In an alternate road our characters did not travel, Balthier's attempt to reconcile Basch & Gabranth told through the lens of a threesome. This takes place sometime after Dr. Cid's death.

Roads They Did Not Travel: To Burn Everything Away

Noah's thighs burn as his head begins to clear. He finds no solace keeping his eyes closed while he thrusts. Beads of sweat run down his chest and catch in curls of hair near his crotch. He doesn't know why he is doing this, although Dr. Cid's son managed to get him horribly drunk.

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'At least one family should kiss and make up. After all, this business of disagreements lingering to the moment of tragic death is wearying. What reconciliation do we find in man's final words? This is a distastefully Archadian custom and neither of you are sons of that nation.'

'Our mother was Archadian.'

'And your father was from Landis and that was where the both of you were raised. So, enough of this, and let me pour you each another drink.'

'I will not share a drink with a traitor.'

'How about with a liar and a thief? What is done is done, and another bottle of Bhujerban will surely ease your hostilities.'

'Fuck you and fuck him.'

'Is that what you wish?'

Noah remembers calling Cid's son a pampered pillow-biter playing at piracy, or something to that effect. All the while, Basch sat quietly on his barstool, toying with a half-empty glass. Anger drove Noah to down another drink. Inebriation gave him permission him to put a pipe of something foreign—probably Jaharan—to his lips. Sheer loss of all sense of reason, much less balance, left him staggering down a hallway. His shoulders battered into walls that moved with each of his steps, mocking the fact that he still walked this earth.

It seemed more than an hour to find the end of that hall. Even the floor threatened to swallow him but, at the end, Ffamran led him to room number three. That room was damnably, stiflingly hot—so blasted hot that Noah had to strip off his clothes before his lungs seized and the pores of his skin burst with flame. He sprawled naked on the bed as sweat pooled beneath him, soaking through the sheets, and only wanted to fall asleep. Once the room stopped spinning long enough for him to raise his head, Ffamran straddled him and reached for his cock. Noah closed heavy eyes and thought of someone else, only to end up hating how his passivity defiled the woman's image.

The instant he threw Ffamran to the bed, his chest shook with a rush of angry pleasure. They wrestled; Ffamran fought back, both were slick with oiled sweat. Noah cannot remember anyone else in the room at that time or how they all came to be as they are now.

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He narrows his focus to only the point where he enters Ffamran's arched backside. From friction, to fire, to burning everything away.

Ffamran is sucking on his Basch's cock and Noah avoids looking at his brother's face: jaw slack, eyes closed, moaning those same familiar sounds they made at night in their hormonal teens while jerking off before falling asleep.