Scar Tissue

Disclaimer: All known and recognisable characters, locations, and names belong to Square-Enix

It hurt.

Sweet Gods above and below it hurt so very, very much.

Ashelia B'Nargin Dalmasca bit down savagely on her bottom lip until she tasted thin copper blood.

Her lip was already swollen and throbbed dully from the numerous lacerations of her gnawing teeth. The inside of her cheeks were pitted and weeping from salty pock marked holes torn out of the flesh by her teeth; running her tongue over the inside of her mouth all she could feel was scar tissue.

Still it was not enough.

The Sten Needle trap had been her fault; she had been responsible for maintaining the Libra spell and she had neglected that duty. The fault for what happened after could only be laid at her door.

She had failed to lead her people safely and it was her followers, each one a mystery to her in one way or another, who suffered for her incompetence.

Ashe winced as her eyes alighted on the scene of devastation before her; sweaty palms clenched spasmodically around the Zephyr pole as she maintained the shallow pretence of standing guard against predator attack.

Penelo sat on the ground cradling Vaan's bloody head in her lap. She murmured soothing lullabies to her friend as he lay perfectly still on the ground trying not to move a muscle as Fran carefully pulled four inch long spines and needle shards from almost every square inch of skin across his torso.

It twisted a knife inside Ashe's gut to watch the rivulets of blood that poured from Vaan's bare chest and stomach, from his upper arms and even, gods curse her, his neck and face. Vaan's flesh ran red as if all his skin had been removed to reveal the rivers of blood that coursed through his veins; exposing that flow to the harsh open air.

And it was all her fault; she was responsible for this boy and she had not protected him.

'Now, now Captain, easy does it.'

Ashe flinched and nearly dropped her pole at the sudden smattering of speech. Her traitorous gaze skittered over to the place where Balthier crouched before Basch tightening a makeshift tourniquet just above Basch's left knee to cut off the flow of blood oozing from multiple needle-prick wounds.

Below the knee Basch's leg looked as though it had sprouted hundreds of black, jagged hairs that stood up on end and oozed crimson where they pierced his flesh.

His greaves had offered minimal protection as, after the initial explosion, Basch had been the first one to step forward to assist Vaan, only for a secondary, smaller Sten Needle trap to release its deadly arsenal.

'……it is not so bad…..tend to the children and the Lady Ashe…' Basch's voice was breathy and light with pain and at that moment, only to compound the agony of Ashe's guilt, Vaan suddenly reared up with a guttural moan of pain as Fran eased a particularly large Sten thorn from his abdomen.

Ashe clamped down on her bottom lip as bile seared a passage up her throat from her churning stomach.

Her fault; this was all her fault.

Balthier's cheerful, blithe tone, incongruous and almost insultingly at odds with the situation, was the only thing that kept Ashe from voiding her stomach content right then and there, further humiliating herself and failing her people.

'I think not Captain; if we do not get all these spikes from your flesh you'll be lame by morning and I am not prepared to carry you all the way back to Mount Bur-Omisace.'

Basch shifted awkwardly, the barest flicker of annoyance crossing his countenance, 'The wound is not so great, Balthier, I have had worse and can tend to myself. It is the children that need the assistance.'

Balthier, head bowed over Basch's leg, ignored the almost aggressive tone of Basch's voice and continued to casually, but efficiently, pluck the thorns from the other man's leg before laying them neatly aside on the frost packed floor of the cave.

'We have all had worse in our time Captain that is neither here nor there. I would think a Knight of Dalmasca would have the discipline to behave himself when hurt.'

Ashe found herself frozen by Balthier's words, we have all had worse in our time; with the tang of her own blood in her mouth, acid and copper burning her tongue, Ashe wondered if she had ever experienced worse than this?

This blood spilled was her fault.

She had wished to be a General, a mistress of strategy and warfare, but she, more so even than Vaan or Penelo, knew the least about the simple endurance of physical pain and hardship.

She had forgotten that on the frontlines it was the infantry, not the Generals that did the bleeding.

Ashe reflected honestly that she did not know if she could be so stoical in the face of injuries like those afflicting Vaan. Injuries caused by her own inexperience and negligence.

Fran had told them that the narrow land bridge crossing a Wyvern patrolled chasm between the mountains of Bur-Omisace was highly likely strung with hidden traps. Basch had cautioned her to remember to enact Libra, if she was so insistent on leading a scouting mission along the sloping pass towards the Stilshrine of Miriam, and she had ignored them both.

She had ignored Basch's experienced counsel convinced that she knew better, resenting Basch for believing he had any right to counsel her at all, he who had so monstrously failed her father during the fall of Nalbina.

As a stiff gale, cut off by the narrow entranceway of the cave they were using to shelter in, breached the inside of the cave nevertheless and brushed against her face, Ashe realised that the sudden bite of cold liquid across her cheek was in fact an errant tear.

Furiously she swept her hand across her face in annoyance; what right did she have for tears? She who, out of everyone, was the only one to avoid injury.

Even the pirates had been caught on the edges of the second explosion as they followed Basch to lend aid to Vaan. Penelo, while not physically injured, bore the bleeding wounds of aching distress across her pale face, to see Vaan laid low.

Only the foolish General remained removed from the carnage her own desperation had caused.

'…….hey, Penelo….do you…..urg…..do you think I'll get a scar…?'

Ashe turned around sharply to stare down at Vaan, who was actually struggling up into a sitting position, as Fran and Penelo murmured healing spells.

Ashe could only stare at him horrified. Penelo, her hands glowing with white and green healing light, slapped Vaan lightly on the top of the head; a gesture that was part relief, part love, and part annoyance.

'Grow up Vaan.'

'What? I've been battling fiends for months; it's about time I had some scars to show for it.'

Ashe closed her eyes and turned swiftly on her heels; Vaan did not know of what he spoke.

Any scar he attained from this accident would forever dig at Ashe's conscience, tearing at her with the same penetrating insistence as the Sten Needle barbs; only for her, magicks or soothing balms would offer no respite.

'Vaan shut up about scars already. You Idiot, you could have been killed.'

Penelo was still berating Vaan as, to Ashe's astonishment, the boy rose up from the blood and ashes of his own pain to stand on his feet, wobbly and pale, but eyes bright and clear, unencumbered by the guilt that scoured Ashe's sole.

Ashe gnawed at her lips until she had ulcerated the skin of her bottom lip. Unable to look at Vaan or Penelo she stepped further into the cave where Balthier had almost finished his ministrations to Basch's leg.

Ashe crept up behind Balthier making her stealthy, guilty approach. Basch, who had been leaning back against a large, smooth boulder with his eyes closed and head tipped back, shifted suddenly to look up at her.

Ashe froze mid-step in guilty tableau, 'Basch….I…..'

'Princess, you are well?' Basch interrupted her, something he never did.

Ashe sucked her bottom lip under her teeth as she felt her eyes fly wide and a sob lodge in her throat; how could he ask her that at a time like this?

Balthier, who had turned to face her at Basch's address, studied her acutely miserable expression and rose to his feet, wiping his hands on his handkerchief, smeared in Basch's blood, 'Well, now you are here Princess, perhaps you could finish doctoring our good Captain, hmm?'

He stopped briefly as he passed her, tugging at the blood saturated and torn cuffs of his shirt where he had caught a number of Sten barbs of his own.

'I'm sure Basch will prefer your tender mercies to mine,' with a lazy wink Balthier left to join Fran, Vaan and Penelo at the front of the cave.

Ashe was left with no choice and no distraction; she had to face him.

Her eyes crept over the cracked stone ground of the cave towards the bloodied pile of black thorns and serrated spikes that had pierced his skin a hundred times over; she could not drag her gaze from those vicious thorns.

She crouched beside Basch and finally dragged her gaze over his mangled leg, which she did have to admit, Balthier had done competent job of cleaning up. She reached out with shaking hands to brush her fingers over his pale knee, not sure what she was doing or why.

His skin was warm and solid under the hesitant brush of her finger tips; she felt the hard knob of his knee bone and let her eyes sweep down the corded muscles of his shin, coated in fair golden hair that was inexplicably soft under her fingers.

Abruptly realising what she was doing, and to whom, Ashe made to jerk her hand back in mortified embarrassment at her own actions; what was wrong with her?

A large, calloused hand enfolded her own, pinning her paradoxically cold but sweaty palm against his knee. Ashe looked up like a startled colt Chocobo to meet Basch's weathered face and pale, good-natured blue eyes.

'Princess?'

And his voice was like sunshine; the old gold of early evening sunlight, the sunlight that had pooled in the sculpted gardens of the Palace in Rabanastre during her childhood. When she heard his voice it reminded her of warm bear hugs and piggy-back rides through the pungent blooms of the garden.

It made her happy; here so very far away from her home and her childhood, here on the slopes of iced mountains where the sun shone with the fierce heat of encroaching frostbite, she remembered the warmth of security and friendship.

And it hurt so much. It hurt and she didn't know what to do. No one was left to instruct her and she Did. Not. Know. What. To. Do.

'Basch…..I made a mistake,' she whispered bowing her head over his stretched out injured knee, and reaching out to place her small hand, with its hardening sword calluses that were still unnatural to her, over his hand.

Hand over hand; his strong competent hands, so large and studied with a multitude of little scars and blemishes, contrasted profoundly with her own hands, still plump and delicate; a princess's hands.

'I made a mistake,' she repeated when he did not answer and she looked up at him almost angrily.

Did he not understand what she was telling him? Did he not understand what had happened because she had not been ready; had not known what to do.

'Aye,' the old Knight, who knew more about mistakes than Ashe would ever wish to know, agreed peaceably, 'next time you'll know better. You will learn.'

And he smiled; smiled like the sunshine and games of hide and seek behind the trellises of the palace gardens. In the face of that smile the first of Ashe's tears dropped like a salty, perfect diamond onto the back of her hand, covering his, which covered hers again in turn, over his injured knee.

Ashe tried to bite down on her lip to stop her tears but Basch lifted his free hand to her mouth and clucked her gently under the chin, just as he had when she was a little girl and he was the youngest (and the best) of her father's Knights. The golden maned man with the soft voice and kind eyes who always had time to play hide and seek with her in the gardens under the sleepy sun.

'You will learn, Princess, and while you are learning I will be honoured to bear any scars I must, for you.'

Ashe looked up at him horrified, 'But you should not have to do such a thing; I could never permit anyone to suffer in my stead. It is wrong.'

Basch still smiled at her, warmth in those perpetually tired eyes. He chuckled, 'I am an old soldier, a veteran of too many failures. Scar tissue is all I have to show for it. Princess, would you deny me my only reward?'

Shock coursed through her, harsh as liquid fire at his words. Pursing her bruised and bloodied lips Ashe tilted her chin, eyes flashing with sudden authority.

'I would have it so that no man should be forced to cherish such bitter rewards as that, Basch,' she looked away from him shyly, 'I would see to it that your scars could finally heal, when I am Queen.'

The hand over hers flexed and she felt him, still smiling on her, even as she bowed her head and swiped angrily at her tears.

'I know, Princess, I doubt it not. Until then,' deftly Basch lifted her head and lightly touched one roughened finger to her throbbing and torn bottom lip, 'I suppose we shall each bare our scars, our little self-inflicted wounds, until the time when we both can begin to heal under the Dalmascan sun.'