Disclaimer: I do not own Tales of Symphonia or any of its properties.
Notes: This was written forever ago and posted to Tumblr. In an attempt to update this account with some things, I decided to post it here.
A Little Prank
"Hey, Sheena? Do you think you could help me with something for a minute?"
Sheena stuffed Corrine's bell back into her pocket, and stood up to face Colette as though she'd never been looking at it all. "Sure. No problem. What—" She stopped mid-sentence as she looked at the two metal buckets by Colette's feet. "What . . . are you doing? What are those?"
"Lizards!" Colette said happily, and she reached into one of the buckets to gently pull one out, the little pink, blue polka dotted salamander scampering across her palm. "Lots of them. Did you know there was a whole nest of them under Presea's house? I know I shouldn't have gone back there without asking, since that's Presea's private property, but since we're all staying at Altessa's tonight, I figured it wouldn't be too bad to go take a peek, since I remembered seeing the lizards the last time we were there. And—"
"Okay," Sheena interrupted, and she held up both hands to stop Colette's hasty explanation. "That explains what they are and where they came from. Why do you have them?"
Colette smiled, her tongue poking between her teeth. "Well . . ." She dropped the lizard she was holding back into one of the buckets. "You know that we're all staying the night here tonight, right?"
"Uh, yeah, that was the plan."
"Well . . . I figured it might be fun to play a little prank on the boys." She held up her hands to stop Sheena's question before she could ask it. "Not Regal! Just Lloyd, Genis, and Zelos. It's just that, everything has been so serious lately, so I figured we could use a little fun. This isn't the best prank, but given the circumstances . . ."
"I'm in," Sheena said, and Colette brightened. Despite the fact that Corrine's bell still weighed heavily in her pocket, Sheena grinned back. "So, what're we doing with the lizards? Stuffing them down their shirts?"
"No. They'd notice too quickly. We're putting some in their sleeping bags, and some in their travel bags." Colette picked up one of the buckets and handed the other to Sheena. "The Professor's giving Lloyd a lesson right now, Genis is walking with Presea, and I saw Zelos taking a walk off by himself earlier, so the coast should be clear. Ready?"
"Let's do it."
Together, the two girls slipped into Altessa's house, careful to avoid the room where Lloyd was suffering through a lecture from Raine, who sounded frustrated at the lack of comprehension from her student. Just as quickly and quietly, Colette and Sheena unloaded the lizards into the sleeping bags, putting whatever ones remained into the travel bags.
"Make sure to leave the zippers open just enough so that air can get in, but that the lizards don't escape," Colette whispered, and Sheena winked at her.
"Way ahead of you, sister."
Unfortunately, there was no way to make it perfect; a few of the lizards still escaped through the open zippers, scampering across the floor and up the walls of Altessa's house. All the same, the screaming that erupted when Zelos opened his travel bag to change for the night a few hours later, coupled with the shrieks from Genis when lizards climbed up his shorts after getting into his sleeping bag, made the prank feel perfect to Sheena and Colette anyway.