Art: "A Prince and His Slave - 2" (over on Tumblr) ¤ Jason/Tim ¤R
I (finally) stopped adding (different) embroidery to every single surface visible, and finished this: a long-coveted pic of Prince Timun and Kamren Shaf’i from the Pitverse’s Harem Scenario.
NSFW pic, rated for suggestive themes and (censored) nakedness. Please, click through the preview to get to the original tumblr post. ♥
Working on this helped me finish the headcanon for these two. You can find more about it below the cut (or on the same tumblr post as the full-sized pic).
Sooooo~ooo. We’re in the middle east, in the desert. It’s probably Persia, or some other beautiful land like that. In the heart of this land, there’s a castle, a place of beauty and riches, made of marble columns and patterned walls and spiralling towers. There are glittering mosaics everywhere, scented smoke comes up from golden braziers, and people move through the gardens wearing silk and jewels.
The king of this land is a warlord of sorts. He likes violences, he taxes his people way too much; he raids the nearby villages, assaults the travelling caravans, makes shady deals with criminals, etc. In short, he’s a real tyrant.
He has one son, Timun, whom he keeps like a bird in a cage.
Literally.
Ever since birth, Timun was never allowed out of the palace. He’s a recluse, and he grew up sad and lonely. As a result, he has no friends, he doesn’t talk much, and at a glance, he seems cold and stone-hearted. His father mostly ignores him (unless he needs to show him off to important guests and/or wants to show him the spoils he brings home from the raids). He has a few slaves and attendants (little girls, old ladies and eunuchs… Daddy doesn’t take any chances), but they have *never* showed him any affection, not even as a child. They are terrified to incur into Daddyking’s wrath by doing or saying something disrespectful.
Plus, the Prince is off-limits for another reason. Apparently, he’s mentioned in an ancient Prophecy, something obscure and powerful, that King Slade doesn’t want to become reality. The details are not clear, but there are many rumours. Whatever it is, it caused the King to imprison his own son. And no one want to risk triggering this Prophecy, so they steer clear from the Prince… even if he is beautiful and very intelligent and seems so, so alone.
Enter Jason - or rather, Kamren Shaf’i.
Kamren lives in a little oasis not too far from the village. His father (Oh, hi Bruce!), is a strict but just chief, and his people lead a happy, if simple life. Bruce never saw eye to eye with Slade, but he’s cunning, and never provokes the King openly, which means he’s never openly antagonized in turn.
Kamren, however, is a hothead. He rebels against the King and gives him all sort of headaches - other than provide a source of entertainment. During one of his most adventurous stunts, Kamren is captured and brought to the palace. Slade tortures him to get him to confess he’s Bruce’s offspring (he suspects, but he’s not sure); but Kamren doesn’t say anything. The King grows bored of him and orders his men to cut off his head.
BUT! The Prince emerges from the shadows and claims the slave for himself. (At the beginning, he was supposed to trick his father into handing Kamren over to him; but I’m not sure if Timun simply steps in a moment before Kamren is killed by the guards, and uses his status to have him brought to his rooms.)
Thus Kamren becomes the reluctant slave of Prince Timun. They don’t stay together for long - but all sort of sensual/kinky things happen in these brief months. The Prince always provokes/teases/stimulates Kamren in a way that is both terribly sensual and oddly innocent. Kamren is angry and ashamed by the way his traitorous body reacts to another male’s touch (it never happened before), but… he can’t help but REACT.
At first, Timun comes across as a spoiled child wanting to play with/break his new toy. But little by little Kamren comes to understand that the truth is completely different: Timun is lonely, and UTTERLY FASCINATED by Kamren. He wants to please him - not just in body, though; he wants to make him happy. He wants to watch the emotions play across his face, and wants to be the one causing that pleasure in the first place. He’s inexperienced, and goes about it the wrong way, but the longer they stay together, the more they learn about each other. The Prince’s playful, sometimes cruel-in-its-innocence teasing and stimulation turns into genuine affection; Kamren’s angry reluctance becomes a sort of wondering need.
They always touch, always kiss, always move together in these sensuous, sensuous displays. It’s like the very air about them is charged with electricity when they’re together. It’s very powerful and addictive. Before long, the lines between slave and Master are blurred over. And as the lovers’s affair turns hotter and hotter, their feelings grow deeper.
Then, one day in the gardens, Kamren steps in the path of an arrow meant for Timun. He’s not wounded very badly - the arrow hits him in the shoulder, and Kamren makes a show of pulling it out and throwing it away as he barks angrily at the guards for not noticing the intruder.
Timun, however, is shaken.
Back in the rooms, he asks Kamren if he wants his freedom back, and Kamren is all, “HELL, YEAH”. Timun asked him the same before, and Kamren always answered in this fashion. He doesn’t expect anything to come from this, but Timun makes this face of intense sorrow, and whispers to him:
“You want you freedom? You have it.”
He pleads with Kamren to wait until morning, and then he’ll be given a horse and two bags of gold by the slaves, and he may be free to go.
Timun hurries away, but Kamren hauls him back forcefully, and growls/begs/orders him:
“Come with me.”
They elope run away, and seek refuge in Bruce’s village. During their journey, Kamren suddenly realizes that Timun is not fit, is not MEANT, for a life of toil and deprivation in the desert. He starts second-guessing himself, regretting his choice, thinking he’s not WORTH the sacrifice, and that Timun doesn’t deserve anything less than a rich, pampered life.
But Timun - who’s surprisingly adaptable, despite being unused to physical strain - tells him that he’d thought it through. That he knew what he was getting himself into when he decided to run away with Kamren. He is happy of his decision, and regrets nothing.
Bruce welcomes them with open arms in his land - well, he DOES make a frowny face and grumbles and looks displeased, but he secretly does everything to help the couple.
They start to live a normal life. Timur struggles with this new reality, but he’s stubborn enough to adapt and become a part of the family in virtually no time. He gains Bruce’s respect, makes fast friends with Bruce’s lover. There’s a girl whom everyone expected Kamren to court and ultimately marry, back before he started his life as a rebel/bandit/anti-king activist. And Timun manages to be liked even by her.
At one point, he cuts his hair (is it feasible that he sells them to some travelling merchants?), and says goodbye to his life of riches. When Kamren comes back home and sees the change, Timun fiercely explains to him his reasons for such a drastic choice (a symbolic cut with his past, and/or gold for the village). After his passionate outburst is over, though, he does a 180 degrees turn, goes all shy and worries. He clings to Kamren, bites his bottom lip and asks:
“Do you not like it? I - I am aware how much you enjoy to cling onto my hair as I please you and it-it’s still long enough for that.” (Jason: PFFFFTTTTT that’s fuckin precious.)
The idyll doesn’t last long.
Slade figures out where his son is (finds the ebony tresses in the merchant’s hands?) and goes on all-out war with Bruce’s people.
It is a massacre.
People are killed mercilessly, their cattle is made blood sport of. Their houses are burned, their provisions stolen. Over the desperate cries of the prisoners, the King warns:
“I merely seek not to make the Prophecy turn into reality. Return my son to me, and this will all end.”
The people keep hiding Timun, but soon the guilt becomes too much.
Kamren finds him in tears one day as he enters their little hut, and ready to give himself over to his father.
“What if my Father was right in keeping me locked away? What if I am a doombringer? I’m the cause of all this. I brought destruction upon the people who treated me kindly, upon the family I came to love. This must end. I shall return to my cage.”
But Kamren won’t allow that.
He holds Timun and kisses his brow and shows him what he’s holding in his fist: a vial of poison.
Yes. The massacre shall end. But Timun will not have to know a life of misery. He tips a few drops of poison into Timun’s mouth, drinks the remaining liquid himself. They kiss, slow and lazy, and as sleep starts tugging at their limbs, they lie down on the bedding, enfolded in each other’s arms, heart to heart. Their breathing slows and slows and slows, until their chests stop moving.
This is how Slade finds them when he bursts into the hut, flames and destruction behind him. He doesn’t understand, at first, why his son will not wake. Then he touches him, finds him as cold as stone, and finally understand.
He clutches onto Timun in a shocking display or raging sorrow. He tries to pry away his child from Kamren’s arms, but Bruce, Dick and the other villagers burst in at that moment. Bruce is commanding and regal even in his grief, and he commands Slade not to take the lovers from each other.
Slade is beside himself. He cries:
“Your son did this to mine! He took him away from me! It is as the Prophecy forewarned - Bad love came, and drove my son to his death!”
“No, slade. The love of my son for yours did nothing but free him. It took your bird from the cage, it gave him the wings to soar high, and the voice to sing. It is your love - the love that commanded you to kill and destroy, and to make a prisoner of your child, that which killed him.”
And it is a profound lesson, and even if Slade doesn’t want to believe he’s been the death of his own son, the lovers are ultimately buried together in a marble tomb, entwined as they were when they had been found.