Tales of Symphonia: Another Tale
The Ears, Look At the Ears!
The sun was shining down brightly upon the hills. A year ago, the sun didn't shine at all, or, not the way it did now. Symphonia was a dark place before the defeat of Mithos by Lloyd Irving and his crew. Sure the sun was as bright, but the world..it just...it didn't quite seem as bright as it now did. Monsters were cleared away from the worlds, leaving room for the animal life to prosper. Everything was multiplying. Everything was growing fresh and new.
Genis Sage, a white haired half-elf and powerful spell caster smiled happily as he looked at the trail just ahead. Already he could sense the victory and warm feeling of bringing yet another town to light, and removing any laws it had against half-elves. He and his sister Raine had left on this mission, immediatly after Mithos' defeat. Later on in their journeys, they gained the help of old friends Regal and Presea. Presea joined, but would not give her reasons, and Regal joined, still feeling guilty and feeling as if he owed the former members for attacking them in the forestst not so long ago.
Unfortunatly, Regal had died, saving Presea from one of the last monsters around. One of the strongest of them too. Presea stayed with the two half-elves, because they were her only true friends now. Her village referred to her as a monster or demon, and sayed she should vanish with the other monsters. She finally took not of it, having regained emotion and thought, and stuck with whatever friends she had. Though she never wanted to lug around another scared wood, she still seemed to enjoy carving things from wood in her spare time.
Raine was along for the same purposes as Genis, to stop any racism against half-elves. But she also dragged the two younger ones along to any ruins that she might catch word of. Genis and Presea often hid anytime the word "ruin" popped up, but Raine would find them and drag them off to explore the ruins. When she was like this, she was known as "Ruin Raine" by Genis, who molded it off of an old friends word of "Ruing Mode".
The three were in new lands, already having half-elves excepted everywhere they had gone on their previous journey. They had set off to explore the other half of Sylverant, new cities and all. After this they would move onto the other half of Tathe'alla.
The morning was new. The smell from their last camp site was still fresh in the air, as well as Genis' wonderful cooking. Bacon and eggs was what could be smelled, from the breakfast that had been finished not ten minutes before. Raine lead the way with an excited and slightly wild expression on her face. While Genis and Presea trudged along behind her. They were being side tracked, to go see another ruin...again!
Presea's axe drooped from her hands and dragged on the ground, as she thought about what might happen as soon as they neared the ruin. Raine would go insane and observe every nook and cranny of the place, they'd wind up side tracked for three days, at the least. The same thing was running through Genis' head. He sighed and sniffed the air, the smell of his cooking cheering him up slightly.
Presea looked up from the ground, away from the dusty rocks and dirt lined path. She looked at the back of Genis head, it was all she could really see because of his screwy hair. She noticed a little point sticking out near the back of his head, a little off to the side. After a few moments of silently studying it, she came to the conclusion that it was his ear.
'That ear' She thought 'Is it real?'
Before she realised what she was doing, she found herself flicking Genis ear, and watching it wave back and forth for a second. She did it again, and found that it was indeed a real ear, and that watching it wave back and forth was..enjoyable. She didn't even realise she was flicking his ear until the fifth or sixth time, and by that time Genis had stopped walking to ask Presea what she was doing with his ears.
"Er...um..well..." She stuttered, even Presea couldn't find the right way to say "I was flicking you're ears because I found it amusing how they waved and wobbled.", no, that wouldn't come out of her mouth, I doubt it would have come out of anybody else's either.
Presea's pale face turned a dull pink as she searched for how to answer. But luckily for her, they had just reached the ruins, and Genis had been distracted by his sisters shouts of delight and amazement. "LOOK AT THOSE PILLARS! EACH ONE REPRESENTS A CORNER OF SYLVARANT AND THE CENTER TEMPLE REPRESENTS THE MANA TREE! IT'S AMAZING! I'LL BET THEIR ARE ANCIENT WRITINGS ALL OVER THAT THING!" And with that, the proffessor was gone, racing to do research, with Genis trying to calm her down, so she wouldn't scare anybody.
Presea gave a sigh of relief. That was over, and she didn't need to come up with some lame explanation for flicking Genis' ears. Because she really didn't know herself. She waited until her face returned to normal, before following her friends off to the ruins. Even from the distance, Raines excited shouts could be heard clearly, and as Presea got closer, she noticed people staring with disturbed expressions on their faces at the archeologist.
"LOOK AT THESE WRITINGS! I MUST DECIPHER THEM! I MUST!" shouted Raine, pulling out a book about ancient texts, and quieting down to find the language these were written in.
"At least it'll keep her quiet and not embaress us for a little while." Genis sighed, sitting down on one of the stone steps.
Presea walked around the temple, looking it over. She came across a small opening on the side of the temple. She went to over to get Raine so she examin it, surely Raine would be over joyed to study the inside of the ancient temple.
"WHAT! AN ENTRANCE! COME GENIS! TO THE ENTRANCE!" Raine shouted running off around the corner, with Presea and Genis close behind.
"Hm..." Raine studied the hole in the wall for a short minute, "I'll never fit in there...I need someone small. Who's small?" She thought for a moment, and then she turned to look at Genis and Presea "Do you no anyone who's...small." A smile spread over her face.
"Huh? Oh no, wait a minute Raine." Genis said, holding his hands up defensivly. But he had no choice, Raine had scooped him up and shoved him through the small hole. She turned to Presea, who decided she didn't want to be crammed into a whole by a slightly insane proffessor, and climbed in right behind Genis.
"Remember, tell me EVERYTHING! And don't leave any corner unchecked!" Raine said excitedly, she could already hardly anticipate for the two little ones to come out and report what they found.
As Presea's head popped out of the crawl space, her hair flipped upward, bouncing after being squished from the tight tunnel.
"It is...dark..." She said, suddenly aware of the change in lighting.
"Hold on, let me see if I can do something about the light." Genis said quickly, and pulling a stick from his pocket. He used a small spell to light the tip of the stick on fire and illuminate the area.
The sight that had appeared before the two shocked, and frightened them. Bones and rotting flesh lay in heaps everywhere. Flies and other small insects were crawling about, slowly eating away at the decaying corps vault.
"This is..disturbing...very very disturbing.." Presea said, with a small hint of fear in her voice.
"I-I hope t-that whatever d-did this is dead." Genis said, with the fear that it probably isn't.
"I...want to leave." Presea stated and walked towards the tunnel they had come in, but she could see Raines face on the other side, and realised that she'd just be shoved back in.
"L-looks like we're ex-exploring." Genis wasn't stuttering because of the cold dampness, or of fright, but of the realisation he might be spending the night in here, with Presea...alone..where he could make a complete embarressment of himself.
The two walked for what seemed like hours down countless passages filled with bones and flesh. The only other things that were alive inside the whole temple were only a few bugs and spiders. Finally they'd grown tired and decided to set up a mini camp using what they had: Genis' magic, a few sunflower seeds, and some honey. Genis used his magic to keep the bugs away, and Presea used the torch to make honey roasted sunflower seeds, for more of a snack then a meal. Finally Genis put out the torch and prepared the mini-camp for the night.
Presea and Genis had spread out about five feet for the night, they lay to sleep, hoping nothing would go crawl on them as they slept.
Genis awoke to feel something light and delicate brushing against his face, and to added warmth.
'It's probably only a spider, and the storne being heated from the sun.' thought Genis.
But as he opened his eyes he saw that what was brushing his face was a tuft of pink hair. He turned his head slightly to the side and noticed that Presea was snuggled up to him. He felt his face growing hot, and knew that it must be turning a bright red.
'I-It was chilly last night...she was just cold...yeah...and her body naturally searched for a source of warmth...' Genis thought, a reasonable explanation.
He would have moved, but he did not wish to wake up Presea. And besides, she had a little smile on her face, it was rare to see her smile like this, a happy, content smile.
Genis was going to wait until Presea had awoken before he moved...she needed sleep and he didn't want to wake her...