The black and white stallion had been skulking along the Tundra’s great wall, bitter-faced and grumbling for days when the call came. Ill-tempered and bloodied, he was no sight to be seen let alone a presence to be pleasant enough to be around. He had been searching for Rhy since he was shit from the wormhole just outside the Tundra’s borders. Kratos had traveled from the Tundra to the Jungle and back more times in the past few days than any horse his size should have been. He is more of a mountain than a river and mountains don’t tend to like to move much.
But he comes anyway, still smelling of the Otherworld and the wound on his flank blossoming out from his white hide like some twisted obsidian flower. And even though he comes, his hooves are heavier than ever and he is late to the summoning of the Brothers. When he arrives he tilts his heavy head to Errant in acknowledgment as he loiters along the edges of the gathering. He nods stiffly to the old man although he had missed what Crito said, but next his black gaze crawls to the chestnut who’s name he did not know. “Who are you?” He asks, there is no aggression in his voice although the words fall bluntly from an intemperate tongue. Kratos has not missed the presence of the mare but he does not extend the same question to her – he merely regards her with a weighted glance.
His attention is pulled away when Brennan begins to speak, flicking an ear to catch the winged stallion’s words as he offers him a tilt of his head as he had Errant. Kratos’ flesh still bore the story of their battle, Brennan’s ice shards had painted a macabre illustration across his legs and belly that was only half-healed. But it only made the titan begin to feel a kinship for the bay, blood spilled together is friendship half-earned his father had said once.
Nihlus is there too, smelling like there, smelling like them and when Gail’s name leaves his lips, Kratos lets out a loud snort – frustration scrawled across his face. Nihlus had been there too, in the Otherworld with the Great Old Ones. They both had returned and yet Rhy had yet to still fall beneath his gaze, it crossed him and made him noticeably more irritable.
He turns his stormy gaze back to the King as he speaks on alliances and treaties and magicians. Magic was no novelty to Kratos, he had been reared amongst dragonwings and dragonfire – his stepmother a magician herself. Kratos was, of course, partial to the Deserts and now the Jungle. The titan had many bloodties that still lived amongst the sand dunes beneath the two new queens, one a magician herself. “Both the Valley and the Deserts have magicians on their thrones,” he begins, “but the Deserts have two magicians at its helm,” he says. Kratos shifts his weight from his injured left side before he continued, “and although there were many years of unrest between the Valley and the Deserts beneath my father’s reign, there has been even more years of silence between the two. I don’t think a war between the two is of any immediate threat, I see no reason why we should not treaty with them both.” Kratos’ gaze flicks from face to face from beneath a black veil of forelock, “I have no opinion on the Falls and the Jungle would make for a staunch ally, although it’s clear their queen hunts power.” Which wasn’t necessarily a negative attribute in Kratos’ tally book. “I’ll go to the Deserts,” he offers, it had been over a year since he had felt sand beneath his hooves.
Kratos
the electric titan of vanquish and lyric