The next morning, heavy fog rolled in low across the ground as the warmth of an early spring crept across the valley. Faye worked on the counter, laying out a series of ropes and tools that could be used in a valiant effort to save whatever might be left of her fishing nets. Kratos worked by the light of an oil lamp, mending holes in his clothing and armor. The two said little to each other as they worked, slipping instead into a companionable silence that seemed to grow more sacred each year. Atreus tracked his father's every move, his enthusiasm to see him bloodied by the dozen or so times Kratos had dismissed or rebuked him in the past day.

"Can I help mend anything?" Atreus asked, leaning in to study the work.

"No," Kratos said.

Atreus leaned back and bounced his leg against the floor, his commitment to polite and reserved behavior splintering beneath the sting of yet another dismissal. Faye could see the gears turning in her son's head as he worked on a new plan to get his father's attention.

"Father, you have been out hunting Draugr?"

"Yes."

"And mothers says there used to be far more Draugr when I was younger? So each year, there are fewer Draugr left?"

Kratos eyed him, sensing a trap, but not finding any real objection to the question.

"Yes," he said suspiciously.

"So why have you been staying out longer and longer each year? It should be getting easier, since there are less of them."

Kratos snorted. "Would you like to instruct me on hunting Draugr?" he asked.

Faye scented danger. The her husband's muscles froze. The way his eyes flared when he snorted. The exact way his voice strained. Atreus had struck a nerve.

Kratos, come on, we have talked about this: you can change the topic of conversation to anything you want, and your son will follow you, Faye thought, trying to will a telepathic connection with her husband. Atreus, for fuck's sake, stop poking the bear. Whatever empathic connection Atreus had with her, it did not seem to work now.

"No," Atreus said, sensing that he had finally found a response, and playing his hand. "I just wondered, what else are you doing?"

"It is my business, boy," Kratos said.

Faye groaned inwardly. She felt an acute craving for the jar of moonshine stashed beneath the cabinet, or maybe a nice and potent hallucinogen. Opium? Something stronger than herbal tea.

"But, what business?" Atreus pressed. "You're gone a lot longer than what you would need to hunt. Are you trading with people? Or exploring? Or are you training for something?"

"I said it is my business. Do not speak of this again," Kratos said, his voice growing low and dangerous. His muscles grew tighter and tighter, like a coil twisted close to its failing point. His hands were shaking.

Finally, Faye caught her husband's gaze and gave him a dangerous glare of her own. He withered underneath her stare, and sulked in realization how close he was to losing his temper.

"Atreus, maybe later. Father gave you his answer for now," Faye said.

Abrupt silence fell over the room. The mist rolling in through the open door suddenly felt clammy instead of fresh and pleasant. Kratos fidgeted like a pot of simmering water, and Atreus churned beneath the weight of yet another reprimand.

After a few minutes of silence, Atreus hopped up from his spot on the floor and fetch his new bow. He stood in the middle of the room, making sure his father could see him, and began the exercises Faye had taught him. As always, he started by holding the bow high above his head, and pulling it into full draw.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Kratos roared.

Atreus flinched, so startled by the noise that he lost control of the bowstring. It snapped back, violently lashing his forearm. He hissed in pain and grabbed his arm.

"That is not how you draw, boy," Kratos growled. "You are not strong enough for that bow. You will ruin it like that."

Faye briefly fantasized about nailing them both upside-down from the rafters to get some peace, then pushed to her feet and walked to Atreus. As she passed Kratos, she dug an index finger into his shoulder in the faintest of threats, and beckoned him to follow. He stood up and shuffled at her side, his face weary with defeat.

Faye held out her palm to Atreus, prompting him to lay his arm out for examination. A blotchy welt was spreading across his entire arm, peeking out from beneath the thin guard he wore on his forearm. She checked his face, trying to gauge what response he wanted from her. He struggled to blink back tears, but he looked like he was trying to shake it off, not seeking comfort. She unwrapped the guard to examine the growing bruise, squeezed his elbow, and winked at him. Beside her, Kratos growled softly at the sight of the welt.

"What do you think Atreus?" she asked. "Do I need to amputate your arm?"

"No," he groaned.

"Good to hear. Amputations are so messy. Our son insisted on making his new bow much heavier than his last one," Faye said, rubbing her hand hand lightly over the bruise. "I instructed him to practice with an overhead draw in order to build up strength, before he can start using that bow with actual arrows."

An idea flashed through her head, and she casually proffered the arm to Kratos. Kratos unconsciously took their son's arm from her, and examined it, tracing his own finger lightly along the bruise, his face turning to a deep frown. Atreus held very still, trying not to disrupt the moment. It was the first time his father had touched him since arriving home.

"He needs a stronger guard to use that bow," Kratos concluded. "I will make him one."

"Would you? You are much better with leather than I am," Faye said. Perhaps she had snatched a partial victory from the jaws of defeat. That made two partial victories, and five defeats since yesterday.

As soon as Kratos released him, Atreus quickly bound the guard back up over his arm again, and took several steps back. Starting from a fully neutral position, Atreus drew the bow back perfectly to full draw, and held for ten seconds. No wobbling, no shaking. He took a deep breath, and did it another nine times, each one as perfect as the last.

"Ten draws. I did it," he said, glancing briefly at Faye, but mostly staring at his father.

Kratos looked at Faye, shrugged, and turned to go back to sewing.

Faye wrestled for a moment with her judgement. On the one hand, his improvement from just one day before seemed too fast, and she was suspicious it was a stroke of good luck. On the other hand, she had no idea what to expect from him as he grew. With a mixture of Giant, god, and mortal blood, his strength might come in sudden bursts.

"Ten perfect draws," Faye decreed. Normally she would have laughed and hugged him, but she sensed his solemnity and matched it with her own. "We will start the next phase of your training."

He nodded absently, his eyes wandering off to where his father was hunched over his work, back turned to both of them. Faye slung an arm around his shoulder, and steered him towards the back door. She swung it open, and peered into the mist-laden forest. The last of the snow had melted, leaving heavy fog and damp ground. Faye crouched down and pressed her cheek against his, looking out together into the woods.

"It is said the Aurora Silkcrest moth is most likely to visit on the day of the first full thaw," she said. "Today will be your best chance of finding it until next year."

He perked up at that, the shadow lifting from his shoulders as he looked out into the tall grass. He bolted into the mist, disappearing into the endless gray.

Faye stepped back into the house and passed by Kratos, trailing her hand across his shoulder and down his arm, pausing to catch him by the wrist. He released his work and squeezed her hand. For several long seconds the paused, facing different directions, and leaning close against each other.

"Would you walk with me?" she asked.

"I would like that."

She led them up and along a series of hills, the morning silent save for the sound of their matched breath in the short and steep climb. Once they broke above the clouds at the crest of a knoll, the sun shone down on the hillsides, warm against her face and hands. They paused to survey the blanket of mist covering the valley over the familiar taiga, and drifted closer to each other, drinking in each other's presence as another immutable feature of the landscape. With the sun warming the back of her neck, the quiet of the pines, and her lover's scent filling the air, Faye did not much care to walk any further.

Judging by how he suddenly seized her around the waist and crushed her against him, it appeared Kratos did not care to walk any more, either.

Later, they lay together in the grass as the sun climbed in the sky. Faye stretched out her legs, and draped them over her husband's. He poured at heat like a furnace, while the ground was chill on her bare back.

"I will leave soon for the Eastern fens," Kratos said. His voice rumbled through her ribcage as he spoke.

"When?" she asked.

"Once the mist is gone."

Faye thought about that for a while, first wanting to object, and then wanting to chide him. She let all of her initial impulses to reply come and go, just like leaves floating by in a river.

At last, she said, "Atreus will settle in and mellow out over the next few days. He is just excited."

"I am not leaving because of that," Kratos said quickly, in a way that meant escaping Atreus definitely was why he wanted to leave. "There were breeding groups of Vargr in the Eastern fens, I worry they will range towards us."

"Those? It will be months before the pups are old enough to come here. You have been agitated since returning home, more than usual. What is it?" she asked, nestling in beneath his arm, laying her head on his chest. "I wanted to cut my ears off when Atreus was teething, but all that screaming did not bother you at all. Why is it harder now?"

"He was in pain, then. He could not help it. Now, he has many… questions. About me. And he is growing more persistent."

"Of course he is," Faye said. "He is in a different type of pain, now."

She turned away for a moment to stretch, felt a little bit too cold, and curled back up against him. He released her as she turned, then tucked his arm back around her waist as she nuzzled against his neck.

"Cooped up close to home all the time with his mother, who makes him follow rules and do chores, while his gruff father is out having mysterious adventures? The less you tell him, the more he wonders."

"There is nothing important for him to know," Kratos growled.

"Then tell him the not-important. Tell him about the avalanches on the high alpine slopes in winter, or the settlements, or tell him about slaying Draugr, or maybe fighting trolls. I think at this point, you could recite the genealogy of Midgard rulers, and he would listen."

"You tell him all of those things. There is no need for me to."

Faye rolled away from him and stood up, crossing over to the edge of the knoll and leaning against a lone pine tree standing sentinel over the valley. Among the thinning mists, she could begin to see outlines of the grounds below. She looked back at Kratos, and waved him over.

"I have a secret," she said. "Come over here."

He groaned and relented, crossing the clearing to stand by her.

"Closer," she said, waving him in conspiratorially. "Closer. Good. Here is my secret: I am boring. Atreus adores me, but I live in his pocket. Stories from me are lectures. Anything from you is going to be something different. Something I cannot give him, and only you can. Pick something that is easy, and safe for you. He will be happy. You might even like it."

As the mist faded, they could see Atreus bounding through through the reeds like a deer in the valley below. Continuing his quest to find a moth that would only appear once he manifested the empathic energy to draw it away from its rightful home among the clouds.

"I feel an overwhelming danger whenever I am near him, Faye," Kratos said. "Every time I am near him, it feels like I am in the middle of a fight, but I can never see the enemies."

Faye knew that any time Kratos started speaking about feelings, he was giving a vast understatement. The sense of danger he described was not unease; it was raw, incapacitating, panic. It would an outpouring of bad memories, a constant clawing at his throat.

His fears were not unfounded. Ten thousand prophesies viewed their son as an agent of vengeance, a final reckoning to end the ancient war between Giants and the gods. One prophesy said otherwise, and Faye could not find it among her fragmented memories. The corrupted souls of Giants fallen in battle were nestled against her heart. They were the only power keeping her alive, and they tried every day to force her to act to their will. Sending her visions of horror that she had learned to live with every day. She evaded them like the flow of water, but every day they searched for new ways to break her, and always reached for Atreus. For Loki.

Kratos could be very well sensing the danger from her.

"Do you feel that sense of danger all of the time? When you are away?" she probed.

"No. I know he is safe with you, with only you. The danger is… only when he and I are together."

Well, that was a cruel irony. For reasons she did not fully understand, his faith in her was so complete, his intuition skipped right over her.

"It is not you," she said. "I promise, it is not you."

"What?"

"You think, that because you feel that danger when you are near him, and do not feel it when you are away, that you are the source of danger."

"Because I am, Faye," he said.

Faye fixed him with a hard stare, letting the ruthless Laufey shine through. Not to threaten, but to convince Kratos that her words were not naive accolades, and she meant them with the entirety of her will.

"I would tear apart anything that tried to hurt him, including you," she said, her words laced with the bite of iron and blood. "And I swear to you that you have never put Atreus in danger by being near him."

He met her gaze. She could tell that in that exact moment, at that exact time, he truly believed her words. Once they looked away from each other, or said anything else, the moment would be gone and the doubts would return. The feeling of peace would pass by like leaves drifting by on the river, but for a few seconds Kratos truly believed her. Faye hoped that, maybe, it was a feeling he could return to again.

"I know it is hard for you, though," she continued once she saw doubt creeping back into his face, letting her voice soften again.

"I understand that it pains you, that it is too much to face every day. That you need breaks, and time away to recover from it. That you need to dismiss Atreus, or leave on your own sometimes, to seek respite from it. But Kratos, I do not think this is something you should be hiding from. This might be your next battle to face."

"I have seen enough of battle, Faye," he said wearily.

"Yes," she said softly. "You have seen too much. Battles for vengeance, or survival, or to avert disaster, or because you had no choice. This battle is not about surviving, Kratos. It is about learning to live."

In the valley below, Atreus ranged beyond the borders of the protection stave. He leapt and dived among the stalks of grass, free from fear of both the stalking Vargr and the judgement of his parents as he hunted for the moth with reckless abandon.

"Do you realize what has happened, now that you have killed all the monsters in this valley?" Faye asked.

"The boy can explore on his own. We do not have to always watch."

"Yes, but there is more. Some groups of settlers have survived several winters here. We always said it was impossible to do much for them. That no matter how hard we tried, a few stray monsters would make through. That it was pointless to try and protect those who could not protect themselves. But we were wrong."

"Hmph. What matters if they live one or two more years? They die the next."

"It matters to them. Another year to grow, to get strong, to live, to leave and go elsewhere if they want."

Kratos grumbled noncommittally, suspicious of the burden she was placing on him. Faye sensed she would lose him soon, but was able to get one last word in.

"You have become the silent and sour protector of the settlers in this valley, all because you set out to make it a little bit safer for our son," she said. Then ribbing him with her elbow, she added, "whether you like it, or not."

They walked slowly back to the cabin with their arms linked together, having reached an amenable agreement: Kratos would leave again overnight to adapt more gradually to returning home after his long absence, but he would return morning the next soon as they were through the front door, Atreus tromped in through the back, pushing the door with such enthusiasm it slammed in the back wall. He clutched something in his cupped hands, his face beaming with triumph, his clothes soaking wet. To Faye's dismay, a stream of water trailed along behind him.

"Mind the door, boy," Kratos said. "And the water."

Atreus circled back to obey, then returned again, holding out his caged hands to Faye.

Oh my, Faye thought, hardly daring to believe. Did he really summon one? So soon?

Atreus partially opened his hands, revealing a dusty violet moth peeking out from inside. A pair of furry white antenna wobbled out from between his fingers. As Faye leaned over to look, the back of the wings flashed with iridescent stripes that weaved blue and green serpentines just like the aurora borealis in the night sky.

"What a creature," she said in awe. "Aurora Silkwing. I have never seen one myself, before. This is a very, very rare sight. Kratos, come over here, you have to see this," she said, waving her hand to him.

He peeked over her shoulder, and immediately tensed.

"It is just a moth," he said, voice taking a sharp edge.

Ignoring his tone, Faye leaned in closer to watch how the bright green eyes flashed with light as the creature darted and moved in her son's hand.

"The eyes," she said, shaking her head with wonder. "It is said they have nearly perfect vision, and hearing. They have some magical properties, although no one knows quite how much. They spend their entire lives on the wing, flying high in the air."

And, she did not say aloud, there is no reason for one to ever land on the ground, unless it is wounded or dead. The only reason this moth is here is because Atreus summoned it. He is gaining some control of his empathic abilities.

Atreus opened his hands further, and the moth slipped out. It fluttered up to the ceiling and clung to the bottom of the rafters.

"Now you have let it inside!" Kratos snapped.

"Sorry," Atreus said.

Kratos prowled kitchen, staring at the moth with a deep scowl.

That was… odd. A colorful moth was the least objectionable animal that she or Atreus had ever dragged into the cabin. Kratos normally did not care what menagerie of beasts were inside, so long as they left him alone. Did he instinctively recognize the moth did not belong here? That it was a sign their son was manifesting some unique abilities thanks to his heritage?

"Well," Faye said, giving her husband the what did we just talk about thirty minutes ago? glare, "then I am glad it is just a moth. Atreus, why are you soaking wet?"

"I crawled through the grass to find it. Oh, and I crawled through the marsh."

"Ah. I see I am raising a wood sprite, not a boy. Best we hang you up to dry then."

She pounced on Atreus, tickled him to force him off balance, ducked quickly below his sweeping counter attack, grabbed him by the ankles, and hoisted him into the air. She stepped up on the bench, dangling him from his ankles, and hooked him carefully over the rafters. He laughed and swatted at her. He grabbed the sides of his shirt and pulled them out in an imitation of wings.

"Now I'm like a moth, too!"

"That you are," she agreed.

Kratos said nothing other than an irritated growl, his eyes fixed on the moth as it flittered among the rafters. He clenched his fists, then abruptly turned and marched out the door. Atreus watched him, his smile faltering.

After several long seconds of thought, Faye let him go. The conversation about how to watch for Atreus's nascent abilities was another sore spot for Kratos. There were only so many difficult topics Faye could navigate in one day.

"What did I do this time?" Atreus asked glumly. His eyes were dull.

"You did nothing," she said firmly. "Come now, I will help you down."

"Can I stay here for a little bit?" he asked, closing his eyes and trying to squeeze back tears.

She took his hand, and he opened an eye.

"Alone, please?"

"Of course," Faye said. Then, eying the drop to the table, added, "do not crack open your skull getting down."

Faye and Atreus reached the site of the forsaken fishing nets by early afternoon. Jophie swooped back and forth through the forest canopy, chirping irritably at Faye for failing to bring food, and disdaining every attempt Atreus made to coax her down to his arm. At last, the gyrfalcon settled on Faye's shoulder and plucked out strands of her hair from her braid as Faye surveyed the scene before her.

At first sight, the situation looked hopeless. They were a few miles downstream from their house, downstream the confluence of several feeder springs from some of the higher slopes. The river was a torrent of blackened water and detritus pouring over a massive network of dead trees swept from the higher mountain streams from the melting snow. Brown foam swirled in lazy circles behind treacherous eddy lines. Swift as the waters ran today, it would only grow worse tomorrow as the thaw continued. Faye would have to act now, or risk losing the nets entirely. They were made from materials she could not make herself.

She looked for a moment between the flooded river and her son. Not a good combination.

"Atreus, I am going to try to get the net out. You… may start target practice with your new bow."

Atreus beamed at her, not believing his luck.

Faye found a suitable place for him to practice nearby, where he would be shooting directly into a broad hillside to halt the path of any stray arrows or misfires. As they set up the target range, Faye tried the bow out herself. It was much heavier than she remembered making it, and when she loosed and arrow, it punched straight through the leather dummy she set out as a target and bored deep into the stump on the other side.

Startled by the strength, she made Atreus shoot several times under supervision. His draws were all perfect. Faye raised an eyebrow, eying his slender frame and skinny arms, incredulous that Atreus could draw the damn thing at all. It must have been heavier than a Midgard longbow. Apparently she had become a little too enthusiastic marking runes along the side to strengthen it. The smart thing for her to do would be to deface a few of of the runes, and take some of the bite back out. But… Atreus was a god and a Jotunn both. It was not too surprising he might suddenly wake up with new strength like this. Why deny him what he was?

"Atreus," she said, tapping the shaft of the bow with one the red-fletched arrows, "your last bow was a toy, for shooting rabbits. This bow will run a boar straight through. It could kill some poor man out cutting wood a quarter mile away. Do you swear, that today, you will shoot into this hill and absolutely nowhere else?"

"I do," he promised, eyes gleaming.

Good lad.

With Atreus occupied, Faye went back to to try and rescue her nets. First she spent a while pacing the length of the river, studying the problem and making a plan of attack. All of her implements would be useless, other than her axe and her own hands.

Faye ventured onto the log jam, picking the largest log as her first crossing point. The entire structure shifted and twisted around her, the branches collapsing precariously beneath her feet, the entire structure of the dam wobbling with her every step. Faye envisioned herself as part of the water, imagined that she was just another log shifting along to find a rightful place in the dam. She reached the spot where a large spruce tree made a wedge in the river.

Her nets were pinched in between a submerged bough of the large spruce, and the slender trunk of a sapling. Cut the bough free, and she would have a brief moment to retrieve the nets before the jam shifted from the sudden release of pressure, and the upstream branches crashed inwards to fill the void. She had best be out of the way when that happened.

She swung her axe and chopped through the bow with a shattering crack as the log jam began to collapse toward her. As she darted in to grab the nets, she heart a soft thwang from the brush. Her side erupted in stinging pain as an arrow struck her in the ribs just beneath her elbow, red-tipped feathers swaying along the shaft. She clawed at it in surprise, eyes darting to find the source of danger, to look for -

A series of echoing sounded from across the log jam as the boughs jerked free, bucking Faye off into the water. There was a deafening roar as the structure of the dam surged forward and swallowed Faye in a cascade of mud, water, and shattered trees.