Disclamer : Tales of Symphonia belongs to its rightful creators and owners.
Summary : The best birthday present isn't necessarily an object you offer.
Author's note : English isn't my first language, it's French. If you spot any mistakes or weirdness, please feel free to notify me ! This is also a translation from a OS I wrote in two years ago.
This story is part of the writing month challenge from TheWritter1996: Write a one-shot per day and share it for an entire month. For more challenge, I decided to go one different fandom per day.
Her most beautiful birthday
The rays of the rising sun, caressing her white cheeks, accompanies by birds singing away were what woke Colette up.
Opening her eyes, she enjoys for a few more moments the warm softness of her sheets, the moment where the body, even if awake, wasn't completely out of its rest yet, when the mind was empty and didn't think of anything at all. She turned, took out her blankets, her skin shivering a bit from the change of temperature. She tossed them with her feet and stretched. Then, she sat, still enjoying the calmness of her room. On her bedside, the necklace Lloyd had offered her when she turned twelve: a star shaped pendant. It was battered, the first hand made jewel he created with his clumsy hands, yet it was the one she liked the most. Ever since their meeting, the young man took the habit of making her a new one each year, on the day she earnt another candle to blow out on her birthday cake.
Colette had never liked her bithday before she met Lloyd.
She was the Chosen One.
She was loved by all.
Yet she had never felt as lonely as when surrounded by admirers.
It was the Chosen they celebrated, Colette didn't matter much to them. She only was the sacrificial lamb and they all counted down, with a delirious fervour, the years, the months, the weeks, the days, the seconds that seperated her from the Oracle day which would send her off to meet her fate:
Dying and becoming an angel to save their land.
Lloyd, along with Genis and their teacher, had changed everything.
This day she loathed, they turned it into a party where the Chosne was forgotten and Colette was celebrated. They celebrated the day Martel allowed their friend to be born. And even the previous year, her last living year in theory, they still did it. Then, their adventures to save both Sylvarant and Tetheha'lla allowed her to remain alive, to finally be able to live as a woman, without counting down the time she had left before dying. Lloyd had freed her from her burden.
Today, she was turning seventeen, still she was sad.
Lloyd wouldn't be there to wish a happy birthday to her.
He had started a journey to destroy all the exspheres.
She understood that it was important, so she was mad at herself for being so selfish, wishing Lloyd's presence for herself when so many people out there needed him...
A noise then came from her window, hit by a rock. She went to it, drew the curtains then opened It. She remained speechless. Under dawn's ray, Lloyd was there, his eternal smile on his lips, his bag on his shoulder, a small jewelry box in his hand. He seemed tired, he had certainly travelled all night to surprise her in the morning.
"Happy birthday Colette!"
She rushed down the stairs, trying her best not to fall down, ran into the streets in her nightgown, bare foot, jumping in his arms. Colette then remembered something:
Lloyd has promised her to be there for each of her birthdays and Lloyd always kept his promises.
Seeing him on that particular day was the best of treasures.
The End