The Ondore Estate; Bhujerba
A/N: Just a little note to Libranfate, thanks for the review...no grammatical or spelling errors? Are you sure, because I have absolutely no comprehension of grammar at all. When I see a problem I throw a semicolon on at it and hope for the best usually...though I have been making more of an effort lately so thanks!
Also to Sapereaude13, yes patricide is a popular past time among the rich and powerful of Ivalice isn't it? Though I think Balthier could write a chapter in Vayne's book on helping to kill ones father too!
Finally, Aoife-Hime, yes I liked the coat image too!
Anyhoo, I've been writing like a dervish lately, this story just demands to be told, so here is another update before I retire to a darkened room and try and spend some time in the real world.
'Balthier!'
Ashe exclaimed as she bounced to her feet almost too fast after wriggling free of the golden furred Rebe's claws and the fiend himself dropped to the ground, a smoking, oozing red hole in his back.
Breathing rapidly Balthier lowered his rifle, afraid that the tremors of exertion and terror causing his fingers to lose their grip would be too telling. He took a moment to gather his wits before turning his eyes from the vision of dishevelled loveliness before him to the heap of golden fur at her feet.
'Ashe, quick, revive him.' He struggled to reholster his rifle in his back sheave with one hand as he pointed to the Rebe with the other.
Ashe, caught in the silvered glow of a new moon, hair brushing her shoulders in quicksilver tendrils and panting from her near choking at the hands of the very same Rebe now dead at her feet, simply stared at him in mute shock.
Balthier moved forward towards the Rebe beginning the chant to cast the revival spell on the villain with a growl of frustration, mostly directed at himself for letting the horrifying sight of the Rebe slowly throttling his queen to death distract him enough that he had shot the blighter.
If the Rebe was dead he had lost his greatest piece of evidence tying Joaquin Ondore to the attempted assassination of the Emperor. It was a near unforgivable oversight.
'What are you doing?'
Ashe snapped out of her shock when she saw him trying to revive the very same traitor that had just tried to kill her. Her nails dug into his shoulder through the thick wool of his coat as she tried to stop him.
'I need him alive.' Balthier snapped turning to face her for a moment.
Ashe had dropped down on her knees beside him and frowned at him quizzically. He tried to ignore the pang he felt in his chest to see the dark circles around her storm grey eyes and the thinness of her face.
She looked wane and exhausted, he had not seen her look so tired and defeated since immediately after the destruction of the Shiva and Vossler's death. It shocked him how much it distressed him to see her so beaten down by capricious fate.
He wrenched his attention back to the matter at hand and deliberately decided to ignore any further thoughts of her. He had a job to do and he would do it. 'This man was party to an attempt on Larsa's life and I need him alive so he can be interrogated.'
He explained shortly as yet another revive spell failed to have any impact. The magick flickered and sparked around the body before stuttering out like the flame from a lone candle in the wind.
Ashe elbowed him out of the way, ' Move; you are making a mess of it.' She snapped, all business, and began to chant a revival of her own.
At that moment Vaan dropped down on his other side with a lop-sided grin, ' Are Larsa and Penelo alright?'
Balthier nodded, watching Ashe grow increasingly frustrated as her attempts to revive the Rebe failed as well. 'Perfectly fine, the attempt failed.'
He watched Ashe for another handful of seconds and then caught her hands, 'Leave it, he's dead.'
There was no point flogging a dead Chocobo, nothing was going to revive the Rebe. He would have to find some other way of proving that Marquis Ondore was responsible for the conspiracy against Larsa.
As he rose to his feet, brushing off a few blades of grass from his trousers he spotted the limp bundle of filthy rags on the ground a few feet away and blinked in surprise.
'Is that...?'
Ashe had risen to her feet as well. 'My uncle Halim.' She nodded her face grave as she swiftly walked over to the stricken Hume. Confused Balthier followed her.
'He's not looking well.'
Balthier commented more than a little inanely as he watched Ashe stroke a hand over the man's face and check his pulse and breathing with almost maternal gentleness.
Ashe turned to give him a dark look, 'I believe my cousin Joaquin has been poisoning him. When I came to see for myself what illness afflicted my uncle, Lord Anover,' and here she pointed an accusatory finger towards the dead Rebe, 'attempted to smother me in my uncle's sickroom.'
Balthier fiercely suppressed the irrational urge to kill the Rebe all over again and rebuked himself firmly to get his emotions under control before he made a fool of himself (it was quite unlike him and for no sensible reason he felt it was all Ashe's fault).
' I see.' He said blandly, 'And I suppose your cousin has scarpered in all the excitement?' He queried drolly though he already suspected the answer.
Having lost the Rebe's escaping airship when an electrical storm came out of nowhere halfway to Bhujerba, he and Fran had been playing catch up for the last six hours. When they had reached Bhujerba the Strahl had been almost knocked out of the sky by the Ondore flag ship making hasty retreat.
Fran had turned the Strahl around to pursue the flag ship and Balthier had parachuted down into the grounds of the Ondore estate in time to see a nightmare made flesh as Ashe was almost hung by the neck from the Rebe's golden clawed hands.
'Yeah, I saw him and a bunch of his guards getting into his airship while I was looking for Ashe.' Vaan confirmed.
Standing around doing nothing had never been a favoured past-time for Balthier and so, without a backward glance to Halim Ondore or Ashe, he started walking briskly towards the estate. Perhaps the Marquis had been in too much of a hurry to dispose of all the evidence when he fled his estate?
'Balthier!' Ashe's imperious cry stopped him in his tracks and he looked irritably over his shoulder as she rose to her feet and hurried over to him.
' I demand to know what is going on. What proof do you have that my cousin is trying to kill Larsa, what possible motive would he have?'
Balthier sighed, that was the sticking point. While as the evidence of the last twenty four hours provided circumstantial proof of a Bhujerban conspiracy against Larsa it did not provide any immediately obvious motive for such.
' What possible motive would a son have to murder his father?'
Balthier shot back even as his own words caused him to flinch deep in his soul; Balthier knew a thing or two about patricide after all.
Thankfully his answer seemed to have had the desired effect on Ashe and she did not stop him as he started to jog towards the main building.
'Vaan, take my uncle to the Beirluge and inform my Secretary of State what is happening. I shall remain here in Bhujerba.'
Balthier heard Ashe's command to Vaan but didn't really register the meaning. His focus was on finding Ondore's personal office and sifting through his personal documents and correspondence for any shred of evidence he could find.
' Damn it all.'
He swore when he found Ondore's office in a state of immense disrepair, the evidence of magicked fires having left scorch marks on all the fine furnishings. More destressing was the fact that most of the contents of the over turned filing cabinet was still smouldering on the carpeting.
He was beating at some of the still burning pieces of paper and parchment when Ashe caught up to him.
'What are we looking for?' She demanded briskly, surveying the destruction of the once plush office with a keen eye.
Balthier pulled the contract from his inner coat pocket and unfolded it before handing the most important piece of evidence he had so far to Ashe.
'An example of Joaquin's signature to match the one on this contract and if we are very lucky his own copy of that contract. Though I doubt the gods will be so kind.' He added in self-deprecating tones.
Ashe nodded absently as she read over the contract for the murder of Larsa Solidor and then without a word shoved the paper back to him and moved with forceful efficiency towards one smoking pile of papers scattering the scorched carpet.
Balthier couldn't help the smirk that touched his lips as he watched her, he always enjoyed watching Ashe when she was determined to take charge of a situation.
Becoming aware of his idly scrutiny of her she looked up from her crouched position, burnt papers clasped in each hand and glared at him.
'Are you planning on just standing there, Balthier? Or perhaps you would have me do all the work for you, Pirate?'
Balthier chuckled and turned to find his own mounds of paper to sift through. They worked in concentrated silence for a goodly amount of time as the night faded and crept towards a pale dawn. As the moon waxed and waned and the sun threatened the horizon with its presence he became increasingly irritated that even when he found a document in good repair he could not read it anyway.
'Bloody Bhujerbans, why can't they write in Ivalic's like the rest of the civilised world.' He grumbled.
Balthier was an accomplished and exceptionally well-educated man in most disciplines but he had never had a gift for languages. His grasp of the principles of the standard Ivalic grammar and spelling was rudimentary at best and an understanding of foreign languages completely eluded him.
He looked up from his annoyance to see Ashe smirking at him from across the room, 'Having some difficulties?' She asked him all too sweetly.
He smoothed out his glare and tried to affect a tone of nonchalant lack of concern. 'Some of these documents are in Bhujerban and I cannot read them. I shall simply have Fran do it later.'
Ashe quirked an eyebrow highly amused and thrust out a hand, 'Give them to me and I shall translate them for you.'
Balthier suppressed the wince of annoyance he instantly felt. Of course Ashe would be able to read Bhujerban, her mother had been born Bhujerban and as Queen she would be expected to be fluent in most of the major languages of Ivalice.
Acknowledging that he lacked the requisite skills to do a proper job without her he sighed and rose to his feet taking the papers with him. He settled down beside Ashe on the carpet and could not help but see the superior glimmer in her eyes as she perused the documents.
'My cousin is not bright but neither is he stupid. I don't think we shall find anything that conclusively links him to any crime.'
Ashe informed him coolly and Balthier nodded dejectedly; then, as he turned to look at her, he noticed something that he really should have seen earlier had he not been so intent on ignoring Ashe as much as possible.
She was bleeding. The square neckline of her simply white and yellow dress was stained crimson as was her neck and the ends of her hair. Frowning Balthier shoved her hair away from her neck and sucked in a sharp breath.
'Balthier, please, this is not the time.'
Ashe tried to bat his hand away irritably as she continued to scrutinise the papers in her hands, completely oblivious to the jagged, still oozing gashes the Rebe's claws had left to trail down her neck and collarbone.
'Balthier, what are you doing?'
Ashe snapped when he reached for her and tilted her head back with one hand at the back of her skull and placed the palm of his other hand over her throat. She tried to jerk away from him but his grip on the back of her head was secured by a firm clasp of her hair.
'You're bleeding.' He muttered as he summoned up white magick to heal the gashes, not deep but undoubtedly painful, if Ashe was not too stubborn to admit any pain that was.
'It is nothing. We have more important matters to attend to.'
She tried to pry his hand from her neck but he ignored her and concentrated on his magick. He didn't much like magick as a general rule but he had a knack for white magick in small doses.
He let his palm grow warm against the bobbing of her throat, the frantic thundering of her pulse jumping against his palm, and then he let his fingers glide over each hot, throbbing line of pain that scored her pretty white throat with almost teasing gentleness.
Ashe eventually decided that allowing him to complete his task would not be too great an imposition on their time and surrendered herself over to his ministrations. He tilted her body back against his arm, one hand still cradling the back of her head and leaned protectively over her as he continued to trail magickal healing from his fingertips down the smooth stem of her neck towards the modest neckline of her dress.
Ashe shifted until she was all but lying in the cradle of his arms, her head tilted back accommodatingly, back arched almost like an offering. An offering he was supremely tempted to accept. He was not hungry but suddenly he was starving for something he had refused to let himself acknowledge he had craved all these months.
One long gash ran from just below Ashe's right ear down her quivering throat to strike, diagonally, across her upper chest towards the soft mound of her left breast and Balthier, rather ironically, congratulated himself on how good a job he had done of ignoring her that he had failed to notice that particular mark until now.
He let his finger trail over the scratch, cool healing magick dancing over her skin and knitting the shallow red tear back together again leaving not a blemish behind.
All thoughts of murderous conspiracies, poisoned Marquises and similar weighty matters fled his mind. His thoughts narrowed down to a simple awareness of Ashe's quivering throat and warm, responsive body in his arms.
The sudden, intrusive wrapping on the door of the office nearly caused Balthier to drop Ashe to the carpet and the mood shattered as they were both rather rudely awakened to the reality of the situation and their current location.
Ashe managed to elbow him painfully in the stomach as she scrabbled dazedly out of his lap and sat up, flushing richly and trailing fingers down her neck to check his handiwork. Balthier kept his eyes averted and simply stared down at the papers he could not read because he did not trust himself to look anywhere else. The knocking on the door repeated itself.
'Come in.'
Ashe called in a voice that was just slightly breathless. The door opened and Fran stepped into the room. Instantly she looked from Ashe's flushed face to his and Balthier saw the rather droll look that glimmered in her round, inhume eyes. She could undoubtedly smell the lust in the air.
'Hey, Ashe, we've got trouble.' Vaan said as he crowded into the office after Fran, then cast his widening eyes over the mess in the room and whistled sharply.
'Wow. Somebody really didn't want anyone to find anything did they?'
Ignoring Vaan and his capacity to state the bloody obvious Balthier turned his attention to Fran. 'You lost the flag ship I take it?'
Fran shook her head slowly and he recognised the slight stiffening of her shoulders as self-reproach. 'Within the border of Rozzaria. A Rozzarian flying patrol intercepted, allowing the Marquis' vessel to enter but not myself.'
Balthier raised an eyebrow, 'Interesting. Did you show them the Archadian official writ of passage?'
Fran shrugged elegantly, 'They were disinclined to give me opportunity. Unusually aggressive they were.'
'Hmmm, that is interesting.' Balthier chewed on this morsel of information, even as annoyance that their quarry had escaped gnawed at his gut.
At that moment all inside the office became aware of the sound of many feet advancing on their location and the sounds of numerous voices raised in confusion and anger.
Vaan rubbed a hand to the back of his neck bashfully, 'Like I was saying. We have a problem. The Bhujerbans know somethings wrong and they're coming up to the estate with flaming torches and stuff.'
Ashe rose to her feet immediately, ' Then I must address the people and reassure them.'
When Balthier, Fran and Vaan all looked at her she frowned irritably, 'In the absence of either my cousin or uncle Halim I am the next in line to govern Bhujerba. I am an Ondore on my mother's side, after all.' She pointed out impatiently.
Balthier, who knew all that and had already considered a number of ways to use that very fact to aid in the capture of Joaquin Ondore if needed, rolled his eyes and waved a hand dismissively.
'Yes, yes, your Highness, but what are you going to tell them, hmm?' He demanded with droll impatience.
'How precisely are you going to reassure the good citizens of Bhujerba? By telling them their leader has most likely been poisoning his father? That he is involved in a conspiracy to kill the Archadian Emperor and has now fled into the bosom of the Rozzarian Empire leaving them, essentially, without a government? Yes, that will reassure them to no end.'
Ashe glowered at him, her level gaze heated ice, before she shook her hair away from her face and spoke with the utter conviction of someone raised to believe in the precept of divine right to rule.
'I shall tell them that their Marquis is missing and my uncle Halim is gravely ill, but that they need not fear for in the stead of either man, I, the Dynast Queen, shall administer their governance.'
Balthier felt his eyebrows shoot upwards towards his hairline and saw Fran's do the same. Even Vaan looked a trifle disconcerted, 'Er, Ashe are you sure that's a good idea? I mean with everything that's going on in Rabanastre...'
He trailed off when Ashe fixed him with a lethal, basilisk stare, swallowed hard and managed a tremulous smile.
'Um, I mean, go Ashe.'
He amended weakly, jumping out of the way as Ashe marched through the doorway with all her mighty, offended, regal dignity before her.
In her wake the other three occupants of the room all looked to one another in silence for a few seconds before Fran shook herself into action and moved towards the door.
' We must follow, she may need our aid.'
Balthier and Vaan followed Fran out of the office and towards the open balcony of the great hall, where Ashe had already begun her address to the citizen's of Bhujerba who filed into the gardens around the Ondore estate faces upturned towards the heroic Dynast Queen as she spoke.
' Friends and citizens of Bhujerba, tonight has been a night of many ill occurrences and no doubt you have heard many ill tidings and foul rumours as dawn has broken.'
Ashe managed to cast her voice down through the glooming dawn air to reach the crowds below almost effortlessly.
'I can tell you only this, that my uncle, Halim Ondore, is gravely ill,' Ashe hesitated and tilted her head so she could cast a questioning glance towards Vaan, who had been charged with seeing to Halim's safety.
' I had some of our guards fly him to Mount Bur-Omisace.'
Vaan said demonstrating in that action a shocking level of forethought and intelligence. Ashe smiled just a fraction in gratitude before continuing her address to the people as if she had never hesitated.
'... and has been taken to Mount Bur-Omisace for his convalescence.'
Cries rose from the crowds demanding to know the whereabouts of their Marquis and was it true that agents of Archadia had invaded the estate? What was her majesty Lady Ashe doing in Bhujerba for that matter?
Ashe raised her hand gesturing for silence, ' Please, please, people of Bhujerba, I cannot answer all your questions. All I can tell you is that the Marquis, my dear cousin Joaquin, is not present and I do not know where he is.'
Balthier shared a glance with Fran, it was clever of Ashe to feign ignorance in regards the Marquis' location. If she stated she knew he was in Rozzaria it would pose uncomfortable questions no one had answers to right at this moment. Politically ignorance was safest for the time being.
The crowds below were understandably disconcerted by this announcement and Ashe had to wait for them to settle once more.
'I came here yesterday to Bhujerba to see to the health of my uncle. Instead I have found many worrying and inexplicable things that leave me concerned for my cousin also. For this reason, as a good child of house Ondore, for I have never forgotten that the blood in my veins is half your blood, the blood of Bhujerba, I promise you I will not rest until these mysteries are resolved and Bhujerba's Marquis is restored.'
Balthier smothered a wry snort of amusement. He could admire Ashe's cleverness, reminding the people of Bhujerba that she, through her mother, had claim to Bhujerban nationality in order to reassure them of her good intent, and her last statement was nicely ambiguous as well. She would see a Marquis restored to Bhujerban governance but did not state which one.
Yes, Ashe was a fine politician that was for certain, with a natural gift for oration. She continued to offer cleverly worded reassurances while ducking the issue of whether or not the Marquis was in trouble, or what precisely was wrong with the seemingly much more popular Halim Ondore, for another hour.
When Ashe finally left the balcony and moved out of the sights of the people of Bhujerba who were being dispersed by the sainikrits and guardsmen, she looked like a ghost in the watery dawn light.
'Vaan have you managed to speak with Secretary of State Tnoy? Does he know of what has happened?' She asked Vaan faintly.
' Yeah, he and most of your privy council are gonna be here in a few hours.' Vaan nodded.
'Good. That's good.' Ashe nodded her head, almost slurring her words.
Frowning Balthier moved towards her and was therefore in just the right position to catch her when the Dalmascan Queen's knees gave way and she collapsed towards the floor.
'Ashe!'
Vaan lunged forward as Balthier hauled her upright, tilted up Ashe's lolling head, balancing her once more in the cradle of his arms and looked down onto her pale, exhausted face and her fluttering eyelids.
'Balthier...'
She clutched at his coat lapels as she tried in vain to gather her balance and hold herself upright, struggling as she was to hold onto consciousness.
'Balthier we must...'
She began to sink floorward again and, accepting that Ashe was never going to be able to walk towards the damask couch pushed to the corner of the room, Balthier swept her up into his arms. Ignoring her momentary complaint that she had not given him permission to carry her, he did just that, walked over to the couch, and deposited the exhausted monarch onto it.
Ashe was not one to suffer weakness well, especially her own, no matter how justified it might be, and he had to push her down onto her back as she tried to sit up, still gripping his lapels in a surprisingly tight grip.
'I think you need to rest your Highness, now that you've declared yourself de-facto ruler of not just Dalmasca and the remnants of Nabradia, but Bhujerba as well.' He added drily trying to gently pry her fingers from his coat.
Ashe slapped at his face weakly as he freed himself from her weakening grip, 'No, shut up, listen.' She demanded even as her voice failed her.
'Balthier. We must talk about sheep.' She declared with surprising earnestness before her eyelids once again descended over her hazy grey eyes.
Balthier wondered briefly if he had misheard her. Or perhaps a lack of food, nearly being throttled to death, and then taking over the governance of an entire purveema had taken so much out of Ashe that she was now delirious.
Whatever the case Balthier gently folded her hands against her chest and stroked her hair from her face.
' Your Majesty we can discuss livestock of any description for hours on end if you command it, once you have slept and eaten a decent meal.'
He humoured her and only then, as she finally succumbed to sleep, did he see the very familiar yellow and green band of metal adorning her right thumb.
He blinked in surprise and then looked up sharply to see Vaan looking furtive and Fran looking almost too impassive (which by her standards was quite impressive) he found himself scowling.
It was, in his opinion, stretching the rules of credulity to breaking point to imagine that the ring on Ashe's thumb could be anything but his, and he knew he had certainly not given it to her. So how could she have come by it?
Fixing Fran and Vaan with a deadly stare he said calmly, but in the tones of one who is holding onto his temper by a thread,
' I think perhaps one of you has some explaining to do, hmmm?
