Silverlocke980 here. Wow, two updates in two days.

(I've gone crazy.)

I'd like to give silvina a big shout-out for being my very first reviewer for my very first FFXII fic. Thank you!

And as a special dedication, this chapter is for you. Danke sehr!

(I used to have a German girlfriend. Guess what that means- I speak really bad German.)

So with that done, it's….

"SHOWTIME!"

Chapter 2

Bolt and Blonde

She is not the happy girl they all think she is.

Penelo is standing in a room the sextet have rented, waiting for a time when they can move out and do what they can for the people of Dalmasca. This is the way it has always been.

This is the way it always will be.

She is staring at an object on the dresser and she is thinking about the fact that if any of them saw her, they'd be a little confused that the bubbly, cheerful girl they knew is frowning so very hard.

And all six of them play roles that are not them but are ones they are comfortable with

(And she thinks it funny that Balthier may be the only one of them true to himself, that the most theatrical of them all is the only one not acting)

And she is most comfortable pretending to be happy.

And when you've been the bright spot in the life of hundreds of down-trodden, oppressed people, it's almost impossible not to be, because you played happy in the first place because of your belief in something better

(And soon they're going to meet the Grand Kiltias and she wonders what that will be like)

And giving people joy is one of the things that makes you feel joy, so even when you feel depressed you feel like giving it your all and smiling. And when people smile back the work turns to play and you actually are smiling.

It's a good cycle.

But sometimes you just can't work up the will to smile everywhere at once, to the point where one's face will wear it and one's hands will betray nervousness with shaking and the heart will pump like the red blood that fills its veins is oil on fire. And sometimes, the little girl who grew up poor and a daughter of the streets, who saw the gil girls of the streets and vowed to not be like them, has a cold, clinical part of her mind that she shares with all Lowtown Rabanastrans.

(Vaan has it, too, the part of him that tells him what to steal and when and how. Old Dalan has it, and it has let him build a network that may be making him the most well-informed person in the world. And though Ashe wants it and all of her rebels have it, she could never achieve the cold practicality of this frosty half of the mind.)

But this is balanced in Penelo with the happiness she feels, and it is this combination of traits that led her to spend the hard-earned gil she'd made at the tanners for the wolf pelts she'd collected for the thing laying on her dresser.

She is not a physical fighter. She has seen Ashe's skill with the sword and shield, hard to hit, ducking and weaving and slicing. She has seen Vaan practicing with his dagger, cutting foes to the quick, and moving up to swords under Basch's patience.

(As for Basch himself, there are not words that can describe Basch's dominance in the field of close combat.)

This team does not need more physical fighters and she could not be one if she tried. She is lithe, not wiry. Limber, not tough. She does not possess the agility of Ashe in close quarters and she is not possessed of Basch's raw strength. She does not even half Vaan's half-cocky, half-useful stances, odd shifts in weight and reach making her unpredictable.

And so she has been looking at ranged weapons, because while she has slowly been learning magic from the scrolls they buy, there is often not enough Mist in an area to support constant casting.

(She remembers when the Mist went dry once, with Ashe bleeding all over the place, torn in the gut from claws and Penelo's cries oh, gods, please, just one more Cure)

So at first she thought to try Fran's archery, and asked her if she could practice. And while her aim was good and steady, her arm was not, and pulling back the longbow tired her out. And the Viera actually laughed, a wondrous sound that was a combination of deep throaty chuckling and flutes. So she gave that up, sheepishly giving Fran back her bow and arrows.

(Balthier was still laughing about it when they found him, laughing that something could make Fran laugh more than at Penelo's archery itself.)

(Penelo thinks he loves her.)

And then she asked Balthier (days later, when she could get the courage), to try his guns. He handed her the newest model, a Sirius, and she practiced with it and found that she was pretty good. Her aim was fine, and as Balthier taught her, the gun itself was doing all the work- she just had to aim. But she didn't like it because the recoil was too strong and she wanted a weapon that would go out from her, and not back into her, and the smoke nearly choked her when Balthier tried to teach her to shoot on the run, rushing back to her face with the wind.

So here they were, and they'd just been given a bowgun by the Garif's war-chief. And when she'd seen it, something had clicked.

Penelo had found her weapon.

It was in the pulling back, in the loading, that the weapon was hard, but bracing it against the ground with a foot would solve that problem. And it felt so much more dynamic than using a gun- where all you do is pull the trigger- or even using a bow, because your feet had to be involved and you had to really take the time to aim, because you weren't getting another shot. And it was powerful and straight and true, and Penelo loved it for one more reason secret inside her.

This weapon was practical. It was all the cold she'd ever felt in her life and needed. Powerful enough to make the time she spent using it worthwhile, yet demanding nothing of her small frame like a gun's recoil would do. And yet it was not a weapon without heart, for she found- on those nights she was feeling happy, which came more and more often as they succeeded in escaping death and destruction just one more time, as they and the side of good won one more time after one more time- that the weapon was also very fussy, and she had to constantly work and mess and tweak with it to get it just right, and it was surprisingly fun and gave her weapon character. And so it fit with both halves of her soul, and she was all right.

And then she discovered how to modify it further, and it truly became her weapon, no longer identifiable as what the Garif had given her, a treasure of her own making and one she worked on endlessly. She became great at it as time went on, having fun while doing work, just like she had when she worked to smile so others would too.

It was a good cycle.

Penelo became known as a Bowgunner, and when the world was saved and it was all over, her weapon stood proud with the others, leaning against swords of many kinds, a gun, and what Penelo came to refer to as her crossbow's "older brother", Fran's bow.

It was her choice. Bolt and blonde, just like the ice and light in her soul.

Two halves that were one.

-R&R please!