First fic for Colloyd Week, organised by Darkhymns on Tumblr. Day one, "Promises". Plotless post-game fluff (as usual) featuring Noishe.
For my "Lloyd".
Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia. It belongs to Namco.
Noishe yawned and stretched, pointing his paws out as far as they could go, before shaking his head and rolling over slightly to look at Lloyd and Colette. They had decided that the weather this morning was ideal for a picnic, so they'd quickly packed a small hamper and walked to the perfect spot which had just the right mixture of sunshine and shade and the gentlest breeze so it was beautifully warm but not too hot.
They'd eaten some of the snacks they'd packed and then all of them had stretched out on the blanket, settling into a blissful state where they were so relaxed they were almost asleep but just awake enough to be aware of how cozy they were. The two of them were still that relaxed now he could see, their breathing, body language and occasional soft sighs telling him that.
Having spent a large amount of years around humans he'd learnt to understand them, both their spoken language and body language, rather well. These two he found particularly easy to understand, and not just because he'd known them for a long time, Lloyd his whole life and Colette most of hers. It wasn't just that they tended not to use over complicated verbal language, despite not having tails or ears sometimes their body language was nearly expressive as that of his canine relatives.
For example they had done the traditional human thing of having a formal celebration of their love, promising to be together always, but he could see that promise was expressed with more than just words and the matching rings on their left hands, and it was expressed many times both before and after that ceremony, often in subtle ways. A slight lift of one side of a mouth in the gentlest smile, the twining of fingers, warmth in their eyes directed at each other. He liked to imagine that if they had tails they would wag often at each other, that image made him smile.
It wasn't just a promise to each other that they expressed so well either, lots of the things they did told him that they'd always be with him too. He wasn't sure what the word he wanted was, something like the human concept of family or the canine one of pack, but something more, something special and unique. They'd all been through so much together, supported one another, cared about each other and always would. The gentle scritches in his favourite spot behind his ears, the warm hugs with that slight extra tight hold at the end, the way they would ruffle his fur playfully and so many other things all expressed a lot in simple gestures.
Feeling a sense of happiness that filled his whole body he let his tail thump against the ground in a gentle, slow motion then reached over to nuzzle his humans. They stirred slightly, Lloyd mumbling something about five more minutes as Colette reached up to gently stroke his fur. Then, still mostly asleep, she reached into a pocket and pulled out one of his favourite biscuits. That, he decided as he crunched the treat up happily, was one of his most treasured promises that they had made him, that they would always give him biscuits.