4. The Princess and the Sewer Rat

The boy is anything from simple.

Indeed, I rather find myself taking a liking to him, as obscene as that sounds. But Fran tells me I should take into account all living things, regardless of their stature, so I find myself taking a liking to him. The things I do for her, you know.

He is a tall boy, lanky and lacking muscle. He walks as if he has never been trained how to dance, and yet he was able to steal into the palace and grab his country's most prized possession before even I was able, a trained thief and villain, to find the entrance to Dalamasca's most fabled treasure horde. And I went under the cover of a coup, which says something of the boy's abilities. I doubt he would have had any trouble stealing into the palace whenever he'd like, so far as he was stupid enough to do so. Lucky for him I was there, and saved him from utter destruction. Or so I tell myself. Looking at myself now, you'd hardly know it was me, covered in sewage and grime and walking through mist-infected tunnels. But let us out of this place and find ourselves in a better place. The boy's treasure will do us fine, and perhaps I will even allow him a glance at my ship which he seems so fond of.

The empire has not been kind to this city. I have that much to say about my homeland, and their tearing through the rest of the world in their vain search for glory. I left for good reason; good riddance I say, for I'd have no part in their ludicrous plan to conquer the world and leave their old beliefs scattered across the corpses of every person they come across. The ghosts of Rabanastre are plenty, and the mist has elevated their concern, turning the dead of this city into ravaging spirits. I am not used to these sorts of things: I prefer, being elsewhere, you know. Our bodies, especially Fran's is especially poor as of using this much of our magic. The hairs on my arms have been singed once or twice, and I can feel the cold of Fran's spells seeping into my boots. Mist is an unnatural thing, and it is a pity we must use it to fight for our lives. The abilities it gives us, while wondrous, would be much better left in the places they were birthed, and not among us, living inside of us. I don't have a good feeling about it.

The boy is headstrong but foolish. Fran has cared for his wounds on more than one occasion since we've been tracking through this endless underground. She does not talk about it, but I know she has also taken a liking to the boy. He has something the rest of us do not: drive and energy. I suppose we've been professionals for so long, we've forgotten what it felt like to bet your life on the next moment.

The princess is another story.


But I should tell another tale first.

Fran died earlier today. Or so she looked dead, but I could not tell immediately, due to her not having any breath. Fran, being a viera, does not breath as humans breath. She has an intimate connection with mist, and being down in these infested tunnels, it causes her to sometimes wander off and stare at random objects or become fixated upon some minor, inconsequential detail. Her breathing is slower than us, and when she stopped breathing it was minutes before I realized what was going on. When I finally collected myself from my own wounds and saw her motionless on the ground, I jumped to my feet and rushed to her side and saw that the blood was beginning to draw away from her face.

I was beside myself. Most of my supplies I had left on the bike when we took out of the palace and had little on my body. The boy, however, took out a handful of feathers, and quite clumsily began to extract each feather and let the drops of fire contained within drip onto her face. I recognized the feathers for what they were: the prime feathers of a downed phoenix bird, a mythological creature that I've only seen twice during my travels. How the boy had amassed so much of the medicine and his utter lack of knowledge of how to use it was quickly apparent.

I took the feathers from him, pushed him aside, and gently let the tincture drip into her throat. The blood on her face was still being drained, but as the solution found its way into her body, she stood up with a jerk, sucking in air almost unnaturally and her eyes wide with fear.

"What." She said, exasperated. "Was that."

"You died, love," I try to say with as much concern in my voice for her as possible.

"I would have preferred to remain like that, rather than this." Fran often surprised me as she spoke much more like a man of many hardened years than the most beautiful viera I had ever across.

"Nonsense. Vaan, come here and help me get her up."

The boy approached, but Fran shoved me off, scowling and standing, albeit shakily. "You still haven't learned, Balthier. The importance of life and death, the balance of things." I suppose she was in a bad mood, and most likely would be for quite some time. It always takes Fran time to work herself out of these moods.

"Those are the most useful tools of any hunter in the field," the boy said, quite innocent in his beliefs.

"Yes," I reply, carefully choosing my words before I reply, "but Fran here is a viera, and she sees the world quite differently from you, Vaan. Where did you find such a collection of phoenix downs?"

The boy shrugged and looked away, as if the question were unimportant and he did not trust me yet. "Places."

He surely must have stolen them, but they were so expensive usually only the high-end medicinal shops frequented by nobility with a lot of money and paranoia, or hunters who valued death over life, and who used them constantly in order to revive themselves using the power of the golden birds to wrench themselves back into the living world. In many circles of civilization, using them is seen as an abomination. During my short time with the viera, even I came to that understanding, though I am not above their use in cases of extreme conscience.

For the sewers to have such horrors that could kill my Fran, we must have angered the spirits in a very bad way.

The princess arrived not five minutes later, leaping from a ledge into our young sewer rat's arms, being chased by a battalion of imperials. All so very dramatic. And unnecessary.

I've heard tale of her in the Sandsea and other hunter locales. Rumors of the rebellion against the empire have been festering for months, but I'd never have thought it myself to see the risen from the dead with my own eyes.

I will say nothing for now. I doubt even Fran knows of her or cares much, and the boy is such an innocent, he only thinks her a cute girl he gallantly caught in his arms. Maybe he thinks that makes up for his life of petty crime.


We are moving on through the tunnels. The mist is getting heavier, and I've heard the wail of creatures I'd rather not face without proper weapons and protection getting closer as we move with the flow of the water. The princess does not seem to have noticed my realization of her, and continues to walk with us between myself and Fran, with the boy scouting out in front.

The stink of the dead soldiers is still on me. This silly war has been going on for far too long, and too much blood has been spilt. But as the bodies pile up, they do not seem to stop and think about what they are doing. The guards that had been following the princess were mere peons, with only their beat-up armor and military-issued swords that had long been overused and poorly cared over, as drafted soldiers wont to do. They had a few healing tinctures on them, but most were broken in the battle. We left their bodies back in the stink of the flow as a reminder to pursuers and as a lure for creatures who might prey upon us in our escape.

-Balthier