[Kaltia] Training - PG-13
OH MY GOD IT'S NOT FMA. This is, in fact, a report, but what the hey.
Title: Training
Author: kaltia
Fandom: Tales of Symphonia
Pairing: Zelos + Sheena
Rating: PG-13
Notes: 30_kisses theme: Invincible; unrivalled. Dedicated to Becca, 'cause she rocks. Set pre-game, some spoilers. ^_^
It had been a very long day, and a very hard one. Sheena shut the door to Mizuho's communal bathhouse behind her and for a moment just leaned against the wood, heaving a deep sigh. The air was hot and moist, soothing on the bruises and aches all over - it had been a very hard training session, but she'd finally managed to knock Orachi to the floor three times in quick succession, which, as Corrine had pointed out, made the bruises worth it.
Not, of course, that knocking down someone she'd grown up with counted for much. She'd be facing up to Sylvarent's Chosen, after all, and it was likely that she was both powerful herself, and very well-defended. The trip wasn't due for at least another few months, but until then, Sheena had no intention of giving herself a break. Tethe'alla needed her, after all, and she couldn't live with herself if she let it wither like the barren, dying Sylvarent was supposedly doing.
No ominous thoughts about death, she thought, and sighed. She would focus on that when the time came; for now, she should enjoy the showers before someone else came in. Plucking a towel off the stack by the door, she hastily shed her clothes and undid the various ties and clips that kept her hair out of her face; deposited the entire lot in an unruly bundle in a cubicle near the entrance, and summoned Corrine to watch over them.
The shower was perfect. She had to stand on tip-toes to adjust the nozzle - she was perfectly normal in height for a woman from Mizuho, but the thin red hairs clogging the bottom of the shower cubicle indicated who had last used it. Sheena pursed her lips and poked a matted tangle with her toe until it vanished down the drain with a faint gurgle. Damn pervert Chosen; she couldn't quite fathom why he was here - Kuchinawa had told her he was training, too, as the fate of Tethe'alla rested on him just as much as it did on her (and she hadn't liked the way he sneered when he'd said that, but she refused to let herself be distracted).
Still. She would not be distracted from her shower by a red-haired moron, no way. She'd been practically through hell itself today in order to even earn the right to shower, and now she had it, she intended to abuse it. The water was at just the right temperature, feeling like a god's caress as it soothed her aching body, and she tipped her head back to the spray to let it run slowly through her hair. Ah. Aaaaah. Was there really anything better than a shower after a long day? She very much doubted it.
Massaging the soap into her scalp took a great deal of attention - the stuff stung like a bitch if it got in your eyes, so she'd squeezed hers shut tightly as she washed it out again.
It took some time for her to feel confidant enough to open her eyes and step out of the shower's spray, wrapping the towel around her midriff. Holding it up firmly with one hand, she headed back to the cubicle where she'd left Corrine and her clothes, one hand roughly combing through the tangles in her hair. Mmm, she needed to take showers more often, that'd felt heavenly -
"Lookin' good, babe," said a voice she knew entirely too well, and Sheena froze in the middle of the bathhouse floor before turning, with all the stiffness of a golem, towards the tiny window that provided the majority of air ventilation. It was shuttered, and backed onto a hill; the shutters had been closed when she got in the shower, but now, as she feared, they were open.
And Zelos Wilder, that stubborn, arrogant, annoying pervert of a moronic Chosen was leaning on the windowsill, his smug grin indicating that he'd been there for some time. Sheena narrowed her eyes, a warning to most that some grievous bodily harm would be shortly forthcoming, and ground out, "How long have you been there?"
"Since you got in," Zelos said, cheerfully. "I have to say, hunny, that you really do have a great body - why do you keep it covered up?"
"Because," Sheena replied, still in that slow, modulated tone that had Corrine inching for safety, "of people like you, you obnoxious voyeur - "
"Hey, hey now!" Zelos exclaimed, holding up his hands in alarm. "That's quite some vehemence, babe. Look, don't worry about me... you're a bit too flat-chested for me, if ya get what I mean." He blew her a kiss, which just served to seal his fate, as far as she was concerned.
Sheena drew herself up her full height - five inches shorter than him, and at any rate barefoot and clothed only in a towel as she was, she certainly didn't look very intimidating - and gritted her teeth, eyes narrow and flashing daggers. Zelos seemed impervious to the warning. "I mean, give me someone like the Princess at any time, you know?"
"As of now," Sheena said softly, "You are a dead man walking."
"Huh? Wait - uh, Sheena, you're not mad, are ya? 'cause, uh, hey, hunny, why don't you put that down and - OW."
Later on Zelos was recorded as the first person, in all of Mizuho's long and illustrious history, to be knocked unconscious by a boot hurled from a bathhouse window. Everyone discussed this at length, and decided that it was probably what the disturbingly lecherous young hero needed. As for Sheena - who had always been unrivalled when it came to defending herself from peeping toms - all she would say was that Zelos had gotten 'exactly what he deserved'. It was certainly true that six hours later, when Zelos did come round in the vice-chief's hut, it was to find that someone had written 'To the Pervy Chosen, with love from S. XXX' all over his face in a shade of fuchsia lipstick currently extremely popular among the village's female population.
"Couldn't say who it might have been," Orachi said, when asked, and the vice-chief and Kuchinawa had refused to comment. Zelos, true to form, laughed the incident off as an attack by an 'overzealous hunny' on his person; but one thing was for certain, and that was that the so-called 'Pervy Chosen' never again attempted to spy on Sheena Fujibayashi while she was in the shower.
Getting changed for training, however, was another matter entirely. Some things just can't be altered, no matter how frequently one tries.
Title: Training
Author: kaltia
Fandom: Tales of Symphonia
Pairing: Zelos + Sheena
Rating: PG-13
Notes: 30_kisses theme: Invincible; unrivalled. Dedicated to Becca, 'cause she rocks. Set pre-game, some spoilers. ^_^
It had been a very long day, and a very hard one. Sheena shut the door to Mizuho's communal bathhouse behind her and for a moment just leaned against the wood, heaving a deep sigh. The air was hot and moist, soothing on the bruises and aches all over - it had been a very hard training session, but she'd finally managed to knock Orachi to the floor three times in quick succession, which, as Corrine had pointed out, made the bruises worth it.
Not, of course, that knocking down someone she'd grown up with counted for much. She'd be facing up to Sylvarent's Chosen, after all, and it was likely that she was both powerful herself, and very well-defended. The trip wasn't due for at least another few months, but until then, Sheena had no intention of giving herself a break. Tethe'alla needed her, after all, and she couldn't live with herself if she let it wither like the barren, dying Sylvarent was supposedly doing.
No ominous thoughts about death, she thought, and sighed. She would focus on that when the time came; for now, she should enjoy the showers before someone else came in. Plucking a towel off the stack by the door, she hastily shed her clothes and undid the various ties and clips that kept her hair out of her face; deposited the entire lot in an unruly bundle in a cubicle near the entrance, and summoned Corrine to watch over them.
The shower was perfect. She had to stand on tip-toes to adjust the nozzle - she was perfectly normal in height for a woman from Mizuho, but the thin red hairs clogging the bottom of the shower cubicle indicated who had last used it. Sheena pursed her lips and poked a matted tangle with her toe until it vanished down the drain with a faint gurgle. Damn pervert Chosen; she couldn't quite fathom why he was here - Kuchinawa had told her he was training, too, as the fate of Tethe'alla rested on him just as much as it did on her (and she hadn't liked the way he sneered when he'd said that, but she refused to let herself be distracted).
Still. She would not be distracted from her shower by a red-haired moron, no way. She'd been practically through hell itself today in order to even earn the right to shower, and now she had it, she intended to abuse it. The water was at just the right temperature, feeling like a god's caress as it soothed her aching body, and she tipped her head back to the spray to let it run slowly through her hair. Ah. Aaaaah. Was there really anything better than a shower after a long day? She very much doubted it.
Massaging the soap into her scalp took a great deal of attention - the stuff stung like a bitch if it got in your eyes, so she'd squeezed hers shut tightly as she washed it out again.
It took some time for her to feel confidant enough to open her eyes and step out of the shower's spray, wrapping the towel around her midriff. Holding it up firmly with one hand, she headed back to the cubicle where she'd left Corrine and her clothes, one hand roughly combing through the tangles in her hair. Mmm, she needed to take showers more often, that'd felt heavenly -
"Lookin' good, babe," said a voice she knew entirely too well, and Sheena froze in the middle of the bathhouse floor before turning, with all the stiffness of a golem, towards the tiny window that provided the majority of air ventilation. It was shuttered, and backed onto a hill; the shutters had been closed when she got in the shower, but now, as she feared, they were open.
And Zelos Wilder, that stubborn, arrogant, annoying pervert of a moronic Chosen was leaning on the windowsill, his smug grin indicating that he'd been there for some time. Sheena narrowed her eyes, a warning to most that some grievous bodily harm would be shortly forthcoming, and ground out, "How long have you been there?"
"Since you got in," Zelos said, cheerfully. "I have to say, hunny, that you really do have a great body - why do you keep it covered up?"
"Because," Sheena replied, still in that slow, modulated tone that had Corrine inching for safety, "of people like you, you obnoxious voyeur - "
"Hey, hey now!" Zelos exclaimed, holding up his hands in alarm. "That's quite some vehemence, babe. Look, don't worry about me... you're a bit too flat-chested for me, if ya get what I mean." He blew her a kiss, which just served to seal his fate, as far as she was concerned.
Sheena drew herself up her full height - five inches shorter than him, and at any rate barefoot and clothed only in a towel as she was, she certainly didn't look very intimidating - and gritted her teeth, eyes narrow and flashing daggers. Zelos seemed impervious to the warning. "I mean, give me someone like the Princess at any time, you know?"
"As of now," Sheena said softly, "You are a dead man walking."
"Huh? Wait - uh, Sheena, you're not mad, are ya? 'cause, uh, hey, hunny, why don't you put that down and - OW."
Later on Zelos was recorded as the first person, in all of Mizuho's long and illustrious history, to be knocked unconscious by a boot hurled from a bathhouse window. Everyone discussed this at length, and decided that it was probably what the disturbingly lecherous young hero needed. As for Sheena - who had always been unrivalled when it came to defending herself from peeping toms - all she would say was that Zelos had gotten 'exactly what he deserved'. It was certainly true that six hours later, when Zelos did come round in the vice-chief's hut, it was to find that someone had written 'To the Pervy Chosen, with love from S. XXX' all over his face in a shade of fuchsia lipstick currently extremely popular among the village's female population.
"Couldn't say who it might have been," Orachi said, when asked, and the vice-chief and Kuchinawa had refused to comment. Zelos, true to form, laughed the incident off as an attack by an 'overzealous hunny' on his person; but one thing was for certain, and that was that the so-called 'Pervy Chosen' never again attempted to spy on Sheena Fujibayashi while she was in the shower.
Getting changed for training, however, was another matter entirely. Some things just can't be altered, no matter how frequently one tries.