Laurent of Vere (
prince_of_vere) wrote in
marlowemuses2017-06-05 11:49 am
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He leads me into the night, he drives away the light
He'd left before dawn, riding hard, and had stopped twice to exchange horses. No message could outpace him, so his story was not questioned, and both his face and his gold were accepted everywhere he went.
His father's story had been richly detailed, never thinking that Laurent would use those details as a map. He had the rose, and he had the words that the beast had given his father, the magic enchantment that would lead him to the castle and his fate.
There was a certain clearing, with an ancient, tumbled-down ring of stones. Laurent stood there to speak the words, and the clouds parted, spearing moonlight down upon a nearly invisible path. Laurent put heels to his horse and followed it.
The path was clear, swept bare of snow, though drifts rose high on either side. Once, Laurent looked back to see the path lost behind him, clogged by deep drifts as though it had never been.
He emerged into a soft, warm autumn night.
The clock might have been drawn back by some months, with summer and the harvest still rich on the breeze, along with the heady scent of late-summer flowers, and, twined throughout the rest of it--roses.
The forest parted into a vast meadow of soft grasses, broken here and there by copses of wood and rising stone bridges that crossed deep chasms, and led to a soaring, overgrown castle. It was everything his father had described and more, a place of wild beauty. The castle was large enough that it could house a city, though it showed no signs of life.
Heart pounding, Laurent urged his horse forward, though there was no hurry now. He was within the spell, and thus had fulfilled his duty. His father's men would not be able to follow him here, even with the secret words. Or, if they did, it would be too late.
It was a beautiful place to die.
Laurent rode boldly up to the front door of the castle, dismounting and tying his horse at the bottom of the steps. Hungry and exhausted, he climbed to the massive doors of the castle and they opened before him as if by magic.
Laurent's heart thundered in the silent hall, beautiful and crumbling, of a fantastical construction such as he had never before seen. "Hello?" he called to the echoing corridors, but there was no answer. "I am Laurent of Vere. My father took one of your roses. I have come to fulfill his debt."
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Laurent rose to his feet, drawing up his spine and extending a limp hand toward the Beast in the expectation that he would be provided a steady arm to rest it upon. With their new agreement in place, he could be more relaxed with the beast. He held the leash.
"Unless I can dare to hope that you play some instrument in your music room." Laurent's lips curved the tiniest bit, though his eyes stayed cool and guarded.
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He made a light sound beside the Prince as, arm-in-arm, they began to walk inside, Damen leading him in the direction of the appropriate hall. "None that you would wish to hear for pleasure," he replied in kind, rather dryly. "Although if it's amusement you seek, hearing me attempt the harp might provide a solid minute of it."
This...wasn't so bad, Damen realized in a bit of a daze. Talking with Laurent as though they were equals, as though he wasn't a fearsome Beast and Laurent a delicate prisoner he could rip to pieces at any moment. He realized, with even more amazement, that he was enjoying it.
"Surely a princely education included music of some kind," he ventured, hoping to extend the dialogue. "If you were to grace us with your specialty, what would it be?"
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His eyes flicked toward his companion. How odd the Beast looked, walking like this. Unnatural. "So you've made the effort of learning the harp. I can see how the claws might be suited to that. You should trim them, though, or they'll cut the strings."
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He slowed his strides to match his companion's, for though Laurent's legs were long (a fact Damen couldn't help but visually observe), the Beast who escorted him had limbs both longer and more hugely muscled. It had taken him several years to learn to walk upright so easily as on all fours, after the transformation. Even now, it wasn't what anybody would call graceful. Still, there was an innate power to his movements, as there might have been to a bear's, lumbering yet vigorous.
Damen felt uncomfortably aware of this brush with his former humanity, for he'd learned the harp as a young Prince of Akielos, and been quite good at it too, when he was between campaigns and actually had time to practice rather than train with the army. He held up his other arm, presenting his hand for inspection. "They're retractable, like a cat's. Except instead of naturally resting inward, they're more comfortable out." The claws quivered for a moment, then disappeared into the grooves between his fingers. "If I wish to play, I pull them in. But I still manage to pluck two strings for every one that I actually want to play. Fortunately, the harp is a very forgiving instrument, where the rebec would merely mock my attempts to make music on it."
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Laurent kept his stride elegant and easy, not minding that the Beast had to slow for him. It was hardly as though they were in any kind of hurry, and the Beast's company was tolerable now that Laurent had given him these new rules. "Have you always lived here, Beast?"
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His paws trod softly across the carpet of the hall that led to the gallery. He strolled with more ease himself, feeling as though Laurent was not dying to run away from him at the first opportunity. Damen turned them towards the open staircase at the end of the hall and began to climb. It gave him something to do while he considered how to answer that question.
"I've lived here for...many years," he said at last. "When there was no place for me anymore in the company I grew up in. Now, I cannot leave. It's a better life than I would have among men." Damen grimaced. "I've never liked the tale of Theseus. I always felt sorry for the Minotaur." And his own fate would no doubt be similar if he could go among men.
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He smirked at the Beast's suggestion he felt sorry for the Minotaur. Unsurprising. "I felt sorry for the twelve youths sacrificed to the Minotaur. Hunted like prey and then raped or eaten. Though I would not be terribly surprised to discover that it was a scheme on the part of Minos. That he had some other purpose for the youths, and the Minotaur was merely a scapegoat--or, more likely, a man wearing a taxidermied bull's head. It would hardly be the most absurd scheme a king had ever wrought in order to maintain power."
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"I suspect as you do - that the version of the tale we know is a very one-sided history of the matter. Or highly dramaticized for shock. Truth is rarely so neatly portioned out." Damen touched a paw to a passing sculpture and sighed almost imperceptibly. "I once thought it was, that truth was something set in stone and easily discovered. Now, I question much of what I was taught to believe."
He confessed it quietly to Laurent, the halls silent apart from their footsteps. There was no one else to hear him here, no one who could speak at least, where once there were a thousand to overhear and tell tales of their own.
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He stayed close beside the beast, arm hooked around the beast's massive forearm, body lithe and graceful even with the simple act of walking down a corridor. He made the beast look graceful simply by his presence.