Disclaimer: I don't own any characters of Tales of Symphonia, I only own Saphira really. There might be a handful of new characters later on and, if you do not recognise them, then they belong to me.
Eyes of a jewel.
Lloyd Irving paced anxiously, swallowing what felt like a grapefruit-sized lump in his throat.
He had no idea how long he was doing it and he was sure that he was creating a rut in the floor as he did but that didn't matter in the least to him. He was far more concerned about his wife, Colette Br, as she was going through hell and back. He felt like his heart was ready to burst, his mind was racing and he couldn't help but finely polish his exsphere whilst he was growing steadily nervous as each and every second passed.
About a year or so had passed since the adventure with Emil and Marta. After declaring his love for the Chosen of regeneration, Colette Brunel, Lloyd had decided to marry her and here they were a few years later.
It was very hard to believe that their whole adventure began only five years ago.
Lloyd stopped pacing upon hearing some loud, blood-curdling screams coming from the door he was just passing. The sword master's anxiety grew tenfold when he heard his wife's shrieks of agony from inside the room he feared so much.
He felt an almost uncontrollable urge to rush over and break down the door so he could be with his wife, however the only people who were keeping his rampaging emotions at bay was his best friend, Genis, his school teacher (and Genis' sister), Raine Sage, and there was even Noishe who popped his head through the window to try and calm his master down.
The dog-like creature's abnormally big ears swivelled in the nervous wreck of a man's direction.
Sensing his best friend's worry, Genis closed his eyes calmly and said "Come on, Lloyd, do try to calm down!"
Lloyd stopped dead in his tracks and looked at his friend as if he had grown another head. How could he calm down at a time like this!? He was about to go through one of the biggest changes a man should ever have to go through. How could he be calm!?
All this basically was was a little trip towards the House of Salvation before Colette had started to start going into...he swallowed, not wanting to finish that thought. Thankfully they were in the church now so the maids and nuns were looking after Colette in her fragile state. The fact that he was in a church really didn't make him feel any better, though.
He opened his mouth to argue when he was cut off by a shrill cry of agony, albeit it was muffled due to the door acting as a barricade.
Its volume may have been stifled by the door, but that didn't stop Lloyd from jumping as he whirled on his feet to face the door.
"C-Colette!" He yelled, rushing towards the door as he lost all control of himself.
Thankfully Raine had the sharp reflexes to yank her former student backwards and away from the door that was driving him over the edge of insanity. The teacher managed to calm the frantic man down by giving him a hard whack across the back of his head, instantly halting him as he froze in place.
Wide-eyed, Lloyd reached up to rub tenderly at the back of his head and he shot a filthy glare at Raine who gave him a glare right back that dared him to say a word lest he wished for another hard smack.
Pursing his lips shut to avoid more physical abuse, Lloyd gave an impatient groan as he frustratedly sunk down on the seats next to the two whom had came to give him support. He tossed his head into his hands, hiding his face in his fingers as he shuddered fearfully. He couldn't lose his wife, he just couldn't!
He couldn't bear the thought of losing Colette over something like this, he didn't want to lose his soulmate!
It was then that he felt a kindly hand place itself on his back and he reacted by lifting his head up just a few fractions so he could see the owner of said hand.
He saw Genis smiling gently at his friend as he stroked his back to reassure him "Lloyd, Colette is the chosen! She'll be perfectly fine..."
Lloyd smiled sincerely at Genis. He could always rely on the teen, that much was true. He can't believe how everything had changed over these past few years, in fact as he thought about it, it was pretty darn creepy to think about. It all started with a journey for the world regeneration process and now here they were, many years later. He couldn't believe how much the world had changed since then.
He was married to the most selfless and beautiful girl in the world, he was given the occupation of protecting Colette whenever they had to go on special trips. They were even welcomed back in Iselia with open arms...although they were very weary around Lloyd at first as he had accidentally caused an attack on the village, thus getting him exiled for a spell, before he became a hero.
But evil continued to lurk in the shadows to try and disrupt the age of piece.
Lloyd was mercilessly ripped from his nostalgia-filled-flashbacks when he heard the loud shrill screams of Colette. His heart had basically dropped right down into his stomach and jump back up to his throat when he felt terror give his blood an icy cold chill.
The shrill screams were much louder than before and it made the man in red jump a second time as he basically shot up from his chair and this time, nobody was quick enough to stop him from slamming his body against the door frantically.
Each slam of the door trying to break it down was rewarded with pain and a small grunt of discomfort but he just knew he had to get in there.
He didn't care for himself, he had to make sure that Colette was alright!
As Colette's screams got louder and louder, Lloyd's slamming got increasingly more intense as he tried his best to break the pine door down.
Finally, after knocking the door down, Lloyd basically bolted into the room and what he saw made him freeze in the doorway with his mouth agape and his eyes wide in their sockets. He couldn't control his heart rate any longer as he stared at the scene in front of him.
All was quiet now...except for the noise he had been waiting to hear.
Soft little wails filled the room as he entered and he could feel his mind bursting with several thoughts.
Colette lain in bed, her long blonde hair frizzy and her face damp from the whole ordeal. She wore a gown as she held a pink bundle in her arms. It was about the size of a loaf of bread and she cradled the thing from side to side as she murmured endearments to it. She had a soft wistful look inside her eyes as she breathlessly spoke to the tiny parcel she held on to.
Lloyd gulped. So the moment had finally arrived...he was a father. He felt his eyes grow misty as he ran a sweaty hand through his messy locks of brown hair that was sticking out on all angles much more than usual.
He knew that Colette must have heard him enter (if not for the door crashing down) as she turned her head towards the guardian in red and smiled weakly at him.
"Hello there, Lloyd..." She breathlessly spoke in a hushed whisper "...why don't you come in, take a look at our baby?"
Lloyd felt his whole upper body freeze. She was seriously inviting him over towards them, to see his newborn child? He couldn't help but nod subconsciously as a small smile had managed to come across his lips as he took a slow shaky step towards the bed.
As he advanced towards the bed, Lloyd was met by the midwife (or one of the church maids who acted as a midwife from time-to-time) whom smiled giddily as she carried a wooden pail of water as well as a few used towels that were damp already. Her pinched up face was all chubby and she seemed to have her eyes permanently fixed closed despite clearly being able to see everything around her.
The woman leaned in to whisper in Lloyd's ear "It is a girl, a beautiful baby girl..."
The man felt his heart stop once more. A girl? He had a daughter? How was he supposed to respond to this news? He didn't know how he could, honestly, but he inhaled heavily as he put a hand to his chest and tried to make his heart work again, only when it did it went into overdrive. He now felt like he was going to faint!
He forced his legs to move even though he could feel his knees caving in and his hands shaking. He cautiously approached the bed and slowly got down on his knee as he sat by Colette's bedside. He leaned forwards and watched as Colette slowly pulled away a fold of blanket so the newborn's pinkish face could be revealed.
There, wrapped in a flannel blanket, was his flesh and blood.
Lloyd was wordless as he stared at his daughter's face for the first time.
The child had a very chubby face and she had a lot of her mother in her, including the inkling that her eyes were as blue as the daylight cloudless skies or even a rapid running waterfall glimmering in pure sunlight -just like her mother's eyes. Only difference really was that her hair was a soft silky brown colouration. It was a tad exaggerated around the hair line as quite a few strands of her hair were sticking out at odd angles. She clearly got the hair from her father.
"W-Woah...s-s-she's so beautiful..." Lloyd smiled, tears finally running down his cheeks as he allowed the baby girl to clutch his finger in her tiny fist. It didn't hurt but Lloyd was stupefied as to how something so small and frail could be so strong. That just made him all the more proud.
Colette nodded in agreement, her eyes twinkling with tears as she smiled down at the infant.
She bent down and gave the child a kiss on the forehead, causing the newborn to let out a loud squeak of annoyance as she wriggled around in an unsettled manner inside her mother's embrace.
Lloyd simply smirked at this, furrowing his brows at his daughter.
He couldn't believe that despite being mere minutes old, that she was already showing that she strongly disliked kisses or any kind of affection.
The man with messy brown hair could only chuckle softly as he gently wrestled his finger out of the grip of his daughter and started to delicately brush it against the infant's cheek. She cooed and gurgled nonchalantly, obviously liking this much better then kisses from her mother.
The two parents fawned over their newborn child and reluctantly allowed Genis and Raine to enter the room so they could see the new life whence the lord priest and some sisters of the local church had so rudely interrupted them and asked if they should let the visitors in.
The two half-elf geniuses both basically went gaga over the little girl as they both made clever observations about who she would take over more. Eventually that transformed into a bet which both were determined to win.
"I bet you she will grow up to be like Lloyd!" Genis proclaimed quietly, holding his finger upwards with pride and authority.
Raine smirked, tutting as she winked at her Half-elf baby brother "Well, I bet that she will be like her mother!"
Both the parents raised brows of confusion at each other. These two were supposed to be mature and here they were making stupid bets, should they need to be reminded why they were the most logical of the group?
Neither Lloyd nor Colette knew how to respond to this without offending one (or both) half elf siblings. They simply shrugged in unison whilst they tried to ignore the bickering in the background, the newborn baby wasn't taking it well.
The poor bundle was whinging and whining as her face was starting to screw up and her lower lip was trembling.
They all stopped speaking when the little girl finally opened her mouth and started wailing her little lungs out.
This, of course, startled everybody out of their skins as they looked at the screaming little girl. They didn't know what to do, they couldn't even be able to discern what was the matter...until Colette had noticed something as she frowned down at the crying newborn.
She was so exhausted she didn't notice this little extra feature until now...!
"Hey, what's this?"
This grabbed everyone's attention as they looked closer at what Colette was inquiring about. It turns out that, embedded on the skin of the child's right hand, was a strange magenta mark that started to glow in a fluorescent glow that rivalled even the brightness of the sunlight that crept through the closed curtains of the window.
Everyone backed off from the crying baby as the more she cried, the more her hands glowing intensified to a more blinding glow. It was enough to make a person go completely blind as everyone was almost swallowed up by the intense pink glowing.
Upon looking closely at the mark with squinted eyes, it looked like some kind of symbol which was sort of familiar to the trio.
Whatever the mark was, it's glowing was what seemed to be causing the little one some discomfort.
Colette, adjusting the wriggling infant in her arms, decided to take action. It broke her heart to see her little one in pain and she wasn't going to stand for it, she couldn't just stand by and let whatever was making her angel unhappy hurt her! So, with a very tender hand, she placed a finger against the mark and gently started to rub small circles around it.
Underneath the mark, she could feel some sort of cramping of the muscles under the back of her daughter's tiny hand and Colette started to hum a soft angelic melody as she tried to soothe the child and get her to stop crying.
Lloyd watched in awe as he observed the bond between Colette and their newborn daughter and he remembered the time Colette lost her voice and drew letters on his palm to try and communicate. It seemed similar to this and he couldn't help but watch with a look of disbelief as not only did the child's cries dull into small whimpers and hiccups but the glowing eased off and subsided into almost nothing.
Genis and Raine looked at each other, amazed of what they had just witnessed. Now it was their turns to be stunned into silence!
They tried to find the words to say what they were going to think about this until Raine finally spoke, trying to hide a small excited smirk, about doing some research upon this.
She slowly backed off out the door, grabbing Genis' hand in hers as she made him back off along with her.
The younger half-elf seemed mildly annoyed by this but complied none-the-less as he gave his friends a congratulatory grin as he left with his sister.
"Well, we'll leave you guys alone...but we're going to look into that mark, right?" She looked at Genis who trembled over his sister's gaze. The smaller half elf simply nodded violently as if slightly frightened by Raine but allowed her to drag him along behind her.
Genis informed the two as he and his sister disappeared out the building "By the way, we'll let everyone know that the kid is born and then they can come visit you!"
Lloyd smiled whence he knew his friend was gone. He was proud to call the half-elf his friend, even if he could be a bit of a smart alec at times.
He slowly turned his attention back to the baby, his new daughter, and watched with compassionate eyes as she slept soundly in her mother's arms. He rubbed his nose softly against the child, giving her an Eskimo kiss as he knew that the baby probably wouldn't mind this as signs of affection clearly irritated the tiny being which he considered to be more precious than an angel.
"So, Colette? What are we going to name her?" He asked in a hushed whisper, reaching over and stroking his daughter's head with two of his fingers.
The woman only continued to stroke the child's hand where the mark was and simply smiled with a weakened edge to it. That was a good question, what name could they call their newborn treasure? She thought long and hard for a name and even looked around the room to see if any ideas would come to her...and then her eyes laid on her husband's Exsphere.
That was it! That would inspire the perfect name!
She looked back down softly at the sleeping baby girl and suggested in a breathless tone "...What about Saphira?"
Lloyd smiled. He honestly liked that name, it was actually a very pretty name. It wasn't a very common one either but it wasn't unique, just the way he liked it. He gave a small nod of approval as he petted the tiny infant's head affectionately, his heart growing warm within his chest, and he looked adoringly at Colette before kissing her "I think its a cute name."
Lloyd softly leaned forwards and kissed his wife on the nose, this time provoking no response from the tiny clone of Colette. After parting from her just a tad so his face was inches from hers, he smiled delicately at her with his eyes full of compassion.
Then looked down at his sleeping daughter and then her birth mark "...Welcome, little Saphira..."
A/N: Here's the first chapter, I hope you all like it. I wanted to create a sweet moment between Lloyd and Colette as well as little Saphira (btw, her name is pronounced Sa-fear-ah) and let's see what happens next. I'm currently playing the game and I'm enjoying it.
-Chloemcg