[It's good that Yuan makes that offer. Kratos doesn't know how he's meant to pull away. In one fell swoop, everything he'd been investing in Nidavellir to avoid has risen to bite him; he can't remember the last time he was so vulnerable as to need to be held. Most times, he's managed.

[He's managed because there hasn't been someone. Now there is. It's the reason why the bracelets are a comfort to him; why being owned has been a state he can accept. Even sibings, Aurions must accept will be lost. Yuan, more than anything, has been constant. Even from opposite sides.]

He asked her if she had any last requests.

[This isn't precisely sudden, even though Kratos doesn't mean to say it. The hug is releasing the tension in him enough for words to come out, whether he intends it or not.]

She meant to die in battle if she could, but he offered the rest of our forces amnesty if she surrendered -- and by then the royal line had already been killed, taken or escaped. So she surrendered.

[Even though it meant her officers' lives would be forfeit. Some had fought on anyway. But the bulk of the remaining troops -- and there hadn't been many, in comparison; the rest she'd sent northward with Bia -- the bulk, she'd managed to save. In so far as they could be saved, as slaves.]

Before he -- executed her -- he asked if she wanted anything. She asked him to spare me. So he had them take me out of the line and --

[His throat closes and he struggles for a moment, tears in his eyes and grief in his chest.]