"Tash, what did you mean earlier, when you said that Brec was just old-fashioned? How does that explain anything? Because compulsion is slavery, you know. And making someone under compulsion have sex with you...that is rape."

It was Blaine's turn on watch, and Tash couldn't seem to sleep either. Brec was lying in the cage with his back to Blaine, giving all appearances of being asleep, though he may have just preferred to ignore the conversation.

"I don't know that I see it that way, Blaine. Personally, I'd rather find myself under the impression that I was enjoying myself, even if it were false, than go through what those slave traders did to us."

Blaine winced gently. "I'm not...I mean, I don't want to negate what happened to you, Tash, but that doesn't make what you did to me...or I guess tried to do to me any better. If Kurt hadn't stopped us..."

"Your body seemed to be responding to it," Tash said softly, not meeting Blaine's eyes.

Blaine flushed. "Yes...I...that isn't the point. In fact, that's exactly the problem. Have you ever been compelled, Tash?"

Tash sighed. "No," he admitted.

"Well, trust me. Once the compulsion breaks...it feels very much like a violation."

"That's just it, though. Usually it never does break. Most humans that are compelled just stay that way forever. Just happy and unaware."

"And destroyed. Emptied out like a shell. Dead inside."

"Did you feel dead inside?"

"I think I would have, eventually. I could feel the corrosion starting to happen. In retrospect, I think I would rather lose anything before I would give up my free will. It's like...my selfhood was being taken from me."

Tash smiled slightly. "You sound like one of the followers of-" he spoke the unmistakable name of his grandmother's sand god.

Blaine gasped.

"I...my grandmother was. Tell me what you mean."

Tash rolled his shoulders. "Well. It's complicated. I was a history teacher before I was exiled, you know, so I can tend to be a bit detail-oriented. Let me just start with this. The Sidhe owned humans – at least you would consider it ownership, most of us would think of them as pets – long before humans owned Sidhe. The followers of the Blessed Guardian of the Sands instigated the first uprising, made a big fuss about human rights, and eventually they were set free, a non-interference doctrine was established, and you were all sent to Villalu. That's the short version."

Blaine stared at him. "I thought...I thought the border had just always been there. To keep us separate from the Faerie lands."

"Well, yes. Because you humans run around like wild dogs, destroying everything you touch, unless you are properly compelled."

Blaine snorted in indignation.

"Well you do, you know," Tash asserted. "Blaine, have you ever wondered why there are no humans at all in the world outside of Villalu?"

Blaine thought about it. That couldn't be true, could it? What about...no, the Eastern Sea had a border too.

There were borders everywhere.

But that's just how the world was, wasn't it? Blaine had just always figured that there must be humans somewhere else, though he wasn't entirely sure where he had gotten that impression.

Blaine looked back at Tash.

"The borders aren't there to keep the humans out, Blaine. They're there to keep the humans in."

"But...I..."

Tash rose to his knees, scooting closer to the bars between Blaine and himself. He stared at Blaine hard.

"Do you really think we couldn't just do whatever we wanted to you? Do you really think we couldn't just swarm Villalu and compel the lot of you and destroy all the iron and verbena and free all the slaves?"

Blaine stared at him. That was a very good question.

Tash laughed shortly. "Two reasons, Blaine. First, the non-interference doctrine that says humans get to make the laws in Villalu. And second, because we don't have prisons or dungeons on our side of the border. They know exactly what happens to us over here, and they don't do a thing about it because this is prison. This, Blaine, is hell."

Tash's cheeks had become flushed and his breathing seemed labored. He slumped to the floor. "We were just trying to get by," he muttered. "That's all we were trying to do."

Blaine swallowed.

He hadn't known it was like this at all.

"There are other ways to get by," he insisted, but his voice was a whisper.

"We can never go back, Blaine. We are exiled. We can live in the border towns, but we're still at the mercy of human governance, even there. And the competition for resources in the cities can get fierce. It's no kind of life for a Sidhe with weak powers. Following Brec was working. He was taking care of us. But now..."

Blaine watched him intently. Tash looked downright forlorn. "What happened to...well...her name isn't really Madame, of course, but what happened to her?"

Tash shrugged and looked off into the distance. "Sold," he said. "Pretty quickly, too."

They sat in silence for a few moments.

"Blaine?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think...could you let me out for a bit, just so I can...uh, eliminate?"

Blaine blushed slightly. "There is a chamber pot right there, Tash."

Tash's nose wrinkled in disgust. "You want me to spend the entire night sleeping with that in here? Kurt took us out earlier. I don't see why you can't."

"Well, probably because you could set me on fire with a flick of your wrist if I let you out," Blaine reasoned. "But if you really need to...I mean, I could wake up Kurt."

Tash sighed. "Yes, I suppose. But...do you really think we should wake him? He seems to need the rest. And I wouldn't want him to get angry and decide to-"

"Tash, why are you trying to make me let you out?" Blaine was looking at him through narrowed eyes.

"Blaine, I just have to..."

"No. You're trying to soften me up and make me feel sorry for you so that I'll let you out and you can turn on me. Do I really seem that naïve to you?"

Tash pursed his lips and sighed heavily, allowing his shoulders to slump. "Yes," he admitted sullenly.

Blaine gave a soft laugh, touched by only the slightest edge of bitterness.

"You might want to start thinking for yourself before Brec gets you killed, you know," Blaine said idly, staring at Brec's supine form. "I don't care how bitter he is or how elaborate a scheme he may have cooked up, there is no way the two of you could overpower Kurt."

Blaine stood up. "Use the chamberpot, Tash. Or wait until it's Kurt's turn on watch and he can take you out. But I think I'm done talking to you right now."

Blaine walked back to the tent to watch Kurt sleep.

"Nice job," Brec muttered from his corner of the cage.

"All right, that's IT!"

Tash blinked against the harsh morning sunlight, taking a moment to register that it was Kurt who was yelling and storming toward the cage, Blaine running after him with a nervous expression, his sword swinging from his belt.

"No, Kurt, I didn't mean...just think about this. Please. It's not even him, he's just following along, it's B-"

Blaine's words died in his throat as Kurt stopped before the cage, a large hole melting and sizzling into one side, and then reached in and pulled Brec out by the throat. A few of the fragmented, weakened iron bars clattered to the ground at the sheer force with which Kurt seized the other Sidhe.

Blaine and Tash stood dumbfounded.

"Of course it's Brec, Blaine, I know that," said Kurt evenly, his blazing fire eyes boring into the horror-struck Sidhe in his hands.

Kurt took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, and then shoved Brec away forcefully. The shocked Sidhe stumbled backwards and fell to the ground.

Kurt opened his eyes and knelt down in front of him.

"Why? Can you please just tell me? We saved you from slavery, you ingrate! We were planning to let you go! And then you have your lackey try and manipulate Blaine so...what? So you can kill him and drape me in iron and bleed me of essence? Was that your little plan?"

Brec's fear had cooled into open disgust. "More or less," he sneered. "We had to have some sort of plan. We had to try. Go ahead and kill me if you please. You've already left me impotent."

"I've left you perfectly intact, lacking only the ability to enslave people with your eyes!" Kurt grated.

"Humans," Brec muttered, almost too low to hear.

"Excuse me?"

Brec whipped his head around, meeting Kurt's gaze without a flinch. "I said humans. Not people, just humans. Or are you going to start binding home-growers so they can't compel plants? In the name of the gods, where does it end?"

"Humans are people," Kurt said, his tone dangerously calm. "Blaine is a person!"

Brec's lips curled into a chilling smile. "Blaine is your fucktoy," he corrected.

Kurt lunged at Brec, hauling him up by his arms and slamming his back into the bars of the cage. Brec flinched at the iron digging into his skin.

"Okay," Kurt said softly. "All right. This is how we are going to do this. I am not going to use anything against you except a measure of Earth that is even in strength with your own, and, of course, my fists. And we are going to settle this."

Kurt let go of Brec and turned to Blaine.

"Blaine, ready the horses. Arm yourself. If I lose this, I want you to ride away as fast as you can."

Blaine choked on his own breath.

"Kurt. No. This is insane. Let's just...let's just leave. Come with me. He can't compel, he can't do anything. He's just...he's trying to provoke you. Don't give him the satisfaction."

"Blaine, please trust me when I say that the satisfaction here is going to be all my own." Kurt was still staring at Brec, cracking his knuckles, his eyes manic.

Blaine touched Kurt gently on the shoulder.

"Kurt, please," he said softly. "I don't know why you think you have to do this. Whatever threat he may have posed has already been contained. He's just...kind of pathetic now. Please walk away from this."

"Blaine..." Kurt's eyes flickered into something a bit softer when he looked into Blaine's eyes. "I...the things he said about you. About what we have. I can't just let him..."

Blaine moved his hand from Kurt's shoulder to his cheek. "Be the better man," he soothed, stroking Kurt's cheek with his thumb. "He can't touch what we have, Kurt. Not if you don't let him."

They gazed at one another for a moment.

It was only a moment.

It was enough.

Kurt only saw Brec for a split second before he saw the look on Blaine's face.

The look of shock.

The gasp of pain.

Blaine fell to the ground, his own sword lodged in the back of his ribcage.

"Blaine!" Kurt screamed, scrambling down to catch him.

Brec laughed, deep and rich. He raised a severed bar from the cage over his head, his hands covered with torn fabric from his own shirt, and brought it down swiftly across Kurt's back.

Kurt fell forward with a scream. Brec pushed the bar into Kurt's flesh with the heel of his boot, so hard that Kurt's flesh actually began to sizzle.

"Oh, that was too easy," Brec chuckled, luxuriating in a sense of victory. "I knew I could count on your boy to soften you up. Tash, will you-"

Brec stopped when he actually looked at Tash.

The other Sidhe had stepped out of the cage, and was staring at them with wide eyes.

At Blaine, bleeding on the ground.

At Kurt, screaming as the iron burned into his skin.

At Brec. Tormenting those that had freed him, even after all he had put them through.

Brec watched the conflict dance across Tash's face. Tash had talked to Blaine. Tash had listened to Blaine.

Brec moved fast. He flicked his wrist and the earth beneath them began to tremble, cracks beginning to form beneath Tash's feet.

Tash moved faster. And then he rushed to move Kurt and Blaine away from the screaming, writhing column of flame that he had caused Brec to become.

It was difficult to wrench the iron bar from Kurt's flesh without being able to touch it properly himself, but Tash had finally managed. Kurt had instantly fallen upon Blaine in a panic, trying to heal him even with jagged splinters of iron protruding from the gaping wound in his back, even without removing the sword.

Tash had never been good in a crisis. His instinct had always been to give up, to run, to hide. To find someone stronger than himself to protect him.

Tash did not have those options. Not now. He couldn't just kill Brec and then leave Blaine to die, too. What would be the point?

Tash moved over to Blaine, and gently urged Kurt away. It wasn't easy; Kurt was hysterical. But Tash finally broke through with gentle, repeated messages. I'm going to help him. You can't heal him until you have healed a bit more yourself. You need to let me look at him. Kurt, I'm going to help him. I'm going to help him. I'm going to help him.

Tash examined Blaine carefully. He still had a pulse, though it was a bit faint. He was still breathing. He didn't seem to have lost too much blood. Tash decided that it was probably safest not to remove the sword just yet. He also decided that they did not have a lot of time.

"Kurt." Kurt was sitting beside Blaine, rocking back and forth, tears streaming down his face, and whispering Blaine's name over and over again.

"Kurt," Tash repeated, touching his arm gently and looking at his face. "I can help you. I can help Blaine. But you need to listen to me, all right? Now, do you have a medical supply kit in the carriage?"

Kurt looked at him, blank and uncomprehending. "Blaine," he whispered brokenly.

"Kurt, if you don't communicate with me Blaine will die. Now. Medical kit. Do you have one?"

Something seemed to snap into focus behind his eyes, and Kurt nodded. "Under...under the seat. In a wooden box. I...I should have been watching. I should have...what have I..."

Tash bit his lip. He had never seen a creature as powerful as Kurt look so utterly decimated. Especially not over a simple human boy.

"Kurt, I need you to do something, all right? I need you to stay with Blaine and...and hold his head in your lap. I'm going to be right back."

As he ran to the carriage, Tash wondered at what point he and Kurt had slipped into Elfin tongue. He was pretty sure that Kurt hadn't noticed either.

When Tash returned with the kit, Kurt was indeed holding Blaine's head in his lap, stroking his hair and whispering to him fervently.

Tash knelt behind Kurt.

"Kurt," he said softly. "This is going to hurt, all right? Just keep talking to Blaine."

Tash extracted the long, slender steel tweezers from the kit and began extracting Kurt's splinters one by one. Kurt shuddered a bit, and gave out a few small yelps of pain, but most of his attention stayed trained on Blaine. When the last splinter was out, the wound finally began to close.

When the wound was finally no more than a faint pink scar, Tash touched Kurt lightly on the back.

"All right, Kurt. When you're ready...I think you can probably heal him now."

Tash didn't add that he sincerely hoped it wasn't too late.

Kurt fought to calm himself enough to actually get started. It was especially difficult, because when he reached out to anchor the power in Blaine, he sensed how incredibly faint his life-force had become. Fainter by far than it had been at the inn in V'auda. Almost too faint for Kurt to save him.

Kurt started to panic. But he couldn't panic. Because if he panicked, Blaine's life would slip away even more, and then it really would be too late.

So instead, he concentrated.

It was a long time before Kurt felt his power begin to take root. He wasn't even sure that it was going to, but he had to be sure. He had to know that it would work, even if it seemed impossible. It was the only way to make it work. The only chance he had.

When he finally felt the power latch on, a tiny, delicate tendril wrapping itself around the faintest glimmer of life Kurt had ever felt, he couldn't stop the tears. He didn't even try.

It took a long, long time. It took every shred of energy he had. It may have even taken years off of his life. Kurt didn't care. He had plenty of years to spare. He would give Blaine every single one of them if he could.

When the power was strong enough, he wrapped it around the sword inside of Blaine's body, and slowly pushed it out, mending organs and muscles along the way, until the sword fell to the ground. The power mingled with Blaine's blood, some of it becoming blood, until his veins were once again thrumming with vitality.

When Blaine's pulse was strong and his breath was sure, Kurt finally allowed himself to stop.

And then he promptly passed out beside him.

Tash stared at the two men. He wondered if Kurt realized that he had been chanting "I love you" in Elfin tongue, his voice trance-like, the entire time that he worked on Blaine.

By the end, his voice had turned hoarse. It had been hours.

Tash thought about what he should do. It would be awhile before they woke up, but he was fairly certain that they would both survive. Blaine was calm and insightful, and Kurt was quick and powerful. Both were very intelligent. Even if they were left with nothing but the clothes on their back, they would survive. Tash was sure of it.

He looked at the horses and the laden carriage.

He looked back at the two men on the ground.

Tash carried first Blaine and then Kurt to the tent, and laid them down beside each other.

He then walked to the carriage, and paused for a moment, considering.

"Oh, very well," he muttered irritably to himself.

He found a flask of water and a couple of apples, and settled himself against the trunk of a large tree to keep watch.