Author's Note: Hey guys. I give you Act Four. Thanks to my beta readers. 3 You know how much I simply adore the time and energy you spend making these Acts oh so much better.
Thanks to everyone that's reviewed. It keeps me going strong.
Oh and those that fear long works because they tend to die off due to RL/lack of writer interest and the like, you'll be happy to know this piece has been written out in full. I wrote it in the span of about a week. All I do is spend a lot of time going over the rough drafts of the Acts and flesh them out. So never fear, it is complete and I'll see this story through to the end.
Enjoy.
...
The crystal shattered in Penelo's hand like an orb of fragile spun sugar. The shards of it sliced against the tender pads of her fingertips, drawing thin lines of crimson. Liquid light spilled out from the fractured crystal igniting her split blood with a fever like heat. Before she could draw her hand back, the mixture of shimmering luminescence and pain faded.
Blinking away the white streaks that had scorched against her vision, Penelo felt her heart drop. Her hand was empty. The crystal had vanished.
Did I just do what I was yelling at Vaan for trying?
With an ease that spoke of a physical prowess well beyond her years, Penelo steadied her breath and inched her hand to the dagger strapped at her side. In the same easy grace,she slowly rose to her feet, ignoring the sharp pain as her injured fingers gripped the leather hilt of her blade and pulled it free.
She knew the dagger wouldn't do her much good against an Esper, no matter how weak the ethereal creature might prove to be. The weapon would be a distraction to buy her the time needed to call forth deadly spells. What she lacked in physical strength, Penelo made up for in magic a hundred fold.
A Protect spell riding the tip of her tongue, the young woman looked around with caution.
Somethings not right…Its too quite.
All the times before when she had encountered the unlicensed, or to put it mildly, the wild Esper's on their travels, there was no silence after they were disturbed.
The ground had shook with fury, the skies had kicked up terrible storms and the Mist had been so strong she had felt sick with it. The Esper's seemed to know that to be caught was to be bound to their captor and they voiced their resentment of the idea very physically.
The hush that surrounded her now was something else completely.
Above, the night sky was the picture of peace. So clear and cloudless, the stars looked like touchable diamonds to be caught between eager fingers. Beneath her feet, the ship sailed as a dream on the calm, cool, desert night winds and though she sensed something , this peace was not the challenging presence of an Esper.
This was softer; if the power of the Esper's release had been a raging scream, this was a wistful sigh.
The minutes passed.
Gradually, her dagger relaxed at her side. Penelo felt a little silly, standing guard as she was against such a serene night on her own ship.
Maybe I was wrong. Thinking back on the weak energy she felt coming from the crystal, it was possible it hadn't been an Esper at all. It might have been a kind of magicite or maybe if it was an Esper...maybe it didn't have enough energy to take a physical form?
Despite th peace and what she knew to be sound logic, Penelo couldn't shake the uneasy feeling from between her shoulders. When it came to matters of the Mist, she was especially sensitive, more than most Humes. At first, that awareness had scared and overwhelmed her. Fran, as if sensing this, was always very kind to her, always there to explain with gentle tones and understanding eyes. They shared a kind of kindred spirit, she supposed.
..
The tomb was dark and looming. So high was the ceiling that it was lost in to the dark shadows that the magical torchlight could not reach. Down in to the deepest reaches of the tomb the party ventured, each step drawing them closer in to the confiding unknown.
Excited yet all too aware how far away was the familiar warmth of the desert surface, the young girl's body seemed to ache from an unnatural cold. As the party passed along the one of the many bridges, Penelo alone stopped, looking in astonishment at the sight before her. Dancing like oil on water, light and beautiful. She had no words for it.
Fran, noticing the tarrying girl, stopped.
"Fog? Underground?" The young girl asked, trying to force more energy in to her voice than she felt.
"Not fog-Mist." The Viera moved towards her as Penelo turned to meet the eyes of the speaker. She hadn't expected anyone to answer her question, much less the ever aloof Viera.
"You can see the Mist? With your eyes?"
Fran observed Penelo, an unreadable expression on her flawless face. "Where it is thick enough, you may. The nether runs deep in this place."
Feeling the cold acutely, the young girl licked her lips, looking at the Viera with questioning eyes. "So…is the Mist dangerous?"
"Yes. But it is also an aide. Through Mist, powerful magicks can be worked."
"I-I'll keep that in mind." Penelo answered with a forced smile. "Can't count on Vaan to keep track of those kind of things. That's for sure…"
..
Penelo shook her head, casting the memory in to the back of her mind. That had been a life time ago. She was stronger now - no longer afraid of the unseen forces at work in the world. It was as Fran said, the Mist was dangerous and powerful and consumed the unwary but with training, Penelo had proved an apt student in the mastery of licenses. Few would find her an easy target any longer.
With one last methodical look around the deck, Penelo slid her dagger back in to its holder.
The young woman turned to go inside, sticking one of her abused fingers thoughtfully in to her mouth.
I'll cast a Cure spell on my hand later first, I better go inside and check on Vaan.
~.~
He was either upside down or about to throw up.
Motion sickness was completely alien to the sky pirate and it was mentally added to the extremely long list of things that had gone horribly wrong in the last twenty-four hours. Saying that he felt terrible would be an unforgivable understatement. His body felt like shredded paper, left precariously close to an open window. Any second he expected to be torn apart.
Balthier couldn't find the motivation to rise up. It took an unbelievable amount of will power and stubbornness to open his eyes.
Through the blackness that swam across his vision gradually small, twinkling lights came in to focus.
Stars.
Stars were a good sign, a very good sign. Stars meant Balthier wasn't in that terrible black void anymore and even his sickness gave further testament to him still being counted among the living. Though not overly thrilled with the pounding in his head, he'd take the small victories he could get right now.
It's great to be alive, he thought sarcastically as he struggled to regain his footing, fighting off wave after wave of crippling weakness.
I was either at the receiving end of a slew of Green magic spells or I'm drunk. I do hope it's the former; I'd hate to do something I might not remember tomorrow. The small joke couldn't encourage more than the slightest upturning of his pale lips and the overall wrongness of the situation started to sink in. He hadn't hurt this bad when Cid had used his back as a sheath.
Every breath a small triumph, Balthier stumbled to his feet, hunched over as if about to be ill. In the swirling, shifting and fading world that made up his vision, a single solid shape moved in front of him. Disoriented as he was, it took him a moment to place the familiar corn-silk blond hair, the slender but well built back and clothing he found a touch on the conservative side for someone with a body worthy of attention.
"…Penelo…" Balthier winced at the dry rasp he could only assume was his voice. Swallowing hard, he said her name again, managing to raise it just above a whisper. She didn't hesitate in her steps towards the ship's cabin. A sense of tangible dread filled his being. He was a swimmer struggling to keep his head above water and he knew that if he didn't catch her attention, he'd drowned.
Though they were only a foot or so apart, it felt like miles.
"Stop…moving would…you…" In what Balthier felt to be in an extremely undignified manner, he half reached, half fell towards her, grasping at her left hand as she moved it back in mid-stride.
In shock he watched as his slender tanned fingers moved against and through her pale hand, strands of iridescent light streaming away from him and vanishing in to her. Blinking, the pirate's face crossed quickly from a mixture of disbelief to a dull sort of horror.
Though his hand had touched immaterial through her, it had made a different kind of contact. Something in him clicked in to place, as if everything inside of him had been waiting for him to reach out and touch her.
He stumbled back, but it was too late. All around him, dazzling light filled his vision. It was more than light coming off of him - he was becoming the light.
Penelo stopped, her troubled brow furling in to wrinkles. In a knee-jerk reaction, she turned to her left, sensing the sudden appearance of another.
The figure was as a shadow, a ghostly transparent body formed of little more than wisps of Mist and light wrapped loosely together in a very familiar shape.
"Balthier?" She gasped. "Is that you? What has happened!"
The man's fading face gave her his usual head tilt, a small smile accompanied with an eyebrow raise that could have meant anything. He looked as if he was about to say something when a look of pain passed over his face, causing the man to double over.
Unsure of what to do or how to help, Penelo reached out, lightly touching his shoulder. "Balthier?" She said again, her tone imploring.
The touch of her hand caused Balthier to look up at her. The pain his face held seconds ago was washed away with a look of calm - as if he had drawn in a much needed breath. His lips moved, but she couldn't hear what he was saying. Not understanding why this was happening, Penelo was overcome by panic. He looks like someone that's about to fade in to the Mist!
"Balthier, please hold on! I'll get help!" His eyes widened and he shook his head, motioning for her not to leave him. His form was fading faster, hardly more than an outline remained.
"You can't go! I…I won't allow it!" The young girl said with a sudden fierceness. Feeling as if compelled by unseen force, she knelled down and threw her arms around him, holding him tight. Through her clothing, she felt him solidify under her touch – a warm and very real body pressed against hers. Her heartbeat was racing, a sharp contrast to the steady even beat she could feel thumping in his chest.
As the woman held her friend tightly to her, she felt something impossibly cold descend in to the part of her soul that controlled Mist and called the Quickening. The coldness reminded her of horizon-less skies and depth less oceans, the feeling of an endlessness void of life. Ice moved through her, down in to the very core of her being, finally settling in to the part of Penelo that had been empty since she was forced to give up her Esper Shemhazzi to Ashe.
And then she knew, the way people in dreams know things - an indisputable knowledge, that the feeling had come from Balthier. No rather, that the feeling was Balthier.
Shivering as much from the revelation as from the residual chill left by the junction, she unknowingly moved in closer to the embrace, holding him tighter for warmth and comfort, as if she had been the one about to fade. His vest pressed against her cheek and all around her was the smell of the sky pirate.
He is the smell before rain.
"While I personally have nothing against it," A gentle but firm hand pressed against her shoulder, pushing her away from the contact and drawing her from her thoughts, "think of what Vaan would say." The pirate gave her a tiny half smile, that didn't quite manage to reach his eyes.
Penelo drew back, resting on her heels, her eyes never leaving the face before her. The confusion of emotions she felt at the moment didn't allow for the embarrassment she knew she should have felt for hugging him.
The man kneeling so solemn before her looked just as she remembered him, light brown short hair pushed back from a face that was all angles, a dark tan that showcased his fierce blue eyes and drew attention to the many silver piercings that lined his outer ears. He looked solid enough and very much of this world.
However, like a feeling of dread, the icy weight of the new connection in the back of her mind wouldn't allow room for doubt. Everything in her that knew of the Mist and every fiber of her body that could call magick knew what had just happened. Though as different as night and day from the last time she had done so, there was no denying what she knew in her heart to be true:
She had just licensed an Esper.
But how? Balthier, you can't be an Esper, can you?
"Hmph." Balthier sighed, turning away from her and answering her unspoken thoughts that had been as clear to him as if she had given them voice, "That's what I'd like to know. Wait," He turned to her abruptly, Cid's last statement surfacing, "What makes you say I'm an Esper?"
Before either could comment further, the intercom over head clicked to life with a pop of static.
"-Hey Penelo! We're about to pull in to the aerodrome! I'm gonna go down in to the docking area once we land and register our ship with the dock master! You stay here and um, make sure that the landing sequence finishes up, all right? I'll meet you at Migelo's!-." There was a brief crackle of noise as intercom mic was rested back in to its holder and then silence.
Penelo rolled her eyes, temporarily forgetting her current situation. "Register our ship' my foot!" She muttered under her breath. "He just wants to get on the ground before me so he can brag about being a famous sky pirate without me around to correct him!"
Another sharp click filled the air around them, Vaan, out of breath from rushing back to the intercom, added quickly. "Oh and hey, don't forget the crystal! Maybe Ashe will let us see what's in it when we turn it over! Ok, see you down there!"
"Crystal?" Balthier asked with a raised brow. "What crystal?"