedes felt a bit of guilt when it became crystal clear just how much Damen needed someone closer to his age. They became so inseparable that it almost felt like they blurred into one child: Damen and Nik. Nik and Damen. Damenandnik.

It also brought warmth to his heart to see the affection Nikandros held for Damen was genuine and not borne out of some obligated loyalty. Theomedes knows his boy made a friend for life.

“Gods help me,” Konstantin is saying when Theomedes focuses on the present again. “Are they climbing on a tree?”

Indeed, they are climbing on one of the larger trees with the easy elegance of lions who survey the land for prey. Konstantin lets out a long sigh. “Should I put an end to this? If they fall–”

“No need.” Theomedes points at the muscular slaves who are standing nearby. “If they fall, they can be caught easily.” He raises his voice. “Damianos?”

Both children whip their head to look at the direction where the noise came from. Nikandros’s arms wobble considerably when he realizes it’s the king who spoke but he regains his balance easily. Damen is, unsurprisingly, unfazed. “Sire?” he calls back.

“May I ask what the two of you are doing?”

Damen gives him a look like he thinks his father is particularly dense. “Looking for Veretian soldiers, obviously.”

“Care to elaborate?”

It’s Nikandros who speaks this time. “We’re making a plan to take back Delpha, Exalted.”

“Oh?” Theomedes asks pleasantly. “Now that is something I must certainly listen to. Would you soldiers want to join me for supper?”

-

Nikandros has to leave, eventually.

Damen handles it with all the grace that can be expected from a five year old. He doesn’t cry when they bid Konstantin’s family farewell but his lower lip wobbles repeatedly. Once it’s time to say goodbye to Nikandros, he throws all the properties Theomedes knows Hypermenestra and his tutors taught him before aside and wraps his arms around Nikandros, clinging. Whatever he’s murmuring to the other boy has Nikandros patting his back gently, his own serious face creased with a frown. They stay like that until Kastor takes a step forward and touches Damen’s shoulder.

At supper that night, Damen barely touches his food. Even when they bring his favorite juicy apricots.

Hypermenestra takes a look at his full place, face concerned. “Your food will cry after you if you leave it untouched, Damen.”

Damen is slouched in his chair, looking absolutely miserable. “I know you’re lying to me, Nessa. I don’t believe you.”

Kastor takes a crunchy bite from a pear. “You’re right. What will happen is that this apricot’s soul will visit you tonight in your sleep and haunt you if you don’t eat it.”

“I don’t believe you either.” Damen says quickly but his hand sneakily snatches up a piece of apricot.

Theomedes rubs his temple briefly, wishing it would erase the headache he can feel building. “Kastor, stop frightening your brother. Damen, eat your food. Nikandros will come back in a few months.”

Apparently it was all it took to set Damen off because he swallows his fruit and looks at Theomedes with accusing eyes. “Six months! That’s half a year, baba! How am I supposed to endure it until then?” His lip quivers again and this time, a sob escapes from his mouth. He turns his teary eyes to Hypermenestra. “I feel like my heart is breaking into pieces! Can a person die because of a broken heart?”

Keep him safe, a woman’s raspy voice whispers. Love him. Love him so much.

A memory. Egeria, untangling herself from his embrace in the middle of the night and stepping into the balcony for some fresh air. Theomedes, following after her like a sailor follows a siren. Egeria’s belly swollen with their unborn baby, her thin silk nightgown clinging into her skin, her skin glowing with both sweat and health.

You never looked more beautiful, Theomdes said unthinkingly as he stared at her. Egeria smiled cheekily at him, her dimple showing, hazel eyes shining with mischief. Flattery will get you nowhere when I’m this big, Exalted.

And then. The baby came too early.

Promise me he’ll be okay, Egeria whimpered as she continued to bleed and bleed. One of her hands was clutched in Theoemedes’s hand and his tears were blurring his vision. He kissed her knuckles, over and over again, until her last breath. I promise.

Theoemedes doesn’t recall a worse heartbreak he’s experienced than Egeria’s death but in the end, he survived. For his country and his family. For his motherless infant son.

He rouses up from his memories and notices Hypermenestra’s pained eyes on him. He can’t help but wonder if she remembered the same thing just now.

It was her hand, after all, the one who held Egeria’s other hand.

“No, you won’t die from a broken heart, my prince.” Hypermenestra says softly yet firmly. “Feeling upset is a natural part of growing.” Her face softens. “However, you may go to sleep tonight earlier, if you don’t wish to dine anymore.”

He’s out of his seat the second she is done with her sentence. Theomedes sighs heavily as he makes a move to follow him, or at least send someone after him, when Kastor raises a hand and gets up as well. “I’ll deal with it. Curse of being an older brother.”

-

Every friday, Theomedes takes Kastor and Damen with him for a ride around the capital; to see how the cityfolk are doing, to listen to their issues and requests. He’s been doing it with Kastor since his oldest turned three and two years ago, he started to bring Damen along as well. Next year, Damen will finally have his own horse instead of sitting in front of Theomedes.

Today, only Kastor shows up for their planned outing and just like Theomedes, he looks puzzled by the lack of Damen around. He rolls his eyes a moment later. “That silly boy cried into my lap for hours last night. He’s probably still asleep.” A frustrated sigh. “I’ll go get him.”

“No.” Theomedes says, barely missing a beat. “After the tantrum of yesterday, it’s best if he gets some sleep. It’s not the end of the world if he misses one day.”

So they set off together; him, Kastor and a handful of soldiers. Theomedes doesn’t know if it’s vanity, but he never takes a lot of protection with him when he does these weekly outings. His people love him as a leader and he wants to believe he can take out a few assassins if it ever comes to that.

It’s going smoothly, as it always does, when a ruckus breaks out behind them, prompting the soldiers. Tensing, Theomedes extends a protective arm in front of Kastor. 

Everything happens so quickly. Out of nowhere, a small hand clings to Theomedes’s chiton. His horse startles so badly that it makes a move to rear up. Horrified, Theomedes realizes the hand belongs to Damen and his boy will get hurt badly in a–

A pair of strong arms snatch Damen from the ground in one rough movement and Theomedes hastily moves away his horse, petting his neck to calm him down.

“You idiot!” Kastor exclaims in pure fury, shaking Damen’s shoulders. “Why would you do–”

“Why did you leave me behind?!”

Damen’s entire riding outfit is messily worn, as if he’s dressed himself in the dark, with no help from his slaves. His face is as red as the royal Akielon color and his eyes are wide with anger and disappointment. Distantly, Theomedes realizes almost half of his household have followed him and are now panting as they try to catch their breath. The chaos is mostly settled.

Kastor sends him a deadly look. “What?”

“Is this what duty means to you?” Damen’s furious eyes are going between Kastor and Theomedes. “We’re supposed to do this together and you left me behind!”

For a moment, nobody speaks. Then, Theomedes runs a hand over his face. “Damianos. You’ll be the death of me one day.”

Immediately, Damen’s righteous anger disappears in a smoke and he makes an upset noise. “Baba, don’t say things like that.”

Theomedes reaches out and takes him from Kastor’s arms, putting him in front of the horse like he always does. “We won’t leave you behind again,” he says as Damen sinks into his arms. “But if you do something like this again, I’ll forbid you from eating an apricot for a week.”

“That’s fair.”

[philaet0s]

I never post any extracts from my WIPs here simply because I don't think about it, but I just thought about doing it, so I might as well... Here's a little something from the three stories I'm working on at the moment (I really should focus on just one)

Simon Snow Series - Natasha/Malcolm

Natasha

“Why do you think the man at the shop is my boyfriend?” I ask, calmly, though I can feel my heart beating faster than normal.

Am I so pathetically smitten that it shows? Can he see it? (If a five-year-old can, he probably can too…)

“Vera said her boyfriend was a boy that made her want to smile all the time. You smiled a lot when we were at the coffee shop.”

“Fiona, I always smile a lot when I’m with you.”

She shakes her head. “No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do. You’re my little sister, it makes me happy to be with you.”

She shakes her head again. Stubborn little thing. Why does she think she can disagree with me on my own feelings? “No. It’s not that. You weren’t smiling at the park. Only when we were at the coffee shop.”

Simon Snow Series - Fem!Snowbaz

Baz

I’m thinking that maybe I should try to go to her house. If I feel best when I’m around her, and her dad doesn’t make me feel any worse than I already do, which can’t be said about my dad, maybe our hanging out spot could change for a bit.

I ask her about it when we leave school at the end of the day. We exit through the students’ entrance, only to go back in through the teacher’s parking lot to wait for her dad. David drives us home every night, whether Simone is coming to my place or not. Snow asked him to. I know it’s because she doesn’t want me walking the way home on my bad leg, but I pretend it’s just because she wants to spend a few more minutes with me.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Dad doesn’t like having guests. We’d better just go to your place,” she answers.

“But I’ve never been to your house! Isn’t it crazy that we’ve been friends for years and I’ve never seen inside your house? Come on, just once. I’m sure your dad won’t mind.”

Snow looks away. She seems uncomfortable. What could be so bad about her house? It can’t be worse than my dad moping around.

“Well, if you want to come so much, you can ask him yourself.”

Captive Prince - Damen/Laurent

“You’re a king, Laurent, you don’t belong in anyone’s shadow, not even mine.” Damen took Laurent’s hand and brought it to his lips. It made Laurent flush. How absolutely ridiculous it was for Damen to kiss him like this, as if he were a maiden or a pet. “We intend on ruling together, don’t we? What better way to show my kyroi this than to have you standing by my side? Right where I want you.”

“You are not here to court me, Damianos. This is serious.”

“I am serious. Come here, Your Majesty.” Gently, he tugged on Laurent’s hand.

“Not yet. It’ll be another few months before they give me my crown.”

“No matter. You’re my king.” He kissed Laurent’s hand again. Laurent glanced to the side. He didn’t think the men guarding the doors of the meeting room could see them from here. Thankfully.

“See, this is exactly what you should not say when your men believe I still have power over you.”

“They cannot hear us. And I mean it, you are my king. As I believe I am yours.”

“Yes,” Laurent murmured, relieved. The resentment Damen showed him the day before seemed to have vanished. “You are. Now we must go. Let us not make the kyroi wait.”

[cringeblogname]

Like of course Damianos, King of Akielos is MANSPREADING in the Polish art. That’s so on brand. Fight me. I love him.

[foxholeprince]

Laurent missed him.

He felt a flutter of illicit joy when he thought of it.

[jadejedi]

Fantasy Book Review: The Captive Trilogy by C.S. Pacat

JJ’s rating: 4.5/5

How feral did it make me: 5/5

My book reviews

Ahh these books. What can I possibly say about these books that hasn’t been said before? I first read these books not long after the third book, Kings Rising, was published, back in 2016. If I remember correctly, on that first read, I was sort of like, eh, these are good. I like these. And then a bit later, maybe like a year later (?) I went back and reread them and was like “oh my god?? oh my god?? OH MY GOD??!” And now they have become one of my more frequent rereads (like almost once a year), and they are easily the fandom that I most frequently return to in between hyper fixations. I only have these books on Kindle, and they are pretty thoroughly annotated at this point. Book two, Prince’s Gambit, is genuinely one of my favorite books of all time. 

Okay, if you haven’t read these books or heard of them, here’s the summary: Damianos of Akielos, the crown prince of this world’s version of ancient Greece, is captured by his half-brother in a coup and sent to his country’s greatest enemy, Vere, which is this world’s version of, like, a more debauched version of medieval France. Damen is given as a sex slave to the frigid Crown Prince Laurent. The problem? Damen killed Laurent’s older brother, Prince Auguste, five years ago, and if Laurent finds out Damen's true identity, he’ll definitely have him killed. So Damen has to make his way through the complexities of the Veretian court, ruled by Laurent’s uncle, the Regent, while trying to escape before his identity is revealed. 

There are a LOT OF content warnings for these books, but some of them are spoilers, so if you want them, DM me and I will be happy to answer any questions about content. I will say that the first book has a fairly different tone than the later two. The first book really leans in more to the master/slave kink dynamics of the whole story and is more like ~oooh look! So sexy! So provocative!~ The second and third books are more like “here, let me stab you with these heart wrenching revelations and genuine emotions!!!!!” Like the kink dynamics are still there in the later two books, but the tone is much more serious, if that makes sense. I believe C.S. Pacat has sort of talked about how the Captive Prince series was kind of her practice trilogy before writing Dark Rise (book two out now!!), and I think that is most obvious in the first book. 

The relationship between Damen and Laurent is absolutely wonderful. I consider them one of my top two or three OTPs. The hatred. The eventual respect. The yearning. The pining. The LONGING. THE TRUST. Here are some of my favorite (non spoilery) lines (all from book 2 because 2 and 3 have the best lines but the best lines in book 3 are all spoilers):

“It was like being pleased by a thorn bush, feeling fond of every prickle. Another second and he was going to say something ridiculous like that.”

“To get what you want, you have to know exactly how much you are willing to give up.” 

“A kingdom, or this.” (this line lives RENT FUCKING FREE in my mind forever)

These books also have a fairly unambiguously happy ending. The author has published several short stories, which are all very enjoyable.

Due to the content of these books, they are definitely not for everyone, but for me, at least, I think they are brilliant. They are THE enemies to friends to lovers couple, in my humble opinion. Also, there is a fairly large fandom for these books, with some GREAT fan artists and fanfic authors. Truly we are all blessed.

[ultimatelyre]

CAPRI brothers-centric ficrec/masterlist

PART III

but first, have some silly memes

💌 - fav $ - smut (minors DNI) !! - check tags

AUGUST centric

wrapped around his finger💌 - And just like that, Laurent made his way into their friendship, thanks to his pretty eyes and Damen’s too big heart

the gift 💌- Auguste’s world was as large as a baby’s crib and as big as those tiny eyes

chasing the light - the entire series is a delight to read

Five times august shut down damen 💌 - protective big bro august, need i say more?

Big bro breakdown - august is not homophobic (he insists)

Dont touch your brother's friends !! 💌 - i REALLY like the fucked up dynamics in this one.

Damianos' visit to Arles - everything by @mfingenius honestly

pets and princes - damen mistakes laurent to be auguste's pet and nik suffers as usual

the councils decision 💌- a minute of jokaste simping over auguste GIRL SAME

Like me !!💌- if you think you're ready for this level of angst, you arent. angst almost no comfort but hopeful ending so you've been warned. I really liked the writing and the execution of this, hurts your heart

tricks of the trade - smaurent and only FLUFF

my brother's lover !! - one in which august has an actual life out of damen and laurent (mostly i mean)

Caught 💌- laurent schemes, damen falls in love, Auguste watches & sighs

hockey players damen and auguste

fix-its! - a time of peace & counterclockwise & call for peace & heard it in a past life

Take a slice !! 💌 & its not bad - damen and august solidarity ;)

stained shirts and dance lessons - if you were wondering where the FRATboys!damen & auguste AU at, here it is

miles of distance series - things work out, they don't kill each other

i'd take every blow 💌- auguste finds out.

of soulmates books and spilled guac - soulmate AU slay tbr

and ask no leave of thee !! - fairy AU tbr

the white dove - a man who looks exactly like auguste appears after canon tbr

ive got soul - auguste wakes up ten years after marlas tbr

downsides of being an older brother & downsides of having a teenage baby brother - tbr

NICAISE centric

to be imperfect !!💌- the future shines a shade brighter because one boy learns to forgive himself, Laurent kisses the top of that curly head of hair. all of @peppermintfeather's works make you feel warm inside

and times are changing & for wisdom 💌- he grows to be the wise advisor to the kings (my favs out of this beautiful series)

To share your love 💌!! this post was not just an excuse to include this author's works lmao

the monster inside him 💌!!- contains mpreg but i was surprised into liking it

Hand in unlovable hand - nicaise is like "absolutely not" when these idiots break up and proceeds to be a king

marks of a life well lived - gotta say warrior nic is a good look

A night on the town - nicaise babysits for lamen (big bro nicaise aww)

memory - AUS in which august adopts nicaise>>, a fun read!

HR! im complaining about your boyfriend! - workplace AU

as good as - he told me i'd never be as good as you (aka f*** the regent #238)

put aside childish things - laurent letting nicaise be a child again is everything to me

safe up here with you💌 - nic gets his own love story (had be giggling and kicking my feet too fun to read)

home is where the heart is - laurent comforting nicaise aftermath

many doors and windows - damen convinces nicaise to train

red & when the bough breaks - nicaise killing the regent drabbles cause hey, merry christmas aye?

trees change in the fall - modern AU, they adopt nicaise

NIKANDROS centric

first impressions 💌- The first time he hears Laurent laugh, Nikandros thinks he has gone mad. the third time he cant help but join in

anything for you $ - fine, i'll TRY to not kill your best friend because you're my husband and ily...i guess

non, je ne regrette rien $ !!💌 - this has a poly rlnship pls give it a try its amazing<3

on friendship - he remembers seeing Laurent, and thinking quite clearly, Oh no

five times lamen caused an international incident - nik: deep sigh

this one or not at all - proposals proposals

wont thy be my neighbour 💌- "I’m in love" “........You just met him.”

safe travels !! - read tags, nikandros & laurent time

how nik came to love laurent of vere 💌

whoever gets closest - LMAO

the man drives a motorbike damen! - mother hen nik

naked, afraid and married - modern AU reality TV

MISC (some have aug/nik as main ship)

paramedic AU or would they go on aching still - nik changes his opinion of blond ppl keeping score -!! multichapter found fam vibes a call to motion - jealousy jealousyyy cultural differences cause miscommunication between lamen - short and funny

part I (popular ones) part II (workplace AU) part IV will be rarepairs so look fwd to that! :D and if you see your fic in this and want to be tagged lmk!

[tajmutthall]

Vindicta interrogatus

(I don't know Latin so grammar might not be accurate.)

I recently read Vindicta by OneKingdomOnce. https://archiveofourown.org/works/55937650

It tore me to pieces, reduced the foundations of my post-Kings-Rising beliefs to rubble, left me feeling as if I had missed a whole subtext in the Captive Prince novels that somehow @laurent-ofvere picked up on and used it to break my heart twenty ways.

This is not to say that it is a bad story. It is fabulous. Well-written, well-plotted. The characters are recognizable and believable, although in different ways than one might have expected, because they are *consistent* with canon and yet--what *are* they in canon, really? It hurt to read it. And I've been consumed with tentatively trying on the feeling of *that* being the post-novels reality. Went back and reread many portions of the novels.

The writer's fabulous mind somehow pulled out the aspects of the characters that could possibly be reinterpreted without making canon false. It's a weird feeling.

I don't want to provide spoilers exactly. You have to read it and make your own interpretation and admire the writer's craft and skill. But I do want to introduce some of the observations and questions that poured into my mind while rereading canon and lying there in the dark. And wondering how many of them the author also wondered, leading to the Vindicta result.

Fairly late in Kings rising, Laurent told Damen about how he still had hated him after all the various things that Damen had done for him. Is that hatred truly eradicated?

Laurent lies. without remorse. We know that. And is amazingly believable when he does so. How much of what he says can we truly believe? In canon or afterwards?

Laurent can play (act) a part perfectly.  Jokaste in a blue dress. The Pet in the inn with Damen. And possibly for a long time, given how he has carefully curated his image among the folks in Vere.

everything we see, except the chapter in which Laurent is knifed by Govart, is from Damen's point of view, who sees things in simple and linear fashion. What do we know about how accurate he is at recognizing deceit? Recognizing lies? Putting pieces together and coming up with accurate conclusions? understanding people's motives? Really seeing deeply into Laurent's complex mind and emotions?

Is Nikandros that much better at it than Damen?

Do we get any sort of inkling about how good a king Damen would be? Clearly he is a brilliant military strategist and tactician and that he can fight like gangbusters and is very strong. What do we know about his skill  required to govern? How much of that would fall on Laurent's shoulders?

we know that Damen loves sex and apparently loves pleasing his partners. Could he possibly misinterpret Laurent's responses to him? Could he really honestly give up all others for Laurent?

How much does Laurent really love what Damen does to him physically? How much could he really absorb and accept? How much was he just being hurtful, but lying? or telling the truth? "I needed a victory at Charcy. You provided it. It was worth enduring,’ Laurent spoke the terrible, lucid words, ‘your fumbling attentions for that.’ (Pacat, C. S.. Kings Rising (The Captive Prince Trilogy Book 3) (p. 42). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Near the end of Princes gambit, Laurent (yes he is angry but still) rants about he was glad that Kastor killed Theomedes, with poison, and how he wished he could've seen Damianos' face When Kastor's men came for him with their swords. Was he really simply just lashing out because he was angry at that moment or was that still what he really felt and wanted to see happen?

what does Nikandros really think about Laurent? What does Laurent really think about Nikandros? What does Nikandros think about Damen now? WHAT DOES Laurent REALLY THINK ABOUT Damen now?

We know that Laurent is perfectly capable of playing the long game (witness his comments about how the game with his uncle started a long time before Damen). How long a game can he play? --has he been playing?

[lucky-clover-gazette]

kings rising highlights & annotations

chapter 1

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

A hiss of a rock, thrown. Nikandros came up off his knees, drawing his sword. Damen flung out a hand in a motion for halt, stopping Nikandros instantly, his sword showing a half-foot of Akielon steel.

nik. it's a rock. chill the fuck out.

Damianos, prince-killer. His mind, used to battlefield decisions, took in the sweep of the courtyard, and made the commander’s choice: to minimise losses, to limit bloodshed and chaos, and to secure Ravenel. The Veretian guards were beyond his orders, and the Veretian people . . . if these bitter, furious emotions could be soothed among the Veretian people, he was not the one to soothe them. There was only one way to stop what was about to happen, and that was to contain it; to lock it down, to secure this place once and for all. Damen said to Nikandros, ‘Take the fort.’

i like how the book starts immediately with a very clear example of how the status quo has irreversibly changed. damen has no choice but to act as akielion (akielon? whatever) prince/commander, because that’s how everyone sees him now. even if he hasn’t changed at all from how he’d been five minutes ago

Guymar purposefully spat, and for his trouble was backhanded hard across the face with a mailed fist by the Akielon soldier. Damen let it happen, aware of what would have happened if a man had spat on the ground in front of his father.

i think what i said at the end of book 2 holds true here - damen spent prince’s gambit in the romance genre with interruptions from the war/politics genres, but with laurent’s (presumed accidental) outing of him as prince he’s now forced to live in the same world that laurent’s been in for the past two books. like “yep gotta let my former friend and ally get slapped because politics. man if only laurent had known that i was the prince, we could have avoided this :/“

‘We don’t stand together,’ said Guymar. ‘You betrayed our Prince.’ And then, as though he almost couldn’t bear to say it, ‘You had him—’

in all senses of the phrase, laurent very much had damen

Damen said, ‘I made him a promise.’ ‘And when he learns who you are?’ said Jord. ‘When he learns that he is facing Damianos on the field?’ ‘Then he and I meet each other for the first time,’ said Damen. ‘That was also a promise.’

damen reclaiming his princely authority while being so profoundly wrong… embarrassing

He had a sense of holding on, as though if he just held the fort, held these men together long enough to reach Charcy, then what followed— He couldn’t think about what followed, all he could do was keep to his promise.

he is so devoted to laurent that he doesn’t even stop to think that he’s been screwed over. me too damen, as a first-time reader. and even now, on a second read, i'm not sure how much i trust laurent. i've forgotten the intricacies of his plan and i didn't do a close-reading the first time around, so there are certain things i just can't say for sure at this point.

anyway, i actually think d&l have a ton in common in terms of how they express and demonstrate devotion. they both have bleeding hearts, it’s just that laurent’s has had a much longer time to harden. the way he assesses and handles situations is with a detachment he believes is necessary, so he doesn’t lose control, while damen throws himself wholeheartedly into everything he cares about. they have the same fierceness and passion, and while working together they help to balance out their approaches while applying that passion. starting the book out like this, with damen's devotion on full display and laurent's being majorly questioned, is very smart. because they both need to evolve from this point, in order to be good kings and good partners to each other.

like honestly, they both just need to sit the fuck down and tell the truth and accept that they both care about each other and they don’t have to be avoidant freaks about it. not that either of them (mostly laurent, but also damen in a different way) actually wants to do that. and that’s what the first like 1/3 of the book is about, as i recall: their petty divorce drama until they both give in and decide to figure out their shit.

The ghost of his father seemed to prickle over his skin. It was his father’s title, but his father no longer sat on the throne at Ios. Looking at the bowed head of his friend, Damen realised it for the first time. He was no longer the young prince who had roamed the palace halls with Nikandros after a day spent wrestling together on the sawdust. There was no Prince Damianos. The self that he had been striving to return to was gone.

“with real power comes real responsibility, and i don’t want any of that shit” - dennis reynolds, it’s always sunny in philadelphia

Damen took in Nikandros’s familiar, classically Akielon features, his dark hair and brows, his olive face and straight Akielon nose. As children, they had run barefoot together through the palace. When he’d imagined a return to Akielos, he’d imagined greeting Nikandros, embracing him, heedless of the armour, like digging in his fingers and feeling in his fist the earth of his home.

so they've definitely fucked right

Damen thought of the soldiers bursting into his rooms, of being lashed down in the slave baths, of the dark, muffled journey by ship to Vere. He thought of being confined, his face painted, his body drugged and displayed. He thought of opening his eyes in the Veretian palace, and what had happened to him there. ‘You were right about Kastor,’ Damen said. It was all he said.

nice vs. good theme breakthrough!

He heard of his own body, wrapped and taken in the processional through the acropolis, then interred beside his father.

okay so which dead palace employee/slave got to posthumously cosplay as damen’s corpse

He heard Kastor’s claim that he had been killed by his own guard.

copying the regent's homework

To the Kyros of Delpha, Nikandros, from Laurent, Prince of Vere.

"hey girl,"

The letter was old. The writing was old. Laurent must have sent the letter from Arles.

see my previous breakdown from book 2 chapter 21 about how laurent literally failsafed losing the only living person who loves him with this gambit

It made tactical sense, in a horrifying way, for Laurent to have made an alliance with Nikandros. Laurent had always been capable of a kind of ruthless pragmatism. He was able to put emotion aside and do what he had to do to win, with a perfect and nauseating ability to ignore all human feeling.

i mean i think there was feeling there. making the alliance also was a way for laurent to dispose of damen, returning him to his people so the regent couldn’t use him to torture laurent. because at that point i’m not sure if laurent wanted damen dead, but he definitely wanted him gone. and he’d assumed that damen would want that too

In return for aid from Nikandros, the letter said, Laurent would offer proof that Kastor had colluded with the Regent to kill King Theomedes of Akielos.

okay yeah THAT’S GOOD. and it explains how laurent gets himself in his situation in the next chapter, he’s following up on the promise by trying to get the info from govart/guion

The straightforward ease of it left him without words. He had forgotten what home felt like. He had forgotten trust, loyalty, kinship. Friends.

i’m glad nikandros is a real one. but damen please don’t regress so much that you forget straightforwardness and ease =/= truth and loyalty. oh fuck he can’t hear me

‘Your friend [Nikandros, talking about himself] is a fool and courts treason for a keepsake.’

yeah it makes sense that these two are besties

To gain everything and lose everything in the space of a moment. That is the fate of all princes destined for the throne.

this or a kingdom. guess he’ll kingdom

‘Kastor made me a slave. Laurent freed me. He gave me command of his fort and his troops, an act of trust for an Akielon he had no reason to elevate. He doesn’t know who I am.’

oh honey

‘The Prince of Vere freed you,’ said Nikandros. ‘You have been his slave?’ His voice thickened with the words. ‘You have served the Prince of Vere as a slave?’

this isn’t an hr complaint quite yet but it is a “nikandros takes out his phone and bitches on his private twitter moment” moment. which i think should be a tally as well. nikandros private twitter venting moment #1

He knew what they saw—a hundred images of slaves, submitting, bending at the hip, parting their thighs, the casual ease with which these men would have taken slaves in their own households.

back in book 1, when assessing the state of erasmus in torveld’s possession, i recall that damen assumes that veretians think that “there is no honour in submission.” implying that to damen in book 1, and akielons in general, there IS honor in a slave’s submission. but here, when their prince—a person they respect—is revealed to have been made a slave, they definitely don’t perceive it as an honor. so which one is it? whatever submission damen shows/showed laurent is voluntary and honorable by his own moral code. he hasn’t been groomed or brainwashed into submitting his own free will. get on his level or keep your judgment to yourselves, hypocrites

‘Does it shock you? I was a personal gift to the Prince of Vere.’ He had bared his whole forearm. Nikandros turned to Makedon, his voice harsh. ‘You will not speak of this. You will never speak of this outside this room—’ Damen said, ‘No. It can’t be hidden.’ He said it to Makedon.

i think damen can at least subconsciously see the hypocrisy here. and he’s indignant about it >:)

‘You were the Prince’s slave?’ Revulsion was stamped on Makedon’s face, whitening it. ‘Yes.’

'and tbh i’d drop the past tense i had the blacksmith keep this thing on me'

‘You—’ Makedon’s words echoed the unspoken question in Nikandros’s eyes that no man would ever say aloud to his King. Damen’s flush changed in quality. ‘You dare ask that.’ Makedon said, thickly, ‘You are our King. This is an insult to Akielos that cannot be borne.’

and now damen’s piiiiiisssssssed. i think partially because he knows it was the best night of his life and doesn’t want to be shamed for it, lol

‘You will bear it,’ said Damen, holding Makedon’s gaze, ‘as I have borne it. Or do you think yourself above your King?’ Slave, said the resistance in Makedon’s eyes. Makedon certainly had slaves in his own household, and made use of them. What he imagined between Prince and slave stripped it of all the subtleties of surrender. Having been done to his King, it had in some sense been done to him, and his pride revolted at it.

okay yeah damen’s totally ending the institution of slavery once he's king and the gradual development of changing his mind has been both demonstrated effectively and completely earned throughout the past two books. i think this is why some of the cruelest things in book 1 happen to damen in the first place—they had very little to do with the development of his relationship with laurent, and everything to do with this personal arc for damen’s character. moments like this are the payoff to all of that subtle and consistent work. damen’s wake-up call of being treated like a slave and realizing it’s not what he thought, now transferring to his fellow slave-owners like a moral salve (not a typo for slave. like medicine).

The plan he had developed with Laurent was simple,

ARE YOU SURE

Damen’s men were the bait.

damen sees those red flags and just keeps pushing forward

It struck its front hoof on the cobbles, as though seeking to overturn a stone, arching its neck, perhaps sensing, in the manner of all great beasts, that they were on the cusp of war.

do you think damen and laurent’s horses miss each other

But Jord and Huet. Lazar. Scanning their faces, Damen saw who they were. These were the men of the Prince’s Guard, with whom Damen had travelled for months. And there was only one reason why they had been released from confinement. Damen held up a hand, and Jord was allowed through, so that for a moment their horses circled each other. ‘We’ve come to ride with you,’ said Jord. Damen looked at the small clump of blue now gathered before the rows of red in the courtyard. There weren’t many of them, only twenty, and he saw at once that it was Jord who had convinced them, so that they were here, mounted and ready. ‘Then we ride,’ said Damen. ‘For Akielos, and for Vere.’

<3

The uncertain terrain was a valley of doubt, fringed by trees and dangerous slopes.

“the uncertain terrain was a valley of doubt” great line

Damen would never bring men into this kind of disadvantage without a counter plan.

SSFGHYSUDGFYSUDF

If he just did that, just kept to his promise, then after—

now damen’s the one being controlled by his emotions and desperation. oops!

‘If we do that, and your Veretian doesn’t arrive, we’ll all be killed.’ ‘He’ll be here,’ said Damen.

cringe

Laurent had never planned to come. That was what the scout was screaming, right before an arrow took him in the back. ‘This is your Veretian Prince exposed for what he is,’ said Makedon.

so i know that having akielos show up was laurent’s plan, but i forget if laurent had EVER intended to show up at charcy, or if the plan was always to screw damen over. like laurent tells damen that was the plan, after the fact, or at least doesn’t apologize. because he's a petty bitch and mad at damen for lying and doesn't want to talk about the fact that he got tortured. but i still think that laurent could have intended to be there, just with the twist of damen being exposed, if he hadn’t been held up and injured. after all, the akielos allyship plan has been a thing since vere, but the charcy plan was in response to something laurent 100% did not see coming. laurent couldn't have ended the snowball effect of his own gambit by the time he realized he liked and trusted damen, but he could only have planned charcy after they bonded for almost an entire book. they're two different plans, by two slightly different laurents. not that damen can really see that right now.

i don’t know, i always tend to give laurent more grace than he probably deserves. i WANT him to do better than he sometimes does, because he is a character i'm rooting for, and i know that he cares about being honorable in his own messy imperfect way. (me 🤝 damen).

but even if we're just looking at it without any kind of emotional attachment, it simply isn't characteristic of laurent to leave so many of his own people to die, if he can avoid it. so it would make sense for him to at least try to keep his promise of showing up. but then again, when he’s overwhelmed by emotions he does make uncharacteristically stupid choices. and he is pissed at damen, kind of, although i do think he feels much more endeared to him now than he’d been when he sent nikandros the letter from arles. so he must have meant to be there. but then AGAIN, maybe laurent still somehow assumes that damen was just using him as a fuck, especially since damen didn’t tell the truth even when they started having sex. because laurent is an idiot about feelings, and he doesn’t want to see that damen cares, so he convinces himself that damen deserves to be abandoned on the battlefield.

i don't knowwwwww, my heart says one thing and my literary analysis brain tentatively agrees (laurent meant to be there but couldn't make it), but i hate getting things wrong and laurent is a slippery bitch. and again, this is on a SECOND READ. i just don't remember, for sure, if laurent meant to be at charcy. i don't know if it's even ever said, or just meant to be read between the lines. this may seem negligent or shallow, but listen, the first time i read this book was a binge-read. i read it in a night, right after reading a good chunk of prince's gambit in the afternoon. i was paying a lot less attention to the war/plan stuff and just focusing on the dysfunctional gay people. what i didn't realize, in my haste, is that the war/plan stuff adds an entire new dimension to the gay people's dysfunction. which is why i firmly believe that this is a series that needs to be read twice, at least. these are not romance books, they're a fucking psychological experience. they're like an escape room for your brain that just happens to have horny gay people inside.

Damen had no time to think before the situation was on him.

laurent in book 2: “i can’t think”

There was a dark logic to it. Have your slave convince the Akielons to fight. Let your enemies do your fighting for you, the casualties taken by the people you despise, the Regent defeated or weakened, and the armies of Nikandros wiped out.

and if it was laurent of book 1 or early book 2, that would have made perfect sense. but he made the charcy plan at the end of book 2 come onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. it can't be as simple as "laurent fully meant to screw you over," even if he didn't manage to show up as a result of his own plans that nobody else knew about. laurent took two steps forward at the end of book 2, trusting damen enough to emotionally and physically be intimate with him AND making this charcy plan with him. i think it makes sense for him to have taken one step back, in not actually telling damen the full truth about the alliance or laurent's own sidequest that ends up getting him captured and injured, but i just don't think he took TWO entire steps back, by putting damen and his men in a deadly situation with zero intention to help. that's too simple for him, both in an in-universe sense and in a "this is how good storytelling (which pacat can at this point be reasonably trusted to do) works" sense. it has to be something in between, even if damen and laurent assume/claim otherwise.

Damen found himself alongside Jord. ‘If you want to live, ride east.’ White-faced, Jord took one look at his expression and said, ‘He’s not coming.’

jord stays losing

[aidens-ocean-galaxy]

what's your favourite song and colour?

/genq

I have two fav songs

and my fav colour is bubblegum pink