“Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Mans life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.” - B. R. Ambedkar

It took everything in Kurt not to lash out at the white-eyed one, the Ilu, when he was escorted to his new residence after beaming away from his cabin home. That ‘thing', that Other, was one of the three that was responsible for killing people he had lived alongside for years, and while they weren't his best of friends, they were people that didn't deserve to die. Worse yet, at least in his mind, they had hurt him and Blaine. They had threatened the people he cared about, the kids he had taken care of over the years. Not just by threatening the lives of the firstborn children with their idiotic reinvention of biblical plagues, but by killing off the livestock they relied on and the destruction of what little crops they had with those locusts - the sound of which still echoed in his ears after all these months.

Yet the white-eyed one, who gave her name as Vila, led Kurt through what looked like how he imagined a drug induced hallucination might be, full of swirling black and white streams that danced around them as they walked. It was some kind of portal, and while it made him pause in awe initially upon being pulled into it, he was quick to tense back up again. He was being taken away from everyone he had ever cared for after all. He was sacrificing his happiness for their continued existence. As far as he was concerned, he was being taken away against his will.

“It's good you finally came to your senses. You belong with us. Not them.”

Kurt had remained silent, keeping his fists held tightly to his sides as he followed her through the invisible path, cutting through lights and blurs of color before they reached a hollowed out point in the vortex which Vila walked through. Kurt again hesitated, but followed after. He had to keep up his end of the bargain. The community would be left alone, but he had to come along willingly.  That was the deal. That was the sacrifice.

Stepping through the white window, Kurt took in another breath. Where he had been whisked away to was like every children's storybook he had ever read to Beth or any of the other children. Grand grey towers, accented by flags of different colors stood proudly out in the distance. There was a forest, greener than he knew green could be in the distance on his left. Opposite it was a field that was a rainbow of colors. He could see figures in it, small from his perspective, dancing in them without worry about being attacked or threatened. He was on a roof of some kind of castle, as high as any building he had come across in his travels or on scavenging trips. It was part of what looked like a city, not modern, but instead classically built. If he knew the words for how it built, he might describe it as something between Roman and Gothic, but architecture aside, what stood out to him was how clean and bright everything was.  

This wasn't a place touched by the war the Others had laid upon humanity. This was their home.

People, no, Others bustled through the roads below him, talking and laughing and acting as if everything was alright with the world. It was though, since this was their world after all. They hadn't been decimated by humanity. It had been the other way around.  

None of them had been forced to leave the one they loved. None of them had lost family after being forced from their homes. None of them had to survive on the bare minimum just to see another day.

Kurt kept following Vila. They went inside the building, just as brightly decorated on the inside as the outside would suggest. If anyone from the community saw the luxury that Others existed in, they would seethe. Luxury in the community was having a bit of cake or, as a memory reminded him, finding a box of tampons.  

Kurt was brought to an open room with a single bed, draped in an almost transparent cloth that glinted with gold sitting in one corner. The room was sparsely decorated, but as big as several of the buildings in the community put together.

“This will be your room.”

Kurt didn't… couldn't respond. He kept looking. There was a large washbasin in the corner opposite the bed, and a huge window between them both that overlooked the street below. It looked like the basin had real working taps, and was stocked with different glass bottles at the side he was betting were what community members longed for in idle discussion - soaps and conditioners. There was a huge red rug in the center of the floor which no piece of furniture sat atop. It looked out of place there, with no obvious function to it, and Kurt had to remind himself that before the Others invaded, that humans decorated just for the sake of aesthetics once too. Not everything needed a use in those times.

The only other pieces of furniture were a large wooden wardrobe, opened to reveal a few, much too fancy pieces of clothing he guessed he would be expected to wear, and a table with a chair.  

This would never be home.

“We'd ask that you stay here for now. I will be telling the council of your agreement and arrival. You should have a guest in soon.”

Vila didn't stay for a response. She was either keen on the fact that Kurt wasn't going to speak to her or uninterested in any reply he had to make. For awhile he hovered in place, unsure if he should step in further into the room dubbed his own, or hold fierce to the ground he already knew would hold him. Eventually though, out of boredom and a cramp that travelled up his leg, he walked to the window and looked down to the streets below. He should have been amazed by the sights. Others of all types, some that had feathers in place of hair, some that had hair everywhere, more white eyed ones like Vila, and even something that didn't even look remotely human with its scales and claws all milled about below. If fairy tales were real, this was where they came from.

“Kurt…”

It had been years since he had heard that voice, and then it was only in his mind. This was the first time he had heard that voice, the same the lullabied him to sleep each night as a child, in almost two decades now.

He spun on his heels quickly, letting his eyes widen and give away the shock and surprise as he looked at the woman walking towards him with open arms, familiar yet different from his memories.

“Mom?”

Elizabeth took him into her arms without answering the question, folding him in against her body and keeping him there until he allowed himself to just be held without fear that she'd vanish the same way she had from his mind when the truth of his nature became apparent the night he'd come back from the dead.

“My boy… my boy… I'd always hoped, no, wished I'd see you again… but I never knew for sure…”

Months passed, and Kurt's mother served as his guide in this new world, but despite her work with him, it still wasn't the home he wanted. Each day began the same. She would be there when he awoke, sitting on a bench by the window she had brought in for him, and then leave to get him breakfast after arguing with him that he should wash and shave. The shock and amazement of having his mother back in his life had worn off, and even though he was damned near thirty, he found himself being treated like a child. Beauty was expected here, and personal hygiene standards were high. A week after coming, she had tried to convince Kurt to go to one of the communal springs. They had already walked by several communal springs, where people bathed naked and exposed to all. Elizabeth argued that it was what was ‘normal' there, and that the springs were infused with protective magical properties that warded off sickness and depression.

Kurt had just solemnly insisted that the last thing he wanted to do was bathe as an adult with his mother.

It wasn't the first point of contention between them. However easy it had been for his mother to integrate herself into Other culture, it wasn't going to be as easy for Kurt, if only because he had stubbornly promised to himself that he wouldn't forget what he had given up to be here for.

Two weeks in, after Kurt had finally agreed to wear the silken, colored clothing that was waiting for him in the wardrobe with his own clothing falling apart, Elizabeth had brought him to meet the council, a ruling group of Others with a representative from each of the respective subgroups. Representing the changelings, or Berserks as they called themselves, was a furry man that reminded Kurt of the canine shapeshifter that had been part of that group that had tortured him and killed the people he had known. Another white-eyed one, Ilu as he came to know them as, represented those that worked specifically in death magic. There was a scaly creature that did more hissing than talking, green and winged, like a small dragon from Beth's favorite storybooks. Then there was several different members who didn't have any physical features that set them apart from one another. Elizabeth explained to him that the magic they used was what set them apart. There was a red haired woman, who wore a permanent scowl, representing the Others that used elemental magic. A man with a shock of black hair represented Others who had supporting magic like healing and protection. Then there was the current leader of the group, voted in by the public, who also represented vision magic, something that Kurt was still working to try and understand.  

Kurt listened into their discussion, sitting beside Elizabeth at the side of the room and wondering why the hell he had been brought to listen to politics that dealt largely with what to do with human groups that were attacking coastal settlements. It was a long, drawn out talk, one that he had a hard time not falling asleep to with all the subtle niceties and diplomatic means of speaking with one another the group went through. In short, it was boring, and that said a lot since Kurt had been bored most of the time since he had come to this place.

When the group was adjourned, they also spent an inordinate amount of time shaking hands and wishing one another well before Elizabeth finally tapped Kurt on the knee to rouse him from his state of entrancement on the floor. Begrudgingly he stood up alongside her as the black haired Other, the one representing support magic, walked up to them.

“This him?”

She nodded, smiling broadly, and Kurt immediately knew he was missing something. He glanced between them, his mother, in her form as a Halfling with her chestnut hair that he had inherited, still taller than him by a bit, and the man who was taller still, whose eyes were gray and blue all at once, seeming to swim together as they looked at Kurt thoughtfully.

That's when Kurt clued in. Those eyes. The same ones he had. The same as his mother's… and didn't someone say that she was the daughter of someone notable?  

“First grandchild I've ever gotten from a Halfling child of mine.” Finavar chuckled, looking from Elizabeth to Kurt, who felt bile rising in his throat.

“First child from a Halfling in countless centuries if the scribes are right,” Elizabeth confirmed with a nod, looking at Kurt and then nodding Finavar's way. “Your grandfather.”

“My… grandfather died in the floods the Others brought in The Tides,” Kurt stammered, fists balling at his sides, thinking back to the man that had bounced him on his knee as a little boy and been there along with his grandmother after Elizabeth had been buried, or what they thought was her body, to help Burt and Kurt for a couple months afterwards until they transitioned into life without her. Burt's father. That was the only grandfather he knew. The only one he cared about.

“He is also your grandfather,” Elizabeth asserted plainly, her Otherness coming out in the stoic way she said it.

“Family isn't just blood,”  Kurt spat, purposely keeping his eyes off the man in question. “My family died because of what they decided to do.”

“I didn't agree with that choice Kurt,” Finavar spoke softly, though not softly enough to evoke any sympathy out of Kurt.

“But I'll bet you didn't stop it either. I bet you shook their hands when the decision was made, just like you did today,” Kurt snarled, his fingers digging into his palms so dangerously close to cutting into him with his nails.

“You're right. I didn't. We're a harmonious people Kurt. We work together and support one another. Something humans could clearly learn from given their history.”

“If only you hadn't all taken away the opportunity for them to learn,” Kurt hissed, finally submitting to the anger in him and turning his glare onto the much taller man, no, creature. What he wouldn't have given to have a bow to use then.

Others, Kurt discovered, didn't generally roll their eyes when annoyed or mocked, and Finavar was a pure-blooded Other through and through, instead nodding to both Elizabeth and Kurt in turn.  “Well then. Perhaps future conversations will bear more fruit.”

He left then. Leaving Kurt even more angry with his apparent apathy. There was no way he was related to that… thing.

“Finavar has countless Halfling children Kurt. I'm merely one of many.  Quarterling's though….”

“I know. I'm fucking rare. I got that. Fuck load of good it does.”

If there was one thing that this form of Elizabeth had in common with the memory of the human form Kurt remembered, it was that she was nothing if not patient. Instead of getting irritated with him, or telling him to watch his language, she instead placed a gentle hand to his shoulder. “It's a great honor for him to have been the source of your existence.”

“Well good for him.”

“He has the same ability you do, although his is much stronger. He's responsible for the barrier that keeps us all safe from the human world.”

That was when Kurt learned that they were underwater, though it took a lot longer than the explanation required for him to accept it. The sun he saw, for example, was generated using magic. The forest too. Despite the fact that it looked like this kingdom went on forever, it had a limit. This was where the pure-blooded Others went to centuries ago. They left the land above, leaving behind only myths in their absence, and created a new world for themselves below the depths of the darkest waters. A land which Finavar was key in creating. He had been responsible for creating those barriers, making them permanent, and keeping humans and Others separate for thousands of years.

“Why did they return then?”

“Humanity became too advanced… submarines were able to go to greater depths, and there were machines threatening to expose this place.  Halflings had been going up to the surface meanwhile, living lives up there and returning with terrible stories of how humans had been warring with one another… I was one of the last Halflings to leave….” Elizabeth explained slowly.

“Why did you leave us?  Do you know what it did to me?  To dad?”

Elizabeth sighed, and, in her way, avoided the question. “I was called back, and I didn't actually think I would be reunited with you so I didn't just leave, I shed my human skin so you would think I was dead. I thought I was providing you both with closure you wouldn't have had if I had just left without explanation.”

“Why didn't you say no?  Why didn't you ignore the call?”

“It's not a call that can be ignored Kurt. It's more than something verbal. There is a pull of your physical self. One way or another, I was going to be taken away. I just decided to do it on my terms instead of theirs.”

It was one of many conversations they had that had ended in no closure, and Kurt had just accepted and revelled in the silence that followed. He missed silence. This place was all too noisy and busy, so different from what he was used to, and Others actually talked to him here. They approached him, would ask him if he was ‘The Quarterling' and then ask him to tell them stories of the land above. He would excuse himself though, uncomfortable with what might seem to them to be simple social interaction.

They accepted him in this land, without question, without complaint. It didn't matter that he was shorter than most, if not all of them, or that his ears were far more rounded than anyone else, or that his hold on whatever magic he had was weak at best - they accepted him.

It didn't sit right with him. In fact, it made his stomach turn.

Elizabeth didn't take Kurt to the council meeting chambers again, though she would bring messages from them, the likes of which made Kurt sick.

“They'd like to know about your viability.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“They'd like to pair you with a virile female.”

The first time Elizabeth had brought that particular message, Kurt had merely looked at her with knotted eyebrows and pinched eyes like she must be speaking crazy, but then she came again and again with the same message, delivered in an increasingly urgent tone, and Kurt had to squash it.

“I don't like women in that way mother.”

“Oh I know. That doesn't matter.”

Just like that, his coming out to his mother was shut down in favor of producing an heir, or rather, to see if it was possible to produce an heir. Create a… what would it be… five eighths if it were with a pure blood or three eighths if with a halfling or a one eighth with a human… She had never indicated what they wanted him to be paired up with. It became clear, as time passed and the topic was continually brought up, that it was one of the major reasons, if not the only reason, why they were interested in claiming him as one of their own.

“Sexuality isn't the issue here that it has been in the human world Kurt. It's completely separate from sex actually. You know my father, your grandfather, prefers men as well, yet he has over a hundred children from different women - both pureblood and human. The goal is to create new magic, just as humans like to create new technology, by making new mixtures.”

“So I'm just a fucking experiment,”  Kurt huffed, glaring out the window at the happy creatures below, Elizabeth watching him coolly from what was undeniably her bench.

“To an extent. Everyone contributes what they can though in this culture. There will come a point they will ask you themselves to contribute your uniqueness through siring children. It won't come through me anymore.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat? Let them come and tell me themselves. I don't fucking care. I don't see it the same way you all do….” The fury spiralling in Kurt's mind spun open a memory, revealing a scene from his youth. His mom and dad, dancing in the kitchen, or… well… his dad trying to dance and his mom laughing as he looked on. How was the woman in this room with him the same person?

“Did you even love dad or was that another experiment?”

It was the first time since they had been reunited that Elizabeth remained quiet after being questioned by him, and looking at her, Kurt realized he had finally touched a nerve. Her cool and calm Halfling exterior was penetrated by human memories.

“I loved him.  I still do.”

“He's dead.”

“Doesn't mean that I don't have love for him still.”

Most of his days in the first month were spent in his mother's company, being shown different parts of the main town. Kurt learned that all the different subgroups of Others had their own lands within the protective barrier. Berserkers lived in the forest he had seen in the distance on his first day, the Ilu lived just beyond that in a place Elizabeth described as perpetually dark which accounted for their blanched skin, the Dragon-like creatures, whose name he couldn't pronounce without spitting everywhere, lived past the field to the east. There were also smaller villages, housing subgroups based on their magical specialties. The capitol housed everyone though. It was where Others went for trade, for brokering deals, or for meetings. It belonged to them all, and was also where most of the Halflings lived.

Halflings had their own special place in this society. Purebloods had long mated with humans to produce new magic, or more powerful versions of their own magic. The human part of Halflings was only apparent in their strength, and Kurt discovered it was mostly Halflings that had led The Tides - so much less delicate than their pure blood counterparts. They could also hide in human society, and many of them had in their youth, being raised by a human parent until they were reclaimed by the Others when their magical powers developed.  

That was the hardest thing for Kurt to swallow. So many Halflings that had grown up in human society, with human family, and with human values. How quickly they had turned against half of their blood because of the ruling of a council of pure bloods. There was no Halfling representative on the council, if only because Halfling magic varied as much as any other Other magic.  

If the Halflings were upset about their lack of representation, or that they had been given marching orders to destroy those that comprised part of their genetic material, they didn't show it though. The ones he met, his mother included, seemed happy in their little utopian world where the sun always shone and rain didn't exist, much as it hadn't back in the community, but because it was being withheld from them.

As time bore on, his mother left him the company of other Others. He was introduced to a craftsman, who made him a new bow complete with a quiver full of arrows better than he could have ever hoped to make on his own, and then would spend hours in the field outside the capitol shooting them into a fighting dummy made by a Halfling doll maker. The arrows seemed impervious to damage, and the only time he would stop would be to pull the arrows from the dummy so he could shoot them off again.

He had to have another dummy made a week later, when there was more stuffing than fabric holding it in left to it.

It was in those moments in the field that he thought of Blaine. It wasn't that he didn't think of him any other time. In the mornings, in the space between fully awake and still asleep, he would sometimes feel Blaine's fingers running down his side, only to have them disappear as consciousness overtook him. In the tub, he would close his eyes and remember the bath Blaine had first made for him the day before he had left, only for Kurt to bring him back. Night was the worst, remembering how often he and Blaine would let their bodies tangle together, remembering the taste of his lips and the rub of his beard, remembering how nothing else mattered in those private moments but the fact that he was safe and loved and wanted.

In the field though, Kurt hoped that Blaine was alright. Hoped that he would be able to move on and ensure that his sacrifice meant something. In his mind's eye, he would picture Blaine in their home… his home now, perhaps with a new puppy that he would train and cuddle with. In time perhaps he'd find someone new who could be all the things Blaine deserved, and pamper Blaine in a way that Kurt never could.  

Kurt made shot after shot after shot telling himself those things. Telling himself that Blaine was better off without him there. That Blaine deserved better. That Blaine didn't need him. That Blaine's love for him would fade.

Sometimes people would come to watch. Not people, he would have to remind himself, Others. One of the things that stuck out to him was the lack of children in this society. When he had been practicing with his bow and arrow in the community, it was the children who watched him. Here, it was adults.

Most of which were probably centuries old and yet watched him with childlike awe.  

Kurt ignored them at first, burying arrow after arrow into the dummy and pointedly avoiding looking their way. But one day he finally snapped when an image of Blaine with a faceless man crossed through his head unbidden. “What the hell is so bloody interesting about me?!”

Children would have gone wide eyed and scattered away, but Others merely tipped their head in curiosity at the outburst. Finally, one of them spoke.

“You have magic. Why use weapons?”

Kurt's mind took him back then to the white haired Halfling girl, the one who used a sword. “I've seen Halflings with weapons before.”

“Only the ones without magic use weapons. You have magic.”

It didn't cross his mind until then that some of these creatures might not have magic, and he couldn't help but feel a little bit smug about the fact that that woman didn't have magic and he, with less magical blood than her, did.  

That was the first time Kurt agreed to socialize openly with Others, taking up the offer of the one doing the talking to have tea and chat. Where humans liked alcohol, Others liked tea, and it was one small thing he could appreciate about their tastes.  

“I can't control my abilities like everyone else seems to be able to do,” Kurt admitted, sitting at a table in the Other equivalent of a bar with a cup of what tasted like licorice tea in front of him. He had been joined by three others, including a rosy cheeked, red haired Halfling named Midhir that did most of the talking and was the one that had invited him.

“Well that's just because you haven't been trained,” Midhir said with a smirk and shake of his head. He had to be the most human looking Halfling Kurt had come across, and perhaps that was why Kurt felt compelled to speak to him so openly.

“Where do I get training?”

“There are trainers… has Elizabeth not taken you to one?” a girl named Morri asked, long brown hair braided over her shoulder with eyes that were solid black. Where humans identified themselves with the jobs they did, Others identified with the magic they had, and Morri had proudly noted she was a dream-sneaker, one who could slip into the unconscious minds of others and make suggestions or take them over completely.

Kurt shook his head, sipping his tea and looking down into the murky black drink as he thought. The color reminded him of Blaine's hair.

“We can show you if you like,” the third stated blandly. Aengus, Midhir's less human looking brother whose red hair was more auburn than orange.

“Perhaps another day,” Kurt suggested, eyes still fixed on the mug of twisting black liquid. Blaine would have hated the flavor of the tea he was drinking.

The threesome continued to come watch Kurt knock arrows into his dummies, not every day but certainly every other, and Kurt continued to draw a crowd as he practiced the skill he told himself he wouldn't forget. His shooting arm grew stronger than it had ever been with the dedicated practice, and soon he had his admirers creating new targets for him to shoot at, including some kind of magically powered device that threw up colored puffs of smoke. Whenever he hit one of those moving targets they cheered for him.

They… cheered for…. him.

Kurt tried not to let it get to him, tried to focus instead on why he was shooting those damned arrows each day, tried to think of Beth, Santana, Mike… Blaine. They would be getting on without him, shouldn't he get on without them? This was going to be his life from here on out after all.  

They cheered.

“Why don't you take me to one of those trainers you talked about?” Kurt asked of Midhir, one day after decimating a new dummy into a pile of fuzz and stuffing.

Midhir just nodded, as if he'd been expecting it all this time, and led Kurt down the streets to a building labeled, innocuously enough, as a school. Though unlike any school Kurt had ever seen, there weren't any desks or youth. Instead there were large rooms, each one with a different overseer, or trainer, and not much else.  

Midhir led Kurt past a few of these classrooms, and finally to one where he introduced Kurt to a wizened old woman with her hair done up in a bun that reminded Kurt of his paternal grandmother. Unlike his grandmother though, she was still gorgeous despite a parchment on the wall stating she had been an official trainer for some nine centuries. Kurt didn't need to be heterosexual to see that the woman was beautiful, especially when Midhir damn near drooled everytime he looked at the woman.

“My name is Mab. I specialize in protective casting. I would be honored to serve as your trainer.”

Kurt nodded, catching himself from asking her price like he might have back in human society. There wasn't currency here. People did things because it was their job to, and people helped out one another.

Maybe it wasn't all bad in this place.

Kurt worked with her from then on out, still practicing his archery in the afternoons though not for as long as he had been each day. She was exhausting, demanding, and yet Kurt thought Midhir couldn't have come up with a better match for his teacher than her. Each day she expected more of Kurt, and though Kurt struggled to develop his skill, he was still learning a lot. She had him read up on the different powers that were known to exist, and about the balance between all the powers. Just like Kurt had once learned in science, in magic there were equal and opposite forces. No one was all powerful because there was someone, or some magic, that could throw you off balance.

It didn't help him forget about Blaine though.

Nothing helped him forget. In the morning he still called for Blaine as he awoke, then would let disappointment overcome him when he remembered Blaine wasn't there. Kurt could never quite get over how cold it was to sleep alone, even though there was no winter where he now lived. In his most desperate moments, when he'd touch himself in the bath, he'd pull his hand away before anything could come of his masturbation. He felt guilty about seeking release if Blaine wasn't the one to bring him to it.

“I'd like to take you somewhere,” Elizabeth said by way of greeting him one morning on his waking. How she was always there, no matter how early or late he slept, was beyond Kurt, but he also didn't know where she lived even after spending several months in this place, so he wasn't about to ask her if she even did sleep.

He washed, dressed, and ate, as he did every morning. The food in this place was more than good, with fresh fruits and vegetables on every platter and more spices than he though humans knew existed. Everything was flavorful, and with the effort he was putting into archery and magic training, he had developed a new layer of muscle over the old.

Elizabeth led him down a path that neared the council meeting chambers, and for a while Kurt was worried that he'd be forced to face the council, and his grandfather apparent again, but she walked past that building, and into a small, park like area that was barely occupied. At the center of the park was an unattended pool of water in a white, circular tub, and above that were four pillars holding up a similarly white circular ceiling.

“What is it?” Kurt asked, following Elizabeth as she stepped up to the pool and knelt down, gesturing for Kurt to do the same.

“It's a viewing pool. You asked if I really loved your father once….”

Kurt nodded, watching as her fingers skimmed over the water. She made it ripple with her touch, and when the ripples spanned out, they revealed a picture, not unlike the pictures he remembered seeing on television when he was younger, of a grave.

“Dad's… grave….”  Kurt choked out, recognizing it immediately It wasn't as he had left it though.  Snow was covering the ground, and the name written in the boulder he had rolled over it had been worn down by the elements so it was hardly readable.

“When I was pulled away from you both, I used to come here… watch you both through the water for hours on end. I watched you both cry over me, and I watched you move on. When The Tides happened, I watched you both run, and I hoped you'd both survive… and then I watched you cry over your dad when he died… and I cried too.”

“You… saw me…?”

Elizabeth nodded, still looking at the grave illuminated in the water. “I watched you grow up… from a boy into a man. It got harder as time went on though, seeing you able to live without me. I used to feel connected to you when you would go smell my old drawers or visit my human grave… but that happened less and less as you got older…”

“Why didn't you show me this in the beginning?!” Kurt cried, tapping at the water frantically. He had one person in mind he wanted to see. One person who he thought of endlessly.

Elizabeth reached over, grasping his hand with her own to stop him from splashing them both.  “Because I wasted so much time here. I couldn't stop you from growing up without me. I couldn't help your dad when he fell to the ground. All this place did was make me feel useless and unnecessary.”

“Is this some preamble to how I could be useful to the people here mother? Because, if it is, you can do without all the bloody lead up,” Kurt huffed, still looking down at the water for a trace of anything, or, more specifically, anyone.

“You're quick. Your dad was too - though more with the ridiculous jokes and pun.”  She sighed.  “Halflings can't usually have children Kurt. You know that. It's what makes you so special. If it weren't for my magic I wouldn't have been able to either, and it was okay, because I was happy to be with him for as long as I could. You weren't in the plan.”

“Dad always said I was his happy accident…” Kurt murmured, recalling the chuckle his dad let out when he said it.

“I told him that a doctor had said it wasn't likely that I could have kids. A lie, but not untrue given what I knew. He didn't care. He still wanted to be with me… and then you came along…  I didn't tell anyone, you know. Not a soul. They discovered you without me telling them about you.”

“Why protect me though mother? What was the point? Don't you think I would have been safer here? Don't you know what one of their little groups did to me and to the people I lived with?”

She nodded slowly, not meeting his eyes. “I knew.”

“Yet you still want me to go and knock up some random woman I won't have any connection with, much less enjoy the process of being with.”

“If you can have kids Kurt… it would give you someone here to love.” That was when she looked up, and it was the first time Kurt had seen tears in the eyes of any Other he had met. “It would make you able to move on. It would give you a real purpose that I can't seem to offer you.”

Kurt nibbled over his lower lip, glancing from his mother to the pool and then back up again.

“... and I'll show you how to see him in the pool if you agree to do it. If you agree to having a future here, I can show you how to see your past.”