A Sky Pirate's Odyssey
Chapter One: Imperials, Magicite and chance meetings in Palace treasuries
' It's mine, I found it!'
' And when I take it from you, it will be mine. Fran.'
' I think you had best give that to me.'
Fran knew from long experience that her height intimidated most Humes, particularly the males, and she used it to her advantage now, invading the young Hume's personal space.
The boy shied away but clutched the Goddess Magicite tightly in his hand, refusing to relinquish his prize, the prize that should have been their's.
She was wondering exactly how they would convince the Rabanastran boy to give up the Magicite without the use of violence when a sudden rumbling crash from outside the Palace distracted both her and Balthier briefly. It was all the distraction the thief needed.
'Exit stage right.' Balthier shrugged amusedly pushing himself away from the table he had been lounging against and bowing to Fran.
'Lead on, dear Fran.'
Fran left Balthier to chase after the boy and their prize and went to retrieve the sky cycle. The courtyard of the former Dalmascan royal palace erupted in violence as Imperials battled a swarm of insurgents that poured up from the bowels of the Garamsythe waterway.
It was typical of their jaded luck that they should pick the night of a rebellion uprising to steal from the Rabanastran Palace. Fran intended to speak to Balthier about his impetuousness once they were safely away from this ill-fated desert city.
The thief boy was clearly a simpleton, though he had nowhere to run and was like to be killed if he tried to escape into the chaos below the battlement, he did not stop running.
Fran decided to head him off using the sky cycle before Balthier lost his never very great patience and attempted to shoot the fleeing boy rather than chase him.
Still the boy resisted, however the emergence of Ifrit, cannonade pummelling the sculpted gardens of the royal palace, caused enough hesitation in the boy that Balthier was able to charge him and scoop him up before throwing the squirming youth over one shoulder.
Fran tasted Mist in the back of her throat but thought it only the residue from the soldiers and insurgents trading magickal blows below them.
It was only when the sky cycle's engines began to stutter and the vehicle stopped responding to her commands that Fran questioned this earlier assumption.
' It does not heed me. It will not obey.' She hissed as they began to plummet earthward.
' Not good.'
Balthier muttered in between exchanging warnings and biting remarks with the thief who dangled from their vehicle pulling them down all the faster.
Fran steered the stricken cycle towards the entrance to the Waterway, aware in the periphery of her senses that the battle, or should that be elaborate Imperial trap, was drawing to its close.
The insurgents were routed and in retreat. Still the Ifrit and Imperial ground forces maintained their attack. It would be a massacre.
Fran's lip curled in distaste for such vicious, pointless waste of life before all her attention was diverted towards the task of making sure they all survived the imminent impact with the ground.
' Another fine landing Fran, next time I'll drive.'
Balthier fastidiously brushed himself off and shook his head to clear the vestiges of hard impact from his thoughts, dropping down to sit at the entrance to the Waterway.
The thief lay dazed and momentarily insensate on the ground as Fran crouched by the wreckage of the cycle.
'I do not understand it.'
Fran murmured more to herself, than he, as she examined the vehicle. Close by the thief groaned and struggled back to wakefulness.
' Leave it.' Balthier's tone was slightly sharp, Fran however knew this was more because the thief had woken up too quickly for Balthier to pick his pocket for the Magicite than any rebuke towards her.
Balthier got to his feet and a thin, ironic, smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, ' We'll go the old fashioned way.' He nodded towards the depths of the Waterway.
The Thief prattled questions as he followed after the two of them, she and Balthier resigned to the notion that they would have a 'guest' along for the journey.
Fran became aware of the boy's slightly slack jawed stare and resigned herself to meeting his eyes, which were filled with the usual slightly uncomprehending fascination.
' Don't have many Viera where you come from Thief?'
Balthier's cool tones distracted the boy, it amused Fran that Balthier took more offence to the stares and comments of other Humes towards her, than she did. But then she was well versed in Hume prejudices.
'It's Vaan.' The boy snapped, showing spirit and then he turned to Fran, and with some bashfulness apologised to her. Fran's estimation of the youth went up when he managed to meet her eyes.
The boy seemed quite pleased to discover the truth of their occupation. Reacting to the chance to play up to expectations of high piracy, Balthier introduced them both and informed the boy, bluntly, that they were now all complicit in a crime and would act accordingly.
Fran sensed that the boy understood barely a fraction of what Balthier said, but he seemed biddable enough. He also seemed fairly hail and hearty, he would be useful as they waded through the filth of the city.
It was as they traversed the narrow walkways above the reservoirs of sewage and the boy once again went haring off after one of the oversized Dire Rats that Balthier glanced a wry question at Fran before addressing the boy.
' You do this often Thief?'
The boy glared at him, flushed from his vermin chasing exertions, Balthier waved a hand in apology, ' Vaan. You do this often, Vaan?'
The boy just shrugged in a loose limbed way, 'Got to train somehow.'
Balthier stopped spit polishing his gun to look at the boy, Vaan, ' Train for what precisely?'
' To be a sky pirate.' The boy said as if this should have been utterly obvious. Fran looked at Balthier who looked momentarily at a loss for words. The boy scampered off, as at ease along the narrow walkways as the rats he killed.
' I was not aware sky pirates need also be well versed in vermin eradication.' Fran commented to her partner as they followed after the boy.
' Nor I.' His lips twitched, ' Must have missed that particular requisite in the Sky Pirate's instruction manual.'
After further travails through the sewer system Balthier reached out and snagged the boy by the back of his unfastened vest.
' Enough of this boy. In case it had otherwise escaped your notice, the varied insurgent corpses not enough of a reminder, we are trying to make our escape here.'
' Let go.' Vaan wriggled free and glared at Balthier who returned the look pound for pound. The sudden sound of gun fire and the whisper of sword against armour caught all of their attention.
Above them, backed to the edge of a sheer drop down to the open area the three escapee's stood in, a young girl fought off the advances of four Imperials.
After viciously kneecapping one soldier who then fell to his death from the platform the girls heated ice voice was clearly audible.
' Who will be next?'
Fran nodded her head towards the nearest exit to see, without much surprise, that Balthier was already edging towards it. Vaan, however, had other ideas.
' Jump. You've got to jump.'
Vaan encouraged the girl to jump to safety and in doing so alerted the amassing Imperials to their presence. Fran clearly heard Balthier's muttered, heartfelt curse, as he unholstered his gun at the same moment Fran notched an arrow in her bow.
' I will accept such help as I find it. Even if it be from thieves.'
The young woman, Amalia, who bore her head upraised with the bearing of an aristocrat and the icy focus of one who is well versed in pain and death led them as if it came naturally for her to do so.
Balthier's veiled attempt to warn Vaan from ill-advised acts of altruism towards strangers met in sewers, in the guise of explaining that the young woman was merely a temporary guest in their journey, largely went over Vaan's head.
Giving up Balthier lapsed into silence as the two kept to the back of their small troupe. Fran could hear the echoes of battle occurring elsewhere in the Waterway.
The occasional clash of shield and sword, the sizzle of spellcraft, men in their death throes falling into the sewers filtered through the air to her sensitive ears. It would be well with her that they leave the Waterway as soon as possible.
It was just as this errant desire slipped through her consciousness that the Firemane burst into fiery existence to block their path. Fran allowed herself a long-suffering sigh as she began the incantation for Blizzard.
Balthier, backing off for a clear shot, smirked at Fran, having heard or sensed her sigh.
'The trials and tribulations of sky piracy, Fran. Who could ere want for more?'