The red priest's words haunted Kurt for many days after they set sail from Braavos, hopefully heading to Sunspear without any further interruption. The excitement of the trip was tainted by them, dulled, unreal, and the words gnawed at him even though he kept telling himself that they didn't actually mean anything. Thinking back to the House of the Undying in Qarth, where he had refused to look beyond the door that would have shown him his future, he found himself almost regretting it. At least he wouldn't have to wonder now. At least he would know.

But did he really want to know?

He meant to keep his worries to himself, but they became so loud inside his head that he realized he wasn't able to listen to anything else. He was always distracted, asking people what they were saying or ignoring them altogether. Until one day – night, actually – it all came to the surface. Kurt was sitting cross-legged on the bed of the cabin he shared with Blaine, who was in the middle of pulling off his boots and trousers to join him. The ship creaked and swayed from side to side, forcing Blaine to plant his hand against the wooden wall to support himself, one unlaced boot hanging loosely from his lifted foot.

"Do people actually live on these things?" he asked dramatically, closing his eyes for a moment as he waited for the rocking movement to subside a little. "I swear, I'd rather-"

"I think you should go home" Kurt blurted out all of a sudden, his eyes staring at a random point beyond Blaine's head, where a large glass window allowed the moonlight in. It saved him the hurt of seeing Blaine's face change, even though he could picture it perfectly.

"What?" Blaine asked, straightening his back and putting his hands on his hips. "You basically begged me not to when we were in Pentos."

Kurt had promised himself, back in Meereen, that he would have it all: love and wealth and power, whatever he wanted, whatever the world had to offer him. But what if Sebastian had been right after all? What if he had to choose? But not between love and power - between Blaine's love and Blaine's life. What then? Would he take a few more months with him, knowing his husband's death would somehow allow him to have what he wanted?

And so his next words came out ungrateful and mean; Kurt knew they did. They were also false. But if he said the truth, Blaine would never listen to him. The legend of Azor Ahai came back to him then, with Blaine replacing the hero's wife, a sword buried in his chest to take his life and his beautiful soul away from him and make the steel stronger. Kurt's goal - Kurt's sword, so to speak - was the Iron Throne. He cringed, curling in a ball on the mattress to hug his knees and prop his chin on them, still avoiding Blaine's eyes – he just couldn't say it to his face.

Coward.

"I just... I can control the dragons now, and Sam is going to give me his army, too. Combined with the Titans, the Unsullied, the Brazen Beasts and possibly the Northmen, that's plenty of people. I don't think I'll need your khalasar after all."

A long silent pause stretched between them after that. Kurt could feel Blaine looking at him as if it burned on his skin – because it did. He clung to the lie, hoping Blaine wouldn't see through it, and hoping he would at the same time. In fact, as much as we deny it, a great part of love is actually quite selfish. It begs lovers to forgive even when they shouldn't, begs them to stay even when it would be better for them to go. It binds lives so tight to one another that at one point it's impossible for them not to twine around each other, so much so that the only way for them to separate is to cut the bond altogether.

And it hurts, to cut the bond, because you have to rip off a part of yourself in the process.

"You think I don't know what you're doing, don't you?" Blaine murmured as he slowly walked toward the bed, making Kurt turn his head away. "You think I don't know you well enough by now?"

"I'm not doing anything" Kurt replied, as sternly as his quivering voice allowed him. He felt the bed dip under Blaine's weight.

"It's about what the priest said, isn't it?" the Khal asked, a little more gently.

"No" Kurt whispered, jaw locked tight. His nails dug into the skin of his legs when he forced himself to speak again. "I just... I don't want you here."

Another pause.

"You can't even look at me as you say it."

A hand reached out to cup his chin, startling him. In spite of that, he turned his face following the gentle pull of it, until he found himself staring into Blaine's hazel eyes, so much closer than he would have thought.

"Say it. Say you don't want me here" Blaine urged fervently, their gazes locked. "Say you don't love me."

"Blaine" Kurt begged, squirming in his grip, trying to get away – because that, he could not say. He pried Blaine's hand away from his face and shifted backwards on the bed. "Of course I love you. It's because I love you."

"Kurt, that was bullshit and you know it" Blaine said, unnervingly calm and convinced of it. "Why are you letting a lunatic old man get to you so much?"

"What if he wasn't a lunatic? What if his words were true?" Kurt replied, meeting Blaine's gaze and holding it this time.

"They weren't."

"What if they were?"

Blaine gave a nervous, bitter chuckle, looking up at the vaulted low ceiling for an instant.

"Well, it's not up to you anyway" he concluded after his brief reflection. "You can't just send me back to the Dothraki Sea as if nothing has ever happened. I won't let you."

Those were the moments when Kurt hated and loved Blaine's stubbornness the most.

"I can't let you risk your life for me" he whispered.

"I have been risking my life for you all along, and you seemed fine with it" Blaine replied, raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms over his chest.

"That was before I was told I will have to sacrifice someone to win!" Kurt explained exasperatedly, raising his hands in the air. "I'd rather know you safe and alive a million miles away from me than dead."

"You know I'm not afraid of death" Blaine pointed out, his expression turning serious, his voice almost solemn in his statement.

"Well, I am! Of your death!" Kurt retorted loudly, because how could he not get it? "Blaine, he said-"

"Fuck what he said!" Blaine burst, crawling forward to take Kurt's face in his hands, his palms warm against the soft skin of Kurt's cheeks, squeezing in the most delicious way, blocking out everything else. "Fuck what he said! Fuck him and his God and his prophecies! Fuck everyone else in this fucking world!"

Kurt knew he'd lost his battle the moment he made the terrible mistake to look down at Blaine's lips for a fraction of a second. The next second, in fact, he was grabbing Blaine's face in return and kissing him, hard and desperate and whining in the back of his throat. Blaine was startled by it in the beginning – Kurt could feel his gasp of surprise before it got swallowed in the kiss, crashed between their tongues – but he caught up soon enough, humming in approval as Kurt pulled his head back by his curls to angle it as he liked. He let Kurt have his way for a while, letting Kurt's tongue claim the inside of his mouth and Kurt's teeth bite into his bottom lip, until he decided it was time to fight back.

They did that, sometimes – the fighting. They passed power and control and dominance back and forth between themselves as they did in life, letting the other one think he had won just to prove him wrong the following instant, pushing each other against walls in a bumping dance of angry kisses and biting nails and satisfied grins hidden against each other's skin.

This time, Blaine got hold of his legs and slid them from underneath him, leading him to lie back with the sudden weight of his body on top of Kurt's. He let them go only to grip Kurt's wrists and pin them on either side of his head, forcing his lower body down with his, the hard friction of their groins making Kurt crane his neck up to beg for a kiss.

"You can't just say things like that and then have your way with me" Blaine told him with a devilish grin, his head just inches away from Kurt's, hips shifting down hard as if to punish him and lips just barely out of reach.

"I'm sorry" Kurt whimpered, even though he didn't know how much of that was due to his raging lust. He knew, in a remote part of his mind, that the conversation couldn't be over like that – he still had doubts and worries, and he was afraid of what the prophecy could mean. Sex would not erase that. There was no harm in putting it aside for a little while, though.

"I don't think you're really sorry. You wanted to leave me. Wanted to throw me away as if I didn't-"

"It was for your own good" Kurt insisted, fingers opening and closing around air as Blaine held him down. He could feel his pulse against Blaine's palms, and the firm sharp pressure sent a shiver of pure want down his spine.

"You forgot something very important" Blaine reproached him, leaning down as if to grant Kurt the kiss he ached for only to nip at his ear, lingering there to whisper his next words. "You're mine. And if I have to die, so be it. I'll die for you. I'd die a thousand times for you."

With a strength Kurt didn't know he had, he pushed up hard against Blaine's grip, catching him by surprise; the advantage allowed him to reverse their positions and pin Blaine's wrists against the mattress instead. They both knew that if Blaine wanted, he could easily push Kurt off his body. They also knew he wasn't going to, at least not for a while.

"You are mine" Kurt breathed against Blaine's lips, heat coiling in his belly at the way Blaine's eyes darkened, his legs wrapping around Kurt's waist immediately to lock them close together – his way of surrendering, of letting Kurt know he'd won the fight this time.

"Show me, then" Blaine challenged him, craning his neck forward to try and bite at Kurt's lips.

It had turned out, in fact, that Blaine loved to be on the receiving end of lovemaking. They alternated the roles quite equally, but it seemed to Kurt that every time he fucked Blaine, his husband let himself go in a different way – raw and honest, surrendering to something he had never allowed himself to feel before. He got more desperate begging Kurt to fuck him than he got when he had to take Kurt, hips shifting down impatiently toward the pressure of Kurt's fingers until Kurt told him to be careful, told him not to hurt himself in his hurry. It was thrilling to Kurt, giving him a new kind of power he hadn't known he would like so much.

With a parting kiss to Blaine's lips – way too brief for Blaine's liking, judging by his whine of disapproval – he slid down his body to pull off the boots and trousers Blaine had tried to get rid of in the beginning. When he turned around, after discarding them on the floor of the sweetly rocking cabin, he couldn't help but lean down to drop a kiss to Blaine's cock, grinning when he felt Blaine's hand threading in his hair immediately, tender and demanding at the same time as it pushed his head down. He let himself be guided, reveling in the weight and taste he'd grown to love, his own hips grinding down automatically against the mattress at the jolts of pleasure he felt every time Blaine moaned for him, with him, because of him, pushing his head until it was all the way down.

He pulled his mouth away long enough to lick and suck at three of his fingers, Blaine's dark gaze fixed on him the entire time.

"Kurt, come on" Blaine urged, already starting to beg, and as much as Kurt liked to hear him do that, he lowered his head again to keep sucking at Blaine's cock while simultaneously pushing two of his slicked-up fingers inside him.

"Fuck, yes" Blaine breathed, dragging the 's' of the last word, his body pliant and loose as Kurt played it like an instrument. He couldn't help but look up as he pushed his head down and his fingers more deeply in at the same time, stroking against Blaine's favorite spot with relentless insistence, watching Blaine's mouth open around a gasp and his head shifting back against the pillows, baring the tendons of his neck.

"More, need more, need you" Blaine complained, wrenching Kurt's head away from his cock, but Kurt kept pushing his fingers inside, adding the third one to get Blaine used to the stretch. He leaned his face against Blaine's knee as he stared in a trance at the movement of his wrist, panting softly against the dark trembling skin, suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of anguish and fear he could no longer ignore.

"I'm scared" he confessed, and he knew it wasn't the right time to have a heart-to-heart conversation given what they were doing, but Blaine stilled at the words and so did Kurt. "I'm so scared, my sun-and-stars."

Despite the hot craving desperation he must be feeling, Blaine stared at him sweetly and smiled a knowing smile up at him, and Kurt loved him for it.

"Don't be, moon of my life" he said, body visibly fighting to stay still, insides clenching around Kurt as if to hug him. "I'm here, it's okay."

The roles seemed to be reversed once again when Kurt eventually dragged his fingers out of Blaine's body, because it was Blaine who undressed him, Blaine who stroked his cock to get him ready after his erection had died down a little, Blaine who guided him inside with soft encouraging words whispered in his ear that sounded way too praising, but Kurt couldn't bring himself to care – "Good, you feel so good, like that, baby, that's it, you're so good" –; it was Blaine who held him as he thrust, setting the pace with words or moans or gentle presses of his heels against Kurt's lower back.

"I can't do it without you" Kurt told the sweat-slicked skin of Blaine's neck, Blaine's hand holding him there as the other one scraped at his back in raptures of pleasure. "If something should happen to you, I-"

"It won't" Blaine whispered, lifting Kurt's head suddenly to meet him in a slow, languorous kiss that seemed to last forever, until Kurt felt the beginning of a dry sob escaping his throat. Blaine felt it too, because he hugged Kurt tighter and his heels forced Kurt's hips to go deeper, making Kurt's eyes roll back in his head at the feeling – distracting him, concentrating on Kurt's pleasure rather than his own.

"Shh, don't cry, don't cry" Blaine told him, both his hands coming up to cup Kurt's face and hold him still as he pressed a hard, dry kiss to his mouth, breathing harshly against it and squeezing almost painfully around Kurt's sharp thrusts, choking back a moan. He was close, Kurt realized.

"Let go, Blaine" he told him apologetically, feeling as if he wasn't giving Blaine what he deserved. He sneaked a hand between their bodies to touch him, but Blaine shook his head.

"You first" he said, jaw locked tight in his effort to restrain himself, his body all rigid under Kurt's. "You first, please. Need you to."

It was hard to let go, because it felt like falling, down down down in a vortex of twisted wrong images he didn't want to see. The second between coming and realizing he had was a panicked one, gripped in a vice of fear at the thought of opening his eyes and finding himself alone, without Blaine there to hold him. But Blaine was there, whispering nonsensical cooing praises at him, until Kurt found the strength to do what Blaine needed and pleasure him with his hand until he came as well, shuddering in his arms.

He pulled out but stayed close, ignoring the stickiness between them, sprawling on top of Blaine and nuzzling at his neck. He sighed contentedly as Blaine circled his waist with one arm, the other one caressing his spine in a slow, feather-like drag of fingertips from the nape of his neck all the way to the cleft of his ass, making him want to purr like a cat at the sweet yet achingly possessive gesture.

"I'm scared too, you know" he heard Blaine whisper after a while. Surprised, Kurt lifted his head to peer at him, chin resting on his joined hands over Blaine's chest.

"You said you're not afraid of death" he pointed out, a mixture of mockery and tenderness in his voice.

"I'm not" Blaine confirmed, eyes shining like diamonds thanks to the moonlight. "I was taught not to. But I had never thought about what death means. That's what I'm scared of. Leaving you alone in a world so full of evil, staring down at you without being able to do anything but that."

"I thought you didn't believe what that man said" Kurt reflected, cocking his head to the side.

"I honestly don't" Blaine told him earnestly, his fingers unstoppable in their deliberately slow mapping. "But it doesn't mean it didn't get me thinking."

Kurt nodded and closed his eyes for a moment, reveling in the feeling. Soon enough, they wouldn't have nights as quiet as that, with the sea lulling them to sleep. It would be horns and cries of war, wounded men dying, and the clatter of steel on steel as soldiers trained all through the night instead.

"So what do we do?" he asked, looking at Blaine again sort of helplessly, as if Blaine's eyes held all the secrets of the world.

"We go on" his husband simply said, sounding way older and wiser than he was. "We keep going, until we don't."

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Kurt's first impression of Westeros was that it didn't look all that different from Essos, all things considered. Miles and miles of sand seemed to stretch on either side of Sunspear, whose only walls were those encircling its castle – which was sand-colored, too. The city itself was a seemingly never-ending sprawling agglomeration of mud brick hovels, many of them roofless or windowless, all squeezed against one another in a maze of narrow streets that opened unexpectedly into wide square plazas hosting multicolored, spice-smelling bazaars that could easily pass for Volantene or Qartheen markets. The smell was different, though – instead of jasmine and lily and rosewater, he felt his nostrils invaded by the strongest smells he had ever encountered, burning in his nose and eyes without the need to taste whatever was producing them. It was exotic in a new kind of way, lacking the atmosphere of purity and delicateness that seemed to linger even in the dirtiest corners of the East, a continent he liked to associate with the powdered nose of a woman: beautiful and posed, yet hiding so many flaws underneath the coverage.

In that, Dorne seemed different: more honest, more passionate, more real somehow. No man was being carried on a heavy golden palanquin; no man was in chains. People were free. And maybe they were poor, but all Kurt saw as he looked around from his horse was men and women smiling and bowing at the return of their prince, who was greeting them with waves of his hand as he led the column of horses through the city and to his castle. There were people staring at Kurt, too, narrowing their eyes as if trying to remember him, and Kurt couldn't help but wonder if they saw something of his mother in him, if those brief flickers of recognition he managed to glimpse here and there meant that they had understood who he was.

The loud noises of the bazaar and the brightly colored roof mats that shielded the stalls from the sun made the dragons pass unseen to the merchants and clients crowding it, their bodies too high in the sky and the flapping sound of their wings too far to cover yells and laughs and greetings down on earth. One every twenty people or so, though, someone happened to look up for a random reason and spot them; Kurt saw them stopping whatever they were doing suddenly, only to look back at him in a different, more conscious way, because then, they knew. His Hummelsmythe blood came from his father, it was true, but everyone in Dorne must know the story of the Dornish queen dying of childbed as she gave birth to his second son, with dragon blood probably flowing in his veins, and of the two boys being forced to flee the country after their father's murder by treason.

And what he saw in their eyes, instead of fear or hate, was pure wonder. While the eastern vision of dragons would always be tainted by the memory of the Valyrian empire, which had colonized most of it and killed entire populations in the process, Westerosi people saw only the best of them. There had been no gloomy grandparent telling children stories of their ancestors' tragic deaths, because the only dragons Westeros had ever seen were the three owned by Aegon the Conqueror, perfectly tamed for battle when he and his sisters rode them above King's Landing. It was one thing to read of cities turned into smoking ashes, another thing to have a loved one tell you the story in detail, as fuzzy and unreliable as it could be. Kurt knew a little colony of Rhoynar survivors lived along the Green Blood, a river flowing south of Sunspear, but they were the only ones who could know a little of Valyrian history and maybe hold some resentment toward the dragonlords.

A fresh start, he thought, his heart lighter, temporarily free of his dark worries.

As exotic as the place seemed, he realized most people had a very clear complexion, like Sam's or his own. Blaine might belong more to the environment when it came to appearance, but as a matter of fact, there seemed to be no one with skin darker than his. It felt like walking through an eastern city, but populated solely by Westerosi people.

"I thought Dornishmen were mostly dark-skinned" he told Finn, who was riding to his left with Rachel's arms wrapped securely around his middle from behind. Sure enough, both Sam and Kurt's mother – from what he had seen in the vision of the House of the Undying – weren't, but he had assumed they were a minority.

"It's a common stereotype, khalees, since Dorne is in the south" Finn replied. "Western Dornishmen tend to be darker than Eastern Dornishmen, but not darker than Dothraki, for that matter."

"I see. And... what's with all the snakes?" Kurt inquired, voice lowered almost to a whisper. He'd learned that it was never wise to sound dubious about things particularly loved or appreciated in a culture, and judging by the number of living snakes he was seeing on the stalls, shown to clients to be sold as pets or summoned by snake charmers out of circular wicker baskets, those animals surely were. He didn't want to upset or offend his cousin in any way.

"Dornishmen have a thing for snakes" Finn replied in the same low tone, a conspiratorial grin on his face. "I guess you could compare it to Dothraki's love for horses."

"Don't even go there, Finn" Blaine said from Kurt's right with a skeptical tone, having heard the conversation despite the volume they had been keeping. Kurt gave him an amused look, before turning back to Finn.

"Tell me about it."

"They are masters at extracting poison from them. People in Westeros say that they fight with poisoned swords and spears, too, which is not well seen, but I don't really know about that" Finn explained in a light tone, shrugging, before looking at Sam out of the corner of his eye to be sure he wasn't paying attention. "They call your cousin the White Viper of Dorne, because of a tourney he attended to when he was younger. He unsaddled another knight while jousting, but the point of his spear wounded the guy, superficially. Nothing serious. The next day, however, he fell ill, and died within the week."

"That doesn't prove anything" Kurt said, unconvinced. "Besides, how do you even know these things if you've just met him?"

"Knights like to talk with other knights, and he brought plenty to Pentos. I made my research."

"You did good" Sam told them out of the blue, peering at them from over his shoulder and making Kurt jump on his saddle, cheeks reddening in embarrassment. "It's all true."

"It is?" Kurt asked, surprised at Sam's honesty. His cousin nodded.

"It's good luck, to coat a spear or sword point in snake poison. If someone happens to get wounded by it, well, I guess it's bad luck for them. It's something the rest of Westeros just doesn't get. But I like the nickname, by the way. It's... I don't know, intimidating."

"I'll remember never to train with you, then" Blaine told him, visibly impressed by the Dornish view. It had something of the Dothraki superficiality regarding human life, now that Kurt thought about it.

They all laughed, and Sam looked back in front of him to lead the way. After a pause, Kurt decided to tell Finn something else.

"I also... expected it to be different. Westeros, I mean."

It wasn't like he was disappointed, to be honest, but he couldn't help but wonder. Where were the vast green plains Sebastian had been blabbering on about, complaining about the heat and lack of vegetation that had accompanied them in their exile? Where were the mountains and rivers and waterfalls he'd promised he would take Kurt to see? Were those lies as well? Was there something he had been honest about?

"It is different" Sam told him, turning around again briefly. "Dorne is just... something else."

"As we go north, you'll see what he means" Finn assured him, smiling. "It gets cooler in the center. Highgarden is full of valleys and woods blooming with flowers – that's why the symbol of the Tyrell family is a rose. Riverrun is a land of lakes and ponds and rivers – that's why the symbol of the Tully family is a trout. King's Landing is warmer, because it's on the sea, but overall you can say it gets colder and colder until you find yourself in Winterfell, and colder still beyond the Wall, in the Land of Always Winter."

"God, all this talk of places is giving me a headache" Blaine complained, rolling his eyes. Kurt couldn't help but chuckle at his choice of words; talk of places was Blaine's own definition of geography, and it made him laugh every time he heard it.

"Where is the Bear Island, where you're from?" Rachel asked Finn with curiosity, missing the way Finn's expression shifted at the mention of his abandoned home. "I want you to take me there as soon as we can!"

"It belongs to the North, it's along the western coast" he told her – Kurt could see him struggling not to sound sad. "I don't... I don't know who holds it at the moment."

"Lady Carole Hudson" Sam said conversationally, not turning around this time. He probably didn't know he was talking about Finn's mother, because Finn hadn't told him his surname.

"She- she's alive?" Finn said, looking at Kurt as if searching for a confirmation in his eyes. "I... I thought he had killed her."

"Who, the King?" Sam asked, oblivious. "I think he blamed her son for denying his loyalty and leaving. The island resisted for a while, but when the Claringtons obtained the alliance of the rest of the North, she had to surrender and accept Hunter as king – as everybody else was forced to do, anyway. Something no one is proud of, I think."

Finn looked pale, so much so that Kurt started to fear he would faint and fall off his horse.

"Is- is she riding with the King in the North now? In the rebellion?" the knight asked hesitantly, staring at the back of the Dornish prince's head.

"Her army is, but I don't think she left her seat. Most lords did the same, apart from those very close to the beheaded Lord of Winterfell."

"You can go to her, if you want" Kurt whispered to him, leading his horse closer to Finn's as they rode forward, Sunspear's castle looming in front of them now. "Really, you should go."

"No, I- I made a vow" Finn protested, even though Kurt could sense that a part of him was hesitating. "I promised her I would find King Burt's sons and help them have their revenge. I'll go after you win."

"Finn, I won't think any less of you" Kurt insisted, turning to the right to search Blaine's eyes and find confirmation there. "We won't think any less of you."

"At least think about it, honey" Rachel joined the invitation. Finn nodded silently, closing in his inner world for the rest of the ride. Kurt thought better than to disturb him. He had no right to.

The huge expanse of houses and hovels was basically attached to the walls of the castle, which meant that he realized they were at its gate only at the last moment. Stretching more in height than width, the keep had an elegance in its lines and curves that Kurt was sure he would not find in the typical grey stone fortresses of the rest of the continent. It was made up of various towers, thrusting up into the sky like the fingers of a hand; the main one, in the center, was taller than the others and ended in a lean spear made out of what looked like steel.

Sam made them leave their horses in the outward yard, instructing servants to take them to the stables and tend to them. He pointed at a second wall that separated them from the actual structure of the castle.

"The inner yard is bigger than this one" he told Kurt, gesturing for them to follow him. "I was thinking you could put the dragons there, if you want. I'll tell the servants they have nothing to fear."

"Thank you" Kurt said as they entered the mentioned yard, instinctively looking up at the sky. His dragons were flying in a circle above the towers, like silent vultures waiting for their prey to die. He stared until one of them caught his gaze, realizing he meant to order them something.

It still amazed him to look at the three of them at the same time, thinking back to when they could fit in the palm of his hand. Drogon was bigger, and always would be – the price his two other children were paying for his mistakes. That hurt, but he was getting used to it.

"Stay here, and behave" he told them after they had landed all around him, immediately seeking his attention, pushing gently at his body with their noses. Kurt knew he had spent too many days riding his horse for their liking, and he intended to make up for it.

Once inside, they all went to wash and change their clothes to get rid of the sand and sweat clinging to their skins, and then Blaine, Kurt and Finn met with Sam again to eat inside a beautiful lunchroom with marble floors and a glass-domed roof. The rest of Kurt's captains, as well as Blaine's bloodriders, were with the army in the military camp prepared for them behind the castle, where the city ended. Kurt felt guilty from time to time, knowing he always dined and slept in the best places while they lived the hard uncomfortable part of their journey, but no castle in the world could host them all, and there had to be someone in charge while he dealt with the technical, political aspects of their mission.

"So, before I send the message to the King in the North, do you want me to write to someone else?" Sam asked as they ate, chewing noisily around a mouthful in a very not-princely way.

"Who should we write to?" Kurt asked him, frowning.

"I don't know, everyone. Announce you're back, see how many Lords would be willing to join your cause."

"That would mean no surprise effect" Finn reflected, stroking at his chin. "Those who say no will surely report it back to the Iron Throne."

"Surprise effect?" Sam asked, suppressing a laugh. "There is no such thing as 'surprise effect' when you carry around three dragons the size of warships. The people living on the coast may not have seen our fleet, but they sure as Hells have seen them. We can keep your exact position a secret, but not the fact that you have landed."

"He has a point, Kurt" Blaine interjected, pointing at Sam with his fork. "You should try and get all the help you can."

"Let me just... think about it. This is an important move" Kurt concluded after a brief pause, taking a sip of water. "In the meantime, write to this King in the North."

"Will do."

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"I don't think this is a good idea, Kurt" Blaine announced, his hands on his hips as he looked at the dragons coiled silently around themselves on the ground, three oversized lizards bathing lazily in the sun. Each one of them peered at him in turn, big reptile eyes opening and closing uninterestedly as if checking if he was still there, and nothing more.

"Come on, just give it a try, my sun-and-stars" Kurt told him gently, adding the term of endearment to sweeten him up.

"Don't call me that just to convince me" Blaine reprimanded him, unmasking Kurt's plan. "It won't work."

"You two sound like an old married couple" Sam commented, crossing his arms over his chest and stifling a laugh. "Come on, let's get to it!"

"See? He's so enthusiastic" Kurt told Blaine, gesturing at Sam for emphasis. "Follow his example."

As they waited for the answer to Sam's letter, they had had three big leather-and-iron saddles built. Kurt had already tried his on Drogon's back to see if it unsettled him in any way – it didn't – and how long it could resist to the heat: the straps that tied it around the dragon's belly would have to be changed once in a while, because the constant friction with his body made them thinner and thinner, but the saddle was perfect, combined with protective gloves that Sam and Blaine would have to wear.

"All those worries about a stupid nonsensical prophecy, but you don't have to think twice before putting me on a fire-spitting dragon one hundred feet above the ground" Blaine mumbled, trying for sarcastic but ending up sounding sort of childish. "What if this is what it meant? Uh? Me crushed under Viserion's body?"

"Don't joke about that! It's not funny" Kurt reproached him, fixing him with a serious stare. "Nothing will happen to you, he will make sure of it. He saved your life, remember?"

That got Blaine to calm down a little, eyes looking at his feet as if in shame.

"Yeah."

"Do you want me to ride with you? Or do you want me to follow you on top of Drogon?"

"Ride Drogon" Blaine decided. "If I do this, I do it on my own."

Kurt rolled his eyes.

"Okay" he conceded. "Sam, I'll do the same with you and Rhaegal when we're done."

"Fine" his cousin said, looking disappointed. "Then I'll stay here and enjoy the show."

Kurt took Blaine's gloved hand and slowly led him in front of Viserion's immobile pearly white figure. His nostrils flared at Kurt's unmistakable smell, red eyes opening at his presence. He lifted his head from where he was resting it on his coiled tail and cocked it to the side, almost like a curious cat would have done.

"This is Blaine. You know him. You can trust him" Kurt reminded him for good measure. "Let him ride you now. Obey to him, as you would obey to me."

Viserion's gaze shifted to Blaine then, taking in his appearance. He craned his long scaled neck forward to sniff at him, as if making sure Kurt was talking about the right person. Blaine flinched, but he didn't move. To show fear in that moment would probably lead the dragon not to trust his judgment, so Kurt was thankful for the fact that Blaine hid it well.

"He recognizes you" he told Blaine, gently putting his hand on top of Viserion's nose, and for an instant he was back in the Dothraki Sea, the small white dragon dozing on his shoulder until Blaine petted his head hesitantly.

Blaine grew bolder as the seconds passed, walking alongside the creature's body to stroke at his head and neck all the way to where the saddle had already been secured around his belly by Kurt. He heaved a long breath.

"Let's do this."

Only when he was safely sitting on the saddle Kurt climbed on top of Drogon, who was facing Viserion in the yard as they both rested silently. The two dragons looked at each other as if acknowledging the importance of the moment, and Kurt and Blaine did the same from atop their backs. If Kurt thought about it from the outside, it was surreal and absolutely crazy.

Since Blaine was a fantastic horse rider, Kurt had already given him the basics, and he was sure he would be great. If he just let the fear go, he knew perfectly well how to communicate his feelings to the animals, how to be authoritative without being unfair, how to praise them and reproach them when it was needed. Kurt reminded him how to make the dragon take to the sky – a kick to the flank, just like with a horse – in case Blaine was too nervous to remember, but Blaine told him he was ready.

It was something Kurt would never forget, the sight of Viserion leaving the ground with Blaine on top of him. It felt like a fantasy coming to life, so absurd that it took more than a couple of seconds for him to realize that he had to follow him, that he wasn't just daydreaming. Together, they left the castle and flew high in the sky, the dragons close to each other, wings almost touching as they flapped up and down, keeping them still in the air.

"How does it feel?" Kurt shouted, his hair constantly getting in his eyes, forcing him to push them back as he spoke.

"It's... I don't know..." Blaine shouted back, looking down at the city and gripping Viserion's scales more tightly in sudden panic. "Oh, God."

"Don't look down" Kurt told him. "Imagine you're riding. Where do you look when you're riding?"

"Forward. I look forward" Blaine said almost to himself, gaining confidence.

Kurt taught him how to fly in a straight line, how to turn left and right, how to make the dragon fly higher or lower. He kept the most terrifying stuff – twirls and flying upside down – for another time, afraid they would freak Blaine out. And slowly, hesitantly, Blaine learned how to lead and Viserion learned how to be led.

After yet another successful turn to the side, Blaine raised his hands in the air for the first time, releasing the strong grip he had kept on Viserion's neck the entire time, and exclaimed around a liberating laugh, "This is amazing!"

"It is! I told you!" Kurt shouted at him, smiling and laughing with him.

And as they flew they fell in love with the sky and kissed the clouds and looked down at a world that had never mattered less.