Chapter Fifteen: Drinking Games, loose tongues and the bonds of comradeship

' Well I suppose that answers that question.'

Balthier commented dryly as he gently steadied Penelo who was all but leaning on his shoulder.

' What question?' The girl asked in slightly louder tones than strictly warranted.

' That Dalmascan's have no stomach for drink, my girl.' Balthier replied merrily.

'That's not true! I could drink my brothers under the table any night!' Penelo declared sticking out her chest and looking pointedly up at Balthier.

' Nor do Dalmascan's have any concept of ladylike behaviours.' Balthier murmured too softly for Penelo, who was listing woozily and clutching at Balthier's sleeve partly to keep upright and partly because the cloth was nice to the touch, to hear him.

' What?'

' I said,' He spoke up smiling at the girl, ' that your brothers sound like stalwart characters.'

Penelo hesitated slightly as she decided what she thought he meant by that, being unfamiliar with a fair percentage of the vocabulary Balthier used.

' They were good brothers. They're all dead now. The war.' She waved her hand airily to dismiss any gathering ghosts.

'My condolences.'

Balthier said, because it was what you said, even when you don't care because you never met the specific deceased personage. He didn't know why it was said, it had always seemed trite to him.

Penelo was looking at him, milk-maid face flushed from too much of the Hunter's own brewed ale and exhausted, as they all were, from the trek across the Mosphoran Highwaste to the Phon Coast.

'Balthier?'

He blinked at her, ' Hmm? Apologies Penelo did you say something?'

Penelo nodded rather too vigorously, ' What about you? Do you have any brothers, or sisters?'

'No.'

He knew what was coming next and wracked his slightly drink sodden brain for a diversion to distract the girl, but brain and tongue failed him.

' Parents?'

'Not nearly dead enough.'

He muttered darkly, finally noticing the stroke of luck and salvation he had been waiting for in the return of his partner.

He raised the bottle of moonshine in toast to her, 'Fran, care to join us?'

Sitting with his back against one of the palms that dotted the coast line outside the Hunter's Camp Balthier was not intimidated by Fran's impressive stature, even when she gave him that look.

' Balthier?'

Fran quirked an eyebrow at him with a mixture of that ever so dry understated humour she possessed and reproof.

' Fran.'

He responded in perfectly cool and collected tones, keeping a straight face even when Penelo gave up the ghost and slumped against his shoulder unconscious.

Fran walked a few feet from the tree to where Vaan was sprawled insensate on the dunes, mouth hanging open and snoring uproariously, empty bottle clutched in his loose fingered hand.

Fran nudged the boy with the toe of her heeled boot fastidiously. Vaan grunted, rolled over, but did not wake. Fran looked back at Balthier pointedly.

He shrugged, as much as he could with Penelo draped over him and took a healthy pull from his own bottle. He was not yet nearly drunk enough for his liking.

' Vaan wanted to participate in the Hunter's drinking games, who am I to stop him?'

'And who told him of those games, Balthier?'

He couldn't help himself this time; a chuckle escaped him, belaying his carefully maintained façade of cool sobriety.

'I am, after all, a Pirate.'

'And Penelo?' Fran's tone was just ever so slightly sharper, only he could hear the lilt of warning and know just how fond of the girl Fran was.

' Where Vaan goes she follows, Fran.'

He shrugged once more and plucked the girls wandering hands away from his vest, where her fingers had started petting the velvet patterning of their own accord.

' And yourself?'

Moving with a speed that was frankly annoying Fran snatched the bottle from his hands before he could lift it to his lips again. He frowned at her.

' Boredom. Sheer bloody boredom. It was either this or drown the pair of them. They bicker constantly.'

He rolled his shoulders as Fran carefully lifted the sleeping Penelo off of him so he could pull himself to his feet.

The two pirates tucked both Penelo and Vaan in blankets where they slept and walked down to the shore line.

'The Princess and her taciturn guardian?'

'Will return shortly.'

Fran said simply as they both gazed companionably at the quilt of starlight.

' The Princess will not be pleased with you.'

' If this is supposed to deter or shame me then I am afraid you are doomed to failure.'

'She depends on you and you encourage that dependency.'

' I do nothing of the sort.'

Balthier tried to remember the names of the constellations. Alas, while he could remember the correct equation for converting Mist to airship fuel he could not name the intricate, twinkling etchings of stars across the night sky.

'You have a fondness for the Princess.'

' Only in so far as I admire her audacity in chosen attire and how its sits upon certain aspects of her anatomy.'

Fran probably knew the names of each individual star in the sky. She knew almost everything else.

He remembered that he had wanted to study astronomy, mechanics and aviation theory at Akademy but Cid had expected him to study law, philosophy and theoretical mathematics. Damn Cid.

' You fool me not in the least, Balthier.' Fran said with just the slightest of indignant sniffs.

' You're quite right Fran, it's not the Princess, it's Basch I find myself so taken with. I cannot decide what I find more alluring, the emaciated traitor in rags or the placid, dull-witted yes-man in rags that he has become.'

' There is no talking to you when you are like this.'

Fran rebuked him, but the moonshine was finally having its desired affect and he merely smiled, cat-like and completely unrepentant.

'I think I will go for a little swim.'

His forward momentum was stopped short by Fran who curled a long clawed hand around his forearm drawing him up short.

' You are like to drown.'

' A nice irony, wouldn't you say? A sky pirate meeting his death by drowning.'

Fran just looked at him, coolly, dispassionately. It was oddly comforting. He could not abide sympathy in any form save that found at the bottom of a bottle.

' You could still run.'

He flinched and did not meet Fran's unwavering, unflinching regard. There was no criticism in her voice, no reproach; she simply spoke truth, with all its inherent cruelty.

' No. Archades waits.'

' As does your father.'

Balthier let Fran pull him away from the waters edge and back up the coast to where Penelo and Vaan were still lost in their inebriated dreams.

' You're wrong. Dr Cid was never one to wait on anything, least of all his son.'

He regretted the words, the clearly audible bitterness in his tone, the moment he spoke, but the damage was done.

' Sleep Balthier, nothing else will protect you from the Princess' wrath.'

He smiled broadly up at Fran as he dropped heavily down onto his sleeping mat; impulsively he reached out and squeezed her hand.

' Not true Fran, you will save me, you always do.'

Fran did not reply and presently he closed his eyes and let the sound of the surf and the heat of the ale in his blood lull him into near sleep.

He didn't bother to stir when, distantly on the edge of a dream involving purple clouds and line dancing Moogles, Balthier heard the Princess start yelling.