I have been very very slow at updating, but these things happen, I guess. This project is a real labour of love for me, and this fandom isn't too active, so I don't try to rush updating, I let it come as is natural. I've been on a posting kick and have been meaning to do this chapter for SO LONG, anyway, enough chatter.
Pirates of Ivalice - Chapter 14
A Pirate does what a Pirate has to do.
Although Penelo hadn't left Balthier alone with Vaan for more than a few minutes, she still didn't trust what he'd do in that time. His smirk as he returned to her and Fran in the cockpit did not bode well, and she was increasingly worried as he sauntered up to the front of the cockpit and slipped into the pilot's chair.
"You... you weren't too rough on him, did you?" she asked with undisguisable concern. Although she'd let Balthier and Fran exact their revenge on Vaan, and effectively commandeer her ship, she was still worried about her partner, even if he'd had it coming to him. Turning on Balthier and Fran was probably one of Vaan's worst decisions to date, and even now she knew that with his stubborn streak, trying to bring him around to helping Balthier and Fran get the Strahl back would probably take longer than it would to actually get the ship. She'd learnt it was better sometimes to act first and then bring him around afterwards. With time to cool off, it would be easier to explain the situation and get forgiveness than it would to convince him to let Balthier anywhere near the controls of his ship. Frankly she had enough concerns about that herself.
Of course, if it had been anyone else who needed her help, she wouldn't have considered it for a moment, but Balthier and Fran were an exception. They were owed too much to be left like this – flightless, grounded like birds with clipped wings.
"Not at all," answered Balthier smoothly, adding with a more mischievous edge, "I did nothing to the little fink that he didn't have coming."
"You didn't... tell him anything, did you?" she asked awkwardly, and he glanced at her with an implicative look. She was hoping he had not mentioned their pretend-but-not-that-pretend kiss from earlier on; that would not sit well with Vaan and she was going to have enough trouble with him as it was.
"Tell him what?" he inquired guilelessly.
"Oh never mind," she muttered, not willing to play games with him to find out what he'd revealed. She'd know sooner or later.
After taking the pilot's seat Balthier started to familiarise himself with the controls. They were already heading southward on a flightpath to Dalmasca, the autopilot running flawlessly, but as soon as he decided he'd grasped all of the essential functions he switched over to manual control. The ship dipped a little at first, then wobbled, and the engines made a strained noise beneath their feet, but he quickly rebalanced in the air and adjusted to the new instruments.
"Uh, are you sure that's necessary?" asked Penelo worrisomely, feeling the drop hit the pit of her stomach at the same time as her dread. "I mean, It'll be a while before we're anywhere near Dalmasca, so you could just leave it on the auto-pilooooh!" she shrieked as Balthier – without warning – revved the engine all the way up and the ship surged forward with an unsettling lurch.
"Being a sky pirate, the emphasis rather lays on that particular aspect of flying," he explained scathingly, testing out the ship's flight sensitivity by scooping her into a number of deep rolling turns, throwing things off shelves and bringing a solid, Hume-sounding thud from Vaan's cabin. "If I wished to be ferried to and fro without having to participate in the aviatory process, then I would take commercial air-liners," he started to lecture. "In fact, one could probably make excellent business as a highwayman..."
"Okay," Penelo interrupted, not wishing to provoke an argument or a lesson. "You fly the ship, I get it. No need to get all touchy." As she spoke, the ship rattled through an unexpected patch of turbulence, and in her surprise she let out an unmistakable squeak. Balthier's completely reckless flying her and Vaan's ship across the skies had put her a little on edge, to say the least.
"You seem tense," remarked the key cause of her troubles, turning around to look at her over his shoulder with a wry grin. "Are you quite all right?"
"Eyes on the sky, Balthier!" she yelled back at him, but he just made a disapproving face at her.
"Now do not fret so," he said assuringly, removing a hand from the steering to sling over the back of the seat. "You forget that it was I who taught Vaan to fly in the first place."
"But he doesn't ram the engines at full speed, fly with one arm, and then turn around to have a chat!" she trailed off into a shriek, becoming steadily more fraught as the ship swooped suddenly underneath a freighter moving sluggishly ahead of them. Baltheir had only turned half way back to the front before performing this manoeuvre, though, and had only one eye lazily on the sky as the dirty belly of the ship blotted out the daylight above them.
"Your lack of confidence in me is deeply flattering," he retorted, tossing his head over his shoulder; suddenly, both eyes flitted briefly back to the front and the ship ploughed into a deep turn, clipping past one of the airliner's escorts by no more than a whisker, inviting an angry siren blare.
"What are you doing?" Penelo screamed, pulling herself clumsily back into her seat as her heart pounded in her ears. Fran had possessed the foresight to hold onto something, noticing the escort ship even before her partner had.
"I did not request a backseat flier," Balthier said austerely. "If I do, then I shall know to ask you."
"It's my ship!" was the entirely accurate retort, although it had little bearing upon Balthier's attitude towards his piloting – not least because he flew his own ship in exactly the same way.
"Quite right you are," he agreed. "However, you have either generously or foolishly entrusted it to my control until the Strahl can be recaptured." He began to pull the ship back into a normal flight path and inched the engines down a little. "We shall find out which fairly soon, I imagine," he added with ominous cheer, and Penelo started to look like she was having second thoughts about the entire thing.
"He knows what he is doing," Fran announced in a way that suggested Penelo ought to feel reassured. "Do not allow him to provoke you. He does it only for sport."
"Exactly," Balthier concurred rather shamelessly. "So settle down. The sooner we find the Strahl the sooner this is all over."
"On that note," Fran interjected. "I think we would be wise to make for Bujerba in our pursuit. The isles provide many places to conceal a ship without raising suspicion."
"You suppose that they wish to hide her," Balthier countered. "What purpose does that serve? Surely Ba'gamnan seeks to lure us into a trap and return our much-bountied selves to Her Majesty's loving arms," he said – with all the appropriate distaste for a woman who quite literally tried to have him killed.
"In which case, they would likely hide her where authorities would not look, but we would," she asserted. "Tis still Bujerba. We have found them there before, and the Marquis has little care for smoking rats out of the continent's outskirts. They have based there often in years past."
"Point made," Balthier conceded. "To Bujerba first; if they can't be found there, at least we may get a lead. In any case, one of you might do to step up and re-coordinate a path for us at some point." He glanced at Fran, who looked at Penelo – it was her ship after all, and she its navigator.
"Oh, I don't really mind," she mumbled. "I mean, you're the ones doing the flying here. Go ahead, Fran." Nodding acquiescence, the Viera stood and approached the navigation panels, lazily drawing up the fastest route to the airborne continent against the current winds.
"I think I'm gonna talk to Vaan," announced Penelo. "You know, see if I can reason with him." She trotted out of the cockpit, and after the door closed Balthier looked around to share an amused look with Fran, who could only imagine what trouble he'd caused to make him smirk so. Unsurprisingly, no more than a few minutes later Penelo stormed back into the cockpit, slamming the door behind her loudly enough to rattle all the most delicate ship's instruments.
"What the Occurian heck have you been saying to him!" she yelled at Baltheir, stomping up to the pilot's seat and its occupant – only stopping herself from giving him a shove because he was still in full control of her ship.
"Nothing at all," Balthier replied nonchalantly. "Anything that Vaan believes based on my words is entirely inferred." He paused a moment, as if in thought. "He ought to know to take nothing I say seriously anyway," he added.
"But he thinks we've been... we've..." Penelo started furiously, but any kind of appropriate term to describe exactly what Vaan had accused her and Balthier of doing vanished, and her sentence flailed ungracefully; meanwhile, the Galbana's temporary pilot gave her a cheeky sideways glance.
"We've been what?" he taunted. "Scheming and conniving? I believe we got up to plenty of that."
"No," she bit.
"Plotting and deceiving?"
"No–"
"How about–" he began, his eyes narrowing with ever-increasing amusement.
"No!" she shouted."You know what." She had thought that at the worst Balthier would have told Vaan about the kiss, but when she'd gone in there to reason with him, he seemed to think that she had been doing much, much more.
"I am afraid to say I do not 'know what'," he replied smartly, grinning to himself as Penelo balled her hands into fists and chewed on her lip, cycling through the logistics of exactly how well he'd be able to fly if she was throttling him.
"You have had your fun," Fran cut in suddenly, speaking quite clearly to Balthier with a remarkably stern tone. "If you paid as much attention to flying as you do teasing, we would make it to Bujerba a great deal faster."
"Yes ma'am," he replied obediently – give or take a drop of sarcasm. Penelo glanced at Fran, thankful for the intervention.
"I'm going to my room for a bit," she murmured, glowering at Balthier as she turned around.
"Sweet dreams," he quipped merrily, smirking to himself as he heard Penelo's frustrated groan.
"You go too far, I think," commented Fran a little while after she had gone.
"Ohh, now Fran," he tutted, "I thought we both agreed there's no such thing." He slowly started edging the engines up to their highest power again.
"She dared to criticise your flying," his partner pointed out, and he mocked surprise.
"You would think me that shallow?" he gasped theatrically. "I am shocked. Not to mention I spoke to Vaan about absolutely nothing at all some time before my piloting credibility was drawn into question."
"Even so, t'was unnecessary cruel," Fran remarked judgementally.
"Not necessary, but certainly entertaining," he joshed.
"By your own admission, she's done naught but helped us."
"You know, Fran, I think you awfully soft on that girl sometimes," he replied. For reasons he could not himself entertain, Penelo brought out an almost maternal instinct in Fran – whatever maternal instinct she possessed in the first place.
"Hah." On the whole, Viera did not laugh in any conventional sense of the term, but Fran's closest equivalent to a chuckle was clear enough to understand.
"Something entertains you, dear one?" he posed pseudo-romantically.
"You think me soft on her?" she echoed scathingly. "The pot calls the kettle black."
"Fran," he replied to the accusation with only her name and an arch of his brow, only later adding, "I cannot believe you would dream to charge me with such a thing."
"Tis not I who tease her so," she stated.
"Which surely indicates that I am hoplessly devoted to her," he parodied.
"Was it not you who insisted to me the complexities of Hume relations?" she pointed out; many times had she found herself subject to lectures from her partner on the emotional nature of his kind – usually as rationalizations for various misdeeds.
"Other Humes," he corrected.
"Not you?"
"Not I."
"Oh," remarked Fran quietly, drawing one of her finely-tipped fingers up to tap lightly against her cheek; however, her expression was far from one of defeat. "Very well." The ship did not waver in its flight, as his hands were far to steady to convey any tension, but it was only a matter of waiting before she knew her partner's wits wouldn't hold out any longer against every silent accusation he knew was lodged against him.
"I know the phrase runs 'to wear your heart on your sleeve' but I think you are taking this a shade too far," he shot not a minute later. "Just because I decided it was not worth yet another ruined shirt for the sake of concealing my arm to her, does not mean I am about to declare my undying love."
"I don't accuse you of such a thing," Fran replied.
"You implied it," he countered. "Now, as far as enjoying the physical attractions of the physically attractive go, I'll not deny myself an admirer of her," he conceded, "and while I may have stolen an affection or two from her in a moment of opportunity, you know that is not a habit of mine worth any serious attention." He glanced at her over his shoulder, grinning lopsidedly, and added, "I am rather afraid to say I'm still yours for the keeping."
"I know," she answered assuredly, and he turned back to the front, gazing out at the horizon longingly.
"You, however," he broke the silence a little later, heaving a sigh as he begrudgingly accepted this flight was going to be a great deal longer than he wanted it to be, "like her as a person."
"For shame," retorted Fran deprecatingly. "I only spare her your merciless humour."
"Whereas you encourage me with others," he pointed out. "Her Royal Haughtiness, for instance."
"She merits it. Penelo does not."
"Granted, but when has merit ever been a factor before?" Fran's pause before she responded indicated she'd realized he had a point
"Then we shall agree," she proposed thoughtfully, "that between us there may be one person's full and genuine feelings."
Balthier laughed richly and nodded his head. "That I can agree to."
While Penelo hadn't exactly planned to fall asleep in her room, when she had started to feel drowsy it did seem like a particularly effective way to not be around Balthier for a while; especially while he was still set on being as irritating as possible for no other reason than he thought it was quite funny.
The only disadvantage was that it meant she was leaving both him and Fran unattended, which was a recipe for trouble if there ever were one. Consequently, being woken up from a nap by being physically thrown across her room a few hours later wasn't very pleasant. Whatever reason Balthier had for throwing her and Vaan's ship into a number of deep, gut-wrenching turns, she thought grumpily as she staggered out of her room and up to the cockpit, it had better be a damn good one.
"What's the freakin' emergency?" she yelled as she threw open the door, clinging onto the frame as the ship swerved sharply around again and all of the loose items in the cockpit – which by now were already on the floor – crashed from one side to the other.
"We found the Strahl!" replied Balthier triumphantly, and sure enough Penelo saw the tail end of their ship ripping through the sky ahead of them, with a worrying amount of smoke coming from the engine exhaust.
"That's... great," she replied, managing to grapple her way up to the front of the ship. "Any reason you're flying like you've gone completely nuts?"
"Yes," he snapped. "Someone keeps trying to shoot her down."
"Oh..." she murmured, then adding, "wait, what?"
"How else are we meant to ground her?" said Fran curtly. "We cannot outfly her, and I might add they flee because they do not know it is us who pursues them."
"So you want to blast her out of the sky?" Balthier yelled frantically. "Even if by some miracle you managed to strike her so that they landed on ground instead of plummeting thousands of feet down into the ocean, I am not shooting down my own airship!"
"What else are we do do?" Fran countered – this was the closest Penelo had ever seen the two to arguing, which was actually a little unnerving. Fran was braced by the controls to the ship cannons, and Penelo watched as she unrelentingly set another target onto the Strahl again as they approached a low swoop over a chunk of Bujerban land.
It was pure instinct that told her to grab onto something solid as hard as possible when she felt the hum of the ship cannons charge beneath her feet, and seconds later Balthier cursed loudly and plunged the ship into a nose-dive. For a moment they were all in freefall, weightless until the cannons fired, after which Balthier pulled the ship back up again and everything slammed back to the floor.
"Would you stop doing that, Fran!" he snarled over his shoulder.
"What are we to do!" she snapped back at him – Viera did not shout often, and it was quite notably terrifying. "Chase her forever?"
"I am THINKING!" he bellowed, the Arcadian twang in his voice suddenly resurfacing much thicker than normal. "It's just a damn sight harder when you insist on being so trigger-happy!"
"Penelo." The girl in question was so absorbed in the moment that it took her a moment to realize her name was being called, and Fran was forced to repeat it. "Penelo," she summoned, and this time she noticed; in a brief respite from their acrobatic flying she dashed across the ship towards the Viera.
"Yes?" she asked timidly – Fran could be scary enough when she wasn't mad, let alone when she was madder than Penelo had ever seen her before.
"You must distract him long enough that I may hit the Strahl." She saw the uncertainty in Penelo's eyes at once. "It is the only way," she insisted. "To continue like this would destroy both the Strahl and Galbana in the end. For the sake of your own ship, you must divert his attention."
"How?" she questioned, clinging onto the wall as the ship began swooping sharply again in an attempt to gain on the Strahl. She couldn't just go up and shove him, because his hands would move too and the ship would swerve anyway, but if she didn't distract him enough he'd evade it just the same as before.
"Think of something," said Fran impatiently. "Go now. I doubt either ship will last much longer like this, and then both may be lost to the ocean." That at least got Penelo going – sort of lending the Galbana to Balthier and Fran was one thing, but letting them wreck it in the process of trying to bring back their own was too much. She part-sprinted, part-fell up to the very front of the ship, where Baltheir sat, his knuckles white with frustration around the ship's controls. The Strahl wasn't too far ahead of them, and looked to be attempting to cut through a large cluster of mountains flying not to far to their left.
They were on the very outskirts of the Bujerban continent, slicing between tiny islands which clustered around the perimeter of the mainland, but between them was nothing but a long, uninterrupted plunge down into the bay of Balfonheim. The Strahl cut sharply into a valley of mountain-clusters, with Balthier following close behind. Penelo looked desperately at Fran, who simply nodded and started to key in the coordinates for another canon strike..
"Uh, uh..." Penelo muttered, swallowing hard but not feeling the lump in her throat go anywhere. "Balthier?" she questioned, feeling that hum beneath her feet again that meant the canons were getting ready to fire.
"What?" he snapped furiously, jerking his head slightly to look at her from an angle, keeping a careful eye on the Strahl ahead of them.
"Now!" Fran called out.
"Uhhhaaaarg!" Penelo screamed, hating herself for only having one idea in her head – it was stupid, but as she lacked any alternatives, she had to take it. She clapped both hands around Balthier's face and crushed hers against it, lip and tooth, as an energy blast ripped from the cannons towards their target.
Her timing had been perfect; they only needed to be in-line for the second that the cannons fired, and for that fraction of a moment she'd shocked him, and the ship had remained straight. A heartbeat later he made an unintelligible noise against her own mouth and pulled away in horror, twisting the ship into a violent spin, but it was too late. The glossar-charged bullet had already ploughed straight into one of the Strahl's engines.
It ship pinwheeled into a sloppy emergency landing, catching a mountain ridge with one of the wings and nearly rolling over before finally smashing to the ground on a small isolated island, smoke pouring out of every opening.
"Oh gods," Balthier murmured, turning the Galbana into a fast descent and circling over the wreckage of his beloved ship.
"I'm really sorry, Balthier," Penelo said shakily, guiltily wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. He was – unusually enough for him – absolutely speechless. They were almost on the ground when he finally spoke.
"I think that must have been most underhanded thing you have ever done in your life, Penelo," he said vacantly.
"I had to," she replied shamefully. "I'm sorry."
"Oh no, congratulations are in order," he announced with an icy sarcasm. "You're finally a sky pirate."
End of Chapter 14
I hope there are still some readers hanging around that might get some enjoyment out of this. Thanks for sticking with it!