"Anyone ever hear of nepotism?"
Ffamran had meant the words in jest, yet the faces in the room with him remained stern and unamused. Apparently his comrades in the military shared little of his sense of humor; that was fine with him and to be expected, as it was merely a half-hearted attempt to ease the tension in the room from his entrance.
He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and settled his bags on a bench on the far side of the room by himself. Skeptical and silent eyes watched him. He'd managed sparring sessions within the safety of the halls of his own home, but here in the Academy things were bound to be different. In the streets of Archades eyes were always starving for a feast, particularly when it came to the son of a wealthy and powerful eccentric.
In here, it was no different.
He was to be appointed a Judge; the youngest in Archadian history. And while he did possess skill he was far quicker with his feet than he was with his arms to parry, and a month into the academy his glasses were struck from his face and cracked from the force from where they hit the ground.
He could easily had them replaced, but by the greedy looks of other trainees in the room around him he knew they'd get too much pleasure in watching them get broken again. So he adapted to seeing without them, making connections in the unclear world around him as if it were absolute clarity. Eyes did him no good when determining his footwork, and they did him no good when reacting to the sound of a foe outside his field of vision anyhow. Besides, when the lenses fogged at sudden shifts in temperatures around engines and changes in altitude they were more of a handicap than a help.
Cid never seemed to notice.
And when he met Fran for the first time, mangled and broken, she shook her head as she reset his body. He was positive that a pair of broken glasses would've been the ounce that tilted her scales so much that she would've declared him a lost cause and left him for dead- keeping the Strahl for herself of course, because in all his life he'd never met someone so justifiably ruthless.
"On your feet, Basch fon Ronsenburg."
His blood went cold as he opened his eyes. He could only chuckle dryly at the irony of it all. Alma stood before him, her shoulders square to him, a strap of her gown broken and spilling open to the point where half her bosom was nearly exposed.
It wasn't the stance of a women who'd never held a sword before. Or at least proper instruction.
How she learnt his name, he couldn't gather. But he'd suspected it was a possibility being in the presence of Vaan, who had the loosest tongue he'd ever heard, as his other comrades who were not so comfortable with him assuming Gabranth's identity.
"If I do what you ask, will you remove this blade from my throat?" He was unable to disguise the hint of amusement in his voice. Admittedly, her eyes made him feel a chill, and the sensation caused a mild numbness and tremor in his fingertips and toes. He'd looked to certain death, at times even longing for it too many times to count.
Alma shrugged. She inhaled deeply, driving her chin forward in visible introspection. "Perhaps I will." She maintained her hold, brown eyes boring into his coldly. She had clearly noticed his amusement and wasn't equally humored by it. "Perhaps I won't."
"What would you gain by killing me here?" Basch questioned her calmly, rising slowly as she allowed him by the point of her blade, primarily using his thighs for support as his back roughly grazed the wall.
"One less liar in the world." Alma cocked her head, her hair now entirely undone and hanging over her temples. She released her sword on him, and he exhaled slowly in gratitude, brushing off the dirt from his thighs and as she guided him with his torch to find his own sword on the ground where he'd dropped it.
Her voice was odd; strained. He couldn't place the meaning of it. A creature stunned him in the darkness, like a woman on all fours, long knotted hair just like...
He frowned down at her, her long locks falling in clumps to her backside as dirt marred her face. His eyes drifted downwards to a bloodied hand clenching the sword she'd mockingly apprehended him with.
"You're wounded." Basch observed aloud. Alma lifted her hands to her gaze and dropped them back down, eyes guilty like a child. "I..." Alma stammered. "I fell in the dark."
"And that name you called me?" He added bluntly. Admittedly, there was a time and a place for this kind of talk but she'd held a sword to his throat with such conviction only moments before, and then retreated it as quickly as he had started speaking to her.
"It is your true name, isn't it." Her voice was firm, and it sounded more like a statement than a question.
"You're sure of that? Why?" Basch pressed her.
Alma hesitated. "Reddas told me."
It was then that he recalled leaving them both together on the landing when he ascended into the deep labyrinth below. He now regretted that decision, as what began as a simple short scouting trip was surely ending in catastrophe, although to his credit he'd attempted to rejoin them earlier only to get disoriented by the winding halls and quick drop offs and stairs that seemed to lead to nowhere.
"Reddas? Where is he?"
"Um, we were separated. Something came for us in the darkness."
Her words were too simple; devoid of emotion. He only knew her a short time yet was aware enough to know when she concealed things with her words.
Until she added. "Gabranth. Basch. It's not matter your name now. I need to leave this place."
The last of her words carried enough emotion that he was familiar with coming from her, and he knew them to be true.
He nodded. "Aye, Lady Alma. We must quit this pirate's errand and get you back to the ship. You need tending to." His eyes flickered down to her hand and back to her. "Keep ready. It appears you're more handy with a blade than you had let be known."
If she had opened her mouth to protest as he suspected, she never made a sound. In truth he was more surprised that Vaan hadn't let his name slip in their presence but it seemed unlikely that Reddas would be the one to give it away.
But still, her explanation was odd.
He was desperate to return to Archades to check in with Larsa so much that the dilemma with Alma hardly seemed significant in that moment. It was as though whatever secrets he held could hardly compare to the ones that she did.
"Why do you suppose they glow green?" Ashe sifted through gold coins in handfuls, scooping them into a sack that Balthier had provided her.
Balthier shrugged. "The tree of life is a prevalent symbol to the cult that gathers here. Representative of the 'Promised Land', or something of the sort I'd imagine."
Ashe stiffened, lifting her gaze to the man pacing the room, testing the integrity of the golden adornments on the scaffolds that lined the walls of the great room. Above, a stream of light still shone down the reveal the shimmering tiles below where she'd lain with Balthier just before.
"Why the blood moon, then?"
"Who bloody knows." Balthier replied to her dismissively.
Ashe snorted. "That was a but a vague detail you emphasized to convince me to be here with you, then."
"You came of your own accord-" Balthier began his most common retort when she called him on his manipulative antics.
"- No one forced me, no." Ashe replied simply, mimicking one of his choice mantras toward her and he fell silent.
Minutes later, the familiar taps of Fran's heels striking the ground echoed through a tunnel nearby, and when Ashe looked up she smiled in relief as Vaan's head poked into the room, his jaw slack and lips parted in wonder.
"Awesome!" Vaan athletically leapt down the stairs, skipping the step with her fading torch on it altogether. Fran emerged moments later, followed by Penelo.
She never thought she'd be so happy to see such a sight.
"Don't move." The Viera knelt beside him, her long legs bent at the knee as she leaned on one side of her hip to tend to him as he lay on the forest floor of the Salikawood.
Not much in the way of Viera in Archades. Balthier had seen maybe one on his travels thus far, looking at him vacantly from across the pub in Balfonheim. He'd immediately grabbed for his drink to bring it over and converse with her, as she was the most stunning thing.
But he couldn't.
Dark, wide eyes looked at him curiously. The skin over her shoulders appeared to glisten under the glow of the tavern's hanging lamps. The uncanny softness translated to seemingly glowing beams of light reflecting from her flesh and the paleness of her brow and long, thick hair made her the most desirable thing he'd ever seen.
Instead he rose with his drink, and struck up a conversation with a Hume barmaid whose wide eyes were blue and something more familiar, and her laughter loud as he boldly propositioned her to lead him to the most discrete area that the immediate outdoors of the tavern had to offer.
But in the present, Balthier only groaned, the bruising on his face settling him, and a sharp pain in his ribs when he exhaled caught him of guard and he threw his head back, miserable.
"Don't move, I said." The Viera repeated emotionlessly.
Balthier's eyes fluttered all the way open as a cool rag was draped over his forehead.
"The beetles appear harmless, but their toxin is potent."
His shirt- where was his shirt?
He strained his neck to ask the Viera this and it took only a fraction of a second for her to smack his head roughly so that the back of it collided to the ground, and in his sickness the movement elicited a strange smell to his senses and a wave of nausea. The ground was spinning.
She was beautiful, like the one he'd seen in Balfonheim. Just a bit shorter, smaller, but muscular and elegant nevertheless. Loose pale hair cascaded over one shoulder as her eyebrows knitted together in concentration as she worked a tonic into the bare skin of his chest- reddened from intoxication and glaringly redden vessels stretched to the skin throughout his right arm as they made their way to his heart.
"Stay still, I said."
Beads of sweat dripped down his forehead as his breaths came rapid and shallow.
He was going to die. But oh, gods did it feel right to know that he would die far from Archades, with the Strahl out of his father's command, in the depths of a wood looking for treasure while in the clutches of the most magnificent woman he'd ever seen.
At least, in his delirium she was. He reached for her. She smacked his hand away immediately, dark red eyes looking into his.
"Your disregard for the danger you've wrought on yourself will be your undoing." The Viera frowned down at him sternly, disapproval evident in her voice. "Be it this day or the next."
"Let it be this day then," He wanted to declare back to her, "I'm simply content my role in this story is no longer one of a puppet."
But he didn't have the strength. When he opened his eyes again, nightfall had struck.
His fever had broken. A gourd full of water rested beside his head and he grabbed for it eagerly, chugging the contents down as he propped himself on one elbow so that water spilled around the corners of his mouth.
He stopped for air, wiping his mouth dry with the back of his forearm as he squeezed his eyes shut several times and rubbed at them, searching in the dark for the Viera.
He'd begun to think that he was absolutely mad from whatever had scampered up the forest floor and bit him that he'd imagined it all, but then his gaze drifted down to his bare chest: free of red irritation and angry vessels through his arm. He flexed his hand several times, swearing that it'd become so penetrated with the poison that he'd been unable to move his fingers, which were turning a light shade of purple the last he remembered them.
His fingers moved to his side, where a dip in his flesh under a rib was prominent under his armpit. The tenderness of the flesh there assured him that the feverish vision in his memory was real, and the Viera that went along with it.
A moistened bandage was affixed to the wound. He touched it, grunting as his sensitivity to the pressure.
Above him, towards the forest canopy, lightning bugs flickered in the darkness. He lowered his head to the ground and watched then a while, debating whether he should will his limbs to move.
"It's only a head wound, I think." Alma spoke hurriedly as they knelt beside Reddas where they found him, only several feet from the ledge where Basch descended into the labyrinth. She swallowed back the guilt that rushed through her mind. She had no control.
And yet, she did, just a little. If she weren't so distracted my the dread of Ultima's presence she'd could have done more.
"Nothing a potion and time alone can manage I suppose, then." Basch's gloved hands brushed a strange marking- five scratch marks sharp enough to tear his clothing, yet too dull to break the skin of his side.
It appeared that he'd been knocked unconscious from the force of his head striking the wall. Alma swallowed as Basch knelt on the opposite side of the man in the dark. They exchanged a look in silence.
"H-he seemed to be faring a little worse than you." She observed, unable to shake the immense guilt from creeping through her mind.
It could've been worse. But, still.
"He's fared worse, I suspect." Basch assured her, though the tiniest hint of doubt in his voice told her that he wasn't so sure. He lifted Reddas' dropped blade from the ground, inspecting it by turning it over by the handle in his palm before tossing it to her lightly.
Alma caught it by the handle, now gripping Reddas' weapon with her newly obtained piece. Bash pulled Reddas upon his shoulders, pulling an arm and a leg to his chest as he rose, groaning under the other man's weight.
They started their shuffle back the way they came, and Alma slowed her pace to allow Basch to keep up.
"I'll need you for a sword arm." Basch broke the silence, making Alma cast him a puzzled look back at him over her shoulder.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I won't be able to react in a timely manner should anything creep out of the darkness, is all I mean."
Alma shook her head.
"You wouldn't hold a sword to an incapacitated man with such conviction without knowing something of war. Of battle."
Alma frowned, looking forward so that he wouldn't see her expression. "Perhaps I was angry. What do they say of a woman's scorn?"
Basch walked several paces before answering, sounding genuinely puzzled. "Am I to know what 'they' say?"
Alma looked back at him. "You can't be serious. The expression...? 'Hell hath no fury'?"
Basch's empty expression met hers and she turned back around, keeping it a point to walk several paces in front of him.
"I am serious."
Alma's mouth formed a flat line. If he were a character in one of the plays she was so fond of growing up and he had to be summed in one line of dialogue, it would be that one. But then it dawned on her that the expression she was referring to like secondhand knowledge wouldn't originate until a literary work published by an author not yet born.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn" She didn't take Basch for the literary type, not in a leisurely sense, so she felt secure in reciting it to him for clarity.
"Ah... is that meaning that you threatened my life because you are a woman?"
"No." Alma shot back immediately, running her tongue over her teeth as she realized for the first time that she didn't like the insinuation of that expression at all.
"You." Balthier gripped her by the wrist abruptly. They'd only been passing one another through the archway of the market in Rabanastre. He'd caught a glimpse of her in her peripheral and she certain had to have noticed him as well, but she made no indication until he swiftly grabbed her.
The sudden seeming act of aggression caught the attention of several onlookers and a Dalmascan guard posted nearby had stiffened, clearly reluctant to do his duty.
"Let go." She said softly, too softly, as if she knew she could put whatever effort she wanted into her tone of voice to make her point known.
They were both still, shoulder to shoulder, and he clearly had her attention now and knew that she had his.
He obeyed.
"You were there, then."
The Viera blinked down at him. "I was where, when?" He question seemed much more like a statement than anything else.
"Don't be coy." Balthier replied sharply and mahogany eyes narrowed.
"You ought to watch yourself, Hume. There are others of my kind who would cut you down for your boldness." She brushed him off, proceeding to walk to the square and he sighed, looking down at the coin purse in his hand and tossing it lightly, testing the weight and reminding himself that he'd ventured to the market for a specific purpose, but the Viera was rounding the corner of the fountain and he was about to lose sight of her altogether.
What happened in the Salikawood didn't matter. But still, he could never leave 'well enough' alone. She'd haunted him like a ghost, leaving him adequately alive but he found himself staring in the darkness at night, pondering how much of what he remembered could be a dream and what could be real.
When his inquisitive nature took over, it consumed him when he allowed it.
He pocketed his coin purse and followed her briskly. She was real after all- how did she find him? How long had he been down? What did she use on him? How long did she stay and how did she leave?
Her strides were far longer than his, and carried her to the Sandsea, a tavern in the merchant district that boasted the most exotic of cocktails and rare wines- though the wines he found to be contested by the cellars of Bhujerba.
By the time his pace carried him to the door, he swung it open and his eyes scanned the room. He spotted her walking the stairs, a glass of something red already on hand.
Good. He was familiar with the layout of the place being a landing with a single staircase overlooking the rest of the bar and seating. She wouldn't be able to leave without him spotting her while he ordered a drink.
"Balthier." Tomaj nodded to him as he leaned across the counter. The newly appointed heir of the Sandsea establishment was trying his hand behind the counter, it seemed.
"Whiskey." Balthier told him, sliding gil over the counter as his eyes searched for the Viera overhead.
"Which brand?"
Balthier stalled for a moment. "Whatever is most expensive."
Tomaj snorted, pushing golden brown locks over his eyes as he accepted the gil. "Most men of your taste don't order such things as 'whatever is most expensive.'
Balthier said nothing, eyes flickering to the stairs so he could caught a glimpse of the Viera if she decided to take off.
"But, alas, my most expensive whiskey for the sky pirate."
Balthier accepted the glass, lifting his leg up over the stool to glide by other patrons seated at the bar in a motion motion as swiftly as he'd sat down.
He sipped from his glassed as he stepped up the the landing. She couldn't escape him now. But as he crossed the landing to the table where she'd sat with several patrons dealing cards. "Fancy this."
The Viera looked up at him, her expression still unrelenting to any sort of emotion. "You're in, then?"
A doe eyed Dalmascan woman dealing the cards looked to him from across the table repeated the Viera's words, then asked, "He a friend of yours, Fran?"
Fran opened her mouth with barely the breath of a whisper of an answer when Balthier interrupted her.
"Friends? No,"Balthier waived a hand dismissively as he pulled out a chair next to Fran. "We're second-cousins."
The Humes present looked to Fran and Balthier incredulously, the dealer halting a card dealt to Balthier, letting it hover on the table before him.
"What?"
"Why would you say that?" A young man Balthier knew as Tomaj's younger brother wrinkled his brow at him from across the table.
"-I encountered this man in the market today-" Fran spoke, her voice carrying the air it did from his memory, one of mystique and authority.
"-And our great-grandfather wanted to fuck a bunny woman." Balthier finished her sentence for her.
Everyone at the table froze. Even Balthier held his breath, silently cursing whatever it was about him, being the brief dose of liquid courage from his glass or the nonsensical whims he'd inherited from his father that made him so absurdly bold at times. But he couldn't back down now.
"I should've left you to die in the Salikawood, it seems." Fran told him, her tone flat.
The dealer resumed. "I thought you said you just met him in the market...?"
"Cousin, your dismissiveness pains me." Balthier told her in mock grief.
"That's enough of that!" A Dalmascan patron slapped his palms to the table and they all turned to him from alarm. "Rabanastre Dutch. 500 gil buys you in. If you're not in then scram."
Grey eyes moved to Balthier, as if expecting him to rise and retreat at the words. He reached for his coin purse.
He didn't retreat. He could feel Fran's scathing look upon him, further building the tension that he'd wrought on an otherwise friendly game.
"I will bleed you dry." She said to him softly.
"Bleed me." Balthier challenged her, and slid 500 gil to the center of the table.
They exited the ruins just as the sun was setting over the horizon, and the sight of a brilliantly eerie red moon was already high in the evening sky. His knees shook from exertion and his breath got heavy but with a small smile he leaned into it, reminding himself of how he'd tell his men that this was the point where progress was made.
He made his way to the Galbana, the most likely means of their departure to Archades once Vaan and Penelo returned. He ascended and ramp and punched in the code on the keypad over the door that he knew Vaan was most likely to use: the numbers 1 through 5 five consecutively. The door slid open, and Basch pulled his spare hand back to steady Reddas' arm slipping down off his shoulder and flexed his knees to re-steady himself, weak and balance waining from strain.
Alma followed close behind him, visibly wincing as she proceeded along the studded edges of the ramp the Galbana. She was barefoot and her feet were bloodier than her hands, but there was little comfort he could offer her at the moment, and she said nothing in protest.
He walked straight to the bunk in the hall, kneeling in relief before the bottom bunk as Alma emerged beside him, carefully laying their weapons against the bunk post and allowing Reddas a smoother transition to being flat on his back on the bunk by crawling onto the bed and pulling him from Basch's shoulders as he pushed the man off of it.
Alma straddled the dark skinned pirate and adjusted his shoulders so that they were straight, and his head in proper alignment on the pillow.
No words were said between them but they moved as though they'd coordinated things this way all along. Basch rolled up his sleeves as she crawled off the bed and slid her feet to the floor, pushing her loose hair toward her back as her feet padded out of the room.
He ran his hand over the scratch marks the marred Reddas' skin just enough to leave a think scab. These were not the doing of any talons of any sort. They were remarkably like hume fingernails. And the hume hand that did this was small.
Like a summoning of the thought, Alma's hand appeared in his peripheral, holding a glass of water. She offered it to him silently and he accepted it, nodding his gratitude wordlessly before drinking.
She walked off again, and he heard the sounds of cabinets opening and closing and crates shifting as she was undoubtedly scavenging for supplies. He supposed he could've been more of a help to her- the layout of goods in the Galbana was most likely arranged by Penelo and he'd long grown accustomed to her methods of organization.
Alma emerged again, delicately balancing a small basin of water in one hand and a jar of salt in another. She walked past him and to the alcove where she'd rested the night before, and somehow that night after the fete had seems like eons ago.
It'd been an incredibly long time since either of them had any sleep. He watched in her peripheral as she sighed as she sank down- a sentiment he could empathize with. He walked to join her as she lifted the jar of salt over the water and poured, wincing a little from the sting of the solution as she submerged her feet into it. Her feet had led track marks of dirt made sticky from blood across the cold grey tile. Luckily for her sake, this was not Balthier's ship.
Alma leaned forward, pressing her feet into the basin and gingerly dipped her fingertips, her brow wrinkled from the initial cleansing sting. She worked at all her digits, breaking loose clumps of dirt and fresh scabs that it stuck to, inviting fresh blood to break into the water turning it a rosy shade of pink.
Basch sat in silence, mulling over the situation at hand once they returned to Archades. He needed to make contact with Larsa at once.
And like any thought commanding action, the static of interference sounded from the cockpit. Basch's head shot up, his eyes meeting Alma's for a moment as she looked similarly alarmed.
An indistinct voice carried over the transmission, and though the volume was not loud enough that he could make out the words, the accent was clearly Archadian.
"I'll handle it." He nodded to Alma and rose, and as he passed Reddas' unconscious form on his left and further maneuvered the narrow corridor of the ship several of the words started to become more clear.
"...I repeat..."
"...not... call."
He'd heard that voice before, on a regular basis.
Basch entered the cockpit, taking a moment to further listen into the static before deciding to engage. He flipped a switch on the control panel as he'd witnessed Balthier do numerous times on the Strahl and pressed his fingers around either side of the com to activate it.
He hesitated. "This is the Galbana."
The transmission terminated as the receiver on the other end had apparently released his grip on his own com. Basch's mouth stiffened into a firm line, pondering whether or not to engage this person was a mistake.
"'Tis no merchant I'm speaking with! Judge Magister Gabranth, that is you?!"
Basch released and reinitiated his hold, eyes drifting absently to the view from the front window. A pair of wolves crept in the darkness side by side in the desert, and a breeze sifted sand gently over the windows. He knew the speaker to be a certain Archadian squire with enough zeal to lift an entire banquet hall, and that often got him into trouble. Others in the upper echelons of the Archadian military wanted as little to do with him as possible aside from associate with his father in the Senate.
"It is me." Basch answered tiredly, relieved to make contact would weary of such transmissions with Tomas.
"I've known that voice for years! Aha! Meddling with 'merchants' that I suspect are not merchants, are they?"
Basch strained to make out his words with the com to his ear and brought it back to his lips. "We don't speak of these things over this transmission, Tobiah." He could've been more stern as Noah would be, but he only rubbed at his eyes.
"Ah no, why of course! I've been searching all the ships in you projected destination. Lord Larsa will be happy to hear of you safe!"
Tobiah lacked the skill of deceit, so if Larsa's condition had indeed changed for the worse it would've been obvious. Basch sighed in relief.
He pressed on the com one last time. "I copy. We'll be returning soon. I'll expect discretion at the docks when we arrive. You can halt your search."
"Roger!"
In the rear of the ship, he found Alma with one hand wrapped in a muslin dressing, clumsily managing the weaving on the other between her exposed fingers with the hindered dexterity of the covered one.
"You made contact with someone?" She asked him nonchalantly, not looking away from her task at hand.
"I did. We'll be expected back in Archades within the next fortnight. There will be discretion." He frowned down as he increasing frustration with her uncharacteristically messy handiwork. "May I?"
Alma's lips parted, conjuring an inquiry to his meaning, but he crossed the room and slid onto the alcove beside her. He took her hand from the clutches of the other, half expecting her to protest out of pride, but she didn't. She even straightened her fingers at the knuckles for him to quickly undo the work she'd already done, binding his own hand with the cloth to keep it contained. Then slowly, he positioned her hand in front of him by a brief and firm grip to her wrist, and she held it there as he began wrapping at the base of her palm, pulling the cloth smooth as he worked.
"Thank you."
Basch exhaled a brief "Hm."
The events from inside the ruins still troubled him. In truth, he felt guilt over retreating with Alma and Reddas before locating the others but a feeling of impending peril was unshakable, and he knew he usually had an accurate sense of such things.
He felt her eyes on him as he folded a sharp crease in the cloth to wrap her smallest finger.
"I suppose when we get back to Archades, I shall forget about your name then."
He wrapped the cloth around the knuckle of her pinky, his eyes flickered to hers briefly. "It'd be the best for the both of us I would think," And he was unable to keep himself from adding, "Though I still can't fathom that Reddas would tell you of that, still."
"Ah... he didn't outright. I pressed him. And later, in the labyrinth I was thinking, and just pieced it on my own."
"It seemed like it upset you." He told to her bluntly.
Alma bit her lip and inhaled sharply through her teeth as he'd grown careless in the delicacy of his ministration, and the tip of his thumb grazed a particularly raw spot of her digit.
He froze and looked her in the eye, briefly. "Sorry." He looked back to her hand.
In his peripheral, she pushed matted hair behind her ear. Perhaps if there were anyone more exhausted than him it would be her.
"It did. I-I wasn't in my right mind. Of course you wouldn't tell me such a thing, when I have my own secrets."
He said nothing, weaving the cloth to the base of her index finger.
"It's a shame though, you've been kind to me this entire time, but it wasn't in the way I wanted." Alma paused and exhaled. "'Gabranth' sounds too cold on the tongue for you."
Basch gingerly wrapped her thumb, it was the worst for wear out of all of them, though he hadn't even bothered to look at her feet.
"It was my mother's birth surname," He noted plainly.
"Oh."
"It's no matter. You won't be seeing much of me when we return. No need to worry over names and such." Her told her, "There will be certain... unrest in the aftermath of Bhujerba. My attention is needed elsewhere."
Alma released her hand from him, flexing her fingers appreciatively. "You seemed so... urgent with Dr. Cid's writings and that text."
Her voice was strange, like it carried a hint of disappointment.
"I was. I still am, but now I've you for that. It'd be best for you to spend your days in the library as it was promised to you."
Her eyes were wide. "You mean, I'll be free to..."
"Aye. And the scholars within the Ninth Bureau would be at your disposal."
She bit back the smile on her lower lip and looked back down at his handiwork on her hands.
"Thank you."
Penelo laughed as she dodged Vaan's mock jabs at her side as she carried her sack of artifacts up the ramp to the Galbana. Given the strange and eerie beginning of the heist everything had seemed lighthearted from the moment they'd reunited with Balthier and Ashe.
She practically skipped through the halls, pushing back her distant worry for Alma, Basch, and Reddas from her mind. They easily had two of the strongest fighters in the group. If anyone would make it out unharmed, it would be them.
"Maybe we should've all stayed together." Vaan had murmured. And Penelo gave him a playful yet forceful shove back. Fran and Balthier had managed their own loads, talking quietly by their ship yet Fran seemed to pay them no notice.
Vaan punched in the code and to Penelo's relief, he entered the ship with a cheer.
"Woo!" He punched an arm in the air and Penelo rounded the corner of the corridor to find him scratching his head over a bunk.
"Hey, what's up with Reddas? He okay?"
Penelo's mouth dropped as she dropped her bag. The marred pirate lay on her bunk in the hall and she paced over to her, sliding her fingers along his forehead as if in reassurance of his warmth there.
"A head wound, most likely." Basch emerged from the rear alcove where Penelo then spotted Alma sitting with her hands and feet and bandages with a bloody-looking basin nearby.
"Alma, you're hurt!" Penelo walked to her, grabbing Alma by the wrists and looking up towards Basch. "What happened?"
"We were separated and something attacked us." Basch replied, oblivious to how he leaned forward when the younger woman relinquished Alma from her grasp and crossed the room to him, lightly touching the edges of his jaw to tip is slowly down to her so that she could have a better look at his face.
He looked at haggard as the rest of them, but unharmed. Penelo released him.
If he hadn't an ounce of humility already, a day in the stocks would've taught him one.
It was a compromising position they'd found him: in bed with the mayor's daughter. On one hand- a pirate ought to be more careful than to fall asleep with a betrothed damsel that would sell him out to her guard at the drop of a hat if it meant the value of her virtue were at stake, and on the other, his ego rang with the sensation on conquest so even as he stood subdued in the damsel's bedchamber, his wrists chained together behind his back and he was led past the fiance in all his naked glory.
A day in the stocks left his joints sore, his body numb and chilled from the night air. Public humiliation was a dreadfully archaic thing to him, but he understood it'd brought the townspeople of this dull village in Archadia much joy, and who was he to deny them that?
Ffamran Bunansa. He knew all he had to do was utter the name to the officials that arrested him, then claim ownership to it. His charges would likely be dropped and he'd enjoy a comfortable voyage back to the capital where he'd be at the mercy of his father for the theft of an airship, and he'd be exempt from responsibility for the countless atrocities he'd wrought on civilized society elsewhere.
A painting in his mother's storage in the cellar beneath his childhood home displayed a kite on dried canvas against an earth shattering lightning storm, and as a child he'd always found it peculiar.
But luckily for him, a very different escape to his circumstances came by the sound of hard heels upon wood in the wee hours of the morning when the villagers tired of him and returned to bed.
Lights flickering in the sky stirred him awake. He rose from the delusion of a vivid dream to the fog of the birth of dawn only to disheartened by the sober haze of reality when the angle of his neck and his wrists were bound by wood secured in metal hinges.
"I heard they detained a sky pirate in this town," The form of a Viera stopped before him.
Balthier was unable to raise his head high enough to see her face, but he'd know that voice anywhere by then.
"I almost didn't believe it." She continued. Her heels clicked against the wood and she took another step forward, further removing her face from his field of view.
Balthier gasped his response, then ran his tongue over parched lips before he spoke again: "A pirate without the sky, I'm afraid."
Fran exhaled sharply. In a Hume, Balthier suspected the sound would've come out like a snort. She stood still before him, her arms crossed, and in his weakened state his eyes rolled to the tops of of his lids so that he could get to best look at her possible with the limited lift of his head.
"You should find more suitable places to lay your head at night."
Balthier grimaced. If he were to die by the taunting of it woman, it suited him fine to be her.
"I had more... appropriate accommodations," His neck slumped amidst a sharp sensation from muscle fatigue, "But a woman sold me out."
"She 'sold you out'?" He could see the weight in Fran's leg's shifted as her arms remained crossed squarely before him. "Or you endangered her opportunity for an ideal match?"
Balthier cleared his throat in discomfort. "Ideal matches are but a convenience to the men who make them." He spat.
Fran said nothing for a moment, he imagined her expression to be as perplexing and uninformative as the steady and peculiar cadence of her voice.
"You are not one such man?"
Balthier chuckled bitterly. "No, though I suppose if I had more sense I could've been."
Fran knelt before him, delicately pressing a talon like nail to the surface of the stubble on his chin, forcing him to look to her with a sharp inhale of alarm.
Her eyes appeared to glow red in the dim dawn's light. She said nothing their second lengthy pause of the entire exchange.
"Alright." Fran nodded at last, "I'll release you under a condition."
Balthier's eye's narrowed. If he weren't absolutely soiled in the the filth the villages had doused him with, he would've had a mood to laugh.
"Oh?"
"You have a ship."
Balthier's mouth formed a flat line. "I do, though I suspect it's been confiscated."
"Then we'll re-confiscate it."
She hadn't stopped looking him in the eye, but the increasing sharp pressure of her pointed nail against the bony prominence of his chin reminded him of the failing muscles in his neck.
"I need a ship." Fran pressed him. "A good ship."
"The Strahl is a good ship. And as I recall, you've had the opportunity to snag it for yourself before." Balthier countered.
A sudden clash of Fran's heel to a metal buckle yielded a hint of a spark in Balthier's peripheral vision. The sudden relief of the binds upon his wrists and his neck nearly sent him keeling backwards.
"It can take me over the Jagd, then."
Balthier's brow furrowed. "A trip over the Jagd is a sure way to get shot down." He rubbed at his wrists and cocked his neck at her, eyes offering silent gratitude. "What are you trying to escape, Viera?"
Fran's eyes flickered down at him across the stocks. Her foot has returned to the ground as gracefully and sudden as it had risen to release him.
"Redundancy."
Balthier chuckled dryly. "Then we want the same thing."
"No need for conclusions, Hume." Fran crossed the platform and stepped down the stairs as if she were sure to leave him there as suddenly as she had come. She turned back over her shoulder. "I only have this one favor," She held up a finger for emphasis, "No more. One trip across the Jagd. If you ship does not fail, we will be equal."
Balthier walked to her, taking several quick and stiff strides to catch up with her. "
"Where will you go from Rabanastre?" Ashe asked Fran.
The Viera shifted her weight from one leg to the other as she passed a bag to Balthier on the ramp.
"There are other sites like this one." Fran told her, "And the Glabados caches. One or the other. It'd be best to avoid whatever turmoil arises in this region soon after the events of Bhujerba."
Ashe's eyes met Fran's. "Turmoil? My Uncle will be well and clear everything up. I'm sure of it."
Fran lifted a long nailed hand to her cheek, leaning in and dipping her chin forward so that her expression was level with Ashe's.
"Surely, Queen, you know hume affairs are never settled so simply."
Ashe frowned, half willing herself to snap a grip on Fran's wrist and wrench the gentle touch from her face.
"Of course not." She chose to reply as civilly as she could.
Balthier and Basch moved Reddas from the Galbana to the Strahl, as it wouldn't do the former Judge Magister any good to appear in Archades. They said their good-byes: Vaan, Penelo, Basch, and Alma standing toe to toe with Balthier, Fran, and Ashe.
Ashe embraced Basch, yet again in such a short amount of time. She'd missed him terribly after all, and she couldn't help but let her eyes shift to Alma with her chin over Basch's shoulder.
"Give Larsa my well wishes. I'll write him as soon as I am able." She murmured into her former Captain's ear.
Basch nodded.
Aboard the Strahl, Balthier and Fran took to the controls as Ashe seated herself behind them.
She rolled her head to the side, eyes gazing lazily to the dash and the view of the night sky. Her arms rested on either side of the seat, and soon after they took flight she moved her eyes forward just quickly enough to see the reflection of Balthier looking back at her in the glass.
Ambervale would be a constant tug at the back of her mind. And with that, the skepticism in Fran's voice as they spoke earlier made her uneasy for Halim Ondore.
And these ruins... while she lacked the spiritual connection to them that she had with the Dynast King's tomb and the Stilshrine of Miriam, she couldn't help but feel uneasy as they loaded the Strahl with riches under a red moon.
Something was stirring, and she didn't like it.
"How do you intend to land in Rabanastre?" She questioned to the pilots seated in front of her.
"Without a hitch." Balthier assured her, "It is a strange hour to land, but I've contacts in the aerodome who can assure that the passengers aboard this flight will not be recognized"
Ashe groaned. "I must speak with Morrid about the security situation there, then."
She couldn't see him, but she knew Balthier looked smug.
Larsa jolted awake from the rancid sensation of the rag saturated in ammonia held under his nose.
He immediately felt ill. He coughed and choked, and tossed his head to the side to clear the air under his nose as he wrinkled his expression in disgust.
"Milord, your surgery is over with. You are expected to make a full recovery." An aide stood to his side with the putric smelling rag, red robes billowing about him as his moved to cross the room for a pitcher of water.
Larsa threw his head back, recognizing the chocobo down pillows of his own bed. He was home in Archades. By the memory of blood soaking his dress clothes he'd known he's lost a lot of it, but he was now here in the Citadel where he belonged.
The first name he wanted to roll off his tongue was Basch's. And if not that, than Penelo's. But he knew better than to utter either and held it instead.
"I had surgery...?" He inquired instead as his mind moved to more urgent matters at hand, and his nearest hand skimmed to freshly applied bandages at his side. The effect of whatever sedatives had been given to him dwindled, and he groaned from the sharpness of pain that stung him.
"You did, milord."
A knock sounded at the door and the aide exchanged an equally puzzled look from Larsa as he rose to answer it. He slipped through the opening for several moments, and Larsa could here the muffled sounds of a woman's voice in contrast to the deepness of the male servant's slip through the cracks under the door.
The aide cleared his throat as he reentered the room. "Milord," He bowed, "Lady Silvia came to deliver a poultice for your recovery. She would like a word, but I advised her that-"
"Let her in." Larsa interjected, wincing as he propped himself upon his pillows that that he was upright.
The servant nodded, and walked to the double doors at the entrance to Larsa's bedchamber, pulling one open. The weight of a heavily polished hardwood groaned at the hinges as it gave way.
Auburn hair was tied to the crown of her head in delicate plaits. Her gown a pale yellow, moving about her feet as her shoes clicked against the ornate tile upon the floor, and muted once she stepped to the carpet that circled his bed.
"Your excellency." Silvia curtsied, never raising her eyes from the floor as she spoke and raised a poultice wrapped in white cloth in a her hand to him. "Curtesy of the servants of the gardens. We all pray for your quick recovery, and for the good of Archadia."
Larsa sat straight, inhaling sharply and the knife-like sensation to his abdomen and he brought his hand to where the sutures were made under his nightshirt. Her words were stiff and devoid of emotion, as if she were reciting them from the very first time.
Rumors had long flooded the citadel of Vayne's wrongdoings by her, and though Larsa compartmentalized a majority of them, he did yet have to remind himself that there would be some truth tied to any rumor. And like with any situation where he we presented face to face of a reminder of Vayne's cruelty,
"Thank you." Larsa replied weakly, nodding to the aide to accept the poultice from her.
Her gaze remained toward the floor the entire time. Silvia nodded and curtsied again, and turned to the door.
"Will you escort me to the gardens, once I am able? So that I may thank the servants there for their well wishes?"
Silvia turned slowly, her eyes moving upward towards him. "Of course." She nodded her head to the poultice in his aide's hand, "And you'll need more than just a single poultice, I suspect?"
Larsa smiled back at her as warmly as he could over a grimace.
Tobiah waited with the guard detail throughout the night, and most of the day that followed. With the return of a wounded Emperor and deceased wife of a Judge Magister, he could feel the entire city of Archades on edge.
He made runs into the city from the guard detail as they ordered him, fetching ales and meals and deliver messages to and from the Citadel. He pushed back light brown hair to hide the sweat that lined the brim of his ears on his scalp. If he wanted to look the part as a future Judge appointee, he had to look the part.
He'd gathered enough correspondence with the staff of the citadel to know that Larsa had awakened as they awaited Gabranth's promised return. The news elated him, and on one of his courier runs he ventured out of his way to stray as close to the Emperor's wing as he could without raising alarm- when he saw the Lady Silvia emerge in her finery as if she were born into Archadian gentry like the rest of them.
She cast him a strange, lingering gaze as she passed him by, opting for an alternate stairway than the one that he was headed. Curious that she should be coming from a wing of the citadel that even he as a squire wouldn't be invited to, he shook the suspicions that followed.
When he emerged outdoors to the airship docks, the strange vessel known at the Galbana had landed, and it's passengers emerged as a mess of tattered rags and dirty faces. Bhujerba was surely rough.
Despair didn't overtake him, as he rushed to greet the Judge Magister he'd decidedly made his favorite.
The heat of the engine room made his breaths thick and heavy, and he only found mild relief from breathing with his lips parted and rolling up his sleeves.
It was only a little relief. Sweat pooled over his chest under his shirt and trickled down. He turned, noting a lack of activity from Fran's corner to find her slumped over on her side, ad his she'd lain down intentionally for a nap for a moment.
He sighed. "Do I have to do everything around here?" It was rhetorical- a bit of theatrics for the worrisome voices on the other side.
He knew his assurances were empty. And by the silence settling from his companions and the crack in Ashe's voice as she pleaded with him he knew they were becoming aware of it too.
"Please, Balthier, come back." Ashe's voice blared at him through the coms, the harshness of her breath distorting her words a little, but he understood them regardless. She always held the mic of her coms too closely when she was nervous.
Every good show must end eventually, but he'd never admit it. Not then. He pocketed a wrench and knelt by Fran to lift her up in his arms.
"You're more of a supporting character." Fran murmured weakly against his chest.
Balthier suppressed a snort. Fran's wit was unpredictable but when she came through, she came through.
"Fran, please."
She was heavy- soft, dark flesh bound around solid muscle and the long platinum tresses of her hair swept over his dominant arm as he walked with her.
The heat never relented. Rabanastre would likely be fine- if he still had coms with Ashe he'd assure her of that. But he didn't, and as he leaned against the doorframe while he cradled Fran to catch his breath, he cast his head over his shoulder for a look at what might possibly be his final resting place, or at least what remained of it would.
But Fran stirred a mumbled something unintelligible, and he reminded himself that he had to at least make an attempt to reach a pod in the seconds that remained. He turned his head back forward and stepped blindly into the darkness as the flickering sparks of light from severed connections provided only minimal visibility: a crate tucked in a corner here, the turning of a corridor there.
Luckily he remembered every step of their entry to the engine room. His breath was heavy, and his joints were fatigued from persistent combat from the night before. They were likely hurling over Rabanastre as he walked through the corridor, clumsily kicking the helmet of a judge like a tin can as he went.
Then, like a strange change of tone in the storyline of a dream he saw the green lights of an escape pod. He stumbled toward it, squinting through the sweat that now burned his eyes.
It was keypad entry, which meant that he required the code. No matter, he'd cracked more difficult things one hundred times before. He lowered Fran more roughly than he'd liked, and her head rolled to the side with a grunt. He hardly noticed though, as he knew he was working with less than a minute. He glared at the keypad, cracking the knuckles of his right hand, willing it to be nimble.
A leading man never dies.
Fran's long limbs splayed out at his feet. She was his first friend, and she'd saved him more times than he could count.
Surely he could pull this off just once.
Vaan's voice carried the same self assurance he'd only ever heard from himself. Perhaps he was rubbing off on the boy. Penelo, the girl who if it weren't for her existence Vaan would've been locked away in a cell long ago.
The keypad made a shrill sound and flashed red, obnoxiously protesting his efforts to decode it. He persisted regardless, pulling from the depths of his memory of all the combinations that Archadian engineers preferred for military ships.
Then there was Basch, an example of the most unfortunate anomaly in genetics if he'd ever seen one. But then, Balthier never had a brother and perhaps shouldn't consider Basch unfortunate for having a twin for one. By that thought, Basch was the brother he'd never had.
He could feel the sweat of Ashe's forehead as it touched his when she lay beneath him, her hand clenching his that fumbled over the keypad now. A rush of cooler air blew over him, shocking his senses.
The pod was open.
He snapped to the ground, the ghost of Ashe's hand squeezing his so hard he had to force it to move as he recollected Fran into his arms and rose with her.
His escape must've been a moment too late, because flames rose behind him, bursting with a new rush of heat after the steady roast from the engine room. He kept moving, hurling Fran's body unceremoniously as he embraced the searing sensation at his back.
It was almost pleasant at first, like a caress downwind from a campfire. Then it progressed to oppressive suffocation.
He was on the floor of the pod. Archadian escape pods had mechanisms for emergency auto controls, did they not? The heat didn't relent, and the turbulence that followed jostled his body so that he felt as if his limbs were tearing, breaking, and colliding with unknown force.
At least it wasn't nearly so hot anymore.
He opened his eyes in a perceived moment of calm to see Fran across the floor from him, bloody. Her eyes were halfway opened with red irises rolled toward the back of her head. He lifted a hand to her, and another shockwave of turbulence struck the back of his head upon the floor, and the world went dark.
Was meaning to be done with this chapter much sooner buuuut then I knocked over my wineglass while working one evening and it killed my laptop dead. Luckily for insurance and icloud backup, it was fixed no problem, but then I had to make my next cross country move for work. Everything's good now, I'm settled in my newest covidy hotspot (the US is full of them because the white house does not value human life so my job has never been more lucrative yet shitty) and my laptop works great!
I never realized how much I love Fran and Balthier banter until this chapter. Maybe there's a possibility of a Fran chapter coming up after all. It was surprisingly the most seamless character flashback I've written thus far! And I know they're a popular pairing but I just don't see that being the case. However, they definitely have a special kind of chemistry (and share some good in-game fist bumps) and I think Balthier was probably most definitely a rascal with her in the beginning until she put him in his place. But the beauty of FFXII ship is that they're completely subjective! Do I think he absolutely adores her? Most definitely. Him carrying her off after she mocks him in the ending was everything.
Fun fact, Tomaj is listed as being 18 on the FF wiki and also is the owner of the Sandsea. Which is just weird to me. WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?! My head canon is that he's maybe a little older and comes from Dalmascan 'old money.'
Next up, Reddas' turn.
Oh, and if you're in the US: VOTE. I SWEAR TO GOD.