"Blaine, we have to go" Kurt whispered when the scream died away, the scene disappearing in front of them to leave nothing but an empty stone cell beyond the open door. Their clasped hands were shaking, but he didn't know if it was because of him, or Blaine, or both.

"Look at me, my sun-and-stars" he said when Blaine didn't answer, moving to stand in front of him, cupping his trembling face with both his hands. Blaine's eyes were glassy and sort of foggy, but to Kurt's surprise he wasn't crying.

Did I ever see him cry?

"It wasn't true" Kurt pleaded, stroking Blaine's cheekbones, joining their foreheads together. "It was just- a trick, is all, a trick to make us want to go back and-"

"But it was true" Blaine answered softly, mirroring Kurt's actions and cupping his face, a desperate, wrecked expression distorting his features. "I did it, Kurt. I- I don't- I can't-"

He was a babbling mess and Kurt kissed him, even though they hadn't time for it. He kissed him and held him close and whispered against his lips "Everything is going to be okay, my sun-and-stars" even though he didn't know if that was true, because they had both lost so much. Kurt might actually win back his kingdom, and Blaine might find a way to restore his khalasar, but what if there were wounds never meant to heal again?

When Blaine's shaking seemed to ebb away, Kurt took his hand again and resumed walking at a fast pace, dragging him behind him, the sound of Drogon's wings flapping noisily loud and heavy in his ears. He felt so tired, all of a sudden. He wished he hadn't gone there at all. Neither of them would have had to endure what they had just been put through. He wasn't even relieved to finally know the truth about Blaine's mystery; the only silver lining was that now, maybe, Blaine would come to him to share his burden instead of leaving it all bottled up inside as he had done all his life. But after all, maybe he didn't want to. He could have shared it sooner, and he hadn't.

There were other open doors on their left, but Kurt ignored them, his eyes set steadily and stubbornly ahead. He couldn't be sure, but he thought there was the future there. He didn't want to see it.

When they reached the end of the corridor, though, there was no door on their right, just a blank, grey stone wall staring back at them mockingly, their shadows reflected on it amidst the yellowish light coming from the candles. Even Drogon hissed his annoyance, sensing that something was wrong. Still clutching Blaine's hand, Kurt turned to his left, puzzled. There was a closed wooden door striped with iron.

"The first door to the right..." Kurt wondered aloud, turning back again to see if somehow a door had appeared on their right, but it hadn't. He turned back to the closed door, his eyes widening.

"...is the last door to the left" he concluded. He looked back at Blaine for confirmation, and his husband nodded tiredly, as if he hadn't in himself to question whatever solution Kurt had come up with. Kurt gave him an understanding little smile, then pushed the door open with only a heartbeat of hesitation. The door gave way easily.

They found themselves inside a small square room, lit by a sickly pale blue light coming from colored glass lanterns hanging from the roof. When Kurt looked up, though, he saw that the chains holding the lanterns disappeared in a thick grey fog looming over them, making it look as if the room went up and up forever.

He felt Drogon landing silently on his shoulder, sensing impending danger, and looked down again to find a dozen men staring back at him from behind a long wooden table covered in a thick layer of dust, empty. They looked exactly the same as Pyat Pree, with their white withering skin and purple bags under their eyes and scary blue lips. The one in the center stood up from his chair in a slow, almost pained motion, as if it hurt for him to move.

"We have been waiting for you, Father of Dragons" he said in a cold voice, staring at him so intently that Kurt felt a shiver down his spine. "We have been waiting for centuries for you to come to us. Please, step closer."

Reluctantly, Kurt left Blaine's hand and took a step forward.

"Here I stand" he replied solemnly, as Drogon's claws came out to dig into the skin of his shoulder. "Pyat Pree said I could-"

"Did you see your past? Your future?" the warlock went on as if Kurt hadn't spoken at all, his companions silent and still as if they weren't even breathing. Kurt wondered if they were.

"I saw my past, yes" he answered coldly. "But I'd rather not know things before they happen."

That seemed to amuse the Undying standing in front of him, even though his expression never changed enough to show a real emotion; it was more like the shadow of one.

"The blood of the dragon is wise" he conceded, linking his hands across his tunic-covered stomach. "After all, the future is something difficult to read, even for those who know how to. It changes constantly, you see. Every choice humans make, every decision humans take – they change what could have been in what will actually be. And yet, some things are meant to be, regardless of what humans do."

Unexpectedly, the warlock looked past Kurt's shoulder, where Blaine was. Kurt heard Blaine shifting his weight from foot to foot uncomfortably, but he didn't want to lose sight of the man in front of him, so he didn't turn around.

"If the great Khal Blaine here didn't like the company of men as much as he does, his father would never have challenged him in single combat" the Undying began, taking Kurt aback. "If the great Khal Blaine hadn't slain his father in that combat, he would have died, and he would never have met his khalees. But if the great Khal Blaine didn't like the company of men in the first place, he would have married a woman, and he would never have met his khalees anyway. And if the Father of Dragons had not married a Khal of the Dothraki horselords, he would never have gone so far east, to Vaes Dothrak and beyond. He wouldn't be here now. Some things happen because they have to happen."

Somehow, it wasn't that reassuring to think that his meeting with the Undying of Qarth had to happen without him having a say in it, but on the other hand, it was nice to think that, someway, Blaine and him were meant to be together. Then he realized that their being together had been possible thanks to Blaine murdering his father. He decided it was best to leave that train of thought altogether.

"I see" he started, not knowing what to say exactly or how to approach the subject of what he was there for, which was help, gold, or whatever could be useful. "The reason we came here-"

"Then there are other things" the warlock interrupted, to Kurt's barely restrained annoyance. "Things quite unlikely to happen, unless someone makes them happen. A wedding gift from Asshai by the Shadows. A fire destroying a khalasar exactly when it is closer to the greatest city that ever was and ever will be than anywhere else."

Kurt's eyes widened. A cold, terrible suspicion gripped his heart in a vice. Drogon hissed and puffed black smoke in the suddenly stifling air of the room. Blaine stepped forward to stand by Kurt's side again, the same suspicion mirrored on his face, which made it that much more obvious.

"You did it" Kurt said through gritted teeth, his fists clenching furiously.

If the Undying could laugh, Kurt was sure they would have been laughing in that moment. Instead, their spokesman made the hint of a grin, his blue lips twisting upwards in an ugly curve, before opening his arms wide in the air.

"Of course we did" he said, in a tone that made it sound as if they had to be thankful for it. "We knew the blood of the dragon could not be killed by fire, and that dragon eggs needed fire to break."

Amidst the shock the revelation had caused, that made Kurt pause and think.

"A brazier with hot coals fell on them once" he said with narrowed eyes, picturing that moment before Blaine's fight to regain his title, when Kurt himself had hoped something would happen. "But they didn't break."

"Only death can pay for life" the warlock intoned solemnly. "We knew you would protect them, sacrifice for them. The boy you were back then died in the fire, to be born again as the Father of Dragons, the Unburnt. You wouldn't be what you are now, if it wasn't for the Undying. You wouldn't have dragons."

His tone made Kurt snap.

"Thousands of people died in that fire!" he shouted, finding himself face to face with a living wall of indifference. "You could have set on fire my own tent only!"

"But the khalasar would have remained intact" the warlock mused. "You would never have turned to Qarth for help. And the Undying would never have found the opportunity to get you alone and unprotected, without dozens of armed Dothraki around you, to have you and your dragons with them forever."

"NO!" Blaine shouted, stepping in front of Kurt to shield him with his body. "I won't let you touch him!"

"Blaine, don't-"

"Pyat Pree told you we didn't want you here, great Khal" the warlock said threateningly, as the others suddenly stood up from their chairs, waking up from their stillness. "You should have listened."

Before Kurt could step forward and push Blaine away, he heard a rattling metallic sound coming from the fog above their heads, and suddenly there were thick iron chains descending from the roof and wrapping themselves around Blaine, his wrists and ankles and waist and throat, dragging him away and slamming him against the nearest wall.

"Stop!" Kurt pleaded, rushing toward where his sun-and-stars was screaming and trashing, the chains tightening more around him the more he struggled.

"The Father of Dragons should stay where he is, unless he wants his sun-and-stars to choke to death."

Kurt stopped immediately, still out of reach from Blaine, who had stopped moving as well. He was breathing harshly through his nose, the chain tight around his neck, where Kurt could see a long red bruise forming. Kurt turned toward the Undying slowly.

"What do you want from me?" he asked.

"We want you" was the answer. "We want your blood, to bind your dragons to our will. We want your heart. We want your soul."

"Kurt," Blaine choked, his movements once again frantic and desperate, "get away from here!"

Kurt turned to look at him desperately, then back at the warlocks, who were suddenly crowding around him, blocking his way and reaching out for him with their pale, thin-skinned hands. Drogon shrieked angrily at them and flew up from Kurt's shoulders, escaping their grabbing hands, and for a moment Kurt thought the dragon was going to fly away, leaving them there to die.

Instead, the black creature flew in a circle above their heads, just barely under the layer of fog, and opened his jaws to spit a long red flame of fire that put the dragons' first attempt to shame. Drogon kept flying in a circle to spread the flame, which caught in the Undying's clothes and sent them in a scared frenzy of screaming and tearing at their tunics, while all Kurt could feel was a gentle, hot caress of air over his skin and Blaine was too far away to be affected by it.

Kurt knew dragon fire was different than normal fire, but it still amazed him to see the warlocks' skins burning so quickly once the fire had destroyed their clothes. At some point they stopped screaming and simply trashed on the ground as their skin blackened and fell off their bones, leaving nothing but ugly, scrawny skeletons on the floor.

When it was done, he turned toward Blaine and found that the chains had disappeared, leaving only a panting dark-skinned man perched against the wall, touching his throat in relief.

"Are you alright?" Kurt asked loudly as he ran to him. He checked on Blaine's wrists and kissed the angry red lines the chains had left over them.

"Yes" Blaine said in a choked whisper, wrapping Kurt in a fierce hug. "Let's leave this place."

There was a door behind what remained of the table, one they hadn't seen before, too caught up in what was happening around them. They checked for others around the room, but there weren't any. Kurt called Drogon to him and petted his scaled back as soon as the dragon was on his shoulder again.

"You did so good, Drogon" he said to him in High Valyrian. The dragon nosed at his cheek, leaving a black trace of soot over it and then licking it away with his two-pointed scratchy tongue.

When they opened the door, sunlight blinded them for an instant, their hands coming up to cover their eyes. They were outside again, which was impossible, but the House of the Undying didn't follow the laws of logic. A few feet from them, there was the same group of people they had left waiting for them.

As soon as Pyat Pree realized Kurt and Blaine were coming out of the palace, he left the group in a rush to run toward them, his face a mask of shock and rage mingled together, something that had seemed quite impossible to Kurt before.

"What did you do?!" he screamed as he got closer to them, his hands flailing wildly in the air.

Before he could reach them, though, Kurt saw him stop abruptly, his mouth open in a second yell that didn't come. He fell facedown in the grass in front of them, an arakh planted between his shoulder-blades. When Kurt looked up, he saw Wes with his arm lifted up above his head in the manner of arakh-throwing.

"What happened?" Finn shouted as Kurt and Blaine finally reached them, eyeing the bruises on Blaine's tattooed skin and the traces of smoke and soot on Kurt's much paler one.

"We'll tell you later" Blaine answered, his eyes to the ground.

Kurt eased Drogon inside the cage with his brothers, who greeted the dragon with happy shrieks and excited movements of their tails. Kurt wondered if they knew what he had done, and if they were able to as well. They are growing up, he realized with a jolt of pride.

They can kill.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The door to their bedroom closed behind Kurt's weight with a slam, his body forced against it by a frantic, almost crazy-looking Blaine.

"Blaine, we- we should put something on your bruises" Kurt tried to object as his husband kissed hungrily down his neck, biting and sucking at his skin while his hands clawed at his sides.

And we should talk, his mind supplied wisely.

"Later" Blaine mumbled against the hollow of his throat. "Just-"

He didn't finish; instead, he grabbed Kurt by the hips and spun him around, molding himself against his back and pinning his hands against the closed door. As one of Blaine's hands pulled down his trousers roughly to grab his ass and squeeze, Kurt realized he had lived that before. The roughness. The lack of words. The franticness.

"Stop" he said in a steady whisper.

Blaine stopped immediately, his hands weak around Kurt's naked hipbones now. Kurt could feel him shaking slightly against him, little tremors all along his back.

"Kurt" Blaine whimpered, his mouth pressed against the nape of his neck, tickling the short hair there. "I- I need this, I-"

"No, you don't" Kurt said as he tucked himself back in his trousers and turned around to face him. "What you need is-"

When he saw the look on Blaine's face, Kurt stopped. The khal's eyes were glassed over and desperate, moisture threatening to spring free, and his jaw was set hard to avoid it.

"What you need is to cry" Kurt whispered then, cupping his trembling face. Blaine almost lost it then, he could see, but instead he shut his eyes tightly and shook his head from side to side.

"Dothraki never cry" he said in a choked whisper, his hands opening and closing around Kurt's waist. Kurt gaped at him.

"What?"

"Dothraki never cry" Blaine repeated, his eyes still closed. "Crying makes people weak."

Kurt could almost picture Blaine's father teaching that to a little Blaine who had just scraped his knee. He stroked Blaine's cheeks with his thumbs tenderly, feeling as if he was looking at that little Blaine himself, needing to teach him differently, better.

"Oh, my sun-and-stars" he whispered, tears pooling in his own eyes. "Crying is what makes people human."

Blaine broke. He collapsed to the ground, taking Kurt down with him, and started sobbing uncontrollably against Kurt's chest, his face pressed in the crook of his neck. It was so strange for Kurt to be the one to comfort, that for a moment he didn't know what to do, but then it all came on instinct: his arms wrapped around Blaine's frame, which suddenly looked smaller; his hands petting his curls, his lips whispering nonsensical reassurances into them.

"It's okay, it's okay" Kurt said as tears streamed down his own cheeks.

They both cried for a long time, mourning for things they would never get back, but while Kurt's mourning was a silent, quiet acceptance, Blaine's was rage and desperation, years of building up a dam only to let the water burst through it without warning. Every sob was a half-scream, and Kurt feared someone would hear, but he couldn't find it in himself to tell Blaine to keep it down; he needed this. He needed to let it go after a life of rules and restrictions and duties. He needed to accept what he had done and move forward. He needed to forgive himself.

When the sobs died down, Kurt's head was pounding and Blaine's breaths were ragged and uneven against his neck, as if he had cried his throat raw. Without a single word, Kurt helped him up and onto their bed, tucking him against his body once again. It felt as if he was holding a little baby.

They stayed silent, Kurt's hands going up and down Blaine's back soothingly, until his husband spoke.

"I never told Cooper" he started in a rough voice, his hand warm on Kurt's side. "I didn't know it at the time. But I- I always liked to think he would have accepted it. Accepted me."

"I think you're right" Kurt said earnestly. "He seemed an amazing brother."

"He was" Blaine agreed, but then Kurt felt him frowning. "I hate myself for letting him down."

"You didn't" Kurt objected fiercely, lifting Blaine's face with a finger under his chin to look him in the eyes. "You did what you had to do to survive."

Blaine gave a nervous exhale before answering.

"I didn't want to win" he said. "But it was like- like I couldn't help but keep fighting. I wanted to let go, but a part of me just wanted to live."

"And there's nothing wrong with that" Kurt reassured him, stroking curls away from his forehead. "It was so mean, what he did. It was his fault."

Blaine nodded in an hesitant gesture of agreement, but then his expression shifted in one of pain and sadness.

"But my mother," he started, almost whimpering. "Kurt, my mom-"

Kurt didn't know what to say. His mother had died giving birth to him, and he had never met his father, but everyone said he had been a wonderful, caring person, and he had seen it with his own eyes. Suddenly, he realized that the doors had showed to each of them a happy memory and a sad one; the first, to make them wish they could step forward and live it, and the second, to make them wish they could do the same, only to change it.

There was one thing Kurt could say to make that moment be a happy memory, instead of a sad one. So he said it.

"I love you, my-sun-and-stars."

Blaine's breath caught in his throat. His eyelashes fluttered like scared little birds. But then he smiled and kissed Kurt on the lips.

"I love you, too, moon of my life."