Chapter 4

Silver Mists

It was a sea of sand, a sea with it's waves forever frozen in mid motion. In many ways it shamed the seas he had seen as a child, but then no wave of the ocean stood still for so long. Time slowed for him, slowed to a blissful crawl in this land of stillness, where the night breezes would trail silver sand from the false mountains around him. They were the ghosts of the world, the true ghosts who's silken scarfs fell behind them and turned to silver in the moon light. From time to time he could see a figure in the sands, a faintly human shape with it's hands extended to the heavens as if to plead for mercy. Or to cry soundlessly in help. It took all of his persuading to keep Anna from doing anything rash, he watched as she squirmed and fought her human instincts. As the nights wore on, she grew angry at his total lack of concern for those in the sand mists. Anger at him for his flippant manner to those who might be in danger, and for the first time in a long time they fought. It wasn't much really, she called him a bastard and went out in the middle of the night to go after the person that needed her help. He sighed, gave her ten minutes head start, then went after her. She stood, staring at total disbelief at the man shaped cactus. It was perfect in it's shape, even it's brown coloring resembled clothes until one got very close. But the spines and total stillness... It was a plant, and Anna did not seemed pleased to see him there at the what she un-doutably dubbed as a moment of great shame. The second he reached her and the man shaped cactus, she turned on him.

"You knew!"

"Anna, I tried to explain. You did not listen, there is no human's here, only in the Oasis city which is yet another evening's walk from here. They're tricky, or lucky, I don't know what makes a plant change itself in such a way. These one's look like humans, it's just a twisted little joke of fate. Your not the first person to fall for it, you wont be the last."

"You knew!"

"Anna," This sounded like one of her hormone driven speeches, he mentally braced himself for a dressing down. "Yes, and if you recall I told you it was a mirage when you first saw it. I kept telling you that, when it seemed as if you weren't going to believe me I figured I'd let you find out for yourself."

"You... I... You came after me!"

"You are my wife, of course I'm going to go after you! For the love of all that's holy, I will protect you, even if it's from something as simple as a cactus!"

A smile curled her lips, she tossed her long brown hair. Her manner indicated he had done something right, but he wasn't quite too sure what. She had a look about her, a look of satisfaction, her smile was wide and dreamy. Part of him tensed, that look could mean anything. Luckily it was a good sign. She squealed like a child, and embraced him. For a long moment he just stood there un-
responding, then he returned the gesture. She snorted at his meek hug, and mild peck on the cheek.. Hearing the sound he normally made tossed his way Kratos didn't exactly know how to react, and he froze. She laughed then, at him, at his expression, and snuggled into his arms. For a long moment he enjoyed her scent, the feeling of life under his hands instead of cold steel. How long had it been since he just held someone, listened to the heart beat of another being instead of it's death gasps? For the first time in centuries he cursed his nature that denied him the ability to feel her heat, to feel the warm sands, and the cool night breeze. If she shook or stirred in his grasp he never would know why. Her hand grasped his, then gently lead his hand to her belly. He felt something, a inner force pressing against the boundaries of his wife's flesh. For a long moment he didn't understand, and then when understanding hit him he did something that he had never done in his Human or Angelic life span. He fainted, or rather it felt much like fainting. The world seemed to tilt all around him, as if some giant were holding him on a great plate and causing it to spin and rock with careless fingers.

"Kratos?" Her voice seemed far away, and very scared.

"I'm alright.." He gasped, that sense of spinning would not go away. Nor was he sure he wanted it to. "More then alright." He laughed, the first warm laugh in what felt like an eternity. "God Anna, I never thought... I wondered but was so scared." He drew her to him, a stupid smile on his face but he was beyond caring for his dark image. She laughed, so happy at his happy-ness. Her eyes misted with tears, but these were tears of joy, and tears that he shared. There was no more travel that night, no more wandering, they set there camp out in the open in the shadow of the cactus and stayed up the rest of the evening eyes to the Heavens. They said very little to each other, only held hands and sat arms wound together. She fell asleep, her arms wrapped around his neck. He alone watched the false dawn bleed into the nights last gasp. And with true dawn at his heals he took his lover, his wife, and his unborn child's bearer, into the darkness of the tent.

"I knew the other foot was going to drop, your good humor never lasts long. But really, must I dress in this horrible.. thing!"

"It's called a barka, and yes, you have to wear it. If you don't you are going to stand out, and we do not need that."

She fell silent at his logic, a small blessing. She'd seemed more irritable lately, prone to mood swings and the like. He figured it to be her pregnancy, a midwife in the last town had told him to expect as much. It was with some relief that she wrapped the long fabric around her face, and endured the silken muzzle. Those were her words, not his. He was less then thrilled with the turban, or the fact that he was going to have to cut his hair. Artificial facial hair had to be harvested and made from a wolf's pelt, that served him as a beard and moustache. Ground root from a common plant in dying had been mixed in his hair, so he looked thirty years older then he was before he'd joined Mithos. How he wished he could say thirty years older, but thirty years would leave no mark on his face, no lines, wrinkles, or grey hairs.

"Do you remember all that I've taught you?" She glared at him and crossed her arms. "Anna this is important, if you can't do this then we skip the town. We'll skip every town we run across if need be." Her eyes narrowed, today was not going to be his day it seemed. "There are two ways to travel in this world Anna. The easy way, we pass through towns, lie a bit, but at least have some human comforts... Or we can do things the hard way... We camp every night out on the road, and when supplies run low I kill brigands and highway robbers to let us make it by. We'll have just enough to live off of, and nothing left over for anyone else, not even our child."

"That's black mail!"

"No my love, it's the truth. Your whole life, even in the ranches, you've never had to sink to that level. I lived it, for three years I lived like that, little more then an animal." He sighed as she looked at him with her expressive eyes. She was wounded by the pain in his voice, by the bitterness and jaded stance he took everything in. She cried for him sometimes, for his sleepless nights and inner pain that never left him. It was strange, after so long, to have someone weep for him. "Anna, that is no way to raise a child. Not a sane one, and I will deny my child as much pain and suffering as I can." His brown eyes looked to one of the dunes beyond Anna as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world. "Let me put it this way. There is an Inn in Triet, a cooled building with a primitive bathing house. There is also a silk merchant, a good one that specializes in ribbons. You could do some shopping, since men aren't allowed to do so by the customs of the city, you would have to."

"Shopping?" Her voice had a dreamy quality. Kratos focused on that dune behind her, if he looked at Anna he'd lose control and break out in laughter. "A bathhouse..." Kratos coughed into his gloved hand, Anna's glare made him look away. His wing like cloak suddenly needed to be put in his packs and he retreated to their tent. To work off the cloak with it's uniquely Tethe'allan stylized shoulder pads, or at least he said that to her. For a long moment he strangled on his laughter, then after pulling himself together decided he should change his clothes. They were close enough to be seen now, there camp was not even hidden... Part of him cursed that carelessness, slips like that could be fatal, but then he remembered last night. The cynical part of him fell silent, and he was able to tend to what needed tending un-bothered by his conscience. As he held out the cloak and fumbled with the folding he marveled at the similarity between the cloak and his wings. Something was wrong with it though, and with one digit he found a long slit. On closer examination he noticed two slits in the purple fabric, they were a hand length, but paper thin, and began right at the base of his shoulders and ran a goodly length of his spine... He flinched at the sight, his wings unlike Mithos', were not mist and Mana. They were physical extensions of his body, another indication of Mithos' failure. As he shrugged off his same colored tunic, he checked it for the same tell-tail rips.

He cursed under his breath as his finger went through the slit and wiggled about like a misplaced worm. How the Hell hadn't he noticed this before? They were coated with his blood when he drew them, why hadn't he thought this through enough to realize that his wings were slashing through his clothes? Were there limits to how much they could slash through? Would steel armor be a problem? He cursed at his own stupidity, his total faith in Mithos. How had Mithos known anyways? When Kratos had asked these questions the boy hadn't made his own wings yet. He had been a blind fool, lead by the nose by a child who had been half his age. He stood in the tents darkness for several heartbeats just thinking. God's damn it, how much had that sniveling little brat been manipulating him? Greatly, every question he had gone to Mithos for answers. Much like he had when he was just learning about magic and had asked the most stupid of questions. From Mithos he had learned everything though, had learned of the arcane world that hung to his own by just the thinnest of bonds, he learned of the need for mana, for mana was the life blood of the world. So of course he had gone to Mithos with his questions, and because he had no one else to ask, he had gone to the half-elven for all of his questions concerning the Angelic transformation. He was the perfect geuinne-pig, the flawless slave, because he hadn't known that he was either.
A bitter taste seeped into his mouth. Yet if anything shocked him it was his lack of real shock. Perhaps somewhere in his soul he had known but wouldn't admit that Mithos was using him, because admitting to the fact that Mithos had been manipulating him meant something even darker was afoot. When Kratos had found about the ranches he had been furious, he had picked up the half elf and slammed him into the wall. They had fought, Kratos' passionate roars drowning out the young man's logic. He'd hated Mithos that day, he had sworn to walk away from Cruxis, to warn the people of both worlds. It was those childish eyes, that child's plea, and the subtle hint of Martel, that made Kratos stay.

A voice from outside made him come back to reality.

"Kratos, is something wrong?"

"Nothing!" He hastily threw his clothes in his pack to hide the fact he'd been brooding over the rips. She entered, and paused at the sight of him half undressed. It wasn't as if she hadn't seem him like this before, it was the implications of him pausing through something half way. In all things he was thorough, he was swift in dealing with what he dubbed menial tasks. She clucked at him, then having to lean against, crossed her arms over her swelling belly.

"Nothing huh? Why don't I believe you then?"

"Because you are a highly suspicious woman, who as I recall, once told me she'd sooner trust Noishe to give a lengthy speech on the value of theological evolution before she'd trust me."

"I said that huh? Guess I'm smarter then I thought." He smiled slightly, and firmly banished the shadows of his brooding from his mind. He did not need to trouble her with them, he had eternity to brood. He had all the nights of the world to mull over his mistakes. "Now then, let me see your packs."

"My... Anna we need to get going..."

"Oh no Kratos, don't try to weasel out of this one. We aren't going anywhere till nightfall, and that's three hours away. You have no logical excuse, so hand them over."

His hand clenched over the bags whose strings were half knotted half not. Her eyes fell on his hands, and for a moment he considered arguing, or merely denying her by raw force. Then he realized how childish that was, and with a sigh handed them over. He was being manipulated again, and as her slender but calloused hands, struggled over the knots he came to realize two things. Kratos became fully aware of just how much she had manipulated him, how her smile or tears would rip at his heart and force him to do what she willed. He also came to realize how little that revelation bothered him. It wasn't a violation, it wasn't something that he couldn't fight, unlike a certain half elf's spells. She untied a few knots, cursed at one of the more difficult ones, then finally attacked his bags with her teeth. Through it all he stood, unmoving, and wondering why he'd allowed himself to get in this situation.

Had Anna been manipulating him all along, reading his emotions with those hazel eyes, and then turning them against him? Could she have toyed with him, with his heart, then bound him to her by way of there unborn child? Anna was sly when she needed to be, but that bluntness, the fiery temperament that had marked her from all the others... Had that been some ruse, some deceitful trick to bind him to her? Watching her, a full grown woman far in her pregnancy, white teeth worked in a fierce grin, as she tugged at the string with her teeth and set both her hands to pulling and winding the string about in a wild attempt to get into his packs, Kratos mentally snorted.

He dare not make the sound aloud, she'd have smacked him with his own travel gear had he done so.

Her glad cry made him look up from his newest spat of brooding, for a long moment he stared at his own clothes that lay at his feet. He stared at the clothes for the longest of moments, he couldn't watch as she picked them up. The tent flap needed to be retied, it was loose, he focused on that while her words rang out behind him.

"Fine huh? Kratos, if it were anyone else I'd say this was shear stupidity, but I like to think I know you very well on this score. You're the most obsessively tidy man I've ever met, my Goddess look at how everything else is set up in here! Folded, re-folded, and somehow, only Martel knows how, it's all clean!" She waited, and did not seem pleased that he only wove the strings of the tent flap between his fingers. "All except your clothes, or rather the one's you were wearing today. Those are rumpled and stuffed in here, a child could have done a better job with this then you..." She broke off, he could feel her eyes boring into him. Yet still he did not lift his gaze from the strings. "Kratos," Her voice was sad, so sad, he lifted his head and met her eyes. Tears pooled in them, the pain of her tone could have drowned him. "Something is bothering you, you can't hide it from me, why wont you tell me?"

"I.. I can't."

"Kratos! I'm not a child! With all I've been through, don't you think you can trust me, a little?"

He lifted his head, and through tear blurred eyes, watched as she re-coiled from him in horror. She had never seen him weep, nor had she seen any man cry like he did. Had it been a child, or even some fragile soul who had lost everything, she could have taken them in her arms as they sobbed and rocked. He stood in a military attention stance, that those of the PalmaCosta guard could have envied. His face was so still, so utterly lifeless. A gargoyle, a statue in the rain, would have made more movement then his face, and through that horrid unearthly stillness tears fell from his eyes. Eyes that looked at everything around him, and pronounce him damned.

The world was molten silver, molten gold, it depended on the sun, the moon... When the sky was it's darkest, and the crystals of the Gods hung above them, the sands were purest silver. She leaned into his back, her white tunic and pants tinted by the light around them. She was the image of a Goddess in this sur-real aura that took this dessert every night. She smiled, her eyes closed but her heart shaped face tilted to the heavens. He rested his own head on her shoulder, bowed low by his pain and old grief revealed. Kratos sighed as one of her hands played his feathered wings, her other drew his cloak around them both, to ward the chill of night.

Well she said it was cold, he would never have known himself if it was or wasn't...

He had told her, had told her a shred of the truth. As much as he thought she could bear without falling into insanity. He told her of his young days, of his days as a human and how he fought alongside a woman named Martel. He told her a little of Mithos, and even less of Yuan. He'd told her of how Martel had fallen ill, how in desperation they had tried to heal her. How they had both triumphed and failed. An assassin, a mad man, had ripped Martel from the companions. She had fallen at her brothers feet a bloody ruin, Kratos' own body spared a fatal knife thrust with her own.

"When he came to himself, or what now serves as himself, his eyes were no saner then that of the assassin's."

Those mad eyes, he had told her, the mad eyes that Mithos had turned to the world could and would destroy them both. Hatred for humans was the heartbeat that kept Mithos alive, that and a deadly obsession.

She had looked at him. Sensing the hollowness of his words, sensing that she was only being told the very surface of the horror he had seen. With eyes that were frighted she had looked at him, and cupped his chin so that he had no choice but to look into her eyes. With those rabbit eyes she looked to him to protect her. He had sworn, not on his wretched life, but his soul.

"No one shall harm you Anna, no one will cause you pain so long as I draw breath. Mithos may try, but he will not get through me..." Kratos pulled her away from him, his gaze apologetic. "Anna, he holds great influence over the church of Martel, as did his sister before him. No mater what happens, no mater if we are separated, you must never go to a chapel, ever."

She flinched in his arms, it went against all the training in her. She had been raised as one of the faithful. Anna's sister had been a prestress of Martel, her mother had been the head of the temple where she was raised. He knew that, that was why he had not told her everything. If madness didn't take her, then courage would. He would not lose her to a hopeless crusade against Cruxis.

"I guess there wont be a wedding then." She sighed, snuggled against him. "I was hoping... I know it's silly, but I wanted to have just a little piece of normalcy."

"You picked the wrong man then. When they come with wings you know they are not going to be normal." She laughed, tousled his hair.

"You're being sneaky again, you're not telling me everything. If you're human then what about these?" She caressed his wing, absently wiping the blood away with her hand. "I always thought you had some elvish blood in you, and the wings were just a statement." At his long silence a bit of steel crept into her voice. "Kratos, come on, you can tell me that much at least!"

"I... I was human. The wings are no statement Anna, they are real. No magic illusion could make something like this..." Suddenly seized by an impulse he stroked her face with one of his silver-blue wings. She shivered, eyes closed as if in extecy. Worried Kratos withdrew his wings, he was so worried that he barly noticed the sharp stabbing pain of then slithering into his back. Never had Anna reacted so strangely before, he mental swore to keep his wings "in" until he knew it was safe for her to be exposed to them. She moaned at the loss of contact, then opened her eyes. For one breath there was a the look of loss on her face, as if she had been denied something that was mean to be hers. Then it was gone, no masked, she too had her secrets it seemed. "When Martel died Mithos decided to preserve her life force. He used a great and ancient power, to bind her soul to an ex-
sphere..." Kratos bit his tongue, he had almost mentioned the split worlds, it was too late now, Anna knew he was trying to hide something, he reached a compromise. "among other things... I am the guardian of that power Anna, the seal that keeps it in check. Because of the process that I went through to become this guardian, I have wings."

"If this Martel did all these great and wonderful things... Then why haven't I ever heard of her?"

"Her name was different then... It is Mithos' mind to call her Martel, I only honor his wishes."

"But from what you told me... this Mithos hates all humans."

"Because of what happened to me, I don't think he considers me human anymore. Because I too loved her, as a sister!" Kratos added hastily, seeing the pain in Anna's eyes. "Not as a lover, never like that! I have known woman in the past, I have made love to a few... But it was only sport for me back then, none of them meant anything to me! not like you."

"You..." There was a glimer of hate in her eyes, jealousy.

"I was a stupid man Anna. You saw me at the Ranch, you knew how I was. I felt nothing, it was only a..."

"An exercise." She finished for him, he cringed at her tone, tryed to pull away, but her grip was like iron. "Is that all I was? An exercise?"

"No!" the passion, the fire in his normally icy tone, made his words echo with power. "Never that!" She let him go then, and pulled away from him. A shiver ran up her spine, but she did not complain of the cold. She hated him, he expected no less from her. The old Kratos would have accepted that, given her some food and money, and wiped the dust of her from his life. He wasn't that man anymore. He untied his cloak, then tossed it over her shoulders. She looked up then, looked at him from her own misery and smiled. It wasn't much, but it was a start from what his truth had ripped down. "Rest for what remains of tonight, I will keep watch."

"In the morning... We need to get to Triet"

"Yes," Though part of him cried at Anna's pain, part of him understood and was proud of her. "We will be in Triet before Efreet's fury sweeps over this land."

"Kratos... Tonight I'd like to sleep alone, I know it's cruel to you but..."

"Anna, if that is what you need, then you will have it. I'll be outside the tent, call if you need."

"Kratos, thank you... I know I shouldn't be like this, I should understand..."
"No Anna, you do not. Nor do you have to forgive. Rest well." He then turned unseeing eyes to the desert around him, and listened with a heavy heart to each step she took away from him.