Chapter Thirty-Seven: Escaping a heroes reward; a sojourn in Ambervale

'Bloody thing.'

Balthier cursed as he fumbled to hold the soup spoon in his one workable hand. His leading hand was in a sling held protectively against his chest.

Fran, chewing patiently on her bread did not react; he would not take kindly to her intervention.

Eventually Balthier seemed to find a grip that he could manage and ladled up his soup.

' Hmm, not bad.'

Balthier's eyes drifted to the bowl of bread sitting in the centre of the table between them and he frowned slightly casting an irritated look at his own inert right hand, bandaged from finger tip to above the elbow.

Without a word Fran placed a piece of her bread, already buttered, on the side of his plate and went back to her own soup.

' Thank you.' Balthier smiled dryly.

'A right sorry pair we are, Fran. Still I suppose cumulatively we still have two working arms and two working legs.'

'Three.' Fran corrected him, picking a piece of diced Cockatrice from her soup; she detested the taste of meat.

' Hmm?'

Fran noticed that Balthier was scoping out all the pieces of potato from his soup and loading them on the plate outside the bowl.

'We have three working hands and three working legs.' Fran elaborated. ' Your legs are uninjured as are my hands.'

Balthier looked up at her and smirked. ' Don't be pedantic Fran.'

Fran allowed a smile to flicker on the edge of her expression briefly before her eyes drifted to her right leg, cased in a plaster cast and itchy.

' How is it?'

' It mends.' Fran murmured, ignoring the intolerable itchiness.

Balthier, hearing the words she would not say, winced and sighed defeatedly.

' I did the best I could Fran. The Magicite barrier the Dalmascans put up around Bahamut once it crashed prevented any healings.'

' I make no complaint. We shall both heal in time.'

She looked pointedly at his right hand. The burns to his leading hand were extensive, affecting muscle and tendon as well as skin.

He had burned both hands terribly prying apart the panelling between levels in the Bahamut so that he and Fran could hide in the venitilation shaft.

Balthier was still frowning, soup abandoned, but then Balthier had the eating habits of a bird.

'A great deal of time. Damnall Fran but I never thought we would be hurt.'

Fran granted him a faint smile, ' Some might consider that a rather grave lapse in judgement, Balthier, the probability of incurring injury in a collapsing sky fortress is high indeed.'

Balthier grimaced, ' Alright, this once, I'm prepared to concede certain aspects of the plan were perhaps not as well thought out as might be expected of the Leading Man.'

' You are still intent on playing dead?'

Fran continued to eat her soup as she watched him. As always his eyes betrayed his heart. She saw pain, guilt, but also certainty. It was the certainty that hurt him.

' There is no purpose in trying to reclaim the Strahl until we are fit enough to fly her, Fran.'

' Yet we could return to Rabanastre now, we are well enough for that. You would be hailed as a hero. Saviour of Dalmasca.'

She teased him gently, Balthier did not smile. Instead he ran the fingers of his left hand over the cracked dinner wear they ate from.

' For sure.' Balthier agreed sarcastically, ' And you and I would be caged in gilded praise never to fly again.'

He picked up a fork and started scraping the tines, agitatedly, across the white table cloth.

'If we return, allow Ashe or Larsa or any of them to know we live, they will never let us alone to live free. You know this.'

' Perhaps you wish to build a nest? Perhaps the Leading Man has developed a taste for the respectable life?'

Balthier gave her a very level look, ' Sometimes I think you enjoy tormenting me, Fran.'

Fran kept her smile on the inside as she finished the last spoonful of her soup and looked about the small, shabby room they were currently using to hide from their former compatiots.

' Do we seek validation of this Glabodos rumour?'

Fran's eyes sought the light spilling in through the small window, she yearned to be able to walk over and pull the curtains open.

Sensing this Balthier scraped his chair back across the unpolished wooden floor and did it for her.

Rich, late afternoon sunlight spilled into the small, basic lodging in a sudden deluge.

' May as well, we are down to our last few thousand Gil. It will be a while until I can wield a stylus to forge more Gil bonds and unless we wish to die in truth, from starvation, we need some means of restoring our fortunes.'

Balthier struggled to open the window one handed and after a moment the fresh breath of spring air wafted into the room.

' Though loathe to admit it, I'm prepared to concede that Ambervale is very attractive. A shame it's full of Rozzarian's.'

Fran smiled ever so slightly to Balthier's back, ' Unsurprising as it is the seat of Rozzaria's government.'

Balthier turned away from the window and walked over to Fran,

' Want to take in the view?'

Fran nodded and reached her arm out to slip around Balthier's shoulder as he took her weight and helped her rise from the chair.

The cast hung heavy over her right leg and clunked unbecomingly on the dusty floor as she hobbled to the window.

The small, square window pane opened up a view to the outside world that was indeed pleasing to the eye.

Ambervale gained its name from the Amberleaf trees that lined its wide avenues and clustered in winding paths up the large, grassy hill where the Margrace palace sat sentry over the city.

Below them, in the crowded street, Rozzarian's went about their business, trading, buying, thieving and simply taking in the air.

'There are many Viera here.' Fran murmured softly, keeping the weight off her right leg.

She watched keenly as a cluster of three Viera, their skin a hue darker than her own, their long manes of white hair cascading down their backs in brilliant resplendence, walked confidently through the throng of Humes.

'Hmm, I know.' Balthier also followed the three Viera with his eyes.

' I noticed quite a community of Viera in the eastern quadrant while rooting about for food stuffs, they trade in damask and silk and buy a variety of goods from the Hume traders.'

Balthier eyed her curiously still holding most of her weight, adding to the intimacy of his gaze.

'It seems they do things differently here than your brethren in Golmore.'

Fran did not meet his gaze, ' I had heard as much, though never in these fifty years have I taken opportunity to speak with one of the Rozzarian Viera, or travelled to Alcanna, their sacred wood.'

'Well then, no time like the present, is there?'

Fran almost smiled, Balthier held in his heart and soul nothing sacred or inviolate except perhaps his freedom to roam; to him it was a simple matter.

' It is not so simple.'

Fran shook her head sadly, her eyes rooted to the trio of Viera as they stopped to engage a Hume Gambit trader, she watched as they conversed easily with the Hume, they did so freely and without shame.

' Fran if you would talk with them you have only to ask and I'll arrange it.'

'You are so confident they would listen to you, Balthier?'

The viera had disappeared around the street corner; Fran ignored the twinge of regret at their passing.

' It may have escaped your notice Fran, but I have some experience of gaining the attention and the ear of Viera.'

Balthier commented dryly. Fran sniffed in amusement but did not meet his laughing gaze.

Her thoughts drifted to the Viera again as a warm breeze carrying the scent of fresh baking bread stroked through her hair.

The Viera exiles she came across on their travels through Kerwon and Ordalia were as withdrawn and uncommunicative as she had been all those years ago when she realised the price of freedom was ever constant loneliness.

Fran suspected, despite the contrary evidence of the Rozzarian Vieras actions, that talking with them would be as unfulfilling as talking with any exile of Viera.

' I may go to the Viera myself, in any respect, I am quite curious as to the cultural differences between these Alcanna Viera and the Golmore variety.'

Balthier remarked in a deliberately dry and academic tone of voice.

' You will do as you may.'

Fran responded calmly not rising to the bait. She had been standing too long and her leg had begun to ache.

Perhaps sensing this Balthier helped her walk to the narrow bed, the only one in this tiny lodging and she gratefully reclined on the crisp cotton bedspread.

Balthier sat down on the bare floor by the bed and picked absently at the frayed edge of the cloth sling he wore.

Fran lay on the narrow bed enjoying the tastes and scents of the Rozzarian city beyond their tiny hideout.

The warmth of dying sunlight draped across her cheek and the left side of her body in a thick swathe.

' Fran?'

Fran had closed her eyes, letting the sunlight bathe her closed lids in a golden brown shimmer.

The scent from the bakeries and the open air cooking fires of the brasserie stalls filled her senses, yet Fran still caught the shifting in Balthier's scent, suddenly vinegar sharp with something close to anxiety and worry.

' Balthier?'

' I would never have asked you to leave the Strahl had I thought, even for a moment, you'd be hurt.'

Balthier almost whispered; his tone and his words so decidedly unlike himself that Fran fought off weariness to open her eyes and turned her head to regard him.

She allowed herself to smile upon him reaching out to brush her hand in gentle benediction over the short sun-bleached hair on his head.

' I know.'

Balthier studied her intently; Fran watched the conviction solidify behind his brown eyes.

'Rest Fran, or you shall never heal and I grow more and more afraid of what Vaan is doing with the Strahl as we speak.'

He said briskly, quickly covering any lasting trace of the slip in his carefully maintained façade he had allowed moments before.

' He and Penelo will treat the Strahl well, Balthier, fear not.'

Fran shifted on the bed, eyes slipping shut and letting herself glide into sleep.

She knew with certainty, as dreams lapped at her sleep blanketed mind, that when she woke there would be Viera for her to speak with.

Balthier would bring them to her at gun point if he must.

Fran smiled, with her eyes still closed, as distantly she heard the door to their lodging close behind Balthier's quick, retreating footsteps.