Sari: Holy crap! Two
updates in a row!
Moo: (direct quote)
You can stall with your updates, but not with mine.
Sari: Aww...
Disclaimer: Can I
have Tales of Symphonia for Christmas, Santa?
Santa: No, you
madwoman.
"WAKE UP EVERYBODY!" The unmistakable cry of Zelos rang unpleasantly through Kratos' ears. The three year old was running barefoot through the halls, screaming at the top of his lungs and pounding on people's doors. Quite a few of the adults were still angry with the younger half of the crew after yesterday's language fiasco.
"I know that we shouldn't have put them to bed at seven. They've gotten at least ten hours of sleep now," groaned the older Genis hoarsely, his hair sticking up in odd angles. Lloyd and Colette emerged from their room; Colette was attempting to stick a bottle in baby Dirk's mouth (but he protested furiously) and Lloyd quickly picked Zelos up and put a hand over the toddler's mouth.
"Why are you screaming?" Raine asked madly, her eyes bloodshot and her hair frazzled. She was asking the older Zelos; obviously mistaking the younger one's cries for the older one's. The older Sheena snorted in laughter as Zelos gaped at Raine, astonished that anyone could compare his 'perfect' voice with the banshee-like howls of a three year old.
Breakfast was actually quite nice; Genis fried some eggs and cooked some sausage, and after chopping it all into tiny pieces he wrapped it up and turned it into a giant omelet that everyone guzzled the second Genis put the plate on the table.
After breakfast, however, all the adults seemed to have run out of energy (none of them had slept well last night, mostly due to the fact that they still had squeaky voices talking in gibberish echoing through their heads for hours after their retired to their rooms).
"So… Yuan's coming in four days," Colette snored into Lloyd's shoulder. He nodded, though he was already snoozing in one of the day glow beach chairs and was just shifting in his sleep. As the adults crashed in the beach chairs (some of them didn't even make it to the chairs and just collapsed on the deck) the children ran around the boat for another three and a half hours, wreaking awful havoc in the kitchens ("Wow, big knife!") and tearing up their beds with giant pillow fights ("Feathers! Maybe there's a birdie in my pillow!") By the time the adults woke up, it was nearly four o' clock. Miraculously, the children had tired themselves out when they were running around and to everyone's delight, they'd fallen asleep in a huge pile downstairs in their room. Avoiding all the squeaky floorboards, Lloyd snuck down to their room and locked the door. All of the adults did a happy dance while the younger Kratos watched them from his fishing post at the bow, his eyebrows raised.
"Who's up for a little round of poker?" Zelos asked, doing a bridge with the cards. All the adults eagerly crowded around the fold out table, and even the younger Kratos decided to join in.
There were a few complications, seeing that neither Presea nor Colette knew how to play.
"You pair up with Lloyd," Zelos told Colette. "And you, Presea, pair up with Genis. It's not very hard to understand, after watching a few rounds you'll get the hang of it."
Zelos was a master at poker. Having played most of his childhood away at those casinos in Altamira ("I'm the Chosen goddamit! Lemme in, who cares if I'm underage!" a miniaturized Zelos told the barman imperiously) he had beaten even the most seasoned players. Also, Zelos thought happily, I have the best poker face by far.
Raine may have been reluctant to play at first due to the fact that gambling was a shifty and rather dangerous game, but from years of reading every book imaginable, she'd acquired a sort of cunning that was crucial for poker players. In time, Raine had become a rather dangerous opponent in any sort of card game.
Genis, taught by Raine, was a fair player. However, it was very easy to tell what Genis' hand was like only because he shifted uncontrollably in his seat and sweated profusely when his hand was awful, and grinned like the mad hatter when he had luck on his side. So, even if Genis did win the round, he never won very much because everyone else was not to keen on betting lots when Genis' hand was obviously superior.
Lloyd, as Genis had once said, did not think. He only used his instinct. Sometimes, this came in handy. Lloyd always seemed to know what amount of money to bet, whether he was taking to big of a risk or whether he was not daring enough. However, some degree of thinking is required to be a poker master, and sadly, Lloyd was unable to do much of that.
"Alright," Zelos said as he shuffled the deck. After Raine cut it, they began to play.
Throughout the course of the game, the others watched Colette and Presea learn how to play. By the fourth round, it was clear that both of them were rather hopeless, but to two different extremes.
Colette, who always wanted to give, put in way to much money (much to Lloyd's exasperation, because it was his gald too) and felt bad when she won, because she was 'taking away' from the others.
Presea, the emotionless wonder, put in the least amount of chips as possible and didn't say a word throughout the entire game, even when she won some money.
"But at least she has a good poker face," Genis said halfheartedly as Presea raked in another twenty gald without the slightest change facial expression.
They ended the game. Zelos was plus a hundred or so, Lloyd was very irate and minus a fair amount of money that he refused to share with anyone except for Colette, who was the one that lost most of it.
"Well, I guess we'll be living off of macaroni for the next few months," grumbled Lloyd as Zelos 'accidentally' dropped a twenty-gald piece on Lloyd's boot. With a very nasty little chuckle Zelos skipped down to his room and deposited his money on his bed, leaving the door open so everyone could see his riches.
At six o' clock the kids woke up, hollering for their dinner. After shoveling some reheated spaghetti down their throats, Lloyd and Zelos literally threw the kids back into their bedroom and locked the door. From the outside, one could hear muffled shouts and tiny fists pounding on the door from the inside.
"But what if Bubbles comes with his rainbows and give me Crystafungitisus?" Zelos screeched hysterically from behind the door. Lloyd actually had to restrain Colette from charging in the room and comforting her children.
"He won't, Zelos, just take my word for it," the older Kratos assured his grandson through the keyhole.
The rest of the evening was spent lying in the bright pink beach chairs watching the sunset. When night finally fell, they watched the constallations twinkle far above their heads as an occasional comet streaked across the blackness. Every time there was a shooting star Colette and Sheena would ooh and ahh in unison.
"I just love nighttime," Colette said, snuggling up to Lloyd. A piece of her blonde hair tickled his nose and he sneezed audibly. Zelos cracked up silently and Lloyd scowled at him.
"Remember that time when you offered me that tea?" Colette yawned sleepily. "And you kept on trying to trick my by telling me it was hot and it was cold and it was hot and it was cold and it was hot…" Colette went on for about a minute and then stopped due to the fact that she had to yawn again. Lloyd nodded, his eyes closed.
"Yeah, but I only did that because I knew there was something wrong with you," he muttered.
"What was wrong?" Presea asked. Surprisingly, her voice had emotion; concern.
"Oh yeah," Lloyd recollected. " That was before we knew you. Well, Colette went through this thing called Toxicoso-"
"-Toxicosis," Kratos corrected him swiftly.
"Yeah, that," he replied. "Well, she did that and lost all of her senses…" Lloyd's voice trailed off; thinking of the soulless Colette frightened him slightly.
"She was undergoing the process of becoming an angel," Kratos explained from where Lloyd left off. Presea looked curiously at Kratos, Lloyd and Colette.
"When my body was… wrong, like Colette's, was I becoming an angel too?" she asked them, her eyes wide. Raine opened her mouth to explain that Presea's condition was completely separate from Angel Toxicosis when Kratos intervened.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that," he replied. Presea looked slightly happier; the thought of being an almost-angel cheered her up. Raine raised her eyebrows at Kratos but said nothing. Little white lies…they were way less harsher than the truth.
Kratos lay in bed for a while, but he couldn't sleep. Many memories had been reawakened by their small (yet meaningful) talk about Angel Toxicosis. He remembered the war, sprouting wings…meeting Anna. It flooded back all too quickly, clouding his brain.
I thought that you got over all this the night you talked to Lloyd in Flanoir, Kratos' conscience told him. He frowned and got out of bed. Slowly he walked over to the mirror, a driftwood frame with pink seashells placed rather clumsily around the glass. Kratos guessed that Colette and the children had made it together.
His reflection looked back, just as it had for 4,000 years. The reddish-brown hair, the cold, guarded eyes and the pale skin, it was all the same. Why was it all the same? Because of Mithos, Kratos' conscience stated. Instinctively, Kratos looked at the back of his hand where his Crusix crystal was attached. Easily, he could remove it and within a second's time all those lost years would catch up with him… 4,000 years of lost aging…
"I'd be nothing but dust, Simon," Kratos told the cat as he tried to imagine aging 4,000 years all at once in Colette's avocado/ petunia-scented guestroom. Simon sneezed.
An easy way to commit suicide, Kratos found his conscience telling him (to his horror). Then, firmly, he shoved the idea from his mind and lay back down in bed. Right before he went to sleep, he found himself thinking: What are my reasons to commit suicide anyway? He used to have a few demons that would drive him to the edge but now, with his family and friends…
"Well, you might commit suicide because you're stuck on a boat with a million kids…" he told himself, but right then little Sheena chose to mutter in her sleep "My Gampy is better than your Gampy…" and all doubts were shoved out of Kratos' mind.
Moo: Hurrah!Sari: It's so cuuuuute!
Moo: Reveiw!