This is 'sort of' the last chapter, basically it's finished unless I have a REALLY good idea (which I won't) and to an epilouge or what-have you,

This works around the theory that Balthier is still not accepted in the palace what with being a sky-pirate-and-all so he and Ashe find another way to meet up ;)

'Your highness.' The guard stiffly states, 'our prisoner has escaped,'

'Again,' Queen Ashelia Dalmasca sighs offhandedly, 'I wonder if you bother locking the doors at all,'

'We run routine checks every hour, your highness, but this one just seems to be able to worm his way out of anywhere…' the poor guard blushes at the inadequacy of his own superiors in keeping prisoners in the prisons, especially in front of the distractingly beautiful Queen,

'He is probably in the gardens by now, take a watch out there and scan the area, I am going to my study and then I shall retire for the night,' she sweeps the papers she rather foolishly left to asses at the last minute into her arms and goes to leave the room,

'Do you want accompaniment?' The young guard blurts, 'I mean! In case he is still in the palace…' he bites his tongue at suggesting that his Queen would want or need any protection from him, gods why does she have to be so pretty…he thinks as she sways out of the door and briefly turns around,

'I am fine thank-you…what is your name?' she inquires offhandedly,

'Weiss…' the boy stutters, his breath chocked and shallow for some inexplicable reason,

'No your first name…' she cajoles, making a point of trying to connect with the people who work in the palace as they 'are' the backbone of Dalmasca after all. However, she also enjoys feeling she can still turn men into quivering wrecks from time to time: especially after her encounters with a certain 'mentionable' man, who was so unfazed by anything she threw at him…even herself.

'Um…' he freezes up, it's not that he can't rememberhis name, but his mouth refuses to form the syllables of it,

'Very well,' she dismisses him, 'good-night private Weiss,' he hurriedly bows to her, nearly losing his helmet in the process,

'Good-night Your Majesty…' he mumbles, desperately wanting to simply disappear and never have to face his monarch again…well not for a while at least.

Ashe climbs the dangerously steep spiraling staircase of the Palace with her files balanced precariously on one hand as the other tightly grips the banister, fearing that with one slip her country could be without a leader once more; heaving a sigh of relief as the floor levels out she counts the doors until she reaches what was a library, but now has been adopted as her study because of her strong dislike for her father's choice of décor in the assigned bureau of the Palace, blindly placing a hand on the handle she stumbles over the threshold and spills the highly important and confidential documents all over the flooring; muttering a curse she stoops down and kicks the door shut behind her, scooping up the wretched papers and going to place them on her desk when she notices something lying on it, something that really ought not be there,

'How did you get here?' she asks condescendingly, placing the files on the corner of the tabletop currently being dominated by this inefficient ornament,

'I walked…how else does any good escaped convict find his way to the Queen's study after being stripped of his freedom?'

'I need to review these armistice papers, then order 'our' plan for unified disarmament among the empires…so you will have to move off my desk, Balthier.' She explains severely to the pirate, who sighs nonchalantly and inspects his rings with an air of superiority; sprawled along the full length of the desk and propped up on one elbow he looks like he's going nowhere fast,

'You mean you had me locked up so I could act as a glorified paperweight, princess,' he calls her by her former title, now both a tease and nickname much to her irritation,

'I had you imprisoned because last time you paid a visit you saw fit to liberate nearly ten thousand gil's worth of artifacts from the treasury on your way out...which I am still awaiting the return of,' she mentions spitefully as she searches the drawers of the desk for a quill, then looking up sees every one of them stuck behind his ear, giving his appearance an even more colourful lilt,

'That was compensation.' He retorts bluntly, selecting one of the feathers from his collection and presenting it to her with a smile,

'For?' Kleptomaniac pirates taking up all the desk space and liberating everything in sight are nothigh on the list Ashe's priorities,

'FOR!?' He hollers, dropping down off his elbow and taking those important papers hostage with his shoulder as he gives her a disdainful look, 'for allowing myself to be captured by you in the first place! The bounty on my head is likely to drop if you demand another audience with me before I sort out this Cache of Glabados business,' he complains bitterly,

'How is that going?' she inquires as she tugs at the corner of a disarmament policy trapped underneath his heavy shoulder blade,

'Awful, just awful…' he laments, 'we're being lead on a wild goose chase, I'm sure of it. And Vaan is constantly pestering me with that new airship of his, if it weren't for Penelo I swear he would've crashed it by now, doesn't know his skystone from his minestrone that boy…' Ashe's attempted distraction encourages the torrent of gabble she expected, but fails to give him cause to release her papers,

'I see…Balthier!' she suddenly snaps as another strip tears off the demands made by Rozzaria on Arcadia's use of manufacted Nethicite in their airships, 'if you are serving as a paperweight it is a very poor one, a good paperweight allows you to get your documents back. As I said these are very important and need signing tonight…'

'Then sign them and be done with it,' he comments airily, idly playing with another of her quills, tickling her nose with the tip of the feather and tracing around the side of her face, paying particular attention to a certain necklace that Her Majesty seems to wear constantly these days: silver with a large pink stone set in the pennant, another thing he liberated on her majesty's behalf,

'I have not read them yet and I will do no such thing until I have,' she demands, inviting only another exhausted sigh from him as he finally returns her papers,

'Do you realize how very uncomfortable those cells are?' he carps to the ceiling as he rolls onto his back, taking up even more of the desk,

'They're not supposedto be luxurious,' she mutters, 'they're supposed to make you penitent…'

'What do I have to be penitent about?' he asks hyperbolically,

'Stealing from your own lover.' She retorts, 'it's a wonder I ever let you back in here…'

'Perhaps you should have thought twice before giving me a key then,' he remarks, tucking a finger into his collar and withdrawing a fine silver chain from which a brassy key hangs from,

'Perhaps I should have thought twice about abolishing hanging,' she taunts unfortunately holding enough power in her pretty little fingers to do very undesirable things to him and pirates alike,

'Tyrant…' he mutters as he draws up his feet and crumples another sheaf of papers, nearly knocking over an ink well in the process,

'Gods Balthier, you are so unhelpful!' she spits as she grabs the toppling bottle of dark liquid before it spills everywhere,

'I never intended to be of assistance…' he comments slyly as he slides one of the documents to be signed out of the pile, then picks up another one already signed and studies the two as he sucks the nib on a quill, 'merely an entertainment,' he lays the papers out flat and sits up cross-legged as he dips the quill in the inkwell, unnoticed by Ashe who is tryingto decipher Al-Cid Margrace's atrocious handwriting; he curls his body over until his jaw is level with his hand as he presses the nib to the paper and begins to form sweeping letters on the parchment,

'What are you doing?!' She screams as he continues to scribble on the arrangement of sharing research information about the study and use of Nethicite in any form between nations taking part in the unification of…etc, etc…

'Assisting…' he mumbles as with a flourish he finishes his graffiti, but when he sits up she recognizes the scrawl as her own signature, copied almost exactly by his hand,

'Forgery as well…' she sighs, and leans back in her chair with helplessness as he seizes the pile then quickly and efficiently places a perfect signature on each, tapping the papers into a neat pile he climbs off of the desk and lays them out neatly in the center of the table,

'Now that wasn't so hard was it?' he says as she cradles her head in her hands,

That is not a skill likely to bring me anything fortuitous…

'You realize tha…' after organizing everything so neatly Balthier suddenly sweeps it all off the desk, clattering noisily to the floor as he gives her a decidedly wicked smile and pulls her to her feet, turning her around so the edge of the table digs into the back of her legs he encloses her with his arms,

'All work and no play makes Ashe a very dull princess…' he whispers suggestively,

'Queen,' she corrects, 'and this is certainly not the place to…' he kisses her with total ignorance of her last comment; after what he's endured he can do whatever he likes with the ruler of Dalmasca,

Honestly, allowing myself to be caught and arrested every time she beckons…just so the people don't realize what she's up to. I ought to be ashamed of myself, whatever happened to pride?

He remembers exactly what happened to pride when H.R.H. gives up and kisses him back with equal passion, forcing her up onto the desk he feels the catches of his vest unlocking under the twists of her fingers,

'You are going to be the death of me,' he mumbles as a guard passes close by the door: Private Weiss really ought to have looked in and checked on the Queen, but after his earlier embarrassment shirks his duty and hurries past the study without discovering that she is busily undressing a wanted fugitive,

'You've already proven your adeptness at avoiding death once before, surely a repeat performance wouldn't be too much to ask,' she teases just before she finds herself lain flat on her back over the cool polished surface, with him hanging above her forebodingly,

'It'll cost you,' he replies as he slips one of her bracelets off, 'this might cover it…'

'Scoundrel…' she sighs with a quick glance at the door as she snatches the bangle back from his omnipresent fingers,

This is certainly a 'compromising' situation to be found in…

'Ah, but you love me for it.' He announces slyly, and try as she might Ashe couldn't deny that one.

The next morning Queen Ashe met the committee along with her sheaf of illegally signed papers, circles underlining her stormy eyes she spends most of the morning smiling contentedly to herself and diverting all questions to Larsa, who luckily was able to cover for her albeit being slightly confused by dreamlike state,

'Are you quite alright, Lady Ashe?' he asks under his breath, concerned that the stress of ruling a nation may be becoming too much for her,

'I am fine…' she sighs as her eyes caress the skies out of the window, 'never better.'