Chapter 3

This sucked. This sucked majorly. This was the epitome of suckiness. I would end up in the suck hall of fame. And the hall of fame for needless repetition.

I allowed myself one last "this sucks" before moving on to general sulking. I, a highly intelligent person with a bright future, was stuck doing menial labor for the rest of eternity just because stupid Kratos didn't have the patience to wait for five freakin' minutes. I ever saw him again, I would tackle him and show him my work-scarred hands, saying how I would never be able to hold a pencil again.

No, scratch that, that's a bit melodramatic. No, it's not, dammit, Kratos has screwed me over. No, the world has screwed me over. I scowled at the floor I was currently scrubbing free of scuff marks. The guy whose boots were messing up my floor was screwing me over.

"Hey, 'scuse me?" the guy said in an awfully familiar voice, and I looked up to an awfully familiar spikey head. "Where's the outhouse?"

I pointed wordlessly. Holy crap, that was Lloyd. He grinned in thanks and my heart melted a little. All of a sudden I realized why all the female characters -- and heck, if Zelos was any judge, some of the male characters too -- seemed to fall in love with him.

He walked off and I saw Genis smirking at me. I realized my mouth was hanging open a bit. Great, now he thought I had a crush on Lloyd. I very maturely stuck my tongue out at him.

"Oh, and hey," said Lloyd behind me. What, was he done with the bathroom already? Never mind, I didn't want to know. "Has Col -- had the Chosen come through here?"

"Chosen?" I repeated in genuine confusion, though for different reasons. Had Kratos or anyone even told me about the Chosen?

"A blonde girl, klutzy, likes dogs --"

"Oh, you mean Colette?" Should I pretend I knew what was going on? Wait, I did know what was going on, I just wasn't supposed to -- oh screw it. I ever met Kratos again, I'd just say the priests had told me. "Yeah, she left this morning -- wait, she was the Chosen?"

Lloyd nodded happily and Genis asked, "Which way did she go?'

"Off south, towards Triet -- she's the Chosen?" Yeah, play it up.

"And she was with an arrogant guy and a lady who looked like Genis?" Lloyd continued as if I knew who Genis was, which I did.

I nodded, saying somewhat dreamily, "I spoke to the Chosen!" I was kind of getting myself worked up now. And the future savior of the world was right in front of me...

"Thanks!" said he, and with that he was off to the outhouse. Not in front of me anymore, then.

I found myself looking at Genis, who was looking back. After an extremely brief staring match he laughed and stuck out a hand. "I'm Genis, and that was Lloyd. Sorry he's so rude."

I shook his hand and giggled nervously. No, stop that, you're looking like a ditz. "No, it's okay." I looked at him appraisingly. He was a suspicious little bugger, but if I could gain Lloyd's trust, maybe he could convince Genis to let me come along...

"I'm back!" Lloyd screeched from, once again, behind me. I shrieked and Genis laughed uproariously at my reaction. "I can tell," I said, embarrassed.

"Do you think we could buy some food here?" Genis asked. "Enough to last us to Triet?"

Oh, yeah, they probably hadn't had enough time to gather much food when they were kicked out of Iselia. I figured that I could donate someone else's food to the cause. "Sure, I'll take you to the kitchens," I said, standing up. As I led them, I asked Lloyd cautiously, as I was setting up a conversation that I hoped would go in my favor, "So are you the Chosen's followers?"

"Something like that, yeah." Lloyd scratched the back of his head. So he actually did that. I suddenly felt the ridiculous urge to take notes.

I grabbed his arm, somewhat startled at my own boldness. "Could you take me with you?" I asked, desperation bleeding its way into my voice.

"What?"

"This place is so boring! There's no one but old people here!" That much was true. "I don't want to wither away and die here!"

He shook my arm off gently. "Can you defend yourself?"

Now it was my turn to go, "What?"

"If a wolf was coming at you, would you get eaten?"

Great, what a time for Lloyd to be logical, of all things. "Wolves don't eat people," I huffed in hopes of distracting him.

No such luck. "Whatever." He shook his head. "I understand you and all, but it's dangerous out there. You'd be much safer staying here."

My last chance was slipping away. "But what if I don't want 'safe'?" I asked, knowing even as I said it that I would be shot down.

"I just can't do that," he said, shaking his head again and looking at Genis. Genis nodded approvingly, and Lloyd looked back at me with a firm look on his face.

I backed away from them slightly and looked at my shoes. "Fine," I muttered, and turned away. "Kitchen's in the building with the giant chimney. Someone should be in there."

As I stalked away, I thought I heard Lloyd yell "I'm sorry," but I was determined not to hear it.

Stupid Lloyd. Like father, like son.

Lloyd and Genis had left fifteen minutes ago, and I was back to scrubbing floors, but this time I was more depressed than angry. I felt bad for snapping at Lloyd. If anything, I was mad at myself for thinking myself important enough to go with him, but I just couldn't stand the thought of a life of mediocrity, especially in a world of heroes like him.

It was then that I began to seriously consider how to get home. Well, I wasn't going to hang out with any of my favorite characters, and I couldn't even pretend to by playing on my Gamecube. And judging by the list of chores I was expected to get done by the end of the day, I probably wouldn't have any time to write or draw either.

So how to get home. Well, the obvious option was to wake up, but it was gradually dawning on me that maybe this wasn't a dream. It was far too long, for one thing -- if this had been a real dream, I wouldn't be arduously scrubbing floors, but I'd suddenly be off at my middle school that was gradually turning into the mall, talking with Meg from Family Guy, and I would have completely forgotten about the Tales of Symphonia dream by now. Generally my imagination was a lot better than this. Although that would explain why that one priest looked like the creepy guy on the bus.

So, assuming that this was real, I had to figure out how I had gotten here in the first place. I don't normally suddenly fall asleep while drinking frozen mochas, so falling asleep again probably wasn't the solution. Maybe I would just have to wait for another random portal to take me back.

Another, more far-fetched idea was to somehow contact the Renegades. They knew how to travel between Tethe'alla and Sylvarant, so maybe they could figure out how to get me home. But then I would run the risk of being taken captive and being experimented on, so that was probably out. No matter how much I wanted to meet Yuan.

And as I worked doggedly at the grime between the floorboards and resigned myself to staying here, I heard screams outside and things went, as cliché as it is, from bad to worse.

Curious but cautious creature that I am, I crept to the window and looked out. A band of what I presumed to be Desians were marching up the road, and the people outside were fleeing in. One of the slower ones was being interrogating by a Desian who looked like the leader. The priest kept shaking his head nervously until he was knocked off his feet by a backhand across the face. The Desian looked back up, and I thought he was looking at me; I ducked back down and sat on the floor, breathless with fear.

The door burst open and the Desians came in, laughing among themselves. Maybe they were just here to rest? But my hopes were dashed when the went around the room with strange devices, passing them over the people in the room and looking at some sort of diagnostic screen. The scared priests and priestessess and the occasional traveller were looked over and eventually dismissed. Occasionally one Desian would nod, and a poor hapless soul would be dragged outside.

I couldn't hear what they were saying, but as they got closer and closer to me, I figured out what was going on. If the Iselia Ranch had a non-agression treaty, then this must be the closest place to get humans for the ranch. The thought entered my mind that Kratos had told Yggdrasill on me, but I suppressed it as soon as it came -- no matter how intimidating that man was, he wasn't evil. Unless he had told Yuan, and these were Renegades? But then wouldn't they just ask for a Robyn?

They came to me far too quickly. I saw a pair of boots in front off me and felt my hair go staticky, and before I could even begin to panic properly someone had grabbed hold of my arms and I was being hauled out the door.

Now I knew what the term "cold sweat" meant. The three other people also being restrained in handcuffs looked like I felt. None of us said anything.

Why wasn't I running away? Run away, idiot. You'll become an Exsphere. But they were already leading us off in single file with a preciseness that scared me. This was routine. These people lived in a world where they had to be resigned to the fact that this could happen to them any day. The Desians were even joking around. I think one was leering at me, but I decided to ignore him, to make it easier on myself.

Just let me pretend everything's all right...

A/N: Whee, short chapters.