Prescript: Woooooooooooooooah, I ACTUALLY got off my procrastinating, lazy ass and got a story written! Even if it is just a silly little one-shot. I was inspired by the Zelos Flanoir scene, since I finally got it the last time I played. And I put my inspiration into fanfic form thanks to coaching from The Zelda Master! If I hadn't been talking to her all this time, I probably wouldn't have ever updated again. o.o;;
Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia. But I do own Taro, and Mina. Oh, I own Mr. Snowman, too. That's right, bitch.
To Last Forever
A trip to Meltokio was always nice. As the small family migrated to the Imperial City from Mizuho, the skies turned a light, smoky gray, the clouds bright but heavy. It was wintertime, and the snow was going to fall heavily this year. Mina, of course, was always excited to see a change in the weather, and danced alongside her mother as they crossed the Bridge. Sheena peered up at the sky for a moment, then looked to Zelos on her left. She had started to comment on the coming snowfall, but the look on her lover's face put all notions to rest.
The ex-Chosen looked so grim and serious all of a sudden, just like when he had betrayed her and the others in the Tower of Salvation so many years ago. "What's wrong, Zelos?" Sheena finally asked, eying him with concern.
Zelos didn't answer; for the longest time, it seemed he hadn't even heard the ninja's question. After a moment, his gaze shifted randomly to Sheena, and he did a double-take before realizing she'd been talking to him. "Huh? Oh! Uh . . . nothing, hunny. Forget it."
The six-year-old Mina glanced up at her parents, but paid no heed to their conversation. Sheena folded her arms and frowned, but didn't press Zelos any further - much to his obvious relief. Although, his relieved expression didn't last long before that same disgusted look came back to him.
The walk from the Bridge to Meltokio was short and carried out in silence (aside from Mina's cheery humming). Zelos continued grimacing, staring heavenward every now and then; Sheena pondered what her lover's problem was, but came up blank. Mina danced about, chanting and making up a song about the snow. She'd always had a fondness for snow, ever since Taro, the fallen priest in Flanoir, had introduced her to it. About the time they reached Meltokio, the clouds overhead finally burst, and the first snowflake fell daintily to the earth.
"You know," Zelos spoke up as the three headed for the mansion, "Maybe we shoulda gone to uh . . . Luin, instead. You know, somewhere that isn't here."
Sheena cocked a brow and shook her head. "But your precious groupies are here. Normally, you're glad to be home." Mina giggled at the first comment.
"Yeah, but . . . " The redhead trailed off, sighing in defeat. It would've been easier to just admit that he hated the Meltokio snow, but sometimes, easier isn't an option. "But it probably isn't snowing in Luin!"
Sheena remained skeptical. "What's wrong with the snow? You didn't mind it in Flanoir . . . "
It took the ex-Chosen awhile to think of a good excuse for that one. "Uh, well . . . it always snows in Flanoir, so you just kinda get used to it, ya know?" The excuse didn't fly.
"Just forget it, Zelos! It was your idea to visit Meltokio, and besides! Mina likes the snow," she insisted, and that was the end of the matter. Sheena leaned up against the door, and as the girls slipped inside the nice, heated home, Zelos turned and took a last look at the lightly dusted streets.
XOXOXOXO
It wasn't until late in the evening and the snow was really coming down that anything else unusual happened in Meltokio. Zelos peeked his head into Mina's bedroom after knocking softly. The child was playing quietly with a few dolls on the floor, but paused her pretending game to smile at her father. "Hi, daddy! What'cha up to?"
"Wanna come out and play in the snow a bit?"
As soon as the word "play" came onto the field, Mina's dolls were forgotten and the young girl was up and rushing into her snow clothes. "What about mommy?" she asked, pulling a boot on, "Is she coming too?"
"Nope. Just you 'n me, kid!" Zelos mustered up his best smile in spite of the situation. This encouraged his daughter, for she bounced twice as energetically down the stairs and out the door, father following behind her.
The sun was already hidden behind the horizon, and so was the moon behind the snow-spilling clouds. Luckily, the lights of the Imperial City made it just bright enough to walk around and play without crashing into something. Mina immediately began preparing an arsenal of snowballs for a snowball fight (since that was the only snow game she knew how to play), but Zelos calmly began rolling the snow into the size of a boulder, then one about half as big, then finally, a smaller one, maybe the size of his head.
Mina's eyes grew to tea saucer-size. "D-Daddy, you can't throw those! They'll crush me!" The six-year-old feared for her life.
"I'm not going to throw them," Zelos snorted, piling one atop the other, smallest on top. The child left her snowballs behind and approached her father and his creation curiously. "I'm making a snowman."
Tilting her head to one side, Mina circled the snowman, then stood beside the former Chosen. "It doesn't really look like a man to me . . . "
Zelos smiled, silent, and removed his Santa hat, plopping it down on the snowman's head. He unwound Mina's scarf from around her neck and wrapped it around his project's instead. Mina continued watching as the redhead poked indentations into the snowman's face and stuck two pieces of Gald in for eyes, and traced a smiling mouth with his finger.
"Oh, I see!" Mina exclaimed about then, hopping up and down on the balls of her feet. She smiled right back at the snowman, then stopped and frowned. She studied it crucially, then pulled a button off the bottom of her snow coat, and turned to Zelos. "Daddy, up!"
Zelos laughed and picked the child up. Mina poked the button into the snowman's face, between the mouth and eyes as a nose. "There!" the two cried together.
"It's still missing something," Mina noted as she stared at the practically bare snowman.
"Oh?"
"Put your vest on him, daddy!" She reached up and pulled on her father's pink vest lightly. "The snowman needs it, or he'll get cold."
"But then I'll get cold." Despite that he was protesting, Zelos unclipped the vest and wriggled the article off his shoulders.
"Then you can go sit by the fire with mommy when you go back in," the child said matter-of-factly, pointing to the snowman again.
Zelos snorted and wrapped the vest around the snowman, then attempted to clip the clips. "Looks like Mr. Snowman needs to lose some weight before he can compare to the great Zelos!"
Mina giggled and laughed. "But daddy, he's taller than you!"
"Size doesn't always matter," the redhead insisted. Mina laughed even more, and Zelos joined in soon after.
Over the course of the entire night, Zelos and Mina played in the snow, having a brutal snowball fight, making snow angels (Zelos seemed upset with the result of his snow angel, even though it came out perfectly), and as the sun was peeking over the horizon, they built an igloo beside their snowman and managed to fall asleep in it.
They woke up with a start when the igloo just about crumbled all around them; "HERE you two are! Thanks for letting me know you'd be out all night - Zelos, I oughta . . . "
"Mommy, daddy and me made a snowman!" Mina interrupted, sitting up and rubbing her eyes sleepily, "Did you see?"
Sheena paused having caught Zelos by the collar and lifted her fist to bring fury to the side of his head, and looked at Mina, then at Zelos. "You did?"
"Yeah!" Zelos wormed out of her deathgrip somehow and crawled frantically out of the igloo. Sheena and Mina followed.
The snow fell lightly, adding another layer of soft snow over the hills and Imperial City. The hat and scarf adorning the snowman were frosted, a thin layer of ice glazed over the Gald eyes. As the family walked around, snow crunched beneath their shoes, their noses numb from the crisp, frigid breeze. Zelos motioned to the snowman, regarding it with pride.
"Oh, is that one of your buttons, Mina?" the summoner asked, eying the nose, then the child's jacket. Sure enough, a button was missing from the bottom. "I'll have to sew that back on . . . "
Mina, however, looked appalled. "No! You can't take the nose off Mr. Snowman! How will he smell things?"
"But the snowman won't last forever . . . he'll melt in the springtime."
Zelos frowned, shifting on his feet as he stared down at the ground, but Mina was even more depressed. "...Oh, I know! Ask Celsius to make Mr. Snowman stay forever and ever!"
As ridiculous as the idea was, Sheena didn't doubt that it would work, and didn't honestly have a reason to object. Other than the fact that there'd be a snowman sitting outside Meltokio for the rest of forever, even in the middle of summer, that is. "Well . . . I suppose," she concluded, bringing her hands to chest level to summon the disciple of everlasting ice.
"I don't think that's such a good idea," Zelos cut in, before the incantation could be spoken. If he had looked troubled or agitated before, it was a hundred times worse now. "You should just cherish it while it's here, then let it go when the snow melts away."
Mina's face fell again. "But . . . ! Daddyyyy . . . !"
Sheena, too, gave the ex-Chosen a weird look. "What's with you, Zelos? There's nothing morally wrong with making the snowman never melt." She crossed her arms at her stomach, continually trying to peer into Zelos' darkening eyes. His attitude lately was really starting to worry her . . .
The redhead merely shook his head, but before he could apologize to Mina and firmly tell her that Mr. Snowman was not going to stay, the child's attention span swerved away from the subject. She pointed exasperatedly at the horizon beyond the Fooji Mountains, circling her arm and pointed finger over her head. "Look . . . "
Both adults jerked their heads upward in alarm, and followed the child's point to the mountains. The sun was still in the process of rising, and the sunrise that ensued it was nothing short of astounding. Pastel oranges, yellows, and golds blended together all around the giant star, and mixed with the dark unknown that was the peak of the mountains. A few stray clouds, pink and fluffy and still spewing a bit of snow, were lined with midnight blue from the nighttime. But most spectacular of all was the shade of the sky overall; it was a vivid shade of scarlet, growing darker and darker in shades as it reached toward the other side of the world, giving everything beneath it a sort of eerie blood-red glow.
Sheena gasped, and whispered a soft, "Wow . . . " but Zelos twitched slightly, narrowing his eyes at what would, to anyone else, be considered a natural wonder. Mina took notice of the sour expression, and tugged on the hem of his shirt. "Daddy?"
He ignored her. "Let's go inside now, mmmkay?" Without waiting for either of them, he turned and strode off, stiff-legged.
The six-year-old stood baffled, and turned her gaze toward the red sky again, searching for a reason as to why her dad was acting so weird within its depths, and decided to seek the answer from Sheena, instead. "How come he's being all weird?"
"...Just ignore him." Sheena sighed, dropping her arms carelessly at her sides, and plopped down in the snow. "Let's just watch the sun rise and let him pout for a while."
Zelos wasn't exactly pouting, but he sure wasn't happy. Leaning half in and half out of the city's gates, he kept an eye on Sheena and Mina, arms folded across his chest. It was times like these that made him wish he wasn't tied to anything, so he could run away from his troubles. Wasn't that easier than standing and taking them? Even if it was just a little snow, and a bright red sunrise; it hauntingly reminded him of other, less peaceful things. Maybe he would try to deal with it, if only for his daughter's sake, and let the snow fall. Maybe just for her sake, he'd build a snowman meant to last forever.