Chapter 4

Kurt dropped his hand. It still felt like it tingled a bit.

'What are you doing here?' he asked, still cautious of this gorgeous albeit complete stranger in front of him.

'I might ask you the same thing.' Blaine tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. 'What is a young Warlock doing alone in Mothlem Forest?'

Kurt considered the young man in front of him, unsure of whether he was worthy of his trust. 'I'm not a Warlock,' he said, deciding to try not to tell him too much.

Blaine's forehead creased. 'But…' he gestured at Kurt's hand.

Kurt sighed. 'I'm a Warlock-in-training,' he said – surely that wasn't too much, right?

'Oh! Like, an apprentice?'

'Er, yeah. Or at least, I will be once I've finished this task –' He stopped himself. That was going too far.

'Task?' Blaine's triangular eyebrows raised, and he seemed genuinely interested.

Kurt shook his head and turned away, looking up and down the river.

'You can trust me, you know,' Blaine said gently, and Kurt wanted to believe him, wanted to have a proper conversation with him about it, but they were in the middle ofMothlem forest, for goodness' sake, you can't just spill out your life story to a complete stranger in the middle of the Forest.

'Can we sit down?' Blaine asked, and Kurt nodded, and followed him over to a rock at the water's edge.

He noticed Blaine glancing over at his sandwich – still lying uneaten with his saddlebags – and felt his stomach rumble.

'Are you hungry?' he asked.

Blaine nodded quite enthusiastically, so Kurt got up and brought the bags over. He handed his sandwich to Blaine.

'But what about you?'

Kurt pulled a fairly-bruised apple out of his bag. 'I'll be fine.'

They began to eat silently, looking out at the river.

Blaine shifted uneasily. 'I've been following you since you entered the Forest,' he confessed.

Kurt spluttered, gasping as his apple threatened to choke him. Blaine thumped him on the back as he coughed, finally dislodging the apple, and Kurt coughed some more, eyes watering.

'You – what?'

'I was on my way back from the river. You rode past, I was curious, I followed you.' He shrugged as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

'But – how – why didn't I hear you? Or see you?'

'I think you did, a couple of times. But I'm fairly good concealing myself.'

Kurt raised his eyebrows, prompting him to elaborate.

'I'm a scout.'

'Oh.'

A scout. Huh. Scouts in his part of the Kingdom were few and far apart, unneeded in the open fields and during this time of peace. He wondered where Blaine was from – he didn't have any kind of foreign accent.

'Why –'

'I'm –'

'Sorry. Go on.'

'I don't live in the Kingdom,' Blaine said quietly.

Kurt nodded. He had expected as much, but the confirmation didn't make it any easier to trust him.

'So, where do you live?'

'In the Forest,' he answered simply.

'Right.'

They sat in silence as Blaine finished the sandwich and Kurt finished his apple. He tossed the core into the river and stood up.

'We – I should get a move on.'

'We?'

Kurt mentally kicked himself for his slip. 'I meant I. I should get going.'

'To do your task.' It was a statement, more than a question.

Kurt huffed in frustration and began to strap the saddlebags back onto Pippin. He checked the tightness of the girth and started to mount him.

'Can I come with you?' Blaine asked.

Kurt stopped, one foot in the stirrup, one on the ground. He sighed, looking over at Blaine under his arm – both his hands were on the saddle.

'Come on,' Blaine said. 'I can hunt and scavenge and track and trap, and better two than one if anything attacks, right?'

Kurt was tempted. He really was. Blaine was nice and friendly and would be handy to have around, not to mention the fact that he was drop-dead gorgeous. But he still remained wary.

'How do I know I can trust you?' The scepticism in his voice was evident.

'Because I had about forty different opportunities to kill you in the past half hour and I didn't. I've been following you for two days and I haven't.'

'You're not from the Kingdom.'

'So?'

'You might be an enemy.'

'I'm really not.' Kurt could see the sincerity in his eyes.

He dillied and dallied for a few more moments, still watching Blaine. Finally, he came to a decision.

'Fine. Do you have a horse?'

Blaine's face immediately lit up in a huge grin that made Kurt's stomach flutter and he nodded enthusiastically. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly. A few moments of silence later, the foliage of the treeline began to rustle, and suddenly, a little horse emerged.

It was a dun Connemara, with black socks and mane and tail. The pony nickered and trotted over to Blaine, who laughed as it nuzzled his chest.

'This is Merry,' he said. 'Finest little stallion in the Forest.'

Kurt smiled and reached out to greet Merry. The pony sniffed his hand a couple of times, then immediately began to nuzzle his chest.

'Oh, wow, ok!' Kurt cried gently, laughing a little at the tickling sensation. 'Good boy… Merry.'

Blaine grinned again and tugged Merry away from Kurt. 'Come on, you goofball,' he teased. 'Let Kurt go.'

They both mounted their horses and watched as Merry and Pippin interacted. They seemed to be getting along quite well.

Kurt looked down at Blaine (about a foot lower than him because of their horses' height difference), who smiled. 'Lead the way,' he said.

He squeezed Pippin's sides with his ankles and rode back into the Forest.

Travelling with Blaine was different from travelling alone.

The previous heavy and foreboding silence that had filled the Forest was broken by their voices and laughter. He wasn't as worried about being attacked – as Blaine had said, it would be a lot easier to fight off wolves or bears with two pairs of hands, not to mention that Blaine was a scout – and he now knew what those movements in the corner of his eye or snapping twigs had been. The afternoon seemed to pass in a blur as they talked and rode.

Having decided to mostly trust Blaine, Kurt told him about his school and friends and magic class. He divulged the nature of his quest to him, showing him the compass he was following. Blaine examined it closely, fascinated, then tested it by turning round in circles. Kurt told him about how the necklace was his Colour and therefore directly linked to his psyche.

And likewise, Blaine told Kurt about himself. He was seventeen, and had been scouting for a year and a half. He lived in the Forest – he wouldn't say exactly where, but Kurt supposed he wouldn't recognise it anyway – and spent his days hunting or tree climbing or riding Merry. He told Kurt about his favourite place to go, a large clearing where he could watch the stars at night, and about how some days he would go down to the river near his house and just sit and watch the dragonflies and pond skaters and frogs.

When Kurt asked him about his family, he stopped talking and looked away silently. Kurt didn't press any further.

They stopped at dusk just a little off the path they had been following and Blaine helped Kurt build a fire and set up his tent. He himself didn't have one; he simply spread out a blanket roll beside the fire, using a saddlebag as a pillow. They roasted parsnips over the bare flames and ate them with Kurt's dried pork and Blaine's waybread.

When they had finished and cleaned the dishes, they sat on either sides of the fire, talking. There was so much to know about each other. Blaine showed Kurt how to swipe his hand through the flames, fast enough to not get burnt and yet slow enough to leave a dark deposit on his skin. Kurt showed Blaine how he could turn the flames different colours with his magic, watching the amused expression on Blaine's face as he turned them blue, green, purple, red, black and pink. They talked about how they both loved horses, how disgusting cold stew was, and how uncomfortable chainmail could be. Blaine described how annoying it was when he was trapping and accidently got caught in his own traps, causing Kurt to laugh out loud. Kurt confessed how he had attempted to grow a plum tree in Telepathic and how the plums had turned out poisonous, giving his entire magic class stomach cramps for a week.

Eventually, Blaine started yawning, and Kurt realised he could feel his eyelids drooping too. They decided to call it a night and each retreated into their own beds.

Kurt laid on his back, looking up at the canvas ceiling of the tent, a small smile playing on his lips. Never had he thought that his task would turn out to be quite so… interesting. Blaine was fascinating. He'd never met a scout before, only seen them occasionally at the annual Academy festival or the one time he had visited Varrod. Having one travelling with him and telling him about what it was like was… amazing. He had never realised quite how specialised they were.

And it wasn't just the fact that he was a scout. Blaine himself had so much to say, to tell him and to show him. What he had let on about his personal life was all so differentfrom what Kurt was used to, it just made him want to get to know him better.

He drifted off to sleep, thoughts of the boy lying outside his tent still crowding his mind and dreams.