Author's Note: I've been waiting a while to start writing this. If only Revenant Wings was for the PS2 and not the DS...Anywhoo, I dedicate this first chapter to my awesome reviewers: The Giant Daifuku, Joshua Chung and HopelessRomanticist! :D

By the way, any narration lines you see will be Serah's inner monologue to Lightning. Just thought I'd clear that up with you.

R e v e n a n t

Chapter One

A Lesson In Pirating

The sun nearly blinded Lightning when she stepped out of the Strahl, the wind blowing around the floating island and brushing across her face. Her upper lip twitched when she realized she couldn't feel the cold gusts against her skin, and she turned around in time to see a red pom-pom sticking out from the door way. Nono peered around the corner, bounding down the steps with a worried glint in his beady eyes.

"Miss Lightning!" he called, waving his arms. "Master Balthier wouldn't want you walking out on your own! I don't want you to get hurt, either, kupo! This world is dangerous!"

She smiled, patting the moogle's head. "I'll be fine, Nono," she answered. "Tell Balthier that he needs to hurry up. I'm getting tired of waiting for this treasure he's been promising me."

Nono happily nodded, hopping up the stairs in time to almost run right into Fran. The viera raised an eyebrow at him, but he scurried past before she could say a word to him. Lightning rested her palm against her forehead when she heard Nono calling out for Balthier, running around the air ship in search or his apparently lost master.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to this world," she murmured, just as Fran walked down the stairs and stood beside her. "At least not until Balthier figures out that he needs to take less time in the morning getting ready for the day."

Fran nodded. "A morning ritual, he calls this."

Muttering under his breath as he walked toward the other two women, Balthier rubbed the back of his neck and narrowed his eyes at Nono, who was following him with a confident grin on his face. The moogle huddled up against Lightning's legs, his tiny paws warm against her skin. She blankly stared at him, but she chose not to ask what was wrong. She'd find out eventually, nonetheless. Balthier didn't like to keep too many secrets from her.

"Light, I don't appreciate having wrenches and the like thrown at me by an angered moogle," the sky pirate stated, adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves. "Your impatience will get the best of you one of these days."

"So will your vanity," she replied, smirking.

He turned his attention elsewhere, looking toward the long road ahead of them. "Watch over the Strahl for me, will you, Nono? We'll be back once we discover the treasure."

Nono peered out from behind Lightning's legs. "Be careful, kupo!" he chimed. "If Miss Lightning gets hurt, I'll never forgive you!"

Balthier scoffed. "And here I thought you were working for me this entire time..." He and Fran then began to walk away from the air ship, and Nono folded his arms and sighed. Lightning patted the moogle's head once before following the two sky pirates down the road, looking toward the clouds as she walked on.

Things have changed, haven't they, Claire?

Ivalice had been just as she imagined; an endless sky awaiting to be explored, seas calling out her name...If only she could hear them. She didn't mind that she could no longer feel pain, but all the feelings of warmth were no longer there. Often she would end up pricking her finger on her gun blade and wouldn't notice until Balthier saw the blood on her hands. It worried them both, but there was nothing they could do. She was undead, and he was hume.

Her return had surprised him, though Fran seemed to have known beforehand. She later revealed that it was her who left behind the auracite on Gran Pulse, knowing that neither Balthier nor Lightning could stand being apart. The only detail that remained a secret was that Lightning, after touching the auracite, had recovered her memories of the time spent with Balthier and the other l'Cie.

Just as she suspected, time had begun again in Ivalice, starting from the time after the Bahamut's destruction; the time when Balthier and Fran presumably died. A year had passed since that day, and now the two were after a new treasure; something that they remained silent about. The Cache of Glabados had been returned to its rightful place in Bervenia, but instead of using the auracite to travel to another world, Balthier had given a piece to Vaan and Penelo, and kept the other for himself. He wore a part of it around his neck, and the rest was hidden in one of the pouches on his belt.

After their surprise reunion, Balthier revealed that he and Fran were to travel to the hidden world in the skies: Lemurés. Lightning quietly demanded that she go along, not wanting to be separated from him after so long a time. He mentioned that Snow would be more than happy to have her stay at the palace with he and Ashe, but she clearly wanted to stay away from the blond man for a while; she wasn't ready to face him just yet.

The Purvama of Lemurés reminded her of Gran Pulse; untamed wildlife, caverns and temples everywhere...The only different thing was that there were pieces of floating land across the sky, all differing in climate. The one the Strahl landed in was called Tornelados, Isle of the Megalith. They were to find the Fane of Telp Qul, where the so-called treasure was hidden.

"Be careful not to look too far over the edge," Balthier reminded her when they reached a temple. Lightning was leaning over the rocks to see if Ivalice was visible past the clouds below. "You're like to fall and lose your memory again. A man once fell from Bhujerba and survived, though he couldn't even remember his name..."

She let out a weak laugh and turned around to face him. "I'll survive the fall, anyway," she answered. "Might break a few bones here and there, but that's no problem for me."

"That's what I'm afraid of..."

The wind continued to blow around them, and Fran tilted her nose up when the breeze faded. Balthier walked up to her noticing her sudden tension, but she only shook her head.

"The aegyl know we are here," she murmured. "They lie in wait, fearing our cause."

"You're only sky pirates. What's there to fear?" Lightning asked, stepping down the rocks and looking around the cliffs. "We're just here for the treasure, aren't we? Unless there is something you're not telling me..."

"We best make haste for the Fane. I'd rather not have winged fiends at my heels for the time being," Balthier said with a shrug. "Once we're within its walls, perhaps then they won't be afraid of us."

"Perhaps it is the residual Mist upon you that they fear," the viera answered. "Ragnarok may be gone, yet its touch still lingers upon your mind. They fear the power."

Lightning avoided Balthier's gaze at this point, pretending that the clouds below had distracted her again. She preferred to ignore any mentions of the once-god, yet every time she thought of it she found herself missing its presence. It had been there since she had known Balthier, and even though she didn't know it then, part of the reason why she had felt so close to him was because of Ragnarok.

"Then let's do them a favor and leave before anything bad happens," she finally said, pushing past Balthier and walking down the path toward the temple embedded in the cliffs. "We'll get the treasure, leave and do whatever you pirates do after your hunts, all right?"

He laughed quietly, shaking his head. "My dear, you have a lot to learn about sky pirating."

She stopped in mid-step, raising an eyebrow and resisting the urge to see the look on his face. "I do, huh? Care to enlighten me, sky pirate extraordinaire Balthier?"

"Oh, you'll learn soon enough." He walked past her, and Fran shot her an uneasy glance when the three of them entered the Fane of Tehp Qul.

There was something amiss about the place, but she couldn't quite place her finger on it. The walls were covered with moss, and it looked as if no one had been there for many years. Fran had mentioned that there was a race of humanoids living on Lemurés, but they had remained a mystery to even the viera. Aegyl, they were called, or some such. Human like beings with wings? She had never heard of such things, even in an insane world like Cocoon.

Balthier ended up lighting a torch, or rather, Fran had to cast a fire magick spell in order for them to see where they were going. For reasons unexplained, Balthier had vowed to never use magick in his life again the moment he returned to Ivalice. Lightning was tempted to ask him why, but there was an unspoken tension whenever Fran used magick during either battle or for times like now.

"You would think that the aegyl would have made it easier to navigate these areas," he mumbled under his breath. "They must have taken the advice of the Occuria, to build such a maddening temple in their gods' names."

"Pulse is no different," Lightning told him, walking at his side. "I seem to remember the temples there being almost just as complex. Statues of the fal'Cie, the occasional Cie'th Stone..."

"And the terrifying beast lying in wait for the six l'Cie and their hume pet?"

"That, too."

Fran suddenly grabbed them both by the shoulders, stopping them from walking into an open chamber at the end of the hall. Balthier gave her a puzzled look, but her eyes remained forward and unmoving. There was a low whirring sound up ahead, and with it the quiet clanking of metal. Lightning slid out of the viera's grasp, taking slow steps into the chamber with her hand placed upon the hilt of her gunblade.

There were crystals along the cavern's walls, all varying in color and size, and she could feel the Mist pouring out from them. "Magicite?" she whispered, touching one of the crystals within arm's reach. It felt warm in her hands. "No, it has to be auracite..."

"The stones of the Eternal."

Immediately she unsheathed her blade and swung around, blocking the swords carried by the masked woman in armor; judge's armor. There were two large, metal wings on the back of her armor; silver. She could hear the rushed footsteps of both Balthier and Fran, but she didn't dare turn her eyes away.

"Who are you?" she demanded. Her eyes flickered toward the larger crystal encased in a mechanical device. "What are you planning to do with the auracite?"

"The Judge of Wings, I am called. And you...You are Eternal, are you not?"

Lightning flinched, and Balthier quickly grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the Judge. He aimed the fomalhaut at the woman, a small smirk forming on his lips. However, the Judge turned toward Fran, standing near the encased crystal, and sent a burst of Mist toward the viera. Before either of them could reach her, Fran fell against the wall of the cavern and slid down to the ground, eyes closed in slumber.

"You have obtained eternity, daughter of Etro. Yet it is the decision of one that has changed you. You seek eternity for another."

After glancing toward the mechanical device beside them, Balthier pushed Lightning behind him and took a step toward the Judge of Wings. "Roses have thorns," he stated, "this much I've come to expect. But you, my dear, poison yours. You've no sense of fair play." He reached into one of the pouches on his belt and pulled out the violet stone; one part of the Cache of Glabados. "So long as you are a slave to a Stone, you'll never change."

Without warning, he threw the stone into the air and fired at once at it, shattering it with the bullet. Lightning felt the pieces land around them, but she didn't dare move from where she stood.

Balthier was still smirking. "Only fools let themselves be trapped by broken dreams," he said. "Your 'eternity' is an illusion."

The Judge of Wings began walking toward them. "Illusion is the only true reality," she answered. "Our desire for the Eternal is the desire to become undying. Ask, and I can make eternity a reality for you. Is that not what She wants?"

"All this talk of dreams and desire...I'm like to take you for a lover, not a foe." He rested the fomalhaut on his shoulder, tilting his head to the side. "And now I'm going to bury your dreams with your stone. It's time you opened your eyes to reality."

He easily dodged the sword slashed directly at him, and Lightning moved to block the next attack from the Judge, but Balthier purposely stood in front of her.

"Tire of foreplay so soon?" he asked, when the Judge took a step back from he and Lightning. "I suppose I'm going to have to tame our winged shrew, now, won't I?"

"Not this day."

With a wave of her hand, and a stone she held, the Judge summoned a bright light that erupted between Balthier and Lightning. An esper, Shiva, appeared behind the sky pirate and sent a flash of ice and Mist toward him. She disappeared the moment he dropped his gun and fell forward, but Lightning quickly rushed forward and caught him in her arms. Scowling, she glared up at the Judge of Wings.

Claire, be careful!

"What do you want?" Lightning asked. "How do you know so much about-"

The Judge lowered her sword, and looked back at the female soldier. "You are undying, touched by the goddess of your realm. Yet you walk with those once damned? Why?"

"Who are you to say that? This fate I've obtained is not one I would have chosen." She pulled Balthier's limp form closer to her chest, cradling him in her arms. "So, what? Eternity isn't forever."

"But it is. You have been blessed with eternity, to live with gods, but he...He will not live forever. He will die, in time."

In a flash of light, the Judge disappeared, and Lightning was left to find comfort in her tears that could not fall.

Why did this take me all day to write? I got distracted. By playing the actual game of Revenant Wings. :D

Note about the title of this story: Yes, it's partially from 'Revenant Wings', but I looked up the meaning of revenant and found this definition: 'a person who returns after a lengthy absence'. Fits with this story, yes?