SPOILERS through Phon coast, when Balthier reveals his former occupation, and the mention of BUNNY SEX.
She looks at him and sees nothing but spoiled Archadian gentry, thinking to escape the petty problems of a life of ease and plenty. What was it? she asks. A hopeless duel? An unfaithful mistress? His mask of carefree self-absorption slips for a moment, but he rights it in time to quip: I was a Judge for three weeks, and found piracy a more honest way to make a living. It was not until years later when they landed in Archades (filthy, bloodstained, treacherous Archades) that she learned he was not being facetious.
-ooo-
She expects never to see the sharp-tongued boy or his stolen ship again after she disembarks in Rabanastre. The sorry state of her finances and the appearance of a heavily pierced Bangaa with a bounty writ for his head dictate otherwise.
-ooo-
They find their combined knowledge of the beasts of Ivalice is prodigious: hers of the sort that walk on four legs and wish to tear your guts out, and his of the sort that walk on two and wish to put a dagger in them. He can tell good lies, she can sniff out good lies. He has a surer touch on the control rig, she with an arc welder. She proposes a temporary partnership. At first he badly misinterprets her intent, but after peeling himself off the deck and wiping most of the blood from his nose, agrees.
-ooo-
She finds teenage male Humes to be among the most irritating creatures on the planet, but realizes with mild surprise she has been in the frequent company of this one for almost three months and has not felt the need to threaten him with castration for the last two of them.
-ooo-
The heavyhanded attempts at winning her affection have more or less ceased. They have been replaced by attempts to win her respect with razor-edge flying and flawless marksmanship, at which he is far more successful.
-ooo-
Her incantations are frozen in her throat and her limbs will not obey her. She steels herself for a lash to the jugular, which never comes. And what kind of leading man would I be if I were lax in my duty to rescue the damsel? he says, and winks at her over the inert body of the couerl. It speaks to the depth of the respect he has gained that she doesn't punch him in the face again for that comment.
-ooo-
He grins stupidly at her over his sixth glass of madhu, and announces triumphantly: and the seeq, the seeq says 'I didn't know you were married. Where I come from, we only do that with chickens! She smiles a true smile for the first time in three years, and pours them both another.
-ooo-
It is high summer in Dalmasca, a year to the day since she first laid eyes on the Archadian lordling on the run from life. She does not mark the day, but he does.
-ooo-
She finds a tiny bottle of Golmoran black orchid essence laid on her pillow. Against her better judgment, she pulls out the stopper and closes her eyes to find herself home. Through the stinging beneath her lids, she cannot decide whether kissing him or throwing him out the docking hatch is a more fitting recompense for the gift.
-ooo-
She chooses the former.
-ooo-
They make love for the first time in the shady grass beneath the Strahl's outstretched wings. He is so very young—young enough to be her grandson, if she aged like his race does, and with the way of youth thinks himself skilled. She swiftly corrects this assumption, and is delighted to find he is as quick a study in this as in most everything else to which he has set his mind.
-ooo-
Awakening to his scent in her nose has long ago ceased to surprise her. She rises first, as always, and he pulls the blankets back up around his ears and grumbles at the dawn, as always. Most of her secrets she still keeps (four years is only a drop in the river of her long memory), but of all the men and women she has allowed into her bed, this one...this one feels different somehow, though she could not tell you why.