"This was only for convenience's sake, Balthier, you know this."
The way that her multi-toned voice seemed softer than ever before gave him the strand of hope that he had been trying to hang on to ever since he foresaw what was coming.
"And so leaving me is convenient for you?"
He wasn't a nagger, he wasn't one to beg and plead for a female to stay with him, he just wasn't that kind of guy. Maybe it was those blasted Archadian roots, instilled around his heart so long ago, with their stubborn refusal to shrivel away into nothingness.
She didn't respond.
He knew her well enough to have seen this coming. After all—this long partnership had taught him a lot of lessons best not soon forgotten.
0---0
It had been a pain to clean his blood from the silk shirt that he adorned, but he admitted (though only in his mind as not to give Fran even more power over him) that her slug to his nasal cavity had been well deserved. He had been the rudest of presumably the whole Hume species with his awkward questions and cocky sneer that seemed to enchant her clawed fist on a path for his nose.
And he tried to grab onto whatever shred of dignity hadn't escaped from him yet, though he was at a loss to find any, his mind, so well seasoned in the ways of the academy, and yet so green to the ways of the rest of Ivalice, calculated a plan. That was the way that had been forced into him—the meticulous plotting of the Judge. And though he cursed such a habit in his normal existence, it had saved their lives more than it had been a hindrance to him, though he'd never said so. But at the moment it began to draw the only question (the only polite one, that is) that came to his mind.
"They say you're looking for an airship."
After all, all good questions came out rather as statements, to save the dreaded horror of sounding uneducated and crude.
He was met with cold rubies that, if he had known to look for it then, held a tiny bit of interest.
"They say I'm looking for a co-pilot."
He had always been a big, smooth hit with the ladies.
"It would serve you well not to insult those you wish to employ," she replied.
Ouch. There went that dignity. After all, a good man never insulted a lady.
"Then perhaps you could teach me how to treat them."
Snappy comebacks had been his thing—much to the dismay of his father.
"Perhaps."
She seemed to be looking him up and down in an eerie way that caused her eyes to stay still and her ears to twitch to the sound of the wind. Not that the bar was very windy…noisy, yes, but windy…
"My name is Balthier, and I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Ma'am."
The careful bow and kiss to the hand had always been his last resort when his coveted of the hour didn't fall for his flirtatious devices.
He was quick to straighten after the bow, realizing that he probably didn't want to come in contact with that hand again. After all, his shirt still beheld a bloody mess.
She didn't even sway.
Balthier felt trumped.
"I would rather enjoy your company on my journey, if you'd please."
After all, he would have never approached her if not to employ her into his moneymaking scheme. A mechanical Viera was a laughable tale, and he needed a good laugh these days.
He didn't yet realize that he'd get more than that laugh. That was his first lesson—never underestimate her.
"Fran is what I am called. Where is your destination?"
"Wherever you want it to be."
0---0
He'd never been a friend of The Wood, that was for certain. The way of it simply did nothing for Balthier in the least bit. He much preferred the desert, or the sea, or simply some old temple in which to flirt with danger. But The Wood was a bit much for him.
Yet she loved it in the way one loves something that they'd never own up to. He could see the slightest change in the way she even breathed when surrounded by trees and fresh air. It was as much a part of her as the old wine and clanking of gill was a part of him.
And she hated it just as much.
It suffocated her until she wanted to go into a rage and destroy all of the trees, all of the flowers, and all of the things that called to her, that told her that she was betraying her people, betraying herself, betraying The Wood. It called to her and it soothed her pain, and increased it ten-fold at exactly the same time and Fran couldn't figure out which call was stronger.
Until she saw him when they entered Archades—and then she knew exactly what to do. He was back with those old people that he'd run to escape, run to smite. She saw the way that he stiffened and slouched at the same time, as if he was doing his duty to stand up straight, but at the same time trying to employ bad posture to scandal his good name because they thought it but a game to him.
Of course, that old accent had never left him, neither had his luster for things expensive, and so there was always a little bit of that left back inside of him, not matter how much he tried to push it away. After all, he'd been traipsing through all of Ivalice and more, and part of it, after all these years, was still because he wanted to prove them all wrong. He wanted attention, to be the talk of the town.
He was an attention-seeking hog, and no one knew it better.
That's probably why the moment they stepped foot in the woods, he began to go into a long worded story about how he and she were the same, trapped in lives that would always get the better of them. She wondered how they could be the same when he took hours telling her a story that would have taken her a few words.
Never had a women told him to stop talking—especially using her eyes.
Never had he seen a Viera in such a state.
In that moment he learned that she had more powerful ways of speaking without words that made his insides crawl.
He walked the rest of the time through the woods not talking, but marveling at how much his pride hurt when he was with Fran and how much he loved her for it.
0---0
He once explained to her that he polished their loot not because it would fetch a higher price at market, but because its luster simply fascinated him.
It would be like Fran to make a comment about how he only liked seeing his reflection.
Instead, she simply replied with, "This war wouldn't be raging had not you Humes such a fascination with things that glitter."
And that was also like Fran, such a statement of the obvious. She rose from her spot beside him, towering over him in her heels. Hair swished at her buttocks as she walked away, barely pausing to say,
"And it would help if you weren't so enthralled by yourselves."
Balthier looked up and said, "Well maybe you should be."
She froze in her tracks. "Why?"
"Why not?"
He learned never to call a Viera beautiful. It only reminds them of who they are, who they stand to be, and all of their dreams that will never see the light of day once they step foot outside of the forest that so safeguards them from true happiness.
But Fran had already made her choice, decided to leave the comfort of reality.
All she was reminded of was that small girl, so many years ago, who floated a pebble down the river with a small scroll attached reading, 'I want to be beautiful like the Humes, who dare to do everything that they dream of'.
0---0
He didn't even bother not looking as she walked away.
It was as simple as that, and he was so shocked by it.
Though she was right, it had only been a partnership of convenience. He was looking for a way out of society, and she was looking for a way in. How it had ever worked was beyond him, but she had a special knack for the impossible.
And it made him wish even more that she was there, because now it was impossible to get her out of his head. No matter how much loot he looted, how many women he courted, how many times he had to remind Vaan that the Strahl wasn't his personal plaything (because of course now he'd needed a new co-pilot), he couldn't lose that stare of garnets high above him.
It especially happened as he lay in the bed another girl, this one a bit more special than most, but still not as special as the one that drove him to do this.
And so he learned his final and most important lesson of all from Fran.
You can never truly forget what stands to be forgotten.
0FIN0
My first entry to the FFXII section and I had to make it a Balfran. I'm in love with these two!
I hope that you enjoyed and that I truly managed to capture the essence of the characters as I hoped—OOC-ness bugs me and I'm always a bit paranoid about it.
Reviews are love, my dears, and even more so is constructive criticism.
Did anyone catch the Balthier/Ashe reference? Miniscule, but still there.
If I owned this then there would have been more on the Viera, and the ending (and credits) wouldn't have been so darn seductive and impossible to not scream about. Honestly. Leaving things up to the imagination should be banned from video games. They should have just come out and said, "Balthier and Fran are sleeping together, Vaan needs to wash his face, Ashe has a nose fetish, and Basch is living the life of a Mary-Sue trapped in a male's body."
I still love the game.