To all reviewers: (I'm lazy so I'm answering everyone in one paragraph) No it's not over, this is the 1/4th point in RD version of the fic! So it's just started. I appologize for the ill formating in the previous chapter, I edited it but somehow it reverted to the RD format when I submited it here... Now I have3 thingsto ask of any reading this...
First off, is anyone familer with how to indicate a perspectice or scene change? Normally I would just press and hold"shift" and then taptheeighton the keyboarda few times, but when I do that it never comes through onto the fic.
Second, is there someway to edit a chapter without having to replace the whole thing? It's hard to submit here because I have to save a piece onthe computer and bring it up,is there a way around this?
Third, later today I'm going to be tossing up asectionof a new fic I'm working on titiles"Shards of Regerneration", basically it's a run through of the game with varing perspectives and a generous application of artistic lisence. I'm going to put up a section that I have applied "artistic lisencse"I'd like to know if it's any good, if you guys like it I'llmake a more pernament spot for it on this website. It'sgoing to be big undertaking, but I'd like to know if it will be enjoyed by the readers I have here before I go through the pains of putting it up. If you read it(andI feel it goes over well)don't be too surprised to see the chapter I put up today dissapear for a bit, I'll re-submit it after I get back to that point in thestory,the sampleis going to take place a little bit deeper in then where the fic origanal starts. Basically it's the "worst" section so far, by worst I mean the most different from events that occure in the game.(winces) We'll see howthat goes.
With no farther adue chapter 11!
Chapter 11
"He's crying again." Anna muttered into her pillow. "I know this is normal, I knew this was coming... But I didn't know how tiring it was. Mom always told me this would be bad. That she'd get even with me for every tomboy impulse I had when I was growing up. That my first born would put me through all the sleepless nights and aggravation that I put her through..."
Anna still lay on her mess of blankets and pillows, though she talked to him her voice was still muffled by the pillow. She had yet to lift her head. Kratos looked at her in worry, she normally would have dredged up the energy by now to get to her feet. As it was she was almost ready to fall back asleep.
"I'll deal with it dear, go back to bed."
"But I can't Kratos!" She stretched out his name and the sentence ended in a whine. "I can't sleep while he's awake! It's not right!" He left his place where he had leaned against the steel wall. He had been there a motionless guardian over her sleep, for at least three hours. A whine from Lloyd's room made Kratos sigh. Even the protozoan wasn't sleeping, the only person not suffering from there sons wails was Kratos. Well he wasn't suffering from lack of sleep, so much as a constant headache. "Kratos... Kratos was I whining a while back?"
Snapped out of his thoughts the seraphim only looked to Anna in surprise. She was trying to get to her feet, at Kratos' scowl she froze somewhere between siting and standing.
"A little, you've deserved a little whine though. More then a little really... Go back to bed Anna, if he's hungry I will make him some of that powdered milk... Noishe can check the temperature for me."
At his sad tone, Anna sighed. Kratos rarely ate, even more rarely slept, but every once in a while he could eat and sleep. He would never feel heat, not even the scalding desert had touched him. She had once flippantly told him that it must be nice to not feel the heat, and now she lived in regret of those words. Kratos could never test the temperature of his son's milk, could not tell a fever from a cold, he was totally oblivious to any really subtle change in there son that could mark a coming disaster. In that she suffered a greater lack of sleep then her mother had, because with almost every wail she had to get up. Yet her lack of sleep was nothing compared to the torture in her husbands eyes as he watched her do what he could not.
"I'm.. I should come..."
"If he is not hungry, and his diaper doesn't need to be changed, I'll bring him to you. Anna you need to get some rest, you are worn down to a thread."
"I'm fine..."
"No you are not, stop arguing with me and lay down." The throbbing behind his eyes worsened, and Kratos rubbed at his temple. "Please Anna, you can't afford to get sick. I can not heal you with Lloyd about, nor can I tend our son without you."
"Alright..." He smiled, a worn smile, but one none the less. "I'm turning in, just.. wake me if there's something wrong..." It seemed strange how the world blurred a bit around the edges. How everything was tinged with a silver blue light. She moved to speak, to warn, but her body felt numb. She went limp, and the last sight she had before falling asleep was Kratos' calm brown eyes.
"I hate doing this Anna." The seraphim whispered to his comatose wife. "but you have to sleep. I can't keep forcing you to do this, or you will wind up like me, unable to ever truly sleep. But for now, for now I have no choice." he gently lowered her into her nest of blankets and pillows. He paused after throwing the blanket over her to kiss her brow. "If you ever figure out what I have been doing you would kill me I imagine." Kratos stroked Anna's face, then pulled away. After all his son was crying, and despite Yggdrasil's efforts to make him into a soulless monster he was a far cry from that.
"Aye Lloyd, I'm coming!" A relieved bark from the boy's room told Kratos that if his son didn't understand, his son's keeper most certainly did.
"Kratos, do you remember last night.. err well I think it was last night..."
Kratos looked up from the miniature stove he had brought down here with him. Anna's breakfast, an omelet with some greens mixed in, was cooking. Lloyd, having already eaten, was quietly calling Noishe. At least that's what Kratos assumed the nonsense noises his son was making were meant to be. He cocked his head to the side, and Anna's curious gaze turned accusing.
"Don't even try to say "last night, I don't remember last night. Whatever are you talking about" ! You look guilty, something happened last night! Now what was it?"
"Noth-"
"And don't even try the "nothing dear" route, it's not going to work."
"I ummm you were having a nightmare so I... I used magic to make you sleep."
"Whenever you "umm" like that that means that you're lieing. Kratos! What kind of example do you want to set for your son? Do you want him to be a liar?"
"I was wondering, when do you plan on leaving. We can not live her indefinitely, although I will admit it is safer here then it is in say Slyverant."
"You just changed subjects!"
"Why yes dear, I did." His lips twitched as she continued to glare at him. "This is serious Anna, I wish to know where you want to raise our son. Here it is safe..."
"No, not here, I don't like the idea of some fat angel walking above us and falling through the ceiling."
He smiled at the image. There weren't any fat angels though, there was nothing even resembling ugliness in Derris Kharlan. Everything was perfect, the perfection of the funeral pyre before the torch was put down. Everything looked flawless, and that was to appease those who looked at the city. Again Kratos wondered who Mithos was really trying to impress, his sister or himself.
"Don't worry, there is a very thick layer of steel and supports between us and them. I doubt that the fattest of Angels could fall through the roof."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"I would not dream of it Anna." Kratos looked at the omelet, it was more or less cooked on one side, so he just turned it over and watched the other half turn golden. "Looks like breakfast is almost done."
"Are you going to eat today Kratos?" She sounded so sad, whenever she ate he was aware of her sadness. Again Anna wept for him, but not on the outside. He could count the number of times on one hand that she had broke enough to cry on his shoulder. She wept on the inside. Horrid strangled tears that never fell from her eyes, but turned her voice into the softest of whispers. Those tears sometimes would gleam in her eyes, a bottomless pool of grief that threatened to drown him.
When those tears were in her eyes he had to look away.
"Maybe, we will see Anna... But what I was thinking about was Tethe'alla... It's pleasant there, though there are several forms of technology you have not seen since you lived in Slyverant for most of your life. I can walk you through everything though, I am a bit of an expert with machines."
"Match-ins?" Anna cocked her head, an unconscious mimic of her husbands habit. "Kratos, what is a mach-tin?"
"You..." Kratos coughed. "Certainly Slyverant is advanced enough to know what a..." Anna continued to meet his gaze, her eyes empty of understanding. "Oh God, this is going to be a very long trip."
The scent of burning food made Kratos turn. The omelet, he was just barely able to save it. Anna ate it without complaint, well at least managed to eat the first bite before Noishe came up and finished it for her in one snap of his jaws. Anna fell onto Noishe with a vengeance and Kratos sighed and muttered to himself. As Anna continued to scold Noishe, the seraphim took advantage of the distraction to toss together the ingredients for another omelet. All the while his mind running around in circles so that he could think of a way to explain to Anna about Tethe'alla without stepping on his wife's increasingly frayed nerves.
Anna posed in the mirror. Preened. And took what felt like hours to fuss with her hair and new Tethe'allan dress. At least this time she seemed satisfied with the clothing, and they weren't going to have a fight over it like in Triet. As Kratos held Lloyd in the next room he sighed. His son's hair was turning out to be his mothers rich brown, well at least that's what the fuzz that served as his sons hair was looking like.
"No offense but I am glad you are a boy, another girl in this family would be torture."
Lloyd only made a happy sound, and tugged on his father's sleeve. He was fond of that, tugging. He also was showing signs of crawling soon, and of being adventerous. Still less then a year old Lloyd looked around the room and a tug would tell Kratos what his son wanted to look at. Lloyd never seemed to grow weary of tugging, as Kratos' ever throbing scalp knew all too well. With a squell Lloyd tugged, and Kratos sighed and turned.
It seemed as if Noishe had come back from his wanderings. He was a very bad influence on Lloyd, allowing the boy on his back and basically walking Lloyd when Kratos' skull had had enough. Now everytime he saw Noishe, Lloyd wanted a ride. At the rate things were going his son would never walk. Anna had laughed off his fears as being silly, Kratos not knowing weather it was silly or not kept his peace, but he also kept Lloyd and Noishe's walks to a minimum.
"Ga!" Lloyd was reaching out for Noishe, the protozoan met it's master's eyes and, seeing the silent "no" in them, sat.
"Alright, I think I've made up my mind. I've picked something formal and something non-formal!"
"Good dear." Kratos called to the dressing room. To his son he grumbled. "Finally." he rolled his eyes and Lloyd giggled. "Have I ever told you how happy I am you are a boy? Ever? Only the higher powers know the depth of my joy that you are a- Anna!" he smiled, as his wife came through the door. She had picked to come out in her "formal dress" and the effect on her husband was everything she could have wanted. Kratos' mouth hanged open and no amount of will could get him to close it. He couldn't even form a coherent sentence for the longest of moments.
"So how do I look?"
"I.. It looks wonderful on you... but isn't it a tad.. Revealing around the..." She laughed, and the crimson gown's thousand and one beads shimmered. Kratos ordered himself to breath, ordered himself to think beyond how the dress clung to her frame. It was hard though, very, very, hard.
"So shy Ruian." They had agreed on his old false name before leaving Derris Kharlan those many months ago. "We are married after all, I never expected such shyness from you. I guess it will make an impact when I wear it in public."
Kratos felt his face turn red. The idea of Anna in that, in public! But then she would cut a striking figure next to him as he wore his formal black mercenary garb. No man would dare lay a hand on her while he was by her side in his formals. Black long sleeve tunic with black pants, three belts slung along his waist. A knife in two and his long sword hooked to the thickest of the leather straps. As for armor he wore none, but his shirt was pressed close enough to his frame that you could see how powerful he was. His cloak, when he put the thing on tonight, would be deepest blue, with a touch of fur around the edges. Anna would also wear a fur trimmed cloak, though it would be shorter, and a rich crimson.
Together wrapped in finery they were to go out and work for Cruxis, to spy on the Chosen of Tethe'alla. It was only chance that this Chosen was well off and that he loved balls. Having heard that bit of information Anna had manipulated Kratos into taking her with him. Her arguments did have a few valid points, a man by himself in a "womans" event would rouse attention after all, but he was not so oblivious to woman as to miss the fact that to her this was an excuse to dress up. She had "volunteered" to come along, had volunteered to be his "cover".
What else could he have done in the face of such a selfless offer but to accept?
Lloyd was going to be left at a friend of Kratos' a dwarf by the name of Altessa. It would be there first night that they were not going to be by his side. In a way Kratos was relieved, and in several he felt guilty. He should love his son enough to stay by his side day and night. His throbbing skull though really wanted a one night break, and Anna had said much the same thing. He felt less guilty knowing that he was not alone in his urge to just be "away" for one evening.
"Mr. Ruian," Anna smiled at him. "You look particularly striking today. You should dress up like this more often."
Kratos, Lloyd still in hand, the other hovering over his sword turned to the nearest body length mirror. He looked at himself for a long moment and nearly laughed. It seemed so silly to have his hair slicked back and not in his eyes, to wear such formal rigamore. But it made Anna so happy...
"I'll think about it."
"Still as snippy as ever." She still smiled, then kissed him on the lips, and ruffled Lloyd's hair. She then ghosted out of the room, and went to try the gowns effects on the shopkeeper and get him to lower the price. Still holding there son Kratos stared at Anna for a long moment.
"I think I will never understand women." Lloyd giggled and Noishe barked. Kratos sighed then gave into his son's squrims and let him have a Noshy Ride. "If you ever figure it out enlighten me Son." His boy only held on Noishe as the protozoan walked around in a slow circle.