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English
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Published:
2021-01-10
Completed:
2023-04-15
Words:
1,490
Chapters:
2/2
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39
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838
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Midgard Stilled

Summary:

When Faye leaves for her first hunt after giving birth, she leaves Kratos to watch over their infant son. Kratos is not as confident of his capabilities as a father as Faye seems to be.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

The boy was crying. Again.

 

Heaving a long sigh, Kratos turned to the tiny wooden cradle at the side of his and Faye's bed. He'd carved it out of the stump of a tree soon after finding out Faye was with child. If he looked closely, he could still see the marks where the roots had been when he'd ripped it from the earth. He had taken great care with his work, though never one to think himself a woodsman. 

 

Then again, he never thought he'd be a husband again. Nor a father. Yet here he was.

 

Kratos looked down at the little pink baby squalling inside his handiwork. His tiny fists, his screwed-up eyes, his blotchy cheeks—all signs of a helpless child in want of something.

 

"If you are hungry, I cannot feed you," he grumbled. "You will have to wait until your mother returns from the hunt."

 

Faye had insisted on returning to the woods. She had been two fortnights abed, but Kratos would have had her stay longer, rest more. It had been hard work to bring this boy into the world. The sounds of her labor still echoed in his ears. She never screamed—only panted, groaned, growled, desperately pleaded for his help, whatever help he could give her. When the baby had finally slipped into his hands in a rush of blood and water, he immediately passed him off to Faye. His knowledge only went so far, and the newborn was still and silent. But in her capable hands, trembling with adrenaline and exhaustion, the baby soon screamed into the summer air. After suckling him, Faye slept, deeper and longer than Kratos had ever seen. And he'd let her sleep. If he was honest with himself, he had enjoyed the time Faye had been convalescent. Hunting down food for her, walking her around their tiny cabin, wrapping every one of their blankets around her and the child as he left for the day—it had stoked something primal, some instinct that hadn't been awakened since…

 

But eventually, Faye had insisted on doing things herself. He couldn't keep her down forever. Nor did he want to. 

 

Still. Kratos cast his eye to the door, stubbornly away from the baby. His baby. A baby he could not help—or, perhaps, one he did not think he could help.

 

“You’ll be fine, my love,” Faye had told him as she slung her axe over her shoulder. “It will be a short hunt, and our little one is sound asleep.”

 

“And should he wake?”

 

A smile had crooked at the corner of her lips as she caressed his cheek.

 

“You’ll know what to do.”

 

Furtively, as if the baby would scream louder should he notice his father looking his way, Kratos cast a quick sidelong gaze at the cradle. He growled to himself, low and rumbling. His ears were starting to ring with the whining. There had to be some way to stop it.

 

Slowly, Kratos leaned down and passed one of his large hands under the baby’s wriggling body, lifting him from the lined interior of the cradle. His other hand came to support the child’s head, still tender where the bone had not set. There was also the baby’s hair, sparse and fine as an elf’s. Absent of conscious thought, Kratos’s thumb rubbed over its velvety softness. Bracing his forearms on his legs, he laid the baby in his lap, balanced, but in no danger of rolling off and falling to the floor.

 

“Hush, child,” Kratos said. “Stop this.”

 

If possible, the baby started crying even harder. Tears, actual tears, slid down the baby’s face and stained Kratos’s trousers. Kratos sighed, a harsh release of air.

 

“Enough of this. You’ve made your needs known, and I have told you to wait. Why do you still cry?”

 

Even harder. Kratos bowed his head, clenched his eyes against his oncoming headache.

 

“I cannot give you what you need.” Practical information, and, deep in some part of Kratos's heart, an admission.

 

He received no reply—not that he had been expecting to. But the baby’s arms, finally starting to fill in with some weight, reached towards him. They wavered in the air for a moment before falling back to the baby’s chest, exhausted with the effort. 

 

Kratos’s brow furrowed. This baby wanted...him? As if to confirm that startling realization, the boy reached up again, plump fists opening and closing as if to summon his father forward, to bring him close—as if the baby wanted to hold him in return.

 

As gently as he could manage, Kratos cradled the baby again in his hands, and, ensuring the back of the child’s head was supported, brought the child to his bare, ashen chest. Kratos started at the feeling of the baby’s soft, new flesh against all of his old scars—it felt wrong, as if he were profaning the child’s innocence by bringing him so close to the consequences of war. He shuddered, and nearly laid the baby back in his crib to cry it out until he fell asleep, soaked in tears—but then, the baby nuzzled his face against the stark bow of Kratos's collarbone. His pudgy legs stopped kicking. His little arms relaxed. And slowly, moment by moment, the baby’s shrieking waned into whimpers, and then, finally, into the normal, passive murmurings of a healthy baby.

 

Kratos, too, became lost in a way he had not prepared for. There was something in the way the baby’s breaths echoed his own, the way his tiny heart pattered between them, that caught Kratos off-guard—a nigh-impossible feat by even the toughest of opponents, yet somehow managed by a month-old child in mere minutes.

 

For without his even noticing it, Kratos had followed the baby’s progression. His breaths became larger, deeper belly-fulls of air. The headache that had loomed so near moments ago had ebbed away with the slowing of his heart. At some point, he had bent down and rested his cheek against the baby’s head, the down of his hair soothing against Kratos’s battle-worn, rough-bearded face. The baby had a certain smell about him, something sweet and natural, a smell he had last encountered when it was accompanied by the tang of citrus and the salt of the warm sea. Now, it mingled with the birch logs of the cabin, with the leather of his armor, with the soap he and Faye used to wash the blankets. There was no comparing the two scenes he found himself caught between—one of a distant, tragic past, and one of a temperate present full of gradually-turning leaves. But slowly, ever so slowly, the past and present alike faded away, and soon, he was just a man. A man, and a son. A new son.

 

Hitching up one of his legs, Kratos swung himself carefully around until he was laying on his back on the bed. The baby whimpered, and, subconsciously, Kratos shushed him, low and quiet.

 

“It’s all right, little one. Mother will return soon.”

 

And to his surprise, Kratos found that he almost didn’t want her to. Not for a few more minutes, at least. For once, the world had finally stopped spinning.

Chapter 2: Post-Ragnarok: An Update!

Chapter Text

Hi friends!

I'm so happy that this short has gotten so much love--I loved writing it, and I'm so glad you loved reading it!

I'm writing this update because I'm going to be much more active in the God of War community, and I wanted to give you a heads-up. Today, for instance, I posted a new little flash for Thor and Sif called "A Simple Ordinary"--in fact, I posted both a mild and spicy version, so you can read whichever one you choose!

AND the big news: I'M WRITING A GOD OF WAR NOVEL! The book is titled The Thunder-Bringer's Daughter, and, as you can guess by the title, it's from Thrud's point of view. Here's a quick blurb:

"One year after the fall of Asgard, the realms have settled into a period of relative peace. But in the heart of Thrud Thorsdottir, the trauma of Ragnarok still weighs heavy--especially the pain of mourning her murdered father, Thor. When she learns that there may be a way to bring him back from a mysterious realm called The Higher Plane, she jumps at the chance, despite the danger and low chances of success. Along with Sif, her mother, Loki, the half-Jotun son of Kratos, and Ashildr, a skald who's more than meets the eye, Thrud embarks on a nigh-impossible quest to find her father and repair her broken family for good."

The first chapter of The Thunder-Bringer's Daughter should be posted in the next week or so, with new chapters on a bi-weekly basis.

I'm so excited to be expanding my horizons, and I can't wait to bring you all along--if you'd like to come, that is :)

See you soon!

Poetry

Notes:

Hello! This is my first fic for God of War. I discovered the franchise by watching a playthrough of God of War (2018), and I fell in love. I may write some more for the fandom soon (with Ragnarok coming and all...). :)