Blaine smiles.

"Are you—you're a bird man," Kurt says, looking him over, wiggling and wincing until he's half-propped on his elbows. "Do you live on the cliffs?"

"Yes," Blaine says, surprised. "You—you know about us?"

"Of course." Kurt looks him over. "You fly above the water there sometimes, so we see you."

"But—but we've never seenyou," Blaine says. "And we've looked—we thought you were just a story."

Kurt half-smiles, as though amused, before he grimaces.

"Do you need more water?" Blaine asks.

Kurt seems to consider.

"It would help," he replies, after a moment. "I have to be strong enough to get back to the water, but drinking can only give me so much help."

"Should I—should I pour it on you?"

"No," Kurt replies, sounding irritated. "I'd need a lot more than you can carry in a shell. What I need is a Healer."

"I don't think the healers of my village would know how to treat a fish man."

"I am not a fish," Kurt snaps. He closes his mouth and sighs after he does it, closing his eyes, his face softening. "I'm sorry—I...this is not a situation in which I wish to find myself."

"I understand," Blaine says. "I wish I could help more, but if I carried you into the water, my feathers would be ruined. I could bring you to the edge, though, maybe help—"

"No, don't risk it," Kurt interrupts. "I know how your kind is affected by the salt. We've found some of you in the caves before."

Blaine wants to ask about the caves, wants to discover something he and Kurt have in common, but now is probably not the time.

"What can I do?"

"If you could give me just a little bit more water, I could probably call my friends. If I'm missing, they'll be looking."

"Sure."

Blaine gets him two shells before Kurt clears his throat again, and then his voice comes out, high and clear and sweet.

"Thank you," he says.

"So you can...just call your friends?" Blaine chooses to ask, from the multitude of questions he has.

"Hopefully they can hear me," Kurt murmurs, staring out at the sea. "I might not be close enough. Can you hold on? I can't be distracted while I'm doing it."

"Oh, yeah," Blaine says, stepping back and sitting down meekly, just to the side. Kurt gives him a little smile and then adjusts himself until he's sitting up entirely, leaning forward just a bit, leaning heavily on his uninjured side.

And then he starts to sing.

Blaine can sing—his entire eyrie sings, it's part of how they communicate. It's easier to hear a clear note through the air than a strained shout, and they can communicate with their lesser bird brethren as well, through their songs.

Now, he's seeing afishsinging.

His song is beautiful. His voice is ethereal, light but strong, and Blaine's never heard anything like it. If Kurt were a Winged, he'd be the envy of the flock. Blaine watches, mesmerized, hypnotized by a strange language and haunting tones floating toward the sea. Blaine blinks back tears when he stops, lowering his head and breathing deep to control himself, only to gasp and snap his head up as a chorus returns, faint but clear.

"They're coming," Kurt sighs in relief, lying back. "They'll be able to get me at the next high tide."

"That's not for hours, though," Blaine says. He looks out at the water, the sun still high over it. Sunset will not come for several hours at this time of year, just after the spring equinox. And the tide comes with the sunset, here.

"Then I'll wait."

Blaine blinks down at him, at his grim determination, and is filled with admiration and pity in equal turns. He smiles at Kurt, who just stares back.

"I'll wait with you," he declares. Kurt's eyes narrow at him.

"Why?"

"To make sure you're okay," Blaine says. "And I can get more water for you if you need it."

"Well. In that case. Could you do...one more thing for me, Blaine?"

"Anything," Blaine says, and Kurt bites his lip against a smile.

"Could you grab some seaweed from the edge of the rocks? I can put it on my wound, keep it wet. And maybe the salt can clean it out a little bit."

"Sure," Blaine says. He hops down to some rocks further down the beach, keeping as well balanced as he can as they get wetter and wetter, finally snagging up some moist, slimy seaweed from where it drifted up with the last tide. He hurries back, stumbling once or twice, before he hands it to Kurt, who lays it on the wound with a wince before nodding at Blaine.

"Thank you for your help, Blaine."

Blaine smiles, but it fades when he realizes that he can still hear the others down the beach. He stands, startling Kurt, and he winces apologetically.

"Hold on, just...one second."

Blaine crouches a bit and takes off, flapping his wings until he gets a good wind beneath him. He glides over to his flock, who are still where he left them, half-heartedly flying and playing with each other as they furtively look over to where Kurt lies near the rocks. He drops to the ground and jogs the last few feet, smiling faintly at their curious looks.

"Did you help the pretty merman?" Brittany asks.

"I did," Blaine nods. "His name is Kurt, and his friends are going to come get him when the tide comes in."

"He'll be here a while," Cooper says. "It's just past low tide now."

"I know," Blaine says. "I'm going to wait with him. Head back to the Eyrie? I should be back shortly after sunset, if the high tide is on time."

"You sure about this, squirt?"

"Yes," Blaine assures. "And don't call me squirt."

"All right," Cooper says, and then his smile turns mischievous. "Go play with your pretty fish."

Before Blaine can come up with a retort, Cooper turns and flies off, the rest of the flock following him. Blaine blushes—Cooper knows him too well.

And Kurt really is pretty.

He turns back, seeing Kurt looking over at him, one hand over his brow to block out the sun. And then Blaine realizes—Kurt probably almost never even sees the sun, and he might be feeling a little better from the sea water and whatever merman magic he has to be so resilient, but he can still burn, and he's sopale.

Blaine flies over, and then climbs up to a jut of rock near the bottom of Kurt's fin, crouching on it as comfortably as he can. His body blocks out most of the light, but when he spreads his wings, allowing the warmth to seep into the feathers, Kurt is totally shaded.

"There," Blaine says. "How does that feel?"

"Thank you," Kurt says sincerely, smiling sincerely up at Blaine and letting his eyes rove over Blaine's feathers. "You have no idea how strong the sun is directly in my eyes like that."

"Do you ever come to the surface?"

"Not often," Kurt says. "When we do, it's usually in caves and inlets, and at night. We're pretty sensitive to the sun, as you see by how dried out I am. And it's darker down where I live."

"How do you see at all?"

"We have lamps," Kurt explains. "There are fish, down at the lowest floors of the sea, and they have lights on their heads. Our shamans learned to harvest that light and put it in balls of sea glass, and they light our cities. And our eyes are adjusted to it."

"I wish I could see it," Blaine says earnestly. Then, remembering, "Do you ever bring those lights into the caves?

"Sometimes, in the lower ones," Kurt says. "They rise up in little pockets underneath the cliffs."

"I used to play in the caves as a child, before our elders banned us from going in. I wish I'd seen you."

Kurt looks at him for a long moment before he speaks again.

"You know, sometimes my friends and I race around the pillars. We start off in the caves, and the first person to get out and circle all the rocks wins."

"Is...is that how you ended up here?" Blaine asks tentatively, not wanting to embarrass Kurt or pry, but he can't help but be curious.

Kurt sighs, looking ashamed.

"Not...exactly," Kurt says hesitantly. "I...kind of...swamintoareef."

"You swam into a...reef?"

"I got this from some coral," Kurt confirms, pointing to his gash. "I was...practicing. It's almost time to choose my path, and I was thinking about being a Caller."

"What's a Caller?" Blaine asks.

"I'd basically be a—I'm not sure of the word," Kurt muses. "Callers swim across the ocean, meeting new people, checking in with different settlements, finding new paths for our Seekers. I have a strong voice, so it was this or becoming a Shaman, but my magic is almost nonexistent. But Callers have to be able to swim through all sorts of different waters. Evidently, I'm not there yet. The water pulled me into the reef, and the last thing I remember is heading for the coral before waking up on the shore, in the sun. And there you were."

Kurt looks so embarrassed. Blaine takes pity.

"When I was first learning to fly, I got stuck in a tree," he offers. "My older brother Cooper had to pull me down. Probably the worst person to do it, too, he still teases me about it sometimes."

"How long as has it been?" Kurt asks.

"...Fourteen years?"

"And he still teases you?"

"It...may have happened on more than one occasion," Blaine says. "I'm a good flier—one of the best—but sometimes a gust comes out of nowhere, or I get...distracted..."

Kurt chuckles, hiding his mouth behind his hand and peeking up at Blaine bashfully. He's adorable, and Blaine just grins down at him, sharing the joke with him.

Blaine realizes that the light is falling, and he glances back. The sun is heading down, fainter in the late afternoon and now a bit off to the side, out of Kurt's eyes, so he folds his wings back up and sits down, settling himself next to Kurt.

"So, Kurt...tell me more about life under the sea."

"Oh, I will," Kurt says, and it sounds like flirting. Blaine blushes, unable to stop smiling. "But only if you tell me about life in the clouds."

"Deal."

—

Blaine is yawning and Kurt is getting sick with prolonged pain when the water rises to lap at Blaine's feet. Blaine hops up and backs up, nervous of the damage it could do to him, shooting Kurt an apologetic look.

"Sorry," he says.

"Don't be," Kurt replies. "I didn't apologize for washing up on shore, did I?"

"You shouldn't have had to."

"Exactly." Kurt looks smug, and Blaine shakes his head.

"Fine. I'm not sorry."

He wants to continue talking, wants to learn more—more about Kurt's life, the way his villages look, what his people do. But then a song rises up in the cool air, much closer than the one earlier. Kurt's face lights up in a grin.

"I can go home," he says. "My friends are here. As soon as the water is high enough for them to get close enough—"

"I—"

Kurt looks up at Blaine, and Blaine stops, unsure of what he really wants to say. He's enjoyed this afternoon and evening with Kurt—he's funny and smart and they have a surprising number of similarities. He wishes they didn't have to say goodbye—the very thought of it wrenches in his chest, draws away his smile, and fills him with regret and sadness.

"You said you can't go into the caves?"

Blaine stares down at Kurt.

"Well—no, the Elders don't like it. People have died—"

"Are you afraid of them?"

"No," Blaine says. "I used to fly into them all the time with Cooper, when we were kids. The water's gotten worse since then, but I know I could fly out in time if they started to fill—"

"And I know the sea better than you," Kurt adds. "I'd know if it was coming, I can feel changes in the water. I could warn you to leave in time."

"Kurt, what are you saying—"

"Would you meet me in the caves? I—I understand if you don't want to, but I—"

"I do," Blaine cuts in. "I want to see you again."

Kurt's smile is stunning, wide and happy and he looks so young and beautiful—

"Three days," Kurt says, as the water starts surrounding him. "Three days, and I should be able to swim on my own again. At morning high tide, I'll swim into the largest cave, on the western side—"

"I think I know it," Blaine says. "The one with the pillar in the center?"

"Yes," Kurt replies, speaking faster, looking at the water frantically, twisting back around to look at Blaine behind him. "I'll be there. Morning high tide. Can you be there?"

"I'll come as soon as I'm able," Blaine says. Impulsively, he reaches out his hand, palm up, smiling into Kurt's eyes when he takes it. "I'll see you then."

"Til then."

Blaine squeezes his hand once, and then it slips away as Kurt flips onto his stomach and is pulled away by shapes in the foamy water, his face a hopeful question as he sinks from sight.

And then Blaine is alone, his hand still outstretched, sea songs floating from the water to surround him.