[He says it absently, because it's just the two of them and he doesn't feel the need to edit his response.
But when Laurent asks how he's adapting, he doesn't respond for a moment. One the one hand: this is exactly what he wanted, in a sense. Uninterrupted access to Laurent, free from the shaky foundation of their ascensions. Everything between them was built on stolen time, and he had just wanted - not this, exactly. There was one kingdom, in his wildest dreams, but. Sometimes Damen thinks, maybe, that he only wanted a kingdom because a kingdom was what he knew how to want.
He's never had the ability to stop and consider doing anything besides what he was born for: ruling. In a sense, he understands what Kastor was so angry about. It's too late now, obviously, but he understands now that what he just plainly accepted as the path to follow was, maybe, stolen. Kastor wouldn't have made a good king, Damen knows, but still. The world is wider, less clean-cut, than he saw it and that's not something this place has given him to struggle with but he's struggling with it all the same.]
. . . You think I would be used to this sort of thing, but it's strange. Who I am has no meaning here - who I was has no meaning here. [He stops fussing with the flowers, instead tracing the edge of the golden cuff on his wrist.] And I don't know who I am, if not that.
no subject
[He says it absently, because it's just the two of them and he doesn't feel the need to edit his response.
But when Laurent asks how he's adapting, he doesn't respond for a moment. One the one hand: this is exactly what he wanted, in a sense. Uninterrupted access to Laurent, free from the shaky foundation of their ascensions. Everything between them was built on stolen time, and he had just wanted - not this, exactly. There was one kingdom, in his wildest dreams, but. Sometimes Damen thinks, maybe, that he only wanted a kingdom because a kingdom was what he knew how to want.
He's never had the ability to stop and consider doing anything besides what he was born for: ruling. In a sense, he understands what Kastor was so angry about. It's too late now, obviously, but he understands now that what he just plainly accepted as the path to follow was, maybe, stolen. Kastor wouldn't have made a good king, Damen knows, but still. The world is wider, less clean-cut, than he saw it and that's not something this place has given him to struggle with but he's struggling with it all the same.]
. . . You think I would be used to this sort of thing, but it's strange. Who I am has no meaning here - who I was has no meaning here. [He stops fussing with the flowers, instead tracing the edge of the golden cuff on his wrist.] And I don't know who I am, if not that.