Chapter Text
“Callie I promise you will be great,” Laurent tried to coax their newest member, a young Patran elephant, out of her hiding stop, her face peeking from behind her trunk and her ears flopping around anxiously, belying her stress as she wailed in distress.
“No, I will fall and crash everything and get burned all over and I will die! I am sure I will die!” Callie cried, shaking her head in emphasis and burrowing further into her cubicle. “No, I am not going out tonight. Tomorrow maybe.”
“Sweetheart, we’ve practiced this, you know what to do and you know how to do it well,” he coaxed, hunting in his little side bag for a pomegranate and finding none.
With a half restrained curse, he patted her flank before reaching up to his own cubicle, where he slept most nights surrounded by his charges, their comforting noise lulling him to slumber. The little cot was snuggled in between the elephant cage and the stall where the horses slept, protected by the red striped tent that covered all the animals at night. It was Laurent’s own personal reign in their Circus, a kingdom filled with creatures that could never hurt him, their words a soft lull in the night since he’d been only a boy. Even back then, Auguste had been the only one who had believed him when he said their mastiff’s name was Brutus and he did not like to hunt.
With a triumphant noise, he found his satchel hidden between his bedding and the wooden pole holding the side of the tent up. Swiftly taking out the figs in there he held them up towards Callie’s suspicious eye peeking from her half lifted ear. The meager offering did not seem to sweeten her any.
A tiny head poked from the pocket in his bright, yellow lined jacket. “Don’t bother Yves, she’s not as cute as me anyways, she’d never stand a chance out there.”
“You’re not even part of the show, Nicaise,” he sighed.
He reached out with one finger to pet the sugar glider’s frown away, responding to the new name he had chosen for himself automatically after years of branding it around like a shield. Yves, pretty and blond and with a magic touch when it came to animals, had lived in the circus since he was little more than a child. Laurent, also pretty and blond and royal, had been dead for just as long as Yves had been alive.
“Of course I am!” Nicaise huffed in indignation, reaching his tiny clawed hands inside the pocket he was peeking out of and biting into the dried cherry he took out. “I’m in the show every time you’re in the show!”
Laurent sighed, gently pushing him back inside and sparing a single thought to his destroyed inner pocket and how hard it would be to clean out the sticky fruits and melted sugar from it.
“Callie,” he soothed again, turning towards the elephant. “Ignore him. Trust me, we’ve done this so many times. And if anything were to happen, I will be right there to make sure we all make it out perfectly alright.”
He spent the next few minutes talking to his newest charge until finally she uncurled from the corner she had commandeered, cautiously making her way to her post where Laurent would make sure to stay by her side every step of the way. As long as he was there, none of his animals would ever be alone.
With a tense smile, he stepped carefully around Giselle and Camille, Giselle’s tiny fingers curled around the seat of the small bike and pushing Camille in it.
“You’re doing it wrong!” Camille snapped, her lips pulling back against sharp teeth as she turned around to bite her sister’s ear.
The brown capuchin pulled back with a small noise of protest, rubbing her ear and jumping two steps away. “I’m pushing! How can I push wrong? It’s just pushing.”
“Well don’t push me then.”
Laurent debated intervening before the debate escalated into a whole out monkey fight, but his attention was pulled away. His big cats were getting into the same discussion they went through before every single show.
“… and of course I just had to stand for them all to immediately shut up, because you see, I am the-”
And like clockwork, he heard the same response he’d been hearing every evening for the past week, “The King? Yes, you’ve mentioned.”
His cats never failed him at least.
Leonidas, as always, took the sarcasm for the compliment it was not, and as always ran with it. “Why yes, of course I am, do you see anyone else here who could be King instead of me?” He looked around himself, pretending to look for something before focusing once more on the younger lion just as he finished rolling his eyes. “I can’t say I appreciate your condescension, young one,” he frowned, tossing his great dark mane back and shaking his massive head. “Perhaps one day when you are as old as me you will also have your own pride”
At that point, the younger lion spotted him, his face lighting up as he came closer. Laurent would never say it out loud, but the big cat was definitely purring.
“Yves!”
“Damen,” acknowledged Laurent with a small smile, fingers sliding through the curling mane in affection. Damen perhaps didn’t have the facial musculature of humans that would make his smile visible, but Laurent could still see it in the corners of his big dark eyes. “Enjoying your conversation with Leonidas I see.”
Damen huffed, exasperated. “Don’t remind me. King, he says.”
The roll of his eyes was even more exaggerated this time.
“Yes, I’m sure there’s no one else here going around proclaiming to be King,” laughed Laurent, the corner of his mouth staying upturned at the gentle tease.
Damen looked at Laurent in indignation, his massive canines in easy view.
“The only difference is that I actually am the King!”
Laurent started nodding, as though sharing a deep secret with the lion, his smile never wavering once. “Yes, of course you are.” Whatever Damen needed to believe, Laurent would be there to support him. His big cats sometimes didn’t know any better.
“Yves, I am King,” the lion whined. “I promise. I have been taken from my lands and cursed.”
Laurent had also heard that one before. His smile turned softer, more soothing.
“Yes, so you’ve said, sweetheart.”
The issue with his lions was that they really did believe they were King. All of them. Even, he conceded with a small sigh and a side glance at Damen, the ones that sounded a little smarter.
Damen snarled, pacing back and forth and curling his lip up in frustration, the ripple of his muscles visible under his coat as he strained like a caged beast trying to escape his own skin.
“Why won’t you-,” he snapped, shaking his mane in irritation before sneaking Laurent a covert look. Suddenly, he deflated. “Nevermind that. You will never believe me.”
Laurent felt the unsubtle movement in his pocket even before he heard the snicker. “That’s because you’re a pea-brained brute,” said Nicaise, emerging from his comfortable cocoon and turning his nose up at Damen with a flourish. “All you lions know how to do is rut like you’re in heat.”
“Nicaise!” Laurent exclaimed, trying not to laugh out loud. Nicaise, like all children, needed to be told off sometimes. It would not do to enable him more than Laurent already did. “Mind your language!”
“I’ll show you heat, you little runt,” Damen rumbled darkly, his eyes fixed on the little sugar glider.
Nicaise was now turning his whole body up, instead of only his nose, twisting around and presenting Damen with his behind and a last little laugh before he burrowed back in the safety of Laurent’s clothes, surrounded by nuts and sweetmeats.
Exasperated, Laurent turned away with a roll of his eyes, his focus shifting when he heard the horn and the sound of the crown cheering.
“And Damen, behave yourself,” he had the presence of mind to add. “The show is about to start, and we have Akielons in attendance.”
He would have left right away if Damen’s gaze hadn’t sharpened, something almost like fear crossing his impossibly expressive feline features. Concerned, Laurent stepped back towards his new lion, prepared to interfere on his behalf if needed.
“Who,” Damen said, and it wasn’t a question. His voice sounded twisted around something rough, the word caught on gravel on the way out.
Cautiously, Laurent laid his hand on Damen’s flank, rubbing it with his thumb and trying to placate the animal. He was missing something here, he was sure. But then again, Damen was a lion from Akielos who had found his way to Laurent in half broken chains and whip marks interrupting the shine of his coat. Whatever had transpired in the southern regions, it had left the feline scarred in more than one way, and he had every reason to be cautious.
“I’m not sure,” Laurent said carefully, his brows furrowing. “I think the Kyros is here as well.”
And either way, Laurent would make sure nothing happened to any of his animals.
“Yves-,” started Damen, whatever had colored his tone becoming somewhat sharper.
Before Laurent could add anything, they were interrupted by Hestos, the ringmaster, barging into Laurent’s Kingdom without a care in the world, his eyes shining in excitement and ready for the performance. His gaze fell on their new elephant, who squicked at the attention.
“Ah, time to take this show on the road then. You’re up Callie.”
They did take the show on the road.
It was amazing.
Afterwards, Laurent did his rounds, making sure his animals were all doing well. The monkeys fought on stage and had to have their scratches tended to. Callie was thirsty enough to drink them out of tent and wood and ground. Theocles the Bear needed a soft spot to crash into, and Laurent knew he would not wake for the foreseeable future.The hippos were feeling lazy, and Laurent had to figure out a way to convince them to go back into their stall even though Callie’s was “closer and bigger”. Eglantine, one of the horses that worked with the trapeze artists, had caught a sprain and needed her leg wrapped.
All in all, the round up was as busy as it always was, and Laurent would have spent the rest of the night taking care of the thousand little things that had to be fixed after such a big show if he hadn’t stopped to check his cats before any of the other animals that needed tending too.
After the show, his feet carried him to where Damen and Leonidas were laying, on the ground by the little fire. Instinct took him there first, fueled by Damen’s dark expression before the show, and by his fumbled jump during, when he’d let his gaze linger on the guests for too long. Laurent had not appreciated the scare that gave him when he’d had to make sure Damen’s mane had not caught on fire when sliding through the ring.
“Damen. Leonidas,” he called with a small smile, sliding his fingers through Damen’s fur. “It was a really good show.”
Leonidas turned his nose up at the compliment, looking at Damen from the corner of his eye, disdain evident in his gaze.
“For me, yes. Someone else might need a little more experience.”
Damen, who was simply lying on the ground staring into the distance and enjoying Laurent’s quick fingers on his mane, did not react. Unbothered, he yawned, turning his head away.
Laurent suppressed a wince and pushed Nicaise back inside his pocket when he poked his head out to see what was going on. “Leonidas, I think Elisette was just talking about you.”
Of course, Elisette had her own lover to think and talk about, and she would never want anyone who was not Eglantine. But the distraction worked, as far as Leonidas was concerned. The great lion whipped his head around in excitement, staring at the stalls where Laurent’s horses were recovering from their demanding show.
“Ah! She craves my company. As she should. Is she busy?” Leonidas wondered with a frown and a half step forward. In this, he showed as much restraint as he normally did not on a day to day basis, suddenly flustered.
Laurent hid his grin behind a small smile, encouraging him forward with a pat on his flank, something conspiratorial in the twist of his smile as he hummed.
“She’s just looking after Eglantine, since she sprained her ankle. Why don’t you see if she wants some company from the King of the Circus?”
And it was obvious, of course. But his lions had ever been straightforward and incapable of thinking in circles. Leonidas did not question it, he simply trotted away happily, his personality suddenly Elisette’s problem. Laurent would have to bring her a lot of apples once he was done here. Elisette did not suffer fools lightly, and lion fools even less. Laurent could already imagine her patience wearing thin soon enough, her attention split between making sure Eglantine’s ankle would be fine, and ignoring Leonidas’ incessant chatter about himself.
Damen snorted.
“Smooth.”
Well, almost all lions.
He grinned, unrepentant. Leonidas, like any of his charges, was dearly beloved. But some issues had to take precedence over a little bruised ego. “Got the job done, didn’t it.”
“What job?” Damen asked with a roll of his eyes, standing suddenly and stretching, the muscles of his back rippling and twisting as he yawned once more, feigning nonchalance.
Laurent, of course, did not buy it. Carefully, he touched the tips of Damen’s hair, where the fire had singed them a burnt color.
“You know what I mean, Damen. It’s not like you to fumble a jump quite that badly,” he said as diplomatically as possible. One bruised ego from his cats was more than enough to deal with in a single night.
Uncharacteristically, the lion deflected once more. “So you are capable of compliments. I didn’t think you knew how they worked.”
Laurent blinked, caught off guard. In his short lifetime he’d been disrespected quite thoroughly, sometimes even by his animals. But it had never been from Damen before.
“That’s not fair,” he said, quietly. “I didn’t do anything to make your mood worse.”
Damen turned around, staring at Laurent carefully, something cold in his gaze. “And you didn’t do anything to make it better either.”
“Talking in circles is not like you either,” snapped Laurent, the unfairness of it all catching up to him. He was trying to help! Why did none of his charges make it easier?
“But when I try to say it explicitly, I am not believed,” said Damen.
And there was coldness again, and perhaps some deep hurt that Laurent could not understand, and he felt suddenly wrong footed. He had misstepped somewhere along the line, but he wasn’t sure where. In the little time he had known Damen, he had never known him to get lost in the endless loops that Leonidas often got caught in. Laurent had wondered from the beginning if Damen truly believed the delusions he was sprouting about being an actual King, or if he was simply trying to rile the other lion up.
Either way, this had to stop. It certainly made Laurent’s job harder if his charges didn’t trust him. He’d thought he’d grown out of the phase in his life where he’d been considered untrustworthy out of principle. He’d left it all behind in Arles when he’d run away from cold eyes and wandering hands.
“Is this about you being a King?” He scoffed, not letting Damen turn away from him. “Again?”
Laurent tried to tell himself, once more, that it wasn’t in Damen’s character to actually believe that. It had to be a ploy.
But Damen did not catch the bait Laurent was waggling in front of him. Instead he pulled away with a snarl, pacing in his own corner of the tent, up and down, from one clothed wall to the other, agitation clear in every movement, anxiety rolling off of him in waves.
Carefully, Laurent kept out of his way with pursed lips. Lions could be unpredictable. He wished to be caught in an outburst about as much as he wished to be found by his uncle.
Finally, Damen calmed down enough to talk, still pacing and not looking at Laurent. “No, this is about Nikandros being here, and me being unable to warn him that I’m stuck in this animal body because you won’t believe me when I say I am a human King who was cursed!”
So it really was about Damen being a King, though somehow they’d passed from lightly joking about it to outright fury, the mental hoops something that Laurent had obviously not been privy to. Well, he’d dealt with worse. Although he now felt silly for worrying too much about Damen’s safety from the Akielon entourage in attendance, people who were hopefully already on their way out. He had a hysterical lion to calm down.
Still, part of him wanted to be petty after the worry that had eaten at his guts all night. “I thought you were scared because the Akielons in attendance were your old captors. I was trying to keep you safe from them.”
The dig was weak, but Damen snapped right back, finally ceasing his pacing and walking right up to Laurent, close enough that he could feel the warmth of his air when he breathed out. His voice rumbled inside his chest, the roar quiet but still angry.
“No! I’m scared because I have no way of warning my friend that my brother will backstab him.”
A chill went down Laurent’s spine, and he caught Damen’s head in his fine hands, holding it steady and staring into his dark eyes. He was confused, and worried, and everything in between. Did Damen truly believe that? Had the Akielons who’d kept him in captivity for so long done a true number on him and left him without sanity?
“Damen,” he pleaded. “You have to know that doesn’t make any sense.”
Once more, Damen shook his head, but didn’t rip away from Laurent’s hold, the fight leaving his bones in a great exhale as he closed his eyes and rested his forehead on Laurent’s chest.
“Please. I am begging you, Yves. Talk to the Kyros of Delpha. He will tell you their King is missing. I was cursed.”
Saying no to his animals was as hard as saying no to his uncle had sometimes been, though the consequences were not as dire anymore now that he’d escaped.
He tried being logical one more time, his tone of voice soothing and calm, showing Damen that there was absolutely no need to panic, and yes, of course Laurent was on his side and would do anything to keep him safe, but there was no reason to be afraid because nothing was coming.
(Except perhaps Laurent’s nightmares, hidden in the corners of his memories where he buried his childhood.)
“Even if their King were missing,” he tried to reason, “Why would they ever tell me anything about it? No, even better, explain to me why they would ever even let me close enough to ask.”
But instead of calming, or even escalating, Damen went still, a far away look in his wild, dark eyes. A sort of chilly quiet settled over him, and he slowly padded towards the left corner of the tent, where the giraffe slept on their time off. Sniffing the ground, he was clearly searching for something.
Laurent realized he found it only when he stilled, a low growl caught in his throat as he started digging behind one of the supporting poles, as far away from everyone else in the tent as possible.
Tentatively, Laurent stepped softly to him, shushing Nicaise quietly once more when he reared up with a whine, looking for attention. Damen had clearly hidden something in there when they’d first made camp, hiding in a little corner out of the way, next to Javier who had a long neck and absolutely no excavating abilities.
Finally, Damen emerged with something helds in his massive jaws, dropping it at Laurent’s feet.
“He will talk to you,” the lion promised. “Because you would have this with you to show them.”
Bending down, Laurent took the shining object into his hand, staring at it in confusion. It was a golden pin, clearly expensive and of refined material, carved by master artisans to depict a roaring lion. Laurent rubbed the surface lightly with the pad of his thumb, some long forgotten memory stirring in the pit of his stomach and dread coiling in his veins.
He had to clear his throat twice before he could speak. “This looks familiar.”
And it did. In a horrifying sort of way, Laurent knew he’d seen the symbol before.
Damen pushed his snout against Laurent’s hand, bumping against his shoulder, his eyes almost wet, intelligence shining behind the dark gaze, something dreadfully human that made Laurent feel sick to his stomach.
“It’s my family’s. Nik will come to me if you show him this.”
Laurent fought against the lump in his throat, swallowing down bile and dread, stilling the trembling of his fingers around the golden pin and closing his hand into a fist to hide the proud lion staring back at him. He did not believe the words coming out of his mouth when he finally spoke.
“And after this you will realize you are actually a lion?”
Damen looked at him with almost pity hiding behind his suddenly human-like features.
“Or you will realize I’m actually a man.”
The Akielon contingent, as it turned out, had not left yet.
Laurent took full advantage of Nicaise’s more chaotic tendencies, and set him loose on the Akielons, his swift little hands making quick work of ropes and ties and turning their departure into as much of a hassle as possible. Unsaddled horses would buy Laurent just enough time to catch Nikandros Kyros of Delpheur right before he rode off into the sunset, taking his answers away with him.
There as well, Nicaise found a way to make himself invaluable.
After he’d come back from the errand Laurent had sent him to, Laurent whipped out one of his small knives, hiding in his boot, and cut the tiny red cord holding the pocket of his jacket closed, fraying the edges with his fingers to make it look more like a bite than a sharp cut with a blade. With a smirk, he let Nicaise perch on his shoulder, sharp nails digging innocuously in his shoulder pads. From their position near the guest stables, where the Akielons were puzzling over the misfortune that was keeping them from riding home, the blond and the sugar glider has a perfect view of the Kyros.
He was a big man, the cool frown a constant fixture of his expression, deep enough to have carved the first early lines of age on his face. He did not look like a man used to smiling much.
Bracing himself, Nicaise waved his arms theatrically with a snicker before taking off, spurred on by Laurent’s theatrical, overexaggerated gasp.
Nikandros turned around at the noise, his frown turning darker until he found himself faced with a faceful of flying rodent, his noise of surprise loud and startled. He waved away the concern of his guards, who were suddenly on high alert, and picked the little thing up by the scruff of his back, obviously unused to sugar gliders.
While the Kyros certainly could not understand Nicaise’s cussing at the rough treatment, Laurent could.
He made himself look as ruffled and apologetic as possible when he caught up to them, bowing repeatedly and begging forgiveness with as much meekness as he could stomach, reaching out with a bowed head to receive a struggling Nicaise back in his waiting hands.
The little shit sank his sharp claws in Laurent’s palm in revenge, huffing and climbing back up into Laurent’s pocket, glaring at Nikandros the whole way there and pulling closed the flap that now could not be tied together anymore.
“See if I ever do anything nice for you ever again,” the blond heard him murmur with rancor.
Bowing once more, Laurent kept all of his attention on the Akielon in front of him, who was looking at him with a strange expression. It was the first emotion Laurent had seen him show outwardly, a mixture of dread, deep grief and exasperation.
“My deepest apologies, Kyros. I beg you to forgive us. I should have kept a closer eye on him, but he chewed through my ties.” Laurent gestured helplessly at his ruined stage jacket, the laces now useless in containing a vicious little animal, the pocket a conspicuous lump in the shape of Nicaise.
The Kyros shook his head, a little stunned. “No need, it’s just a little rat, albeit a flying one.”
Laurent bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood, to keep himself from laughing. He inclined his head slightly, blond strands escaping his ponytail and falling against his forehead to cover his sparkling eyes. It would not do to show amazement when he was going for demure and innocuous.
Nicaise did not have as much reserve. He burst out of the little pocket with a squeak of anger
“A rat! Did this cocksucker just call me a rat? I’ll show him a rat!”
Laurent shushed him, pushing him back in and looking chagrined. “Settle down Nicaise.”
Head kept bowed, he turned back to the Kyros of Delpheur, covering himself in enough sweetness and naivete that he could almost feel his teeth rot. “My deepest apologies once more, he can be ill behaved, but he’s young still.”
The Akielon blinked, caught off guard. He stared at Laurent’s pocket, where Nicaise had just been, with reserved confusion. The suspicion was clear, even hidden as it was under layers of composure. Laurent suspected he had never learned to regard anyone with anything but an underlying layer of suspicion.
But even so, something else was also clear. The same weak spot that Laurent had been counting on finding.
They all liked a pretty face, after all. And Laurent’s was about as pretty as they could get.
Nikandros answered carefully, very little of his thoughts visible. Laurent could give him credit for that, at least. He was going to be a touch one to crack.
“He wasn’t in the show,” the Kyros said.
“He was,” corrected Laurent, his smile bright and shy. “But inside my pocket. He takes great pride in being the youngest on that stage.”
“Of course,” the Akielon said, and let the sentence drop, something more on his mind but his words ever careful.
Laurent had to keep the conversation on the show if he wanted to bring up Damen.
“How did you like the show, Your Grace?”
The awkwardness remained, but it became less loud as the other man offered a rare smile, his mood thawing a little. “I enjoyed it. You have remarkable control over your animals.”
And Laurent had the opening he needed. “They make it easy. They are all quite willing to please our audience. We all are. From my horses to my lions to my little pocket sized sugar glider.”
The blond expertly ignored the snarled “Bitch” from Nicaise.
“I see,” the Kyros said, caught between suspicion still and a gut instinct that let him get pulled in by Laurent’s wiles.
Walking closer, Laurent grabbed his hands tightly behind his back, standing a little straighter, as though he had caught himself in uncertainty and was now working to remedy that with a burst of bravery. “What keeps you here still, if you do not find my question too impertinent?”
“Simply some technical issues,” he answered, gesturing around himself at everything that Nicaise had probably done his best to sabotage as annoyingly as possible. “As you can see, our horses and cargo are not ready.”
Yes, Laurent had counted on that.
“Oh, may I offer-,” he stuttered suddenly, eyes falling on one of the objects on the saddle Nikandros had pointed to in his general sweep, his own massive dark horse right behind him.
“May I- I-,” he choked, unable to finish the sentence, his face white and his pale blue eyes fixed on the shiny pin decorating the saddle, the symbol resplendent in gold and jeweled metal. The familiar dread he’d felt in the tent with Damen was back, eating at his insides and turning his breath faster, more panicked.
Confused by the sudden change, Nikandros turned around to look at his own horse. “Is everything alright?”
“Yes, of course. I simply-,” he stopped himself again, his throat closing up. He couldn’t continue without a tremulous breath first. “That sign. The one with the lion. I have seen it before.”
Nikandros stepped up to the horse with narrowed eyes, trying to find what Laurent was referring to until the blond gestured helplessly to it. “The pin you mean? I would hope it looks familiar. It is the symbol of the Royal Family and the Crown Prince,” he paused there, rethinking his words as his eyes grew clouded. “Or it was.”
“The Crown Prince?” Laurent asked breathlessly, his ears ringing, his mind’s eye bringing up Damen in the tent, telling him the symbol had belonged to his family for so long that it was embedded in its history.
He heard the Kyros’ voice as though from a cave, somehow toneless to Laurent’s deaf ears.
“Yes. Prince Damianos disappeared just as he was crowned King of Akielos. He has been missing for a while. I have searched far and wide for him, but wherever he is, it is not a place he can easily leave on his own. Even so-,” he stopped himself suddenly, his gaze sharpening, the old suspicion coloring his face as he gazed unrepentant at Laurent’s bright hair and fair features. “Young man, I don’t believe I ever did ask your name. Who are you?”
“It’s Yves,” Laurent answered tonelessly. “I work with the animals.”
“Yes, I can see that. I meant-”
But Laurent interrupted him before he could finish his sentence, ears ringing. He was done with the conversation. “I apologize for taking so much of your time, Your Grace. I shall now take my leave. Safe travels, and great fortune. May the King be safely returned to your generous hands soon.”
And if the last part was said a little sarcastically, no one needed to know.
After all, Laurent had a pretty good idea of where the Crown Prince recently turned King of a warrior country had been all this time. Right under Laurent’s nose, in a position to maul him alive any time he was displeased. Laurent, in his infinite arrogance, had simply failed to take the threat seriously.
Damen, his perfect, shining, magnificent lion, had killed Auguste.