Chapter Three – Rabanastre: Part One

Jessica had seen Rabanastre before, in the game, but watching on a little screen was nothing compared to experiencing it first hand. It was loud, brightly coloured and smelled of spices and more realistically of animal shit. Balthier spread his arms wide and said "Welcome to Rabanastre, Jessie."

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Don't call me that," she said, shoving him half-heartedly. She knew by now that nothing would stop him from using that annoying little nickname. And the sad truth was that she was actually getting used to it. Not that she would ever tell him that, of course.

Balthier didn't even stumble when she shoved him, which was frustrating, just swayed away from her and swaggered down the gangway of the ship, with his gun over his shoulder, humming the opening lines to some song. A whole crowd of girls watched him go, fluffing their hair and applying make-up. Jessica glared after him, hands on her hips. Fran walked up to the pissed off otherworlder and reminded her that they had shopping to do.

Jessica smiled at the tall archer. At least one of her two companions was nice.

XxXxXxX

An hour later Jessica was still trying to figure out what she might be good at, weapons wise. She had never even seen a sword before, let alone stood in a shop where there were dozens of them on display along side a startling array of dangerous looking things used for poking holes in people. And they all looked way too hard to use. Jessica was not cut out for this sort of thing. Like, for example, she wasn't strong enough to lift most of the swords in the shop and use them with any hope of winning a fight and not, oh, chopping her toes off, maybe. She had no idea how to use a bow and she was scared of guns. Maybe a dagger… A dagger she could use… Hell, a dagger she could lift.

She turned to her viera companion, who had been waiting for her with remarkable patience. "Fran? What do you think?"

"Remember to choose something Balthier or I can teach you to use. There is no point having a weapon if there is no way to know how to use it."

"Good point. The only problem with that idea is that you two specialise in bows and guns which, may I hasten to tell you, I am not going to be good at. I'm not particularly strong, the nicest way to refer to my hand eye coordination is to simply say that it needs help, and I'm not too sure about the whole aiming thing. I am not talented."

"Don't be so quick to put yourself down. I am sure you have some kind of talent."

Jessica gave a weird sort of laugh. "Uh, yeah, right. Whatever you say…" For a second, bitterness flashed across her face then the look was gone. It was so quick Fran wasn't quite sure she'd even seen it. She was distracted from wondering about it, though, as there was a collective gasp from the female patrons of the Weaponry shop, and then a mass scramble for make-up. Jessica closed her eyes.

Balthier had entered the building.

Women admired the tall sky pirate as he scanned the shop for his two companions. Jessica contemplated hiding behind one of the glass display cases, but it was too late. A smile lit Balthier's face and he strolled towards them. The aforementioned feminine component of the shop admired his back view with equal (if not more) interest. Jessica wanted to throw up. How could they be so damn obvious? Had they no shame?

"So, has she found anything to her liking yet?"

Jessica glared at him as her former irritation with the bastard returned ten-fold. She didn't know why she hated him so bad. It was sort of irrational, but she was just fine with that. Jessica was good at irrational.

"Go away, Balthier," she muttered, casting an eye over the shop's merchandise once again.

"It doesn't normally take nearly an hour to choose one weapon, Jessie," he replied calmly. "Do you need some help?"

"Get fucked, Balthier," she said sweetly, hating that condescending tone.

His comeback was so quick that she just knew he'd been waiting for her to say something like that: "Was that an offer?"

Jessica could feel the entire shop waiting for her reply with bated breath. She turned around and glared at him. Big mistake. Somehow the sight of his smirking face made her knees go weak and she felt like she was about to melt into a little puddle on the floor. She forced herself to smile and said, "You would be screwed if I said yes, wouldn't you?"

"Jessie, darling, that's the whole point of the proposition – someone gets screwed." It was so obvious that he had the upper hand here.

Jessie made a couple of silent resolutions at this point:

1 – She was going to stab Balthier with something pointy at her first opportunity, and

2 – She was going to get a new vocabulary. Too many of the words she used could be twisted around to embarrass her.

Time to take back control of this argument. "Well, go ask someone else," she said with a perfectly blank face. "I'm not interested." She looked around, taking note of all the fascinated faces, and added sardonically, "Though I'm sure you'd find a taker just in the clientele of this shop. I'm definitely in the minority here."

Several people blushed and shot Jessica killer glares. Balthier glanced around and laughed softly. "One point to you, Jessie." Jessica rolled her eyes and turned back to the showcases.

"Don't call me Jessie."

XxXxXxX

"So, what are you proposing to do now?"

Balthier's calm voice cut abruptly through Jessica's reverie. "What?" Balthier sighed and leaned forward, waving his fingers Jessica's nose. "Pay attention, Jessie. What are you going to do now? You've proved that you aren't exactly talented with any of the arsenal that Amal had on display."

Jessica flushed and glared at the sky pirate. "Shut up." She had being trying desperately to block the memories of her humiliating little performance from her mind, and had been managing it admirably up until her reminded her. People watching in the Sandsea was pretty fun. The people who came in were interesting to say the least. There were bangaa and seeq and more than a few weird looking adventurers with even weirder looking equipment. "I was trying not to think about that."

Balthier didn't laugh, which earned him a couple of grudgingly given respect points from Jessica, just shrugged and said, "Well, you did warn us. The only little issue now is that you have no weapon, and that Ivalice is full of monsters that are just dying to eat you. Also, if you are going to be staying with myself and Fran, then you are probably going to encounter bounty-hunters as well."

Jessica bit her lip uncertainly. "I'm not sure… I don't really want to be a liability to you and Fran. I could stay here in Rabanastre, I suppose. I could probably find some sort of work as a shop clerk or something." She absentmindedly shoved strands of knotted back hair back behind her ear, frowning at the table. She was a bit scared about staying here in Rabanastre by herself, but she didn't want the two sky pirates to feel that they had to put up with her.

But Fran was shaking her head and Balthier had one eyebrow raised. "You know too little about Ivalice to be able to live freely in one of its cities,' he said. "Besides, you have no money and no place to stay. You'd end up sleeping on the streets and starving to death."

Fran added her support. "You just don't know enough yet. I do not mind you staying with us, and I'm sure Balthier does not either." She smiled. "You are welcome aboard the Strahl."

Jessica smiled back, suddenly feeling a lump come to her throat. This was just too weird for words. She had been transported to a crazy world that had somehow been mirrored in a video game, she'd met and had several arguments with a vastly annoying sky pirate and apparently made friends with his partner. Yeah, the girl with bunny ears.

She felt like she was going to burst into tears and dropped her head down into her hands. She was so damn tired. Fran lightly touched her shoulder, and glanced over at Balthier, who was looking sort of confused.

"It has been a long day," she said meaningfully.

"Ah," he said and stood up. "Come on, Jessie. We've got rented rooms here at the Sandsea. You need some sleep."

A/N: I'm not sure if the Sandsea actually has rooms you can rent but, hey! It's my story, so they do now.