Kratos and Atreus set off to the North. As they ran, Atreus asked Kratos, "Father? Why are we doing this now?"
Kratos replied, "I need to know you can survive the journey."
"Then we leave for the Mountain?"
"Depends on you. Hunt." Atreus halted, looking at his feet.
"What did you find?" Kratos asked his son.
"Tracks. Not deer though. I'll keep looking." They kept running across a frozen lake and a forested path. Suddenly a deer bigger than Kratos ran onto the path, and startled Atreus. He helped and stumbled back. The buck ran away, and Atreus yelled back to his father, "Found it!"
"Slow down, boy! You are hunting deer, not chasing it."
"Yes, Father." They ran along another path, this one having two wooden poles sticking out of the ground with a board nailed to them.
As they ran, Kratos heard trees rustling and branches ripping in the distance. He thought nothing of it, so he kept following his son.
They crossed a bridge, then spotted the buck again. Atreus said, "There it is!"
"Hold!" Atreus didn't heed his father and fired his bow anyways. The buck ran away, and Kratos snatched Atreus' bow away and shouted,
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! Now its guard is up! Only fire. . ." Kratos calmed down, then continued with,
"Only fire when I tell you to fire."
Atreus looked to his father, full of shame, and said, "I'm sorry."
"Do not be sorry. Be. Better. Find it." Atreus reached to get his bow back, but his father pulled it away.
"Find. It." Atreus huffed very softly, the turned away from his father and began to track the large buck again. Kratos shouldered the bow, and they went on their way.
After a while, a Draugr rushed out of the wood line at Kratos and Atreus. The latter reached for his father and yelled,
"My bow!"
"No! You are not ready! Stay back!" He drew the Leviathan Axe and everything seemed to slow as ice covered the blade, and the runes on the Axe began to glow ice blue. He raced towards the Draugr, and swung the Axe and swung it at the undead being.
He hit its neck, then the head, then he hit it in the chest as he sent it flying. He rushed it again and swung the Axe from his foot in an upwards arc to catch it in the jaw, then slammed it into the ground, breaking it in half.
After it was dead, Atreus looked to his father and asked, "Draugr? They've never been this close to our woods before."
"Keep moving." And they did so, and after they came to a small cliff, about a 19 foot drop, and saw the buck yet again.
"Look." Atreus said. He drew his gaze away from the buck and to Kratos.
"Can I have my bow back?"
"Can you hit it from here?" There was a pregnant pause, and Atreus replied:
"We should get closer." And they got closer. And as they did, Atreus said to Kratos: "Mother took me hunting a bunch of times. You never wanted to take me. Why now?"
"It was her wish. And . . . . It was time."
"Ok. Father, look." Kratos saw the deer and gave Atreus his bow back, and said, "Wait for my mark. Relax. Do not think of it as an animal. Think of it as a target."
Atreus drew the drawstring back, and after some deep breaths and some help from Kratos, he loosed the arrow. It hit the deer, and it stumbled to another small cliff.
"I got it!"
"Your uncle would be proud."
If only thew knew what was happening at their house at the same moment they first saw the buck.
