Kratos/Anna Multipart, Chapter 4
Jul. 28th, 2006 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seikilosTitle: Currently untitled
Fandom: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Angst/Romance
Rating: PG-13; later chapters may hit R.
Summary: One woman's take on the untold love story between Kratos and Anna.
Chapter Title: 4 - Important
Chapter Rating: A light PG for one instance of language.
Words in Chapter: 2327
Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia.
Author's Notes: This chapter's almost as long as the last three combined. ^^; I realise the second half of it looks as though I'm embracing cliché, but I tried to downplay the clichéd bit as much as possible in favour of accomplishing other things with the scene instead.
The very next day, it was not the woman who interrupted the interview, but Kratos. Once he had sat down and arranged the file—which was getting fairly bulky at this point in time—to his satisfaction, without preamble, he said, “I was a fisher, once, long ago.”
Startled, the woman looked up from where she was pouring herself a glass of water. “What? You were?”
“Yes. My parents were fishers as well.” He leaned back in his chair. “When I was young, I helped them. Then one day, they were killed in a skirmish on their way to selling a catch. I had stayed home to look after the equipment. After, I attempted to continue fishing alone, but it was too much for me, and so I sold the boat and the nets to my aunt and uncle and became a mercenary. Learning to fight had always been a hobby of mine, and so I put my hobby to good use.”
Even now, he was not completely certain why he had decided to tell her this. For some reason he could not understand, he wanted to tell her. It felt—good to do so. He was beginning to find he liked talking to Anna, a little bit.
He thought it must be because she cared, if hatred was a form of caring. To Anna, it did matter if he lived or died. Because Kratos lived amongst beings that had no interest in anyone or anything outside their programmed function, it was oddly refreshing to be hated. The only other person in the world who cared about him in any way, shape, or form was Yuan.
. . . Putting Anna in the same category as Yuan was an odd thing to do indeed.
The woman broke into his thoughts. “But—there’s something I don’t understand.” She was frowning, not out of anger with him, but confusion. “If the Desians killed your parents, why did you join them?”
It had not been the Desians who had taken the lives of his parents. They had been killed during the Kharlan War, long before the Desian organisation existed.
“It is a very long story,” was all he said in reply.
The woman hesitated, visibly struggling to make a decision. Eventually, she asked, “. . . Will you tell it to me sometime?”
Kratos shook his head. “It is too long.”
Something Kratos could not quite understand left the woman’s face and voice. “Oh.” She was quiet for a moment. Then she asked one last question. “How old were you when your parents were killed?”
He strained to recall his age at that time. As it was, the only reason he knew about his childhood was by reading the notes he had made when he had begun to realise he would live forever. Finally, he said, “I cannot remember.”
She stared at him. “How can you not remember how old you were when your parents died?”
“There is a way.” His words were like a door slamming shut, ending the discussion. He turned to his papers. “It is time to begin the questions.”
* * *
Despite the abrupt ending to their conversation, every examination after that one was a little different than before. Gradually at first, but more and more often over the next period of weeks, Kratos and the woman began to talk about things outside the questions for the Angelus Project. Mostly, it was the woman who would talk, relating stories from before she was captured and brought to the ranch, about her childhood, her family, even what she had done for her daily work. Kratos found it all surprisingly interesting, for one who normally had no interest in other people.
Occasionally, Kratos would relate a story of his own. The vast majority of his recollections were actually from him memorising a section of one of his old diaries prior to arriving, but making the attempt to remember had begun to bring up memories he had long thought buried. It pleased him when he could recall things on his own.
One day, Kratos arrived a little earlier than usual at the examination room. He had remembered, on his own, a small anecdote of something that had happened to him and Yuan when they had been travelling mercenaries together, all those years ago. He wanted to tell her before he forgot again.
Entering the room, Kratos noticed that for the first time, the woman was not waiting for him. He was earlier than he had thought.
He sat back in the chair and looked across the table at where the woman would be sitting. He found himself startled to realise that what he was feeling was anticipation. He was beginning to look forward to this time, to talking with someone who would answer back with real conversation. He liked talking to someone who did not address him in a flat monotone as “Lord Kratos,” but with someone who addressed him in all sorts of voices, still calling him “Lord Kratos,” but also occasionally still calling him “bastard.”
Kratos found, to his surprise, that he had missed talking to a true person.
Admittedly, she still hated him, but . . . perhaps not as much as before. After all, he did not hit her, he brought her water, and he spoke to her civilly, things no one else now in her life would do.
The sound of the automatic doors parting made him look up. Two Desian soldiers entered, half-dragging the woman. She hung in their grasp.
“Forgive us for being unable to kneel, Lord Kratos,” one of the Desians said. “And many apologies for our lateness. This inferior being was being stubborn and refused to walk up here on her own. We had to apply the proper pressure.”
They dragged her over to the chair and roughly forced her into it. Kratos watched, feeling . . . something in his chest as he watched.
“You are dismissed,” was all he said.
The two soldiers, free of the woman, were now able to kneel. They did so, then departed.
Kratos watched them leave, then turned his gaze to the woman. She was slumped over the table, her head cradled in her arms.
“Why did you not want to come this time?” he asked. Was he feeling slightly hurt? No. That was impossible.
“. . . Couldn’t walk.” Even with his enhanced hearing, Kratos difficulty making out her words. “Don’t feel very well.”
She raised her head slightly to look at him. “. . . Can get through th’exam, though. Start asking your questions.”
“I think not.” When she had lifted her head, Kratos had his first good look at her face. “You are far too ill.”
“I’m fine,” she said with as much emphasis as she could manage. It was not much.
“You are not. You are pale and weak.” Her white face made the new bruise flowering on her cheek stand out all the more. Kratos ignored that same feeling again as he looked at the bruise and went on. “Your lips are cracked from a lack of water” He reached across the table to feel her forehead. She flinched but did not move away. “You are also burning with fever.”
He poured a full glass of water and pushed it toward her. “Drink.”
“Mm. . . .” The woman reached for the glass. Her hand closed around it. Then her grip went slack. Her head lolled, and she started to slide off the chair.
Kratos’ reflexes were very nearly perfect. He was already out of the chair the moment her fingers loosened around the glass and he managed to catch her before she hit the ground.
He gently lowered her to the floor, lying her flat. Then he felt her pulse. He frowned; it was racing. This was not an Exsphere-induced illness, but one born from living months in the isolation cells. There could be serious consequences if she was allowed to go untreated, as prisoners often were in those cells.
Kratos got up from where he had been kneeling next to her and started to go for the intercom. Then he stopped and returned to the woman’s side. It would take far too long for him to summon soldiers to take her to the hospital wing. His eyes went to the bruise on her face. They would not treat her properly, either. He managed to convince himself his concern was because she was a valuable research subject.
Deciding to waste no more time, Kratos scooped the woman up into his arms. Even had he not been stronger than most, she would have weighed nothing at all.
He strode through the automatic doors and made a right. He was halfway through the hall before it hit him: he could no longer remember where the hospital wing of the ranch was.
He cursed aloud, something he had not done for decades. His memory had failed again. It was patchy and fogged, designed, after all, for someone who was to live eighty years, not four thousand. Anything that was not immediately important was forgotten. It seemed his brain had deemed the location of the doctors at Asgard Human Ranch to be not immediately important.
Kratos started walking again from where he had come to a stop. Within moments, he found a Desian soldier.
“Stand up, stand up,” he said impatiently, when the woman went to kneel. “Where is the location of the nearest doctor? This host body has fallen ill.” He found he disliked the taste of the phrase ‘host body’ and wondered why, before he pushed it out of his mind. It was unimportant right now. “She is part of an important experiment and cannot be allowed to die.”
The Desian turned. “The host bodies’ doctor is right—”
“I do not want the doctor for the host bodies,” Kratos interrupted, his voice sharp. “I want the doctor for the soldiers. It is imperative that this woman stays alive.”
The soldier winced slightly at his vehemence, too intimidated to notice his slip in language. “Right this way, my lord.”
She started to walk again.
“Move faster,” Kratos ordered her, striding along right on her heels.
“Yes, my lord!” She picked up her pace.
It did not take long for the two of them to reach the soldiers’ medical wing. Kratos walked straight through the waiting room and into the doctor’s examining room, where she was putting plaster on a cast of a Desian with a broken leg.
She snapped, “I thought I told you idiot nurse to stay out—” Then she looked up. “Lord Kratos!”
He brushed past her and lowered the woman onto the bed where the soldier was sitting. He glared at the soldier, who hopped off the bed onto his non-plastered leg.
“Stop what you are doing and look after this host body,” he commanded the doctor. “If she dies, the blame will lie with you, and you will be severely punished.”
“Why? She’s just another piece of scum like the others.” Still, she raised her voice. “Someone come get this soldier and finish plastering his cast for me. Right now!”
Then she turned to the woman and started examining her. “Well, she’s as sick as a dog. You don’t need a medical professional to tell you that.”
“I do not care.” Now frustration was tingeing Kratos’ voice. “Cure her. Now.”
The doctor walked over to a cupboard and brought out a series of medical implements as a nurse hurried in and ushered the injured Desian away. Kratos barely noticed.
When the door shut behind the patient and nurse, the doctor replied, speaking with the familiarity of one who was called to treat everyone from foot soldiers to generals. “As soon as I know what’s wrong with her, I will. And, forgive me, my lord, but it would be far easier to do so if you weren’t breathing over my shoulder.”
“You will have to adjust.” Kratos knew the moment he left, the quality of care Anna would get would plummet.
The doctor sighed and started her examination. It did not take her long.
“Well, it’s something I don’t see often, since I usually treat the soldiers, but this host body has got a classic case of the bog,” she said, using a slang term for a bacteria-borne illness common to the isolation cells. “Fortunately for her, with symptoms like hers, she can’t have been sick more than a day or so. The earlier you catch it, the easier it is to treat. She should be on her feet in half a week.” The doctor gave him a look, eyebrows raised in scepticism. “Though I still don’t understand why you would waste perfectly good medicine on an inferior being that’s only going to be processed, anyway.”
“She is the key to a highly important experiment. If she dies, months of effort will be wasted.” He spoke the truth, but part of him felt as though it was not the entire truth. He pushed that part aside.
“I see. Well, my lord, I have the medicine on hand. One of the soldiers contracted the disease only last week from a host body he was leading to be processed. If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll go get it.” She bowed briefly and then left.
Kratos looked down at Anna, whose unconsciousness had by now changed into a deep sleep. As soon as he received the medication from the doctor, he would have to insist upon putting her in a private room in the recovery wing for a day or two. He would also have to order her transfer to one of the regular, aboveground cells. It was clear that the isolation cells were too harsh for her. If he sent her back, she would only sicken again, and perhaps even die.
He could not allow that. Anna was important.
For more than one reason.
Fandom: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Angst/Romance
Rating: PG-13; later chapters may hit R.
Summary: One woman's take on the untold love story between Kratos and Anna.
Chapter Title: 4 - Important
Chapter Rating: A light PG for one instance of language.
Words in Chapter: 2327
Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia.
Author's Notes: This chapter's almost as long as the last three combined. ^^; I realise the second half of it looks as though I'm embracing cliché, but I tried to downplay the clichéd bit as much as possible in favour of accomplishing other things with the scene instead.
The very next day, it was not the woman who interrupted the interview, but Kratos. Once he had sat down and arranged the file—which was getting fairly bulky at this point in time—to his satisfaction, without preamble, he said, “I was a fisher, once, long ago.”
Startled, the woman looked up from where she was pouring herself a glass of water. “What? You were?”
“Yes. My parents were fishers as well.” He leaned back in his chair. “When I was young, I helped them. Then one day, they were killed in a skirmish on their way to selling a catch. I had stayed home to look after the equipment. After, I attempted to continue fishing alone, but it was too much for me, and so I sold the boat and the nets to my aunt and uncle and became a mercenary. Learning to fight had always been a hobby of mine, and so I put my hobby to good use.”
Even now, he was not completely certain why he had decided to tell her this. For some reason he could not understand, he wanted to tell her. It felt—good to do so. He was beginning to find he liked talking to Anna, a little bit.
He thought it must be because she cared, if hatred was a form of caring. To Anna, it did matter if he lived or died. Because Kratos lived amongst beings that had no interest in anyone or anything outside their programmed function, it was oddly refreshing to be hated. The only other person in the world who cared about him in any way, shape, or form was Yuan.
. . . Putting Anna in the same category as Yuan was an odd thing to do indeed.
The woman broke into his thoughts. “But—there’s something I don’t understand.” She was frowning, not out of anger with him, but confusion. “If the Desians killed your parents, why did you join them?”
It had not been the Desians who had taken the lives of his parents. They had been killed during the Kharlan War, long before the Desian organisation existed.
“It is a very long story,” was all he said in reply.
The woman hesitated, visibly struggling to make a decision. Eventually, she asked, “. . . Will you tell it to me sometime?”
Kratos shook his head. “It is too long.”
Something Kratos could not quite understand left the woman’s face and voice. “Oh.” She was quiet for a moment. Then she asked one last question. “How old were you when your parents were killed?”
He strained to recall his age at that time. As it was, the only reason he knew about his childhood was by reading the notes he had made when he had begun to realise he would live forever. Finally, he said, “I cannot remember.”
She stared at him. “How can you not remember how old you were when your parents died?”
“There is a way.” His words were like a door slamming shut, ending the discussion. He turned to his papers. “It is time to begin the questions.”
Despite the abrupt ending to their conversation, every examination after that one was a little different than before. Gradually at first, but more and more often over the next period of weeks, Kratos and the woman began to talk about things outside the questions for the Angelus Project. Mostly, it was the woman who would talk, relating stories from before she was captured and brought to the ranch, about her childhood, her family, even what she had done for her daily work. Kratos found it all surprisingly interesting, for one who normally had no interest in other people.
Occasionally, Kratos would relate a story of his own. The vast majority of his recollections were actually from him memorising a section of one of his old diaries prior to arriving, but making the attempt to remember had begun to bring up memories he had long thought buried. It pleased him when he could recall things on his own.
One day, Kratos arrived a little earlier than usual at the examination room. He had remembered, on his own, a small anecdote of something that had happened to him and Yuan when they had been travelling mercenaries together, all those years ago. He wanted to tell her before he forgot again.
Entering the room, Kratos noticed that for the first time, the woman was not waiting for him. He was earlier than he had thought.
He sat back in the chair and looked across the table at where the woman would be sitting. He found himself startled to realise that what he was feeling was anticipation. He was beginning to look forward to this time, to talking with someone who would answer back with real conversation. He liked talking to someone who did not address him in a flat monotone as “Lord Kratos,” but with someone who addressed him in all sorts of voices, still calling him “Lord Kratos,” but also occasionally still calling him “bastard.”
Kratos found, to his surprise, that he had missed talking to a true person.
Admittedly, she still hated him, but . . . perhaps not as much as before. After all, he did not hit her, he brought her water, and he spoke to her civilly, things no one else now in her life would do.
The sound of the automatic doors parting made him look up. Two Desian soldiers entered, half-dragging the woman. She hung in their grasp.
“Forgive us for being unable to kneel, Lord Kratos,” one of the Desians said. “And many apologies for our lateness. This inferior being was being stubborn and refused to walk up here on her own. We had to apply the proper pressure.”
They dragged her over to the chair and roughly forced her into it. Kratos watched, feeling . . . something in his chest as he watched.
“You are dismissed,” was all he said.
The two soldiers, free of the woman, were now able to kneel. They did so, then departed.
Kratos watched them leave, then turned his gaze to the woman. She was slumped over the table, her head cradled in her arms.
“Why did you not want to come this time?” he asked. Was he feeling slightly hurt? No. That was impossible.
“. . . Couldn’t walk.” Even with his enhanced hearing, Kratos difficulty making out her words. “Don’t feel very well.”
She raised her head slightly to look at him. “. . . Can get through th’exam, though. Start asking your questions.”
“I think not.” When she had lifted her head, Kratos had his first good look at her face. “You are far too ill.”
“I’m fine,” she said with as much emphasis as she could manage. It was not much.
“You are not. You are pale and weak.” Her white face made the new bruise flowering on her cheek stand out all the more. Kratos ignored that same feeling again as he looked at the bruise and went on. “Your lips are cracked from a lack of water” He reached across the table to feel her forehead. She flinched but did not move away. “You are also burning with fever.”
He poured a full glass of water and pushed it toward her. “Drink.”
“Mm. . . .” The woman reached for the glass. Her hand closed around it. Then her grip went slack. Her head lolled, and she started to slide off the chair.
Kratos’ reflexes were very nearly perfect. He was already out of the chair the moment her fingers loosened around the glass and he managed to catch her before she hit the ground.
He gently lowered her to the floor, lying her flat. Then he felt her pulse. He frowned; it was racing. This was not an Exsphere-induced illness, but one born from living months in the isolation cells. There could be serious consequences if she was allowed to go untreated, as prisoners often were in those cells.
Kratos got up from where he had been kneeling next to her and started to go for the intercom. Then he stopped and returned to the woman’s side. It would take far too long for him to summon soldiers to take her to the hospital wing. His eyes went to the bruise on her face. They would not treat her properly, either. He managed to convince himself his concern was because she was a valuable research subject.
Deciding to waste no more time, Kratos scooped the woman up into his arms. Even had he not been stronger than most, she would have weighed nothing at all.
He strode through the automatic doors and made a right. He was halfway through the hall before it hit him: he could no longer remember where the hospital wing of the ranch was.
He cursed aloud, something he had not done for decades. His memory had failed again. It was patchy and fogged, designed, after all, for someone who was to live eighty years, not four thousand. Anything that was not immediately important was forgotten. It seemed his brain had deemed the location of the doctors at Asgard Human Ranch to be not immediately important.
Kratos started walking again from where he had come to a stop. Within moments, he found a Desian soldier.
“Stand up, stand up,” he said impatiently, when the woman went to kneel. “Where is the location of the nearest doctor? This host body has fallen ill.” He found he disliked the taste of the phrase ‘host body’ and wondered why, before he pushed it out of his mind. It was unimportant right now. “She is part of an important experiment and cannot be allowed to die.”
The Desian turned. “The host bodies’ doctor is right—”
“I do not want the doctor for the host bodies,” Kratos interrupted, his voice sharp. “I want the doctor for the soldiers. It is imperative that this woman stays alive.”
The soldier winced slightly at his vehemence, too intimidated to notice his slip in language. “Right this way, my lord.”
She started to walk again.
“Move faster,” Kratos ordered her, striding along right on her heels.
“Yes, my lord!” She picked up her pace.
It did not take long for the two of them to reach the soldiers’ medical wing. Kratos walked straight through the waiting room and into the doctor’s examining room, where she was putting plaster on a cast of a Desian with a broken leg.
She snapped, “I thought I told you idiot nurse to stay out—” Then she looked up. “Lord Kratos!”
He brushed past her and lowered the woman onto the bed where the soldier was sitting. He glared at the soldier, who hopped off the bed onto his non-plastered leg.
“Stop what you are doing and look after this host body,” he commanded the doctor. “If she dies, the blame will lie with you, and you will be severely punished.”
“Why? She’s just another piece of scum like the others.” Still, she raised her voice. “Someone come get this soldier and finish plastering his cast for me. Right now!”
Then she turned to the woman and started examining her. “Well, she’s as sick as a dog. You don’t need a medical professional to tell you that.”
“I do not care.” Now frustration was tingeing Kratos’ voice. “Cure her. Now.”
The doctor walked over to a cupboard and brought out a series of medical implements as a nurse hurried in and ushered the injured Desian away. Kratos barely noticed.
When the door shut behind the patient and nurse, the doctor replied, speaking with the familiarity of one who was called to treat everyone from foot soldiers to generals. “As soon as I know what’s wrong with her, I will. And, forgive me, my lord, but it would be far easier to do so if you weren’t breathing over my shoulder.”
“You will have to adjust.” Kratos knew the moment he left, the quality of care Anna would get would plummet.
The doctor sighed and started her examination. It did not take her long.
“Well, it’s something I don’t see often, since I usually treat the soldiers, but this host body has got a classic case of the bog,” she said, using a slang term for a bacteria-borne illness common to the isolation cells. “Fortunately for her, with symptoms like hers, she can’t have been sick more than a day or so. The earlier you catch it, the easier it is to treat. She should be on her feet in half a week.” The doctor gave him a look, eyebrows raised in scepticism. “Though I still don’t understand why you would waste perfectly good medicine on an inferior being that’s only going to be processed, anyway.”
“She is the key to a highly important experiment. If she dies, months of effort will be wasted.” He spoke the truth, but part of him felt as though it was not the entire truth. He pushed that part aside.
“I see. Well, my lord, I have the medicine on hand. One of the soldiers contracted the disease only last week from a host body he was leading to be processed. If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll go get it.” She bowed briefly and then left.
Kratos looked down at Anna, whose unconsciousness had by now changed into a deep sleep. As soon as he received the medication from the doctor, he would have to insist upon putting her in a private room in the recovery wing for a day or two. He would also have to order her transfer to one of the regular, aboveground cells. It was clear that the isolation cells were too harsh for her. If he sent her back, she would only sicken again, and perhaps even die.
He could not allow that. Anna was important.
For more than one reason.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 06:01 pm (UTC)I love this more and more.
This deserves to be posted on an archive.
If you're still having problems coming up with a title, I'll be only too happy to help out.
I really like the detail about Kratos' memory - it's so logical, but most people wouldn't have really thought of it. That he has to re-read old transcripts to remember things is a nice touch. And - ha- Kratos was a fisherboi.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 09:46 pm (UTC)It just sort of came to me one day, months ago when I was still RPing in
Heheh, yeah. It's my own personal fanon, Kratos-the-fisherboi, because I like the idea of Kratos being an ordinary guy right up until he got his Cruxis Crystal.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 07:17 pm (UTC)I'm in love with this.
And, like Sora said, I love how you have his mind working. It just makes so much SENSE.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 08:21 pm (UTC)Keep up the good work!
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 09:48 pm (UTC)