Dusk fell swiftly in this part of Ivalice, it seemed. The lilac hues cast upon the clouds by the setting sun faded into the night that settled over the region, and one by one, stars crept out of hiding to decorate the sky. They hadn't made the Phon Coast as planned, having been waylaid by more than one pack of hungry coeurls.
It hadn't helped, too, that Penelo had lagged behind most of the journey, which had irritated Balthier excessively. No doubt a few hours of sleep had not been enough to set her to rights, and she'd found herself too tired to be at her best. As he'd warned she might. Circumstances being what they were, he could not manage to dredge up any sympathy for her plight, not even considering that she, Basch, and Ashe were to take watch tonight.
Their group trudged into a clearing near the river that snaked through the Uplands to the Phon Coast. Atop a small rise, it would be a prime place to rest for the night - beasts could be seen approaching from a distance, the river was close and convenient for bathing, but not so close for the sound of the water to drown out that of an approaching enemy.
Basch, too, had clearly considered these things, for he dropped his sack and bedroll, saying simply, "We stop here for the night."
Penelo's sigh of relief was echoed by more than one. Still, she brushed her bangs from her face and said, "I'll go for fire wood."
Fran stopped her with a hand on the shoulder. "You will rest. I shall fetch the wood." Her hand squeezed Penelo's shoulder almost imperceptibly, as if delivering a secret message. A moment's hesitation - then Penelo gave a brief nod, acquiescing to Fran's pronouncement. She busied herself with laying out her bedroll, arranging her small sack of belongings to form a makeshift pillow beneath it.
"I'm tired of eating biscuits," Vaan said. "Balthier, let's go see if we can catch some real food. I've seen some rabbits around here."
Balthier did find the prospect of an actual meal enticing, so he relieved himself of his own bedroll and said, "Lead the way, then." But he tarried just a bit behind Vaan, looking over his shoulder in time to catch Penelo collapsing wearily onto her bedroll.
It was dark by the time Balthier and Vaan returned, arms laden with the small game that was plentiful in the area. Basch, Ashe, and Fran were gathered around the fire, having already set up a spit constructed of branches upon which to roast whatever Vaan and Balthier had managed to bag. Penelo was tucked under her blanket, back to the fire, clearly asleep. Balthier moved to rouse her, but Fran's voice stopped him.
"Leave her be. We shall wake her once the food is prepared."
Ashe shuddered as Vaan efficiently cleaned their kills, and Balthier couldn't blame her. He'd come from a life of privilege and had rarely stopped to consider the processes between the catching of the game and its presentation on the dinner table.
Vaan tossed the cleaned meats to Basch, who spitted them and stuck them over the blazing fire. The meat sizzled and the fat melted down, sizzling as it dripped into the fire beneath. Soon enough, the scent of cooking food filled the small campsite, and Penelo stirred beneath her blankets.
Vaan sliced a good chunk of meat off with his dagger, and moved to where Penelo lay to dangle it over her nose.
"Wake up, Pen. We've got food. Real food!"
Penelo groaned her displeasure at having been woken, but she lifted herself into a sitting position, narrowly avoiding the hunk of roasted rabbit hitting her on the head. She accepted the offering with a murmur of thanks, and picked daintily at her food in silence.
In fact, silence reigned over the party, as they had gone too long on hard biscuits and dried meats. No one had the time or inclination for words as they passed cuts of meat around, devouring all that their stomachs would hold.
Penelo surrendered first. She stood, examining her hands. "I'm going to go wash up at the river."
Balthier lifted his head from his meal long enough to say, "You ought to take someone with you."
But she was already headed out of camp, disappearing into the darkness. "I'll be fine," she tossed over her shoulder. "I'll be within shouting distance, I promise."
Some time later, Basch cleaned up the remnants of their dinner, burying the bones a distance from the camp. Penelo still had not returned, and Balthier was growing concerned.
"We ought to go find her," he found himself saying aloud as he poured water from his canteen into his hands to clean them of the aftereffects of his meal.
Ashe tilted her head to the side, regarding him curiously. "The river is less than a hundred feet away," she said. "Surely if something had happened, she would have called out."
"Penelo can handle herself," Vaan assured him. "We grew up on the streets. She's not helpless."
"I didn't intend to insinuate she was," Balthier replied. "But this is not the streets, this is the wilderness, the Tchita Uplands, and for a girl who has never ventured beyond Rabanastre, it can be treacherous."
"Be that as it may," Ashe said carefully, "sometimes a girl merely needs a bit of privacy, of which there has been precious little of late."
Balthier had no argument for that, so he subsided into a vaguely sulky silence. After a moment, Fran, who had been observing Balthier quietly, rose.
"I shall go in search of Penelo," she said. "Our canteens shall require refilling, besides." She collected them, and set off into the night towards the river.
By the time they returned, Balthier, Basch, and Vaan had already settled into their bedrolls, and Ashe had taken up first watch. Fran shooed Penelo towards her bedroll, and, after a whispered conversation that was too low for Balthier to hear, Penelo went. Satisfied that all members of their party were present and accounted for, Balthier settled onto his back and slept.
In the early hours of the morning, Balthier awoke to an unfamiliar sound. Years of piracy had trained him to react instinctively to such noises, and he reached for his gun. He shot up, pulling back the hammer, the metallic sound defeaning in the still of the night.
A gasp from a few feet away. He turned toward the sound, aiming his gun at...Penelo, awake for her watch, blue eyes wide and surprised.
A low, nervous laugh bubbled out of her. "D'you think you might not shoot me, please?" But her eyes slid away, as if she had been caught at something shameful.
He set down his weapon, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"What are you up to?" he asked.
"Nothing. Nothing!" She tugged her pant leg down, squirming like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "It's my watch; that's why I'm up."
"You are a terrible liar," he said dismissively, rising. He trudged over to where Penelo sat, crouched down beside her, and hiked the right leg of her pants up to her knee. A wide bandage stretched around her calf, soaked through with blood. His eyes shot to her face, which was averted, though her cheeks were flushed with angry color, her mouth drawn into a thin line.
"Are you finished?" she asked tightly.
And suddenly, he was as angry as she was, angry that he had not known, angry that today he had thought poorly of her when in reality her lethargy hadn't been lethargy at all - it had been pain.
"No," he snapped back at her. He felt for the edge of the bandage, peeling it back slowly, wincing as it stuck, pulling at her injured flesh. He glanced at her face to see if he had hurt her, but her chin was tilted up stubbornly, eyes blazing with anger. Still, she let him draw back the bandage, exposing the injury. Two long, jagged rends in her flesh, deep, and still welling blood - although he supposed it could be due to his not entirely gentle handling. He stroked his thumb across the downy softness of her skin, where the flesh was smooth and unmarred.
"One of the coeurls?" he asked.
Her reply was a short nod, more a jerk of her head than anything.
"I didn't see you bandage it."
"No one pays very much attention to me," she said. "It was easy. I changed the bandage at the river this evening, but it's still bleeding."
"It wants stitching," he said. "The wounds are too deep."
"I seem to have left my needle and thread back in Rabanastre," she said, exasperated.
"Well, then, I suppose it's a good thing I've got mine in my bag," he shot back. At her sly look, he huffed, "I've had to sew myself up on more than one occasion - being a pirate is not without its risks."
He stalked across the campsite, retrieving his bag, fishing through it until he found the items he was looking for. As he sterilized the needle in the fire, he asked, "Why didn't you tell anyone you'd been injured?"
She shrugged. "What good would it have done? We still have to make the Phon Coast as soon as possible. I was already slowing us down." As an afterthought, she added, "Fran knew. She's been looking out for me today. I didn't tell her, but...she said she could smell the blood."
At least that explained Fran's uncharacteristic coddling. Gods knew Fran had never coddled him.
"We would have slowed our pace for you," he chided.
"Blast you, we can't afford to slow down," she bared her teeth in aggravation. "Every delay is one more day Dalmasca is stuck under Archades' thumb."
He was, frankly, surprised at her determination. So he distracted her from her anger, deftly threading the needle, then holding it out to her. "Would you be more comfortable doing it yourself?"
She shuddered. "No. Please. I can't do it myself."
"It's going to hurt. Do you need something to bite down on? Screaming would wake the others as well as give away our location."
"I'll be fine," she said, and her tone suggested annoyance, as if she thought he considered her weak.
When he put the needle to her flesh and pushed it through, he flinched - but she did not. As quickly and carefully as possible, he stitched her wounds closed, hoping that the process didn't cause too much pain. By the time he knotted and cut the last thread, she was pale and sweating, but she hadn't made a sound. He was sweating, as well. It had actually mattered to him whether or not he was causing her pain, and he found that...baffling.
He unscrewed the lid of his canteen and poured a liberal amount of water over the wounds, washing away the blood. She reached for her bag, pulling out a length of clean bandage, and winding it around her calf. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he tipped back the canteen and swallowed a good half of the remaining water, then offered the rest to her. She took it gratefully, and he noticed her fingers trembled as she drank.
"You ought to have told someone," he repeated. "Vaan. He's your friend. If not the rest of us, then him, surely."
She shook her head. "He would've worried. Worry is weakness. Weakness gets you killed. It gets exploited. We're safer if no one else knows. Besides, Vaan rushes into things. He'd get us all killed trying to protect me. He's got the best of intentions, but his actions are usually a few steps ahead of his good sense."
Balthier sighed. "While I do not disagree with your judgment of Vaan, wherever did you get a ridiculous notion like that? Worry is inevitable."
"Not," she said, "if you grew up as I did. When everthing you love is taken from you, you learn not to care. If you care about something, it will be used against you. The Imperials taught me that. I have no family. I have no home. I have nothing but the clothes on my back and the belongings in my bag. Why do you think it was so easy to leave Rabanastre?"
She took another long drink from the canteen, then tugged the leg of her pants back down over the bandage. "I thought I was coming along on this mission for Vaan, to keep him out of trouble, like I promised Reks I would. I really thought it was noble, heroic even. But the truth is, it's entirely selfish. In Rabanastre, I was adrift. Not really alive, just...surviving. And only barely that."
"Out here," she continued, the hand holding the canteen gesturing in a wide arc, "I am anchored. I have a purpose. I couldn't save my family or Vaan's, but maybe I can help save someone else's. Maybe, if we succeed, somewhere in Rabanastre there's a little girl who will still have her family." Her voice broke, and she dropped her head onto her folded arms, but her lips curved into a bitter smile. "And if we don't succeed...well, then, who is going to mourn?"
And Balthier was at a loss for words, because she was right. If they failed, there was no one to mourn an orphan girl from Rabanastre.
And still, he surprised himself by saying, "I would."
A tiny flutter of laughter. "But if we fail, you'll be dead, too."
He shrugged. "I've been dead inside for years." He tried to infuse a dry humor into the words, but they came out flat and honest instead.
"Adrift?"
"I suppose."
She reached over and patted his knee, a smile wise beyond her tender years etched upon her lips. "Find your anchor, Balthier."
And suddenly he was the tiniest bit afraid that he just had.