Chapter Nine: Reality cometh, how now pirate what game do you play?
Fran grasped Lente's Tear in her fist tightly. The Elder Wyrm, created from the Wood by the Wood as punishment or warning, Fran knew not which, faded into motes of sun and shade.
Again, fifty years after the first time, Fran left Golmore behind. Left it knowing, though she wished that she could deny that knowledge, that it was completely of her choice. Jote said the Wood missed her; that she could return if she recanted. The Wood would speak to her once more perhaps, if she returned.
Beside her but a respectful few steps away Fran could feel Penelo's eyes on her, a sympathy given that did not need to understand that which Fran had lost to feel the echo of that pain.
Bringing up the rear Vaan's voice was subdued as he spoke with Balthier who leaned painfully against a tree trunk and bled from numerous contusions. The Wood had chosen well the target for its ire.
Ahead Lady Ashe and Basch tended to each other and Larsa, young, valiant but awkward nevertheless, hovered close to Penelo and watched the Wyrm spirit dissipate with open curiosity.
' This path leads to Paramina Rift and through the Rift to Mount Bur-Omisace.'
Fran was surprised to hear her own words. To feel herself lead the way towards the cold and harsh climes of the Kerwon mountain ranges.
Where once, before Eruyt, Balthier would have instantly, naturally, fallen into step with her, Betelgeuse strapped to his back; he now drifted in lacklustre fashion as she strode forward, exchanging Loxley Bow for Kotetsu blade.
Fran did not know when rifts began to appear in the perfect, insulated harmony of their own strange symbiosis, but appear they had.
They were one on the Ozmone Plains and in Jahara, though Balthier was perplexed by her willingness to aid the Princess after Shiva, as evidenced by his spite in taking the Princess's husbands wedding band.
The genesis of their current estrangement, only noticeable to them because no longer could they intuit the others every word and deed, was Eruyt.
Fran had never wished to return yet she had recognised the immovable, irrepressible hand of fate, pushing, guiding her onwards in the guise of this fallen Princess and her desperate quest.
Was Balthier resentful of her for this action? That she had, through first guiding the princess to Jahara, then through her own home wood of Golmore, somehow betrayed their lifestyle of careless and care free pirates?
Yet she saw it clear, in his eyes, a darkness of something secret and hidden from her, something that the Nethicite evoked. Something in the way his eyes fell unkindly on the young lord Larsa.
She knew that had she not provided an excuse for them to remain with the princess's party, then he would have. Something drove him too. Fate had her hands upon him also, though he fought it still.
Night fall found them huddling for shelter in one of the caves on the lower reaches of Mount Bur-Omisace. Each and every one of the party was sore, aching and quieted by cuts, claw wounds and the bites of wolves, drawn down by the frigid cold.
' How now Fran, planning on spending all night staring at shadows?'
She did not turn towards his voice, the whisper of unwarranted reproach loud to her ears. Instead she remained, steady and ever vigilant, on watch.
Undeterred Balthier dropped down beside her at the entrance to the cave, wolf pelt, cleaned and prepared by the Garif, clenched tightly around his shoulders.
' It will be all over soon enough.' Balthier murmured, seemingly to himself as he dropped a parcel of salted meat into her lap.
' Our Princess shall have her throne restored and we shall be on a merry way, no doubt we'll receive no compensation for our time, but that cannot be helped I suppose.'
Fran paused in chewing her rations, ' Do you truly believe so Balthier?'
Once she would have had to look only briefly in his eyes to understand his mind completely, now three years of content understanding was lost in unnecessary, unwelcome conversation.
Balthier stiffened beside her, breath catching sharply, the only warning Fran had, though it be enough for her, that his temper was rising.
' We could have been shot of them all after the eighth fleet fell. This is not my doing.'
So he did resent her actions? Fran did not look at him, did not react to the scolding accusation in his tone. Instead she chewed placidly on her rations and watched the snow fall into darkness.
' Fran?'
The howl of a wolf caused her muscles to tense and without thought she had the bow drawn and arrow ready to be loosed, should any predator emerge from the night blizzard.
'Fran look at me.'
It was the tremor in his voice, not the command that made her turn to face him.
' How now pirate, what game do you play with me?'
She rebuked him coolly and saw his impassivity, maintained as solidly, constantly as her own, collapse. He squeezed his eyes closed and dropped his forehead to her shoulder. The heat of his breath tickled the cool skin of her neck.
' Tis not my game, Fran. As you say the Gods are having sport with us and I do not care for it.'
The sounds of sleep from the others in the cave was a reassurance to Fran. Sleeping witnesses were as good as none.
Keeping her regard towards the opening of the cave, she raised her free hand to pet the back of his head, briefly.
' You fear this Nethicite. If we run, your fears will surely chase you down.'
Fran tried to explain her reasoning; though it hurt her that he could not see it. Balthier laid a chaste kiss to her bared shoulder.
' You could have returned to Eruyt, or at the very least taken your sister with you when we left.'
Hearing the name of her home on his lips startled her, made her flinch; two worlds that should have remained ever separate were colliding.
'Mjrn must stay in Eruyt.'
Balthier had shifted his position so he could begin using his gun calloused firm hands to rub out the muscle strain the bow caused in her back. If a fiend came at them now they would be ill prepared, yet she found she cared little for that.
' And what of Fran? What of the Wood and the Green Way?'
Balthier brushed the thick train of her hair out of the way with brisk efficiency. His touch was safe, it was partnership that did not breach boundaries.
In that touch Fran understood, finally, where the rift between them had come from and felt relief that it could be so easily repaired.
' I have no wish to dissolve this business partnership, Balthier.'
She felt his smile though she did not turn around to look at him, the flow of silent communication between them resumed, with his ministrations.
' Good. I have missed you Fran. The Leading Man must have his partner.'
Balthier's cool tones both mocked and celebrated their shared eccentricities. The man who would make himself a fiction, the Viera who would claim partnership with a Hume.
' I have never left your side.'
She pointed out, reproach and question only apparent in the residue tension now easing from her shoulders.
Balthier scoffed slightly in apology accepting the rebuke as deserved. He scooted back to sit beside her once more.
' True. I thought to leave your side so as to let you make your choices freely. Being a gentleman, it was only proper. Though I freely admit the effort to keep my mouth shut near killed me.'
' I had thought the lure of the Princess and her skirt had some small part to play in our separation also.'
They had been talking in low murmurs, less strident than whispers, but Balthier's startled burst of laughter, quickly disguised as a cough and smothered, nearly woke the rest of the party.
' Fran, please.'
Content that they were both once more as they ought be, together and self-sufficient within their shared and concealed hearts desires, Fran let her head drop wearily to his shoulder. He would ensure no fiends came upon them, his heart beat a steady rhythm to which Fran slept.