The Ondore Estate; Bhujerba

A/N: The darkened room didn't help much but I think this marathon near daily update thing is coming to an end, this chapter has exhausted me!

Also I would like to warn any reader with a delicate disposition... this chapter is a roller-coaster! Expect angst, anguish, tension, romance and considerable melodrama. ;)

P.S Sapereaude13 I'm borrowing one of your lines from your review (chapter 9) because I liked it, hope you don't mind!

' I am perfectly well. I do not need all this food, truly.'

The Bhujerban attendant managed to convey a look of disdainful incredulity yet still retained the proper respect as she began filling a gold gilded plate with an over-abundance of food.

Ashe, stomach twisting and knotting with audible hunger, sighed in defeat. The food shortage in Dalmasca had forced her to enact a food rationing system in her territory and the palace and the royal household was hardly exempt from such. In fact Ashe had been eating even less than was available so that the surplus could go to the people who needed it more.

'Sir Tnoy, you have had the opportunity to converse with the Bhujerban ministers?'

She addressed her Secretary of State, the most senior member of her privy council, a thin, shrivelled man who resembled a prune with protuberant eyes, cleared his throat and reluctantly put his cutlery down. He had been attacking the breakfast spread with undisguised enthusiasm.

'I have your majesty. It would seem that Bhujerba is facing a recession. The revenue from the Lhusu mine has been diminishing since the advent of peace, both Rozzaria and Archadia having less need for magicite to fuel their military expansion.'

Ashe sipped from her freshly squeezed glass of fruit juice and thought over this news. 'We had suspected such a slow down in Bhujerba's economy, are you saying it is worse than we thought?'

Chancellor Fidore spoke up, 'Considerably, Your Majesty. Your uncle Halim's efforts towards the Imperial resistance put considerable strain on Bhujerba's treasury and the recent decrease in demand for magicite, Bhujerba's main commodity, has meant that debts have remained unpaid.'

Chancellor Fidore, a small, rotund man with a luxuriant reddish-blonde beard and a completely bald pate was her favourite of all her councillors, the man was opinionated with a tendency to patronise Ashe, but he was the least antagonistic towards her.

Ashe tapped her fingers on the white table cloth of the large table in arrange in the council chamber of the Ondore Estate, meditatively. 'A motive then. Men can become desperate when faced with a depleted gil purse. Perhaps that is the reason for my cousin's actions.'

Ambassador Tallhana, the Dalmascan envoy to Bhujerba, cleared his throat nervously.

'Majesty, if I may..?'

He awkwardly raised his voice for permission to offer opinion. A slim, young man with bookish looks and speckles perched on his nose; Tallhana was not a privy councillor and was only present for this breakfast meeting because he was the envoy based in the Ondore household.

The other members of her council looked at him with irritation but Ashe smiled and nodded her head.

'You have something you wish to add, Mr Tallhana?'

'Majesty, I would like to beg your forgiveness. It is reprehensible of me that I could have been unaware for so long of what your uncle had endured.'

Ashe smiled as warmly as she could upon her envoy, a man who had once served as a member of the Rabanastran resistance and a liaison with the resistance in Bhujerba.

'Mr Tallhana, I have no need to forgive you as you have done no wrong. It was your reports back to court that prompted me to come and investigate for myself.'

The man smiled faintly reassured and licked his lips furtively, 'In that case Your Majesty, I have some other news. I can't prove it, but I have heard from sources I trust that the Marquis Joaquin has taken out a number of substantial loans from members of the Margrace family over recent months; loans that have no record in the official accounts.'

'What? Then why have you not said?' Fidore demanded before Ashe could speak.

'Are you quite stupid boy? How could you keep such to yourself?' Tnoy put in his own two-gil worth of insult.

Ashe smacked her spoon down on the table top with deliberate force. 'That is enough. Mr Tallhana,' she turned from glaring at her council members to look on the envoy, who cringed back in his chair, 'can you corroborate this information?'

'I –I can try, Your Majesty.' He stammered.

Ashe nodded, ' Then I suggest you speak at once with master Balthier, or his partner Fran. This information is pertinent to their investigation I should imagine.'

Tallhana leapt to his feet, enthused by the prospect of escape from this meeting of the high and mighty of Dalmasca and the thought of getting back to doing what he did best, dealing with real people.

' At once Your Majesty.'

Ashe returned to her breakfast, aware of the quick, sharp looks her councillors were sharing across the table between one another.

' That's another thing we need to discuss, Your Majesty. The Pirate.'

Fidore began failing to see that it was not appropriate for him to be dictating the topic of discussion, but at least attempting to broach the change of subject with some politeness.

This was more than could be said for her minister of foreign affairs, master Loggia. 'It is completely disgraceful, Majesty, that you are pandering, again, to the whims of that sky pirate.'

Ashe could feel her eyebrows climbing her brow and her lips thinning in disgust and outrage that this man could speak to her in such a manner.

Fidore cleared his throat awkwardly, 'Now, now, Loggia, that's no way to treat Ashe. I'm sure she's got a good reason for what that man is doing here, don't you, honey?'

'I thought the man was supposed to be languishing in an Archadian gaol right now? He was extradited after all.' Tnoy added superciliously.

Ashe was resisting forcefully the powerful desire to stab either Tnoy or Loggia in the eye with her fork.

'Balthier is acting under the auspices of Judge Magister Gabranth and the Archadian Senate investigating the attempted assassination of the Emperor. If you wish to know precisely what he is doing in Bhujerba I suggest you speak directly with him.'

She snarled with icy fury. Throwing down her napkin on the table top, as she had become aware that she had been twisting the cloth in her fists in impudent fury, she fixed cold eyes on Loggia.

'And if you ever speak to me in such a way again, sir, I shall have you up on charges of treason so fast you will not know what hit you. Is that understood?'

Instead of being sufficiently cowed by this threat, which was completely sincere, Loggia merely curled his fleshy lip spitefully.

'Madame you behave like a love sick girl defending her lover. Need I remind you that you are a queen and should act as one?'

'Loggia that's enough man.' Fidore exclaimed as Ashe launched herself up from her seat, rounded the table and stood, shaking with fury, in front of Loggia.

'How dare you?' She spat at the middle-aged, refined and debonair man who managed to look glossy and well fed despite the dire straits his Queen and his kinsmen were in.

'How dare you speak to me like that? Where were you when my palace was sacked and my father murdered? Where were you when I was forced to live under the streets of my own city in fear for two years?'

Ashe turned to encompass the other two members of her council in her diatribe, had she had a weapon in hand she feared how she might use it at that moment.

' You dare tell me how to act? Gods damn you, you filthy, smarmy traitor. Do you think I don't know that you weathered out the occupation in your villa in Ambervale? You spineless lump of Chocobo excrement.'

Ashe leant down so she could snarl straight into Loggia's face, watching the man's heavy-lidded censorious eyes widen in alarm as she spoke.

Afraid that she would strike the man, Ashe spun on her heels and paced, like a she-Couerl, back and forth down the length of the table, flinging her heated words outwards like throwing darts to strike at the men who had for too long been given the benefit of the doubt.

'You think I don't know that all of you, my father's trusted advisors, his councillors, capitulated and rolled over like spineless, snivelling worms when the Empire invaded? But I forgave you! I offered you your positions back, allowed you to serve on my council, and for three years you have mocked me, attempted to dictate to me and done everything in your power to line your own pockets at the expense of your people!'

Ashe whirled to face the three stricken men, face contorted in rage, 'You…..you bastards! I gave you everything you have, you wretched fools, and by the gods I can take it from you.'

Fidore opened his mouth, expression a mix of self-interested concern and patronising sympathy, 'Highness….'

'No! Do not dare speak to me.' Ashe snarled pointing a finger that the man was lucky did not send a bolt of thundaga flying through the air to strike his greedy heart.

'I am the Dynast Queen. I risked my life and everything I had to give to see my kingdom free while you all sat on your fat asses in your safe hiding places and waited for someone else to do the job for you.'

Ashe was almost panting with the intense desire to inflict grievous injury on the slack-jawed, stunned and vacuous looking men before her. She clenched and unclenched her fists spasmodically and tried to breathe through her rage.

'You do not deserve to decide the fate of your kingdom. You are the least of my subjects not the greatest and it is time you knew that.'

Loggia was opening and closing his mouth with the gaping stupidity of a landed fish. Tnoy had gone an unhealthy shade of fuchsia in the face and was stiff as a board in his chair. Fidore looked pale and equally stricken mute.

Ashe was thoroughly sickened by the whole thing and suddenly exhausted. She stared at each man in turn for a few long seconds, and then, in a voice crackling with ice and thunder and controlled by force of will alone she spoke.

'Get out of my sight, all of you, before I do something you shall regret for the rest of your miserable lives.'

She stood with her hands braced against the table top and her head down, sucking in deep breaths of air, as the three men rose in an inelegant rush of uncoordinated limbs to leave the room and escape their Queen's unleashed wrath.

'Well, I don't quite know whether to applaud or run for the hills after that performance. Are all your council meetings so exciting?'

Ashe almost lost her balance as she sprang from the table, assuming a fighters stance from sheer habit, searching out the owner of that familiar, sardonic voice.

'What are you doing here Balthier?'

She demanded her voice still harsh from her confrontation with her councillors as he strolled over to the table from where he had seemingly been hiding behind a lacquered screen at the back of the room.

Wearing a black leather vest emblazoned with electric blue embroidered velvet and his usual ridiculously tight trousers and sandals he sauntered over with smirk in place and plucked an apple from the breakfast spread.

'Eavesdropping; it's what spies do.'

He said in a voice that seemed to be meant to irritate. He seemed highly amused by her distress and at that moment Ashe wanted to stab him with a bread knife.

'Well, now you have had your fill of secrets you can get out.' She hissed.

Balthier's lips twitched as if he was struggling not to laugh. He moved towards her and leaned, hip-cock, against the table and with astonishing lack of regard for his health, reached out a hand to deftly stroke an errant wisp of her hair from her brow.

'Now, now, Highness, no need to be like that.' He chided cheerfully.

Ashe shied away from him like a skittish Chocobo and paced restlessly towards the window.

'My envoy Mr Tallhana wishes to speak with you, he has information regarding...'

'Regarding undisclosed loans from Rozzaria, yes I know.' Balthier interrupted, 'I was listening the whole time, remember?'

'Well then what are you doing here? You have assassins to catch, or is Larsa's life less important to you than irritating me?' She demanded petulantly, unable to rid herself of her pent up anger.

She had fantasised about finally telling her councillors what she thought of them, but now she had, she found it was less than satisfying.

No doubt even now the three men were conniving with each other and dismissing her justified anguish as the over-emotional outbursts of a foolish girl not fit to rule.

'Highness, please, I would always choose irritating you over any other activity.'

She went instantly rigid as Balthier slipped his arms around her waist from behind then she elbowed him hard in the stomach and tried to twist out of his grip.

'Let go.' She hissed when he grunted in pain but did not let go of her.

She tried to stamp on his foot to perform the same manoeuvre on him that had worked so well on Lord Anover, but Balthier knew how she fought and kept his feet out of stamping reach.

Ashe managed to twist around to face him, hand coming up in a flash to strike across his smooth shaven cheek, knocking his head to the side with a tinkle of silver ear-rings.

Balthier did not so much as loosen his grip on her waist, as he rolled his mouth and jaw and turned back to her with an ironical amusement in his eyes.

'Feel better now Princess?' He purred dryly.

Ashe choked on something that was neither laugh nor sob as the intense, frustrated knot of anguish loosened inside her and she felt like she could breathe again. Raising a suddenly shaky hand she touched the red mark she had left on his cheek.

'Balthier I….I'm sorry.' She admitted ashamed at herself for lashing out like a spoiled child, especially when she was not even angry at him.

'Hmm, forget it, Highness. I am quite accustomed to the sting of the back of your hand, after all.'

He let his smirk widen, a challenging glint in his eyes. 'I dare say I must be quite fond of it now, the number of times I have invited a slap from you.'

Ashe snorted derisively. It was certainly true; she had lost count of the number of times he had driven her to strike at him. It did not speak very well of her character, that was for sure.

Ashe let herself lean into him and reached out a hand to pet at the embroidery covering his vest.

'This is new.' She murmured stroking over the brilliant blue swirls of velvet patterning the supple leather vest.

'I'm glad you like it, Highness.' He replied lazily as he propped his chin on the top of her head and held lightly in his arms.

Ashe sighed deeply and slipped her arms around his waist, she was past caring if somebody came into the room now and saw her embracing a pirate.

'Do you ever miss the old days, when it was just the six of us and we were free to travel all over Ivalice as we liked?' She murmured wistfully.

Balthier actually laughed at that causing Ashe to look up at him in surprise. Balthier was rarely without his habitually smirk but she could count on one hand the number of times she had ever heard him laugh out loud.

'Things must be bad indeed for you to be getting nostalgic for our Occuria banishing sojourn three years ago, Highness.'

Ashe shook her head and let her brow rest on his shoulder again. 'I am serious. I am not saying it was easy, gods know it wasn't. Yet it was simpler then. I knew I was right. We all knew who the enemy was and it was one that could be defeated.'

Unlike the unconquerable foes such as hunger or a kingdom with no fertile land to grow crops to feed its people; unlike a dead and polluted wasteland that was once her husband's homeland. A land she had pledged on her throne to restore and had no means to do so.

Balthier's hands stroked up and down her back and down the length of her arms to trace back up to her shoulders. He dropped a kiss to the top of her head.

'Things always look rosier in memory, Highness. At the time, I seem to recall, you had just as many reservations and fears regards your actions, but you overcame them and you triumphed just like you will now.'

Ashe sniffed, 'And I recall that your primary concern was in inveigling your way under my skirt.'

This induced another laugh from Balthier who gave her behind a friendly pat. 'Yes, well, you know the old saying; as things change the more they stay the same.'

Ashe took a deep breath and steeled her nerves; she had had little time to really think over Vaan's revelatory idea since her cousin's absconding and her take over of Bhujerba but ever since her dreams had been filled with sheep.

'Balthier I must speak with you about something of importance.' She began to draw back from his arms.

He quirked an eyebrow at her curiously, 'Oh?'

Ashe nibbled her lip. She was at a loss as to how she would broach the subject of his sheep.

Balthier you once almost died preventing the Bahamut from eradicating Rabanastre, now I would like you to give me your inheritance so I may buy my people out of starvation and poverty. What can I offer you in return? Not a single shiny Gil.

Ashe bit her lip on a dark smile, yes, as sweet as he was being this morning she did not think his good humour would stretch that far. He may have his issues regards his heritage and family but she doubted he would merely sign away his patrimony with a smile and a wink.

'Highness?' Ashe blinked when she came back to herself with a start to see Balthier snapping his fingers in front of her face and looking down on her curiously.

'Your thoughts were a million miles away.' He chided her, though he looked more curious than annoyed.

'What was it that you wished to discuss, Highness?'

Ashe looked up at him as her heart thumped loudly in her ears and her chest squeezed down on her lungs. It seemed to her that time stood on its head and all Ivalice froze in this one single perfect moment of expectancy.

Sunlight spilled in through the large bay windows and the breeze that always buffeted Bhujerba fluttered and played with the edges of the gauzy lace curtains. The scent of Bhujerban coffee and fresh baked breakfast pastries suffused the room with a homely warmth.

Ashe knew that she was in the middle of a conspiracy that threatened the leadership of Archadia and Bhujerba. A political storm was brewing that threatened to embroil the nations of Ivalice in a complicated, potentially hazardous feud, especially if Rozzaria had some involvement in the attempt on Larsa's life.

Right now Dalmasca should be her only concern, and certainly it was always her greatest preoccupation. She knew that all the valid reasons she had come up with as to why Vaan's simplistic plan could not work held true now, but in this one moment none of that mattered.

She looked up into the sharp handsome features of the Archadian pirate, the first person she had ever asked aid from in her life that did not already owe her fealty; the first person to grant his aid without that generosity being tempered by duty or honour or self-advancement.

'Balthier…' she began her throat suddenly parchment dry, her heart threatening to tear itself out of the cage of her ribs.

Balthier frowned slightly, undoubtedly aware of her odd mood he replied with uncharacteristic gentleness.

' Yes, your Highness?'

Ashe snatched up his hand in both hers and held it between them, pressed to his chest, in a fumbling gesture.

Almost six years ago Ashe had married Rasler, the noble prince and heir to her fathers closest ally, because it was expected of her and she had, fortunately, been quite smitten with Rasler.

But Ashe was no longer that dutiful, meek princess, who was happy to 'play her part' and hand over the rule of her kingdom to her husband. She was not the girl who would have been content to simply provide heirs and allow the world to turn about around her unobserved or challenged.

She was something altogether harder now, fiercer and more violent, but at the same time she was something greater, with a capacity to give of herself that the sheltered princess in her ivory tower with her dutiful prince had never possessed.

She was a queen and a ruler and she was tired of having her attempts to fly free and rule as she believed was best, thwarted and restrained by people who still saw the sweet and docile daughter of Raminas in her shadow.

She was Ashe and always simply herself, as she had told Vayne Solidor himself, and suddenly she realised she knew what she wanted even if she did not know how to achieve it.

Vaan, she realised with a pounding heart, was absolutely right.

'Marry me.' She blurted out without poetry or artfulness but absolute and bedrock conviction.

'What?' Balthier croaked weakly, unconsciously stepping away from her, but unable to pull his hand free of her, so he ended up tugging her with him.

'Marry me.' She repeated.

Now it was said she felt quite calm and was able to repeat the request in a cool and reasonable sounding voice.

Balthier, looking pale, blinked once, then twice, dazedly. 'Yes that's what I thought you said.' He murmured confusedly.

Ashe let go of his hand so she could hold up her own, the hand on which his ring adorned her thumb. She held it up in the sunlight so he could see that she wore it and then she pulled it free and held it out to him.

She knew that he had not written the note, nor sent her his ring and so she offered him the chance to take back what was his. He could walk away now; it was his choice and she would accept it.

She held out the ring and waited for an interminable amount of time. Seconds became hours and all the while his eyes did not leave her face. He stared at her as if he could see beyond her to some hidden vista into an unknown and unplanned future.

He took the ring from her suddenly cold fingers and closed his fist around the metal band she had grown quite accustomed too. Ashe closed her eyes and turned her head away.

It was fair. It was fair and it was his choice. He loathed being restrained and confined, he would never be content to be her husband, and her husband alone.

She had already stripped him of his chosen career as sky pirate and sent him back to the city of his birth knowing how much he loathed Archades. She had asked too much and must accept his choice.

Quietly and with a calm, bleak acceptance she turned away from him to sightlessly stare out of the window into the cool breezy Bhujerban summer, unable to feel the sun or the wind on her face.

A muttered oath angrily snarled under his breath and strong hands gripped her shoulders and turned her about face once more.

'If you wanted the sheep you could have just said.'

Ashe looked up dazedly into his angry eyes. It didn't really matter how he knew about the sheep. Vaan or Fran might have told him of their little matchmaking conspiracy, though she did wonder that he had said nothing of it until now.

'This isn't about sheep.'

She told him calmly meeting his intense gaze with strange tranquillity in her own. It was his choice. All her cards were on the table and she had no more tricks or feints left to play.

He turned on his heel and walked away from her. She watched him go, offended anger in his every motion. It had to be his choice. She could afford no regrets. It was after all his freedom, the only thing he truly valued, that she was asking him to give up for her.

A promise of commitment he had never wished to give anyone.

He reached the door and walked through it, she watched it slam closed behind him and then, with the controlled movements of someone holding back a grief she was not certain she was entitled to feel, she turned back to the window.

The door crashed back on its hinges as it was abruptly flung open. Ashe did not have the time to turn fully around before arms covered in loose fine cotton sleeves, tastefully and subtly embroidered at the cuffs with blue thread, enfolded her waist, whipped her around and crushed her against a blue and black patterned vest.

'This is a bloody stupid idea.'

She heard his words before he caught her under the chin, tilted her head back with a smooth motion that spoke of long practice, and kissed her with a passion that was fully reciprocated by Ashe in turn.

She tried to bring her arms up to twine about his neck, but he caught her right hand, broke the kiss to turn his head as he pushed his yellow and green ring back onto her thumb.

Then he recaptured her mouth once more, pushing her up against the wall next to the window and Ashe wrapped her hands around his shoulders and her legs around his waist as he hitched her up at the hips, clasping her thighs.

'…..and I'm keeping my bloody sheep.' He snapped peevishly, breathing hard, when they came up for air.

Ashe caught the sides of his head and pulled his lips down to her again, but Balthier managed to tear his mouth free.

'…….I know what your game is, don't think I don't…' He sucked in a steadying breath of air.

His hands splayed across the backs of her thighs, still supporting her body against the wall, Ashe allowed him to have the last word to restore his equilibrium. She had won the war, the least she could do was allow him his dignity in defeat.

'I know you dynast queens are all the same.'

He scoffed, nuzzling her neck while Ashe played with the short hair at the nape of his neck and considered the logistics of how she and Balthier were going to manage to sneak through the estate to one of the guest bedrooms unobserved.

'All you want from a man is his sheep.' Balthier accused, voice muffled as his lips brushed her neck.

Ashe said nothing at all, deciding that the couch behind the lacquer screen would serve just as well under the circumstances. She slipped back down to her feet and led Balthier towards the couch to consummate their engagement.

A/N: let's be honest that was all a bit over the top wasn't it?…..But damn it was fun to write!