There is no greater peddler of deceit than the artist; by trade they contrive to find beauty in ugliness and soothe the hearts of the broken with no more than paint and oils.

'You must have some idea of where he has gone?'

Penelo stood at the back of the room hands twisted about each other as she tried to remain unobtrusive. Ashe stood in the centre of Reddas' living room boldly facing Fran who gazed back down on her impassively.

It was early dusk the day after the fateful night of the escape from the Pharos. Fran had recovered rapidly, and although she was a little swollen about her feet and fingers, she seemed much as she always was.

'A man such as he will go where he wills, or where the wind takes him. He will return when needed.'

Of course now they had a new crisis; Balthier was missing…..or at least absent without leave.

Ashe almost stamped her foot, 'He is needed now.'

At first when Penelo had dragged herself out of bed in the late morning no one had worried over much that Balthier was not in residence; it was assumed (by Penelo and Vaan at least) that he was possibly sleeping off a hangover in the arms of a buxom floozy and would stroll back as dapper as ever sometime in the afternoon.

However afternoon had already faded into near dusk and still there was no sign of Balthier.

No one had seen him in the Whitecap since last night (wherein he had belligerently worked his way through a bottle of Madhu and shunned all company before leaving sometime near dawn) and Vaan had not found him when he investigated all the back alleys of the Port. Penelo herself had questioned Nono and the Moogle had insisted that he had not seen hide nor hair of Balthier anywhere near the Strahl all day.

'We must make plans to move on this Bahamut, wherever it will show itself; what would possess him to disappear at a time like this?'

Ashe was building herself up into one of her high sulks; sometimes she did quite often in regards to Balthier – not for the first Penelo wondered about the relationship between she and the pirate.

'My lady, Balthier is a man of his own will, but our recent ordeals have taken their toll on all of us. Perhaps he merely needs time?'

Ashe hesitated slightly, her suspicion and anger deflating a little as she conceded Basch's point. Vaan and Penelo exchanged looks; somehow the idea of Balthier sitting alone somewhere feeling sorry for himself did not seem to fit at all well. He was much more likely to be sitting somewhere making someone else feel sorry.

Vaan was imagining, with a certain aggrieved envy, as the debate went on around him that Balthier was off single-handedly raiding Archadian nobles or engaged in some other daring-do pirate affair.

Penelo, by contrast, was rather fond of her notion that he had checked himself into some manner of high-end brothel and was busy indulging in the sort of extravagant licentiousness she was almost certain a man like him would get up to on a regular basis when not playing escort to orphans, a back from the dead war criminal and a renegade princess.

Still although no one was saying anything of the sort, the fear was that Balthier had decided to cut his losses and walk out on the party. Of course, evidence against the notion was the fact that Fran and the Strahl were still here and it seemed unlikely that he would walk out and abandon both his partner and his livelihood.

'Then perhaps he is hurt; perhaps the drunken fool has been accosted by brigands or some such, or wandered out onto the steppes and taken a fall?'

Ashe sounded somewhat like a woman snatching at straws and Penelo wondered why it was the Princess cared so much; which was not to say that Ashe was callous or heartless to any of the rest of them, only that she seemed to view Balthier in a different light.

'Balthier has long practice taking care of himself; he is too fond of his own skin to be foolish with it.'

Fran said deflatingly and that was essentially the end of the discussion. Ashe reluctantly subsided and allowed Basch to distract her with talk of politics and tactics. Fran merely sighed (the faintest of breaths hinting at her recent ordeals) and made her way slowly back up to her and Balthier's room.

With just the two of them left Vaan muttered something about going to talk to Rikken and Elza (which Penelo translated to mean that her friend wanted to leer in wonder at Elza's chest) and Penelo herself shuffled off to her own room.

Once upon a time I saw a group of players 'pon a stage; the leading man, all in paint and vainglory, struck a lonely shadow when the stage lights faded.

'Oh!'

Upon stepping into 'her' room Penelo almost died in fright at the sight that accosted her.

A genuine easel stood in the centre of her polished floorboards in a pool of warm, wood flavoured sunlight and sitting reclined with insouciant elegance in a chair by her bed was the missing Balthier, hands clasped loosely across his vest.

'Ah, good, you're back.'

Penelo blinked a few times in dumb surprise, noting as she did so, that Balthier was fresh-shaven, clean and impeccably dressed as always, suggesting that he had been back in the Manse long enough to wash and change, all without any of them knowing.

'I am not the one who is supposed to be missing.' she pointed out archly not bothering to ask what he was doing in her room (the easel was a bit of a giveaway).

'Oh, and who is missing, pray tell?'

Balthier had not bothered to move and his usually hooded eyes were almost completely closed. Idly, and seemingly unconsciously, the fingers of his right hand were tracing the complex pattern on his vest and Penelo found her thoughts scattering as she became captivated by the motion.

'You……Ashe is certain you have either abandoned us or are dead in ditch somewhere.'

Balthier chuckled lazily and deigned to open his eyes, 'The Princess is a contrary sort, but not without her charms.'

Penelo, refusing to acknowledge the easel or the fact that Balthier would be expecting her to live up to her end of a bargain he had already broken, clasped and unclasped her hands awkwardly, 'I think that she is half in love with you.'

To her infinite surprise Balthier responded to that statement with a sudden burst of genuine laughter, not a closed lipped chuckle but bright, quick mirth. Penelo's heart lodged in her throat at the sound. She tried to repress a shiver as that sound rubbed against the inside of her head like velvet fur.

'Her highness is not such a fool as that,' Balthier swallowed his amusement as he rose from the chair with a casual stretch.

Penelo, unnerved and feeling decidedly peculiar to have a sky pirate in her bedroom, found words tumbling from her lips, 'Don't you enjoy it? Making young women fall in love with you; you seem to enjoy Ashe's attention.'

Balthier looked over the top of the easel at her with one quirked eyebrow, 'Excuse me?'

Penelo could feel her cheeks flushing, 'Well, don't you? Isn't that what the leading man does, toy with women's hearts?'

'Not especially,'

Balthier was picking up and examining with a knowledgeable eye one delicate paint brush after another, not bothering to look her in the eye, 'Contrary to popular misconception I have no interest in stealing hearts.' He flicked his dark gaze up at her almost skewering Penelo with his regard, 'I ask you, what would I do with them all once I had seduced them away from their rightful owner, hmm?'

'Break them,' Penelo retorted hotly, though she did not quite understand her own anger.

The tiniest hint of a smile crooked the side of his mouth, 'Logic dictates that I would have even less use for a broken heart than a whole one, and I cannot help but note that you appear to have a very low opinion of me.'

Penelo opened her mouth and then snapped it shut. She slumped onto the edge of her bed and stared down at her knotted fingers clenched together in her lap, 'I'm sorry Balthier.'

He sighed, 'And now you've spoiled it; I had thought we might have a rather spirited discussion there, but alas, you are determined to play meek and subservient.'

She looked up at him sharply, 'What?'

Instead of answering he pointed with one paintbrush, 'Over there please; the light is better.'

She looked from the man half hidden behind the easel to the late evening sun-warmed window embrasure in her room. Wondering why she did it even as she moved Penelo left the bed for the window.

'Hmm, as I said meek and subservient.' Balthier murmured to his paints as he cracked open the lids on the jars of tincture and acrylic paints. The scent of oil's and white spirits filled her room, alien but not unwelcome.

'W-what should I do?'

Balthier had knelt down to the floor where a battered black leather case filled with paint supplies rested by the tripod legs of the easel, he glanced up at her curiously, 'Do?'

'Yes….I mean, how should I….?' she trailed off flushing furiously and waved her arms hopelessly.

She had no idea how to model for a painting and she was afraid of what Balthier might expect of her. After all she rather thought that male painters had a liking for nude models and she was afraid that Balthier expected more of her than she was prepared to deliver.

The man in questions expression was almost comically blank as he studied her uncomprehending. Penelo felt certain that the blood warming her cheeks would soon burst into open flame with her acute embarrassment, 'I don't know how to pose.'

The admission was hard to speak aloud. Penelo had never cared much for affecting airs and graces she did not have, nor in making false impression, but now her lack of sophistication seemed almost a deformity that she feared would ruin his art work.

'Oh, well,' Balthier seemed caught between amusement and something softer and warmer and more kind, 'Have no fear in that regard for I have never painted a formal portrait; so we are, at least, equals in ignorance.'

Penelo was jolted to her core by his confession, 'But….?'

But why me? Why would you choose to paint me as your first real painting?

Balthier returned his attention to the blank canvas sat on the easel, 'A predilection for artistic endeavours was something of a handicap while I was young. My father had no time for art and, as you might imagine, the armour of a Judge left little room to secure a sketch book and ink.'

Penelo curled up sideways along the green leather window seat, the sun a warm caress across her body, and wrapped her arms about her drawn up legs while resting her cheek on her knees so she could face Balthier.

He never spoke of his past openly to anyone (save that one time to Ashe) even though they had all known about it since the Phon Coast (the Princess could not keep a secret and Vaan was an excellent eavesdropper). Therefore, aware of the rarity of the moment, Penelo remained as still and quiet as she could.

'I once thought that I would join the staff of Draklor and spend my days designing airships.' Balthier murmured meditatively as he made light strokes with a pencil across the canvas.

Penelo, caught up in the excitement of this unexpected confidence, barely noticed, and thus did not comprehend that the portrait that she feared posing for was already taking shape.

As it seemed increasingly likely that silence, and the scratch of lead pencil across treated canvas, would steal away this oddly confiding conversation, Penelo spoke up.

'I wanted to be a dancer when I was a girl. I used to dream of joining a performers' troupe and riding a caravan all across Ivalice.'

Almost as soon as the words left her lips Penelo sucked in a sharp breath of anxiety. She had never admitted that to anyone (aside from Vaan – who simply knew anyway). Immediately she tensed waiting for what Balthier might say in response to this foolish, girlish, confession.

The pencil was withdrawn from the canvas and Balthier stepped back to consider whatever he had ghosted across the white blankness. He frowned as he considered the portrait he planned in his mind's eye.

Penelo was both relieved and disappointed that Balthier had not responded at all to her cherished childhood ambition.

'You are not dead yet.'

She jumped, staring blankly at him, startled by this seemingly nonsensical statement. Was he insulting her with such a strange thing to say; what did he mean by it? Balthier arched an eyebrow as he peered around the edge of the canvas and tested the bristles of a paintbrush with a thumb.

'What I mean is that you seemed to imply that you will never achieve your dream and I fail to see why. You are hardly too old and you are in good health.'

'Ooh, I see.'

The top of her head was warm from the dying sun and, curled up in one of her favourite stances, she felt oddly comfortable, which surprised her greatly, 'But I couldn't do it now. I could never leave Vaan and the others back in Rabanastre.'

Balthier seemed to be working on blocking out the background as his brush moved lightly and swiftly across the canvas. Penelo who knew little of painting simply watched his arm move back and forth.

'Why ever not? Vaan would no doubt go with you and I fail to see what binds you evermore to Rabanastre.'

Penelo sighed, 'There are people there, Balthier, orphans like me and Vaan, they don't have anyone else. I could never just up and leave them.'

'Hmm, has it not occurred to you, that, technically, you already have? After all, you are here and the urchins are where you left them, under the feet of the Imperials.'

Penelo's head jerked up, 'B-but….no….it isn't like that!'

Balthier tapped a finger to his lips as he studied the array of paint brushes and paints lined up on the ledge of the easel before him.

'Like what?'

'It's not like you make it out to be. It's not like I just chose to walk out on the people I care about,' she argued hotly, obscurely stung by the unspoken accusation she heard in his words, which was, in fact, entirely motivated by her own guilt.

'Hmm, struck a nerve have I?'

Penelo shifted twisting her hands together and turning her head away from him, 'No. I don't know what you're talking about.'

Balthier made an irritated noise in the back of his throat, 'About face, my girl, I'm trying to paint here and I cannot do it if you persist in fidgeting.'

Penelo, who had almost forgotten the reason Balthier was in her room in the first place, felt herself flush with foolishness and stiffly returned to her former pose, 'I….sorry.'

'Hmm,' Balthier raised a paint stained piece of white cloth to buff the canvas, 'I won't keep you much longer, but I want to get the rough done before I lose the light.'

Penelo, who had no real idea what the 'rough' was, fell back on her manners to defend her, 'Sorry.'

Balthier paused, thin tipped brush poised above the canvas, 'Why do you do that?'

'Do what?'

'Apologize for meaningless things; it is shockingly dull.'

Penelo once again found herself offended, 'Because, unlike some people, I was raised to be polite and courteous.'

Her mother had often told her that there were lots of excuses in life for being mean, or selfish, or giving way to grief and bitterness, and for that very reason it was important to never fall victim to any of them.

When things are bad Penny, don't make them worse by giving in to them; rise above them sweetheart and be good.

Even with her mother no more than a cherished memory Penelo did her best to live up to that ideal, even when sometimes she felt she had a right not to want to smile at the world that had been so cruel to her already.

To her consternation, as she snapped out of remembrance, she found that Balthier was chuckling as he deftly poked the paint brush in little, light stabbing motions, against the canvas.

'You are the strangest girl. Saccharine sweetness hiding a rather more tart centre. You Dalmascan's are the damnedest people.'

Penelo blinked as she ingested this statement. She did not think it meant as an insult but she did not think it entirely a compliment. Once more, and without her conscious consent, she found her tongue running away with her.

'Well, I rather think that a people who trade useless bits of wood for pointless gossip are pretty strange.'

Balthier chuckled once more, appreciatively, 'Touche, I suppose.' He buffed the picture with the paint smeared cloth once more and then stepped back decisively.

'We've lost the light,' he stated crisply picking up a piece of sack cloth from the floor by his feet and draping it carefully over the canvas. As Penelo watched he grasped the easel and lifted the whole thing into a corner of her room by the vanity and wardrobe.

'I'll leave this here for the night, come the morning I'll take it back to the Strahl.'

As he returned to the centre of the floor and started to re-pack his art supply case Penelo finally grasped his purpose, 'That's it? You're leaving?'

Shadow had filled the room where once the sun had cast the wood furnishings in rich autumnal shades and burnished the white walls with dying golden light. Now the room was filled with muddled shades of grey.

Balthier looked up at her quizzically, 'Well yes. The light has passed and I'll not risk exacerbating my hang-over further by squinting.'

He gave her a crookedly rueful smirk, 'Plus I may as well risk the Princess' excessive wrath now. I dare say even the Princess' haranguing cannot make the pounding in my head any worse, it may even chase the last of the Madhu completely out of my system.'

'But when will you finish it?' she pointed to the sack covered easel pushed into the corner of her borrowed room.

Balthier shrugged unconcerned, 'When I have a mind to. I have your image locked within,' ironically he tapped his temple, 'whatever happens to you my dear, the portrait will be completed.'

Penelo felt as though he had slapped her. A wave of hurt and anger crested in response to his callousness. She had told him already that she did not like the idea of him doing whatever he wanted with her likeness in ink or acrylic…..that it felt like he was stealing something from her, but it seemed as though he either hadn't listened or just did not care.

'Why are you so mean?' she blurted out, knowing she sounded silly and girlish but (because she was a girl….and because she did not really think herself silly) she did not let it stop her next words.

'Why must everything be about controlling people, Balthier? You are only nice so that you can then be cruel. You only give so you can later take. You asked me to pose for you and then tell me you don't need me to finish a picture of me.'

Balthier looked just slightly surprised by this outburst. He stood with his painting supplies under one arm and his other hand clasping the door handle.

'I am not controlling anyone.' he replied coolly turning hooded eyes on her from his haughty height.

'This may come as a surprise to you, my dear, for you seem enamoured to martyrdom and selflessness, but I did not make you agree to this painting. I have already promised you the finished article….all I meant by my previous remark, was that you need not pose for me again.' He gave her a blandly disdainful look, 'I had thought this would please you as it seems to unnerve you to do so.'

Penelo's nervous hands had curled into fists at her side, 'Liar.'

The word fell heavy and hissing with heat into the evening coolness of her bedroom. The room fell into deeper indigo shadow striped with elusive grey as Balthier strode swiftly across the room, discarding the painting case on her bed as he passed, to stop before her. He almost towered over her, but Penelo was not so easily intimidated.

'Now, my girl, I have been nothing but polite to you and your boy, Vaan, but I do not care for being called a liar without justification.'

Penelo, heart pounding an irregular staccato beat in her chest and breath quick and shallow, lifted her chin to stare him boldly in the eye and rose on tip toe to increase her stature before him.

'There is justification because you are a liar. You have been playing with me all along like I'm some…..some…….curious little creature you want to poke and prod and see what I'll do.'

'I beg your pardon?'

His eyes narrowed and something bitterly cold and monstrously arrogant cascaded across his expression almost scaring Penelo enough to make her back down, but, perhaps because she was tired of being nothing more than gist in the mill of fate, she refused to surrender.

'You think you're better than me, better than Vaan, but you're not. I'm a person, Balthier, just like you, not some quaint little curiosity from a backward country that you can play with until you get bored and then just throw aside.'

Although there were inches in height standing between them they diminished into nothing as he stared down at her with a remotely angry expression and she teetered on tip-toe fired with fury, chin tilted up to meet those hooded, deceptive eyes.

To Penelo's intense shock Balthier broke the stalemate first; his eyelids came down in a slow blink, sealing off the contact between them, 'Hmm. So that is your true opinion of me, then?'

He turned and walked away without another word. Penelo dropped down on the balls of her feet in confusion and mounting panic as she watched him walk quietly across the purple and grey stroked wooden boards towards the door.

'Balthier!'

He had opened the door and was slipping through it. She ghosted across her room and caught his arm in the blinking of an eye. He turned back to her, annoyance naked upon his face.

Those dark, hidden and hiding brown eyes met her own pale, pale blue ones which, unlike his own, were always filled with light from within.

'What is it now?' he demanded utterly coldly half in and half out of the threshold of the doorway, 'For I am warning you, I'm only inclined to listen to so much defamation of character before I lose my temper, and I assure you, you do not want to provoke my bad temper.'

'I…..?'

The thundering of her heart in her ears drowned out even the incessant murmur of the ocean.

'Well? Spit it out girl.'

'I…..Balthier…..'

He sighed irritably when words continued to fail her and jerked his arm roughly from her plucking grip. He slipped from the door and she moved with him, reaching out once more, rising up on tip-toe as she grabbed at him.

She did not plan what she did next; she would never have planned such a thing.

Lips met lips and she was pressing, precariously balanced, against the length of his body before she knew what was happening. His bottom lip was full and soft and the faint scent of leather and gun powder brushed against her senses a split second before his hands closed firmly on her shoulders and pushed her, firmly, away from him.

It was the slightest of contacts, not even a kiss because he did not once respond to her, but that one confused gesture was enough. Penelo stumbled back onto the balls of her feet and Balthier stepped from her with the intention of making his way back to his own room.

Penelo only knew something had gone wrong when Balthier stopped abruptly and his eyes, hard and angry, widened in surprise.

'Oh bollocks.' he swore and Penelo twisted on her heels to see what the matter was (though she feared she already knew). As she turned she found herself almost face to face with Vaan's dumbfounded expression.

'P….Pen…what's going on?'

Heat and cold washed through her and her hands jumped up to cover her mouth in horror, 'Oh no, no, no…..Vaan….'

But it was too late and Vaan was jumping to all the wrong conclusions, as well as jumping towards Balthier fists flying. Balthier had already predicted this would happen and was standing lithe and ready to defend himself.

He deftly stepped out of the way when Vaan surged at him and pivoted gracefully to guide Vaan face first into the wall before pinning one of her friend's arms behind his back and holding him against the wall.

'Let's not do anything hasty Vaan. I'm having a bad enough evening already and it has only just bloody begun. I don't want to have to hurt you, but be assured I will if you make me. Do you understand?'

Vaan made some inarticulate angry growling noise and Balthier rolled his eyes, 'Fate has it in for me, that is the only answer.' He muttered as at that moment things went from bad to worse.

'What in the name of the gods is going on here?'

Ashe arrived suspicious and on the verge of anger once more as she looked from a flustered Penelo to Balthier pinning a struggling Vaan to the wall.

Penelo, wishing that she could simply die right that very moment, could only stand stock still and numb in the face of total disaster.