After two months from the day he had left, Blaine came back.

Of course, it didn't entail the glorious, romantic fantasy Kurt had built for himself, but it was a disappointment he was ready to swallow after all the things he'd had to suffer. He'd learned his lesson the hard way: life is not a fantasy. Dragons are not pets. And love is not easy. Hazzea reminded him every night, and sometimes he dreamt of Rhaegal and Viserion, too, trashing and roaring down in the dungeons, screaming for their father to come rescue them.

When Blaine arrived at court, it reminded Kurt of the first time they had met, on the staircase of Sandy Ryerson's palace in Pentos. He was mounted on his horse, bare-chested, with only his leather riding trousers on and his eyes rounded by make-up, dark tattooed skin glistening with sweat, while Kurt stood in a higher position wearing a soft, semi-transparent tunic, his pale body smelling of perfumes and spices from all over the world.

Only this time, Kurt was not a purchase to inspect. He was a khalees. A husband. And a king. And Blaine – he couldn't even begin to say how many things were different about Blaine. Two months were such a long time that even the familiar things looked new to him, sharper somehow; the strong line of his stubble-covered jaw, the tangle of untamed black curls, the shifting of his muscles as he held the reins in his grip. He also had a new tattoo: a twin to the tribal spiral that covered one of his temples, painted on the other one. It could only mean that he had won.

Somehow, though, his stare was the same he'd had that day, as if he was seeing Kurt for the first time. His piercing eyes drank Kurt in, narrowed, then widened again, and like that day back when he was just a boy Kurt felt naked and vulnerable under their inquiring gaze, although this time it lasted for just a heartbeat.

They didn't break eye-contact as Blaine got down from the saddle, the marble court silent and still all around them – transfixed by the sight, Kurt was sure: the whole city wondered what his famous Khal looked like, and he'd heard the Meereenese girls (and some of the boys, too) who served as his cupbearers whisper secretly about it in hidden corners of the pyramid when they thought he wasn't there. They said Blaine could kill people with his stare if he wanted, and that his horse was some red-eyed creature fetched down from hell that fed on damned souls. They also said he was the most beautiful Khal to ever ride on the Great Grass Sea, and that his skill at lovemaking was inferior only to that of the trained bedslaves of the Yellow City.

"His eyes are so pretty" Qezza (one of the girls) whispered to herself from behind him, voice awed and reverent. Kurt couldn't help but smirk at that.

I know.

Blaine gave the reins to Wes so he could take care of his horse – it must be exhausted, the poor thing, after climbing up the stairs of the pyramid all the way to the top – and kneeled before him. He kneeled.

Then he tilted his head up with a telltale knowing grin, raised an eyebrow, and said, "I'm back, Your Majesty."

And that was it. To anyone else, the pleased little smile might have looked like mockery, but Kurt knew it was Blaine's way of telling him You did it. It was his way of telling him he recognized the position he'd acquired, the things he'd conquered while they were apart. It was acceptance, and maybe, just maybe, from then on they would be really equal.

And since in Kurt's eyes they were, Kurt could not stand to see him kneeling one second more than necessary. It just didn't suit him, didn't feel real. It was like looking at a trained, falsely submissive lion.

Or at dragons chained in a pit.

He shook the thought away and smiled at the man he loved more than anything else in the world. Just his presence was soothing, even after the way they had parted. He'd come back. He'd kept his promise. He was there, alive and real and so close, and Kurt had missed him so much late at night, when he woke up screaming in a huge, empty featherbed.

He had missed kissing him, holding him, having him inside, but none of that was possible in that moment.

"Stand up" he told his sun-and-stars, before looking around to address the whole court in a louder voice. "Good people of Meereen, this is my husband, Khal Blaine of the Dothraki horselords and Breaker of Shackles. Your new king."

A loud buzzing noise filled the air as people whispered heatedly to one another; Kurt could glimpse stunned faces here and there in the crowd gathered behind the rows of Unsullied, and almost offended ones, too.

Did they really think I would marry another man and make him king?

When he looked back at Blaine, he saw surprise written all over his face as well, but as soon as Blaine met his gaze his expression shifted, masking the astonishment with his typical neutral Khal-face, the one he used when he didn't want people to know what he was thinking.

He doesn't want this city.

After all, he hadn't wanted it to begin with. But Meereen was Kurt's, and Blaine was his husband; if the Khal wanted it to be just an empty title, so be it, but Kurt had to acknowledge him in front of his citizens to let them know his decision on the matter was final. The news would reach Galazza Galare as well.

But they could talk about that, they had time. First, though, Kurt needed to have Blaine alone for himself.

"I will hear the rest of the solicitors tomorrow" he announced to the court, the whispers dying down immediately at the sound of his voice. "You can go."

As people started to leave the court in sullen silence, Kurt stared back at Blaine and gave a nod toward the door that was behind him, so he would follow him to his chambers. Blaine nodded minutely in response, his eyes of liquid gold getting darker and darker as he looked at him, setting his skin on fire.

When Kurt reached his chambers at the end of the long corridor, he made to close the door behind him, but Blaine was already there, blocking it with his hand. He slipped inside and closed the door for him, pressing his back against it, and suddenly they were so close that Kurt couldn't breathe.

"Blaine" he managed to whisper, one hand coming up on its own accord to cup his husband's cheek and rediscover the feel of his skin against his palm. "Blaine."

Blaine surged up and kissed him messily, both hands finding their way through Kurt's perfectly styled hair. Feeling his lips and tongue and teeth was so good that Kurt almost wanted to cry. Then Blaine reversed their positions, crowding him against the door, pressing himself against where Kurt was aching already, where he had barely touched himself in those two months.

They kissed hungrily for a good minute at least, groping at each other as if they were blind, scratching at backs and biting earlobs and sucking bruises over each other's necks and shoulders, and it was so raw and plain and simple where everything around him was subtle ploys and whispered rumors – it made Kurt feel like himself again.

What I am is a monster, though.

The sudden realization made his breath itch in his throat, and Blaine noticed. It flattered Kurt, that he could still notice things like that, but at the same time he didn't want Blaine to know. He didn't want him to realize that deep down he was falling apart. Not yet, at least.

Let him think I'm a good king for a little bit more. Let him look at me this way for a little while longer.

"What's wrong?" Blaine whispered hoarsely, relaxing back from the tangle of limbs they'd become, his hands still cradling Kurt's face. He gave Kurt a sweet little peck on the lips to coax him into telling him, and Kurt almost lost it.

"It's nothing" he said, craning his neck forward to get Blaine to kiss him again; if they kept going at that pace they would end up naked before he could even realize it, and it was exactly what he needed – to be owned and taken and forget for just a moment, to close his eyes as Blaine claimed him from the inside and not see the dead girl's eyes staring at him from behind his eyelids, or his children pleading, the rattling of their chains unbearably loud in his ears.

"I told you not to lie to me" Blaine replied, but he didn't look angry – sad, more like, his eyes searching Kurt's face closely. "Just tell me, it's okay."

"Not- not now, just- later" Kurt pleaded against his lips, their noses bumping oh-so-perfectly against each other. "I just- just need you now. Need you so much, Blaine."

Blaine looked worried, but he complied all the same. His kisses and touches grew slower and sweeter though, as if he was suddenly afraid to break him if he wasn't careful enough, and Kurt found himself hating that. He bit on Blaine's bottom lip and worried it in his mouth to turn the kiss dirty, knowing it drove Blaine wild, and dragged his hands down his back until he could cup Blaine's ass and push him up against him again, holding him there, locking his leg around Blaine's hip.

"Want you inside now" he urged after another couple of heated minutes, detaching himself from Blaine long enough to peel his tokar over his head in one swift motion, standing naked and unashamed in front of him.

Blaine's pupils were blown almost completely black, his mouth half-open. Kurt knew it did things to him, to see him so straightforward, so wanting and desperate for it. Usually it was the other way around. Usually, Kurt had to tell Blaine to slow down – even though sometimes Kurt himself liked it hard and fast – because his Dothraki nature came to the surface when his inhibitions were thrown out the window and Blaine's first instinct was to reach his pleasure as soon as possible.

This time, instead, Kurt urged Blaine to go deeper even though there was no deeper to go, to push harder even though it hurt slightly more than it should, to thrust faster even though five minutes had hardly passed since they had started. And at some point he had babbled, he was almost sure of it – something that sounded suspiciously like Take me, fuck me, make me forget.

In his early fantasy, after he flew to Blaine and climbed down from Drogon's scaled back to kiss him, he took him to the pyramid and had him make love to him slowly, fingers intertwined over the sheets or the rim of his waterpools in the terrace, the sunset casting its light on their faces as they kissed. Reality found Kurt with his face pressed against a pillow and his ass in the air, screaming profanities. It was fine anyway. He'd learned his lesson.

Blaine grew silent afterwards. He curled around Kurt's frame from behind, chest pressed against his back, arm slung possessively around his middle. He nuzzled at Kurt's sweaty hair, planting quiet kisses among them once in a while.

"So" he spoke up suddenly, his breath hot against the nape of Kurt's neck. "Ready to tell me what that was about?"

Kurt stiffened in his embrace. Images of the two months spent in Meereen flashed before his eyes in a sudden rush, and his voice caught in his throat when he tried to speak. Blaine waited in silence, until he understood that Kurt wasn't going to answer.

"I... heard strange things in the streets, on the way from the city gate to the pyramid" he said cautiously then, stroking Kurt's chest. "We glimpsed Drogon flying over the Dothraki Sea as we rode back here, but not the others. Where are they?"

Oh Gods. It had never occurred to him until then that Drogon could have hurt Blaine and his khalasar when he went hunting. Luckily, it seemed like that hadn't happened.

"Locked up" Kurt managed to say, choking on the words, heart squeezing painfully inside his chest. "Locked up in a dungeon under the pyramid."

He felt Blaine disentangling himself from him and sitting up on the bed. Kurt turned around and did the same. The bed was at the far end of the chamber, amidst bronze, marble and gold statues of warriors, knights, animals – the ones Kurt liked best; the other gifts had been stuffed elsewhere, occupying an entire floor. There were tables and chairs, too, and beautiful paintings and tapestries on the walls; carpets of Myrish lace on the floor together with animal pelts (big white lions from the Dothraki Sea, tigers and leopards from Qarth, brown bears from Westeros).

"Kurt" Blaine said in a shocked voice, his eyes huge, and just like that the spell was broken. "Kurt, what did you do?"

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

Kurt decided it would be best to have that conversation while fully clothed, so they got dressed and walked out onto the terrace that rounded the apex of the pyramid. The sun was high in the sky, and Meereen stretched all around them, coiling around where the Skahazadhan flowed into Slaver's Bay. To the south the miles went on and on between his city and Yunkai, where many of his children had died. Kurt looked up to see if Drogon was visible, but there was no sign of him.

He told Blaine everything – about the Sons of the Harpy, the Brazen Beasts, the dragons, the conquest of Yunkai. When he was done talking, Blaine looked speechless. He raked a hand through his curls and looked out onto the city, lost in thought.

"Say something" Kurt urged after a long stretch of silence, biting on his lip. "Anything."

That was all the prompting Blaine seemed to need to voice his mind.

"Let's leave this place" he proposed heatedly, turning fully on Kurt from where he was perched over the banister, his eyes full of intent. "You- I was wrong, to think you couldn't do it without me. I'm sorry. I guess I didn't understand what you were capable of, and you proved that to me. But moon of my life, Slaver's Bay is a lost cause. Every time we do something, it comes back to haunt us with the consequences. Look at what happened with the dragons."

Kurt closed his eyes briefly before looking away.

"That is my fault, it doesn't matter where we are" he replied, gripping the banister tightly with his fingers. "I guess I'm not good enough for them. I'm not good at- at teaching them right from wrong. Or maybe they're not meant to understand that."

Blaine cupped his cheek and forced him to turn around and face him. His other hand came up to Kurt's face as well.

"You're good at everything you do, Kurt" Blaine reassured him. "They... they're dragons. I have to admit I expected them to be more docile, too, but maybe we were just fooling ourselves. Though... locking them up, you- I don't mean to judge you, I wasn't here, but are you sure it was the right decision? They will be even angrier when they go out again."

"And when would that be if I can't figure out how to prevent them from killing children?!" Kurt burst suddenly. He pried Blaine's hands away from his face and gave an exasperated sigh.

"You mean you want to keep them down there forever?" Blaine asked him in disbelief, eyebrows raised.

"I don't know!" Kurt snapped, raising his hands in the air; then, more calmly, "I don't know."

Blaine chewed on that for a bit, and Kurt had the time to calm down before speaking.

"We can't leave. Yet. I- I have things to fix; I have to wait for the Sons of the Harpy to be found, I have to figure out what to do with the army that conquered Yunkai, I have to think about the people I'm going to leave here. If Meereen gets attacked and falls after we're gone, too, I will never forgive myself."

"I see" Blaine commented – his jaw was clenched.

"I just need time" Kurt said, taking his hands again. "Time to be sure everything here is settled before we go. Just- trust me with this. And now tell me what you did, Great Khal, and how fares our baby boy or girl."

That made Blaine smile warmly, his hands gripping Kurt's strongly. For the time being, maybe the issue could be put aside.

"Boy" he revealed, pleased smirk plastered to his face. "The women of the dosh khaleen in Vaes Dothrak said it's a boy. He will be the Stallion That Mounts The World – an ancient legend of ours, about a Khal that will reunite all the khalasars in one, as it was at the start when history began."

He looked so proud that Kurt had to kiss him.

"Our son will be famous, then" he said when he pulled back. "Cooper."

Blaine's breath itched.

"Cooper" he agreed.

Then he told Kurt the rest, even though there wasn't that much to tell: it had taken him a long time to find a khalasar that wasn't too big to be conquered and at the same time too small to be useful. The one he had claimed counted ten thousand men. More than the Unsullied he had taken with him, but what the Unsullied lacked in number, they had in discipline. Dothraki were great warriors, but they were messy, uncoordinated; they charged wildly without a strategy, without knowing where they went, driven by their thirst for blood and death and glory.

The head of the previous Khal dangled from Blaine's saddle, paraded around for everyone to see – Blaine offered to show it to Kurt, but he kindly refused.

The fewer corpses I see, the better.

In case of an attack from Yunkai, Blaine assured him that he would employ his newfound khalasar to defend the city. Kurt didn't take it for granted: Blaine didn't even want to be in Meereen; he was there because Kurt was, and because of the things he needed to take care of. Kurt could have asked him to actually march on the Yellow City, but somehow it felt like too much (and he was pretty sure Blaine would say no and it would be the Meereen fight all over again), even though he couldn't help but think of all the freedmen who'd been enslaved again, surely waiting for their Physae to come to the rescue.

Maybe that's the point, though. Maybe I need to realize that I can't save everyone.

He couldn't save his children – not the humans, not the dragons. He just had to accept that and be content with what he had achieved: one free city in Slaver's Bay was still a huge accomplishment, even though the other two had taken up slavery once again.

That night when he woke up screaming and crying, Blaine was there to hold him, just like Kurt had done when Blaine had been dreaming of his father's death. As Kurt asked for forgiveness to Hazzea's father – "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please" – Blaine cradled him to his chest like a baby, like the boy he felt he was all over again, and told him it wasn't his fault more than one hundred times.

When dawn broke, Kurt watched Blaine sleep and almost felt like it was true.

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

Being surrounded by Dothraki again made Kurt feel safe. It had taken him a long time to understand them and stop being afraid of them, but once he'd managed to do that, he had started to see them as friends, as people he could rely on. He had missed Brittany and Santana more than he was ready to admit, and seeing them again, more in love than when they had left, warmed his heart.

"I thought it was, like, a huge meatball or something" Brittany said about the heart ceremony Tina had gone through in Vaes Dothrak. "But then Tana told me it was a heart, and they didn't even cook it, so I was like Ew, gross!"

He had missed the Lamb girl's hilariousness, too.

Tina's belly was unmistakably big now – not exaggeratedly so, but you could tell it would have been unnatural for her physique under normal circumstances. Apparently being pregnant made you sleepy, because she slept through most of the day. Kurt had given her a big chamber with all the comforts she might need, on the second floor of the Great Pyramid.

The thing was so huge it could probably host the entire khalasar, but just like in Qarth, they had preferred to set their tents out in the open, surrounding the base – all except for Blaine, his bloodriders (who had the unhappy task of climbing up and down every day to report to the Khal) and a little host of warriors both from the old and the new khalasar.

Blaine attended court with Kurt from time to time, but it was just a farce so people could see them together, two kings with the same tasks and responsibilities; the truth was that Blaine couldn't understand a single word of what solicitors said – even Kurt had to make them switch from Ghiscari to Valyrian sometimes, but Blaine couldn't speak either of those – and on their part, solicitors rarely addressed him in the first place. They trusted Kurt, the one who had freed them, not some scary wanderer barbarian who didn't even have the decency to dress properly in their presence; to the wealthy and noble Meereenese, especially, that was quite the offense.

Blaine complained more than once about that being a complete waste of time; Khals didn't hold court in the Dothraki Sea, and after all, why would they? No one asked for things in a khalasar. But Kurt was a master of convincing, and as mean and lame as that was, using sex as leverage worked beautifully with Blaine. The threat of not getting any for a week was enough for him to attend court for an hour (Kurt was not as cruel as to ask him for more in a day).

Kurt measured time by the growing of Tina's bump, of his and Blaine's son getting bigger and stronger every day – and by keeping track of Drogon's absence, counting the days that passed between his appearances in the sky. On one hand it was a relief to know that he was somewhere else, that he couldn't hurt anyone belonging to his city; on the other hand, Kurt was constantly scared of realizing, someday, that he would never see him again – because of someone slaying the dragon or simply the creature's decision to move far away from there. The world had to look so small when you could fly over it, and maybe Drogon was attracted to his true motherland somehow: Valyria. Maybe he went there to sprawl among the ashes of a forgotten past, of a time when dragons ruled the world.

With the Dothraki back, though, Kurt had things to keep himself distracted once again. His favorite one, which he had tried uselessly to suppress in some pitiful attempt at forcing himself into growing up, was knowing about other people's love lives.

Quinn and Puck fucked regularly; that much was clear from the lustful stares he directed at her not as subtly as he thought – something he'd always done, but now Quinn reciprocated them. Kurt didn't know if it was just sex, or something more. What really kept his mind away from his deep-rooted worries, though, was Grey Worm. More specifically, what Grey Worm seemed to feel for Tina. Kurt had yet to understand if she felt the same way; hells, maybe she didn't even know about it. Giving the Unsullied the new task of guarding her door seemed the perfect idea.

It was there that he found them one night; Blaine was fast asleep in their bed, too exhausted from sex to wake up when Kurt shuddered in his arms and sat up suddenly as he came back from his nightmares. So he'd decided to wander through the pyramid and wait for dawn to break. Tina and Grey Worm were talking in whispers, their frames bathed in candlelight; Kurt stopped in his tracks just before rounding the corner, so they would not see him.

"Have you ever kissed someone?" the girl was asking the Unsullied. He fidgeted, his hand gripping the spear tighter than before. Tina might be shy, but she was a Dothraki, way more blunt and straightforward than most people would dare to be.

"No" the soldier muttered as he looked down at his feet, as if he felt ashamed of it. "These ones were not allowed to see girls while on training."

"Oh. Well, couldn't you try, like, with each other? Just to see how it was. I tried with a friend once. It's nice" Tina confessed with a smile, her eyes crinkling up at the corners – they looked like two thin lines when she did that. "But we don't kiss when we, you know, do that."

"These ones were not allowed" Grey Worm pointed out again with a frown, almost childishly. "These ones would have been whipped."

Tina chewed on that for a moment, her mouth open in a little 'O' of surprise. The Unsullied way of life was difficult for her to understand, Kurt figured; sex occupied a big part of Dothraki life – unhealthily big, some people would say.

"Why do you talk like that?" she asked then, tilting her head to the side. The light shifted over her features, playing over her cheekbones and jaw and dancing on her straight dark hair, making them look almost blonde in places.

"Like what?"

"Like you're talking of someone else, saying these ones. It's funny."

Grey Worm's eyes widened.

"You think I'm funny?"

Tina bit her lip.

"Yes. And cute, too."

The Unsullied shifted on his feet and looked away for a moment, so Kurt leaned back from his position against the corner, afraid of being caught. When the soldier spoke again, he leaned forward once more.

"No one has ever told me that" he whispered in awe.

A pause stretched in the silence - Come on, say something, either of you, come on! - until Tina heaved a breath and asked, "So, would you like to do it?"

"To do what?" Grey Worm replied, his eyes blinking.

Unsullied were a bit thick-headed when it came to get rhetorical questions; their masters' orders were always clear and precise, with no space for misunderstandings. They didn't get sarcasm, either. If something could mean more than one thing, they always understood the obvious one and never the subtle. It wasn't like they were stupid; on the contrary, Kurt considered them quite smart. But their intellect had been suppressed, channeled toward a very small number of things, and getting them to apply it to all the other things life included required some time.

"To kiss someone, silly" Tina answered with a giggle and a shy little smile.

"I- I don't know" Grey Worm stammered – it was such a comical contrast with the stiff way he always moved and behaved. "I don't know how to do it."

"I can show you if you want" Tina offered. "It's easy, I promise."

"O- okay" the Unsullied conceded, his eyes shifting in various directions, looking behind and around Tina with a slight frown. Kurt caught himself before he could laugh, putting a hand over his mouth.

She said "show you", so he thinks she'll kiss someone else to make him see.

Tina followed Grey Worm's gaze, turning around to see if someone was, in fact, behind her; again, Kurt leaned back to hide. He felt ridiculous, giddy and so very, very young. He had not forgotten his lesson, about life and love and dragons, but once in a while, late at night, maybe he could allow himself to be stupid.

Tina must have realized the same thing, because she turned back and gave a brief, musical laugh. Grey Worm was blushing.

"I mean you can kiss me" the Dothraki girl explained, before turning hesitant. "If you want."

He does, Kurt thought. Even in the semi-darkness and from a distance, he could see it in the man's eyes.

"I- this one- this one is not allowed."

"To kiss?"

"To want."

You are, Kurt almost screamed from behind the corner. That's what freedom is for. That's why I'm doing all this.

Tina's eyes crinkled up again, but this time they were shining with a light that hadn't been there before. She stepped closer to the Unsullied, reached up a hand to cup his cheek, and pressed her lips against his slowly, gently, allowing to pull back if he wanted. Grey Worm stiffened when their lips touched, but then he sighed deeply and relaxed into the kiss, moving his lips tentatively, just pressing forward.

It is amazing, to witness the simple beauty of a first kiss, as it is for all the things that happen for the first time. It made them special in Kurt's mind, precious, because as much as you could do the same thing again, it would never be like the first time. Sure, not all the first times were the best; his and Blaine's one having sex was the perfect example. Their first kiss had been clumsy, rushed, getting Blaine off guard as Kurt rode him among the swaying grass; the following ones had been slower and sweeter.

But then there were first times like rare black pearls, things he would never get to relive, and that made them even more precious – Sebastian's first bedtime story (or the first he could remember his brother telling him), inside a cramped little house with a red door in Bravos that smelled like home in his memories; the moment when he'd realized he was in love with Blaine, when his husband had thought he'd been murdered at the market and had looked at him as if he was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen; the sound of the dragon eggs cracking, little scaled heads peering up at him with squinting, curious eyes.

If Kurt had not freed the Unsullied in Astapor, he would never have been able to witness that new first time and keep it secluded in his heart.

The first time an Unsullied has ever kissed a girl.

When Tina pulled back, Grey Worm was flushed, lips parted in awe.

"Did you like it?" the girl asked.

"Yes" he whispered in a blissed out sigh. She took his hand then, the one that wasn't holding the spear.

"Come kiss me some more, then" she told him, dragging him inside her chamber and closing the door behind them.

The morning after, Kurt received a news that made him even gladder of the fact that Tina had made the move, because it turned out that Grey Worm would have to face a battle soon, as well as everybody else. Best have something to fight for, he figured.

The Yunkai'i were coming.