Apologies, it was pointed out to me by a blessed Anon that this chapter posted all wonky the first time.
Thank you for telling me! 10 points to your honored house.
Faye pulled her stool from the bedside to the center of her home. Her feet dragged across the floor and ache pulled at her every step. She clutched her ribs, gritting her teeth through pain as she slumped down. Dark bruises had already blossomed at her cheek, under her eyes, and along her throat.
Faye dabbed her broken, bloodied lip with a cloth.
"Let's talk."
Across from Faye was the pale god. Kratos knelt with his arms chained behind his back, keeping him bound to a large timber beam. He said nothing. Only looked up at her miserably.
"Who taught you the language of these lands, foreigner?" Faye asked. Kratos gave the chains one hard tug, testing them.
"Speak," Faye ordered. She could see the muscles in his jaw work, his glare evermore enflamed. She seemed like nothing more than a mild annoyance to him. She expected nothing less of a god.
"Why did you not kill me?" his voice was gravelly, like a low roll of thunder.
Faye reach out and called her axe. The Leviathan heaved from its implantation in her wall and came spiraling through the air.
She caught the axe, then used it to point menacingly at Kratos.
"Unfortunately, you are worth more to me alive."
Faye grit her teeth through the sharp pain in her side. She could barely lift her own axe with the wounds Kratos had given her. Still, Faye felt lucky to still be breathing after taking a direct hit from the god. Fay planted the axe hard in the floor beside her with a scowl on her face.
"You are not a man easily fought."
"Nor am I a man easily bound by chains," Kratos growled back. Faye smirked, showing no fear in the face of the god.
"It is true. You could free yourself and kill me," she paused and narrowed her icy glare, "But then you'd never find where I've hidden them."
Kratos stiffened at the mention of the blades.
"I take it they're precious to you."
"Yes." was all the stranger offered.
"Who sent you here?"
"No one," he said, his voice gruff.
"Why are you here?"
"Traveling."
"You talk more in your sleep, Fárbauti ," she chuckled. Her laughs quickly sputtered, and Faye began coughing. Kratos continued to glower at her as she struggled to catch her breath.
She doubled over and heaved, spitting blood into her hand. Faye met his eyes for a moment and cursed to herself. Her lungs were injured. If she upset the injuries more, she could risk drowning in her own blood.
"What is that name you call me?" Kratos asked.
"One that I saw fit until you provide me with another," she snapped, wiping her mouth with the back of her palm.
Faye thought hard for a moment. She knew the chains would not hold him. When he freed himself, she wouldn't be able to fight back. She was at his mercy, and he knew it. He would entertain he questions until grew bored of them, or until she struck a nerve. And Fárbauti wasn't exactly a conversationalist.
"Do you attack many people in the woodlands?" She asked.
"Only those who give me reason."
Faye chuckled at that, then immediately grabbed her side in pain.
"Ah," she wheezed, "So you've met the reavers, then?"
"Reavers?"
"The nasty folk that hunt in packs like wolves," she shot him a look, "Attacking innocent travelers."
Kratos grunted and offered a curt nod.
Faye sighed. This conversation going nowhere. Farbauti wasn't going to respond to simple questions and talk. She had the thread to tug that would unravel him. Yet, there was something that still unnerved her. If he could free himself so easily, why had he not attacked? Perhaps there was a part of him, however small, that did not want to fight.
Even so, when she tried the way of peace, he returned the favor by nearly snapping her in half. It was possible that all this god understood was war, conflict, and threats. So, Faye would return in kind.
"But you're no innocent traveler, are you?"
His eyes burned when she said that.
"You know nothing about me," Kratos growled back.
"I know enough, Fárbauti" Faye paused, her jaw tight. "In my language it means 'cruel striker'."
She'd give him a war alright.
"Or would you prefer I called you god-child ? "
Kratos said nothing in response but his face revealed everything.
"Yes, I know what you are."
They glowered each other for a long moment. His nostrils flared with his heavy breaths.
"You would be wise to release me. Now."
Faye stood up, strengthening her resolve.
"I have one more question." She could hear the chains clatter together as Kratos strained against them.
Faye took a step forward and crouched, meeting eye-to-eye with the god. Faye noticed for the first time a long scar that ran from his forehead to his check, cutting over his right eye. How had she not seen that before? It was thick and knotted, an old wound. Something received as a child.
She searched Kratos' eyes to find anything redeeming but only fire glared back. Faye leaned close to his ear, reaching to tug that tender thread.
"Who is Lysandra?"
Kratos was on top of Faye before her brain had even processed that he had broken the chains. The floorboards scraped her cheek as he wrestled her to the floor. In an instant, Kratos had one knee on Faye's back and his other on her arm. She swung at him with her free-arm but Kratos snatched her wrist and pinned it at her spine. She struggled for a moment, but it was useless.
"You know nothing of which you speak."
"Did you kill her?" she panted. "Did you kill Calliope too?"
Kratos dug his first into her injured ribs. The pain was blinding. Faye gasped and choked down a scream.
"Where are the blades, woman?"
"Fuck you."
"Where. Are. They?"
When she did not answer, Kratos dug in further. He might as well have stuck a white-hot poker into her side. Faye bit down on her tongue to keep the scream in.
"Tell me and the pain stops."
Faye tasted blood. Tears threatened at her eyes. He wouldn't risk killing her, she knew that. Not until he knew where the blades were.
"You won't find them." she ground out. "I've hidden them. With magic."
A lie, but one that he seemed to believe.
With a roar of anger, Kratos backed off Faye. She remained on the floor for a moment, coughing and recovering. She could hear the metallic twang of the Leviathan as the god took it in his grip.
Faye rolled on her back and faced Kratos as he loomed over her, leveling the axe with her forehead.
"I will tear this house apart if I have to."
"I imagine you're very good at tearing things apart," she spat, her breathing growing hard. Kratos only grunted in reply.
"You're so desperate to find them," Faye took a deep, watery breath, "Tell me god, what do the blades mean to you?"
"More to me than your life," he warned. Faye cracked a bitter smile. Blood showed in her teeth and gums.
"You won't kill me."
"I would not be so sure," Kratos snarled.
Faye groaned as she stood, holding her side. The pain was going to rip her in two.
"If you wanted to kill me," she huffed, "You would have done it already." Faye pushed past him and limped toward her bed. He did not stop her.
"Tell you what," she said, easing herself down into the bed, "I'll make a deal with you."
Kratos held fast where he stood, still holding the axe.
"You are in no position to be making deals," he grumbled.
"Aren't I?"
Faye adjusted herself with a cry of pain. She rid herself of her hide jerkin and constricting belt, then pulled up her tunic. An incredible blotch of blackened skin stretched over her side. She cursed again then glared at Kratos.
"It is getting cold and very soon winter will be upon us," Faye said. Kratos scowled and nodded.
"I imagine it will be very difficult," he said.
"Difficult?!" Faye barked. "When I found you, you were smashing animals like a mad troll and nearly dead yourself."
"I was weak," Kratos said.
"And weak still," Fay countered. "Stay, rest, heal, and wait out the winter. Come spring, I will return the blades."
"I decline the offer."
"I wasn't offering ," Faye hissed, "I can't lift my axe, nor pull a bow-string like this." She nodded to the Leviathan in Kratos' hands.
"I'll need a hunter." She remembered the vision she had of the child and of this god wielding her axe. Seeing the axe now in his grip made her stomach twist. Faye did not anticipate that it would be she who gave it to him. But she didn't exactly have a choice at the moment. A small piece of the puzzle fit together in her mind, but one still remained. Who was the child?
"I could take the axe then leave you to starve," Kratos threatened.
"And the location of your blades would die with me. So, do we have a deal, Fárbauti?"
Kratos seethed for a moment, contemplating his options. Though, Faye didn't give him much of a choice. With a grumble of frustration, Kratos slammed the axe into her table. Faye smiled to herself, listening to Kratos pace angrily around her hearth and then finally settle himself on her stool. At least now, she would have time to pry him open and find out why he was really here.
"You might as well tell me your name," Faye called from the bedside.
He seemed to ignore her. His attention was on the embers and she could see the same fire glowing in his eyes. Beyond the rage, Faye could see sorrow etched deep into his features. She truly wondered who Lysandra and Calliope were. Faye regretted invoking the names that caused the stranger pain. It was a sadness that Faye knew all too well.
"Kratos," he grumbled. Faye craned her neck to look at him as he slumped at the hearth. He met her eyes for a moment then tore them away.
"Faye," she replied, settling back into her bed.