Haha, I've come to notice that not many others center their dialogue, but it seemed odd for me to have dialogue sitting without connecting sentences while aligned with paragraphs. I'm just a nut, don't mind me! Regardless, thank you Vieraheart15 and SharperImage for commenting, I'm really happy to have reviews! Oh, and the first three chapters are actually snippets that are of importance to the actual story that'll be beginning on the fourth chapter. Think of them as separate Prologues! As far as what Fran and Basch are speaking of, Ashe and Balthier have been keeping contact with one another and it is often that the two Pirates visit the Princess, and because of such Basch and Fran often are left to speak with one another until business between the Sky Pirate and Princess has settled. They haven't been together, they are just…reaching another level at the moment. : )

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy XII or any of the characters or places that belong to the game itself. I do, however, own any original characters used, imaginary places, the story itself, and the plot.

"Fear the sanity that drives you than the insanity that calms you."

Chapter Two: The Incident

She had awaken to the garish sounds of her home being dismantled and violated, and within moments she was standing in the engine room with annoyance painting the brilliant ruby of her eyes. There before her, muttering low curses was Balthier in his sleepless glory, bathed in oil, sweat, and frustration. Watching him clumsily trying to do who knows what to an engine that was as frustrated as he, the Viera was unsure whether to intervene or allow him to deal with his inner turmoil in his choice way, for she knew that that was exactly what he was doing without any words spoken. Suddenly, the Strahl made a loud, pathetic groan, and Fran knew then that regardless of his mood, she had to intervene for all of their sakes.

"Balthier."

She called to him, standing in the doorway with the full volume of her cotton nightshirt swallowing the majority of her frame and her snowy locks licking every cocoa portion of flesh bared in its tousled freedom, "She does not appreciate the vengeance you have wrought upon her." Her voice, raspy in mystery and low in fatigue drifted into the flushed ears curved into his head, but he made no acknowledgement to hearing her and kept to his fumbling. She watched him intently, noticing that his side profile was haggard and indescribable; that his vest was smudged in a substance she could not place, and that the vanity of his pants and shirt were tattered and ruined by his carelessness. He was a mess, one that was baffling to someone unaware of his nature, but to a rare specimen that was both capable of being themselves as well as Balthier it was expected.

She gave an inward sigh at his refusal to be something stronger than a Hume, knowing instantly that his request for her to come to him caused him to ignore her, and if she truly wanted to rest knowing that she'd be afforded to awaken to peace, she'd simply follow his desires. So, she went to him, soundlessly striding to him with her features as blank as a canvas before its purchase, and kneeling merely a few inches before him. She drank him in, finding that etched beneath his eyes were dark circles that were transitioning from hollow ebony to a fiendish purple, and that his eyes themselves were red and stained, the fine lashes that framed them holding the residue of tears spilled. She breathe, taking in the odor of his complexity of euphoria and inferno, pain and joy, hatred and love, guilt and heroism. She was not as layered as the Hume before her, and so she could not truly understand the conflicting affectivity that plagued him, but as he collapsed into her arms and embraced her like a rabid puppy, she knew it mattered not.

"Sin is indulgence and repentance is guilt," The length of her fingers ventured into his damp locks as he in turn tried to bleed into her as he strove to hug her closer to him, "but honesty itself is allowing both to intertwined and live as an entity. Hold not the past steadfast, else you'll disassemble the future, Sky Pirate." She could feel the erratic beating of his heart calling for the rhythm of her own, and as they danced around each other, she could not help but ponder upon the differences. She was of true wilderness, a creature bred from the bosom of the Wood, embellished on the extremes of Humes and their foolish conceptions of things that often seemed more similar than the Humes would care to admit. She was sloth in her ways because she never was raised with the ideas of mortality branded into her head, for the Viera worried not of death and merely felt it an evolution of all things, and she could not become so emancipated with the various rules that seemed contradictory and unnecessarily elaborate. And then there was he, a Hume that was a victim to all things she was not, layered and emotional, prideful and boasting a fearlessness that seemed rather silly at best.

"Fran." The cracked voice interrupted her thoughts, and with a few slow blinks the sight of a heated engine room was before her once more.

"Yes?"

"This is certainly not the Wood, and you are most certainly not a Hume," The brutality of his words made the muscles within her body tense, "so do not so eagerly speak such words when you yourself cannot even hope to comprehend the notion." Her blood began to boil and cool at an alarming rate as his words echoed, each repeat of them slamming into her ears like a supernova bursting and rebirthing. She did not feel his weight remove itself from her form, and was not even aware of the fact that he had walked some distance away from her, but she most certainly was aware that something had been struck within her and readily knew that she no longer had a place aboard the Strahl. It seemed timeless as she sat there, the urges of feral thirst surging her lungs as her body began to tremble in approximately timed settings, but still she knew that she most certainly could not make such retaliation.

She was no longer amongst the lushness of her Wood, and she, without a hesitation, would agree to not being anything remotely near a Hume, yet the unstable response that she was having was troubling her. She was aware that both were true, and yet she was irritated beyond a reasonable point, and it bothered her intensely. She was not some beast from the wild temporarily domesticated by some suave gentleman, nor was she some sort of woman scorned, but she was something at the moment, something she had never been before her fifty years roaming amongst the Humes. Pressing trembling palms to the tightened flesh of her face, she was astonished as the small snarl she was baring and instantly fought to simplify it into her normal indifference.

It was soon that she was upon her futon in the privacy of her own room, curled into the warmth of her lingering heat of vengeance to keep out the cold of betrayal and something other, something she currently couldn't quite place at the time. Still, as she continued to remain thoughtless, she pretended not to hear the silent sobs seeping through the room a few walls away from her own. It now longer mattered, and comforting seemed on reserved for someone other than herself.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and please feel free to comment on what you like, love, or absolutely hate! I love reviews, they make me feel appreciated and give me strength to continue on as well as tell me what I should work on. Without them I really wouldn't feel as if it'd be any good for me to continue writing!