Review responses:

MoonCannon; Well I'm glad you are enjoying my fic so far. Be warned it is long, very very long, I'm transferring this over from my computer now that it's almost done, so if you're going to be loyal about reading this I hope you have a lot of time on your hands. Hopefully you'll enjoy it as the story unfolds farther.

Serrated Darkness; I'm glad you have enjoyed my spin on the KratosxAnna relationship so far. It's rather different from the direction that other authors have taken I was a little nervous about it truth be told. I've noticed that other authors tend to make Anna a great deal like Lloyd, or like Kratos. I don't go that route, I kind of like the idea of Anna being her own person.

Boiling over

Chapter 5

It was strange, the next morning. She ate his cooking with no comment. Ate without tasting, and ate so very little of the food. He ate more then she, and at most all he could live off of was a few mouthfuls of food per meal. For a moment he considered forcing her to eat, or casting a spell over her that would bring a false appetite to her. As he brooded on her own lack of appetite she looked at him, brooding on who knew what. For the first time since he had met

her, when he looked into Anna's eyes he could not see her thoughts. It made the silence all the more terrifying. For one who loved to talk like Anna did, the silence was an alien experience for Kratos. It weighed down on him, numbed his mind, and made him ache to fill in the emptiness between them. But no words would come to his lips. And so the silence built between them, a wall that he had no idea how to breach. So they ate breakfast, packed the tent, and cleaned up after their campsite. All without saying a word. Noishe, Noishe seemed to suffer the most. He lay on the sands of Triet's dessert and looked at nothing; he lay on the scalding sands and did nothing. Only when Anna petted him did he look up. He lifted his snout to her, wagged his tail, then lay back down, refusing to move. Worried she called Kratos over; it was the first words she had spoken to him so far.

"Kratos, is Noishe sick?"

Kratos had gone to the un-moving protozoan. He had checked as well as he could for fever, for swelling along Noishe's jaws and throat. He even went so far as to cast a spell of healing and purification on the wolf like creature.

"Nothing, he seems fine." He tried to ignore Anna's gaze. It was the first magic she'd ever seen. He could not look into her eyes, for accusations, worry, all of that would be there, and he couldn't deal with that right now. "What I did was check him for injuries and purge him of sickness. If there is something wrong, it's not physical. Come on Noishe."

The protozoan looked at Kratos with his liquid brown eyes and whined.

"We need to get going do you want Anna to be out here walking during noon?"

The hound like ears slicked back, Noishe whined deep in his throat, but still did not move.

"Come one Noshy, time to move along."

"Noshy?" Kratos turned to face Anna. She flushed under his intense stare.

"Yes, I call him Noshy, do you have a problem with that?"

"None," Kratos held his hands up in mock surrender. "It just sounds so..."

"Childish?" She shrugged and it was his turn to redden. "I think I'm entitled, I haven't been so well traveled as other people I know."

"Anna, that is below you!"

"What do you know is below me and what's not!" A deadly light came into her eyes. She wanted a fight; she wanted someone to strike out against. Part of Kratos was just glad she took her anger out on him instead of someone helpless, like Noishe. Part of him was furious that she dared to look at him with anger in her eyes, that part he knew too well, and forced it down. Fine, he'd be her target, but he'd get his own words in the fight.

"You can not hide anything from me Anna, you are as easy to read as a book."

"Yeah, I guess if you use magic to read minds it's easy!"

"I never would..."

"How can I trust you, when you have some many damned secrets? Why the Hell should I even have anything to do with you!"

"If it hadn't been for me you'd be dead!" He knew he was yelling, that he should force himself to calm down, but the voice of his reason was being consumed by the fires of his rage. "If I hadn't come to save you you'd still be Forcystus' whore!"

He never saw such pain in her eyes, nor did he ever see such pain turn to rage in less then a heartbeat. She curled her fist, than swung, and for all his training and experience he could not block or dodge the blow. She hit him on the chin, his head whipped back, and his feet lost there grip in the sands. He didn't black out, but he did fall, and he most certainly made quite a sight sprawled out on the ground. He gritted his teeth, than lifted his head from the sands. The first sight he saw was of Anna, her green shroud pressed around her face like a mask, her moon hued robes flapped in the breeze. Her left hand clenched in a fist, she looked down at him. Her brown eyes reflected a fire hotter then the fires that were used to forge the world. She forced herself to unclench her fist, but Kratos could read the struggle in her open eyes.

"I never was Forcystus' whore, I never let a man lay his hands on me. I've killed men for trying to make sport of me. You were the first one I trusted Kratos, the first, and now... Now I can't ever trust you again. You wont tell me the truth, even after I've told you all of mine you wont return that trust... So I screwed up, I've done it before, this time though at least I got something out of it." She touched her belly, then looked at him with something close to hate in her eyes. "I'm going to Triet, then after that maybe Izoold... Now that I know where I'm going I don't need your help anymore."

All he could do was stare at her, no sound would come from his throat. She glared at him then snorted at his weakness.

"Just shut up Kratos! Do me a favor, just go away! Come on Noshy!"

Noishe looked to the fallen Kratos, then to Anna, and whimpered. The look on his face said plainly that if he could, he would have split himself in two so that he wouldn't lose either of them. Noishe whimpered, than went to Kratos, nuzzling the fallen seraphim. With a growl Kratos forced himself to stand, he took a step back, and Anna said nothing. She only looked at him with those angry eyes.

"Noishe, let us go." Kratos turned his back on Anna, and was surprised to feel teeth clamp on his ankle. "Noishe!" The protozoan loosed his bite just a little, but the teeth were still there. As the creature dug its paws in the sands Anna snorted, and made move to walk off. Noishe growled at her, and went after her, giving her ankle the same treatment. Unlike Kratos though, her balance wasn't as good, and she fell down, almost crushing Noishe.

"Stupid dog, let go! Kratos, call your mutt off of me!"

"Noishe! Down!" The green and silver pup sat down in front of Anna, and looked at Kratos with expectant eyes. What ever he wanted, it was all beyond Kratos. "In the name of Origin... What the hell's wrong with you?" Noishe whimpered, but remained besides Anna, and when Kratos made to leave them both he heard the protozoan find his paws. "Damn it!" Kratos tried to shake the i dog /i " off, but failed miserably. For the second time in almost a thousand years Kratos was sent to the sands, face first. When he was able to pull himself up from the sands, a familiar sound made him jerk.

Anna was laughing.

"We might as well give up; he's not going to let us leave him."

"Wont let..?" Kratos snorted, drew his sword, and angled it at Noishe.

Anna only kept laughing.

"Forget it Kratos, you couldn't do it if you wanted to anyways." Her lover's blade dipped to the ground, as the truth of her words struck home. "It seems as if we are being controlled by a dog."

"So it seems..."

Noishe merely wagged his tail, he barked for the first time in hours, and it was a content sound. With a sigh Kratos sheathed his sword. Kratos was surprised when Noishe sat perfectly still, and met his eyes. Even more so when one of those eyes closed in a wink. With a yip Noishe hopped to his paws and ran to Anna, wiggling in front of her with the most pathetic look on his face.

"I don't have your throw disk Noshy, Kratos has it." With a whine Noishe then turned on Kratos. Surprised, Kratos tossed his packs to the ground, and opened the mess of flaps and knots. After a bit of fumbling through his packs the seraphim was surprised to realize he didn't have the disk. Something small and tan whizzed over his head, and Noishe leapt straight up, used Kratos' shoulders as a vault, and for the third time in one day Kratos was eating dirt.

"Amazing, he's like ten pounds and he still brings you down."

"Shut up Anna!" Kratos wiped sand and bits of false beard from his face. There was only so much a disguise could take after all. "Damn it all to bloody Hell, that was the last bit of wolf's pelt!"

"It looked bad anyways."

Her tone made Kratos look up. It sounded almost like a peace offering. When he met her eyes he saw the shadow of regret, a hint of anger, and sadness. But still in her eyes he saw something that made his heart shrivel. There was a hesitance, a lack of trust. It was as if she was taking back everything save that which she couldn't.

"All I wanted to do was to protect you, that was it. If I told you the truth, the full truth, you would be in great danger."

"Ignorance hasn't exactly been saving me either Kratos. It isn't a shield, it's an opening... No it's more then that, it's like if you stabbed me in the back to keep me from growing old and dying. It looks wonderful on some levels, after all it's not that painful, but it still kills me Kratos. And it's worse then what anything else could be done, because you could stop it, you just wont."

"Later, later I'll show you the truth."

"I won't wait, not forever."

"You don't have forever Anna..."

"No one does Kratos."

He looked at her, and for one second his shields were down. She could see a glimmer of some greater truth that lead to the madness he surrounded himself with.

"No Anna, some do live forever, the damned."