Chapter Three: Subterfuge, Knights and Bounty Hunters

Disclaimer forgotten in all the excitement and the author doesn't understand modern technology well enough to pop in at the beginning, apologies. I own nothing, Square Enix owns all known and recognisable characters. I make no money from this endeavour)

'I do not take well to demands.'

Fran watched Balthier's eyes harden as he regarded the angered Bangaa coolly. The hardness was not callousness but guilt, an affliction Balthier was not oft troubled with and did not like.

It was now plain to Balthier and Fran both that the Gods played games with them for their own sport. The girl who had caused a scene as they had been marched off to Nalbina was missing. Somehow B'gamnan had her.

When Vaan arrived, accompanied, interestingly, by Basch – perhaps some reconciliation had occurred – the chance of extricating themselves from responsibility for the girls safety fled.

Balthier managed some degree of good grace and commanded Vaan to make ready and meet them both at the Aerodrome. The boy scampered off leaving Basch with them.

'And what of you, my good Captain, surely you can have no fault to find with me?'

Balthier was at his most arch, meaning he was likely struggling with a bout of conscience. Fran found it amusing, the man could fleece a merchant of all his hard-earned Gil in exchange for counterfeit goods and keep a smile on his face the whole time, then be caught in a quandary of guilt for something that was not, in fact, his fault.

'No fault indeed, Balthier, in fact I have favour to ask of you.'

Fran did not miss the bright spark of delight that lit within Balthier's eyes at Basch's honest but unguarded words. She kept her expression schooled to impassivity however.

' Favour you say?' Balthier laughed, ' Have a care, Captain, tis rarely wise to ask favours from pirates and my favour is very hard to claim indeed.'

Basch blinked slightly in surprise and dropped back a step as Balthier rewarded him with the inscrutable smirk that meant everything and nothing all at once. Then the former captain himself laughed.

' I will take your words under advisement, Balthier, I should imagine your favour is also rather expensive.'

Basch agreed, his own low bass tones set to a dust dry humour too refined to be defined as sarcasm. It caught Balthier by surprise, momentarily, and then he laughed out loud.

' So Captain, now I am curious, what could you possibly want from myself and Fran that would be worth such to risk the expense?'

' I need to contact the Marquis Ondore in Bhujerba.'

'Ah,' Balthier grinned, ' Very clever, Captain, I see where you gained your reputation for strategy. Fran and I appear to be bound for Bhujerba, against our wishes as it happens, so you hope to gain free passage with us?'

'Something of the sort, yes.'

'And when you reach Bhujerba you will make your continued existence known to the Marquis, though he be a cheerful collaborator with the same Empire that framed you for Regicide?'

' I have reason to believe Ondore is less enamoured with the Empire than you may think.'

'Hmmm?' Balthier looked thoughtfully at Basch, wheels turning as he considered the relative worth of the information.

' I had heard rumours of such myself.'

Balthier glanced back at Fran, who merely shrugged, having known from the moment that Basch managed to match wits with her partner that he had won his favour already.

It made no real difference to her and the former Dalmascan knight had a quiet dignity Fran appreciated. He would, at least, be a quiet travelling companion.

' Very well, Basch, you have caught me in generous spirits, you can have your free ride to Bhujerba.'

' I am grateful to you.' Basch said sliding back into his more customary formal tones.

Fran elected to wait outside for Vaan as Balthier went to check on the Strahl and the captain went to attend to one or two last minute errands of his own.

' Balthier awaits inside. He feels badly about your girl. Do not think he is in the habit of granting favours.'

She gravely warned the boy Vaan, lest he mistake their actions as something more than a sense of duty. It was clear to Fran that the boy was almost more excited at the prospect of flying with known pirates than he was worried for his friend.

It did not help that Balthier was in good cheer and deliberately encouraged the boy's delight in the Strahl, he himself relishing the chance to show the airship off to a new, and impressionable, audience.

Fran did not know who the boy, Lamont, truly was when he attached himself to their party almost from the moment they disembarked the Strahl in Bhujerba. She suspected that Balthier did, or at least had his suspicions.

It was there in the speed with which he acquiesced to the boys request to accompany them to the Lhusu mines and in the way he watched the boy so closely.

Fran was content to keep her peace however, Balthier would tell her when it suited him and until then she trusted his judgement in allowing the boy to remain.

' We seem to be making a habit of travelling within dark, dank, enclosed spaces of late, Fran.'

Fran nodded slightly as she watched Balthier fastidiously shrug cobwebs and grime from his sleeves, he was frowning but his tone remained feather light. A show sign his claustrophobia was bothering him.

' I do not care for Steelings.' She conceded as they paced a few steps behind Vaan, Basch and Lamont. ' They screech so.'

Balthier glanced at her, then involuntarily up at her ears, before nodding in sympathy. Then he smirked at her, clearly ready to change the subject.

' I could do without all the traps myself. It seems passing strange that there should be so many explosion traps within an active mine.'

' B'gamnan's mark.' Fran murmured.

Balthier nodded, then in brisk tones asked, ' What do you make of our newest companion?'

With a jerk of his head he motioned towards Lamont who was engaged in conversation with Vaan, though on what topic it was best not knowing.

' A boy of the Empire, who would sooner hide the fact.' Fran glanced sideways at her partner, ' I have met others of his like before.'

Balthier's smile flickered and he inclined his head in acknowledgement of the point, 'He wears the mark of House Solidor.'

Fran quirked an eyebrow in question, Balthier's lips twitched in a less friendly smile.

' Next time the opportunity arises look at his pendant, unless I am very much mistaken it resembles the twin serpents of House Solidor.'

'You suspect a trap?'

Fran shifted her weight as the party stopped so Vaan could check a container for loot. Her eyes darted to where the boy Lamont was offering Basch a potion after a Skeleton soldier had ripped a gash in his side with a pike.

Balthier shook his head, ' To what end? If the Empire wants their scapegoat back they would not need to resort to this level of subterfuge.'

' Then what do you suppose is the boy's purpose here?' Fran questioned in a voice so low only Balthier would know she spoke at all.

' I have not the slightest idea, Fran, though I suspect something much worse than any mere trap.'

'Such as?'

She took the opportunity of inspecting Balthier for injuries after a particularly nasty run in with a group of skeletal fiends, to continue their private conversation.

He gave her one of his more honest smiles, ' I suspect Fran, though I sincerely hope against being proved right, that you and I have fallen into someone else's story.'

Fran allowed herself the ghost of a smile, ' A truly fearful fate for the Leading Man.'

He nodded merrily,' A fate worse than death, that of the supporting role.'

With nary a word more on the subject of politics, subterfuge and dubious aliases Balthier moved forward to engage Vaan in conversation about airships, much to the younger Hume's delight.

Fran could not decide if he did so to keep better watch on the boy Lamont or to rid himself of all thoughts of the stranger completely.

So it was with something close to surprise that Fran watched Balthier round on Lamont once they reached the wide cavern, glittering with veins of pure Magicite ore, and Lamont crowed triumphantly over the completion of his 'errand'.

Balthier had the boy pinned, primarily with sharp, suspicious words, to the wall of the cavern demanding he divulge his true purpose and identity when B'Gamnan arrived with his entourage.

It was ironic, therefore, that it was Lamont who afforded them the opportunity to avoid a fight and flee from the Lhusu mines and B'Gamnan's crew.

When Balthier finally revealed the true identity of Lamont to Vaan, and possibly Basch if he had not guessed already, Fran found herself unsurprised, though remaining puzzled as to the younger Solidor's purpose in accompanying them.

' Another story indeed.'

She addressed Balthier after Vaan had run off to proclaim loudly, to any in earshot, that he was The Basch Fon Ronsenberg of Dalmasca !

Balthier, plucking at his sleeve as he perched on a low wall in Miners End, looked up at her briefly. ' One with an unnecessarily complicated plot, I wager.'

Fran shifted her weight for a moment before relenting and taking a seat beside her partner who rummaged in one of his belt pouches and presented her with a hard boiled mint candy. Her favourite.

' Is the Leading Man not curious as to the divulgence of said plot?'

Basch, having left to discreetly follow after Vaan and make sure his pretence as the Knight did not bring the boy to harm, Fran felt comfortable to sit next to Balthier and suck on her candy.

' This Leading Man knows better than to give free reign to his curiosity, lest it be the death of him.'

'And yet we remain here still.' She pointed out dryly.

' Vaan's girl is still misplaced. The Leading Man can't be seen to be shirking his responsibilities in rescuing distressed damsels.' He responded equally dry, crunching his own candy between his teeth.

' She did not seem to be over much in need of rescue upon leaving the mines.'

Balthier grinned broadly and chuckled, 'She was probably relieved to be free of Vaan.'

'Indeed.' Fran agreed crunching her own candy and savouring the sounds as her teeth ground the hardened sugar menthol.

Though she sensed the hands of fate like fingers of air upon them both, for the moment she and Balthier were as they were meant to be, free, unencumbered and together in their own private work of fiction.