Final Fantasy XII 1. Chapter 1

A Sky Pirate's Odyssey

Chapter One: Imperials, Magicite and chance meetings in Palace treasuries

' It's mine, I found it!'

' And when I take it from you, it will be mine. Fran.'

' I think you had best give that to me.'

Fran knew from long experience that her height intimidated most Humes, particularly the males, and she used it to her advantage now, invading the young Hume's personal space.

The boy shied away but clutched the Goddess Magicite tightly in his hand, refusing to relinquish his prize, the prize that should have been their's.

She was wondering exactly how they would convince the Rabanastran boy to give up the Magicite without the use of violence when a sudden rumbling crash from outside the Palace distracted both her and Balthier briefly. It was all the distraction the thief needed.

'Exit stage right.' Balthier shrugged amusedly pushing himself away from the table he had been lounging against and bowing to Fran.

'Lead on, dear Fran.'

Fran left Balthier to chase after the boy and their prize and went to retrieve the sky cycle. The courtyard of the former Dalmascan royal palace erupted in violence as Imperials battled a swarm of insurgents that poured up from the bowels of the Garamsythe waterway.

It was typical of their jaded luck that they should pick the night of a rebellion uprising to steal from the Rabanastran Palace. Fran intended to speak to Balthier about his impetuousness once they were safely away from this ill-fated desert city.

The thief boy was clearly a simpleton, though he had nowhere to run and was like to be killed if he tried to escape into the chaos below the battlement, he did not stop running.

Fran decided to head him off using the sky cycle before Balthier lost his never very great patience and attempted to shoot the fleeing boy rather than chase him.

Still the boy resisted, however the emergence of Ifrit, cannonade pummelling the sculpted gardens of the royal palace, caused enough hesitation in the boy that Balthier was able to charge him and scoop him up before throwing the squirming youth over one shoulder.

Fran tasted Mist in the back of her throat but thought it only the residue from the soldiers and insurgents trading magickal blows below them.

It was only when the sky cycle's engines began to stutter and the vehicle stopped responding to her commands that Fran questioned this earlier assumption.

' It does not heed me. It will not obey.' She hissed as they began to plummet earthward.

' Not good.'

Balthier muttered in between exchanging warnings and biting remarks with the thief who dangled from their vehicle pulling them down all the faster.

Fran steered the stricken cycle towards the entrance to the Waterway, aware in the periphery of her senses that the battle, or should that be elaborate Imperial trap, was drawing to its close.

The insurgents were routed and in retreat. Still the Ifrit and Imperial ground forces maintained their attack. It would be a massacre.

Fran's lip curled in distaste for such vicious, pointless waste of life before all her attention was diverted towards the task of making sure they all survived the imminent impact with the ground.

' Another fine landing Fran, next time I'll drive.'

Balthier fastidiously brushed himself off and shook his head to clear the vestiges of hard impact from his thoughts, dropping down to sit at the entrance to the Waterway.

The thief lay dazed and momentarily insensate on the ground as Fran crouched by the wreckage of the cycle.

'I do not understand it.'

Fran murmured more to herself, than he, as she examined the vehicle. Close by the thief groaned and struggled back to wakefulness.

' Leave it.' Balthier's tone was slightly sharp, Fran however knew this was more because the thief had woken up too quickly for Balthier to pick his pocket for the Magicite than any rebuke towards her.

Balthier got to his feet and a thin, ironic, smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, ' We'll go the old fashioned way.' He nodded towards the depths of the Waterway.

The Thief prattled questions as he followed after the two of them, she and Balthier resigned to the notion that they would have a 'guest' along for the journey.

Fran became aware of the boy's slightly slack jawed stare and resigned herself to meeting his eyes, which were filled with the usual slightly uncomprehending fascination.

' Don't have many Viera where you come from Thief?'

Balthier's cool tones distracted the boy, it amused Fran that Balthier took more offence to the stares and comments of other Humes towards her, than she did. But then she was well versed in Hume prejudices.

'It's Vaan.' The boy snapped, showing spirit and then he turned to Fran, and with some bashfulness apologised to her. Fran's estimation of the youth went up when he managed to meet her eyes.

The boy seemed quite pleased to discover the truth of their occupation. Reacting to the chance to play up to expectations of high piracy, Balthier introduced them both and informed the boy, bluntly, that they were now all complicit in a crime and would act accordingly.

Fran sensed that the boy understood barely a fraction of what Balthier said, but he seemed biddable enough. He also seemed fairly hail and hearty, he would be useful as they waded through the filth of the city.

It was as they traversed the narrow walkways above the reservoirs of sewage and the boy once again went haring off after one of the oversized Dire Rats that Balthier glanced a wry question at Fran before addressing the boy.

' You do this often Thief?'

The boy glared at him, flushed from his vermin chasing exertions, Balthier waved a hand in apology, ' Vaan. You do this often, _Vaan_?'

The boy just shrugged in a loose limbed way, 'Got to train somehow.'

Balthier stopped spit polishing his gun to look at the boy, Vaan, ' Train for what precisely?'

' To be a sky pirate.' The boy said as if this should have been utterly obvious. Fran looked at Balthier who looked momentarily at a loss for words. The boy scampered off, as at ease along the narrow walkways as the rats he killed.

' I was not aware sky pirates need also be well versed in vermin eradication.' Fran commented to her partner as they followed after the boy.

' Nor I.' His lips twitched, ' Must have missed that particular requisite in the Sky Pirate's instruction manual.'

After further travails through the sewer system Balthier reached out and snagged the boy by the back of his unfastened vest.

' Enough of this boy. In case it had otherwise escaped your notice, the varied insurgent corpses not enough of a reminder, we are trying to make our escape here.'

' Let go.' Vaan wriggled free and glared at Balthier who returned the look pound for pound. The sudden sound of gun fire and the whisper of sword against armour caught all of their attention.

Above them, backed to the edge of a sheer drop down to the open area the three escapee's stood in, a young girl fought off the advances of four Imperials.

After viciously kneecapping one soldier who then fell to his death from the platform the girls heated ice voice was clearly audible.

' Who will be next?'

Fran nodded her head towards the nearest exit to see, without much surprise, that Balthier was already edging towards it. Vaan, however, had other ideas.

' Jump. You've got to jump.'

Vaan encouraged the girl to jump to safety and in doing so alerted the amassing Imperials to their presence. Fran clearly heard Balthier's muttered, heartfelt curse, as he unholstered his gun at the same moment Fran notched an arrow in her bow.

' I will accept such help as I find it. Even if it be from thieves.'

The young woman, Amalia, who bore her head upraised with the bearing of an aristocrat and the icy focus of one who is well versed in pain and death led them as if it came naturally for her to do so.

Balthier's veiled attempt to warn Vaan from ill-advised acts of altruism towards strangers met in sewers, in the guise of explaining that the young woman was merely a temporary guest in their journey, largely went over Vaan's head.

Giving up Balthier lapsed into silence as the two kept to the back of their small troupe. Fran could hear the echoes of battle occurring elsewhere in the Waterway.

The occasional clash of shield and sword, the sizzle of spellcraft, men in their death throes falling into the sewers filtered through the air to her sensitive ears. It would be well with her that they leave the Waterway as soon as possible.

It was just as this errant desire slipped through her consciousness that the Firemane burst into fiery existence to block their path. Fran allowed herself a long-suffering sigh as she began the incantation for Blizzard.

Balthier, backing off for a clear shot, smirked at Fran, having heard or sensed her sigh.

'The trials and tribulations of sky piracy, Fran. Who could ere want for more?'


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: King-Slayers, anger management and the dangers of Mimicks

' I am dropping it!'

Fran's sharp exclamation was the only warning Balthier had to duck as Fran's powerful right leg flew out and demolished the mechanism that kept the bird cage prison of one Basch Fon Ronsenberg, aloft.

' Pirates without a sky.'

Leaping down into what could be, if he miscalculated, a very unpleasant death, Balthier wondered briefly how it was his life had become so interminably complicated.

The landing, as far as it went, was not so very bad. Worse he imagined for the emaciated spectre of one of Dalmasca's most celebrated soldiers, yet the man seemed too happy to be out of his cage to much care.

Balthier was feeling much less sanguine, Vaan's indignant anger towards the Captain, without any thought to the suspicious circumstances as to why the Empire was keeping a traitor alive, was wearing on his nerves.

Making their way slowly through the Barheim Passage, the lights flickering brighter and then dimming as one Mimick after the other was felled only to have another take its place, led to a sense of claustrophobia Balthier refused to acknowledge existed.

It did not help that the enticing, alluring and downright irresistible treasure chests and discarded leather drums of loot scattering the winding caverns and rough hewn subterranean passages were more oft than not baby Mimicks.

' How come we have to take him with us?' Vaan spat looking towards the man alleging to be Basch Fon Ronsenberg, with unconcealed hatred.

Balthier sighed, patience waning. Though he refused to allow any of his internal discomfort to leak into the carefully maintained façade of Leading Man.

'Vaan, why don't you look at it like this; we are not so much travelling with the Captain, it is more a case that we are trying to escape captivity at the same time that he is. Ignore him if it makes you feel better.'

'Easy for you to say. He didn't kill your brother.' Vaan muttered. Even when Balthier lengthened his stride to outpace the boy, he simply scampered alongside.

' True enough.' Balthier conceded cheerfully, hefting his Altair and offering it to a confused Vaan.

' The good Captain has his back turned, Vaan, a clear shot if you wish to take it?'

' Huh?'

Balthier sighed with exaggerated patience pushing the gun into unresisting hands.

' The man is meaningless to me, but if you feel this strongly about it perhaps you should take your revenge now and spare us all your whining?'

By this point Fran had stopped and was watching both of them with a placid expression, understanding the point Balthier was trying to make. Basch had also stopped, breathing heavily so ribs expanded and constricted under too thin skin. His eyes were resigned.

' Tis fair.' Basch growled. ' I may not have struck the killing blow but my failures caused the deaths of both your brother and the king.'

' …..I…. I…' Vaan's eyes skittered wildly from Basch to Balthier and briefly to Fran. The gun drooped towards the uneven, rocky ground.

Balthier reached down and took his weapon back from Vaan's loose grip. Though he maintained the ironic lilt to his words, his tone was softer.

' A word to the wise, Vaan, if ere you should feel the burning need to kill a man for some such slight, be sure that he is guilty first. It makes things so much less awkward for all concerned.'

'……yeah.' Vaan's head drooped and he shifted awkwardly on his feet, Balthier moved on leaving the youth to his thoughts.

Irritating though Vaan undoubtedly was, he did have some sympathy for the boy. Everyone needed someone in their lives they could despise with impunity.

'Oh, how lovely.'

Balthier breathed, face twisting in distaste, as they entered the large chamber where the Mimick Queen was busily gestating and birthing her young.

' ……Eeeeew, gross. Do we kill it?' Vaan skidded to a halt, having bounced back from his miserable introspection some time since.

An errant bolt of lightening that nearly singed Balthier's hair was answer enough. Though he decided to elaborate for Vaan's sake, it would not do to over-estimate the boys intelligence.

'Yes, Vaan, I would say that would be a good idea under the circumstances.'

Discarding gun, for he was out of shot, in favour of broadsword purloined from one of the many skeletal corpses littering the Barheim Passage, Balthier pressed towards the quivering, twitching Mimick Queen towering above their heads. The battle was joined.

'Ah, sand, Hyenas and blistering heat. How I have missed you!'

Balthier raised his arms as if to embrace the sun as the four of them staggered out of the Barheim Passage into the expanse of the Westersands.

Vaan looked at him askance but Basch seemed to smile, offering his own, silent, but equally heartfelt, greeting to the open sky.

'It's just the Westersand, what's the big deal?' Vaan asked Fran but loud enough that Balthier heard.

' Sky Pirates long for open skies above all else. It is our nature.' Fran told him coming to stand beside Balthier, he smiled at her, nodding.

' Truer words have nere been spoken.' He murmured for her ears only, then louder to encompass the other two.

' Shall we be off before we are like to shrivel up?'

The Rabanastre West Gate rose up like a mirage in front of them some time later and Balthier allowed himself a small, satisfied smile.

This little diversion was now over, he and Fran were free to go about their business uninterrupted. He didn't even care for the Magicite anymore.

So it was with magnanimous equanimity that he warned Vaan to keep a low profile and stay out of trouble, wishing him luck with the Magicite. He didn't even mind when Fran told the boy they would be in Rabanastre a spell.

The Sandsea was calling to him, his throat dry from sand and dust. The Strahl was safely waiting in the Aerodrome and life was once more as it should be for he and Fran both, free of all cares, responsibilities and purpose.

Life was good and he threw Gil to the thin children crawling up from Lowtown with hunger in their eyes as he and Fran strolled through the occupied city of Rabanastre with all the bearing of monarchy.

' I wonder that extended periods of captivity has such an affect upon your mood.'

Fran murmured dryly. Watching Balthier smile and wink at yet another pretty girl on the street.

' It is not the captivity but the escaping of said captivity that fills any sensible man with cheer.'

' This city and her people could do with all the cheer you care to spend, it would seem.'

Fran commented looking down upon the small girl child who grasped at the coins Balthier pushed into her tiny, birdlike hands.

' Yes, being under the thumb of Empire is never a comfortable place to be.'

Balthier agreed as he pushed open the door of the Sandsea for Fran, bowing in elaborate fashion to her as she passed, as always she ignored him.

'Still they have it better here than those in Nalbina.'

Fran went to find them a good table in the crowded tavern while he waded into the thick crowd of patrons to order their beverages.

Settling himself down in his seat on the upper floor of the Sandsea, Fran having the inexplicable ability to always find the best table in any tavern anywhere, Balthier poured them both a glass of Madhu and raised a toast to Fran.

' Here's to insurgents, cut-purses and King-Slayers and the happy fact that we shall have no further contact with any of them.'


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three: Subterfuge, Knights and Bounty Hunters

_Disclaimer__ forgotten in all the excitement and the author doesn't understand modern technology well enough to pop in at the beginning, apologies. I own __nothing,__ Square Enix owns all known and recognisable characters. I make no money from this endeavour)_

'I do not take well to demands.'

Fran watched Balthier's eyes harden as he regarded the angered Bangaa coolly. The hardness was not callousness but guilt, an affliction Balthier was not oft troubled with and did not like.

It was now plain to Balthier and Fran both that the Gods played games with them for their own sport. The girl who had caused a scene as they had been marched off to Nalbina was missing. Somehow B'gamnan had her.

When Vaan arrived, accompanied, interestingly, by Basch – perhaps some reconciliation had occurred – the chance of extricating themselves from responsibility for the girls safety fled.

Balthier managed some degree of good grace and commanded Vaan to make ready and meet them both at the Aerodrome. The boy scampered off leaving Basch with them.

'And what of you, my good Captain, surely you can have no fault to find with me?'

Balthier was at his most arch, meaning he was likely struggling with a bout of conscience. Fran found it amusing, the man could fleece a merchant of all his hard-earned Gil in exchange for counterfeit goods and keep a smile on his face the whole time, then be caught in a quandary of guilt for something that was not, in fact, his fault.

'No fault indeed, Balthier, in fact I have favour to ask of you.'

Fran did not miss the bright spark of delight that lit within Balthier's eyes at Basch's honest but unguarded words. She kept her expression schooled to impassivity however.

' Favour you say?' Balthier laughed, ' Have a care, Captain, tis rarely wise to ask favours from pirates and my favour is very hard to claim indeed.'

Basch blinked slightly in surprise and dropped back a step as Balthier rewarded him with the inscrutable smirk that meant everything and nothing all at once. Then the former captain himself laughed.

' I will take your words under advisement, Balthier, I should imagine your favour is also rather expensive.'

Basch agreed, his own low bass tones set to a dust dry humour too refined to be defined as sarcasm. It caught Balthier by surprise, momentarily, and then he laughed out loud.

' So Captain, now I am curious, what could you possibly want from myself and Fran that would be worth such to risk the expense?'

' I need to contact the Marquis Ondore in Bhujerba.'

'Ah,' Balthier grinned, ' Very clever, Captain, I see where you gained your reputation for strategy. Fran and I appear to be bound for Bhujerba, against our wishes as it happens, so you hope to gain free passage with us?'

'Something of the sort, yes.'

'And when you reach Bhujerba you will make your continued existence known to the Marquis, though he be a cheerful collaborator with the same Empire that framed you for Regicide?'

' I have reason to believe Ondore is less enamoured with the Empire than you may think.'

'Hmmm?' Balthier looked thoughtfully at Basch, wheels turning as he considered the relative worth of the information.

' I had heard rumours of such myself.'

Balthier glanced back at Fran, who merely shrugged, having known from the moment that Basch managed to match wits with her partner that he had won his favour already.

It made no real difference to her and the former Dalmascan knight had a quiet dignity Fran appreciated. He would, at least, be a quiet travelling companion.

' Very well, Basch, you have caught me in generous spirits, you can have your free ride to Bhujerba.'

' I am grateful to you.' Basch said sliding back into his more customary formal tones.

Fran elected to wait outside for Vaan as Balthier went to check on the Strahl and the captain went to attend to one or two last minute errands of his own.

' Balthier awaits inside. He feels badly about your girl. Do not think he is in the habit of granting favours.'

She gravely warned the boy Vaan, lest he mistake their actions as something more than a sense of duty. It was clear to Fran that the boy was almost more excited at the prospect of flying with known pirates than he was worried for his friend.

It did not help that Balthier was in good cheer and deliberately encouraged the boy's delight in the Strahl, he himself relishing the chance to show the airship off to a new, and impressionable, audience.

Fran did not know who the boy, Lamont, truly was when he attached himself to their party almost from the moment they disembarked the Strahl in Bhujerba. She suspected that Balthier did, or at least had his suspicions.

It was there in the speed with which he acquiesced to the boys request to accompany them to the Lhusu mines and in the way he watched the boy so closely.

Fran was content to keep her peace however, Balthier would tell her when it suited him and until then she trusted his judgement in allowing the boy to remain.

' We seem to be making a habit of travelling within dark, dank, enclosed spaces of late, Fran.'

Fran nodded slightly as she watched Balthier fastidiously shrug cobwebs and grime from his sleeves, he was frowning but his tone remained feather light. A show sign his claustrophobia was bothering him.

' I do not care for Steelings.' She conceded as they paced a few steps behind Vaan, Basch and Lamont. ' They screech so.'

Balthier glanced at her, then involuntarily up at her ears, before nodding in sympathy. Then he smirked at her, clearly ready to change the subject.

' I could do without all the traps myself. It seems passing strange that there should be so many explosion traps within an active mine.'

' B'gamnan's mark.' Fran murmured.

Balthier nodded, then in brisk tones asked, ' What do you make of our newest companion?'

With a jerk of his head he motioned towards Lamont who was engaged in conversation with Vaan, though on what topic it was best not knowing.

' A boy of the Empire, who would sooner hide the fact.' Fran glanced sideways at her partner, ' I have met others of his like before.'

Balthier's smile flickered and he inclined his head in acknowledgement of the point, 'He wears the mark of House Solidor.'

Fran quirked an eyebrow in question, Balthier's lips twitched in a less friendly smile.

' Next time the opportunity arises look at his pendant, unless I am very much mistaken it resembles the twin serpents of House Solidor.'

'You suspect a trap?'

Fran shifted her weight as the party stopped so Vaan could check a container for loot. Her eyes darted to where the boy Lamont was offering Basch a potion after a Skeleton soldier had ripped a gash in his side with a pike.

Balthier shook his head, ' To what end? If the Empire wants their scapegoat back they would not need to resort to this level of subterfuge.'

' Then what do you suppose is the boy's purpose here?' Fran questioned in a voice so low only Balthier would know she spoke at all.

' I have not the slightest idea, Fran, though I suspect something much worse than any mere trap.'

'Such as?'

She took the opportunity of inspecting Balthier for injuries after a particularly nasty run in with a group of skeletal fiends, to continue their private conversation.

He gave her one of his more honest smiles, ' I suspect Fran, though I sincerely hope against being proved right, that you and I have fallen into someone else's story.'

Fran allowed herself the ghost of a smile, ' A truly fearful fate for the Leading Man.'

He nodded merrily,' A fate worse than death, that of the supporting role.'

With nary a word more on the subject of politics, subterfuge and dubious aliases Balthier moved forward to engage Vaan in conversation about airships, much to the younger Hume's delight.

Fran could not decide if he did so to keep better watch on the boy Lamont or to rid himself of all thoughts of the stranger completely.

So it was with something close to surprise that Fran watched Balthier round on Lamont once they reached the wide cavern, glittering with veins of pure Magicite ore, and Lamont crowed triumphantly over the completion of his 'errand'.

Balthier had the boy pinned, primarily with sharp, suspicious words, to the wall of the cavern demanding he divulge his true purpose and identity when B'Gamnan arrived with his entourage.

It was ironic, therefore, that it was Lamont who afforded them the opportunity to avoid a fight and flee from the Lhusu mines and B'Gamnan's crew.

When Balthier finally revealed the true identity of Lamont to Vaan, and possibly Basch if he had not guessed already, Fran found herself unsurprised, though remaining puzzled as to the younger Solidor's purpose in accompanying them.

' Another story indeed.'

She addressed Balthier after Vaan had run off to proclaim loudly, to any in earshot, that he was _The Basch Fon Ronsenberg of __Dalmasca_ !

Balthier, plucking at his sleeve as he perched on a low wall in Miners End, looked up at her briefly. ' One with an unnecessarily complicated plot, I wager.'

Fran shifted her weight for a moment before relenting and taking a seat beside her partner who rummaged in one of his belt pouches and presented her with a hard boiled mint candy. Her favourite.

' Is the Leading Man not curious as to the divulgence of said plot?'

Basch, having left to discreetly follow after Vaan and make sure his pretence as the Knight did not bring the boy to harm, Fran felt comfortable to sit next to Balthier and suck on her candy.

' This Leading Man knows better than to give free reign to his curiosity, lest it be the death of him.'

'And yet we remain here still.' She pointed out dryly.

' Vaan's girl is still misplaced. The Leading Man can't be seen to be shirking his responsibilities in rescuing distressed damsels.' He responded equally dry, crunching his own candy between his teeth.

' She did not seem to be over much in need of rescue upon leaving the mines.'

Balthier grinned broadly and chuckled, 'She was probably relieved to be free of Vaan.'

'Indeed.' Fran agreed crunching her own candy and savouring the sounds as her teeth ground the hardened sugar menthol.

Though she sensed the hands of fate like fingers of air upon them both, for the moment she and Balthier were as they were meant to be, free, unencumbered and together in their own private work of fiction.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Sandseas and the eccentricities of royalty

'You are staring, Balthier.'

He laughed, ' Is it not worth a stare or two?'

Standing at the beginning of the Ogir Yensa Sandsea and watching Vaan and Penelo frolic by the moving, rippling ocean of sand Fran flicked her hair back from her face.

' She will not take kindly to it.' Fran's voice was mild but she saw Balthier's lips twitch with pure devilment.

' Undoubtedly not. Still she must have chosen her current attire for some purpose and I doubt practicality was among her reasons.'

Relaxing somewhat, though Fran was not certain exactly why Balthier's interest in the renegade princess had concerned her, she allowed herself a small concession.

'It is a very short skirt.'

' Indeed. I am struggling to recall ever seeing shorter skirts,' his lips twitched more, ' even in Balfonheim.'

' I worry that Raithwall's treasure will not be worth the trouble we bring on ourselves in this venture, Balthier.'

They started trekking towards the rest of their rag-tag party; the princess in question turning suspicious eyes on them both.

'She doesn't have your fine physique either, not near tall enough.' Balthier murmured just barely audible even to Fran's sensitive hearing.

Fran did not look at him but she did not move away as he brushed his hand against hers, moving as he did so towards the party to take the lead. She recognised the gesture as apology and accepted it without reservation.

The party had barely made it to the ramp ascending towards the first of the refinery towers criss-crossing the Ogir-Yensa, when they were joined by the princess's erstwhile protector, Captain Azelas, otherwise known as Vossler.

Fran glanced at Balthier and saw her own, formless suspicion reflected in his eyes, though both their faces remained impassive.

For the most part Fran remained at the back of the party and Balthier in the lead. Fran had her Aevis Killer bow to lend support from the back, alongside her repertoire of Magicks.

Balthier, never one to blend into the background unless it suited him, had exchanged gun for Zwill blade and stayed close to the boy Vaan who had more enthusiasm than common sense.

To Fran when the Urutan Yensa made their appearance it was almost a relief. She was growing increasingly suspicious of the circumstances that had led them to this place, sensing destiny's unwanted hands upon the tiller of their fortunes.

Balthier, stuck in the unenviable position of having to guide the party over the Ogir-Yensa in one piece, was less enamoured of the distraction.

' You would think having been orphaned by war and left to fend for one's self for two years would have taught the boy some sense.'

Balthier dutifully held out his ruined, torn left sleeve, and the bleeding flesh of his arm underneath, for Fran's inspection.

Balthier had been forced to insert himself, to his own detriment, between Vaan and a small pack of Alraunes, harmless on their own but vicious in groups of three or more, when the boy had wandered off towards some rusted containers for no obviously discernable reason.

'Another shirt ruined. The princess Ashelia B'Nargin Dalmasca will soon find all her restored treasury going towards reimbursing us for the inconvenience of kidnapping her.'

' The princess I think is honourable, those she chooses to cloister herself with,' Fran frowned ever so slightly and inclined her head towards the spot, leaning against the rusted metal railings of one of the walkways spanning two refineries, where the princess stood with Vossler,

' I am less certain of their intentions.'

'Hmm? Oh, our charming and genial Captain Azelas Vossler?' Poisoned honey dripped from Balthier's tone.

'Or perhaps you refer to our dear King-Slayer turned wrongfully accused victim of fraternal strife?'

' You distrust them both?'

Balthier rolled his neck and stretched his arms, wounds freshly healed by Fran, in a yawn. ' Fran under our present circumstances I am quite prepared to vehemently distrust everyone and everything.'

She gave him a quizzical look, and he dutiful elaborated.

' I'm tired, hot, there is sand in places that no man would ever desire such and we are stuck, without the Strahl, in the middle of nowhere with nought for company but supposedly deceased and deposed royalty, arrogant insurgents and cut-purse street urchins.'

'Balthier!'

They both turned towards the imperious call, the princess stood a few feet before them, Javelin strapped to her back and a mixture of curiosity and suspicion on her plump cheeked face.

' You called Princess?' Balthier purred all silk and honey, even as he shot Fran a telling sideways look. Fran had no trouble hiding her smile on the inside, but she knew he saw it.

' We are ready to depart.'

'Joyous tidings indeed.'

Balthier gave the Princess only his best impassively polite smile as he moved past her. The Princess frowned after him and then looked at Fran.

For a moment their gazes met then the Lady Ashe looked away, almost as if intimidated by Fran's placid regard.

It was nightfall when they made it through the Ogir-Yensa Sandsea to the border with the Nam Yensa Sandsea and all were glad to see the friendly trader waiting for them.

'Are we nearly there yet?'

Fran turned her head away as Vaan's plaintive voice rose over the campfire towards her as she sat quietly in the shadows of one of the huge flowering cacti that littered the Sandsea.

' We are perhaps halfway.' Basch's patient bass rumble in answer was all but drowned out by Vaan's drawn out groan.

With Balthier engaged in friendly conversation with the travelling merchant, Dyce, and his companion Dilah, Fran decided to let herself fall into the ebb and flow of conversation around her.

' ……..Raithwall's Tomb? At least a days full travel west, but you would be wise to take another day beyond that, no need to push yourself too hard in this heat.'

' Indeed. A shame you don't happen to have a herd of Chocobo for loan.'

'Oh, yes, think of that Dyce, a Chocobo farm out here! What fun.'

'……….I do not see why you left me with that…..that hateful traitor in the first place!'

'……………what kind of fiends are there out here, Basch?'

' Much the same as elsewhere in the Sandsea, though the Yensas can provide valuable loot.'

' Really like what?'

'…….and another thing, Vossler, it is hardly fitting for these children to be here. Penelo can be but sixteen years old.'

' Then, Princess, I suggest you raise this matter with your Pirate friends, it was my understanding that the boy, at least, travelled with them.'

' Balthier is no friend of mine! He is……'

'Fran?'

Fran turned towards the tentative voice, ' Yes Penelo?'

The young Hume girl stood a few feet away with her arms behind her back and a shy expression on her face.

' Umm, I was. I was wondering if I could talk to you?'

Fran did not point out the obvious, that they were already talking. Only three short years in Balthier's company and his viper tongue's bite had slithered into her thoughts already. So much so that it was sometimes difficult to keep that inherited venom from leeching into her speech.

' What is it you wish to speak of?'

Fran inclined her head slightly in invitation for Penelo to sit. The girl quickly did so, dropping down onto her knees resembling a marionette with strings suddenly severed.

' I'm tougher than I look.' The girl began keeping her head down as she pushed a small pebble around with her soft fingers.

' But I'm no fighter like Vaan.' The confession came out on a soft sigh of inner defeat.

Over Penelo's head Fran observed Balthier looking at her, the question in his slightly tilted head and raised eyebrow obvious. Did she wish him to intervene? Was Penelo disturbing her? Fran shook her head minutely and Balthier turned back to his discussion with Dyce about the Tomb.

' You have talent for magicks.' Fran responded when she felt Penelo watching her. Fran had spotted this potential in Penelo immediately.

It was often the female of the Hume species that had the most aptitude for magick. The Princess also had potential to be a gifted mage, though she turned her energy towards swordsmanship.

' Would you teach me?' Penelo blurted out suddenly. Fran looked blankly back at her, her blank look indistinguishable from her patient mask.

' Magick, I mean. I was thinking I could learn to use a bow, or a gun, so I could support Vaan and the others like you do.'

Penelo's words tripped over each other as she spoke hurriedly, her hands clasped together earnestly in her lap.

Fran inclined her head gracefully, ' I will teach you what Magicks I can in the time we have.'

Fran acquiesced though she thought that Penelo would be better off waiting until she returned to Rabanastre and learning from a Dalmascan mage. Fran did not think she and Balthier would be travelling with this odd party for very much longer, after all.

'Thank you Fran!' the girl clapped her hands, smiling hugely. 'You don't have to worry I'm a fast learner, not like Vaan.'

' However I think the bow may be too much for you, it is not an easy weapon to wield.'

' What about Guns?' Penelo asked eagerly, not the sort to be offended easily and sensible enough to recognise that that was not Fran's intent.

Fran shrugged an elegant shoulder, ' For that you must speak to Balthier.'

The girl shot a nervous glance over her shoulder to where Balthier stood hands at hips watching the campfire distractedly and trying to ignore Vaan who was waving his arms about in animated fashion.

' Oh, okay, I'll do that.' Penelo said though she sounded less certain of the prospect. Fran suspected Balthier's act of gallant distraction in giving the girl his handkerchief before they were carted off to Nalbina, had unsettled Penelo.

Fran sat quietly and watched the girl pick herself up and almost dance over to where Vaan and Basch and Balthier all stood huddled around the campfire.

Fran felt no desire to join them, she did not need to, Balthier's curious gaze settled on her briefly in warm regard before Basch asked him a question.

Penelo began telling Vaan the details of the conversation she and Fran had just had and Fran, returning to her passive eavesdropping felt a vicarious pleasure in their camaraderie.

She may never feel able to join them in their conversation and familiarity but, although she was apart from these Humes she found herself to still be a _part _of them.

It made her glad and it was this gladness that made her smile, ever so slightly, at Balthier when he looked over at her again. Sitting in the shadows, no one but he could see the smile. But see it he did.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five: Pirates, Princesses and random acts of kindness

'Vaan!'

The loud, unmistakable crack of a gun shot rang out among the near silent hiss of hot desert air through dry palm throngs and the slither of the sandsea.

This would not have been unusual had their party been in battle with Urutan or Ironbeaks or the like. Nor would it have been unusual had Balthier been the one to fire the shot.

The fact that the party was setting up camp, not in a combat situation, and Balthier was not the one firing his gun meant that the circumstance was unusual indeed.

The Princess shot him a dark look as he hauled himself to his feet and went to investigate the sound. He noticed that Fran's left ear twitched as he passed her, a sure sign that she knew what was afoot.

A little ways from the safe spot the party had staked out for their camp, just outside the entrance to Raithwalls Tomb, Balthier found Vaan and Penelo. Surprise, surprise.

'What are they doing?'

The Princess's whispered hiss informed him that she had taken it upon herself to investigate as well.

' Target practice would be my guess.'

With his gun, taken without permission. Or, remembering the expression on Fran's face, without _his_ permission.

' Did you know of this?'

' No, Princess.'

He watched as Vaan lined up a series of rocks, fragments of bone and assorted desert detritus along the top of a large bounder, Penelo, holding Vega with difficulty tried to line up the shot.

She fired and he watched with high amusement as the recoil sent the little girl flying backwards onto her pert backside in the sand. The shot went wide forcing Vaan to duck for his life.

' Penelo!'

'It's not my fault! It's the gun!'

Balthier reached out an arm to stop the Princess striding forward, she turned to give him one of her better icy looks.

'Unhand me.'

Sighing he let go with a slight, ironic bow, 'Let them have their fun, Princess.'

'Here, Penelo, I'll show you.'

Vaan strolled forward and took Vega from Penelo, who immediately began massaging her aching arm and shoulders. Vaan fiddled with the gun for a moment, causing Balthier to wince.

'There goes the focusing, he'll be lucky to hit anything at all, now.'

'How can you be so calm about this? Did they not steal your gun?'

Balthier merely shrugged, trying not to chuckle at the Princess, really she was going to have to learn to relax a little or she would never see twenty.

' I'm sure they'd call it burrowing, Princess.'

Balthier grinned as Vaan took his shot, which went wild immediately, ricocheting off the sheer cliff face. The rebound, worse because of Vaan's tampering, sent him staggering back a few paces and very nearly onto his posterior as well.

'Ha! How'd you like that, Mr I'm- going- to- be- a- sky- pirate-Vaan. You couldn't hit the broadside of an airship!'

Deciding now was a good time to make his entrance, before Vaan did irreparable damage to the Vega, Balthier stepped forward, aware of the Princess at his heels.

' I'd have to agree with Penelo, Vaan, you won't make sky pirate with aim like that.'

Both Vaan and Penelo spun on their heels, identical looks of surprise and guilt painting their faces.

' Balthier!' Penelo shot a look at Vaan and then dashed up to him, ' I'm sorry, we were just practicing, Fran said it would be alright.'

' Did she now?' Balthier mused. 'Well then I suppose I can have no objection, can I?'

Walking over he held out a hand for the Vega, which Vaan gave up to him with something like relief. Beginning to re-calibrate the gun Balthier glanced at both Vaan and Penelo, curiously the Princess remained on the scene, for some reason.

' May I ask why you wanted to 'practice' with my gun?'

'It was Penelo's idea.' Vaan shrugged, ' I like swords better anyway.'

Balthier raised an eyebrow to Penelo who was blushing furiously, 'Oh? What idea was that?'

Penelo hopped from one foot to another and tugged on her pigtails. Her embarrassment was quite endearing. Her words streamed out of her in a jumbled rush.

' I was talking to Fran about learning better magicks, so I could do better supporting the party. I wanted to learn how to use a bow but she said it would be too much for me.'

Balthier nodded, 'Say no more.'

Finishing re-setting the Vega so it was actually workable he smiled at Penelo trying to put the girl at ease. He wondered why the blonde girl hadn't just asked him to teach her, but then watching her blush so charmingly as he smiled at her, he supposed he could guess.

'Vega is perhaps a little too much for a beginner, you should have asked for the Altair, it's lighter, less recoil after firing.'

' Oh-um, right. Thanks.' Penelo looked down at her booted feet.

Trying not to laugh at the poor girl, who really was adorable, he loaded the Vega and gently manoeuvred the girls arms to hold the gun more sensibly.

'Here, hold her like this, put your right hand on the barrel here, let your whole body absorb the recoil.'

The girl, pliant in his arms did as instructed, the blush fading as she concentrated on getting it right. He had to admire the girl for that.

'Now,' He turned the girl back to the row of untouched targets Vaan had laid out on the rock, ' Visualise a single target, just one, and ignore everything else in your peripheral vision.'

' A-Hum.' She murmured distractedly, squinting fiercely over to the rock, her concentrated look alone should have been enough to obliterate her target.

Balthier gently, carefully, positioned himself behind the girl and stretched out a hand to cover her left hand on the trigger, she was so focused she didn't flinch at the contact as he manipulated the trigger for her.

' Ooofff.'

Penelo staggered back into his body, which kept her from falling and he reached out to keep her from dropping the Vega. Vaan started clapping enthusiastically as he bounded over to pick up what was left of the bleached white Ironbeak skull Penelo had targeted.

' Congratulations, you made the shot.'

Balthier stepped back from the girl who looked delighted as Vaan ran over to show her the shattered skull.

Satisfied that his good deed for the day was now done Balthier turned back towards the camp, only to see the Princess giving him a quizzical look. It was a tad less judgemental than her usual glower, at any rate.

' Something wrong Princess?'

Falling into step beside him she watched him with those cool, clear eyes of hers. 'That was kind of you, helping Penelo.'

'No need to sound so surprised Princess.'

She continued to watch him, looking almost irritated now as if she took offence at his kindness, which really, wasn't so very great.

' It does not seem very pirate like behaviour, is all.'

He couldn't help his smirk, ah-ha, the Princess really was the epitome of narrow-minded blue-blooded superiority wasn't she?

' The occupation of sky pirate and acts of random kindness are not mutually exclusive, Princess.'

' Nor are pirates known for their altruism, it is hardly a common characteristic of those who make a living stealing from others.'

His smirk broadened, the Princess was so prickly it was quite fun to talk to her. Even the most innocuous of statements could upset her.

' Ah, but Princess I am hardly a common pirate.'

A very unladylike snort of derision was all the answer he got to that as the Princess stalked off towards her favoured protector, the equally prejudiced Captain Vossler. Balthier returned the Vega to his pack and caught Fran watching him.

' It is as well I didn't leave the Altair back on the Strahl.' He commented lightly. Fran nodded though he saw the spark of warmth in her eyes.

When Vaan and Penelo returned, Vaan still carrying what was left of the skull and dragging a bashful Penelo over to Basch to show it off, Balthier took the opportunity to slip the Altair and some spare shot into the girls pack.

The Princess had a point of course; piracy did not lend itself to acts of compassion and kindness to others. Nor, Balthier suspected, did his own character, so any opportunity he had to go against the grain and do something nice he would seize without hesitation. Especially when that little act of random kindness brought Fran's secret smile to the fore.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six: Deifected Nethicite, mad scientists and agitated Viera

'At least your sword is to the point.'

With the tip of Ghis' ornately decorated and unfairly lethal sword against his throat Balthier supposed it was a fair guess to assume the Judge-Magister recognised him.

He was more than a trifle surprised that the Princess gave up her bauble in exchange for his head remaining securely affixed to his body. Perhaps she was not as cold and ungenerous as he had thought?

Of course it made not the slightest difference in the long run, and he questioned the Princess' tactical thinking if she really thought it did. He, Fran, Basch, Vaan and Penelo were all dead. If not now then upon reaching Rabanastre.

This time it was also highly unlikely that he and Basch could disable their armed escort, especially with the deluded turncoat Vossler busily talking collaboration to the Princess at their backs.

Though he felt not the slightest sympathy for the man, Balthier could at least parse out Vossler's reasoning. It made a lot more strategic sense than the Princess's plan to take on the might of the Empire with a stone.

Still, as his was going to be one of the corpses Vossler stepped over to see the restoration of his Princess' throne, as a puppet of Empire, no less, Balthier found himself feeling something less than admiration for the man's plan.

'It burns, the Mist burns.'

Fran's garbled speech and her laboured breaths had been playing on him for the last few moments as they were marched, shackled, towards holding cells. He knew what this foretold but had precious little chance of diffusing the potentially lethal situation.

When Fran exploded into berserk motion, scattering Imperials with satisfying ease, Balthier was already wriggling his wrists free of his restraints.

'I always knew Fran disliked being restrained, I just never knew how much.' He muttered somewhat inanely and completely untruthfully when Vaan, or Penelo, or some such, started panicking about Fran.

' What of you Princess?'

He inquired coolly sidling up to her icy majesty, shaking off the restraints. He needed to know where she stood, he didn't particular relish the prospect of fighting Vossler and the Princess, should she side with her erstwhile protector.

'I like Fran's idea.'

The Princess thrust her wrists forward for him to pick the restraints and Balthier allowed himself a slight grin. Fran was caught in Mist rage and that was always terrifying to him but at least it would be six against one.

Vossler would fall and Balthier was determined to see him not get up again. Fran was out of control, in pain and would suffer for it for days after if they even survived this encounter. Somebody needed to pay for that.

Being a little too pragmatic of mind, having been raised to mathematical equations as lullabies and a laboratory for a nursery, Balthier was wary of magicks and so it came as a surprise to realise that he was summoning his own Quickening upon Vossler.

Vaan and Ashe were quick to call down their own Mist induced vengeance on the traitorous captain, especially as Fran was all but hyperventilating in a corner of the hangar bay.

Fires of War, indeed. Let the man fall to the very thing he had sought to buy his way out of. Vindictive anger surged him on even after the Quickening left him feeling drained and tired.

He barely spared the Knight a second glance as he fell under their combined assault, strolling nonchalantly over to where Fran struggled for breath and helping her to her feet. He was the only one she would allow to touch her.

' A wonderful distraction Fran, another perfect escape from captivity.'

He spoke to see if he received a reaction, a way to gauge how badly hurt she was. Fran's ears twitched and her fingers gripping tightly to his waist flexed. He allowed himself a breath of relief as he turned towards the docking bays.

' Ashe, lets go.'

He called to the motionless Princess. She stood some way between himself and Fran and the fallen Vossler, if she was to say her final words she had best be quick.

Without a word spoken to Vossler the Princess turned her back and followed after them; leaving Basch, her new protector, to hear the last confession of a newly fallen Knight.

Squeezing everyone into their stolen getaway craft he watched much as everyone else did as the Eighth Fleet imploded in a liquid spray of Mist and flame.

Deifected Nethicite.

It was Fran who explained what happened, the power of that little bauble, which reduced an entire aerial attack force to nothing more than memories.

Deifected Nethicite.

_I go to __Giruvegan__. Care to accompany me, son? _

_Giruvegan__, what is there? _

_The greatest marvels known to man, __Ffamran__; years of research is near fruition. I am close to getting my hands on genuine __deifected__Nethicite_

_Oh, is that all? No old man, I think I'll stay here. Shiny stones don't interest me much. _

_Callow youth._

Deifected Nethicite. Nothing more than memories, voices in the wind, as he recklessly steered their commandeered vessel back towards the floating lump of rock that had caused so much destruction and left not a scrap to mark the fact.

Deifected Nethicite. Fancy that. He'd been hunting down the same treasures that had so consumed his father all those years ago and hadn't had the wits to realise it.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: Dynast Princesses, bartered rings and spiteful pirates

Balthier was fairly sure that he had intimated as to his opinion of the Dalmascan crown city of Rabanastre more than once before in times past, but he now found himself reminded of exactly why he disliked the city so much.

Having precious little to do but blithely ignore the murderous looks of a supposedly deceased Princess and swelter in the arid heat, Balthier decided to list the reasons he loathed Rabanastre.

Firstly it was always hot, dry and smelled faintly of Chocobo dung, though why that was he didn't wish to hazard a guess.

Secondly Balthier was of the opinion one could always judge the nature of a country by the quality of the people born to it. On those merits Balthier was almost of the opinion the Empire should have razed the city to the ground for the good of all Ivalice.

Thirdly, Rabanastre had some of the worst architecture he had ever seen, the Cathedral with its completely pointless spherical appendages being a prime example.

Also whoever had laid the first stone in Rabanastre had no sense of how to build a city. Streets wound about and double-backed upon themselves until one ended up walking in circles and going nowhere, even with a map.

Fourthly……

' Balthier?'

Fran was watching him, her expression clearly indicating that she could at least guess at what he was thinking and found his ire amusing.

Reluctantly giving up his list game he forced his attention back to the group of peculiar oddities he was, seemingly inextricably, tied to.

' Yes Fran?'

Even as he replied to his partner, letting her know through the tone of his voice that he was, oh so glad, that he could bring her amusement, Balthier noticed the Princess glaring at him still.

' It was unfair of you to take the ring.'

Fran murmured as they walked a little ways from the Princess and towards a group of Bangaa huddled around an open cooking fire.

' It was fair recompense for that farce onboard Shiva, not to mention her deception regarding treasure in Raithwall's tomb.'

' It was not the only price you could have levied, this one cuts to the heart.'

Balthier shrugged, ' If our dear Princess is not willing to make sacrifices then I fear for the people of Rabanastre should she ascend to the throne.'

Fran simply shook her head, ' It is not so much to lead the Princess to the Garif.'

' And what of the Shiva? You were hurt.'

Fran cocked her head to the side and scrutinised him, Balthier could see the flicker of gratitude heavily veiled in the depths of her reddish eyes.

' So you would take the Princess' husband's ring in vengeance for something not of her doing or design?'

Balthier sighed conceding defeat, ' I have every intention of giving it back, Fran. You know this.'

The tiniest flicker of a smile touched her eyes and her lips, ' I know.'

Satisfied that he had learnt his lesson Fran moved off, Vaan and Penelo were returning from whatever it was they had needed to do to make ready for the journey. It was time to get going.

The travelling through the puddles and boggy ground of the Giza Plains during the Rains was slow going. It was a relief to take his Vega back from Penelo and fight from the back of the group.

Rain did not bother him over much, Archadia had its fair share of various forms of precipitation, though not to this volume admittedly. Boredom was a much more feared affliction.

There was some brief respite from the drudgery when Vaan was almost crushed under the leaping weight of a Gigantoad, other than that it was slow, arduous work to make it to the Garif village of Jahara.

When it became apparent that the High-Chief was to be no use at all to Ashe, or it appeared, anyone at all, Balthier found himself oddly unsurprised to discover little Lord Larsa Ferrinas Solidor lurking in the village eyes alight with political intrigue and frankly un-Archadian idealism.

When Basch was finally moved to question the altruism of himself and Fran in providing yet more aid to his over-bearing princess's increasingly futile quest, Balthier was resigned to the long haul.

His assertion that he was simply remaining to find out how the story ends, was more or less true, as much as anything he said could be considered true.

It was during the long trek across the Ozmone Plains towards Golmore, and _the village whose name shall not be spoken _that Balthier found himself sandwiched between Basch on the right and Larsa on the left.

Having too much pride to argue the point, despite knowing magick was not truly his forte, it had been decided that he should act as a support and magick user in any fiend skirmishes as Fran insisted on taking point and marching ever onwards towards a place she had once told him she would never return to.

Larsa, being endowed with a supply of curatives whose number was only dwarfed by his generosity in their distribution, was also bringing up the rear. Basch, Balthier suspected, was simply hoping for a respite from the silent disregard of his regal ward.

' You are from Archades, are you not, Balthier?'

Larsa, bright blue eyes filled with that disturbing intelligence and lack of the spite Balthier was used to seeing in Archadian gentry, looked up at him expectantly.

' I am from and destined to many places, tis the way of Sky Pirates.' He evaded without flinching.

On either side he could feel Basch and Larsa's regard on him, Larsa, ever the quick one, seemed to recognise he over-stepped himself.

' Forgive me, I meant no offence.'

' Indeed Balthier, I had thought upon hearing your speech that you were Archadian born also.'

Basch's voice rumbled in it's own customary unusual accent. There was just the slightest hint of wry amusement, reminding Balthier vaguely of Fran.

'And you, yourself, Captain, where was it you hail from originally?'

Deflection was not a certain escape but it was the best he could muster in his own defence at present. Why could he never seem to shake off the shackles of his past?

' Landis. A Kingdom fallen over a decade since.'

Basch did not sound disturbed to be speaking of his homeland, he had clearly made his peace with it. Good for him.

' Landis?' Balthier made a show of trying to remember a fact he had never forgotten, 'Felled by Archadia wasn't it? Much in the nature of Nabradia, if memory serves.'

It occurred to him distantly, as he watched Larsa flinch and Basch frown, that he really should make plans for he and Fran to part ways from this party post haste. Surely they brought out the worst in him?

'Aye, she was.' Basch agreed darkly, 'But that was many years ago and I have since found a new place in the world.'

Balthier restrained himself from voicing the instant retort, that if his new place in life involved being accused of regicide and strung up in a dungeon for two years then perhaps he would have been better off dying with Landis, though it was difficult.

Thankfully it was at this point that a herd of Wu descended on the party leaders and Balthier was called upon to shoot gigantic bird creatures and use his dubious healing magicks on his compeers, ending any and all further discussion.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight: Wandering Viera, wind and wood

Mjrn was missing. Mjrn had left the safety of the Wood's embrace and vanished into Hume danger. Fran could not help but wonder if this was not, in some way, her fault?

The Henne Mines reeked of Mist and danger, a place of darkness and foreboding even without the Imperials bodies littering the entrance.

Redmaws and Steelings screeched over head, swooping down upon the party with leeching bites, Larsa fought valiantly to keep them all alive. Balthier blasted away with Sirius, his mood much as her own, darkening, with every step they took deeper into the mines.

'Stay away power needy Hume!'

To see Mjrn again after so many years, and to see her in such distress, a puppet whose strings were pulled by the power of Mist, horrified Fran. Was this the punishment for one who trespassed against the laws of the Green Way?

Chasing after Mjrn heedlessly only to be confronted by a Wyrm of tremendous size Fran was chastened by guilt to realise that Balthier, the children and the Princess had followed her straight into danger also.

The fight was vicious and prolonged. No one escaped injury. The Princess fell bloodied and exhausted, apologies on her lips that she was not strong enough, her Knight with tattered and blackened honour waded in under the talons of the beast to save her.

Vaan, nimble as the rats he used to sharpen his sword blade on, danced and parried and managed to hack at one huge knee joint until the great beast was crippled.

Penelo cast as quickly and fervently as she could, glowing with healing magicks while Fran endlessly notched arrow to bow and loosed her projectiles towards the target.

Larsa fell in the midst of throwing potions to Basch to aid the Princess and it was Balthier who caught the boy prince under his arms and dragged him away from the fight.

An explosion of magick, impatient and sharp, signified Balthier had thrown a protective shield over Fran. His magicks were always thus, as if his resentment in using them came through in the casting.

'Why won't this thing die?' Vaan demanded aggrieved as he backed off to catch his breath and cast a revival spell on Larsa.

' Its life wanes, we must press on.'

Fran panted notching another arrow only to feel the crashing pop of a shell shield fall upon her instants before the Wyrm breathed jets of flame down on them.

Balthier, bleeding from a scalp wound and favouring one leg clustered over to her as Larsa, pale and wane staggered over to the Princess who had returned to the fight despite her obvious injuries.

When the Wyrm finally fell, crashing to the caverns stony floor, none of the party was truly strong enough to muster much reaction when the odd, faceless, visage of Mist rose from Mrjn's tormented body and abandoned her.

Mjrn gave her story, so very familiar to Fran, that of a curiosity that could not be smothered; a need like a pain in the heart to know more of the world. Fran could only listen in near silence. She wondered if her sister could hear her heart bleeding.

It was the pain of severance. Mjrn had not forgotten her sister or the bonds of sorority that had once been the greatest power upon Fran's life. Mjrn's eyes, her pleasure in her sisters return unmasked, silently begged Fran not to relinquish those bonds once more.

It mattered not. Fran looked up to finally acknowledge the weight of Balthier's gaze on her. His expression bland, smooth and unmoved, leaving his eyes to bleed sympathy, devoid, for once, of the selfishness he had in spades.

The Wood no longer whispered in her ears, the Green Way responded to her commands only very reluctantly, a battle of wills it had been to reveal the secret entrance to Eruyt back in Golmore. Not between herself and the Wood she had distained so long ago, but within herself.

A battle between the remnant of Viera teachings that remained in Fran that fought constantly, though silently, with the part of Fran that would throw down the bonds of sisterhood, culture and responsibility for an open sky and a set of Glossair rings.

Even as she spoke softly to Mjrn as they travelled the path back to Eruyt, even as she savoured the closeness, the indescribable sense of certainty and calm that being with her own kind brought her, Fran knew what her choice would be. What it had always and ever would be.

In the Wood time was cyclical. The seasons bought death and renewal in the constant ebb and flow of biting black frost and fledgling thaw. What withered and was lost would return anew, strong and proud in but an eye blink of time to Viera and Wood both.

Flying above the Wood and the green earth, there was only one direction, that of the wind. Time was measured in the swift, fleeting movements of clouds ever onwards never backwards. There was no past, no future, only now.

Fran could no longer hear the constant, loving, but passive certainty of the Wood, but the swift whisper of the wind was with her always.

Sharp, inconstant and immediate the way of the sky, that which she had given her life to these fifty years since, would be drowned out in the depths of Golmore, should she return home.

The wind and the sky was too inconstant to provide the ever-constant nurturing of the Wood, yet without the song of the sky Fran could not function, and she had long since discovered she needed little in the way of nurture.

She knew when she approached Jote that her elder sister knew also the choice Fran had made, that her conviction of so long ago had diminished none. Jote knew, though she would never understand.

Fran left Eruyt with stolen keys to unlock the Woods doors, doors that had once opened to her freely. She left flanked on one side by the Hume who was to her the wind that whispered in her ears, driving her onwards, and surrounded by Humes whom would accept her wholeheartedly for they knew no better.

All the way to the path of verdant praise Fran heard her sister Mjrn's tears, just as she had fifty years before. The memory, Fran knew, would haunt her for another fifty years to come. But not even those tears had power enough to sway her soul from its chosen path.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine: Reality cometh, how now pirate what game do you play?

Fran grasped Lente's Tear in her fist tightly. The Elder Wyrm, created from the Wood by the Wood as punishment or warning, Fran knew not which, faded into motes of sun and shade.

Again, fifty years after the first time, Fran left Golmore behind. Left it knowing, though she wished that she could deny that knowledge, that it was completely of her choice. Jote said the Wood missed her; that she could return if she recanted. The Wood would speak to her once more perhaps, if she returned.

Beside her but a respectful few steps away Fran could feel Penelo's eyes on her, a sympathy given that did not need to understand that which Fran had lost to feel the echo of that pain.

Bringing up the rear Vaan's voice was subdued as he spoke with Balthier who leaned painfully against a tree trunk and bled from numerous contusions. The Wood had chosen well the target for its ire.

Ahead Lady Ashe and Basch tended to each other and Larsa, young, valiant but awkward nevertheless, hovered close to Penelo and watched the Wyrm spirit dissipate with open curiosity.

' This path leads to Paramina Rift and through the Rift to Mount Bur-Omisace.'

Fran was surprised to hear her own words. To feel herself lead the way towards the cold and harsh climes of the Kerwon mountain ranges.

Where once, before Eruyt, Balthier would have instantly, naturally, fallen into step with her, Betelgeuse strapped to his back; he now drifted in lacklustre fashion as she strode forward, exchanging Loxley Bow for Kotetsu blade.

Fran did not know when rifts began to appear in the perfect, insulated harmony of their own strange symbiosis, but appear they had.

They were one on the Ozmone Plains and in Jahara, though Balthier was perplexed by her willingness to aid the Princess after Shiva, as evidenced by his spite in taking the Princess's husbands wedding band.

The genesis of their current estrangement, only noticeable to them because no longer could they intuit the others every word and deed, was Eruyt.

Fran had never wished to return yet she had recognised the immovable, irrepressible hand of fate, pushing, guiding her onwards in the guise of this fallen Princess and her desperate quest.

Was Balthier resentful of her for this action? That she had, through first guiding the princess to Jahara, then through her own home wood of Golmore, somehow betrayed their lifestyle of careless and care free pirates?

Yet she saw it clear, in his eyes, a darkness of something secret and hidden from her, something that the Nethicite evoked. Something in the way his eyes fell unkindly on the young lord Larsa.

She knew that had she not provided an excuse for them to remain with the princess's party, then he would have. Something drove him too. Fate had her hands upon him also, though he fought it still.

Night fall found them huddling for shelter in one of the caves on the lower reaches of Mount Bur-Omisace. Each and every one of the party was sore, aching and quieted by cuts, claw wounds and the bites of wolves, drawn down by the frigid cold.

' How now Fran, planning on spending all night staring at shadows?'

She did not turn towards his voice, the whisper of unwarranted reproach loud to her ears. Instead she remained, steady and ever vigilant, on watch.

Undeterred Balthier dropped down beside her at the entrance to the cave, wolf pelt, cleaned and prepared by the Garif, clenched tightly around his shoulders.

' It will be all over soon enough.' Balthier murmured, seemingly to himself as he dropped a parcel of salted meat into her lap.

' Our Princess shall have her throne restored and we shall be on a merry way, no doubt we'll receive no compensation for our time, but that cannot be helped I suppose.'

Fran paused in chewing her rations, ' Do you truly believe so Balthier?'

Once she would have had to look only briefly in his eyes to understand his mind completely, now three years of content understanding was lost in unnecessary, unwelcome conversation.

Balthier stiffened beside her, breath catching sharply, the only warning Fran had, though it be enough for her, that his temper was rising.

' We could have been shot of them all after the eighth fleet fell. This is not my doing.'

So he did resent her actions? Fran did not look at him, did not react to the scolding accusation in his tone. Instead she chewed placidly on her rations and watched the snow fall into darkness.

' Fran?'

The howl of a wolf caused her muscles to tense and without thought she had the bow drawn and arrow ready to be loosed, should any predator emerge from the night blizzard.

'Fran look at me.'

It was the tremor in his voice, not the command that made her turn to face him.

' How now pirate, what game do you play with me?'

She rebuked him coolly and saw his impassivity, maintained as solidly, constantly as her own, collapse. He squeezed his eyes closed and dropped his forehead to her shoulder. The heat of his breath tickled the cool skin of her neck.

' Tis not my game, Fran. As you say the Gods are having sport with us and I do not care for it.'

The sounds of sleep from the others in the cave was a reassurance to Fran. Sleeping witnesses were as good as none.

Keeping her regard towards the opening of the cave, she raised her free hand to pet the back of his head, briefly.

' You fear this Nethicite. If we run, your fears will surely chase you down.'

Fran tried to explain her reasoning; though it hurt her that he could not see it. Balthier laid a chaste kiss to her bared shoulder.

' You could have returned to Eruyt, or at the very least taken your sister with you when we left.'

Hearing the name of her home on his lips startled her, made her flinch; two worlds that should have remained ever separate were colliding.

'Mjrn must stay in Eruyt.'

Balthier had shifted his position so he could begin using his gun calloused firm hands to rub out the muscle strain the bow caused in her back. If a fiend came at them now they would be ill prepared, yet she found she cared little for that.

' And what of Fran? What of the Wood and the Green Way?'

Balthier brushed the thick train of her hair out of the way with brisk efficiency. His touch was safe, it was partnership that did not breach boundaries.

In that touch Fran understood, finally, where the rift between them had come from and felt relief that it could be so easily repaired.

' I have no wish to dissolve this business partnership, Balthier.'

She felt his smile though she did not turn around to look at him, the flow of silent communication between them resumed, with his ministrations.

' Good. I have missed you Fran. The Leading Man must have his partner.'

Balthier's cool tones both mocked and celebrated their shared eccentricities. The man who would make himself a fiction, the Viera who would claim partnership with a Hume.

' I have never left your side.'

She pointed out, reproach and question only apparent in the residue tension now easing from her shoulders.

Balthier scoffed slightly in apology accepting the rebuke as deserved. He scooted back to sit beside her once more.

' True. I thought to leave your side so as to let you make your choices freely. Being a gentleman, it was only proper. Though I freely admit the effort to keep my mouth shut near killed me.'

' I had thought the lure of the Princess and her skirt had some small part to play in our separation also.'

They had been talking in low murmurs, less strident than whispers, but Balthier's startled burst of laughter, quickly disguised as a cough and smothered, nearly woke the rest of the party.

' Fran, please.'

Content that they were both once more as they ought be, together and self-sufficient within their shared and concealed hearts desires, Fran let her head drop wearily to his shoulder. He would ensure no fiends came upon them, his heart beat a steady rhythm to which Fran slept.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten: Dark Magicite, skeletal soldiers and the things that bind men's souls

'I'm just saying if Raithwall left it with the Kiltias maybe it's not supposed to be used by anyone.'

Ashe turned sharply to pin Vaan with a haughty glare, ' I am a descendent of the Dynast King charged to save the Kingdom Raithwall founded, of course I should wield the Sword of Kings.'

' Well, why'd he give it to the Gran Kiltias then and not leave it in his tomb? A sword would've been way more useful than the Dawn Shard.'

Ashe opened her mouth, closed it, swept snow dampened hair from her face and tried to come up with an answer.

'Perhaps the Dynast King thought to keep his treasures separate for security's sake?' Basch waded into the discussion in his mistress's defence.

' Huh?'

Penelo spoke up, eager and bright despite the freezing cold of the Silverfloe. 'You mean like in case thieves got into the Tomb and stole everything there before Ashe could get to it?'

' It is only a suggestion.' Basch nodded.

' I'm sure you are right Basch.' Ashe spoke with renewed confidence, ' Raithwall was a good and clever king.'

' Huh, I guess.'

Vaan had already lost interest in the discussion, attention drifting elsewhere, ' Hey Balthier, what'cha doing?'

' Give a guess, Vaan.' Balthier mumbled clearly distracted. Fran sat on a rock by his side, impassive as ever.

' Uhhh, well it kinda looks like you're doing something with that pile of bones.'

'Balthier! What, by all the Gods, are you doing?'

Ashe strode forward to where Balthier was crouched in the snow carefully examining each of the scattered bones left behind by one of the skeletal Knights they had dispatched.

Fran got to her feet, shaking her hair from her face and behind her back.

' We should move on, the Stilshrine should not be far now.'

Not looking up Balthier exclaimed, ' Ahh, there it is.'

With a little bit of careful finger work Balthier managed to pry the skull from the body of the skeleton and pried open the teeth to free the Dark Magicite resting between its jaws.

Ashe was staring at him with something close to disgust on her face, ' Do you have no shame, Pirate, that you would defile the dead for such trifles as that?'

Balthier, studying the dark magicite in his palm barely acknowledged her, ' It would appear I do not, Princess.'

Ashe blinked at him, if she had expected him to be shamed or embarrassed to be caught looting the bones of long dead revenants then she was destined to be sorely disappointed, he had been Pirate far too long for any such qualms.

Vaan looked from the Princess to Balthier, clearly trying to decide whether to be outraged or to ask Balthier for tips, he did after all, want to be a Sky Pirate.

' How'd you know to look in its mouth?'

'Hmm?' Balthier, on the tail end of a seven hour trek through icy fjords with precious little food and only three hours sleep the previous night was not at his best.

' The magicite is always placed on the condemned man's tongue before they are buried and left to rot.' He shrugged, breaking into a yawn.

' Huh?'

Fran took up the story, ' In the time of the Dynast King Geomages would use the power of the dark magicite to compel the dead of the battlefield to rise again to defend the king.'

'Not just the war dead.' Balthier added.

Fran nodded, ' No, it was true that in times of war deserters and those with no wish to fight and die for another man's glory would be put to death and condemned to fight for all eternity, spirits bound to their bones without rest, in punishment.'

Penelo shivered, looking down at the scattered bones, and not just from the howling icy wind.

' So these skeletons were all soldiers once? They had families and friends, just like us?'

Fran nodded, ' The only way to free their tortured souls from servitude is to remove the magicite, then their souls are free to rest in peace.'

Ashe looked to Balthier, 'Is this why you would remove the magicite, you feel pity for these fallen souls?'

Balthier, too weary to maintain much of his usual facade simply looked at the Princess, ' No one should be forced to fight against their will, Princess, a man's soul belongs to no one bar himself.'

Ashe frowned, ' I do not argue that, but surely a man's duty is to take up arms to defend king and country?'

Balthier laughed, he couldn't help it, ' Spoken like a true monarch, Princess.'

He started walking in the vague direction that the Stilshrine of Miriam was supposed to be in. Fran, nose twitching from the cold, fell into step beside him.

It was she who had first told him about the skeletons and the dark magicite, she who had never questioned why he was so moved to take away those stones whenever he found them. Fran understood freedom, after all.

' A true monarch? What is that supposed to mean?' Ashe had come up alongside, her expression animated with indignant anger.

'Should I take some insult from your words Balthier?'

Behind her Basch was looking at Balthier rather oddly, a mixture of disapproval and warning. Vaan and Penelo simply watched with keen interest.

' Princess, I am but a humble pirate, why should my words offer you any insult?'

'Humble? You are one of the least humble men I have ever met.' Ashe shot back.

The party had stopped moving and stood clustered together for warmth as Ashe and Balthier locked eyes and battled wills.

' Princess we should not tarry here, night draws in.' Basch attempted to interject.

Ashe shook her head, ' No I would know what you meant, Balthier, do you think me some kind of tyrant?'

Cocking his head to the side Balthier smirked, he could see Fran shake her head slightly in reproof. He knew he was behaving badly, failing in his role as gentleman.

Yet standing here in the cold and ice and snow, trailing after Nethicite and Dynast swords and other things of no interest to any self respecting pirate, he could not help it. Balthier would not allow himself to be so irked, but Ffamran would, and his inner self was close to the surface today.

Despite this it was Balthier who replied with cocky nonchalance.

' Princess I fail to see how you could construe such an allegation from one innocent statement. I have never called you tyrant.'

Ashe blushed slightly, but would not be deterred, ' It was implicit by your tone. You seem to hold monarchy in low regard.'

' I _am_ a sky pirate, Princess.'

Ashe shook her head and looked down upon her booted feet, Balthier noted for the first time that her feet turned in, pigeon footed.

It was surprising that her tutors at the palace had not corrected this habit when she was a child, hardly fitting for royalty to be so imperfect.

' I do this not for myself but for my country and for those who have died trying to defend Dalmasca. I am no tyrant.'

Ashe sounded quite unlike herself her voice not filled with passionate steel but with a timbre of grief and remorse that softened it.

Realising that he was in danger of revealing too much of himself and perhaps of treating the Lady Ashe unfairly also, Balthier dropped into a courtly bow, averting his eyes from the Princess' piercing regard.

' As you say, Lady Ashe.'

The party did not speak again as they travelled onwards finally arriving at the tranquil, silent Stilshrine long after darkness had fallen.

It was a combination of guilt and lasting restlessness that motivated Balthier to take first watch as they made camp by the entrance to the Stilshrine. Insisting to Fran that he was fine had been a chore, but her own weariness lent him the victory this once.

Balthier had drifted off into a state of mindless readiness, Betelgeuse resting on his lap as he sat looking down on the waters of the Stilshrine's twin channels.

It was natural, automatic, therefore that he had the gun up and aimed towards the slight rustling noise, finger beginning to pull back the hammer on the trigger, when his groggy mind recognised Vaan.

' Wow.' Vaan breathed as Balthier lowered the weapon, hiding how much of a scare Vaan had just given him.

'How'd you manage to have the gun pointed so fast? I didn't make any noise.'

Instead of pointing out that yes, in fact, Vaan had made noise, or else Balthier would never have detected him, he instead decided to re-direct the conversation.

' Did you want something, Vaan?'

' Umm, yeah, actually I wanted to talk to you.'

Oh, joy. Balthier bit back the instinctive response, reminding himself that he actually liked the impetuous, none too bright, but good hearted boy.

' About?'

Vaan dropped down gracelessly beside Balthier, all gangly limbed.

' About what you said to Ashe, about how you didn't think people ought to fight just because their kings want them too.'

Balthier sighed, 'I never said that.'

'Yeah, I know, but,' Vaan stopped to swipe a hand under his nose, as was his custom, ' we all knew that's what you meant. That's why Ashe got mad.'

Having nothing to say to that and resenting Vaan for the strange quirk that allowed him moments of surprising perceptiveness, Balthier ignored the observation and swerved the conversation back on the boy.

' You wanted to ask me something?'

'Yeah.'

Vaan fiddled with his armour, tugging on leather straps and tapping fingers on greaves. It didn't seem he was in such a hurry to ask his question after all. Balthier, who well knew patience was not a virtue he possessed in any quantity, broke first.

' This is about your brother isn't it?'

Vaan blinked, surprise writ large across his girlish, undeveloped features, ' Umm, yeah. How'd you know?'

'Lucky guess.'

Said in a voice dry as dust. What else was it going to be about but the worshipped and two years dead older brother?

Rubbing fiercely at his nose Vaan's words were hurried and muffled by his hand. ' Do you think Reks was wrong, leaving to fight in Nalbina?'

Why? Balthier wondered. What had he done that fate had foisted this punishment on him? Playing agony aunt to a seventeen year old boy?

' I don't think anything about it, Vaan. I never knew your brother.'

But the boy continued talking as if he hadn't heard Balthier.

' Because, see, I think I do. Blame him, I mean. I thought I hated Basch, or that Judge, the one who really killed Reks, but I don't because if Reks hadn't gone off to fight, he never would have died in Nalbina, because he wouldn't have been there. Right?'

Balthier took a moment to wade through the boys ramblings and had barely untangled the sense, such as it was, behind the words when Vaan began again.

' I get why Reks wanted to fight. I do. I mean I wouldn't be here now if I didn't get it. But it's not the point is it? Our parents were already dead and he just left me. I mean what was I supposed to do if he died, huh?'

Balthier blinked, resisting the urge to say 'huh?', much as Vaan liked to do. ' Exactly what you did do, for your brother did die.'

' That's it! That's what I'm trying to say. Reks just left without thinking about it, because he said he had to fight for Dalmasca, but when he died I didn't know what to do. The same with Penelo and her brothers. If it hadn't been for Migelo...'

Balthier waited. Clearly Vaan didn't so much want someone to tell him what to do, just someone to talk too. He probably wouldn't care if I stopped listening, Balthier thought wryly, it's the chance to say it that counts.

Vaan was staring wide eyed, Balthier was uncomfortably aware of the fact that the boy's eyes were wet and tried his best to ignore the fact, out into a middle distance.

' I've been thinking and it's like what I told Ashe back at the Garif village. I need to find answers for myself. And I think I've got my answer. Reks was wrong. If it was me and I had people who depended on me, I'd stay with them. So they wouldn't be alone.'

Balthier was thankful the boy was too deep in his own revelatory introspection to notice him flinch at his words. People who depended on him? He had that once, though the circumstances had been different, he had left though, hadn't he? He had run.

' So what do you think?' Vaan turned to him suddenly.

'About?'

Vaan gave him a slightly dubious look, ' About what I said. Do you think Reks was wrong?'

Balthier closed his eyes and shook his head. So much about talking to Vaan was like this. A dance, two steps forward to one step back. Still at least some progress was made each time, Balthier considered dryly.

' As I said Vaan, I don't think about it at all. I didn't know you or your brother then and it makes not the slightest difference anyway. What's done is done.'

'But...?' Vaan looked momentarily stricken and Balthier supposed that what he had just said could be conceived as rather harsh. He really was no good at this comforting small talk. It wasn't like Fran needed much of a shoulder to cry on, was it?

Balthier pulled himself to his feet, if the boy was up he could finish the watch, the effort to keep his eyes open was giving Balthier a headache.

' Vaan, if I told you that I thought your brother was exactly right to run off and fight a pointless war, have the poor taste to become complicit in a conspiracy to kill the king and bring down Dalmasca, what would you say?'

' I'd say you were wrong.' Vaan had gotten to his feet also.

' Right and if I said that I thought you were right about your brother does that make you feel any better? Does it change anything?'

Vaan put his hands behind his neck, bony elbows sticking out at right angles. He pondered this question for an interminably long moment. 'No, not really.'

Balthier tugged on a sleeve distractedly, 'Well then. Goodnight Vaan.'

Without further adieu he turned nonchalantly on his heel and strolled towards the bed roll calling out to him sweetly, his head a lead weight bobbing on his shoulders.

'Hey! But I'm not even supposed to be on watch.'

' You are now.'

With his back to the boy, Vaan couldn't see the smirk that lit Balthier's features. It was unlikely Vaan would try and confide in him again now.

Introspection not being a favoured past-time for Balthier, even if he was merely a spectator this time; after all he had acquired far too many skeletons over the last six years to risk stirring up old ghosts.

Balthier closed his eyes as his head hit the travel pillow and fell immediately and deeply into dark and labyrinthine dreams. When he awoke, just after dawn the next day, the echo of his father's voice rang in his ears.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven: The art of rotating Stone Braves and other useful facts to learn while plundering ancient, mystical shrines

'_Anti_clockwise, Vaan. _Not_ clockwise!'

Penelo yelled at Vaan as the boy manipulated the revolving Stone Brave statue on its plinth this way and that.

Balthier, who had a healthy appreciation for high farce as a an art form, so long as he wasn't stuck in one, might have found it all rather amusing, had he not been fighting for his life against a cloud of Balloons.

Bulbous, bilious and fit to explode and send parts of him flying to the four corners of the Shrine the Balloons converged on him, it was typical that Betelgeuse chose that moment to jam.

It had been the Princess' idea to split the party in two so that they could reach the Stone Braves in double quick time. At the time it had seemed a sensible suggestion.

Realising that no amount of yelling at Vaan was going to help, Penelo waded into the throng of Balloons ostensibly to help Balthier, beginning to cast a spell for water.

From the corner of his eye, as he struggled to re-calibrate Betelgeuse as quickly as he could, Balthier noticed one of the huge Balloons preparing to burst right behind Penelo. So it had come to this, had it? Another one of those damnable moments when his own, somewhat unorthodox, moral code demanded he play the hero and hang the consequences.

Throwing Betelgeuse aside, she was to be no use here after all; Balthier leapt for Penelo, tackling the girl to the ground and shielding her with his body as above him the Balloon committed its own suicide, the chain reaction causing its compeers to explode also.

A wave of liquid heat, not so much painful as it was numbing in its intensity, seared over his back. Magickal flames and whatever else was emitted when Balloons exploded rushed over his body, leeching through his pores and melting nerves and muscle, frying bones.

He thought he heard Penelo scream and tried to make sure as much of his body covered her as possible before the torrent of excruciating pain cut his mind loose of its physical moorings and sent him spinning into darkness.

Balthier knew he was dreaming because he was back with his father and it was only in dreams that his father was allowed into his thoughts at all.

Dr Cid was grinning at him; monocle and glasses perched on his nose, eyes bright with familiar madness. They were in the drawing room of the old Bunansa mansion, Balthier noted vaguely.

The ornately decorated mosaic coffee table that his paternal grandmother had had commissioned while on holiday in Nabudis, was covered in schematics, notes and pieces of shiny stone.

_See Ffamran. __Nethicite._

Dr Cid waved a hand at the table before sitting down in his favoured leather recliner, a chair that had been the favourite of his father before him also. Nothing in the Bunansa household was under fifty years of age, save Ffamran himself.

_What of it?_

Balthier noticed vaguely that one of the trinkets, like so many cheap conjurers props scattering the table top, looked suspiciously like the Dawn Shard. Almost involuntarily he found himself reaching for it.

_See? See, it is as I thought, you can't resist it either, can you? _

Balthier jerked his hand back, as if burned, his father sounded pleased, so very pleased.

_I am not you, old man, to lose my wits to a stone. _

Dr Cid smiled at him, the smile that could seem so kindly and yet so unutterably deranged.

_Good for you, Ffamran._

_I'm not Ffamran, I'm Balthier. I left all this behind me years ago. _

Dr Cid fixed him with his keen, bright gaze, eyes that always knew when Ffamran lied, always heard the words Fframran didn't say.

_Then why are you here, hmmm? Why has the prodigal son come home? _

_I am not your son anymore. You are not my father. _

Cid laughed outright, leaning forward to gather up his precious stones, _Oh, no, my boy. It doesn't work like that. _

_What's that supposed to mean? _

Ffam – _Balthier!_ – knew he shouldn't let his father rile him, he remembered still how it was to live with the mercurial mad scientist after all, but distance had made those survival skills rusty.

_What does it mean? Can you not tell Ffamran? Has living out your own childish indulgences addled your wits boy? _

His father's tone was mocking; Balthier heard the echo of his own exchange with Vaan the night before in its harshness. No wonder he had little patience for the problems of others.

Cid watched him, while simultaneously holding the deadened Dawn Shard up to the light of the dusty chandelier that had been one of his mother's family heirlooms bought with her as part of her dowry on marrying Cid.

_You will always be my son, Ffamran __Mid__ Bunansa and I shall always be your father. _

_No, I am Balthier, I left you and my past behind. This, _he waved his hand to encompass the room with all its useless relics in ill-repair that he remembered so well, _all of this is but memory - you only exist in my dreams. _

Dr Cid clapped his hands delightedly, the way he used to when as a child Ffamran solved the mathematical puzzles his father set for him.

_Precisely! Dreams, memories, the only true immortality man can aspire to. Man can live forever in the dreams of others, my boy, and so shall I, ever more, live in yours._

_No. _

But said without conviction as Balthier realised that of course this was some kind of dream, all of it, a product of his own traitorous mind.

Forcing him to acknowledge that no matter what Balthier the Sky Pirate did, he would forever carry the shadow of Ffamran Bunansa.

Cid was watching him nodding as if he knew what Balthier was thinking, which as a figment of his own imagination, he probably did.

_Here, son, here is the only place that I am still your father, the one you knew, the one you ran from. Here is the only place that you are still Ffamran, still my son. You are not ready to give that up yet. _

_I miss you. _

The boy who created the pirate Balthier in order to survive the guilt of severance, nearly destroyed all that hard work with that one, pitiful, admission.

He had become, once more, the boy who loved his father and hated himself, more than Cid, for what happened all those years ago.

_But you don't miss me, do you?_

After all had he been a better son his father would never have needed to throw himself to Nethicite, would he? Never would have had to create a substitute in his own mind, when his son wasn't enough to keep him rooted to sanity.

_No,_ Cid agreed cheerfully enough polishing his monocle, _I don't miss you. But you knew that, already. As you say, what's done is done._

Unable to look at Cid anymore, Balthier, or was it Ffamran?, sought something to distract himself around the cluttered, faded finery of the drawing room.

He found it. She was beautiful in a way that was almost painful. But it was a beauty like that of a dawn laden sky, something to be savoured but never consumed.

A beauty to be admired through sideways glimpses and silhouette not sullied with lustful ogling and questing hands. She was to be clean, untouched and pure. She was, after all, Viera, the most precious of all the creatures of Ivalice and perhaps the most cold.

_You need to come back now, Balthier, this serves no purpose._

Fran was as incongruous as a snowflake in the desert perched on the arm of his father's favourite wingchair, her cool gaze working its usual magic, reminding him of who he now was. Balthier opened his eyes and the dream faded, though he knew with certainty that he would return.

'He's awake! Fran, Balthier's awake!'

He was aware of quite stultifying pain through his entire body and fought and failed to keep his eyes open. He was awake, Penelo was right on that one, but he fervently wished he wasn't.

'Balthier?'

Fran's cool exotic tones were as a balm to his pain but he couldn't find voice to answer her.

' He opened his eyes, I saw it, I swear.' Penelo was saying from somewhere above him.

He felt a deft touch against his cheek, under his nose, a hand that moved to his chest.

' He breathes and his pulse is strong. Penelo, Ashe, another spell casting should rouse him.'

' I'll do it.' Ashe's voice, surprisingly soft. He felt another touch against his brow, the Princess this time. Then he felt magick float through his beleaguered body, like the sweet breath of the wind.

' Ghhn.'

He was truly awake now and forcing himself up before his blurred vision had time to register the ring of anxious faces that encircled him.

He struggled all the way up to his feet through sheer will power alone and it was only Basch's strong grip on him that kept him from falling flat on his face. He wished he could remember what had happened. One ought to remember near death experiences shouldn't one?

'Balthier are you well, can you hear me?'

Ashe appeared as if conjured from thin air before him. His vision wavered as another healing spell staggered him. As always the spells did not so much take away pain as insure one had no opportunity of dying to escape it.

' Princess,' His own voice sounded gratifyingly normal, despite the precarious mental state he found himself in,

' have you found your sword yet?'

' I -no, not yet.'

She was frowning at him, but not with her usual distain, the Princess actually looked pale, as did Vaan and Penelo. Balthier was gratified to note that the latter was looking unharmed so at least his act of heroism was not in vain.

' Well then we had best get a move on, Dalmasca isn't going to liberate herself.'

He staggered forward and was pleased to find that his legs obeyed him and bore him along, albeit unsteadily, Fran appeared at his side not interfering but ready to jump in should a collapse seem imminent.

' Balthier!'

'Yes Princess?'

He didn't stop to look at her because if he stopped he feared he'd never start again. He must have been moving quite slowly however for she swiftly over took him.

'Balthier you almost died. It took three tufts of Phoenix Down and numerous spells to awaken you.'

He raised an eyebrow, ' Really? My apologies Princess, I'll endeavour to almost die less thoroughly next time.'

' Balthier!'

Stopping at the elaborately engraved and gold embossed ancient door Balthier faced the Princess.

'Ashe if you are going to take on so every time one of your entourage is hurt we shall never get anywhere.'

Ashe coloured for a moment and something like lightening flashed in her grey eyes, for a second Balthier wondered if she would strike him. Then she marshalled her self control and looked at him coldly.

'You are blasé for one who nearly died. Do you not fear death pirate?'

He smiled at her, ' Of course not, Princess, I am, after all, the Leading Man. The leading man never dies before the end of the story.'


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve: Leisure Craft and Nalbina Town

As soon as they boarded the commercial airship at Rabanastre aerodrome to Nalbina Balthier made immediately for the outside observation deck, Vaan and Penelo at his heels. It would be the first time the orphans had ever flown on commercial airship.

Fran found herself in the company of the former Dalmascan Captain, the Princess having decided to sleep through the journey, her mood blackening from its usual determined sobriety to something close to depression since the death of Gran Kiltias Anastasis and the fight with Judge Bergen.

' I would thank you for your assistance on behalf of the Princess, our journey would be near impossible without your guidance.'

Basch began formally, yet he could not keep his true intent from his eyes. Fran had seen the way the paternally minded knight watched when the Princess and Balthier engaged in verbal sparring matches.

'Balthier has no designs upon the Princess, rest assured on that.'

Basch blinked, surprised by her bluntness perhaps, then he guffawed slightly in embarrassed acknowledgement. ' Tell me Fran are all Viera as perceptive as you?'

Fran merely shook her head, ' I can not speak for all Viera, but I know Balthier.'

Fran had oft thought it amusing that Balthier had such a reputation for womanising, as if he had time to carouse over much in-between the jailbreaks and smuggling runs that were the bread and butter of the life of two of Ivalice's most successful pirates.

Basch smiled, ' I thought it as much,' he replied honestly, 'though I will not claim I wasn't concerned. Ashe relies on Balthier, I needed to know how things stand.'

' Basch?'

Both Fran and Basch turned to the stairs leading from the main saloon to the outer observation deck. Vaan was watching them, windblown and eager.

'Hey, you should check out these views, you can see the whole of Dalmasca!'

Stepping out onto the outer deck Fran saw Penelo leaning on the railings, pigtails flapping in the breeze looking down and pointing out familiar landmarks far below to no one bar herself.

Vaan ran to join her and the two played a game of I-Spy as the airship made its leisurely way through an azure sky bound to Nalbina.

Fran walked over to the far side of the deck where Balthier leaned forearms against the railings looking directly ahead, not downwards.

' A good tailwind, we should make good time to Nalbina.'

Balthier said as way of greeting, head tipped back and eyes closed to enjoy the sun on his face and the caress of the huge open sky.

' You travel often by commercial airship, Balthier?'

Basch inquired mildly, his reaction to her partner markedly more cordial now Fran had assured him of Balthier's good intent.

' On occasion Captain, when the need arises.'

A blatant lie, that. Balthier was, much as Fran herself, in love with all forms of sky travel. They made regular commercial trips across Ivalice often times for no other purpose than to explore new models of airship and feel the wind on their faces as they sailed through the clouds.

' The crossing through the Highwaste to the Phon Coast will be difficult I think.' Basch ventured.

' It is always such.' Fran agreed, ' The season is against us. We will need to pack provisions against the sun and the rain as we make for Salikawood.'

' It will be hard on the children and the Princess, the depredations of the Empire weigh heavily over the Lady Ashe's head.'

Basch studied Balthier as he said such, Balthier blithely ignored him. Though Fran could not be certain if it was feint or if Balthier was too caught up in his communion with the sky to register Basch's words.

They were joined then by Vaan and Penelo, both grinning from ear to ear, their innocent joy was all the purer for the fact that both Hume's had known great hardship.

' This is great!'

Penelo looked around and her smile slipped, 'Ashe should be here. I'm worried about her, she's been very quiet since we left Mount Bur-Omisace.'

'It is best the Princess rest while she may. We have weeks of hard travel before us.' Basch warned.

Vaan was shaking his head an oddly stubborn look on his face, ' No, she needs to be here. Being on her own isn't going to help.'

Fran left the discussion of the Princess' emotional health to the other three and leaned against the railing beside her partner.

Balthier still had his face turned to the sun, catlike in his enjoyment of the simple sensation. Without a word Fran lifted her own face to the sky in silent worship, even as she flinched deep in her soul at the blasphemy.

' Well I'm going to see if she's okay. She can yell at me if she wants.'

Vaan's voice, filled with a confidence that had been creeping up on the youth since Jahara, turned on his heel and went back into the airship to awaken the Princess.

'Vaan!' Penelo took a few steps after him then turned back to Basch.

'I hope he doesn't make things worse.'

Basch chuckled slightly, ' No, I think perhaps young Vaan is right. It does no good to dwell on that which we cannot change, especially when there is so much good that remains to be enjoyed.'

Balthier had turned around so his back was to the open sky following the sun as the craft smoothly turned northward towards Nalbina. He had his arms stretched out across the rails and his smile was pure luxuriant indulgence.

Fran enjoyed these moments, times when Balthier forgot himself in simple joy of his life and freedom. It was these moments, either on the deck of a commercial craft or at the controls of the Strahl, no words between them, that Fran felt true and unbreakable kinship with this Hume, her partner for this leg of her life journey.

' Our pirate friends seem well versed in how to enjoy life, it appears.'

' Hmm? Did you say something Captain?' Balthier slowly opened his eyes dragging himself back to the here and now, Fran knew that his soul had been flying high with the clouds mere seconds previously.

Penelo was giggling and Basch allowed himself a faint smile, amused.

' The good knight and young Penelo were questioning our industry, Balthier.'

Fran murmured, oddly playful under the brilliant crystal sky, miles above the whispering silence of the wood and Green Way.

Balthier quirked an eyebrow, ' Is that so?'

Fran allowed herself a flicker of a smile, ' I fear they think you lazy.'

'Lazy?' Balthier's smile spread across his face as slow as afternoon sun through thin curtains. ' I would argue the point, but I find I lack the energy.'

Basch laughed and Penelo giggled then looked to Fran. 'You seem happy Fran.'

Fran cocked her head slightly and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Happy? Yes, she supposed she was happy. Here in the wide open sky.

' Sky Pirates desire nought else but open sky.' Fran said simply.

'Tis so?' Basch looked faux incredulous, ' I thought they desired Gil and treasure above all else?'

' Chance would be a fine thing on this trip.' Balthier quipped. ' All the loot goes towards out-fitting six people for war. It leaves little for us lowly pirates.' Balthier quirked an eyebrow raising his voice, ' Would you not agree Princess?'

' Agree to what?'

Ashe approached reluctantly, pale and wane and being led by the hand by a triumphant Vaan.

' See, told you I could get her up.' Vaan shot a smug look to Penelo.

'Princess are you well, you look..' Basch cut off the rest of his question when Ashe glared at him. Fran hid her amusement, Princess she may be but Ashe was as conscious of her appearance as any other Hume girl.

Which, Fran thought dryly, may explain why Ashe so enjoyed viewing herself in the mirror of Balthier's eyes, a man who knew flattery as well as he knew flight paths.

'What are you all doing?' Ashe questioned hugging her arms to herself. ' It is cold out here.'

'Nonsense Princess, it is as warm out here as it is down there.'

Balthier gestured down to the yellow, brown cord of Sandsea, dotted with dark spatters of refineries far below them.

Ashe walked over to the guard rail and looked furtively down over the edge to the ground below, then quickly moved away, her hair whipping about her in the wind picked up by the crafts momentum.

' I will be inside.'

'Oh-ho, me thinks our Princess is afraid of heights.' Balthier crowed as they watched her swiftly retreating back, Vaan and Penelo trailing after her.

' Leave her be, Balthier.' Fran warned.

Her partner turned to face her directly then, an oddly serious depth to his eyes. ' As you wish, Fran.'

Fran wondered at his response as conversation between herself, Balthier and Basch turned to the immediate concerns of long hard travel by foot. She wondered what undercurrent in her words Balthier had detected that she had not meant to escape the confines of her mind?

She wondered, vaguely, if he knew she was resentful of these Humes who would invade their lives and constrain their freedom.

Envious of the Princess who would turn Balthier into her personal guide and chauffeur; envious of the Humes who were so easy with their faults and their emotions, their dreams and their regrets and who made her feel so old and so cold.

One sideways glance from the Hume she has chosen to favour above all the others she has known these fifty years and she has her answer. She saw that, yes, Balthier knew and he loved her for it with all his heart.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen: The business side of piracy, the grey areas of freedom fighting and the arts of forgery

'We shall be away from notaries and Licensers for many weeks.'

Fran murmured as an aside to her partner as they walked casually down the winding, stony streets of what was left of Nalbina.

She looked up at the small tent where the officially mandated weapons, armour and accessories Licenser had set up his shop, magicked papers and Marlboro inks set out neatly before the officious looking Moogle.

Balthier also cast a lightening quick glance over to the Licenser. She knew that in that one glance he took account of the position of the Moogle's supplies, the spare inks, papers and stamps at the back of his tent.

' Too open. Easy enough to lift the flap at the back of the tent but the chances of being seen are too great.'

' Do you not have your own supplies?' Fran took a moment to linger by the Licensers pretending to pick a pebble from her shoe.

' No, there was no way to safely carry the alchemicals needed to treat the papers, let alone the stencils and inks.'

' Then we must acquire more.'

Fran rested her eyes on Vaan who was talking to Basch, Penelo hanging on his every word and deed.

' If you can pry Penelo from his side that would be a help.' Balthier spoke in light conversational tones, they were both thinking with one mind.

' The Princess is like to be suspicious if you disappear Balthier, her knight also.'

'Then I shall not disappear. I will simply spend a little time talking to the Licenser while we are here.'

Fran nodded once and picked up her steps to meet Penelo and the Captain.

'Balthier wishes word with you, Vaan.'

'Huh?'

The boy turned to look back at Balthier who had stopped to study the contents of one of the traders stalls. After a moment Vaan ambled over to him.

'Is something wrong?' Penelo looked worried and perhaps a mite suspicious.

Fran shook her head, ' No. Balthier had words with Vaan some time ago and he fears he may have been too blunt. He is often times like that and means it not.'

'Oh, okay.'

Penelo accepted the lie with total good faith. It often amazed Fran how easy it was to lie to Humes.

Basch had stopped to watch the seemingly casual conversation Balthier and Vaan were engaged in, the light of suspicion in his eyes. He would be harder to distract.

' Why have we stopped?' Ashe, who had been trudging ahead stoop shouldered and silent, walked back to the group.

' We are in need of provisions, Princess, and Balthier wished a word with Vaan.' Basch said calmly.

' We need to press on.' Ashe argued, though even she sounded less forceful than usual.

'It does no good to go unprepared Princess. We have a long journey ahead of us and we will be away from any large settlements for a good many days.'

Ashe shifted uncomfortably where she stood and then nodded, ' You are right, Basch. I was not thinking.'

' You have much on your mind.' Basch hastened to reassure the Princess, once indefatigable in her zeal, now wilting as the tragedies mounted.

Ashe nodded then looked up at Fran, her eyes igniting.

' Tell me of Archades, what should I expect from the seat of Empire?'

Fran quirked an eyebrow, as Penelo and Basch also focused their gazes and curiosity on her.

Straining her hearing she could just make out Vaan asking Balthier a question, Balthier answering in clipped, incisive tones and then the two drifted out of her hearing range towards the Licensers tent.

If she was to be the distraction she would need to weight her words carefully.

' I can tell you little of the Empire's Capital, I have not travelled there for many years.'

' Why not?' Penelo asked curiously. 'I thought Sky Pirates went wherever they wanted to?'

Fran nodded, ' We have little want to travel to Archades. They look poorly on Pirates there.'

'And yet Balthier seemed to know the route as if by rote.' Ashe raised her eyebrows pointedly.

Fran raised one elegant shoulder in a gesture too graceful to be classed a shrug. This avenue of conversation would suffice to hold their attention.

' We oft walk the Highwaste on business and the Phon Coast has a settlement of Hunters where one may trade goods.'

Balthier had often remarked that Fran had a way of implying more with a few innocent words than he could with an entire dictionary's worth. She put that skill to work now, with the usual success.

' Business? What business can pirates have on the Mosphoran Highwaste? There is precious little to steal.'

Fran shrugged again, amused privately at the Princess' prurient interest in the doings of pirates and her odd assumption that she and Balthier made their living through treasure hunting and thievery alone.

As if there was enough undiscovered treasure in this world of ever curious Humes to accommodate the greed of all pirates; or the greed of Humes in general.

Basch however was watching her with a keener eye, the soldier, eldest of the Humes, knew something of the workings of the world beyond palaces and city walls.

' The Highwaste is a popular route for smugglers and counterfeiters, Princess. Much of the black market trade comes through the Highwaste from Archades and beyond and back up again.'

' You are racketeers as well as thieves?' Ashe asked scandalized, her voice loud enough that a few listless itinerate workers come to repair the Nalbina palace looked over incuriously.

' Who's a thief?' Vaan bounded over, eyes bright with energy and grin huge.

Balthier walked over at a more sedate pace, the provisions sack slung over one shoulder did not look any heavier but the slight nod he gave to her indicated that their procurement of licensing materials had been a success.

'Something wrong?' He inquired mildly.

' You had some business with the Licenser, Balthier?' Basch asked mildly.

Fran did not frown, she had suspected that Basch had an inkling of what they were about, but the knight, while steeped in honour, was no fool. He would understand that sometimes turning a blind eye was for the best.

' I was enquiring as to where we might find a Licenser on the route to the Hunter's Camp on the Phon Coast, we are like to meet traders on the route and it would not do to be without licenses.'

Balthier's response was cool, unhurried and confident. Vaan for his part maintained a look of innocent faced nonchalance as implacable as marble.

Conversation moved on then, the Princess badgering the two pirates persistently about the route and most particularly about Archades.

All things considered Balthier handled the uncomfortable topic of conversation well; no doubt their successful work of thievery having something to do with his good mood.

Four days later they had reached the clearing in the Highwaste where the caravan's gathered. The Highwaste had been as difficult for all the party to travel as expected.

The Worgan ambushes and the Seeq pirates who used their spells to enrage and confuse had left their mark on the morale of the party. The humidity and changeability of the weather, from thick wet heat to torrential showers, helped to drag down spirits further.

' I hate this place.' Penelo whispered vehemently plopping down to sit next to Fran as she hammered tent pegs into the ground.

Vaan who was assisting in preparing the party's tents looked over at her, ' You don't hate anything.'

' Yes I do. I hate it here.' Penelo pulled her fingers through her loosened, sweat and rain darkened hair, freed of its tattered ribbons.

' It is not far now until we reach Salikawood. It will be easier travel there.'

Penelo looked over to Fran, tugging at her padded light armour to reveal the huge bruises that covered her left shoulder. ' Really?'

Fran nodded and handed Penelo a potion for her bruises.

' You should have told someone of your injuries.'

Penelo shrugged, then winced, ' It's just bruises. I can't even remember how I got them.'

After a moment as the three of them finished with their tents Penelo frowned, ' Fran where is Balthier?'

' Hey, yeah, where is he?' Vaan looked about indignantly,

' He's supposed to be helping while Ashe and Basch get washed up.'

Fran, who in truth had not noticed Balthier slip away, though she suspected she knew where he had gone and for what purpose, shrugged.

'He will return presently.'

Unsatisfied with this answer Vaan jumped up and ambled over to Balthier's discarded travel pack, rooting through it suspiciously for something or other.

' Hey! He said I could help.' Vaan straightened up looking annoyed. ' I got all that stuff for him after all.'

'Help with what?' Penelo asked confused, but Vaan was already running off in the probable direction Balthier had gone, calling out to him.

'Fran?'

Fran could but shrug once more, the moral vagaries of what Humes considered right and wrong, criminal or law abiding, held little interest to her.

' There is more to being pirate than wings alone. It is necessary to have the keys to open the treasury even if one prefers to pick the lock.'

Penelo was frowning at her, clearly not understanding. Fran jerked her head in the direction Vaan had gone.

' Sky pirates need many skills to survive, Vaan is learning a skill you would do well to learn also, if you wish to be his partner.'

After another few moments Penelo got slowly, hesitantly, to her feet and then set off, at a quick trot, after Vaan calling out to him and Balthier both.

They were all three still nowhere in sight when the Princess and Basch came back from washing. It having been agreed that no-one should go to wash alone in case of fiend ambush and Basch not trusting Balthier or Vaan to guard the Princess while she bathed.

' Fran why are you alone?' Basch looked around at the empty camp, almost annoyed. ' No member of the party should be alone in this place.'

Fran looking over Basch's head thought she saw the Princess indulge in a very undignified eye-roll behind her knights back. Freshly washed and in clean clothing the Princess seemed in brighter moods.

' I am well.' Fran replied with equanimity.

' And the others?'

' Well also.'

Basch quirked an eyebrow at this obvious evasion, while the Princess frowned.

' They are well but where are they?'

Fran studied the Knight, speaking in very neutral tones.

' We have a need for Licenses to acquire weaponry. There are no Licensers between here and Archades. Therefore we must make our own way.'

Basch sighed, ' I thought as much.'

His own voice deceptively mild, truly Fran thought, there was more to the man than Balthier, in his youthful arrogant way, gave credit for.

' That day in Nalbina when Balthier took Vaan aside, it was for this purpose, to acquire the means for us to make 'our own way'?' His voice dry and resigned.

' Vaan had the needed skills and a willingness to learn new ones.' Fran agreed evenly.

Basch sighed once more and nodded. ' Tis done now and I cannot argue the logic, though it grates on me that he would use the boy.'

'What?' Ashe was looking from both Fran to Basch confusedly, growing irritated. ' What has Balthier done now?'

Basch looked Fran in the eye sharing with her for a moment a mutual humour for the circumstances they found themselves in.

Fran covering for her thief and counterfeiter partner, Basch left to explain necessity to his Princess, still too young to understand the grey areas of life in which pirates and sometimes renegade Princess' must reside.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen: How to make a Viera laugh and the true confessions of a pirate

' I cannot believe we are at the mercy of feckless Moogles. We must make for Archades!'

No one said anything at all as the Princess ranted on. Yes, they were at the 'mercy' of work shy moogles, yes the gate to the Phon Coast was out of commission. Yes, they had to reach Archades at some point, but really, did she have to take on so about it?

Balthier tugging at the high neck of his vest irritably was beginning to think he might have lost his wits somewhere between the Dalmascan treasury and here in the Salikawood.

It wasn't as though he and Fran had nothing better to do than play tour guide for a Princess, her guardian Knight, and two children whose exact purpose for being here was anyone's guess.

The peaceful, productive few hours he had spent busily forging Licence certificates for the party's current weapons and sundries two days ago on the Highwaste had bought home to Balthier exactly what he should be doing with his time. Simple, honest piracy.

Instead he was sweating like a stuck pig, too much the aristocrat to remove outer clothing, carrying Ras Algethi slung across his back and Betelgeuse in his arms for Penelo, because -well he didn't know why he was carrying her weapon actually – and feeling as far removed from his usual life of professional piracy as he could be.

The only bright spot in all of this and the reason (he now recalled) he was carrying Penelo's weapon and most of her share of the other equipment was that three hours and fifteen minutes ago, Fran laughed for the first time in eight months, six and half days.

He had missed most of the conversation (bickering match) between Vaan and Penelo, finding himself walking point with the Princess while she whined at him incessantly, that had resulted in the rarest of rare gems, Fran's laughter.

As far as he could piece together it had involved a hypothetical conversation between Penelo and Vaan as to what each member of the party, and in absentia, Larsa, would look like if suddenly transformed into Moogles.

Pure childishness really, but a harmless diversion. He remembered a heated argument over whether Ashe would have a silver or pink plume on her head, while as it appeared to be unanimous that he, Balthier, would have a green one. Balthier decided not to waste too much brain power on the reasoning for that.

He had only been listening in on the conversation carried out behind him, often in whispered asides, as a means to drown out the Princess, and was thankful therefore he hadn't missed Fran's muffled but unmistakable laughter.

Fran's laughter, like her voice, was elemental. The musical twinkle of waterfalls, the chime of pure crystal glass, the beats of a flock of doves taking wing all at once.

It was magic beyond anything a mage or alchemist could create in dusty rooms, that transformed the placid, set lines of Fran's agelessly beautiful face to life and laughter, if only for a handful of seconds.

Balthier could do it, though he knew Fran preferred that he didn't try, Viera do not like to laugh for some reason, but to see Fran forced into open mirth by Vaan and Penelo was somehow so much better.

He knew, though he feigned ignorance because Fran preferred him selfish and insensitive, that Fran's greatest wish and most compelling fear was to be close too and accepted by humes. Not just him, but all humes.

To share in Hume humour, even at it's most juvenile, to laugh and talk freely with Vaan and Penelo, neither of them anything like him, or the other Humes Fran had partnered with, those shadowy dead men Balthier preferred not to think over much about, bought Fran closer to that goal.

Of course it was over all too quickly. Vaan and Penelo were both shocked speechless to hear Fran laugh, where he would have done or said anything, if only to make her laugh more, and had done in times past.

Even the Princess was startled out of her self-pity, while as Basch appeared the least affected, no doubt unable to recognise the value of something that did not wear, and never had worn, a crown.

After that Penelo, who was the one most responsible for Fran's laughter, as her last descriptive explanation of how Moogle-Basch could lift a battle axe with tiny Moogle hands was the straw that broke the Chocobo's back, could have asked him for almost anything and he would gladly have granted it to her.

Now their motley crew were strolling through the Salikawood, a nice change of pace from the Highwaste, harrying lazy Moogles back to work.

'Is it pretty?'

Shaken out of his reverie Balthier inclined his head slightly towards the Princess, ' Pretty?'

' The Phon Coast. I had heard that the coastline was quite beautiful.'

Balthier thought about that. The white gold sands and grassy knolls, the rippling veldt of cerulean blue ocean and the lapis Lazuli sky above.

' Yes, Princess, it is quite an inspiring view. A change from the desert at the very least.'

'I have never seen the ocean.' Ashe admitted haltingly.

Balthier shrugged, ' And now you will.'

'Yes, I will.'

Ashe lapsed into silence then and Balthier felt genuine sympathy for her. She was barely more than a girl and was clearly afraid, though she would sooner slit her own throat than admit to that, no doubt.

While the Phon Coast was as breath-taking as he remembered, it was a trifle more dangerous than he recalled.

Still motivated by the memory of Fran's laughter Balthier took more interest in the welfare of Vaan and Penelo than he had before, not to say he ignored the Rabanastran's in times past, only that his usual focus rarely strayed from Fran in battle.

He had not realised just how many knocks and scrapes the orphans took along the way and how little they complained. He was impressed.

He knew Vaan had the resilience and cunning of a Dire Rat but Penelo was a marvel. She handled Betelgeuse competently even though the gun's recoil still sent her flying backwards with every shot.

It was late afternoon when they made it to the Hunter's Camp, they were all tired, battered and ready for a week long sleep when they staggered into the camp.

With the exuberance of youth (Balthier reflected at the grave old age of twenty-two) Vaan and Penelo immediately forgot their cares and ran for the waters edge. Basch and Fran following at more sedate pace.

The Princess tripped and he caught her without a thought, though she jerked her hand from his as if burnt, contrary little Princess that she was.

'Why the Capital?'

The answer was obvious of course, but for some reason he wanted to hear her say it, to admit that she sought the Nethicite. It had been bothering him a time.

He thought that he could rather enjoy the Princess' company, she was less prickly now than on first acquaintance, but he would not aid and abet another power mad lunatic. He hadn't afforded his own father that honour and he would not accord it to a relative stranger.

The saving grace of Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca was that she was truly, somewhat naively, trying to do the right thing. She did not want power only for power's sake.

At least he fervently hoped not. Vengeance was there, of course, but it was less all encompassing a passion to her as he had first thought.

Still there was that nagging doubt. The dawning realisation that his life had turned full circle. Drifting in an elegant, meandering loop these last six years to bring him home.

He loved his father still. Too practical a mind, deep down to tolerate self-delusion, though he did enjoy make believe, Balthier could not deny that he loved Cid still.

He knew also that this course he was now on would bring him directly to his father's door-step. The Draklor Laboratories, his fathers mark all over this sordid game of war and empires.

He started speaking to Ashe, confessing his past, speaking his father's name as a warning. He did not want sympathy. He did not truly rate his chances of swaying Ashe's decision if she was set on power, he simply wanted to warn her.

Blood is thicker than water, they say. The crimes of the father are reflected upon the son. Family is inviolate. Balthier put paid to such notions.

He was he knew, and on better days regretted, a profoundly selfish man. He could be kind, generous, gracious on occasion. He would fight for Dalmasca now whole-heartedly, though he didn't much care for the desert country. Yet he was selfish to his core.

When push came to shove he would always look to himself and his own well being. He lived to his own whims making no strong bonds of love or friendship, with the exception of Fran, who was too Balthier alike his own soul, and a man cannot live without that, can he? He stole and he swindled, he was adept at blackmail and extortion.

He did all this not because he had to. He was no street orphan like Vaan or Penelo. No, he did these things because he enjoyed it.

Because he was scion of one of the oldest and most established great Houses of Archades and had been raised from the cradle to believe, absolutely, that Ivalice owed him something for the privilege of hosting his mortal body while he lived.

So in a round about way, because it would not do for the Leading Man to give away too much of the drama in favour of clarity, he tried to warn Ashe exactly who it was she looked too to guide her through Archades.

Balthier knew, perhaps because the high drama and fantasy the man who used to be Ffamran Mid Bunansa lived by demanded it thus, that soon the time would come when he must either take up arms against his own beloved father or betray his very soul.

' The choice is yours. But do not give your heart to a stone Princess, you are too strong for that.'

He did not say to the Princess what he wanted to say. He did not tell her never trust a man who would contemplate the murder of his own father, surely the greatest, most heinous of crimes.

He did not say it because even Balthier needed some form of illusion to cling to and it would not do for the finest of warrior damsels to find out that the Leading Man was nothing more than a villain.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen: Drinking Games, loose tongues and the bonds of comradeship

' Well I suppose that answers that question.'

Balthier commented dryly as he gently steadied Penelo who was all but leaning on his shoulder.

' What question?' The girl asked in slightly louder tones than strictly warranted.

' That Dalmascan's have no stomach for drink, my girl.' Balthier replied merrily.

'That's not true! I could drink my brothers under the table any night!' Penelo declared sticking out her chest and looking pointedly up at Balthier.

' Nor do Dalmascan's have any concept of ladylike behaviours.' Balthier murmured too softly for Penelo, who was listing woozily and clutching at Balthier's sleeve partly to keep upright and partly because the cloth was nice to the touch, to hear him.

' What?'

' I said,' He spoke up smiling at the girl, ' that your brothers sound like stalwart characters.'

Penelo hesitated slightly as she decided what she thought he meant by that, being unfamiliar with a fair percentage of the vocabulary Balthier used.

' They were good brothers. They're all dead now. The war.' She waved her hand airily to dismiss any gathering ghosts.

'My condolences.'

Balthier said, because it was what you said, even when you don't care because you never met the specific deceased personage. He didn't know why it was said, it had always seemed trite to him.

Penelo was looking at him, milk-maid face flushed from too much of the Hunter's own brewed ale and exhausted, as they all were, from the trek across the Mosphoran Highwaste to the Phon Coast.

'Balthier?'

He blinked at her, ' Hmm? Apologies Penelo did you say something?'

Penelo nodded rather too vigorously, ' What about you? Do you have any brothers, or sisters?'

'No.'

He knew what was coming next and wracked his slightly drink sodden brain for a diversion to distract the girl, but brain and tongue failed him.

' Parents?'

'Not nearly dead enough.'

He muttered darkly, finally noticing the stroke of luck and salvation he had been waiting for in the return of his partner.

He raised the bottle of moonshine in toast to her, 'Fran, care to join us?'

Sitting with his back against one of the palms that dotted the coast line outside the Hunter's Camp Balthier was not intimidated by Fran's impressive stature, even when she gave him _that_ look.

' Balthier?'

Fran quirked an eyebrow at him with a mixture of that ever so dry understated humour she possessed and reproof.

' Fran.'

He responded in perfectly cool and collected tones, keeping a straight face even when Penelo gave up the ghost and slumped against his shoulder unconscious.

Fran walked a few feet from the tree to where Vaan was sprawled insensate on the dunes, mouth hanging open and snoring uproariously, empty bottle clutched in his loose fingered hand.

Fran nudged the boy with the toe of her heeled boot fastidiously. Vaan grunted, rolled over, but did not wake. Fran looked back at Balthier pointedly.

He shrugged, as much as he could with Penelo draped over him and took a healthy pull from his own bottle. He was not yet nearly drunk enough for his liking.

' Vaan wanted to participate in the Hunter's drinking games, who am I to stop him?'

'And who told him of those games, Balthier?'

He couldn't help himself this time; a chuckle escaped him, belaying his carefully maintained façade of cool sobriety.

'I am, after all, a Pirate.'

'And Penelo?' Fran's tone was just ever so slightly sharper, only he could hear the lilt of warning and know just how fond of the girl Fran was.

' Where Vaan goes she follows, Fran.'

He shrugged once more and plucked the girls wandering hands away from his vest, where her fingers had started petting the velvet patterning of their own accord.

' And yourself?'

Moving with a speed that was frankly annoying Fran snatched the bottle from his hands before he could lift it to his lips again. He frowned at her.

' Boredom. Sheer bloody boredom. It was either this or drown the pair of them. They bicker constantly.'

He rolled his shoulders as Fran carefully lifted the sleeping Penelo off of him so he could pull himself to his feet.

The two pirates tucked both Penelo and Vaan in blankets where they slept and walked down to the shore line.

'The Princess and her taciturn guardian?'

'Will return shortly.'

Fran said simply as they both gazed companionably at the quilt of starlight.

' The Princess will not be pleased with you.'

' If this is supposed to deter or shame me then I am afraid you are doomed to failure.'

'She depends on you and you encourage that dependency.'

' I do nothing of the sort.'

Balthier tried to remember the names of the constellations. Alas, while he could remember the correct equation for converting Mist to airship fuel he could not name the intricate, twinkling etchings of stars across the night sky.

'You have a fondness for the Princess.'

' Only in so far as I admire her audacity in chosen attire and how its sits upon certain aspects of her anatomy.'

Fran probably knew the names of each individual star in the sky. She knew almost everything else.

He remembered that he had wanted to study astronomy, mechanics and aviation theory at Akademy but Cid had expected him to study law, philosophy and theoretical mathematics. Damn Cid.

' You fool me not in the least, Balthier.' Fran said with just the slightest of indignant sniffs.

' You're quite right Fran, it's not the Princess, it's Basch I find myself so taken with. I cannot decide what I find more alluring, the emaciated traitor in rags or the placid, dull-witted yes-man in rags that he has become.'

' There is no talking to you when you are like this.'

Fran rebuked him, but the moonshine was finally having its desired affect and he merely smiled, cat-like and completely unrepentant.

'I think I will go for a little swim.'

His forward momentum was stopped short by Fran who curled a long clawed hand around his forearm drawing him up short.

' You are like to drown.'

' A nice irony, wouldn't you say? A sky pirate meeting his death by drowning.'

Fran just looked at him, coolly, dispassionately. It was oddly comforting. He could not abide sympathy in any form save that found at the bottom of a bottle.

' You could still run.'

He flinched and did not meet Fran's unwavering, unflinching regard. There was no criticism in her voice, no reproach; she simply spoke truth, with all its inherent cruelty.

' No. Archades waits.'

' As does your father.'

Balthier let Fran pull him away from the waters edge and back up the coast to where Penelo and Vaan were still lost in their inebriated dreams.

' You're wrong. Dr Cid was never one to wait on anything, least of all his son.'

He regretted the words, the clearly audible bitterness in his tone, the moment he spoke, but the damage was done.

' Sleep Balthier, nothing else will protect you from the Princess' wrath.'

He smiled broadly up at Fran as he dropped heavily down onto his sleeping mat; impulsively he reached out and squeezed her hand.

' Not true Fran, you will save me, you always do.'

Fran did not reply and presently he closed his eyes and let the sound of the surf and the heat of the ale in his blood lull him into near sleep.

He didn't bother to stir when, distantly on the edge of a dream involving purple clouds and line dancing Moogles, Balthier heard the Princess start yelling.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen: Nature's pulse and the terrible sweetness of forbidden fruit

'I feel bad about having to kill those Mandragoras.'

'Why?'

'They were so cute.' Penelo sighed.

'Huh?'

'Vaan, can't you go five minutes without saying 'huh'?'

' Huuuu – uuuuuuh?'

' Now you're just being dumb.'

Penelo rolled her eyes affecting as mature a pose as she could muster. Fran watched the two Humes as they padded along ahead of her with quiet enjoyment.

' Ahhh, Penelo, you luuuurvvee me really.'

Vaan reached out and wrapped Penelo in a fierce bear hug. Her squeal punctured Fran's eardrums.

' Still why can't you talk more like Balthier? He would never, ever be caught dead saying 'huh'.' Penelo persisted.

'Penelo you don't understand half the stuff Balthier says, admit it.'

'Yeah, well, it sounds really good.'

Fran swallowed a smile, her eyes seeking out the man in question who was trudging a little ways ahead somewhere between the orphans and Basch who led the way back to the Hunter's Camp for better provisions.

Although the party had managed to vanquish the Mandragoras for the precocious and unpleasant Archadian boy in the chosen path, the Imps and the Pitfiends had dealt heavy damage to the party and dangerously diminished their supplies of curatives.

A tactical withdrawal was the only option, even the Lady Ashe had not objected, though she was unhappy with the further delay in reaching Archades.

Basch remained serene in his constancy and the children were content to enjoy the experience, Balthier, Fran suspected, was relieved that necessity had demanded this delay.

Certainly he had been the most vocal in his insistence that they needed to re-stock and better prepare for the dangers of the Sochen Cave Palace.

As Balthier was the only one who had ever traversed the subterranean faded grandeur of the stone palace it was difficult to dispute him, especially after the third near fatal Imp ambush.

Fran, for her part, was also relieved they would not be traversing the Cave for another day or two, but her reasons were subtly different.

She had noticed as she awoke this dawn that her senses were sharper. Always sharper than a Hume's, Fran's keen sensory awareness did fade in and out of focus. Now they were painfully acute.

Most Hume's knew about a Viera's ears and the sensitivity of their hearing. They did not know that a Viera's sense of smell and sight were almost as refined.

This day she was almost overwhelmed by sensation. The scrape of the high grass of the Tchita Uplands against her bare thighs became a tactile feat of endurance to remain passive in response.

The sounds of small vermin in the grasses and the distant thrum of Archades, too far away to see on the horizon but close enough for her to hear, remained in her ears like a pulse until they reached the Phon Coast.

But it was the scents that threatened to be her undoing. The scent of dry grasses and parched soil was a canvas for the varied palette of scents arising from her Hume compatriots.

Not just the scent of their bodies, but the scent of their emotions, flooding the open plains in a rainbow of invisible nuances only she could detect.

Vaan and Penelo's scents mingled to create a warm stew of youthful energy and the sharpness of nearly ripe, but not quite ready, berries hanging on a vine. The salty overlay of sexual tension was the reason Fran preferred to walk behind them both.

She had tried to walk up-wind of the pair earlier in the day, as the sun reached its zenith and the aroma of sweat and flirtation verging on suggestion twisted Fran's gut, but the scents of fear, rage and lingering despair that emanated from Basch had driven her back.

The Princess was the scent of sand and ice, her purpose and drive reminding Fran of the mint and clove cleanness of Mount Bur-Omisace.

It was ironic therefore that it was since Mount Bur-Omisace that Fran had become aware of a change in Ashe's focus.

Not a massive change in the rhythms of her body, the swirl of emotion that encapsulated that restrained, steely passion, but a subtle fragmentation of purpose, a drifting of mental sights from grief and rage to something else.

Fran knew what it meant of course, just as Fran knew the reason for her own sudden over-sensitivity to those around her.

Why the brilliance of the sun through sparse foliage, the lulling sonorous murmur of the ocean drawing closer as the weary party returned to the Hunter's Camp and the intoxicating sweet nearness to her comrades had become almost too much for her inborn solitude to withstand.

Spring was edging summer, all about Ivalice, beyond the pillars of stone and iron that Hume's hid behind, the green world was spilling forth new life.

Fran, a creature of nature even if that bond had weakened since departing the Wood, was still sensitive to nature's will even if, since losing the ear of the Wood, she herself was no longer subject to nature's dictates.

It worried Fran that the Princess, who seemed in some ways still a girl almost as Penelo was, an unopened bud, but was in truth a woman widowed these two years, was also swayed by Nature's pulse.

Fran turned her keen senses on the Princess and was not surprised to see the woman focused with intense preoccupation upon Balthier.

Fran frowned. It was not often that she doubted the right course of action, but here now, faced with what her senses told her, she did not know what to do, or if she should _do_ anything at all.

She came abreast to Balthier, ' You have confided in the Lady Ashe.' It was not a question.

Fran's fingers twitched as she was enveloped in his scent, pepper and gunpowder over-laid with a thoughtful preoccupation, the aroma of fine, vintage wine, both sour and sweet that demanded she breathe it in.

Balthier sighed, dragging himself back from the depths of his thoughts. ' It was necessary, better from me than have him do it.'

Fran knew to whom he referred; his scent had taken on the high, sickly sharpness of rotting fruit, pain and bitterness that bore the name of father.

' You believe we shall confront Dr Cid in Draklor?'

She knew better than to refer to the man as his father, at least now, when he was wound tight.

' I'm almost certain. The spider will be waiting at the centre of his web, Fran. Tis the best place to watch and see his labours bare their bloody fruits.'

' What of the Princess, do you fear her ambitions?'

Balthier flicked a sideways glance her way, dragging out a handkerchief to swipe at his brow.

Fran resisted the urge to snatch the handkerchief from him and inhale deeply so that she could taste the truth of his feelings for the Princess.

' Do you?'

Fran took a moment to consider, Balthier always listened to her when she ventured an opinion and would follow even her most vague predictions with total faith, for this reason she tried to give him the best information she had at hand, clearing her mind of her own apprehensions.

' There is more to this tale than the ambitions of power-greedy Humes. I am certain there are other hands that pull the puppet strings from the shadows.'

' Power begets slavery in one form or the another.'

Balthier nodded, head down as they spoke in low, intense whispers.

' I believe the Princess is strong enough to resist the machinations of others. She has strength greater than would appear.'

Fran admitted. She did have high regard for Ashe, who was barely more than a girl and young to bear such a burden.

'Strong men and women have fallen before her, the noblest intentions are the most dangerous.'

Balthier argued, not so much in contradiction of Fran but as way of working out his own feelings.

Concern for the Princess was high in his scent. He cared for her in some fashion. That in itself was strange, Balthier kept others at arm's length lest they see through his performance to the man he was.

Fran looked around as they reached the Hunter's Camp and the sun began to set. Unable to hold back she spoke her mind.

' I worry for you.'

She curled one hand around his forearm, the cloth of his shirt stroked against her palm and Fran quivered inside against the brush of sensation.

It was a bittersweet torment, to be so close to others and so aware of nature's siren call and yet be unable to be part of the cycle of renewal going on all around her.

She was inside, where all women, Hume or Viera are equal, barren as deep winter.

Balthier turned to look at her blankly, ' Why for?'

Fran shook out her hair. She was loathe to say anything at all. He was still young in years, though he had never been young as Vaan was even at that age, she did not know how he would react to her warning.

' I have had words with the Captain.'

Balthier blinked at her then his eyes narrowed in understanding, the pepper scent flared with his temper. He turned as if to make for where Basch stood conversing with the children.

Fran kept hold of his arm, ' Do not go looking for a fight Balthier, he said nothing that was not fair.'

Balthier turned to look at Fran, something like hurt in his eyes. When he spoke his voice was leaden.

' You doubt me too, do you?'

Fran clasped his hand, turning her body so that none of the others could see the gesture should they look up to the bluff where they two stood.

' You and the Lady Ashe are well suited. She is a match in spirit to your own and you provide her with a voice untainted by demanded and expected fealty, the voice of reason to her passion. Yet she is a Princess bound by blood and oath to her people and you are a renegade by design.'

Balthier, not given to shows of anger, simply watched her curiously, the ironical amusement clear in his ever-present smirk.

' I have no designs on the Dalmascan throne, Fran, you make it sound as if she and I are planning a secret elopement.'

Fran sighed, struggling to explain to him her fears. It was not possessiveness or jealousy, she well knew that he would one day look to build a nest and find a mate.

It was only natural and she would never begrudge her dearest Hume companion what she had seen his predecessors enjoy.

' The call of spring is loud in my ears, Balthier, Ashe is a woman who has lost one mate and has few she can depend on, you play with fire with every promise, no matter the intent.'

Involuntarily Balthier looked down on the encampment where Ashe was standing by Vaan who was telling her something with elaborate sweeps of his arms.

' The best intentions produce the worst reactions.' Balthier sighed, shaking his head.

' I suppose I shall have to nip this one-sided blooming of affection in the bud?'

Balthier quirked an eyebrow caustically but Fran was riding Nature's wave and could scent the falsity in his words, the affection was not only on the one side.

Fran looked down also on the camp, Penelo's laughter was soon joined by Ashe's, as Vaan japed for their mutual amusement playing the fool with the consummate perfection that only the truly good of heart can; those who value the happiness of others before their own pride.

' Nothing good can come from its blossoming.'

Fran said with regret, the Princess had lost too many people she depended on and now would lose them too.

' It is better to cause a little pain now, then a deeper wound later.'

Balthier sighed, 'So much for the Leading Man, eh? Ruin my image in front of the boy, as well. I swear Fran if I did not know better I'd think you were out to ruin me.'

Without a backwards glance Balthier began the descent down to the Hunter's Camp on the shoreline.

Fran followed at his heels wandering how exactly Balthier would affect their leave from this party, her own heart conflicted she would miss the children, Basch and Ashe also.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen: Deceptions, insults and succulent fruit

_Author note: Technically I don't think you get Succulent Fruit from Marlboro's - but from those pumpkin things – so I'm using creative licence because I like the symbolism and the cooking instructions the game gives you in the Loot page on Succulent Fruit amused me. __Anyhoo__ on with the story..._

'Balthier! Balthier where are you?'

The Princess' strident tones tore through the tranquil calm like a bullet shot from one of Balthier's guns. Fran raised an eyebrow and watched Balthier shrug with total disinterest.

' Let her wait.'

Balthier, in usual fashion, had wasted no time in putting into affect a plan to sever ties with the Princess' party.

That morning, when the Princess was ready and eager to return to Sochen Cave and onwards to Archades, he had told her of a merchant out on the edges of the Phon Coast and Mosphoran Highwaste who sold rare and valuable wares essential for their journey.

So persuasive was he that he quickly had Vaan raring to go and find this wandering merchant and soon swayed Basch with the reasoning that it was better to be as prepared as they could be.

The coup de grace, and the one thing that would destroy Ashe's trust in him when the party returned from this fruitless search for a merchant who did not exist, was that he persuaded Ashe that he and Fran should remain behind.

Telling her in quiet aside, playing on the shared secret from days earlier, Balthier mixed lies and probability together as he told Ashe that he had something highly important he had to attain just inside the Sochen Cave that would help them all when they reached Archades.

Trusting in his word and his careful lies, Ashe led the other three off at daybreak only to return now nearing dust. Balthier, although he did his best to hide the fact, was ill at ease all day; the lies and deceptions not sitting well with him, when he wished to remain with them all.

Fran equally conflicted could offer little help to him. This wound on their conscience they would both have to bear. Fran only wished she knew that the decision made was the right one.

Having spent the miserable hours slaughtering many Marlboro Overkings on their aimless, and in Balthier's case irritable, travails through the Tchita ruins they had ended up with a surfeit of Succulent Fruits in their possession.

Ever practical and having nothing to do but wait for the inevitable parting of ways, they set about eating them.

Having created a perfectly workable campfire and spit in the inlet they had found to hide in, Fran handed Succulent Fruit to Balthier who spitted the dark red pendulum shaped fruits over the fire.

Fran preferred her Fruit uncooked, though Hume's detested the raw flavour and roasted them as Balthier did now. Fran did like the scent of the Succulent Fruit as it cooked, skin splitting and juices oozing free.

Fran's keen hearing picked up the approach of the other members of the party, Vaan in the lead, the time of reckoning was upon them.

' Over here, I can smell something cooking.'

Balthier looked to Fran, something like anguish sparking to life and then stuttering out, leaving his brown eyes jaded and tired.

' Pirates have no business fighting unjust empires we should have quit while we were ahead.'

He muttered to himself, sounding as conflicted and uncomfortable with their actions as Fran felt. Yet his words were true. This was the correct course of action, was it not?

' Found them!'

Vaan appeared in the opening of the cave. He peered inside seeming unchanged in his reaction to them, 'Hey, what are you cooking?'

Vaan ambled in oblivious to the undercurrents of tension, Balthier turned to Fran as she reclined against a water worn rock, and rolled his eyes.

'Marlboro eyeballs.'

He drawled pulling a spit from the flames and gingerly handing the hot stick to Fran, his carefully maintained facade slamming into place.

Not one crack would show, not a glimmer of real feeling would he allow to ruin the masterful performance he made of his life.

'Seriously?' Vaan came to look closer at the fruit still sizzling, looking highly comical in his inspection had Fran any will to be amused.

The next to arrive at the entrance to the cave was the Princess, her pale gaze immediately rooting to Balthier with unrestrained annoyance.

' Balthier!'

Basch and Penelo were at her heels as she marched into the cave radiating anger, though both of them seemed more interested in the food than in an altercation.

'Princess, did you find that merchant?'

Balthier's tone was bland as the shifting surf, his eyes however twinkled with devilment meant to infuriate.

' You gods damned well know I didn't!' She exploded.

Behind her Basch winced and Penelo cupped a hand over her mouth though it was hard to tell if it was in shock at the Princess' language or if she was trying not to laugh.

Vaan watched with the placid interest of bovines more concerned with his pilfered fruit than the building tension.

Balthier widened his eyes, 'Such language Princess, hardly becoming of a Dynast Queen in waiting.'

Ashe stamped her foot, twitching with rage, ' Bastard pirate. You said you would lead me to Archades but I see that your word has all the weight of air. I should have expected as much from a filthy Imperial.'

Fran's ears twitched. All mirth left Balthier's face. Basch's hands moved almost imperceptibly towards his Hammerhead axe tucked into his belt. Vaan stopped eating and Penelo edged closer to him.

Balthier stared at the Princess for a long moment; The Princess looked back, her anger and her sense of betrayal filling Fran's nostrils, mixing pungently with the guilt and anger rising in Balthier.

' Pirate, Ashe. I think you meant to say filthy _Pirate. _You must be mistaking me for someone else.'

Balthier smiled thinly, a cold, hard smile that left his eyes as bleak as mid winter.

' You lied about that Merchant.' Ashe accused softly, not retracting her statement but edging away from a fight she recognised she did not want to have.

Balthier rarely lost his temper but when he did he was quite vicious. Fran did not want to see the Princess torn to shreds by Balthier's viper tongue let loose.

What had she done? Fran was seething inside with the realisation, as she looked at the near frightened faces of the children and the look of open concern on Basch's grave visage, that whatever risks there were to her and Balthier's freedom they should never have done this.

Fran had made a mistake, something she did not do often, now she must rectify that mistake and salvage what she could.

' There is a Moogle known as Veedi who sometimes travels the Coast.'

Fran spoke in defence of her partner's lie made at her behest.

'That he was not there this day does not invalidate that he exists.'

Ashe dragged her heated gaze from Balthier to Fran and doubt flooded her scent. Ashe would believe deception of this nature from Balthier, but not Fran, it seemed.

Not wasting the advantage on guilt for the Princess' misplaced assumptions, Fran instead sought to use it to restore Balthier's good name.

'We looked everywhere Fran; we didn't see any sign of him.'

Penelo spoke up from her place on the cave floor next to Vaan, she was tense, her own scent that of worry and a fear of imminent abandonment.

Fran looked to Balthier who was watching her with clear question in his eyes. Fran addressed Penelo but locked eyes with the Princess.

' I have seen him but a few times in passing, I am sorry that we have wasted a day in our journey. Perhaps I should have accompanied you myself.'

Balthier jerked in surprise but hid it quickly by tugging on his shirt sleeve.

The Princess, still standing, caught the movement however and her eyes narrowed in puzzlement. Basch spoke before she could form any response, moving forward to take his own fruit from the spit.

'We found no merchant but it afforded us ample opportunity to gather more loot and supplies. As well for it too as you appear to be eating our supply of Succulent Fruits.'

Basch's dry and gentle humour began to erode the ebbing tension that had begun to abate at Fran's show of apology.

Soon Penelo and Ashe had Fruits of their own. They ate as a group yet the divisions so masterful wrought in error, remained in the stilted silence.

Balthier remained uncharacteristically silent and the Princess refused to look up from her study of the ring on her finger. Until it seemed to Fran that even these humes should be able to sense the high emotion pervading the air in the small cave.

'I must know that I can trust those who stand with me implicitly.'

Ashe suddenly burst out; looking up with intense eyes.

' Balthier, surely you see this?'

Balthier, who had been fastidiously wiping fruit juice from his fingers with a handkerchief, did not look up.

'Of course Princess, for what other purpose do we serve but to be your ever faithful peons?'

Ashe looked for just a moment stricken and then quickly hid the expression.

Fran looked at Balthier, willing him to stop this. She had been wrong; they could not simply leave with harsh words and broken trust.

'No one asked you to come this far, Balthier. You are free to leave whenever you choose.'

Penelo sucked in her breath sharply and Vaan tensed, his eyes rooted with strange anger and some pleading on Balthier, as the words left the Princess' lips.

'Ashe.'

Basch warned in an undertone, forgetting her title. His eyes met Fran's.

Whatever misgivings he may have towards their intentions the Captain knew that his Princess would not have come very far, would not make it to the heart of the Capital, without Balthier.

Fran watched her partner for a number of heartbeats, knowing that he was sorely tempted to leave.

Fran knew that with the princess' words his manipulation of her anger had reached their formerly desired outcome. Fran knew that if Balthier left now she would of course follow him but she hoped that he too had realised their folly.

Balthier looked up and met Ashe's gaze, 'Before the story ends?' He asked in feigned disbelief.

' Princess, really, what sort of a Leading Man do you take me for?'

Penelo let out a huge breath of relief, Vaan echoed it. Basch met Fran's eyes again and smiled ever so slightly. Ashe and Balthier remained still, eyes locked in a battle of wills.

Fran, a hostage of their silent battle watched them captivated. The Princess who thought to tame the free spirited pirate; the Pirate who feared he was as she claimed him, a filthy Imperial, drawn to her spirit even as her duty repelled him.

'Very well Balthier, but no more talk of phantom merchants, at least until we reach Archades.'

The Princess offered implicit apology and beseeched him for honesty and loyalty in future. Balthier managed a genuine smile that reached his eyes, his own apology to the Princess.

'On my weightless word of honour, Princess,' Balthier placed a hand over his heart,

'I promise I will only pass on information that I have personally checked for accuracy, at least twice, from now on.'

Ashe smiled despite herself, the last of the tension fading like a dream, ' A simple apology will suffice, Balthier.'

Balthier raised an eyebrow, ' I'll bare that in mind, Princess, if I should ever make a mistake.'

Fran looked down upon her own fruit and felt the heat of Balthier's regard on her. She did not look up. There had been mistake made indeed, but it had not been his judgement in error, but her own.

Fran realised now that she and Balthier were committed come good or ill to this cause. Their loyalty must first be granted to those who needed them, before they could once again fly free above the world and all its troubles.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen: Complications, emotional outbursts and scenes of an adult nature

_Author note: This chapter has given me no end of grief. I think this had to happen, as I have written myself into a corner in terms of this 'relationship' and there needed to be a clearing of the air. _

_In my opinion __Balthier's__ soul belongs to Fran forever and a __day -__ his heart however, well, I can't deny he and the ever-prickly Ashe have chemistry._

_Any reader reactions and review is gratefully received._

The Imp finally fell with a thump to the cavern floor; Balthier looked distastefully down on it. He really, truly detested this place.

Looking up he saw Basch wiping ichor from his hammerhead axe and the Princess pull the tip of her spear from the carcass of another Imp that had attempted to aid its brethren.

'How much farther do you think until we reach Archades?'

Basch asked him in reasonable tones. Or it would be reasonable if it wasn't for the fact that he had been asking the same question every time they reached another ancient door, of which there seemed to be hundreds.

Balthier felt his lips curl in a less than friendly sneer, ' Can you not smell it, Captain?'

' Smell what?'

'Why the stench of Empire, it's difficult to mistake once you come to know it.'

Looking at him quizzically the Princess strolled over, affording Balthier a distracting moment to wonder how she managed to walk at all with a seven foot Obelisk spear slung across her back.

' I do smell something. I had thought it merely the filth from these fiends.' She kicked at the Imp carcass with her boot.

'No Princess, the pungent aroma you are now enjoying is the scent of Old Archades, quite unforgettable.'

'Old Archades what is that?'

She frowned at him, though they had returned to something like their old combative geniality since travelling the Sochen Cave Palace, she had not quite forgiven him yet and reserved her trust.

Balthier had decided it was best to pretend he liked it thus to avoid any unnecessarily deep and guilt-laden thoughts on the matter.

' It is the dross of Empire, the detritus of constant expansionism that washes up on the banks of the river. We will come out right in its heart, if such a place had one.'

Basch, whom both Balthier and Ashe had quite forgotten about, spoke up. ' So we are close then?'

Balthier nodded, 'Very if the smell is any indication. If memory serves the worst beasties guard the way to the surface so we had best wait for Fran and the others to find us.'

After nearly half an hour of waiting for the rest of the party, Ashe having decided again to split them up, despite the disasters that seemed to befall them when that happened, it was decided that someone should go look for them.

' Basch, you are the strongest, Balthier and I will wait here while you find the others. Balthier give him your pack of supplies.'

Ashe spoke with utter confidence and command, argument was not an option.

Basch looked back at Balthier somewhat doubtfully but was relieved by the look of genuine surprise on his own face. He had thought he would be the last person Ashe would choose to be alone with.

He waited in silence until the heavy clomping of Basch's footsteps receded from hearing. Then he turned to face Ashe's eyes, which burned into him like dry ice.

'I am no fool pirate.' Her words were venomous.

'I had never thought you were Princess.' His own words, in contrast, were cool as falling snow.

' I know what you meant to do the other day. Why you lied.' She continued as if he had not spoken.

' Princess I have said, it was not a lie merely – '

She cut him off with one ferocious look, 'Do not insult my intelligence further by finishing that sentence Balthier.'

Balthier decided the wisest course of action, considering the Princess appeared to be in a towering rage and he was well aware of how quick she was with that monstrous Obelisk of hers, was to keep his mouth tight shut and hope to weather the storm.

'Do you not think that I haven't seen the looks Basch gives you, the looks he and Fran share when they think you and I cannot see. Even Vaan and Penelo think we are having some form of affair.'

Balthier could not help himself, he smirked, mouth opening and words coming out, 'Do they indeed?'

Ashe was pacing in a tight circle, like a wild animal caged. She ignored him, speaking in heated whispers he had to strain to hear.

' Rasler is dead. I know this. Gods know I know that he is gone, even as his spectre haunts me.'

' Princess..' He began but was again shot down, which was just as well, he thought, as he had no idea what he had been about to say.

' I am so tired of being alone.'

Ashe rounded on him suddenly on the tail of that tortured exclamation. She pivoted smoothly as she did in battle and he had to resist the instinct to back away.

' I am under no illusions. I know that you are here not to serve me but instead motivated by some strange curiosity. I know that I am bound to duty, honour and responsibility to my people. Things that are meaningless to one such as yourself.'

She spoke rapidly and Balthier had little chance to get a word in edge ways, a rare occurrence for him and not one he liked. Especially as he was not sure he liked the opinion of his character the Princess seemed to have formed.

'But I am a long way from my home, my throne, and all the things that are my right and my duty.' Ashe continued in a softer voice, moving closer to him.

'These past months journeying have taught me more than two years in the resistance. I cannot wait for my life to resume until Dalmasca has been restored for if I do I shall be waiting forever. I am a Princess, heir to the throne, but I am not only thus.'

She was standing so close she was all but leaning against him. Her eyes were so tormented, so rife with emotion and pain that seemed too large for one person to contain, that Balthier reacted instinctively and against his better judgement. He put his arms around her.

Ashe slapped him, hard across the face, with lightening reflex. Balthier, who had had many similar slaps in his time, simply removed his arms and rubbed his cheek turning ironically raised eyebrows up to her in question.

He was therefore caught completely by surprise when Ashe grabbed him by the vest in both fists, rose up on tip-toe and kissed him as if she intended to suck all the life breath from his lungs at once.

Balthier supposed he could be excused for his reaction to this development, it having been a sinfully long time since he had last had an eager woman in his arms.

With a grunt he gripped her hips and hoisted her up, her legs immediately wrapping around him as he positioned her back against the wall and gave her back as much passion as she fed into him.

When they came up for air, the Princess' lips swollen and eyes heavy lidded with passion, Balthier felt the need to say something, his hands splayed across her oft admired derriere and suffering a frankly painful tightness in his pants.

' Tell me Princess, do you do this often?'

Quick as a darting viper her hand left its mark again on his cheek, he would be lucky not to bruise. Smirking broadly Balthier turned full face to the Princess.

' Has anyone ever told you, Ashe, you have a very odd way of showing affection?'

Glaring at him like a spitting cat Ashe caught the back of his head with her quick hands and kissed him again.

Balthier decided that conversation could wait in favour of more intimate forms of communication between man and woman.

Vaguely he hoped that Basch and the others took their sweet time in returning.

Yet some very un-pirate like vestige of honour forced him to pull back from the kiss, to marshal his wits, despite the fact that all the blood in his body had headed southwards in a hurry, and tried to think with his brain.

' Princess, now is not the time or the place.' With difficulty he extracted himself from her.

' I would be a poor leading man to take advantage of you here in this filthy hole. Such a place is not fit for a queen in waiting.'

'Balthier?'

Turning away from her he made his way in the direction Basch had gone, he did not look at her, he didn't trust his resolve if he did.

' I will be but a moment Princess, you should be quite safe here.'

'Where are you going?' She demanded sounding as breathless as he felt, which was gratifying at least.

'I saw a small pool of icy water a little ways back. I thought I might go and jump in it, before our dear Captain and the others return.'

'You cannot just leave -we were – you were….'

To his mounting horror it seemed as though the Princess was close to tears. He looked over his shoulder at her.

She stood where he had left her, fists clenched, cheeks flushed and eyes almost wild with tears of anger, embarrassment, shame. Bloody hell.

'Princess, it is alright. I have treated you unfairly and I am sorry for that. You deserve better from your entourage.'

Ashe tilted her chin and looked him squarely in the eye, ' Are you saying you do not want me?'

Gods above!

' Princess my current - predicament -should be ample answer for you.'

Awkwardly keeping his back to her, he willed himself to look only at her eyes. Not her lips, and certainly not anything lower!

Ashe almost smiled, her shoulders loosened fractionally, ' You must think me a fool. I am sure you have women swooning all over you as a daily occurrence.'

She spoke drolly, yet nervously set about smoothing her skirt. Balthier wrenched his eyes from that strip of red cloth covering those softly curving thighs. Eyes, look at her eyes, Gods damn it!

He pasted a smirk over his face, ' I don't think you a fool, Princess. You cannot help it, I am, after all, quite irresistible.'

Ashe snorted, looking calmer, happier. ' You are an egotist of the highest order.' She retorted. 'But an honourable one. I thank you.'

He quirked an eyebrow, relieved that this awkward incident looked to be heading to an amicable conclusion. He couldn't resist just a little teasing at her expense.

' Thank me for not ravishing you here on this cave floor?'

Ashe blushed, though the spark of lust he saw in her cold eyes nearly had him crossing the distance to her once more.

' Yes.' She snapped, definitely feeling more her usual austere self.

' Though I would ask you to please keep this - moment of weakness- between ourselves.'

Balthier smirked both at her description of what had just transpired and at the idea that he would ever dream tell of it. Basch would have his guts for garters.

'Princess, I am just as happy to keep this between us. It would ruin my reputation with the other pirates irrevocably if they found out I was,' he mock shuddered, ' given to gentlemanly behaviour.'

Ashe allowed herself a real smile, the ache in his groin worsened, Gods but she was a pretty little Princess, ' It will be our secret, then.'

'Indeed.' He nodded.

'If you'll please excuse me, Princess, I really must go and take a quick dip in that pool, or else I doubt I'll be able to walk, let alone fight.'

The Princess' wicked chuckle followed him as he made his exit. He prayed to the Gods he didn't believe in that the water in the pool was very, very cold.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen: Conversations with Knights, emotional angst and Landissian home remedies.

'Is there absolutely no way we cannot simply press on to Archades?'

Ashe sidled up to him in an undertone, not wanting to appear too insensitive to the situation they now found themselves in.

Balthier shook his head, ' Old Archades is not a safe place at the best of times, I wouldn't want to bring Penelo there in her state.'

Basch had returned, giving both he and Ashe a hard look, clearly recognising something was up, and informed them that calamity had befallen the rest of the party.

Any lingering fog of lust had lifted from Balthier's thoughts at the prospect of Fran getting hurt and it did nothing much for his nerves to discover that it was not Fran but Penelo.

Penelo was under a Doom. Pale and mute she sat hunched on the stone cavern floor as Vaan, wide eyed and fearful, held her close to his chest trying to warm her.

Fran was silent against the wall of the cavern, yet her posture spoke volumes to Balthier. She was feeling guilty that she had allowed such to befall Penelo, whom Fran had developed a fondness for on this trip of theirs.

The rest of the party was tearing through supply packs and pockets for remedies as the poor girl would be comatose long before they could get her out of the Sochen Caves.

'ssss—ooory. M' sorry Ashe.'

Penelo struggled to get her mouth to work for her, lifting glassy eyes that nevertheless held such a chasm of guilt that Balthier was almost tempted to pick the girl up and make a desperate run for Old Archades regardless. The girl had no right to be so damnedly adorable.

Ashe walked over to Penelo and stroked sweaty hair from the girl's forehead, 'It is I who should be apologising. I am so sorry for this.'

Having discovered that the packs carried no remedies or other curatives that would do the trick instead, Balthier closed his eyes and tried to think of any other place, either lying about on the floor of the caves or on one of their persons that a remedy might be lurking.

Basch spoke interrupting his thoughts, 'Does anyone have any Holy Motes?'

'Why? Will they help?' Vaan asked quickly.

Balthier, having decided that Basch would hardly be asking simply for conversations sake, gathered up the little flakes of condensed light and magick from the pack he had been rooting around in and threw them to Basch who caught them quickly.

' I will need a few tufts of Phoenix Down also and perhaps a potion or two.'

It was Fran who handed Basch the rest of the supplies her eyes sharp with curiosity, she settled down beside Basch on the cold stone.

'You seek to make a remedy?'

Basch nodded, ' It is something I learned on the field when I was a private in the Landissian army. Balthier, do you have any of your alchemicals with you? The ones used for treating your false Licence certificates?'

Flipping open the flap to one of his belt pouches to retrieve the small vials of alchemical he had in there (in case of emergencies) Balthier quirked an eyebrow at Basch,

'You are aware these are poisonous to Humes?'

' Ordinarily yes,' Basch conceded as he accepted the vials,

'however if mixed to the right dosage with potions I believe they can make a remedy for Penelo.'

No one said anything after that, Basch set to work, assisted by Fran who was always eager to learn a new and useful skill and equally keen to aid Penelo.

Penelo, reaching the end of her Doom, couldn't restrain a moan as the death magicks worked on her insides. All the while Vaan held her, rocking gently and murmuring soothingly in her ear.

' It's okay, Penelo. It's okay. Basch is making a remedy and then you'll be fine. It's okay, I've got you.'

Ashe had left the two sweethearts and padded over to kneel by Balthier. Her eyes watched the two Rabanastrans bleeding hurt and guilt. Even if they did cure Penelo the Princess would be insufferably moody after this near fatal episode.

' It is done.'

Fran intoned as Basch poured the steaming concoction he had made into an empty potion bottle and shook it, using his thumb as a stopper. Balthier winced; the liquid looked toxic to him.

It was Vaan who snatched the potion from Basch and more or less forced the foul stuff down Penelo's throat, hands trembling as she hung limply in his arms.

Basch spoke up as Penelo started coughing violently and almost retching, not that Balthier blamed her.

'I am afraid that the remedy is like to make Penelo sick, at least for a short time.'

As if to validate this statement, Penelo lurched into life throwing herself into a sitting position and vomiting profusely across the cavern floor. Charming.

Basch looked guilty as he rooted in one of the packs for a water flask to hand to Vaan, who was liberally covered in vomit also.

'I am sorry it was the best that could be done. The effects should not last long.'

'Hey, better sick than dead.'

Vaan said with blunt cheerfulness clearly willing to be splattered in vomit if it meant Penelo was alive and would be well. He helped Penelo drink some water.

Balthier, realising that now was the time to be gentlemanly, passed the boy one of his handkerchiefs which Vaan dampened with water and then used to clean Penelo up.

Fran approached to Penelo's other side from Vaan and began to help clean up the miserable, sobbing girl, using her bare hands without a thought.

' I will fetch more water.'

Ashe got up and went swiftly towards the pool that Balthier had used earlier. Balthier decided to tidy up their meagre supplies, already greatly depleted.

Basch handed him back the nearly empty vials of alchemical mixture, ' I am afraid there is little left.'

Balthier shrugged cheerfully, 'No matter, it will be relatively simple to acquire more once we reach Archades.'

Basch raised one eyebrow, the scarred one, 'Indeed.' He murmured knowing quite well what Balthier meant by 'acquire'.

Fran and Vaan had worked together to get Penelo to her feet, Vaan stooping to sweep her up into his arms when she swooned.

' My stomach, it hurts. I'm sorry.'

Penelo continued to cry, sounding as young as she truly was and apologising profusely for something that could have happened to any of them.

Fran hovered close to Vaan and the girl as he swiftly walked Penelo towards the pool to wash and clean up. After a moment she began to murmur a Viera lullaby to the girl, the exotic words trilling in Balthier's ears as they passed.

Basch watched with sympathy in his eyes, ' A sweet girl like that should not have to live such a life as this.'

Balthier merely shrugged, 'I should imagine many a sweet girl is suffering a far worse fate than she, even as we speak. At least Penelo is fighting back.'

Basch looked at him sharply then grunted in acknowledgement. 'The Princess tells me you were once a Judge of the Empire.'

Balthier controlled his reaction with difficulty and was annoyed that his tone so clearly spoke of his discomfort.

'The Princess cannot keep a secret, it seems.'

Basch remained impassive merely shrugging, ' I had believed that one did not become a Judge until he reached the age of eighteen, unless you left Archades very recently it does not seem possibly you could have made Judge.'

' It has been six years.' Balthier admitted, trying to side-step the meat of the question.

Basch saw the evasion for what it was and changed his attack,

' Ashe also told me you are the son of Dr Cid, the man behind this manufactured nethicite threat.'

'What of it?' He demanded petulantly, cursing himself inwardly for being so affected and cursing the Princess for having a loose tongue.

Basch studied him thoughtfully, ' It is true then?'

Balthier felt his anger rise, ' Did you think I made it all up in order to win the Princess' trust, good Captain? Or perhaps weasel my way into her affections?'

Basch was a man almost impossible to anger; he merely shrugged and spoke calmly, if a little sardonically.

'You have that already, the Princess is not one to trust readily and yet with you she seems to have made an exception.'

' Then why the interest in my lineage, Captain?' Balthier snapped.

'We are like to come into conflict with your father.'

' Yes. Please, tell me something I do not already know.'

'I am responsible for Ashe's safety. If we fight your father it may be to the death.'

' Again, tell me something I do not know already.'

Balthier noticed a smudge of dirt on his cuffs and picked at it savagely. Damned Imp blood, he'd never get the stuff out. Maybe he should just stop wearing white shirts?

Basch watched him with something almost like pity; Balthier bit down on his anger and continued to harass his shirt sleeves as a distraction.

' You are prepared to take up arms against your own father, even unto death?'

'If our positions were reversed he would not hesitate to snuff out my life.'

Basch blinked, ' You are sure of this? You yourself said you have not returned home in six years. How can you know his mind?'

Balthier laughed, the sound ripping his throat to shreds as the near hysterical outburst caused his vision to blur with sudden, inexplicable wetness.

'Know his mind? Dear Captain, Dr Cid is a lunatic, I never knew his mind. The very best I can do for my _father_' He spat the word out in an almost growl, 'is put him out of everybody's misery as quickly as I can.'

Balthier tugged so hard on his sleeve that it ripped, he swore in a hissed undertone, not looking at Basch. The older man's weatherworn hand came into his view, resting briefly on his own hand that still clutched at his damaged sleeve.

' I am sorry, I should not have pressed you.'

Balthier leapt to his feet. He could not abide sympathy, especially not from a man like the Captain who seemed over-brimming with compassion, despite the hardships he had endured.

' Nonsense, Captain.'

He said in brisk tones, struggling for his habitual lightness, ' You have a duty to your Princess, you must be ever vigilant against predatory fortune hunters like myself.'

Basch ignored the dig and instead spoke once more of the past.

' Your father made you a Judge?'

'At fifteen. I believe I have the distinction of being the youngest ever promoted to that _honour._ Though you are wrong, Captain, one can be made judge before eighteen.'

' Then you left home when you were..?'

'Sixteen. Penelo's age. Really, Basch, am I truly so fascinating to you? Would you like to be my personal biographer?'

To his surprise Basch actually chuckled, 'Nay, I will ask no further questions.'

The Dalmascan Knight got to his feet, making his way towards the pool where the others tended to Penelo. He turned back to Balthier at the entrance to the passageway.

'I will ask no further questions in regards to the Princess also.' He added gravely.

Balthier, who was wondering if it was somehow written in stone somewhere that he, Balthier Sky Pirate, must make sport with the heart of Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca before this quest was through, merely gave the Captain his best, most insouciant smirk.

' I have not the faintest idea to what you refer, Captain.'

Basch lifted his eyebrows, 'An ignorance you would do well to maintain, pirate, for I am within the rights of my duty to see you hung drawn and quartered if you should _know_ the Princess any better than you do now.'

Balthier laughed at this, but the sound was hollow, he would soon lose patience with this constant suspicion. Really anyone would think he was as licentious a fool as the Arch Duke Margrace.

After all he already _had_ a partner.

' I will bear that in mind, Captain.'

_Author note: I would like to give a big shout out thank you to everyone who has reviewed this story and stuck with it so long! The response has been so positive and I love hearing what you think._

_This is my first time posting and it's wonderful to know people out there are reading and interested!_

_P.S: Damsel of Doom if you're still out there – have faith, keep reading, there's a long way to go on this Odyssey yet._


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty: Imperial City Archades, streetears and ardents

' Wow.'

Vaan was in sheer awe as Archades unfolded around them, filled with well-dressed peoples who either strolled under parasols or ran hither and thither in urgent activity. The city was a sight to behold.

Fran who had been to Archades but once before in fifty years was also impressed. Not enamoured however, despite her choices she was too much Viera still to be comfortable in such a metropolis. Only the Imperial cities of Rozzaria could rival Archades in scale and population.

Balthier vanished into the throng quite quickly, having whispered his intentions to Fran as they crossed the bridge from Old Archades.

The Streetear Jules, a man Balthier loathed almost as much as he respected the man's cunning, was quick to provide aid. Though at a price.

Fran strolled the red hued streets of Trant, Nilbasse and the other Ardent dominated districts of Archades with her usual calm, though something in the familiar stares she attracted from the Archadians reminded her of just how far she had strayed from the Wood.

Penelo and Vaan proved to have natural aptitude to the ways of the Streetear, though the Princess was stilted and awkward when trying to strike up conversation.

Everywhere the lazy, yet precise, diction of the men and women loitering in the streets on the oft chance of some passing entertainment, reminded her of Balthier.

Archades was a city full of jaded minds and shallow hearts. Fran understood now why Balthier, on the rare occasion he spoke of his home city, both dearly missed her and feared returning. The city and its prodigal son shared the one cynical soul.

' It's not what I was expecting.' Penelo was breathless and bright eyed as she hurried back, Pinewood chops in hand.

'The city, I mean, and the people.' Penelo shoved the Chops in her pack and looked about her, raising her gaze to watch sky cabs zip by.

' It's nothing like home, it doesn't seem friendly like Rabanastre, I guess, but it's not the horrible place I thought it would be.'

' Yes.' Ashe said joining them as they waited for Vaan and Basch to finish their 'reconnaissance' of Vimt's Armaments. ' I had built up a picture in my mind of the hated city of the Empire. What I find does not quite fit.'

Penelo nodded, ' I kinda see Larsa living here, and Balthier. I don't think I could do it. Where are all the Seeq and the Bangaa? There aren't even many Moogles. Not like Rabanastre.'

' They are not allowed.' Fran said.

'What?'

'In Archades only Humes are permitted to sell goods and own businesses. It is forbidden for the other races to work in those fields, unless no Hume is prepared or able to provide the service.'

Penelo looked scandalised, suddenly angry, ' But that's stupid! Why would they have such a stupid rule? I can't imagine Larsa liking that!'

Fran shrugged, ' Balthier said it is because Archades treats its people so poorly that even the Vulgars must have someone to look down on.'

Penelo looked as if she was sucking on something sour as she considered this explanation. ' I take it back, this place is as bad as I thought.'

Ashe smiled faintly, looking about her at the clean, sky scraping city around her. ' Tis almost a pity.' She said slowly, thoughtfully.

'That a people as clever and industrious as the Archadians are so riven with prejudice. That such a city could produce someone like Larsa and, by the same family, create a monster like Vayne.'

Fran studied the Princess, wondering if Ashe knew how far she had come along her own journey, to speak so diplomatically about the Empire.

' Tis the nature of Humes, good and ill reside within the one body and within the one city.'

' Hey, what are you talking about? Penelo we've still got Chops to get.' Vaan bounded over, Basch walking sedately at his heels.

' Tis a strange system.' Basch commented, ' This trading in gossip. I feel it says something for the mentality of its people, though I admit I know not what.'

Vaan shrugged, ' They're bored I guess.'

'Bored?' Ashe asked, she was perhaps the most willing, aside from Penelo, to encourage Vaan's opinions.

' Yeah,' Vaan swiped a finger under his nose and looked about with unselfconscious interest.

' I mean look at them all,' he waved a hand at the well-to population of Archades who loitered without intent on the streets as ambitious, eager criers and streetears weaved in between them.

' All these people just hang around waiting for someone to talk to them, total strangers like me and Penelo and they seem so happy to talk to us. Gotta be bored, to do that, right?'

They all looked at Vaan, Fran knew that they were all sharing some variation of the same thought. Only Penelo felt need to vocalise it.

' You know Vaan sometimes I think you might actually have a brain.'

'Hey!' Vaan cried in mock indignation then he grinned, 'I have plenty of brain, I'm just saving it for when I need it.'

Penelo rolled her eyes, grinning and shoved him in the stomach, Basch chuckled and Ashe smiled.

Fran remained impassive, her eyes drawn to the imposing building on the skyline, dwarfed in size only by the Imperial Palace.

'What is that building? I had noticed it before. It seems finer made than some of the others.' Ashe followed the direction of Fran's gaze.

'It is our destination. The Draklor Laboratory.'

The mood became sombre instantly. Vaan and Penelo shared some form of whispered communication, too low for even Fran's hearing.

' Where is it anyway?' Vaan asked. ' I know Balthier said to meet him at Central, is that where Draklor is?'

Fran nodded, ' I believe so. It did not exist as it is now, when last I came to this city.'

Vaan opened his mouth, Fran tensed imperceptibly; Penelo elbowed him in the stomach. Vaan grunted and looked at her aggrieved.

' I wasn't going to say anything! I learned my lesson the first time. I was just gonna say that we should get on with finding Chops.' He added sulkily.

' Very well Vaan, let us make haste.' Basch smiled and led the boy off, pointing out a likely target for information.

Penelo turned to the Fran and Ashe, ' I think it's like that Jules person said, I think this information thing is just so Archadians can be superior, like they don't need Gil or something like the rest of us paupers.'

Ashe nodded, ' I did not like the looks of that man, Jules, I trust him not.'

She turned to look up at Fran. But it was Penelo who asked the inevitable question.

'Is he really a friend of Balthier's?'

' An associate, not a friend. Pirate's oft times have need of information just as we do now.'

'You know him then? He didn't say anything to you.' Ashe pointed out.

Fran merely shrugged not at all sure how much of their dealings Balthier would want divulged.

'I am a lone Viera of little consequence, to one such as the streetear I am of less note then the air he breathes.'

Ashe pursed her lips, ' And what of renegade Princess's? I wonder that we trust this man, when information is his bread and butter, he could sell us all out to the Empire.'

Fran shook her head, ' It is the nature of intangibles, such as information, the sharing of it diminishes its potency, only in keeping truths hidden do men like Jules prosper.'

Ashe looked ready to pose a reply, or perhaps a further question, but Vaan returned, brandishing the last of the Chops triumphantly.

' Central here we come!'

He and Penelo raced each other all the way back to the sky cabs, laughing and exuberant as they weaved their way through the languid, genteel boredom of Archades.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter twenty-one: Purge, sacrifice and bleeding from old wounds

It had not changed. Six years, eight months and forty six days, give or take a few hours and the old place had not changed a whit.

The Bunansa estate in Highgarden Terrace looked quiet from the outside, built of the red sandstone that most of Archades was wrought from, the façade of the town house was festooned in creeping ivy, the sash windows darkened and still.

Balthier leaned against the public park railings across the wide avenue from his family home with a sense of growing surrealism.

He kept expecting to see a child Ffamran Bunansa in Akademy reds, never a colour that suited him, dragging his feet on the way home, satchel scraping across the floor.

He expected to see Mildram his old nurse and the Bunansa housekeeper, the family having to hire only a few multi-talented servants because it was all that could be bribed to stay once his father dived over the brink of madness.

She used to have an odd obsession with sweeping the front stoop and the three white stone steps that led up to the double front doors with their brass knockers.

If he were to walk across the avenue right now and turn his key in the lock, the key he never threw out, a telling trait that, would it open the door still?

Standing here now Balthier was forced to admit it had not been all bad. It would have been so much easier if all his memories of Archades were filled with hurt and darkness. They weren't, surprisingly few of them were.

That was why it hurt so much. Why he couldn't quite throw off the shackles of his upbringing, his culture and his station in life.

Cidolfus Demen Bunansa had, it was fair to postulate, never been the most well balanced of individuals. It was for this reason that the first big word Balthier – or rather Ffamran - learnt to spell as a child was 'eccentric'.

Cidolfus had always been known as the eccentric genius, and because he was the greatest scientific mind Archades had produced in a hundred years the buttoned-down, supercilious citizens of Archades let him get away with being a bit _odd._

It was odd that Cidolfus Bunansa married a woman below his station. A foreign woman no less, a Bhujerban Cid met while studying for his doctorate degree at the Ondore University, making his choice of wife quite offensive to most of Archades gentry.

It was odd that when that wife died in child bed Cidolfus took five months off work, letting funding and projects and prospects for promotion slip by, to grieve and tend to his rather sickly, very premature, baby son.

In Archades children served a purpose, to enhance and further profligate the family line, they did not exist for their own enjoyment, or most often, the enjoyment of their parents. Here too Cidolfus broke the mould.

Balthier shook his head sharply as if to dislodge the phantoms of lost innocence. It did no good as his legs propelled him forward of their own accord towards the old front door. Home, sweet home.

The locks had been changed at least once in the last six years but were easy enough to pick. He slipped inside to a silent and musty smelling house.

The half inch of dust covering most of the surfaces and the grime coating the windows did not mean that the house was vacant, as he recalled Mildram was an appallingly lax housekeeper, with the exception of that damned front stoop.

The front parlour was as it always had been, filled with the accumulated brick-a-brack of many generations of Bunansa's with more money than good taste. A museum exhibit illustrating the passing fancies of the idle rich.

Passing into the second, smaller parlour, the 'zoo' as the help had dubbed it, Balthier was forced to pause, a constriction tightening his chest.

Where once the small, cosy room had been filled with shelves and end tables covered with glass tanks, home to all his father's pets, Cidolfus having a fondness for small lizards, it was now empty.

Stepping in as quietly as a ghost Balthier walked towards one of the few remaining glass display cages and looked down at it, turning away quickly as the smell of decomposing miniature reptile rose up in a dry cloud.

'Damn you Cid.'

There was no reason, no logical, sensible reason why the death of Blinky, Cid's favourite Northern Reticulated Two Headed Brodwin lizard, should upset him.

By the looks of Blinky he had been dead some time, no doubt of starvation, in this hot, dry room. Even when Cid had all but forgotten his son, and forgone his wits, he had still remembered Blinky. That the favoured reptile was dead spoke volumes of how far Cid had fallen.

Although he knew he should leave things as he found them, some long buried instinct, the Ffamran part of him, busied himself with disposing of Blinky's remains and forcing open the dust clogged window to let in some damned air.

The kitchen showed signs of Hume inhabitants, suggesting that at least one person, a servant most like, still lived in the house. Cid had never ventured into a kitchen voluntarily in his life, especially not to brew his own tea and sit at the table with a crossword puzzle.

Balthier left everything as he found it in the kitchen, strangely heartened to find that someone at least was making use of this prime piece of Archadian real estate.

Whispering up the broad staircase to the second floor, Balthier noted the pictures lining the walls, portraits of long dead ancestors whose names, invariably, were either Cidolfus or Ffamran. Archadian gentry not known for their originality in naming their young.

He hesitated for just a moment at the threshold to the room at the end of the hallway, past the bathroom with its sunken bathtub and gold taps.

Pushing open the closed door he choked on the thick, stale air and the sudden deluge of memories he unleashed on breaching the threshold.

'Damn you twice, Cid. Damn me too for being fool enough to return.'

The bed was neatly made, the coverlet covered in a film of undisturbed dust. The book shelves lining the wall above the bed were over-laden with leather bound volumes. Aviation through the ages, mechanical engineering, twenty most infamous criminals in Archadian history.

Balthier grinned despite himself and pulled the volume from the shelf, careful not to disturb the others. He opened the book, with its cracked spine, and turned to one of the dog-eared pages.

_Barle__Argeman__Archadia's__ most notorious pirate. __Argeman__ was born in the year of the coronation of Emperor __Gramis__ the Great and died at the age of fifty-three in his bed after a thirty year career as __Archadia's__ most prolific and dangerous brigand…._

Balthier remembered the words, the tales of this long-dead pirates exploits as if by rote, the words leaping from the page to stir his memory. He had had such macabre interests as a boy, no wonder he'd turned out as he had.

Losing the smile Balthier dropped the book onto the bed and watched the cloud of dust it unsettled. He walked over to the window in what was once his bedroom and pushed it open, drawing back the curtains.

The garden at the back of the house was wild and overgrown, at odds with the manicured and unnaturally pristine gardens of their neighbours.

But then it had always been so; neither he nor Cid had any interest in gardening.

Turning from the window, shafting sunlight pouring into the room like a thief stealing into a sealed tomb, Balthier walked over to the large dark wood wardrobe, still taller than he was, maybe even taller than Fran.

Balthier jumped back and winced as a pile of loose leaf papers, pens, compendiums and manuals spilled out onto the floor along with a beautiful, truly beautiful looking gun, of a make he had never seen before, but was oddly familiar.

Ignoring the remnant of school work and Judge training procedures that now littered the polished wood flooring, Balthier reached down and hefted the gun, noting the tag that had been tied to the trigger.

_ Happy seventeenth birthday __Ffamran__, a judge should have a weapon of merit to go with that armour._

Gods above and below! The gun slipped from his hands as Balthier recoiled in horror, tripped on a quill pen and fell backwards onto his mattress with an exceedingly un-gentlemanly curse.

If Vaan, or the Princess, or maybe even Fran, had seen him now they would not have known what to make of Balthier. Head in hands, leaning over his knees, back stooped in a way his akademy teachers had told him never to sit; Balthier struggled to simply breathe in and out.

That gun. Cid had given him _that_ gun for a birthday present? Or at least would have done, had Ffamran not disappeared into the night two weeks before his seventeenth birthday.

Balthier almost laughed, sprawled in the dust of a life he once lived, feeling like a ghost returned from the underworld to re-visit his past and take stock.

The gun, twisted with ornate gilt patterning and sleek as a coiled serpent ready to strike sat in a square of sunlight, mocking him. The very gun Cid had put to his son's head and threatened to kill him with, almost seven years ago.

Balthier picked up the gun, one of his father's creations, only Dr Cid could invent something this beautifully vicious, and carried it over one shoulder as he sauntered out of his old room.

He walked down the corridor with a jaunty step towards the bedroom at the far end from his own. He pushed open the door a little more forcibly than strictly warranted and surveyed the bedroom of Dr Cid.

Good. The room held signs of recent use. The pine wood and cedar scent that he always associated with his father was thick in the room, which was cleaner and less dusty than the rest of the house.

'So you still sleep old man?'

The bed was freshly made and the coverlet turned down as if waiting for the man of the house to return. The blue walled room with its heavy dark wood furnishings was dimly lit, the curtains pulled closed and somewhat oppressive in atmosphere.

Balthier pulled a pen from the drawer of the side table by the bed and turned the tag on the gun around, pulling the tag loose carefully and leaning on the side table to scribble a quick note for his father.

Replacing the tag on the trigger he slipped the gun between the bed sheets, barrel resting on the pillow, just poking out from the covers.

Turning swiftly on his heel Balthier thought he saw, for just an instance, the strange and eerie spectre of the faceless wraith that had inhabited Fran's sister Mrjn in the Henne mines and Judge Bergen in Bur-Omisace.

He waited in that still room that smelled like home and reminded him of all that was lost and broken that could not be fixed but nothing untoward leapt out at him.

Shaking his head Balthier walked out of his father's bedroom closing the door softly behind him and left the house that was once his as quietly as he came in.

Balthier moved swiftly away from Highgarden Terrace and towards Central, surely Jules would have found Vaan and given him the Chops by now?

There were things that must be done if they were to breach Draklors fabled security and preparations to be made. No time to dawdle in bittersweet memory.

_Having watched the prodigal child of its chosen vassal leave the former nest, __Venat__ drifted over to the weapon he had left, strangely, in Cid's bed. _

_Without disturbing the physical reality of the bed __Venat__ read the note that the son, long since fled hearth and heath, had left the father._

Dear Cid, thank you for the kind thought but when I come for you it won't be with a gun.

_It was not signed but the heated rage that emanated from the neat pen strokes scoring the scrap of paper concerned __Venat__. The son was vassal to the __Dalmascan__ Princess, the __Occuria's__ chosen tool. _

_So they had made it to __Archades__ already? Cid would need to be warned. Briefly the renegade __Occuria__ wondered if the son, despite his words of hate and vengeance, had not in fact come here with the very intent of warning __Cid?_

_Love and hate and all that was betwixt and between was a closed book to __Venat__, a creature of ageless indifference, the __occuria__ worried that that ignorance on its part regarding the passions of __Humes__ might not prove to be Cid's undoing? _

_The love and hate of son for father, father for son. The one equal to the other, neither __force__ able to free either man from the shackles of kinship. _


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter twenty-two: Draklor and the benefits of a good head for mechanics

' It cannot end thus.'

Basch staggered against the metal, power conduit lined silver, red and blue walls of the laboratory, collapsing under the Imperial assault.

Vaan threw himself into the midst of the Imperial forces they had encountered on the sixty-seventh floor with a wordless battle cry, Bastard sword severing air and armour alike.

'I can't…..'

Penelo gasped, sinking to her knees, Ras Algethi falling from her limp fingers, blood pouring from a vicious blade wound that had pared the flesh from her right arm down to the bone.

Ashe screamed wordlessly and whirled her Gokuu pole in a wide arc, forcing the Imperials back and punching the end into the stomach of one insufficiently armed soldier.

Inside room 6704 Fran and Balthier worked as swiftly as due efficiency allowed to open the red bulkheads.

Pulling out wiring and cables, splicing mechanisms and by-passing fail-safes with deft efficiency they worked in synchronicity without needing to utter a word.

Fran was bleeding from a shrapnel wound to the leg, where one of the Imperial Hoplite's guns had shattered some of the plating from the wall and sent a piece of steel to embed in her left thigh.

One side of Balthier's face was covered in blood, his hair mussed and sticky from an oozing scalp wound caused in the same shrapnel blast that had injured Fran.

' Finally.'

Balthier hissed as the mechanism rolled over, the screens glowing blue and the hordes of Imperials pouring out from the corridors cut off as the doors crashed closed.

'What took you so long?' Vaan demanded as he administered aid to Penelo.

Neither Balthier or Fran answered. Basch, revived by his princess, finished off the last of the Imperials caught on the wrong side of the doors when the mechanism changed over.

'Perhaps we should have waited until the alert had passed.' Basch suggested, his eyes shifting from Balthier to Fran.

'To what end?' Balthier asked flatly, neither angry nor amused.

'Had we waited we would have been the sole target for the guards attention; this way at least their focus is split.'

Fran, who had initially opined the view that caution was better when they discovered another attempted to breach Draklor as they did, could not fault Balthier's logic. Though she would like to.

Ashe, brilliant in her ferocity, swiped blood and sweat soaked hair from her face and looked down the corridors.

'Which way?'

Balthier jerked his head northwards and the Princess started to lead the way down the shimmering whitish corridors; Vaan moving up after her and Balthier following him.

Fran remained in the rear to keep an eye on Basch and Penelo still recovering from their individual healings.

'This place scares me.' Penelo admitted in a whisper.

' Aye.' Basch agreed. ' I like it not, also.'

He managed a wane smile for the girl who seemed heartened that a man of Basch's calibre would also be unsettled by such a place.

For her part Fran liked Draklor not one bit. Balthier had once described the place to her, on the rare occasions he felt moved to reminisce.

He had described a place of high science and Hume endeavour. A place where the greatest of Hume minds gathered and worked alongside each other towards a common goal. It had sounded, by his words, an almost noble place.

The silent corridors, the triangular patterned doors, the throb of red and blue power relays and the cold sterility of the place they found themselves in, had not featured in his recollections.

Was this, therefore, a physical representation of the corruption of Draklor's chief of staff? Dr Cid's descent into madness and cruelty reflected in the very walls of his laboratory?

Fran did not let herself be over much troubled by worry ordinarily for it did no good to ponder intangibles, yet she found herself troubled by what they would find when they confronted Dr Cid.

'Gods save us!'

Ashe recoiled as the huge, chittering Lab Rats poured out of the opening of room 6811, red eyes winking under the unforgiving artificial lighting.

Balthier raised one foot and bought it down with savage precision on the neck of one of the largest rats. The snap of the creature's spine was clearly audible.

He kicked the furry body aside as the other rats recoiled, squeaking intolerably, into a corner of the room.

' They're just rats, Ashe.'

Fran was already at work at the terminal. Balthier rubbed at the dried blood on his face and took a deep breath.

All the humes she travelled with were glassy eyed, dull and jittery from too many injuries, too much blood lost and the cumulative effect of too many healings in too short a time period.

Fran worried over this, also. The healings and the magic bothered her least of all, as Viera she had higher tolerance, but her hume companions would need their wits about them to face Cid.

Ashe and Vaan were eliminating the last of the rats, Vaan grinning with the familiarity of once more fighting rats and Ashe grimacing in unconcealed disgust.

Fran left the console to Balthier and strode across the room, pulling loose the wall panel for the locking mechanism and splicing the wires. The doors locking mechanism hissed into place.

'We rest here.' She stated firmly.

No one argued. Balthier pulled out a handkerchief and started scrubbing at his face; Ashe kicked rat corpses away from her and sat down onto the steel plated floor.

Vaan squatted down beside Penelo who was pale and trembling from her injuries. Basch walked over to the console.

'It is as well we had two pirates with an expertise in mechanics among us.'

He remarked attempting a smile, he looked over the mechanism.

'The same system as in the Henne Mines.'

'He likes the colours.' Balthier muttered flat and distant.

' Red and blue.' Balthier expanded. ' Dr Cid's favourite colours.'

Fran moved over to him, ostensibly to check on the mechanisms but she knew he would understand her true motive.

Fran considered that under the circumstances magick numbed and dazed may be a benefit to Balthier, yet she would need to watch him when they came upon his father.

Twenty minutes later found the party ripping its way through Imperials and Judges.

Fran swung her sledgehammer in smooth downward sweeps, the blows immobilising her foes and sending them reeling helpless into Balthier or Vaan's blades.

Penelo remained at the back, Aldebarum, borrowed from Balthier while he preferred blade to gun, cocked, and spells ready on her lips. She hurled status ailments like curses down upon their foes.

Ashe was bloodthirsty poetry in motion as she whirled, jabbed, swung and pirouetted with her pole. Basch, stolid, strong, steadfast, shattered armour and bone with his hammerhead axe.

Imperial mages cast vicious spells that Penelo returned with shocking vengeance. As all around Fran the world had condensed into a throbbing, pulsing, sodden whirl of blood and violence.

A mastiff charged Penelo, knocking her to the ground, yet Penelo did not lose her focus on her casting even as Vaan waded in to tear the huge dog off her.

Fran found herself back to back with Balthier as the numbers of Imperials appeared undiminished. The moved as one. She and her partner.

Balthier pivoted and struck an upward stroke of his blade that opened up a Judge from right knee to underarm, her partner knowing from hard experience where Judge armour was at its weakest.

Fran brought her sledgehammer down with monstrous finality onto the top of the Imperial soldier's head. The man crumpled to the ground in a silent heap.

'Fran!'

One word was enough for Fran to understand her partner's intent. Balthier grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her up, while she faced away from him.

Fran brought up her long, powerful legs, as he swung her in a smooth arc.

She kicked out at the three soldiers who advanced on a cornered Basch, her sharp heels sliced across the unguarded eyes of one of the mages and the man staggered back screaming.

Another vicious kick, Balthier holding her up and swinging her around in a complete circle, sent a Hoplite flying into the corridors wall. Vaan, moving with gleeful viciousness, thrust his blade point into the Hoplite's stomach before he could react to the first blow.

The party was left panting in a corridor filled with fallen imperials. Ashe cocked her head to the side and a bloodthirsty grin transformed her features, she cut a glance Basch's way.

'We shall have to learn how to do that, Basch.' She nodded towards Fran and Balthier.

Basch raised his scarred eyebrow looking to the pirates, quizzically.

Balthier had lowered her to the ground, but his hand remained lightly resting around Fran's waist. He removed it when he saw the others watching.

' I wonder is it always Fran who is the one so man-handled?' Basch inquired, gentle humour evident in his tone.

Fran quirked an eyebrow, ducking down to check her heels were still securely fastened.

' Balthier does not like it when I pick him up, and his shoes do no damage.'

Balthier smirked, with a careless shrug, ' I look terrible in heels.'

Penelo giggled and Vaan blinked, his face twisting as he looked at Balthier.

' Oh, great, now I'm going to be stuck with that image in my head. You, ' He pointed at Balthier accusingly. 'wearing Fran's outfit.'

There was a moments silence. Balthier blinked, then he burst out laughing, almost at the same time Penelo split her sides giggling and the Princess buried her head in Basch's shaking shoulders to smother her own laughter.

Fran herself felt her lips twist upwards in a smile. It wasn't so much Vaan's words as the sudden break in the tension the party had been travelling through.

Balthier's tense preoccupation since returning from his old home, the Princess's bloodthirst, Vaan and Penelo's vengeful spite in regards to the Imperials who represented all that had been stolen from them. All fell away as they laughed.

'A-hem.' Ashe swallowed her own laughter and marshalled her resolve.

' We should take stock, and make ready. It looks like a clear run to the elevator to floor seventy from here.'

Levity gave way to tense readiness once more, but it was less desperate and fraught now. What would be would be, but the party was better ready to face it now. Together they stood and Fran was glad of it.

Fran walked alongside Balthier as he strode towards the elevator, card key in hand. He met her eyes just once as he activated the elevator and nodded seriously.

In that one gesture he relieved much of Fran's tension. Since the Uplands they had little opportunity to talk. Fran had worried at his insistence in confronting his father.

Balthier had killed before, but he took no pleasure in the act and did so only when his silvered tongue and quick wits, or Fran herself, could not save him.

To deliberately set out to confront his father in battle? She wondered at his state of mind. It did not seem like him, as he always favoured flight to a fight.

Now, in his eyes she saw a need to see what had become of the man who he once called father and a desire, distant and left unacknowledged in the depths of his soul, to save the man who had been his whole world once, if he could.

Fran, who had never met Cidolfus Bunansa and knew him only as the phantom that haunted her partner's dreams, was determined to make sure that Balthier would not be destroyed by this encounter, even when, as she knew it must, it came time for son to end the life of father.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter twenty-three: Mist guns and conversations between a father and his son

_Author note: I will come out on record and say that I never liked __Reddas__, so be warned of that prejudice. Also I never thought that __Balthier__ and Fran were really ignorant of __Reddas__Zecht's__) true __past -__it just seemed too improbable. Anon __Anon__ let's get on._

Fran hissed in recognition as the dusky skinned, bald man with the double swords approached them, stalking like a panther.

Balthier turned from waiting impatiently for the party to exit the elevator to see what troubled her.

' Reddas.' _Zecht_

Every time Balthier referred to the pirate king of Balfonheim by his assumed name she heard the echo of his true one in the spiteful curl of his lip.

None of the rest of the party heard him, or had noticed the older man, a former Judge Magister, approach. As the man attacked Basch, then apologised in polite fashion before running off, Balthier and Fran both kept quiet.

Reddas, equally, had maintained the pretence that he did not recognise them; though their association these last two years had been extensive and not entirely pleasant.

Balthier had once remarked that Reddas had no right attempting to steal his thunder by turning from Judgehood to piracy, especially as he, Balthier, had beaten the man to it by four years.

Fran considered that Balthier was hardly likely to be impressed that Reddas had also taken it upon himself to be avenged on Cid at much the same time that Balthier had.

For her part, Fran thought that all the help they could muster against Cid was for the better, though her personal feelings towards Reddas, as much as she allowed herself any at all, were mixed.

Dr Cid was teetering on top of a plinth in front of his huge, wall to ceiling windows, crowing mockingly at Reddas when the party stormed in.

Balthier, unable to keep quiet mocked his father with honeyed distain.

' Consider your bones old man.'

Fran watched Cid carefully. She had never seen the ghost of Balthier's past before and would confess herself, if only in the privacy of her own mind, more than a little curious.

The man, dressed in Archadian finery of red frock coat trimmed in blue, could have been a prophecy of Balthier's future, so much alike they were.

'Pirate scum, what brings you here?'

Yet the venom in his mockery, so much reminiscent of the carrion birds that pecked the flesh from dead men's bones left to rot on battlefields, did not hide the quiver of deeper emotion behind the glassy eyes.

'Treasure old man, what else?'

Balthier extended a hand in a show of nonchalance. Fran supposed that only she, with her keen sight, could see that hand shake.

'We'll take the Dust Shade if you please.'

It was the wrong thing to say, Balthier pushing his bravado too far, as he was want to do. Cid laughed, acidic venom dripping from his words as he dismissed his son from his thoughts.

' _That_ trinket? I thought you above such things.'

And there just for a moment; regret. The whisper of a father who wanted better for his child than the fate he had created for himself.

A whispered conversation with empty air and the mad man's attention turned to the Princess, an even riper target for his incisive, goading mockery.

'A test! A test for Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca!'

Fran's focus during the battle with a triumphant, maniacal Dr Cid was solidly maintained upon Balthier.

Who she thought, managed to handle himself with usual self-control despite the pain every blow landed against his father and his contraptions, wrought upon him.

The Rooks, Cid's mechanical playthings, were as deadly as they were phenomenally well made. The laser fire sliced into them all with sickening precision. Fran would have liked opportunity to study their inner workings.

Vaan, Ashe and Basch ripped into the Rooks, while Fran covered Balthier with magick and her simple presence as his father's laughing fury was wrought upon him one bullet at a time.

Penelo worked her magicks and took pot-shots at the Rooks and Reddas, determined to clear his name for the sin of Nabudis' destruction by the shedding of Cid's blood, charged the man endlessly.

' Enough man!'

Balthier threw the older man backwards bodily as he attempted once more to pierce the protective paling protecting Dr Cid.

' Can't you see he's laughing at you? The Rooks are the key.'

Balthier turned to take on one of the Rooks, slicing into it with platinum blade.

Fran saw in the corner of her eye Cid's twisted smile as he took aim and fired at his son's exposed and unprotected back.

Fran tackled Blathier to the ground and the shot went over their heads. Both rolled to their feet in an instant no time for any reaction beyond the physical.

When the first Rook fell and the paling around Cid fluctuated, it was Balthier's turn to gloat. Venom for venom exchanged.

'Always hiding behind your toys? A shame if something were to happen to them.'

Cid seemed focused in his entirety on eradicating his son. He cackled inanities and mocking hints to the Princess, never addressing his son in anything other than a veiled off-hand manner, yet his violence was directed at Balthier and Fran exclusively.

Cid had eyes only for his son. Fran, closing in once the paling had lifted with the destruction of the last Rook, caught the scents rising from Cid. They made her head spin.

Joy and bitterness, amusement and disappointment, curiosity and rage all twisted and corrupted by the maddening scent of Mist burning in the man's blood.

Cid turned to her with eyes that were glassy with his own inward perspective, clouded by ambition that had robbed the doctor of his sense of self and the world around him.

Fran raised her axe to strike a blow and Cid smirked at her, his heavy set face still baring the faded mark of features she recognised; the similarities between father and son disturbing.

'And who might you be, Viera?'

Cid asked in reasonable tones, even as he struck Fran across the face hard enough to send her to the ground.

Reddas ran at Cid from behind and the man turned, informed by the Mist that permeated his being of imminent attack, to face the former Judge Magister.

Balthier was at Fran's side helping her up immediately. They stood watching his father warily. Balthier's eyes darkened with a maelstrom of conflicting emotion as Reddas and Cid exchanged blows.

Fran knew Balthier did not know to whose aid he wished to go, as Ashe and Basch entered the fray, laying into Cid.

Penelo ran up alongside the two of them as Vaan joined the knot of fighters who surrounded Cid.

'Should I take my shot?' Penelo asked fearfully, eyes darting to Balthier.

Though Fran did not think Balthier had openly addressed his past with either Vaan or Penelo it had become something of an open secret since the streetear Jules had deliberately let slip Balthier's birth name in Archades.

Balthier glanced at Penelo, distractedly, 'Wait.'

Balthier shook his head sharply, watching as his father parried and deflected the blows against him with unnatural ease, the smile never leaving his face.

' Something's wrong. He's up to something.'

Balthier started moving towards the fight, Fran nodded to Penelo and they too followed at his heel. Balthier held his blade pointed to the floor, not upraised to land a blow.

Suddenly Cid exploded into motion, knocking over Vaan and breaking free of his knot of attackers, dashing heavily, for he was a thicker set man than his son, across his chambers before wheeling on his attackers, from a compartment set into the wall he pulled out a huge, monstrous gun.

'Down!'

Balthier yelled to the others, grabbing Fran and Penelo and hauling them all to the floor. Fran heard Dr Cid's wicked, delighted cry as a huge mechanism whirred into life and Dr Cid fired his Mist powered gun towards the massive deflector screeens that had descended from the ceiling.

'It pains me to inform you that your time here is done!'

Fran heard the thunderous roar of the weapon firing and the heated, acrid scent of Mist created via artificial nethicite. It smelled like chemicals, hot and acidic and wrapped around Fran's mind, her vision flashing red and angry black.

She felt it as the beams of light and energy bounced off the deflector panels and ricocheted around the room, zigging over her head, scorching heat stinging her back. She thought she heard the Princess scream and then there was nought but explosions.

Fran leapt to her feet as soon as the monstrous weapon had discharged its ammunition, Balthier at her side.

' Vaan!'

Penelo ran back across the chamber where Vaan lay bleeding and unconscious on the floor, the Princess equally still near by. Basch remained conscious but heavily wounded, he would fight no more.

Fran launched herself forward. Dr Cid was showing signs of weakness, his scent fluctuating with pain, his clothing tattered and bloody. They must make sure he did not use the gun again.

Cid was smiling and rubbing his hands together in glee. 'Yes, yes, excellent trial-run. The T-28 Tokahawk will be ready for immediate distribution to our ground troops.'

' Cid!'

Balthier's shout was sharp and demanded attention. Dr Cid looked over clearly surprised to see anyone still standing.

'Ffamran? Come home for a visit have you? Venat told me of your note.'

His father asked him calmly, moving from the deflector machine towards his son.

She saw Balthier flinch, both at the use of his birth name and the sudden change in Dr Cid's demeanour, almost as if he had forgotten in his madness that he had been fighting his son all along.

Fran took the moment the distraction afforded her to bring her battle axe down on the control panel for the deflectors, rendering the lethal weapon inoperative.

'Indeed. I was sorry to miss you, Cid. I suppose you were busy masterminding genocide, hmm?'

Balthier kept his sword raised at an angle across his body as Cid advanced on him; his words as dry and lightly indifferent as his father's had been kindly.

Cid stopped, blinking in surprise, the gesture so like his son that Fran paused as she advanced on the man, axe upraised.

Cid shook his head, annoyed his malice returning, like a shroud of hate and delusion dropping over him.

' You cannot understand what I do here. That I work for the good of all man.'

Balthier cocked his head to the side and spoke almost conversationally.

' Is that so? I'm sure all those who died in Nabudis and on the Eighth Fleet appreciate your efforts on their behalf, old man.'

'Ivalice will be free from those who would keep man from his true destiny.' Cid snapped.

But then that fleeting softening of his features returned, as if Cid were two people within the one body. Father and mad man side by side. When he next spoke Cid sounded frustrated, not cruel.

'You have not changed, still the callow youth. You could never grasp the wider picture.'

Balthier allowed himself a snide smile as he shot a lightening quick glance Fran's way. _Do it now_His eyes said. _Strike while he is distracted._

'The devil is in the detail, Father. Perhaps you have spent too long looking at the big picture and you have forgotten that?'

In the end it was not Fran who levied the blow that ended the battle, but Penelo.

The rapport of her gun rang loud across the marble floored chamber as the shot staggered Cid, Mist oozing from him as his nethicite corrupted body attempted to heal itself.

'How could you? How could you do this to yourself? How could fall so far?' Balthier's entreaty to his father went unheard.

'That's for Vaan, you bastard.' Penelo hissed heatedly.

Ashe, revived by Penelo was conscious and standing when Cid made his exit, his venat making their appearance known. The Mist entity that had possessed Mjrn; that had infested Bergen.

Cid, much as his son, needed to have the last word. He turned his maligning, distaining wit on Ashe. Taunting her with deliberate manipulations and coaxing hints to travel to Giruvegan.

'I myself to Giruvegan go. Catch me if you dare.'

All the party, in various states of disrepair watched as Cid flew away on his hover craft, Balthier turned to Ashe and Fran both with a long suffering sigh that did not quite hide his relief that his father still drew breath enough to mock them.

'Hate it when he does that.'


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-four: Balfonheim, mint liqueur and poker playing Viera

What the band playing in the Whitecap tavern lacked in skill they more than made up for in enthusiasm and inventiveness.

Balthier would never have thought to turn a packing crate, a hand held grater and some wire into an instrument or known what to do with it once he had.

As was often the case the Whitecap was packed to the rafters with pirates, dockworkers, wayfarers and assorted reprobates of low reputation.

Most of those esteemed patrons were gathered, three men thick, around the poker table in the centre of the Whitecap's basement floor, known as the gaming room.

Ordinarily the main draw was the Bandercouerl fights; men wagering Gil on which green skinned, bulbous headed fiend would disembowel the other first.

Tonight the entertainment was a rarity, an unexpected treat for the patrons of the gaming room. A fine show it was too, Ivalice's only poker playing Viera.

Balthier had no idea how Fran came to play, and play exceptionally well, all kinds of poker.

Archadian rules, Rozzarian high card monte, some bizarre off-shoot of the game played by the denizens of a small town at the northern foothills of Mount Bur-Omisace, she played them all.

But then, why not? Nobody could have a poker face like Fran's. Or the patience to crack the bluffs of some of Ivalice's most hardened gamblers.

When Balthier pushed his way through the thick knot of onlookers to stop at her back he bit back the smile when he saw the size of the pile of chips she had amassed.

Without a word Balthier placed the fresh drink by her still left hand, Fran able to fan a full hand of cards with just one hand, and refilled the empty glass.

Fran did not like most Hume ales or spirits, she would drink a glass of Madhu when she must, but for the most part she distained all alcoholic beverages.

Except this one. The drink he placed before her now; a vile, sickly sweet concoction, brilliant chartreuse in colour and with an almost over-powering mint after taste.

A drink favoured by giggling socialites and show-girls, he always thought it odd that Fran should be so partial to it, but then she did have a well hidden, but voracious, sweet tooth.

Fran did not even look at him as he left her side. Her gaze was abstracted as she waited for her opponents to ante up. Balthier sometimes wondered what she thought about while she played.

Not insulted in the lease by Fran's lack of attentiveness, she was by his count ten thousand Gil up, after all, Balthier went to find a quiet (or at least quiet_er_) corner of the tavern to sit and maybe take a nap. It had been a trying few days after all.

Balthier must have succeeded in finding temporary respite from consciousness because the gentle tug on his sleeve startled him from nothingness to some form of awareness.

'Penelo?'

The girl was crowded against his side as he slouched in the hard back chair he had dragged into a corner, having failed to find a table to sit at.

Hair freed of its habitual pig-tails and out of her padded armour and without aldebaran, she looked like a Giza Bunny thrown into a Bandercouerl den; a pale lily resplendent in a rubbish pit.

Penelo's eyes flittered about anxiously, taking in the working girl and her john in the dark corner of the room, the thick, heavy veil of smoke that draped over their heads and fogged the brain, the leering sneers of a group of Rozzarian sailors clustered around the nearest table.

' Vaan went with Ashe and Basch to find more loot.' She told him unnecessarily.

' But you didn't go with Vaan?'

It always surprised Balthier whenever the two split up, he thought of them as a pair, as inseparable as - well- as he and Fran.

Penelo shook her head, ears reddening as the working girl began making enthusiastic noises a few feet away, clearly wishing to get the job over with.

Balthier smirked. Obviously the orphan had never been in a pirate tavern before.

' I was tired after what happened and Basch said maybe I should stay behind and rest.'

He quirked an eyebrow, ' You are unlikely to find much rest in here.'

Penelo wrung her hands together as she shuffled imperceptibly closer to him as a, really very minor, altercation broke out between two men over the same working girl who had been so cheerfully servicing the gentleman in the corner but moments before.

' I was looking for Fran. She said she'd teach me how to use Curaja.'

'Ah, well, Fran's a little preoccupied at the moment.'

Penelo speared a nervous glance over to a languid and calm Fran who impassively sipped her drink as another gambler left the table cursing her vociferously having lost all his Gil.

' What's she doing?'

Penelo was now so close to him her side was a warm weight against his shoulder and right arm. She was skittish as an unbroken racing Chocobo here in this den of iniquity.

'Making Gil, Penelo, a great deal of Gil.'

Penelo let out a little squeak as Balthier snaked an arm around her waist and hoisted the girl onto his knee, arranging her so that she sat comfortably across his lap.

' You said you were tired.'

Balthier pointed out mildly when she gave him a very red faced, startled look.

' Fran will play a few more hands. No doubt she'll deliberately lose the next two to lull her opponents into a false sense of security then hang them out to dry.'

'She does this a lot?'

Balthier shrugged, as much as he could with Penelo ensconced on his knee.

'Piracy is shockingly expensive and the Strahl guzzles fuel at an alarming rate.'

Penelo frowned, clearly wondering at something, ' I never thought Fran would do that sort of thing. I mean you would but – '

And here she stopped hand going to her mouth as her features flushed pink in embarrassment.

Balthier felt the grin tugging at his lips. So instead he pasted a look of righteous indignation onto his face and pressed his ringed hand against his heart.

' Penelo, I am shocked and appalled that you have such low opinion of me. That you think me nothing better than a common criminal, to swindle men at cards.'

Penelo giggled and kicked her legs slightly as she fidgeted, getting comfortable, on his lap.

' Oh, I don't think you're a _common _criminal, Balthier.'

He laughed at that, as much for the surprisingly knowing humour glinting in the girls eyes as for her audacity at playing him at his own game.

She had come a long way from the sweet little girl who had 'borrowed' his gun back in the Nam Yensa.

After that they both settled into a companionable silence. Penelo letting her head drop onto his shoulder as the fumes from the smoking pipes, the sweet high scent of ale and spirits and the rhythmic thumping of the band on the upper floor, lulled them both into something close to sleep.

' What is going on here?'

The imperious demand of her would-be majesty snapped both Balthier and Penelo back into awareness.

Penelo jumped up so sharply Balthier had to make a grab for her to save her from a close encounter with the filthy tavern floor.

Vaan, Basch and her Highness were standing side by side, for there was little room to breathe, let alone move in the tight, heavy confines of the gaming room, looking at them with varying expressions of curiosity and annoyance.

' Very little Princess.'

Balthier answered the earlier question that had so rudely awoken him.

'Penelo and I were simply waiting for Fran to finish her game.'

He nodded towards the poker table, Fran's mountain of chips now obscenely high; the bottle of mint liqueur two thirds empty, her opponents looking both desperate and frightened behind their cards.

'Why are you sitting on his lap?' Vaan asked Penelo. He didn't exactly sound jealous, just curious.

' No chairs.' Penelo said around a jaw cracking yawn.

Vaan seemed satisfied with this answer, the Princess however did not.

She looked narrowly at Balthier's hand, which was resting innocently on Penelo's bare knee. Really what was he supposed to do? Leave his hands suspended in midair?

' And what are you all doing in this _sty _anyway?' she demanded.

Un-ho. She was in one of those moods was she? Balthier sighed, and to think she had been quite genial and pleasant before Draklor.

Though, Balthier conceded, a run in with a maniacal Dr Cid would have a detrimental effect on anyone's mood he supposed. If one was inclined to let it, which Balthier certainly wasn't.

'How can Fran waste Gil on _gambling _when we have precious little left to buy much needed supplies as is?'

Balthier, Vaan and Penelo all simply stared at the Princess as her strident tones notched up in volume towards hysteria.

Balthier looked at her in surprise; she really was quite upset by their recent adventures, wasn't she?

Basch who had previously ambled over to Fran and exchanged whispered asides now came back to hear the tail-end of the Princess' outburst.

' Fran appears to be winning. She has made something close to twenty thousand Gil, my Lady.'

Ashe blinked. Penelo raised a hand to her mouth in shock, Vaan looked astonished (but then that was his usual slack-jawed and awed visage so it counted for little) Balthier, for his part, grinned hugely.

'That's my girl.'

When the Princess glared at him he shrugged. While as he could not deny, though he was determined to ignore, a certain attraction towards the Princess her judgemental petulance irritated him to no end.

' You see, Ashe, we have not been loafing about this 'sty' as you put it, but diligently working towards preparing for the next leg of our quest. We needed Gil to pay for passage back to Golmore, Fran has provided us with ample.'

Smirk turning just this side of smug he turned innocent eyes on the Princess.

'Incidentally how much Gil did you manage to make from loot, today?'

Ashe's lips pursed into a thin, white line; her fists bunched and her chin tilted dangerously.

Balthier had a split second to regret pushing her too far, before she turned on her heel and stormed up the stairs of the tavern.

'Whoops.' Vaan breathed shaking his head.

Penelo got to her feet looking worriedly over at the stairs leading up to the upper floor that Ashe had just disappeared up.

' I'll go see if she's okay.'

It was Basch who stopped her turning unkind eyes on Balthier.

'I think perhaps it is for Balthier to do that.'

For a moment all Balthier could do was frown at the Captain, who he thought had made his feelings towards his growing intimacy with the Princess abundantly clear back in Sochen.

Now the man's face was grave with reproach and gave nothing away as to his thoughts. Balthier heaved himself to his feet with a long sigh, making his displeasure well known.

'Some might consider this entrapment, Captain.'

Balthier murmured as he brushed past the solid weight of the man, somewhat reminiscent of trying to shove a marble column out of the way.

'I thought we were all friends here?' He added.

'Friends do not play games with friends, Balthier; nor with their hearts.'

Balthier groaned in annoyance. Really did the man have nothing more to worry about but his damned Princess' heart? Anyone would think the man coveted it himself. Hmm, now there was a thought.

Balthier found her staring out to sea just outside the Whitecap in the semi-circular courtyard that afforded such a beautiful panorama of the ocean.

' He saw right through me, just as you did.'

Ashe spoke without turning to face him, somehow knowing who had come to find her.

'Princess?'

' Your father. He knew I sought the stones power, he – he had the audacity to infer we were the same.' Her voice was heated ice, anger and self-loathing.

Balthier came abreast with her, looking out at the crashing surf. The night air was cool on his face, clearing the misty cobwebs of exhaustion and mild intoxication; he had spent the best part of the day in the Whitecap, after all.

'Do not take it personally Princess, he is like that with everyone. It was always thus.'

Ashe shook her head, 'No, Reddas also questioned my intentions, he dared beg me remember Nabudis – as if I will ever forget!'

She whirled around to face him, her face alight with an impotent, frustrated and uncomprehending fury.

' Why? Why do you all follow me if you think me nothing more than a power hungry girl not fit to know her own mind?'

Balthier studied her curiously; this was the crux of the issue wasn't it? Her own insecurities; he wondered why he was always forced into situations where advice was required.

Damn Basch. The man must have known this was what the Princess fretted about and decided to off-load the responsibility on him.

'Princess, you are the daughter of King Raminas, rightful heir to the Dalmascan throne and the last living descendent of the Dynast King. Why do you care what a madman and an old pirate think?'

Ashe looked startled; she opened her mouth to form a reply then hesitated. Balthier leapt in while her confusion offered him opportunity.

'We follow you, Ashe, for our own reasons. It doesn't matter how long you sit atop a throne, or how large an empire you amass, in the court of a man's heart, he is the only ruler. We are all governed by our own will, Princess, and no other.'

Ashe shuffled her feet, turning inward again he noticed, a nervous gesture perhaps?

'That is all well and good if one is a simple farmer, or labourer, but a Queen's decisions affect an entire country. How can I know what is the right course of action?'

Balthier shrugged, turning on his heel as a cold gust of ocean breeze rushed in with the breakers.

'You can't. No one can.'

Having nothing further to say, as there were no simple answers, Balthier started walking back to the Whitecap. The weight of her eyes on him gave him pause however.

Balthier turned to face her, finding her unmoved staring out to sea.

' Princess the answers you seek are not likely to be found by freezing to death out here. Let me at least by you a drink?'

He nodded his head towards the Whitecap, the vibrations from the band's - _music- _for lack of a better word, reverberating through the ground and out to sea.

'They are not like to be found at the bottom of a bottle either, Balthier.' Ashe said unforgivingly.

He quirked his lip and bowed slightly acknowledging the hit. 'True. No one has ever found absolution or clarity in drink.'

He held out one hand to her with a flourish still maintaining his courtly bow.

' Though you will find something much more valuable inside this tavern than you'll ever found out here.'

She looked at him with cool curiosity, ' And what would that be?'

He smiled, keeping his head bowed, as befit the address of a queen.

'Stirling company and the rarest of all sights, myself, parting with hard stolen Gil, to buy _you_ a drink.'

She stepped forward and deigned to place her hand in his.

' I suppose that will have to do, in the absence of anything more _valuable_.' She sniffed.

Balthier straightened up from his bow and automatically tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, pulling her flush up against his side.

He wouldn't be much of a pirate if he didn't take advantage of every given opportunity, after all.

' You wound me, Princess.'

'Not yet, Balthier, but I may one day.'

She shot back as he held the door of the tavern open for her with an extravagant flourish. She walked through the open doorway with all the bearing of a queen – even if she was still wearing _that_ skirt!


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-five: Hey-ho, hey-ho, it's off to Giruvegan we go

'Ooh!' Ashe recoiled, stepping back and treading on Vaan's foot.

'Hey – ow!'

'I - I am sorry.'

'Something troubles you, Highness?'

Ashe cast furtive glances all around her at the swirling, iridescent Mist.

'N-no, I am fine. Let us move on.'

'Which way?' Penelo asked plaintively, 'It feels like we've been going round in circles for hours.'

'That's because we have been going around and around in circles for hours.'

Balthier weighed in, he gestured languidly to the scraggly thorn bush he had tied a loose piece of string to the second time they had staggered into this clearing.

' I have been marking our route.'

Ashe glared venomously at him, ' Then why don't you take the lead, Balthier? If you think you can do better.'

'Gladly.'

Balthier walked forward and immediately set off in any direction, walking right through his own Mist induced reflection.

They had been in the Feywood for something like a day, their passage through Golmore thankfully uneventful and taking them nowhere near Eruyt.

In that time Balthier had watched all the other members of their intrepid band driven half out of their wits by Mist and shadow. He failed to see what was so frightening about one's own reflection.

Unspooling the thread he carried in his belt pouch, in case of emergency clothing repairs, Balthier tied bits of the thread to trees and bushes to mark the route.

Balthier, he would admit only in the privacy of his own thoughts, had no better idea of where he was going than Ashe, but at least he was sensible about it.

The fiends of the Feywood were more worthy of fear than phantoms in the Mist. Behemoths lumbered about, slow but deadly, and Balthier was glad of Basch's fighting prowess and Vaan's sheer bloody-minded resilience.

The Preying Manti disturbed Balthier particularly; any creature that would cannibalise its own kind was best left well alone. Except that every time they saw one, Ashe or Vaan, or someone, would go haring after it.

Balthier had decided that this was evidence of the madness that had taken his compatriots since entering Feywood.

They were so hyped up from fretting over reflections that they needed something to attack just to make themselves feel better.

It was as well, Balthier thought, Fran had instructed them all on the use of curaja before they set foot in this bloody place.

Fran. He cast a furtive glance back to her, where she dragged in the rear of the party, despite the fact that she still bore her sledgehammer.

She was as unsettled by this place as the others, though she hid it well in her usually undemonstrative way.

'Ah, look, see, we come out somewhere new.'

Balthier declared, pleased with himself, when they stumbled through Mist, Tartarus wolves and Preying Manti into an odd sort of structure. Pillared and open on all sides it was octagonal in design with a mosaic floor.

The legend engraved on the central floor tile of the structure gave the usual cryptic instruction.

Balthier found himself wondering why ancient civilisations had delighted in such enigmatic and irritatingly obtuse directions. Would it have really been so hard to just leave a message along the lines of _Giruvegan__ – this __way._

Balthier was still contemplating this when a Behemoth pair attacked the party.

He and Vaan slashed at them with their swords, Ashe bludgeoned the huge fiends with her pole and Fran and Basch loped off body parts with hammer and axe. Penelo, at the back with Aldebaran, supported with spells.

'Well that was invigorating.'

Balthier examined the four inch long rip he had sustained to one sleeve in the skirmish and sighed. Typical, just when he needed his emergency sewing kit he had used all the thread elsewhere.

Balthier became aware of the stares he was getting from a number of the other members of their happy band. He frowned.

' Something wrong?'

It was Basch, uncharacteristically, who spoke up first. ' It bothers you not at all, Balthier, this Mist?'

'Should it?'

For the first time Balthier wondered if he had missed something important in the shadows and distorted reflections that seemed to have so shaken his compeers.

Fran spoke up, coming to stand near him for the first time since entering the Feywood. He had begun to think she was deliberately avoiding him.

' He has no dead to fear. His regrets lie before him, not yet in shadow.'

Fran then moved on, passed him, with nary a look.

' I see an oasis through the Mist, it is this way we should go.'

The others trudged forward after Fran and it was Balthier's turn to be left dragging behind. He was now unsettled. Fran was upset with him and he could think of no reason for it.

Briefly Balthier's eyes settled on the Princess who lingered to give him a quizzical look. She too, clearly picking up on the fact that Fran was displeased.

Was Ashe the reason? Did Fran know about that little debacle in the Sochen caves? But that made no sense. Fran could not care less for his trysts, dalliances and dangerous liaisons, mores the pity.

When Balthier was next confronted by a version of himself running at him through the Mist, he glared at his reflection. _What did you do, you bloody fool? How did you upset her this time?_

As they trudged from one octagonal structure to another, one or other of the party spying the oasis, which interesting Balthier could not see, even when he really tried to entertain the group psychosis, Balthier grew increasingly oppressed by the atmosphere.

_He has no dead to fear. His regrets lie before him, not yet in shadow._

Well, it was true. Balthier's mother died in labour and his two older brothers were tiny skeletons in their tombs by the time of his birth, so he had no lost loved ones or bitter foes among the dead to be haunted by, but that was hardly his fault, was it?

As for regrets, well, what good were they to man or beast? Balthier prided himself on his no nonsense approach to life.

Guilt was an indulgence of the indecisive, regret could be prevented by looking at things in a clear and sensible manner before embarking on any new venture.

What did Fran mean by _his regrets lie before him_? Did she intuit something about their imminent arrival in Giruvegan?

Did this have something to do with Cid? But why then not just tell him? She knew he had little patience for enigmas.

_Not yet in shadow. _Well she had remedied that sure enough. Balthier had been feeling quite fine until she decided to take her ire out on him. It was not as if Balthier had made her come here. He would have been happy to leave the Princess had she wished it.

When the party finally collapsed in exhaustion outside the Gigas Gate, all of them able to work out _that _particular puzzle; though Balthier did wonder what would-be visitors did who were not in possession of their own Esper, Balthier was in a royal sulk, though he was too proud to admit to it.

Balthier chatted to Vaan, who although tired and drawn from long journeying, was the least affected by the pall of depression that had fallen on the others.

But talking to Vaan was only entertaining for so long, it wasn't really the boys fault, he just didn't _know _anything remotely interesting about anything.

Growing up in a country without a system of state education and living on the streets of Lowtown does not a good conversationalist make of the boy, it would seem.

Balthier didn't even attempt to engage the Princess in conversation and happy little Penelo was already asleep.

So, feeling the need to be doing something, if only to pretend to himself that he wasn't still affected by Fran's odd behaviour; Balthier went for a walk.

Picking up Aldebaran, because he was always so much more comfortable with a gun, Balthier strolled out of their encampment in search of somewhere secluded to brood.

'What do you see?'

Fran's voice startled him. He had been sitting down under the outreaching branches of a strange tree that he knew not the name of, rolling a pebble over the ground.

'Fran?'

She walked towards him, silent as ever in her spiked heels, sashaying out of the Mist.

She came to rest above him and pointed out towards the rainbow shifting screen of Mist that cut them off from the rest of the Feywood.

'What do you see?' she repeated.

'Mist.'

He wondered if his answer sounded as petulant to her ears as it did to his own.

Fran took his elbow, she who rarely touched anyone, ever, and lead him towards that shifting mirror. In the Mist a reflection of Balthier and Fran looked back at them both.

Balthier looked at the guarded but miserable expression on his reflections face and worked to mould his own features back into their usual mask of polite inquiry.

' Now what do you see?'

He sighed, so it was like this was it? She wanted to teach him some lesson about Mist, did she? Well alright.

'A phenomena of nature, light and shadow refracted through the Mist creating reflective images of fauna and flora in the surrounding environment.'

A ghost of a wry smile twitched mirror Fran's lips as he looked on her, beside him he was very aware that Fran still held his arm, her touch so light it too could be illusion.

' A scientist's answer.' She murmured amused.

' What do you really see?'

Balthier frowned, resisting the desire to turn and face her directly and instead directing his annoyance towards her mirror image.

'A reflection; like any seen in a mirror.' He answered.

' The others see themselves, yet you only see a reflection. Do you not find this odd, Balthier?'

He frowned, 'A reflection of _myself_ created by sunlight trying to pierce the Mist.'

Balthier amended his previous answer, though surely Fran had known what he meant?

Reflected Fran nodded her head, ' A reflection of a self but not truly that self.'

Balthier frowned more, wondering if somehow he and Fran had started talking different tongues and not noticed; it seemed as though they agreed on what was there, but somehow he knew they did not.

' Well, it is a reflection; of course it is not real.'

Beside him Fran sighed, reflected Fran shook her hair from her face and behind her back the slightest of slight frowns touching her features.

Reflected Fran pointed towards the Fran that was warm and real beside Balthier.

' And what is she, another reflection?'

Balthier hesitated, the beginnings of understanding prickling his mind; her meaning beginning to permeate his thoughts even as some part of him rejected it outright.

' What do you see Balthier?'

She asked again, reflected Fran's lips moved but the voice was beside him.

' You, Fran, I see you.'

Fran in the Mist nodded, ' You see me in the Mist and yet your own likeness is only a reflection; a false image of one who is not truly here, not in his heart.'

'We should get back to camp.'

Balthier tried to turn from the Mist screen, even though they would have to cross through it to return to the camp.

Fran pulled Balthier back around easily with that one hand wrapped around his upper arm; she made him face his reflection again.

'I see you, Balthier. You are real, no illusion. Names do not matter, pasts are finished. You do not need to hide from yourself.'

Then she walked forward to the point where reflection and reality merged before disappearing through the veil of Mist leaving Balthier alone with his reflection.

Balthier glared at that image peevishly, 'Right then.'

Taking a deep breath Balthier stepped forward towards his own merging of illusion and reality, though the cathartic or revelatory effect that Fran was clearly hoping for when reflection and reality came eye to eye was ruined, for all he saw as he pierced the Mist, was her.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-six: Cold mist and innuendo in the shadow of the Great Crystal

' They are.'

' Are not.'

'Are too. Look at them!'

'Penelo there is nothing going on between them!'

' Oh, yeah, why's that, Vaan the _relationship expert_?'

' Well, why would he, when he's got Fran, huh?'

Fran sighed inaudibly trying to ignore the children's bickering. They had been alternately speculating on an illicit affair between Balthier and Ashe and how the Daedalus the party had defeated at the Giruvegan Waystone could see without a head or eyes.

Lengthening her strides she came abreast with Balthier, ' Where are we up to? Magically imbued sonar or has the first love child been born?'

Fran sighed, ' They have speculated that it is some form of sonar, picking up on the heart beats of those around that allowed Daedalus to detect our presence.'

'Fair reasoning.'

Balthier shrugged inured to the rumour mongering among the children and the increasingly frosty regard of the Dalmascan captain.

' Vaan is of the current opinion that you are unlikely to favour the Princess when you_ have_ me.'

Fran quirked an eyebrow pointedly; Balthier's lips twitched in a suppressed smile.

' Equally sound reasoning, though perhaps the lad has misread our relationship somewhat.'

' I am no man's possession.'

' Quite so.' Balthier said with equanimity.

' Is there some problem?'

Ashe had been striding ahead ever since she drifted off into Giruvegan following the apparition Fran could partial see; a formation of Mist that led the Princess like a dream leads a somnambulist.

Now the Princess, accompanied by Basch, dropped back to walk abreast with Fran and Balthier.

' You had best ask Vaan and Penelo that Princess.'

She frowned, ' Why is that Balthier?'

' Trouble in Paradise, apparently. The affair is not going well I'm afraid.'

He winked suggestively at the Princess and cast a sideways glance Fran's way, she shook her head.

Balthier would delight in using the children's fairly innocent speculation to tease Ashe and Basch both.

Fran had yet to decide if she was in the mood to encourage or restrain his devilment.

Balthier set off ahead towards an abandoned loot container hidden in a darkened corner of the platform between walkways that they had been ascending and descending for hours, digging deeper into the ancient bowels of Giruvegan.

Nodding to Basch, Fran followed Balthier. As she stood watching his back her partner gleefully picked the lock and pried open the container of loot.

Fran could overhear, without trying, the conversation the Princess and Basch were having.

' I like it not Princess. Balthier is a clever man, but he makes it difficult for me to trust his intentions.'

' I see little likelihood in either he or Fran abandoning us now.'

' He plays with you Princess. I know men of his ilk.'

'Basch he plays with everyone. He sees the whole of Ivalice as his personal playground. He is flirtatious and suggestive for your benefit, not mine. He enjoys annoying you. '

'Aye. I would speak to Fran but I fear even she cannot rein him in more than she already does.'

Balthier rose to his feet to show Fran what he had found, a sack of Gil and a fistful of x-potions, a reasonable haul.

' Anything good?'

He jerked his head towards the conversations going on between Ashe and Basch, Penelo and Vaan.

Fran sighed again, ' You are the popular topic of conversation still.'

Balthier grinned but hid it as he tucked half the potions into his belt pouch and handed the others to her. They always shared loot.

' Well, naturally. I am the Leading Man.'

' Apparently you and Ashe have been meeting secretly at night to engage in sordid carnality since we departed the Phon Coast.'

Fran continued once the party moved on to another mechanism that needed to be switched over and were briefly waylaid by Gargoyle Barons and a lone Behemoth forcing them to stop and imbibe potions and cast curative magicks.

Balthier quirked an eyebrow, ' Sordid carnality?'

Fran nodded, 'Penelo has a vivid imagination.'

Balthier was not quite able to stifle a burst of laughter that echoed in the vast emptiness of Giruvegan.

The sound drifted across the Mist heavy air towards the pulsing, sparkling crystal structure that loomed large in the centre of Giruvegan's web.

'I can't decide if I envy you your hearing, Fran, or pity you for it.'

Fran shifted her weight minutely and shook her hair back. The others filed passed them onwards towards another glowing ramp in the hanging architecture of Giruvegan that seemed to cling to nothing in the pulsing dark.

' It is oft a double-edged blessing.' Fran agreed as they followed the others.

' This place disturbs me, the Mist whispers odd things in my ears, tis almost as if we are expected.'

Balthier nodded, ' His deceased Highness Lord Rasler made another appearance to our Princess, did he not? Strange how he seems to do so at the most opportune moments.'

Fran nodded, ' Answers will be forthcoming I fear. We breach the heart of the riddle.'

'About time, I say. The intrigue grows tiresome.'

Fran almost smiled. ' Impatient Hume, remember you not what curiosity killed?'

Balthier smirked, ' I don't own a cat, Fran, so I shall not worry too greatly.'

She shook her head indulgently as they quickened their strides to aid the others who had come across Gargoyle Barons and a sub-species of Marlboro known as the Vivien, even more repellent than those encountered before.

'Wow. Look at that.'

Vaan stepped off the precipice and with a tearing explosion of Mist a glowing walkway of green magickal discs created a path for the party to transcend thin air to reach a distant platform.

'Vaan! A little help here!'

Penelo teetered on the edge of the solid platform the green path reached from as she aimed Aldebaran at the Mythril Golem that guarded the way forward with shambolic determination.

'Oh, right.'

Vaan ran back, and sensing it was no longer currently required the magicked walkway vanished with a crunching crash of ancient power, Fran's ears popped at the sound.

Once both Golems had been subdued the party stood at the edge of the precipice as Vaan, undaunted, stepped out onto thin air that once more, with crashing volume, became a bridge.

' This is amazing. Hey, anyone know how this works?'

Vaan had begun jumping up and down on the magicked discs, suspended as he was a good several feet from solid ground.

' Vaan, stop that!'

Ashe hissed at him, looking far more concerned than any of the others.

Vaan stopped jumping up and down and looked at the Princess quizzically.

' It's okay Ashe, see,' He stamped a foot on the disc he stood on,

' It's totally solid.'

Ashe squeezed her eyes closed, fists clenched. ' Stop it. You don't know that, you might break it with your childishness.'

Penelo walked onto the magicked bridge equally unfazed and glared at Vaan.

' Grow up Vaan. This isn't a game.'

She then proceeded to harass him along the bridge. Balthier, casting a curious glance at the mechanism the Golems had been guarding, followed the two Rabanastran's across.

The slicing, musical grinding noise of their feet upon the magicked discs had Fran gritting her teeth against the noise.

The cold mist filled her head and frosted her sinuses. She resisted the impulse to sneeze as a penetrating headache pierced her mind.

The closer they came to the huge Crystal at Giruvegan's heart, the more her senses screamed.

Behind her Basch led the Princess across the bridge slowly. Ashe had a death grip on his hand as she stared, with desperate single-mindedness, straight ahead.

'Ashe you should have said you were scared of heights.'

Vaan said bashfully, Penelo having pointed out the obvious to him as they waited for Ashe and Basch to make it across.

Penelo slapped a hand across her forehead and accidentally on purpose stamped on Vaan's foot. He yelped.

Ashe glared at him, 'I am not scared.' She hissed through gritted teeth.

It was telling that although she now stood firmly on the solid ground of the new platform Ashe maintained the tight grip on Basch's large, strong hand.

'It is merely prudence.' Basch said calmly, 'We know not the workings of this mechanism, therefore we travel with care.'

' Many strange things are here.' Fran agreed.

' The Mist is cold, yet its potency is undiminished. Almost, it seems, that the Mist has been tamed.'

' By what?' Penelo asked casting a nervous glance around them all.

'I can't help the feeling that we're somewhere we shouldn't be.' She added anxiously.

It was not only Ashe who started with a cry of fright when the magickal bridge behind them chose that moment to explode into nothingness.

'We find a place to make camp, we have had a full days travel since our battle with the Daedalus.'

Basch said firmly once Ashe had released her grip on his jacket and Penelo had stepped out from behind Vaan, whom she had shoved forward towards the sound, hurling her friend into the path of any on coming danger.

'Yeah, but where? This place is like a maze. Up, down, left, right.' Vaan rolled his eyes, waving his arms about to illustrate the point.

'Perhaps we should try going through this door?'

Balthier suggested dryly, leaning against the huge ornately engraved door that rested just beyond them.

' Uh, yeah, that could work.'

Vaan cupped the back of his neck with his hands, looking at the floor and kicking a foot awkwardly.

The area beyond the huge doors, which ancient writings proclaimed the Bulwark of Chronos, was a densely packed warren of narrow, interconnecting corridors and passageways.

' Where are all the fiends?'

Penelo frowned as she looked about the eerily silent place. Even Fran could not detect the sounds of other creatures near-by save themselves.

'Perhaps there aren't any?'

Vaan, ever optimistic, suggested. Penelo rolled her eyes at his simplicity.

Balthier clapped a hand on Vaan's shoulder cheerfully, ' never mind Vaan I'm sure if we all pray very, very hard something nasty will come along to eat you in no time.'

'Hey!'

In the end the party simply laid out sleeping mats on the glittering dark tiled floor of the labyrinthine chambers.

Fran curled up to sleep immediately, forgoing any food in favour of respite from the clinging icy Mist of ancient Giruvegan. The scratching whispers dancing through the chill air from the Great Crystal haunted her dreams.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven: A compact between Knight and Viera

_Author note: In my view Fran's character changes somewhat after the Great __Crystal__. Where she was helpful but distant before she actually becomes quite proactive after the __Occuria__ make their presence felt; _she_ is the first to suggest destroying the Sun __Cryst__ in __Balfonheim__ after all. This is my attempt to explain why. _

They had pierced the Great Crystal's core and now traversed its glimmering, warm orange centre.

Jagged formations of crystal created walls that appeared almost fibrous as the party crossed one magickal bridge after another, to one isolated platform and then another with no real destination in mind.

The Mist was still heavy in the air inside the Crystal, but for some reason was less a strain on Fran's senses now that she was inside the Crystal.

Fran walked at the back of the group. Ahead the Princess hid her fear of heights as she led Balthier, Vaan and Penelo in a battle against the Ose on one of the magicked bridges.

Basch and Fran herself remained a little distance away from the battle.

The party's battle with the insectoid Tyrant at the entrance Waystone to the Crystal had resulted in both she and Basch being infected with Disease.

Though they had both immediately imbibed Vaccine's against the wasting sickness it took some time to take affect and it was agreed that they would not take part in the random battles with fiends until they were both well.

When all three Ose fell Vaan and Penelo waited for them to catch up, the Princess, perhaps scenting Nethicite, or merely impatient to be on solid ground, took Balthier by the sleeve and pulled him along in her wake.

'Hey how are you both doing?' Vaan asked as they caught up.

' Well enough.' Basch answered for them both, with a quick glance of confirmation from Fran.

'I will be strong enough to fight at your side soon enough.'

Vaan swiped a hand under his nose in habitual gesture, ' No rush. We'd all be dead now if you and Fran hadn't taken down that Tyrant thing, take your time.'

With that he bounded off alongside Penelo after Balthier and Ashe who had reached another waystone and were investigating the mechanism.

Fran heard the strains of one of Balthier and Ashe's continuous arguments as she and Basch made their unhurried way forward.

' It does not bother you?' Basch asked in rumbling aside.

Fran looked at him curiously; then followed his gaze to where Ashe had caught both of Balthier's hands in her own attempting to forcibly restrain him from pulling apart the waystone mechanism to see how it worked; a long standing ambition of his.

' Balthier enjoys mechanisms of this sort. It bothers him that he does not know how it works.'

Fran explained, then seeing the still troubled look on Basch's face,

' He will not damage it.'

Basch shook his head, a wry smile playing upon his lips, ' Yes he strikes me as a man fond of keeping secrets but loath to have them kept from him.'

Fran quirked an eyebrow, 'A trait common place among Humes.'

Basch nodded to Balthier, ' It is only a business partnership you share with him then?'

Something must have shown on Fran's face, though she knew not what, for Basch looked chastened.

' Forgive me, that was rude of me. It is only that you and he are close indeed and I admit myself curious as to how you came to be with him. Certainly he is fortunate to have you as a partner.'

Basch added swiftly. It was not his way to speak over much or over long, or give himself too much to idly curiosity Fran had noted and she could tell he regretted the indulgence now.

Fran kept her amusement hidden on the inside where she could better enjoy it. _He is fortunate to have you as a partner._ She had heard others say this, or words to its affect, more than once before.

Fran had found that what they meant was that while they could understand why Balthier would want a partner such as she, they could not understand why she deigned accompany him.

This presiding opinion was a source of some amusement to Fran and Balthier both. Most Humes could not understand the nature of their partnership.

' Free birds flock together.' Was all Fran would say.

'Indeed.' Basch sighed; his eyes watching as the argument between Balthier and Ashe increased in intensity and volume.

'Sometimes, I admit,' Basch continued slowly. ' They make me feel old.'

He smiled upon the other four, Vaan having joined in the argument taking Balthier's side while Penelo stood with Ashe.

Fran considered his words. She was, after all, several decades older than Basch. Did she too feel old?

Sometimes yes, but now strangely, after so many months in the company of Vaan and Penelo, and even the Princess' youthful drive and vigour she felt more _energetic_ than she had in months.

'You Humes are all young to me.' Fran admitted.

Basch smiled warmly on her, ' Indeed.'

'I should imagine our relative youth is all that allows any of us to keep up with you.'

Fran blinked in surprise. Basch paid her a compliment, she knew, acknowledging a Viera's longevity without casting aspersions on her advanced years; his own maturity allowing him to do what Vaan, in his youth, could not.

'I thank you.' Was all she would permit herself to say in response.

Fran watched amused as Balthier flirted with the Princess and Penelo both while idly teasing Vaan.

His moods were as changeable as his mind was steady. She liked that fundamental contradiction in him.

The squabbling over the waystone was reaching critical point. Balthier was one of the most single-minded and focused Hume's Fran had ever met, yet that focus could tend towards myopia on occasion.

His determination to pull apart what might be their only means of leaving this place was not sensible yet curiosity had him by the throat.

'Oft times it has seemed to me that you and I are babysitters for them all.'

Basch murmured amusedly as he watched the fall-out from the squabble as Penelo and Ashe forced the two males away from the waystone like female Couerl protecting a fresh kill.

'Perhaps.'

Fran murmured, though in truth she wondered what the Knight's real purpose was.

He was a far shrewder observer and keen thinker than many gave him credit for. She suspected he had deeper purpose in striking up conversation.

'I am troubled by this place and what we shall find here. If we should find the source of Nethicite, or find a stone.' He finally admitted.

Basch shook his head, almost as if he fought the torrent of words that escaped him.

' Ashe is still a girl. A strong and courageous Princess though she is, I find myself worried at the prospect of what the Empire would do should they find Dalmasca has Nethicite also. I fear Ashe has not thought this through.'

Fran quirked an eyebrow, 'You would have her use the Sword of Kings to destroy any stone she would find?'

Basch looked exceedingly uncomfortable.

'It is not my place to command her majesty. Yet I have been a soldier in too many wars. If Dalmasca is to be restored it must be for those like Vaan and Penelo. A smoking ruin with no people is no kingdom at all.'

Fran did not respond, there seemed little point, Basch was most certainly correct. For Fran still remembered Landis before it's fall.

The monarchy of Landis had fought the Empire and now nought was left but a charred ruin, its people, like Basch, scattered to the four winds.

Basch cleared his throat hoarsely, 'I would ask for your support, Fran, should it come to it.'

Fran glanced down at Basch quizzically. ' In what matter?'

Basch still looked uncomfortable yet his eyes held a clear and steadfast light as he met her gaze.

'Balthier follows your judgement in most things, it seems, and Balthier has the ear of the Princess in a way I do not.'

Fran understood his purpose now, the reason for his questioning of the relationship between herself and Balthier.

She did not think less of him for it, she would expect no less of a man with the unenviable task of protecting Dalmasca _for_ and _from_ its Princess' desires.

'You would have me speak with Balthier, so that he may put forward our stance to the Princess.'

Basch was quick to catch the meaning of her words, that she too shared his concerns, the light of relief flared in his pale eyes.

'Or you yourself. The Princess values your wisdom as much as Balthier's decisiveness.'

Fran nodded to the Dalmascan Captain. ' We must first see what lies at the Crystal's heart. I too am troubled by this place.'

'Agreed.' Basch nodded and afforded her a faint smile.

It struck Fran as they finally reached the waystone that had caused so much controversy among the younger members of their party, that with this group of odd companions she had finally found the acceptance she had lacked since leaving Eruyt.

Here she was among friends. Friends who cared not that she was neither true Viera nor Hume; perhaps, Fran mused for the first time, because it simply did not matter anymore?


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Occurian realities and a Viera called to arms

Recovered sufficiently from the Disease Fran was able to fight alongside the others against the Esper Shemhazai the Whisperer. The battle was difficult, but sensing that they were close to the secrets they sought, the party fought with renewed vigour.

When the Occuria made their presence known to Ashe, Fran and the others could not see them. Yet they heard every sibilant utterance.

The creatures voices, obsequious in their manipulation of both the Princess' pride and her grief, and alternately petty and vindictive in their spiteful anger against the renegade Venat, set in Fran an unexpected anger burning.

So it was that she joined Basch as he cautioned the Princess against blindly following the will of these creatures.

Creatures that by their own words cared not a whit for the lives of Humes. Only for the maintenance of their own carefully constructed designs.

'Will you do as they say? Destroy the Empire?'

She questioned the Princess who clutched at the Treaty Blade (a mockery of the term) with a dazed and numbed expression upon her face; a child to be used in such a way. It sickened Fran.

To Fran Hume's lived too short lives already to tie themselves as they did to duty, honour, debt and responsibility. Yet that was their choice, this was something far more sinister.

For Ashe to become a tool of the Occuria whom would use her as weapon for their own ends; was not something Fran could watch occur without some form of action.

To Fran, so oft given to apathy partly by nature and partly through shame, such feelings, such desire to act upon fate rather than merely follow her dictates, was strange indeed.

Still she found herself almost relishing the feeling. It was to her akin to flying.

A sensation of purpose, drive and conviction, a primal power that picked up her tired and oft times apathetic spirit and set it to soar and burn.

She had come to believe that she could only find such freedom from the pain her choices had wrought upon her, for brief moments in sailing the sky.

To find this feeling once more through immersion in the politics of Hume's was an odd liberation.

Set adrift from her only purpose as Viera, ties to the Wood severed, Fran had little to live for except the Humes she deigned to care about.

In the Wood, where there was sickness, the Viera rooted it out so that it could not spread from vine to vine, branch to branch destroying all the Wood in its wake.

This Occuria, to Fran, were a sickness, much as Manufacted Nethicite and Vayne Solidor's blind ambition; was sickness across Ivalice.

Fran now saw why fate had laid such a heavy hand upon her. This sickness she would root out.

If she could no longer be Viera for the wood she would be Viera for the Humes.

For it was true that she had no other home than Ivalice, no other place now than with the Humes.

Even a fallen Viera had right to fight for what little she had left.

Hours later the Great Crystal and Giruvegan were but shadows in all their hearts. Silence prevailed among the party.

For the last hour Ashe had sat staring at the wedding band on her finger.

The rest of the world mattered not a whit to her. Her scent held the clean coolness of winter rain; the scent of old grief.

They were now once more in the Feywood, yet the place did not inspire the fear and anxiety it had before.

Instead the rest of the party looked on the Mist phantoms and the half heard whispers from long dead loved ones as cruel jokes played on them by those who remain Undying and unfeeling.

Fran was the only one with the Princess. The others exhausted by their travails in the Crystal and subdued by their own questions, the dark doubts the Occuria's existence created in their hearts, had chosen to lose themselves in sleep.

Even Basch, dull eyed and worn both from battle and from providing silent, constant support to Ashe on their escape from Giruvegan, had wearily agreed to leave her majesty alone with Fran.

' He was never here; never truly with me.'

Ashe did not look up. She had pulled the wedding band from her finger and turned the plain silver ring between thumb and forefinger, eyes downcast.

' I have been a fool. I am not fit to follow in Raithwall's footsteps, not fit to rule.'

The small camp fire between the two of them sputtered and Ashe looked up, her grey eyes catching the firelight. She raised a hand as if to throw the ring into the flames.

' There are many things in this world that cannot be known. What happens to us when we die is just one mystery among thousands.'

Fran spoke softly, her words stilling Ashe's hand. The young Hume woman withdrew her hand from above the flames, the ring secure in her palm.

'I thought if he was with me, if only in spirit, I would somehow make the right choices, would know what I must do. I cannot do this alone.'

' We are all alone. Hume, Viera, Bangaa, Seeq; all alone among the multitudes.'

Fran replied bluntly. It was the truth that had forced Fran from the Wood, the truth that lead the Hume's to seek out each other for comfort, companionship, hope, in their short lives.

Ashe looked startled, then angry. ' Not so. You have Balthier. Vaan has Penelo. I have no one. They have all left me.'

Fran shook her head. ' Look upon them.'

She gestured towards the sleeping forms of their comrades.

Vaan slept stretched out on his back, arms spread out and an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face, caught in dreams.

Penelo lay near him, one hand reaching for him as she curled on her side, face devoid of her usual irrepressible cheer.

Basch lay still and disciplined even in sleep. Limbs orderly as he lay on his back, scarred face calm; only his scent speaking of the pain, the deeply buried impotent rage that filled him to the core.

Balthier lay behind Fran, fidgeting in his sleep as he was wont, trapped in the dreams he could only ignore when the sun was high in the sky.

'What of them?' Ashe asked curious, though still mired deep within her own depression.

'They are alone, Princess. In their dreams and their nightmares, each one alone; as are we all.'

Ashe seemed to think this through. She shook her head fiercely.

'Then you say there is no hope? We are but blind puppets staggering through this farce the Occuria would have us play?'

'I say nothing.' Fran said coolly.

Ashe snorted in angry derision. 'And so I am truly alone. With no one brave enough to give me counsel.'

Fran cocked her head to the side, ' Do you need counsel?'

It was Ashe's turn to look startled and confused.

'Of course. The Occuria would have me strike a blow against the Empire like that which was levelled on Nabudis.'

' Is that not what you wish? Revenge; to strike out at those who stole from you your dear ones?'

Ashe leapt to her feet, pacing, though she remained close to the meagre light and warmth of the camp fire.

'I seek only the restoration of Dalmasca, as an independent state, free of the Empire or any other who would rule it.'

'You covet the power of Nethicite, do you not? You came all this way to claim it as your own, though you have seen what dangers it brings.'

Ashe rounded on Fran, who remained kneeling peaceable by the fire, hands resting lightly on her thighs.

'I do not _covet _Nethicite.' She cried harshly, words quick with fire and passion.

'I seek only the power to protect my kingdom and my people. That is all I have ever sought.'

'You have a means to take Vayne's advantage from him; the Treaty Blade to his Nethicite.'

Fran was in contrast soft spoken as snowfall and cool and unknowable as winter's frost upon windowpanes.

Ashe sank back down beside Fran looking into the flames as she did. For a time both women were silent.

'To fight fire with fire is to invite only a conflagration that will destroy all in its path. I have no desire for that.'

Ashe spoke slowly, mesmerised by the dancing flicker of flames over dry kindling.

'Yet if I do nothing Vayne will remain unopposed and he must be stopped. Dalmasca must be restored.'

Ashe pressed a hand to her eyes. 'Around and around my thoughts go. Every route I take leads only to doubt and uncertainty.'

' It is ever thus; a truth that unites pauper and Princess both.'

Ashe's face twisted in pain; frustration and despair as she turned to face Fran directly. Fran, for her part, remained staring impassively into the flames.

'There must be some way! Some way, some means, that I can know what is the right course. Fran, I beg you, what would you do?'

Above them both the snow began to fall from the pearlescent, Mist shrouded sky. The first fat flakes sizzling into the leaping flames of their small fire.

'I cannot tell you what I do not know.' Fran said honestly.

For Fran had yet to decide what she was to do, and had no wish to tell the Princess what she must do; too many sought to do that already.

Fran stood and pulled free from the travel packs the furs they had packed in case of cold weather, tucking the furred pelts over the sleeping members of their party carefully.

Ashe remained by the fire watching Fran with an empty expression on her face, empty of vitality and life as hope and despair clashed within her.

Fran was moved to speak, despite her earlier words. Just as with the nurturing of the Wood in her long ago past, Hume's needed a gentle hand to guide them.

' Viera have little use for deceptions, all is known under the Wood's canopy. Yet I will say only this, a sword is only as strong as the hand that wields it.'

'And my hands lack strength?'

Ashe spoke dejectedly looking down on her empty hands resting in her lap.

'Perhaps,'

Fran mused softly, her voice barely louder than the snow that fell gently to the ground all around them.

' Perhaps a Princess, with will enough and mind, might look to other weapons she has at her disposal? Your enemies are multiple, but you stand not alone.'

Ashe followed Fran's veiled gaze as it lighted on each of their sleeping comrades in turn.

A tiny flicker of a smile brushed over Ashe's lips, something warm sparking in her eyes as she met Fran's gaze.

' I think that you are right, Fran. I thank you for your wise counsel.'

And for the first time in weeks the Princess smiled. She turned away towards her own rest too soon to see Fran smile also.


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Going home is as easy as falling off a Chocobo

_The old man had a point. _

It was disturbing and as much as Balthier tried strenuously to banish the thought it kept cycling back around to the forefront of his mind. _Cid might be right._

But, Balthier argued with his own mind, the means could not, ever, justify the ends. Not the way the old man had gone about it.

_Had he but told me back then!_

But no, Balthier realised with an ironic understanding that twisted his lips in a cold smirk, he would never have believed Cid, would he? He had convinced himself that his father was mad.

Made of it a grand excuse that saved him from having to despise the old man for the life he had forced on him.

Yet the party's sojourn to Giruvegan had opened up a fissure of doubt and question inside Balthier that had never existed before; he did not doubt himself. Until now.

The words of the Occuria echoed in Balthier's mind and the smirk he could not see playing on his own lips twisted into more of a grimace.

The Occuria. Filled with pride in their own impotency, blinded to the fact that they were gods of nothing but worthless history, claiming themselves stewards of said history when all they did was sit idly by and let it happen.

The Occuria appropriated the glory of long dead Hume's and claimed their victories as their own; Balthier felt his lip curl in a sneer that had been known to give even the soldiers of the Imperial army pause, just to think on those creatures.

Yes, Balthier conceded, he could well see how his father would be driven in disgust to oppose the Occuria.

And so Balthier was left to wonder if, all those years ago, he had accompanied his father to Giruvegan as he had asked him to, would he now be standing side by side with Cid and his Venat?

The sky pirate doubted himself, cracks appearing under the layers of self-confidence and bravado that held up the facade of the Leading Man.

Under the weight of questionable foundations built on suddenly unsubstantiated conceits, Ffamran looked out through Balthier's eyes and doubted himself.

Neither facet of the man, the reality or the mask enjoyed the sensation.

Balthier was too caught up in his own quandary of doubt, questions chasing each other by the tail around and around inside his head, that he barely participated in the group's discussion on how to get back to Balfonheim and their dear friend Zecht – pardon – Reddas.

Therefore the trek back through Golmore passed in a blur. He wielded Platinum blade with autonomic efficiency barely noticing his own movements as he pilfered loot from the carcasses of fallen fiends and poorly hidden treasure chests scattered on the route.

Balthier did notice, if only distantly, that Fran walked up front with Ashe and Basch, occasionally her musical lilting voice would drift back to his ears.

Fran appeared to have superseded Balthier's own position and become advisor to her majesty; sharing Basch's opinion that the Occuria should not be trusted.

It was strange that Fran should be so vocal in her opinions, but then, Balthier mused, if anyone was to be against the Occuria and their twisted design it was Fran.

Fran, who was to Balthier, the embodiment of freedom.

Vaan and Penelo were subdued. Balthier suspected that they understood only a small fraction of what was going on but knew enough to realise the magnitude of the mess they had fallen into.

No doubt they were both sorely wishing to run back to Rabanastre as fast as their legs could carry them and never leave her walls again.

Though he would never admit to it, Balthier had a good measure of sympathy for this view.

If the Strahl had been docked nearby he fancied he would be off like a shot flying as far from the Princess and her troubles as the Strahl's Glossair rings could take him.

It was, Balthier found himself thinking with a cynical self-deprecation, all so much easier when his father was nothing more than a dangerous lunatic.

Balthier could lie to himself then quite cheerfully, and tell himself that what he did, taking up arms against his father, he did as much for Cid's sake as his own; saving the man from himself.

_Bah._ They were all puppets in the end. Cid had led them on a merry dance, dropping the Princess into the Occuria's lap.

And, Balthier, the supposedly free sky pirate, had almost tripped over his own feet in his haste to run his father's gauntlet. Just like the old days.

It was one of those occurrences of blind luck that led to the party stumbling out of the perpetual twilight of Golmore jungle and landing at the feet of Gurdy the travelling Chocobo rancher.

What the cheerfully and extortionately expensive Moogle was doing on the border of the Ozmone Plains and Golmore was a question best left unanswered.

Having decided to make for Rabanastre, the largest city even remotely close to Golmore and the one where the Strahl was docked, the party was unanimously in favour of using what was left of Fran's gambling winnings to hire three Chocobo's.

Balthier was still a million miles away in the past when the arguments began over whom should ride with whom and so when the Princess dragged one of the huge, spindly legged birds over to him and looked at him expectantly he was somewhat at a loss.

'Balthier?'

'Yes Princess?'

'Do you wish to ride in front?'

Penelo and Vaan were squabbling over who would sit in back and who would hold the reins on their bird; the seemingly placid bright yellow creature trilling away while they pushed and shoved each other.

Basch had already gently spurred his mount onwards; Fran sitting with elegant nonchalance on the creatures back looked back at him with a curiously raised eyebrow.

_Fran and __Basch_

Slightly shaken Balthier was forced to admit, if only to himself, he had been seriously remiss in regards to the ever shifting social dynamics of the group that he had missed whatever seismic shift had occurred to create a situation where Basch would ride with anyone but the Princess and Fran would deign to ride with anyone but Balthier.

Shaking his head to clear it and chiding himself vociferously for being so absent minded, which was really hardly becoming of the Leading Man, with its emphasis on _leading, _Balthier grabbed the reins and hauled himself up on the mount.

Ashe deftly swung herself up behind him, using his arm as leverage and nearly dragging Balthier down off the saddle.

An hour into their long trek to Jahara and Balthier had come to a firm realisation that the Chocobo he and the Princess rode appeared to be in no hurry to go anywhere.

It plodded along with that odd bouncing gait that left one sore and bow legged after any length of time riding, with placid lack of haste.

When Balthier attempted to spur the creature on it simply squarked, turned its head to look at him with an oddly emphatic expression of annoyance in its black beady eyes and continued on at its own interminably steady pace.

Balthier sighed resigning himself to the ignominy of Chocobo travel, fiercely missing the Strahl.

Ahead Vaan and Penelo were having exactly the opposite problem with their mount.

'Trixxy stop – whoaaaaa, Trixxy, whoa!'

Penelo cried yanking on the reins for all she was worth, which only made the sprinting Chocobo, which anyone with any knowledge of Chocobo's could have recognised as an irritable bird, run all the faster.

The mad bird started to leap in the air, as if it thought to take flight, even though Chocobo's do not fly, leaping over bounders and snake pits as it zig-zagged across the Ozmone Plains.

' Basch help!'

Basch had spurred on his and Fran's Chocobo to run alongside the manic bird, Basch leaned over the edge between the two mounts and snagged Trixxy's reins pulling the bird by its bit until the creature eventually slowed.

Fran had reached around Basch's body to take the reins of their own mount as well as making sure that Basch did not fall as Trixxy, determined to run free as -well - as a bird, lurched away from Basch, so that the Knights upper body dangled over the gap between the two at a dangerously precarious angle.

By this point, simply by moving steadily in one direction at unchanging speed, Balthier and Ashe had come up alongside the ludicrous sideshow.

Ashe had begun rummaging around in one of the provisions sacks, tied like ballast bags, to their Chocobo, for a Gysahl green.

' Trixxy! Look!'

Ashe cried sharply, her own tones that of a Princess trained to talk down to man and Chocobo with absolute authority. The maddened bird turned to fix them both with wild button eyes.

'Squark!'

Ashe threw the Gysahl green a few feet in front of the charging Chocobo who skidded to a halt, clawing up the green veldt of the Ozmone Plains as well as unseating both Vaan and Penelo who tumbled over the creatures bent neck as it lowered its head to feed.

' Oooff! There went Vaan.

' Oooow!' And along came Penelo tumbling after, managing to angle her fall so she landed mostly on top of Vaan.

'Peneloooow!'

'Well that was thoroughly entertaining.'

Balthier drawled as Basch dismounted his bird to help the orphans up. When it came time to write the memoirs, Balthier promised himself, this sad episode would not find itself recorded in any manuscript.

'Perhaps we should switch mounts?' Basch suggested politely, keeping a firm grip on Trixxy's reins.

' Yeah.' Vaan nodded his emphatic agreement, rubbing at his lower back where he had hit the ground with quite a thump.

' But this time I'll drive.'

Vaan turned to glare balefully at Penelo who was picking dry grass stems from her hair and rubbing irritably at the grass stains smearing the seat of her pants.

Penelo distained from comment but meekly clambered up after Vaan once the four of them had switched Chocobo's.

The whole incident had been, Balthier concluded superciliously, thoroughly demeaning to all involved.

In fact, Balthier reconsidered the prospect of said memoirs; it might be of more benefit to his legend to leave no record of this whole affair.

The next hour passed in a jolting, bouncing, sedate blur; so uneventful that Balthier thought he might have fallen asleep still loosely holding the reins of this interminably slow creature.

Taking the Chocobo paths cut miles from their journey but made for some exceedingly dull travelling. Balthier was fairly certain he could feel brain cells dying as they plodded ever onwards.

Having absolutely no desire to spend the time thinking and having little will for conversation Balthier was at a loss as to what to do with himself.

Balthier had oft thought that boredom was a fate worse than death.

Too many more miles of this unending drudgery and he may have chance to put this theory to the test. Even the fiends left them alone while they rode.

The Princess having fallen asleep against his back, her cheek nuzzling his shoulder and her arms wrapped around his waist, offered no respite.

Fran engaged in a quiet conversation with Basch (what he wouldn't give to have her hearing now!) meant that his options for some form of mental stimulation were limited and he would sooner shot himself in the foot than partake in any more of Vaan and Penelo's bizarre conversations.

Balthier therefore, having no further options available to stave off mind numbing boredom, or dreaded introspection, fixed a mental picture of the Strahl in his mind over the bland horizon and told himself that soon he would be flying high once more.

It was a sign of how bad things had gotten that Balthier, man of the oft admired and equally cursed silver tongue, could no longer make even himself believe his own lies.


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter Thirty: A brief respite; the importance of good grooming

Fran awoke before the dawn. Most of the Garif were still sleeping as were Penelo and Ashe when Fran left the hut they had been sleeping in.

' Ah, another day another ride.'

Fran's sensitive hearing caught the sound floating on the cool, damp pre-dawn air, she followed the sound until she saw him, standing with his back to her, facing the pen that held Gurdy's Chocobos.

Balthier appeared to be conducting a one sided conversation with the Chocobo he and the Princess had ridden the day before.

' And you are going to go faster today, aren't you?'

Balthier hissed at the Chocobo who looked at him with the dull witted placidity of all beasts of burden.

' Because, if you don't, you might find yourself making some deserving Rabanastran a very fine duvet.'

'Balthier some might consider talking to a bird who does not talk back a sign of madness.'

Fran came up behind him. Balthier, much like Fran, tended to rise with the dawn so she was not terribly surprised to see him up and dressed.

Though on closer inspection Fran reconsidered her previous assessment; it did not seem to her that Balthier had dressed for the new day as it appeared he had slept in his clothes.

Balthier did not turn around to face her but Fran could hear his smile ' And good morning to you too, Fran. Sleep well?'

Fran came abreast with him, reaching out to stroke the Chocobo Balthier had been berating on the head. The creature cooed pleasingly and Balthier snorted irritably.

' My sleep afforded me more rest than your own I would guess.' Fran murmured dryly casting a critical eye over Balthier.

' How right you are, Fran. Please tell me we shall be riding together today, this stupid bird has it in for me, I'm sure.'

Balthier turned his head towards her but quicker than thought Fran cupped and lifted his chin turning his head first left then right, looking down on him critically.

He was unshaven and shadows blackened his eyes. She questioned whether he had slept at all the previous night.

Balthier did not question her grip on his chin merely met her eyes and waited. His skin was warm in her palm.

' Your sideburns need shaving.' Fran informed him.

Balthier's vanity was as inherent to his state of well being as food and water, Fran had long considered.

Fran had developed a level of tolerance and patience for his fastidious and prodigious grooming habits few others could imitate. To see him so dishevelled concerned her.

Balthier sighed, 'I know. Damned shaving mirror was broken somehow. I suppose I shall have to wait until we reach Rabanastre.'

Fran, still cupping his head stroked one long, clawed finger down the curve of his increasingly unruly left sideburn. His skin was fine grained and smooth, resilient with youth.

Fran raised one eyebrow quizzically, 'Is the Leading Man feeling unwell? This is not like you.'

Balthier frowned at her words, his vanity, so blatant he had made something of a joke of it, rushing up to the surface of his thoughts, which Fran suspected had been many miles elsewhere.

'How bad is it?'

'Bad enough that I will make no comment on the state of your cuffs, Balthier. We are in dire straits indeed for you to be so remiss in your grooming.'

All the while Fran continued to stroke her finger down his cheek and Balthier continued to rest his chin against her hand peaceably.

'I know. I am beginning to think I should just stop wearing white shirts.' Balthier remarked.

Fran cocked her head to the side, ' You once informed me that you would sooner sell your soul than wear any other form of shirt. A white shirt, you said, was the attire of a gentleman.'

Balthier gently pulled from her grip and sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, his fingernails, Fran observed, were dirty.

'Sometimes Fran I wish you were gifted with a less prodigious memory. No man likes to be reminded of his every utterance.'

'Come I will shave you.'

Fran called over her shoulder, as she moved away from the Chocobo pen. Balthier grinned. Fran suspected he had been hoping she would make the offer.

Fran had him sit down on the pre-dawn damp soil just outside the animal pen in the Garif village while she fetched his razor, a bowl, cream and fresh water.

'We shall not be travelling together today Balthier.'

She informed him as smoothly she wielded the razor, using the second customised blade to weed out the errant hairs and shape his sideburns to his liking.

She had had much practice in doing just that, in three years of partnership the image and persona of the leading man had been an ever evolving creation.

'Why not?'

Fran paused in her ministrations to look at Balthier critically once more. She spoke dryly.

'It appears the Princess would grace you further with her company.'

Fran looked on him quizzically. 'You have been distracted of late. The leading man has not been paying attention.'

'I know.' Balthier conceded on a sigh, wry humour glittering in his eyes as he looked up at Fran.

' I have completely failed to see my competition until now, for one thing.'

' Competition?' Fran inquired, curious.

' Basch.'

Fran stilled her movements and allowed her puzzlement to show on her face and in her eyes.

Balthier smiled at Fran, not his habitual smirk but the real smile that belonged only to her.

' I do not think you make a good match Fran, he has no airship and I think a life of unremitted duty would bore you very quickly.'

Fran allowed herself the ghost of a smile; she resumed her work on him.

' I thank you for your advice.'

She demurred, then, because they were alone with only animals for witnesses, she playfully tapped the tip of his nose with her finger, coating it with shaving foam.

'I am not planning to form any new, lasting, partnership with the Knight.'

Fran informed her current partner calmly, watching the devilment alleviate the exhaustion from his features.

'Ah, so it is a holiday romance, a little slap and tickle with Sir Knight before we go back to the business of piracy?'

He teased her as he washed off the remaining foam and wiped his face with the hand towel she presented him with.

Fran got to her feet, towering over Balthier as he remained knelt at her feet like a supplicant, the wayward thought startled Fran and she frowned when she saw, for a moment, the unguarded look in his eyes.

It was a surprisingly frank look of open admiration. It was not a look Balthier had ever cast on any other women that Fran could recall.

The rising sun cresting the horizon cast its rays all around Fran, she could feel its heat on her back, feel the sun's rays begin to burn away the pre-dawn coolness.

'Is there something troubling you Balthier?'

Fran asked him when the look did not immediately dissipate when he realised she could see it.

Balthier suddenly smiled again, once more it was not the habitual smirk that mocked himself and those he bestowed it upon, this smile was kinder.

' Your hair is in dire need of a good brush, Fran.'

'Pardon?'

Fran blinked, then looked down upon the tendrils of hair that always brushed her cheeks.

Balthier stood, looking disparagingly down on his worn, grime coated cuffs that had long since lost their gold thread finish.

' It would appear I am not the only one letting good grooming slide.'

He quirked an eyebrow pointedly as Fran pushed fingers through hair that was thick with knots and tangles.

'Tsk tsk.' Balthier shook his head mournfully, ' A right pair of down and outs we have become Fran.'

' It takes too long to brush each morning.' Fran admitted.

'We have time now. Fetch your brush and I'll do it for you.'

Fran thought about this for a moment. It was something that was private between them and Fran did not often ask, or permit, Balthier to brush her hair.

She did not know that she wanted him to do so now, here, in the Garif village.

Balthier was watching her keenly; Fran suspected he could fathom something of her thoughts.

'It is either now or wait until we reach Balfonheim, and knowing our blasted luck we'll have precious little time for anything save re-fuelling before we're off to save all Ivalice from tyranny once more.'

' I will fetch the brush.'

Fran conceded the point her tangled hair a heavy weight against her back.

When she returned she settled on the ground in front of Balthier who knelt at her back and carefully separated a hank of hair at the root before running the brush firmly through the strands from top to tip.

Fran maintained her impassivity on the surface as Balthier continued the process with another lock of hair and then another, working silently and efficiently, his body warm against her back.

Balthier managed to extract an involuntary shiver from her when he deftly stroked the tips of his fingers up the length of her right ear, tickling the rim of said ear.

Fran refused to frown, 'You over-reach yourself Balthier.' She reminded him.

His chuckle thrummed through her back in response.

'You are beginning to sound like our Princess, Fran. I thought you liked it when I stroked your ears?'

In her defence she reached behind her and lightly pressed the points of the nails of her right hand into his leather groin, if she wished it her nails were sharp enough to pierce the leather to the skin beneath.

Balthier drew a sharp breath, body tensing.

'Touché.' Balthier shifted back a little. 'I'll behave myself then.'

They lapsed into companionable silence after that. Under his careful brush strokes Fran felt the tangles fall from her hair and allowed her head to rest back against his shoulder briefly as he concentrated on the finer, shorter hair that fell down around her face.

'I've missed this Fran.'

Fran opened her eyes to see Balthier's face looking down on her, appearing upside down as he leaned over.

'What have you missed, Balthier?'

'Us. The two of us. I will be immensely pleased when all this is finally over and we can return to our lives. Next time Ivalice can save herself without our aid.'

Fran considered his words. Yes, she could see his point. The insulated contentment with which they had conducted themselves until just six months ago seemed indistinct and phantasmal to Fran now.

'Those are not the words of a Leading Man.' Fran pointed out.

They had come so far and these other humes had invaded and diluted the cohesion of their partnership, until such moments of inter-connectedness like this one seemed to Fran guilty pleasures instead of their right.

'Perhaps not, but they are the words of a sensible pirate, which I am clearly not; had I been we'd not be this situation.'

' We do as we must, just as the others.' Fran pointed out.

It was the realisation she had come to on the Phon Coast. She did not need to see Balthier's frustrated frown or hear his irritated sigh to know that he knew this too.

'I miss the Strahl, Fran. I miss our freedom. The longer we stay on this course the harder it is to remember what life used to be.'

'Ivalice is not our home. We belong to the sky, where we may leave what conflict divides the humes many miles beneath us.'

Fran murmured repeating the words of the mantra they lived by.

Fran continued to let her head rest upon his shoulder and briefly Balthier lowered his own face to breathe in the scent of her hair. His cheek brushed against the backs of her ears as he did so.

'Except that even free birds need a place to land eventually.' Balthier finished the thought for her, defeat in every syllable.

Fran nodded thinking on the Sun-Cryst and the decision she had come to after much thought.

That it must be destroyed, sundered so that no Hume would ever be able to use it against another. Fran would not see the Princess become tool of the Occuria.

' We must savour what we have, Balthier.' Fran spoke.

'For we are birds caged in duty and must remain so until duty is served. Then we will be free to roam Ivalice's skies once more.'

Balthier turned his head so that his whispered utterance tickled her inner ear.

' You have been spending far too much time with the Captain, Fran. All this talk of duty does a pirate no good.'

Fran did not respond as they watched the sun finish rising in the sky and waited for the inevitable rising of the rest of their party, both relishing this stolen moment of solitude.

Fran wondered that she did not confide in Balthier her decision regarding the Sun-Cryst, but even as she did so she knew her reasons against doing so.

Just as the Occuria would have her do to the Sun-Cryst, Ashe had already carved out for herself a facet of Balthier's heart.

Fran knew that Balthier would have to make a decision soon enough. Choose where his soul lay, in flight through open sky, or within the gilded cage of a Princess' heart.

So, though it troubled Fran, she would keep her own counsel. Fran knew that Balthier would follow her judgement above even his own and did not wish to put such an imposition upon him; his choice must be his own.

Yet despite this resolve to remain impartial even in matters most intimate to her own life, it was with fervent wish that Fran hoped that soon enough she and Balthier would be soaring high among the clouds once more, free and complete in their wonderful isolation, tied to no-one and nothing but each other and the Strahl.


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One: Ascending Madness; a Lighthouse on the edge

'And if I should choose revenge, what then?'

Ashe asked in a bloodless voice as the party stood staring up at the magnificent structure of the Pharos rising up like a pinnacle of carven stone from the Ridorana.

'Your woes will be your own.' Reddas replied with judgemental reproach.

The sermon and the warning finished for the day the rest of the party followed Reddas up towards the Ridorana and the entrance of the Pharos.

' Vaan. A word.'

Balthier called to the boy as they both hesitated under the protective shadow of the Strahl.

'If something untoward should happen, you're taking the Strahl.'

Balthier murmured immediately suppressing his own muted surprise at his words, eyes glued to the heights of the Pharos, the jutting points of stone that seemed to stab upwards at the sky.

' Untoward?' Vaan sounded worried, which was heartening at least.

Balthier shrugged, ' I am the Leading Man,' he mocked dryly, though even Balthier was not sure who it was that mockery was directed at himself, Vaan, the world?

' I may have to do something heroic.'

He watched Fran moving ahead, head high, eyes fixed on the Pharos. It seemed to Balthier that his partner was leaving him behind.

' Don't worry. I'll show you how to fly her.' He nodded to the Strahl before setting off to join the rest of the group.

'I can't believe they call these things Cassie's. They don't look like any Cassie I've ever met.'

Vaan muttered tugging Diamond blade from the split skull of one of the pink and white and fiercely ugly Marlboro fiends with the misleadingly gentle name.

Balthier smirked, checking on the Spica, it was good to have a gun in his hands again. Blades were fine and good, but Balthier only ever felt truly comfortable with a gun.

' They have a woman's temper though.'

Balthier opined nodding his head in the direction of Penelo and Ashe who were tearing into a Deathclaw with unrestrained vigour.

'Yeah, I guess.'

Vaan's own lack of experience with those of the female persuasion accenting the doubt in his words; seeking firmer ground Vaan's eyes alighted on the blade strung to Balthier's belt.

'Hey, Balthier, what's that sword?'

Balthier allowed himself a grim smile as he stroked a hand over the sheath.

'This? This is a last resort, Vaan. All good pirates have one.'

'Huh?'

He chuckled at Vaan's blank expression, then feeling generous and perhaps motivated by Reddas' words back in Balfonheim, though Balthier's front brain refused to admit to seeing Vaan as any form of apprentice, he pulled the Deathbringer sword loose.

' Wow.' Instantly Vaan's grubby little hands came out to touch.

Balthier moved the sword from his reach and held it out so the sun caught on the heavy black iron hilt and chased over the darkened blade.

'Where'd you buy that? I didn't see that in Balfonheim.' Vaan sounded almost aggrieved.

'No, these are rare swords Vaan and damned expensive. On occasion they have been known to bring instant death to those they strike, hence the name, _Deathbringer.'_

' Really?' Vaan was captivated.

Balthier threw the blade in the air, let it cartwheel end over end, the sunlight flashing like cut diamond on the blade, and caught the sword neatly, offering the blade, hilt first, to Vaan.

'The situation doesn't appear to call for either heroics or last resorts at the moment Vaan, so you can borrow her for the time being.'

He fixed the delighted boy with a quelling glare before relinquishing his grip on the sword.

'I trust I don't need to remind you to take care of her? If anything happens to this sword instant death will be the least of your worries, understood?'

'Totally.' Vaan nodded vigorously, ' You can trust me, Balthier.'

'Hmm.' Balthier sighed doubtfully, Vaan already running off with Deathbringer to show the ever attentive Penelo.

'In generous spirits today, are we?' Fran murmured as he finally caught up to the group.

Her enormous, and in Balthier's view, quite ugly Traitor's bow strung to her back, she stood hip cocked and confident in the shadow of the sun and the Pharos.

'Leading Man, Fran, just setting the scene.' Balthier shrugged.

She quirked an eyebrow questioningly and he dutifully elaborated.

' It appears as though we are reaching the conclusion of this story Fran, a leading man needs his wits about him. It wouldn't do to let things slide in the closing act.'

For a moment both Balthier and Fran were drawn to look up at the Pharos.

It's shadow cast long across the Ridorana. Even the thunderous roar of the waterfall seemed muted in its dark and patient presence.

Allowing himself a moments honesty Balthier turned to Fran, ' I like this not, Fran.'

' This is not the end of our story, Balthier.'

Fran replied calmly and with the utter confidence he had come to depend on at the times his own stock of bravado simply wasn't enough.

'It is perhaps premature to be bequeathing the Strahl and Deathbringer to young Vaan.' She added pointedly.

'Ah, so you overheard that little tete-a-tete did you?'

' You suspect we shall encounter Dr Cid within, do you not?' Fran fixed him with her unflinching and all-knowing regard.

'Call it a son's intuition, if you will.'

Balthier attempted to make light of the truth she had revealed that he would have preferred to ignore.

Fran cocked her head, ' do not worry. I shall be with you.'

'Hey, Fran!'

Vaan called from where the rest of the party had gathered about the gigantic entrance gateway to the Pharos.

' There's something written here.'

Vaan was standing peering at an engraved plaque set into the gateway of the door. Fran left Balthier's side to read the ancient writing.

' Engraved it would appear. It is old.'

She murmured walking towards the plaque and studying the inscription.

Balthier found himself drifting silently up to stand by Ashe; he waited with the Princess for Fran to finish reading aloud the cryptic warning supposedly left by Raithwall.

'Those without power seek it not. Those with power trust it not.'

Fran intoned, her odd inflections giving ominous accent to already unfriendly words.

'By Raithwall's hand.' Fran murmured thoughtfully.

'Raithwall?' Ashe staggered forward as if struck by some hidden force.

'This surprises you?' Fran almost laughed.

Yet Balthier wondered at the slightly mocking undertone to her words. It seemed, suddenly to Balthier, that he did not know Fran as well as he thought.

'Mysterious words.' Fran mused aloud as she almost circled Ashe.

' Their meaning shrouded, yet Raithwall's blood flows in your veins. This warning he left for you. He must have known he would not be the last the Occuria would call.'

Balthier repressed the frown that wanted to make its presence felt upon his brow as he stood at Ashe's side and looked over the Princess' head to Fran.

Fran looked back implacably but something in her eyes as she briefly met his gaze recognised the question in his and promised him answers.

Answers which would have to wait, for as soon and the party attempted to enter the Pharos' first ascent they were accosted by a surprisingly spritely desiccated Wyrm corpse.

' Nice to have such a warm welcome, eh, Princess?'

He drawled as he blasted at the creature, sending flakes of dried and mummified flesh into the air.

' Less talk more killing Balthier.'

Ashe grumbled hauling herself up from where one heavy blow from the creature's skeletal wing had sent her tumbling head over heels to land at Balthier's feet.

The fight was not too terribly life threatening, Vaan proving surprisingly adept at handling Deathbringer and Basch hacking off dusty clumps of undead Wyrm with his Defender great sword.

'What I want to know.'

Ashe admitted as she backed off to cast a curative spell on herself to remove the sapping effects of the creature's talons.

'Is how these things seem to know to come alive when we approach, I have seen no evidence of magicked sensors or the like.'

'Ah, well the current prevailing theory favoured by Vaan and Penelo, who you shall be delighted to hear have given this excessive thought.'

Balthier began as he and Ashe picked themselves up from dodging a fire ball ejected from the Wyrm's mouth. ' Is that it is all your fault Princess.'

'Mine?'

Ashe demanded as she cast a quick healing spell on Basch who, alongside Reddas, was landing the finishing blows to the creature.

' Yes, I believe they are calling it the Raithwall affect. The oft remarked upon shared blood being something akin to a tracer that sets off these guardian beasties.'

Balthier quickly beat at his sleeves growling in frustration as he looked upon his singed cuffs; around them both the rest of the party dusted themselves off and recovered from the battle.

Ashe paused in the process of smoothing her collar. ' Vaan and Penelo came up with this notion?'

'And a great many others.' Balthier mock shuddered.

'Like I predicted back in the Sandsea, Ashe, they are fulfilling the duties of entertainers very well.'

Ashe watched the couple in question, Vaan was busy being treated for a profusion of cuts and scrapes by Penelo, the boy taking pains to carefully wipe clean Deathbringer's blade.

Ashe looked thoughtful, ' It is strange to think that had it not been for the Empire I would never have met them both, my own subjects.'

'Yes. The Empire has many heinous crimes to answer for, doesn't it?'

He smirked; Ashe actually rolled her eyes at him before striding off to the front as they entered the first ascent.

'Now this _is_ impressive.'

Balthier was forced to admit on a breath of awe walking over to the swirling, upward funnel of water droplets that filled the inner circle of the Pharos.

Fascinated Balthier came up to the railing and craned his neck to look up towards the distant heights of the Pharos. Water vapour was cool and refreshing on his face.

' How do you suppose this works, hmm?' He asked Fran as she silently joined him by the railings.

The rest of the party, perhaps tired from the day's activities, were more pre-occupied with setting up camp in the entranceway.

' I do not know. I sense the Occuria's hand in its design.'

The doorways to a tightly packed system of passageways and corridors to the east and west of their current location were blocked by a paling.

Fran suspected that the means to remove the paling would be easy enough to find but had suggested it was better to do in the morning with clear heads. No one had argued.

'A little heavy-handed for you, wasn't it?'

He murmured in aside as he glanced back to make sure none of the other party was in earshot.

Fran gave him nothing but an impassive mask, Balthier felt something that might almost have been annoyance if it had been anyone but Fran standing there.

' Raithwall leaving warnings for his descendants against the Occuria, a tad unlikely don't you think? Especially as he used their stones to carve himself out a kingdom. Ashe is not a fool.'

Balthier's voice was light as the water spray from the funnel cloud before them, his fingers itched upon his cuffs and he instead curled them around the railing.

Fran remained quiet for a second, then nodded, conceding the point.

' I believe this Sun Cryst is a danger Balthier, as much a danger as the Manufacted Nethicite. It must be sundered, not used.'

He let out a deep breath he had not realised he was holding. ' If that is the case Fran then I trust your judgement. The Cryst must be destroyed.'

He caught in his peripheral vision Fran's slight smile, the almost imperceptible relaxing of her stance that suggested she may have been worried he would disagree.

Balthier found his eyes rooting out Ashe, who was helping to lay out cutlery for the meagre rations they had packed.

'I dare say this compact we have made shall leave our Princess and her beleaguered kingdom high and dry.'

He pushed himself away from the railing and went to claim his share of the rations. 'Can't be helped I suppose.'

Balthier turned back to Fran, ' Just promise me, Fran, that when you decide it is time for _us _to deal with the Cryst, you give me sufficient warning, hmm? We are _still_ partners after all.'

Fran watched him, her gaze spearing from him to look over his head to the Princess. She nodded once.

'We are partners still.' She agreed.


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-Two: Running and Flying pt 1: The Art of Hanging On

_Hadn't you best be off? That is what sky pirates do, don't you? You fly. _

'Balthier! Fran she – '

The Strahl lurched in to life under his hands as he initiated emergency take off procedures as flaming debris rained down from the Pharos, like a hail of comets to pound the cataract.

_Behold the __Manufacted__Nethicite__! Fruit of man's power and knowledge!_

Balthier leaned over to swiftly tap in the co-ordinates and power up the sensors that really needed a co-pilot to watch.

_History back in the hands of man!_

'Balthier!'

_Pirate scum._

The Strahl launched off the edge of the cataract with one smooth motion and they left the rippling veldt of fire and liquid explosions behind.

_ Come, __Ffamran__ revel, in the hour of my triumph!_

A hand slapped down on his shoulder, Vaan dug his fingers into Balthier's shoulder with unconscious strength.

'Balthier, Fran's barely breathing, do something!'

_Was there no other way?_

Balthier glanced at one of the sensor displays that had started bleeping at him, flashing an intermittent red light across the control panel where Fran should have been.

' I am doing something Vaan. I am flying the Strahl.'

The Strahl's sensors informed Balthier that they were picking up high concentrations of unrefined Mist which was inhibiting the navigational arrays.

Tell me something I don't know, Balthier thought irritably, turning off the sensor.

_Venat__, I have enjoyed these last six years._

_The pleasure was all __mine_

Balthier did not need the navigation array to get back to Balfonheim, he could find it on his own.

_That is what sky pirates do. They fly._

' But..?' Vaan sounded shocked his hand jerked back from Balthier's shoulder. 'What about Fran?'

_Spend your pity elsewhere._

At the back of the cabin Balthier was aware of the frantic, shallow panting breaths and the horrible scrabbling sound as Fran's claws scratched spasmodically across the metallic floor of the Strahl.

_No pity from me._

'Vaan I can either fly this ship or I can tend Fran. But I cannot do both.'

Balthier drawled; pushing the Strahl to her engines limits as the wave of Mist vapour, released when the Sun-Cryst exploded, chased their departing craft.

_That's what you do, don't you? You fly._

The wave caught up to them and the turbulence as the raw, burning wave of power, buffeted the ship and wrenched it off course; momentarily ended all further discussion.

_Fool of a pirate._

Balthier had barely enough time to curse himself for switching off the navigational array, which would have helped counter the effects of the turbulence as he wrested control of the Strahl back into his hands.

_Pirate scum._

Behind him, perhaps still aware of the tsunami of Mist, thick and angry, that sought to knock the Strahl from the skies, Fran arched off the floor, flinging both Basch and Penelo aside, and screamed.

_Hadn't you best be off?_

_Spend your pity elsewhere. No pity from me._

Behind him as Balthier forced an increasingly unresponsive Strahl to stay aloft he heard Penelo's panicked sobs as the sickening retching noise, the thick viscous wetness of blood and bile, emanated from the spot behind his back where Fran should be.

_Come __Ffamran__- revel__ in the hour of my triumph!_

The acrid scent of blood and vomit twisted Balthier's stomach as he struggled with a failing steering control to turn the Strahl away from the cresting wave of Mist towards Balfonheim.

_Fool of a pirate._

Across the control panel more monitors told him that the left wing had failed to retract and the right Glossair ring had misfired.

_No pity from me._

The Strahl, limping like a lame bird through the air, juddered and shook.

' Now, now, Strahl my girl, none of that nonsense.'

Balthier murmured as he reached across to Fran's side of the controls and tapped in some commands.

_You fly, don't you?_

'Doesn't he care? How can he be so cold?'

Balthier heard the icy whisper behind his back as the rest of the party fussed over Fran.

_Spend your pity elsewhere._

Balthier took some heart in the fact that Fran must be stable at least if Penelo had the luxury of time to cast aspersions against him.

_I had such high hopes for you, but you ran and you ran and they with you._

' Someone must fly the craft Penelo.' Basch murmured, 'Only Balthier can do that. He knows that we shall take care of Fran.'

_Alas the hour of your return is late __Ffamran_

Balthier loosened his death grip on the steering levers of the Strahl as her flight evened off and they left the ebbing wave behind.

_Hadn't you best be off? You are so set on running._

Docking in the aerodrome would be a delight. Especially if the left wing continued to be obstinate.

_Fool of a pirate._

' Look! The lights, we are nearly to Balfonheim.'

The Princess sounded remarkably pleased with this development, her voice coming from just behind Balthier's chair. Her hands curled around the edge of the headrest.

_History back in the hands of man!_

Balthier allowed himself a sour snort, 'You can thank the Sun-Cryst for our speedy arrival Princess, quite the slip stream we were surfing back there.'

He drawled as he checked on the Strahl's diagnostic array. Damn. He looked back quickly to the rest of the cabin.

'All of you back there.'

He called out to the rest of the party, eyes now rooted to the blinking, flashing warning lights dazzling him from the sensor arrays.

_Pirate scum._

' Get into the seats and make yourself secure, the Strahl's main engine has failed and our landing could be a tad difficult.'

' But – Fran..?'

Balthier repressed a snarl of annoyance and continued to talk in an exaggeratedly nonchalant voice.

_No pity from me._

' If you can get her secured in a chair do so, if not, leave her.'

Behind Balthier Penelo gasped outraged, no doubt he was not going to be her favourite person from now on.

_Was there no other way?_

Balthier did not have the luxury of time to care however, there was a very real chance that unless he could do something about their current dangerous velocity they would all die when the Strahl's glossair rings exploded.

_The fruits of mans power and knowledge!_

To Balthier's muted surprise Vaan dropped into Fran's vacant seat, Balthier swallowed the impulse to tell him to get out, his very soul objecting to having anyone but Fran beside him, his mind however was of a more practical persuasion.

_You ran and you ran._

' Tell me what to do.' Vaan said firmly as he strapped himself in to the co-pilot chair.

_Fool of a pirate._

Behind them both Basch and Penelo did their best to strap a twitching, convulsing Fran into one of the passenger seats, and took seats one beside and one behind her. The Princess strapped herself in behind Balthier's chair.

' The Strahl's going too fast to attempt a landing.' Balthier explained briskly.

_Behold the __Manufacted__Nethicite__! Fruit of man's power!_

Vaan was studying the sensor arrays with considerably more understanding than Balthier might have expected, but then the boy was obsessed with airships wasn't he?

_That is what you do. You run and you fly. _

Balthier thought he might have wiled away the odd dull hour talking over the finer points of the Strahl's systems with Vaan, perhaps the boy had picked up more than he thought?

_I had such high hopes for you._

' Wow. Balthier the wing – ' Vaan turned wide and only too comprehending eyes to Balthier.

' Yes. That would be problem number two.'

Balthier cut him off sharply, the others did not need to know how dangerous this docking could be.

_Pirate scum._

_You run and you fly. That is what sky pirates do. Don't you?_

Balthier took the Strahl in an arc above the port of Balfonheim, with the one wing refusing to retract the Strahl had a tendency to veer and dip to the right.

_No pity from me._

' Cut the engines, Vaan.'

' Right.'

The boy hesitated only for a moment before Balthier felt the engines power down after Vaan had managed to hit the right switch.

_Ffamran__ the hour of your return is late._

' Vaan I want you to read off to me our current velocity, and keep an eye on the wing.'

' No problem.'

' What's happening?' Balthier heard Penelo whisper.

' I do not know. I believe there is something wrong with the ships landing gear.'

Basch responded also in a low aside, Balthier could not imagine the man whispering.

_Come, __Ffamran__, revel in the hour of my triumph! History once more in the hands of man!_

Balthier reached across the console and tapped in a series of commands to the Strahl's controls.

Beside him Vaan diligently read off their decreasing velocity as Balthier kept the Strahl circling the Port to kill off their speed.

_If you are so set on running, hadn't you best be off?_

Balthier shifted in his seat as behind him Fran started to cough and choke; he heard the shifting of cloth on cloth as either Basch or Penelo, or both, tended to her.

_Fool of a pirate._

'Vaan do you know how to initiate docking procedures?'

' Ummm, no.' He admitted, abashed.

Balthier snorted mock derisively, 'Haven't you been paying attention? I thought you wanted to be a sky pirate?'

_Pirate scum.__ No pity from me._

The tempo and urgency of Fran's shallow breathing picked up, each hitching, halting, pained breath tore through Balthier's awareness.

_ Who better to stand on the shoulders of the would-be gods!_

Balthier shifted in his seat as the Strahl curled around in ever decreasing concentric circles towards the port of Balfonheim.

_You ran and you ran._

Balthier pulled a flap underneath the control panel and dug around inside the panel for the lever he knew was there.

_Was there no other way?_

'Vaan reach across and grab this lever, will you?'

Vaan did not question, just did as told, he might make a half way decent sky pirate after all.

_Fool of a pirate._

Balthier set about starting docking procedures as he straightened the Strahl out for final descent into the aerodrome. Behind his back Fran's coughing turned to retching once more.

_I had such high hopes. But you ran. _

'When I give the word pull the lever down as hard as you can and keep it held until I say, got that?'

'Got it.' Vaan leaned across his seat to keep hold of the manual wing control.

_That's what sky pirates do._

The Strahl, running on nothing more than built up momentum, was slowly giving way to the forces of gravity, Balthier steered the stricken craft into the aerodrome's docking bay.

_History once more in the hands of man!_

The docking bay doors opened slowly, splitting apart in an X of filtered artificial light.

'Now Vaan!'

Vaan grunted as he yanked on the lever as hard as he could. The Strahl jerked like an injured animal and the noise of the damaged left wing snapping shut grated through all their awareness like the sharpening of rusting knives.

_Pirate scum._

The Strahl started to fall to the ground; Balthier swiftly jerked the steering controls to nudge the ship into the extending docking clamps before they hit the solid ground of the docking bays maintenance pit with a lethal crunch.

_Ffamran__ revel in the hour of my triumph!_

' Right, that was bracing.' Balthier released his seat belt and leapt out of the chair.

'You can let go of the lever now, Vaan.'

He added as an afterthought moving towards Fran and crouching in front of her to unfasten her straps.

_Hadn't you best be off? You fly, don't you?_

Fran's eyes were closed and her face ashen, gleaming with sweat, blood thick and tacky covered her mouth, the ends of her hair and her chest.

_I suppose you had better hang on then._

' Up we get Fran.'

Balthier lifted her into his arms and opened the Strahl's hatch, distantly aware of Vaan figuring out for himself how to shut down the Strahl, good for him.

_Was there no other way?_

Balthier led the way out of the aerodrome and up towards Saccio Lane and Reddas' manse. Fran remained a dead weight in his arms, her breathing increasingly laboured.

_You run and you fly, don't you?_

Balthier rocked to a halt when he felt the first seismic tremor rush through Fran's limp form.

_You had better hang on._

He had managed to lower her to the ground just before the first convulsion forced Fran up off the ground, spine bowing as her claws lashed out blindly in her agony.

_Fool of a pirate._

He held onto her even as her claws shredded his shirt sleeves and the flesh underneath. When the convulsions had calmed to mere bone rocking spasms he scooped her up and started off again.

'Dear Gods, his arms, she's torn his arms to shreds!'

_Pirate scum._

If there was any man posted to guard the Manse Balthier failed to notice him as he forced his way into the lavish seaside mansion and up the wide staircase towards the room he and Fran habitually shared when they stayed in Balfonheim.

_Hadn't you best be off?_

Fran stopped breathing as he was lowering her onto the bed. He felt it in his own chest as her heart gave out.

' Fran, please, this is not helpful.'

Magick would simply kill her faster so Balthier pressed his lips to hers, ignoring the bloody foam that flecked her lips and breathed life into her, pumping his hands against her heart.

_Hang __on.You__ had better hang on._

Fran jerked underneath him, life rushing back into her body, Balthier pulled back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, only really succeeding in spreading blood around as his own arms still trailed rivulets of scarlet.

_Fool of a pirate._

_You ran and you ran._

' I need Phoenix Downs, potions, and somebody fetch a bath tub and some luke warm water.'

There were other people in the room; Balthier was sure, though he paid them no mind, his focus absolutely rooted to Fran. He thought he heard the thunderous clatter of departing feet.

_You had better hang on._

Somebody was helping him remove Fran's armour; he thought it might be Penelo, as others, Basch and maybe Rikken, bought in a portable porcelain bath tub, Ashe and Elza following with slopping buckets of water.

_Hold on._

Balthier was aware, distantly, as the others left the room and Vaan deposited a simply staggering number of potions and Phoenix Downs, acquired from Gods knew where, onto the floor by the bath tub.

He carried Fran to the filled bath tub and carefully lowered her in. She was calmer now, breathing better. She had held on, after all.

_ Alas the hour of your return is late._

_I go to __Giruvegan__ care to accompany me son? _

It was while Balthier concentrated on washing her poor tortured body with a soft soapy wash cloth that Fran finally opened her eyes.

_You fly, don't you? That is what sky pirates do._

' You did not run?'

Fran's usually beautiful voice was a harsh croak, she tried to move out of the tub and he pushed her back.

_Hadn't you best be off? __If you are so set on running._

' Not without you.' Balthier did not smile.

Fran, however, did and it was beautiful.

' Fool of a pirate.'

She whispered letting her eyes slip shut and surrendering to sleep, settling back into the water.

Balthier closed his eyes and took a deep breath, 'Yes, so I've been told.'

_Pirate scum._

_Hadn't you best be off?_

_That is what sky pirates do, don't you?_

_I had such high hopes._

_History in the hands of man!_

_But you ran and ran and they with you._

_Fool of a pirate._

_No pity from me. _


	33. Chapter 33

Chapter Thirty-Three: Partaking of the fools banquet; the leading man falls to his vices

_Author note: I am deviating from canon slightly here as I am completely leaving out Al-Cid's visit to Balfonheim and all talk of the Rozzarian fifth column. I like Al-Cid and think he is a character worth greater exploration, but that whole bit just doesn't fit with how this story is going so….there it is._

It had been a busy day. Fran had recovered sufficiently, she insisted though Balthier had argued, to help him teach Vaan and Penelo how to fly the Strahl.

Balthier could tell Fran was not feeling her best however, primarily because he was able to give Vaan one good wallop to the back of the head in annoyance before Fran restrained him.

Balthier could not understand how the boy, who had proved a surprisingly good co-pilot on their escape from the Cataract, could think, even for a moment, that Balthier would ever let him barrel roll the Strahl!

Vaan did have excellent reflexes however, Balthier didn't rate his chances of surviving, let alone flourishing in any future career in piracy, but he could at least fly the Strahl as a last resort.

Fran had retired early after a long day of preventing Balthier, when his patience was all but exhausted, from perpetrating aggravated homicide; leaving him to his own devices.

He did not quite know how to feel about this, so he decided not to dwell on any vague feelings of unease or loneliness and instead set to work tinkering with the Strahl.

The news filtering into the port from Dalmasca and Archades was less than heartening to say the least and Balthier suspected that the Strahl would need to be in fighting trim.

Day-dreaming on nothing in particular while he checked the oil pressure and changed the inertia coil on the left secondary Glossair ring, Balthier was brought to immediate attention by the sound of a soft soled shoe scuffing over the metal plated floor of the Aerodrome's maintenance pit.

Casually, as if reaching for one of his arrayed tools, Balthier stretched his hand out for the Arcturus bartered from Rikken in exchange for a batch of counterfeited Gil bonds that could pass muster in any of Archadia's banks.

' It is me Balthier.'

The voice came from somewhere behind him, around the bulk of a badly rusted and ill-maintained air freighter docked next to the Strahl. Somewhat perplexed Balthier waited for the Princess to emerge.

' We did not see you at dinner, so I thought I would check on you.'

Ashe was dressed in her usual scandalously short skirt and high necked collar, though she had removed her elaborate metal greaves and wore delicate silver twined slippers on her feet.

Balthier put his habitual smirk in place and put down his tools, stifling a yawn he picked up a cloth and whipped the oil and grime from his hands.

' Apologies Princess I did not realise it was so late.'

Ashe was caught in a cool square of silvered crystallight, the illumination causing her white high-collared jacket to glow.

Without a by-your-leave Ashe, looking oddly abstracted, walked over to the Strahl and tapped her fingers distractedly against the painted hull.

' You should eat Balthier, you have not eaten since the Pharos and you appear pale.'

He blinked in surprise, surely the Princess was mistaken? But the sudden untwisting of his very empty stomach confirmed her statement.

Bemused both at her show of concern, albeit expressed without once meeting his eyes, and by the fact that he had in fact completely forgotten to eat, Balthier pitched his response to be both polite and non committal.

'I thank you for your concern, Princess. Did you come down here just to remind me to eat, or was there something you wanted?'

Ashe cast a downright furtive glance his way, still addressing herself primarily to the Strahl.

'I have been speaking with Basch regarding the rumours we have heard of a large fleet of airship converging on Rabanastre. It seems likely that my Uncle Halim intends to meet Vayne in battle.'

' Yes,' He drawled adjusting his sleeves out of habit, ' And I had him pegged as a smart man, the Marquis, ah well, can't be right all the time I suppose.'

Ashe turned to face him for the first time, ' My Uncle commands an impressively large fleet, do you not think he may be able to best Vayne in battle?'

Balthier snorted, 'Not while Vayne holds the Manufacted Nethicite. You saw what one little bauble did to the Eight Fleet, Princess. All the airships in Ivalice are just cannon fodder compared to that.'

Ashe nodded, ' Basch was of similar opinion. Yet Vayne must know that the Empire is not the unstoppable Juggernaut it once was. We have bested two Judge Magisters already, perhaps three, if Gabranth is indeed dead.'

He shook his head as he rose to his feet, ' There are always more fools to fill the armour of a Judge, Princess. We have dealt a good blow to the Empire, I'll give you that, but Vayne is likely unperturbed.'

Ashe frowned, edging slightly closer to him, ' Because he is mad, or because he wishes a war to destroy all Ivalice?'

Balthier was wondering exactly why the Princess had come down to the aerodrome in her slippered feet and suspected, though he cast no aspersions against her majesty in doing so, that it was not solely to check on his general well-being.

' The one goes hand in hand with the other. Remember Princess, Archadia has no qualms against razing whole countries to the ground.'

Was it simply to discuss the political climate? Balthier felt his smirk deepen, the Princess was a very driven young woman he would grant her that.

However he had known Ashe for over half a year now and it seemed to him that there was something more to her almost coy actions than merely a desire to discuss the worsening state of political affairs in Ivalice.

Ashe stroked a finger thoughtfully over her plump lips, Balthier watched as her daintily clad feet turned inward, toes almost meeting.

' And Vayne would see Rabanastre a smoking pile of rubble in the desert before relinquishing her to her rightful ruler.' Ashe mused.

He nodded, 'And the Marquis, Princess, don't forget Ondore. He has given up his own principality to lead the Resistance, to stop without even one skirmish with the Empire would see him a laughing stock among his peers.'

Ashe looked startled, ' Uncle Halim would never risk Dalmasca for his own pride!'

She shot back, forgetting her almost coquettish mien for more natural behaviour.

Balthier was beginning to suspect the true reason for her being here, though he was not sure yet how he intended to respond.

' Princess he already has. The Marquis knows you live, he knows you seek other means to win back Dalmasca and still he goes off to play war games with Vayne.'

Ashe did not argue further merely stood quietly stroking her bottom lip and gazing into a middle distance.

' Basch said very similar.'

He raised both eyebrows, ' Oh?'

Ashe nodded still not looking at him, her finger pressed to her lips and the other arm held protectively across her chest.

Balthier moved away from his scattered tools and approached her from behind, though he did not take that last step to her just yet.

' Yes. Basch believes that even if it means delaying my return to Dalmasca war should be averted at any cost.'

He snorted, ' I wonder how the man ever came to be a soldier let alone a Knight, far too much a pacifist in disguise it seems.'

Ashe turned so she faced him; the movement closed the gap between them. She looked up at him with intense, storm grey eyes.

' I am inclined to agree with Basch. I have had my fill of bloodshed.'

' Haven't we all, Princess. Sadly I think the time for peaceful solutions is long past. Vayne will hunt you down even if you forsake any claim to your throne, Ashe. He will hunt all of us down.'

Ashe nodded, ' So we must take the fight to him.' She said firmly.

Balthier said nothing; he was waiting to see how this odd scene would play out.

It felt as though a pall of anticipation hung gossamer light but pervasive as cobweb over their heads.

'Princess may I enquire as to the real reason you sought me out so late in the night?' He broke the silence eventually.

Ashe blushed slightly, tellingly, 'I wished to discuss with you the next course of action.'

' In the middle of the night, in your slippers?'

Balthier had never seen Ashe in anything but her full regalia. Such as it was.

The blush crept up the Princess' throat to shade her cheeks a deep rose, she glared at him icily.

' You have made yourself scarce all day, Balthier, this was the first opportunity I have had to speak with you since the Pharos.'

'And this could not wait until morning?' He asked mildly around a yawn.

' I had thought you might like the company.'

Ashe admitted reluctantly something burning in her ever earnest storm tossed regard.

' Company, Princess?'

Balthier purred recognising in her eyes, in the strange waiting tension between them the same desire as in the Sochen Caves. He had walked away then, better sense dictating. Would he walk away now?

Did he want to walk away?

Ashe watched him with tense focus; both hopeful and anxious. Was she hoping he would play the gentleman again, or hoping that he would take what was being so covertly offered?

The Princess exuded the scent of Galbana lilies and Jasmine, and Balthier inhaled that pleasing scent almost greedily.

Could a starving man be blamed, Balthier mused vaguely, if he fell upon a feast laid out for his delectation?

Even if he knew the meal, in its devouring, would curdle in his stomach?

' I am glad Fran is recovered.' Ashe said suddenly.

Balthier blinked; jolted from his thoughts as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown on him.

' Me too.'

He admitted with simple, un-gilded honesty, before he could stop himself. It had been a long, tiring day indeed, to let honest sentiment escape him.

' I do not love you.'

Ashe said equally suddenly but the radical change in subject didn't disturb Balthier.

He understood. He and Ashe, it seemed, understood each other in this regard very well indeed. He smiled on the Princess.

'Thank you, Princess, I don't love you either.'

Balthier drawled carefully pulling her into the circle of his arms. He held her lightly, she could pull away, end this folly, anytime she wished.

' Good,' Ashe said standing on tip-toes, her slippers not granting her the extra height of her heeled boots, to slip her arms around his neck.

'I doubt a pirate knows much of love, at any rate.'

Balthier chuckled and shook his head, 'I wonder then at your reasoning for being here, if you have such low opinion of me.'

He commented dryly as he lowered his face close to hers.

' I told you.' Ashe whispered irritatedly her lips brushing his, 'I wished to discuss with you our next course of action.'

Balthier's eyes were already closed in anticipation of that next course of action, but a question slipped into his front brain and demanded he verbalise it.

'Princess, do you compensate Basch in similar fashion, when you turn to him for strategy?'

A sharp and well aimed clenched fist to the gut was an eloquent answer.

Balthier grunted but didn't let go of her, it was nice to hold a woman in his arms that didn't have a near pathological distaste for physical contact.

' Don't be impertinent, Balthier.'

Ashe snapped, though her hand had slipped to the back of his head and she raised her lips to his.

' Never Princess.' He purred against her lips.

It occurred to him in the tiny, transient moment of time between contemplation of the act and the act itself, that both he and the Princess must be fools indeed.

In his greedy, cynical heart, Balthier was aware that he was about to embark on an act of betrayal that cut three ways, and knew equally well, as he thought Ashe must know, that the only people who would be hurt by this was he and Ashe.

The thought did not give him pause. The scent of jasmine and Galbana lilies mingled with that of engine oil and lubricant, the copper tang of the Strahl presiding over all.

The pretty silver slippers came off, dropping with barely a sound to the metal grated floor, they were soon joined by a leather and velvet vest and jewel crusted jacket and collar.

A white shirt billowed gracefully down to mingle like a silent confession of guilt next to a brilliant red skirt.

There was the metallic tinkle as the Princess' golden elbow guards clattered to the floor and a louder thud as twin belts, heavy with over-stuffed pouches, fell to the ground soon after.

The Strahl, silent in inert judgement, bore witness to another of Balthier's many transgressions.

This time, he would have argued if he was ever called to account, the stolen bounty tasted so very, very sweet; even if the delicious siren in his arms had called out to a dead man with every breath.

It was only fair, Balthier reasoned, as he afforded a gentle smile upon Ashe over the group meal the next day and felt it returned behind a demurely raised hand, because the name that echoed in his heart with every beat belonged to another woman entirely.


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter Thirty-Four: The line is drawn; the crossing to Bahamut

They pushed the Strahl's engines to the limit to reach Rabanastre by daybreak, the news of the impending sky battle and the exorable progress of the Sky Fortress Bahamut having reached them late in the evening.

There was little talk in the cramped cabin of the Strahl. Under Basch's instruction the children and the Princess had attempted sleep, aided covertly by Sleep inducing spells.

Basch, with the long discipline of a career soldier managed some form of sleep without resorting to magick, leaving Fran and Balthier alone for the majority of their night flight.

'Don't say it, I know.'

Balthier muttered gruffly one hour from Rabanastre, the night sky thinning into early dawn tinted red.

Fran had known of course what had gone on, she knew him and she knew well his appetites. She had had no intention of saying anything, however.

She knew from experience she didn't have too. He always came to her for his punishment.

'You have been foolish.' Fran spared him nothing.

Though it had long puzzled her why he should use her to deliver the punishment he believed he deserved.

' I know.' Balthier admitted leadenly. Then he shifted and contrived to give her a pale imitation of his usual smirk.

' I am fairly confident however that we are all going to perish on this suicide run, so at least my foolishness shall die with me.'

Fran cocked and eyebrow, ' The Leading Man never dies.'

Balthier's smirk fell away and something clear and cool filled his eyes.

' True but I can endeavour to perform a passing imitation. It's just a matter of finding a sufficiently dramatic moment.'

Fran considered his words and the hidden meaning behind them.

' Free birds must fly unhindered. Death provides a more palatable separation than betrayal or abandonment.'

Fran murmured thoughtfully remembering their aborted attempt to escape the Princess and her mission on the Phon Coast.

It would be painful still, these humes were dear to them both, yet part ways they must.

' So you are with me?'

Balthier asked briskly; squinting as the dawn sun rose, pale lemon and gold in a sapphire and tourmaline sky, on the horizon.

'We find our moment and we fly?' Balthier turned to face her features intense.

Fran nodded once, ' I am with you.'

They had little opportunity to talk further, not that there was need for further words between them, for the Strahl's sensors picked up the presence of the Resistance fleet surrounding and above Rabanastre and the sound of open sky warfare awoke the rest of the party.

'Wow.'

For once Vaan's awed exclamation was accurate in both the sentiment and the description as the full breadth and spread of Ondore's Armada appeared before them.

Beyond the Resistance ranks Fran and the others could see the black funnel cloud, bright lights flashing as if lightening was caught in the maelstrom that was their target.

'Bahamut.'

Ashe breathed clenching her fists as a beautiful summer's day over her city was obscured by the futile and destructive ambition of one Hume.

'Places everyone, it's time we made our entrance.'

Balthier gave the order and the others obeyed taking their seats as without hesitation Balthier pushed the Strahl forward towards the fight.

' Manufacted Nethicite will be a hard scourge to lift from Ivalice after this.'

Fran murmured, barely heard over the gasps from the others in the cabin as they saw the three rear air carriers in the Resistance fleet reduced to little more than vapour by Bahamut's cannon.

'Ashe we're in communication range.'

Balthier snapped briskly, concentrating on easing the Strahl through the flaming wreckage and tucking in front of the flag ship.

Ashe seized up the communicator, 'Uncle it is I. We are crossing to the Bahamut to stop Vayne. You must assist our charge.'

It came as little surprise that Marquis Ondore resisted the command; his actions had oft been at odds with his niece's though never in opposition.

'Hey,' Vaan leaned forward in his chair towards Fran who was nearest. ' Is it time for plan B?'

'You had better, the Marquis reluctance we can ill afford.'

Fran pitched her voice low so as not to be heard across the communicator.

Vaan needed little further encouragement; surging out of his seat he closed his own hand around the communicator, flicking the switch as shown before they set off, 'Hold it! – I mean wait,'

He added as Ashe glared at him, ' This is Larsa Solidor. I'm going in with her so...' Vaan hesitated waiting for inspiration.

' I've got the Princess covered.'

Vaan blushed knowing his words were hardly convincing and Ashe closed her eyes in mute frustration.

Ondore, though sounding as if he believed the presence of the youngest Solidor not one bit, nevertheless bowed to Ashe's wishes sensing perhaps that there was little else he could do.

' We need you to provide covering fire. Give them something to think about.'

Balthier spoke directly to Ondore through the communication console relays in the control panel of the Strahl and surged the ship onwards.

The crossing was fraught, ships criss-crossed over each other's flight paths while yet more fell like flaming comets to the desert below.

'Careful.' Balthier muttered to himself as he dodged and skimmed the desert floor before ascending once more.

An Imperial fighter chased their tail. Fran tracked its progress on the monitors but Balthier had already detected it.

'Ah, so you want to dance, do you?'

He asked fiercely and Fran knew that the same surge of pure, ferocious joy that surged through her veins as another joined their dance was also in him.

'Then let's dance!'

'Another partner.'

She murmured her voice giving away nothing to indicate her inner rapture.

To be free and flying on wing and prayer, she had missed this sensation almost more than could be fathomed.

'It's not easy being this popular, you know.'

Balthier jerked the Strahl sideways at the last possible moment and the two enemy ships collided head on. The final approach and ascent to the top of Bahamut and her docking bays was relatively simple.

'C'mon, c'mon!'

Vaan harried them off the Bahamut with a mixture of excitement and terror as the enormity of their endeavour began to dawn on the youth.

Breaching the bulkheads was simple enough, the interior of the Bahamut an uncomfortable echo of the sterile, cold and unforgiving corridors of Draklor laboratory. Both works of the same twisted genius.

' We need not fight all the Empire, we must only get to Vayne and we can end this war.'

Ashe declared her certainty echoed enthusiastically by Vaan, they were all, Fran thought with an odd mixture of affection and quiet resignation, still children.

End this war they may, Fran conceded silently as they hurried as quietly, as swiftly, through the metal laced corridors as they could, but another conflict and another war would only succeed it.

An explosion to shudder the very core of the Fortress stopped the party in their tracks as they looked upon the huge cylindrical orange glowing core of Bahamut.

Fran turned to Balthier as they righted their balance on the steps.

'The Resistance plays its part well. We dare not falter, we dare not fail.'

His almost imperceptible nod of recognition was all she needed; he had no intentions of flying free of the Fortress before they had finished their task.

Penelo was questioning the magnitude of the task not just immediately before them but the one that faced Ashe should they succeed.

There was wisdom in the girl; Fran noted not for the first time, should she live long enough to cultivate it.

Ashe however had long been burdened with the knowledge of what she must do hereafter; ever more her life would not be her own.

'A queen may always seek to escape her charge with the aid of a sky pirate looking to raise his bounty a peg.'

Basch's dry assertion confirmed that he too knew of Balthier and the Princess' shared folly.

' I doubt our queen will need the help of any sky pirate.' Balthier rebuffed him with cool nonchalance while offering support to Ashe.

Fran wondered if Ashe knew that those same words were the closest to a goodbye and perhaps even an apology that she would ever receive from Balthier hereafter.

'You think me as strong as that?'

And to Fran the cool resignation in the Princess' reply was answer enough. She knew her future well enough and knew it held no place for pirates.

Fran suspected however that Ashe could not know what only Fran knew; that no life Ashe could live would ever hold Balthier to her.

He would fly from his own heart to preserve his freedom, just as Fran had done when she abandoned Eruyt.

Another hard and bitter severance awaited Basch at the controls to the lift.

His brother, his twin, his other self.

A shadow of a man who had clung to hatred and found it offered poor succour for the wounds rent by fate and the ambitions of power-hungry humes upon the soul.

Fran stood with Basch armed with her own Deathbringer sword as they did what they must, a fact of life that had delivered so much pain upon both brothers, until Gabranth fell.

Gabranth was left to live, for no one wished to strike down Basch's brother no matter the pain he had caused in blind adherence to his two masters, hate and the Empire, both equal in their vindictiveness.

' I want to hate him but I can't.'

Vaan whispered as he stood with Fran watching Basch try to offer redemption to a man who would gladly damn himself a thousand times over.

' Why can't I hate him? He killed my brother.' Vaan turned to Fran and she looked down upon him.

'Be thankful that such hate is not within you, lest you become as Gabranth, a slave to his hatred, dead to all else.'

Vaan, wet eyed, clenched his Save the Queen tightly turning his back on the brothers as he ambled over to the lift controls Balthier had re-wired.

'I guess you're right. It would be so much easier if I could hate him though.'

' Life is not easy for those who would live it well.' Fran tried to offer comfort though precious little was to be found.

Fran turned back once to look upon Gabranth as Basch, pale and grim, knowing well that his brother would either redeem or destroy himself and there was nothing Basch could do; went to his queen's side.

' It does no good to despise the hound for the master's cruelty, better to be rid of the master and free the hound.'

Ashe and Basch were both looking at Fran as she joined the group on the lift platform and Balthier punched in the commands.

' Vayne will be master here no longer.' Ashe whispered her voice heated ice. Turning she squeezed Basch's hand.

'This I swear. Today Ivalice will know an end to war.'


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-five: Angels of Vengeance; Saints of Salvation

'May I ask, who are you? An angel of vengeance, or perchance a saint of salvation?'

For the rational mind a sense of grievance and loathing can only take a soul not wedded irrevocably to hate and madness so far when it comes time to kill a man.

Vayne Solidor for all that he was tyrant and megalomaniac, was also, tragically, still a man.

A man who fought with fists and feet alone against a barrage of edged weapons and bullets.

Balthier, who had never met the Emperor five years his senior, in the flesh, found he lacked the mindless bloodlust that seemed to keep Vaan hacking at the elder Solidor, or the burgeoning sense of moral superiority that enabled little lord Larsa to slash at his brother's exposed back with tapered blade.

'You hesitate.'

Fran came to his side, her willowy lithe frame haloed in magicakal healing fire.

' I've had my fill of this.'

Balthier forced magicks to his own hands to cast a hastening spell on Vaan; needs must and it was better to have this bitter business over with quickly.

' We make an end today, one way or the other.'

Balthier almost laughed, ' Cheerful as ever Fran.'

Balthier watched Vayne unleash a vicious barrage of kicks and punches towards the Princess, Basch, ever-faithful, leapt into Vayne's path to protect his queen.

Whispering the incantation Balthier threw an arm out towards the fight, he sent the Scourge wave towards Vayne and watched it stagger the man into the waiting, eager blades of his brother and Vaan.

'Gods above but I'm sick of this.'

Balthier growled as he and the rest of the party watched Vayne Solidor stop being a Hume, and become a monster, thickened and maligned by the Mist that pulsed in his raised and blackened veins, his eyes wild.

' Easier it is to cut down a monster in his agonies than a man in his pride.'

Fran swung her sword towards one of the glowing Sephira blades, spiritual manifestation of Vayne's vaulting ambition, Balthier caught the twisting airborne blade with Deathbringer as it raced towards it master.

' Easy is relative Fran.'

Balthier rejoined as he picked himself up from on top of her, having caught the sight of the Sephira racing for her momentarily exposed back and knocked her to the floor.

The partners were forced apart as the fight progressed. Fran hastened to Penelo and the Knigts side, Balthier to Vaan and the Princess.

Ashe was bleeding across her right flank where one of the Sephira had caught her with her guard down.

Balthier on closer inspection of the wound could see pink purplish muscle through the tatters of her clothing.

For some reason best known to herself; Ashe had favoured Perseus Bow for the final encounter. Affording her no shield to protect herself with.

Balthier had not been aware she could use a bow, least of all one that was double her size.

The parallels his mind drew between Ashe and Fran, as the Princess, bloody and pale loosed arrow after arrow straight for Vayne, unnerved Balthier.

'Vaan!' Balthier shouted above the din of Mist, Magick and palpable rage towards the would-be pirate.

Vaan turned from the blow that felled the penultimate Sephira, blood covered his unfinished, boyish features and sweat and viscera slicked his bare forearms.

' Take a leaf out of Reddas' book.' Balthier threw his Deathbringer to Vaan who grinned ferociously as he caught the sword.

The final Sephira speared towards Vaan, slicing the blood soaked air and leaving a vapour trail of Mist in its wake. Vaan stood tall and undaunted as it approached him.

With a wordless cry the boy raised Deathbringer to deflect the Sephira's dive for his heart and one handed swung the great sword Save the Queen to shatter Vayne's last remaining helpmeet.

All the while Balthier had been supporting Ashe's weight in his arms, her Bow clutched in trembling hands as blood loss took its tool on her.

Sweat damped her pale hair to her forehead as Balthier let healing magick course through his blood stream and down into his hands which held Ashe by her delicate waist.

'I must fight on.'

Ashe panted letting go of the bow with one hand and using that hand to clutch at the hem of Balthier's vest to keep herself upright.

'Almost done, Princess.' Balthier murmured.

He doubted Ashe had any idea how badly she'd been cut up, flesh ripped down to bone, sinew and muscle.

Fran, Basch, Vaan and the deranged Kingslayer Gabranth had Vayne surrounded but no one thought the monster beaten, a cornered beast is the most deadly of all.

Penelo, Balthier's Arcturus strapped to her back, crouched protectively over the fallen Larsa, helping him come slowly round to consciousness.

A lovely awakening the young lordling would have, Balthier thought with some sympathy, watching his elder brother slain.

Ashe was shifting in his arms, slowly, breath hitching with pain as Balthier kept his hands to her flesh which knitted back together as he held her, her blood a hot wash over his wrists.

' I have a clean shot.'

Ashe fumbled the Bow into position, bracing the monstrous weapon on the floor and pressing her back up against Balthier; she reached for her quiver and pulled an arrow loose.

Balthier saw her shot as clearly as she did, time appeared to stand still as the Princess efficiently wiped her bloody hands on her skirt, notched the arrow and let it loose, her cry more pain than rage, straight for Vayne Solidor's head.

Vayne Solidor went to his knees, having moved fractionally at the last second to escape Ashe's arrow lancing his brain, nevertheless the blow the Princess' arrow wrought was decisive.

In a desperate attempt to seize redemption or merely final damnation Gabranth attempted to sunder Vayne Solidor from mortality's grip once and for all. He failed.

' Resilient isn't he?'

Balthier drawled as the Princess found the strength to step away from him, his healing finally having done the work to stitch Ashe back together again.

Vaan was the first to chase after Vayne and the despised Venat, Balthier, had he had the time to think on it, might have been surprised to find himself right on the youth's heels.

Therefore it was Balthier who grabbed hold of Vaan and threw him to the ground as something truly monstrous occurred on the outer deck of the Sky Fortress.

' By all that's Holy!'

Ashe almost screamed as she and Fran, closely followed by Basch and Penelo skidded to a halt to watch the horror unfolding before them all.

Venat, plans reaching fruition, granted its last remaining puppet his Godhood, or a twisted parody of the same, wrought from the machinations of science and Magick.

Summoned by a wave of Mist that convulsed around and reverberated within Vayne's mutated, dying body, the Bahamut's battlements, its bolts and metal bracings, tore free and melded within Vayne until Vayne was not Vayne any longer.

For just a moment Balthier knew what true, paralysing fear felt like. The fear of a prey animal facing the predator it could not outrun.

As he and the rest of the party picked themselves up, the sky above aflame with the fury of the Undying One, Balthier realised that the time to run was passed, and he had never been so afraid.

'H-how do we fight this?'

Penelo, the youngest, sweetest, of the party moved towards Fran who held court close to Balthier as the abomination that was once Vayne Solidor took wing and circled the ruined circular deck atop Bahamut.

' Though he be one with Venat now, his heart still beats as a man's, I hear its stutter. This anthema can be felled as a man though he claim godliness.'

Fran intoned calmly, her eyes swooping after the circling monstrosity. Balthier, though he doubted even Fran could pick up a single heart beat over the din of sky battle above them, was relieved by Fran's words.

' So? Let's do it then.'

Vaan threw Balthier's sword back to him and ran to the edge of the platform, Save the Queen glinting in the eldritch pyrelight as he went to meet Vayne.

Basch followed suit, racing after the boy and Balthier glanced at Fran, who nodded once and the two of them joined the fray, each with a Deathbringer in hand.

Ashe and Penelo, with bow and gun respectively, arrayed themselves to the rear of the attack, shouting spells and warnings to those fool-hardy enough to attempt to fight this nightmare.

The platform of the sky deck split and sundered under the phenomenal power of the Undying One's assaults.

Balthier hit the smouldering, crackling metal of the deck hard as he leapt out of the way of a beam of condensed super heated Mist which scoured the deck almost in twain.

Balthier did not have the breath to cry out as he felt his arm break in two as he fell upon it.

A scream forced him upright, despite the pain and blood choking him and the Mist light dazzling him.

Balthier sought the sound and saw Penelo, flung clean across the deck by the power of the last hit clinging to a twisted guardrail, she hung over open air, off the edge of the deck.

Balthier did not trust his legs to carry him, so instead he rolled across the rubble strewn ground to the edge, ignoring the excruciating pain in his arm as he did so.

It was awkward to reach out to Penelo with only one arm but he managed to get a grip on her waist, the girl, lithe as a dancer, twisted and let go of the jagged bar of metal that was all that kept her suspended.

She used her own momentum to swing her body towards the crumbling edge of the deck and wrapped her arms around Balthier's neck and shoulders.

Strong arms gripping Balthier by the bracings of his vest hauled them both onto solid ground.

' Too close, that one.' Basch, bleeding from a scalp wound, growled as he helped pull Penelo, who was almost blue-lipped with shock, to her feet.

Balthier did not have the strength to come up with an appropriate witticism.

' Down!'

Ashe screamed to her troops as the Undying launched another missile of burning Mist their way.

When the after images of orange and green lightening cleared from his eyes and he could once again hear something more than the defiant roar of a creature that should never be allowed to live and rule over Ivalice, he found himself covered in a curtain of silky white.

Lying on his back he blinked up into Fran's wide, pinkish tinted eyes, her hair gleaming with the purity of snow against the hellfire sky above their heads.

' Fran this is hardly the time or the place.'

Balthier managed to croak as Fran sat up, straddling him and cast a healing upon him.

Fran ignored him and pulled him, with little sympathy for his aching body, to his feet.

' We can do this. He weakens, I know it.'

Ashe spoke in a resonant whisper, conviction, passion and pure spirit igniting her eyes until they glowed with inner light.

' Vayne would use the Mist against us, but I am of the Dynast Kings blood. Quickly, we must all call a Quickening upon him. Together we shall bring down this false idol.'

Without waiting for either assent or dissent from her chosen companions Ashe reached out and seized Balthier's hand in her left and Basch's in her right.

Fran closed her own long hand in Balthier's free right hand as Penelo grasped Fran's free hand and Vaan's in her other.

Vaan reached around and clasped Basch's hand as they created an unbroken circle.

Balthier was not the only one to utter a groan of pain, exhaustion and surprise as magick jumped from one to the other through their linked hands, a power forming in its sharing greater than anything they could bring to bear individually.

' Pyroclasm.' Vaan shouted; all enthusiasm and optimism.

' Shatterheart.' Fran was cool wind and endurance.

' Resplendence.' Penelo was true to her word, a soul too pure to be tainted by cruelty endured.

' Flame Purge.' Basch growled. The sly part of Balthier unaffected by external stimuli noted, that for Basch, the words were likely prophetic.

Balthier drew breath, ' Element of Treachery.' For what else, truly, could he bring to the fray?

' Maelstrom's Bolt.' Ashe was light and conviction personified, a true saint of salvation.

The whole of existence, it seemed to Balthier, Ivalice herself; took and held a breath, as the joint Quickening, the power within their six souls, filled every nuance of reality.

And then it was over, and Balthier sucked in an eager breath of air, the sky as faultlessly blue as any he had ever aspied.

He raised his fist lightly to knock against Fran's and caught the ghost of her smile.

They had done it. The Undying was nothing more than dust in the wind, the Empire would be Larsa's to play with now and below them Dalmasca awaited its Queen.

Balthier nodded in silent satisfaction to himself, it was time for he and Fran to fly.


	36. Chapter 36

Chapter Thirty-Six: Supporting Players take their bow

_A/N: This is it -the end is nigh, only two chapters left. Reviews always appreciated._

'Can we fly?'

' There is no power to the Glossair rings.'

Fran's hands ghosted over the console, but the monitors told true. The Strahl would not be flying.

' Look!' Ashe cried from behind them.

' Bahamut's glossair rings are stopping!'

A lightening fast look exchanged between Fran and her hume partner. A decision made in one mind instantly communicated to the other so that it seemed instead that the one thought joined the two minds.

' Vaan, take the Strahl. As soon as there's power go. Fran with me.'

Balthier, the spark of conviction in his serious eyes, relinquished the Strahl to Vaan, just as he predicted he may need to on the Ridorana Cataract.

Fran swiftly called her own apprentice to her, gently instructing a frightened but determined Penelo on her role before following Balthier out of the Strahl and back into the falling Bahamut.

Within the corridors of Bahamut, thick with the acrid smoke of burning Mist fuel and cordite, chaos reigned.

' You would think,' Balthier complained coolly as he and Fran were forced to press against opposing walls to allow a panicked gaggle of Imperials to pass.

' That military training would teach these tin soldiers better discipline.'

' They fear imminent death.' Fran murmured dryly.

Balthier snorted, ' Death is hardly imminent. I think we turn left here.' He nodded to a particularly smoke clogged corridor.

' It surprises me that the soliders do not better understand the structural integrity of this Fortress, even if she crashes only the lowest levels will be destroyed, her tower should remain strong.'

Fran conceded as she watched the Humes, stinking of metal and terror, collapse into their own panic.

Balthier nodded as they pushed their way through a thickening stream of stampeding imperials, which ignored the two pirates with the single-mindedness of a stream diverting around two rocks.

' An ignorance in basic airship engineering we can use to our advantage. This strikes me as the prime dramatic moment for two pirates to take flight.'

Fran almost smiled, ' Does the plight of Rabanastre not factor in your thoughts Balthier?'

They had reached the power core of the Fortress, reaching upwards to the collapsing deck where they had fought Vayne and all the way down to the docking bays of the Fortress.

' I resent the implication Fran, as if I would stand by and watch all our hard work be for nought as Rabanastre is crushed by a falling sky fortress.'

' Fortune favours us today, then, to allow the Leading Man his greatest hour and an equally convenient foil for escape.' Fran suggested dryly.

Balthier, looking up from his thoughtful surveyance of the power relays and conduit towers making up the power core, turned and flashed Fran a grin.

'Quite. Now, to work.' He gestured to the main engineering relay.

' Our usual arrangement? You take the heavy lifting and I'll do the fine tuning?'

Fran nodded, 'Agreed.'

They worked in companionable silence back to back each working to their own strengths.

Fran worked on replacing and removing damaged parts from the main power core while Balthier concentrated on circumventing power relays and venting excess Mist to get power to the Glossair rings.

Balthier stopped briefly in his work to tune in a communication relay to pick up on the Strahl's communication channel.

The scratchy bursts of static slowly resolved themselves into recognisable voices.

'This is Judge Magister Zaagabaath of the Imperial Cruiser Alexander. The Bahamut cannot be allowed to destroy Rabanastre, call back your troops; the Alexander prepares to ram her.'

Fran heard Balthier's soft curse, more annoyance than worry. Fran did not stop in her work, The Alexander was a powerful vessel but Fran wondered if it could do much damage to the Bahamut.

Despite the great damage already wrought upon the Bahamut's interior and exterior Fran's trained mechanics eye saw that structurally she held firm.

Balthier had been fiddling with the communication relay so that he could leap-frog the Strahl's transmission wave and communicate with the ships.

' Hasty isn't he?'

Balthier drawled, more to Fran than to anyone else who might receive the transmission.

Balthier had turned back to silently question her progress with a raised eyebrow. Fran gestured with a grease slicked hand, she was almost there.

' Balthier!' Vaan's voice crackled over the communication relay and Fran smiled ever so slightly as she worked; the Strahl and its occupants where safe.

' Ah, Vaan, you got the Strahl away safe, then?' Balthier echoed her sentiment. 'The Strahls a fine airship isn't she?'

' Stop that fool of a Judge, would you? I've almost got the rings up and flying.'

' Balthier!' Ashe's voice, static emphasising the strident tone to ear drum piercing intensity, 'Do you know what you are doing?'

Fran, distracted both by her work and by the conversation Balthier blithely continued as he finished his recalibrations, did not hear the piece of metal girder fall from above her until it was too late.

Pain lanced through her body and Fran could not move from under the red, hot, smoking girder that pinned her to the ground.

Try as she might she could not reach the power relay to finish her repairs either.

Without the last few cogs that needed replacing the Bahamut would be unflyable, the Glossair rings might be operational but they would be of no use if navigation and inertia dampeners were inoperative.

Fran strained her reaching hand, the one not trapped under her inert body but even her reach could not breach the distance. Fran lifted her head, trying to find voice to warn Balthier.

'Princess have you forgotten my role in this story, I am the Leading Man.'

Balthier's voice filled her ears, and she strained ebbing consciousness to catch its smooth flow.

He was as nonchalantly flippant as only he could be.

As only a man who has spent the last six years living a lie within his very soul, a man who would become a fiction so as to avoid his own broken reality; could be.

Fran could not hold onto that voice, as sweet and enticing as it was, as greyness eroded senses.

She felt through a body shuddering into shock, the thrum of power restored to the Glossair rings.

'Must I do everything?'

Fran was jolted back to consciousness as the pressing weight of the girder was lifted from her; she caught the scent of burning flesh as Balthier struggled with the red hot steel with bare hands.

Dropping down beside her Fran only took note of the physical reality of her injuries when she saw the facetious nonchalance that Balthier would wear upon his face when his own death came, falter to look upon her.

The shattered end of femur protruded from the split flesh of her right leg, the skin around the wound blackened and crisp with burns, Fran drew a breath of pain as Balthier struggled with burned hands to lift her in his arms.

Yet when she was secure within the cradle of his arms, as strong it suddenly seemed as the boughs of Golmore's oldest tree, Fran found her pain melted away.

Around them the Bahamut appeared intent on shaking itself apart in fire and anguish, yet for just one moment this mattered not to Fran.

All she felt was an all-encompassing sense of peace. Her words to him, perhaps her last for a time, were spoken from a heart that had relished every moment of entertainment he had brought to her life lead in exile from purpose.

' I see you more in a supporting role.'

Fran whispered as she let her head drop to his shoulder and surrendered herself to unconsciousness. They would not die this day, she knew, for they had too much to live for.

' Fran please.'

Balthier's chiding, came to her as blackness enveloped her senses, on a wave of concern and affection that she knew she had heard many times before from him.

Fran felt herself smile as her departing consciousness floated in the Mist rich air above both their heads.

In her flying companion's arms Fran felt for the first time in fifty years at home and secure.

Free birds would ever flock together; come what may.


	37. Chapter 37

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Escaping a heroes reward; a sojourn in Ambervale

'Bloody thing.'

Balthier cursed as he fumbled to hold the soup spoon in his one workable hand. His leading hand was in a sling held protectively against his chest.

Fran, chewing patiently on her bread did not react; he would not take kindly to her intervention.

Eventually Balthier seemed to find a grip that he could manage and ladled up his soup.

' Hmm, not bad.'

Balthier's eyes drifted to the bowl of bread sitting in the centre of the table between them and he frowned slightly casting an irritated look at his own inert right hand, bandaged from finger tip to above the elbow.

Without a word Fran placed a piece of her bread, already buttered, on the side of his plate and went back to her own soup.

' Thank you.' Balthier smiled dryly.

'A right sorry pair we are, Fran. Still I suppose cumulatively we still have two working arms and two working legs.'

'Three.' Fran corrected him, picking a piece of diced Cockatrice from her soup; she detested the taste of meat.

' Hmm?'

Fran noticed that Balthier was scoping out all the pieces of potato from his soup and loading them on the plate outside the bowl.

'We have three working hands and three working legs.' Fran elaborated. ' Your legs are uninjured as are my hands.'

Balthier looked up at her and smirked. ' Don't be pedantic Fran.'

Fran allowed a smile to flicker on the edge of her expression briefly before her eyes drifted to her right leg, cased in a plaster cast and itchy.

' How is it?'

' It mends.' Fran murmured, ignoring the intolerable itchiness.

Balthier, hearing the words she would not say, winced and sighed defeatedly.

' I did the best I could Fran. The Magicite barrier the Dalmascans put up around Bahamut once it crashed prevented any healings.'

' I make no complaint. We shall both heal in time.'

She looked pointedly at his right hand. The burns to his leading hand were extensive, affecting muscle and tendon as well as skin.

He had burned both hands terribly prying apart the panelling between levels in the Bahamut so that he and Fran could hide in the venitilation shaft.

Balthier was still frowning, soup abandoned, but then Balthier had the eating habits of a bird.

'A great deal of time. Damnall Fran but I never thought we would be hurt.'

Fran granted him a faint smile, ' Some might consider that a rather grave lapse in judgement, Balthier, the probability of incurring injury in a collapsing sky fortress is high indeed.'

Balthier grimaced, ' Alright, this once, I'm prepared to concede certain aspects of the plan were perhaps not as well thought out as might be expected of the Leading Man.'

' You are still intent on playing dead?'

Fran continued to eat her soup as she watched him. As always his eyes betrayed his heart. She saw pain, guilt, but also certainty. It was the certainty that hurt him.

' There is no purpose in trying to reclaim the Strahl until we are fit enough to fly her, Fran.'

' Yet we could return to Rabanastre now, we are well enough for that. You would be hailed as a hero. Saviour of Dalmasca.'

She teased him gently, Balthier did not smile. Instead he ran the fingers of his left hand over the cracked dinner wear they ate from.

' For sure.' Balthier agreed sarcastically, ' And you and I would be caged in gilded praise never to fly again.'

He picked up a fork and started scraping the tines, agitatedly, across the white table cloth.

'If we return, allow Ashe or Larsa or any of them to know we live, they will never let us alone to live free. You know this.'

' Perhaps you wish to build a nest? Perhaps the Leading Man has developed a taste for the respectable life?'

Balthier gave her a very level look, ' Sometimes I think you enjoy tormenting me, Fran.'

Fran kept her smile on the inside as she finished the last spoonful of her soup and looked about the small, shabby room they were currently using to hide from their former compatiots.

' Do we seek validation of this Glabodos rumour?'

Fran's eyes sought the light spilling in through the small window, she yearned to be able to walk over and pull the curtains open.

Sensing this Balthier scraped his chair back across the unpolished wooden floor and did it for her.

Rich, late afternoon sunlight spilled into the small, basic lodging in a sudden deluge.

' May as well, we are down to our last few thousand Gil. It will be a while until I can wield a stylus to forge more Gil bonds and unless we wish to die in truth, from starvation, we need some means of restoring our fortunes.'

Balthier struggled to open the window one handed and after a moment the fresh breath of spring air wafted into the room.

' Though loathe to admit it, I'm prepared to concede that Ambervale is very attractive. A shame it's full of Rozzarian's.'

Fran smiled ever so slightly to Balthier's back, ' Unsurprising as it is the seat of Rozzaria's government.'

Balthier turned away from the window and walked over to Fran,

' Want to take in the view?'

Fran nodded and reached her arm out to slip around Balthier's shoulder as he took her weight and helped her rise from the chair.

The cast hung heavy over her right leg and clunked unbecomingly on the dusty floor as she hobbled to the window.

The small, square window pane opened up a view to the outside world that was indeed pleasing to the eye.

Ambervale gained its name from the Amberleaf trees that lined its wide avenues and clustered in winding paths up the large, grassy hill where the Margrace palace sat sentry over the city.

Below them, in the crowded street, Rozzarian's went about their business, trading, buying, thieving and simply taking in the air.

'There are many Viera here.' Fran murmured softly, keeping the weight off her right leg.

She watched keenly as a cluster of three Viera, their skin a hue darker than her own, their long manes of white hair cascading down their backs in brilliant resplendence, walked confidently through the throng of Humes.

'Hmm, I know.' Balthier also followed the three Viera with his eyes.

' I noticed quite a community of Viera in the eastern quadrant while rooting about for food stuffs, they trade in damask and silk and buy a variety of goods from the Hume traders.'

Balthier eyed her curiously still holding most of her weight, adding to the intimacy of his gaze.

'It seems they do things differently here than your brethren in Golmore.'

Fran did not meet his gaze, ' I had heard as much, though never in these fifty years have I taken opportunity to speak with one of the Rozzarian Viera, or travelled to Alcanna, their sacred wood.'

'Well then, no time like the present, is there?'

Fran almost smiled, Balthier held in his heart and soul nothing sacred or inviolate except perhaps his freedom to roam; to him it was a simple matter.

' It is not so simple.'

Fran shook her head sadly, her eyes rooted to the trio of Viera as they stopped to engage a Hume Gambit trader, she watched as they conversed easily with the Hume, they did so freely and without shame.

' Fran if you would talk with them you have only to ask and I'll arrange it.'

'You are so confident they would listen to you, Balthier?'

The viera had disappeared around the street corner; Fran ignored the twinge of regret at their passing.

' It may have escaped your notice Fran, but I have some experience of gaining the attention and the ear of Viera.'

Balthier commented dryly. Fran sniffed in amusement but did not meet his laughing gaze.

Her thoughts drifted to the Viera again as a warm breeze carrying the scent of fresh baking bread stroked through her hair.

The Viera exiles she came across on their travels through Kerwon and Ordalia were as withdrawn and uncommunicative as she had been all those years ago when she realised the price of freedom was ever constant loneliness.

Fran suspected, despite the contrary evidence of the Rozzarian Vieras actions, that talking with them would be as unfulfilling as talking with any exile of Viera.

' I may go to the Viera myself, in any respect, I am quite curious as to the cultural differences between these Alcanna Viera and the Golmore variety.'

Balthier remarked in a deliberately dry and academic tone of voice.

' You will do as you may.'

Fran responded calmly not rising to the bait. She had been standing too long and her leg had begun to ache.

Perhaps sensing this Balthier helped her walk to the narrow bed, the only one in this tiny lodging and she gratefully reclined on the crisp cotton bedspread.

Balthier sat down on the bare floor by the bed and picked absently at the frayed edge of the cloth sling he wore.

Fran lay on the narrow bed enjoying the tastes and scents of the Rozzarian city beyond their tiny hideout.

The warmth of dying sunlight draped across her cheek and the left side of her body in a thick swathe.

' Fran?'

Fran had closed her eyes, letting the sunlight bathe her closed lids in a golden brown shimmer.

The scent from the bakeries and the open air cooking fires of the brasserie stalls filled her senses, yet Fran still caught the shifting in Balthier's scent, suddenly vinegar sharp with something close to anxiety and worry.

' Balthier?'

' I would never have asked you to leave the Strahl had I thought, even for a moment, you'd be hurt.'

Balthier almost whispered; his tone and his words so decidedly unlike himself that Fran fought off weariness to open her eyes and turned her head to regard him.

She allowed herself to smile upon him reaching out to brush her hand in gentle benediction over the short sun-bleached hair on his head.

' I know.'

Balthier studied her intently; Fran watched the conviction solidify behind his brown eyes.

'Rest Fran, or you shall never heal and I grow more and more afraid of what Vaan is doing with the Strahl as we speak.'

He said briskly, quickly covering any lasting trace of the slip in his carefully maintained façade he had allowed moments before.

' He and Penelo will treat the Strahl well, Balthier, fear not.'

Fran shifted on the bed, eyes slipping shut and letting herself glide into sleep.

She knew with certainty, as dreams lapped at her sleep blanketed mind, that when she woke there would be Viera for her to speak with.

Balthier would bring them to her at gun point if he must.

Fran smiled, with her eyes still closed, as distantly she heard the door to their lodging close behind Balthier's quick, retreating footsteps.


	38. Chapter 38

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Running and Flying pt 2: The Art of Letting Go

Balthier was fairly sure that he had intimated as to his opinion of the Dalmascan crown city of Rabanastre more than once before in times past, but he now found himself reminded of exactly why he disliked the city so much.

While as the architecture still reminded him of over done confectionary and the pervasive scent of over-heated sand and Chocobo dung was still a miasma in the air, those were not the reasons Balthier disliked the city of Rabanastre.

The reason he disliked the city was the same reason he would ever more miss it, though he planned to never return to the city again so long as he lived.

The life he had chosen for himself was supposed to insulate him from the pain of severance that had all but destroyed the boy he once was.

In this regard, if in no other, Balthier's life of piracy had failed. Another severance loomed upon his personal horizon; one twelve months over due.

Strolling through the thickly thronged streets of the Bazaar towards the Sandsea Balthier noted the differences that had occurred in just barely a year.

The most noticeable of course was the lack of Imperials clanking through the city and sweltering under thick, armour plate.

Now the once repressed and dispossessed natives of this desert oasis ambled through their city streets with the confidence and ease of a people free of the yoke of empire, a people who knew who they were and had fought for what they loved.

Balthier, itchy with heat and a sense of disassociation, almost missed the furtive, twitchy haste that the Rabanastrans had employed in their comings and goings during the occupation.

' The city is in full bloom with new promise.'

Fran commented as she preceeded him into the Sandsea, ignoring his efforts of chivalry as he opened the tavern door for her with a bow.

' I know, vulgar isn't it?' He remarked dryly, sharply scanning the patrons of the tavern for any familiar faces.

When he and Fran were both satisfied that no one who knew them was present in the tavern Balthier preceeded to the bar and ordered their drinks, Fran found them a table in a shadowy corner on the second floor.

' Nono has said that Vaan and Penelo have treated the Strahl well, she is in good order.'

Balthier nodded distractedly, 'And their movements? Can Nono guarantee the pair will be absent when we reclaim our ship?'

' As much as any can guarantee the actions of another.' Fran murmured in assent.

'Good.'

Balthier studied his right hand as it lay on the table top. Splotches and rosettes of red, shiny burn scars; marred the flesh. Turning his hand over he looked into his palm, the skin stretched tight with scar tissue there also.

Without the aid of the Alcanna Viera, as open and responsive to Humes as the Viera of Golmore were hostile, he likely would have lost the use of that hand altogether.

Fran's long fingered hand slid into his sights, disturbing his darkening thoughts, Fran stretched her hand across the table top and opened her fist, a remarkably simple silver wedding band held in her palm.

'Do you not wish to return this in person?' She inquired coolly.

Balthier picked the ring out of the cradle of her palm and held it up to the light critically.

' Do you? You have had the duty of its care for most of the last year, Fran.'

Balthier smirked; he wondered if Ashe had ever guessed that he had placed her husband's ring in Fran's safe keeping almost as soon as he had bartered it from her?

' But I am not in love with her.' Fran pointed out with brutal honesty, Balthier winced.

' Fran please.'

Even to his own ears his words held an audible hint of desperation. It had been a year, give or take, since Bahamut.

A year where he and Fran had dodged the well intentioned scouts that both Dalmasca and Archades sent out to find proof that the notorious pirate Balthier still drew breath, and spirit him post haste to either Queen Ashelia or Emperor Larsa.

A year wherein he had to learn how to use his right hand again and watch Fran endure silent agonies as she learnt once more to walk.

All that time and Balthier had thought more than once whether it would be better for he and Fran to reveal their continued existence to those who would shower them with praise, heap upon them riches, and expect them both ever more to serve as loyal and upstanding members of their inner circle.

The ring, a cool band of unadorned silver, suddenly seemed heavy in his scarred hand.

' A sky pirate longs for nothing so much as an open sky.'

He murmured more to himself than Fran, or to a former Princess, now queen, ensconced within a sugar candy castle.

Balthier pulled the black silk bag from inside the depths of his belt pouch and popped the ring into the bag before pulling the string tie closed.

' The Cache of Glabados awaits.'

Fran was watching him intently. There was no judgement in her eyes, simply understanding. She would not question his desire to sever any remaining ties.

Fran knew as well as he did that freedom was their only mistress and that freedom demanded as its price the sacrifice of all lasting bonds of love and family.

A bird with clipped wings will never fly free. Love and family were fetters of iron to ones such as they.

Balthier pulled a scrap of paper from his pouch and a stylus and scribbled a quick note. He pushed it across the table for Fran to read.

Fran quirked an eyebrow questioningly, ' You invite them to join us in Bervenia?'

Balthier shrugged, ' I want to see what they've learnt in a year spent playing pirate.'

' I shall be pleased to see Penelo.' Fran conceded. 'Vaan also.'

' Well, then it's settled.' Balthier said with palpably false cheer.

' I am sorry for you.'

Fran said quietly as they moved confidently through the all but deserted Rabanastran aerodrome towards the docking bays later that night.

' Sorry? We are about to reclaim our property, Fran, soon we'll be flying free once more.'

Fran shook her hair back from her face and only Balthier, with his years of careful study, could intuit the irritation in that one gesture. He sighed, excepting defeat.

' Fran you are forgetting the arrangement I made with her majesty Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca.'

Fran quirked an eyebrow as they stopped briefly waiting for Nono to open the hangar door and let them in to retrieve the waiting Strahl.

' Arrangement?'

'Yes. An agreement embodied within this bartered ring.'

He raised the bag containing Ashe's ring as he snagged a floating Crystal torch, he then hung the bag and the note for Vaan and his girl to find.

Very softly, so softly he hoped even Fran would fail to hear, or at least remain silent if she did, he whispered a final goodbye as he cut his hearts fetters.

' Long live the Queen. Long live Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca.'

Before them the Strahl waited resplendent and perfect as only the ends and the means of their existence could be.

' The ring was only a deposit given over in return for aid, until such time as I found something more valuable.'

Balthier continued as they both hastened to the Strahl.

For a time after that neither spoke as he and Fran were absorbed in the engrossing process of running hands over every inch of the Strahl's hull checking for damage.

While they were so involved Nono floated down from his look out post.

'Kupo-po! Master Balthier, Mistress Fran. I am glad you are not dead, kupo.'

Balthier laughed ' The feeling is mutual Nono, old chap.'

He extended his left index finger so that the diminutive Moogle could shake it in lieu of his much too large Hume hand, after a moment Fran did the same.

Entering the Strahl's cabin Balthier thought he might have stopped breathing with the sheer joy of being home.

Sitting in his pilot's seat, once he'd readjusted it to suit his posture, he turned to Fran who had finished her own adjustments on her chair, with an unabashed grin of pure bliss on his face.

' So you are content to leave with no compensation for our trouble Balthier?'

Fran questioned as they fired up the Strahl's engines, Nono perched on the back of Balthier's chair.

The poor Moogle, an equal partner in their 'business', had been forced to take a back seat for most of their adventure with Ashe.

Then, adding insult to injury, he had played babysitter to Vaan and Penelo for the last twelve months awaiting his two partners return.

' Fran you haven't been paying attention. Like I said, the ring was only for safe keeping until I found something more valuable. I have my something more valuable, therefore my agreement with Ashe is done.'

Fran was frowning at him; she did not usually allow so much of her thoughts to show on her face.

'You hold great hopes for this Cache of Glabados.' She said eventually, thoughts churning.

' I fear you may be sorely disappointed if you look to Bervenia's ruins for your compensation.'

Balthier could feel himself grinning; it was not often he was so able to confuse the ever knowing Fran.

' I do not refer to Bervenia, the cache may be valuable but despite my little missive to Vaan, that is not my prize.'

' What thing of value do you speak of then, Balthier? We have no more now than before we stole into the palace treasury.'

' Precisely.'

Balthier said; relishing Fran's growing confusion, just as he basked silently in the very essence of his freedom. Ivalice was their playground once more.

' I do not understand your reasoning Balthier. What have you gained from this venture that you did not have before?'

Fran sounded almost, just barely, exasperated. Balthier smiled cat-like in his sheer, exquisite pleasure.

In the endless, boundless skies of Ivalice palaces and princesses fade into memory.

Regret does not exist when the only direction is upwards, onwards, forwards, towards new and distant horizons.

The Strahl streaked across the cerulean waves of sky, piercing the heart of the clouds and leaving Rabanastre behind. Balthier sighed contentedly as he felt the wings of his soul unfurl.

On solid ground Balthier might know regret for the life he had chosen, for the life that Ashe had been born too, and the fact that he would never have the pleasure and the irritation of her high-maintenance company again, because of it.

He might regret that any bonds of comradeship made during their quest would fade with the miles of sky between him and those who dwell on Ivalice's surface, but only while he, too, walked the ground as they did.

High amongst the clouds, soaring free as a bird, reaching heights no queen or pre-pubescent emperor could aspire too; Balthier had no room for regret. He liked it better thus.

' You do not answer, Balthier, your mind dances with the clouds.' Fran chided him.

' Hmm, apologies Fran, what was the question?'

Fran gave him a level look, ' I asked you what prize you seek, as you well know.'

'I seek no prize Fran, I have my prize already.'

'Which is?'

Balthier turned to face her and found himself hoping, despite his usual wish to the contrary, that she would read the truth in his eyes as he spoke.

' Isn't it obvious?'

He looked into her large, foreign eyes, so unlike a Hume's eyes, yet he fancied he could read her better than he could any mere Hume.

The lack of understanding pained him even as he expected to see its shadow behind her eyes.

Fran shook her head, ' No it is not.' She informed him bluntly.

'Why, you, my dear Fran.' He told her in a voice devoid of his habitual self-deprecation.

'You have ever and always been the prize.'

He watched Fran blink once, slowly, that one gesture a radical admission of her deep rooted surprise.

That his greatest and most coveted treasure did not even recognise her worth was a source of some amusement to Balthier, and not a little pain.

' What could be of greater value to a sky pirate than his ship and his partner and the wide open sky?'

He asked his only friend, his soul-mate and his confidante, before turning back to the bright and bountiful sky before Fran could react to his sudden display of honest sentiment.

Watching Bervenia's devastated ruins roll out across the grassy veldt beneath them Balthier shifted uncomfortably in the suddenly unsettled silence, the weight of Fran's eyes on him.

'You mean this Balthier?'

Fran sounded uncomprehending, he almost wanted to laugh, except that it really wasn't funny.

'Of course; really Fran, you should know me by now.'

Balthier started landing procedures as the Strahl tilted towards the ruins of Bervenia, the physical representation of the reconvening of their interrupted life of purposeless personal indulgence and crimes both petty and not so petty.

' Fran?' He could not quite look at her, 'how do we fare?'

He did not just refer to their imminent landing, and he knew that she would hear the words he did not speak.

' Well. We fare well, Balthier.'

And in her voice he heard her smile and knew absolutely that for all he had given up, he had found, or rather retained, something infinitely more valuable.

_Author note: Not an ending as such, as endings don't exist for these two; merely a new beginning and a new horizon._

_I would like to thank everyone who read and reviewed this story for your interest and your kind words and I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it. _

_Spikey44_


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