Chapter Eleven: The art of rotating Stone Braves and other useful facts to learn while plundering ancient, mystical shrines
'Anticlockwise, Vaan. Not clockwise!'
Penelo yelled at Vaan as the boy manipulated the revolving Stone Brave statue on its plinth this way and that.
Balthier, who had a healthy appreciation for high farce as a an art form, so long as he wasn't stuck in one, might have found it all rather amusing, had he not been fighting for his life against a cloud of Balloons.
Bulbous, bilious and fit to explode and send parts of him flying to the four corners of the Shrine the Balloons converged on him, it was typical that Betelgeuse chose that moment to jam.
It had been the Princess' idea to split the party in two so that they could reach the Stone Braves in double quick time. At the time it had seemed a sensible suggestion.
Realising that no amount of yelling at Vaan was going to help, Penelo waded into the throng of Balloons ostensibly to help Balthier, beginning to cast a spell for water.
From the corner of his eye, as he struggled to re-calibrate Betelgeuse as quickly as he could, Balthier noticed one of the huge Balloons preparing to burst right behind Penelo. So it had come to this, had it? Another one of those damnable moments when his own, somewhat unorthodox, moral code demanded he play the hero and hang the consequences.
Throwing Betelgeuse aside, she was to be no use here after all; Balthier leapt for Penelo, tackling the girl to the ground and shielding her with his body as above him the Balloon committed its own suicide, the chain reaction causing its compeers to explode also.
A wave of liquid heat, not so much painful as it was numbing in its intensity, seared over his back. Magickal flames and whatever else was emitted when Balloons exploded rushed over his body, leeching through his pores and melting nerves and muscle, frying bones.
He thought he heard Penelo scream and tried to make sure as much of his body covered her as possible before the torrent of excruciating pain cut his mind loose of its physical moorings and sent him spinning into darkness.
Balthier knew he was dreaming because he was back with his father and it was only in dreams that his father was allowed into his thoughts at all.
Dr Cid was grinning at him; monocle and glasses perched on his nose, eyes bright with familiar madness. They were in the drawing room of the old Bunansa mansion, Balthier noted vaguely.
The ornately decorated mosaic coffee table that his paternal grandmother had had commissioned while on holiday in Nabudis, was covered in schematics, notes and pieces of shiny stone.
See Ffamran. Nethicite.
Dr Cid waved a hand at the table before sitting down in his favoured leather recliner, a chair that had been the favourite of his father before him also. Nothing in the Bunansa household was under fifty years of age, save Ffamran himself.
What of it?
Balthier noticed vaguely that one of the trinkets, like so many cheap conjurers props scattering the table top, looked suspiciously like the Dawn Shard. Almost involuntarily he found himself reaching for it.
See? See, it is as I thought, you can't resist it either, can you?
Balthier jerked his hand back, as if burned, his father sounded pleased, so very pleased.
I am not you, old man, to lose my wits to a stone.
Dr Cid smiled at him, the smile that could seem so kindly and yet so unutterably deranged.
Good for you, Ffamran.
I'm not Ffamran, I'm Balthier. I left all this behind me years ago.
Dr Cid fixed him with his keen, bright gaze, eyes that always knew when Ffamran lied, always heard the words Fframran didn't say.
Then why are you here, hmmm? Why has the prodigal son come home?
I am not your son anymore. You are not my father.
Cid laughed outright, leaning forward to gather up his precious stones, Oh, no, my boy. It doesn't work like that.
What's that supposed to mean?
Ffam – Balthier! – knew he shouldn't let his father rile him, he remembered still how it was to live with the mercurial mad scientist after all, but distance had made those survival skills rusty.
What does it mean? Can you not tell Ffamran? Has living out your own childish indulgences addled your wits boy?
His father's tone was mocking; Balthier heard the echo of his own exchange with Vaan the night before in its harshness. No wonder he had little patience for the problems of others.
Cid watched him, while simultaneously holding the deadened Dawn Shard up to the light of the dusty chandelier that had been one of his mother's family heirlooms bought with her as part of her dowry on marrying Cid.
You will always be my son, Ffamran Mid Bunansa and I shall always be your father.
No, I am Balthier, I left you and my past behind. This, he waved his hand to encompass the room with all its useless relics in ill-repair that he remembered so well, all of this is but memory - you only exist in my dreams.
Dr Cid clapped his hands delightedly, the way he used to when as a child Ffamran solved the mathematical puzzles his father set for him.
Precisely! Dreams, memories, the only true immortality man can aspire to. Man can live forever in the dreams of others, my boy, and so shall I, ever more, live in yours.
No.
But said without conviction as Balthier realised that of course this was some kind of dream, all of it, a product of his own traitorous mind.
Forcing him to acknowledge that no matter what Balthier the Sky Pirate did, he would forever carry the shadow of Ffamran Bunansa.
Cid was watching him nodding as if he knew what Balthier was thinking, which as a figment of his own imagination, he probably did.
Here, son, here is the only place that I am still your father, the one you knew, the one you ran from. Here is the only place that you are still Ffamran, still my son. You are not ready to give that up yet.
I miss you.
The boy who created the pirate Balthier in order to survive the guilt of severance, nearly destroyed all that hard work with that one, pitiful, admission.
He had become, once more, the boy who loved his father and hated himself, more than Cid, for what happened all those years ago.
But you don't miss me, do you?
After all had he been a better son his father would never have needed to throw himself to Nethicite, would he? Never would have had to create a substitute in his own mind, when his son wasn't enough to keep him rooted to sanity.
No, Cid agreed cheerfully enough polishing his monocle, I don't miss you. But you knew that, already. As you say, what's done is done.
Unable to look at Cid anymore, Balthier, or was it Ffamran?, sought something to distract himself around the cluttered, faded finery of the drawing room.
He found it. She was beautiful in a way that was almost painful. But it was a beauty like that of a dawn laden sky, something to be savoured but never consumed.
A beauty to be admired through sideways glimpses and silhouette not sullied with lustful ogling and questing hands. She was to be clean, untouched and pure. She was, after all, Viera, the most precious of all the creatures of Ivalice and perhaps the most cold.
You need to come back now, Balthier, this serves no purpose.
Fran was as incongruous as a snowflake in the desert perched on the arm of his father's favourite wingchair, her cool gaze working its usual magic, reminding him of who he now was. Balthier opened his eyes and the dream faded, though he knew with certainty that he would return.
'He's awake! Fran, Balthier's awake!'
He was aware of quite stultifying pain through his entire body and fought and failed to keep his eyes open. He was awake, Penelo was right on that one, but he fervently wished he wasn't.
'Balthier?'
Fran's cool exotic tones were as a balm to his pain but he couldn't find voice to answer her.
' He opened his eyes, I saw it, I swear.' Penelo was saying from somewhere above him.
He felt a deft touch against his cheek, under his nose, a hand that moved to his chest.
' He breathes and his pulse is strong. Penelo, Ashe, another spell casting should rouse him.'
' I'll do it.' Ashe's voice, surprisingly soft. He felt another touch against his brow, the Princess this time. Then he felt magick float through his beleaguered body, like the sweet breath of the wind.
' Ghhn.'
He was truly awake now and forcing himself up before his blurred vision had time to register the ring of anxious faces that encircled him.
He struggled all the way up to his feet through sheer will power alone and it was only Basch's strong grip on him that kept him from falling flat on his face. He wished he could remember what had happened. One ought to remember near death experiences shouldn't one?
'Balthier are you well, can you hear me?'
Ashe appeared as if conjured from thin air before him. His vision wavered as another healing spell staggered him. As always the spells did not so much take away pain as insure one had no opportunity of dying to escape it.
' Princess,' His own voice sounded gratifyingly normal, despite the precarious mental state he found himself in,
' have you found your sword yet?'
' I -no, not yet.'
She was frowning at him, but not with her usual distain, the Princess actually looked pale, as did Vaan and Penelo. Balthier was gratified to note that the latter was looking unharmed so at least his act of heroism was not in vain.
' Well then we had best get a move on, Dalmasca isn't going to liberate herself.'
He staggered forward and was pleased to find that his legs obeyed him and bore him along, albeit unsteadily, Fran appeared at his side not interfering but ready to jump in should a collapse seem imminent.
' Balthier!'
'Yes Princess?'
He didn't stop to look at her because if he stopped he feared he'd never start again. He must have been moving quite slowly however for she swiftly over took him.
'Balthier you almost died. It took three tufts of Phoenix Down and numerous spells to awaken you.'
He raised an eyebrow, ' Really? My apologies Princess, I'll endeavour to almost die less thoroughly next time.'
' Balthier!'
Stopping at the elaborately engraved and gold embossed ancient door Balthier faced the Princess.
'Ashe if you are going to take on so every time one of your entourage is hurt we shall never get anywhere.'
Ashe coloured for a moment and something like lightening flashed in her grey eyes, for a second Balthier wondered if she would strike him. Then she marshalled her self control and looked at him coldly.
'You are blasé for one who nearly died. Do you not fear death pirate?'
He smiled at her, ' Of course not, Princess, I am, after all, the Leading Man. The leading man never dies before the end of the story.'