The time they spent in Sunspear was lighthearted and careless – maybe too lighthearted and careless. Kurt knew he should feel worried about what was coming, and deep down, he probably was; he just didn't act on it. Somehow, he managed to enjoy the thin bubble of safety the place made him feel enveloped by, and he even stopped thinking about the red priest's prophecy.

We keep going, until we don't, Blaine had said, and Kurt realized he had come to accept it without even knowing exactly how.

So they spent their days doing what they knew they wouldn't have the time to do soon enough: they ate slowly, savoring every bite – Kurt, at least, since Blaine just didn't seem to know how to do that basically –; they strolled through the vibrant green interior gardens of Sam's palace or through the noisy bazaars of the Dornish capital, buying silly and mostly useless gifts for each other; they made love slow and long and sweet all through the night until they couldn't go on even if they wanted to.

One of their daylight strolls once led them into a quiet, peaceful garden with a fountain in the middle, surrounded by an arched corridor through which they could look at it without actually stepping inside. There were benches and swing-sets covered in vines, and at least a dozen girls wearing bright fluttery dresses and matching veils to cover their noses and mouths. They all gasped and flinched back at the sight of Kurt and Blaine, hiding behind trees and pillars and hedges, their blushes obvious despite the silk concealing their cheeks.

"Don't worry, my ladies" Sam said, appearing beside his cousin from out of nowhere and winking. "You're not their type."

Only then the girls seemed to notice Kurt and Blaine's entwined hands; they giggled, slowly reemerging from behind their hiding places, and went back to doing what they were doing – which was basically sit and chat and enjoy the heat of the sun and the chirping of the birds.

"Are they... are they all yours?" Blaine asked Sam tentatively, awed and wide-eyed.

"They are" Sam confirmed his suspicion, smiling proudly. "Here in Dorne, the prince can have paramours until he decides to take one of them or another woman as his princess. I'm enjoying my youth."

"That's... wow" Kurt concluded lamely, speaking in a hushed voice as if afraid to intrude on the girls' reverent and peaceful way of life. "They are so many."

"Of course, I have a favorite" Sam added, as if that could somehow make Kurt's statement less true. "You see that one, with the blond hair? Her name is Penny. If I had to marry right now, it would be her."

At night, they rode their dragons instead – their dragons, because Kurt just couldn't see them as only his anymore –, preferring darkness to daylight in order to avoid frightening entire villages as Drogon and Viserion flew over them. Thankfully the sky was always clear, allowing the moon to show them the way, its light hitting the creatures' scales and making them look like a myriad of tiny square crystals grazing their fingertips.

Many days were dedicated to Sam and Rhaegal's training; Kurt had thought the dragon would give his cousin a hard time, since he barely knew him, but he figured that, even though Sam didn't have the blood of the dragon, he still had something of Kurt's blood in his – something Rhaegal had known and felt all his life, something he had tasted back in Meereen, something that had allowed Kurt to claim him once and for all eventually. Blaine was better at it (even though Kurt would never say it to Sam's face) but slowly, there was progress for them too.

In those days, since Kurt was busy, Blaine took advantage of it to spend some time with the khalasar. Kurt glimpsed him sometimes as he instructed Sam from Drogon's back high in the air, Blaine riding wildly through the desert, pushing his black thick-legged horse to the limit as a bunch of dark-skinned Dothraki riders followed him, shouting excitedly to spur him on and brandishing their arakhs in the air as if preparing for an upcoming sacking. They missed it. He missed it. There was a part of Kurt, a part that had always been there and probably always would be, that felt sad and guilty for it; but then Blaine showed up for dinner at the castle, all sweaty and dirty as he beamed and bounced and told Kurt about how fast he'd managed to ride that day, and how beautiful the land around Sunspear was, and Thank you, Kurt, I would never have had the chance to see it if it hadn't been for you, and Kurt relaxed and thought It's fine, he's happy.

Just as it had happened in Vaes Tolorro, the ghost city they had found refuge in before going to Qarth, a distant voice in his head whispered to him Let's forget the throne and settle down and grow old like this. Just like he'd done back then, he ignored it and pushed it to the back of his mind.

Eventually, he had let himself be convinced into sending letters to all the other Lords of Westeros, but in the end only one replied.


To His Highness Sam Evans Prince of Dorne

Your Highness, needless is to say that your message was quite unexpected. If my response has taken some time in reaching you, it's because I have put a lot of thought in what you proposed to me – I hope you will understand my concerns and forgive this delay. As you know, I am engaged in a long and wearisome war against the Iron Throne to avenge the murder of my father, so I beg your pardon in advance, once again, for I'm going to be as straight-forward as my lineage allows me to be without sounding disrespectful toward yours.

As much as I cared for my father's person and opinion, I can't base myself exclusively on the latter when it comes to decisions I have to take for the sake of those who are my people now. My old man was very fond of King Burt – may the old gods of the North and the Seven of the Faith grant him peace – but with all due respect to you, I don't know your cousin, King Burt's son. You say he's brave and just like his father was, but blood doesn't make a person; his actions do. Prove of that is the fact that neither our previous king, nor his firstborn, ever owned a dragon. You say he insisted on making a deal with the Iron Bank of Braavos to extinguish our current king's debt in order to weaken him and help us in our purpose, but nothing can prove he didn't do it just to reach his own personal goal, the throne itself. You say he will grant the North the independence we're fighting for after he has achieved it, but my faith in kings' words ran out when my father's head fell off his neck.

Nevertheless, I would be a fool if I said his help does not interest me. It does. I won't turn it down without giving him the chance to show me what kind of person he is, and what kind of king he plans to be.

Therefore I formally invite you, Your Highness Sam Evans Prince of Dorne, your cousin, Kurt Hummelsmythe, and all your entourage, to attend my wedding to Lady Marley of House Rose, which will be held in Riverrun, seat of my lady mother's family, two fortnights from now. I'm looking forward to meet the both of you.

Sincerely,

Ryder Lynn
Lord of Winterfell and King in the North


"He didn't even call you Your Highness" Blaine pointed out with a frown as soon as Kurt stopped reading the letter out loud. For the occasion, he had summoned to the castle Finn, Puck and Grey Worm too, who were currently sitting around a long wooden table in one of the palace's salons.

"Why would he? I'm not the king yet" Kurt reflected, even though he had to admit he felt a little hurt by the artfully concealed spiteful words.

"Well, he nominated himself king, didn't he? He shouldn't be the one to talk" Puck commented, crossing his arms over his chest and sitting back on his chair. They all looked at each other in silence, neither of them able to find a retort to that – which Kurt hated, since it was something coming out of Puck's mouth and he had never liked admitting the sellsword was right.

"What do you think, Grey Worm?" Kurt addressed the silent Unsullied, who looked up from the table as if waking up from a daze. He did that a lot, lately – always unfocused, distracted, somewhere else. Kurt didn't wonder what he thought about. He didn't have to. He had left him alone for a while, but in that moment he felt like giving him something else to focus on while he had the chance.

"I think..." Grey Worm said carefully, startled at being addressed directly after such a long time, "I think he's just unsure of what to do. It's not entirely unreasonable, wanting to meet you, khalees. I think I would want it too, before deciding."

"But it will cost us so much time" Finn reasoned then. "Riverrun is past King's Landing. I thought he would at least propose to meet us halfway."

"It's not that far from King's Landing, honestly" Sam told him. "I think all those men are worth the trouble."

"Are they?" Puck spoke up again, raising an eyebrow. "Have you looked at us? The dragons would do even if we were ten, anyway. Plus, who tells us this isn't just a trap to get you inside his castle and kill you?"

Kurt braced himself for Sam's reaction – he was used to dealing with Eastern sellswords and their basic lack of courtesy, but people just didn't speak to noblemen like that in Westeros. Ever. The absence of titles in Puck's speech would have been enough to cause a fit.

"He is a Lord" Sam retorted, visibly bristling. "I don't know about where you come from, but in Westeros we don't kill wedding guests. Once someone has eaten and drunk at your table, he's safe for as long as he's staying. It's called guest right, and it's sacred."

"Are you suggesting I don't have good manners?" Puck asked him sort of threateningly, his elbows on the table and his head leaning forward to meet Sam's gaze. Sam held it for a long, tensed couple of seconds before answering.

"You kind of don't" he said, and the words barely made it out of his mouth before Puck was up on his feet, his sword in hand.

"Puck, what the fuck?" Blaine shouted at him, standing up to grip his arm as Finn did the same from the other side.

"Sit down, now!" Kurt told him in a shocked voice, staring hard at him until he put the weapon back at his hip where it belonged. Puck didn't sit down, though. He looked around him with narrowed eyes, as if accusing all of them of something; then he shook Blaine and Finn's hands off himself, turned around and left the room in long, angry strides, slamming the door behind him.

"I- I'm really sorry" Kurt told Sam, who looked as bewildered as he felt. "I'm going after him."

"Kurt, don't" Blaine said, his face worried and anxious. "He's too angry, I don't want you to-"

"He won't hurt me. I know he won't" Kurt reassured him as he pushed his chair out of his way. Do I? "I need to know what's going on with him."

He found Puck at the entrance of the castle, just as he was about to walk through the gate the guards had opened for him.

"Puck, wait!" Kurt shouted at him as he ran through the interior yard, the dragons stirring lazily from their spots as they lay scattered on it, curled around themselves like sleeping cats.

Puck turned around at the sound of his voice, his face scrunched in a powerful scowl, jaw tensed.

"What?" he snapped, and Kurt had to tell himself to count to ten before answering, otherwise he would have said something along the lines of Show some respect, you work for me, which would have been very counterproductive.

"What happened in there? Why are you so upset?" he asked instead. True, he had never really cared for Puck the way he cared for Finn or Grey Worm, but that didn't mean he didn't care at all about what he did.

"Oh, I don't know" Puck replied mockingly, his hands on his hips. "Maybe I'm upset because no one ever seems to take me seriously. Maybe I'm upset because no matter what I do, I'm always the untrustworthy, rude sellsword who's not worth listening, especially by lords and princes. Maybe I'm upset because this isn't what I signed up for, all this bullshit about politics and alliances and weddings that we already went through."

Surprised and a little shocked by the long, sudden outburst, Kurt was quick to reply all the same.

"I thought you signed up for the women" he couldn't help but remind him, crossing his arms over his chest. Puck made a 'tsk' sound at him, looking up in exasperation.

"Yeah, how stupid of me" he muttered in a self-reproaching tone that Kurt didn't miss. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

"Did you break up with Quinn? Is that what this is about?"

Puck gave a bitter laugh, throwing his arms in the air.

"Is it so obvious? Did she really fuck me up that bad?"

She did, Kurt found himself thinking, but he held his tongue.

"What happened?" he asked in a lower, more understanding tone. Puck stared at him for a moment, his expression turning guilty and submitted all of a sudden.

"I... I may have slept with another girl" he whispered, his eyes shifting to look at his own feet.

"You what?"

Puck flinched at the sound of Kurt's high-pitched accusing yell, immediately turning defensive.

"Look, she knew I was that kind of guy" he said, his hands held in front of him as if surrendering. "Sex is just sex, it doesn't- it didn't mean anything, with that other girl. But..."

Kurt waited, but nothing followed.

"But?" he prompted.

"But it meant something, with her. And I had to cheat on her to realize it."

He looked so sad that Kurt didn't find it in himself to keep accusing him. He seemed to know exactly what he deserved for what he'd done.

"Then tell her" Kurt said. "Fix it."

"What for? So I can keep it in my pants for another couple of months and then beg for her forgiveness again? I know myself. Puckerman flies better solo. And it's been too long since he last did."

Puck gave him a meaningful stare that made Kurt realize he wasn't talking of women – at least not entirely anymore.

"You're leaving, aren't you?" he asked, a bitter taste filling his mouth.

The break-up that cost me an army.

"I am. I'm sorry, khalees" Puck answered, looking sincerely apologetic – even though Kurt felt too irritated to acknowledge it. "I thought we would get to the fighting as soon as we landed, instead we've been stuck here for weeks doing nothing. Back in Meereen I could get it, with the Khal gone and then the dragons and the Yunkai'i, but now I just... I hate to be bored. Boredom is the thing Noah Puckerman fears most, more than death itself."

You really are just an untrustworthy sellsword, Kurt couldn't help but think. He remembered what Puck had said outside the walls of Yunkai when he'd joined them. Puckzilla does whatever he wants and goes wherever he pleases, and that was exactly what Puck was doing in that moment. Still, it felt like a promise being broken, even though there had been no promise to begin with. He felt the anger build inside him until it spilled over from his mouth, mixed with the exasperation that came with yet another problem, yet another obstacle, yet another something in his way, and for what? For trivial things like sex and boredom? Grey Worm leaving out of grief, he would accept. But not that.

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear you're bored, Puckerman" he retorted, his voice turning sharp and cold. "I thought fucking around would be distracting enough for you. In the meantime, I'm teaching my husband and my cousin how to ride dragons and setting up the board for the most important battle of my life against a king that has an entire continent fighting for him except for two realms, so yeah, sorry if I didn't find the time to give you and your dick something to focus on!"

Puck took a step back and away from him, as if scared by Kurt's reaction – which was very unlikely.

"Look, I... I know I disappointed you. I didn't want to tell you like this, but I can't take it back. You're entitled to be angry at me. I'll just... I'll take the Titans and go" he said slowly, as if talking to a dangerous animal ready to attack him at any moment (Kurt felt like that, a little bit). "Tell Finn and Grey Worm and the Khal I said goodbye."

He turned around and walked through the gate just as he had intended to. As Kurt watched him go, he realized he hadn't lost a friend – just his sword, and all the other swords that came with him. It was fine. It would be fine.

Because he would go to the wedding, and convince the King in the North to fight with him.

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"What a dick" Santana was saying, Brittany walking beside her as usual.

"I know, right?" Quinn replied, gesturing with her hand as if shooing a mental image of Puck away from her. "I wish I liked girls like you; life would be so much easier without men."

"Thanks" Finn told her from his horse, Rachel snorting into her hand behind him. "You do know you wouldn't have babies without men, right?"

"I thought babies were born from cauliflowers" Brittany said, cocking her head to the side, and her statement officially declared the end of the awkward conversation somehow – of which Kurt was glad, because he was done talking or hearing people talk about Puck. He enjoyed them talking in general, though; their usually unimportant, trivial discussions settled in the background as they travelled, like a pleasant, soft never-ending buzz accompanying him throughout the day, keeping his mind away from much more important and scarier things.

The landscape changed around them as they marched, just like Sam and Finn had assured him it would; from the desert surrounding Sunspear to the muddy banks of the Green Blood, from the Red Mountains running along the northern border of Dorne to the luscious and sunny vales of the Reach, a territory that belonged to the Tyrells of High Garden. They made their way North avoiding cities and villages, but of course, the dragons were a problem, a constant signal of where exactly Kurt was going: soon enough Hunter Clarington would know he had left Dorne, if he didn't already, and Kurt wondered if he would come to them before they actually had the chance to come close to King's Landing or the Northmen, maybe to prevent them from meeting and joining their forces.

"I don't think he will" Sam reassured him once, after hearing Kurt's worries out loud. "With half his army dealing with the Northmen, he won't risk leaving the capital unguarded to send the other half after us: it's not nearly enough. The rebellion of the North is something the crown has to solve, but you are technically an usurper to the throne, so he can summon the whole kingdom to stop you. He's probably called his banners, sent messages all over Westeros like we did. Assembling an army takes time."

Very reassuring, Kurt thought, swallowing. Since no one else had replied to him, it could only mean they had replied to the king instead.

"Then shouldn't we attack King's Landing now that he's assembling it?"

"We would risk finding ourselves trapped between the capital's gates and the new allies coming from outside to join him" Sam explained patiently. Gods, I still suck at these things, Kurt realized. "At this point, it's better for us to wait it out until they've all arrived. Luckily, we have something to do in the meantime."

Which reminds me...

"So, how do you think I should behave to impress this Ryder Lynn?" Kurt asked his cousin, both to change the subject and learn his opinion on the matter. Talking about Hunter Clarington made him anxious; he couldn't even give a face to the man, but the idea of him unsettled him just as much.

He was my age when he murdered my father, he found himself thinking once every now and then. He can't be anything less than a monster.

"Confident, sure... I don't know, just be yourself and you'll be fine" Sam told him with a shrug, before a sudden thought seemed to strike him. "Now that I think about it, though, you may want to, uhm... keep the level of husbandly affection to a minimum."

He glanced at Blaine with a worried frown, afraid that his words could be perceived as offensive.

"Are you suggesting we should pretend not to be married?" Blaine promptly asked, his voice slightly tainted by annoyance but not as much as Kurt would have expected.

"Let's say you could... forget to mention it" Sam concluded, biting his lower lip and looking back at Kurt.

"I'm not going to do that" Kurt announced firmly, staring back at him for emphasis. He heard someone give a sigh from behind him, and he knew it was Finn without the need to turn around.

"I hate to admit it, khalees, but your cousin is right" he said in a tiny, almost ashamed voice. "You know as well as I do that your... nature is seen differently in Westeros. Men lie with men, sure, but they don't talk about it, and they certainly don't marry."

"Which is something that's going to change very soon" Kurt promised Finn and everyone who could hear him. "So I might as well start acting on it."

"Even if it costs us the alliance?" Sam asked him, and Kurt didn't hesitate when he turned around to answer him.

I'll be dead before I let anyone make me feel ashamed of who I am or who I love.

"Even then" he replied fiercely, and the subject was never brought up again.

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It was in the fluvial area called the Riverlands, roughly in the center of the continent, that Kurt saw Blaine asking for something to wear for the first time in his life. He'd had to fight wearing an armor back in Yunkai, but Kurt had had to coax him into it; this time, instead, the chill in the damp air of the woods and plains they rode through was too much for him – one could say winter never came in the Dothraki Sea, but it certainly did in Westeros. It took a lot of shivering and teeth-clattering for him to give up, but after he did, the other Dothraki seemed to realize they were allowed to cover themselves and slowly took his example – at least they wouldn't mock him for it, which was something Kurt knew Blaine was worried about. They draped the various pelts they carried around as trophies over their shoulders, and those who still felt cold were offered hauberks and sheepskins from the Dornish supplies. The Unsullied, being the Unsullied, didn't so much as complain about the temperature.

"God, I fucking hate this" Blaine sulked, clutching his beautiful white lion pelt around his still trembling frame, his face drawn into a deeply upset frown. "I hate cold and rain and clothes."

Kurt peered at him out of the corner of his eye; the lion pelt covered Blaine's back and part of his shoulders, but not his chest and arms, and Kurt was starting to worry he would fall ill.

"I know you do, but I would feel better if you wore more of them, my sun-and-stars" he told his husband with a pleading, hopefully convincing stare.

"You want to turn me into an onion or something?" Blaine replied with a glare, but the threatening effect got spoiled by a sudden coughing fit that forced him to cover his mouth with one of his hands.

"Blaine" Kurt insisted when it was over. "You're going to get pneumonia. Please. For me."

Blaine fixed him with narrowed eyes for a long moment.

"Fine" he conceded at last, effectively pouting, and Kurt just had to draw his horse closer to his so he could kiss his cheek, so he did.

While Blaine's major surprise seemed to be the climate, Kurt's was the environment. It felt almost dizzying to see all that green stretching on and on for miles in front of him and behind him; the grass of the Dothraki Sea was waist-high at the most, but willows and pines and spruces and oaks standing so tall against the sky, their trunks all jammed up together in the same limited space, was something new, as the incredible quantity of rivers and streams was. The ground was soft and squelching and the air always seemed to smell of rain and wet grass even when it wasn't actually raining.

The castle of Riverrun, when it finally appeared before them, was the austere kind of keep Kurt had expected it to be. It sat on the exact point where the Tumblestone river and the Red Fork river met, with a wide circular moat surrounding it, ready to be filled when needed. Up over the battlements, the standards of Tullies and Lynns streamed in the late afternoon wind: a silver trout leaping on a blue and red striped field, and a grey direwolf racing across a white field.

I have to ask someone to sew an Hummelsmythe standard for me, Kurt reflected, furtively looking up at where the Evans orange standard with a gold spear piercing a red sun flapped just as noisily in the air. This is how Westeros works.

In fact, it took the guards on the battlements just a look at the Dornish banners to know who they where, and the drawbridge to the keep was lowered almost immediately to let them inside. As always, the dragons had to be left outside – they had arrived just in time for the night of the ceremony, and fire-spitting certainly wasn't on the list of things high-class wedding guests enjoyed. The same applied for the rest of the army, but Kurt felt like Wes, David and Grey Worm needed a break from military duties, so he and Blaine told them to delegate the organization of the camp to someone else and join the celebration, together with Finn, Rachel, Quinn, Santana and Brittany.

The King in the North, true to his word, was waiting for them in the yard. Kurt tried to hide his surprise at how young he was, his own age or probably less; the thought made him relate to him suddenly, because it appeared their stories weren't all that different. Ryder Lynn had a heart-shaped face and a fair complexion, his straight and slightly long hair a brownish blonde, covering his forehead and ears. He was wearing a rather impressive armor with a wolfskin cloak attached to it that made his shoulders look probably wider than they actually were, and on his head there was an open circlet of hammered bronze surmounted by nine black iron spikes wrought in the shape of longswords.

On one side of him, a very pretty girl with long brown hair falling in ringlets down her chest was standing in the cold, her deep forest green dress covered by a wolfskin coat that matched her betrothed's cloak; on the other side, an unnaturally huge grey wolf was staring back at them with predatory yellow eyes that reminded Kurt of Rhaegal's, the king's hand idly petting his fur from head to tail without the need to crouch down to do so.

It's not a wolf, Kurt corrected himself in his mind. It's a direwolf.

Direwolves were typical animals of the North, but according to the books Kurt had read as a boy, they should have been extinct, like dragons.

Yet another thing they were wrong about.

"Welcome to Riverrun" Marley of House Rose told them with a cheerful lilt to her voice as she took a gracious bow, her cheeks flushed pink from the cold of the approaching night. "It's such an honor for us to have guests like you at our modest wedding ceremony."

"The honor is entirely ours, my lady" Kurt replied, matching her bow. If it's flattery you need, I'm a master of it. "I was looking forward to see you and your noble soon-to-be husband."

"I bet you were" Ryder Lynn spoke up for the first time, raising a skeptical eyebrow, his armor and cloak making him look just a little more threatening compared to their disheveled appearance. "Tell me, who are all these ladies and gentlemen you brought with you?"

Kurt introduced them all to him – he used the word servant to refer to Santana and Brittany, because slavery was not something that would have played in his favor – and when he got to Blaine, who was standing next to him, he took his hand and lifted his chin proudly.

"And this is my husband, Khal Blaine of the Dothraki horselords, come all the way from Essos to help me get back the Iron Throne."

He could practically feel Finn and Sam holding their breaths; despite the cold, Blaine's hand was sweaty in his.

He's as nervous as I am, Kurt realized, praying his pride wouldn't get them kicked out or beaten up or killed. Ryder Lynn raised his eyebrows at them, his neutral face turning visibly surprised. He looked down at their joined hands, than back up at their faces, studying them with narrowed eyes as if looking for some kind of answer to a question. His hand stroking back and forth across his direwolf's back made Kurt uneasy; he felt as if a flick of the man's wrist or a particular word coming out of his mouth could be the end for them, and on hindsight he regretted not taking at least one dragon into the yard with him.

But then Marley Rose, bless her heart, clapped her hands together and gave an excited, melodious laugh that startled them all into focus.

"Oh, that's so romantic!" she exclaimed, beaming at them and shifting her gaze from Kurt to Blaine to Kurt again. "I've never met two men in love before! Isn't it sweet, my king?"

When the austere, impassive-looking king choked on the words before answering, Kurt couldn't help but think back to the question Puck had asked him before leaving. Did she really fuck me up that bad?, he'd said, and to his original answer Kurt added with a small smile, As it turns out, love always does.

"Y-yes, my love, it's very sweet" he mumbled, clearly unable to contradict her future wife on anything. Then he seemed to recompose himself and looked back at Kurt and Blaine with a serious expression. "And very brave, too. You could have lied to me."

"I would never lie to you, Your Highness" Kurt told him smugly, allowing himself to smile a little. "I never lie to those I want to fight with."

Ryder Lynn smiled back at him, cocking his head to the side in a mild challenging gesture.

"Let's talk about that after I'm married."

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"You may now cloak the bride and bring her under your protection" the septon murmured reverently from his spot on the dais, the hall silent and still except for the occasional murmur and the flickering light of the torches along the thick stone walls.

Ryder unclasped his cloak from his armor and gently placed it over Marley's thin shoulders, a symbol of his promise to take her under his wing and protect her as a dutiful husband was supposed to do. Behind Kurt and Blaine, a gruff manly voice whispered, "Seven save us. This is ill-done."

Kurt tried not to shift too obviously at the sound, his attention piqued, and a brief look at Blaine let him know he wasn't the only one who was eavesdropping.

"Please, it's not like Lord Walder Frey can do anything about it. He has one foot in the grave" another man replied skeptically as the bride and the groom joined their hands to let the septon tie them together with a ribbon.

"He's had that foot in the grave for years now, yet he's still here. And it makes no matter anyway: a promise is a promise. He granted us passage through the Twins only because our king promised him to marry one of his ugly toothless daughters when this war is done, before he met his soulmate along the way" the first voice murmured fervently, a mocking note in the speech. "Family, Duty, Honor, these are the Tully words. Do you hear love among them? I don't. Breaking alliances to marry for love! Such nonsense."

Kurt and Blaine looked at one another with a worried frown, but two matching smiles tugged at the corner of their lips until their faces relaxed. It sounded ill-done, yes, and careless, yes, and stupid; it also sounded exactly like what Kurt would have done.

"In the sight of the Seven, I hereby seal these two souls, binding them as one, for eternity" the septon went on as soon as he'd finished tying the bow. "Look upon one another and say the words."

Ryder and Marley locked eyes, their bound hands lifted proudly between them, and as they pronounced their vows in perfect unison they seemed to forget that the rest of the world was there.

"Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger, I am his/hers, and s/he is mine, from this day until the end of my days."

Then they kissed, smiling against each other's mouths, and Kurt thought back to his wedding and realized that there had been no vows, no smiles, no kisses. They had come later on, but not that day. So he turned around toward Blaine and spoke before the true meaning of what he was thinking could have the time to really sink in.

"When all this is over, I'm going to marry you again like this" he whispered between them. Blaine stared at him in mild shock, gaping.

"Kurt" he simply said, torchlight shining in his breath-taking eyes, showing a vulnerability that rarely made it to the surface. But it did, and Kurt found himself explaining in a hurry.

"I- I know you don't believe in the Seven, and that those vows don't mean anything to you, but I just- I want them all to look at us and see that we belong to each other. I want to marry you because I want to, and say it with words we never got to say. I want you to be mine in every possible way there is. Does- does this make sense?"

"It does" Blaine replied, his eyes staring into Kurt's the entire time. "I just... I don't know what to say."

"Say yes."

All around them the guests were dispersing to reach the long narrow tables set up for them to enjoy the wedding feast that followed the ceremony, creating a loud noise of footsteps and murmurs and chairs shifting and thumping over floors, but Blaine's voice was loud enough for Kurt to hear.

"Yes."