two birds in slumber
by marapozsa.
Dialogue and moments. Balthier and Fran. Enjoy.
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1doors
Close to her heart, Fran keeps a small sachet of leaves tucked in her armor, pressed against her flesh where they whisper to her soul's closed ears.
2palace
Viera do not remember their lives in the fleeting way of humes; it is their tradition to store away memories, to build a house of thoughts where they can walk the corridors often and see wonders whenever they like.
3lace
Quietly folded away in the oak chest at the foot of her bed is the lace handkerchief Balthier offered her when they met - she keeps it with the pouch of leaves in her armor lining, and when she can, from it she takes in the lingering scent of his cologne.
4bridge
Once she dreamt she walked into the lake, where viera go to die, and she stepped on bones adorned with amber rings and lace, and looked up into the sky at Balthier's soul.
5barren
"My childhood was fleeting," she says, "Like you, I was innocent for only mere moments."
6snake
"The scent of discord is heavy," and Balthier chuckles and says, "That's Archades for you, Fran - a nest of snakes, and not all of them bidden to a charmer's airy tune."
7sugar
Marlboro fruit is rancid in odor, but cool and sweet; he slips a piece of it from his mouth to hers, and when their lips touch it melts on her tongue.
8pearl
Once Balthier and Rikken let their tongues wag with the sweet fumes of Bhujerban brew: "Ah, my good man, it's a right sad thing - hic - to be a leading man if your lady outshines every gift you might think to - hic - give her."
9seduction
He doesn't expect his normal methods to work with a viera, even one so strange as Fran, but he can certainly settle for the honor of sitting by her, steering any course she might navigate.
10garden
When he was young and his mother lived still, Ffamran lived in a house with a garden for a balcony, slept at night lulled by the scent of peppermint leaves - and now that he is grown and fallen inexplicably in love, he sleeps at night next to a woman whose smell is, he thinks, quite the same.
11bird
He dies quietly at the coming of dawn, and Fran takes his ring and puts it on her own finger - the thin golden one, which he wore on his fourth digit, engraved with the emblem of his house: two birds, one white and one brown, one in slumber, the other in pain.
12petals
Frost blossoms on the Strahl's port side as they reach the Rift, so lovely and cold that Balthier reaches out and touches it and bleeds, and Fran comes to his side to ease away the pain.
13accent
"No viera knows how to school a hume in the whispering of the Word, my love - it is not a tongue spoken with the throat alone."
14blisters
"You lack gentleness," she chastises when he comes to her with bleeding fingers, "More than strength is necesary in the use of a bow."
15keyhole
"You are bold," Fran addresses him concerning the gift, and he replies abashedly, "God's blood, Fran - it's not a key to my room, it's a key to my heart," whereupon she is inclined to ask teasingly, "Must I undress you to find the keyhole?"
16cave
Beneath the Salikawood there lies a network of caverns - made of crystal, some type of alien quartz that holds Mist and is lit by Viera souls - and Fran shows its well-hidden entrance to Balthier one day, when her eyes are as night and her voice as a dammed stream: "The dying come here to heal the disease in Her womb and be reborn. But it is not for you or I. We will never come this way."
17leather
In the days of her youth she wore leather, but it was taken from her when she cast herself from the Wood; steel bites and chills yet she bears it, knowing once Balthier too donned wintry metal, and she has given her warmth to keep him safe.
18call
He has an unsteady gait, and when Fran stands to support his weak limbs, he falls into the crook of her elbow, tears spattering dirt scattered by his sobs.
19funeral
The day comes when Ashe lies on a grey pallet, dressed in all white with her fair hair loose about her shoulders and her eyes shut; Balthier looks down at the open casket with a look of regret: "I think I could have loved her, Fran," he says, and she replies, agreeing, "Were it not for her crown."
20empty
"Drink," she commands him, and he feels the last of their healing herbs wallowing in the last of their water, all of it sliding grimly into his throat.
21tomorrow
"There is scant time," she groans, clasping her hands to the warbolt in her side; he is in denial, stubbornly trying to staunch the fatal wound and wipe tears from his eyes at the same time: "Enough time for you to live forever, Fran."
22river
"This river once had a goddess, you know - they called her Anca, just like the river," he says conversationally; she responds coldly, "Humes killed her."
23prophet
"He is an usurper of humes' dreams, my sister," says Jote to Fran, "Soon the time will come for him to do great things."
24song
Balthier learns of mourning from the viera: Fran is dead and he is silent, but in their beech bowers and ashwood cradles, they shriek and the Green Word keens, mourning for one lost with air expelled from shriveled lungs.
25justice
"Once I was a man of the law," he confesses; she breathes, "Now you are its prey," which he agrees with: nothing is better understood by the viera than the hunt.
26abalone
"It is of a pearl shell and lives on cold wet stone," she explains; Balthier nods, thoughtful, as Fran says quietly, "Viera in love wear rings made from it," and hides her hands in the curve of her lap.
27release
"Soon we will be free," she assures him; she dares not let her eyes stray to the scaffold they are erecting, nor to the prison fever coloring Balthier's cheeks: "I never thought it would end like this, Fran."
28hawk
"They are true masters of the air," she speaks and Balthier laughs: "Then we'll be intruders and challenge them in their own palaces, won't we? You and I and our lovely Strahl."
29disgrace
"I have no mother," she says; a young Ffamran blushes, mumbles, "Me either."
30stain
Red pools beneath her as Fran stands, saying, "I must fight," while Balthier leaps up to be a crutch for the viera whose wounds are nothing compared to the pride and rigidity of her bearing.
31isolate
"Viera do not gossip," she says icily; Balthier retorts, "These are humes, not like viera at all, and I daresay I know that better than you."
32ashes
There is no funeral coffin for a dead viera; she and Balthier both burn, charred to the very depths of their souls by Bahamut's shrill keening - but in death they remain as they were, still clasping each other's forearms and swearing to never let go.
33hourglass
"Viera rise with the dawn and rest with the dusk," Fran says, reluctant to wake so early for treasure; Balthier grins: "Unless they keep counsel with sky-pirates."
34ribcage
It is an old song of nothings he sings, caressing Fran's long limbs and thick mane, bathing her pale face with rosemary water, hoarse words to a song he'd almost forgotten: "Lady-sweet, ply your craft on my bones; together our blood will burn our fathers' homes..."
35siren
His blood sings to her; she is as close to a royal as there are among the viera, but her nobility only shows in the color of her mane and the dark richness of her flesh; Balthier, the hume-boy, is noble down to the last drop of red in his veins - a king not of humes, but of ships and skies.
36knight
"Murderers clothed in glory," she says, rolling the words off her tongue like acid-coated marbles; he shrugs, "When I was a boy I wanted to be one."
37reflection
Fran declines to have a mirror in her quarters; Balthier decides it is highly ironic that he, who is so exceptionally aware of his own appearance, should be accompanied by a woman who lacks all interest in beauty - yet still she is the only woman who outshines him.
38candles
"It is a waste," she addresses the candlelit dinner rather than the man, but does not resist when he pulls her chair out for her, or gives her sips of wine from his own cup.
39damp
She despises the Giza plains during the rains; Balthier sees her bear the discomfort of having wet ears, muddy claws, and dulled senses, and when they next stop, Balthier kneels, lovingly soothing her pain with white magic and bandages torn from the hem of his shirt for her swollen ankles.
40waves
"Do viera ever swim?" he asks; she replies, "Time is an ocean."
41winter
The Paramina Rift is cold and crackles under their chilled feet; resilient viera Fran does not feel it, but when they make camp and no one is looking, she grasps each of frail hume Balthier's frozen limbs and rubs the feeling back into them, before pulling him into her arms, so he might lay his head in the crook of her elbow as he rests.
42widow
"Viera do not have husbands," she says wryly; Balthier replies in the same tone, "Being a leading lady is much better than being a wife."
43phantom
She sees him in Vaan, a little, but there is much the Rabanastre orphan will never be able to do so well as her own partner; for Balthier, Penelo is much the same way.
44freedom
"What do you seek, hume boy?" she asks him sadly, "I am not a goddess. I cannot make you free."
45suffocation
Men in white and teal marched down the streets of Damalsca's capital city; Balthier and Fran watch Ashe's coronation, masked among the queen's many courtiers, and the gleam of her crown draws their eyes even as the sweat and sheer closeness of the church threatens to overwhelm them.
46mercy
"They're animals," Balthier quakes with anger at the thought of Archadian soldiers; Fran shakes her head slowly, replying, "Animals kill only for survival."
47oracle
"She tells us who we are. From Her we learn what we are born to do," Fran says; Balthier replies, "Did you carry your destiny with you when you left Eruyt? Was I a part of it?"
48war
"Be brave, my love."
49tradition
"Tradition for the sake of tradition is foolish," she snaps and Balthier, remembering how closely the helm of a Judge Magister pinched his temples, grimly agrees.
50icicles
"It shatters; look how easily it pierces hearts," Fran says sadly, as her spells bring down spears of winter to pierce her enemy's bared throat, but Balthier does not think she means ice.