Most of the border towns were in fact rebel cities, walled and heavily guarded against unwanted intrusion from the outside world.

"Blaine, you may notice a...shift in how people regard us when we get to S'aufa," Kurt said, indicating the first city that they planned to journey through.

"Slavery is outlawed, right?" Blaine asked excitedly, placing a gentle hand on Kurt's back as they rode through the countryside. The climate and landscape had been changing subtly as they moved ever west, and it was suddenly becoming much more noticeable. The air was moister, the plant life lusher, the grass and mosses a more vivid green.

It was finally starting to feel like they were somewhere different than the Villalu that Blaine had always known.

"Slavery is outlawed, yes, which they can do because S'aufa considers itself to be its own republic apart from Villalu. Though I am sure that Drayez would beg to differ."

Blaine smiled. "It will be nice...not having to pretend," he said, nuzzling his head into the crook of Kurt's neck. Kurt leaned his head into Blaine affectionately.

"Yes it will. But Blaine, you should...well, just make sure you stay close by me, all right?"

"That won't be a problem," Blaine murmured, shifting his head slightly to kiss Kurt's neck.

Kurt laughed softly. "Well, not just for the usual reason. I think you'll find that there might be a bit of a shift in how others...approach us."

Blaine moved his head off of Kurt's shoulder and looked at him. "Kurt, what are you trying to say?"

Kurt sighed. "Well, Blaine, things are a bit different in the border towns. Most humans who live in them have...something of an attachment to the Sidhe."

Blaine smirked slightly and his eyes twinkled like he was repressing a slightly lewd comment, but he quietly waited for Kurt to continue.

Kurt glanced at Blaine, looking slightly uncomfortable about what he was going to say.

"There is...it's not exactly slavery. But there are many Sidhe who like to keep humans as, well, pets. Playthings. Some even like to keep a collection. It isn't tolerated in the feririars or in Khryslee, but it is very much the normal way of things in the border towns."

Blaine shrugged. "Well, I suppose if the humans choose it..."

Kurt shook his head. "They do keep a kernel of free will. A kernel. But many Sidhe are gifted with the ability to compel others, especially creatures like humans, to do as they wish and believe it is their own true desire. And even those who don't possess the power naturally can purchase it easily enough on the black market."

Blaine was staring at Kurt in shock. "Kurt, can you..."

"No. I can't compel, and I wouldn't want to."

"I didn't know that Sidhe power can differ from one person to the next."

Kurt laughed so bitterly that it was startling. "It varies quite a bit, Blaine."

"So...does that mean we should pretend that I'm your..um...pet?" Blaine asked.

"No. We're fine just being..." Kurt searched for the word to describe what it was they were.

"Ourselves together," he finally settled on. "But you're quite a bit lovelier than I think you realize, and I wouldn't want some less noble sort of elf to compel you to him."

Blaine flushed at the compliment. "Kurt, if I'm left with even a kernel of free will, no one could take me from you."

Kurt smiled. "That's very pretty, Blaine, but I don't think you really understand. Just please stay close to me."

Blaine leaned into him, slinging his arm across Kurt's shoulders and kissing him on the cheek.

"Like I said, Kurt, that really won't be a problem."

Kurt wanted to stop at the first of the ruins, near the gates to S'aufa.

He stepped down from the carriage and moved to the overgrown remains of the crumbling statue, tracing it gently with his fingers and looking at it with a mixture of reverence and deep sadness. He said a word in his Elfin tongue that Blaine couldn't have spoken if his life depended on it.

"What's that?" Blaine asked, approaching Kurt from behind.

Kurt repeated the word he had spoken, and then looked at Blaine and clarified, "Sacred weaver of blossoms. Guardian of trees. This was a shrine to her, but now..." Kurt sighed. He placed his hand on a tangle of vines covering the remains, and tiny purple flowers popped up one by one.

"An offering," he explained to Blaine.

Blaine watched him with a furrowed brow. Something was tugging at the edges of his memory, but he couldn't quite place it.

"This...this is a Sidhe god?" He asked. Kurt nodded.

"But it's in Villalu."

"There are free Sidhe in Villalu. Not nearly as many now as there once were, but this is the ancestral home to many feririars, and some choose to stay, no matter the danger."

Blaine moved closer to the statue's remains, trying desperately to clutch at the elusive familiarity of it.

"I know. I've seen...well, there was that one Sidhe I saw back in N'auri, and my Grandmother said..."

Blaine tilted his head. "Kurt, do...did humans ever worship Sidhe gods?"

"I believe so," Kurt responded. "I'm afraid I don't know as much as I should about human history, but I know...things used to be different than they are now."

"Is there a god...um...his name is something like Kraaflechgreja?"

Kurt raised an eyebrow. "Pardon me?"

Blaine looked sheepish. "Yeah, um, he was...blessed something...I think it had to do with shells, or carpets, or...sand?"

Kurt continued to look at him in baffled amazement before a dawning look of comprehension spread over his face and he burst out laughing. Blaine blushed and looked at his feet, embarrassed.

"Blaine, is it-"

The word Kurt spoke was unpronounceable, as always, though Kraaflechgreja did sound like the closest possible Villaluan approximation. Kurt looked at Blaine with questioning eyes.

"Blessed guardian of the sands that carpet the world?" He added.

"Yeah! Yes, that's it!" Blaine was excited. "I think...I think my grandmother took me to a ceremony, or a ritual, or something for him once. I don't remember that much about it, I was so little, but people brought flowers..."

"Lilies," Kurt supplied. Blaine's eyes widened at this freshly unearthed detail. "Yeah! And...shells?"

"Bivalves, still connected by their ligaments."

Blaine gave a victorious-sounding yell and hugged Kurt enthusiastically.

"Kurt! I can't believe I forgot! It was...I remember it was supposed to be a secret. She would talk to me about Kraa- well, you know, him, and we'd collect shells and pick lilies, and we'd leave honeysuckle out so that the forest Sidhe would bless our home, and we-"

Suddenly Blaine froze.

"Oh, God," he whispered.

Because something had hit him that wasn't exactly a memory. It was one of those cognitive experiences that start out as a memory from deep in childhood, but then the cracks in comprehension are filled in by lessons learned with age.

His grandmother had been murdered during a raid on his village. This raid had been a bit different than the others, though. The people had a figure – it was supposed to look like a person – no, it was supposed to look like a Sidhe – but it was really sort of like a scarecrow – slung up high in a tree. It wore a crown of lilies and a chestpiece of shells. There had been a lot of yelling, and the people had burned it, and his mother had taken him into the cellar to hide. The next day, his grandmother was dead, along with several others, mostly very old.

All the people they killed had been at the ceremony with Blaine and his grandmother.

His mother had told him never to speak of the sand god again.

And he never had. Until that day with Kurt, at the crumbling ruins outside the rebel city, near the western border of Villalu.

Blaine fell to his knees.

Kurt crouched down beside him, startled.

"Blaine...what is it?"

Blaine swallowed. "Let's...let's just get out of Villalu," he said shakily.

S'aufa was less difficult to gain entry to than Blaine had imagined. They presented themselves at the city gates, and then it was a simple matter of Kurt demonstrating that his powers were not being suppressed and he was not Blaine's slave before they were admitted past the first gate. Their carriage was thoroughly searched before moving through to the second gate, and they were asked for payment at the third. Blaine began to reach for his purse, but Kurt smiled and shook his head, taking the glass jar and candle that the guard handed him.

He scooped the flame from the candle into his hand, then stretched and shaped it into a squirming ball. He then rolled it into a thin tendril, and poured it into the jar as if it were liquid. Kurt stoppered the jar and handed it back to the man. The Guard bowed in thanks, and opened the final gate, admitting them to the rebel city of S'aufa, the easternmost of the border towns.

"What was that?" Blaine asked, when they had ridden out of earshot of the guard.

"They prefer to be paid in magics. Much higher market value. Unaccompanied humans trying to gain passage to Khryslee will practically sell limbs to get them."

Blaine stared at him. There was clearly still much that he didn't understand.

Reading his confusion, Kurt continued. "The Faerie lands are protected by very strong and very old magics, Blaine. A human being cannot simply stroll in. They can't even barge or force their way in. The simplest way by far to gain entrance is to be led through by a Sidhe. If that is not an option, a fresh bottle of essence, such as what I just provided for our friend at the gate, will usually get one through, but only if the Sidhe that provides it is powerful enough. The third option involves complicated spellwork, which takes years to learn, and is more likely to kill the human that tries it than actually penetrate the barrier."

"Wow," Blaine murmured. It was starting to dawn on him that they were now in territory that Kurt understood and he did not, and that somehow their roles had reversed. He felt utterly dependent on Kurt, and the feeling both thrilled and terrified him.

As they rode into the city, Blaine simply couldn't stop staring. He had never seen any place like it before, and he caught himself begging Kurt to slow down so he wouldn't miss a thing.

The houses were a strange hodgepodge of traditional Villaluan stone-and-wood constructions and structures that looked almost like giant mounds of leaves, grass, moss and flowers. The mounds were dotted with windows and doors that looked like completely organic and naturally occurring portals, and the only feature making the dwellings look like anything other than bizarre natural phenomena were the neatly stacked stone chimneys emerging from their centers.

"Kurt! Are those...Sidhe houses? Did you use to live in a house like that? What are those bushes out front? Are those...Oh my God, those are our flowers! Growing right out front like that where everyone can see them! Do people realize...I...wait, what do those houses look like inside? Are they really made of plants? Is there regular furniture, or is it...kind of grown out of the ground, like the houses are? Oh my God, what is that?"

Kurt laughed with joy at Blaine's pure bubbling childlike wonder. The thing Blaine seemed most dumbfounded by was what looked like a dragonfly the size of a small goat, dozing in a patch of sunlight on top of one of the Sidhe houses. The sight made Kurt's heart lurch suddenly.

It looked almost like home.

"Yes, Blaine, those are Sidhe homes. No, the...structure I grew up in was a bit different, but there were many houses like these in my ancestral lands. Yes, those are our flowers, and yes, it is well known what they are for. There is much less sexual shame in Sidhe culture than there is amongst humans in Villalu. The dwellings are made of living plant matter. The furniture inside is a mixture. Some of it is crafted and some of it is grown with magics. And that is a (Sidhe word that Blaine couldn't pronounce). I think the Western Villaluans call them Grimchins, but they rarely cross into human lands. That one is probably a pet."

Kurt had never been to S'aufa, but he had visited several border towns as a young Sidhe, and there was a certain consistency to their arrangement. They provided, at first glance, a glimpse into a perfectly melded Sidhe and human world.

But this town, like the others, was definitely not Khryslee. The air of amicable tolerance and coexistence was tainted by the flesh trade and the black market. There were humans so desperate to gain passage to Khryslee that they were willing to do literally anything to get there, and there were Sidhe who had been expelled from their feririars and cast from their ancestral lands for immoral uses of power.

The human governments of the rebel cities gave tacit permission for their Sidhe residents to indulge their power, no matter how unsettling the manifestation, because these Sidhe also used their power to reinforce the city walls and keep them safe from the rest of Villalu.

But on the surface S'aufa, like all the border towns, was quaint and peaceful and beautiful.

Kurt sought out the sort of place that he knew would bring Blaine pleasure. They pulled up in front of a Sidhe-run inn, allowing a small slip of an elfin boy to lead their horses toward the stable.

Blaine watched, captivated, as the youth bounded off.

"I've never seen a Sidhe child before," he mused. "How old do you think he is?"

Kurt glanced back at the boy. "Probably no more than twenty," he said.

Blaine stared at him, open-mouthed. "Twenty? Kurt, that's how old I am! How...how old are you?"

"Well, I was fifty-seven when I went on my soul-walk, so probably...sixty-two?"

Blaine was stunned. "But you...you look so young."

"I am young, Blaine. I'm less than a century old."

Blaine did not want to ask the question. If he asked the question, he would have to think about what it meant. He would have to think about how much more complicated it made things than they already were. He would have to start truly facing the inevitable truth.

He asked the question.

"How long do Sidhe usually live, Kurt?"

Kurt looked away. "A long time," he said.

Kurt turned back to Blaine and pulled him close, kissing him deeply, and hoping he could kiss that expression away. That expression of fear and sadness and longing and ebbing denial.

Stay with me in this moment, Kurt thought desperately. Stay with me.

He did not want Blaine to get tangled in thoughts of how different they were, how if Blaine's life was like that of a flower – short and delicate and intense, Kurt's was like that of a tree – slow and strong and enduring.

Incompatible.

But the very goddess that was weaver of blossoms was also guardian of trees.

They fit together.

Kurt almost told him that he loved him.

When he pulled back, Blaine smiled at him, but his eyes were still forlorn.

"It's nice that we can do that out in the open, without fear, isn't it?" Kurt asked softly, stroking his cheek.

Blaine nodded. "It is."

Kurt took his hand and tugged him forward. "Come on, I chose this place because I knew how much you would like it. You'll never want to stay at a human-run inn again!"

Of that Kurt was absolutely correct, and Blaine allowed himself to be temporarily placated by the whimsical beauty of their lodgings. The inn was really a grouping of mounds similar to the ones Blaine had seen on his way into town, only smaller. There was a large main house where the innkeeper lived; an ageless-looking Sidhe woman who conversed rapidly with Kurt in language that sounded like music. She led Kurt and Blaine to one of the mounds and showed them inside.

Inside, sunlight seemed to glow through the leaves and moss that covered the rounded ceiling and walls. It was a single-room dwelling, simply furnished, some of the blossoms on the wall emitting a lovely golden glow. Blaine saw a table and chairs, the table resembling wicker and seeming to grow directly out of the ground. The floor was carpeted with impossibly soft and smooth moss, and the entire room smelled like a flower garden.

Blaine furrowed his brow. He saw folded blankets, but... "Kurt...where is the bed?"

Kurt smiled. "Aah, but that's the best part. Come here."

Kurt led him to a corner of the room where the moss seemed to be of a different texture and consistency than the rest of the floor. Kurt lowered himself onto his knees, bringing Blaine with him.

They sank into the most luxurious cloud of comfort that Blaine had ever felt in his life. The moss seemed to form a deep bed, hugging the contours of Blaine's body and radiating a slight warmth that soothed the aches in his body from weeks of hard riding.

Blaine let out a deep sigh.

His fingers were laced with Kurt's and they lay there in silence, drinking in the comfort and sense of safety around them.

And in the silence, Blaine couldn't help but let the questions in.

It had been a little over a month since he had first laid eyes on Kurt.

And it had been well over a decade since he'd last laid eyes on his grandmother.

He wondered if Kurt would suddenly be reminded of his flash of time with Blaine, centuries from now, the way Blaine had suddenly dredged up the long-buried memory of his grandmother's sand god.

He wondered how long it would take Kurt to start to forget him.

He wondered how strong the emotion would be if he chanced to remember him.

He wondered if he would remember him at all.

Kurt began pressing soft kisses to Blaine's neck. Blaine turned to him and kissed him fiercely, willing him to remember Blaine's body, his skin, his touch, the passion between them.

And this time when they made love, it was Blaine who cried.