Crash Landing

Flying the winds is essential in this time of quick transportation. This is the first rule that made the creation of 'airships' derived from 'air' and 'ships'. Which both lead to sailing the sky, obviously?

So as Vaan, hero of Ivalice, first sat in his ship with his mentor on the other seat, he was brimming with excitement and joy as he flipped open the power switch. But, hours later after the test run, Balthier had ended up with a bad and long hospital bill, with a very angry Fran who looked like she wanted to commit cannibalism at the poor little street urchin.

When it was a few months later after Vaan had finally been able to fly without Balthier screaming about his seatbelts, they had used the ship as a general transport for his royal friends. Mainly because Ashe had wanted to travel in the hands of someone she knew, and because Penelo and Larsa had decided that Vaan was now their airborne chocobo.

Vaan was not at all annoyed after the first few trips with the three or four (Basch usually just stood in the gangplank for the whole trip, searching for bombs), but he had eventually became irritated at the emperor and his wife's flirting, while the queen kept complaining why there was no Royal Closet For A Queen Like Her (R.C.A.Q.L.H.).

Larsa and Penelo both spoke like chunks of cheese, flirting over the breakfast table, over the pilot's cockpit, over the bridge, they could flirt about a wall, and Vaan eventually built his anti-flirt radar. This prevented him from seeing the two and he would automatically walk off the other way, even if he was sleepwalking.

If the two flirted nonstop, the queen complained endlessly in a stream from her mouth. First she would complain why she could not see the sun in her room, and then complain about the color of her window frame was not yellow, and then remember that she had to complain that the room did not feel royal enough, once she complained that the ship looked to un-royalist that she had wanted it to be executed immediately. Vaan itched to throw her over the bridge that instant.

So Vaan had told them that the ship was under maintenance, and went off in a sole-passenger excursion to the ends of Ivalice. He had been happy and relieved, until he shrieked in horror as he saw the 8th imperial fleet and the Dalmascan Air Forces, with the Alexander and the new Bahamut in his rear view mirror.

Vaan had never tried lying to them again, and had put up with a set of soundproof earmuffs against the royals that constantly rode his ship.

Then the airship crash happened, and he had almost been charged for high treason when he saw the emperor limp on his bed. Penelo was hysterical when she saw him, but ended up crying in his arms with Basch shaking his head as the doctors removed the life-support tubes connected to Larsa.

Vaan couldn't help but feel the sharp pang of guilt and regret as he remembered the way he used to get annoyed at Larsa.

He felt the same guilt when he heard from Ashe that Penelo had been forced to re-marry another Archadian, so that Archadia could have another emperor. He felt worse as he saw her new husband looking so much like Larsa, and Penelo looking so broken-hearted.

So the silence in the ship was now deathly, Basch still in the gangplank, pounding the airship frame as he remembered again and again the broken promise to his brother. Penelo sitting beside her husband, who treated her like Larsa did, but still she didn't talk. Ashe staring at the sun through the windshield, silent and speechless, she would not speak.

So when Vaan had landed at the aerodome, and walked out with the others to see the funeral of the late emperor, he had stroked his airship. Knowing very well the ghosts that would continue to haunt its halls endlessly, he sighed.