The sun revealed details that the dim interior of the tavern had not. Penelo's face was streaked with dirt, her clothing was riddled with rips and tears that had been mended and re-mended over and over again. Like as not it was her only set, for she left the tavern with nothing but the clothes on her back and a slight limp, owing either to the deep, crescent gouge on her ankle or to the reality of having to adjust to the lack of a manacle.

Her eyes were rimmed with deep smudges of purple attesting to a lack of sleep. Her skin was so pale as to be nearly translucent. Doubtless the bright sunlight she now enjoyed so openly was the first she'd glimpsed in three years that hadn't been stolen through a slatted window.

She hadn't even so much as a pair of shoes to call her own.

But she didn't seem to mind that her feet were caked in dust and grime; she only stretched her arms over her head and reached for the sky, as if she might pull a piece of it down to her to hold in her hand.

"I forgot," she said softly. "I forgot how bluethe sky is. I really couldn't get very near any windows, you know, and Bartaan never opened them. You think there's things you can't forget, but you can. You can forget everything." She took a shuddering breath. "You can lose everything, a piece at a time, until you're someone completely different from who you were."

The wistful statement did something strange to his heart; it wrenched in abject sympathy. He asked, "How did this situation come about?"

She shook her head ruefully. "I was young and stupid," she said. "I got myself into a situation I couldn't get myself out of." She paused as they neared the Strahl, glancing over her shoulder at him. "I don't suppose I could borrow your bathroom?"

"My bathroom?" Again, his gaze wandered over dirt-streaked cheeks, tangled hair, the blood that was drying on her skin. Oh–she wished to bathe. "Yes," he said. "I think you had better."

She squealed in excitement, performed a little pirouette and fanned her fingers out in glee. "You have no idea how long it's been since I've had an actual shower," she said.

His jaw clenched, his hands curling into fists at his sides. "Oh, I think I've an inkling," he muttered darkly. Briefly he considered turning about and torching the whole damned tavern with Bartaan still chained up within.

But she had raced on ahead, kicking up tiny clouds of dust in her haste to reach the Strahl. She waited impatiently on the dock, pacing back and forth before the locked door until at last he caught up and opened it.

The very instant her feet crossed the threshold, she jerked her shirt over her head, casting it aside, striding resolutely down the tiny corridor. Baffled, Balthier could only stare at the discarded garment, and then at the smooth slope of her bare back as she sauntered blithely down the hall. He reached down to scoop up the shirt and followed.

She had disappeared into his room, the door cracked only slightly, wedged open by the grubby pair of shorts that had been abandoned in the doorway. He cleared his throat and gingerly lifted them from the floor, scrunching them in the hand that held her shirt. Then he rapped his knuckles against the wood-paneled door and announced, "Penelo, you seem to have left behind some of your...er, clothing."

From within, her voice echoed. "I'll get it in a bit!"

And yet the door was still just the tiniest bit ajar. He ought to close it. He really ought to close it. Probably she'd had little enough privacy these past three years. Probably she would be furious if he invaded her privacy now.

He heard the squeaking of taps, the rush of water hitting the inside of the tub, and a small, delighted laugh. And still he had not closed the damned door. Why had he not closed the damned door?

"Balthier?" Her voice was closer now, no longer reverberating from the tiled walls of the bathroom. "Where do you keep your shampoo?"

He cleared his throat again. "Cabinet to the left of the sink," he said. "Towels are in the right."

"Ahh." Her fingers closed around the door frame, half her face and a sliver of bare shoulder peeking through the gap. "Oh! You brought my clothes." Her free hand slipped through the gap, fingers outstretched. She snagged them out of his hands and pulled them through. "I'll be quick," she said. And the door snapped shut in his face.

Balthier scanned the horizon, stretched out in his chair with his boots propped upon the chair beside him. Beneath the Strahl, the thick canopy of trees rushed by in a vibrant green blur, a sea of leaves and tangled boughs cresting and rolling in the wind. Shortly after she had ensconced herself in his room he had engaged the Strahl's engines and lifted off, wanting to put as much distance between them and the tavern, lest he be tempted to set the place ablaze.

She had said quick, but he was beginning to wonder if she had somehow forgotten the meaning of the word. It had been well over an hour since she had commandeered his bedroom, and still she showed no sign of emerging.

And he had discovered, with little else to do than await her, that her very presence upon his ship was responsible for some rather disturbing realizations.

Foremost: she sang in the shower. For the first half-hour, weak strains of some off-key melodies had sailed down the hallway, filling his ears. At first he had been surprised, then amused, and then he had found himself listening intently for the shreds of music over the hum of the Strahl's engines.

Then, it had suddenly occurred to him that she had no clean clothing. What she did have by way of clothing was hardly fit to grace a rag-heap. And he felt sure that, having only recently shed the grime and dirt that she had been covered in for what must have been years, she was hardly likely to crawl right back into those filthy rags. At the very least she would have to wash them first.

So what would she wear? Because surely she did not intend to wander about clad only in a towel.

The more he tried to vanquish these thoughts, the more they seemed to swirl about his head like buzzing little insects determined to build a nest in his brain. What the devil had he been thinking? He had intended to recover her, establish that she was indeed safe, and then reconvene with Fran.

And yet he had not charted a course for Rabanastre, where he might see her safely home. He hadn't charted any sort of course whatsoever. In fact he had instead enlisted Fran in her scheme to avoid Vaan and surrendered the use of his bedroom–his sanctuary–to her.

At last, he realized that he could no longer hear the pounding rush of the water. Her singing, too, had ceased at some point. He shoved himself up from his chair and proceeded down the hallway, stopping at last before his door to listen for any sound from within.

There was nothing. No rustling of clothes, no footsteps. He knocked gently upon the door, calling out, "Penelo?"

Again, nothing. Not a blasted sound from within to indicate that she had even heard him. And he was stricken by a sudden fear that perhaps some ill had befallen her. She might've slipped in the shower, might've fainted due to blood loss.

He didn't even know if that gash upon her leg had been cleaned and treated.

He caught the doorknob in his hand and twisted firmly. In her haste to avail herself of the bath, she hadn't even seen fit to lock the door. He pushed it open, strode inside, and paused as his breath shuddered out on a relieved exhale.

She had, it seemed, made it successfully out of the shower.

She had raided his wardrobe as well. From the bathroom, he heard a faint but steady drip-drip-drip – most likely her discarded clothing, having been washed and hung to dry.

To replace her garments, it would appear that she had pilfered one of his shirts from his wardrobe. Shewas stretched out upon his bed, her hair sleek and shining as it dried over his pillows, with her arms tucked close to her chest, her knees drawn up.

It couldn't have been more than ten or fifteen minutes since she had fallen asleep, but her breaths were soft and regular. Relaxed in sleep, her face had lost its pinched, wary look. Her eyelashes were sooty, sweeping down over her cheeks to cast shadows upon them, her brows drawn in a vaguely petulant expression.

The gash on her ankle was still bleeding; tiny droplets had soaked through his sheet, spreading a small stain of crimson across the pristine white linen. And somehow he couldn't even summon up enough irritation even to feign anger. Instead he swept into the bathroom, searching beneath the sink for the first-aid kit he kept on hand.

There were bandages and antibiotic ointment and gauze pads; he collected a bit of everything and shucked the sterile pads out of their wrappers.

The bed depressed beneath his weight as he sat at the foot of it, and she murmured testily in her sleep, her brows jerking.

He lifted the bottom of the sheet, peeling it carefully back to avoid pulling at her rent flesh. At last her foot was exposed, blood smearing her ankle from the wound down to her toes. With a muttered expletive, he soaked a bit of gauze in water and sponged at her blood-slicked flesh.

It had to have hurt dreadfully; the iron manacle had yanked a six-inch gash in her ankle. But then...he thought that maybe she had sustained so much damage there already that one more wound simply didn't register. It was possible that she'd long since lost the feeling in it; that much scarring meant repeated injuries, and nerve damage was a distinct possibility. He wondered how many times Bartaan had administered a similar punishment.

Rather often, he thought, stroking the pad of his thumb along the raised circle of scar tissue that stretched for a good two inches on either side. That rage-invoking thought he cast aside, deciding that he was better off not thinking about it given the state of fury it incited.

She had winced, however, as he swiped a decent amount of ointment across the wound, so perhaps she did feel it after all. Perhaps she just hadn't wanted to give Bartaan the satisfaction of a response to it. He hoped so, and he rather admired her for it.

He unrolled a length of bandage and gently wound it around her ankle, hoping that her ruined flesh would knit cleanly. The bandage would have to be changed out, of course, but he rather thought that she could see to it when she woke.

Because he didn't quite have the heart to wake her himself.

As he stood, prepared to retire to the deck and set a course for somewhere new, she mumbled beneath her breath, "Sorry."

He turned, baffled. "Hmm?"

"Sorry," she repeated on a yawn. "I didn't get much sleep. Bartaan kept knocking things against my door. He does that, sometimes, when I don't make as much money as he expects me to."

Those deep purple smudges beneath her eyes – they weren't just from too many late nights and a lack of sleep. They were from a torturous lack of it. He wondered if she had any idea that sleep deprivation was a common method of torture for captured enemies in war times.

"I just...I just meant to lay down for a minute. And then I couldn't get up," she murmured. She extended her arms in a trembling stretch, fists clenching and unclenching rhythmically. "Been years since I've had a bed. Much less a pillow."

He should've killed Bartaan when he'd had the chance. He stifled the guttural growl that rose in his throat, gentling his voice instead to respond, "It's all right; you've been through quite an ordeal."

"Shouldn't have taken your room." Her lashes fluttered as if she were desperately attempting to lift her lids, but they remained stubbornly closed. She pinched her lips against a yawn, pointed her toes and arched her back as if struggling to jar herself into wakefulness.

"I've no need of it at present," he said. "You should rest."

As if it were all the permission she needed, she wilted once again and sighed heavily. "Thanks," she said. Then, thoughtfully, "You know, you were the very last person I would have ever expected to come."

"And why is that?"

A soft chuckle. "Well...you're not really the sort, are you?"

"The sort for what? Dramatic rescues?" He folded his arms over his chest, wondering whether or not he ought to be offended.

"No, no," she demurred. "Dramatics, absolutely. But that was something else. You wagered the Strahl."

He chuckled. "She was never in any danger."

"Marked cards," she mused thoughtfully. "I should've known."

"Yes, you should have. As if I would be foolish enough to embroil myself in a wager without hope of success. I've been around often enough to know that an honest tavern owner is akin to a mythical creature. I'd've been a fool to depend upon luck for a wager of that magnitude." He watched her shoulders hunch in amusement, the hint of a smile lingering about her mouth.

"Sorry I kicked you, then," she said. "It's just that...well, it had been three years. I gave up hope of being found ages ago." Another sigh. "Really should have strangled him before now."

But she would never have gotten away with it. With Bartaan's insistence upon keeping the keys pinned over the bar, she would never have had a prayer of escaping before someone arrived. And in these parts of the world, where the only law a man followed was that of his own determination, there was no telling what might've happened to her had she attempted it.

She stretched out onto her stomach, pressing her cheek into the pillow. Her hair haloed her head, drying into sleek blond ringlets, so smooth and perfect that he suspected she must have filched his comb to pick out the tangles.

Smothering a yawn with one hand, she asked, "How did you find me?"

"Blind luck, as it happens." He braced his shoulder against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. "All told, we've been searching for two weeks now."

"We?" She thrust herself up onto one elbow and cradled her chin in her palm. "Who's we?"

"Myself, Vaan, and Fran. Fran and I...happened to run into Vaan whilst we were in Galina." Not precisely a lie, but certainly not the truth, either.

"Oh." Her lips pursed into a frown, her sooty lashes swept downward briefly to shade her eyes. "Did he tell you...?"

He inclined his head.

With a groan of dismay, she collapsed back, burying her face in the pillow. She let loose a string of what must've been expletives were he to judge by the tone, but her voice was muffled and unintelligible.

"Come, now, you're hardly the first naive young girl to run off with a suitor," he said.

A guttural snarl issued forth; her fingers clenched his pillow so hard he was surprised she had not torn it open. "Probably not," she gritted out. "But how many naive young girls run off to get married only to be traded for the cancellation of a debt owed?"

He drew in a swift, infuriated breath. "Your intended left you there?"

She heaved a sigh and closed her eyes. "It was just business to him. He spent a couple of minutes talking to Bartaan, and then he just...walked out. I thought maybe he'd left something on his airship, but he never came back. And then Bartaan told me he'd abandoned me." Her lips twisted wryly. "Bartaan offered me a drink, and I took it – I really should have known better. He'd laced it with something, probably a sedative. I woke up locked in that manacle."

Balthier scraped his hand over his mouth, growling, "You're right; you should have strangled him before."

She gave a husky little laugh devoid of mirth. "It would have been suicide," she said. "But I think if I had had to put up with him for much longer...I might not have cared." Another sigh, so fierce that her entire body wilted with it. "I was there for three years," she said. "I really thought...I really thought no one would ever look."

Balthier made a rough sound in his throat, unwilling to admit that he had been looking - or rather, he had been sending hired men out to keep tabs on her. It simply wasn't the sort of thing that one brought up. Instead he said, "Vaan said you had run off to be married. It wasn't that he wasn't looking for you; it was that he didn't know he ought to be looking for you – until he tried to find you and discovered that you had never made it back to Rabanastre."

She shrugged, and the loose neckline of his shirt slipped off her shoulder. For an instant, sleek, milk-white skin was bared before her hair tumbled over and obscured it once more. In the natural light pouring through his bedroom window, the deep smudges beneath her eyes were more pronounced. There was a bruise high on her cheek, close to the dark circles that rimmed her eyes that he had not noticed before. But now it was stark against her freshly-scrubbed, pallid cheek. She looked like a little ghost, too pale to be flesh and blood.

Three years in the darkness of a rough-and-tumble tavern might do that to a person, he supposed.

She drew in a deep breath as if steeling herself for something. "Do you think you might...maybe not mention any of this to Vaan?"

He tilted his head to the side, studied her closed posture, the way she chewed nervously at her bloodless bottom lip. "Because the two of you parted on less than amiable terms?"

Her eyes slid away; her fingers plucked at a bit of loose thread on the sheet. "I burned some bridges," she admitted. "It's just...he was right. He was right all along, and that stings. I can't face him just yet." She ducked her head, and her bright hair briefly shielded her eyes. "I mean...I guess I just don't want to face him just yet."

"He only wants to know that you're safe," he found himself saying. "He's been worried for you." As worried as Balthier himself had been. Perhaps more, given their longstanding friendship.

"I know," she said. "But I just can't right now." Her shoulders slumped listlessly. "I don't want to be an imposition. You can just...just drop me off at the nearest city. I'll make my own way home." She pressed a cold hand to her cheek, her lashes fluttering.

Poor child; she was clearly exhausted. He felt like the worst kind of villain, keeping her from her badly needed rest.

"We'll discuss it later," he said brusquely. "You ought to get some sleep. In the meantime, I will hold my peace."

"Thank you," she said. And then, as he flicked the edge of the blanket up and over her, she reached out to clasp his wrist. "Really," she said. "Thank you. I might've been there for years still if it wasn't for you. I don't know what possessed you to come, but I'm glad you did."

He did not want her gratitude; it was too paltry an emotion to satisfy him. But the fingers that were curled around his wrist were cool and gentle, and altogether too unsettling. "Rest," he reiterated, carefully extracting his wrist from her grip. He cupped her shoulder and urged her back until at last she relaxed, sinking back into the downy softness of the mattress.

Her breath feathered out on a gusty sigh; she threw up one arm to shield her eyes and twisted onto her side away from him, performing a little wiggle that wedged her into the mattress and tucked the blanket tight around her. It was only moments before her breaths were deep and even and the tension that drew her shoulders taut at last eased.

And he found himself creeping silently from his own room so as not to disturb her slumber.

Balthier picked up the comm and typed in the code for the Galbana's frequency, pinging their communications systems to respond. As he had expected, Fran promptly opened the lines of communication, and her voice crackled over the comm.

"Balthier," she said, in the sort of touchy, out-of-sorts tone that lead him to believe that Vaan was working on fraying her last nerve. "What news?"

"Is Vaan around?" he asked, sinking back into his chair, the comm cradled in his right hand.

"At the moment he has gone provisioning. We've managed to cobble together a list of prospective–"

He interjected, "I've found her."

For a moment there was silence. At last, the line crackled to life once again. A terse, "In what condition?" rumbled through.

"Well enough, given the circumstances," he said. "She was being kept on as a servant at a tavern. It seems that Archadian boy she ran off with–Raen, I believe that was his name–left her there in lieu of payment on his debts. She's been there for the past three years."

"Three years she's paid the debts of a man who abandoned her?"

Balthier supposed Vaan must really have been getting to her; so rarely did she display even the tiniest hint of emotion and yet he could hear the disbelief plainly in her voice.

"Not willingly," he clarified. "The owner of the tavern had her chained up like a pet on a leash."

Fran's voice responded promptly, seething in its intensity. "Does he yet live?"

"Yes, more's the pity. He's quite lucky I didn't discover the whole story before I absconded with her." Even just the thought of that miserable excuse for a man had Balthier's free hand twitching toward his weapon. "She's sleeping rather peacefully at the moment, but I must ask that you not relay this information to Vaan. She says she's not yet prepared to face him."

Fran made an annoyed sound deep in her throat. "Must I be saddled with him still longer?"

Against his better judgment, Balthier felt a grin edging up the corners of his mouth. "Never say you cannot handle one foolhardy young hume," he chided. "I thought you were made of stronger stuff than that." After all, she'd managed to put up with him through his hellish teenage years and then some.

"Patience is a virtue that I possess in limited quantity at the moment," she admitted wryly. "I confess, I had thought it would be a simple matter to keep Vaan in line. But I swear you never gave me half so much trouble. He has made quite the name for himself as a pirate, it would seem."

"Yes, he had mentioned it," he replied. "Is he any good?"

"He takes risks that you would think twice to take," she sniffed. "He has no sense of self-preservation, no discretion."

Still, he thought that beneath the annoyed toner of her voice, there was a sliver of what might have been interest. It had been years since she had last experienced anything that might accurately be termed 'challenging.' And perhaps taking a reckless young sky pirate was precisely the sort of thing she needed to bring a bit of adventure back into her life. Gods knew that he had been dragging her down for months now. She had not enjoyed their sabbatical, had longed for adventure and excitement.

"Fran, I'm afraid I'm going to need you to keep him occupied a while long. Tell him whatever you must – but keep him out of Penelo's hair for just a while." He hesitated. "She needs a bit of time to recover herself, I think."

Fran sighed heavily. "I will do ask you ask. But I do not know how long I can keep him from pursuing the matter himself." An aggravated sound crackled over the line. "How am I to keep a reckless young boy from meddling in matters he ought not?

Balthier chuckled. "Whatever you did with me, I suppose. It ought to be a breeze for a seasoned veteran like you."

"Balthier, I am not a nanny," she snapped. "I do not raise children, I train pirates. And this one is as wild as they come. His behavior merits a zookeeper, not a mentor."

Balthier coughed to disguise a laugh. "Box his ears if he steps out of line."

A beat of silence, and then: "Do you think it wise?"

"Fran, anything that puts that puppy in his place is wise. He's run wild too long, and he'll get himself killed if he keeps at it." And Penelo, too, if eventually she should choose to rejoin him. "Reel him in."

A soft sound of distaste. "I will do what I can, but I make no promises. Do I continue to let him search for her?"

"It might be for the best," he said. "I shall keep you informed, but at the very least I should like to give her a bit of time to determine her course. When I have safely escorted her to her chosen destination, I will let you know and we can make plans to reconvene."

A heartfelt sigh. "It cannot come soon enough." Faintly in the background, there was the sound of the dock engaging. "He's returned," she said darkly. "Call when you have stowed your passenger safely, and do extend my regards."

The call cut off before he could respond; Fran was likely scraping together a bit of time to scrub clean the log just on the off-chance that Vaan might question her about a call from the Strahl.

Balthier stretched out in his chair and linked his hands behind his head. There was no way of knowing how long Penelo would sleep, but he supposed he would have to stop somewhere for food, since he'd let the provisions aboard the Strahl dwindle to practically nothing.

At the very least he could see her properly fed and attired before he returned her to Rabanastre. She deserved that much, having survived three years in that hellhole, believing that no one would ever come for her. That lost hope had had a profound affect on her; she was another person entirely, now.

And he closed his eyes and mentally compared them: the effervescent young girl who had frolicked in a storm of snowflakes for the pure joy of it, and the woman who had strangled a man into unconsciousness with a length of chain.

The woman had been born only through the girl's traumatic death, when a callous fool had recklessly slashed her fragile heart with his betrayal.

And the whole of Ivalice was the poorer for the loss.