For Hild

[bells_will_ring]

The work at the Cat Cafe, it turns out, is incredibly simple compared to the work Erasmus has been training for all his life. To be expected to simply take down requests and fulfill them with little need for anticipating needs is work that he enjoys, wishing only there was more opportunity for him to customize his services to each of the patrons but even that is wildly improved. The work is safe and it does not hurt and he is allowed to spend time with the animals.

The gentleness and the kindness that he finds at work is nearly disquieting, to be honest and he tries to fill the hours in between with gaining knowledge of the city, determined to figure out how to successfully live alone, rather than flounder his way through as he's done since leaving. The humiliation of learning who Damen has become to The Prince has simply been too much to bear, despite Damen's protestations.

He can now earn his own coin and prepare simple meals so his thoughts turn to those things that had always been provided by his trainers. Modern healing is simply beyond him but a shop catches his eyes during his daily wanderings. Some of the things look familiar, herbs and powders and the like and he finds himself opening the door, calling upon all of his hard earned bravery to seek out assistance with whomever he might find inside.

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[bells_will_ring]

He stops, blood running cold at her quiet assurance. It pulls something up in his mind, something Prince Laurent had said about who Damen really was.

Damen who is uncommonly strong and handsome and educated. Damen who Prince Laurent sees as his equal.

He lets out quick, panicked breaths as his hand flies up, grabbing at his collar. He's been living with him, speaking to him as a friend, an an equal. The garden, the garden with Govart's rough hands as Damen watched.

"Gods," he breathes, turning wide eyes on the woman who watches him so calmly. "I am his bed slave. I am supposed to be Prince Damianos's bed slave. I didn't, I didn't know. He said he was a soldier."

[light_of_the_world]

She had expected a reaction like this, once the information had wormed its way into his unwilling mind. She had half-thought that maybe, yes, if he were a slave of Akielos then he would have been meant to serve Damen in some way, so the confirmation of that came as no shock. His panic she understood distantly; she had never been a slave, but it had been her work to know how everyone thought, whether slave or farmer or king.

Turning away from the shelves, Hild placed a gentle but steadying hand on Erasmus' shoulder. Her eyes never left him.

"If your prince did not tell you who he was, then he wanted you to treat him as an equal. You were fulfilling his wishes. You served your prince without knowing it."

[bells_will_ring]

"It's abhorrent, for a slave to speak with a Master in such a way," he chokes out, squeezing his eyes shut as he tries to steady himself under her hand. He doesn't know how she understands any of this but she does, she does and he's so grateful he doesn't have to explain himself.

"I was meant to be pure for him, only him, and he saw...he saw me used and defiled. He's seen the scars. He must think me so simple. I should have known, I was created for him."

[light_of_the_world]

Her mouth tightened into a thin line, not from anger at him, but his situation, that he was put through such agony and disgrace and that there had been no one there to protect him. She had had to threaten Lintlaf to keep his hands off Gwladus, but he had done it and Hild would have done worse if need had arisen. Someone should have been there.

"He told you nothing. You could not have known." She used her kind but royal tone, a tone to reassure and to quell argument. "You did only what you could do. Damen is kind and good. He will not judge you. He has not judged you, has he?"

[bells_will_ring]

"I hardly know," he whispers, scrubbing his hands across his face as he tries to pull himself back together. "I hardly know if he has judged, I hardly know what he is thinking. I have been trained to anticipate his every desire and thought and I hardly know. How do you understand this? Are you from a time with such customs?"

[light_of_the_world]

She removed her hand from his shoulder, thinking quickly as he did. It would not do to lie to him now, now that he had already been lied to, but she did not wish to cause him more distress than he had already suffered.

But, she thought, it was better to give him the truth and let him decide what to do with it, rather than choose what he should know and make the decision for him.

"Yes," Hild said. "You remind me of my bodywoman, Gwladus, back home. I am niece to the king, there."

[bells_will_ring]

"My lady," he breathes, wincing as he stops himself from kneeling, remembering what Damen had warned him against. He bows his head, though, again thinking he ought to have known. He ought to have recognized how she held herself.

"I appreciate the attention you have shown to me, to a slave. It has been difficult to explain myself to those unfamiliar with what I was."