“Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water.” -Christopher Morley

If Blaine focused hard, he could still smell bits of Kurt in the pillow he held against him, and he used that small remainder of him to pretend that he was holding his beloved and not a pillow that was quickly absorbing his own scent of sweat and accumulated filth.  Everything was losing Kurts smell, his touch, and Blaine feared that he was even forgetting Kurts voice.  Part of that was his own fault though. 

When Kurt had disappeared, he told himself that it was temporary.  He convinced himself that Kurt was merely gone for a meeting with the Others and would be back within hours.  So he had sent off their friends, verbalizing that Kurt would be back several times over and ignoring the way they glanced at one another with squinted eyes and kept their lips pursed tight, and cleaned up the cabin so it would be nice when Kurt got back.

In the morning, he told himself that meeting with a people who clearly had a vested interest in Kurt would probably take longer than the few hours he assumed, and extended the time period Kurt would be gone for.  First for a day, then two, and then a week.  He worked, as he normally did, kept a smile on his face, and ensured there were flowers out on the table in their home, freshly bloomed from the rains they had been gifted with, .  Kurt liked the scent of fresh flowers, saying once they reminded him of his mother and how his dad had always bought her fresh flowers whenever he could.

 One week turned into two, and Blaine had ignored the increase in his heartbeat.  He caught himself on multiple occasions telling himself aloud that Kurt would be back, and everything would resume being normal.  A couple of times, his friends, THEIR friends, overheard him and just rolled their lips in and clenched their teeth down on them to stop themselves from saying anything, giving Blaine that sad look his mother had given him once when his goldfish died and he had tried to argue that it was just sleeping.

Still, he kept the house tidied for Kurt, and even dedicated extra hours to work to earn enough credits to use at the trade center to purchase Kurt some soap when he returned.  It smelled like pears, and for Kurt, that would certainly be a treat.  Who knew if he would even get to bathe while with the Others.  Blaine wanted to be certain that the sacrifice Kurt had made would not go unrewarded, even if everyone else in town either seemed to not notice his absence, be alright with it, or not be talking about it.

It was when two weeks rolled into three that Blaines rapid heartbeat and sense of anxiety could no longer be ignored.  His heart ached and his head throbbed.  He felt like his was in excruciating pain all over, with no reason for it. It made him short with everyone and everything.  First it was the goats.  He got mad at one for being an idiot and scratching a gash into its leg when it tried to get out of the pen.  He swore at it while he stitched it up.  Then he got angry with Mercedes who looked like a deer in headlights as he told her, in no uncertain terms, to tell her people to watch the animals better.

He was so easily irritated that when he saw the kids playing on all of Kurts vehicle parts, as they had always done when Kurt had been working on them, he became enraged.  Blaine saw the kids, but he didnt see Kurt there with them.  Kurt should have been there.  He should have been tinkering with one of the motors he had collected by the house, or bent over the quad parked there, fixing the thingamajiggy or the whoozawhatzit or something that only Kurt knew about.  He yelled.  He yelled like he never had at the kids who gawked at him like he was mad and then ran away with tears in their eyes.  He should have felt bad; He did feel bad, but that guilt was submerged below anger.  Blaine checked to ensure that all of Kurts motor parts were in place and untouched, though in all honesty he had no clue what they had been like before.  Kurt tended to his mechanical stuff, and Blaine had never thought to learn more about it.  He regretted it.

When Kitty came over to ask Blaine what was going on, why her son had come home crying because his uncle Blaine had yelled at him for no apparent reason, Blaine got mad at her too.  Why not, after all?  She had stood back and let Kurt be taken away.  It was her son, among other firstborns, that Kurt had thought of when he had sacrificed himself to the glow he summoned. If she, or any of the others in town for that matter, hadnt had any stupid kids, then Kurt wouldnt have worried about some stupid biblical threat the Others had placed on them.  Maybe if Kitty hadnt been so damned superstitious with her biblical nonsense, then they wouldnt have clued into the idiotic "plagues" and Kurt wouldnt have been any the wiser and left.  He spat it all at her, and she tried to toss it right back at him.  He was called a crazy person and delusional by her.  He got a plethora of finger wagging from her and then the final blow was that she told him to stay away from the kids before slamming the door as she left.  Blaine fumed.  She was wrong.  Of course she was wrong.  This was their entire fault.  Not just hers, or the kids, but the entire town.  They had made poor choices.  They had made too many risky runs for scavenging.  If Santana hadnt been caught and they hadnt gone after her, the Others wouldnt have known about Kurt.  It was everyone elses fault and no one was owning up to it.

Blaine stopped going to work then.  They didnt deserve his time and effort and skill.  Mercedes came to ask him to return, but he told her curtly that it was time to find someone else to do the veterinary work.  He wasnt going to help people that didnt appreciate what he and Kurt did.  Moreover, he didnt want to be around people who didnt acknowledge what Kurt had done for them all.  Kurt was gone, and they all acted like it was okay.  Like it didn't matter.  How could they though?  In his mind, so insanely irrational at that point, it didn't make sense.  He felt like his world had ended, so why hadn't theirs?

He started talking to himself, trying to come up with things he could do to get Kurt back.  Then he spoke to the air, asking the god or gods of each religion he knew about to give him back his beloved.  Blaine promised to believe in anything if they complied.  He would be a better person, he would work harder, he would be kinder.  Anything.  Everything.  He just wanted Kurt back.

When the different gods didn't answer his prayer-like pleadings, he tried talking to the Others.

The coin had disappeared, and with it, Blaine's only known connection to the Others.  He had ideas though.  First he sat in the living room, right where he had last seen Kurt before he had been taken away, and spoke aloud.  Maybe, just maybe, they were listening and could hear him.  He promised they could do whatever they wanted to do to him if only they'd reunite him with Kurt.  Blaine would be their slave, if that was what they wanted of him.  He'd never escape, and always comply, just please, please, let him be with Kurt for a moment each day.

His second attempt to contact the Others came from making runs to the closest sources of water he knew about.  There, he would immerse himself in the water, even if that meant having to lay flat on the rocks of a barely bubbling creek bed, and hoped they would come across him there.  No one came by though, and so Blaine tried bigger bodies of water, reteaching himself how to swim from his days in swim classes as a child.  He would dive into the water, looking for portals or some other way to get himself to Kurt.  He'd yell along the edge of the water, telling the Others to take him, making a scene to try and get them to take notice.

There was no response from them though, and so, as a last attempt, Blaine ran to the woods, where years ago they had seen a shifting Other land and change from its bird form to a woman.  He yelled to the heavens, hoping one of them was nearby to hear him, and offering them the same deal he had in the cabin.  He screamed until his voice became hoarse and his lungs would no longer give him the air he needed to bellow, then he knelt on the ground and waited, hoping someone would come, hoping it would be Kurt or someone that would take him to Kurt.

A day later, after laying in the dirt of the forest so long that squirrels were creeping around him without fear, he finally got up and dragged his feet back to his cabin where he laid himself down on their bed and inhaled Kurt's scent from the pillows.  That was where he stayed, only getting up to go relieve himself just outside the door of the cabin, even though Kurt would admonish him if he saw him doing so.  Blaine didn't have the energy to go any further, and he didn't care about how the place smelled outside their door.

People began to prepare for winter. What little crops they managed this year were being preserved or dried out, hides were being tanned and dried, Kittys flowers and herbs were being set up inside a newly commissioned building dedicated to her botany expertise, and the birds were being plucked free of their feathers before being cooked up so that there was down enough for several new quilts.

The only reason Blaine knew all this was happening was because his friends told him.  They brought him meals, having to coax him into eating small bites – which he only did to stop them from pestering him.  Sam and Trent had been employed by the girls to hold Blaine down at one point and wash him since his smell had apparently become all consuming.  They thought it would be a fight, but Blaine let it happen.  In his mind, he pretended it was Kurt washing him, the way he did whenever Blaine got sick and couldn't care for himself, and ignored how Sam whispered to Trent in a panic when Blaine reacted the way he always did to Kurt carefully washing him over.

Kitty was the one that kept him up to date on the community.  As things were prepared, Blaine wouldnt have thought that anything had changed from previous years.  People kept on going about their business, oblivious to the fact that Blaine had lost everything, and that they had lost what had protected them for so long.  A sacrifice made that hadnt been acknowledged by anyone around this place.  Only Blaine knew, only Blaine seemed to care 

Santana was less patient.  She told Blaine that he was “letting himself go in the worst way possible” and tried to physically drag him up and out of bed on several occasions.  He even suffered a slap of her hand when she had declared that she had had enough of his sulking.  Surprisingly, the slap did little to wake his senses, and Santana seemed to react more from her action than he did, looking at her offending palm and then Blaine's red cheeked face before running out.

Blaine stayed in their bed.  He slept a lot, and when he wasn't sleeping he was staring at nothing in particular.  Often he fantasized about Kurt being beside him, and reached up with his arm to hold the image of Kurt he had conjured up.  When he needed inspiration, he smelled Kurt's side of the bed and closed his eyes, remembering memories of his man.  Kurt smiling at him, Kurt holding him, Kurt sleeping with his lips parted slightly, Kurt laughing with his eyes alight and his cheeks rosy.  How could he go on without that in his life?  How had he lived without it before?

Kitty told him that his runs to water sources had been good for the community.  It had shown them those places were safe from Others and now runs were being made to fill cisterns and barrels to replenish their water supply.  People were thanking him apparently.  It didn't matter though.  They had gotten what they wanted, but he had nothing.

As the smell of Kurt faded from the bed, Blaine took pieces of Kurt's clothing that had been left behind to hold to his nose while he laid down.  Each piece of clothing left the bins where Kurt had stored them like that, until it looked like Blaine was sleeping with a pile of laundry that now smelt more like him than Kurt, and he had to scream at Mercedes when she tried to take it away to wash it.  He didn't want her to wash out any tiny bit of Kurt left in them that he might still be able to find.

Naturally, his friends thought he was descending into madness.  They would come alone, but more and more in pairs and groups to try different tactics on him.  Gentle soothing, direct demanding, trying to negotiate with him, and the worst – trying to get him to respond when they asked what Kurt would think of what he was doing.  Blaine hated that one.  If Kurt saw him to know what he was doing, after all, then Blaine wouldn't be doing it in the first place. 

Wearing clothing stopped being a concern for Blaine, and instead of heating up the cabin with the fire pit when winter hit, he just piled all the blankets they had on top of him.  When he gathered those blankets, he saw what had become of the home he and Kurt had made.  It was dusty, devoid of life, and didn't feel like home anymore.  Blaine didn't want to be there, but he didn't know where else to go.  Thus, he again stayed on the bed, which had developed a Blaine-sized imprint with the attention he had given it.

Mike was the only visitor he had that came alone by this point, and the only one who didn't make any requests or plead with Blaine to get up.  He stayed mostly silent as he checked Blaine over; going through the same routine that Blaine knew he went through with Brittany when she had been depressed after Santana had gone missing.  That was what clued Blaine into what he had become.  Like Brittany, he had lost himself when his love had disappeared.  He didn't know if Kurt was dead or alive, scared or happy, free or bound.  It was the trigger he needed to pull himself out of bed, though waiting until Mike had left, and slowly began cleaning up the cabin.  Not for anyone else's benefit, and not for his own benefit, but because it was something he could do to keep his mind and body occupied and not completely focused on how Kurt wasn't there.

Once the house was cleaned, he turned his attention onto himself.  He took the water rations that his friends had been leaving for him and used them to scrub himself over and over, until the cloth he used to wipe himself down dripped clear water instead of brown or yellow, and he didn't feel like he was caked in a layer of his own fluids.  He dressed in clean clothing, and then went out to clean the area around their front entry that he had been using as a outhouse.  Since the first snow had fallen, it wasn't as bad as it had been.  The flies had died off, and he could easily scoop the frozen remnants of his feces away and discard them into a hole in the forest. 

Being outside was what caught the attention of his friends.  Trent was the first to hobble over, still with that persistent limp of his, and ask Blaine if he needed any help.  Internally, Blaine smiled a little at Trent's non-judgmental, non-aggressive means of showing Blaine he cared.  Externally, Blaine's face couldn't manage to form anything more than a scowl.  He was so out of practice and felt like smiling outwardly without Kurt would be an insult to Kurt's memory.

Blaine accepted an invitation from Trent to come over for dinner that night.  Sitting quietly at the table while Trent and Kitty talked animatedly by him, a deliberate attempt to get him to join in the conversation.  He couldn't move that fast though, and just making the effort of going out of the house and having dinner with others was exhausting.  Added to that was Trent's children playing, periodically asking if ‘Uncle Blaine' was all right.  They had been sheltered from Blaine's decline, along with all the other children of his friends, so he knew he must look a fright to them with his ridiculous beard growth, unruly hair, and eyes that never focused on anything for too long.  Watching the children play made him sadder, made him wish Kurt was there with him even more, because now he knew how truly alone he was.  He didn't have Eugene like Brittany had when Santana disappeared.  Blaine had no one.  Nothing.

That night, Blaine bawled into his pillow.  He had cried before that, but nothing so body racking as what he did then.  Kurt was gone.  He had left and he wasn't coming back.  Blaine didn't just cry out of missing Kurt, but cried because of the finality of his departure.  Unless Blaine did something, unless he figured out how to get to Kurt, then he might never see him again.

So he began plotting.  He didn't talk to anyone about it.  That would be crazy after all.  He knew his friends well enough to know that they'd try to talk him out of it, guard him to prevent him from actively seeking the Others, and otherwise make things more difficult.  Blaine would find Kurt.  He would find him or die in the process.  

He started by sleeping on the couch in the living room.  The bed stunk, and carried far too many memories that made him cry all the harder.  It was in the living room that he nurtured his small idea into a plan.  Blaine knew the roads, though he hadn't been on them for years, and knew how to read a map well enough to take him to places where he had seen Others from a great distance before.  If he could find such a place, he'd have a small shard of hope of seeing Kurt again.  It was only through them that he'd be able to find Kurt. 

He stole Trents maps from his days as a Warbler, since Blaines had been burnt years ago in the fires caused by Sebastian, and also Trents own chain of Halfling ears.  Blaine didn't know if he'd need the latter, but he felt like it was better that the ear chain was taken away anyhow.  The Others had spared their small community, but if they discovered that trophy of their ears amidst the people of the community, who knows what they'd do.  Blaine didn't know how they'd discover the ear chain, but he did not doubt the abilities of the Others to find such a prize, especially since it had been so easy for Blaine to sneak into Trent's home when he and his family were all out and find the box with Trent's old Warbler items just sitting atop a shelf, ready to be pillaged.

Before Kurt had been zapped away, he had restored Blaine's ATV, the Canary.  It sat near their cabin, now with a layer of fine white snow on it.  Blaine revved it up one afternoon just to see if it would run.  It puttered for a bit, but finally caught and the motor rumbled loudly enough for some of the kids to rush over in their little winter parka's and look in awe.  Naturally, it also attracted the attention of the adults and Blaine had to spin a little lie about wanting to move the Canary to a covered spot in the forest in order for it to survive the winter weather better.  That seemed to sate their worries, and Blaine did move the Canary - far enough that the next time he started the engine, no one would be able to hear it but him.

Fuel was another issue.  Kurt had also been working on distilling his own fuel from more readily available sources.   Kitty had helped with her knowledge of botany, and together they had mason jars full of the pale yellow substance they had concocted lined up in her greenhouse.  Again Blaine stole, this time replacing the jars with ones fill with his own piss which looked enough like the homemade fuel that he hoped Kitty wouldn't look twice at it.  Those jars were piled into the cargo bin of the Canary, taking up most of the space.  He'd need it though, in order to get him as far as he could towards the west coast where he intended to travel.  Blaine wasn't sure it would be enough, or that it would even work, but it was his best shot.

While he was plotting his escape, he accepted dinners from his friends, who seemed to alternate days they would take him in - like a child without parents.  He didn't speak much at the dinners, so withdrawn into himself and mentally inventorying what he'd need to bring and where he'd get it from.  Babies and children were placed on his lap periodically, an attempt to draw out his more social side that had seemed to go into hibernation, and Blaine snuggled and lazily rocked them as they were placed, knowing well that it might be the last time he'd ever see them once he left.

In order to get some of the supplies he needed for the trip, he had to make some trades.  This meant going back into town, a place he had avoided since he had become one with his bed.  Some people looked at him curiously when he reentered the village, others greeted him openly.  No one said a peep about Kurt, and, certainly, Blaine was sure some of them were relieved that Kurt was gone.  They didn't, couldn't, possibly understand the sacrifice Kurt made to ensure their children were alive and well.  They only cared for themselves.  So Blaine ignored them, making his trades - things from the home he'd no longer need, for supplies he'd need for the trip, and telling the clerk that he was making accomodations in his supplies for living on his own.  He was getting good at turning tales to avoid suspicion.

People, his friends even, assumed he was getting better, and while outwardly that was true, inwardly he was still focused on Kurt.  He played it up though as much as he felt capable, even going back to work for short shifts.  Blaine was planning though, always in his mind.  Calculating distances, trying to determine which routes to take, and trying to figure out the odds that different human settlements would still exist on his way to the coast.  He would need to bring things to trade.  Small though, since his carrying capacity was limited.  Medicine was his best bet, and just like he had taken so much already, he snuck small amounts of medicine out of the clinic and hid it in the Canary's cargo bin.

He was dragged along to a dance by his friends, though hung out at a table watching them all have fun.  They each took a turn sitting with him, babysitting really, until Santana pulled over David Karofsky and made him sit beside Blaine in what had to be the most awkward moment of his existence.  

“So… how you doing?”  David uttered after a silent minute.

“Surviving.”

“Yeah… I get that.”

David was quiet for another full minute before he turned his body towards Blaine and spread his arms out and open. “Look.  Maybe I'm overstepping here, but I was thinking that maybe you and I… well, that we could go out sometime.”

It took Blaine completely by surprise.  So much so he choked on the home distilled alcohol he had been sipping and had to bend over to cough until he could properly breath again.  He had to hold a hand out to stop David from coming to his aid while he was keeled over, mind reeling from the suggestion that he move on with a guy that Kurt had noted to him before, in no uncertain terms, had made his life hell at one point.

“I'm… David.  I'm taken.  You know that.”  Blaine finally sputtered out when he sat back upright.

“But… Kurt…. he's been gone for months now Blaine.  I thought that you were here because you're ready to move on….”  

There was sincerity in David's voice, and Blaine glanced to the dancefloor where he caught Kitty sneaking a peek at them both.  This had been her doing.  She was the one who had been most intent on having Blaine come to the dance, and she was David's self-declared adopted sister.  She had a vested interest in them both being happy, and thought that this, having them together, was the best way to go about that.

She was insane.

“I'm not.  Sorry David.”

David was good about the rejection, changing the subject immediately and talking about the runs he had been making.  He mostly spoke for the need to fill the void between them though because now Blaine's mind was going a mile a minute and he knew he needed to leave soon in order to evade further attempts to have him hook up with others - though David was the only openly gay guy in the community who was also single.  His friends thought the void in his life could be filled with someone new, but there was no one else for himself but Kurt.  Kurt was his soulmate and no one was going to be able to convince him otherwise.

He left the next morning, leaving behind a note in the cabin that explained that he could no longer be there without Kurt and wishing them all well.  He didn't say what he intended to do because he knew it would be pointless.  They couldnt understand.

The Canary was filled right up, as was the knapsack he wore on his back as he drove.  He didn't leave any room, ensuring he had fuel, rations, a change of clothing, tools, the medicine and his most important item - a phone with Kurt's favorite playlist on it.  He wanted to ensure he had something to give Kurt when… if… he ever saw him again.  

He didn't go straight west though.  Instead he took the road northwest to where the Others had captured them earlier on in the year.  Blaine enjoyed the quiet of the road, with nothing but the engine to listen to.  No one else was there to tell him to get up, to move on, and to continue without Kurt.  The journey was quick compared to the days and days of walking they had endured to get back home from the lake originally, and Blaine was there in a period of two days, stopping only to sleep in abandoned shacks and farmhouses along the way.  It made his rear hurt to drive for that long on roads that had become cracked and full of holes, but he didn't see the point in prolonging his venture.  The sooner he found Others, the sooner he might find out what happened to Kurt.  

The lake looked different when it was frozen over.  Less treacherous, less angry.  Blaine parked his quad right up to the little restaurant that sat beside the lake, taking his bag into the building and then having to step out immediately when he saw what was waiting for him inside.  

He hadn't forgotten that people died inside that stupid underwater box they had been trapped in when they had been captured, but he didn't think he would find their bodies inside the restaurant either.  Their bodies, half-decayed and pulled apart by wild animals that had gotten into the building, still stunk of rotted flesh despite the cold in the air.  Blaine knew it was them by their clothing though, the only part of them not in bits, and it brought up the memory of seeing them die.  Die because the light they emitted wasn't as strong as his own.  The light that showed that he was closest to Kurt of them all.  

Once he was sure he could contain his gag reflex, Blaine went back into the restaurant.  Carefully he gathered their remains, taking them outside on a pyre he made by the lake.  It wasn't the burial they deserved, and even though he felt he should say something, Blaine found he couldn't summon the words out of him.  There was nothing he could say to bring them back, to give their loved ones any peace.  All he could do was ensure that what little was left of them wasn't consumed by the local wildlife.  Taking Azimio to the fire was especially hard, especially since he was in pieces.  Blaine recalled one night a couple years ago when Azimio had gotten so drunk at a party that he had needed support getting home - Blaine under one arm, and Sam under the other.  He was so heavy that breaks were needed every couple of blocks.  Now though, his individual pieces were so light that Blaine questioned whether or not it was really him.

Blaine opted not to sleep in the restaurant, which still stunk of death, and instead curled up beside the remnants of the pyre.  He hoped that it might attract the attention of some Others.  Maybe they would come, find him there, and take him away.  He might be able to communicate with one of them, tell them that he would do anything to be with Kurt.  Maybe he would get lucky.

He wasn't though.  When he awoke the next morning, frost covering his beard, there was no one around him.  He walked out the frozen lake, yelling for them to come and get him, searching for some kind of portal or magic that would allow him to transport himself to them the same way Kurt was whisked away.  Nothing though.  It was like the Others no longer cared for the water they had once kept humanity from.   That, or their patrols had stopped being as diligent as they had been when Blaine and the Warblers had been travelling.  He thought about staying there for a few days, to see if any Others would come by, but something within him told him to continue on, and so he did.

What was once Alberta was largely flat and full of overgrown grasses and crops.  Cows lived wild, sleeping in small herds on the side of the overgrown roads, and deer were everywhere.  Blaine had yet to come across any other humans, and it was no different as he drove down an old highway southwest towards the Rocky Mountains over the course of the next couple of days, where the horizontal grade of the land slowly developed into small hills and valleys, and then into large foothills.  He had been through this place before, though never in the winter, and felt a keen bit of nostalgia as he rode over the same roads he had once gone through with the Warblers.  

He was using up the fuel he had so carefully packed away, and wished he had paid more attention to Kurt when Kurt had told him about the fuel making process.  Blaine was always terrible for listening to Kurt when he was talking mechanics, always paying too much attention to those sweet pink lips and the way Kurts body moved so gracefully when he was talking about something passionately.  Kurt usually didn't get too animated when he spoke, but something about cars and vehicles made him light up like a child, and in those moments, Blaine could see what Kurt must have looked like as a small boy.

The space left behind from the mason jars he discarded after filling the gas tank though allowed Blaine to grab things from the places he stayed at on the way though.  Some needles and thread from one place, a box of laundry detergent at another, and a box of popcorn from yet another.  If he met up with other humans, these were things he might be able to trade with, and now that he knew how often he needed to fill his gas tank up, he knew he wouldn't get to the coast unless he found another source of fuel along the way.

Because it was winter, Blaine had only so many hours of daylight to drive in each day, and he spent the entirety of it on the quad, breaking only to pee and fuel up - often at the same time.  When it got dark, he would find a place to camp for the night and eat then.  One of the benefits of being bed bound for so long was that his stomach seemed to have shrunk and he didn't need to eat as much to be full any longer.  Definitely an advantage when he only had so much space for food.

Going into the mountain though changed that routine.  The roads twisted this way and that, covered in fallen rocks and trees that required him to park his quad and move out of the way in order to continue on the same path.  There weren't as many places to stop along the way either, and there were more animals running around freely than there had been in the prairies.  More than once he spotted a bear that would eye him up hungrily and start moving towards him as he drove past, and he was grateful on each occasion to have a vehicle that could outpace and outlast those bears.  

Blaine had always loved the grandeur of the mountain range.  Clouds covered the great stony beings, their peaks poking out of the white puffs and making them look like they were floating in the air.  Trees grew to massive heights, shadowing the moss coated roads.  Everywhere he drove, Blaine could hear birds singing.  The Warblers used to camp in these mountains, driving as far up as their quads would allow into small flat spaces that only hikers might find.  In that time, they had stayed away from the rivers that crossed through the mountains, as Others patrolled their sides, but now Blaine had to wonder if they were as unattended as the lake back north.

The Canary had held up well so far during the trip, barely making a rumble of complaint, but the instant Blaine started beckoning it to ascend the angled roads that led into the mountains, over the vegetation that had grown over what had been concrete and tar, it started grunting and wheezing in a way that made Blaine worry.  He didnt know how to fix his machine.  The method of dealing with a dying ATV back in his Warbler days was finding a new one to replace it, and he wasnt sure whered he even look in the mountains to find a new quad to take him to the ocean.

However, The Canary did manage to make it up the worst of the roads and out into what had been an abandoned town.  Blaine wasn't expecting to see anyone or anything as he ventured into the streets between the buildings, but there were lights in the windows of the homes, and people walking along the street, all pausing to look at Blaine with furrowed brows and curious gazes.  The town had been abandoned, Blaine thought, because of its proximity to a lake nested in the mountains, so to see it housing people again was surprising to say the least.

"Halt stranger" a man called out to Blaine from the side of the road, holding his palm up and out towards Blaine who complied, bringing The Canary to a stop and putting it into park as he waited for the man to approach him.  He was dark skinned and had contrasting salt and pepper hair that suggested his age was more than his strong looking body would have suggested.  A hand was set on Blaines handlebar, wrinkled and weathered, but just as tough looking as the rest of the man, and shadow filled eyes looked over Blaine for a moment before speaking.

"Where you from stranger?"

Blaine gave the man a nod, bringing his hands off his handlebars and to his sides, feeling that there was no reason to be ill-at-ease, nor give anyone a reason to distrust him.  "A community about five days ride from here straight at a bearing of a sixty degrees."

People were starting to surround the man and Blaine, leaving little room for escape if Blaine needed to make it.  Still he forced himself to be compliant, hoping theyd see he wasnt a threat and let him continue on, or, better still, give him a place for the night and tell them what they knew.  Maybe they had fuel they could trade, or, better yet, information about the Others.

"Thats a long ride... what brings you here?"

"Im travelling to the ocean."

"Halfling camps are all around the ocean... you suicidal or just stupid?"

“Neither.”  Blaine said plainly, taking the information about the camps into his mental inventory.  Clearly these people knew something if they knew the situation around the ocean and they knew of Halflings. 

"We dont get many strangers through here."

It was a statement, but one that Blaine identified as one he needed to respond to because the man was trying to convey how odd it was that Blaine was coming through.

"I used to come through this road all the time when I was with a nomadic group years ago.  How are you all able to live here with a lake so close?  There used to be patrols out here all the time."

Now it was the mans turn to assess the situation, eyes narrowing slightly as he considered Blaines words before responding.

"Most of us were living up high in the mountains, avoiding the patrols to come down and get water or hunt.  Patrols got less and less though over time, and now we havent seen them in years.  Theyre not interested in this place anymore.  We moved back into the town three years ago.  Its been safe since then.  Not a single patrol since."

Blaine nodded, looking at the group gathered, counting in his mind those that had come out to observe the proceedings.  At least fifty, and probably a lot more if the noses he saw behind curtained windows was any indication.  It wasnt as big as where he had come from, but still big compared to any group he had met on the road before Kurts community.  Things had definitely changed if humans were gathering again in such large numbers.  Had the rebels made headway?  Were Others in retreat?  

“If you have a place, I was hoping to camp out here tonight.  Maybe make some trades if you have anything to offer.  I won't be any trouble and I'll leave come first light tomorrow.”

The man pursed his chapped lips, thinking for a moment before nodding his head over his shoulder.  “Ain't my call to make.  Have to wait for our headsman.”

Blaine again nodded, acknowledging their system of government and waiting as the crowd pulled back to allow an elderly woman, white hair pulled back in a messy bun, to approach Blaine and the Canary.  She used a cane to shuffle forward, minding the ice on the ground and shooing away hands from those younger than her offering assistance.  She was hunched over, but Blaine imagined she must have been tall in her youth because even with her back forming a question mark, she stood as tall as he was once he got off the Canary to greet her.

“Hi there.  I was just asking if I could-”

“I could hear you boy.”  The woman snarled his way as her dark eyes looked him up and down, sizing him up.  “Old, not deaf.”

There wasn't much that Blaine could say in way of a response to that, so he let her eyes wander over him until she gave him a stiff nod and looked towards the old black man beside them.  “He'll stay in my guest room.  Have him park his contraption by it and show him where to get some food.”

It wasn't what Blaine was expecting, to share a place with the person in charge, and someone who seemed like she might toss him out on a dime given her demeanor, but it was good news and Blaine stuttered out a thanks before the dark man, who introduced himself as Kofi, directed him to park a couple blocks over at a nice little building that might have once been a bed and breakfast.

Blaine was led to a mess hall, taking the offered food and again thanking everyone he came across profusely.  As he ate, he found himself bombarded with questions from different people, old and young, about where he had come from and why he was travelling to the ocean.  He answered as best as he could, though avoided telling them about his mission to find Kurt among the Others.  That would bring up even more questions, and ones he wasn't comfortable answering.  Instead he told them his community had tasked him with discovering more about how things had changed, fibbing as he said that the patrols in his area had become less too and they wanted to know if the tides had turned and humanity was safe.  This led to the people there telling him that they hadn't seen Others in years, and that the people who came to their town and joined their numbers had said much the same.  It was only along the ocean that the Others still had a presence it seemed.  

It meant that Blaine knew he didn't have to stop at every lake and river to look for Others.  Now he was certain of the direction he needed to take in order to find his beloved.  Once dawn came, he would go straight west (or as straight as the mountain range would allow him to go) and find out what had happened to Kurt, come hell or high water.