A training journey with Kratos. Atreus had felt at first it was a waste, what they were doing. Dragging enormous vehicles across the world via their oddly perfect and convenient roads. The attention was... Well, he would prefer to never express it to Kratos but he was beginning to appreciate it. It was nice being respected, admired. The example his supposed father set was a good warning against overindulging in such feelings. But still, it was nice.
Further, the training was unexpectedly effective, at least in terms of physicality. They had been running like this for a month now at least. The world was big in a way Atreus had never expected. A hundred times the distance he and his father had travelled to scatter his mother's ashes. But here, they had travelled, twelve hours of running per day. Burdened or not, they still moved absurd distances west to east. And still hadn't reached the end of this land. According to Kratos, they had reached a land called Turkey.
"Alright!" The muscle god declared at the end of the day, none the worse for wear. A much different appearance to Atreus who stood with hands on his knees, unbalanced from suddenly being freed from the weight of the vehicles he was dragging. "You've gotten the hang of it again! Excellent progress! I think you're ready for a third bus!"
"Seriously?!" It never stopped!
"I am always serious about training!" Well, that was at least one thing the two Kratos had in common. "Now, I will find us some sustenance, and then we may continue your pankration training!"
"Yeah... Great..." Kratos had a certain preference when it came to food. Namely... Meat. All meat. All the time. It was like he didn't even know what vegetables were. And any time Atreus brought it up the beefy believer in beef just laughed and said it would bulk him up. While probably true? The boy would kill for carrots. Or even just, like, a single carrot.
And the pankration training... Another nightly ritual. And it went about as well as it had in the Olympian gymnasium every single time.
Atreus heard a feminine sigh behind him. "I thought he'd never leave."
He turned around, seeing a familiar braid of green hair. "Artemis!" His excitement shifted to worry. He was glad to see her, but, "I thought you didn't want to, I mean when Kratos showed up you looked mad at him. And I know you don't like to leave the forest."
"Is there something wrong with me making an exception to see you?" she asked with a smile, for half a moment before taking on a much more stiff attitude. "Err, that is, an exception for the sake of your training of course. Can't have you doing nothing but lifting like a neanderthal when we both know you're an archer at heart." She paused again. "Not that, not that I'm not happy to see you, though. Erm, also the training does seem to be showing its merits in your build. Also your hair appears to be growing out?" The more she spoke, the more she struggled to keep her fidgeting under control. "Alright look, I haven't tried to be nice and sociable with someone for two thousand years, could you try to give me some leeway here?"
"Maybe you need to be easier on yourself," he answered with a smile to prove he wasn't offended or bothered by her difficulties. "I'm happy to see you too. And I'm grateful for a chance to do anything else but pull heavy things all day and get my butt kicked all night."
"Well. I can guarantee you'll still need to do all those things," the moon goddess told him. "Kratos won't take it well if he knows I'm interfering in your special bonding time, such as it is. You'll just have to make time for me."
"What's missing a little sleep? I'll say it's more than worth it."
"Well... Thank you for that." An awkward clearing of the goddess' throat. "Why do you continue to flail pitifully against him anyway?"
"Gonna just... Assume you meant 'lose on purpose' there." Her eyebrows flicked, as if to say 'obviously' and demand he get on with answering. "Because he's bad at it." Artemis snorted, suppressing a laugh. "No, really! Like, I get it. He's strong, so he never really had to learn to be skilled. I could run circles around him if he matches my strength and speed, but, I mean you saw what happened before. If I push him, he'll just do the easiest thing to push back. He'll just go harder until it doesn't matter that I know how to fight better. Then pretend like he taught me something after."
"You're making a lot of assumptions here."
"Maybe," he admitted. "But one of my gifts is understanding things. Understanding people."
Artemis' eyes narrowed. "Is that why you're so nice to me?"
He laughed, which made her eyes narrow further. "It doesn't work on gods, at least I don't think so. But I dunno, you see people, you see the cues and know what they mean. That stuff translates pretty well, god or not."
"Is that so?" She leaned toward him, frowning. "Then what am I thinking right now?"
"You're trying to be funny."
"Hm! I was. Did it work?"
"You were doing it because I made you nervous that I'm just humouring you and only pretending to like you." He smiled sadly as she leaned away from him. "Sorry, I didn't answer the question from before. No, the reason I'm being nice is because my mom taught me to be nice, and because I like you. You're pretty much my favourite person I've met since I got here."
Artemis could only sit there in silence as she processed that. "Well," she finally managed to say with a strained voice. "That was disconcerting. And... Mildly mortifying. Let's just put that aside for me to obsess over later– Why did I say that out loud." She shook her head, forging on so he wouldn't have time to focus on that. "So you might have an accurate read on Kratos. But you realise you shouldn't just leave things as they are, yes?"
"I don't see why not. He's happy, I'm... Well, I'm enduring."
"And I'm so very impressed by your brave face," she drawled. "Putting my own issues with him aside. Kratos has his shortcomings, pride chief among them, but it's plain to see he is trying to train you. Even if he's unsurpassably bad at it."
"So... I should try to show him up again?" Atreus asked sceptically.
"Tch, I doubt that would go particularly well," the huntress admitted. "But maybe it's worth using that 'understanding' of yours to try to meet him halfway." She scoffed again. "Not that my advice on such things is worth much. But, since the great oaf is likely as not to chase you to the depths of Tartarus if you go astray, might as well do what you can to make the best of it."
"That sounds like a kind of over dramatic way to say he cares."
"I suppose it is. But then, you're the first thing he's cared about beyond himself, at least so far as I've seen."
A painful truth, though Artemis didn't know it. Atreus wasn't sure if he had simply let the not-quite-lie of his parentage slip into the background, consciously or not. But the outcome was the same. This Kratos thought Atreus was his son and... However ineptly, Kratos was trying to be a father. His faults and misdeeds didn't forgive the one that Atreus had committed himself, entirely willingly. And continued to perpetuate to this day. Yet at the same time, he couldn't reveal the deceit. He didn't belong in this world, he had to find a way back to his real father. Atreus dreaded to think what he would be doing at that moment.
"Well," Artemis said, suddenly feeling distinctly uncomfortable as the boy god appeared to be grappling with some heavy things she was ill-equipped for. "You'll know where to find me when he's asleep. He's coming back, so I'll make myself scarce."
"Thanks, Artemis."
She smiled. "What are... Umm... H-half-cousins, once removed...? Yes, I think that's it. What are they for if not to have awkward talks about family issues? I don't know where I was going with that. Bugger, he's almost back, bye!"
With a flash of green, she was gone.
It was little wonder Artemis saw him coming from far away. When Kratos returned, it was with an enormous rectangular object over his shoulder. "Atreus! I have good news! I found an extra bus no one was using!" The vehicle was not so carefully dropped to the ground, drawing an awkward groan of metal from it. "The wheels are a little stiff, but we can consider that to be resistance training!" Pulling open the doors of the bus, Kratos ventured inside, coming out with two large bags. "And for dinner! A merchant was more than happy to trade me twenty pounds of doner meat just to get this machine away from his property! One good turn deserves another, they say! Hahahaha!"
'Father' and 'son' once again trained together in hand to hand combat as they had every night. And while Atreus did attempt to push Kratos more than he had on previous nights, he couldn't bring himself to truly challenge the god. Not tonight. Maybe another night. Even if he couldn't shake the feeling he was simply putting it off because it was easier.
Once it was done, once they had eaten their fill of sheep meat (and in Atreus' case, more than his fill at Kratos' insistence), the two retired. And exhausted or not, Atreus forced himself to stay awake, to follow the green arrows that directed him to a space away from Kratos' senses. There to train his archery as well as some rudimentary magics to support it. It was the most genuinely fulfilling experience he had enjoyed in over a month. But soon, enough, after the moon had long since begun to dip from its zenith again, Artemis took her leave. Fidgeting, struggling to give even a polite goodbye. Enough that Atreus was able to extract a promise that he would see her the next night too.
It might have been worth it, but at this point he was very ready to actually go to bed and get a few hours of real sleep.
"Good. I thought she'd never leave."
Atreus turned, seeing a circle seem to fade into existence across the ground, a green colour with just the slightest tinge of yellow. A colour that vaguely reminded him of the spirits of Helheim, and of the ones he met in Midgard, though not entirely the same. As he continued to watch, a figure appeared through the circle as though stepping through a doorway rather than how teleportation had appeared in other instances.
Her skin was pale, almost ash-like. Clothed in orange that left her shoulders and legs bare, save for minimal armour. The armour was of a dark metal, bracers, one greave, a girdle, and a piece of neck armour that seemed almost designed to support her posture as much as protect her. Near every piece of armour and clothing was decorated with crescent shapes, suggesting to Atreus that she, like Artemis, was somehow related to the moon.
These were all things he noticed after her most striking features, however. First, her eyes. The right a yellow a touch toward green, the left blood red with black sclera. Her left arm was... Spectral. It took a form like how a spirit would appear. There, yet not. And finally her feet, which seemed to burn the ground beneath her with every step.
"Wow," Atreus muttered, not quite knowing what to make of her, and very specifically not shouldering his bow as he had intended before she arrived. "Uh... Hi? Can I help you?"
"I certainly hope so." She put her left hand behind her back, her other reaching out in greeting. "I know my left hand makes people uncomfortable. My name is Melinoé. Nice to meet you, Atreus. I'm your... How did Artemis put it? Half-cousin once removed?"
She had said that hours ago. "Were you watching us the whole time? Wait, for how long?"
"Since this afternoon," she answered, still holding her hand out, jerking it as if to prompt him to take it already rather than simply let the gesture go. "I wanted to introduce myself but I didn't want anyone else getting in the way. The first chance I got, Artemis swooped in being very unlike herself so then I had to wait until... I'm sorry, this isn't coming off very well for me, is it?"
"A little weird and hard to follow," he admitted, carefully grasping her arm as she grasped his.
"Forearm? Aren't you old-fashioned."
"Oh, right," he let go, slipping his hand down to take hers instead. "Sorry, I'm still getting used to things. You said you're my cousin? I thought I met all the Greek gods on Olympus."
"Oh, maybe you met all the ones on Olympus," she allowed with a shrug as their clasped hands released. "I... I'd imagine Grandmother didn't give you the time of day, though."
"Grandmother?"
"The Lady Demeter, she–" the stranger goddess shook her head. "That isn't important right now. But there are plenty of other gods who aren't so keen on Olympus. Hestia, I'm told, likes to stay in the mortal realm. And that's to say nothing of their Chthonic counterparts." She waved with her spectral hand. "Hi."
"Chthonic? Those are, I mean you're gods of the dead, right?" He was fairly sure they had been mentioned on Olympus. "Like Hades?"
She nodded with a very strained smile. "Your great uncle. My father. God of the Dead. Then there's Hypnos, God of Sleep, Nyx, Goddess of Night, Thanatos, God of Death–"
"Wait, there's a God of the Dead and a God of Death?"
"Death and the afterlife are important parts of a soul's existence. In fact, the afterlife could be called the most significant if you consider it by time spent." Melinoé shrugged, trying to put a casual air on a severe topic. "Eighty years of life for most nowadays, a single moment to bring it all to an end, and then an eternity wherever you end up. The mortals' lot in life and afterlife is an unfair one. Little wonder so many try to cheat the system, though my father would have thoughts about me saying so. Very..." She pursed her lips. "Very angry thoughts."
"Opinionated parents, I can understand that." Whether this Kratos thinking only strength mattered or his real father's strongly worded lessons and advice on gods, killing, surviving, and many other things for which he would say a single sentence and treat it as unshakeable truth. Atreus carefully lowered himself down, inviting his unexpected visitor to take a seat with him. She did, but instead of simply dropping to the ground, she formed the sand, earth and stone into more comfortable chairs for both of them. "Ha, thanks!"
"You're welcome."
"So... You didn't say what you're the god of."
"Oh, well, the arm is a bit of a giveaway," said Melinoé, waving the spectral limb in demonstration. "I'm the goddess of spirits. Souls that have already slipped the mortal coil." She shrugged, smiling with chagrin. "If you asked the mortals they'd say I'm the goddess of madness, but that's more a side-effect of meeting me. It usually ends with them seeing something they weren't quite meant to, which, well, that can be called a kind of madness if I'm being fair."
"Spirits. Dead spirits," Atreus clarified. "How is that different from being a god of the dead again?"
Melinoé giggled. "I won't lie, there's some overlap. The Realm of the Dead is my father's domain. He is the final arbiter of everything that happens there. You could think of me as more the caretaker for the mortals fated to spend their afterlives there. Those tormented in the pits of Tartarus, those rewarded with the verdant fields of Elysium, and all the rest in between."
"Oh. Um... Cool, I guess?" the less defined god offered hesitantly. "Sounds like a lot of responsibility, looking after all of the dead, though."
"It's not the worst part of it," she answered in an attempt at a light tone that was anything but light. "And it isn't all of the dead. Just the ones that pray to us. And we haven't been a popular target of veneration for around fifteen hundred years or more. Most all of them end up with whatever the Three Factions do with them. Heaven or... I don't even know what the devils do with the ones that don't make it to Heaven. Probably isn't pretty, but being dead rarely is. By the way, sorry about this but," she beckoned with her spectral arm.
A small gem flitted out of Atreus' clothes with the gesture, flying into her hand. "Hey!"
"OOOOO!"
"Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything," she assured him, studying the stone. "It's just been an itch in the back of my mind since I got here. Hello there," she said to the stone.
"O... Oooo?"
A giggle. "You're well-mannered, at least, though I wager that's the fear talking."
"You can understand him?" Atreus asked, earning a look for the question. "Right, spirits, sorry."
"Let's see what we can..." Melinoé muttered, pulling at the stone with her ghostly hand. Pulling and pulling until a form began to be drawn from inside, of similar colour as the hand.
"Please don't hurt him!"
"I'm not going to hurt him!" The soul coming free, Melinoe waved her hand, letting the spirit take shape. "There!"
"Wha..." Standing between them was a squat figure of a greenish yellow hue. Indistinct limbs, receding hair and wearing a jeweller's eyepiece over one eye. "Why did you do that?! I was perfectly fine and safe in the stone!"
"Safe I'll grant you," the chthonic goddess said, "Perfectly fine is much more up for debate."
"Andvari?"
One red and one yellow eye snapped to Atreus. "And-Andvari?! As in, the dwarf Andvari, holder of the Andvaranaut?!"
Both dwarf and boy looked at her. "Uhh..."
"How is this possible?! The soul of Andvari was trapped in the sacred gear Capricious Gold! How could you be Andvari?!"
"He's... A different Andvari?" Atreus asked more than answered, despite it being an entirely truthful statement.
"It's a popular dwarven name!" Andvari declared, and Atreus felt that was at least some level of true. "Means 'careful'. What parent doesn't want their kids to be careful! Hel, I wish I was more careful!" And with the admission, a lot of the panicked wind left the dead dwarf's sails. "Would've saved a lot of lives..."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
The dwarf looked at her, at Atreus, at the stone. "Can... Can I go back in my stone now? It's where I belong. The kid can tell you if you want."
"Andvari, are you sure?" Atreus asked.
"No good serving penance if you hide from your wrongs."
The goddess looked to Atreus, who looked back with a plea in his eyes. "Alright." With another pull of her hand, the soul of Andvari lost his shape, becoming malleable before being returned to the small stone. With unexpected care, she gently handed it back to Atreus. "Would you tell me? Why he feels such guilt?"
"He, uh..." Atreus felt understandably awkward, being asked to recount someone else's story, knowing the dwarf himself was listening on some level. After all, Andvari couldn't do much else. "He experimented with creatures made of stone, called Ancients. Found a way to remove their souls so he could turn them into beasts of burden. It worked, and he sold them all over Midgard, even to other Norse realms. But... Without their souls, they felt a hunger to get them back and started devouring the souls of anyone who came close. They turned into monsters."
"Oooo."
"Abominations," Atreus corrected. "Once he realised what was happening, Andvari tried to fix it, went to places he sold them to, but he was caught by one of them. As it was killing him, he sealed his soul into the stone of his ring."
"And now he sees being trapped in that stone as a proper punishment," Melinoé surmised. "I see. It would almost be noble. The means were horrific from the start–"
"Ooo..."
"You understand your mistakes. You tried to make it right as best you could, Andvari. One of the things I disagree with my father on; an eternity of punishment or imprisonment is no kind of redemption. It can't change the past, it doesn't fix mistakes, and it doesn't bring back those who were lost." Having recognised she was getting somewhat emotional on the subject, she looked away and collected herself. "Doing good won't do those things either, but it's better than nothing. If you're ever willing to try, I'll be glad to help you."
"... Oo..."
Atreus smiled. "I didn't say it before. It's nice to meet you, Melinoé. I'm Atreus." She smiled back. "But that reminds me, when you got here or... When you revealed yourself. You said I could help you?"
"Ah, you heard that," she answered with a grimace. "I believe I said 'I hope'. It remains to be seen if you can or not." Her green lips disappeared as her eyes flicked around in indecision. Suddenly, she stood from her seat, taking on a pose of determination and self-assurance. "But I'm not inclined to ask favours from someone I just met, and certainly not without giving something in return. So how about this. The Lady of the Hunt purports to improve your archery. I believe I might be of assistance in improving your abilities with magic!" Melinoé declared with pride.
"Really?" Atreus asked, his voice cracking.
"Really! I was trained by the Lady Hecate herself! I'm certain I can teach you things you never could have imagined!"
"I... Don't know who that is, but that sounds good to me! Uh, when should we start?"
"I'm here now, aren't I?" Melinoé asked. "No time like the present!"
"Uh..." Atreus looked up at the moon hanging fairly low in the sky. "Uh... I guess not?"
How much sleep did he really need anyway?
-(-)-
A/N: This chapter seen very early by my generous supporters on THE GREAT FORBIDDEN P! FEAR THE P! LOVE THE P!