Weeks pass in this manner. They meet at one of the tides, lighting the cave with more and more baubles that Kurt brings with him each time. And every time, Blaine gives him a little feather in return—a downy one, so that he can save the others and not be mistaken—if anyone found out he'd given one of his beautiful decorative feathers to someone, there would be questions. Those are supposed to be for a mate if they aren't sold.

Not that he doesn't want to give Kurt his feathers, want to make him an offering and ask him to be his mate. Kurt is everything he's ever wanted—he's funny and whip-smart, so beautiful and he loves to sing. He's playful, too—he and Blaine often race, seeing if Kurt can swim to the bottom of the cave beneath the water and back before Blaine can fly to the roof of the cave and land again. They laugh and sing while tying up the lights across the cave, finding new and inventive ways to attach them in places that they can easily be put back in the water to refresh them. They harmonize and play with the echoes, making up songs and singing songs that they learned from their people, sharing and learning and changing.

Kurt in particular seems eager to learn, and asks a lot of questions.

"What do you do in your village?"

"The Eyrie doesn't really have...specific jobs, like your people seem to," Blaine explains. "We don't have titles, and we aren't restricted to one thing. We all know each other's talents, and we work with them. I'm a good singer—my voice carries well. So I can call messages while we're flying, or sing birdsongs and communicate with lesser birds. My friend Brittany moves like no one I've ever seen—she can fly all kinds of patterns, and she dances when we have festivals or join the land folk for theirs. My friend Sam—Brittany's mate—is a great scout, he sees things others don't." "What about your brother?" Blaine laughs, not without a little bit of resentment.

"I think Cooper just wants to breed. He might as well be a peacock with the way he struts."

"He doesn't have a mate?"

"No, but not like that would stop him," Blaine comments. Kurt raises his eyebrows, and Blaine adds, "I'm sure he'll be one of those who takes more than one mate. It's not really common, but it happens. Sometimes people just connect. I think Cooper will connect with anyone who gives him the attention, though. He's already turned down several mating offers. If he ever does settle down, I'm sure he'll either need a mate who is capable of keeping him on his toes, or several mates to keep his life interesting."

"I can't imagine that," Kurt says. "Loving more than one person like that. My people...matefor life, and once you're wed that's it. My mother died when I was young, and despite the fact that my father could have found plenty of companionship in the years since, it would be frowned upon if he took another wife."

"I thought your people wanted more children. Why would they deny a partnership that could produce them?"

Kurt frowns.

"My people's religion says that it's because the souls of people united become one, and can't join with another once the...the pieces of the puzzle connect. But I've never really believed in religion. I think it's because sometimes people are forced to marry before they're ready, before they've found someone theywantto join with. If they're getting too old, or if their union is arranged between families. Santana and I will join because we have no other option—we aren't allowed to love who we want. It would be all too tempting to find some way to dissolve the union for someone in this situation, wouldn't it?"

"I suppose," Blaine agrees.

"Well, like I said...it's for life. So I wouldn't be surprised if, at one time, someone thought they could get away with murdering their mate so that they could be with someone else. Or running away, or any number of things."

"Why can't they run away?" Blaine asks. "Aren't there people far enough away that they wouldn't know?"

"That's why we're marked in the joining ceremony," Kurt says. "Matching brands. It's the job of the female's mother to craft the brand for the new couple, and the father of the male heats it in a sacred geyser and applies it."

"That's...barbaric," Blaine can't help but say, imagining the singeing of flesh during something that should be joyful.

"Life isn't as awful as I think I've made it seem," Kurt says suddenly. "I can still sing, and be with my friends, and my father. There are so many places to explore, so many beautiful traditions and most people are fine with the way things are and can make arrangements they're happy with."

"But you can't. Kurt, that's not okay—"

"I know. But...but my life isn't just that. There's a ceremony that...that I love. On the winter solstice, my tribe gathers around our sacred geyser, and Isabelle and the other Shamans perform the most incredible magic. They light up the geyser in all kinds of incredible colors, and the whole tribe sings and the water gets so warm and you can feel the magic on your skin. And then we exchange gifts, little things to show that we care. Just trinkets, jewelry, things like that. And one year my friends saved up and they bought a spell from one of the Shamans, and Isabelle performed it for me. It made my scales glow for a whole week, like the geyser—no one could ignore me then."

The last words are said bitterly, and Blaine wants so badly to show Kurt a life where he could have the beautiful moments and still be allowed to be himself as well.

"I just...feel like I was born in the wrong place," Kurt continues suddenly. "Like I don't belong there. My mother felt the same, I think—she took me to shore and taught me the language of the land folk, because she knew their ways. Which...I'm grateful for, now. The first time I used it with someone from the land was with you."

"You—you don't speak this language naturally?" Blaine asks. "You don't speak...differently."

"I think that's because my language doesn't really use words?" Kurt says, a little uncertainly. "It's more...tones, and signals. It doesn't use words nearly as much as your language. You can't really hear them underwater. We do have a language for use above the water, and a lot of our caves and buildings have air pockets, but sometimes it's just easier to let someone know something without a sound. So when I learned this language, I learned it in the way the nearest people speak it in. That's your people, and the land people nearby."

"So I'm not the first person from the land you've met?"

"No...you are. Like I said, I've never used this language with anyone else. My mother learned from a man who lived nearby, though." He seems to debate with himself, biting his lip, but then he looks up at Blaine and relaxes. "She learned it from a fisherman that caught her when she was a child. He was mesmerized by her and kept her in a lake near his home for years, until she became very sick. She convinced him to bring her back home, to the sea, because would've died if he hadn't. But she was never the same—she was weak, and she died when I was still a child."

"I'm sorry," Blaine says, knowing it would never be enough, but also knowing that it was all he could offer. Kurt smiled at him for it.

"My father loved her very much," he continues, seemingly just happy to talk about her. "A lot of people did. She was beautiful."

Blaine's romantic heart wants to say Kurt is beautiful as well, probably more than she could ever have been, but he stays silent.

"But people never looked at her the same when she came back. Even though it's not technically possible without very strong magics, some people thought she had...been with the fisherman. She wasn't, she was always intended for my father and loved him very much, but some people did not view her kindly. They spread...lies. That I was not my father's son."

Blaine frowns.

"But you said it wouldn't be possible without magic."

"It wouldn't. But if someone truly despises another, wouldn't they be willing to believe the impossible if it gave their hate reason?"

Kurt looks so downcast, so angry and sad and lost. Blaine holds out his hand, which Kurt takes, cupping in his own, thumb stroking gently over the feathers along his wrist.

"You don't deserve how your people treat you, Kurt," Blaine says. "There's nothing wrong with you."

"I appreciate that, Blaine, but I live in a world that says otherwise," Kurt whispers, as though he can't find the strength to really speak. "If only a fisherman had captured me instead."

He says it wryly, smiling ruefully, and Blaine wants to saysomething, wants to see him really smile with an urgency that's sudden and strong, but Kurt turns and looks over at him, taking a deep breath and laughing nervously, pulling his hand from Blaine's.

"So tell me about your childhood. Tell me about your home." Kurt slips back into the water from his perch on the rock, as he does when he feels too dry. He looks up at Blaine, the lights from the baubles glinting in his eyes and off the delicate translucence of his skin. His braids trail in the water as he dips down to breathe through his gills for a moment, and he pops back up to spit a stream of water playfully before he laughs, bright and beautiful. "Tell meeverything."

—

Blaine can't stop thinking about Kurt's story about the fisherman.

Was the fisherman in love with Kurt's mother? Did he know she'd become so beautiful when he captured her as a child? Did he know that she was prized for her loveliness in her home? He clearly saw it himself.

Would Blaine have done the same, in that situation, if Kurt had been in his net? Would he have kept Kurt?

He wants to keep Kurt now. He wants to take him from the heavy press of the water and show him how to fly. He wants to let him feel the sun as something that warms, not something that hurts. He wants him to live in the light, live in the beauty of the world, not in a place that forces him to breed with someone he can't love, that ostracizes him for being different and then refuses to accept him even when he does bend to their conformity. He can't win, and Blaine wants so badly to take him from such an awful place.

Could he do it? He knows the secrets of Kurt's world now, he knows how it would work to keep him. Maybe he and Kurt could run away together—Kurt's not marked yet, after all. Blaine knows Kurt needs the sea. They could find an Eyrie near the sea, and Blaine would build his nest right on the water, so they could live together. He'd do it right in the cave if Kurt's people didn't live so close, if he didn't think they'd come looking for him right there. But if they go, they can...they can be together. Maybe not perfectly, maybe not in the way most people are, but Blaine doesn't care. He just feels like Kurtbelongsin his life, in his home, in his heart.

He just has to talk to Kurt about it. He doesn't know if Kurt feels the same, even though the way it feels when they look at each other—it feelsright.Kurt can'tnotfeel it. It's strong, it'sthere. BlaineknowsKurt feels it in the way their hands cup, the way their arms brush, the way their hearts open so naturally to each other. Kurthasto feel it.

Blaine pulls out his pouch, and looks at the feathers within. He has a decent collection. He can't make anything too elaborate, but he thinks he could make something beautiful, at least. Something that would look beautiful on Kurt. Maybe a necklace, and he can collect sea glass to put on it, and shells, to show the joining of their worlds, to show that sometimes the sea and the sky can go together. They can love each other where the two meet.

He's going to do it. He's going to give Kurt a mating offering. They'll figure it out, it willwork.

"Hey, squirt!"

Blaine sighs, closing his pouch quickly, almost guiltily, and turns to look as Cooper makes his way into Blaine's home.

"Don't call me that," Blaine requests, though he knows it's in vain. "What do you want, Coop?"

"Oooh, grouchy this morning," Cooper teases. "Did you get salt in your feathers or what?"

Blaine feels a cold tightness in his belly, a fear and a panic. Cooperknows.

"N-no," he blurts. "How would I get salt in my feathers? I haven't been near the sea."

Cooper frowns at him confusedly, his mouth still half-twisted into a smile.

"Just a phrase, Blainey," he says. "But your lying needs some work. If you're going to keep it up, maybe you should come study the mockingbirds with me. They're damn good at it themselves, but I'm pretty sure I can get their secrets out of them—"

"Cooper, what do you want?" Blaine asks irritably.

Cooper sits down next to Blaine on his bed, his wings twitching uncertainly.

"Look, I'm not the only one worried about you," Cooper says. "I'm just the only one who's going to bring it up before Mom and Dad catch wind of it and get the elders involved. You can't keep this up."

"Keep what up?"

"Blaine, we know. We know you're going off, doingsomethingnear the sea. Sam saw you heading to the caves the other day, and you always come back smelling like you got dragged out of the tide. You're not coming out flying with us, you're not even taking Flights to go find a mate. I know you want one, you couldn't talk about anything else for months before you built your own nest. But now you're off, by yourself, gone for hours, and then you come back and you're off in another world. So what's going on?"

Blaine looks over at Cooper—self-absorbed, silly Cooper, who is having the first serious conversation he's probably ever had with Blaine, showing his concern, and Blaine thinks—maybe Cooper wouldget it. He understands that strange things happen sometimes, he makes them happen himself a great deal of the time.

"Coop—if I tell you, you can't tell anyone else. It would—it would be bad."

Cooper looks at him very seriously, and it unnerves Blaine.

"I won't say anything if you don't want me to."

Blaine nods, hoping Cooper can feel his silent thanks, and then he breathes deeply, stroking the feathers on his arms unconsciously, comforting himself.

"I've been going to the caves."

Blaine waits for Cooper to reprimand him for defying the laws that are only for everyone's good, but he doesn't. He just shrugs.

"Go on."

"I've...look, do you remember...a few weeks ago, that merman I helped? The one who was washed up on the beach?"

"Yeah," Cooper says. "The pretty one you couldn't take your eyes off of. You've been seeing him?"

"Yes."

"Okay. So...why the caves? Why can't you just meet on the beach? And why haven't youintroducedus?"

Cooper smacks Blaine on the arm and grins at him, but Blaine shakes his head.

"He's not supposed to be seeing me," Blaine explains. "His people...they don't approve of...of non-breeding relationships. He's going to be mated to a girl, but he prefers men. He told me if he didn't go through with it, he'd be killed."

Cooper's eyes go wide, and his smile falls.

"His people would kill one of their own? Just for...for loving?"

"Yes."

Cooper whistles, eyes drifting down to the floor.

"That's not good. Are there others? Ones he can be...himself with?"

"Not that he knows of. Even if there are, they'd probably kill him, too—the tribes down there are always at war. And it's not just his tribe, either—it's some kind of religion, it's part of their culture."

"Not any kind of culture I'd want to live in, that's for sure. So...what are you going to do?"

That's Cooper—action, moving forward, even if he hits a wall. Blaine smiles fondly.

"I want to offer a mating," he says. "I'm in love with him, Coop. He's everything."

"Come on, kid, you couldn't just fall for that obnoxious creep who came here on his Flight last year? He was pretty into you."

"He tried to offer a mating to someone underage, Coop, I'm pretty sure—"

"—you weren'tthatunderage—"

"—I do not want to be with someone like that—"

"—and he wasn't offering a mating so much as...you know...mating."

Blaine covers his face and laughs at the memory, if only because it makes it less uncomfortable.

"No, Coop," he says, when he settles. "Kurt is it for me. I can feel it. I want to spend my life with him."

"How does that work, then?" Cooper asks. "You going to give up your feathers, learn to swim? Or is he going to dry up and drag himself everywhere by his elbows?"

Blaine grimaces.

"I don't know how it would work," he admits. "But I'm willing to figure it out."

"Well, I support you," Cooper says, and Blaine smiles gratefully at him. "Not sure the Elders will, but there's no reason to go against you. You love this fish guy, that's it."

"He's not a fish."

"He looks like a fish."

"Coop—"

"Okay, fine, he's not a fish," Cooper concedes, rolling his eyes. "Whatever. You gonna make him an offering soon, then?"

"I think I'm going to talk to him tomorrow," Blaine says. "See if...if he's willing to come with me. See if he's willing to...to work it out."

"If he doesn't, he's an idiot," Cooper says simply. "But no one can resist our charm, just remember that, Blainey. And if he does, with his weird not-fish magic, there's always that pretty boy in the village who keeps selling you things half-price. I mean, you'd always be stocked for anything you need, and you could pass some along to me—"

"Thanks, Coop."

"No problem, little brother."