[ Laurent had never been one to shy away from hard work. For all that he was a prince; soon to be a king, his wasn't a life that had been pampered. Not for a very long time, at least. No matter how his uncle might have tried to portray him otherwise.

These were not his people, and yet- when asked, Laurent could not find it within himself to say no. No matter that he was missing his fiance, that with every day that passed, Laurent's hope that he was there too waned. He might have known that Damianos of Akielos would remain behind, though. He shouldn't have expected anything else. Damen had never felt displaced from his home; had never known a longing for a sense of belonging as Laurent had.

As always, Laurent applied himself to what could be done. If community service was his way of making it back home, then so be it. Laurent would work himself to the bone, if that was what it took. He had put himself through far worse than this. Compared to the carefully manoeuvred game of chess that he had battled with his uncle for years in an effort to assert himself as Vere's rightful ruler, clearing out a few hundred (or thousand) monsters was a cakewalk, by comparison.

It wasn't that he preferred to work alone, not anymore- it was that those whom he preferred to trust to watch his back were far, far from this place, and Laurent erred on the side of caution when it came to guessing at who to trust. His first day in the tunnels he had spent in the company of an unarmed scout, his protector and his student, both. The second, he had gone out alone. The third had bled into the fourth, mind numbing hours of swinging a sword and hacking away bloodied scaled limbs and avoiding gnashing teeth blurring dangerously together. The fifth, and his exhaustion was finally beginning to show. Even in the dark of the tunnels. He was trying to sleep when he took moments of rest, he was. But it wasn't easy, now that he had become so accustomed to a secondary presence when he did so. And the ache of absence of not having him there wore more heavily than the fatigue.

Some of the Perimeter guard had noticed, and so had hesitantly assigned him a partner. Or he wouldn't be allowed to descend again. ]

If I cannot trust you to watch my back, then I will not hesitate to leave you to the lizards. [ Was Laurent's frosty greeting to whatever sap who had been partnered with him, before he drew his shining sword, and lead the way down. ]

[ "Elevator." What an interesting invention. He'd used it on more than one occasion already, but the novelty of the concept had yet to wear off. Stairs were still his preferred choice, but there was something nice about having a lift to do all of the work of bringing you up after a long, and exhausting day of work.

The cool, stiff backed blond utterly ignores your presence when you join him in the elevator. Stinking of the filth of the sewers and splashed in the blood of downed foes, Laurent wanted little else than to reach his room, shower, and sleep, before he started the day's tasks of clearing out the underground all over again. His boots were caked in mud, although somehow he had managed not to track overmuch of it into the building itself. He wasn't a neanderthal; he knew to wipe his feet before entering a building, at least. His clothes looked positively restrictive; laced from ankle to throat in commanding ties that looked as though they would take hours to loose, his corseted top aiding to add a sense of rigidity to him, not that he needed it for how aloof and frigid he appeared to be. The air in the elevator seemed positively icy just by his presence alone. There was a sword sheathed at his hip, and despite the filth upon his clothes, somehow his strands of blond hair had managed to escape unscathed. Almost unnaturally smooth and carefully arranged, only a hint volume curling the ends to speak of the humid moisture from his time underground.

When the lights flickered, and the elevator ground to a halt, Laurent let out a breath of frustration, his elegantly pointed chin lifting towards the ceiling, glaring accusingly at the now absent lighting, emergency power flicking on and bathing them in a cool, blue light. ]

You can't be serious. [ And his tone was just as uninviting as his posture, not really an invitation for his companion to speak, but an observation of inconvenience. This intimidating man was clearly not really in the mood for this. But then, it wasn't really as though he had any other choice, either. ]

[ ooc; Want something else? Go wild! If you have an idea just go for it, or hit me up on Plurk at oresteia or via PM and we can plot something out! ]