Chapter 31: The Land Without Gods
Stepping off the ship, they guided the horses down the dock until they reached the street at the water's edge. Mounting their horses, Freya and Kratos slowly rode through the busy streets as they made their way to the edge of the bustling port town. After a few more minutes, it was as if they were leagues from the nearest civilization. It was quiet, and calm. There were no sounds but the few chirps of birds, the rustling of leaves, the creaking of branches in the wind. Winter was ending, and spring was beginning to blossom. Many of the bushes had tightly wound buds spotting their surface as flowers began their life's journey for the year.
"It's certainly cooler than Egypt," Freya mused as they began their ascent up a small mountain. Kratos' horse was solid black, Freya's was mostly white with a few splotches of a light brown. Thoth had given them as parting gifts when Kratos asked before they departed.
"You both can use the rift to Jotunheim if you want? Faster than traveling by ship, and you'll be back home within an hour," Atreus had suggested the night they were forced to leave. Kratos had just returned from Thoth's chambers and informed them of what had been shared with him, minus the parts about the Fallen One of course.
"No, we will take the ship. We have a stop to make before returning home," Kratos had replied while clasping a hand to Atreus' shoulder. He appreciated the gesture, but he had something he wished to show Freya first.
"Oh we do, do we?" Freya asked with a smirk and a brow raise. "Please tell, where might that be?"
'It's a surprise."
The goddess scoffed and shook her head. "A surprise from the Ghost of Sparta? Hmmm..I don't know, sounds like it could be a pretty unpleasant one."
With a warm smirk he retorted, "I think you will like it."
A while later, they said goodbye to the pair of giants as Fenrir opened a rift to Jotunheim. Kratos hugged Atreus firmly, for the first time in a few years.
"Glad to see you're still in one piece," his son whispered before they separated. Freya had hugged Angrboda goodbye and now shifted to embrace her adopted son. Kratos stepped to his son's loving partner now as she smirked at him.
"I know you aren't much of a hugger, it's okay," she assured. Angrboda was roughly his height now, she had grown so much since when they first met during Ragnarok.
Kratos spread his arms, and with a shallow nod signaled to the giantess she could enter the embrace. She smiled and closed the distance, allowing the spartan's broad, muscular arms to wrap around her shoulders. "Thank you, for keeping my son safe, and caring for him as you do."
Angrboda pulled back and returned the nod. "Of course, you don't have to worry about that. You have a pretty loveable son."
"Welp, I guess we'll see you at home. Let us know when you make it back, there's uh, some things we need to talk about with you," Atreus uttered scratching the back of his head in anxiousness before entering the portal.
The boat ride north hadn't taken very long. They left just before midnight that night, and arrived at their destination in the morning a day and a half later. Upon their descent from the north to Egypt they had sailed southward off the western coast of Greece in the Great Sea. This time, they sailed north into the Gulf of Laconia, landing in Helos. The Grecian air smelled differently to Kratos. The air of Midgard was brisk, smelling of pine and oak. It carried a very earthy scent. Greece smelled of grass and fields. There was a higher level of moisture in the air, and the wind was less brutal, more tranquil.
Reaching the crest of the ridge they were riding towards, Kratos' ankles kicked into the horse to spur it forward. Freya followed suit as the pair raced up the last leg to the summit, and were rewarded with an incredible view. A large, expansive valley stretched before them. There were batches of trees here and there, but for the majority of earth it was covered in fields of wheat and grains as far as their eyes could manage. In the distance was another set of low mountains extending along the horizon. Kratos raised an arm and pointed to it. "There, that is where we are going."
"What's there?"
"Sparta, where I was raised," Kratos stated matter of factly. They had been traveling for nearly two days since leaving Giza, but he had never told Freya their destination. Before their arrival she could glean they were heading to Kratos' home lands when their ship didn't steer west as they approached the landmass that was Greece.
Her eyes went wide in surprise as she turned to her partner and they stared into each other for a while. "You're sure?"
He replied with a nod and a grunt, "Yes. I haven't set foot in Greece in centuries, and Sparta since before I became a god. I do not know how recognizable I will be. I was the god of war here, and the one that brought ruin to these lands. I wanted to make port in Helos for that reason. Sparta has a port as the sea continues up into a river but if things get..unfavorable, I didn't want our ship there to cause much of a scene. We'll simply ride out."
He felt her hand reach out across the gap between their horses to wrap around his. "You're worried about them chasing you out? Hating you?"
Kratos was silent for a while as his eyes slowly washed over the expanse of his homeland before him. "I do not know. On the way down Thoth informed me that the Roman empire had sacked my home, and taken over much of this area in the past century. Sparta is no longer the independent, military state it was. The people are still thriving here, free of gods, but under the thumb of a different kind of ruler. Perhaps, we will be riding into an army of angry mortals, or perhaps I truly am just a ghost."
Freya's hand squeezed his as she leaned over and planted a small kiss on his lips. "You're not a ghost to me, who cares what they all think anymore. You don't belong to this place, you belong in our home in Midgard, with me. Besides, I'm not down here to warm your bed, I'm up there."
Her hand withdrew as she flashed a quick wink at him and kicked her horse into a run descending down the path. Kratos grunted once more and followed her lead. The pair rode in silence for a while, just looking around and taking in their surroundings. She occasionally remarked how gorgeous and peaceful the land was, but Kratos rarely spoke a word. He was in shock at how untouched it all looked. In slaying the Greek pantheon he had brought every blight imaginable down upon this land and its people. Locusts, famine, floods, darkness, illness. True, it had been several hundred years, but he was just at a loss for how quickly the land and its people seemed to bounce back.
There were even several other travelers they passed on the road towards Sparta. Some of them had given the pair a discerning or alarmed look. Probably because Kratos was ashy gray and shirtless with large, red tattoos, and Freya was in bare feet with feathers in her hair. The Greeks and Romans were far more reserved in their attire, typical armor and boots for the soldiers, and tunics, robes, and sandals for the others.
Kratos' torso was also still wrapped in bandaging. He had healed a great deal more since leaving Egypt, certainly at a faster pace than his previous injury at the hand of Set. A slight twinge of pain still lingered for most movements however, he would brace his abdomen to keep him stable as he rode on the horse from time to time. Freya's self-inflicted stab wound was also still healing. Although her revival from the dead appears to have helped the process along as she was far better off than Kratos currently was.
The pair reached Sparta by late afternoon after only a few hour trek from the port they landed at. The city was far more lively than Kratos remembered it. There were no boys following their leaders' pace running in perfectly formed lines. The sound of steel and wood clashing against each other as soldiers trained was replaced by the general chaotic sounds of masses of people in the streets. There were merchants arguing, children laughing, food vendors calling out. The smells of different meats cooking permeated the riverfront as they dismounted from their horses and guided them through the crowd. Paying the fee with the stableboy, they left their horses with the large stables to the left of the docks so they were free to walk about the starkly different stoned pathways of this new Sparta.
Kratos' head spun left and right as he took in all of the changes. This wasn't the militaristic, powerful, strict city-state he had grown up in. This was just another city. Different people, goods and language, but still a city with a flourishing waterfront and mortals going about their day.
"I don't recognize it…" Kratos muttered so quietly even Freya barely picked it up.
The dirt paths his feet had born hundreds of blisters in were replaced with cobbled stone. Fighting pits and sparring rings he had speckled with his blood forgone for market stalls and other buildings. The large temple dedicated to Ares replaced with a temple to some Roman gods he did not recognize. On the walls of the acropolis at the city's center now flew banners of the Roman empire. Sparta truly was a completely different creature rebirthed anew.
"Is that a good thing or bad?" She posed as she came to stand by his side and returned him from his bewildered thoughts. The goddess had been tailing the god by a few paces, not only looking at their surroundings but observing him as he took it all in.
"The people seem happier. When I was a boy, there, where that man stands on the small stage speaking. That was where one of the courses to test our endurance began. Over there by the man with the pigs, that was where we would be whipped or punished for disobedience and failure. Up there, the..home, I think? That was the barracks I resided in. There were no smiles or laughs. We were young men being trained in the ways of war and combat."
Two small boys raced past the two of them, swinging sticks at each other as if they were blades. A mother was screaming after them to slow down, and bumped into Kratos' shoulder as she attempted to rush past. The woman rebounded off him as if she had run into a wall as her hand shot up to grip her shoulder and winced in pain. "A-apologies, my boys, they were just…"
She locked eyes with Kratos, him staring down at the woman who was two heads shorter. Her hair was wrapped up in a long piece of cloth, her brow addled with sweat. For a moment, Kratos feared she had recognized him somehow. That she recalled from hundreds of years ago the face that brought ruin to this entire country in his one man war against the gods. Surely there must be banners and artwork depicting the brutal killer of their old house of gods.
"T-they are so careless at this age. I will discipline them," the woman finished, as her eyes fell from Kratos' golden gaze.
After a brief pause, Kratos grunted, "Boys..will behave like boys."
The woman smiled with a slight bow and pressed on after her hyperactive children. Kratos turned to watch them through the crowd, but was drawn back to his right as he felt Freya's hand slide into his. As her fingers interlocked his they made eye contact, and she smirked. "I'm hungry, we've been riding all day. Do you think we could afford anything?"
Kratos withdrew the remaining drachma he had from his belt and lightly shook them around in his free palm that wasn't entwined with Freya's.
"Where did you get those anyway? You paid the boy at the stables but I didn't catch what the actual coins were," she leaned in to gaze upon the change in his hands.
"These are drachma, the currency for Greece and its city states. I asked Thoth for some before we departed. I figured for the additional effort and..nearly dying, he could part with some wealth. The Romans have brought their own form of coin with them to any lands they conquered, but it seems the shops here still take gold regardless of what god or face is sculpted on it," Kratos grunted as he slipped the coins back into the pouch hanging from his belt and they continued on.
They moved through the crowds joined at the hands, navigating the different vendors and stalls. Freya ended up getting a plate of grilled swordfish, and Kratos had hare and a bowl of legumes.
'So what did you usually eat here as a child?" Freya asked between bites as they sat on a low wall at the water's edge.
Kratos thought for a moment before snorting, "They called it black soup, it was mostly pig blood and strips of meat from their legs."
"Was the blood black?"
"Hmpph? What?" Kratos snorted as he set his food down to look at her.
"The blood? You said it was called black soup, but if blood is red and the meat as well, where did the black in the name come from?" She was smirking as she leaned forward to pick a small speck of rabbit meat from his beard.
"I…do not know. We just called it black soup, we never questioned why.."
Freya broke out into laughter that caused several of the mortals around them to turn towards them in surprise. She quickly silenced herself as Kratos looked around nervously to make sure they did not garner too much attention.
"Oh relax, I think if someone recognized you we would have had guards or someone here by now. Here.." Freya mused, twisting and tapping the man sitting beside them, his back turned to them.
The man turned around, his face was older, covered in wrinkles and a few age splotches of darker skin.
"Excuse me sir, but do you recognize him?" Freya boldly posed as she pointed to Kratos seated to her left.
With a nervous, confused look in his aged, brown eyes he shook his head and returned back to his previous conversation she had dragged him from.
"See? If the elderly here don't recognize Kratos the godslayer, the vile Ghost of Sparta, I'm sure no one else would. It's a good thing we still have these translating keys from Thoth, otherwise I wouldn't be able to communicate here. You'd probably be fine," she remarked as she resumed her eating of the rare fish. Freya had had much fish meat in her life; trout, bass, carp, but many of the fish of the ocean she had rarely tasted.
Kratos gazed around the crowd once more. The sun had set, and there were torches along the waterfront's road. The mass of people had died down considerably, now only a few dozen people seemed to be walking the city's paths. "I believe even I'd have difficulty. The Greek they speak, it isn't quite the same from what I knew and used. There are words they say I do not recognize, and some that I do that have new pronunciations. The Roman presence I would guess."
They finished their food and returned to the stables. With their horses back in their custody, they mounted and began to ride out of town. About an hour out they decided to find a place to stay for the night, and so rode up into the woods. They came upon a clearing of shorter grass surrounding a wide vernal pool. The water's surface appeared crystal clear like glass, perfectly reflecting the many stars above. Letting the horses graze, they undid their packs and set about making a small camp. Still full from their meal in Sparta, they laid in the grass a while, staring up at the serene sky. The moon was still not present, however. Thousands of stars ornamented the dark sky above them, giving just enough light to make out each other's forms as they laid together. The occasional snort of whiny from the horses at the other end of the small pond eating wildflowers and weeds were the only sounds to disrupt the quiet.
"Ugh, I could go for a bath. That pool doesn't quite look deep enough. I think I hear a creek just over there, I'll go wash off before we settle down for the night" Freya groaned as she stood and stretched. Kratos reached a hand out to grab hers. She turned, blinking and looking at him with a tilted head in confusion.
"I..I owe you a talk," Kratos stated, his eyes staring at the grass beneath him as his hand squeezed hers. The goddess smiled, her heart overjoyed.
"Well, I didn't want to push the topic on our journey here. You experienced a lot of change today, and on this journey in general. I wanted you to talk only when you were ready," she assured, her thumb reaching over his fingers to gently massage the back of his hand.
"Thank you. I am ready."
Freya returned to her seat beside him, but this time facing him. She was nervous, he could tell. Her fingers were apprehensively rummaging through the grass, and her breathing quickened. In the low starlight, Kratos could still make out the beautiful shade of brown that her eyes were as they ever so softly shined.
"I..I do not know how to start this, truly. I have been thinking of little else since we left Egypt. I think..I would like to start with a question. Your feelings for me, when did they start?" He continued to look into her eyes. The world around him had melted away. The horses occasionally grunting and neighing, the running water of the distant creek, the hoots of a nearby owl. They all washed from his ears, only her breaths, her words, sounded within them now.
The goddess sat and thought for a moment, her eyes shifted to the side and her head tilted forward. "I think..do you remember the day you had the bath installed? At that time, a part of me still hated you, but that part was quickly diminishing. No one had done such a kind act for me before. Something for me, without a selfish ulterior motive. That was the day I think my feelings first started, but I wouldn't realize them fully for a while. I realized them just some afternoon when we were sitting at home. You were in your chair, leaned back and taking a nap. Mimir was gone. I was reading and I remember just looking up at you from my pages and it was like..I saw you in a new light. Whatever stubborn little lingering part of me that held resentment towards you that day, conscious or not, melted away. What about you?"
"Shortly after Ragnarok."
Blinking in shock Freya turned to face him scoffing with a smile. There was little distance between them. "Wait, what? Before we were living together? I didn't think.." she trailed off, her gaze falling to the grass below them.
"That is when I believe the feelings first started. I did not realize them until before we left for Egypt, the day you walked in on me in the bath," he further elaborated.
"When I was covered in blood and looked like I had just slaughtered a troll?!"
Nodding, Kratos snorted. "Yes, that is when I realized how I cared for you. Since then, through Egypt and everything, I realized how strongly those feelings resided in me. So to answer you from many nights ago, no, you are not alone in those feelings."
Without another word the goddess leaned in and shared an intensely deep kiss with the spartan. Her hands cupped up around the back of his neck to bring them even closer. Kratos brought one of his firm hands around to clutch her shoulder. After a few minutes their lips parted, and Freya breathlessly laughed as their eyes remained closed, foreheads rested against one another's. "Sorry, I just…"
"You do not need to apologize, not for that," he assured as he allowed this foreign feeling rising in him to take control. His heart felt full, beating with such a rapid pace. His fingers felt jittery and lacked their usual determined strength. Kratos' whole body felt ablaze with warmth as he leaned back in to kiss her once more.
As the kiss parted again, she exhaled deeply. "What took you so long," she whispered with a smile.
The pair stared at each other, shifting their weight back to laying beside one another. Kratos' brow was scrunched in thought.
"What?"
Kratos shook his head. "I'm sorry, I don't know how to say this without talking of..Faye. I just thought.. After I killed my first family. After I lost Faye, I decided once and for eternity to close my heart off to the possibility of love. As soon as Faye died, we were whisked away in the current towards Ragnarok. I had no time to mourn, to process her death. I grieved, but not fully. I was too focused on Atreus, and the gods hunting us."
Freya's heart fell a little as she realized she fell in that category. The spartan continued, "But meeting you, working with you. I realized, as much as I forced myself not to feel, that isn't what I should do. It took several voices, but eventually I was made aware that I should follow the advice I gave to my son several years ago. I should open my heart to what could come in the future, or present. I was worried..that I was trying to stifle what grieving I had not done for Faye by filling the hole with you. Also, if Atreus might feel I was trying to replace his mother with you. It took some time, but eventually I gained clarity. I loved Faye, and will always love her, but I can't remain buried in the past. I have let the past take hold of the reins to my life for too long. I want to be with you."
Tears were dotting the corner of her eyes as she leaned in once more and their passionate embrace and kissing continued. She rolled her body over on top of his, their fingers interlocking.
"I have a question for you," he murmured as the kiss ended once again a few minutes later.
"Mhm?"
Neither pulled from the other. Their eyes had been closed for the better part of ten minutes as they simply laid there together closely, enjoying each other's intimate presence.
"What do you think of this place?"
"Of…the woods?"
Kratos snorted, "No, Greece. These lands."
Freya's eyes opened as she sat up and looked down at the still lying Kratos beneath her. "Why?"
He rose up on a shoulder to meet her gaze more evenly. "What if we moved here? Not now, or even in the near future. Just some day, potentially."
Her eyes narrowed in confusion, "What? Why? Are you not happy in the north?"
Kratos sat up fully now, resting a hand on hers. "No. I am. I only meant. Well, look at this place. The city we were in today. I killed all of this lands' gods. Yet here these people are, hundreds of years later, appearing happier than they ever did under Zeus' rule. This is a land that has no gods to pay fealty to, or pray to, to ask for favors or use them. The Romans may bring their gods here but those gods do not belong here. As the gods of Greece fell, so too will the Romans in time. These people are thriving without us. I am still committed to improving Midgard and the other realms. But some day..perhaps they will not need us anymore. We will have freedom to do what we wish to do. We have given so much of ourselves for so long. We have never truly lived for ourselves. All I mean is, some day, perhaps we'll be able to. Go where we want, live where we want, do what we want. Not as selfish gods like Odin who did as they pleased regardless. I mean when our job is done."
Luci's words echoed in his mind.
"Two thousand years from now, no one gives a fuck about any of ya. Hell, most mortals think majority of you didn't even exist. They think you're just myths and legends."
Freya said nothing for a while. Her eyes were looking out over the mirrored reflection of stars in the calm water of the pool. After a time, she let out a deep sigh, her hand around his squeezed lovingly. "If such a time does happen, then, I could see us living here. It is a beautiful land. No arid deserts, which helps."
She turned to him and smirked with a wink. Then, she stood, and stretched once more. "Well, I'm still addled in sweat, so I'll be taking that dip in the creak now."
Her hands reached down for the hem of her shirt, and Kratos turned to avert his gaze.
"Kratos.." she whispered.
"Hmmph?" He grunted back.
Freya walked in front of him, a devilish smirk on her lips and not a trace of clothing on her body. His golden eyes widened taking in her nude form in the dim starlight.
"Care to join me?" She challenged as the smirk evolved into a wide smile and her hand extended. He clasped it, and she helped him stand. Her arms carefully snaked over his body as she undid his shoulder pauldron, belt, and other clothing for him. Before long, the pair were standing together in the middle of the woods nude, together.
"Perhaps the pool is deeper than I thought," she mused with her eyes unable to leave his body. She guided him into the pool with her hand loosely cradling his. The water reached up to their abdomens, leaving their chests bare in the cool night air.
Being the ever more aggressive one in her advances, she stepped forward and brought the front of her body against his. Her eyes heavy with desire, and her heart racing so quickly its beat sounded like the trampling of a herd's hooves.
Her mouth sought his neck, nibbling and suckling as her hands found their way to his muscular back. Their bellies stung mildly with pain when they rubbed against each other from the lingering sword wounds, but it was not enough to stop them. As they stood there together, nude, in that water, nothing else mattered. The occasional neighs of the horses, the rocking of tree limbs in the wind, there was nothing else in the world but the pair of them together, in this moment.
Kratos felt it starting deep in his stomach. Before long, it had overtaken him. Every cell of his being burned with desire for her. This intense, primal urge he had not felt in over a decade. He was starving for her, and so his strong hands gripped the bottom of her thighs and curve of her ass. She took the hint and jumped, wrapping her legs around his waist as she put her full weight into him. His fingers dug into her skin, gripping her by the thighs and keeping her upright, pinned against him. Their lips feverishly met and lost each other, a flurry of kisses, nips, even licks across shoulders, breasts, arms, and mouth.
The pair of gods were awoken with a thirst and need they had not felt in some time. It had been a few years for Kratos, but it had been decades longer since Freya last felt these basal hungers and urges her body was being torn apart by.
"I need you inside of me," she whispered into his ear as one of her hands snaked down his stone hard chest and gripped the now rigid member between his legs.
Not a single living being besides forest animals heard the sounds of pleasure and flesh against flesh that night. There were no mortals lingering around, and no gods in the skies above. This night belonged to only the two of them.