Chapter Twenty-six: Cold mist and innuendo in the shadow of the Great Crystal

' They are.'

' Are not.'

'Are too. Look at them!'

'Penelo there is nothing going on between them!'

' Oh, yeah, why's that, Vaan the relationship expert?'

' Well, why would he, when he's got Fran, huh?'

Fran sighed inaudibly trying to ignore the children's bickering. They had been alternately speculating on an illicit affair between Balthier and Ashe and how the Daedalus the party had defeated at the Giruvegan Waystone could see without a head or eyes.

Lengthening her strides she came abreast with Balthier, ' Where are we up to? Magically imbued sonar or has the first love child been born?'

Fran sighed, ' They have speculated that it is some form of sonar, picking up on the heart beats of those around that allowed Daedalus to detect our presence.'

'Fair reasoning.'

Balthier shrugged inured to the rumour mongering among the children and the increasingly frosty regard of the Dalmascan captain.

' Vaan is of the current opinion that you are unlikely to favour the Princess when you have me.'

Fran quirked an eyebrow pointedly; Balthier's lips twitched in a suppressed smile.

' Equally sound reasoning, though perhaps the lad has misread our relationship somewhat.'

' I am no man's possession.'

' Quite so.' Balthier said with equanimity.

' Is there some problem?'

Ashe had been striding ahead ever since she drifted off into Giruvegan following the apparition Fran could partial see; a formation of Mist that led the Princess like a dream leads a somnambulist.

Now the Princess, accompanied by Basch, dropped back to walk abreast with Fran and Balthier.

' You had best ask Vaan and Penelo that Princess.'

She frowned, ' Why is that Balthier?'

' Trouble in Paradise, apparently. The affair is not going well I'm afraid.'

He winked suggestively at the Princess and cast a sideways glance Fran's way, she shook her head.

Balthier would delight in using the children's fairly innocent speculation to tease Ashe and Basch both.

Fran had yet to decide if she was in the mood to encourage or restrain his devilment.

Balthier set off ahead towards an abandoned loot container hidden in a darkened corner of the platform between walkways that they had been ascending and descending for hours, digging deeper into the ancient bowels of Giruvegan.

Nodding to Basch, Fran followed Balthier. As she stood watching his back her partner gleefully picked the lock and pried open the container of loot.

Fran could overhear, without trying, the conversation the Princess and Basch were having.

' I like it not Princess. Balthier is a clever man, but he makes it difficult for me to trust his intentions.'

' I see little likelihood in either he or Fran abandoning us now.'

' He plays with you Princess. I know men of his ilk.'

'Basch he plays with everyone. He sees the whole of Ivalice as his personal playground. He is flirtatious and suggestive for your benefit, not mine. He enjoys annoying you. '

'Aye. I would speak to Fran but I fear even she cannot rein him in more than she already does.'

Balthier rose to his feet to show Fran what he had found, a sack of Gil and a fistful of x-potions, a reasonable haul.

' Anything good?'

He jerked his head towards the conversations going on between Ashe and Basch, Penelo and Vaan.

Fran sighed again, ' You are the popular topic of conversation still.'

Balthier grinned but hid it as he tucked half the potions into his belt pouch and handed the others to her. They always shared loot.

' Well, naturally. I am the Leading Man.'

' Apparently you and Ashe have been meeting secretly at night to engage in sordid carnality since we departed the Phon Coast.'

Fran continued once the party moved on to another mechanism that needed to be switched over and were briefly waylaid by Gargoyle Barons and a lone Behemoth forcing them to stop and imbibe potions and cast curative magicks.

Balthier quirked an eyebrow, ' Sordid carnality?'

Fran nodded, 'Penelo has a vivid imagination.'

Balthier was not quite able to stifle a burst of laughter that echoed in the vast emptiness of Giruvegan.

The sound drifted across the Mist heavy air towards the pulsing, sparkling crystal structure that loomed large in the centre of Giruvegan's web.

'I can't decide if I envy you your hearing, Fran, or pity you for it.'

Fran shifted her weight minutely and shook her hair back. The others filed passed them onwards towards another glowing ramp in the hanging architecture of Giruvegan that seemed to cling to nothing in the pulsing dark.

' It is oft a double-edged blessing.' Fran agreed as they followed the others.

' This place disturbs me, the Mist whispers odd things in my ears, tis almost as if we are expected.'

Balthier nodded, ' His deceased Highness Lord Rasler made another appearance to our Princess, did he not? Strange how he seems to do so at the most opportune moments.'

Fran nodded, ' Answers will be forthcoming I fear. We breach the heart of the riddle.'

'About time, I say. The intrigue grows tiresome.'

Fran almost smiled. ' Impatient Hume, remember you not what curiosity killed?'

Balthier smirked, ' I don't own a cat, Fran, so I shall not worry too greatly.'

She shook her head indulgently as they quickened their strides to aid the others who had come across Gargoyle Barons and a sub-species of Marlboro known as the Vivien, even more repellent than those encountered before.

'Wow. Look at that.'

Vaan stepped off the precipice and with a tearing explosion of Mist a glowing walkway of green magickal discs created a path for the party to transcend thin air to reach a distant platform.

'Vaan! A little help here!'

Penelo teetered on the edge of the solid platform the green path reached from as she aimed Aldebaran at the Mythril Golem that guarded the way forward with shambolic determination.

'Oh, right.'

Vaan ran back, and sensing it was no longer currently required the magicked walkway vanished with a crunching crash of ancient power, Fran's ears popped at the sound.

Once both Golems had been subdued the party stood at the edge of the precipice as Vaan, undaunted, stepped out onto thin air that once more, with crashing volume, became a bridge.

' This is amazing. Hey, anyone know how this works?'

Vaan had begun jumping up and down on the magicked discs, suspended as he was a good several feet from solid ground.

' Vaan, stop that!'

Ashe hissed at him, looking far more concerned than any of the others.

Vaan stopped jumping up and down and looked at the Princess quizzically.

' It's okay Ashe, see,' He stamped a foot on the disc he stood on,

' It's totally solid.'

Ashe squeezed her eyes closed, fists clenched. ' Stop it. You don't know that, you might break it with your childishness.'

Penelo walked onto the magicked bridge equally unfazed and glared at Vaan.

' Grow up Vaan. This isn't a game.'

She then proceeded to harass him along the bridge. Balthier, casting a curious glance at the mechanism the Golems had been guarding, followed the two Rabanastran's across.

The slicing, musical grinding noise of their feet upon the magicked discs had Fran gritting her teeth against the noise.

The cold mist filled her head and frosted her sinuses. She resisted the impulse to sneeze as a penetrating headache pierced her mind.

The closer they came to the huge Crystal at Giruvegan's heart, the more her senses screamed.

Behind her Basch led the Princess across the bridge slowly. Ashe had a death grip on his hand as she stared, with desperate single-mindedness, straight ahead.

'Ashe you should have said you were scared of heights.'

Vaan said bashfully, Penelo having pointed out the obvious to him as they waited for Ashe and Basch to make it across.

Penelo slapped a hand across her forehead and accidentally on purpose stamped on Vaan's foot. He yelped.

Ashe glared at him, 'I am not scared.' She hissed through gritted teeth.

It was telling that although she now stood firmly on the solid ground of the new platform Ashe maintained the tight grip on Basch's large, strong hand.

'It is merely prudence.' Basch said calmly, 'We know not the workings of this mechanism, therefore we travel with care.'

' Many strange things are here.' Fran agreed.

' The Mist is cold, yet its potency is undiminished. Almost, it seems, that the Mist has been tamed.'

' By what?' Penelo asked casting a nervous glance around them all.

'I can't help the feeling that we're somewhere we shouldn't be.' She added anxiously.

It was not only Ashe who started with a cry of fright when the magickal bridge behind them chose that moment to explode into nothingness.

'We find a place to make camp, we have had a full days travel since our battle with the Daedalus.'

Basch said firmly once Ashe had released her grip on his jacket and Penelo had stepped out from behind Vaan, whom she had shoved forward towards the sound, hurling her friend into the path of any on coming danger.

'Yeah, but where? This place is like a maze. Up, down, left, right.' Vaan rolled his eyes, waving his arms about to illustrate the point.

'Perhaps we should try going through this door?'

Balthier suggested dryly, leaning against the huge ornately engraved door that rested just beyond them.

' Uh, yeah, that could work.'

Vaan cupped the back of his neck with his hands, looking at the floor and kicking a foot awkwardly.

The area beyond the huge doors, which ancient writings proclaimed the Bulwark of Chronos, was a densely packed warren of narrow, interconnecting corridors and passageways.

' Where are all the fiends?'

Penelo frowned as she looked about the eerily silent place. Even Fran could not detect the sounds of other creatures near-by save themselves.

'Perhaps there aren't any?'

Vaan, ever optimistic, suggested. Penelo rolled her eyes at his simplicity.

Balthier clapped a hand on Vaan's shoulder cheerfully, ' never mind Vaan I'm sure if we all pray very, very hard something nasty will come along to eat you in no time.'

'Hey!'

In the end the party simply laid out sleeping mats on the glittering dark tiled floor of the labyrinthine chambers.

Fran curled up to sleep immediately, forgoing any food in favour of respite from the clinging icy Mist of ancient Giruvegan. The scratching whispers dancing through the chill air from the Great Crystal haunted her dreams.