Disclaimer: If I owned ToS Zelos would've gotten more screentime. Jesus, he should've been allowed to explain his reasons even if you didn't talk to him at Flanoir… but I don't and I'm not claiming to do so, so there.

Tales of Symphonia; Drama CD Anthology

Rodeo Ride Tour

A fanfiction adaptation by Winged Dancer

Track Four –

Ring

Ring.

I bought a ring.

In which city, in which street stall it was I don't remember.

For only 30 Gald, it was almost a toy-like ring. But at that time, I'm not sure why, it looked like a very wonderful thing.

I think it was probably because I had drunk too much.

At any rate, I bought a red and a blue one. As drunk as I was, Zelos picked and bought a green-colored one and gave it to me.

The next morning, my head blurred with the hang-over, I looked at the pair of rings laying next to my pillow and felt my skin crawl.

So I gazed at them and then hurled them into the trash bin.

"Definitely, more than jewelry those are only a bad joke," so said Zelos, laughing as he always does.

That's why I just couldn't tell him that I kept the green one alone: carefully guarded, hidden inside my pocket.

Notes: Since this Track is so short I was thinking of merging it with Track 5, but then for the sake of order I decided to keep it like this and write a bit more about the other Drama CDs and answer a few reviews instead. If you don't care for that, just go read Track 5, which should be already up as well.

After Lloyd and Colette's quick Exphere thing we are treated to a Regal-only short story that I find extremely sweet.

It basically explains how Regal met Alicia and how their relationship flourished… and ended. After a rather difficult time for (young) Regal, he finds a sole flower on his desk, while he had ordered that it was to be a full bouquet. But he is enchanted by the flower and calls the maid who made the arrangement. The girl tells him the flower is called "Presea".

From then on, for almost two years the girl took him a Presea everyday until Regal realizes he doesn't even know the name of the girl, who is of course Alicia and has been working in the company for a loooong time.

And everything was going all pretty until she's killed the way we see in the game.

Now, reviews.

IGN – Well, the CD says rather clearly that it was written by the Tales Team of Namco, so well, maybe not canon but you can't deny it does feel nice to be a little official, eh? ˆ-ˆ

The Zelda Master – Yep, you must be the biggest fan 'round here, wont try to deny that. I haven't found enough time to read all of your work, but what I have seen I like ˆ-ˆ BTW, I chose to use the Japanese plural for ninja, which is "ninja"… I know in English it'd be "ninjas" but I just can't. It ends up sounding wrong in my head.

Urby – Yeah, take that you stup… agh, I had decided I wouldn't insult other pairings… specially not after Track "11". But you are still right.

Luigimania – Nope, no narrator except when Sheena starts talking to herself, or to the walls, maybe. And yea, used to browse the BK forums and be a Lyude fangirl 'till I was banned from Japanese sites for translating their work ˆ-ˆ;

Cute But Psycho – First reviewer, thanks! I'm glad to know this is interesting enough to keep people up at 3:30 am xP

kissybear – yeah, she does and she's so girly about it. She's a contrast, Sheena is. She speaks like a complete tomboy and yet she goes and starts crying over a boy…

Suzu Fujibayashi – I was bouncing on my own walls when I first heard them. Always nice to know I'm the only nutjob around here. Er… not implying that er… you are… crazy or something!

Rufus the Master – "In all sincerity, I prefer reading this to Harry Potter" that's a really nice thing to hear, really. I kept thinking whether to post or not, imagining 78 of the people wouldn't be around, heh!

Rouroni Tsuki – I'll gladly send you the tracks, you just mail me how… as in, IRC server, which channel, that kinda thing.

That's all this time. Needless to say, thanks to everyone else who reviewed. Mother Lotus, SangoGrl64, Scarlet Kratos, Ark Navy, Dreamer Dust and those of you who read without commenting, I'm really glad you are liking this. It seems that many of you specially had already heard about the Drama CDs, which surprises me 'cause I hadn't. You can imagine my surprise (and delight) when I walked into a CD store at Akihabara and the first thing I saw was a big-ass Zelos poster! I almost, very literally, fell down, which scared the many Japanese inside the store…

Rambling You may not care about the following, heh! Track 5 should be up.

Now, notes on translation – If any of you are into Baten Kaitos fiction, you might have read another novelization of mine… lately it seems I like to do that kinda thing. But thing is, even if I'm translating the dialogue as exactly as I can, when it comes to emotions and thoughts I have to guess for the most part. As I said in one of the answers above, with the exception of Sheena talking to herself (or to the walls), there's no narrator (although Sheena's POV is favored) so there's no way to know what the characters are thinking most of the time…

…so yeah, sometimes I hear Sheena crying and its mostly obvious that she's sad, but most of the time I have to guide myself by the character's voices alone, which may make this very inaccurate, specially 'cause, needless to say, I'm so biased towards the Sheena/Zelos pairing (which the Japanese call Zeroshii, which is cute) and therefore will search for the slightest clue of emotion and write it down in big, just for the sake of my fandom.

…and I don't know why I'm writing this! I suppose you guys have the right to know. Or something. Well, that ends my existentialistic ramblings regarding the fic. So, you who have been reading up 'till this point, hurry and go read Track 5!

WDR