Post-first-game fic where Seles has moved from the Abbey to the Wilder mansion in Meltokio and Zelos and his friends stay there from time to time when they're near the city. I was imaging at this point she and Zelos are still at the stage where they care about each other a lot but are still having trouble talking to one another and admitting that. Set around the time of year when Winter Festival would be happening but when there's a smaller festival event before the main one (which is why not everyone's there like they would be for the main one).
For Nike for the Secret Santa event on the Colloyd group I belong to. I chose the prompt "Family get-togethers", I hope that it fits OK and that you like it. Merry Christmas! :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia.
It was odd, Seles thought, that she'd become so comfortable talking to someone she'd known for so much less time than her brother but still found conversations with him so awkward. She supposed that it was possible that Colette was a kind of relative because of the Chosen thing but she understood that family wasn't necessarily about blood relations anyway, she'd experienced that when she was younger with her brother, she hadn't cared that they had different mothers and neither had he, and she could see it with his friends.
It had been weird but very nice to have someone treat her as Seles, a person, rather than only paying attention to who she was in relation to others, the Chosen's half-sister or the daughter of the woman who killed the Chosen's mother. When she'd moved from the Abbey back to Meltokio she found she suddenly had more freedom but that some of the people in the city still avoided her or treated her as different or as though she was somehow less than they were. Colette didn't do that and completely understood what it was like to be treated as a title rather than a person. That was one of the things they'd talked about during the times when Colette and Lloyd had stayed in the mansion. Their favourite topic, however, was usually books.
When Colette was younger most of the time she'd mainly been given religious or educational books to read. She'd always treasured the opportunities to read fiction in school classes and still had a book Lloyd had given her for her birthday years ago which was a story that had dogs in it. Seles also thought that it was nice that one of the first things Colette had bought for herself when she'd had the time and money to get something that was a luxury had been her own copy of a book she'd loved reading in school. To other people the story might seem a little dull but Seles could see that Colette liked it because it let her see characters with an average, everyday kind of life rather than one that was so different like hers because of her role as Chosen.
Seles completely understood the appeal of seeing characters with different ways of life in books. Having been confined to the Abbey for a lot of her life she treasured the escape that books gave her, being able to go on adventures to far away or even imaginary places without having to leave her room. She'd been delighted when she'd moved back to the Meltokio mansion and discovered that the library was not only still there but had been added to so there were lots of new books for her to read. The joy on Colette's face when she'd said that her friend was welcome to borrow books whenever she visited had made her happy too.
Seles knew it was traditional in Meltokio for visitors to bring flowers, drinks or foods like chocolates as gifts when they were staying. Mostly not from experience but because it was one of the things she'd been taught in etiquette lessons. She liked the fact that Colette kept the spirit of that tradition but instead of bringing one of the traditional things would, if she'd discovered a new book she thought Seles would like, bring her the gift of a book instead. There'd often be food as well, usually something Lloyd had spotted that looked nice for them all to share.
This visit was no different in that they'd brought a book and food but the book had been wrapped to be saved as a present for the festival that they were celebrating and there had been a lot more food than usual because of the festival. Zelos had met up with them when they'd been close to the city and they'd decided it would be nice to spend the festival together and with Seles. Dirk had been in the area delivering a commission to a client and had been invited as well. Currently he, Lloyd and Colette were in the kitchen. They'd offered Tokunaga the chance to have some time off and to cook themselves. Seles was a little concerned about the traditional Dwarven pudding Dirk was making which sounded a bit like a variation on Dwarven Pot-Luck Surprise but where you deliberately picked the odd ingredients to put in rather than randomly threw stuff in. She wasn't quite sure about the little silver coins and charms that were supposed to be lucky if you got one of them in your portion, metal inside food didn't seem like a great mix to her, but the tradition of everyone stirring the pudding and making a wish was nice and Colette insisting that Noishe got a turn too resulted in the amusing sight of the arshis holding the end of the spoon in his mouth and trying to stir it and Colette then having to try stopping him licking the spoon or, worse, the bowl when he was done.
From some of the sounds coming from the kitchen trying to stop Noishe eating things seemed to be a reoccurring part of cooking the festival food for her friends but they sounded happy and were still singing some of the songs they'd all sung together earlier.
It turned out that while the two worlds had shared quite a few traditional festival songs there were some that had evolved to be a bit different. One particular one also had a Dwarven variant and happened to be the one none of them remembered all of the words to that well. That had provided some amusement as they'd all tried to remember what words they could and had ended up cheering some of the lines loudly and joyfully as someone remembered how the end of a bit they'd remembered the first part of went. Because all of them had been around the piano then she'd not felt as uncomfortable being around Zelos then but now the two of them were in the living room on their own while the others finished the cooking she'd found herself sitting in a friendly but slightly awkward silence.
Her eyes travelled around the room a bit and settled on the book Colette had given her, the most recent in a series that both of them enjoyed. She picked it up and ran her hand over the cover, admiring the drawing on it. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Zelos tip his head slightly as he looked over at the book.
"Is that a book from the adventure series with the talking magic cat, uh," he paused as he tried to remember the series name. He then mispronounced it slightly but Seles could tell he was thinking of the right one. She corrected him on the series name and then said yes, it was the latest one from that series.
"I've not read that one yet, just the first two. How many are there?" he asked, moving over from the armchair he'd been lounging in to sit on the other end of the sofa Seles was sat on.
"Six now, and a few short stories," she said. "I didn't know you read them."
"Colette recommended them to me. Almost insisted I read them in fact. I figured she might be a bit biased because there's some talking animals in it but nah, turns out they're pretty good. And I actually like that magical cat, he's not too cutesy," Zelos said.
"I like the cat too, and the way that some of the magic works, I thought that was clever," Seles said.
She soon found herself deep in discussion about the books, trying to be careful not to discuss any spoilers for the other books as she saw that Zelos had enjoyed the first two so much he'd definitely be reading the others. She jumped slightly when Colette called across from the dining table that dinner was ready as she put a large plate on the table then started to dance to the music that was now playing quietly on the record player with Noishe. The arshis had followed her from the kitchen with a hopeful look on his face, he looked a little bemused by the dancing but seemed willing to play along as she was heading back in the direction of the kitchen to fetch more of the food.
Seles blinked, realising how at ease she'd felt talking about the books. She walked over to the table and sat down, feeling quietly pleased when Zelos sat next to her. Soon plates were being passed around the table and the conversation turned to the food which was delicious, even the weird pudding turned out to be really nice and the finding the good luck charms tradition was actually pretty fun.
As they all headed to the kitchen carrying balanced empty plates to wash up Seles gently touched Colette's arm to get her attention. Her friend paused and turned to face her and Seles asked if Colette had recommended the series she had been talking to Zelos about earlier to him because she knew that would give them something they both liked to talk about. Colette gave her an innocent smile and the slightest hint of a shrug and then called out to Zelos to ask him if he'd read another book she'd recommended to him recently. One that Seles knew Colette knew she liked.
Zelos paused his friendly bickering with Lloyd about whether the younger man would soon be snoring on the sofa having eaten such a large meal to turn back and answer that yes, he had and had enjoyed it. Colette asked if he'd particularly liked a bit that she knew was Seles' favourite part and then subtly moved closer to Lloyd to allow Seles to join the conversation about the book. Seles noticed what she was doing and gave her grateful little smile and head nod.
Seles tried not to laugh as Colette quietly said "you will be snoring you know," to Lloyd, somehow managing to loop her arm around his without dropping any of the plates and nuzzling his shoulder, then Seles turned to Zelos and replied to what he'd said.
Sure enough when the washing up was done and they'd all settled in the living room Lloyd fell asleep and stated snoring lightly along with Noishe who had sprawled out comfortably by the fire. Nobody minded though, with Dirk there there were still enough of them to play the card game they'd picked to play earlier and Seles found herself smiling again as Zelos chose her as the person he wanted to play on his team.
The book had been a great gift, not only because it gave her something new to look forward to reading but also the opportunity to reconnect with her brother a bit. She caught Colette's attention and mouthed the words "thank you". Colette smiled back at her, whispered "you're welcome" then turned to her cards. The look that appeared on her face suggested that she had a really good hand but Seles didn't mind, after giving her such a wonderful gift her friend deserved to win a game or two of cards.