Against all odds they had arrived safely in Galina, and Balthier could have kissed the ground in relief. He had never before considered that there might come a time when he would so relish having his feet firmly planted on the earth, but it had, and at Penelo's hands. And yet, she had looked just so damn pleased with herself that he could not quite bring himself to chastise her.

She'd taken years off his life with her daring landing, successfully lodging the Strahl flush between two clipper-class vessels, with nary a foot to spare on either side. Luckily, there was just enough room for the dock to extend out the back, permitting access outside. Which Balthier had been swift to take advantage of, the very moment she had retired to Fran's room for a shower before they made for the city proper.

It had taken several deep, steadying breaths to slow his racing heart, to feel the surge of adrenaline ebb, for his blood to cease its infernal pounding through his veins, in his head. Penelo had managed to shake up his steel nerves. It was unthinkable.

And still he took care to recover himself and re-board the Strahl before she emerged from the shower, to avoid injuring her feelings with his utter relief to find himself still living despite her best efforts to kill the both of them. He took up his typical seat on the deck, and collected himself until he could properly wear the mien of insouciance that had once come to him so naturally, and only then did he feel comfortable punching in the codes that would hail the Galbana.

Fran answered at once. "Balthier, you have impeccable timing."

"Vaan's out, I take it?" He stretched out and folded his arms behind his head, hoping that Fran could not hear the remnants of his disquiet in his voice. With her sensitive ears, she was adept at ferreting out all but the smoothest of lies.

"In a manner of speaking," she replied. "Is aught amiss? You sound distressed."

Damn. "Nothing you ought concern yourself with," he said. "What's happened with Vaan?"

"He chose the wrong target and has found himself incarcerated." There was a sliver of satisfaction in her voice, a bit of smug delight. "I did warn him, but…"

Balthier pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and heaved a sigh. It had been many years since he'd heard that particular tone – because it had been many years since he himself had been foolish enough to disregard Fran's sensible advice. "You will spring him free, won't you?"

"Of course." A brief hesitation. "Eventually."

"Fran."

"A brief jaunt to jail will serve him well in the future," she said, a touch defensively. "As it did you, on more than one occasion."

She had, in point of fact, always got him out – but she had also, on occasion, let him stew within the dank confines of a cell a bit longer than might have been strictly necessary, purely for the purpose of teaching him a lesson. Which he had learned. Eventually. He supposed it was no better than Vaan deserved, however…Penelo very well might take it poorly did he not intervene on Vaan's behalf.

"Somehow," he said, "I can't imagine that he'll learn his lesson any better in a cell than he would if you had simply boxed his ears. And if you ask me, offloading responsibility for him seems rather like cheating."

"If it keeps him occupied, does it truly matter?" A huff of annoyance issued forth over the connection. "As it happens, I was only going to let him spend a night or two to think on his folly."

And then she would cut him to pieces with the sharp side of her tongue, as Balthier knew from personal experience. She would rend his pride to shreds, breaking him down in the hopes of remolding him into finer stuff. And she was really rather excellent at it.

"Can you complain, when every day he is occupied is a day he cannot search for Penelo – and thus another day that you remain with her?"

"For the gods' sakes," he bit off, fumbling for the control panel to lower the volume, hoping that Penelo hadn't heard it. "Was that really necessary?"

A sigh of aggravation from over the line. "Balthier, I am given charge of a reckless child and instructed to keep him at bay for the foreseeable future, and you ask me if a simple question is necessary. And so I return a question to you: was it not?"

Blast it, she had never before displayed the proclivity to meddle in his private affairs; she had been well contented to keep her nose out of anything that did not directly affect their working relationship. Although, he supposed this very well might count in her eyes – he had seen it as something of a sabbatical, but she might see it as something that threatened the nature of their partnership. It was, in point of fact, the longest period of time that they had been separated since she had first taken him in. Still, she could not, after all of this time, possibly be insecure of her place in his life.

"It was not," he bit off, sharper than he intended, still smarting from the blow she had dealt him.

She made a noncommittal noise deep in her throat, the sort that usually preceded a lecture on his myriad faults and perhaps a cautionary diatribe regarding where his conduct was likely to lead him. Sure enough, she began, "Balthier, I hope you will take care –"

But she was interrupted by the patter of bare feet on the Strahl's varnished wood floors, and a voice that called out, "Is that – I thought I heard Fran."

Penelo dropped into the seat beside him, toweling at her damp hair. She had failed to redress; instead she had wrapped a towel around her, tucking the loose end into the hollow between her breasts, and it seemed to Balthier that it held itself up only on a prayer. The scent of jasmine assailed Balthier's nose; Fran's preferred fragrance, found in all of her toiletries. On Penelo it seemed jarring; he had rather enjoyed the earthier scents of his own soaps on her skin, found them more fitting than Fran's flowers.

Or perhaps he had just enjoyed the fact that she had smelled like him, and the proprietary sensation that it had evoked.

"Penelo." Fran's voice was warm, genuinely pleased. "It is so good to hear your voice."

"Fran – it is you!" Penelo laughed, tilting her head back, wriggling in her seat like an overexcited puppy. The motion crumpled the towel; it slid up her legs, parting just enough to reveal the length of her left thigh nearly to her hip. Balthier averted his gaze a fraction of a second too late for comfort, but at least Penelo hadn't noticed anything amiss.

"You sound well," Fran said. "I was relieved to hear that you had been recovered."

"I am well, thank you." Penelo settled back into the chair with a sigh. "I don't know how to thank you for your assistance. If not for you and Balthier, I'd still be little better than a slave." Her lips pursed, as if the word had tasted bitter. Balthier might've pointed out that she hadn't been little better than a slave, she had been a slave – the chain she had been bound with attested to that. But he supposed that the term itself made her feel weak, and modifying it so gave her a bit of her autonomy back. It was the prerogative of the mind to rewrite history to make it easier to bear.

"I did very little, as it happens," Fran said. "Aside from keeping Vaan otherwise occupied."

Penelo had the good grace to flush. "I'm sorry for that," she said. "I know how trying he can be." Exasperation colored her tone; her eyes had gone distant, seeing years into the past, doubtless recalling the countless scrapes that Vaan's recklessness had gotten her embroiled in.

Fran's own annoyed sigh echoed around them. "Trying is too tame a word, I think," she said. "He has the makings of a decent pirate, if only he would curb his rash impulses."

"Good luck, there," Penelo scoffed. "I tried for years."

"Somehow," Balthier cut in, "I believe Fran's particular brand of discipline just might be more effective than yours."

"Oh?" Penelo swiveled towards him, all indignation, pinning him with a glare which was softened by the wayward, damp locks of hair that curled wildly about her face. "And how would you know?"

"Past experience." Somehow he managed to keep his eyes on her face, despite the fact that the towel had drooped dangerously downward, the tucked-in end having been mostly dislodged by her shifting. "As well-intentioned as you may be, you only chide – bothersome, but ineffective. Fran doesn't bother to chide; she goes straight for the jugular. She'll rip him to bits and sew him back up into something useful."

Doubtfully, she inquired, "And I suppose you've been sewn up in the past, then?"

He flashed her a cheeky grin. "More times than I'd care to admit."

Fran's frustrated voice crackled over the line, "If you had learned the first time –"

"We're discussing Vaan's failings, not mine, if you please, Fran," Balthier broke in. In her present pique, Fran might very well wish to humble him with tales of his misspent youth thrown up for Penelo's amusement.

Fran subsided only briefly before murmuring, somewhat sulkily, "As you wish. In any case, it is Vaan's deeds which vex me currently."

With a heavy, beleaguered sigh, Penelo rolled her eyes and asked, "What's he done now?"

In a voice laden with smug superiority, Fran replied, "He has gotten himself tossed in jail."

Penelo threw back her head and laughed uproariously. "Ha! Let him sweat it out a few days. It'll do him good."

Balthier stared at her, his brows winging upwards.

"Well," Fran said. "I have my permission, then." And before Balthier could manage a single retort, she cut the line.

But Penelo was still grinning like a fool, ostensibly at the thought of Vaan languishing away in a jail cell. He wouldn't have thought that Penelo would have it in her, to consign someone – anyone – to suffering, even if they might've deserved it. She had been too tenderhearted in the past for that. He had meant only to spare her the worry by asking that Fran see Vaan released. It had also crossed his mind that she would be sensitive to the particular punishment of imprisonment, as she had so recently suffered it herself.

"Something wrong?" She busied herself with securing the edges of her towel, having finally noticed that it had lost a good deal of its hold.

"No, not particularly," he said. "I suppose I thought you would be rather troubled at the thought of Vaan's imprisonment."

She made a disapproving sound in her throat as she fussed with her hair. "Balthier, I promise you – even if Vaan didn't quite deserve to be tossed in jail this time, he's gotten away with things that would merit it. It'll do him good to learn he's not invincible."

"He's rash and young," Balthier said, not a little bemused with his defense of the boy. "Everyone gets into scrapes eventually; it doesn't mean –"

"Better he learn a small lesson now than a large one later," she said, rising from her chair. "It's a kindness, believe it or not. We all pay for our sins. Some of us larger prices than others." And as she turned on her heel to walk away, she briefly rubbed one ankle against the other, drawing his attention to the fresh bandage wrapped around her right ankle.

A subtle reminder that she had paid for her relatively minor sin of naïveté, and the price had been high indeed.


The tavern Balthier had chosen in which to enlist guides for their trek into the jungle bore a startling resemblance to the one Penelo had so recently left behind. Surely, in such a sprawling city, there would have been others to choose from – but he had insisted upon this one in particular, claiming that its patrons were, on the whole, a more adventurous lot than were to be found in any other.

The boisterous laughter that had met them when they had entered seemed to bear evidence of at least a good-natured grouping. And the board reserved for the posting of marks had been picked clean, with just ragged edges of paper left clinging there to attest to the fact that it had once been riddled with them. Likely they were just plucked off the moment they were posted, by intrepid and enterprising souls with a surfeit of confidence and very little fear.

As she and Balthier claimed seats near the rear of the room, Penelo chanced a good look around. Most of the patrons were men, but she there were a fair few women as well, mostly older; mid-thirties at the youngest, and all of them battle-hardened. Like as not they'd had to be twice as tough as the men to prove their worth, and Penelo could not count a single woman who looked as though she might've smiled at any point in the past year.

Despite the fact that the tavern they occupied was right in the middle of a thriving town – a shining example of civilization unlikely to be plagued by beasts – each patron was dressed as if for battle, their leathers and chainmail not polished to gleaming shine, but still scarred and tarnished from their latest adventures. As near as Penelo could figure, they subscribed to the idea that there was little point in polishing armor that was soon to grow dirty again.

A serving maid soon brought by two mugs of bitter ale, and Balthier commanded a moment of her time with his request to point out a couple of people that might be willing to lead an expedition into the jungle.

The maid had merely laughed lightly as said, "Oh, I doubt you'll find anyone fool enough to take that sort of risk…but, Old Rohan, there, o'er yonder – he went in once." She nodded to indicate a rough-looking man of some sixty years quietly nursing a glass of whiskey in a secluded corner. "He talks about it from time to time; you oughta take it up with him."

Balthier had thanked the maid and briefly deserted Penelo in favor of plying the old man into joining them at their table with the promise of a bottle of whiskey. It took only a moment for the man to accept, and his gnarled fingers snatched for the bottle before Balthier's offer had even been completed.

He followed Balthier back to the table, but his thin lips, half-hidden beneath a bushy, unkempt mustache, were twisted in chagrin. His hands wrapped protectively around the bottle as if he feared it would be taken from him, he plopped into a chair to Penelo's right and turned his attention on her. His face was worn like the leather cover of an ancient tome, full of cracks and crevices into which dust and dirt had settled. His hair had been allowed to grow long and ragged, to the point where she could not determine where it ended and his scraggly beard began. A long, jagged scar bisected his face, straight through his right eye, which was a milky white, staring sightlessly.

"Ye want to go into the jungle?" he inquired shortly, and followed the question up with a condescending snort. "Ye'd best rethink it. Ye'd not last a day."

Balthier, unperturbed by the man's hostility, rested one arm on the table and asked, "What makes you believe that?"

Old Rohan made a rough sound in his throat and looked about as if searching for a spittoon. Failing to find one, he simply spat upon the floor. "Soft. The both of ye, soft and weak as babes." But it was Penelo he glared at – ostensibly because she had not been the one to purchase him a bottle of whiskey. "White skin what's never seen the sun. Soft hands, too, I'd wager. Lookin' for a bit 'o adventure to liven up yer life, but ye're out 'o yer element here, missy. Jungle's not for the likes 'o ye. Jungle's not for the likes 'o anyone."

And then he blanched, and his startled gaze jerked up to meet Penelo's. She smiled benignly and pressed forward the tip of the blade she'd brandished beneath the table, until he yelped and clutched for his privates, which she had come dangerously close to relieving him of.

"Tell me more," she said, in a sweetly poisonous voice, "about how soft I am."

His gravelly voice jumped an octave higher as he said, "I mighta been mistaken."

"Penelo," Balthier chided, though a shadow of a grin teased the corners of his lips. "This gentleman is our guest."

Penelo let the man sweat it out a few moments longer, holding his gaze with her own icy stare before she at last withdrew, tucking the knife back into her pocket. Old Rohan let out a shuddering sigh of relief, scooting his chair as far from Penelo as he could manage.

"She's feral, your lady," Old Rohan said to Balthier. "Ain't never met a lady before what would threaten a man's family jewels. Ye oughta put a leash on 'er."

"She's not my lady, she is my partner," Balthier said, "And she's likely to take a strip out of your hide if you should persist in speaking of her in that manner." He had carefully blanked his face of expression, but Penelo saw the tightness of his jaw and knew that Old Rohan's antics had annoyed him, though she couldn't imagine why.

"Awright, awright," Old Rohan grumbled. "I ain't meanin' no disrespect, now." He curled his fingers around the neck of his bottle of whiskey, slipping it beneath the table and out of sight, lest it be taken from him. "Ye wanted to know about the jungle?"

"Yes." Balthier braced his forearms on the table and leaned in. "We'd like to find a guide."

Old Rohan choked on a burst of gravelly laughter. "Ye won't find it here," he said. "Ye can take back yer whiskey, it ain't worth my life. I been in that jungle once, more 'en thirty years ago. I ain't goin' back." A shudder slipped through him, as if the memory was still fresh enough to evoke fear, over a quarter of a century later.

"Why?" Balthier asked. "What is so fearsome about it?"

"It's cursed." Old Rohan spat on the floor. "Cursed and evil. Crawlin' with foul beasts what I ain't never seen nowhere else." He hesitated. "Ye ain't the first, ye know, to go anglin' after that tomb. There's scores and scores 'o men that come in search. Hard men, tough men, each thinkin' that they'll be the ones to make it. They go in, y'see," he said, with a bitter laugh. "But they never come back out."

"You did," Balthier pointed out.

"Yessir, I did," Old Rohan acknowledged readily enough. "I was the only one what did. That cursed jungle took half 'o my sight." He drew one crooked finger down his cheek, tracing the deep gouge from his chin to his forehead, pausing briefly to linger over the pale film that obscured the iris of his right eye. "Twenty men went into the jungle that day. Lost half 'o them in the first six hours."

"To what?" Penelo asked.

Old Rohan shook his head. "Don't rightly know," he said. "Some 'o them, they just up and disappeared. It was a death adder what got me, though. Massive, they are. Can't hardly see 'em until they strike, and they like to hide in the trees so's they can get the drop on ye." He held up one hand for display. "Got fangs twice over again as long as my fingers, and venom that'll curdle yer blood in yer veins."

They had faced worst and lived to tell the tale; monstrous snakes had been on the tamer end of beasts they had conquered. And, having spent the last three years in a tavern, Penelo was more than well acquainted with braggarts who dealt in tall tales. "So you never even made it to the tomb, then?" she inquired.

"Near as I can tell, no one has," he said. "Leastwise, no one's made it back to tell the tale. People talk 'o it in stories, like what ye'd tell round a campfire." Old Rohan shifted a bit in his seat and at last inquired, "Ye got a map?"

Obligingly, Balthier reached into his vest pocket and retrieved one, unfolding it to lay it out on the table before them. Old Rohan scoured it, running his finger up along the coast until he came to Galina, then dragging it across into the jungle, where he tapped the north east corner. "Here," he said. "Suppose it'd be here, anyway. Ain't never been there myself, but I flown over this spot in an airship a time or two. Eerie quiet, it is. No sound above it, like it's kilt anything what mighta been livin' there. Trees don't look right from above, neither. All bent and crooked, like they're keepin' somethin' powerful evil in."

"What do they call it, in the stories?" Balthier asked.

"The Tomb of the Forgotten King," Old Rohan said, with a shudder.

Balthier and Penelo exchanged doubtful glances. "That hardly sounds as dire as all that," Balthier said.

"Well, now, a good king wouldn'ta been forgotten, would he?" Old Rohan popped the lid from the bottle of whiskey and took a deep drink. "Seems to me like buryin' in state woulda been too good for the likes 'o this one. A tomb so deep in that cursed place…that's where ye put the ones you want to stay lost forever." He took another long pull from the bottle and replaced the lid. "Ain't no mention 'o the king or the tomb in our hist'ry books, only rumors and stories handed down o'er the years, parent to child. Near as anyone can tell, tomb's gotta be about five hundred years old. There's the lost years, y'see, ten 'o them. Stricken records, pages torn straight outta chronicles. Like the whole of Rozarria just wanted to forget 'em. Bury the proof deep in the jungle and let it rot."

Balthier tented his fingers. "A tomb that old – it must contain a good many artifacts. Items of great historical significance, not to mention their monetary value. You're certain we won't find a guide?"

Gravely, Old Rohan shook his head. "Likely to laugh in yer face, they would."

"Then we'll be going it alone, it seems." Balthier looked to Penelo. "Any objections?"

"Not a one." She hadn't wasted three years of her life staring at the same walls to cut and run just when things got a bit dangerous. A life spent hiding from the world was a life wasted; she had braved worse odds before and won.

Old Rohan laughed, a harsh, faintly pitying sound. "Don't say I didn't warn ye," he said. "Best settle up yer debts afore ye go. Ye won't be needin' the gil where yer going."


"I suppose we'll need to stock up on supplies," Penelo said. Her fair brows were drawn; she hunched over the table as if she were about to spill a secret that she didn't want to be overheard.

"I suppose we will." He didn't think her posture was due to reticence to venture into the jungle. She hadn't seemed terribly alarmed by Old Rohan's tales of a diabolical evil inhabiting the place they planned to journey into. She, too, was more than slightly skeptical of rumors, likely knowing that old men – especially those given to drink – were wont to embellish their tales.

And yet, she scratched at the nape of her neck as if to brush away a persistent mosquito, her lips pursing into a frown, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

"Problem?" he inquired.

"Someone's staring at me." She hissed the words, as if it were a grievous crime.

He had not been paying attention to the other patrons; he had been too focused on her discomfort. But a surreptitious glance around the room revealed the fact that she had attracted not one or two, but three admirers. Not unreasonable, given that she was the only woman in the room whose skin didn't look like old leather, whose hair was soft and clean, who didn't appear to have eaten a handful of nails for breakfast. Surely attracting male attention was neither new nor novel to her.

But he could see that it was unwelcome, at the very least – so she was aware of her effect upon men, but resented those who fell victim to her physical charms. That fruit vendor in Valenta whom she had bilked out of a veritable feast – she hadn't just used her wiles against him; she had sought to punish him for daring to be attracted to her.

And he wondered if perhaps she lashed out before she could be struck; a sort of revenge against the male half of the population for their gall in thinking she might have an interest in them, or a precautionary measure, lest she find herself caught in the same net that had proved so disastrous to her before. Perhaps it was even a pseudo-revenge against the man who had hurt her; perhaps she saw glimmers of his face in theirs, or heard the echoes of his voice, and rejected them entirely.

"So long as they keep their hands to themselves, where's the harm in a look?"

She made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat, real revulsion on her face. "In my experience, it rarely stops at a look. I'm not ignorant; I had a fiancé. I know what they want." And she shuddered delicately, as if repelled by the prospect.

So she had found the physical aspect of romance to be distasteful, then? He wondered why. Had her suitor been a selfish lover? Gods forbid – had he hurt her physically? Or yet worse still – had she been victimized by the patrons of the establishment she had so recently called home? The possibility sparked a blinding rage of a sort he had not experienced in years; his hand shot out, encircling her wrist.

She started so hard that she knocked her cup and ale sloshed over the rim, spreading across the table between them. "What is the matter with you?" she asked, her brows drawing together in consternation as she frowned at him, struggling to pry her wrist from his hold.

"Did he hurt you? Has anyone hurt you? Were you –" But he broke off, unable to utter that word in connection with her.

"What?" she gasped. "No! No – well, not for lack of trying, I suppose. But I never had trouble with any one man more than once; not after I bashed their faces in." She succeeded finally in prying off his fingers and wrapped her own around her mug, ducking her head as if embarrassed.

Unbearably relieved, Balthier sank back in his chair and blew out a harsh breath.

"I just – I don't…I never liked it," she muttered at last, bright color flooding her cheeks. In a whisper, she continued, "Raen said I was cold."

The statement brought him up short, surprised a chuckle out of him. "And you believed him?"

She shrugged, but her gaze was focused inside her glass; she absently stirred one finger in the head of foam that topped her ale.

"You're not." He simply did not believe it was possible; not with what he already knew of her. She might have been brought to believe it, but that didn't make it true – and it had been a title bestowed upon her by a complete and utter bastard, which made it all the more suspect.

Her eyes jerked up to his. "I am, though. I've never enjoyed it; it's unpleasant and awkward – it's just – just something you suffer to please someone else." Her lips pursed in irritation, but her gaze had dropped again to her drink, and he got the sense that she was ashamed, that she felt less than forher lack of enjoyment.

She heaved a sigh, and muttered, "At least it always over and done with quick enough."

And he laughed. He couldn't help it. Though to his credit, he attempted to smother it – a bit too late, it seemed, for her eyes narrowed on his face, thoroughly annoyed at his amusement.

"It's not funny," she snapped. Her whole face had gone red as a cherry, though in humiliation or anger, he couldn't be sure.

With no small amount of effort, he managed to sober himself. "No, it's not – it's dreadful." Poor girl; she had so little experience that she was willing to accept Raen's lies and shoulder the blame herself. "If you found it unpleasant, that was his failing – not yours."

"That's ridiculous," she huffed. "He had no trouble…ah, enjoying himself. I was the one who didn't enjoy it."

"Yes, well, men are easy to please. Women, however, often require a fair bit more effort. If he had been any sort of man at all, he would have had a care for more than his own satisfaction." Tragic, that no one had ever taken to time to explain such things to her; she might've escaped such a disastrous turn of events, might never have fallen prey to such as selfish, cruel man.

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and pressed her hands to her cheeks as if she might scrub away the flush that persisted. "I'm not sure this is an appropriate conversation," she said. "Do you often discuss these sorts of things with Fran?"

"No. But I expect she's forgotten more than I've ever learned, so there's never been a need." Good gods; the last time he and Fran had had a conversation that so much as approached the topic of sex had been nearly ten years ago, and it had been Fran doing the lecturing – and even that had been only a casual instruction to avoid impregnating anyone.

"There's no need for us to discuss it, either." She pushed back from the table, abandoning her glass of ale, still nearly full. "We've got supplies to purchase." She dug into her pocket for her pouch of coins and tossed a small handful of them on the table – far more than was necessary to cover their bill. And then she was striding swiftly for the exit, and he wondered if he might have knocked her off balance, upset her worldview.

He caught up with her just outside the tavern, catching her shoulder to stop her before she could wander off too far. "It was necessary to discuss," he said. "You're not cold, and someday someone is going to prove it to you."

"It doesn't matter," she said, shrugging off his hand. "I don't care anymore – I can't imagine I'll ever want that sort of relationship again. I'd have to be crazy, after everything I've suffered." And she started forward again, tossing over her shoulder, "Marketplace is this way."

That simply would not do. In her present state, she would hiss and spit at any man who approached her, eschewing all potential relationships on the grounds that she was cold, immune to passion. And she would never learn otherwise, because she would never let a man close enough to find out.

Well…except for him. He had the luxury of her company for the foreseeable future, and he had earned at least a small fragment of her trust by virtue of having rescued her in her time of need. He got the distinct impression that she saw him as friend first and man second, and that was all well and good – for now. Her guard would remain low, and he could simply...sneak up on her blindside.

She needed a nudge to break free of the icy shell she'd encased herself within. She wore it poorly, and she had not enough experience to recognize it. But she would, given enough time. She had spent so many years surviving that it was all she knew; now she required the space and freedom to grow beyond her perceived limitations, to discover for herself who she was, and not who she had had to be for the last three years.

And he…well, he had always relished a challenge.