My piece for @capri-bigbang2k21 featuring Damen-cursed-as-a-lion, and a circusmaster Laurent! I’ve been so lucky to be paired with the lovely @dancyon for this assignment. Go read their excellent fic!
laurent of vere from captive prince series, based him mostly off of the Japanese cover release [link] [link] and friends letting me know the color palette. Ordered books but they’re still on their way, so in the mean time I’ll be trying to get of an idea of what the characters look like, hopefully will have time for damen next
—Released from the weight of the jacket, Laurent rolled his shoulder, as he did sometimes after a long day in the saddle. Damen brought his hand up to squeeze Laurent’s shoulder gently— and then stopped.
Prince’s Gambit was by far my favorite out of the Captive Prince Trilogy. Golden Age vibes, Commander x Second-in-command, UST, it truly had it all to make me fall. This was one of the scenes that had me actually trembling while I was reading.
HOW DO YOU EVEN POST A 20 PANELS COMIC ON TUMBLR, SERIOUSLY. My answer is probably: don’t make one in the first place. I’m sorry if it makes your dashboard explode.
This is my @captiveprince–ss gift for Allie @thecaptiveroyals. It was supposed to be for the prompts ‘emotional healing’ and ‘ghosts’, but it ended up lacking in the ghosts department. I hope you like it anyway.
INT. AUGUSTE’S TOMB - ARLES - EARLY MORNING Cool moonlight streams through stained glass windows into the dark cavenous chamber. On a raised dais, suspended above a sea of candles, lays Auguste. His pale hands are clasped together against his chest, adorned in blue and gold to befit his title. A circlet crowns him in death.
Laurent (13) is slumped over Auguste’s stomach, his gold hair toussled when he looks up at Auguste’s face. Laurent’s eyes are half-lidded and red, he’s been like this for hours refusing to leave his brother’s side.
LAURENT (exhausted) I will watch over you… (struggles to keep his eyes open) I promise.
Slowly, he sinks to his knees. Laurent buries his head into the circle of his arms, mouth slack he wavers into sleep. Soon after, footsteps resound in the chamber. Some slaves and the regent’s men disperse around the room to pack up the remaining remnants of the vigil.
A man steps up to the dais, dressed in dark robes and a medallion of state. We don’t see his face as he gathers a sleeping Laurent into his arms and carries him away from Auguste.
What are your headcanons on Auguste & Laurent’s height?
I kind of like the idea that they’re deceivingly the same height, but Laurent is so much thinner noone notices that. And of course, noone saw them standing side by side as adults. Like Laurent always considered Auguste tall because he was a lot taller than a child Laurent, when in reality Laurent grew to be about the same but finds comparison with Damen since Damen still towers over him as an adult.
This is really interesting! 100% agree with Laurent always seeing Auguste as larger-than-life, even if he ends up being the same height/around the same height as an adult. I do wonder, though, whether Laurent’s traumas affected his development (i.e., epigenetics) – not by much, but perhaps he ends up a little shorter than he might have otherwise. Regardless, I love the idea of Laurent always seeing Auguste as this utterly unattainable figure that he’s built up in his mind over the years.
If someone waved a piece of fabric at Damen during a tourney, the only reasonable response was for him to grab it, use it to wipe the sweat and oil from his face, and discard it. Of course, sometimes Damen forgot he was dealing with a confounding, convoluted people who lacked even a modicum of common sense. Veretians.
If someone waved a piece of fabric at Damen during a tourney, the only reasonable response was for him to grab it, use it to wipe the sweat and oil from his face, and discard it. Of course, sometimes Damen forgot he was dealing with a confounding, convoluted people who lacked even a modicum of common sense. Veretians.
I already did modern AU for Captive prince, but what about Laurent as son of a billionaire, with access to all the latest (and most expensive) fashion and jewelry ^q^ The earring is optional
I couldn’t find any one-shots that were about Damen and Laurent spooning, so I wrote this one. Post-canon fluff, more or less.
“Laurent. Would you move closer?” says Damen, and while his voice when saying Laurent’s name had been tentative, by the end of the request his voice had been—wheedling is a fair descriptor, Laurent rules. Somewhere between wheedling and plaintive.
There is nearly an arm span of empty bed between them.
“Your wound,” Laurent reminds him. Damen has, in these last weeks, revealed himself to be an incorrigibly bad patient.
“I’ll let you know if you’re hurting it. And Paschal did say it wasn’t in danger of reopening any more, barring extreme exertion.”
‘Extreme exertion’ hadn’t been exactly how Paschal had put it. Paschal had been both a great deal more specific and a great deal less delicate.
And Damen is right that Laurent simply lying near to Damen, near enough to touch, is not likely to do the wound any damage now.
One of the most interesting textual inconsistencies in Captive Prince is who died first–Aleron or Auguste. In book 1, when Damen is reflecting on Marlas he recalls how Auguste was able to hold the army together after his father’s death. In book three, though, Paschal suggests that Aleron’s death was caused, in part, by carelessness in the wake of Auguste’s death.
And this is interesting because each scenario has cool implications, and I kind of like it both ways. On the one hand, the idea of Auguste, king-for-an-afternoon, putting aside his grief to defend his country is really poignant. The fact that the army had such utter confidence in the crown prince that Aleron’s death didn’t break them speaks to just how strong a leader Auguste was. And if Aleron died first, surely Damen knew that the king of Vere was dead when he went to the front lines to challenge Auguste. He would have known that killing Auguste would not only break the Veretian lines but also win the battle, win the war, leave Vere kingless. It’s not just a military move, it’s a political one.
On the other hand, the idea of Auguste dying first and Aleron basically ignoring Laurent and taking stupid risks adds an interesting perspective on all three characters and on Laurent’s childhood. I mean, it’s heartbreaking, and while we already know that Aleron and Laurent were never close, this suggests an even more distant relationship than I would have assumed. (My personal take is that Laurent wasn’t surprised, at his trial, by the idea that his father thought he had nothing to live for after Auguste died, but he is surprised that it was obvious to a comparative outsider like Paschal.) But to discuss this more charitably, it’s hard to act rationally in the immediate wake of losing a loved one, and it seems like Aleron reacts to pain by pushing people away and making ill-thought-out choices–which is, of course, what Laurent does as well.
Finally, either scenario makes me wonder about the regent’s plans. Had he been planning to kill both Aleron and Auguste in one battle? Was there another archer waiting to kill Auguste and make it look like an accident? My sense is no, that both king and crown prince being killed by stray arrows would have looked too suspicious. So if Aleron died first, had the regent resigned himself to a power struggle with Auguste until he’s able to kill him later? On the other hand, if Auguste dies first–well, he was probably closer to the front lines than Aleron and more likely to be killed in battle. Did the regent’s assassin have orders to only shoot the king if Auguste had already been killed in the fighting?
There is also the possibility of false information
Imagine the Regent knowing Aleron just enough to know he’d show weakness if he thought his heir was dead. We know all three of the royals were fighting. Laurent said he fought at Marlas, and Aleron had to remove a helmet. But they were probably in different places ! Informations in battles like those are always slower than we’d like. Laurent saw his brother die. That’s how he knew Damen’s face. So they weren’t that far. But what if, even before Auguste was dead, the Regent sent news of his death to his father ? Struck by grief, he removes his helmet and the Regent can send the arrow. If Auguste didn’t die and questions about how he thought his son was dead should arise, the regent would just brush it off as chaos of battle and misinformation.
So Laurent came back to camp after watching his brother fall, knowing they lost the battle, and comes face to face to a triumphant uncle who announce the death of his father. Timing of information in the heart of a battle wouldn’t even be questionned.
A stone slid under his heel. Laurent turned. For a moment, Laurent looked at him wide-eyed, young, and then the look in his eyes changed, as though the universe had fulfilled an ineluctable promise. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘perfect.’
Look, I’m not saying that for a split second Laurent thought it was Auguste, but I am 100% saying he thought it was Auguste. The fact that it’s at Marlas compounds the pain a million fold.
Part three of the continuing saga chronicling my descent into Captive Prince hell.
Coming from a country whose dress customarily exposed much of one’s body, Damen never thought he would become flustered over the thin skin of an inner wrist, or the elegant curve of an ankle bone. Yet, as with most things involving Laurent, Damen found himself helpless in the face of a suitor whose form was perpetually shrouded in no less than five layers.
