Pre-game fluff featuring Lloyd, Colette, Noishe and Dirk. Frayed-Symphony gave me the prompt of "Lloyd and Colette cooking together for the first time. Whether they mess up or not can be up to you. Maybe they get too creative with the recipe. Noishe gets to lick the spoon of course".

This briefly references an event from the EX volume of the manga, specifically the short story with Genis and Lloyd surprising Colette with a birthday tea, but it's not necessary to have read that for this to make sense.

I'd imagine that the book Lloyd picks would be something along the lines of the Symphonia equivalent of 101 Dalmatians or The Incredible Journey, something with a happy end and nothing too upsetting, rather than something like White Fang or Call of the Wild which have some distressing parts in them.

For Frayed-Symphony. Thank you very much for such a fun prompt, I hope I've done it justice.

Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia.

Lloyd had been really happy with his plan for Colette's birthday. He and Genis had noticed that the village celebrations were more about the Chosen than Colette herself and last year had made a little picnic for her so she could have something fun to celebrate. This year he'd had the idea of helping her celebrate by making the weekend after her birthday a celebration weekend just for her, something completely separate from the village Chosen festivities where she could do whatever she wanted.

Somehow Dirk had managed to persuade Frank and Phaidra to give their permission for his plan and, once his father had told him that it was OK, he'd told Colette and asked her what she'd like to do. Initially she'd answered that whatever he thought would be fun would be good, but he'd insisted that she picked at least one activity, because it was her birthday celebration. She'd thought about it for a while then given an answer that had surprised him a little.

"I've never really been allowed to cook properly at home, because Grandmother and Father worry I might hurt myself, but I think I'd be OK. Maybe making a nice meal together would be fun. If you don't mind, I guess it's a bit of a silly idea," she'd said, her voice trailing off.

He'd reassured her, however, that if cooking was what she wanted to do then they would cook and that he actually thought it was a fun idea. She had told him that he should choose what to cook though, and after school on the Friday he'd gone to Genis and Raine's house to ask Genis for an easy recipe and to check that the plan of Genis and Raine coming over on Sunday for a birthday lunch was still OK. He did know how to cook some things, but he'd thought that as Genis was a better cook than he was he was probably the best person to choose a recipe that would suit a beginner.

"Pasta, absolutely anyone can cook pasta," Genis had answered, flicking through his recipe collection to find the right one. Then there'd been some horrible noises from the kitchen.

"Well, almost anyone," Genis had muttered under his breath, his searching becoming somewhat frantic. He'd quickly pulled a card out of the collection, told Lloyd he'd see him on Sunday and then had ran into the kitchen with an expression on his face that contained both horror and panic.

Lloyd had then quickly ran to the village shop, handed over the recipe card and asked the shopkeeper to gather the ingredients for it then had started looking for a present for Colette. He'd been so engrossed in the task of picking out the perfect present that he'd not watched what was being put into the paper bag. Knowing that anything extravagant, like the large plush toy dog that he so wanted to choose, would probably be frowned upon for being too frivolous a thing for the Chosen to have in her room he'd eventually settled on a small plush toy dog that he thought had a nice face and a book. Knowing that Colette often had to read dry, old texts because of her role he picked the most fun sounding one that he could find, making sure that it had dogs in it. He'd reached over and placed it on the counter and had checked with the shopkeeper that it was a nice story before paying and clutching the two bags carefully as he excitedly made his way home.

When he'd arrived he'd placed the bag with the food in it in the cooking area of the house, shown his father the presents as he'd carefully wrapped them and then had gone to finish the new pendant that he was making as another present for Colette.

He really, really wished he'd looked in the bag with the food in it. The day had been going so well, he and Dirk and Noishe had met Colette at the village gates in the morning to walk with her to their house to ensure she stayed safe, one of Frank and Phaidra's conditions for allowing her to go, and he and Colette had spent the day having fun. She'd loved the presents, even if it had taken her a while to open them, he really didn't think he'd used that much tape, had played a board game she liked with him and had spent time contentedly brushing Noishe's fur.

His heart sank as he looked at the ingredients though. In his rush to go and put out the (possibly literal) fire Raine had caused in the kitchen Genis must have grabbed the wrong recipe. He was sure Genis knew that he didn't like tomatoes, and even if he'd picked a recipe that included them to annoy him he was sure Genis wouldn't have done the same type of prank on Colette on her birthday weekend, and lurking in the bag along with the tomatoes were bell peppers.

"Is everything alright?" Colette asked as she noticed the look on his face, getting up from beside Noishe and walking over to him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't check the recipe Genis gave me, and, well," Lloyd muttered, tipping the bag over so that the contents emptied onto the table. "I think he gave me the wrong one."

At the sight of food Noishe walked over and began sniffing at the table. Colette passed him a tomato, knowing that he liked them and Lloyd very much did not.

"It's OK, we can just make it without the tomatoes and peppers," she said.

"The tomatoes are supposed to be for the sauce," Lloyd frowned, looking at the recipe. Colette leant over his shoulder to read it too.

"It says you can put cheese on top when it's done. Maybe we can make a cheese sauce instead?" she suggested.

"That, that might actually work," Lloyd said happily, sighing with relief that the plan to cook hadn't been completely ruined. He started gathering what he thought he remembered were the right ingredients for cheese sauce, things that luckily they already had in the kitchen, as Colette quietly made another tomato disappear by passing it to Noishe. Then they began working on the meal, Noishe sitting close by, trying to look uninterested but failing as it was rather obvious that he was hoping they'd drop crumbs on the floor.

Dirk tried to subtly keep an eye on them from a little distance away at his workbench. He wanted to give Colette the freedom that she clearly so rarely got but equally wanted to make sure that if they were changing the recipe that they weren't going to make something inedible. He'd promised Frank and Phaidra that Colette would be safe, and doubted they'd be happy if she returned with food poisoning.

Luckily Lloyd had remembered correctly that butter, milk, flour and cheese were the right components of cheese sauce, and they seemed to be making it correctly, although Dirk wasn't sure if the combination of that along with the original recipe's ingredients would work that well together. Colette and Lloyd seemed to be having fun though, Colette was being very careful around the heat and knives and while he wasn't sure about the taste what they were cooking looked safe to eat at least.

Lloyd looked at the pot containing the cheese sauce and decided it looked about done.

"You want to try it and check?" he asked, offering Colette the wooden spoon that they'd been using to stir it. She happily accepted it and carefully stirred the sauce again one more time before scooping up a small amount and tasting it.

"Mmm, I think that's good," she smiled, then squeaked in surprise as Noishe jumped up and licked the remaining sauce off the spoon.

"Noooooishe, now I have to wash that before we can use it again!" Lloyd grumbled as Colette tried to hide a giggle she was unable to resist uttering.

Lloyd stomped off to the sink and returned with the now clean spoon.

"Pasta should be done too I think," he said, scooping a couple of pieces out of another saucepan. He took one and offered one to Colette, chewing with a thoughtful look on his face.

"Yeap, that's done," he nodded.

"Just right," Colette beamed happily, agreeing.

Grabbing a couple of plates they carefully assembled the various components including the vegetables that they'd been cooking too, and put a generous portion on each plate. Lloyd grated a bit of extra cheese onto the top of each plate then they carefully took them over to the table.

Happily tucking in Colette smiled in delight.

"This turned out really nice," she said.

"It is pretty good," Lloyd agreed, grabbing some bread from the plate he'd placed on the table earlier to mop some sauce up with.

Dirk frowned slightly and walked over to where the rest of what they'd made which hadn't fitted onto their plates was sat in one of the pans.

"Do you mind if I..." he asked, gesturing at it.

"Please do, if you'd like," Colette nodded before reaching for some bread herself.

Dirk grabbed a spoon and tentatively tried a small bite. His eyes widened slightly in surprise and he shrugged, it turned out that they had actually made something that tasted nice after all. He got a plate and put some pasta on it for himself, joining Lloyd and Colette at the table.

They'd all chatted happily over the meal, and when they were all finished Colette stood up and reached for Lloyd's plate.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Washing up," she said, tipping her head to one side in a confused gesture.

"No you're not, it's your birthday weekend, sit down, I'll do it," Lloyd tutted at her gently and took her plate before she could pick it up herself. He walked over to the sink and Dirk joined him to help, Noishe once again moving over to the kitchen, this time hoping to be asked to help wash up by being allowed to lick the pan. A stern look from Dirk told him he was out of luck, however.

A short time later when he turned back to the table Lloyd noticed that Colette was looking at her book.

"I hope it's good," he smiled at her, sitting back down beside her.

"It looks really fun," Colette smiled at him. "It'd be nice to read it together. Hmm, but you read slower than me don't you?"

"I could read it aloud to you if you'd like?" Dirk offered.

Lloyd was about to protest that as they were both now teenagers they were much too old for bedtime stories when he noticed the delighted look on Colette's face.

"That would be lovely, if, if you're sure it's not too much of a bother," she said.

Lloyd realised that probably Colette hadn't had many bedtime stories read to her when she was younger. And it was her birthday weekend after all, if she wanted a story then she should have one. He smiled as he had a fun idea, and got up from the table again, saying that he'd be back in a minute.

He returned with blankets and pillows and made a kind of comfortable looking fort without a roof with them. If they were going to do something a little childish they might as well do it properly. Colette gasped in delight and hopped from the table onto the pile of pillows. Dirk chuckled and pulled a chair over as Lloyd joined Colette on the floor and Noishe curled around them both. Then he cleared his throat, opened the book and began to read. Lloyd looked over to Colette and smiled, really happy that his plan to give her a fun weekend had, so far, been a success.