Angelic Nature

Chapter 16

Slybek, city of scholars. Everyone who lived there, even the innkeepers, the servants, all had some type of education. It was daunting to Anna, and on some levels humiliating. Where she had come from seeking an education was looked down on, it was scorned as a waste of time. Surrounded the those who had taken that time, shown the dedication, it made her feel small, insignificant...

She sighed, shifted her son so that he was more comfortable, and tried to keep what she was feeling private. She should have known better, she had no privacy or secrets from her husband. Kratos looked at her from across the dusty oak table, or rather tried. The table was so covered with books that she could only see the top of his spiky hair. She could feel his gaze it was so intense she wouldn't have been surprised to see the books turn to ash under his eyes.

"Something wrong?"

"Nothing dear, just wool gathering I guess."

Anna smiled as Lloyd fussed. Lloyd wanted to see Daddy but the books were in the way. Well the books were in her way too, but they were also serving as a shield, and one she was grateful for. She stroked her son's brown hair, and he settled down under her soothing touch.

"Are you having problems with the book you are supposed to be reading?"

"Ahh, no dear..." Anna mentally flinched at her tone, she might as well have said it out loud that she was having several problems.

"Anna, I haven't heard a page flip in at least ten minutes,"

Despite herself Anna shivered, it was scary sometimes how Kratos knew everything. How his hearing was so accurate. He had once told her, grudgingly, that if he concentrated hard enough, and there was enough quiet he could hear a persons heartbeat. From that sound he could tell if they were panicked, ill, or sleeping. She wondered if in the small room they had reserved at Sybeck's university if he could hear her own heart. If he could hear it pick up pace as she fought down shame for her lie. Kratos remained quiet for a few moments, and as if sensing the tension between his parents Lloyd fussed a bit. Anna soothed him with a few whispered words.

"What is wrong Anna? Something is the matter, do not try to hide it."

"The reading... It's not what I'm used to I guess."

She heard him stir, felt his anger rise. He knew that she was being evasive, he hated when she did that. Anna could feel him wrestle with his frustration, could feel him force it down. His hair, the only part of him that she could see, shivered a bit as he moved.

"What is the matter with the reading? It is historical text, not too much unlike that which you read during your pregnancy."

"It's.. it's nothing, I guess I'm restless."

"Anna." The hair shivered, as he sighed, then swished a little as he shook his head from side to side. "You almost left me for playing word games, and now you play them with me. If you can not be useful here, if you wont tell me why you can not be useful here, then perhaps you should go back to the Inn. I can not help you unless you let me Anna."

Anna flushed, looked out towards the window, but the shutters had been thrown over it and the curtains drawn over that. After listening to her lack of reading the first hour he had closed the one window. After the second hour he had drawn the shutters closed, and after the third he had tied the curtains shut and lite candles. He had obviously had enough, and was dragging this out in the open between them. Forcing her to answer for her behavior. He was just trying to help her, in his clumsy, tactless, way. With that thought in mind she kept a cap on her own anger, took a deep breath, then told herself to get it out fast.

"I can't read."

He was silent for a long moment, then she heard him put a book down on the table.

"During..."

"Yes I know, I can read ang- ...that... that language. The one you taught me. But remember when we started? I said teach it to me like a first language, I guess in a way it was." She blushed, shifted Lloyd a bit, then swallowed. "My mother would hit me when I slipped away to go to class. So all I learned was how to write my own name, then I stopped going. One of my sibs -Ellith- she kept going, and Mother made an example out of her. After that I was too scared to go back, to even think about going back." Anna waited, waited for his rage to explode, for his snarled demand for more information. At the very least, a growled " Why the hell didn't you mention this before?". She was floored when all he said was a quiet.

"I am sorry Anna, I should have known."

"I didn't want you to, I didn't want you to think..."

"That you were stupid?" He snorted, and she could hear him force out his words past a dark rage. "I was a peasant. Remember? When I was 'normal' well over half the people didn't read or write. It's just strange that a craftsman would inflict such illiteracy on those who's key to maintaining a job is knowing how to read and write."

"It wasn't about money, it was about power, she wanted to control us."
There was only silence on his part, then she heard him shuffling a few books around.

"How confident are you in reading... that language?" Anna muttered something to the effect of comfortable enough and Kratos sighed. "Stupid question, I apologize."

He got up, a few thing books in his hands. With a sigh he took the book she had been leafing through and handed her the smaller ones.

"These should be easier on you, when your done there are a few more untranslated books that you might be up to going through."

"I'm just in the way again, aren't I?" Anna could not get herself to look at her lover, she reached out to take the books from his hand and looked up in surprise. He had pulled them out of her reach, was regarding her with his shadow touched eyes.

"You are never in the way."

"What about that wolf outside the city, you told me stay out of your way then."

"I would hope by now that you would have some level of self preservation in you. That you would know not to get in the path of a charging beast. And you misquote me as well. I said stay out of the way, not my way. What I meant was stay out of the path of the fighting, it is dangerous, and I do not want to see you become a wolf's supper. I was pressed for time though, so I merely cut a few words out and put a few in."

"A few words?" She snorted, reached for the books.

"A few." He smiled a strained smile and this time allowed her to take them. "If you have problems with these let me know."

"I will." Anna sighed, took the books up, and after skimming the titles picked the one that looked the most promising.

"I thought there would be less speculation in scholarly stuff."

"Anna, scholarly is not a word."

"I just used it, it's a word!"

Kratos sighed, rubbed at his temples. He wished he had known about Anna's weakness earlier, he could have spent some time teaching her how to read the common language. She ate, Lloyd in a high chair was reaching for the meal of mashed vegetables. He had come to the point in his life where he was to be weaned of his mother's milk, or at least that's what Anna had said. Having no clue Kratos had merely bowed to his wifes judgement.

He ate nothing this afternoon, talked only when prompted, and it was obvious his full attention was on reading the booklet of notes that he had composed. He felt Anna's eyes on him, he felt her sadness at his lack of humanity. Any other man would have become bored, drained, or merely taken a quick break. Four thousand years of life, of sleepless nights, and centuries on centuries of living in a world un-touched by time had made him capable of this. It was his single minded determination, dedication, that bordered on obsession, that he could call forth at will.

Kratos had no choice, he was relying on that inhuman single mindedness so now.

He knew that it scared Anna, but it was part of what made him different. And it was a difference that no mater there love they could not breech.

No it could be breeched, she could become like him, all he would need to do would be to remove her Cruxis Crystal, take off her ex-sphere, then make a special key crest and wait. In a month she would no longer need to eat, no longer need to sleep, she would live for eternity.

It was something that they had yet to discuss, or rather it was something she had yet to talk to him about. There would be no discussion when the topic finally came up. She would ask, and he...

He would deny her.

He sighed, focused on the notes before him, he had allowed his consciousness to drift a little. Even as he thought and decided on this personal matter there was a part of him that continued to absorb what was on the paper. His eyes, roved the pages, read, and to Anna they merely scanned each section. But he wasn't scanning the pages.

He was reading it.

Memorizing it.

That was another of there differences, another of the massive obstacles that kept them on some levels utterly separate. No longer able to sleep, no longer able to rest, Kratos had lost the capability to turn his unconscious mind off. He was aware of everything, he had lost the ability to tone out the insignificant. If he applied himself to anything, if he concentrated on anything, he was constantly bombarded with information. The barriers that were up, that allowed him to work on instinct, that allowed him to draw on intuition, were all but destroyed. Because of this strange twist thrown at him by his transformation Kratos had mastered his emotions, had learned to live behind a mask, and lived in one of two modes.

There was one way, where he endured all the information, picked it a part, and shifted through it in the most logical manner. Right now he was in that mode, and it all but made him a breathing machine. It was the farthest that he had ever been from his old self, the closest he ever drifted to Mithos' ideals of how Angels should be.
The other, the part he show Anna and those around him as much has he could, was where he forced himself to react emotionally to all situations. The clamber of his inner turmoil, morals, and ethics, was normally enough for him to tone out all the information that he took in day to day. That was why, when he first began to understand the parameters of his angelic existence, Kratos had mastered an expressionless, soul-less facade. And after so very long living that facade it had become a part of him, he had in truth become very close to being a soul-less being.

Anna had rather forcefuly battered down that facade, had made him meet his emotions head on.

He cared for Anna, and at first he hadn't been able to express it. She had shown him how, by caring for him. He then had grown to admire her spirit, and was enough of his old self at that point to recall how to do and show that. But when he had realized he was in love... When he knew, when he finally was human enough to know, he had found to his horror that he didn't know how to say it. It wasn't words that he lacked, an eternity had given him words aplenty, he could have said it in any language, in any dialect, if he willed it. What he had lacked was the capability to show it, to express it. She had shown him how, in a thousand little ways.

Done with his notes on mana manipulation and elfin blood theories, Kratos set that stack of notes aside and reached for the other. Anna, he heard her make a sound, a quiet protest. He could sense her unhappiness, she hated this side of him. As his eyes roamed the first page of notes, that blurred into a second page, he could feel her grief. At last unable to take it he put the notes aside, and looked to her and his son.

"Anna, for just a night I need to do this. Please try to understand."

Lloyd whimpered, his face was smeared with orange, remnants of his lunch. Yet because of the state Kratos was in he could not respond, only absorb and note. He could see the torture in Anna's eyes, yet he could not reach through the ice that shrouded his soul to hold her.

She shivered, then nodded.

"Will you have your answer in just one night?"

"Yes," Kratos would have shuddered had any talked to him in that dead thing that served as his tone. "I think I have the beginnings of it now, it's just a matter of double checking it."

"Kratos, this is really important, that's the only reason I'm trying not to make a fuss over this. But... for the love of all that's holy don't do this to yourself again, please..."

He couldn't respond, he couldn't. It went against his angelic nature. And for now he could not deny that darker part of himself. Not now, not while he needed it and the power it offered..