rated: g
fandom: Tales of Zestiria
prompt: “Stargazing” + Anyone in ToZ (I picked Rosali)
requested by: @toradh
Read on AO3
o - o - o
Alisha has known Rose long enough to be familiar with her streak of spontaneity, which is perhaps the most important thing to know about her girlfriend: that before she is a person of action or words, she’s a woman of out-of-the-blue ideas. It no longer surprises her when, on their way back to their hotel room, following the light of the low garden lamps that line the sand-dusty path, Rose suddenly grabs Alisha’s hand and pulls them to a stop.
“Rose?” Alisha hums. “Are you all right?”
“Lisha,” Rose whispers, turned away. Her eyes are trained on the intersecting pathway to the left, where the tall hedges that separate the beach from the resort bend upward in an arc overhead. When she spins around to face her again, her red hair fans out around her chin. “Hey. You wanna see the ocean at night?”
Alisha bites back a smile. Rose is always drawing a smile out of her somehow, it feels like. “While I admit the sea is certainly very romantic, I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to see anything. It’s almost midnight.”
“Yeah, I know, but—”
“Lights aren’t allowed out on the beach.”
“I know, I know—sea turtles; believe me, Lisha, I get it—but wouldn’t it just be nice to experience it?”
Alisha doesn’t quite know what there is to experience in the pitch dark. Aren’t beaches usually at their most romantic during sunsets? But she shrugs and smiles because she always has a hard time telling her girlfriend no when she uses those puppy-dog eyes, and with a boisterous cheer, Rose plants her hands on Alisha’s shoulders and steers her down the branching path. Soon their flip-flops clap against wooden floorboards. Once they are out from behind the tall hedges lining the oceanfront of the property, Alisha can much better hear the rush and sigh of the ocean tide as it breaks against the shore.
They walk out to the wooden railing at the side of the large, painted wood wall that serves to block out light peeking in from the open path between the hedges. To their right descends a ramp to the sand. Down along the beach wander a few other idle figures, silhouetted against the thick darkness.
“Look! You can see the stars!”
Alisha raises her eyes. A wistful sigh falls from her and without even thinking about it, she crosses her arms over the railing. “Yes. Wow. They really are lovely, aren’t they?”
In the distance, a ukulele plays. Its notes are nearly lost to the wind.
Rose’s smile widens. She turns and leans one hip against the rail, curled towards Alisha like she has a secret to share. Somehow, even in the dark and cut off from all light, her blue eyes still glimmer. “When I was little, I used to make up constellations and give them silly names.”
“Oh?”
“I’d try to think up the wildest stories I could using what I’d see off the nearest law firm billboards.”
Alisha tries to abort her laugh and hide it behind a snicker but fails terribly. “Really?”
Rose shrugs and looks back out to the black depths of the ocean. Further beyond, where the horizon should meet the sea, there’s a thin divide that’s barely perceptible between the different shadowed hues. “There’s not much else to do when you’re living out of the back of a van with a bunch of other people.”
Alisha tilts her head and watches her. When the next sea breeze washes in, it lifts her bangs off her face and toys with the tail of her hair. Alisha breathes in and her lungs swell deep with sea salt and something else—something fresh.
Something that feels like it could still just begin, even at this midnight hour.
“There was a field trip when I was in the fourth grade,” Alisha begins, “to a planetarium.”
Rose turns and pins her with her attention. Suddenly, Alisha feels like the most important person in the world. “Yeah?”
Alisha smiles and ducks her head, eyes falling to the wood grain she can barely make out under her fingers. “The star show was amazing. I learned a lot about the sky and the seasonal constellations that you can see in different hemispheres—but more importantly, I think that was the first time I learned just how small I was. In the span of the universe, I mean.” She clears her throat and looks skyward to the blanket of stars spread above them from side to side. “I remember when I got home, I couldn’t stop crying because I felt so insignificant.”
“Aw, Lisha…”
Alisha shakes her head and smiles. When she meets Rose’s eyes, she’s unafraid. “But now that I’m older, I think I appreciate the sight—more than I did when I was nine, anyway. There’s something to be said for how comforting it is to be reminded that not everything you do has to hold power.”
Rose laughs. It’s bright and happy. Freeing. Slowly, she crowds Alisha against the railing until the edge of it digs into the small of her back. Alisha rests both hands on the wood behind her, and gently, Rose lays hers overtop. Both thumbs rub circles into the back of Alisha’s hands.
“You like the strangest things, Lisha,” Rose hums.
Still smiling—as if being around Rose ever allows her to stop—Alisha leans forward. “Says the woman I happen to like the most,” she says and softly, presses her lips to Rose’s.
Rose chuckles into it and wraps her arms around Alisha’s neck. Their bodies press flush together, and Rose kisses her again. And again. And again, as the ocean slips out and returns back to the shore.
prompt: “Was Too Hard on Them” + Zelos (& the gang)
requested by: @kohakhearts
BACK AT IT AGAIN MAN i have fantastic friends & they all gifted me so many more ToS req’s for the bad things happen bingo after “Apnea” and honestly...i’m so happy man. Returning to ToS is recipe for instant joy
my AMAZING friendo taylo req’d “Was Too Hard on Them” w/ Zelos, if I remember right, the req was for the group being too hard on him. and what a GREAT prompt it was!!
also, how could i not toss my boi Lloyd in here to try and help??
it’s Zelos Angst Hours, babey. hope you enjoy!! feel free to req any of the last remaining bad things happen bingo prompts if you see something you like!
o - o - o
That’s My Emotional Support Acute Stress Response, Sir
[Read on AO3]
o - o - o
There’s fight, flight, freeze, and then there’s Zelos, who is pretty sure he has improvised a hidden fourth option of saying fuck it.
He’s not sure if it’s morally right to storm off in a--let’s be honest--deliberate, if petty, effort to guilt everyone else. Hell, Zelos isn’t one to think he typically has the luxury of debating the morality of anything in his cursed life, but being around those losers with all of their starry-eyed hope and determination has made him…think. And he hates that. He’s bad at that. Just like he’s bad at everything else.
So why is he overthinking his own anger again? He’s right to be angry. He knows he is.
Why does he feel pathetic?
“Zelos, wait!”
Zelos shuts his eyes, as close as he will let himself get to a grimace in someone else’s company. He adds a well-plastered smile, which usually does the trick. “Lloyd, I’m fine. I’m just takin’ a walk.”
“Yeah, away from camp.” Lloyd’s careless, heavy footfalls are one of his many signatures that make Zelos think, Y’know if I kept my eyes closed, I think I’d still know who it was walkin’ beside me. The brunet has a wild way of creating so much more clumsy, eccentric noise than he needs to. “What if you run into monsters?”
“Aw, are you worried about me? That’s cute.”
“Zelos…”
Zelos shrugs and lifts his hands. “I think I can take care of myself. Though it’s sweet of you to worry.”
“I’m always worried about you.”
Oh.
A twig snaps under Zelos’ shoe. He pauses, the small sound enough to break his train of thought. Or maybe that was courtesy of the humble honesty in Lloyd’s words; Lloyd who is always so forthright he doesn’t even have it in him to have a dark, knotting mess in his own head like Zelos.
“Colette’s worried too. I think everyone is, really.”
Damn.
Lloyd continues as if he doesn’t see or notice the internal knot winding itself tighter and tighter inside Zelos. Or maybe he does and he’s trying in his own Lloyd-ish-way to make it better. “If we took it too far, you can always tell us. Y’know? It’s not funny if it hurts you.”
Zelos chuckles. It sounds genuine even to his own ears. He fixes his gaze on the dark greenery around them. “What, you think I can’t take a good ribbing now and then?”
“I know that you haven’t looked at me once since I followed you out here.”
Zelos exhales and turns, which admittedly is probably exactly what Lloyd wants. The brunet even proves it by softening, the hard look in his brown eyes melting.
“There,” Zelos says and he throws on his own breathtaking smile for good measure, the one he knows gets a rise out of the girls in Meltokio. “Now I’m looking at you. Does that convince you that I’m fine? Will you leave me alone?”
Lloyd’s eyes openly search his face.
How does he do that? How does he feel comfortable enough to wear his heart on his sleeve where anybody can see it? Where anybody can take it and judge it for its own value?
How is he that brave?
“Do you want to talk about it?”
The idea is so, so ludicrous. Zelos can’t hold back the scoff that bursts up out of him. “Talking about it--”
“--you’re not looking at me again--”
“--talking about it would be suggesting that there is something wrong.” Zelos bites his words off his tongue as he turns back to Lloyd again because the young man is infuriating when he wants his way. “Which, for the record, there isn't. I’m fine. I’m not going to be bothered or put-off by a little thing like a good joke.”
Lloyd’s frown is as much of an answer as anything.
“Don’t believe me? Here, then listen to this,” Zelos adds and points to either side of his cheeks, “listen to the sounds my mouth is making: I’m glad they’re laughing at me. We’ve all been having a time of it lately. Sheena, especially. You know, I think I actually saw her smile just now?”
Lloyd blinks like he hadn’t thought about it.
It sets Zelos off again. “In fact, I think that was the first time I’ve seen her legitimately laugh after what happened with Corrine. And if that’s the case, then so what if a few things might rub me the wrong way? It’s fine. Good, even. It’s not like I’m good for anything else other than a big joke, am I right--”
“--what did you say?”
There it is again.
Somewhere out there, somehow, a roulette wheel is spinning with a grand marquis sign high above it, labeled: “What Will Zelos Do Now?” There are only three spots on this multi-colored spinning disk, each of them more exciting than the last: Flight. Fight. Freeze.
Freeze. Flight. Fight.
Fight. Freeze. Flight.
Freeze.
“Fuck,” Zelos breathes and Lloyd grabs at Zelos’ shoulders like he’s just said he’s going to jump off a cliff or something. Zelos would be lying if he tried to say he hadn’t thought about it before.
“What are you talking about, Zelos? You’re good for a lot! You’re not just a punchline!”
Lloyd shouts and hot and cold and iron and sand are a strange mixture to throw into the interior of his ribcage but it’s there, all clanking around and spinning like someone set a mixer to the highest speed and forgot the damn thing was plugged in. Zelos squeezes his face shut. “Aw, shit. Okay. Fuck. I know I started it, but can we not have this conversation?”
“But--”
“Listen.” Zelos’ chest is tight, tight, tight, and he doesn’t know how to loosen it. “I know you’re great and you mean every word you say--” --because if there’s one thing vastly different between Lloyd and him it’s that Lloyd couldn’t tell a lie to save his life-- “--but it’s just not gonna work right now, okay? Believe me.”
Lloyd’s hands on his shoulders tighten for one awful stretch of a minute.
Slowly, they pull away.
Zelos rubs a hand over his face and doesn’t want to think about what look Lloyd’s probably got on his face now. “Don’t…take this the wrong way. I appreciate what you’re trying to say. But right now? I think it’s best if I am just our local ‘punchline’ guy if that’s what you wanna call it.”
“But it hurts you.”
And Lloyd says it like it’s the only thing that matters.
Is it?
“Today, maybe.” And that honesty is harder than Lloyd knows for him to admit. When he meets Lloyd’s open-field brown with his guarded-shield blue, a small smile unwittingly stretches across his face. “But not tomorrow. Or the day after. And listen, I know I goof a lot, but I mean it when I say that it usually…doesn’t hurt. Not like this. Today was just…”
Thinking back on it, Zelos isn’t even sure he can remember just what it was that set him off into fuck it mode. Maybe it wasn’t important in the end.
“You really do mean that?”
“I told you I did, didn’t I?”
“I just…” Lloyd’s face twists and okay, Zelos kind of hates that. He hates that he’s the cause of it more. “Can’t always tell, I guess. I hate sacrifices and this whole thing kind of feels so close to being another one, y’know?”
Is a mask a sacrifice?
“But I’ll trust you,” Lloyd slowly says. “So that means you’ve gotta tell us: if someone says something that goes too far or we’re being too hard on you, speak up. You don’t have to sit through it because you think what we need to feel better is something that’s at the expense of you.”
I’ll trust you.
Oh, if Lloyd only knew those are the last three words he should ever be saying to him.
“No one is going to resent you because you were being honest with us when something actually hurt you.”
Ah.
When Zelos looks away this time, Lloyd doesn’t challenge him or call his attention back. Instead, he waits. And he waits. He waits as long as Zelos needs until finally, he thinks his throat has stopped being too tight to allow his stupid vocal cords to function.
“We should return to camp,” Zelos rasps.
“Yeah. If that’s what you want.”
And Lloyd--stupid, silly, open, brave Lloyd--stubbornly doesn’t leave his side the entire walk back.
There’s flight, freeze, or fight. And then there’s Lloyd, who Zelos is pretty sure has improvised a hidden fourth option to just face it.
YAY SO I CAN FINALLY RELEASE THIS LAKJSDLFKJDF a while ago, it was my good friend Ollie’s birthday and a few of us got together and made a zine for him filled with fanfics and fanarts that we all made. My contribution was Ristelle, using the “ballroom dancing” prompt that Ollie had given me for them AGES ago
it’s so nice to be finally able to deliver on this!! I hope you enjoy the sap!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OLLIE!
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La Valse de L’Amour
[Read on AO3]
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Where Rita Mordio first went wrong was looking at her hands. And it’s admittedly funny, maybe: how sensory memory can be such an experiential thing to relive over and over and over again. What’s not funny is her memory and all of her foolish feelings and her hypersensitive nerves getting in the way of her vital work.
She switches on the lab’s lights and glances at her fingers. Her face burns red. The memory of warmth and satin white gloves under those same fingers the previous night floods her, latches like a sticky glob of honey to the inside of her brain.
It’s stupid. It’s so stupid.
But there’s a song stuck in her head now: some waltz-y schmaltz with bouncing strings that encourages her feet to move in a bending, swinging rhythm like the sway of the ribbons that dangled from Estelle’s hair. The princess’ pink up-do had been wrapped in gleaming, pale turquoise. Last night, Rita had half-wondered if she was seeing things or if Estelle’s hair really was sparkling with stars. Maybe she had one too many glasses of champagne?
But gosh; Estelle had been gorgeous in that aqua gown. A vision. And the way her eyes wrinkled at the edges when she laughed—
Rita stops herself and smacks her burning cheeks with both hands. Damn it! Focus, Rita! You have important research to do!
But all of your work is for her, anyway, isn’t it?
Rita swallows and ignores the orchestra in her head and the way she wants to spin to her desk and slams her hands on the worktable. She ignores the voice in her head that asks, So what does this mean? and challenges it by asking, What does what mean?
That you’ve devoted the rest of your life to helping one girl and now the only thing you can do is think about the way her hand fits perfectly in yours?
Rita shoves her hands over her face again, moaning to herself. “Ugh. Stop it…”
But the heat of Estelle’s waist under her hand is hard to forget. The twin contact points of Estelle’s palm against hers; the gravitational pull to draw the princess flush against her as they danced. Estelle had such grace to her in the arched line of her spine; such perfect ballroom behavior that was all learned, no doubt. Something she had lived under and studied because she was a princess and could have been the empress and those were the kind of things that made Rita sweat when she remembered that they were, in fact, fact.
Her eyes had followed the sweep of Estelle’s lifted jaw many times last night. The pale, soft skin of her neck had been unbearably tempting, something Rita hates actually admitting. But maybe in the solitude of her lab, such thoughts were…permissible.
And yet even with such practiced poise due to a childhood Rita had never known, she was still the same Estelle.
The bend of her painted lips to part around her kind smiles hadn’t changed. The way her sea green eyes bored into Rita and didn’t waver as Rita babbled while they stood beside the buffet table. The way Estelle’s entire universe, for one breathless moment, revolved around her. Under that kind of attention and pressure, something in Rita forgot to function.
It didn’t matter how boring their conversations were. Estelle had gotten Rita to open up about all sorts of research, even the dustiest, oldest ones of her school-hood studies, and Estelle had listened to every factoid and tangent without a single complaint.
Such an earnest audience had been—still is—the most humbling thing to experience.
Rita turns around and leans against her lab worktable. Her hands curl against the edge and remember the way she had slid those fingers up along Estelle’s arm. She remembers Estelle’s gasp: the tiniest hitch in her breathing that set off fireworks in Rita’s gut.
They had danced.
And the sway of their bodies had been everything for those few minutes of a perfect dream.
Rita slides down to the floor and brings her knees up to her chest. She cups her hands over her face; after a moment, they slide down to clasp over her chest. She closes her eyes.
“Damn,” she whispers to the air. “Can’t believe I’m in love with a fucking princess.”
But man, do I wish I could dance with her every day.
here we go here we go another fic for my “Bad Things Happen” Bingo card! I’m LOVING getting the chance to write for Tales of bbies again!! Coming back to Yuri & Estelle for this one was like, returning home a little bit. ;n;
if you like what you see, feel free to request any prompts not claimed from my bingo card, btw! I’ll write for Tales of Zestiria, Vesperia, or Symphonia!!
o - o - o
Remedial
[Read on AO3]
After Brave Vesperia finally tracks down Phaeroh, Yuri falls ill. Estelle only wants to help.
o - o - o
The curtain doesn’t do him the courtesy of rustling even the slightest bit in warning, which means that most likely, Yuri’s caught with a dumb look on his face as he stares up at the ceiling with one forearm laid across his brow when Estelle ducks her head into the space around his bed.
“Yuri?” she asks and her voice is sweet and so quiet that Yuri can’t even be mad. “Can I come in?”
Yuri half-wonders what’s the point of saying no. “Sure.”
Estelle smiles. Her lips are pale, pulled too thin. She steps beyond the thick curtain and sets herself down in the creaky wooden chair at his side. Yuri’s arm drops over his stomach. Whatever that broth is, steaming in the clay bowl cradled between her hands, it smells amazing.
“What’d you bring me?” Yuri rasps. He almost manages to sit upright before Estelle puts a hand against his shoulder.
“Here,” Estelle says and there’s a small clink as she sets the bowl on top of the end table. “You’ll be uncomfortable sitting against that wall there as it is.”
Yuri sighs. He curls over his lap and decidedly doesn’t fight Estelle as she grabs his pillow, fluffs it, and then props it between his bent spine and the stucco. Once satisfied, she gives a quiet and content, “There,” and eases him back.
Damn it.
It’s actually comfy, too.
“You don’t have to baby me. I’m sick, not dying.”
Estelle sits. Her hands do an odd flutter between the bowl on the end table and her lap. Then, after a moment of pause and a brave set to her jaw, she picks up the bowl again. “I-I mean, I’m not…trying to baby you.”
Yuri watches Estelle’s face.
When he doesn’t say anything, just as he thought, she begins to deflate. “Am…am I helping wrong…?”
Yuri pauses.
He looks to the soup in her lap. Chunks of carrots and celery and noodles slowly swim in the creamy broth, all mismatched and uneven, like someone with unpracticed hands had prepared them and before he knows it, another sigh has slipped free and he’s got both hands in his long hair, pulling it back. His teeth tugs loose one of his rubber bands he’s always got tucked under his Blastia bracelet.
“Hand it over,” he says once his hair is up.
Estelle looks up and blinks. After a moment, she nods and hands him the bowl.
Yuri hisses.
Quickly, Estelle takes it back before the soup can slosh out over his lap.
“It’s hot.”
“Y-you asked for it!”
“Of course I did! I’m hungry! But damn, give a guy a warning before you…” Yuri huffs and stares up at Estelle, standing over him at his bedside with soup boiling hot against her hands, something that should hurt her, and yet she doesn’t say a word. There’s no pain on her face other than the wide-eyed and flustered concern already there that’s aimed at him.
Yuri turns away. A chuckle at himself slips free.
Hesitantly, Estelle mimics him. She looks around the curtained-off space and then slowly sits back down.
“Let’s try that again,” Yuri finally says after his amusement has passed. He holds out his hand.
Estelle pulls back. “It’s hot.”
“I know that now.”
“You still want it?”
“Of course; I said I was hungry, didn’t I?”
Estelle bites her lip, but a humored smile still cracks through. She reaches for the cloth running over the end table and folds it against the bottom of the bowl. “Here.”
“Thanks.”
It’s still warm through the runner, but not scalding. Yuri carefully blows across the soup’s surface and breathes in. The savory aroma is still amazing; its heat steams and curls against his face, clearing the pounding congestion thick in his head. He breathes in once more and then slowly releases it all. Despite himself, his eyes slide closed. He’s not sure he ever wants to open them again.
“It’s a special Mantaic recipe,” Estelle murmurs. “At least, that’s what the innkeeper said. The herbs are supposed to be local, native to the oasis. He didn’t let me touch them, but I helped with everything else.”
“Estelle,” Yuri says. “Have I told you recently that you’re the best?”
Estelle giggles. “Of course you have. Many times.”
“No. I haven’t.”
Estelle doesn’t know how to respond to his calm, blatant refusal. Yuri can tell. He knows such candidness would feel almost backhanded, too, if the deprecation wasn’t aimed at himself instead of her. She stares at Yuri and Yuri stares back with a knowing, patient smile; the bowl sits warm on top of his thighs.
“Yuri--”
“--you’re not poison, Estelle.”
Estelle’s breath hitches.
“You’re helping everybody as much as you can.”
The world warps and burns before her eyes. She swallows and nods.
“Thank you, Yuri,” she whispers.
For a long moment afterward, Estelle sits with her head bowed and Yuri lets her, slowly taking sips of the soup she made him. When finally, she lifts her gaze to him again, she gives him a watery smile. Yuri sets the bowl back down on his lap. He reaches out a hand.
Without hesitation, Estelle’s fingers interlace with his.
HOLY COW IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL????? IT LOOKS SO. SO PRETTY. WHAT DID WE DO TO DESERVE THIS??
I HAVE NO IDEA HOW HE PULLED OUT THAT SWORD FROM THAT CHICK??? IS SHE LIKE A WALKING ARSENAL OF WEAPONRY???? OR SOMETHING??
cue BDG’s “What? HELL YEAH What?!”
ALSO WHY DID THAT LET THE MC BREAK HIS IRON MASK OFF
IDK MAN BUT THAT SHIT WAS COOL
KINDA FELT SYMBOLIC
I’M GONNA THINK ABOUT MASK-BREAKAGE FOR DAYS
also can i just say how much i fucking love the title
“Tales of Arise”
WHAT HELL YEAH WHAT
The UH OK I GUESS...
I know this is like......the name drop and first trailer and everything but....where’s the other members of the party
Also the teaser words could like..............not be any vaguer
“Everything we knew......................was a lie.”
okay bud but like so did all the other Tales of MC’s
so uh
ANYWAY I didn’t see the E3 presentation myself if anyone did and has more to add, plz feel free too! Overall, I’m really excited because I ALWAYS am with Tales games so we’ll see how it goes!!
