Chapter Thirty-Eight: Running and Flying pt 2: The Art of Letting Go

Balthier was fairly sure that he had intimated as to his opinion of the Dalmascan crown city of Rabanastre more than once before in times past, but he now found himself reminded of exactly why he disliked the city so much.

While as the architecture still reminded him of over done confectionary and the pervasive scent of over-heated sand and Chocobo dung was still a miasma in the air, those were not the reasons Balthier disliked the city of Rabanastre.

The reason he disliked the city was the same reason he would ever more miss it, though he planned to never return to the city again so long as he lived.

The life he had chosen for himself was supposed to insulate him from the pain of severance that had all but destroyed the boy he once was.

In this regard, if in no other, Balthier's life of piracy had failed. Another severance loomed upon his personal horizon; one twelve months over due.

Strolling through the thickly thronged streets of the Bazaar towards the Sandsea Balthier noted the differences that had occurred in just barely a year.

The most noticeable of course was the lack of Imperials clanking through the city and sweltering under thick, armour plate.

Now the once repressed and dispossessed natives of this desert oasis ambled through their city streets with the confidence and ease of a people free of the yoke of empire, a people who knew who they were and had fought for what they loved.

Balthier, itchy with heat and a sense of disassociation, almost missed the furtive, twitchy haste that the Rabanastrans had employed in their comings and goings during the occupation.

' The city is in full bloom with new promise.'

Fran commented as she preceeded him into the Sandsea, ignoring his efforts of chivalry as he opened the tavern door for her with a bow.

' I know, vulgar isn't it?' He remarked dryly, sharply scanning the patrons of the tavern for any familiar faces.

When he and Fran were both satisfied that no one who knew them was present in the tavern Balthier preceeded to the bar and ordered their drinks, Fran found them a table in a shadowy corner on the second floor.

' Nono has said that Vaan and Penelo have treated the Strahl well, she is in good order.'

Balthier nodded distractedly, 'And their movements? Can Nono guarantee the pair will be absent when we reclaim our ship?'

' As much as any can guarantee the actions of another.' Fran murmured in assent.

'Good.'

Balthier studied his right hand as it lay on the table top. Splotches and rosettes of red, shiny burn scars; marred the flesh. Turning his hand over he looked into his palm, the skin stretched tight with scar tissue there also.

Without the aid of the Alcanna Viera, as open and responsive to Humes as the Viera of Golmore were hostile, he likely would have lost the use of that hand altogether.

Fran's long fingered hand slid into his sights, disturbing his darkening thoughts, Fran stretched her hand across the table top and opened her fist, a remarkably simple silver wedding band held in her palm.

'Do you not wish to return this in person?' She inquired coolly.

Balthier picked the ring out of the cradle of her palm and held it up to the light critically.

' Do you? You have had the duty of its care for most of the last year, Fran.'

Balthier smirked; he wondered if Ashe had ever guessed that he had placed her husband's ring in Fran's safe keeping almost as soon as he had bartered it from her?

' But I am not in love with her.' Fran pointed out with brutal honesty, Balthier winced.

' Fran please.'

Even to his own ears his words held an audible hint of desperation. It had been a year, give or take, since Bahamut.

A year where he and Fran had dodged the well intentioned scouts that both Dalmasca and Archades sent out to find proof that the notorious pirate Balthier still drew breath, and spirit him post haste to either Queen Ashelia or Emperor Larsa.

A year wherein he had to learn how to use his right hand again and watch Fran endure silent agonies as she learnt once more to walk.

All that time and Balthier had thought more than once whether it would be better for he and Fran to reveal their continued existence to those who would shower them with praise, heap upon them riches, and expect them both ever more to serve as loyal and upstanding members of their inner circle.

The ring, a cool band of unadorned silver, suddenly seemed heavy in his scarred hand.

' A sky pirate longs for nothing so much as an open sky.'

He murmured more to himself than Fran, or to a former Princess, now queen, ensconced within a sugar candy castle.

Balthier pulled the black silk bag from inside the depths of his belt pouch and popped the ring into the bag before pulling the string tie closed.

' The Cache of Glabados awaits.'

Fran was watching him intently. There was no judgement in her eyes, simply understanding. She would not question his desire to sever any remaining ties.

Fran knew as well as he did that freedom was their only mistress and that freedom demanded as its price the sacrifice of all lasting bonds of love and family.

A bird with clipped wings will never fly free. Love and family were fetters of iron to ones such as they.

Balthier pulled a scrap of paper from his pouch and a stylus and scribbled a quick note. He pushed it across the table for Fran to read.

Fran quirked an eyebrow questioningly, ' You invite them to join us in Bervenia?'

Balthier shrugged, ' I want to see what they've learnt in a year spent playing pirate.'

' I shall be pleased to see Penelo.' Fran conceded. 'Vaan also.'

' Well, then it's settled.' Balthier said with palpably false cheer.

' I am sorry for you.'

Fran said quietly as they moved confidently through the all but deserted Rabanastran aerodrome towards the docking bays later that night.

' Sorry? We are about to reclaim our property, Fran, soon we'll be flying free once more.'

Fran shook her hair back from her face and only Balthier, with his years of careful study, could intuit the irritation in that one gesture. He sighed, excepting defeat.

' Fran you are forgetting the arrangement I made with her majesty Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca.'

Fran quirked an eyebrow as they stopped briefly waiting for Nono to open the hangar door and let them in to retrieve the waiting Strahl.

' Arrangement?'

'Yes. An agreement embodied within this bartered ring.'

He raised the bag containing Ashe's ring as he snagged a floating Crystal torch, he then hung the bag and the note for Vaan and his girl to find.

Very softly, so softly he hoped even Fran would fail to hear, or at least remain silent if she did, he whispered a final goodbye as he cut his hearts fetters.

' Long live the Queen. Long live Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca.'

Before them the Strahl waited resplendent and perfect as only the ends and the means of their existence could be.

' The ring was only a deposit given over in return for aid, until such time as I found something more valuable.'

Balthier continued as they both hastened to the Strahl.

For a time after that neither spoke as he and Fran were absorbed in the engrossing process of running hands over every inch of the Strahl's hull checking for damage.

While they were so involved Nono floated down from his look out post.

'Kupo-po! Master Balthier, Mistress Fran. I am glad you are not dead, kupo.'

Balthier laughed ' The feeling is mutual Nono, old chap.'

He extended his left index finger so that the diminutive Moogle could shake it in lieu of his much too large Hume hand, after a moment Fran did the same.

Entering the Strahl's cabin Balthier thought he might have stopped breathing with the sheer joy of being home.

Sitting in his pilot's seat, once he'd readjusted it to suit his posture, he turned to Fran who had finished her own adjustments on her chair, with an unabashed grin of pure bliss on his face.

' So you are content to leave with no compensation for our trouble Balthier?'

Fran questioned as they fired up the Strahl's engines, Nono perched on the back of Balthier's chair.

The poor Moogle, an equal partner in their 'business', had been forced to take a back seat for most of their adventure with Ashe.

Then, adding insult to injury, he had played babysitter to Vaan and Penelo for the last twelve months awaiting his two partners return.

' Fran you haven't been paying attention. Like I said, the ring was only for safe keeping until I found something more valuable. I have my something more valuable, therefore my agreement with Ashe is done.'

Fran was frowning at him; she did not usually allow so much of her thoughts to show on her face.

'You hold great hopes for this Cache of Glabados.' She said eventually, thoughts churning.

' I fear you may be sorely disappointed if you look to Bervenia's ruins for your compensation.'

Balthier could feel himself grinning; it was not often he was so able to confuse the ever knowing Fran.

' I do not refer to Bervenia, the cache may be valuable but despite my little missive to Vaan, that is not my prize.'

' What thing of value do you speak of then, Balthier? We have no more now than before we stole into the palace treasury.'

' Precisely.'

Balthier said; relishing Fran's growing confusion, just as he basked silently in the very essence of his freedom. Ivalice was their playground once more.

' I do not understand your reasoning Balthier. What have you gained from this venture that you did not have before?'

Fran sounded almost, just barely, exasperated. Balthier smiled cat-like in his sheer, exquisite pleasure.

In the endless, boundless skies of Ivalice palaces and princesses fade into memory.

Regret does not exist when the only direction is upwards, onwards, forwards, towards new and distant horizons.

The Strahl streaked across the cerulean waves of sky, piercing the heart of the clouds and leaving Rabanastre behind. Balthier sighed contentedly as he felt the wings of his soul unfurl.

On solid ground Balthier might know regret for the life he had chosen, for the life that Ashe had been born too, and the fact that he would never have the pleasure and the irritation of her high-maintenance company again, because of it.

He might regret that any bonds of comradeship made during their quest would fade with the miles of sky between him and those who dwell on Ivalice's surface, but only while he, too, walked the ground as they did.

High amongst the clouds, soaring free as a bird, reaching heights no queen or pre-pubescent emperor could aspire too; Balthier had no room for regret. He liked it better thus.

' You do not answer, Balthier, your mind dances with the clouds.' Fran chided him.

' Hmm, apologies Fran, what was the question?'

Fran gave him a level look, ' I asked you what prize you seek, as you well know.'

'I seek no prize Fran, I have my prize already.'

'Which is?'

Balthier turned to face her and found himself hoping, despite his usual wish to the contrary, that she would read the truth in his eyes as he spoke.

' Isn't it obvious?'

He looked into her large, foreign eyes, so unlike a Hume's eyes, yet he fancied he could read her better than he could any mere Hume.

The lack of understanding pained him even as he expected to see its shadow behind her eyes.

Fran shook her head, ' No it is not.' She informed him bluntly.

'Why, you, my dear Fran.' He told her in a voice devoid of his habitual self-deprecation.

'You have ever and always been the prize.'

He watched Fran blink once, slowly, that one gesture a radical admission of her deep rooted surprise.

That his greatest and most coveted treasure did not even recognise her worth was a source of some amusement to Balthier, and not a little pain.

' What could be of greater value to a sky pirate than his ship and his partner and the wide open sky?'

He asked his only friend, his soul-mate and his confidante, before turning back to the bright and bountiful sky before Fran could react to his sudden display of honest sentiment.

Watching Bervenia's devastated ruins roll out across the grassy veldt beneath them Balthier shifted uncomfortably in the suddenly unsettled silence, the weight of Fran's eyes on him.

'You mean this Balthier?'

Fran sounded uncomprehending, he almost wanted to laugh, except that it really wasn't funny.

'Of course; really Fran, you should know me by now.'

Balthier started landing procedures as the Strahl tilted towards the ruins of Bervenia, the physical representation of the reconvening of their interrupted life of purposeless personal indulgence and crimes both petty and not so petty.

' Fran?' He could not quite look at her, 'how do we fare?'

He did not just refer to their imminent landing, and he knew that she would hear the words he did not speak.

' Well. We fare well, Balthier.'

And in her voice he heard her smile and knew absolutely that for all he had given up, he had found, or rather retained, something infinitely more valuable.

Author note: Not an ending as such, as endings don't exist for these two; merely a new beginning and a new horizon.

I would like to thank everyone who read and reviewed this story for your interest and your kind words and I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Spikey44