Title: Gray Water

Summary: There is a legacy in her hands—it is a child, whose lifeblood is her own. Strength will bring them together, just as weakness tore them apart. [Anna and Kratos. Multi-chapter.]

AN: To warn you, Gray Water is intended to be a rather dark fic. I mean, very dark. Anna will not be marrying Kratos, nor will they meet in the ranch. (I'm sorry, but I abhor this fandom trope. /: From a realistic standpoint, it's damn near ludicrous; Kratos claimed he returned to Sylvarant upon cutting his ties with Yggdrasil. This implies that he had already betrayed him, which nullifies any potential involvement within Human Ranches. They would have reported him to his Lord.)

Also: don't own anything, Namco does, etcetera. Oh, and Anna just turned 30, and Kratos is . . . old, obviously. :D;;

"Missus Anna," the child was bleak and his voice cold, a woman kneeled at his side and purring tender condolences; creamy skirts billowed near her heels, a thick line of brown hair at the breeze's mercy, "why did Martel take my father away—my dad didn't do anything wrong!"

"We are part of a story, and everyone must go eventually," she spoke gentleness and wisdom, "The earth is our mother, the goddess Martel is her apparition—"

"But," he interjected smoothly, Anna's gaze turning on him, "She is also part of that story." Towering at a good six feet, he stood upright and alert, a mane of auburn tumbling against his jaw line—dying red sparked in his somber eyes, the brown swirling like fire and embers.

Her smile was transient, and she answered with a playful, "Aren't all mothers?" He shrugged his compliance, the children coming to a slow, steady silence as he cast a shadow across their secret playgrounds. Anna rose to her feet as the braver ones approached the stranger, boys eagerly motioning to the sheath attached at his hip, and murmuring a slew of, "It's real, hey! Are you a militia member?! A mercenary!"

"Don't be rude," she chided easily, her younger charges remaining dutifully at her side and clinging to her dress's hems, "I hope they aren't troubling you."

"Boys will be boys, I imagine," His reply was unassuming, curious onlookers scattering as he pulled the sword free, "Keep your hands at your sides." Battle scars ran the length of its blade, climbing up the handle from years of use— the hilt winked sterling silver under the sunlight and, despite their awe, they took his warning at face value and kept itchy fingers to themselves.

Anna laughed before motioning that he tuck it away again, "You're all lucky that he's so willing!" There was a ripple of disappointment from the boys as it slid back into its home, his movements quick from decades of practice and natural talent. "Now, aren't your thanks in order?" Appreciation was chorused from what felt like every corner of the world, the man left to piece together his blank front as they waved their good-byes and mimicked soldiers fighting schoolgirls branded as 'Desians'.

He was hesitant, his attention again on her, "Your name is Anna?"

Anna nodded, breaking into a soft grin, "Yes. And you are?"

"Kratos Aurion," he managed coolly, crossing his arms and feigning apathy, "I am here escorting a pilgrimage from Palmacosta."

"Oh," she was impressed, and her smile vigilant, if not glowing, "That must be very good money. I can't imagine fighting the monsters outside our cities— it's a specialized trade, and in high demand. We live in such troubled times."

"Something along those lines," he asserted, stoic and indifferent, "You also own an item shop, if I recall." She was caught off guard by the sudden change in subject, her hand brought to her chin as she studied his face.

She forced a timid, "Oh! Yes, that was you! I'm sorry . . . and you were kind enough to move my supplies, and so careful—" Kratos' lips quirked, nostalgic of a brief spell of amusement, and Anna worked to regain her usual serenity.

"I prefer to know I don't have a memorable face, and it's of no consequence," he insisted warmly, leaving her baffled at his frankness, "So you are a schoolteacher. It's rare to . . . I presume your husband is in the militia?"

The muscles in her face tensed, smile drooping like a wilted flower, "Yes, once, but he is . . . dead." There was a prolonged, diseased quiet hung between the pair that whispered like filtered noise in her skull, old ghosts settling comfortably behind her eyes.

He choked a simple, "My apologies."

"My Aion died a hero," she managed, cloaking her misery behind a cheerful guise, "I can't begrudge him that—he would be sad, and, besides, I am not the only one persecuted by the Desians."

"Murdered by Desians," he repeated, saturnine, and bowed his head in respect for the dead, but Anna cut him off with a composed wave.

"Aion is pleased to have your sympathies, I'm sure," her voice was low and Kratos let his gaze linger, aware of her obvious concern, "Surely such seriousness isn't needed here, though. These poor things . . . so young and already playing war games."

"Such is the fate of a world without a Chosen," he stated prophetically, Anna dwindling to silence as fresh wounds reopened—Lady Helia caused no regeneration, and stood as another victim left fallen at the feet of the tower. Kratos arched an eyebrow in response, turning to look at the spectacle of a stage laid out in front of him: the boys stripped a fellow of his makeshift dagger—a stick sharpened with a stone, now fractured at its heart with pieces strewn across the cobblestone—and chanted that he was a thief, forcing him to his knees while proclaiming that, "Stealing is a sin! The sinners must die!" They took their places as actors, and were eager to accept their roles.

"It's so tragic. . . That this is the kind of land they should be born into," her voice was devoid of emotion, hopeless in its fatalism, "Where children can disappear like that." His demeanor was heavy, a dark implication creeping beneath his indifference, and he clutched his hilt; Mithos' idealism once spanned beyond caricatures of Martel's dreams and false hopes. His utopia was beautiful then—an innocent, tentative possibility that had swayed stone cold hearts to reconsider their rivalries.

A century of truth revealed it a fool's paradise, where only the misguided waited to rid themselves of pain. Neither was capable of escaping their self-made web of deceit; he wanted to believe in his delusions then, and, in fear of the double-faced carnivore masquerading as Mithos, he fled. Without the Goddess, where was morality, and what would these children believe in— would the world fall to total ruin, and destroy itself, as when Mithos lost his Martel?

"Are you angry?" Anna began sympathetically, reluctant to pry, "You're very quiet."

"No," he affirmed, powerless to shake his agitation, "I simply regret the Chosen's misfortune on her journey."

"Yes," it was barely beyond a whisper, lost and empty, "May the Goddess Martel protect her future descendants." Kratos grimaced, and found he was unable to force feed her cynical rhetoric.

"Indeed," he finished darkly, too old to rob his cadence of its bitter edge, "For whomever that next Chosen might be." There was a comical element to humanity's ignorance—he knew that coffins lined the treacherous insides of their Tower of Salvation, their dead bodies nourishment for the beast's belly. 'All life is born from death.' Spirtua's scriptures did not lie, as she was haunted by the phantom of her grandmother's face as it spun in weightless freefall below Mithos' stage. 'Such is the rite of the Chosen.' The mana lineage was alive only to bring Martel's ghost back from its grave.

"Kratos," Anna declared, and he was pleased to see that he didn't unnerve her, "Thank you for being so kind to my Luin."

"What?" He asked, taken aback as she smiled, "I don't understand."

"The food, gels," she mumbled, brimming with silent cheer, "There were more than I ordered, and I can tell. Thank you." Kratos made no move to correct her, and opted to instead tread carefully—it was foolish to expose himself for his transgressions merely to bring light to a pretty face. The caravan was attacked by a Renegade brigade, who, exploiting their resemblance to Desians, demanded their supplies be restocked prior to their departure. He had obliged their threats, drawn his sword, and left them for dead on the roadside; this garnered him a reputation as neither a monster nor a hero, rumors buzzing behind his back about how he and his counterparts raided the 'Desian bastards' camp.

"Then the traders made a mistake," he insisted casually, Anna wounded by his disregard, "It's best not to assume others have good hearts."

She laughed, and sang a passive, "If you insist, Kratos. I think that most do, though—our townspeople are united by their suffering."

"Humans are weak creatures," his old diseases crept into his brain, "They do nothing until there are no more opportunities for pretense, and then they kill their saviors out of 'justice'." It was the fate of martyrs and revolutionaries, just as Martel was punished for embracing the role of heroine. No man put the blame on himself, but rather the world that brought him there.

"I don't believe that's true," Anna's voice was strong, and she slipped into shadow as she made to chase after her students, "There are good people, like these children and the Lady Helia—we must choose to shape ourselves in their images."

"As innocents?" Kratos scoffed, pretentious and doubtful, "What of those who are far beyond redemption?"

"They choose to do nothing," it stirred something inside him, and the lines between good and evil seemed to blur, "And they are the product of their own senselessness."

A smile tugged at his lips, and Kratos wondered why there were traces of kindness in Mithos' makeshift hell, "Is that so."

"Yes," she reaffirmed genially, nodding her farewell, "Goodbye. It was a pleasure meeting you!" A pleasure, she'd said, but there were no such frivolities for a fallen angel of justice. He listened as the fountain sung in the background, his reflection—a serpent wearing a three-thousand year old snakeskin with its eyes searching for new prey, for a man as great as Mithos, to splinter and idolize again—breaking beneath the surface.

'Man, whatever his race,' he thought gravely, refusing to acknowledge the animal looking back at him, 'was not born for heroism, or for gods.'

AN: Well, give me some feedback, if you so dare! :D I will greatly appreciate it. (Uh, this is kind of . . . a spur of the moment fanfic, so I don't necessarily know when I'll update it.)