Dragonstone got smaller and smaller in the distance as Kurt walked. A little, remote island of rock in the middle of a sea of swaying grass; he had decided to call it like that because it reminded him of the real Dragonstone, his family's ancient seat where he was born, which was way bigger but just as isolated from the coast of faraway Westeros. He couldn't help but turn around every once in a while to see how far he'd walked, using its dimensions to determine it. He wasn't walking as fast as he would have liked, if he had to be honest.

He had spent three days on Dragonstone, but now it was time to go. There was nothing there for him. He had to find Blaine, and Blaine wasn't there. He had to find a way to resume his voyage toward Westeros, and it wasn't there, either. The only thing the island offered was a shelter from the sun, a cave carved in the rock by Drogon who had made his lair there. His fire had melted it and shaped it just as Balerion's fire had done with the Iron Throne, and its interior was covered in the scattered remnants of the dragon's meals, some of them probably dating back to the first days after he had left Meereen.

Kurt had fed on his leftovers during those three days, eating whatever Drogon decided to spare; he had nothing to hunt with, and besides, the grass of the Dothraki Sea was so tall that only a man on a horse or an animal able to fly could have the adequate view to actually do it. At night, he had slept curled in a ball on the hard rock, inside the circular space created by the dragon's tail.

His first flight had been beautiful, something he would never forget. He had felt so carefree, so light, as if nothing could touch him up there, as if nothing really mattered except the wind in his hair and the bright blue sky all around him and above him and underneath him. Drogon liked to fly in big, slow flaps of his wings but then, unexpectedly, he would turn to the side and twirl in the air going downwards, forcing Kurt to sit upside down for terrifying instants, gripping his hot black scales with his hands and tightening his legs around the dragon's neck. His skin had been covered in blisters where it had come in direct contact with Drogon's body – but they were already healing, and they didn't hurt that much in the first place.

During the flight, he had also understood how to make Drogon go where he wanted. Initially he had thought it was the same as with horses: hit them right to make them go left and vice versa, like Dothraki did. Instead it was the opposite, because Drogon didn't shy away from the source of the pain: his instinct was to look for it, turn in its direction to find out what it was. Once Kurt had realized that, he had been able to have a little more control over their wandering; nonetheless, it got dark quickly, and they had to retire to the dragon's lair to continue the search for Blaine the following day.

Which had never happened. The morning after, Drogon took to the sky to go hunting before Kurt could wake up and stop him, and came back many hours later. From that, as much as Kurt tried, it was impossible to convince him to let himself be ridden once again. He was wild, moody, unpredictable; something he had seemed to want not more than two days before was now welcomed with angry hisses and smoking nostrils and burning roars that echoed through the rocks and melted the walls of the cave a little more. It had taken too much for Kurt to get his head out of the sand and really try to tame him, as he had done in the pit; if he'd just started on it sooner, maybe, just maybe, Drogon would listen to him now.

He was following a small, narrow river – it was more fitting to call it a trickle of water on a bed of rocks – because every river on that side of the Dothraki Sea flowed back into the much wider, muddy green Skahazadhan. He would never find the khalasar wandering afoot, so the only way was to follow the river until he reached Meereen (even though he didn't know how long that would take), get his horse and a team of outriders, and start again.

The sun was too hot; it was almost midday, and Kurt had nothing to cover his head with except for a small piece of cloth he had ripped from his ruined tokhar, which was burned and torn in various places. He could have walked only by night and find a shelter during the day to avoid the sunlight, but when darkness came, the infamous white lions of the Dothraki Sea set out to hunt; Blaine had told him once that their eyes were red and blind to the light of day, but infallible at night, and to kill one of them was a great pride among his people. Of course, one of the pelts Blaine kept in his tent was a white lion pelt.

If Kurt died there, eaten by a lion, what was left of his body would rot and eventually disappear under the next sandstorm. He couldn't help but wonder what people would say of him then. Legend and mystery were the worst enemies of truth, and he was sure the books would say that Drogon himself had eaten him. Kurt Hummelsmythe, the first dragonlord devoured by his own beast.

As he walked, the horizon started to become fuzzy, vibrating in front of his eyes, and no matter how many times he stopped to drink from the small river, his throat felt always dry and his breath too short. His steps became slow and dragged, his lips chapped and cracking. He turned around and realized that, judging by Dragonstone's current dimensions, he couldn't have walked for more than three hours.

So few?

His head spun when he turned around again, and he had to stay still for a moment with his eyes closed not to lose his balance. The first step was a struggle then, but after that the others came. There was no sight of the Skahazadhan in front of him; just rocks and grass and a cloudless sky that seemed to go on forever.

I'm going to die here, he thought helplessly, his mind as slow as his footsteps on the path. I'll never get to tell him I still love him.

And as the wind blew, the grass seemed to whisper things at him, speaking in a voice Kurt had heard before.

"Little brother" it sighed, making him halt abruptly. "Little brother, why did you left me?"

He knew the sun had officially taken its toll on his wits, when he saw Sebastian standing there among the grass, his face distorted by the mask of melted gold Blaine had poured over his head in Vaes Dothrak. He had no eyes, no nose, and what was visible of his mouth was burned and twisted in a horrible grin that moved grotesquely as he spoke.

In the back of his mind Kurt knew it was a vision, an hallucination; still, he answered.

"I didn't leave you" he told his brother's ghost. "You brought your death on yourself."

"You let your husband kill me" Sebastian pointed out, and even though he had no features to show it, Kurt could sense that he was angry. "I took care of you for years, I fed you, I gave you a place to stay, I kept you safe. It was my army, and it's my throne!"

After all the times Kurt had heard those exact words, only from the real Sebastian, hearing them from an invention of his frail, tired mind had no effect on him.
"You didn't have to come with us. You could have stayed in Pentos with Sandy and wait for us to come back from Vaes Dothrak."

"You've always taken me for a fool, haven't you, little brother?" Sebastian spat from his golden face. "He would have never come back to Pentos, and we both know it. He cheated me. I gave you to him and he never paid me back. Maybe I should have married him; things would be different now. We would be in Westeros already, and you'd be a happy little prince. Look at what you've done, look at where you are. You have managed to ruin everything I've tried to do!"

This time, Kurt completely forgot that he was talking to someone already dead.

"I brought three dragons into the world!" he shouted to the grass, flailing his hands weakly in the air. "I did something you would have never been able to do! You were no dragon! I am!"

Sebastian's grin managed to get uglier than it was. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"Oh yes, and where are your dragons now? One has left you here to die in the middle of the desert, and the others... oh, right, you locked them up in a dungeon. You are the ruin of our noble family. Our father would be so ashamed of you."

That almost brought tears to his eyes, but he figured he was too dehydrated to cry.

"You- you have no right" he choked, pointing at the distant figure with a trembling finger. "You don't know how hard it was, you can't- that's what you always did, bringing me down and making me feel like I wasn't worthy of anything. If you'd just loved me, I would have done anything for you."

Sebastian sneered, or at least did something that looked like it.

"That's your problem, little brother" he replied, shaking his disfigured head. "Love. Love is what makes you weak, and always will. Your love for your precious children led you to lock your dragons away and marry a man you didn't want, and now your love for the Khal leads you to send all your work to the Seven Hells."

Suddenly, his expression – or lack thereof – shifted, and his tone with it. It got serious and contemplative in a way it had never been.

"I tried to love you, little brother. But when the occasion presented itself, to choose between you and an army, I made that choice and I never looked back. I never pretended to want both power and love. Love will never get you on the Iron Throne. It's time for you to choose, too."

Then he disappeared, dissolving into a swirl of sand in the air. Kurt felt disappointed at the thought of not having the last word on the matter, though, so he answered anyway, shouting at the grass and the rocks and the sky above.

"You're wrong! I will have everything! I will have Blaine and the dragons and the Seven Kingdoms, all of it! You're wrong!"

It didn't feel that liberating when he had no one to tell it to. He stared blankly at the spot where the vision had been, until he was sure it wouldn't come back. He took a step forward, then another, but on the third one of his leather sandals broke under his foot and he tripped, falling to the ground. He felt his hands and knees colliding with the hard, sharp rocks underneath him.

Hissing and coughing, he turned around to sit up on the ground and examine the damage. His palms were scraped, covered in marks and little sand-shaped holes, but his knees were the worst. Both of them were bleeding, and when he tried to stand up again a jolt of pain shot up through his legs, forcing him to stay down. A sudden, terrible helplessness seized him. He felt like the only survivor of a shipwreck, lost at sea, clinging to a piece of wood floating in the water; like the last human being left in the world, wandering around with no purpose, no hope, no destination.

I'll never see him again, he found himself thinking once again.

Then he heard the sound of wings cutting the air, and saw a distant shadow getting closer and bigger.

"Drogon" Kurt sighed as the black dragon landed next to him almost silently, or at least as silently as his size allowed him to. He looked calmer, as if he was studying him; his black and red eyes took in Kurt's sweaty, reddening face, his ruined clothes, and the blood flowing down his pale legs from the gashes on his knees. Kurt saw his pupils dilate all of a sudden, his nostrils flaring to inhale the coppery scent.

This is how it really ends, then, he realized, but it didn't shock him as much as it should have. If he really thought about it, it was almost poetic in a way.

"It's okay" he felt the need to say. "It's not your fault. I won't be mad, I promise."

As Drogon inched his face closer and closer to the wounds, his jaws opening slightly to show his glistening black teeth, Kurt mourned for Blaine and Finn and Rachel and those few people in the world who really cared about him, who would really miss him. He mourned for Rhaegal and Viserion, too, wondering what would become of them without him to protect them. Maybe they were dead already. Maybe Adam had killed them, shouting orders at his men as he had tried to do in the pit.

He asked forgiveness to them, and to Drogon, for the lousy father he had been. He looked up at the sky and smiled. He was in the Dothraki Sea, so maybe the Stallion Blaine worshiped would allow him to get to the nightlands where Tina and little Cooper were, and where one day, hopefully in many, many years, Blaine himself would join him, riding his black horse among the stars. He felt Drogon's hot breath come in contact with his skin. He closed his eyes, and then-

It was a humid and scratchy feeling at the same time, hot but not uncomfortably so. No sharp pain, no limbs being torn away from his body, no fire. He opened his eyes to look, and there Drogon was, licking the blood from both of his knees in a single swipe of his broad pinkish tongue. Astonished, Kurt kept staring as more blood flowed from the cuts only to be lavished eagerly, and the more Drogon licked, the more his eyes changed, as if losing the hostility he had still felt for Kurt until that moment.

When there was no more blood to lick away, Drogon stopped and looked up at him, straight into his eyes once again, and cocked his enormous scaled head to the side, peering at him with something like... wisdom. There wasn't a real word for it, and maybe that couldn't suit a creature that couldn't even speak, but it was the only one that came to Kurt's mind. It was the difference between the stare of an acquaintance, of someone who knows only what you let yourself show, and the stare of an old friend, who knows secrets of yourself you have forgotten and stories of your life you wish you could forget.

It felt different from what had happened in the pit; this time it was something final, so sudden, palpable and evident that there had to be an explanation. Intrigued, Kurt looked back down at the cuts.

Blood, wound, knee, skin... Wound... Blood... Blood.

Blood.

The blood of the dragon. The blood of the dragon.

It had to be it. It wasn't just a figure of speech.

And the more he thought about it, the more sense it made.

The dragons had always felt a connection with him, a link to his moods and emotions, but once they had started to go hunting, he had lost his control over them. He had thought it had to do with them growing up, getting wild and ruthless and cruel, but maybe... maybe it was just the distance. The actual, palpable, physical distance from the blood that flowed in his veins. Up until his days spent holding court, when he neglected them for hours leaving them on their own in the terrace, they had always listened to what he said.

And suddenly things he had never paid attention to crowded his mind all at the same time: the three hatchlings fighting among themselves to get the right to nestle in the crook of his neck, where blood flowed thick and copious under his skin; the way they always licked the inside of his wrist when he petted them on the head from his carved throne in the tent, trying to get closer to where the skin was stretched taut over thin but prominent veins; and the way they always sensed when he was angry or scared, feelings that made his heart beat faster in his chest.

We want your blood, to bind your dragons to our will. We want your heart. We want your soul, the Undying of Qarth had said. Kurt had assumed they wanted his blood so they could drink it, while all along their plan had been to give it to the dragons. And his heart and soul probably served to create some sort of spell that would make the creatures obey to them even though Kurt was already dead.

That's why no one knows about this, he realized, his mind working furiously, shifting from one thought to the next in a rushed frenzy. The books didn't talk about it. Sebastian never knew about it. Because if people knew, they would fight over Hummelsmythe blood like crows over a corpse. The dragonlords must have kept it to themselves, confiding it from father to son as history went by, but the secret had died together with the last dragon, centuries before the birth of Kurt's.

He felt sick when he realized how bad Rhaegal and Viserion must be feeling in that moment, closed between four walls and so far away from him. And Drogon – it must have been hard for him, too, to stay away from Kurt, knowing where he would have ended if he came back. But in the end he had, and reliving those first moments inside the pit, Kurt realized the dragon had been looking for him all along.

"Oh, Drogon" he whispered, reaching a hand out to touch his face. Drogon nuzzled into the touch, and it looked so surreal considering that Kurt's hand barely covered one of his nostrils. "I'm so sorry it took me this long to understand. So, so sorry."

Slowly, using the dragon's scales for support, he stood up on his wounded legs. Drogon's entire body coiled around him as if to protect him, from what exactly Kurt didn't know: the wind, the sun, the dangers concealed under the rocks and among the grass of the desolation surrounding them.

"I'm going to free your brothers" Kurt said, his hands stroking Drogon's warm and long neck now. "But you have to take me to him first. I need him. I can't do it without him."

Drogon shifted in the telltale movement of when he was about to lower his belly and neck so Kurt could climb up on it. It was so easy, so automatic, that for a moment Kurt could not believe it. It seemed impossible that a creature so massive and brutal could obey to his orders in such a docile way. Still, it didn't feel forced or unnatural; it felt like something that always should have been. Something Kurt could have ignored forever, and what a shame that would have been.

He struggled to climb, wincing when the cuts on his hands and knees came in contact with the sharpness of Drogon's scales, but before he knew it he was back on him, straddling his neck. He tightened his thighs around him as he took flight, pressed his cheek against the dragon's body, and closed his eyes.

He knew he would find the way.

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The sun was setting when Drogon landed again. Kurt woke up with a start, realizing only then that he had been sleeping. In fact, there had been no sudden turns and twirls as they flew, and the sound of the dragon's wings flapping in the air had lulled him to sleep somehow. As Drogon's body finally reached the ground, Kurt touched his cheek and hissed, feeling the scale-shaped burn underneath his fingertips. He knew it would fade soon, though, like the sign left by a pillow.

Loud, alarmed voices reached his ears. When he looked to where the sound was coming from, he saw a group of men riding toward him in the distance, and a tent camp spreading itself over the desert a little further away. A khalasar.

He found him.

Slowly and carefully, he climbed down from Drogon's neck, and it was then that the riders arrived, halting their horses abruptly a few feet away from the dragon to continue by foot. The animals were nervous – always had been around the creature – and they clearly refused to come any closer. When the cloud of sand caused by Drogon's landing drifted away and his eyes got accustomed to the growing darkness, Kurt recognized the men.

All three gaped at him as if he was something out of a dream. Their gazes shifted from Kurt to Drogon and then back to him, but not for long; every breath or grumble from the beast drew their terrified eyes back to the dragon, whose body was pulled taut in a threatening position. Kurt knew he wouldn't hurt them unless he told him to; it was just that he didn't trust them. He had been away from them, all of them, for too long.

"Don't be scared" Kurt said, lifting his hands in front of him as if to soothe the three Dothraki with the gesture. It seemed to break some kind of spell, because their eyes finally settled on him.

"Moon of my life" Blaine whispered, his face scrunched in an adorably puzzled frown, and the natural, instinctual way in which he said the nickname quickened Kurt's heartbeat. "What- what are you doing here? What happened?"

Wes and David were clearly staring at what remained of his clothes, at the burns on his face and arms and legs, at his bleeding knees. He was a mess, to put it bluntly, and he couldn't inspire much power. But Blaine- Blaine was staring at him with such an awed expression that Kurt felt as if he was wearing gold and silk and Myrish lace. He felt more beautiful and more powerful in that single moment than how he'd felt in all the days spent in Meereen, surrounded by servants and cupbearers, showered with gifts and compliments.

How could I ever think I could live without him?, he wondered in a silent reproach to himself.

And he realized he couldn't wait a moment longer.

"I forgot to tell you something" he replied, quietly walking toward Blaine in a half-limp. He stopped in front of him and cupped his face sweetly, staring into his eyes, whose golden shade got darker and darker as the sun melted under the horizon.

Blaine pried his hands away from his face, but just before Kurt could feel hurt for it, he felt Blaine's hands slowly caressing his cheeks.

"You're hurt" Blaine pointed out, his thumbs brushing soot away from his cheekbones and forehead, carefully avoiding the still tingling burn Drogon's scales had left on Kurt's skin.

"It's nothing" Kurt sighed contentedly, feeling Blaine's fingers brushing his dirty hair away from his eyes, where the wind had inevitably pushed them during the flight. "It will all go away, my sun-and-stars."

Blaine's movements stopped at that, his breath itching.

"What is it, that you forgot to tell me?" he asked then, tilting his head to the side. Kurt clutched at one of his hands and turned his face slightly to kiss his palm.

"That I have forgiven you. That I'm sorry I almost gave up on you. That those last days spent together weren't to get you out of my system; they were to cherish you and keep you close and feel you in my arms and tattoo you over my heart because I love you, and it was so stupid of me to think I could live without you because I can't, I can't, and I don't care what's going to happen, I don't care the trouble this will lead to, I just-"

Blaine's lips cut him off before he could finish, and suddenly he didn't even know what he wanted to say in the first place. Quick frantic kisses landed on his mouth, leaving him breathless, and Oh, yes, this is it, this is what I would sacrifice the world for, he thought.

"I love you so much" Blaine whispered between hard kisses, his hands holding Kurt's head almost painfully tight, but it wasn't as if Kurt cared. "So fucking much, you know that, right? You know I never stopped, do you? Even when I said those things, even then, I-"

"I know, Blaine, I know" Kurt soothed, trying to calm him down. The answer seemed to reassure Blaine for a moment, but then he frowned.

"You- you're sure this is what you want? I told you I want you to be happy. If you felt like you belonged there, you should-"

Kurt was reminded of Blaine's words during the conversation with Finn, and even though that would reveal his presence on the terrace, he felt the need to say it.

"I don't want thrones and marble courts and fancy weddings, if I can't have you."

Blaine's mouth opened in shock.

"You- you heard me? On the terrace?" the khal inquired.

"I did" Kurt simply said, giving him a small smile. "And I don't want you to think those things ever again. Your behavior was unfair, but you- you will always be enough for me. And no man will ever take your place in my heart, my sun-and-stars. Never."

The mention of another man seemed to sadden Blaine; despite Kurt's reassurance, his face distorted in a mixture of hurt and quiet anger.

"He didn't touch you, did he?" he asked in a broken plea. "You said you wouldn't let him, but that's what people do on wedding nights. You didn't let him, did you? You promised, moon of my life, you promised."

"Of course I didn't" Kurt answered in a half-laugh, giving Blaine a quick peck on the lips. "I told you, there is you, only you."

Somehow, Blaine didn't look convinced.

"But did he- did he tried?" he asked, voice breaking on the last word.

Kurt knew that, if he gave the wrong answer, Adam Crawford would be a dead man soon. Like almost everything related to Blaine, it was disturbing and flattering at the same time – to know the awful things Blaine would do for him, and how jealous he was of him in such a passionate, possessive way that still managed not to be offending or objectifying. After all, Kurt felt like he belonged to Blaine, but that didn't make him any less than what he was. He had belonged to him since the day Sebastian had sold him in marriage, but it was different then, because inside Kurt didn't feel it. Now, he belonged to Blaine because he chose to.

Sebastian – or the part of Kurt's mind that had decided to conjure him up – could think whatever he wanted. Love wasn't his weakness. It was his strength.

"He didn't" he said, trying to convey the message by staring straight into Blaine's eyes. "Nothing happened, I swear."

Blaine relaxed visibly. He leaned forward to kiss Kurt again, but just before their lips could touch, Drogon shifted soundly on the ground, making them both jump. Kurt guessed he had been moving and grumbling all along from behind him, but they had been too busy to notice.

"What about Drogon?" Blaine asked then, looking at the dragon out of the corner of his eye, his tone pierced with worry. "Did you really ride him?"

"I did" Kurt confirmed, turning around to peer at the black beast for a moment. Drogon's black eyes were narrowed and fixed on Wes and David, as if deciding whether he liked them or not.

"How?" Blaine said in an awed voice. "I never thought I would ever say this about something, but I swear to the Stallion, he scares the shit out of me."

Kurt couldn't help but chuckle at that.

"It's a long story" he grinned, staring at Blaine's bloodriders as they tried to look calm and collected in the presence of their khal, when in fact they had to be terrified. "I'll tell you after a bath, inside your tent. I'm so tired."

Blaine smiled.

"I can definitely help you with that."

They made to leave, but of course, Drogon protested loudly when Kurt took the first steps away from him. He hissed and beat the ground with his tail, probably wondering where the Hells Kurt was going without telling him. It was endearing, in a way, if not for the fact that his anger could reduce them all to ash.

"It's okay" Kurt said as he rushed to him, petting his nose. "I will be back, I promise. Just wait for me here."

The khalasar had too many horses and too many people, who would freak out as soon as they saw the dragon; plus, he had given up on hunting to help Kurt find Blaine, which meant that he must be quite hungry.

"Have your bloodriders bring him something to eat" he told Blaine then. "Just to be sure."

The look Wes and David shared was something he would never forget.

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This time around, it was Blaine who washed Kurt's body as he lay in a bathtub with his eyes closed, head leaning back against the rim. He cleaned the burns of the sand and dirt stuck to them, washed his hair sweetly and thoroughly, dried him up and bandaged his knees. They ended up on the furs Blaine used to sleep – not the same they had shared in the beginning, but so similar to them that it warmed Kurt's heart to lay on them, feel how soft they were under his sore limbs after hours spent on Drogon's hard and scorching hot body.

He told Blaine everything, from the dragon's arrival in Dazhnak's Pit to his discovery in the Dothraki Sea. When he was done, Blaine looked speechless.

"Blood? It has been your blood all along?" he asked.

"Pretty obvious now that I think about it" Kurt mumbled, shrugging. A comfortable silence settled over them. The night was quiet and still. Kurt closed his eyes, feeling himself drifting slowly toward sleep. His body ached all over in that pleasant way only a healing bath could provide, and he just needed to sleep it away.

"So... what now?" Blaine said suddenly, bringing him back to reality. Kurt opened his eyes and found him staring at him intently, his head perched on his hand. He opened his mouth to voice his intentions, but he realized there was something very important he needed to ask first.

"Do you still want to?" he asked quietly, afraid to wake up the night. "Do you still want to help me take back what is mine?"

Blaine nodded.

"That has never been the issue. Our detour in Slaver's Bay was" he replied.

Kurt paused, taking in the answer. He honestly didn't know what he would have done, if Blaine had said no.

"It's easy, then" he said after a while. "We free my dragons. We give them my blood. And then we go home."