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josselinkohl · 6 years

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10 Year Angsty Reunion - DRAFT WIP Chapter 1

Warning: Only a tiny fraction of this fic is written, so it might not be finished for a very long time or ever. However, I welcome encouraging comments that might help me regain enthusiasm for writing more of it.

Chapter 1

Damen found her sitting at her dressing table with Kyrina styling her hair. Jokaste nodded at Kyrina, who curtsied and left murmuring Damen’s title. “Good morning,” Jokaste said. She picked up an earring from the dressing table.

“Good morning.” Damen took the earring from her and she tilted her head obligingly as he put it on her. “I would like to visit you this evening,” Damen said. It was a habit he’d adopted years ago when they had first negotiated this arrangement. They didn’t spontaneously fall into bed the way they had when he had first been courting Jokaste and she would tease him at an entertainment and then permit him to follow her to her chambers afterward. Their arrangement now permitted each of them a greater degree of privacy in their affairs. Damen did not take advantage of this freedom for himself. He suspected Jokaste did, but she did so discreetly, and he didn’t care.

He knew her well, now, so he could see her thinking as he made his request. It was still a mystery to him what she was thinking, though. She could be mentally rearranging another visitor, perhaps, or simply thinking about what to wear. “Of course,” she said. She handed him the other earring from the dressing table and turned her head the other way.

Damen placed the second one, careful not to disrupt Kyrina’s work with Jokaste’s hair. He fingered the earring for a moment. “Would you like anything from the festival?” he asked, remembering that the earrings she was wearing now had been a gift he had brought back from a trip to Patras.

Jokaste had turned back to her dressing table, and she made a face at Damen in the mirror. “It will be mostly Veretian merchants, will it not? Gaudy trinkets?”

Her earrings were simple gold and a single pearl. Jokaste set fashions for the ladies in Ios that harkened back to the traditional styles that resembled Damen’s mother’s dress in her statue at the summer palace. Damen made a noise of agreement. “Only if there is something tasteful, then?”

Jokaste turned in her chair to look up at him. “I would never turn away a tasteful gift,” she said. Damen had rested his hands on the back of her chair, and she placed her own smaller hands on top of his delicately. “Do you wish—now?” she suggested quietly.

Damen shook his head. “This evening,” he said, and then he pressed his lips gently to the top of her head and left her in her rooms for the morning’s business.

Nikandros presented the route selected to the festival mapped out on the table of geographical features that Damen’s father had used with his kyroi to plan for war. Instead of chariots and legions, the map now simply had a series of wagons and horses representing their course from Ios to the festival in Delpha.

“It would be more appropriate to call it Delfeur,” said Leon to Nikandros, “given that it is currently a Veretian holding.”

Nikandros’s expression indicated that he would never personally be calling Delpha ‘Delfeur’ in the Veretian style, but he didn’t contradict the prince. Damen had been trying to involve his son increasingly in the business of the kingdom as he became older. His father had done the same with him. It seemed the best way to teach Leon what he would need to know when he became king some day.

Nikandros nodded a greeting to Damen. Leon was still looking at the map laid out on the table. “The route seems circuitous,” he said. “The territory here,” he was pointing at a portion of the map near Marlas, “would permit us to proceed directly, and yet you have us crossing the stream to go at least a day to the east—that will add at least two days to the journey, which is another wagon of—”

“It’s better that way,” said Nikandros, glancing at Damen.

He had done it, Damen could tell, to avoid the half-constructed new palace they had left when Leon was a child. And he was being oblique about it because everyone in Ios was oblique in Damen’s presence about Laurent, as though mentioning the king of Vere might cause him to break down or enter a fit of rage or some such nonsense. Damen met Nikandros’s eyes and said nothing.

“But why?” said Leon. “It’s wasteful and it isn’t necessary—Father,” Leon turned toward Damen, “wouldn’t it be better to take the shorter route? Especially for Euandros—” that was Damen’s youngest son, who was thrilled to be taken along with them “—he’s not accustomed to riding at this distance,” Leon continued.

“We can take the shorter route,” said Damen.

Nikandros was still eyeing him warily. “Are you certain that’s wise?”

“As Leon said, it’s a fine area of the country for riding.”

Leon looked back and forth between the two of them, clearly sensing an undercurrent to this debate but uncertain what it was.

Nikandros reluctantly adjusted the procession of riders on the map. Leon asked a question about the length of time they would need to spend on the ship at the start, and the tension in the room faded.

Leon left to go and meet with one of his tutors.

“Would you like to spar this afternoon?” Damen asked Nikandros.

Nikandros shook his head. “I’m spending the afternoon with Xanthippe.”

Damen nodded. “Is she sure she doesn’t wish to join us? We could adjust for a carriage, and no one would mind—“

Nikandros shook his head. “She doesn’t like the fuss that accompanies travel of that distance, and she said sporting tournaments she can’t compete in aren’t worth the bother.” He said it with a smile, and Damen could picture the tone Xanthippe would have used for that announcement. Xanthippe was a warrior from Isthima, and she and Nikandros had met when she’d been recovering from an injury in Ios, and Nikandros had been obviously infatuated with her since their first meeting. Xanthippe’s injury meant that she couldn’t walk unassisted, and she made her way around the palace at Ios with crutches and specially designed chairs with wheels.

Damen was about to offer again that they would be happy to have her on the journey, but Nikandros was blushing very slightly. “Also,” he said, “we’re expecting.”

Damen’s eyes widened. “Old friend! That’s wonderful!”

Nikandros was definitely blushing now. “In the winter,” he said.

Damen clapped his friend into a hug and squeezed him. “I’m so happy for you. Fatherhood will suit you,” he said, squeezing Nikandros again, “I know from how patiently you have dealt with my children.”

Nikandros was smiling. “As long as mine isn’t like Eradne when she was—”

Damen groaned. “I’m sure not.”

They laughed together remembering how much of a terror Eradne had been. “I can’t believe you had another after that,” said Nikandros.

“He was already conceived before she hit that stage,” said Damen, “or I probably wouldn’t have.” He grinned at Nikandros again. “I’m so happy for you. Are you certain you wish to come to the festival, then? I wouldn’t blame Xanthippe if she wished for you to stay.”

“I am coming,” said Nikandros, sobering. “I would not leave you to face it alone.”

Damen favored family meals over the gatherings of the whole court in the hall that his father had preferred, and for his last night in Ios he had requested only a small family gathering.

Even a family meal was a boisterous affair. Leon spent half of the meal lecturing his siblings on the geography of their upcoming trip, and only Aratia paid any attention to him throughout his talk. Euandros just talked over Leon excitedly to anyone who would listen to his enthusiasms about his first horse, and Eradne had snuck a book in to the table somehow and was reading next to her plate. Jokaste would generally have taken the book away. She was less tolerant than Damen of Eradne’s habit of reading at odd moments. But Jokaste was distracted by Xanthippe’s news, and the two women spent much of the meal chattering about the best type of tea to drink in the mornings and whether carrying high or low was a sign of a boy or a girl. Nikandros was listening in on Jokaste and Xanthippe’s conversation and Damen let his eyes drift warmly over his entire family gathered together.

After the meal he retired with Jokaste to her chambers. She resided in the queen’s chambers in the palace. It had been a minor scandal when he had first installed her there without marrying her first, but she had wanted it as part of their negotiation and it had meant nothing to Damen. He didn’t care who lived in what rooms of the palace and he’d made no secret of the fact that he had no plans to marry again, so there was no worry about what would happen when he took a wife. Ten years later, it seemed hardly remarkable, and it was convenient when he wished to visit her that they both lived in the same wing.

She offered him wine, and he accepted, and then she sat down at her dressing table and began to remove her jewelry, until Damen stood behind her and brushed her hands away and did it himself. He set the earrings he’d put on her that morning back on the dressing table and unfastened her necklace and laid it next to them. Her hair was a mystery of pins, so he drank a mouthful of wine while he watched her pull gold pins out of it and it fell loose in waves around her shoulders.

They spoke lightly of Xanthippe and Nikandros. “I didn’t know if Xanthippe’s injury would prevent it,” said Jokaste. “I am happy for them.” She turned to Damen and undid his jewelry as well, removing his father’s ring to go next to her earrings and setting his brooch next to them.

“I am happy for them also,” Damen said, imagining Nikandros with his own babe in his arms. He suspected that Nikandros and Xanthippe had wished for children for some time, and he hoped that there were no complications with the birth.

He thought back to when he’d first held his own child. He’d still been bedridden with his injury from Kastor when Laurent had arranged for Jokaste and Leon and Leon’s nurse to be safely brought to Ios, and it had been Laurent who had carried Leon in to first meet with Damen and placed him into Damen’s arms. Damen had quite suddenly realized that he had very little experience holding an infant, and was terrified he’d let Leon drop through his hands to land on his lap, but Laurent didn’t hesitate.

“Is he mine, do you think?” Damen had asked Laurent, and Laurent had said, “He is, and you must never question it again.”

Damen didn’t know if Laurent had truly believed Leon was his and not Kastor’s, or that Laurent had meant it in more of a future sense—there was a tone of ‘he will be yours’ to his pronouncement. He’d been hesitant to ask Laurent about it directly for fear of having to confront Laurent’s Veretian distaste for bastards. But Laurent had told him not to question it, and Damen never did. Damen acted as though Leon were his son; Jokaste acted as though Leon were his son. It was either true or Jokaste found it advantageous to act so. Laurent actively proclaimed to the court that Leon was their son, and if there were further questions about Leon’s paternity Laurent hunted them down and they weren’t made openly at court.

He felt wistful, thinking back to when Leon had been a baby, remembering Laurent holding Leon—Laurent had had a little carrier made to keep Leon in a pack. Damen smiled remembering it.

Jokaste had removed her dress and and hung it on a hook. She unwound Damen’s garment and draped the fabric over the chair in front of the dressing table.

She gestured toward the bed, and Damen reclined. She joined him, sitting on the edge. He began to touch her, lazily, occasionally reaching over to his wine glass next to the bed for another sip. He spent a long time fondling her breasts with his hands. She indulged him. She had told him once that she found his attention to her breasts no more interesting than any other part, and yet Damen himself found it more interesting, and their arrangement was based on a frank admittance of what they each wanted.

Jokaste encouraged him to move his attentions lower, after a time, and he allowed himself to be pushed down the bed between her legs. He brought her off with his mouth, and then he crawled back up the bed, and she bent her knees a bit and he eased inside of her.

His thoughts were still tied up with thoughts of babies as he took her. He began to think of another child, and then the thought grew in his mind. He pictured Jokaste thickening with a fifth child, and then holding another little one in his arms. He imagined Euandros holding a new baby with wide eyes. Perhaps another daughter, he thought, or a son, either one. Euandros would like being an older brother as well as a younger brother, and there was something precious about the smallest ones and the way they rested their heads against his chest when they were sleepy.

He liked the idea more and more. He thought of spilling within Jokaste; perhaps they could conceive again. She had various methods for contraception and sometimes told him not to finish inside of her, but she had said nothing about that this evening. That likely meant she had taken some other precaution to avoid a child, but Damen indulged the idea in his mind nonetheless.

He rested for a moment after he finished, staying inside of Jokaste as if that would somehow contribute to planting the seed deeper within. He had heard once that women were more likely to conceive if they orgasmed after the seed was within them, and the thought of that was enough to draw him down the bed once again to apply his mouth a second time.

Afterwards, Jokaste raised an eyebrow at him. “Something on your mind?” She thought he was thinking of Laurent, Damen realized suddenly. She thought he was thinking of the festival and of seeing Laurent again and what--distracting himself in bed to draw his mind away? Pretend she was Laurent? Perhaps she didn’t know.

“We could have another baby,” he said, trying to keep his tone light even though he’d spent the last quarter of an hour imagining it.

Jokaste sat up in the bed. “We had an agreement about four,” she said sharply. “Euandros was four.”

Damen made a noise. He remembered their agreement, and he didn’t really wish to renegotiate at the moment, but he also didn’t really want to let go of his fantasy of another baby.

Jokaste was watching him closely. She could tell, Damen thought, when he was thinking of Laurent, and sometimes she would ask him all-too-insightful questions about what he was thinking, and Damen did not wish to answer discuss Laurent with Jokaste, so he tried to think on other things when they were together.

“Are you going to sleep here?” said Jokaste, pulling a light cover over herself.

Damen sighed. “No,” he said. They both slept better separately, and he had a full day of travel ahead of him the following day. He levered himself off the bed, leaned in to kiss Jokaste gently, and then retrieved his own clothing from the back of the chair to make his way back to his own chambers.

#captive prince #fic #my fic #the angsty ten year reunion #damen/jokaste

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