Gowns again. And an armed escort, wherever she went. Stationed outside her room as she slept, beneath her balcony lest she attempt to make an escape down the trellis of climbing roses, following her only a few paces behind, until the steady clink-clink-clink of their armor threatened to drive her completely mad.
On the first day back in Rabanastre, she had sulked within the confines of her room, too infuriated to risk emerging from it for fear that she might actually plant her fist right in Ashe's face, and that would do no one any good at all.
On the second day, she had flung open the door only to be met by the two guards who were to become her constant companions for the foreseeable future. She had squared her shoulders, stalking past them determinedly, more than a little irritated at having been assigned a set of keepers to watch her room. And when she had heard the heavy clomp of boots behind her, and realized that they had followed, she had whirled on them furiously.
"I am going to the library," she had said.
"Of course, my lady," one of them had responded.
"Alone."
The two guards exchanged glances, shrugs. "Queen's orders, my lady. We're to accompany you at all times."
She threw up her hands in consternation. "Oh, of course! This farcical melodrama only needed a pair of jailors to make it complete."
Hesitant, confused looks. "We're your escorts, my lady. We'll take you anywhere you wish. You have only to ask."
"The Aerodrome, then. Well? At once, if you don't mind," she'd snapped. Oh, she knew it was not of their doing that they had had the misfortune to be stuck with her, but they were convenient - easy targets.
A remorseful look from one guard as a flush swept over his face, hidden only slightly by his sturdy helmet. Perhaps he had tried to dress it up in fine clothes, but they had been instructed to escort Penelo anywhere she wished to go - within the confines of the palace.
Penelo planted her fists on her hips. "You can't, can you? And I suppose you're to stop me from leaving, as well. Do what you will, but don't insult me with the pretense of being anything other than what you are." And she swept away towards the library, the two guards at her heels.
The morning of the third day dawned rainy and grey, summer swiftly fading to autumn and bringing a chill to the air. The clean scent of the rain permeated the air, and Penelo drowsed abed for far longer than she should have, listening to the soothing patter of the rain upon the windows.
Finally, when she had at last begun to consider rising, there was a knock at the door.
"Beg pardon, my lady," a hesitant voice called through the door. "But Her Majesty requests your company for tea." One of the guards. She wasn't sure which; she hadn't bothered to speak to either of them long enough to learn their names or voices.
She heaved an annoyed sigh, and shouted back, "Requests, or demands?"
Silence. Of course. A request was the same as a demand from a queen; who would dare refuse? Well, she would - but she suspected her guards would drag her out kicking and screaming if they had to. She wouldn't give any of them the satisfaction.
"You're, ah, looking well," Ashe said, watching as Penelo daintily stirred a single lump of sugar into her tea.
In truth, she did not look well - she looked not at all pleased at having been subjected to Ashe's company, her lips pursed into an expression of distaste, like she'd bitten into something bitter. She did look every inch the proper lady...but the look was somehow too severe for her. She seemed composed of thin edges and sharp angles, warning away any who might come near lest she take a slice out of them.
"Yes, well, your hospitality is beyond compare," Penelo replied with saccharine sweetness. "I must thank you for my...companions." She waved vaguely at the two guards standing near the door. "I'm calling them Francine and Bettina."
Ashe choked on her tea, set the cup down carefully. One of the guards made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a spurt of laughter camouflaged as a cough.
Penelo shot a poisonous look over her shoulder at them. "Please, do continue. I've got some lovely new dresses in my closet. Perhaps you'd like to try them on?"
The guard's mirth died abruptly, replaced with an expression abject of horror.
Ashe cleared her throat, wide-eyed gaze drifting between Penelo's fractious face and those of the duly chastened guards. "Surely, they're not actually called...?"
"He's Ferrin, ma'am, and I'm called Bain," one of them offered. "I guess that would make me Bettina."
"Sod off, you're not sticking me with Francine!" the one called Ferrin growled. Then he noticed Ashe's raised eyebrows and realized his mistake, shifting uncomfortably. "Beg pardon, your majesty, for the language. Won't happen again."
"See that it does not," Ashe replied crisply.
"They're the guards you chose to inflict upon me? Really, Ashe," Penelo said in a low, chiding tone.
"They're not a punishment, Penelo. For the time being, I need you here, and yes, perhaps I was a bit overzealous in my methods, but, I beg you, please understand -"
"No!" Penelo shot to her feet, nearly upsetting the silver tea service resting upon the table. "I am so tired of other people attempting to order my life for me! What gives you the right to - to just pluck me up from wherever I happen to be and cart me back here like so much baggage?"
"Penelo, dear -"
"No!" A snarl of frustration erupted from her throat. "I'm done. I came to tea, and now I'm leaving. I have fulfilled my obligation to the crown."
And she swept from the room, stumbling briefly as she trod on the hem of her gown. One of the guards reached out to steady her, but she warded off his hands, muttering a few blistering curses as she stomped off. Predictably, they followed a few paces behind her.
Ashe had not attempted to call her to tea again, to Penelo's relief. She was amazed she had lasted as long as she had before snapping Ashe's head off. She could almost feel guilty, remembering the hurt that had briefly passed over Ashe's face there at the end. But then, Ashe had certainly deserved to be called out on her high-handed behavior.
She sighed, moving along the walls of the massive library, absently tracing the spines of the leather-bound books on the shelves. A History of Archades. Boring. On the Construction of Airships from 517-536. Passable, but she was hardly in the mood for verbose descriptions of the functions of glossair rings. Archadian Myths and Legends. She paused.
After gently sliding the book out of its place on the shelf, she flipped it open to the table of contents, skimming it for the words she hoped so desperately to see. And there it was, on page 189...The Pirate Balthier. Her heart stuttered through a few beats, her fingers curled around the small leather-bound volume. She darted a glance towards the door of the library, near which her two guards were stationed, ostensibly to keep her from making a break for freedom. Far enough away, at least, to provide her the illusion of privacy.
She settled into a large wingback chair, drawing up her legs beneath her skirts into the most unladylike position she could manage. Somehow, those tiny rebellions seemed to be the only thing keeping her clinging to her life as the way she wanted it, rather than her life as orchestrated by everyone else. She opened the book, which lay flat and comfortable in her hands, flipped to the correct page, and began to read.
Once, in an age long past, a great lady found herself in a delicate position. She was due to have a child, but she was as yet unmarried, and her lover was wholly unsuitable. And so she took herself away to the country for the birth, as ladies in such precarious positions are wont to do, and by and by the child was born, as children are wont to do. He was hardly in her arms an hour before he was snatched away, to be shunted off to the nearest orphanage, there to live or die as the harsh world saw fit, for he had no place in his mother's world, neither in his father's.
He received only one gift from the mother he would never meet again: the name Balthier.
The sound of a throat being cleared jerked her from the story. She glanced up, annoyed. Ferrin or Bain, she couldn't rightly be sure which, stood at her right side.
"You've got a visitor, my lady," he said.
Her heart began to beat erratically, hope climbing swiftly, unfurling its wings inside of her, breathlessly wondering if the mere reading of his name had conjured him forth as if from a spell.
"Emperor Larsa Solidor," he continued. "Shall I send for tea?"
Hope died a swift death, crushed beneath the weight of the softly spoken words. She took a long breath and closed the book, resting it on her lap.
"Please, do," she said, hoping she didn't sound as crestfallen as she felt. "And in the meantime, you may show him in."
A few moments later, Larsa was ushered into the room, to take a seat in the chair opposite her own. They murmured greetings, and Larsa waited to speak until the guards had retaken their positions near the door, out of earshot.
"Well," he said, with a wry smile. "I surmise that I am not precisely whom you had hoped to see."
"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "It's always nice to see you, Larsa. What brings you?"
"You, actually. Or rather, Queen Ashe. She has requested that I speak to you on her behalf."
Penelo's expression shuttered, distant and cold. "That is not a subject I wish to revisit."
A tea service on a cart was wheeled in, placed neatly between their two chairs by a serving girl who promptly left them in peace. With ease born of countless hours of practice, Penelo poured tea for the two of them.
"You know," Larsa remarked thoughtfully, "I recall a time when you despaired of ever doing that properly. But you've rather mastered the art of it, I think."
Despite herself, Penelo's lips quirked into the ghost of a smile. "Oh, I don't know. I still singe my fingers from time to time. Slosh tea over the rim. Forget the milk."
"I'd wager you haven't made even the tiniest error in months. Why, I'd wager that even Ashe couldn't do it better. It's the privilege of queens, you know, not to have to pour for themselves. She's probably forgotten how to do it properly." Larsa bit into a crisp tea cake, crumbs scattering and clinging to the front of his shirt. He brushed at them, frowning. Penelo, he noticed, had had no such issue.
"I really don't wish to speak of Ashe, Larsa," Penelo said in a hard, fierce tone. "I'm furious with her."
"Yes, of course. Understandably so, I might add. Unfortunately, I owe her a debt, and she has called it due. Therefore, I will make you a deal: I will tell you what I know of Balthier, and in return you will listen to what else I have to say." That same wry smile; an expression too old for one still so young.
"You have information about Balthier?" Her hand went to her chest as if to keep her heart from pounding right out of it.
"Do we have a deal?" he countered.
She sighed. "When did you become so ruthless? Yes, we have a deal."
A smile; he rubbed his hands together like he'd won - rather too conniving a gesture for an emperor to be making. "I saw Balthier in Rozarria the night you were taken."
"You did?" She gaped at him. "You didn't...you didn't have anything to do with that, did you?" She narrowed her eyes, searching his face for the tiniest bit of untruth.
"Of course not." He waved away her question with an offended expression. "But I was present when Ashe was told that you were in the city, when she gave the order for you to be located and, ah, recovered. Naturally, there was nothing I could do about that - I cannot countermand an order given by a monarch to her own soldiers. But I did manage to track down Balthier."
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "I suppose he wasn't in the best of spirits?"
Larsa coughed delicately into his hand. "Perhaps a bit of an understatement. He was murderous. I thought Basch would skewer him straight through on the spot, after he made a most uncalled-for threat against me. Nevertheless, I assured him that it was Ashe, not I, who was responsible for your disappearance."
"He knew, then? But he didn't..." Her eyes dropped, fingers knitting in her lap. "I suppose I thought he would rescue me." Had his anger been merely the pique of a boy who had had his favorite toy snatched away?
"Penelo." Larsa reached across the tea cart, placed his hand over hers. "There wasn't time, before you'd been taken from the city. He couldn't have reached you."
Her shoulders lifted in a brief shrug. "I've been here for days. He's known where to find me, but he hasn't come." It stung a bit, that he had not, that she had been abandoned once again.
"Give it time. He must know how difficult it will be to infiltrate such a heavily-guarded palace. He would be a fool to charge in without having accounted for every possibility. And he is no fool." He held out his teacup for her to fill, which she did mechanically. "Penelo, if you had only seen his face, you would have no doubts. He will come. I think the question ought rather to be - will you go?"
Her eyes jerked up, wide, surprised. "I...I don't know. Should I not, do you think?"
"I think we've touched upon my second subject," he said. "Before you come to a decision, you ought to be equipped to make it properly. In the weeks you've been gone, Ashe was terrified for you. We all were, really. You sent no word, and none of us knew what to think. And there were some...disturbing reports." He watched a delicate flush climb into her cheeks. "So, please understand that Ashe had her reasons, misguided though they may have been. But there's more beyond that - she is struggling under the weight of a kingdom's needs. She requires your assistance."
"My assistance? What could I possibly do?" Baffled, she shook her head.
"The roles of the nobility are typically to defray certain responsibilities that fall upon the crown. In that regard, I have been fortunate - Archadia is just rotten with nobility, you know. As such, most of those concerns are dealt with by them, and I need not concern myself with them unless there is a grievance brought specifically to me. But Ashe has the whole of the responsibility - the nobility that existed beneath her father's reign have scattered, vanished. When it became clear that Dalmasca would fall, they fled like rats from a sinking ship. Their lands reverted to the crown, and now that she must care for them herself, she is buckling beneath the strain. It is far too much for any one person to manage. That was her purpose in bestowing a good deal of them upon you and Vaan, I think - to place them in the care of someone she could trust, and to give the both of you the stability in life you previously lacked. You are needed here, Penelo. Dalmasca has need of you."
She felt like her breath was leaving her too quickly, like she couldn't draw enough in to compensate for that which she'd lost. "I can't...I can't do that. I don't know how to do that." Much as Ashe had tried to make her into one, she wasn't a lady - she would always be the street child, the thief, the beggar. Panic rose in her chest, strangling her. Fighting, stealing, hunting - those things she was equipped for. Helping to run a kingdom? Madness.
"What do you think she's been teaching you in the past year?" His eyebrows raised at her panicked expression. "Penelo, breathe." He patted her hand reassuringly, soothingly.
"It's...it's just been tea and dancing and the correct way to walk down stairs...that sort of nonsense. Hitting someone with a fan if they make an untoward advance. The right sort of curtsy. Art and music, some history and mathematics. Penmanship. Embroidery."
"Perhaps a bit of estate management thrown in there somewhere?" he suggested. "Overseeing accounts, hiring servants, visiting tenants, addressing concerns?"
"Yes, but -"
"She's been training you. You ought to be perfectly able to handle such a task, and I'm sure you'll do a fine job of it. But you don't have to make that decision right now. For now, just...talk with her. You can still be angry with her, but I hope you will hear her out."
She gave a shuddering sigh, slumping back in her chair inelegantly, pressing her fingers to her forehead as if a headache had settled there. She swallowed down the fear, summoned an unaffected mien. Probably too late to convince Larsa that she was anything other than absolutely terrified, but she refused to disgrace herself further. "All right, Larsa, you've said your piece. I'd like to be alone for a while."
He suppressed a laugh, deciding she would not care for the reminder that one did not dismiss an emperor. Penelo would always be unconventional, it was what he had always liked about her. She did not stand on ceremony; she would always be honest with him. Ashe, too, he was certain, valued that particular quality - she need never fear betrayal at Penelo's hands, for that sort of behavior was entirely contrary to Penelo's nature. "I am sure we will meet again soon," he said as he stood.
"Larsa?"
He stopped and turned, just before reaching the door. "Yes?"
And Penelo sighed, her voice resigned and weary. "If you would be so kind, please tell Ashe that I will meet her tomorrow for tea."
Alone in her room, Penelo slipped into bed and thumbed through the pages of the leather-bound volume in her hands until she came upon the correct page.
Abandoned to an uncertain fate, and in the care of an orphan matron with too many charges to devote more than a few minutes to each, Balthier grew wild, as is the inclination of children with precious little supervision. He might have made friends with the other children, if there hadn't been traces of his half-noble ancestry lingering in his face and bearing. Instead, he was subjected to their taunts and jeers, for he was the one of them that was unwanted, and he was never permitted to forget it.
The passing years turned him cold and hard; he learned he could quiet their taunts with an icy glare, a cutting word. He learned to strike before struck himself, to build a wall around his heart that could not be cut down with their slings and arrows. He held himself apart before anyone else could shove him away, for if he kept himself from caring, he could not be hurt.
When he came of age, he left the orphanage at last, signing on as a sailor on merchant's ship. There, no one knew from where he had come, and his hard work was rewarded. There, he found himself judged by the content of his character rather than his origins.
The merchant who owned the ship had a wife and a lovely young daughter by the name of Ceremina. She was sweet and kind to each sailor aboard her father's vessel, but to none so much as Balthier. And though he knew nothing could come of such a thing, each new smile she bestowed upon him melted the thick layer of ice encasing his heart a bit more, until finally he was forced to admit his love for her.
But he had nothing, no worldly possessions, nor even a surname to give her. They both knew that her father would never agree to such a union. And so they plotted to find a way to be together; he would leave her father's ship for a better opportunity to seek his fortune and return to her in one year's time exactly, to make an offer for her that her father might accept. And he bid her to wait for him, for just a year, and she laid her head upon his chest and said, "Balthier, you are always, and ever shall be, in my heart."
So Balthier left to seek his fortune and found it quite by accident. Within a fortnight he found himself taken captive and spirited aboard a pirate's ship, pressed into service. And within two months, he had found himself rising through the ranks, the steely cut of his commanding voice - well-learned since his unfortunate childhood - marking him a force to be reckoned with, and the other pirates, even the ones who had served long before he had come aboard, trembled before him.
Not six months later, the captain died in a terrible and glorious battle, and Balthier found himself the new commander of the crew. With less than four months remaining, he lead his crew through daring heists, raking in more profits than ever before, and with each raid, Balthier found himself a step closer to becoming Ceremina's husband. He knew he would give up the pirating in a short time, but his portion of the pirating spoils would buy him a vessel of his own and he would set himself up as a merchant as well, which would provide them the measure of respectability they would need.
Finally, the longed-for day arrived, and he sailed his ship back to the port-town where Ceremina's family lived - only to be thwarted by rough seas and high winds. His return was delayed by a full day past their agreed-upon deadline. And when he was at last able to knock upon Ceremina's door to present himself to her father as a prospective suitor, it was to find the family in mourning.
To his utter horror, he discovered that Ceremina had been betrothed against her wishes to a man her father esteemed. The wedding was to have taken place that very morning, but when her mother had gone to wake her to dress, she had found Ceremina dead by her own hand.
She had left no explanation but a cryptic note on her pillow: "You are always, and ever shall be, in my heart."
A day too late, and now Ceremina was lost to him forever.
Wracked with guilt and steeped in despair, Balthier could not stand the thought of a life lived without his beloved Ceremina. He ended his own life mere hours later, at the point of his pistol.
Unable to be together in life, they now adorn the western sky, with The Pirate Balthier being the centermost star in the constellation known as Ceremina's Heart. Where he was always, and ever shall be.
Penelo shut the book with a snap. "What trite nonsense," she muttered. But she blinked back a mist of tears. A deep melancholy enshrouded her heart, because in it she felt the pulse of Ceremina's words and feared that they rang true for her as well.