Chapter Two: King-Slayers, anger management and the dangers of Mimicks

' I am dropping it!'

Fran's sharp exclamation was the only warning Balthier had to duck as Fran's powerful right leg flew out and demolished the mechanism that kept the bird cage prison of one Basch Fon Ronsenberg, aloft.

' Pirates without a sky.'

Leaping down into what could be, if he miscalculated, a very unpleasant death, Balthier wondered briefly how it was his life had become so interminably complicated.

The landing, as far as it went, was not so very bad. Worse he imagined for the emaciated spectre of one of Dalmasca's most celebrated soldiers, yet the man seemed too happy to be out of his cage to much care.

Balthier was feeling much less sanguine, Vaan's indignant anger towards the Captain, without any thought to the suspicious circumstances as to why the Empire was keeping a traitor alive, was wearing on his nerves.

Making their way slowly through the Barheim Passage, the lights flickering brighter and then dimming as one Mimick after the other was felled only to have another take its place, led to a sense of claustrophobia Balthier refused to acknowledge existed.

It did not help that the enticing, alluring and downright irresistible treasure chests and discarded leather drums of loot scattering the winding caverns and rough hewn subterranean passages were more oft than not baby Mimicks.

' How come we have to take him with us?' Vaan spat looking towards the man alleging to be Basch Fon Ronsenberg, with unconcealed hatred.

Balthier sighed, patience waning. Though he refused to allow any of his internal discomfort to leak into the carefully maintained façade of Leading Man.

'Vaan, why don't you look at it like this; we are not so much travelling with the Captain, it is more a case that we are trying to escape captivity at the same time that he is. Ignore him if it makes you feel better.'

'Easy for you to say. He didn't kill your brother.' Vaan muttered. Even when Balthier lengthened his stride to outpace the boy, he simply scampered alongside.

' True enough.' Balthier conceded cheerfully, hefting his Altair and offering it to a confused Vaan.

' The good Captain has his back turned, Vaan, a clear shot if you wish to take it?'

' Huh?'

Balthier sighed with exaggerated patience pushing the gun into unresisting hands.

' The man is meaningless to me, but if you feel this strongly about it perhaps you should take your revenge now and spare us all your whining?'

By this point Fran had stopped and was watching both of them with a placid expression, understanding the point Balthier was trying to make. Basch had also stopped, breathing heavily so ribs expanded and constricted under too thin skin. His eyes were resigned.

' Tis fair.' Basch growled. ' I may not have struck the killing blow but my failures caused the deaths of both your brother and the king.'

' …..I…. I…' Vaan's eyes skittered wildly from Basch to Balthier and briefly to Fran. The gun drooped towards the uneven, rocky ground.

Balthier reached down and took his weapon back from Vaan's loose grip. Though he maintained the ironic lilt to his words, his tone was softer.

' A word to the wise, Vaan, if ere you should feel the burning need to kill a man for some such slight, be sure that he is guilty first. It makes things so much less awkward for all concerned.'

'……yeah.' Vaan's head drooped and he shifted awkwardly on his feet, Balthier moved on leaving the youth to his thoughts.

Irritating though Vaan undoubtedly was, he did have some sympathy for the boy. Everyone needed someone in their lives they could despise with impunity.

'Oh, how lovely.'

Balthier breathed, face twisting in distaste, as they entered the large chamber where the Mimick Queen was busily gestating and birthing her young.

' ……Eeeeew, gross. Do we kill it?' Vaan skidded to a halt, having bounced back from his miserable introspection some time since.

An errant bolt of lightening that nearly singed Balthier's hair was answer enough. Though he decided to elaborate for Vaan's sake, it would not do to over-estimate the boys intelligence.

'Yes, Vaan, I would say that would be a good idea under the circumstances.'

Discarding gun, for he was out of shot, in favour of broadsword purloined from one of the many skeletal corpses littering the Barheim Passage, Balthier pressed towards the quivering, twitching Mimick Queen towering above their heads. The battle was joined.

'Ah, sand, Hyenas and blistering heat. How I have missed you!'

Balthier raised his arms as if to embrace the sun as the four of them staggered out of the Barheim Passage into the expanse of the Westersands.

Vaan looked at him askance but Basch seemed to smile, offering his own, silent, but equally heartfelt, greeting to the open sky.

'It's just the Westersand, what's the big deal?' Vaan asked Fran but loud enough that Balthier heard.

' Sky Pirates long for open skies above all else. It is our nature.' Fran told him coming to stand beside Balthier, he smiled at her, nodding.

' Truer words have nere been spoken.' He murmured for her ears only, then louder to encompass the other two.

' Shall we be off before we are like to shrivel up?'

The Rabanastre West Gate rose up like a mirage in front of them some time later and Balthier allowed himself a small, satisfied smile.

This little diversion was now over, he and Fran were free to go about their business uninterrupted. He didn't even care for the Magicite anymore.

So it was with magnanimous equanimity that he warned Vaan to keep a low profile and stay out of trouble, wishing him luck with the Magicite. He didn't even mind when Fran told the boy they would be in Rabanastre a spell.

The Sandsea was calling to him, his throat dry from sand and dust. The Strahl was safely waiting in the Aerodrome and life was once more as it should be for he and Fran both, free of all cares, responsibilities and purpose.

Life was good and he threw Gil to the thin children crawling up from Lowtown with hunger in their eyes as he and Fran strolled through the occupied city of Rabanastre with all the bearing of monarchy.

' I wonder that extended periods of captivity has such an affect upon your mood.'

Fran murmured dryly. Watching Balthier smile and wink at yet another pretty girl on the street.

' It is not the captivity but the escaping of said captivity that fills any sensible man with cheer.'

' This city and her people could do with all the cheer you care to spend, it would seem.'

Fran commented looking down upon the small girl child who grasped at the coins Balthier pushed into her tiny, birdlike hands.

' Yes, being under the thumb of Empire is never a comfortable place to be.'

Balthier agreed as he pushed open the door of the Sandsea for Fran, bowing in elaborate fashion to her as she passed, as always she ignored him.

'Still they have it better here than those in Nalbina.'

Fran went to find them a good table in the crowded tavern while he waded into the thick crowd of patrons to order their beverages.

Settling himself down in his seat on the upper floor of the Sandsea, Fran having the inexplicable ability to always find the best table in any tavern anywhere, Balthier poured them both a glass of Madhu and raised a toast to Fran.

' Here's to insurgents, cut-purses and King-Slayers and the happy fact that we shall have no further contact with any of them.'