Chapter 32: The Warmth of The Soul
"Wait, give me your hand," Freya grunted.
Kratos had just stood, and the goddess groaned for his aid as she attempted to join him.
"Does your stomach wound hurt?" He asked as their hands clasped and he helped her to her feet.
She braced against him a moment, steadying herself. "No," she breathlessly giggled, "someone went a bit too hard on poor old me last night, and my legs weren't quite ready to work."
"Oh…"
The pair had slept late that morning, the sun was already fairly high in the sky. They awoke draped over each other, still nude from the night's activities before. As they dressed, Kratos couldn't help but spare quick glances over to Freya as her form bent and moved donning her clothes.
"You don't need to keep eyeing me like a lustful teen boy, you'll get more tonight," she teased with a wink after noticing his incessant gazing.
Amidst their passionate frenzy last night they had forgotten to tie down the horses, but luckily the mounts hadn't wandered far. Kratos' dark horse was resting in a grove of bushes a few dozen paces into the woods. The lighter horse Freya rode was one hundred or so feet past that, nibbling on a thick bunch of dandelions.
After readying the horses they were off, continuing their return through southern Greece towards the ship waiting to take them home. The pair of gods felt lighter, more at ease than they had in centuries. They rode side by side together, their horses occasionally bumping into each other with how close their riders kept them.
"So let me get this straight. You were in the middle of storming the mountain of Olympus. Had already killed several gods, and you stopped.. just to fuck her? I heard she was a goddess of love and passion but, wow. Men really do think with their cock most of the time," Freya snickered as their horses began to ascend the last mountain before arriving back to the port city on the southern coast.
Kratos replied with nothing, only grunted.
"And..wait..Aphrodite. What was her parentage? I know you told me your mother was a mortal, and your father Zeus..but that..wouldn't her father be Zeus as well? Oh..oh you are disgusting," she chuckled, her smile turned slightly down at the corners into a mocking frown.
"It..was not my proudest moment. I should not have said anything," he sternly affirmed, his eyes remaining locked forward.
A moment later he felt her soft hand on his shoulder as her smile returned. "No, no. Thank you, I appreciate you telling me. There is still much to your life before you came to our lands that I do not know, and I would like to."
He nodded in reply and continued, "To my knowledge, I believe she was the only god I did not kill on that mountain. I left her there with her lovers. I never saw her again, and do not know what became of her."
"Did you have any allies amongst them? The Olympians? Surely one must have aided you?"
Kratos' eyes fell to the bobbing head of his horse as it moved with powerful legs up a steep bit of their path. "No, they all used me for their gains. Hephaestus aided me for a time, but then tried to kill me. I do not fault him for it, he was seeking to protect his daughter, and blamed me for the torment he received. My father betrayed me without remorse. Athena.. She was my only ally for a time. In the end though, she seeked to take control of the Hope that belonged to humanity. I impaled myself, attempting to end my life, to see that that did not happen, and that it returned to the people. That's, in part, where I got this."
His fingers traced the long, thick scar across his abdomen. To either side of it sat a smaller scar from the hellfire blade in Egypt. One from where Set had managed to stab him, and one from Khonsu. "My father stabbed me with the blade of Olympus when he betrayed me, and then I impaled myself with the same blade later. I blacked out, and awoke some time later. It seemed even after everything I had done.. my torment was not over. So I traveled for some hundreds of years, that is when I found my way to Egypt for the first time. Eventually, finding my way to Midgard. It felt as if that was my punishment for all the pain and suffering I caused. I was cursed to walk alone with everything I loved or trusted turning on me or turning to dust."
Her hand slid from his shoulder to intertwine with his own as she gently squeezed. "You walk alone no more."
The remainder of their return to the port was much like that. They returned to their ship, and the ship resumed its voyage north. From there, they traveled on the horses once more, wandering through the mountains and valleys of the north to Midgard. All the while, Kratos shared more and more of his past. He had told her some stories over the last five years of course, but now he dove into far more personal, tragic tales. Kratos told Freya everything there was to share of his time as their god of war, of his first daughter and the joy she brought him, his brother, of the centuries he spent lost and confused. Kratos bore his soul to her in a way he never had, to anyone truly. When he met Faye he was still mistrusting and closed off. Now, after the last two decades since first meeting her, he was nearly a very different person. Through Faye, Atreus, even Mimir, and of course Freya, Kratos had grown into a man that he should be proud to be. And for the first time in his life, he was.
When the ship had arrived in the north they sent word to Midgard that they'd be arriving in just shy of a week. There was a great deal of mountains and land to cover between the coast of the sea and the wooded hills of their home. Spring had come to the north in their absence, and everywhere around them during their travels were signs of its arrival. Snow had melted, trees were shrouded in green leaves and flower buds, the ground grew green once more as the grass could welcome the sun's warmth. They had seen trees and grass in Greece of course, but Greece lacked the brisk, familiar air that Midgard had. The last time the gods rode through these valleys and mountains on their descent south they were covered in three feet of snow. Despite the freezing temperatures having gone for the year, each night they stopped to make camp the pair still warmed each other's bodies anyway.
At last, after what felt like a year away, they finally crested the last ridge and could look down below into the valley to see Midgard. The lake of nine was still there, as were the several human towns that had sprouted up around it. Sunlight was bathing the hills with a vibrant orange hue as it began descending behind the horizon across from them.
"Ahhh, finally home," Freya breathed, dismounting her horse for a moment to take in the sight. Kratos followed suit and stood beside her. It did not take long for her arm to snake around his and bring him in close to her. They looked at each other in silence for a while, taking in each other's features in the orange light of their homeland's sun. Once more, the rest of the world ceased to exist to them. It was just the pair of them, standing intertwined as she brought her lips to meet his and they kissed. A few breaths later, a cough interrupted their embrace. Startled, they turned to face its source.
Sigrun was standing with her arm outstretched towards them, the scruffy-bearded head of Mimir resting in her palm.
"Well…don't stop on our account," the celtic head mused, his golden eyes blinking in surprise.
Freya let out a blissful sigh. "Sigrun, Mimir, it's so good to see you."
Kratos was silent, his eyes somewhere between glaring for the interruption and warm in happy relief at seeing his friend.
"Apologies, my queen, general, we were descending when you two..embraced. I thought you would hear us upon landing," Sigrun stated with only a slight pang of awkwardness.
Freya waved Sigrun's concerns away with her hand as she stepped forward and gave a swift hug to the winged commander of their forces. She gently brought her fingers across Mimir's bald scalp, signifying the same joy of their reunion.
"A report," Kratos grunted, stepping forward to stand beside his lover.
Sigrun gave a slight bow and nod before filling them in what had transpired in their absence.
"Another Asguardian? Odin had another son?" Freya gasped in disbelief.
Mimir's head nodded from his partner's palm. "Aye, apparently one last trick of the old, dead thorn in our collective sides. We still don't know a thing about where he came from or how long he had been in hiding, and now we'll never learn I'm afraid…"
"If he was strong enough to so swiftly defeat the shield maidens and Thrud, regardless of if he truly was of Asgard or not, he was a serious threat that needed to be dealt with. Where is Sobek now?" Kratos growled, turning to look out over Midgard as the sun grew closer to the tall tops of the mountains across the valley.
"Well he apparently..actually..felt bad? About the whole thing. He's spent the last month or so runnin' around Midgard and even some other realms killing every monster he could find. He went into the mountains of Svartalfheim and found a group of soul eaters, reducin' them to rubble. That pack of wulvers in the big expanse of woods south of the lake of nine? Why, he skinned every last one, even found their alpha, was nearly as tall as him! Trolls, draugrs, bergsra, he's hunted all of them to practically extinction. Oh the big idiot was fucking and fightin' without a care in the world when he first arrived, particularly liked the trials in Muspelheim..but since the attack, he's just been a nonstop monster hunting force of nature," Mimir enthusiastically uttered, attempting to assuage the clearly aggravated Kratos. As rough and crude as the Egyptian was, Mimir had developed a bit of a soft spot for him the few nights they had been up drinking together sharing stories into the early morning hours.
"Does he know we've returned?"
Sigrun shook her head, stepping forward to reply instead of Mimir. "No, general. We've been unable to find him. Last we heard, he was in Vanaheim. Apparently he drew the attention of the last rogue group of stalkers and they had decided to make him their prey."
Kratos snorted with the thinnest, shallowest smirk. "A decision I'm sure they will regret. Find him, have a couple of the other shield maidens aid you in your search if they are available. Much has happened in his homelands that he should be made aware of. Thank you."
The former valkyrie queen's eyes widened in surprise at the gesture. Kratos had always been a man of few words, and took the title of general and its responsibilities resolutely, if slightly begrudgingly, back during Ragnarok. To her, he did not seem to be a man that sought power or leadership in any capacity, and yet it had found him all the same. Sigrun had come to respect his decisions and commands, but they rarely proceeded or ended with "pleases" or "thank yous".
Giving another shallow bow, she affirmed her decision to follow him those years ago. "At once, general."
"If I might, my love, I think I'd like to ride with them for now," Mimir piped up as the shield maiden's wings spread. Sigrun smiled and planted a small kiss on his bald head before extending her arm to Kratos. The spartan's arm reached out and took hold of the knot at the top of the harness bound around his horns and chin.
A moment later Sigrun bowed to the pair of returned gods once more and flew into the sky to seek out the crocodile god. Kratos reached to his side and affixed the harness of his friend's head to his belt and began to return to their horses.
"Ahhh, I missed this backside," Mimir sighed in relieved joy.
"It's nice, right?" Freya teased, bending forward as she walked to meet eyes with the dangling head.
"It's so muscular and firm, but equally supple and soft! You'd think that after all these years bouncin' on this hip, the back of my head would be riddled with permanent bruises. But his ass is just so well cushioned, it's like bumping against a perfectly used pillow!"
Freya chuckled as she moved to the opposite side of Mimir's tethered residence on Kratos' belt to slip her hand up the firm rear of her lover, teasing, "Hear that, Kratos? You have quite a few fans of this ass of yours."
Mounting his horse, Kratos flatly grunted, "Have you had your fun?"
His lover simply winked at him in response while they kicked their horses into movement, descending down the mountain towards home. There had been five years of relative peace since Odin's death, but even in that time the woods never resonated with this gentle aura of sereness. Spring had brought the return of birds singing in a clamorous horde of calls and chirps as they strove to find a mate, the rustling of full green leaves in the wind, the massive lake before them reflecting the blue sky perfectly like a mirror. It was as if, for the first time, Kratos truly felt the first breaths of fresh air after the many years of strife he had endured in these lands.
There were no signs of wulvers, draugr, or other unpleasant sights they'd come upon usually in their travels. Over the years since Ragnarok their numbers had undoubtedly dwindled, but now it felt as if they had truly gone extinct.
"Sobek has surely kept busy," Freya remarked in equal parts relief and awe.
"Aye, yes, the large knob has been a right fuckin' lunatic in his bloodthirst. He even tried getting some of the valkyrie to have a go at him. Swears up and down to me he managed to bed two of them, but wouldn't tell me which," Mimir chimed from his bouncing position affixed to Kratos' belt.
"Mhmm…" Freya's brow rose in irritated interest at the last remark.
"Erm, well, either way, the bugger has been relentless in his hunting. He even took to wrestling the dreki in Svartalfheim for fun. The dwarves made it a game of watching from the safety of a ridge and betting on how many he'd take down before getting bored. I don't know the state of his homelands, but we'd be fools to let him return so easily without bartering to have him stay..at least in an interim position."
The traveling god's silence spoke volumes to the horned, bearded head. "What happened down there?"
Freya spent the following twenty minutes quickly summarizing all that had transpired in their trip south. Kratos would add in here and there, but left the majority of the dialogue to his lover.
"By the gods, Egypt's more than a wee bit fucked beyond salvation now isn't it? I've never met Ra personally, but I've heard nothin' but kind words praising his name. Seemed like the complete opposite to Odin in every conceivable way! Between the great losses they suffered and now this..fusion, of the two brothers and the resulting personality shift.. I fear what will happen to them when less well intentioned gods learn of this."
Kratos shook his head while grunting in frustration, "It is none of our concern now. They chose to cast us out. If they wish to suffer and ultimately perish on their own, then that is what will happen. We will lend aid to those that wish it, and strive to assist us in turn. We will tell Sobek of what happened and he will leave, likely for good."
It was another two hours before they finally arrived home. The door creaked open, and a gust of wind rushed in letting loose a flurry of dust that had coated practically all surfaces within. Everything appeared exactly as they had left it, no one had lived here for a few months. Kratos grimaced in irritation. It was far, far less troublesome than dealing with murderous gods or terrible monsters, but dust coating everything, even his bed, was a nettling annoyance. They went about opening all the windows, and with three swift waves of Freya's wings, the air seemed to turn gray itself. Realizing they had no dinner prepared, Kratos volunteered to go off hunting for them before it grew too dark.
"So.." Mimir started once Kratos was far more than safely out of hearing range. "I take it things went quite well down there for you two, despite everything else with the gods and all that. You left that bit out of your story before."
We also left the part out of me dying and an unknown, fearfully powerful being bringing me back but you won't be picking up on that part.
Freya sighed, and smiled. "Yes, after..everything..we both realized some things about ourselves. I told him how I felt, he took some time, we killed some gods, and on our way back home he shared that he returned those feelings. It's new, but we're gods, we have nothing but time to figure it out."
Mimir's luminous eyes were glowing even brighter with pride, and his bearded mouth was turned up into a wide smile. "I'm happy for you Freya, you deserve that happiness and emotion returned."
"Thank you, Mimir…Now, we weren't the only ones who left parts out of our story. This place looks like a tomb, I thought you might be back here at least a few times. You were with SIgrun the entire time?"
Mimir's smile turned into a thin line of anxiousness as he chuckled, "Aye, well uh, things also went for the best with me as well, I suppose. There were a few nights she was so busy she didn't return to her chambers, but on those nights I'd either be out drinking with Sobek or some dwarf friends I made, or reading. They have quite the library in that large castle the shield maidens all stay in. Her chambers are quite spacious."
"You made friends? Besides us? Should I tell Kratos we should expect to see you less now that we've returned?" She teased with a smile, readying some tea over the new fire lit in their hearth.
"Oh no, no nothing like that. I quite enjoyed getting to see Sigrun so much, but I missed you two a great deal. Although now that you two are lovers newly entangled, I suppose you might not want outside company while you get..reacquainted, with your home together."
Freya paused her preparations as she burst into a laugh. "Not so long as you don't mind loud noises at night."
"Think I might be needing something to block my ears for a while..one of you can just put them in before you go to bed."
It turned out Mimir truly did require the sound blocking assistance as Freya and Kratos broke in their bed together for hours on end each night. Mimir snored peacefully unaware on his pillow that had been moved to the far end of the kitchen to distance him even further from the gods' room. Small dots of beeswax blocked his ears' entrance ways with a band of cloth wrapped around the back of his skull keeping them in place.
It would take three days before Sobek finally arrived at the house. Mimir had gone away with Sigrun and Freya to a meeting of their allies to relay what had occurred in Egypt, as well as paths to take forward. Kratos had found that his healing process from the hellfire weapons was just finally reaching its end. He had felt fine each day, but found he was sleeping longer, and deeper than he had in years. Perhaps it was not solely his healing contributing to that, but his mind finally feeling at peace.
There was a thundering knock at the door, and rather than watching the colossal god squat to enter, Kratos decided to pay him the kindness of speaking outdoors. The spartan walked out into the spring air, and raised a hand to block the awakened sun nearing its midpoint in the sky.
Sobek stood his usual several heads taller than Kratos, dirt and scars littered his hide. Golden, slitted eyes stared down at the shorter Greek god along his long, toothed snout.
"You took your time," Kratos sternly huffed.
The crocodile head snickered, "Heh, yeah well, someone gotta do yur' job with you fuck'n around down in the sand."
Kratos' glare sharpened. "You let dozens of mortals die while we were away."
Sobek's gaze softened as his thick finger rose and scratched the scales of his under jaw. "True, and I feela' bit sore 'bout that. How fuck'n was I suppose 'taknow that some Asguardian piece oveshit was gon' come around and try to take over your damn kingdoms. My home's so much easier. Don't need some damn massive contrapt'n to get me between 'em all. Why the fuck do ya need eight diff'nt realms. Put 'em all together, then I wouldn't 'av missed shit."
"You make excuses, but you were off in Musphelheim fighting for sport and yourself. Had you actually been performing the task you were left with, and not wasting your efforts simply to slake your bloodthirst…you would have been able to reply to this Vali sooner."
A deep sigh escaped the long crocodile jaws of the Egyptian as he gave a slight bow. "Yeah, you're not wrong. I 'umbly apologize for those humans dying on my watch. Little shit wasn't much of anythin' anyways. Killed 'im without breaking a tooth."
"Your efforts for the weeks following Vali's appearance have lessened my anger. I would also thank you for so actively working to cure these realms of monsters and other stragglers from Odin's reign. I had heard a tribe of stalkers deemed you worthy enough to hunt. I trust their labors were in vain," Kratos grunted with a raised palm, signaling to the Egyptian the bow was not needed.
Sobek cracked a long smirk and cackled. "Yeah, well, how they called 'emselves hunters is beyon' me. Fuckers hunted like a pack of giraffes, not lions. Speakin' of."
Two fingers lifted and began picking at something between two of the many conical teeth lining the reptile's maw. Moments later they retrieved a small piece of dried flesh that had been trapped, and flicked it into the bush to Sobek's right. Kratos was fine not knowing how long that piece of, presumably, stalker meat had been stuck there.
"Do you know of the events that transpired in your home?" Kratos posed when it seemed Sobek was done picking at his teeth.
With a slow nod the Egyptian grunted, "Aye, one of Thoth's lil' birds arrived few days ago. My two brothers somehow got melded together. Khonsu, the miserable pile of rhino shit, tried to take ov'r ev'rythin'. Lost a few children in that final battle too. And heard they booted you lot out as soon as you came to, after everything was dead."
Kratos blinked in surprise, he had never heard of Sobek's children among the casualties. "I am sorry for your loss. They fought bravely."
"I'm sure they did, they come from my blood, they can't fight any oth'r way. I've got..maybe two hundred? Three? Offspring..it's hard to keep track of 'em all when you're the god of fertil'ty. Khnum was the biggest, he had a ram's head. I've got seven wives, Kratos, and on top of that I've prob'ly fucked half the mortal women in Ghiza, or close to it. I've sired hundreds of lil' demi gods. Hard to keep an'thing straight between the fighting and fuckin'."
"I see.."
Sobek continued, "But I'm glad they helped you lot win out down there. I'm 'appy I could help an' all here, but I should have been there to help. Now..from how Thoth described it, seemed ev'n his normal level of overworrying might be undersellin' it. We got a lot of empty seats at the table now. Bast, Mahees, Nut, Geb, all the others. Now that you're back, I need to get home."
Kratos nodded, and extended his arm forward. "Our fight will be postponed, until you can return."
Sobek snorted as his arm clasped the spartan's smaller forearm. "Aye, you best get trainin' shit roll'r. I'm gonna be a fuckin' mountain tougher than Khonsu was."
Smirking, Kratos nodded and briskly shook his arm at the elbow. "I have little doubt."
Freya arrived later that evening alone, with a basket of bread, wine, and grapes. "A gift from our friends to welcome us home."
Kratos grunted in acceptance, sitting down on their couch and took a few grapes from the basket. "And Mimir?"
Raising her arms high above her head, Freya stretched long and deeply before a swift sigh escaped her lips and she collapsed down into Kratos' shoulder to cuddle beside him. Her tattooed fingers reached out and withdrew a slice of the elven bread. "Staying with Sigrun tonight. After a few days of spending time with us again, and I'm sure the sleeping problems that came with..us being home, he wanted to stay a night with his love. He'll be back tomorrow."
"And the meeting?"
Freya exhaled across Kratos' chest as her head nuzzled deeper into his shoulder. "Besides the update after Sobek's hunting, the usual. Turns out the provisions Egypt had been sending came to an abrupt halt not long before our return. But luckily, what they had sent helped the realms, especially Midgard, greatly. Beside that, the dwarves wanted permission to build a settlement in Midgard, by the bend in Stone River to the west. Three light elves have gone missing..Hildisvini and Sif have suggested naming a mortal as the leader of the humans across Midgard, to help us in managing the vast area. The primary candidate at the moment is Sköldr."
"He will not accept, he wishes to sail the world and explore."
"Well you never know, people can change priorities when others are relying on them. He is beloved by the humans across the various towns and villages. Oh, and Atreus is back home, he wishes for us to travel there tomorrow night for dinner. Apparently they have something quite important to discuss. Not to mention longer term problems such as the council with all of the different gods reacting to what happened in Egypt. I'm sure they'll want to call on us for details, I can't imagine Ra will be very forthcoming. We also can't forget about that little detail of Mimir promising Hræsvelgr he'd find a replacement to rule over Helheim in exchange for their aid during Ragnarok. That will not be an easy task. And then-"
Her flowing sentences were cut short by Kratos tilting her chin up for a long kiss. Blinking after their parting as if she had just awoken from a deep sleep she smirked. "That was for?"
"Nothing, I just felt like doing it."
Freya's eyes narrowed, scanning around their empty home and her hand slid across her lover's bare, broad chest. "You know.. We have the whole place to ourselves for the first time since returning. We don't even need to go to our room, we can just stay and have our fun right here."
Snorting, his arms reached for her waist to bring her to rest on top of him. "Whole house to ourselves."