There is no mystery greater than man; we are all enigmas and uncharted territory to each other.

Penelo was still trying to work out what was going on and why Vaan's revelation that Al-Cid Margrace and Queen Ashe were in Bervenia had tooled such a doom upon Balthier when the man in question suddenly reached forward and grabbed Vaan by the labels of his simple blue vest and hauled him up almost off his feet (Vaan was not tall).

'What did you do?'

Balthier's voice was almost butter soft as he snarled into Vaan's face and the dichotomy between his tone and his actions scared Penelo a little; Balthier did not lose his temper often but when he did it was decidedly less than pleasant. Penelo moved forward and clamped her hand down onto his forearm ready to prise his hands off Vaan.

'He is not to blame.'

Fran's cool voice interposed itself within their fraught tableau and, as if the Viera's strange, sweetly monotonous inflection was some sort of spell, Balthier let go of Vaan, lip curling in disgust and stepped back from him to face his partner.

Fran and Basch stepped from the shade of close standing trees and approached. Fran jerked her head towards her partner and Balthier stepped over to her. The two sky pirates, ignoring the Penelo, Vaan, and Basch completely, bent their heads together in conference.

Penelo watched the two for a moment but could not pick up anything Fran said, and Balthier was not talking but listening, giving up Penelo turned to Vaan.

'Well?'

Although she could not quite fathom how or why she had the uncomfortable feeling that she was in for a number of unpleasant surprises; Vaan had best be forthcoming with explanations or she felt certain she would be the first Rabanastran dancer to spontaneously combust from sheer, repressed frustration.

Vaan was rubbing fiercely at the back of his neck awkwardly. This was never a good sign. 'Um, well….you see there was this time when I went with Balthier and Fran to do a,' he glanced at Basch and censored whatever he was about to say, 'a..um, a job in Bervenia.'

Penelo glanced swiftly at Basch who sighed loudly and shook his head. Penelo knew what a 'job' meant. It could have been anything from trafficking forged licences for weapons and magicks, or bootleg weaponry and accessories, or counterfeit Gil bonds, or possibly just visiting the island to rob the wealthy landlords; it was impossible to know when dealing with sky pirates. Penelo should know she sort of was one.

Vaan, still staring fixedly at the mossy, twig strewn woodland floor continued doggedly, 'And I ended up talking to some of the local people about the Avenlieu family who govern the island and how they were unhappy about Rozzaria stealing all their Magicite.'

Penelo had sinking feeling in her stomach, 'Oh no, Vaan, please don't tell me this is all your fault.'

In her spare moments between one crisis or another Penelo had been trying to work out what would have possessed Balthier to get involved in Bervenia's problems. Balthier had told her that he wasn't involved with Ashe in anything other than a professional capacity and Penelo (although she had her doubts) accepted this. Of course if he wasn't doing it for love and it seemed unlike that a million Gil was worth the effort he had exerted what was he doing all this for? Now face to face with Vaan's guilty awkwardness Penelo could feel an uncomfortable suspicion taking root inside her and roiling her stomach.

Vaan's sky blue eyes met hers, 'It was just like Lemures, or Rabanastre all over again; foreign invaders stealing the livelihood of the people who live here.' He looked exasperated, 'I had to do something and when I found out that the Magicite from here was being sent to Dalmasca…..'

'Vaan -it was you? You told Ashe about the Magicite?'

Penelo knew she was gaping again, and she knew it was hardly a very flattering thing but she could not help herself.

Remembering Basch's silent presence beside them she glanced sharply at the older man. Basch, who looked much like a man who would rather be anywhere but here, shook his head sadly and extracted a wax sealed velum letter from his inner breast pocket of the raw hide jerkin he wore.

He held the letter out to her, 'We are in the twists or a coil indeed. This is a sore business.'

Penelo took the letter and read it swiftly.

Dear Basch,

If you are reading this then Balthier's scheme has been successful and you are now in Bervenia. I must extend to you my most sincere apologies for such underhanded subterfuge but I hope that you may come to understand my urgency and why I felt justified in taking such actions.

The laws of diplomacy -nay, my very rank and duties to my people -demand that I remain impartial and receptive to any and all suitable suitors for my hand…….but Basch, know this, I do not trust the Margrace family, and while I respect and even like Al-Cid in person, I also know that his first loyalty is to his family and country. I believe he is involved in something unscrupulous and immoral and can find no better way of revealing this and freeing Dalmasca from a potentially dangerous alliance than to rely, once more, on the ingenuity and resources of old allies, even if they be thieves and pirates both.

If there is something amiss in Bervenia I have faith that you will find it out and bring it to light, for you have ever been a man of good judgement and unimpeachable moral rectitude.

Your loving friend always

Ashelia of Dalmasca.

Penelo finished reading Ashe's personal entreaty to Basch with thoughts churning in her head. Her first thought was that Ashe certainly knew how to manipulate her former Knight Protector into doing what she wanted and her second was to wonder if she and Balthier compared notes on the best ways to deceive and use people.

'How did you….?' Penelo stammered looking at Basch. The older man plucked the letter from her fingertips, folded it neatly and tucked it away reverently into his inner pocket.

'Fran carried the letter with her. She gave it to me and explained the nature of the supposed airship crash as we searched for you and Balthier.'

Penelo stared fixedly at Basch's placid, carefully neutral expression, 'But don't you feel angry at being used like this, and by Ashe of all people?'

Basch smiled crookedly and looked back at her just as keenly, 'I could ask of you the same question for are we not in similar circumstances?'

Penelo clamped her jaws tight shut so firmly her teeth clicked and she could feel her cheeks warming with an angry sort of embarrassment as she turned to shoot a less than friendly look across to Balthier, who was still in deep conversation with Fran. Occasionally his arm would move as he gesticulated with angry strokes of his hands. Fran remained characteristically staid and stoical.

Penelo, not prepared to really consider the ramifications of Basch's words (was he in love with Ashe -and did she know?) turned back to her best friend, who she was now feeling less than warmly towards.

'There's more you want to tell me isn't there?' she suggested strongly as Vaan looked increasingly uncomfortable. Then a look of stubborn determination and a certain rough cunning (the look he had worn throughout the Lemures battles) overcame his awkwardness. Vaan stood up straighter and met her eyes firmly.

'Something had to be done and we -Balthier and Fran and I -were the only ones who could fix this.' He paused and frowned at Balthier's back, 'but Balthier wouldn't do anything because he didn't want to get involved in politics anymore….' Vaan's eyes flickered, 'so I went to see Ashe and she told me about the million Gil, and well, a million Gil's a lot of Gil….even for a sky pirate.'

So it was the Gil, Penelo thought dully looking back at Balthier almost disappointedly. So much for all that talk about wanting to free Bervenia from tyranny. Of course it might just be that the Gil gave Balthier the justification he felt he needed to do a good deed…..just like Ashe's wedding ring had been all those years ago.

Penelo found herself finally with all the pieces of the conspiracy to hand and able to slot them all neatly together. Vaan's altruism and Balthier's brains put the two together and you had this whole mess. Still, Ashe's involvement cast a pall over the situation and threw up more questions; one was particularly pressing to Penelo who turned on Vaan accusingly.

'Since when do you just drop in on the queen whenever you feel like it?'

It was a moment of almost stunning, world altering revelation, as Vaan's cheeks suddenly flared with heat and his true blue eyes skittered away from her. Penelo felt her stomach drop to her knees. Her mouth fell open but her throat was dry; she could not speak for the life of her.

'It is not safe to linger here; we should make haste for the rebel encampment.' Fran strolled up casually seemingly oblivious to Penelo's astonishment, Basch's acute discomfort, and Vaan's anxious embarrassment.

Vaan almost tripped over his feet in his hurry to get away from her uncomprehending gaze and Basch, looking quietly sad and sympathetic, trudged after Fran. Penelo remained rooted to the spot in stunned amazement until Balthier's hands landed on her shoulders.

'This is no time to catch flies, my dear.' He murmured with a certain understated mocking cheer, reaching around her neck to click her gaping jaws gently closed. He turned her about face easily enough and lifted her chin with one hand studying her glassy, dumbfounded expression.

'Hmm, I know. Try not to think too hard about it; better for your sanity that way, darling.'

With Balthier half pushing her forward with an arm around her waist Penelo stumbled along after the others. Her hot, confused and strangely wet eyes burning twin holes in Vaan's back.

'I thought it was you,' Penelo murmured almost dazedly still staring with hurt eyes at Vaan's back as he bounced along ahead of them through the close, narrow, bramble lined path Fran guided them through. 'I was so sure you and Ashe were…'

'Hmm,' Balthier agreed and she thought she heard a warm thread of amusement in his tone, 'Ironic is it not, the way life turns out at times?'

'Vaan,' Penelo breathed out, 'and Ashe?'

She couldn't help feeling obscurely hurt. All those times during their long quest with Ashe to free Dalmasca, all those times she had tried to entice Vaan (foolish and inexperienced as she had been then) had she really been that oblivious to what was really going on, or had something blossomed between her best friend and her queen afterwards…..after Lemures maybe?

She tried to tell herself it did not matter and she should be happy for Vaan. After all Penelo had realised years ago that Vaan would never reciprocate her feelings and, after Balthier, she had realised that although she loved Vaan she was not really in love with him, at least not romantically.

Vaan would never make her blood burn hot in her veins and her heart jump to her throat as Balthier could do with no more than a word or a twist of his lips, but all the same Penelo could not help but feel as if Ashe had stolen something from her; something that could not be reclaimed and which, if Penelo was to be brutally honest, she did not really think Ashe deserved.

'Vaan and Ashe,' Penelo repeated as if repetition would somehow make it all make some form of sense and her world would go back to some semblance of normalcy, 'Ashe and Vaan. I do not even understand how that works!'

She eventually exploded shaking free of Balthier's arm and marching forward, sidling by the slow trudging Basch, to come up behind Vaan and smack him (hard) in the back of the head.

Vaan yelped and stumbled, almost falling to the woodland floor once more and Penelo almost wanted to push him all the way down and drive his face into the dirt. She didn't know why she was so very, very angry; she just was.

'Why didn't you tell me?' she demanded, her voice rising and then suddenly Balthier had clasped her hand and pulled her off the path and into his body, but his hold on her was not soft, or gentle.

'We do not have time for jealous tantrums; either behave like an adult, both of you,' his black ice gaze flicked to a hurt and aggrieved looking Vaan before rooting on Penelo's hot, tearful face once more, 'or I shall tie you both to a tree and let you bicker amidst yourselves until the Rozzarians find you; understood?'

For Penelo, who had not reacted with such hot anger when Balthier (her lover) had betrayed her (because she had almost expected he would – he had told her not to trust him, and as much as she loved him she did not, really, trust him that much), the fact that Vaan had kept secrets like this from her, for Vaan to have ended up the mastermind (after a fashion) of this whole mess that led her to be in Bervenia, hungry, bruised, tired and hurting….well it was more than she could easily swallow.

Breaking free of Balthier's restraining grip she turned on her heels and ran blindly into the dense undergrowth and perpetual darkness of the forest. She heard voices calling after her but she did not heed them. She was deaf even to her own commonsense which screamed at her to go back to the safety of the path and the protection of friends.

She plunged into the shadows, undaunted and blind to the thorns that scraped her face anew and the branches and brambles that snagged her hair and the tatters of her ruined clothing. She ran and ran and still she could not outrun her confusion.

Her world was off kilter and she was no longer sure of anything; her best friend had found love and it was not with her.

For a player of many parts it is admissible to let ones feelings slip, but never ones mask.

Balthier found her perhaps fifteen minutes later sobbing broken heartedly, head bowed and almost prostrate at the bottom of a dry stream bed. Her golden hair spilled down around her head and obscured her face, snagged and snarled with leaves and bits and pieces of woodland foliage. She looked quite profoundly tragic.

Sighing and trying to restrain his impatience Balthier made for her. He had not seen why it should fall to him to go and fetch her but the general consensus seemed to be that as he was sleeping with her he was somehow de-facto guardian of her emotional well-being. Personally Balthier did not see the logic in this assumption but was not about to debate the issue when Fran gave him her patented look.

As he came up on Penelo, who was still sobbing with the single-mindedness of a small child he had to remind himself that while only five and a half years separated their birth, an ocean of cynicism separated them in experience.

What was to him an amusing oddity (Ashe and Vaan – it had given he and Fran something of a chuckle once they guessed the truth) was to her akin to as death in gravity and seriousness. Moving silently he descended the slight bank of the dry stream and crouched by Penelo.

'You really are an odd girl.' He mused quietly. She could face all manner of hardships and find a smile, and accept any number of shocks in a short period of time and then, all of a sudden, she reverted to a weeping girl for no good reason at all.

She did not react to his presence though he knew that she had cast a libra spell and well knew he was there. It was an odd experience to be, for all intents and purposes, ignored by Penelo when usually she watched and studied his every move as though she would memorise every breath he took.

He could not say he minded not being the focal point of her attention, not because he did not enjoy the undivided attentions of a lovely young woman, but because increasingly, he had begun to feel quite uncomfortable under her scrutiny as if he was guilty of something; which, in retrospect, he actually was.

Still, seeing Penelo throwing her weight about and behaving like a petulant, silly little madam was oddly refreshing. It made a change from her usual mien of serene contentment or quiet, patient forgiveness. However they simply did not have the luxury of time to indulge her temper tantrum any longer.

'Up you get, my girl, or I'll leave you to your misery and the tender mercies of the Rozzarians.'

Penelo's head jerked up then and he saw her eyes were hot, furious, and bloodshot and her cheeks were mottled pink from her tears. She drew in a sharp breath and he thought she might even say something sharp to him, but then her bottom lip trembled and her head drooped again. She seemed to slump into her bones.

Balthier, who knew as well as she that he would not leave her here alone and that his threats were not worth the time it took to speak them, sighed and gathered the miserable girl into his arms.

'Now, now, dear heart, if I had any, you would be hurting my feelings with this display,' he drawled laconically, 'you are behaving as though your true love has left you at the altar.'

Penelo responded by gulping a noisy sob and thrusting her head painfully hard into his collarbone, wrapping her arms about him and shuddering convulsively with tears. Balthier heaved another deep sigh and began dutifully stroking her hair, very conscious of the need to get out of these interminable woods and away to the safety of the rebel encampment before they were discovered.

Alas, the realities of life and death, and whether or not Ashe's presence on the island foretold her treachery and their doom, would have to wait for Penelo to come to terms with the old cliché of times changing and people with them.

Truthfully had Balthier realised just how much of a visceral shock to the system Vaan's dalliance with Ashe would be to the girl he would have warned Penelo in someway beforehand; frankly he had never imagined this would prove to be the straw that broke the Chocobo's back.

'I just…' Penelo choked trying to find her voice and regulate her breathing, 'I don't know what's wrong with me. It's just…..'

She trailed off and Balthier sighed again. It was not that he did not in someway understand her feelings, although in truth he was finding them a little difficult to fathom, it was just that Balthier wondered at how anyone could become so absorbed in the triviality of a person's romantic affairs, or put so much importance upon them.

Love and romance were simply words; sex was a recreational pastime and a means of species reproduction but neither dubious emotional attachments nor intimate physical activity was worth crying over.

'I think she'll hurt him.' Penelo mumbled, head pressed into his neck and lips brushing against his skin as her tear dampened eyelashes tickled over his throat.

'Vaan is good and honest and,' she paused, 'he's not stupid really, but he's simple. Everything is simple black and white, good or bad, with Vaan and I can understand that Ashe would like that, seeing as politics is never simple, but I still think she's only using him.'

Balthier wondered at the female mind and how Penelo, having never seen her friend and Ashe together, and with no knowledge of their relationship, could jump to such conclusions; more alarming was the fact that Balthier rather thought she was right.

'I just thought he and I would always have each other, no matter what,' Penelo mumbled on, wallowing in her own unnecessary sorrow, 'but Ashe is a queen and she'll probably make Vaan her Knight and he just won't have time for me.'

Balthier knew it would not do to laugh at Penelo, or her girlish silliness. He had the sense to keep his true thoughts to himself, even if he did think her misery somewhat self-indulgent and overblown. Balthier did, however, consider the fact that Penelo did not appear to hold her queen in very high esteem of interest. It was not an opinion he would have expected of Penelo who seemed to go out of her way to like everyone.

In contrast Balthier's feelings towards the Dynast Queen were slightly more mixed, he knew Ashe, and he rather enjoyed her majesty's company, but he did not trust her any more than he trusted himself. Ashe had sold her heart and soul to win back her kingdom and her only interests would ever be for herself and her kingdom, just as Balthier's own interests were, first and foremost, to himself, his partner, and his airship.

'I really do think he's going to get hurt; she's a queen and he's…well, he's just a normal citizen. That can't work out, can it?'

She continued in maudlin tones and Balthier really wondered at what alchemy of pheromones existed in Penelo that he could listen to this drivel and still feel affection for her. he was beginning to lose patience with the theatrics; it was not even endearingly amusing anymore.

'Well then,' Balthier said bluffly as he realised that he was rather obligated to make some effort to cheer her up, 'If you are so worried for dear Vaan's tender heart, you shall have to be on point to protect him then, won't you?'

Penelo lifted her head and looked at him curiously, 'How?'

Balthier smiled dryly, she seemed to be recovering from her previous furious melancholy and extravagant tears rather rapidly and was now looking and behaving more like the Penelo he knew; brightening especially at the prospect of being able to do something in response to these most recent and upsetting revelations.

'Well, you could perhaps make the same promise that your dear friend Vaan gave to me, when he discovered our……relations.'

He had Penelo's full attention now and she forgot her self-pity completely, just as he had hoped.

'What promise? Why would Vaan promise you anything?' she asked keenly, and just a tad suspiciously. This was the Penelo who enjoyed conversing with; the innocent girl who might one day grow up to be quite a shrewd thinker.

'Oh,' Balthier smiled lazily, 'it was not a pleasant promise. In fact it went somewhat along the lines that if I deliberately betrayed your trust or flaunted you charms for my own ends I could expect to find myself without the capacity to breed at all.'

Balthier looked amusedly down at Penelo whose eyes had widened with appreciative shock.

'Of course Vaan was a tad more blunt in his speech than that, and demonstrated his point rather well with the use of his Danjango dagger and a sausage that happened to be on my dinner plate at the time; quite put me off my meal, I might add.'

Penelo gasped almost coquettishly and pressed her hand to her mouth to smother her giggles. Her eyes glittering with wicked amusement as she glanced swiftly downward towards his lap and then flicked her eyes back up.

'Oooh,' she murmured and Balthier arched an eyebrow.

'Indeed, you may have to modify the threat somewhat for her highness' benefit, perhaps threaten her crown or something she values equally well.'

Penelo grinned and then, rather impishly looked Balthier up and down, 'Did it work?' she asked slyly, 'Vaan's promise I mean?'

Balthier, pleased to see Penelo was in good spirits once more, winked at her as he stood and drew her up with him, wrapping an arm about his waist, 'Darling, if you want a man, any man, to behave himself you cannot go far wrong by threatening his…sausage.'

And Penelo laughed then, delighted and musical, and Balthier decided that he could put up with the occasional feminine temper tantrum if she would only smile like that more often.

It occurred to him, not for the first time, as they made their way back to the others and Penelo asked him for advice on how to effective threaten an anointed queen, that when Penelo finally woke up to her innate power of personality, her wit, and her influence, she would be a formidable force to be reckoned with. He rather hoped he'd still be around to see it but considering how things were going with this Bervenia nonsense that was looking a tad doubtful.