Work Text:
breakfast
before
They are neither homemakers, really. But Balthier had been raised like a prince in Archades which entailed running off to the kitchen and watching the help cook (and from time to time, trying to sneak a cookie or piece of pie). Being Balthier, he could not stop himself from asking questions, picking a few things up. So while neither he nor Fran were particularly accomplished chefs, when they were aboard the Strahl he was the one who fried up the eggs and rashers, mashed the taters and every so often baked a quiche.
Fran once teased him about getting him an apron like in the wives in the magazines. Something frilly, in pink perhaps? He'd huffed in mock indignation, spun on his heel and pointedly ignored her until their food was on the small counter and he was solicitously offering her caffe arabica. She'd thought no more of it.
Until one morning she walked into the kitchen to find him in his loose pajama pants... and a pink frilly apron tied tightly about him. She blinked in surprise and sat heavily on one of the stools. He cast a look over his shoulder at her, beaming.
"Ah Fran. Good morning. Bacon or sausages this morning? I think we've some of the maple-smoked stuff left..."
"Maple," she murmured in amusement.
"Yes, but the maple bacon or the maple sausages, Fran! Honestly." And he spun around to face her, one hip cocked out saucily, fist perched on it and an absolutely ridiculous pout on his face. The front of the frilly thing shaped into a heart at his breast, which he had tastefully stuffed with a pair of grapefruits.
Fran couldn't help it and burst into a fit of sniggering giggles and put her face in her hands as the giggles became peals of laughter. And Balthier grinned, because what was the point of claiming "leading man" if you weren't going to act a bit?
snow, part the first
before
Balthier hopped from the hatch and crunched into the white powder of the mountains while Fran eyed the stuff uneasily. He made it about five steps before realizing that she wasn't following. Turning, he regarded her hesitantly poking the snow with a toe from the Strahl's hatch. Suddenly it dawned on him.
"Have you never seen snow before, Fran?"
She shook her head, setting the waves of white hair swaying. "Never. The Wood I was of was not in such a climate."
"Well, come on, it's not going to bite! It's just crystallized water."
Her eyes flashed at him. "Like ice."
"Well, yes, except fluffy." He picked up a handful and tossed it into the air, scattering it into dust that glimmered in the cold morning light. "See?"
Fran watched the diamond dust waft on gentle breezes and took a step forward. An errant snowflake drifted from the top of the ship and landed on her nose. Her face scrunched up and a lapine tongue flicked out and up to lick it off. Her face did not unscrunch.
"No. It is wet and cold."
"Oh come on Fran, it'll be fine! I've seen you walk about in temperatures much colder than this and altitudes higher still!"
"A winter's day on Bhujerba is quite different than this," she gestured at the offending stuff. "It is cold and wet and will get everywhere."
Balthier took in his companion's typically sparse outfit. While it was true that she'd easily endured much colder in a Bhujerban winter, he could see her point. He certainly wouldn't want snow getting... certain places on himself. He shrugged and said,
"Right, let's find you something suitable. I think that body suit from the Dalmascan heist might be a good start."
So they got Fran wrapped up in cold wea- no, snow- gear and presently the viera stepped out into the snow wearing the black body suit, a pair of Balthier's waterproof gloves on her hands and another pair butchered about her feet, bound there with ducting tape. A pale blue scarf of Mosphoran wool wrapped about her neck and lower face snugly. Her ears flattened to her head as the snow came down a bit harder.
When she stepped off, Balthier expected her to sink deep into the snow, as even without high-heels Fran still stalked about on her toes, as viera are wont to do. To both their surprise, upon barely breaking the surface of the snow, Fran's toes splayed and her foot went flat on the snow. And there she stayed, her phyisiology keeping her balanced on the surface of the snow.
She looked down at her feet in surprise and then at Balthier who just heaved a sigh.
"Wonderful. Even without heels, you STILL manage to tower over me." Once more he stepped into the snow, sinking up to his shins. Fran reached down carefully and petted his head.
His mood, never actually that dark to begin with, lightened as he told her of all the things you could do with snow. On the way to their Hunt, he watched her take in the stark beauty of untouched and falling snow and his heart melted a bit from the look of wonder on her face. When she shook her head to loose the flakes from it, she turned into a perfect flurry of woman and snow, like an elemental in viera form.
And when, after the Hunt had ended and they'd harvested materials from it, she dumped a double handful of the stuff down his shirt he yelped,
"Oh come on! Have you ANY idea how long I've held off on pulling the same stunt on you?"
She fled laughing with their prize before he could introduce her to the finer points of a snowball fight.
shipmates, not roommates
????
They kept separate chambers, in part because they both believed in the sanctity of having solitude from time to time, but mostly because Balthier was near-neurotic in his orderliness and Fran decidedly not. It wasn't that her room was a mess, because that implied a lack of knowledge of the whereabouts of any given item. But hell if Balthier could find anything after she was done with it.
(This was only ever a problem when it was one of his vanity products.)
the moogles
before, during, and after
Because there was no way they'd be able to maintain an experimental craft like the Strahl on their own, they'd hired on the moogles early in their careers. Discrete inquiries at various ports had secured them a mechanic who had little care what their profession was so long as he and his crew got paid. Nono ran a tight ship and had a sometimes rotating crew. They came and left as they wished, and Nono always made sure they were quality mechanics and moogles. As well as having a keen grasp of machinery, he was a good judge of character and could pick out which moogle was interested in hard work and which just wanted to get its paws into the guts of a ship like the Strahl. The two were not, he explained to Balthier once, always exclusive and those moogles always made the best crew.
"Are you one of them, then, you little rapscallion?"
"Eheheh, whaddyou think, Captain?" His eyes twinkled and Balthier laughed. After seeing the moogle learn the workings of the YPA stealth field generator, fixing it and designing a protective mounting for it, he wasn't going to complain.
Despite Balthier's dearly held and supposedly liberal views of the world, he could not avoid sometimes thinking of the moogles not as people, but rather as parts of the ship. When they were on break and chatting in the lounge, they were vibrant beings, each with their own character and quirks. But sometimes when they scampered through the ducts or hallways, carrying tools or parts, he ignored or missed them, as if they were the ship going on with its business. Which, he was quick to point out to himself in fits of self-justification, did not mean that he did not value them. He held every part of the Strahl dear to his heart and the moogles occupied part of that, he supposed.
He'd confessed this to Nono one night in Bhujerba as they drank in a taverna. The little mechanic had rolled about on his chair laughing and clapping his hands in delight. At Balthier's confusion, the moogle explained that it was not so much an insult as he might think. Moogles' entire worldview was taken up with their machines when they worked, sometimes achieving a meditative state of concentration and oneness with their subject. It was a point of pride for some and Balthier's reaction merely reinforced that.
It would surprise both of them that Fran held a rather similar view of them. Indeed, of all of them. Instead of all being part of one machine though, her philosophy held them all as part of a sterile but functioning ecosystem. The moogles were a preventative and repairatory organism, a natural part of the flying beast they all lived in. She and Balthier sometimes aided them in their work, certainly. Balthier with his greater theoretical understanding and her with markedly greater strength and dexterity ("D'you really think any of combination us could even move the freaking skystone armature, Balthier, never mind align it with that kind of precision?") but they were merely conveniences that let the moogles carry out their tasks more efficiently. They had their place, and the moogles theirs. All together and vitally important to the ecosystem of the Strahl.
children
during
"Um, do you mind if I ask you two a question?" Penelo asked them one day when it was just the three of them on the ship, circling the Westersand. Fran sipped at her tisane and Balthier fiddled with an optic.
"I make it a point never to stifle the natural inquisitiveness of youth," replied the man and the viera merely nodded graciously.
"Okay, um," she coughed and reddened. "How do I avoid having kids after, um, sex?"
Fran noted with some amusement the suddenness with which Balthier froze into utter stillness. Not even a breath escaped his lungs. Like an animal caught in sudden lamplight. She finished her tisane and stood.
"You will answer this one Balthier. You understand human reproduction and the... delicacy that you people seem to treat it with."
Baltheir gave her a look of a man betrayed as she made her way to the cockpit. Her ears kept her in the loop though, so she heard some of what followed. She could hear him rub his face and haggardly ask,
"Alright, first off, have you and Vaan fucked yet?" Fran had to clamp her jaw shut to keep from laughing. Delicacy indeed!
The girl sputtered, responding, "What? No! No, of course not! What makes you think it's even-"
"Apologies for that, but you see, you have some options depending on if it's pre- or post-coital. If you had, I'd fly you down to town for-"
And the hatch to the cockpit closed.
Nearly an hour later, it hissed open again and Balthier very nearly threw himself into his chair, an expression on his face like a man just out of prison.
"The girl grew up on the streets of Dalmasca. How the bloody hell did a whore not teach her this stuff already?"
Fran gave him an arch look and he protested, "What? It's how I learned all of this! It is a perfectly acceptable and ligitimate venue of information like this."
That was another bit of Balthier's past that surprised Fran. The man was a never-ending reservoir of them.
"Anyways, after that, I am so limp and shrivelled right now I doubt I will be having sex for a month. I am never having A Talk again."
She raised an eyebrow.
"No, you're right. A week."
Higher.
"Oh very well. Three days."
She snorted in derision and he gave her a self-deprecating half-grin. "Gods of the East though, I don't think I'll ever be able to do that again."
She patted his hand. "There's still Vaan."
"No! I categorically refuse! He can bloody well talk to Basch because that certainly does not fall under anything that I am required to teach him as my apprentice."
Fran allowed him a small smile of amusement and leaned back in her chair.
"Say Fran, is viera reproduction so different? I mean, we've been sleeping together for years now, but there's never been any kid or worry about one."
"And you just now think to ask of this?" An amused glance flitted over him and he gave a small abashed laugh.
"Well, I've been taking my herbs, but they don't always work. And I guess I trusted you to do the same with... whatever it is viera take or do. And, I mean, we seem to have been of an accord that this is no life for children, so the topic never really-"
"Balthier." He cut himself short. "You are babbling."
At that he shut up and seemed content to leave the matter lie. But a fter a moment, Fran continued. "I took a serum when I left the Wood. It scars the womb of growing viera so we are unable to bear."
Balthier blinked. "I find that... rather extreme."
"But effective. And as a side benefit, no cramps." A slow wink in his direction, to show that this was not so serious a topic as he was treating it.
"Ah, I suppose that would be an advantage yes." He looked like he was mulling something over for a bit and then said, "So I suppose that means children are out of the question for us."
Suddenly it was her turn to go utterly still. She felt her blood rise to her face and could she have blushed, she likely would have. Her mind raced. Was that a trace of disappointment in his voice? Was he looking for an answer? Balthier had always been one to live in the moment, no long term plans. And while she knew with every fibre of her being that he loved her and she him, she had never considered children with him. The same was apparently not true of him. Slowly she forced herself to relax.
"There are...treatments."
Balthier looked over to her, plainly interested, but whether on a personal or scientific level, she could not tell.
"They are not always effective, and besides which would take years. And returning to Eruyt."
Ah, now once again the trace of disappointment on his face. "Oh well. Still, your body, your call."
Silence reigned in the cockpit for a while and it was clear that Balthier thought this conversation done and over. But Fran's mind turned still, considering things and futures she never had before. Eventually she spoke again.
"Something to talk about, maybe, after all this has ended."
It took the man a moment to catch on, but when he did, the warmth and surprise on his face were evident.
play
before, if only just
It's an unusually cool day in Rabanastre when Fran notices Balthier picking his way through the crowd. She has just finished speaking with a sister from a faraway Wood and is just about to return to the ship but she notices something about the way he is moving. Satisfied, accomplished and yet subtly wary. He has stolen something, she immediately intuits. She has little idea what inspires him to these acts of petty thievery but they come from time to time. She supposes it's like a game to him.
Well, she has games of her own. Nodding farewell to the sister, she moves deeper into the alley and, to the other viera's amusement, scales the wall speedily. Once on the rooftops, she crawls to the edge and searches out Balthier. For all his ostentation, he is very adept at blending into crowds and it is a while before she has picked him up, now on the other side of the square. She scuttles back from the edge, straightens and bolts across the rooftops, circling around to his position, keeping an eye on him.
She leaps a gap where a street leads to the square, barely giving it any thought. Passersby look up belatedly, thinking perhaps some large vulture or roc has swept over. Clawed heels quieten as she draws nearer to him and lightens her tread. He's heading up some steps higher into the city. Noting that this staircase has no other exits, she speeds up the city wall in front of her and begins climbing again, her body hidden from casual view by pillars and ornamentation. It's not long before she's atop a new set of roofs, lying in wait for her prey.
Baltier completes his ascent not twenty feet from her, but pauses, as if noticing something is wrong. His stride continues but is more obviously wary. She ducks down when she notices him subtly give his surroundings a good survey. When she pokes her head up again, she has lost him. But this is Balthier, and she knows him. Leaping the across the street from a standstill, she begins checking alleyways and soon enough, there he is, keeping an eye out for anyone following. Periodically, he looks up as well, but she is quicker than he.
When he has finally judged that he is in the clear, he moves out again, all confidence once more. But as she stalks him, a hunter in broad daylight, the wariness returns. They are nearly at the aerodrome and he speeds up, perhaps thinking to lose his follower in the denser crowds and halls of the place. Certainly she knows a half-dozen of his tricks to hide in plain sight, but she has the option to simply run ahead once more and ambush him once he hits the open-air dock of the Strahl. But no, this is a game, and there's more fun to be had yet.
So she descends from the roofs, lifting a light green veil and a deep blue dress from a line as she goes. With quick and practiced motions she hides her face and slips into the full-body gown. Her ears pop from the veil and she lets them. It would be pointless to hide her species from Balthier, he knows the grace of the viera too well. Instead, she bunches up the veil to change the shape of her face, and lowers her eyelashes to hide her eyes. And then she's inside the aerodrome.
For a moment, she thinks she has lost him when she enters, but then catches a glimpse of a ringed hand going through postcards. Instead of watching, she passes by the tourist trap, glancing again only to confirm his identity. It would be like him to foist his rings off on a passerby, but not this time. Around a corner, she sits on a bench and waits for him to pass. Again, she almost misses him, but though he's hidden himself in a gaggle of people as though he's one of their party, she recognises his boots. My cunning actor. Gliding up, she takes a parallel route, matching their pace.
At the next intersection in the aerodrome, Balthier breaks off from the group and starts heading towards her. Thinking for a moment that the game is up, she nearly freezes. But no, he's only mixing his route up. She continues ahead for a bit, trying to think of what his next play will be. She pauses at a cafe, positioning herself to the side of the line, ostensibly to read the menu while not taking up space, but in reality to see what he does next. Damnably, he moves towards her again and she realizes he's about to do the exact same thing.
So she gets into line to order and engages the traveller in front of her in conversation, smoothing out her tone and speaking a bit higher than she would normally. Conveniently, this puts Balthier at her back. Balthier pulls in and puts on the show of looking at the menu, taking quite a while. He then adds to the performance, fishing about in a pocket and looking like he's counting change. Fran's conversation partner orders and soon it will be her go. As she lines up possible avenues of misdirection and/or escape, it is suddenly her turn to order. A carefully spoken order of caffe robusta to make it look like she is new to the language draws out her time.
Balthier leaves as she receives her cup and she follows him, lifting the cost of the drink from the pockets of another traveller. She drops the filth into the first garbage can she passes while staying well behind him. When he ducks into a travel agency, she veers off and heads to the second floor as quickly as she can. Going up the stairs, she divests herself of the gown and veil, drawing some strange looks from the humes nearby. She hurries to a balcony closer to his destination and takes up position behind a pillar.
There, she closes her eyes and slows her breathing. Her lips part slightly and her tongue thickens. Focusing on the smells around her, she filters them for his distinct scent. Hundreds, thousands of smells crowd her senses, but a century of walking about the world lets her sift through them. There! she thinks triumphantly. He has moved below her now. A step to the side, and she casually leans backwards over the railing. Catching its edge as she falls, she flips herself around and silently lands. The crowd stirs, and as he turns to see what is the matter, she takes an impossibly long stride straight into his personal space. His turn is interrupted by his sudden and nearly violent flinch when he sees her not an inch from his face.
"Good lord Fran, you've given me a heart attack!" He puts his hand to his chest, dramatically. "So it was you stalking me this whole time? Bloody good show, I'll give you that."
As he catches his breath he thinks to ask, "It was you all along, right? Right? No idea how someone else could have followed me so well..."
She passes him and tosses her hair behind her. "Tell me what you stole and perhaps I'll say."
He smirks and follows her into the ship.
--
Later that night, Fran is showering when the sensation of being watched prickles up on her. She looks at the door over the curtain. Locked. Hmm. She sticks her head out of the shower and looks up, thinking Balthier might have gotten clever and wedged himself flat against the ceiling. Nothing.
When she pulls back into the shower, she comes face to face with an upside down Balthier and blinks. Her eyes follow the line of his arm to where his hand rests on the hot water dial.
"No."
"Oh yes."
The Strahl is split by a shivering shriek of "BALTHIER!" as he shuts the hot water off and makes his escape, scuttling through the ducts.
sex
????
Her legs twitch uncontrollably and her toes claw into their sheets as Balthier slides up her naked body after her latest orgasm. He nestles himself on her shoulder and slings one arm across her stomach, which sets off a little aftershock and a ripping sound near the footboard. His lips, still damp, quirk in a smug smile. Panting softly, she carefully removes her claws from the pillow behind head. There's a reason they don't have "good sheets."
She cups his smug face and kisses him lightly on the lips, tasting him and her all intertwined. Giddy with all the chemicals of love, touch and climax she stutters out,
"You g-gift."
Kiss.
"You treasure."
Peck.
"You darling."
Kiss.Stronger now.
"You fiend."
Kiss.
"You... thief."
Peck. And nibble.
"You."
Kiss.
"Very."
"Bad."
"Man."
His laughter is low and soft, ghosting across her skin like the hot breath of the jungle. She shuts him up with a deeper kiss, hands and claws clasped 'round his head.
The viera are rightly proud of all their arts, including those practiced in the bedroom, under gauzy sheets and the soft embrace of moonlight. But for all her decades of experience on him, Fran lacked Balthier's earnest and dedicated study and practice at sex. She'd thought herself well versed in men, and rightly so because men of any stripe or species are simple enough creatures, but he showed her tricks and toys she'd never thought of. And he showed her, with a passion, all he knew of women and their preferences. Where there was something new to learn about a viera, he took to it like he did everything else.
For her part, she gives him a willing and pliant canvas to work his art upon. So much so that when her fingers wrap around his hardening cock and give it an exploratory stroke he gasps, "Woman, you are insatiable."
A longer, harder stroke, her claws grazing the soft skin of his thighs.
"You will be the death of me, I swear," said even as he rolls atop her and between her legs. A sinuous motion and he is positioned at her wet heat. He is holding her by the hips, lifted lightly off the bed. A languid smile crosses her lips as she wrapped her legs about him, pulling him into her with a throaty growl.
"Come then," she croons between slow liquid, undulations that glide her whole body against his, nipples grazing each other. "Come let me kill you."
In this, as in everything, the strength of the viera is not to be underestimated.
necessities
after
Balthier pointed to a ridiculously gaudy tent.
"Say! There's a thing we haven't done yet! Fortune telling."
Fran looked at him in bemusement. "I thought the mighty scholar was above these little superstitions?"
He shrugged. "It's the midst of Dalmascan Karnivale. No harm in having a bit of fun."
Fran gave a disparaging sniff, but let herself be led to the tent's door. They were freshly recovered from the mess of the Bahamut and she was desperately eager to do something. A melifluous voice urged them, "Come in, come in dear youngsters!"
They entered and Fran had to give the old crone credit for showmanship. The tent reeked of heady incense and was lushly decorated in fine, glittering and glimmering fabrics to distract her customers/prey. Balthier and Fran smiled at the display. They'd employed similar distractions before.
"A paltry donation and your future will be yours to know!" exclaimed the shrivelled crone before them. She was clearly of Dalmasca's wandering tribes. but sufficiently adept at the mother tongue to have wrapped up hundreds of Rabanastrans in her webs. Balthier cast a few coins into her jar, and graced her with a smirk for free.
"A thousand thanks young sir! Now, let us see what the future holds for you and the lovely mi-OH!"
The old woman sprang back from the crystal ball as if shocked. Fran's mouth quirked in a smile and Balthier rolled his eyes. The fotune teller quavered for a moment and then stilled. A careful look at her eyes revealed them to be rolled back in her skull. Red-white veins were all there was to be seen.
"Child of the Wood and Child of Archades. you wish to know your futures, but this is barred from you." The voice that lifted from the old woman's body was clearly not her own. The pair had heard similar enough when Espers spoke through their hosts. Hands edged towards weapons as the pair took each other's backs.
"no, instead you will be granted the knowledge of your place in the now, across all the possibilities."
"know this then: there is no world, in all the evers, where you two do not find each other."
And with that the old Dalmascan woman collapsed, slumping over her table. The two hesitated a moment before Balthier crouched and asked of her, "I say, are you all right mum?"
The old woman gave a sob, "Oh yes, child, oh yes. In fact, I have to wonder how you can be so calm now."
"Well, I don't know, but having bound Exodus and half a dozen more Espers is probably a good start."
A mad cackle from the woman. "Heh! I suppose so! But even still, you manage to miss the point."
Both Fran and Balthier's heads cocked to a side, albeit opposites. "Oh?"
"It said, 'there is no world, in all the evers, where you two do not find each other.' Do you understand?"
"Fraid not, old biddy." She raised her head then, and they could see rivulets of tears running down her cheeks. Pure saline cut into old, cheap makeup at had been caked on over who-knows-how-long.
"Listen then children: Your meeting, your relationship, is so important to the existence of the universe that in every case, in every iteration of it you must be."
Balthier snorted, "Well that was almost entertaining, but I see we have the same deterministic nonsense spouted by every oth-"
"No!" hissed the old woman. "No determinism! Not fate! No intervention! Simply..."
She grasped for terms she could not put into words and finally deflated, weeping openly. Between cries, she continued, "Simply put- the two of you together, the sum of your parts, your love... is required for existence itself to continue."
The hume and the viera were quiet after that. Balthier tipped the woman, who just gestured at the tent-flap, whispering her thanks. When they left and she was alone, she thanked her gods for the vision and for the chance to meet such children. Then she wept for joy some more and went to sleep.
snow, part the second
during
It was one of the last things he had of his father that he had, that he gladly kept, treasured even. He held it lightly in his hands, afraid that the delicate construction would collapse if he held it too long. Long, clever fingers traced the smooth whorls and grooves that lent it stability. They were barely visible, but a sensitive touch could ascertain them well enough.
Oh, the days he and his father had spent on this, making and testing prototype after prototype. He had loved them, days of practical science spent with his idol. Cid gave him the freedom to try out ideas, never interfering, only asking pointed questions that sparked some new idea even as they demolished some juvenile theory. They were the best days of his childhood, and this all that he had left from them. Theory and craft perfected.
So it was with some reverance that he handed it to Fran. Then she stood from behind their icen barricade and whipped the Bunansa Mark VII Aerodynamic Snowsphere at Vaan's head. Her form was perfect, like a rounders pitcher, and the distant cry a testament to her accuracy. She knelt back down before the answering volley could find her.
He gave her another snowball with a wink and she returned it with a small smile.
The best treasures were the ones you could share. Preferably at high velocity and a distance.
orphans
before. long before.
Sometimes, when they landed in the wilderness, she left for long stretches at a time. Only the first time had she let him know that she would be going, but would be back. No, she did not want company. Ever since, she would simply walk out with a purpose and not look back. It worried him at first, for reasons that he did not understand (or at least want to admit to himself), but in time he came to trust her, trust that she would be back. It was a newly flowered thing, this trust, but it was enough. They were partners, bound in blood and more, and that too was enough.
But he was still curious. Once, he consulted his maps after she'd left. Marking down the approximate locations where they'd been at her disappearances, he found himself looking at a rough outline of the Golmore Jungle. Looking at the distances between it and their landings he thought he could never make that journey in a few days on foot. But then he'd seen her run kilometers at a time without tiring, and did not rightly know the extent of her stamina.
So it was with the curiosity of a scientist with a hypothesis and not that of a lover with a suspicion that he set off after her one day. He nabbed a chocobo from a clutch they'd passed over and set off in the direction of Golmore. Keeping the beast plied with ghysahl greens, he made excellent time and after only a day found himself on a high hill overlooking Golmore. He made camp, uncertain of how long he'd have to wait.
On the third day, he very nearly missed the figure leave the green of the jungle. About the same time he noticed her, she turned towards him. He stood, understanding that she could quite probably see him clearly. As she approached, he cleaned up camp and prepped the chocobo. He also prepped himself.
"So it seems this is the limit of your patience, Balthier." Fran spat acidly. He had the good grace to wince.
"Now please, this isn't what it looks like."
"I recall asking for no company."
"And you didn't get any. Nor did I follow you, per se. I merely wanted to see if my guess was correct."
"Your guess," she growled flatly.
"Yes. I figured that the only location near all of you disappearance points was Golmore and wanted to find out for hypothesis's sake. I have no desire to follow you therein nor inquire further into your business. I apologize if I've stepped over some line."
She snorted and approached the chocobo, holding her hand out. The bird examined it, found it lacking in ghysahl greens and promptly ignored her. She idly petted it, staring into the distance. Presently, she hauled herself up onto its back. Looking down at him, she said,
"Get on, damned fool scientist."
He slung the backpack onto his shoulders and followed her onto the bird. Immediately she kneed the bird into a gallop and he had to clutch at her, wrapping his arm about her waist. She smelled of plant matter and exertion, of three days spent in a jungle.
"And if you'd been wrong?"
"Eh? Oh, after a few days I would have headed on back."
"Hnn." she growled out. "And if you'd gotten injured, been attacked?"
Balthier blinked. "Well, I left word with Nono. I suppose I trusted you to find me."
A long silence followed in which the chocobo ate up the distance. He hesitated before continuing,
"I also trusted you to return, you know. Every time. Even this one."
She was still a while longer. At length, "And if I had not?"
"If you'd gotten injured, been attacked?"
Her chest convulsed at that, but if it was a snort or a laugh it was lost in the wind. "Yes."
"I'd have taken the Strahl and searched every corner of the world for you."
She tensed and he had no idea why. "Yes. Yes you would have, wouldn't you."
"Fran..."
"Enough. It is done."
They rode through the day, through the night. Between Fran's vision and the chocobo's sure stride, Balthier felt he was in safe enough hands and drifted off, lulled to sleep despite the jarring bouncing. He woke with a face full of Chocobo feathers, sprawled on its back, now in front of the Strahl. When he keyed in your entry code, Nono stood waiting for him.
"She's asleep. Says not to bother her."
"Well. She got us here at great speed, so I don't doubt she's tuckered right out."
Nono gave him a look Balthier had no idea how to process. So he said, "Well, I'll take up her duties for the day as well."
The end of the day found Balthier in his captain's chair, feet up on the console and staring with heavy-lidded eyes at the setting sun. He wondered how mad at him Fran really was. He was certain that she was not so angry with him for following her, so much as something else. He could ask, but would not as he had given his word not to inquire furtheer. Sleep followed the sun's descent and he dozed.
When he came to, Fran was in her captain's chair, legs folded up under her and regarding him intently. He smiled sleepily.
"Good evening. Or morning, I suppose."
She gave no response. "Look, I'm sorry about yesterday, it wo-"
"Quiet." She ordered and so he was. With a delicate claw she swiveled herself around until she was looking straight out into the night. He followed her eyes, followed them as they picked out constellations. Which were they? Did she even know the same ones he did? With her keen vision, could she see more than he could? Through viera eyes, through her eyes, could she see more than he?
So enraptured of the night sky was he that it took a moment before he noticed that she was looking at him again. This time it was out of the corner of her eye, as if appraising him for the very first time. As if that very first time in the taverna in Bhujerba had never happened. At length, she spoke,
"I am from the Golmore. I return, from time to time, to watch my sisters. See how they are doing."
A great curiosity of Balthier's was answered, but it was nothing in the face of her faint smile.
"They are skilled in the hunt and would have found me normally, but I have spent years abroad, and have skills they do not dream of." Fran's hand turns, revealing an Invisibility mote before performing a feat of ledgermain and disappearing it. Her smile goes with it.
"A long time ago, as you humes reckon it, I left my people."
Balthier's entire being woke at her tone, tuned immediately to this story. This was the most direct telling of her past that he'd ever heard and so, understandably, he was eager to hear it.
"Among the viera, to leave the village is to leave the Wood. It is a permanent thing, never to be taken back." Her tongue darted out, to wet her lips and to buy her time. What seemed like an eternity was probably only moments between lines. "When you see viera about in the world, you see the exiles, those never allowed back."
She delivered the words in a tone of forced neutrality, and they came out in a rhythm that bespoke rehearsal. But for all that, Balthier could see a distant pain in her eyes. How long had she spent considering these words, steeling herself? In that moment, that moment of shared suffering with all her sisters across the world, Balthier's heart broke a little for her, and for them.
"But with every passing year, you see more and more of us. The Wood, you see, knows that the world is changing. We go out on its behalf, but our villages, our families, do not see it so."
Her tone sounded bitter and her face screwed up to match. "They say we abandon them for the world beyond the Wood. They call us all but traitors. I do not know why the Wood does not tell them otherwise."
She gathered up her knees, her limbs, and held them close to her. "For close to fifty years I wandered, bereft of support. I learned of the world of humes, bangaa, nu mou and moogles. I... adapted."
Fierce pride cut through her voice then, as if she were reclaiming a birthright long lost. But her face told a different story. "But for all that, for all my skill and cleverness, I'd still lost my village, my...family."
And then Fran's eyes met Balthier's. "I was alone.
...
And then I met you."
The silence between them lasted an hour, a day, a scant minute. Things clicked in Balthier's obstinate head, and he suddenly understood her sudden tensing. How else to respond to family, suddenly discovered on an open plain? How else to respond to the kind of trusting tenderness and selfless dedication that marked true familiarity?
Fran's attention seemed set on some indeterminate point in the distance, hidden and protected from his gaze. As if she wanted to maintain control over her heart, even as she offered it to him. Balthier's core filled to bursting, emptied, filled with the silence. He felt like he was a ship, caught in the storm of his own mind and heart, battered by sudden thoughts, questions, emotions. He surfaced through that squall and said,
"My father gave me everything."
The effect on Fran was immediate, despite the casual mention he gave it. Her head whipped around and all her attention focused on him. Unlike her, with her obscure references and sparse explanations, he simply did not speak of his past. He hid it under layers of subterfuge, characters and lies.
"He encouraged my curiosity, my natural cleverness. By the time I was thirteen, I was sure there was a position waiting for me in his laboratories for me. And oh, I wanted it like nothing else in my spoiled, bratty life."
He swallowed, the betrayal and turnabout still too raw, even after all these years. "By sixteen, he'd made me a judge. Against my will."
Fran sucked in a breath. A judge, one of the highest positions in the Empire. It explained much about him, his familarity with weapons, a keen tactical mind and a disregard for authority that bordered on pathological. But she could not reconcile her knowledge of the Judges cruelty with light-hearted, laughing Balthier. And certainly not a Balthier of fifteen. She almost reached out for him, but his posture made it clear this was not the time for empathy. His body language cried, Not yet, dearest, no, not yet. And he continued.
"I still believed that he would let me pursue my own will. That he was simply looking out for the best for me. That he wasn't mad with power. Up until he pushed me forwards for Judge Magister." He shook his head. "Seventeen years old and Judge Magister."
Balthier laughed, a high and fey thing. A child, reliving the destruction of his innocence. Fran heard more in that laugh than all of what he spoke, and knew his father for a cruel and devious man. He continued, "Madness. All that was left: madness."
The cockpit was quiet for a long time. Neither hume nor viera knew when their hands had joined, but companionably, naturally, they were intertwined. At length, Fran asked,
"What was his name?"
The hume sucked in a breath, as if rearing from a flame, from something that would do him harm. "Cid. Cidolphus Demen Bunansa of the Archadian Empire and head of Draklor Laboratories."
A pause. And then, "And I am Ffamran mied Bunansa."
The viera gave a vicious shake of her head. "No."
He looked at her, surprised at the weight of surety and denial in her voice. More emotion than he'd ever heard her commit in any conversation before.
"You are Balthier. And I am Fran. Both of the Strahl."
And that, dear reader, was when it was decided. Decades, nigh on a century of the world's history, writ in the simple affirmation of a single viera, tempted to love a hume. Such words are all that are needed to make the world go 'round. Or at least keep it spinning.