Title: Sing for Me
Day/Theme: Nov 1: tears cannot be forgotten as long as there is song
Series: Tales of Symphonia
Character/Pairing: Colette, Genius, Raine, Lloyd, hints (if you squint) of Lloyd/Colette
A/N: I rather like this one. Especially the conversations.
Excerpt: There are no songs tonight, nor will there be for quite some time, and this is how reality sinks in.
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Colette likes to sing. While she isn't a songbird, thrilling away the lonely nights and painful days, she sings daily. Quiet humming when she's doing her schoolwork, solemn hymns when she practicing her prayers, bright tones when she's singing for a birthday.
(Genius thinks of recess games, skip rope and contests, Raine remembers reading in classrooms, the window half-open, and Lloyd recalls her bright, delighted face when she learned a new song.)
"It must be because your father is an angel," Lloyd says one day after pondering over this for quite some time.
"What is?"
"Well," Lloyd begins, using that tone of voice when he thinks he has it all figure out, "You're father might be an angel, right? And angels sing a lot, it might even be a requirement, so you must have got it from him."
"I see!" Colette nods, agreeing.
Genius sighs, looking up from his mathbook. "Lloyd, not all angels sing. We don't know if any one them even do sing. Colette's dad might not be an angel." He gives his friend a pointed look. "Can't it be that she just likes singing?"
Lloyd huffs at this. "That's so...boring. And simple."
Turning back this book, Genius mutters, "And just like you."
-x-
Her voice sometimes is blinding, it's so excited and eager. Colette's trying out a new song in front of them and sometimes she wavers, trying to catch the right pitch.
"That's right," Raine tells her, looking up from the piano. She isn't a good musician, the sheets of notes and lines not interesting her as much as the rocks in her backpack, the carvings in her books. She did study it a little, though, for music has affected society throughout the years.
"That's great," Lloyd cheers, unable to tell the mistakes. He's tone-deaf, Genius likes to say, unable to know the difference between a flat and a sharp, or two different scales for that matter.
Then Genius would correct himself and say that Lloyd probably doesn't even know what those are in the first place.
"Thank you!" Colette waves back and starts to make her way to them.
"Colette, be careful. There--" Genius starts to warn her, remembering her accidents. Between her and her friends lies a maze of wires, crisso-crossing from side to side with snares and hidden objects part of the landscape.
There's a thud and he winces.
-x-
Colette gets nervous around strangers. Not in all ways, she's too accepting and trusting for that.
(Lloyd thinks that's ok, but he's just like her. Only Raine and Genius have the experience that taught them to be wary, to be careful around others because you can never know just what they might be planing.)
When she starts travelling with just Kratos and Raine, she stops singing for a while. Homesickness, Raine chalkes it up as. It's expected that she'll miss home.
Then she remembers her silent companion.
Kratos is still very much a stranger, a man that appeared out of the blue. She doesn't trust him completely either, he seems to have too many secrets to be telling everything and not riddle it with lies.
Colette takes about three days to warm up to him (three days of curious glances and awed praises, of quiet conversation and tentative questions). She holds back her curiousity--she's not like Lloyd and Raine is glad for that.
It takes her a week to treat him as a friend. She laughs and trips and it is almost like being in the village again.
She doesn't sing still, something in her nervous and holding her back.
When Genius and Lloyd join them, she starts humming again.
-x-
"Maybe Kratos knows a new piece," Lloyd whispers to Genius and Colette. They're supposed to be sleeping, Kratos standing guard and the professor already conked out across the fire.
"Oh, but..." Colette starts, not sure if she should ask.
Genius yawns and replies irritatedly, "Why don't you ask him in the morning? We're doing nothing but walking then." He turns over, the heat getting to him. "We should sleep now."
"And there are people in other cities," Lloyd ploughs on, ignoring the last comment. He's still interested in this topic, which might be a record if Genius tries to think about it.
He doesn't want to, though, his eyes already heavy. "Lloyd, I'm trying to sleep." His words are slurred.
"Maybe we can even buy something."
Colette doesn't say anything, already fast asleep. Lloyd's still talking, not realizing he's the only one still awake aside from Kratos.
(The stoic guard hides a smile at this, amused by this idealistic boy. Then he gets up to remind him of the long day tomorrow.)
"And...."
"Lloyd."
"And...yes, professor Raine?" His eyes widen. "Professor Raine, why are you awake?"
"Because someone wasn't going to sleep like he should."
Genius laughs at his bumps the next day.
-x-
She sings at night, sometimes. It isn't very loud but it's comforting and that's all that matters.
Especially each time the world tilts over, an hourglass starting again, and no one can make heads or tails of it.
It's a lullaby, ferrying Lloyd and Genius off to dreams and nightmares when they can't sleep otherwise.
-x-
When Sheena comes, Colette stops singing for just one day.
"I feel like I know her already, " she explains.
"Colette," Lloyd says patiently, "She tried to kill you those times."
"But she was a nice person. I'm sure she had her reasons."
Genius shakes his head in resignation. "Only you, Colette, only you. Anyone else would be worried."
Lloyd thinks this over for a moment. "Maybe it's her angel blood. Angels are very forgiving, right?"
"You're never going to give that up, are you."
-x-
She doesn't sing at all now. She can't sing.
There are no flickers of recongition in her eyes, no fumbling fingers or flailing limbs. Her feet float above the ground, where she can't trip over anything, and she doesn't stutter or give wane smiles.
(It's annoying, Lloyd thinks, that he can't even tell her to be more careful, to stop worrying over everyone else. Especially now, when she needs to do it the most and she can't.)
At night, they curl up around ashes and stones, the grass their bed and the sky their blanket. She floats nearby, a planet with no orbit, an untethered kite, and her lips are as closed as ever.
There are no songs tonight, nor will there be for quite some time, and this is how reality sinks in.
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