Tash was surprised to see Kurt emerge from the tent before Blaine, several hours after the rather obvious sounds of their lovemaking had ceased.

Kurt still had a blanket wrapped around him, and he yawned deeply as he sat down next to Tash by the ever-present fire.

"Why did you tell Blaine you were weak?" Kurt asked, watching the flames dance. "This is really quite good."

Tash shrugged. "It's more or less the truth. I'm good with close-range fire, but that's about it. Teaching was what I excelled at, but there isn't much opportunity for that here."

"No," Kurt agreed thoughtfully, "though that may be changing sooner than you think, Tash. At least if I have anything to say about it."

Tash glanced over at him in surprise. "You...you're not going to stay with Blaine, then? I thought, I mean it seems like you two are..." Tash trailed off as he studied the look on Kurt's face.

"I love him," Kurt admitted softly. "But before...all I knew of Villalu came from border town excursions as a child, and I didn't even see what was really happening there, let alone outside the city walls. When I was captured...There came a point at which I started to believe that I was going to die in slavery. I was considering how I might take my own life when Blaine found me. If it hadn't been for him..."

Kurt drew his knees to his chest and propped his chin on them. Tash continued to watch him silently.

"No one deserves it, Tash. I don't care what they may have done, no one deserves slavery. The non-interference doctrine goes too far."

Tash tilted his head and made a noise of assent. "That may be true, Kurt, but do you really think you can change that? It's been in place for millennia. It's an immutable doctrine."

"Well, Tash, tell me this. How long have humans been keeping Sidhe slaves?"

"Not that long, really. About two thousand years, since the Followers of Frilau came into power."

"But why? What could be the justification?"

"Well, how much do you know about the Followers of Frilau, Kurt?"

Kurt sighed. "Very little. Brec may not have been right about much, but the picture he painted of me at home in my feririar was uncomfortably accurate. When it comes to historical knowledge, I'm as ignorant as a pixie."

Tash pursed his lips bitterly. "You should be grateful for what ignorance you were able to enjoy. The Followers of Frilau believe that slavery is the only way to save the souls of Sidhe. Frilau was the leader of a militant fundamentalist group that splintered off from the followers of the Blessed Guardian of the Sands. They believe that we are an evil folk, given the thousands of years that we kept humans under compulsion, and that suffering slavery ourselves is the only way to pay penance. They were nothing but a small, fringe cult for a very long time. No one took them seriously. Well, not until they slaughtered half the Blessed Guardian's followers in Villalu and rose to power, anyhow."

Kurt stared at him in horror.

"This all happened after the non-interference doctrine was established."

"Yes."

"But...didn't anyone...?"

"Of course. A group of Sidhe followers of the Blessed Guardian went so far as to establish their own republic in protest, where they welcomed humans as equal partners in governance. Of course, the only way to keep such a place truly safe was to build it in Sidhe country. So it's always been a bit of a struggle for humans to get to it, and it doesn't really do the Sidhe in Villalu much good. Lovely idea, though."

"Are you...you're talking about Khryslee, aren't you?"

Tash laughed. "See now? You're not as ignorant as you thought."

"Don't patronize me."

Tash smiled and shrugged. "Oh come, now. How often does someone like me get the opportunity to patronize someone like you? Have some compassion."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Well, surely there must have been more outcry than that? How was the non-interference doctrine maintained when the humans were making us into slaves over here?"

Tash smiled a smile that shot chills down Kurt's spine.

"The execution of the non-interference doctrine of course comes down to the Queendom of the Eastern Border Lands. And lovely Queen Loq believed ever so strongly that since the only Sidhe in Villalu were either those that chose to live with the risk or those that had been exiled for severe crimes, there was no reason to formally protest the policy. In fact, she seemed to believe that it created an added deterrent to crime. Her daughter Gira was of the same mindset."

Kurt swallowed hard. "And Gira's son...?"

Tash smiled. "Ah, yes, the child King. Pity about dear Gira, wasn't it?" His was a tone of vicious delight. "You know, I was e- that is, I left shortly after she died. I don't know much about him at all, other than the fact that he was painfully young." Tash sighed. "But what concern is it of mine anymore? Let the whole realm burn down for all I care."

Kurt tried to breathe normally.

Because Tash had just confirmed everything that Kurt had been marginally confident was true.

He tried not to allow himself to feel the sick flood of disappointment and heartbreak that washed over him. He had no right to think about his own happiness. This was not about him. This was much bigger than him. This was about all the Sidhe in Villalu.

Tash studied him, his lips twitching slightly.

"You're really going to do it, aren't you?"

"What are you talking about?"

Tash rolled his eyes. "You're going to try and cozy up to the child King."

"Um, something like that, I suppose," Kurt said, sounding like he was fighting back a bubble of laughter.

"Well, you're pretty enough. Powerful enough. It will never work, though."

"Why not?" Kurt asked, still sounding slightly amused.

Tash gave Kurt a level look. "Because you're never going to be able to leave Blaine."

In the tent, Blaine lay and listened to the elves' voices.

Their native tongue really was beautiful. It didn't even matter what they were saying; Blaine thought he could listen to it all day.

They decided that they would leave for Z'auli the following morning.

After Blaine got up and the three men had eaten, they prepared their bedclothes and garments for washing in a nearby creek, Kurt seeming to suddenly regress to a much weaker state when the task was initiated, sighing that perhaps he still hadn't fully recovered his strength from saving Blaine's life after all.

Blaine smiled to himself as he and Tash took the washing down to the creek, leaving Kurt to prepare the next meal. He knew how much Kurt hated doing laundry, after all.

Blaine only regretted his easy compliance with Kurt's obvious manipulation when he casually asked Tash what he had been exiled for.

"Murder," Tash said simply. "My husband took a lover."

Blaine stared at him.

"You...you killed your husband?"

Blaine wondered if Tash would still be able to light him on fire if he submerged himself completely in the stream.

Tash looked aghast. "No! Of course not! I would never do that to him. I...I loved him. It was that horrible boy he was cavorting with. I killed him. Burned him alive."

Tash sounded terrifyingly calm. Blaine very much wished that Kurt was with them. He didn't like being alone with Tash when there was that glint in his eye.

"You...but...that's just so...you actually killed him?"

Blaine had killed before too, but only to defend his own life or that of someone he loved.

Tash looked slightly confused. "Wouldn't you kill anyone that touched Kurt?"

"Well, if they were hurting him I would, but if he chose to...to be with someone else, I would be heartbroken but I wouldn't kill anyone. Maybe I'd hit the guy. But I wouldn't kill him."

Tash snorted. "You, my friend, are not a Sidhe."

"Well...true..."

"If it were the other way around, Kurt would kill the man. I'm sure of it."

"He didn't kill you, though."

Tash sighed. "Yeah...why do you think I ran so fast when I saw that bottle of essence? Do you realize that I ran halfway to the city walls in nothing but my undershorts?" Tash laughed. "And you were only his human. I didn't even realize that he thought of you...like that."

Blaine raised his eyebrows. "Like what?"

"Like...like a husband. He hasn't even gone on a soul-walk and he already looks at you like you're his lifemate."

Blaine felt his breath catch.

He looks at you like you're his lifemate.

Kurt's lifemate.

Blaine was stunned into a dreamy silence for several minutes, just absorbing the impact of hearing another person say those words.

Blaine didn't know what he wanted to do with his future. He had settled on Khryslee because it sounded like a place free from many of the societal ills that couldn't be avoided in Villalu, and on the thin hope, before Kurt had ever shown any true romantic inclination toward him, that he and Kurt might somehow end up there together.

But he realized one thing suddenly and clearly when he heard Tash's words. Something that he had known was true for a very long time but hadn't let himself say, even inside his own head.

He wanted to be Kurt's lifemate. It was the only thing he wanted with complete conviction. Absolutely everything else in his life was negotiable.

Then Tash's words drifted back to him.

He hasn't even gone on a soul-walk and-

Oh. But Kurt had gone on a soul-walk. He had gone on a soul-walk and emerged completely and utterly ready to marry another man. A man who wasn't Blaine.

A man who was also a Sidhe, and probably gorgeous, and who had grown up with Kurt and knew far more intimate things about Kurt's life than Blaine probably ever would.

A man Kurt was going to see again when they crossed the border.

And for a brief moment that he wasn't proud of, Blaine had nothing but the deepest empathy for Tash's crime.

"Blaine?"

Tash had the look of someone who had only just realized that Blaine wasn't currently listening to him.

"Oh...sorry. I was a bit lost in thought. What did you say?"

Tash smiled a bit self-consciously, focusing intently on getting a spot out of the cloth he was cleaning.

"I was just saying...I mean, I've been wanting to say...that I'm sorry, Blaine. For...you know."

Blaine looked at him. "Are you?"

Tash sighed and ventured a glance at Blaine out of the corner of his eye. "Yes. I am. I...this isn't an excuse, so don't treat it like one, okay? I just...I really didn't think of it as r-r-r-"

"Rape?"

"Right. I didn't. I always thought...or I guess I never thought about what it might be like. For you. Humans just seem so happy when they're compelled, and you're such an unhappy people most of the time, and the only other people I've heard talk about it like it's slavery are religious zealots, so I just...I didn't know, Blaine. I'm sorry."

Blaine's face had softened into an almost-smile.

"Thank you, Tash."

Tash's gaze darted back down to the now-nonexistent spot on the cloth he was washing.

"I'm just glad you didn't get any further before Kurt stopped you or he would have killed you."

Tash let out a bark of laughter. "I know," he said, and it wasn't lighthearted or a joke at all.

Kurt was holding back on using his power until it was more fully restored so that he didn't strain himself, so he gratefully let Tash take over the fire when he and Blaine returned from doing the washing.

They ate a supper of fried mushrooms and stale bread that tasted quite good once it had been toasted over the fire, as well as sliced apples and pears.

Tash talked about Z'auli, which he had been to before, and considered his options with regard to possible employment. He seemed a little nervous to be going forth alone, but there was also a slight edge of excitement in his voice.

It wasn't clear if he noticed how quiet Blaine and Kurt were being.

The next day they would reach Z'auli. After they parted ways with Tash, it would only be a day's journey to the clearing where they would cross the border.

They ate one-handed, fingers interlaced, ignoring the awkwardness of the action in favor of the prolonged physical contact.

Because suddenly it was becoming so real. Suddenly every question, every fear was climbing toward the surface, pushing at the skin of this delicate thing that they had created together.

They had known it was going to happen. Both of them had shed tears over it. Each of them had lost sleep over it. But it had been an eventuality. Something they could push to the back of their minds and hearts because right now they were together.

They didn't let go of one another's hands. They wouldn't. They couldn't.

Because they were all too aware that before long, they could be grasping at nothing but air.