Nalbina Fortress, Balthier's 'suite'
A/N: Warning! Drama, angst and some steaminess ahead – just a fraught little recess between court proceedings.
P.S: This scene just popped out of nowhere and the two of them shift moods pretty dramatically halfway through. It makes sense to me but I admit I have less of a handle on Ashe's character than Balthier's - so is it believeable or too much?
P.P.S: thank you everyone who has read and reviewed, your feedback keeps this weird little tale going, truly.
' You filthy, manipulative, Imperial bastard!'
Ashe let loose a hand to slap that damned smirk permanently from his face, the accursed pirate ducked before grabbing her wrist tightly and jerking her off balance so that she stumbled against him.
'Now, now, your Highness, I am only playing the game you started. Did you think I would simply roll over and let you ruin me?'
He sneered letting go of her wrist and slipping past her away from her fists and her feet, she spun around to watch him, breathing hard and flatly refusing to cry.
'I hate you.' She hissed. Overcome with the well of suppressed emotion she had been unable to show during the first day of the trial.
He turned slowly to look over his shoulder at her. His usually full bottom lip pinched and his mouth a hard, flat line.
'I am not feeling too partial to you right now, either.' He spat coldly.
Ashe sat on to the edge of the plush four poster bed she had allowed the pirate to have in his cell. The rooms of this tower were both well appointed and comfortable. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe through her rage.
'I should have you imprisoned underground like the vermin you are.' She whispered through her teeth.
'Perhaps you should, I've escaped Nalbina's dungeons before.' His voice opening mocked her.
Ashe's eyes flew open at his tone, 'Because of your theatrics today most of Dalmasca now think we are lovers. I am being called a shrew and a scorned mistress in my own streets!'
He simply gazed back at her cold, arrogant, and snidely amused, 'If the glove fits; your majesty.'
If he had slapped her it couldn't have hurt more. 'I am still Queen here, how dare you speak to me like this?'
She tried to lever herself up from the edge of the bed, her limbs weak and her lungs aflame, all her strength had left her and she felt as light and inconsequential as a dead leaf on the wind.
She could not forget the look of cruel contempt in his eyes as he had knelt at her feet and kissed her hand during his rebuttal speech, managing to make the gesture of reverence appear indecent in front of her entire court.
It was the same look of mild, uncaring, distain and lack of feeling she had seen when he nonchalantly demanded Rasler's ring from her all those years ago.
It was all she could do to calmly declare proceedings over for the day and restrain from flying at him like a common fish wife. She had maintained her dignity and composure in the face of Judge Magisters and Vayne Solidor but this pirate could undo her with a few choice words and the curl of his lip.
She had been working herself into a towering rage for hours waiting until it was sufficiently late to slip away from the Palace in Vaan's airship to come and give the pirate a piece of her mind.
'You will treat me as befits my status and your current predicament.' She demanded with as much cold and regal command as she could. She could not believe he was behaving like this. Didn't he know she was trying to save him?
Did he simply not care for her at all?
'No.' Balthier said flatly, ' I will not.'
Something broke inside her, a combination of a long day and the sudden reappearance of the pirate in her life, and a huge sob tore free of her throat, she fought it but the next sob escaped also and then it was as if a dam had broken and she wept openly, and cursed herself her weakness.
Balthier merely stood there and watched.
'Are you enjoying this Pirate?'
She snarled, strangely her strength seemed to have returned with her tears, 'is this what you wanted to see? Did you plan this? Does it give you pleasure to watch me subvert the laws of my own kingdom for you, to see me made a laughing stock and fool in front of my people?'
Balthier watched her, his face half draped in shadow appeared oddly solemn and cold. He shook his head slowly.
'I never wanted any of this, Ashe.' She heard regret in his voice but could no longer trust anything he said, she wondered if she had been a fool to ever trust him?
She hated him more in that moment than she had hated anything or anyone in her life, including Vayne Solidor, and yet she couldn't bear the feeling that afflicted her. The sensation that she was about to fly apart like dust in the wind, her soul torn to pieces by the rage and pain inside her.
Ashe rose from the bed and paced towards the window, determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry over him.
'Why? Why did you behave like that today? You knew how your actions would be perceived.'
She choked and hated herself, more than him, for her weakness. She forced herself to meet his eyes and despite the furore of emotions rampaging inside her she was startled to see that his face was pale and he looked almost upset.
Balthier groaned sounding both frustrated and angry as he quickly stepped up to her.
'Gods damn it, Ashe. You had your man accuse me of treachery. You put me on trial and locked me away here for over a month. What did you think I would do, thank you?'
He snapped, fiercely gripping her shoulders, but he did not push her away. Ashe could feel the tremor in his hands through the fabric covering her shoulders. He was shaking.
To her mute shock he leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, pressing his lips to her skin and for a moment simply breathed in her scent. Ashe remained still under his lips, taking one deep breath after another.
He pulled back from her and turned his head, the same grim tightness to his features she remembered from that night on the rocks on Balfonheim beach so long ago.
'Yes you should thank me.' Ashe almost screamed, stamping her foot.
Did he not realise the enormous risk she took by doing all this, or being here with him now? Could he not tell she was deadly serious? What more did she have to do? She was flirting with utter disgrace already.
She stamped away from him, 'You broke the law of my realm Balthier and despite this I am risking my reputation and my throne to see you are exonerated.'
Balthier turned to face her, expression filled with incredulity, his eyes showing more emotion, more anguish, than she had ever seen, save on the rare occasion he spoke of his father.
'You are, really? I fail to see how, considering it is your Chief Justice who is prosecuting me, your bloody people who will see me swing for upsetting their beloved sovereign.'
He shot back, in the exact same tone of voice as she had used towards him, before he turned to walk over to the bed, turning his back on her and holding onto the post of the bed, resting his forehead wearily against the carved wood.
'Ashe, you have to let me go.' He said after a fraught silence in a voice she did not recognise, one that carried none of his usual elaborate self confidence.
'You have already ruined me, end this farce before you ruin yourself as well. This is not a game you can win.'
'Tell me you don't love me.' Ashe snapped back walking across the cold, stone floor and climbing onto the bed so that she could kneel on the counterpane and face him eye to eye.
He refused to meet her gaze. Something fought for freedom in Ashe's chest, like a trapped bird, it felt suspiciously like hope. Though she knew not what she truly hoped for.
'Say it.' She demanded heatedly when he contrived to ignore her.
'Look me in the eye and tell me you don't love me, that Balfonheim meant nothing to you and I will help you escape this fortress myself, tonight. You will never have to see me or fear Dalmasca's watchmen ever again.'
Her heart hammered in her chest as the silence dragged on. With every passing second that he hesitated her formless and insubstantial hope grew.
When he spoke his voice was academically dry and urbane, devoid of honest sentiment as he still refused to look at her.
'Interesting, you would be prepared to let me go if I say I don't love you, but not if I say I do. That hardly seems fair to me.'
Balthier finally looked at her, a familiar spark of humour in his eyes, he leaned his head close to hers.
'Answer my question.' She commanded, their lips almost touching.
Ashe refused to let him distract her from her question, but found herself wondering what did she truly want from him; a friendly ear to listen to her frustrations?
To sympathise with her that her treasury had not the resources to affect all the reforms and renovations she would see made to Dalmasca, let alone to begin work on making Nabudis habitable once more?
Or did she wish to make of him a personal privateer to steal for her the Gil to affect those changes? Or a lover to be kept in a nice gilded cage for when she had need of comfort?
'I could simply lie. That would seem to be the pertinent choice given my limited options.'
He breathed against her lips. Ashe felt her eyes flutter closed in anticipation even as her thoughts continued to whirl.
And what about him; did his wants matter not at all? She had already snatched away his liberty and this very public trial made a return to privacy impossible for him, perhaps she should let him go now for his sake?
'Are you going to lie?' She whispered, as his lips came down on hers, met, joined, and then they parted once more. She heard him chuckle, though she kept her eyes closed.
'Like I said, Highness, you've created for us a fine mess this time. Did no one tell you queens and pirates do not traditionally make good love matches?'
She felt her heart jump painfully in her chest; he had used the word 'love' and not prefixed it with 'I don't'. This was, for the moment, the only part of his statement she considered relevant.
'I am not governed by tradition.'
She retorted and was rewarded by his slight smile and the spark of acknowledgement in his laughing dark gaze, all her anger and his dissipating in the suddenly charged atmosphere between them.
She wound her arms about his neck and rose up on her knees to meet him, leaning against his chest, the bedsprings creaking slightly in argument. She kissed him.
' That….,' Balthier began to reply around another deep kiss, ' is palpably…mmm…,' she tried to stem the flow of sardonic witticism with her lips and tongue but he would have none of it, '... obvious.' He finished slightly breathlessly.
She rolled her eyes and brought her lips to his once more, 'I cannot help but notice…,'
She began, before he interrupted her this time with a kiss, their bodies moulding together as Ashe slipped her hands around his narrow, tapered waist to begin attacking the fiendishly complicated clasps and ties keeping his vest adhered to his torso.
She sighed deeply as Balthier's gloved hand began to ease up her right thigh, his other hand curling around the back of her neck as he kissed her.
'Mmm, Balthier.' She shook her head to clear it, 'Balthier! You have yet to answer my question.'
'What question?'
He sounded as if he might genuinely have forgotten her original question. Ashe herself was having to call upon on all her diplomatic training to keep her thoughts in order as Balthier's hand continued its maddeningly slow climb up her leg, his leather swathed fingers dancing over her tender flesh.
She gave his backside a sharp pinch in irritation and he flinched and frowned at her.
'Do you want me to let you go?' She demanded, now she had his attention.
Balthier raised an eyebrow, hand stilling on her leg. 'That was not the original question.'
Ashe narrowed her eyes, still trying to pry her fingers between the fastenings of his vest, almost tempted to attack the damned thing with her dagger sheathed in her boot. How, by all the gods, did he dress himself in the morning?
'I have changed the wording of the question as you seemed reluctant to answer the original phrasing, the answer will amount to the same thing, however.' She snapped.
Balthier's expression became a shade more solemn and for a moment Ashe thought he might not give the answer she wanted.
'I suppose it will at that.'
He mused more to himself than her, reaching his hand behind his back and lightly slapping her fumbling fingers away to release the clasps to his vest himself, with simply staggering ease.
'No self respecting sky pirate enjoys being locked up and put on public trial. I really should take you up on that escape offer.' He said distractedly, even as he worked the vest off his shoulders and arms.
Ashe resisted the desire to shake him in her frustration, could he not simply say it? Three little words, for a man with his vocabulary and dexterity with language, those words could hardly be difficult for him to say. At least they shouldn't be.
' Do you want to go, Balthier.' She hissed, biting her lip.
He looked at her; she watched some odd and complex series of expressions pass over his sharp features.
'No.' He said eventually. The monosyllabic response took Ashe by surprise and it took a moment for his meaning to sink in.
'I do not want to go.'
For a moment they just looked at each other, quietly. Ashe held her breath for his next words, hoping. He cleared his throat almost awkwardly.
'I have no desire to leave now, especially as tomorrow I have the pleasure of cross examining you on the witness stand.'
He told her and Ashe repressed the slight surge of irritated disappointment that he had refused to say those particular words she had been waiting for. He graced her with a crooked smile, gentler than his usual smirk.
'I have been looking forward to giving you a thorough grilling in the dock, your Highness.'
He added sounding more his usual self as he saw the obvious reaction Ashe had to his words, the fact that she had almost stopped breathing.
Ashe recovered and stifled a laugh more in relief than amusement, letting her breath out slowly and resting her hands on his shoulders, feeling the warmth of his skin through his thin shirt now the vest was gone.
'Over confidence will be the death of you pirate. You might think you have made a good showing for yourself on this first day, but my Chief Justice is a marvel when it comes to cross examination, you may find yourself out-classed.'
She carded her fingers through his close cropped hair, deliberately ruffling it, as she leaned back down towards the bed, drawing him down with her.
Balthier, one knee braced against the bed and one arm holding the bedpost, resisted her arms pulling him down; he quirked an eyebrow insinuatingly.
'Is that so?' He mused lazily. 'Hmm, well now, I may have to brush up on my technique in that case.'
He purred climbing up on the bed as Ashe drew herself up towards the head of the bed and waited, nibbling her lip in anticipation.
'I would hate to disappoint your Majesty when I come to cross examine you on the witness stand.'
Ashe nodded gravely and looked up at him coolly. 'Indeed, pirate, your reputation would likely not survive if you failed to perform to expectations at the pivotal moment.'
He was moving too slowly so Ashe grabbed hold of him by the sleeves and almost caused him to fall on top of her by pulling his arms out from under him.
'Patience is a virtue, Highness.' He chuckled coming to rest on one elbow at the head of the bed beside her.
Ashe glared at him, ' As if you know anything of virtue, pirate.' She scoffed.
'Oh, you would be amazed at the things I know, Princess.' He whispered in her ear, leaning across her and nibbling her neck, playfully.
'And, for the record, you need not worry, my performance will not be lacking, I assure you. I have plenty of tricks up my sleeve yet.'
He drawled lifting his head to give his attentions to the other side of her neck, his dangling ear-ring brushing her cheek.
Ashe sighed, her spine bowing up from the bed as his wicked fingers began to explore any bared flesh on her person. He nipped her neck, by the divot of her collar bone, sharply, causing her to gasp and loosen her grip on the back of his head.
He raised his head and winked at her, 'Not all of my tricks are suitable for the witness stand I fear, so I had better show them to you now.' He added impishly, before capturing her mouth for a kiss.
Ashe decided to allow him to do just that, for most of the night, confident that Vaan would wait patiently with the Beirouge to have her back in Rabanastre for the next day of the trial.
She would just have to hope Balthier had the stamina to defend himself come morning, as she intended to give him no quarter in this game they played. After all, the longer she could make this trial drag on the longer she could keep this pirate exactly where she wanted him.