Laufey stood over the basket while rubbing her belly, viciously eating raw shrimp one by one. She had stopped peeling them several handfuls ago, opting to eat the crustation shell and all. Kratos remained silent as he stood over the lamb she requested, roasting over the fire pit. Ever since the day they realized she was with child he changed. Never leaving her side, but, growing more and more distant in his mind. Laufey understood his reasonings and respectfully gave her husband room to sort the situation out. But Loki was causing havoc on her body, often time rendering her bedridden for weeks at a time. Causing Laufey to be completely dependent on Kratos for her every need. When the fatigue of pregnancy wore off she awoke with a ferocious appetite Her cravings varied from week to week, often mirroring the diet of a random wild animal. Today, however, she found herself craving a mixture of everything the world had to offer.
"Is it almost ready?" Laufey asks picking up a raw egg and cracking it over several of the flower's bulbs. Once the yolk covered the inside of the flowers she ate the entire thing. Chewing several times before swallowing. When she looked up she saw her husband blankly staring at her.
"Well? Is it almost ready?" She questions.
"Yes, it is ready." He grumbled, turning to pick up the whole skewered lamb off the fire and bringing it to the table. Laufey moved her swollen legs as fast as she could and begins to rips into the meat, shoving chunks of the garlicky lamb into her mouth.
Kratos stood silently with his arms folded across his chest as she devoured most of the animal. She thought she heard a prideful hum out of him but was too hungry to truly notice anything but the meat in front of her.
That night Laufey stood in front of their bed as Kratos sat in front of her, rubbing his hands across her exposed belly. Loki kicks her insides several times upon feeling his father's touch. She felt the immediate need to urinate as it kicks her bladder but didn't want to interrupt this tender moment between her husband and son. Kratos smirks at feeling the movement inside her belly. "Are you certain it is a boy?" He says softly, the smile struggling to remain on his face.
"We won't know for certain until it comes out. But I think it's a boy. Why, did you want a little girl?" She says looking down at him.
Kratos places a kiss on her belly then stands up slowly and kisses her. He doesn't answer her, instead, he loses himself in her mouth.
She pulls away from him and gasps. Water had begun spilling out from in between her legs. Kratos ran to gather some blankets, a basin of water and opened the door to let in the cool spring air.
"Kratos I just pissed myself, I don't need...-" She feels a sting of pain in her groin. As if something was cutting her open from the inside. She screamed out in pain. He was calm and focused. Like he knew exactly what he was doing. Before she could contemplate that further she felt another sting of pain and screamed out.
"Walk if you can." He told her holding out his arm for her to lean on. She walked with him outside, occasionally bending over and belting out in pain. He kept holding onto her as they walked laps around the house until sunrise.
The pain was overwhelming. Laufey couldn't recall a moment in her life where her body ached more than it was at this very moment.
"Do not hold your breath," Kratos commands. She swallowed the urge to lift one of her feet off from his shoulders and break his nose. But he was right, she was feeling lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. He kept his focus, not on her, but the source of pain emerging from her body. His calm hands steeping gently across the opening in between her legs. Laufey sucked in a shivering breath and exhaled with a whimper. She brought her attention to the ceiling of their little cabin. Trying to focus on the herbs and flowers hanging on the beams above her. Tears were beginning to blind her vision. She could feel Kratos readjust her legs around his hips and lean forwards towards her. With a delicate touch, he glides the knuckle of his index finger underneath the eye unable to hold back her emotions. As he pulls his soaking wet finger away from her cheek he shifts quickly to the other watery eye with his pinky. Catching them before they even fell on her face.
She could see his face again after he wiped the tears away. He nodded once to her before shifting back onto his knees, replacing the heels of her feet onto his shoulders. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, exhaled, then inhaled once again. As she released the air from her lungs she pushed with all her strength. When her lungs were almost empty she screamed the rest of the air out. Kratos rumbles a sound of approval. She inhales again, pushing even harder now. The hot stinging pain of her body being torn open from the inside was replaced with a bone-crushing pressure in between her pelvis. She had to keep pushing, it was the only way to end this. She screamed out in agony as the final contraction flattened her spine. Panic overtaking her determination.
"Again!" Her husband says as he shifted to cradle something with his hands.
She needed a drink of water. She needed a break. Emotions were beginning to possess her exhausted mind.
Selfish emotions.
She wasn't ready for this. To be a mother. To end her adventures and carefree days in Midgard. To be the only one in her husband's life, to spoil him and be spoiled in return.
Loki.
This child will kill her.
The Giant's prophecy.
Once Loki was born, Tyr would flip her hourglass over. Her life would no longer be her own, instead, she would be a servant to this demigod. To groom and prepare him for his destiny, a destiny beginning with her own death.
What did they call her? 'The mother of Ragnarok?'
Her 'greatest' accomplishment, the thing falling out of her legs right now.
"Faye push." She hears her husband rasp.
Kratos.
She would have to leave him all alone.
Her bear.
Once again he would lose the only thing tying him to this life. Once again he would have to face his permanent existence all alone. After everything that had happened in his life, he opened himself up to her. He placed his raw crippled heart in her hands, allowing himself to become vulnerable once again. Soon, she would place her dead ashes in his hands. To journey on a path she painted years ago.
Ashes.
She recoils, shedding tears of sadness for her husband's cruel fate, they swirl together with her own pain induced ones as they fall from her eyes.
No.
No, she isn't ready.
She doesn't want this anymore.
She won't leave him, she won't let him be alone again.
Fuck the prophecy. She chooses him instead.
Tyr could rot.
She was nothing but a key to him. A way to redeem himself for his own mistakes. Her sacrifice would, 'bring the giants back' he assured her. If so then why... WHY did he give her free will? Why allow her the ability to love someone as much as she does now? If all she was constructed for was simply to die, why give her a mind at all?
"Kratos. I can't." She says.
He leans into her right leg and presses his lips onto her inner thigh lovingly. Only to return his focus to the bloody mess in front of him. Draping a soft blanket between his hands.
She loves him so much. Her heart aching at his tragic fate. She wanted to shield him forever. To hold him every night during his violent nightmares. To adventure with him across Midgard. To show him the beauty of the world. To allow him to lose himself inside her embrace every night. To grow old and grey with him. Laufey screams.
She felt her body reflexively push. She had no choice but to allow it to happen. Kratos quickly catches something in his arms. All the pain and pressure from before suddenly vanished from her body. A feeling of immense relief floods her senses as she collapses down onto the ground and exhaled.
"A... son." Kratos says astonishingly.
She lifted her head from the blankets on the floor and looks at Kratos.
A mixture of panic and anxiety was washing over his face as he held the boy. Then something fractured in his eyes and suddenly he was smiling. A true joyous smile. It was gone no sooner than it appeared, but she witnessed it nonetheless.
She smiles weakly at the sight, only to pull her lips inside her mouth as he brings the infant over to her. She wanted to reject his offer to hold the small cooing bundle in his arms. But she had no choice, he places her son in her arms.
His eyes were still closed. Small frail limbs were stretching and kicking as the boy felt the cool touch of the world upon his skin for the first time. She instinctively cradled his round head securely as she allowed the tiny body to fall snugly into her crossed arms. She placed his ear against her heart, his fidgeting stopped almost immediately.
Slowly his eyes struggled openly to look upon her.
At that moment, Laufey felt her entire life change.
The sea itself came crashing out from his sapphire eyes. It filled the room of their house with crystal clear water. Everything that wasn't nailed down was suddenly floating underneath the surface. The table beside them, the jars on the shelves, the small cradle Kratos had made weeks ago. All drifting candidly above and around her. The weight of the world was no longer a cause for concern or something she could even attempt to control. The only thing that still remained centered on the ground was Laufey and her son.
What is this feeling? Love? No, it can't possibly be something as simple as that? There had to be another word to describe her affection for this child in her arms.
She leaned into his tiny wrinkled forehead and touches it with the tip of her nose. Inhaling his scent. Her heart swells as she memorizes each and every one of his little features. She drags her nose upwards and places a kiss onto his forehead. Loki blinks several times while his lungs filled with air. He fussed for a moment until she shushed him with her soft exhausted voice. She loves him. She will always love-...
Kratos approached the two of them.
A knife held in his hands.
She didn't recognize this blade. It looked freshly forged. The metal was unlike any blade she had ever seen, even from her time spent with the dwarfs. Silently Kratos aims the sharp blade at her son. She freezes, her heart rate rushing too fast for her mind to keep up. Loki must have noticed this. He begins to cry in her arms.
"Wait...!" She calls out but it was too late. Kratos slices away a small cord connecting her to the newborn. Did he just hurt him? No, of course not. But all of this was so new to her. She reminded herself how experienced he was with this. Quickly she looked back down to Loki to banish the tragedy that factor carried within it. He wipes the blade on his trousers and tucks it away in his belt. She panicked as Loki continued crying weakly. Kratos snatches the newborn from her arms and stands up with him. He cradled the boy in his massive arm while holding out a finger in front of the baby. Loki calmed down and extended two tiny hands out to grasp his father's finger. Kratos speaks his unfamiliar foreign language to the boy.
"Ο γιος μου, η μητέρα σου εργάστηκε σκληρά για να σε φέρει σε αυτόν τον κόσμο.
Τώρα πρέπει να δουλέψω σκληρά για σένα. υπόσχομαι."
She gathered her strength and sits up to look at the two of them in this tender scene. Kratos readjusted the infant to lay flat between his bloody bandaged arms, his massive hands cupping the small head. He didn't smile again, but his face was soft and serene. Resolve washes over her in that very moment. She was wrong... that wasn't her son.
It was their son.
Where she once wavered in darkness, fear, and uncertainty, she saw clarity as she gazed upon the two gods before her. Together.
"Loki." She says softly. "What do you think little one? You see your father?"
Kratos turns away from her. Looking down at their son in his arms. She sees his head dip down and hears the faintest whisper of a kiss.
"His name is Atreus."
Of course, she thought. This was a different boy, with a different future.
Kratos slowly hands Atreus back to her arms and helps the boy latch onto her leaking breast. She nursed him until he fell asleep. Kratos walked over to the chunk of metal he brought back a few years ago and took it outside to do something with it. She stayed inside and held Atreus tenderly in her arms. Occasionally a wave of emotions washed over her, causing more and more tears to flow. But there was only happiness in her heart.
That night the three of them slept in the bed together. Atreus in between his mother and father.
Kratos was propped onto his side, staring down as she spooned their baby. She loved the way he smelled, she kept kissing his cheeks and playing with the few wisps of red hair he had.
"He is a god." Kratos rasps with worry in his voice.
"I know," Laufey says as she pokes each one of his tiny toes. "I wonder what kind of god he will grow up to be?"
"It would be better if he was only a mortal." He says.
She sits up and leans over their son to kiss her husband. "Let him choose what he wants to be. Whatever he decides, I'll always support him."
"You do not understand, his life, there will be-"
Atreus stirs at the sound of his father's loud voice. It silences Kratos, soon after the newborn falls back asleep.
"You will be his example of what a god should be," Laufey says kissing him again. Kratos didn't return her kiss but she was too exhausted to question why as she cured herself back around the small baby and fell asleep along with him.
Atreus was never full. He wanted to nurse every hour. Even throughout the night.
Kratos had made their son a small cradle to sleep in but they found it easier to let the baby sleep in the bed next to Laufey at night. Kratos happily slept on the floor below them. Sometimes Atreus would cry and cry, for no reason whatsoever. Laufey would often find herself crying along with him. Kratos would hear the two of them and come into the house. He set a blanket onto the bed and took Atreus from her arms and swaddled him up tightly into the blanket. When he was done the baby looked like a small cocoon. This stopped his crying almost immediately. Kratos held the swaddled baby in one arm. "Eat outside tonight. Calm yourself."
She nodded, a wash of guilt and responsibility threatened to drown her on nights like this. But he told her it was normal and all of this would eventually get better. He was so much better than her at this. Then the guilt started rising again when she thought about how and why he was so experienced. She headed outside and ate almost everything he had prepared. She found herself eating more now than when she was pregnant.
Kratos came outside with the crying baby in his arms. "He is hungry again." He rumbles.
Atreus was still sleeping. She was worried. He had never slept this long before, her breast were the proof of this fact. They were painfully hard and swollen with milk. She's never gone this long without feeding him. She stands over his little cradle and watches him. Kratos opens the door slightly and motioned for her to come outside. She hesitated but walked away from the sleeping baby.
"You complain about a lack of sleep. Yet when our son gives you the opportunity to rest you spend your time watching him." Kratos says as they walk over to the garden. She couldn't say anything back to him. He was right, but even as tired as she was, she loved watching Atreus sleep.
"Are you, well, yet?" He quickly added. She puffed air out her nose. That's why he wanted her to come outside.
"Maybe..." She smiled, she knew it had been well over a month for the two of them.
Once they finally began to find a rhythm that was comfortable for her, they heard Atreus crying from inside the house. She rushes into the house, not looking back to her husband she abandoned.
"He is too young Kratos." Laufey protests, hanging a dozen or so cloth diapers on a line to dry.
"He is ready." Kratos rasps, looking down at the naked baby playing in the mud. He occasionally stood up and walked a few steps before falling back onto his hands and knees, splashing mud all over him happily.
Kratos bends down to Atreus level and holds his hands out. "Like I showed you before boy."
Atreus smiles widely upon seeing his father. He blows raspberries with his lips together and claps his hands as he toddles over to him. The baby touches his father's hand with his two tiny muddy hands. "Good, now the other." Atreus waddles over to his other hand and pushes on it slightly before he pressed his lips on his palm and blew happy squealing sounds.
Laufey watches happily as her husband and son play together.
Her life was full. She had succeeded in avoiding that future. She remembered something Narfi told her long ago. She quietly mouthed it to herself as she hung another diaper to dry. "Fuck prophecy."
She wanted to continue watching them but felt a wave of exhaustion overtake her. She leaned against the tree the drying line was attached to, but kept smiling.