So... not the best opening I've come up with, but... I just need lift off! I have a few other ideas I want to get down before outputting chapters for the other stories, but they will be finished, I know what I'm going to do and "Silver Glass" is almost done.
A/N Edit, 2/19/2011: So I forgot to mention that this is the sixth story in the World Traveler series, starting with the Pirates of the Caribbean crossover "When Pirate and Pirate Meet" way back when during the summer of 2010. I will definately say that my writing has evolved since then, because while I love this series to pieces, I will not deny that I sometimes grimace while rereading them.
This story is dedicated to Tango-chan (ElTangoDeRoxanne) and emeraldonyxdragon... because they are so nice and review for me, and put up with my wild ideas.
Balthier sat by the window of the Strahl, the window open and the cool Phon Coast wind blowing on his face. It was midnight, and Fran was asleep in her bunk, curled under a quilt, her nose twitching in her sleep. On the small table, a slightly wilted rose rested in a chipped mug of water, perfuming the salty sea air with its scent. This was the rose Lightning left at his grave during the little "incident" involving his "death" by hanging; he'd begged Fran to cast the most powerful Slow spell she could upon it to slow its passing. So far, a year later, the lush petals were only a little wrinkled about their edges. In the moonlight, the rose, red as phoenix feathers, looked almost blue.
"Dark blue; the color of death." Penelo whispered from behind him, her pale grey lips almost touching his ear. Her skin was the color of snow, her eyes black as the darkest reaches of the sea. Balthier reached forward to touch the rose with a finger; when his skin encountered the moonlight, he choked in terror.
Bones. Hard, grey bones with patches of filmy, rotted skin stretched over them here and there, caressed the soft petals. Balthier quickly retracted his hand from the moonlight, staring as it was covered in tawny flesh again.
"No…" he breathed, thrusting both hands into the light again. He bit his lip, hard, feeling his own cold blood rush into his mouth. His senses were clogged by the stench of copper and the salty, bitter taste, but the pain of the bleeding cut was real. He was not dreaming. It was back.
The curse was back.
"Fran," he only had to speak her name and she was awake, sitting up in the bunk and looking at him with an appalled expression.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," she murmured as he stood silhouetted by the light pouring in from the window. "This… why? Calypso's spell should have stopped this from happening!"
Balthier looked out the window, pulling his shirt off as he did so to examine the medallion suspended in a knot of decaying flesh. Its luster was gone, the sharp edges no longer defined. "The spell is gone." A dead crab washed up on the shore, and Balthier's sharp eyes did not fail to see it. "Calypso is dead, and it must be that no one believes in her anymore. The time of the gods on Earth has passed."
"Did it not pass long ago? When the machines from Earth went rampant in Ivalice?"
"Will was still there, as was Jack, but I fear that, with Calypso gone, the time of the Dutchman is over." Balthier pulled the curtains shut, and there was a quiet squelch as his appearance resumed to be that of a normal Hume's. He grimaced at the sound.
"We will find a way to remedy this, Ffamran." Fran tried to reassure him, but her words were hollow. Balthier felt his blood run cold; not even Fran, his wise, all-knowing Fran, knew what to do.
Suddenly, there was a loud crash from the cockpit. They shared a look. Bounty hunters? Silently making their way down the hall and toward the control room, they peered past the curtain and into the cockpit.
The window was shattered, and a girl stood there, brushing herself off. She wore a short, tartan skirt and a long black coat, almost like a robe, but it revealed short, slender legs. Balthier's eyes traveled up her legs, appreciating the view, before resting on her face. She was young, no older than fifteen, if he had to guess. She wore her hair in two pigtails that would have been quite adorable if one was into that sort of thing. However, this gentle, schoolgirl appearance was offset by the large, black and red scythe she carried in her white-gloved hands. When she finished brushing herself off, she caught sight of them, and Balthier found himself at the business end of her weapon. Judging by the way she held it, she was no amateur at using it, either. Despite his predicament, the girl's announcement nearly made him laugh.
"Kishin, prepare yourself! In the name of Lord Death, I have come to collect your soul!"
"You're welcome to try it, girl, but it's not going to work. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some pressing matters to attend to." Balthier backed toward Fran, preparing for a fight despite his relaxed posture.
"Hey, Maka? You sure this guy is a Kishin? I mean… he looks like just a normal guy," a new voice said, emanating from the scythe. The reflection of a boy with white hair, sharp teeth, and red eyes appeared on the blade, addressing the girl, Maka. He was quite naked, but thankfully, only his chest and above was visible in the scythe blade.
"Soul, you idiot, his soul is already a Kishin egg, I'm sure of it. You can't see souls like I can."
Balthier made a show of stretching and yawning complacently, placing his hands behind his head, but he felt Fran slip several throwing knives into his hands.
"So, you've got me, but I fail to see what my insanity has to do with keys and shins." He did not care that he was getting whatever concept she was referring to entirely wrong; he just had to stop her from slashing him to pieces with her farming implement. More importantly, he had to stop her from wrecking his ship!
"He's wide open! You'll never get a chance like this!" the scythe yelled, and Maka leaped forward, pulling back for a devastating blow. At the same time, like a spring releasing, Balthier flipped his first knife so that he held it by the blade and threw it, pinning her arm by the sleeve of her robe to a decorative panel.
"That is going to cost a fortune to replace," Fran noted, and Balthier winced.
"So… Maka, was it?" Balthier staked her other sleeve to the panel when she attempted to take a swing at him with her free arm. "Who are you working for? I'd like to know so that I can send them the bill covering the replacement costs for this panel and the paling reinforced window you broke."
With a flash, the scythe transformed into the boy who was reflected on the blade; luckily, he was wearing clothes now. This boy, apparently named Soul, dashed toward Balthier, a protective gleam in his red eyes. In an instant, Fran was in his way, catching the punch he meant to land in Balthier's face. "I won't let you hurt Maka!" Soul snapped, struggling, but the strength of a hume boy (even a hume boy that could turn into a scythe) was nothing compared to Vieran strength.
"Oh calm down, I won't kill her. I don't even intend to harm her, really," Balthier drawled, pocketing the last throwing knife. The distrustful look in Soul's eyes did not fade. "She has done no harm to me, other than breaking the windshield of my ship and forcing me to damage an antique wall panel. Don't you know you should knock?"
Maka snorted. "Please, the last thing I'm about to do is politely knock on the door of mankind's worst enemy."
Fran shared a look with Balthier, raising a snow-white eyebrow. "I did not know we were mankind's worst enemies, now," she said.
"Neither did I," he grinned. On his skeletal face, it was not pretty, but Maka did not seem particularly perturbed. "So… tell me about these Kishins. I've never heard of them on Ivalice before."
Maka looked angry enough to split, but eventually began to explain. "The Kishin is the source of all madness in the world. All people naturally have some madness, but the Kishin exacerbates the problem, amplifying it and amplifying it until the world plunges into darkness. Lord Death sealed it away eight-hundred years ago, and it is my job to cut down souls that have become kishin eggs and prevent more eggs from being made."
"And my soul is one of these… eggs?"
"Yes. Kishin eggs are born amidst great murder, evil, and bloodshed. The only way to save them is through death."
"Spit on it." Balthier turned away from her, settling into a shadowed corner. "You can tell Death I have no intention of being shuffled from the mortal coil in order to cleanse the world of evil. Mad, I may be, murdering my way through the ages to maintain my own sanity, but there is still much for me to do. Like solve this little problem with the moon I happen to be having at the minute, so if you'll excuse me—"
"I need a mirror." Maka said plainly. Soul looked surprised, his red eyes widening.
"Maka, now is not the time to be primping—"
"Shut up, Soul. I want to talk to Death; this is not going as planned, neither is this what we expected. Please; I must see a mirror, sir." Fran flicked an ear—There is no malice in her eyes. Let her use the mirror.
Balthier sighed, wondering why he felt the need to indulge this girl in her quest for reflective surfaces, prying the knives from the panel and tying Maka's hands in front of her, leading her down the hall to his cabin. He was rather appalled when she breathed on his looking-glass and scrubbed some numbers into it, but shocked as soon as the mirror glowed with white light and then… Death appeared.
Balthier blinked—once. Twice. The visage didn't go away.
"Hiya, hiya, hiya, hiiiiiiiiii! Yo! How ya doin'? Good to hear from you, Maka! How did the battle with the kishin egg go?" Death, a jagged outline that looked as if it only had one foot rooted to the ground and a tall jagged hat on its head, bounced up and down comically, waving with huge, block like hands. His mask was a silly, three toothed thing with two round eyeholes and a round nose, giving the look of a jovial squid rather than a skull.
"Lord Death," Maka begin, as Balthier looked on with bemused laughter in his eyes. Fran peered into the room curiously, a hand on Soul's collar to prevent him from doing anything rash. "We found the egg, but we were not expecting it to still be particularly human and have you know… feelings other than the want to do evil." Balthier snorted.
"A sky pirate I am, but a pilferer and pillager from those who have nothing to steal, I am not," he broke in. Death tilted his head to the side, his ecstatic bouncing changing to a more meditative one.
"Ah… I see. I do not think you expected to find it in the company of a pure soul. It would seem the reason we did not notice the egg until recently was because the pure soul negates its madness… why don't you bring them back, Maka? This is very interesting, but very disturbing indeed…"
Maka turned toward them imploringly, but Fran spoke up now. "Balthier, perhaps if we met with Death himself, we might find a cure for your condition."
"I am loathe to throw my lot in with a god," Balthier replied, sighing as he sat down on the bed. It barely sank under his weight. "Nothing good ever comes from it."
"I'm hurt," Death proclaimed, slamming a hand to his chest theatrically. "I insist you come back to the DWMA with Maka and Soul Eater, it'll be my treat, really! And I can offer compensation for your time and trouble, as well as a replacement for the broken window and panel!"
"DWMA is short for Death Weapon Meister Academy, by the way," Maka said proudly. Balthier felt what blood he had in his veins run cold.
"Academy? And… people like you go there, correct? That means…" Children. Lots, and lots of children. He could mentally count them and see their grubby, smiling faces. No. He would not follow children— it had been three centuries since the time when he went gallivanting after Ashe, Vaan, and Penelo (Basch only counted now, when Balthier was older than he), and after the little stint in Underland he swore he would never follow children again.
Unfortunately, fate seemed to have other ideas.