AN: A typical "how they met" story. Sighhhhh.
She spotted him across the room, a fresh-faced Archadian aristocrat, dressed too nicely for the Balfonheim bar, speaking with too dignified an accent to be anything short of a nobleman's son.
He had drawn coins out of a large purse, and Fran had heard from across the room the quiet, heavy sifting of gil in that bag and her stomach growled.
She had not eaten in nearly a week; being Viera, she survived much longer without sustenance, but she disliked starvation as much as anyone, and was not above conning a poor, naive rich child of his coin purse. His father surely would give him another, maybe a hundred more.
And so she decided upon him, made her way across the room as sensuously as she deemed appropriate, and directly up to his table. The look upon his face told her he had perhaps never seen a Viera, or if he had, it had been from a distance or in a book.
"May I help you?"
His accent was even more distinctive up close, now that she was so close instead of at the opposite end of the Whitecap. Although usually she detested such behavior, Fran forced a coy smile, and asks:
"I was going to inquire whether or not I could join you."
The boy has the grace to flush scarlet. "O-of course. Please, sit down. Barkeep!"
He tells her to order anything she would like, and so she ordered a bottle of Bhujerban wine, and poured them both a glass.
"Have you ever had Bhujerban wine?"
He smiled. "I'm afraid I have not. I am, you see, only recently vacated from Archadia, where I have lived all my life."
"That is a pity," she murmured, closing her eyes partway and fixing him with a pointed look as she slid the cup across the table to him. "It is quite strong, but you will never taste a better drink."
The Archadian sniffed tentatively at the liquor, then swallowed the whole thing in one gulp, exhaling with satisfaction.
"That is quite good," he consented. "My apologies. I am Balthier. May I ask your name?"
"Fran," she said. "Drink, and tell me of your life in Archadia."
It takes no less than half another glass for him to confess he is the son of a member of the Senate, that he has only traveled to his family's summer home along the Phon coast, and knows nothing of the world.
"My father has given me leave to see Ivalice in its entirety, and money is no object, so I may travel in style and luxury. Except that," and here he leaned in close to her, conspiratorially, "I want to be amongst the people. I detest it when I am viewed as some sort of royalty. It is only my father's position..."
And on and on he goes, until she cannot hear him any longer and instead focuses on his hands, oddly calloused for a nobleman, and a light in his eyes. He seems too earnest, too optimistic, and the wine is acting too strongly on her empty stomach, for she can swear he is smirking at her.
"We should go somewhere more private," she whispered into his ear, and he followed, out the doors, down to the end of an alleyway where the water laps against the shore. Here, she pulled him close, and then pressed a knife gently against his throat only to feel the cold end of a pistol pressing into her gut.
Balthier grinned wickedly. "My suspicions are correct, it would seem. You would try to rob a poor, helpless Archadian youth?" Fran winces.
"I have not eaten in a week, and would plan not to go hungry for many months with such money as you are flaunting. It is not as if you are without wealth, in any case."
But the overly formal speech has gone, and the light in his eyes she mistook as childishness emerges as an infinite cleverness. It appears she has been double-crossed by a better actor than she.
Conceding, she pulled the blade from his throat.
"Who are you, really?" she demanded.
He surrendered as well, tucking his gun back into its holster. "I am the leading man, of course."
Met with silence, he continued: "My name is Balthier, that is true, and I am Archadian. I am of wealth, this is also true. But I am a runaway, like you and only with money because I have stolen it, like you."
This struck a chord; how could he know of...?
He chuckled. "You are Viera, but you live amongst Humes, wearing their armors and drinking their wines. You cannot be from the Wood, simply visiting, because this is forbidden. You must be a castaway, left because you are a criminal (which I would not doubt) or because you wanted to leave."
Fran sighed. "You are quiet clever, for a Hume, thief."
"Not thief. Sky pirate. An unknown, yes, but I am an unknown with much ambitions. Am I to call you Fran, or have you a real name you would prefer?"
"Nay, my name is Fran."
The sky pirate Balthier smiled then, a luminous smile and his eyes seemed to carry within them the ambition of a thousand kings.
"I shall remember it."
He began to walk back down the alleyway into the streets, which are emptied of crowds at so late an hour, and without thinking, she started to follow, finding the movement natural as they walk in rhythm with one another as if it has always been so.
They parted at the Aerodrome, but she returned the next day with her pack, having since heard the following morning that he was in want of a mechanic.
And so it began.