Blaine loved riding. Granted, it would have been nearly impossible for him not to love it given where and how he had been raised, but if there was one thing he adored about his culture, it was that. Riding. Feeling the wind in his hair and on his face, hugging his horse's strong body with his thighs and feel his muscles shift and pull underneath the skin, urging him to go faster, always faster than before to challenge the birds flying overhead.

Of course, his original horse was dead now, his old powerful soul riding among the grass of the nightlands under the Stallion's protection. Cooper had given it to him; a prize out of one of his first sackings, back when Blaine was still too young to participate. He remembered how stupid and useless it made him feel to stay at the tent camp with the women and the little children, just waiting for his father and brother to come back. So one day, Cooper brought back with him a beautiful black colt, so little that Blaine could get on it without any kind of help: from that day on, he was able to at least ride with them for some time until they approached the designated village, at which point he would head back to the tent camp.

The horse he was riding now was brown instead, and Blaine was sure he would never bond with him the way he had done with the previous one, the stallion he had grown up with. Still, the animal served his purpose well enough, obeying to Blaine's shouted orders as the sand of the desert shot up from the ground in big, choking clouds under his hooves. It was intoxicating, just as it had always been; one of those things that would never change despite the fact that so many others had, especially since leaving King's Landing all those years before. It was almost reassuring to know that wherever he went, there was something fixed, sacred, untouchable, something that kept him attached to his roots.

"Daddy, daddy, slow down!" little Cooper shouted from behind him, and only then Blaine realized how far he had gone, mindless of his six-year-old son trailing behind him on his just-as-small greyish horse. "You're too fast!"

He slowed down until the little boy reached him, the olive skin of his face already covered in sweat thanks to the exertion and the summer heat seeping from the barren ground. He had Blaine's curly black hair, but his eyes were a darker color, a deep rich brown he had taken from the Dothraki slave Blaine had had him with. He didn't even remember her name.

"Or maybe you are too slow" he said cheekily, smiling down at Cooper, who pouted before crossing his small arms over his flat exposed chest.

Blaine couldn't help but look at it sometimes and imagine flawless black drawings covering it; he hadn't pictured himself like the kind of parent who would project his own achievements on his son, wishing the same for him, but the pride he felt every time he thought about it was something that came from deep inside, something instinctual and primal and natural – how could it be wrong? What was really important was that he would always love him, no matter his flaws and failures, and most of all, no matter his choices.

He often thought about the son he had lost, too. The baby murdered in Tina's womb in Meereen would have been the Stallion That Mounts The World, the Khal who would have reunited all the khalasars of the world in one; Cooper, this Cooper, wouldn't be instead. The old former khaleesis of the Dosh Kaleen had been very clear when he had taken the pregnant sex slave to Vaes Dothrak for yet another heart ceremony: the prophecy could not be repeated. What once could have happened, would never happen now.

Cooper didn't know about any of it, not even about the brother he was supposed to have. Blaine would tell him when he got older, that and so many other things: he would tell him the story of a marvellous journey, he would describe to him all the places of the world he had seen, and he would teach him how to love and let someone else love him and be strong when life tried to take that away from him. He would make sure he learned that no matter how hard it could be, and no matter how many things one could lose, it was worth it.

"'m tired" Cooper mumbled, looking up at him with his big, hopeful brown eyes. "Can we go home now? I promise I'll be better in the next lesson, daddy."

Feeling guilty at having pushed him a little too far, Blaine reassured him, "Of course", and together they marched at a slow pace back to the khalasar, where ever-present Wes and David dutifully took care of their horses once they got down from the saddles. Time had made Blaine's faithful bloodriders broader in the chest, just as it had done with him; their features sharper and more defined, bodies of men instead of boys.

"Wanna come say hi to papa?" Blaine asked Cooper then, ruffling his hair. Brittany and Santana passed them by and waved at them with their free hands. The boy smiled and nodded.

When the khalasar settled down from time to time, it stood right against one side of the castle, so all it took was a brief walk to its entrance gates. The guards knew them well, of course, and let them pass without a second glance. The palace was so big, though, that looking for him wasn't easy when they didn't know where he was exactly, so Blaine stopped to ask when they stumbled into Quinn walking down a corridor.

"He's on the main terrace" she said. "Do you want me to go tell him you're coming?"

"No, no, it's fine" Blaine waved her off. "How's princess Beth doing?"

Quinn beamed. She always did when someone asked her that sort of questions.

"She's fine. More than fine, thank you. Sam spoils her to death, of course."

Blaine knew Sam would be that kind of father. In fact, all he did these days was boast about how perfect his recently born daughter was, how her lips would turn out exactly like his – which wasn't something the girl would necessarily be proud of, everyone else secretly thought – , how Dorne had never had a princess more beautiful than she was. Still hard to say, to be honest; all Blaine knew was that she would be blonde for sure, pale-skinned, and probably full of induced self-esteem.

When they stepped into the main terrace, guarded by Grey Worm in his golden armor, Kurt was there indeed. His back to them, he was looking at the whole of Sunspear from the banister, his head shooting up once in a while when he sensed one of his dragons flying above him in the sky, too high among the clouds for anyone else to notice but not for him, never for him.

"We're here, baby" Blaine said as he and Cooper walked up to him. Kurt jumped a little in surprise, but when he turned around he was smiling.

He waved a hand in the air and pointed at his own chest with a finger. Then he joined his hands in the shape of a circle before raising them both up toward the sky.

Hello, my sun-and-stars.

God, after all those years Blaine still missed his voice. He never said it out loud, never let it show, but he did. The musical lilt of Kurt's laugh was probably what he missed the most; that, and the sounds of pleasure he would never hear again.

He kissed Kurt on the cheek and sneaked an arm around his waist.

"Hi, papa" Cooper said shyly, trying to imitate Kurt's previous gesture even though it wasn't needed. It was still a little confusing to him, and he didn't always understand Kurt, but they were trying to teach him just like they had taught each other in the beginning.

It had been a slow, torturous process, marked by angry exasperated fits from both of them. Kurt would try and gesture for a word in a way Blaine didn't get, so they would struggle between attempts and guesses until he did and then he would propose his own gesture for the word, and it went like that, back and forth, until it was settled. The next step had been teaching all that to Quinn, who translated into words what Kurt had to say when he held audiences or had to make royal announcements.

"You're so beautiful today, moon of my life, you know that?" Blaine told Kurt, squeezing at his hip. Kurt ducked his head and smiled, joining his hands together so they could create a cross before pointing at him with his index finger.

Stop it, you.

It should have been ridiculous, because Blaine told him every day. He had been telling him every day since he had woken up after the wedding, because he was terrified Kurt would forget. It was such a big deal, to lose something so fundamental of himself, that Blaine was scared Kurt would start to consider himself broken or damaged or flawed, when in fact he was just as perfect as he had always been in Blaine's eyes – as perfect as the shy, blushing boy he had seen on top of a staircase across the poisonous sea; as perfect as the man who had taught him how to kiss in the heat of passion among the swaying grass of Essos.

He remembered, clear as day, the dread he had felt when Kurt had opened his eyes for the first time in days and then had tried to speak, mouth working uselessly around a word that didn't come; it was Blaine's name, or so it had seemed to him, but he would never know. Grand Maester Artie had warned him of the side effect of the Strangler, the poison someone had poured into the piece of cake Kurt had eaten; the antidote he had injected Kurt with at the last moment – thank the Stallion for the fact that he always had an emergency kit hidden somewhere in his robes – could not avoid that too.

But Kurt – Kurt couldn't know it when he woke up. And God, the way he had looked; so crushed, so utterly terrified, as if someone had just pulled the ground from under his feet. He had stared at Blaine, panicking wide eyes pleading him as if he knew how to fix it, and when he had tried again and failed, clutching at his throat where the faint pink scars provoked by his own nails still lingered, Blaine's heart had broken.

"Hey, look who's here!" Rachel's voice chirped from the entrance to the terrace. Behind her skirts someone was hiding, straight dark hair peeking out from one side – Finn.

"Hi, Coop" he waved, his face slowly emerging until his mother pulled her dress aside, revealing him completely. He was one year older than Cooper, but way more timid – not that it was extremely surprising to Blaine: Dothraki boys tended to grow up faster, and Cooper didn't have a mother to hide behind in the first place.

"You're all- all dirty" Finn commented, scrunching up his nose in distaste just like his father would have done. In every single thing he did, it was like watching Finn stumble his way through a conversation all over again. And when he grew up, when they could be sure he was mature enough to keep the secret, they would tell him all about him.

"We went riding" Cooper objected, raising his chin oh-so-very Dothraki-like. Finn's mouth opened in surprise.

"You mean in the desert?" he asked, before looking up at Rachel. "Why can't I do that too, mom?"

"Because you're going to be a king, not a Khal" she explained slowly – Blaine was sure it was at least the hundredth time. "And kings don't get that dirty, baby. They study history and literature instead."

"But books are boring" her son mumbled, looking down at his shuffling feet. "Riding is more fun. Maybe I'll be a Khal."

Blaine felt someone poke him on the shoulder. When he turned around, he watched Kurt form a sentence and then said it out loud to Finn, smiling all the while.

"Papa here says kings get to ride dragons" he whispered as if it was a secret, wriggling his eyebrows. The boy's eyes widened.

"You'll let me ride a dragon, papa?" he trilled, jumping up and down, before running over to Kurt to hug his legs. He stared up at him and beamed, one of Kurt's hands coming down to stroke his hair.

When you grow up, he gestured. Dragons are not for little boys.

"Not fair" Blaine heard Cooper murmur, a scowl on his face, but he decided to ignore it for the sake of his sanity. The kid could go on for days.

"Rachel, could you take the boys with you? Maybe have a bath set up for Coop?" he asked her, looking at her pointedly – I want to be alone with him was the real meaning, and he knew she would understand it.

"Of course! Let's go, my little princes!" she cooed in that overly affectionate way that always had Finn blush and wriggle his hands behind his back while Coop grunted something inappropriate about "not being a freaking girl".

He's just as sassy as you are, Kurt always told him, shaking his head in amusement.

When they were gone, Kurt turned back around to stare at the landscape and Blaine settled behind him, winding his arms around his frame. Kurt's body had changed, too: his shoulders and arms had grown, his cheekbones were more pronounced, and that thin layer of soft skin that had once surrounded his stomach was now a taut, defined plain of muscles.

His personality was just as strong as before, but in a more intimate, contemplative, reserved way; he liked to spend more time alone than it was probably healthy, and that was why Blaine never spent too long away with the khalasar, sometimes leaving Wes and David in charge when they planned to wander off in the Dornish desert for more than a week. He slept in the castle at night and so did Cooper, who had his own room next to Finn's, but he went to the tent camp every day, too. It was a maddening business, to lead a life split in half, but he had grown used to it.

Kurt took hold of one of his hands and started making a pattern on his palm with the tip of his index finger. It took a moment for Blaine to make out what it meant.

Love you.

"You too, moon of my life" he whispered, planting a kiss against Kurt's temple, mindful of the crown now perfectly sitting on his head. "Always."

Blaine had thought about leaving. Back before the wedding, after Hunter Clarington's death, he had found himself thinking about the Dothraki Sea at least once every day. He missed it when he woke up and didn't hear the sound of the wind blowing against his tent; he missed it when he went to bed and couldn't stare at the night sky before falling asleep. But then those sentences would tumble out of his mouth without him realizing it; those "We can do it tomorrow", "We still have time", promises he knew he was making to Kurt, and in the end he wasn't strong enough to betray them. In the end, when it came down to it, he realized he'd rather miss home than miss him.

That's what it was, really. A sacrifice of what was less important. Furthermore, even if Blaine's mind had been set on leaving before, there was no way he could have after what happened.



"We had the rest of the cake tasted" Unique informed him, standing awkwardly at the foot of Kurt's bed with his hands linked in front of him. A chair next to it was Blaine's resting place, day and night. "Only your slice was poisoned, great Khal."

He would never tell Kurt, but in that moment he decided he would never leave him, if only to try and be forgiven for that. He knew Kurt would have slapped him for thinking it, but if he could have gone back in time, he would have eaten it himself rather than let him. He would have embraced what was clearly supposed to be his fate, rather than let someone hurt the moon of his life.

He sent Unique away, cradled one of Kurt's hands against his chest and cried and told him just that, even though Kurt couldn't hear him.



But when Kurt had woken up days later, he had told him something else.



"I'm staying with you forever, but on one condition" Blaine said, staring into Kurt's hollow eyes. "Not here."

Seeing Kurt just nod weakly made him feel more defeated than ever. He had expected him to fight, to argue about the fact that King's Landing was where he was supposed to be, but Kurt didn't have it in him. Or maybe he knew, just like Blaine had come to think, that it wasn't safe for them. They weren't welcome there. Blaine could live with the morbidly curious stares and the judging scowls – he had never cared about any of it. But he would not allow to have Kurt endangered like that again, and the same went for the son he still had to announce to the world.

"Where were you, the last time you felt home?" he asked Kurt then.

Kurt stared at him for a moment, and the selfish part of Blaine wished he would say "the Dothraki Sea"; another part of him, though, the part that loved him more than he loved himself, wished he would at least accept to stay in Westeros, because as much as Blaine could want it, Kurt didn't belong in Essos.

"Dorne", Kurt mimicked with his lips.



Blaine fidgeted at the memory.

"You're happy, right?" he asked Kurt, who turned around in his embrace with a surprised expression. He smiled so bright he put the sun to shame and nodded vigorously, before cupping Blaine's face in his hands and kissing him sweetly on the lips.

He hadn't been, when the decision to change the capital from King's Landing to Sunspear had started to take shape. The Small Council had told him it was madness, because some guy who shared Kurt's surname had landed there with his three dragons a lifetime before and what would people think of him and all that bullshit Blaine didn't care about. That wasn't the difficult part, though, because Kurt was sure of himself and at the end of the day, he was the king. That part came later.



"We don't have to be here" Blaine whispered, squeezing Kurt's sweaty hand. Drogon was ready into position, but Kurt didn't seem to be able to give the order. Thankfully the dragons always knew what he was thinking, so the lack of words wasn't a problem on that front.

Kurt shook his head, and Blaine didn't know whether he meant "No, I have to", or "No, I don't want to". It was probably the first, because then he steeled himself and nodded at Drogon.

The heat rising off the slowly melting pile of iron swords made Blaine start to sweat immediately, but he didn't take a step back and kept squeezing Kurt's hand, which was squeezing his back as if he wanted to rip it off his wrist.

"I'm sorry it has to be this way" Blaine said as the throne crumbled on itself, destroyed by the same thing that had put it together.

Kurt didn't answer, but Blaine knew his doubts well enough anyway. Kurt himself had come up with the idea, though: if they couldn't move it to Sunspear – which they couldn't, since it was impossible to lift it off the ground – to leave it there wasn't wise. The Iron Throne tempted people. Men saw power in it, wealth, glory, and if the king of Westeros couldn't sit on it, then no one else should think they could. Still, how would history remember Kurt by?

Blaine generally didn't share people's worries for some very distant future, but he could understand Kurt's train of thought: the throne was the symbol of everything he had fought for. But without it, he would still be king. It was just that, a symbol. An ugly-shaped, deeply uncomfortable, oddly-looking symbol.

Yet when it was done, Kurt asked him to be left alone so he could say goodbye to it.



Are you?, Kurt asked, pointing at him. Blaine looked into his beautiful sea-blue eyes and wished he could tell him what he was thinking.

I wish I could hear you sing. I never heard you sing, and now I wonder what you'd sound like.

I wish I could hear you say my name when I'm inside of you.

"Yes" he answered.



"Kurt? Kurt, baby, what is it?" he panicked, trying to get Kurt to turn around from where he was curled in a ball at the end of the bed, his naked back to him. Kurt's body just shrank in more on itself, shaking with silent sobs.

"Did I- did I hurt you?" Blaine tried, his voice breaking at the thought. From under his arms, Kurt shook his head, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

"What is it, then? Just tell me" Blaine said, biting his own lip when he realized the mistake. Kurt cried harder at that, and Blaine wished he could just disappear.

"Fuck- I- I'm sorry, it just- it came out, I'm sorry" he stammered, sitting up to cover his face with his hands and breathe deeply through his nose. He thought he knew why Kurt was crying, even though he wished he didn't.

It had been their first time together since the wedding. And it had been awful.

Maybe... no, "awful" wasn't the right word. Awkward. It had been awkward. And it had never been before, except maybe in the beginning as far as Kurt was concerned.

Blaine had never realized how many things depended on sounds. He had never rationally acknowledged how Kurt's moans guided him when he opened him up with his fingers before taking him, how he was able to set the pace according to his breathy sighs and whimpers when he thrust inside. So when he had rolled Kurt on his stomach to have him from behind, the way he still liked best, he hadn't thought about the fact that he wouldn't be able to gouge Kurt's reactions that way.

It had been a fumbling process of curses and apologies on his part, Kurt's hand squeezing at his leg helplessly when something was wrong, but Blaine didn't know what – the pace? The intensity? The angle? What?

"I promise we'll never do it like this again" Blaine murmured against his hands, trying to swallow down his guilt and shame. "Just- just let me hold you now."

Kurt's crying stopped, judging by the sudden hitch in his breath. Blaine felt the bed dip under his movements, and then his hands were being pried away from his face and Kurt was staring at him, red puffy eyes blinking. God, Blaine hated it when he cried.

Kurt kissed his palm, pulled at his arm until it was outstretched, and settled down against his chest.



They still did it that way, now that they knew how to communicate. It was different, of course – not worse, exactly, just different. It emphasized things Blaine had never focused on as he should have: how Kurt's thighs would tremble and shift further apart when he wanted him deeper, how his back would become rigid when he wanted him to slow down; how his entire body would just freeze for a moment before coming when he was the one taking Blaine in ways he had never imagined before meeting him.

I want to have a ride on Drogon, Kurt gestured, his gaze already lightening up at the prospect. Do you want to join me?

"Why not?" Blaine said, nodding. "It's been a while."

That was an entirely different kind of riding – Blaine liked it, but Kurt loved it in a way he knew he wasn't meant to understand. The dragons were so big now that it didn't really feel like they were telling them what to do; it was more as if they got carried by them, and that was what Blaine had a hard time accepting, what made it so distant from horse-riding where he had control over everything. There was no denying he had grown fond of Viserion, though, of the way his pearly white scales would glitter like the stolen silver necklaces he used to give his mom when he was younger, back in a time when he didn't even know what a dragon was.

Kurt on Drogon's back was stunning, the perfect king Blaine had always known he would become; Blaine spent the entire ride just looking at him, letting Viserion follow Drogon as he pleased.

I can't believe I almost lost him, he found himself thinking, and with that came darker thoughts – recollections of what he'd done to make sure he would never risk losing him again.



Sam opened the door to his chambers sleepily, lazily rubbing at one of his eyes with the back of his hand, but his eyes got wide when he took a good look at Blaine. His gaze settled on his red, dripping hands.

"My Khal, what did you do?" he whispered, staring back at his face. There was shock in his voice, but pity, too. Blaine knew he looked a mess, with his heavy breathing and his madman frenzied eyes.

"Justice" he murmured. Sam choked back a gasp and raised his hands in the air.

"We were going to make a trial for that!" he exclaimed, before dragging Blaine inside and shutting the door behind him, allowing his tone to be a little louder now. "I told you I would fight for Kurt in single combat against their designated champions!"

Blaine wouldn't have been able to, because he wasn't a knight, but it didn't matter anymore. It was done.

"Yeah, and what if you had died against them?" he asked Sam, crossing his soiled arms over his chest. "I would just have lost someone else, and he would not have been avenged like he deserves! I won't let him die without them paying for it! I won't!"

"There are laws in this king-"

"I don't give a fuck about your laws!" Blaine shouted, mindless of the fact that it was night and they'd better talk quietly. "All I give a fuck about is him!"

Sam stared at him in silence for a moment.

"He won't die" he whispered, trying to get Blaine to meet his gaze when Blaine turned away on instinct, his jaw tense. "You haven't lost him yet."

"You don't know that" Blaine turned back suddenly, pointing a finger at him in anger. "No one knows when or if he's going to wake up, so you don't fucking know that!"

Sam raised his hands and took a step back.

"Okay, okay, just- calm down" he said. Then he paused, thinking hard about something for a long moment. "Let's... let's clean up the mess now."

They dumped their blood-covered sheets, their most valuable things and their bodies. People would think they had managed to flee, to try and find refuge somewhere else in Westeros or even outside of it. Blaine didn't care.

Killing the girl should have been slightly more difficult; he had come to understand that people considered it more amoral than killing a man, since women were harmless. That woman wasn't, though, and Blaine wasn't "people". Killing was killing to him. He had murdered women before, during sackings, when they wouldn't accept to step aside and let him crush and plunder their little mud-huts. It didn't give him that intoxicating feeling he got when he took a man's life out of him with his hands, but it didn't unsettle him, either. So no, it had not been difficult. God, it had been so easy it was almost ridiculous.

She had opened her eyes just in time to feel the blade of his arakh cut through the thin flesh of her throat, deep enough to take her voice away just as she had done to the moon of his life if he ever managed to wake up again. Her pretty blonde hair, flowing down her shoulders and over the pillow as she slept, slowly turned red and soaked.

"I did it for our king!" she had said, after a servant had revealed seeing her buying the poison from Kurt's Master of Coin. Then she had pointed an accusing finger at Blaine, yelling with her annoyingly shrill voice, "This- this savage was ruining him with his sick ways, doing things to him, things only women should do with men! I did it to save him! To save the men of this kingdom from turning into monsters! To save all of you!"

She had done it because she was jealous, Blaine knew. And maybe for all of that, too. Not that it mattered. As for Jesse – that didn't matter, either. He said he had just sold the poison to her without knowing its purpose, but Blaine didn't believe him. Kurt had complained more than once about how hostile the man had seemed toward their nature.

He opened his neck from side to side as well, and never, not even for a single moment in his life, regretted it.



They flew over the brightly colored streets of Sunspear, with his bazaars and markets full of life; over the immensity of the khalasar stretching underneath them, the world at the tip of their dragons' claws. The huge Dornish desert was full of bandits, and when Sam had proposed to give the Dothraki the job of hunting them down, it had seemed perfect to Blaine. It wasn't sacking, of course, but it was at least taking and killing; the deal was that they could keep half of what they stole from the bandits, while the other half went back to the Dornish crown.

Of course, both Kurt and Blaine left it over the years: Blaine went to Vaes Dothrak before Cooper's birth and that kept him away for many months, while Kurt travelled from time to time to visit this or that Lord and check on the progress of his reform. After all those years, there were people who still resented him for it, but out of all the kingdoms of Westeros Dorne was the one that had received it best, thanks to its open minded culture.

They were safe. Kurt was safe. He was alive and happy and his, his forever, and to Blaine it was enough.

Dorne was where his world ended and Kurt's began, where miles and miles of desert turned into cities and castles as if it was the most natural thing in the world; where they could choose to make love on soft cotton sheets or under the open sky, where all things of importance should happen – where Kurt would drag him in the middle of the night once in a while to write on his skin how much he loved him. It seemed to Blaine as if it had taken them a journey through half the world to find it, to find that place where both of them could be themselves, and when they had in the beginning they hadn't even recognized it.

Through sand and blood and dragonfire, through death and loss and betrayal, in the end, Dorne was where they met halfway.

After all, isn't that what love is all about?