Doctor Cidolfus Demen Bunansa met his wife when he was seventeen years old, both of them interns at Draklor Labs. Cid was the most promising young student, and Selene knew it. She would seek him out for assistance, and soon found out that he was also the most handsome young man in all of Archades. She herself was so lovely that Cid found himself taken with her almost at once.

They married after only a few months of steady dating, and her parents didn't approve one bit. They thought him a young hot shot, and that he would have her pregnant before she graduated, and perhaps that he'd convince her to drop out of school and sacrifice her future for him.

That was hardly the case.

Selene graduated two spots behind Cid, third in her class, and was immediately placed in a top research position in the lab. She and Cid soon had enough money to move into their own home.

At twenty-one, Cid earned his letters, and was now "Doctor Cid," an admired young celebrity around the streets of Archades. Selene was more than just a trophy wife herself. She was pulling in unholy amounts of gil, and it was on her salary alone that they paid bills, bought food, clothes, and went out. Cid's money went into two accounts-an "emergency account" that would never be opened while he was alive, and an account for their future children, so that they might put them through school without a care.

For a long time, though, children just didn't happen. Cid and Selene weren't trying, per se, but they weren't trying not to, either. It wasn't until the autumn of Cid's twenty-fifth year that Selene came dancing into the room, shrieking in excitement that they'd finally done it, she'd finally fallen pregnant.

Two months after Cid turned twenty-six, his first son, Rinaldo Norte Bunansa was born. The little boy seemed to break the family's dry spell, and after another three years, Selene found herself pregnant again. Cid was twenty-nine when Previa Mewt Bunansa was born, and it would be another ten quiet, normal years before Selene would fall pregnant with Ffamran Mid Bunansa.

The pregnancy looked grim, so Cid packed up two chocobos and set out for the Viera village of Eruyt. Selene went into labor as they approached the village, and the labor was six-weeks premature. The Viera, usually so hesitant to let people into their village allowed the family in.

Several Viera helped her into one of the tree-carved houses, and prepared for the delivery.

The birth was anything but smooth. One of her fallopian tubes-and several blood vessels-ruptured during the painful delivery, and the Viera medicines did nothing to help her. The birth was a breach, and the midwife uttered a panicked sound when it was the infant's tiny feet that appeared first. To make matters worse, the umbilical cord was wrapped firmly around the baby's neck, and he was having trouble getting any air. They severed the cord and unwrapped the child's neck, and one of the nurses took him and worked on getting him to breath. Once successful, she cleaned him and wrapped him in a blanket as the midwife and several other nurses tried to mend Selene.

It was hopeless.

Cid sat beside her as she held the baby for the first and last time, and he could practically see the life slipping from her eyes. The two older sons were allowed to come and see her towards the end, and Cid had to give tearful permission to the Viera to bury her there in the jungle. The Chieftaness, whose three daughters, Jote, Fran and Mjrn, had taken so wonderfully to the baby, gave Cid and his boys permission to return to the Wood whenever they felt they needed to.

Fran was the one who asked to accompany them from the village back to Archades, and this was met with annoyance from her mother and older sister, but they did not deny her, as she had left the village plenty of times before. She boarded the Chocobo holding the baby, sitting in front of Cid, the still-sniffling older boys riding just behind them.

The pain of Selene's death faded as the months passed, and Ffamran grew up happy. He was a very vocal baby, babbling as early as four months and talking quiet fluently by the age of two. He was very fond of his bottles ("Bobby, Dah, wanna bobby!") and his blanket ("Where mah blankie, Dah, where mah blankie?") and caused great giggles for his brothers when he would dance to the music they'd play on their old record player.

His favorite game was peekaboo, and if he was around the house, he would much rather run rampant in his diaper and t-shirt than in any of the little outfits Cid would buy him. There was nothing he liked more than to climb out of his crib at night and into bed with his father who would put an arm around him and kiss his juice-stained cheeks and go back to sleep.

When he was finally finished with bottles and blankets and diapers and was enrolled in school, he did wonderfully. His report cards were fantastic and Cid would take the boys out to get ice cream in the summers, and hot chocolate in the winters.

It was perfect.

Until I showed up.

Ffamran was nine years old when I first came home with Cid. I had been a junior researcher at Draklor, and his assistant for a few months. I was also two years younger than his eldest son. I was not well received by his sons. To say that they hated me at first sight would have been a bit of an understatement. They loathed me.

But I suppose I'll come back to that bit later.

Cid had been dead for a few months, and I was minding my own damn business, having a drink at the Whitecap, when I saw him. It took me a minute to realize who he was, and just why he was staring at me, but after a moment, our eyes locked, and my entire history with him played like a slideshow. It was probably only four or five seconds, and then he started to move towards me, a dark fury in his eyes, and I got up, threw some gil at the bartender, and sprinted off, hopping over patrons and tripping over chairs.

He chased me outside, where night had started to set in and storm clouds seemed to be bubbling up just over the Cerobi Steppe, and I thought, with an amused sort of panic, that my god, he was much faster than me.

Just as this thought occurred, his arm caught me in the ribs and he tackled me into a fruit stand.

"Balthier!" I shouted. "Get off!"

He cursed at me, and drew his fist back as if to punch me. I'm not a fighter, so I curled up in the fetal position and waited for it, but it never came. Hesitantly, I peeked at him and he was still glaring, but he was calming down.

"What are you doing here?" He looked livid.

"Trying to find work," I said, standing up. I didn't bother offering to help him up. I knew that he wouldn't accept my help.

We looked at each other for a very long time, and finally, he slumped. "I didn't expect to see you here," he muttered. "I thought…"

"I thought you'd died, too," I told him.

There was another long silence, and thunder rolled overhead. "If we're going to have this talk, let's go inside," I said and lit a cigarette.

Ffamran nodded and motioned for me to follow him. I did, never removing the stick from my mouth, setting my eyes on the back of his head. The discussion that we were to have was a long time in the making, and there were truths that needed to be exposed. Truths about me, truths about Ffamran, and truths about his father, my lover.

This was gonna be messy.