(no subject)
Jul. 29th, 2006 07:39 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: 5 - The Difference
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Words in Chapter: 2055
Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia.
Author's Notes: The second half of this chapter was pretty emotional to write, to be honest. But it was definitely worthwhile. And hooray, I finally got to write my first bits of fluff since this whole thing started. ^^;
Anna took about a week to get well. When she was in the recovery wing, Kratos visited her each day at their meeting time, both to check that she was being treated properly (which, for the most part, she was; Kratos tended to make an impression) and to conduct a truncated version of his examination. He had not informed Yggdrasill of Anna’s sudden illness in case he objected to her treatment and in case he told Kratos not to visit her while she recovered, and so he needed to have at least something to record. He found he disliked the thought of going several days without seeing Anna.
One day, sometime after Anna had recovered completely, Kratos set out for a different destination than usual than Asgard Human Ranch. About half an hour before their meeting was scheduled to begin, Kratos stepped on the transporter pad to the ranch as usual, but instead of initiating the transport to his usual location, he teleported someplace else instead.
He reappeared just outside Luin, where no one would see him arrive in such a frightening manner. Then he walked into the town.
There were no signs of the last raid upon Luin, which had taken place about a month ago; it seemed Luin’s residents were fast at repairs.
Kratos’ ordinarily brisk pace began to slow as he looked around Anna’s hometown. He had not been here for decades. There were numerous changes since his last visit, and he found himself looking around with some interest. Then, remembering he had little time before he was due to meet with Anna, he picked up his pace until he arrived at the small grocery store Anna had mentioned in one of stories.
A bell rang over the wooden door as he entered the building. He looked about. The store was made of medium-brown unvarnished wood and had a few chairs for waiting customers, as well as a counter for the proprietor to stand behind. The scent of fresh produce and wood was in the air. Kratos took in a deep breath, surprised that something so simple could smell so good. It smelled all the better when he mentally compared it with the dead air of Derris-Kharlan.
“Can I . . . help you?” a hesitant voice asked him.
Kratos looked for its source and saw it belonged to a middle-aged woman who had come out from a back room to stand behind the counter. She was looking at his white, belted outfit oddly. Kratos did not blame her. What he was wearing was a noble’s outfit from four thousand years ago. He realised he should have worn something more appropriate a little too late.
“Yes,” he said in response to her question. “Bring me your freshest, largest apple.”
“Just the one?” the woman asked, sounding as though she had pegged him as unbalanced.
“Yes.” He folded his arms and waited.
“Coming right up, sir.” The woman hurried back through an open doorway and returned in a few minutes with an apple that was appealing enough to tempt even Kratos’ appetite.
“How much do I owe you?” he asked her, reaching for the small bag of gald that hung from one of his waist-level belts.
“Eight gald. Are you sure I can’t interest you in a few more?” she asked him, giving him a continuation on her previous odd look.
“One is enough for now.” Kratos set eight gald on the counter, took the apple from her hand, and, putting it in the small paper-carrier he now had to use for his many notes on Anna’s Exsphere, left the store.
Once he was outside the town again, Kratos teleported a second time, this time to the transporter pad in Asgard Human Ranch, so that it appeared as though he had come directly from Derris-Kharlan.
His walk to the meeting room was faster than usual; he was looking forward to bringing Anna this small gift. He found himself imagining the expression on her face when he presented it to her.
When he stepped through the doors, Anna looked up at him and smiled. Her smile, directed at him and him alone, made him take in a quick breath and he almost smiled in return.
“You’re late, my lord,” she said as he sat down.
He kept his face severe. “Hmph. I was on an errand.”
“What kind of errand was it?” Anna asked, as though she was not expecting an answer.
This time, however, Kratos gave her one. “I was buying this.”
He reached into his paper-carrier, opened it, and took out the apple, large and fresh. “I bought this for you.” He set it on the table and then watched her face.
Anna stared at the apple for a long moment. Then she looked up at him and began to cry.
Kratos stared at her, for the first time in a very, very long time unsure of what to do. He had never seen Anna cry before, never. Not even when she was hit by the Desians, not while she was sick, not even in the isolation cells in conditions that had broken many before her. He found himself almost horrified at the sight of her tears. He wanted to do something to make her stop crying, but could think of nothing.
Kratos Aurion was completely helpless.
Finally, after what seemed far too long to Kratos but was really only a few minutes, Anna pulled herself together.
“I—I’m sorry, Lord Kratos,” she apologised as she wiped her eyes with the backs of her dirty hands. “It’s—It’s just I haven’t had fresh fruit in so long. . . . Where did you get it?”
“A small grocery store in Luin,” he replied, still feeling helpless and hating it.
His words very nearly started her crying again, but she managed to keep herself under control this time, to Kratos’ relief.
Anna stared at the apple for a while longer before reaching out and taking it, savouring its feel in her hand.
“. . . Thank you, my lord,” she said after a moment.
“Kratos,” he found himself saying.
“What?” She looked up from the apple, confusion evident on her face.
“Just Kratos, Anna. When we are alone, drop the ‘Lord.’”
“Yes . . . Kratos,” she said, her voice soft.
He liked the way she said his name. “Good.” It sounded far better that way.
* * *
It was not too much longer after that day when it happened.
They had spent nearly a full hour talking the day it happened, talking about their past lives and each other. They both avoided the present in an unasked-for agreement. Both their lives had been better in the past.
To Kratos, the hour they had talked seemed barely five minutes. After it was done, he rushed through the questions to get just enough answers to make up whatever information he needed. Sometime soon, they were going to have to have a full examination session to make his data a little more solid, a little more believable in case someone else decided to read his notes closely, but he could never force himself into taking away one of his days with her.
At the end of the questions, Kratos took Anna’s left hand in his to look over her Exsphere. It had been totally accepted into her hand by now; only the smooth round top of the stone still showed. The skin around the Exsphere was beginning to crack slightly. What was in those cracks was beginning to darken with the first faint signs of corruption. It made Kratos’ stomach turn to see it, though he had looked at a thousand hands like it in his lifetime.
The difference, it seemed, was this hand was Anna’s.
He forced the thought away and searched for something else to think about. As he was thinking, he found himself noticing how good Anna’s hand felt in his. Her hand was dirty, dry, and scratched, with ragged fingernails, but that did not matter to Kratos.
He ran his thumb along the still whole skin on the back of her hand, savouring the sensation. He stroked his thumb back and forth. He could not remember the last time he had felt something quite so good.
Then he looked up into Anna’s face and froze at what he saw there.
When she spoke, her voice was flat. “If you’re trying to butter me up, don’t bother. Just take what you want, the way the others did.”
For the longest moment, Kratos did not understand. Then he did.
He stood up so quickly he knocked over his chair; he barely noticed.
“Who did that to you?” Anger filled his voice, his mind, his body. “Tell me!”
Anna cringed back from its force. “I—I don’t know. I didn’t want to know, and anyway, most of them barely bothered to take off their helmets to” —she swallowed, hard— “to do the job.”
Kratos stepped away from the table in an abrupt movement and began striding around the room. Had he the leisure to reflect, he would have been shocked to realise how deeply he felt his anger. As it was, though, his thoughts were on another matter entirely.
He had known the prisoners at the human ranches were raped. The prisoners were supposed to suffer as much as they could, and if rape was not an officially sanctioned technique, it may as well have been. He had known this went on and it had never bothered him before this very moment.
The difference, once again, was Anna.
He must have known this was happening to her. He had refused to see it, the same way he refused to think about her wounds, her scars, and all the more obvious physical signs of her abuse.
He had left her in the isolation cells for months. Had he not realised what that meant? But he had seen what it had meant, with his very own eyes.
He had not cared. Not one whit.
Just as abruptly as before, Kratos turned and moved back to Anna’s side. There, he dropped to his knees and looked up at her.
Anna stared down at him in surprise. “. . . Kratos?”
He took her right hand, the hand without the Exsphere, in both of his. “Anna, I swear to you I will never take advantage of you, ever. I swear it upon the honour I had when I was a boy.” A phrase and a custom floated to the top of his mind, out of the darkness. “I seal my vow thus.”
Very gently, he pressed a kiss to the back of Anna’s hand. Then he looked up again into Anna’s face, looking for something, anything other than hate, fear, distrust.
He did not find those things. Instead, he found a soft look on Anna’s face, a look that made his heart leap in his chest.
Slowly, Anna reached out and buried first one, then both her hands in his hair. Kratos closed his eyes as she ran her hands through his hair, her movements tentative and unsure.
For the first time in so very, very long, Kratos thought he was content. No, more than content. Perhaps even . . . happy. So long as he lived in that very moment and refused to think of what had been done to Anna, what he had allowed to happen to her, so long as all his thoughts were on her hands in his hair. . . .
“I—accept your vow,” she said finally, quietly. “I believe you.” She hesitated for a long time, almost too long. “I—I trust you, Kratos.”
It was then, with those words, that Kratos realised he had fallen completely and utterly in love with this woman. The knowledge brought forth a myriad of emotions. He refused to think of the negative emotions: the anger at what had been done to her, the sudden fear at what might happen if his love for her was found out, and above all, the deep guilt over the part he had played in tearing her apart. Instead, in that moment Kratos focused solely on the love he felt for Anna, for this beautiful, beautiful woman, and on the wonderful feel of her hands in his hair.
Bonus: This fic has been from Kratos' point of view all along, but last night, Anna's viewpoint for the second half of this chapter came to me, completely and perfectly clear, so I wrote the scene from her point of view as well. Here it is:
Anna watched the face of the man sitting across from her as he talked. She liked watching his expressions. There were so many now, when before, he had been cold. Cold and pitiless, like an ice sculpture of a man.
Kratos had changed a lot since Anna had first seen him, those months ago in the dark cell in which she had been chained. Before, she had thought him inhuman and had hated him, hated him more than anyone else in this Martel-forsaken place, for bringing her into the light only to force her back into the darkness so soon afterward.
Gradually, she realised that, in his own cool way, Kratos was being kind to her. He must have known after a few days, she had not needed the water quite as desperately as before, but he had continued to provide it all the same. He never used force against her, never raised his voice with her.
Gradually, she began to see him as a human being like her, as they shared stories of their happier days, a little bit at a time at first, but more and more as the weeks ground past.
Gradually, Anna’s hatred for Kratos was replaced by something else entirely.
That day, they had talked for an entire hour before Kratos had reluctantly moved onto the questions. He was rushing through them so quickly lately, as though he hated taking any time away from their conversations. Anna wondered what he was telling his superiors; his reports must be very sketchy now.
Soon, he came to the part at the end, where he would examine the Exsphere they had forced on her. Anna did not like the way the skin in her hand was cracking open, and the blackness in the cracks was starting to frighten her.
She was drawn out of her thoughts when she realised that Kratos’ thumb was moving along the skin of her hand in a completely different way than usual. Was he . . . stroking her hand?
She went cold. She felt dizzy and sick in the pit of her stomach. There was not enough air for her to breathe.
So he was just like the others, after all. The only difference between him and them was he was trying to seduce her instead of just taking what he wanted.
He looked up at her then. Maybe he had sensed the change in her emotions; it was hard to tell with him.
Her voice was full of the betrayal she felt as she said, “If you’re trying to butter me up, don’t bother. Just take what you want, the way the others did.”
He stared at her, incomprehension filling his handsome liar’s face. Then his expression changed to one that frightened Anna, frightened her to the core.
She had been wrong about his intentions toward her; it was clear now. She had been very, very wrong.
He shot to his feet, the chair he had been sitting in clattering to the floor loudly, though he seemed not to notice.
“Who did that to you?” he demanded, his voice full of rage. “Tell me!”
She cringed. His anger was so intense; she had never experienced anything like it. Not even the Desians had shown her such anger. Their primary emotion was the feeling of cruel superiority over such pitiful inferior beings, not anger.
“I—I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t want to know, and anyway, most of them barely bothered to take off their helmets to” —a sick feeling was rising in her throat; she had to swallow, hard, to keep herself from vomiting as she finished— “to do the job.”
Kratos stepped away from the table, suddenly, pacing away with his long legs. Anna watched him, once again watched the expressions that crossed his face.
How could she have doubted him? He was Kratos. He had never acted as though he was going to hurt her in any way, let alone in . . . in that way. He wasn’t like the others. He wasn’t. He might work for them, but Kratos was different.
If he had wanted to do—to do that to her, (she could not think the word) he would have done it to her months ago. He would not have waited so long.
A thought struck her, something that should have occurred to her long ago.
Did Kratos—could it be that he . . . loved her?
But if he loved her, why was he keeping her in this place? Why hadn’t he taken her away?
Or had he simply not thought of a way to take her away yet?
Before she could wonder any further, Kratos broke out of his restless, angry strides and came toward her. To her surprise, he dropped to his knees in front of her, looking up at her with an intense expression of pain on his face.
“. . . Kratos?”
Then, to her further surprise, he took her right hand, her good hand, in his and spoke with his deep, melodious voice.
“Anna, I swear to you I will never take advantage of you, ever,” he said. “I swear it upon the honour I had when I was a boy.” He paused for only a moment. “I seal my vow thus.” Then he kissed the back of her hand.
Anna could only stare down at his head as his lips brushed her skin.
She loved him. Martel help her, but she loved this man, he who was supposed to be just one more of her tormentors, but who had become something entirely different. She could not help herself, but she loved him.
He looked up into her face, apprehension replacing his former intensity. What he saw in her face must have reassured him.
Slowly, almost without meaning to, Anna reached out with first her good hand, then the other, burying her hands in his fine red hair. It was soft to her touch. She wanted to move her hands through it, but was afraid. She forced the fear away as she had learned how to and began to run her hands through his hair.
She watched him close his eyes and relax, some of the tension that was always in his body leaving him.
Then she spoke. “I—accept your vow. I believe you.”
She knew what she needed to say next. Was it true? Could she trust Kratos? She loved him, but love had not blinded her to the fact that he was still a Desian, was still there to conduct a loathsome experiment on her that even now he refused to name. Could she trust such a man?
She looked down at the man kneeling in front of her and made her decision.
“I—I trust you, Kratos.”
And the expression on his face when he looked up at her told her she had made the right one.
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: 5 - The Difference
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Words in Chapter: 2055
Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia.
Author's Notes: The second half of this chapter was pretty emotional to write, to be honest. But it was definitely worthwhile. And hooray, I finally got to write my first bits of fluff since this whole thing started. ^^;
Anna took about a week to get well. When she was in the recovery wing, Kratos visited her each day at their meeting time, both to check that she was being treated properly (which, for the most part, she was; Kratos tended to make an impression) and to conduct a truncated version of his examination. He had not informed Yggdrasill of Anna’s sudden illness in case he objected to her treatment and in case he told Kratos not to visit her while she recovered, and so he needed to have at least something to record. He found he disliked the thought of going several days without seeing Anna.
One day, sometime after Anna had recovered completely, Kratos set out for a different destination than usual than Asgard Human Ranch. About half an hour before their meeting was scheduled to begin, Kratos stepped on the transporter pad to the ranch as usual, but instead of initiating the transport to his usual location, he teleported someplace else instead.
He reappeared just outside Luin, where no one would see him arrive in such a frightening manner. Then he walked into the town.
There were no signs of the last raid upon Luin, which had taken place about a month ago; it seemed Luin’s residents were fast at repairs.
Kratos’ ordinarily brisk pace began to slow as he looked around Anna’s hometown. He had not been here for decades. There were numerous changes since his last visit, and he found himself looking around with some interest. Then, remembering he had little time before he was due to meet with Anna, he picked up his pace until he arrived at the small grocery store Anna had mentioned in one of stories.
A bell rang over the wooden door as he entered the building. He looked about. The store was made of medium-brown unvarnished wood and had a few chairs for waiting customers, as well as a counter for the proprietor to stand behind. The scent of fresh produce and wood was in the air. Kratos took in a deep breath, surprised that something so simple could smell so good. It smelled all the better when he mentally compared it with the dead air of Derris-Kharlan.
“Can I . . . help you?” a hesitant voice asked him.
Kratos looked for its source and saw it belonged to a middle-aged woman who had come out from a back room to stand behind the counter. She was looking at his white, belted outfit oddly. Kratos did not blame her. What he was wearing was a noble’s outfit from four thousand years ago. He realised he should have worn something more appropriate a little too late.
“Yes,” he said in response to her question. “Bring me your freshest, largest apple.”
“Just the one?” the woman asked, sounding as though she had pegged him as unbalanced.
“Yes.” He folded his arms and waited.
“Coming right up, sir.” The woman hurried back through an open doorway and returned in a few minutes with an apple that was appealing enough to tempt even Kratos’ appetite.
“How much do I owe you?” he asked her, reaching for the small bag of gald that hung from one of his waist-level belts.
“Eight gald. Are you sure I can’t interest you in a few more?” she asked him, giving him a continuation on her previous odd look.
“One is enough for now.” Kratos set eight gald on the counter, took the apple from her hand, and, putting it in the small paper-carrier he now had to use for his many notes on Anna’s Exsphere, left the store.
Once he was outside the town again, Kratos teleported a second time, this time to the transporter pad in Asgard Human Ranch, so that it appeared as though he had come directly from Derris-Kharlan.
His walk to the meeting room was faster than usual; he was looking forward to bringing Anna this small gift. He found himself imagining the expression on her face when he presented it to her.
When he stepped through the doors, Anna looked up at him and smiled. Her smile, directed at him and him alone, made him take in a quick breath and he almost smiled in return.
“You’re late, my lord,” she said as he sat down.
He kept his face severe. “Hmph. I was on an errand.”
“What kind of errand was it?” Anna asked, as though she was not expecting an answer.
This time, however, Kratos gave her one. “I was buying this.”
He reached into his paper-carrier, opened it, and took out the apple, large and fresh. “I bought this for you.” He set it on the table and then watched her face.
Anna stared at the apple for a long moment. Then she looked up at him and began to cry.
Kratos stared at her, for the first time in a very, very long time unsure of what to do. He had never seen Anna cry before, never. Not even when she was hit by the Desians, not while she was sick, not even in the isolation cells in conditions that had broken many before her. He found himself almost horrified at the sight of her tears. He wanted to do something to make her stop crying, but could think of nothing.
Kratos Aurion was completely helpless.
Finally, after what seemed far too long to Kratos but was really only a few minutes, Anna pulled herself together.
“I—I’m sorry, Lord Kratos,” she apologised as she wiped her eyes with the backs of her dirty hands. “It’s—It’s just I haven’t had fresh fruit in so long. . . . Where did you get it?”
“A small grocery store in Luin,” he replied, still feeling helpless and hating it.
His words very nearly started her crying again, but she managed to keep herself under control this time, to Kratos’ relief.
Anna stared at the apple for a while longer before reaching out and taking it, savouring its feel in her hand.
“. . . Thank you, my lord,” she said after a moment.
“Kratos,” he found himself saying.
“What?” She looked up from the apple, confusion evident on her face.
“Just Kratos, Anna. When we are alone, drop the ‘Lord.’”
“Yes . . . Kratos,” she said, her voice soft.
He liked the way she said his name. “Good.” It sounded far better that way.
It was not too much longer after that day when it happened.
They had spent nearly a full hour talking the day it happened, talking about their past lives and each other. They both avoided the present in an unasked-for agreement. Both their lives had been better in the past.
To Kratos, the hour they had talked seemed barely five minutes. After it was done, he rushed through the questions to get just enough answers to make up whatever information he needed. Sometime soon, they were going to have to have a full examination session to make his data a little more solid, a little more believable in case someone else decided to read his notes closely, but he could never force himself into taking away one of his days with her.
At the end of the questions, Kratos took Anna’s left hand in his to look over her Exsphere. It had been totally accepted into her hand by now; only the smooth round top of the stone still showed. The skin around the Exsphere was beginning to crack slightly. What was in those cracks was beginning to darken with the first faint signs of corruption. It made Kratos’ stomach turn to see it, though he had looked at a thousand hands like it in his lifetime.
The difference, it seemed, was this hand was Anna’s.
He forced the thought away and searched for something else to think about. As he was thinking, he found himself noticing how good Anna’s hand felt in his. Her hand was dirty, dry, and scratched, with ragged fingernails, but that did not matter to Kratos.
He ran his thumb along the still whole skin on the back of her hand, savouring the sensation. He stroked his thumb back and forth. He could not remember the last time he had felt something quite so good.
Then he looked up into Anna’s face and froze at what he saw there.
When she spoke, her voice was flat. “If you’re trying to butter me up, don’t bother. Just take what you want, the way the others did.”
For the longest moment, Kratos did not understand. Then he did.
He stood up so quickly he knocked over his chair; he barely noticed.
“Who did that to you?” Anger filled his voice, his mind, his body. “Tell me!”
Anna cringed back from its force. “I—I don’t know. I didn’t want to know, and anyway, most of them barely bothered to take off their helmets to” —she swallowed, hard— “to do the job.”
Kratos stepped away from the table in an abrupt movement and began striding around the room. Had he the leisure to reflect, he would have been shocked to realise how deeply he felt his anger. As it was, though, his thoughts were on another matter entirely.
He had known the prisoners at the human ranches were raped. The prisoners were supposed to suffer as much as they could, and if rape was not an officially sanctioned technique, it may as well have been. He had known this went on and it had never bothered him before this very moment.
The difference, once again, was Anna.
He must have known this was happening to her. He had refused to see it, the same way he refused to think about her wounds, her scars, and all the more obvious physical signs of her abuse.
He had left her in the isolation cells for months. Had he not realised what that meant? But he had seen what it had meant, with his very own eyes.
He had not cared. Not one whit.
Just as abruptly as before, Kratos turned and moved back to Anna’s side. There, he dropped to his knees and looked up at her.
Anna stared down at him in surprise. “. . . Kratos?”
He took her right hand, the hand without the Exsphere, in both of his. “Anna, I swear to you I will never take advantage of you, ever. I swear it upon the honour I had when I was a boy.” A phrase and a custom floated to the top of his mind, out of the darkness. “I seal my vow thus.”
Very gently, he pressed a kiss to the back of Anna’s hand. Then he looked up again into Anna’s face, looking for something, anything other than hate, fear, distrust.
He did not find those things. Instead, he found a soft look on Anna’s face, a look that made his heart leap in his chest.
Slowly, Anna reached out and buried first one, then both her hands in his hair. Kratos closed his eyes as she ran her hands through his hair, her movements tentative and unsure.
For the first time in so very, very long, Kratos thought he was content. No, more than content. Perhaps even . . . happy. So long as he lived in that very moment and refused to think of what had been done to Anna, what he had allowed to happen to her, so long as all his thoughts were on her hands in his hair. . . .
“I—accept your vow,” she said finally, quietly. “I believe you.” She hesitated for a long time, almost too long. “I—I trust you, Kratos.”
It was then, with those words, that Kratos realised he had fallen completely and utterly in love with this woman. The knowledge brought forth a myriad of emotions. He refused to think of the negative emotions: the anger at what had been done to her, the sudden fear at what might happen if his love for her was found out, and above all, the deep guilt over the part he had played in tearing her apart. Instead, in that moment Kratos focused solely on the love he felt for Anna, for this beautiful, beautiful woman, and on the wonderful feel of her hands in his hair.
Bonus: This fic has been from Kratos' point of view all along, but last night, Anna's viewpoint for the second half of this chapter came to me, completely and perfectly clear, so I wrote the scene from her point of view as well. Here it is:
Anna watched the face of the man sitting across from her as he talked. She liked watching his expressions. There were so many now, when before, he had been cold. Cold and pitiless, like an ice sculpture of a man.
Kratos had changed a lot since Anna had first seen him, those months ago in the dark cell in which she had been chained. Before, she had thought him inhuman and had hated him, hated him more than anyone else in this Martel-forsaken place, for bringing her into the light only to force her back into the darkness so soon afterward.
Gradually, she realised that, in his own cool way, Kratos was being kind to her. He must have known after a few days, she had not needed the water quite as desperately as before, but he had continued to provide it all the same. He never used force against her, never raised his voice with her.
Gradually, she began to see him as a human being like her, as they shared stories of their happier days, a little bit at a time at first, but more and more as the weeks ground past.
Gradually, Anna’s hatred for Kratos was replaced by something else entirely.
That day, they had talked for an entire hour before Kratos had reluctantly moved onto the questions. He was rushing through them so quickly lately, as though he hated taking any time away from their conversations. Anna wondered what he was telling his superiors; his reports must be very sketchy now.
Soon, he came to the part at the end, where he would examine the Exsphere they had forced on her. Anna did not like the way the skin in her hand was cracking open, and the blackness in the cracks was starting to frighten her.
She was drawn out of her thoughts when she realised that Kratos’ thumb was moving along the skin of her hand in a completely different way than usual. Was he . . . stroking her hand?
She went cold. She felt dizzy and sick in the pit of her stomach. There was not enough air for her to breathe.
So he was just like the others, after all. The only difference between him and them was he was trying to seduce her instead of just taking what he wanted.
He looked up at her then. Maybe he had sensed the change in her emotions; it was hard to tell with him.
Her voice was full of the betrayal she felt as she said, “If you’re trying to butter me up, don’t bother. Just take what you want, the way the others did.”
He stared at her, incomprehension filling his handsome liar’s face. Then his expression changed to one that frightened Anna, frightened her to the core.
She had been wrong about his intentions toward her; it was clear now. She had been very, very wrong.
He shot to his feet, the chair he had been sitting in clattering to the floor loudly, though he seemed not to notice.
“Who did that to you?” he demanded, his voice full of rage. “Tell me!”
She cringed. His anger was so intense; she had never experienced anything like it. Not even the Desians had shown her such anger. Their primary emotion was the feeling of cruel superiority over such pitiful inferior beings, not anger.
“I—I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t want to know, and anyway, most of them barely bothered to take off their helmets to” —a sick feeling was rising in her throat; she had to swallow, hard, to keep herself from vomiting as she finished— “to do the job.”
Kratos stepped away from the table, suddenly, pacing away with his long legs. Anna watched him, once again watched the expressions that crossed his face.
How could she have doubted him? He was Kratos. He had never acted as though he was going to hurt her in any way, let alone in . . . in that way. He wasn’t like the others. He wasn’t. He might work for them, but Kratos was different.
If he had wanted to do—to do that to her, (she could not think the word) he would have done it to her months ago. He would not have waited so long.
A thought struck her, something that should have occurred to her long ago.
Did Kratos—could it be that he . . . loved her?
But if he loved her, why was he keeping her in this place? Why hadn’t he taken her away?
Or had he simply not thought of a way to take her away yet?
Before she could wonder any further, Kratos broke out of his restless, angry strides and came toward her. To her surprise, he dropped to his knees in front of her, looking up at her with an intense expression of pain on his face.
“. . . Kratos?”
Then, to her further surprise, he took her right hand, her good hand, in his and spoke with his deep, melodious voice.
“Anna, I swear to you I will never take advantage of you, ever,” he said. “I swear it upon the honour I had when I was a boy.” He paused for only a moment. “I seal my vow thus.” Then he kissed the back of her hand.
Anna could only stare down at his head as his lips brushed her skin.
She loved him. Martel help her, but she loved this man, he who was supposed to be just one more of her tormentors, but who had become something entirely different. She could not help herself, but she loved him.
He looked up into her face, apprehension replacing his former intensity. What he saw in her face must have reassured him.
Slowly, almost without meaning to, Anna reached out with first her good hand, then the other, burying her hands in his fine red hair. It was soft to her touch. She wanted to move her hands through it, but was afraid. She forced the fear away as she had learned how to and began to run her hands through his hair.
She watched him close his eyes and relax, some of the tension that was always in his body leaving him.
Then she spoke. “I—accept your vow. I believe you.”
She knew what she needed to say next. Was it true? Could she trust Kratos? She loved him, but love had not blinded her to the fact that he was still a Desian, was still there to conduct a loathsome experiment on her that even now he refused to name. Could she trust such a man?
She looked down at the man kneeling in front of her and made her decision.
“I—I trust you, Kratos.”
And the expression on his face when he looked up at her told her she had made the right one.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-29 11:18 pm (UTC)YAAAAAY.
I can see why this chapter would have been hard to write. The Gods know I had the a very similar problem with DSKT between Isaac and Mia - and Mia's rape was years before the story. But 'twas handled very well, yes it was. And yay for Kratos/Anna fluffiness.
Also, I like that you were able to show Kratos' growing affection for Anna in five chapters without being forced or smacking us over the head with declarations about how much he loved her [insert purply prose description here]. I liked the line about "He found that he disliked going several days without her" to be very telling, but wonderfully subtle, and it captures Kratos' voice perfectly, methinks.
In case you weren't able to tell, I really love this story. :D
no subject
Date: 2006-07-30 01:12 am (UTC)I tried to be as subtle as possible (and I made sure each little scene had weeks between it), because of "show not tell" and all. Language is probably what I'm exploiting the most (for example, you no doubt noticed how Kratos went from thinking about her from "the host body" to "the woman" to "Anna," although I did a few other things as well), but yeah. I'm happy to hear you think I pulled it off. ♥
And I'm so glad you like it. ^_^ I know I've done a good job if I've managed to impress you this much.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-30 12:27 am (UTC)That second part with Anna's point of view was a really nice touch. ♥
no subject
Date: 2006-07-30 01:13 am (UTC)Anna's point-of-view section is probably going to be exclusive to this journal, actually. Once I finish up the fic, I'll be doing a bit more clean-up and posting the whole fic on ff.net, only without the added Anna chapter. Count yourself lucky that you got to read it. :P