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They’re on the delivery end of a good job, an almost legal job that hasn’t risked any of them this time. Sam has the money for spare parts, and they’re docked in a port on an unregistered planet, picking up supplies and breathing unrecycled air for the first time in weeks. Santana spends a half-turn in the port itself, enquiring of the merchants and barrats if they’ve seen or heard of a Priestess anywhere in the vicinity, and finds herself eventually vindicated in her search when a boy barely into double digits says he’s seen one, a woman in robes that reflect a foreign sky. She tosses him a quarter of a silver coin and asks him again, where has he seen her. The boy bites the coin and pockets it quickly, points inland and says she’s staying at an inn, gives her the name of it, and is gone before she can collar him for directions. It’s a start, and it’s more than she’d expected when they landed.
A little over a click from the port, Santana tracks down a ramshackle building bearing the name she’d been given. It seems an unlikely place to find a Temple Priestess, but she isn’t going to question her good fortune. A Priestess is a Priestess, whether she’s in Temple or not. She laughs at her own ridiculousness. It’s been ten cycles since she was a Temple girl herself, but old habits die the hardest. The Priestess inside of this building is a woman, no different to Santana herself, and yet veneration slips on like a familiar vest. She hates it, but needs the Priestess herself.
Santana finds the woman herself sat quietly in the back of the bar, a glass in front of her full of wine. Her robes have been exchanged for less conspicuous black fabrics, although she looks almost deliberately dishevelled, her pink hair chopped into a messy bob around her flawless, beautiful face. When Santana enters, the Priestess meets her eyes almost immediately, and then looks away. There’s no denying it, though. She’s Patheian, and she’s ready to leave as soon as Santana begins to head toward her.
“Please,” Santana says in greeting, pressing her palms together and inclining her head. She lowers her shields, and feels the other woman reach out for her. “I need to ask a favour of you.”
“Proceed,” the woman responds, her voice rich and deep and smooth as silk.
Santana begins to speak.
*
When she returns to the ship, Santana heads straight for Kurt’s quarters, hammers loudly on the door before entering the code to open it. Their rig is small, and Kurt is predictable. The code isn’t a secret from her. Nothing is, really. Kurt is standing the door of his bedroom, buttoning his jacket, scarf wound artfully around his throat. Santana arches an eyebrow and smirks.
“Santana,” he says, moving into the main room, gesturing for her to join him.
“I’ve found one,” she says, clasping her hands behind her, chin up defiantly. Kurt raises an eyebrow at her, and she clarifies. “I’ve found a Priestess. For a binding ceremony.”
Kurt narrows his eyes at her. “Why would I need a binding ceremony?” he asks, just as Blaine joins them in the main room. His eyes goes wide at the words, and Santana can feel the wave of longing that washes off of him.
Santana touches her fingers to her temple, reaches with her other hand for Kurt’s, lets the residue of the last half cycle wash between them. “Because you’re loud,” she says. “And a binding ritual will let me sleep occasionally.”
Blaine blushes and lowers his chin. Kurt raises his and folds his arms, stares at her. “How would that even work?” he says. “My neural link barely functions, and he doesn’t have one.”
“Of course he has one,” Santana says, her tone implying she honestly believes Kurt is the stupidest person she’s ever met. “He’s alive. I’ve heard how he responds to you. And look.” She moves to stand in front of Blaine, who raises his eyes to meet hers. For a brief moment, she allows herself to appreciate the sincerity of his face, the trust in his wide eyes. She smiles at him and means it in a way she doesn’t often. “Trust me,” she whispers, and waits for his assent before placing her hands on either side of his face, long fingers sliding over the lacquer in his hair, pinky fingers brushing the hinge of his jaw. She opens herself to him, and feels herself gasp when his hands mirror hers on her face, exposing himself. Somewhere in the link, a girl dances, silks swirling around her as she laughs. She drops her hands quickly and steps back, blinking.
“Sorry,” he says, stepping away from her as well, his breath fast and his mouth a flat line. “I didn’t - is that her?”
“Stop,” Santana snaps, slamming her walls back up. Behind her eyes, Brittany continues to smile, her laugh bubbling up. She blinks her away and looks at Kurt, who seems more concerned about Blaine, his fingers on Blaine’s face, tracing the places where Santana’s had been. She points at Kurt as she backs away, toward the door. “Binding ritual,” she says. “No arguments.”
She doesn’t give either of them a chance to respond before she opens the door and steps through it.
*
Santana accompanies them off of the ship. Blaine has tied his Dalton sash around his waist, and Kurt has the high collared coat of his birth rank on, his pants clinging to his thighs and hips. It’s funny, Santana thinks. The ritual they’re about the attend has been agreed to precisely because of what his mother was, and he has chosen to attend in Lima regalia. She knows he is being deliberately confrontational, knows that he doesn’t believe in Patheian Temple ritual. He has no reason to, given the way her people have treated him for his father’s humanity. Patheian dedication to bloodline purity has ostracised Kurt. She would be surprised at his willingness to play along at all, except she has seen the inside of Blaine’s mind, knows in detail every dream he had as a boy, before the parties and the Dalton boys, before his training and the cycle he spent captive and alone. She’s seen the resurgence of that wish inside of him. She can almost feel the strength of his grip in the white of his knuckles as he clings to Kurt, and knows they’re already bonded. She just needs the Priestess to make it official.
In a clean room at the back of the bar, the Priestess waits for them. Santana introduces them, and the Priestess nods, places her hands on Kurt’s face and searches. She inclines her head, and moves on to Blaine, drops her hands almost instantly. “They’re matched,” she says, looking at Santana. Santana says nothing. The woman isn’t looking for a response, and Santana has no desire to jeopardise the precarious truce they have reached regarding Blaine’s status as an off-worlder, or the fact that it’s a same sex binding she’s performing. The Priestess searches their minds again, pressing her fingers harder into Kurt until he grunts and she smiles sweetly.
Turning back to Santana, she holds out her hands, palms up. “The cord,” she says, and Santana lays a length of red cord across them. Blaine watches, and Kurt stares straight ahead as the Priestess turns to face them once more.
“Do you come here today voluntarily?” she asks, and Kurt looks at Santana for a brief second before responding.
“Yes,” he says, Blaine’s voice echoing his affirmation.
“Please face one another,” the Priestess says. “And place your palms together.” Blaine turns to face Kurt and raises his left hand. Kurt mirrors him, presses his right palm to Blaine’s, linking their fingers together briefly.
Holding the cord in her hands, the Priestess asks, “Do you promise to share one another’s pain and seek to alleviate it?”
“Yes.”
“And so the first binding is made.” The cord is draped across their hands.
“Do you promise to look for brightness and share positivity?”
“Yes.”
A loop made, and the cord draped a second time. “And so the second binding is made,” the Priestess says. Santana can feel the snap of tension, the cord little more than a symbol as the words, spoken by a Priestess, open the bond between them.
“Do you promise to share in one another’s dreams and futures?”
Kurt swallows and nods, his “Yes,” trailing behind Blaine’s by a fraction. The Priestess allows a small smile of her own.
“And so the third binding is made,” she says, looping the cord a third time. Blaine breathes out, and Kurt breathes in, and Santana feels like she’s stopped breathing altogether. The Priestess’ smile widens and soften, and she continues.
“Do you promise to share one another’s burdens when they grow heavy?”
No hesitation this time. “Yes,” in unison once more.
“And so the fourth binding is made.” The cord is draped a fourth time. Santana can feel the snap between the two of them now, thinks she could do this from here. The Priestess has opened them up and joined them together. Santana could make the final vow. It’s not her place, though. She grips the two binding bracelets in her left hand, though, waiting, wishing she could have had this. In her chest, the dead disc she does have feels like a lead weight. She won’t cry about her lost opportunities, though. Not here. Not now.
“Do you promise use the heat of anger to strengthen your union?”
Kurt nods and Blaine swallows. “Yes,” barely whispered now. A fifth loop, their hands all but tied now.
“And so the fifth binding is made.” Santana releases her death grip on the bracelets, holds them more loosely. The energy the swirls around her is loud, bright and confusing. She can’t tell who is who anymore, can only focus on keeping herself whole and private. She can’t see Kurt’s face anymore, focussed as he is on Blaine, but Blaine’s face is open and vulnerable and she thinks - knows - that she would break anyone who would betray his trust when it is so freely given.
The Priestess’ voice, warm as amber now, is clear in the maelstrom. “Do you promise to honour one another as equals in your union?”
Santana doesn’t hear the response, only the affirmation. “And so your binding is complete,” the Priestess says, knotting the cord around their hands before pressing her fingers to their temples, making the bridge between them, tying them together entirely. “May the Goddess protect you.”
Santana knows she’s crying now, remembers how that blessing had felt when she was a girl and dedicated to the Temple, remembers how it felt to leave it behind. She holds the bracelets out, and the Priestess takes them from her, ties one red band around each of their wrists before reaching for Santana and drawing her away with her into her bedroom.
*
Later, night drawing in and the port growing cold, Santana arrives back at the ship. Tina lets her back on board, says that Sam has the parts they need and they should be mobile by sun up. Santana nods her head. Sun up, and they can leave. With any luck, she can go another ten cycles before thoughts of home crowd her head again.