MoonCannon: For your loyalty and praise... thank you for both.

Chapter 39

"I hate flying..." Anna grumbled, as if her words would make Kratos take back what he had just said.

"I am well aware of that, more then well aware." He rolled his shoulder, he always did that when he was nervous. "There have been too many devine visitations in this world, it is time we abandon it."

"Kratos, why don't you just challenge Mithos, call him out, then kick his tail? That's all I want to know before we go through that horrid gate again."

"Defeat Mithos?" Kratos snorted. "You grossly overestimate my abilities beloved. I can not defeat him, all we had going for us last time was the element of surprise. Trust me when I say that that opportunity will never present itself again."

"What if you and Yuan..."

"I thought," Kratos' voice dipped to a growl. "We were not mentioning Yuan again."

"But he defied Mithos, openly, with just a little bit of persuasion..."

"No Anna, we can trust no one." Seeing her ready to argue he gently took her hands in his. "My love, he will not cherish your life as I do, he would cast it aside in a moment's notice to gain an edge." Tenderly he lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them. "Lloyd, you, mere pawns on his board, and he would not hesitate to cast you aside. Just be brave one last time my love, this hopefully will be the last time we fly in quite a while."

"But I like Tethe'alla..." It was a mock pout, and he knew it.

"Who said it was too boring here with nothing left to explore?"

"I don't know who dear."

"No more lies my love." Kratos then kissed her lips, kept his wings in though the ached to come out every time he so much as touched Anna. he meant to keep the gesture short, but Anna had other ideas. When they at last pulled apart Kratos took several deep breaths, from what felt to be a world away Lloyd was dragging out the word "eww" to new lengths.

"Boys," Anna snorted, snuggling more into his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder, looked behind them at something he couldn't see. "Lloyd, breathe every once in a while."

Their son gasped, having worn out his small lungs with his prolonged cry of disgust. Kratos chuckled, just held Anna. She seemed to want to be held a lot before they went flying. It wasn't something he minded all that much, but her ploy was transparent as glass. With one final kiss to her cheek he broke their embrace up by stepping out of it.
"Mrs. Aurion, you are stalling. On the Rheaird, now."

"I am not your dog!" She snapped at him.

"I never said you were, nor was my manner deliberate in making you feel like one." He grimaced, she was spoiling for a fight, anything it seemed to keep from having to fly again. "We don't have time for this. Mithos might already have guards over the path between the worlds, not's let give him time to set up an army over the gate."

"Come on Mommy, flying's fun!"

"You paid him to say that didn't you?"

"No, he seems to like it all on his own." Kratos grinned.

"What am I going to do with you two?"

"Get a ladder. You'll need one to help him down from of trees, roofs, mountains, and just about everything that is more then three feet off the ground."

"Damn it..." She sighed leaning into his chest, and when she looked at him he could see the terror in her eyes.

"I will keep you safe I promise."

"I," She mock hit him, "don't need some man to come and save me. As I recall I had to save you from that twirp."

"He is rather twirpish isn't he?" Kratos agreed, "Whenever he draws his wings I expect a gale to kick up and send him flying, much like a kite." She looked up at him and smiled.

"Was that a joke?"

"Perhaps."

"You need to work on the punch line a little better, your delivery was clumsy."

"Punch line?"

"Never mind, let's get this over with..."

"Yah, we're gunna fly Noshy!"

Noishe looked about as thrilled about flying as Anna did.
He managed to get Anna and Lloyd through the gate, it was when he was making the last trip, to deposit Noishe, that he saw it. Cursing he set the Rheaird to autopilot and left the whining Noishe to take the skies. He drew his flamberg, then flapped up to the angel who hovered by the gate. When they were the same height, and some distance from each other Yuan held up both his hands. He held no weapon, he had no power flickering around him prepped for an attack. They hovered, the swirling colors of the twisted reality served as their backdrop.

"I saw nothing today and I see nothing in the future." Yuan called to him over the winds and the muffled howls of shattered world.

Kratos only nodded, it was a stiff nod, but it conveyed his gratitude.

"Kratos... as if this means anything now... I give you my blessings on your child and wife. If this world were a better place I would have been happy to be a Godfather to my soul brother's son."

"If this world were a better place... It is not this world that is flawed Yuan, it is the beast running it."

Both of Yuan's eyebrows went up in shock. Kratos had defied Mithos fully now, deed, thought, and word.

"I imagine I wont be attending the next meeting on the Regeneration journey." Kratos' lips curled in a dark smile. "Take care of yourself, and tell Mithos to watch his back."

"And how will I tell him that if I didn't see you?"

"I imagine you can get away with telling it to him as I run him through a few times."

"Perhaps when I have some leisure time." Yuan smiled, it was his first smile in a very long time. "I will pay you and your family a friendly non-business visit. Take care Kratos, next time the gate will be under guard of some lesser angels, not myself, I am supposed to of course be searching for you... I imagine my spies and the like will grow rather lazy on the Sylvarant side, I might even take a few decades off to redecorate my ranch and ignore what reports gather on my desk. The first floor does need most of it's steel replaced after all."

"Of course," Kratos' lips twitched at Yuan's tone, it was almost like old times. With a salute Kratos went back to Noishe, the protozoan yowls and whines were enough that if Kratos had been totally blind he could have found the Rheaird and the terrorfied creature who rode in it. He sighed, re aligned the ship with the gate, and hit the accelerator. Noishe, with a heartfelt whimper bit down on Kratos' shoulder just as they hit the gate.

He sat by a fire, Lloyd lay on his side, small limbs twitching as he fell in the grasp of a dream. Noishe lay curled around him, his much larger limbs were twitched as he was in the same situation. It was a miracle really. Not one of Noishe's paws had smacked Lloyd hard enough to wake him, and none of Lloyd's twitching limbs had rubbed the protozoan into wakefulness. Anna sighed, then applied the bandage to her husband's newest wound.

"I never thought those little teeth could get so sharp."

"Little?" Kratos grimaced as he tried to move his shoulder, Anna smacked him, and he went still.

"I know this will heal in a day or so, but lets not push it, alright?"

"Fine," Kratos winced as she poured disinfectant on his shoulder. "Pain..." he managed to gasp.

"Oh stop whining you big baby." She kissed his bare unwounded shoulder. "There, all done." Her hands then ran along his back, kneaded away some of the tenseness. He grunted, then obligingly lay down as ordered. She went to work on some of the more serious spots, he closed his eyes, basked in her gentle care. "Better now?" her hand slid across his back, two digits tip toed to a particular point between his shoulder blade.

"Don't you dare." He growled into the half frozen dirt.

"Dare what?" She applied pressure to particular point with perfect precision... in short she 'dared'. He could feel her hands fast at work on a different part of him. Kratos snarled, and considered his wings were getting the better end out of his marriage. As if to agree they flapped a bit without him ordering them to. "You've been working them all day, I imagine they are as tense as the rest of you."

"My wings are not physically attached to..."

"Really?" Her hand strayed to the base of his smallest wing, and after a long moment Anna applied some pressure to part of his back. The small wing shivered, and he felt a twing in his spine that was very discomforting. "They seem rather connected to me, they respond when your back moves, I've seen you shrug with them out and they respond to how your back bunches up... How's that not connected?"

He lifted his head, turned to face Anna and she looked up from her petting.

"How did you know to do that? To touch at that spot?"

"I used to watch birds flying when I was little, I just made an educated guess."

"Anna," Kratos lost his train of thought as her hand slid across his more prominent pair of wings. A familiar humming was coming from his wings, he mentally groaned, there was no way he could draw them in now. "I know you are lying. Where you lived there were no birds that had wings like mine, no specie of bird has ever had a wing similar structure to my own. Now Anna, the truth..."

"I... I don't know, it's been like this for a while I guess." She smiled, went back to her petting. "I just know if it helps you or not before you say anything." It was hard to think, to manage any coherent thought around the waves of pleasure that each touch roused in him. He gave up for a while, just enjoyed how her skillful hands slid across each wing. He wasn't drowsing, he last unintentional nap had probably been his last for the next few months, but his mind did wander a bit. "It's strange, I guess that's the only word for it. Sometimes I know what you are going to say before you say it, other times I know when your in pain, or are brooding... or when your happy. It's not as often as you liked me to think, but now that I know that I'm going to do my best to make sure you stay happy."

"My happiness." Kratos whispered. "Is in your and Lloyd's safety, in both of you having some joy in your lives. I think it has been too long for me to actually remember how to make myself happy, I stopped trying because it seemed impossible."

"We'll have to work on that." Anna snapped with pure fire in her voice. At her angry tone Kratos jerked, pain ran across his back as her patient massaging was undone due to his surprise. She said nothing for a while, her hands went back to work and his body relaxed. Sunlight drifted from the gentle filter of the pine tree branches. The world for a few moments was tinged gold, and it lay golden highlights across his night blue wings. Anna smiled for a moment, admired the golden sheen that ran across her husband's back and tinted her hands. She smiled, shook her head and let her brown hair catch the light. Kratos stirred underneath her, she looked and was surprised to see him regarding her with such tender love in his eyes. "I think that's the saddest thing I've ever heard anyone say beloved, you stopped trying to be happy because it seemed impossible. It's all been about duty and honor hasn't it? All of it, well before me and Lloyd, then honor took a kind of second place... And don't you dare tense up on me again, that wasn't very pleasant to experience."

"If I have you and Lloyd I need nothing else."

"And if you lose us, then what?"

"I wont let it happen."

"Oh Kratos... you know we will grow old and die before you." He tried to respond, but she put a hand on his primary pair of wings and he lost his thought. "This is useful," her grin was positively evil, "very very useful."

"Traitors.." Kratos grumbled to his wings, they merely flapped again against his will.

"Did you say something dear?"

"...Nothing, I said nothing."

"Good, you need to learn how to be happy on your own beloved." She leaned into his wings, and she laughed softly as their humming turned into a purr. "You have to learn how to laugh at the little things, to enjoy them."

He grunted, squirmed as much as his shoulder would allow. He was just grateful it hadn't been his sword arm that had taken the bite. If it had been they'd be short a protozoan.

"This is serious! Don't you dare ignore me!"

"Yes dear."
"And don't 'yes dear' me! You're worse then Lloyd when you get sulky you know that!"

"And you are louder then Lloyd when you get angry." Kratos grumbled, he then stared pointedly at their sleeping son. Anna's hands went still for a moment, and he sighed. "I did not mean to be harsh, the topic isn't one I enjoy."

"You don' like talking about happiness? Do you know how wrong that sounds?"

"Do I care?"

"You should!"

"Anna," He mentally groaned, they had come to one of those awkward discussions and revelations. "I have been alive for over four thousand years, reputation, status, wealth, none of that means anything. After all I have seen, it is very hard to take pleasure in the 'little things' as you term it, and when I do it's only a passing humor, not true happiness. My senses are either dulled or sharpened, so much so I see the world in a different way then you ever could, add my longevity into that..." he sighed. "Because of everything I am not happy. I had the rather dubious pleasure of watching all my friends grow old and die, my family died while I was but a child, what few friends I retained after my transformation... one is insane and the other totally loyal to a hopeless cause. I have seen the fall and rise of nations Anna, the whole world has buck and heaved around me, writhed with change, yet it's never complete, and because of that it all falls apart. I guess... In the end it comes down to perspective. I've seen too much to ever really take happiness in anything but my family." He smiled a grim little smile. "I guess despite my form I am just a bitter old man."

"Kratos," Anna's hands trembled, her breath touched the back of his neck, then her lips followed. "I promise you wont be like this forever, I wont let it."

He said nothing, only went back to savoring the sensations that only her hands could rouse when they brushed against his wings.