[Final Fantasy XII] Once Young And Blessed With Wings (Ashe/Balthier)

[lassarina]

Characters/Pairings: Ashe/Balthier
Rating: R
Contains: Endgame spoilers, and character death, as well as suicidal themes.
Notes: Written for hardmode.
Wordcount: 16,482
Summary: Ashe has been on the throne of Dalmasca twenty years now, and over the years she and the sky pirate have maintained their personal relationship despite the pressures of her crown. However, when Balthier comes to her with a shocking request, Ashe must choose between two equally unpalatable options.
Beta: imadra_blue and samuraiter

Much later, when I was at last able to look back on the events of that summer with something approaching a balanced state of mind, I had to admit that it had been well past time for Balthier to disrupt my life with outrageous behaviour.

I had become somewhat accustomed to, although displeased by, his penchant for invading my council meetings and repurposing my fortnightly audiences to his own ends. An equal combination of custom and displeasure attended his equally-abrupt departures from Rabanastre, ever at his own whim and with no consideration for another, save perhaps Fran. Yet I could not cage him, even had I desired to; and indeed, I did not desire to entrap him. For all that I enjoyed his company, I would be most unwilling to endure his theatrics on a daily basis. Whether appearing in a puff of scented smoke and a swirl of an entirely absurd silk cape in the midst of an audience, or rappelling down from the ceiling of the council chamber just as the Master of the Exchequer was explaining the state of the treasury, he was never content with simply striding through the door.

However, he exceeded all his previous efforts combined when he rode a tamed gorgontoad into Lady Vesania's garden party.

It must be admitted, the disruption could not have happened to a more deserving individual. Lady Vesania was both snobbish and stuffy, and had willingly curried favour with the Archadian occupying force before my father's corpse had cooled. She was possessed of far more wealth than sense, and displayed it by keeping a lavish garden in the midst of the desert, to which it was her very great pleasure to invite lesser individuals—a group that encompassed all Ivalice, including her Queen—to admire her work. That same wealth made her difficult to shunt off into a corner that could be forgotten, and thus I was there, compelled by politics and politeness to smile prettily and try not to faint in the wretched humidity that her endless little springs and streams released into the sunlit summer afternoon. I had been twenty years on my throne, and I liked her no better now (in fact, significantly worse) than I had when first I set the crown on my head.

Next year, I vowed, I was going to tell her that she could hold her party in the cool of evening like a sensible and practical person, or she could do without the Queen to lend importance to her strutting. And I would make that announcement in public, perhaps at the Summer Ball, for maximum effect. I was done with pandering to a woman who became less relevant politically with each passing year.

I had just accepted another glass of water from the servant assigned to see to my every need, per Lady Vesania's instructions, when a sudden shadow blotted out the intense sun for a moment, followed immediately by a squooshing plop that I knew all too well from hunting expeditions in the waterways. From the startled shrieks, some of the other guests were not unfamiliar with it themselves.

I turned to see Balthier astride a gorgontoad that bore a headstall of gilded leather and enormous frilly plumes, nearly as ridiculous as Lady Vesania's layers of ruffles and lace. Upon seeing me, he waved enthusiastically, the reins clutched in one hand.

I sternly reminded myself that Queens do not bury their faces in their hands when confronted with impossible social situations, and gave him a frosty nod in return.

On first glance I thought that he looked rather pale and tired, his mouth drawn thinner than was usual. However, he leapt off the gorgontoad and made me a sweeping bow with all the extravagant theatricality I had come to expect, and I thought I must be mistaken. "Your Majesty," he said, "I apologize for my tardiness."

To my knowledge he had not been invited, but I knew a cue when it was handed me on a silver platter. "Was your usual mount unavailable?" I inquired, with as much innocence as I could summon—admittedly it was not much, as I was greatly out of practice. Neither ruling queens nor mothers of three perform innocence well.

"Ah, no, this is a gift for Your Majesty!" He made as though to hand me the reins, and I conspicuously occupied my own hands with my glass of water.

"I appreciate your generosity," was all I could say without breaking into a fit of inappropriate laughter. As it was, my voice was somewhat strained, though I hoped the watching nobility would take it for annoyance rather than repressed mirth. From the wry glances my children directed at me, I knew I had not fooled them—but then again, I had not sought to do so.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw two of Lady Vesania's household men-at-arms approaching cautiously, clearly uncertain as to whether they should slay the beast or some other, less usual reaction to the presence of a toad big enough to carry a man on its back and leap the twelve-foot garden wall while so doing.

"If Mother doesn't want it, may I take him for a ride?" suggested Rasler, my eldest.

"Perhaps later," I said, pitching my voice to be heard above the murmuring of our subjects.

At sixteen, Rasler was too old to pout, but he cast me a sulky look nonetheless—or at least, that is what the nobility saw. I knew he had something more in mind, but was unsure what.

"How did you catch him?" Demenia, the elder of my daughters and every inch her father's child, was examining the headstall with interest. "Is it magicked?"

Said father grinned, but kept the reins carefully out of Demenia's immediate reach, knowing her penchant for dismantling anything she could get her hands on just to see how it worked. "Some magicks were involved, yes," he told her. "But I cannot be sharing all of my secrets with everyone, now can I?"

"You will tell me later," Demenia said firmly, certain of her own prowess in wrapping him around her fingers.

Balthier only grinned wider, and turned to the guardsmen, who had their hands on the hilts of their swords. "Say, you couldn't by chance call up a stableboy to put him somewhere until I'm ready to go, could you?" he asked, all innocence.

I still wondered how he managed to look so boyish and harmless, though he was well on the far side of two score and his exploits were enough to turn any cabinet minister's hair white just thinking about his potential to wreak havoc. Lady Vesania's servants were either less astute than they should have been or, more likely, terrified of offending someone known to be a favourite of their Queen. They bobbed nervous salutes before gingerly taking the gigantoad's reins. A murmur went around the crowd, quickly quelled as everyone strained to hear what would happen next.

"—think he is, coming in—" Lady Vesania's voice cut off abruptly as she realized that her shrill commentary was now audible to everyone.

"Your Majesty," Balthier said, offering me another sweeping bow, "might I trouble you for a sip of cool water? Your deserts are determined to parch me."

"You can have mine," offered Ophelia, my youngest—our youngest—shyly as she held up her own glass.

"Thank you very much, Princess," Balthier replied gravely, performing a bow appropriate to the variance in their ranks and ages before accepting the glass she offered. We didn't speak in polite company of the fact that Ophelia and Demenia were his children as well as mine, but anyone with eyes to see could notice Balthier's deft grace in Demenia's movements, or his narrow mouth and mischievous eyes stamped on Ophelia's face.

I pretended I didn't notice the people staring at me, and he pretended likewise, and we chatted of inconsequential things, such as his most recent "vacation" to Rozarria. Eventually the other guests grew weary of awaiting scandal with bated breath, and returned to their own conversations.

Rasler disengaged himself from Lady Vesania's eldest daughter—a girl with even less sense than her mother, and designs on the Consort's seat though Rasler wanted nothing to do with her—and came to join us. "Balthier," he greeted in a low voice. "I hear there are fascinating technical developments happening in Rozarria."

"If you mean the new glossair rings, they're rubbish," Balthier said with a dismissive gesture. "Fast enough while they last, but they crack twice as often as the old sort."

Demenia, perched nearby and avidly listening, frowned. "But that doesn't make sense," she objected. "They used Sylphi halcyons alloyed with electrum to power them, so they should be both lighter and more durable than the Mardu models."

"As unstable as Mardu halcyons are, the Sylphi ones are worse," Balthier replied. "They leave you at the mercy of the wind, and the overcompensation required in the way of steering—particularly at the higher speeds—puts extra fatigue on the rings."

"Actually," Rasler said, intervening before they could get further embroiled in an abstruse discussion about the technical aspects of glossair rings, "I meant the rumour that Rozarria has perfected a process for creating manufacted nethicite."

I braced myself for the inevitable explosion, and cast a warning glance at my heir, who usually displayed a good deal more subtlety than this. Perhaps he wasn't ready to be given governorship of Nabradia on his name-day after all.

Balthier surprised me. His expression and tone were all boredom. "Do you commonly listen to the overexcited babble of people with no common sense to fetter their wild imaginations, Crown Prince?" he drawled.

It was less dramatic than I had expected, but I still winced inwardly at the cutting edge of his tone. Part of me wanted to defend my son, but I knew I had to let him face such barbs eventually; better now than only after I was dead and burned.

"A failing of mine," Rasler said, looking duly chastened. "I let my fancy run away with me."

The few noblemen who were still watching us went back to trying to negotiate political deals among themselves, content that my heir was still wet behind the ears and foolish enough to get swept away in fancy—something that I saw from Rasler's faint smile had been entirely his intention all along.

"Bold of you, putting that out there thus," Balthier murmured behind cover of sipping from Ophelia's glass once more. "Especially with His Grace the Ambassador not ten steps away."

"Why do you think I did it?" Rasler affected an expression of icy hauteur that reminded me, for a sickening moment, of Vayne Solidor. "Did you see how his face froze up? He was so certain they'd covered their tracks."

"But now he is warned, fledgling," I said.

Rasler smiled serenely, and the resemblance to Vayne was gone, leaving him once more my son and the spitting image of the Dalmascan lord who had sired him. "Unfortunately for him, he prefers to pocket the majority of the money that Margrace sends for the upkeep of his staff. They enjoy eating, you see, and my coin clinks louder."

"Remarkably foolish of him," Balthier observed, "and reasonably clever of you. Take care it doesn't go to your head." Had we been alone, Balthier would have tousled Rasler's hair; as it was, the clap on the shoulder admirably conveyed his sentiments.

Rasler moved past Balthier to rejoin the party, stopping to murmur something that resulted in a sober nod from Balthier.

"Dare I ask?" It was meant to be a light question, but my voice didn't quite cooperate.

"He apologized for bringing up Draklor in such a public sphere." Balthier brooded over the glass of water as though it were after-dinner wine.

"I didn't know he was planning on that." I knew Balthier would recognize the tacit apology for what it was.

"He's young, and the young are brash." Balthier shrugged, though I knew he was not as complacent as he wished me to believe.

"You would know," I said, and he took the opening to turn the conversation lighter, choosing to regale me with tales of Larsa's court. Mindful of our daughters' avidly attentive ears, he kept his stories to the least scandalous.

He kept us—and several of my courtiers—amused in this manner until enough time had passed that I could leave the party without giving mortal insult. I had a great deal of work still to get done today, and the children had lessons. I requested that our carriage be brought round, and Balthier escorted us to the gate after I bade a brisk farewell to our hostess.

I looked at the stableboy, who was holding Balthier's absurd gigantoad and standing as far away from the beast as the reins would permit, and then looked at my children, all of whom were very interested in the gigantoad while pretending that nothing could have bored them more.

"Pirate," I said, in a voice that went no farther than his ears.

"Princess," he replied, equally low.

"I care not whether you kill it or return it to the Waterways, but do not bring that creature into my palace grounds."

"You do not like your gift?" He grinned and winked. "Never fear, Ashe, I'll do something suitable with it. And doubtless arrive footsore and weary beyond speech, thanks to your cruelty."

I ignored his barb and waited for the footman to hand the children up into the carriage. It was only after I was settled in with them, and Balthier was bouncing off atop his gigantoad, that what he had said fully processed in my mind.

Being now alone with my family, and not having to perform for the nobility, I covered my face with my hands at the thought of what Balthier might consider a "suitable" disposition for the creature.

"Mama? Are you all right?" Ophelia asked, touching my shoulder.

"I'm fine, dearest." I smoothed her ash-brown curls and managed a smile despite my gritted teeth.

If—nay, when—he did something absurd with the gigantoad, I might just hand him over to Al-Cid for trial as a pirate.

~*~

My guards had standing orders to admit Balthier to the palace, and even to my chambers, unless of course he was bearing some monstrous weapon straight out of Dr. Cid's wildest dreams and intent on declaring war upon either Dalmasca, or my person, both of which were much the same in the Palace Guards' eyes. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, he took great delight in finding secret ways into my chambers.

Perhaps it would not have been dashing enough to arrive in more pedestrian fashion.

Thus it was that I went the remainder of the afternoon and evening without encountering him. I had dinner with the children, then returned them to the care of their governesses and tutors while I reviewed contracts for the construction of a new hospital, now that Dalmasca's population was well recovered from war and had outgrown the previous facilities. The figures for the Bhujerban bid had been changed, and I marked the page and set it aside to review with the ministers at the next meeting; some variance was to be expected, but not a magical twenty percent increase. After all, I did not permit Dalmasca to be run like a bribery mill.

I missed Uncle Halim's scrupulous honesty in such dealings. His heir was entirely less trustworthy.

By the time I changed for the night and bid my maids seek their own beds, there was still no sign of Balthier. It was unusual for him to interrupt a gathering and then vanish immediately thereafter, but hardly unheard of. I snuffed the candles and went to bed, relishing the warmth of the blankets against the chill of nighttime in the desert.

I had scarcely lain down and closed my eyes when I heard the faint but unmistakable sound of the latch to my balcony door being manipulated into opening. I rolled onto my side and propped myself up on one elbow. "It's not locked, you know," I said aloud.

"Must you ruin all my fun?" he grumbled, pushing open the door.

I did not dignify that with a response. He closed the balcony door behind him and shed his boots and clothes with remarkable haste before joining me in the bed.

"Dare I ask how you disposed of your unusual steed?" I asked.

"You might dare." He busied himself building a massive fort out of far more than his share of the pillows. After the first time I had invited him to my bed, I had asked the maids to double the number of pillows on evenings when he was staying, and he still took enough pillows to leave me with just the one. I had no idea how he slept like that without waking to a painfully stiff neck.

Balthier was many things—my own personal list of adjectives to describe him would have "clever" and "infuriating" in heated competition for position of honour at the top—but patient was rarely one of them. He grew tired of the silence long before I did.

"I cast Vanish on myself, and then unharnessed him in that ridiculous fountain in the courtyard of the Rozarrian embassy."

I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the possible diplomatic consequences. "Balthier," was all I could say.

"Oh, it's quite all right." Balthier stretched out his legs and wiggled his toes in the stripe of moonlight that lay across my bed. "As I left, I heard the guards debating how it got out of the Waterways. Clever of you to make sure there was an entrance to the old Lowtown right behind the embassy." He grinned. "Or is it just that you would prefer to wash His Eminence The Very Important Ambassador into the sewers with the rest of the muck?"

"More the latter," I admitted. "And the old Rozarrian embassy was destroyed in the war, and—"

"You had more important things to build. I quite understand." He tipped his head back onto his absurd mound of pillows and sighed. "Ahhh, a comfortable bed is one of life's greatest joys."

I raised an eyebrow at him, though he was unlikely to see it in the darkness. "I thought a sky pirate could sleep anywhere," I said.

"Certainly I can sleep anywhere. That doesn't mean I choose to do so." He turned on his side and trailed his fingertips down my arm. "Well, Princess, aren't you going to give me a proper welcome?"

Just for the presumption, I nipped him sharply before I set about kissing him in earnest.

It was familiar and strange; his hands were strangely hesitant as they roamed over me, and though I knew his body nigh as well as my own, still I was cautious, seeking new scars and changes in him. Our first nights together after an absence were always slower than I would have thought they would be, as though we were unwilling to rush headlong into something that had been anticipated.

Perhaps it was just that we were both older now, and less overruled by the hasty blood of youth. We came together, and then we slept, his hand resting lightly over mine.

~*~

In the morning light, I was certain of it: he looked quite haggard. He was thinner than I recalled, and despite sleeping several hours later than I did, he still bore bruise-like circles beneath his eyes.

I had little opportunity to discuss it with him until dinner that evening, for despite what some sky pirates seem to believe, Queens cannot be haring off at a whim to spend their days as they please. Running a kingdom is hard work, and although I had eventually staffed my council with competent ministers who did not need me checking their every action, there were still a number of things that only I could do. Then, too, some former ministers had tried to conceal less-than-honourable actions from me early in my reign. As a result, I made certain to periodically examine the records to ensure that nothing untoward was occurring.

He was lounging in my private library when I escaped from the maze of ledgers and reports—strange, that even now I thought of completing my assigned duties and being free to pursue my own desires as escape—and he looked up from the volume in his hand when I entered the room.

"Do you know, this Archadian playwright is an idiot," he said conversationally.

"Which Archadian playwright is this?" I came to sit near him, and glanced at the pages.

"This Challer, or whatever he calls himself." Balthier snapped the book shut with a distinct air of irritation. "He has the audacity to name the sky pirate Reddas's sacrifice as the turning point in the War of Archadian Succession. As if every Archadian succession isn't a war in some form or another."

"Are you saying Reddas's sacrifice wasn't important?" I asked.

He gestured, but something was off about it. "Hardly. Save for his efforts, we might all be enslaved to the Occuria. I simply dispute that his efforts were the single turning point. For myself, I would have credited the slaying of Vayne Solidor and the deflection of Bahamut from crushing Rabanastre, or things of similar critical mass."

"You say that only because you were involved in those things." It was an old barb, and familiar, like a favoured robe one slips on after the bath.

"Naturally, the leading man deserves his due," Balthier intoned, with the most pompous expression he could muster. "And more to the point, this Challer doesn't mention myself or Fran even once."

I rose from my seat and moved toward my chamber to dress for dinner. At the door I paused and looked back, and with a sense of timing I knew he would appreciate, I asked, "And did it never occur to you that most people are written in the ballads only after they've gone?"

I was pleased to hear naught but silence behind me as I beckoned my maid to bring me appropriate attire. When I emerged from my chambers, Balthier still sat lost in thought, his head bowed over the much-maligned play about the War of Archadian Succession. Larsa hated that name for it, but acknowledged there was little he could do to stop people from using it.

"Are you ready for dinner?" I prompted him, and he started, as though he had forgotten my presence, although I had not been gone long.

"Lead on, Your Majesty," he said, rising to give me a half-bow.

When I could, I chose to keep a quiet table and eat by myself or with carefully chosen guests rather than be subject to the fuss and expense of a state dinner every night. Tonight was no different; only Balthier and I sat at the table in the smallest of the palace dining rooms, and by most royal standards the meal we ate was incredibly simple, consisting of only four courses.

Our conversation was desultory at best, another thing that perplexed me. Even when he had arrived exhausted and wounded, he usually still had several quips. Still, mindful of the servants, I waited until the meal was done and we had retired to my sitting room. Of course, true to our habit, I had to start by throwing down a gauntlet.

"You have lost your touch, pirate." I kicked his stockinged feet off the settee upon which he had sprawled, and seated myself primly where they had previously been.

"Have I?" He made wide innocent eyes at me.

"Have you some other explanation?" I asked.

I had intended it to be an invitation to one of our games of verbal sparring, in which if I paid careful attention, I might tease out a thread of truth amid the tapestry of embellishments, but once again he surprised me.

"There is an explanation," he said reluctantly, not quite meeting my eyes. A long silence stretched out between us, broken by his swart oath. "I really had hoped to delay this conversation. Must you be so perceptive?"

"It is a skill that has served me well ere now, and will likely continue to do so hereafter," I retorted.

He waved a hand as though to dismiss that, and then swung his legs fully off the settee and sat upright. He studied the carpet beneath his feet with great intensity for a few moments, then shook his head like one of the silver lobos coming out of the waters at Phon, and locked his hands together in his lap. "There are no old sky pirates, did you know?" he said, maddeningly vague. "At least none that anyone has ever heard of besides themselves."

A sarcastic remark was on the tip of my tongue, but I bit it back, certain that if I let it slip he would be gone, and I was beginning to be very uneasy about this conversation.

"Now of course most sky pirates in general do something stupid and die young," he continued, and looked across the room to where the treaty blade hung neatly in its case. I thought of Reddas striking deep into the heart of the Sun-Cryst with the sword of kings, and nodded. A few sky pirates died doing something indisputably heroic, but most ran afoul of the wrong empire or lost control of their airships, and met ignominious ends.

Another long silence descended, during which he looked anywhere but at me. The unease I felt was rapidly forming into an icy knot in my stomach, and I was unwilling to hasten its confirmation.

"So what does a sky pirate do, when he gets too old to pirate?" Balthier asked very softly, and I saw as for the first time the silver hair that threaded at his temples, and the lines that time, escapades, and a not-inconsiderable amount of dissolution had carved in his face.

Had someone else been asking this question of me—Vaan, perhaps, or some other pirate with whom I was heretofore unacquainted—I might have said something cutting and sarcastic about finding a job more within the confines of the law, but I knew as well as he that he would take to such a life exactly as well as he had taken to the weight of Judges' armour.

Rather than speak, I touched his shoulder.

"I need to find a mark," Balthier said, and the non sequitur perplexed me.

"A mark?" I repeated, for all the world like one of those daft colourful birds they sell in Archades.

"A grand one," he continued, his voice becoming firmer as he pursued this line of thought. "One I needn't be ashamed to lose to."

There, my mind seemed to stutter to a halt, even as the sense of unease seized my chest and left me unable to draw breath. I stared at him with mouth agape, unable to form even a single coherent thought.

He gazed back, steady and certain.

"You are an idiot," I declared when I had gathered my wits. "You come to me to announce that you choose a particularly messy form of suicide?"

"I came to ask your help, actually." He said it the same blithe way he might have said he was requesting my help in arriving unannounced and uninvited to one of Larsa's state balls, or requesting that I look the other way when he pounced upon a Rozarrian ship in Dalmascan skies.

"My help." Was I truly to be reduced to repeating his words over and over?

He tried for a smile that was the faintest bit wobbly at the corners. "Someone must tell the bards of my death," he said.

Abruptly everything seemed to click into icy focus, like the moment just before releasing a Blizzaga. I made my voice the frozen sword with which I cut through political posturing in the council or fulsome protests in audience. "And how shall I tell our daughters of their father's death? Shall I use the same grandiloquent descriptions that I presume you will commit to paper for me to carry to the bards like a good errand girl?"

He grimaced and looked away. "Ashe—" he began.

"No," I said, rising to my feet with care and grace despite how my limbs wished to move at their best speed. "If you would do this thing, you will tell them yourself. They deserve at least that much from you."

"Ashe, please," he entreated, one hand extended toward me.

I paused. "What does Fran say of this plan?" I asked. I had no need of the actual answer; he would not be here if she had acceded. Still, I was curious to see how he would respond.

"She will have nothing to do with it," he replied candidly. At my raised eyebrow, he tried again for his mischievous grin. "No point in dissembling when we both already knew the answer," he pointed out.

Behind the grin, I could see his weariness, and it reminded me of my eldest brother, plague-wracked and seeing naught ahead of himself but the slow slide downward, proudly demanding his sword from the captain of his personal guard. For a moment their faces blurred together in my vision, and my stomach lurched.

"I cannot speak of this more tonight." I forced the words out. I could feel tears trying to burn behind my eyes, and I would not give him the satisfaction, not now. "Tomorrow evening?"

He relaxed, just a touch, at the implication that I still wished to speak with him, and doubtless at the hope that I would agree to aid him. He rose from the settee and gave me a sweeping bow. "At Your Majesty's command," he said softly.

I turned and walked out of the room, feeling his gaze on my back until the door closed firmly and quietly behind me.

Alone in my bedchamber, I stood frozen in the center of the room until the urge to shatter fragile things had passed. Though I prided myself on the hard-won control of my emotions, I could not face the idea of sleeping in the bed I had shared with him so many times, the bed where I had birthed our daughters and my son. At last I curled up on the sofa near my window, and passed the night restlessly.

~*~

In the morning, I was reminded that a woman of nearly forty was ill-served by her choice to sleep on a sofa whose pillows owed far more to decoration than to comfort, and the soreness in my body put me in a distinctly foul mood. I dressed and set about the work of my day. Lady Vesania's ridiculous party aside, this week was blessedly empty of social engagements, meaning that I could get the real work done without interruption.

I had half-expected Balthier to leave, after my refusal to immediately fall in with his plan. Sometimes I yet saw him as the pirate he projected himself to be, rather than the man he hid carefully behind his façade. Instead, he had apparently chosen to spend the day with the children. I paused in the doorway of the room they had taken over for their exploits and watched them, all bent together over a model of something, and my throat grew tight and sore. I hurried away before any of them could see me.

Three years into my reign, I had grown exasperated with the rigmarole that passed for royal audiences in Dalmasca. It had been exacerbated, no doubt, by the fact that my father's ministers were quite capable of running the kingdom well without him, and by the Archadian tendency to flair (and bribery), but it had meant that I lost an entire day every week to people weeping or shouting or generally making fools of themselves in an effort to curry my favour. Once I was secure enough on my throne, I changed all of that: those wishing an audience must submit a letter, no longer than both sides of a sheet of parchment, explaining their case in brief. (For those who could not or would not write, there were scribes available to take down the details.) I still reviewed each petition myself, but the enforced brevity meant it took only a half-day every fortnight. Naturally, some still required an actual audience, but this made things run more smoothly.

My council and I had taken to turning those half-days into working days, all of us in the council room with piles of parchments and scribbling quietly. I was the first to arrive, and I immediately went to work.

When my councilors arrived, they found me staring in disbelief at the parchment atop the stack, something I had been doing for nearly fifteen minutes ere now. I looked up from the parchment and pinned them all with a look I had learnt from Vossler. "Did any of you know of Lady Vesania's planned petition?" I asked, much too quietly.

Their puzzled expressions and glances among themselves may have been a mummer's farce, but if so, it was well-enough performed to assuage the slightest edge of my irritation. I waved them impatiently to their seats, and handed the parchment over to my Master of the Exchequer.

He read it without expression, and passed it to his left for the Minister of the Interior to read. In silence it made its way around the table, evoking reactions from the entirely neutral to the scornful snort that Lord Draclau, youngest of my council and Rasler's father (which things had naught to do with each other), uttered upon reading it.

When the parchment was back in front of me, I spread my hands to indicate they should speak their opinions.

"She cannot be serious," the Master of the Exchequer said immediately.

"Her justifications are thin at best," said the Minister of the Judiciary with great care, as though he discussed a treaty proposal.

"She has lost what few wits she possessed," Lord Draclau said.

That last provoked me to laughter, irritated though I was. The ability to make me laugh had ever been one of his best qualities.

"She must want something else," the Minister of the Interior said, tapping her fingertips on the table. "Vesania's clever, in her own way, and though arrogant, even she must know this is overreaching. I wonder what she truly seeks."

"Do you want the ultimate goal, or merely a summary of the current step?" Lord Draclau said.

I held up a hand for silence. "Our personal opinions of Lady Vesania aside, I take it we are agreed that her petition for elevation to High Duchess is denied?"

Nods went round the table, varying in speed and vehemence but not in agreement. I nodded. "Master Judicer," I said to my Minister of the Judiciary, "we would appreciate it if you would convey our refusal to Lady Vesania in the proper legal terms."

"As Your Majesty wishes," he said immediately. "And the reason?"

"The rank of High Duke or Duchess is reserved for those who have served Dalmasca loyally and well." I thought of Basch, who had earned the title twenty years gone and would never claim it, immured now in Archades and her secrets. "Lady Vesania has brought us no innovations, no significant military victories, no increase in trade. Thus we do not feel she has met our requirements for elevation in rank."

The Minister of the Judiciary scribbled notes dutifully on the foolscap in front of him. I nodded to the council, and they took up their own work for the day while I resumed reviewing the stack of petitions. Most were simple enough: disputes over land or business contracts that had not been settled to the complainants' satisfaction in our court system. I noticed that several had passed through the same judge, and piled those together to give to the Minister of the Judiciary for review, with my recommendations scribbled in the margins. I was determined not to let Dalmasca's justice become a byword for mockery as it had during some parts of the Archadian occupation.

The beauty of a Queen's duty is that it is never truly done; in truth, many days that was more curse than blessing, but when I did not wish to consider some thorny personal problem, the work of running a kingdom was sufficient distraction. I kept myself too busy to worry over Balthier's declaration until the pages came to gently remind me that I had worked right up until the dinner hour, and would I be dining this evening?

I bade them hold dinner a short while, and hastened back to my chambers to change. Normally I did not bother to dress for dinner, but tonight I thought of the formal attire more like armour. If I was the Queen, I would be less upset, or so I thought.

It was not that I had expected Balthier to stay. I had never expected that, and to do so would have been insulting to both of us. I suppose one is never quite ready for farewells, but that he would choose to end our association—nay, let me be truthful, to end his life—in this manner was nigh-incomprehensible to me.

I was not ready to bid him farewell, though it would have taken much to force me to voice such an admission aloud.

I held my head high and kept my steps slow and even as I approached the dining room. The children were already there, each stationed beside his or her chair. Rasler was brooding about something, and Demenia was sneaking looks at a much-folded sheet of foolscap, frowning and chewing her lip as she considered whatever was written there. Ophelia had, true to form, managed to conceal a small volume of poetry somewhere about her person and keep it hidden from her governess, and had now buried her nose in its pages.

Balthier also waited patiently, and he swept me a gracious bow as I took my seat at the head of the table. Servants pushed in the children's chairs, Demenia and Ophelia quickly stowing away their contraband entertainments with nary a sign of a guilty look. I supposed they had inherited that talent for seeming innocence from Balthier, rather than myself.

It was so normal as to be surreal. Even when it had been only Rasler, to whom he had no claim of blood, Balthier had sat at this table with me and talked of his future, and when Rasler was old enough to join us, Balthier had listened to his small tragedies and triumphs. He was an affectionate, if easily-distracted and often-absent, father to my children. Once again, anger and sorrow fought for control of my emotional state at the thought that he would throw away all of this just to make a further name for himself.

Balthier lavished attention on the girls, coaxing each one to tell Papa of her plans and dreams for the future. In private, we used family names, though in public both girls addressed him formally. I saw Rasler watching them with a faint frown, and touched his hand. "Is something amiss?" I asked him, quietly enough not to be heard over Ophelia's enthusiastic plans to be the best actress in all Ivalice.

"I suspect I should ask you that," he replied. "You and Balthier are at odds."

On most days, I was proud of my son's ability to read people like open books. Today was not such a day. "He has proposed a plan that requires my aid, and of which I do not approve," I said carefully.

Rasler studied me carefully while I chased food around my plate without eating it, his face expressionless. "Shall I speak to him?"

I did not hesitate. "Pray do not. We will settle it between ourselves."

Rasler inclined his head with a grave look, and I knew that nod: it meant that for now, he would accept my explanation, but he had no intention of letting this lie forever. That message having been conveyed, his expression immediately shifted to one of wry amusement. "If there are going to be spectacular battles of wit and word—or even shield and sword—pray advise me," he said, his eyes gleaming. "I would be loathe to miss such an educational opportunity."

I laughed, as he had meant me to, and the conversation turned to his upcoming name-day, and what celebrations he had in mind for it. He proposed a retreat to the lake house in Nabradia—the little cottage that had been built for me and his namesake when we first wed, that we might have a space all our own—and for a moment I wondered if he knew that I intended to give him governorship of Nabradia on his name-day, but the lake house had always been one of his favourite places, fascinated as he was by the water that was so rare in Dalmasca. More than once in his youth I had had to send guards to retrieve him from the water-soaked mess that was Giza in the rainy season.

He abruptly departed our conversation to contest some point of history that Ophelia had made, and I sat back to watch the ensuing small squabble with amusement. From the corner of my eye, I grew aware of Balthier watching me, and I gave him a pointed look as though to say, it is your announcement to make. He grimaced and looked away.

I knew I ought not be indulging in such petty nastiness, not when time was so short, but his arrogance in demanding my aid for his half-brained plan had set my temper alight. I found myself with little patience for niceties.

Demenia and Ophelia were not quite as perceptive as their eldest sibling, but they seemed to suspect something as well. Ophelia's chatter became more insistent, demanding attention be focused on her. Demenia, for her part, fell silent and sulked. I added that to my mental list of grievances.

Conversation grew stilted by the time the meat course was served. Despite several pleading looks that Balthier cast to me when he thought the children wouldn't see, I steadfastly refused to aid him. I could see the children trading worried looks, and though it pained me to do so, I held my tongue. Perhaps their questions would force his hand where mine would not.

It was Rasler who threw down the gauntlet, which surprised me; he was typically more cautious, and I had expected Ophelia to demand an explanation from an adored and adoring father who had rarely denied her anything. My eldest waited until the servants had cleared the table of the meat course and brought out dessert. He even waited until most of them had left the room, and nodded dismissal at the one who waited to fetch wine or water should it be needed.

I saw Balthier analyze those actions, and I knew he was thinking of bolting. Rasler precluded that by folding his hands neatly on the table and aiming a feral smile at Balthier that might not have been out of place in an Archadian negotiation. "So," he said pleasantly, "are you going to tell us why you are sulking and have upset Mother so much, or are we going to turn this into a delightful little family brawl for the servants to gossip about for months?"

I sat there, mouth agape. Rasler was usually so subtle that we must have been worse off than I thought, for him to so nakedly challenge one of us. Before I could summon the words to scold him for disobeying me, Balthier sighed and threw his napkin halfway across the room, a gesture of irritation I had never previously seen from him.

"The Lady Ashe disagrees with a plan I have made," he said, "and she desires that I address it in a particular way." To his credit, he did not try to turn it into a game of blaming me for sharing confidences unwarranted.

Rasler tilted his head, assessing, and then nodded at Balthier's right hand where he gripped his fork hard enough to turn his knuckles white. "Is it anything to do with that, then?" he asked, too softly, and I realized what he had seen that I had not: the faintest of tremors in Balthier's hand.

Balthier scowled, let go of the fork, and pressed his hand flat against the tablecloth, but the damage had already been done.

"Are you sick, Papa?" Ophelia asked, all concern. She was out of her chair in an instant, rounding the table to where he sat and pressing her hand against his forehead as her governess was wont to do to her.

He met my eyes for only a moment, and I knew he intended to take the escape route that Ophelia had unwittingly created. I clenched my teeth until my jaw ached, and felt Rasler's hand over mine. "Mama," he whispered, using the child's address he hadn't used in nearly five years.

"I haven't been all that well, Ophelia," he said to her. "Maybe I need to rest."

Rasler squeezed my hand, and I shook my head at him very faintly. If Balthier wanted me to remember him as a coward, well, that was his choice, as this entire bit of idiotic business was his choice. I did not have to like it, and I would not.

We were, after all, as war and our choices had shaped us. We could not be otherwise.

Rasler squeezed my hand once more and threw even the pretense of subtlety to the wind. "You are a poor liar," he said to Balthier. "I don't have to look at Mother to know you are. You won't even look at Ophelia."

Balthier scowled and half-rose from the table.

"If you want to lie to us, we can't stop you," Rasler said sharply, "but wouldn't you rather have our trust?"

"You said that lies have no place in a family," Demenia observed, looking intently at nothing and particularly ignoring her father's expression. "Or is that just to make life more convenient for you, Papa?"

Balthier sank back into his chair.

In the thundering silence that followed, Ophelia's voice was very small, and wavering with unshed tears. "Don't you love us enough?"

I could not decide whether I was fiercely proud of my children, or heartbroken to see them facing off with their father this way.

Despite my best intentions, I drew a breath to interrupt this family brawl, but Balthier beat me to it. "It's not that, sweetheart," he said, running a hand over Ophelia's ash-brown curls.

Demenia glared at him. "Did you think we wouldn't want you if you were sick?" she said. "You're dumb."

Now that would not be permitted. "Demenia," I said sharply.

"Well, if he thinks that, he is," she muttered.

Whether I agreed with her or not was immaterial. "You will address him with respect, Demenia," I said. "He is your father."

"Then he ought to stay with us," she shot back. "Why don't you make him stay?"

How long had she been hiding this simmering stew of anger? Had I been that volatile at thirteen? Doubtless Basch—and Vossler, truth be told—would have nodded emphatic assent to that question.

Balthier intervened. "Demenia Raminas Dalmasca," he snapped, "you do not address your mother in that tone." He waited until she met his eyes. "Does the Lady Ashe order her court to fit her every whim?" he asked her pointedly. "Does she demand that everyone who serves her adhere to a certain pattern of behaviour?"

Demenia shifted uncomfortably in her seat and glared sullenly at Balthier.

"Demenia," I warned her.

"No," she muttered, almost inaudibly.

Balthier nodded. "If the Queen does not command her court in this way, over whose lives she has legal power, why do you think she would command mine?"

"She could if she wanted to." Demenia might be the spitting image of Balthier—she could have passed for his sister if I let her cut her hair as short as she wished—but she had inherited a full measure of stubbornness from me.

I moved to speak before Rasler could; his abandonment of subtlety had at least pushed the issue out in the open, but this lesson was better not coming from a sibling. "If I wished it, I could order him to stay," I said, "but what then, when he wished to leave? Shall I have him set in chains? Is that what you'd want?"

Demenia stared at the wall. Ophelia shifted her weight from one foot to the other, looking anxiously between them. "Would you stay if I asked you to?" she asked him.

Balthier hugged her. "It isn't a question of wanting, Ophelia," he said. I sat back, interested to see how he would handle this with them. He would get no further help from me.

"We have healers," Ophelia said. "We have the best healers in Ivalice. Vaan Ratsbane said so. I'm sure they could make you feel better."

You dug this hole for yourself, pirate, I thought when Balthier's face froze. Spin your web of lies to your daughter, then.

"I am not sure they could do anything," he said carefully, "but I will certainly see one of them, Ophelia. However, I have something I must do first."

"Penelo says it's better to see to illnesses sooner," Demenia said, "because they get worse the longer you wait."

"Yes, but I made a promise that I must keep before I can attend to personal concerns," Balthier told her. "I promised to hunt a particular Mark."

"Wouldn't you be better fit to hunt it if you attended to your—illness first?" Rasler asked, a little too politely. The faint pause before he said the word "illness" interested me; I wondered how much he had guessed.

"The Mark in question is a rare one, that appears only for a short period of time," Balthier said, just a touch too quickly. He had already chosen his opponent, then—probably before he even came to Dalmasca. "If I do not hunt it now, I will not have the opportunity."

"You need to be very careful," Ophelia said gravely. "Marks are dangerous. Mama keeps saying so."

"I've hunted hundreds of Marks," Balthier assured her. "I know what I am doing."

I had to admit he had chosen his words cleverly. I would have preferred he turn that cleverness elsewhere.

Rasler was frowning, clearly wrestling with something. He kept glancing at Balthier, and twice opened his mouth as though to speak before closing it again. I rose from my seat and held my hands out to my daughters. "Demenia, Ophelia, it is late and if I am not mistaken, you were both up very early today to travel to Giza, were you not?"

Ophelia looked wistfully at Balthier, clearly hoping for a reprieve from him, but he smiled and kissed the top of her head before making a gentle shooing motion with his hands. Demenia tossed her head and looked like she might be considering one of her fits of stubbornness, but after a second look at both of us she apparently thought better of it. She rolled her eyes and gave a long-suffering sigh before marching to the door.

"Why are we too young for whatever conversation you're going to have, but Rasler isn't?" she asked with her hand on the doorknob.

"Demenia," Balthier and I said in unison. She sighed again and nearly slammed the door in Ophelia's face on her way out. I followed them out into the hall to chide Demenia and ensure that they were properly in the care of their governesses, then went back to the dining room.

Balthier and Rasler had adjourned to the balcony outside, where the desert night was cooler than the magicite-lit dining room. They had left the balcony doors open, and as I drew nearer I noticed the silence that lay between them, as sharp and angry as many that had passed between Vossler and myself in the days of the resistance. I paused, hidden by the doors, unwilling to intrude.

Finally I heard Rasler's voice, sharp with frustration and worry. "This illness," he said, and then stopped. Through the gap in the doors I could see him bent forward, hands braced on the balcony rail.

Balthier said nothing. Rasler bent his head, then jerked himself upright and spun around to face Balthier. "Will I get it? What you have? Or the girls?"

I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle the sound that wanted to escape. I had never thought that this question would come up; Rasler wasn't Balthier's son, but that had never been spelled out for him, and Rasler looked enough like me that he had never asked me who his father was.

I should never have let the assumption stand.

Balthier said nothing, staring past Rasler into the night, and I clenched my hands into fists. With the girls, I was reluctantly willing to let him lie—not because they were girls, but because they were younger. But Rasler was already an adult, in bearing and mind if not in years, and he deserved the truth.

"Tell me, damn it!" Rasler snarled.

Balthier straightened his shoulders, just a little, and met Rasler's eyes. "It's not inherited," he said quietly, "so no, the girls won't get it from me." He hesitated. "This should have been for Ashe to tell you, but since she is not here…Rasler, I think of you as my own, and I've tried to treat you as such, but I am not your father in blood."

Rasler absorbed this slowly, studying Balthier's face as though comparing it to the one he saw in the glass, and finally nodded. "Then, what is it?"

I saw the lie forming on the tip of Balthier's tongue, and the change in his eyes when he realized Rasler saw it too. He gave a short, bitter laugh and held out his hand, the faint tremor in it visible even in the dim light thrown from the doorway. "Age, Rasler. Nothing but age. I'm a damn good sky pirate—too good, really. Most never get old enough to wonder what to do when they can't pirate anymore. Just my luck, I did."

I shifted so I could see Rasler's face, the stunned disbelief rapidly replaced by fury. He took a step forward, and drove his fist straight into Balthier's face.

Balthier must have seen it coming—no sky pirate lives long if he can't recognize an impending attack—but he stood his ground and let Rasler hit him. It was no light tap, either, such as Balthier had used when teaching Vaan and Penelo to fight with their hands; no, this was a full strike, and the angry red mark on his jaw was proof of Rasler's strength. He gave an inarticulate exclamation of pain, and put a hand to it.

Rasler stood there, his fists clenched, looking as though he could not decide whether to strike again or simply storm away and thus show his contempt.

"I deserved that," Balthier said quietly.

"You deserve both more and less than that," Rasler snapped. "Have you given any thought to what this is going to do to Mama?" His voice cracked on the last word, and he spun away from Balthier. I saw him brush furiously at his eyes.

"More than I like to admit," Balthier replied. "She is…very angry."

"I'm surprised she didn't kill you herself," Rasler said. "So she knows that this Mark is just a particularly spectacular way of not having to face old age?" He spun back, and fury had surged forward to replace the tears that had threatened. "Why tell me the truth, and not Demenia and Ovelia? Is it because I'm not your son?"

"Don't be daft," Balthier said with disgust. "No, I told you the truth because you are old enough to know—and because someone has to take care of Ashe when I'm—someone has to take care of her afterwards," he said, stumbling over the words.

Rasler folded his arms, and glared at Balthier with all the inflexible virtue of the young. "You could take care of her," he pointed out. "You don't have to—to settle down here, or anything like that, but you don't have to die."

Balthier moved his shoulders in a way that meant he was trying to dodge the question. "It's not that simple. No, Rasler, it's not. I am ill-suited to life on the ground. I proved that conclusively when I was younger."

Rasler made a sound of disgust. "Have it your own way, then. It is not as though I can stop you."

"I don't expect you to understand, yet." Balthier turned to stare out over the palace gardens. "Just—take care of your mother, will you?"

"Of course," Rasler said, contemptuous of even the idea that he might fail to do so.

I was so proud of him, and he was breaking my heart with his charade of nonchalance.

"When will you go?" Rasler asked a few moments later, poised on the threshold.

"Probably in a week's time. It depends upon how long it takes me to gather supplies—and it is not as though I am eager to go charging off and leave you all," he added with some annoyance.

Rasler glared back over his shoulder. "It certainly sounds as though you are." He stalked through the doors, apparently not even noticing me in the shadows, and though he did not slam the door as Demenia had done, his exit was not quiet.

Balthier waited a beautifully timed ten seconds before saying, "You can come out here now. I don't imagine he'll return anytime soon."

"I was hardly hiding," I said, though I did remove myself from the shadows and went out onto the balcony.

"No, you have never been one for hiding," Balthier agreed. "Headfirst into a problem has ever been your style."

"It is a good deal simpler than dancing around an issue." This, at least, was familiar ground—conversations that were about something else entirely than the words being said. I tipped my head back to study the swelling on his jaw. "You'll want Cure for that."

"No, leave it," he said, catching my hand when I would have woven the spell. "As he said, it's rather less than I deserve."

"I had not guessed such stoicism," I said, unable to keep the barb back.

"Less stoicism and more acknowledgment of debts owed." He tilted his head down until his forehead rested against mine. "This hurts them."

I had several responses to that, many of which were cruel. "Yes," I said at last. "I cannot imagine how you might think otherwise. You are only their father."

He winced. "You say that as if I were unaware."

"You behave as though you are. Yes, it hurts them, and it hurts me, and you do not care, do you?" I did not expect him to answer, but I was so angry, and I needed some outlet.

"I had made a point of having no connections save Fran," he murmured after a long pause, "and then I found a sewer rat in a palace treasury and a deposed princess in a sewer, and now here I am."

I knew better than to ask questions to which I did not want to know the answers, but I asked anyway. "Do you wish you had not?"

"And miss my chance at being a shining thread wrought bright in history's weave? Perish the thought, Princess." He sobered then. "I would not wish away Demenia and Ophelia for the world. Nor Rasler, for all that he is not mine by blood." He laced his fingers into my hair. "Nor you, though you are a beast of the seventh hell when your ire is roused."

"Then perhaps you might have taken more care not to rouse it." Nonetheless, I lifted my arms around his neck and linked my fingers together behind his head. "They will miss you terribly." As will I.

"Are you angry with me for telling him?"

"That you are not his father?" I shook my head slightly. "I would have told him, had he asked. I am unsure if it is better or worse this way—but I appreciate that you did not lie to him."

He laughed, short and bitter. "Lies have no place in a family," he said mockingly.

We stood in silence until the chill of the night seeped into my skin, and I shivered.

"My lady is chilled," he observed with whimsical gallantry. "Will she permit a troublesome sky pirate to see to her comfort?"

"You may," I said. I was yet angry—he could not fail to know that I was—but I did not want him to leave with this rift between us.

He swept me into his arms and carried me through the halls of the palace, with my guards trailing behind stoically pretending to see nothing amiss.

~*~

I took a deep breath of the dusty, hot air and closed my eyes for a moment against the pounding glare of sun off the Westersand. Balthier and I were riding out ahead of the guard contingent I had brought for form's sake (and to keep them from having to sneak after us, which would have been thoroughly undignified.) We had been traversing the Westersand for some three days now; Balthier steadfastly refused to tell me where this Mark of his might be found, or what to expect when we found it. He said he had taken care of all the necessary preparations.

It was oddly freeing to be out in the Westersand alone, or nearly so, a pleasure that I had not had in years. Though the guards were present, they took great care to stay at a distance that allowed us every illusion of privacy, and I was grateful. Balthier had been a talkative and amusing traveling companion, for all the world as though we but sought a private place to have a picnic. He had been guiding our route very carefully, stopping on occasion to bury pieces of magicite at the foot of various cacti. I had questioned him about it, but he steadfastly refused to give me a serious answer, choosing instead to natter on about the interaction of ice magicite with Earth, or some such thing.

In the evenings, when we stopped to make camp, he would spend the last of the daylight re-reading and re-writing letters for the children. I had been absolutely inflexible on that point, and at last he had yielded and set pen to paper. He had written Demenia and Ophelia five letters each, one for each name-day between thirteen and eighteen, and also written each a letter for her wedding day, and another for me to give them when I returned home with his body. Rasler's letters were giving him more trouble; he burned more efforts than he kept by a significant ratio. I pretended not to see him scrub at his eyes, and pretended not to hear the occasional sniff. Yet the pile of letters for my eldest grew slowly, and he was now working on the last letter, as nearly as I could tell.

We had camped atop a rocky ridge, safely out of reach of cactuars and wolves, with bundles of herbs burning on the fire to keep away the predatory avians. Balthier doodled in the margins of his latest effort, and I had just returned from the guards' camp with dishes of stew. That was certainly a benefit that traveling as the Queen offered that traveling as a deposed princess had not: my guards had brought a cook who was far superior to any of our group had been.

"Do you remember the aurora from atop Paramina?" Balthier asked me suddenly as I set down his plate.

"It was beautiful," I said, and it had been. High in the mountains of the Rift, with the air so thin it hurt to breathe, the sky had turned a vehement rainbow of colours, with bands of light streaming like banners in the wind. That whole first night in the Rift I had not slept at all, fascinated by the brilliance overhead. Balthier had sat up with me, oddly silent, with his hand resting lightly over mine.

"Kiltias holds that the aurora is sacred," he said absently. "I went back, last winter. But it was lonely."

"I could have gone with you," I said softly. There were so many places I might have gone, invitations I might have accepted, had I but known he planned something like this.

Then again, we all have such lists, do we not? Strange that the ideas had not occurred to me until I realized I would never have the chance again.

He tipped his head back to gaze up at the sky, and I wondered if he saw something amid the slowly brightening stars that I did not. Tentatively I set my hand atop his, and he closed his fingers tightly around mine.

"Belias's Sword," he said, nodding at the brightest of the constellations. "I heard a story, once, that the treaty-blade was forged from those stars, and that is why it can cut nethicite."

I traced the lines of the constellation with my eyes. It was not until we had roamed all Ivalice, searching for lost Espers sealed away in crystal, that I had made the connection between the constellations I had known all my life and the great gods who had stood against Kiltias and fallen for their folly.

"We were both destined for more than wandering the world," Balthier said. "Though I would have taken you with me."

"And I would have made a place for you, that did not tie you down." I laced my fingers tightly with his.

"I'm sorry, Ashe."

I thought it might have been the first time he had apologized so honestly, and so straightforwardly. I squeezed his hand. "For this, or for not staying before?"

"Either." He shrugged, clearly uncomfortable.

"As to the latter, we could not have chosen otherwise, being who we are." As true as it was, though, that was a hard thing to accept. "As to the former, I expect I shall eventually forgive you. After all, I've forgiven many other things over the years."

He smiled. "That you have." He fell silent. "There are things in Ivalice I would have shown you, if I could. Caverns beneath the Ridorana that refract light just so..." He sighed. "Whatever there is after this, I shall miss you, you know."

I shifted closer to him, close enough to feel his warmth against my skin. "And I you."

He reached for his dinner, and his shoulder cracked audibly. He grimaced. "I think I shall enjoy being free of a body that no longer does as it's bidden, though," he grumbled.

"Ah, but that same body took you through many nights of carousing," I pointed out, taking a bite of my own food.

"I suppose there are benefits," he said. His fingertips brushed my cheek. "We could experience them," he suggested with a dramatically overdone leer.

"If you intend to make good on that threat, you will need fuel, pirate." I drank from the flask of wine and offered it to him. He laughed, really laughed, and drank from it himself.

Later, when we lay tangled in a blanket beside the fire, I poked him in the ribs to get his undivided attention. "Tell me of this Mark you are taking me to hunt," I said in a tone that brooked no disagreement. "I will not step onto the field of battle unprepared."

He caught my hand in his and kissed my fingertips. "It is a very rare creature, a dragon," he said. "It is made of wind and ice, which gives it the appearance of being made of mist. Or perhaps Mist. In any case, it appears once every three hundred and thirty-three years, and if not slain, it will rampage all around Ivalice, starting with Dalmasca. Of course, killing it does not destroy it forever—it but returns to the Mist to be reborn another day—but it is a grand thing."

"What is its weakness?" I asked. I vaguely recalled reading of such a thing in the Dalmascan records from about that span of time ago—my many-times-great grandmother had sent out the captain of her knights to slay a white dragon in the Westersand—but the notes on his victory had not included such details as how best to face off with such a beast. In fact, all I could remember about the story was that it had involved a white dragon.

"It is not terribly fond of lightning, nor of steel." Balthier traced his fingertips up and down my arm in slow circles. "Ashe, promise me something?"

"Not without knowing the terms," I said promptly. I had learnt that lesson the first time we placed a bet with each other, and I lost.

"Promise you won't...try to revive me," he said, looking anywhere but at me.

Once again I thought of my eldest brother, falling on his own sword. "If this is your choice, then I will not," I said, "but should you change your mind, you have only to say."

"What changed your mind?" he asked. "I would have thought you'd throw me out to rely on Vaan—I am grateful you did not, of course, but why?"

I fiddled with the edge of the blanket for a long moment before replying. "Because you will never be happy anywhere save in the sky. I could make you an airship captain in my merchant fleet, or you could go back to Archades and design airships—but you would not truly enjoy it." I leaned up on one elbow to look at him. "This does not mean I approve of it, but you aided me once when my need was great."

His mouth twisted in a wry grimace. "If duty is the best I am to have, so be it."

I poked him in the chest hard enough to make him wince. "You might have had a good bit more than duty, pirate, save that you chose not to take it. You may take it or leave it, as you will, but did you truly expect me to dance jubilantly at news of your imminent demise?"

"There are times I thought you might have," he said, obviously trying to lighten the mood. He sighed and shook his head. "No, I know," he said before I could speak. "But...this is hardly any easier on me, Ashe."

I choked down the sympathy that wanted to claw its way free. "Nor should it be."

Instead of answering, he tugged me back down against him. We lay there in silence for the rest of the night, sleeping only in snatches, and staring up at the constellations as they wheeled overhead.

~*~

It took six more days, and an immensely complicated route weaving back and forth across the Westersand, before Balthier declared the hunt ready to commence. He had purposely avoided all the teleport crystals, saying that they would interfere with the hunt. We left my guards at the base of a towering plateau that rose, wind-sculpted and sand-smoothed, over the western edge of the Westersand. They would come and aid us if they were needed, but I had made it abundantly clear that this was our hunt. The guards did not like it, but I was the Queen.

We scrambled up the side of the cliff, weapons in hand, which made the climb entirely more difficult. Still, neither of us wanted to risk arriving face-to-face with a dragon unarmed, and so the more difficult and dangerous option applied. Yet when we reached the top of the plateau, there was no dragon in sight. Balthier stood perched on the edge, barely a handspan from teetering and tumbling into nothingness, and frowned. I watched him flick his fingers in some private counting ritual, and guessed he was reviewing his work with the magicite, ensuring that he had committed no errors.

It was a blazingly hot summer morning, the kind that promised more and worse to come, but a cooling breeze swirled around us. I was grateful for it, until I realized that the sun was dimming to a hazy glow and the cool breeze was actually an icy mist, wrapping around us like muffling wool, thick as a blizzard in Paramina.

I began to call out a warning to Balthier, and found myself wrapped in a very tight embrace. He kissed me fiercely and said, "Remember your promise." I could not find the words to speak.

He let me go so swiftly I staggered before regaining my balance, and readied his weapon, reaching for the pouch of Thunder-infused bullets at his belt. I readied the broadsword I had purchased; it had no elemental attributes, but had boasted a sharper edge than any of the elemental swords that had been on offer at the Bazaar.

The breeze chilled and sharpened, icy against my skin with an edge like a northern winter. The cliff beneath my feet vibrated, and I widened my stance in order to keep my balance. My skin prickled from the cold and the sense of immense power.

The mist thickened and coalesced into a blurry outline of a dragon, gleaming like the pearls harvested off the Phon Coast. The dragon threw back its head and roared. Oddly, its roar sounded as though it might have contained words, but they were not in any of the six languages I spoke. It paused and cocked its head at us, as though it awaited a reply.

I reached within myself for spells I had not had much cause to use this decade past, and felt the warm strength of Protectga settle around us. Balthier noticed my spell and a moment later the cool silky weight of Shellga wove itself into the gaps of our armour. I let him back up and start shooting while I grabbed time in my hands and stretched it out, letting us act faster than we should have been able to.

Balthier loaded his gun and set it firmly on his shoulder, making a playful beckoning gesture at the dragon. I had only a moment to take a deep, centering breath before the fight truly began.

As soon as I made my first strike, mist cascaded out of the slight wound on its forelimb, wrapping around us and confusing my vision. It wasn't quite like being hit with Blind, but I found that I needed the sharp crack of Balthier's gun to know on which side he—and thus the cliff—might be found. I was close enough to the dragon to feel the more intense cold where it was, and I struck with my sword while calling on magicks long unused to rain bolts of Thundaga down upon it. It was no easy Mark, and both of us were kept busy with potions and Curaga.

"We should have brought a third," I shouted at Balthier.

"I admit I could use the Captain's aid right about now!" He gulped down another potion as he threw himself to the side to avoid the slashing claws that descended at terrifying speed.

I launched another Thundaga spell, then cried out when ice-edged claws struck my shoulder and raked downward. I knew even as I fell that the wound was a devastating one.

I suppose in truth the piercing agony lasted only a moment, but it felt like years before I choked on the cool liquid of the Elixir that Balthier poured down my throat. Thanks to the mysteries of alchemy, I felt only the faintest twinge in my side as I scrambled back to my feet and lunged forward, my sword driving deep enough into the dragon that I felt the jarring impact all the way to my shoulder.

"Ashe! Pull back!" Balthier shouted, and then gave me no choice in the matter by wrapping an arm around my waist and forcefully hauling me backward. The dragon was dissolving into thick mist, no longer a physical thing.

"You can't hit it when it's mist," he explained, grimacing, as he gulped down a handful of potions all at once. I threw a Cura over both of us to smooth out the remaining edges, and felt the soothing power of the magicks ease the pain of muscles worked too hard after too long in idleness.

"How much more?" I asked, and he shook his head, busy reloading his gun.

"I don't know. Not much, I hope. This is a bastard of a fight for two."

The mist rushed past us in a howling wind like Paramina's blizzards, and the dragon re-formed. Although I had not fought in danger of my life since taking my throne, I had kept in practice with the sword, and my body knew the right movements to make, leaving my mind more time to calculate strategy, now that I had a sense for the beast's pattern of attacks.

Its wounds gushed mist instead of blood, and I noticed that the more mist it lost, the harder it was to see—not just because the mist kept intensifying, but because the dragon itself became less visible and substantial, as though the mist were its body. That made it progressively harder to hit, but unfortunately did not lessen the impact of its own strikes. Still, I could tell we were making progress—it was barely a shimmering outline, rather than a solid thing.

And then it happened.

I felt the magic forming, all the mist racing back into the dragon's body as it prepared one final attack. I heard Balthier's wordless shout of horror, and then he shoved me back until I teetered near the edge of the cliff. In my shock, I let go of my sword, and that was when time seemed to grind almost to a halt, as though someone had doubled the effect of Hastega.

Balthier grabbed my sword and charged forward, and for the first time, I understood the words in the dragon's roar.

"Do you know what it is you do?" the dragon asked him, as everything froze to a painfully slow crawl.

"Freely given," Balthier answered, the words echoing with ritual and power.

"Freely taken," the dragon said, and reared up, spreading its wings and leaving its chest unguarded.

Balthier took the broadsword in both hands and drove it forward, straight into the dragon's heart. The dragon howled and brought both its forelimbs in toward Balthier with crushing force. There was a soundless flash of pure white light and a shout both despairing and triumphant, and then I was back to myself, barely balanced on the edge of a cliff. The mist had cleared as though it had never been, and in its place was the dragon's body, frozen now in stone with a sheen like a pearl, and Balthier's body bent at a horrifying angle between its upraised front claws.

Some madness overtook me, and despite having given my word, I found myself reaching for Phoenix Down even as the ancient syllables of Raise spilled from my lips. Feathers and white light fell in drifts around him, to no effect.

Dimly behind me I heard the shouts of the guards as they tried to pick their way up the side of the cliff to the plateau where we had fought. I knelt in the sand next to Balthier—snow-covered now, though the snow was fast melting away in the heat of Dalmascan summer—and checked for a pulse, though I knew there would be none.

"Your Majesty!" Brilliant blue light flared as a Cura wrapped gently around me, healing the wounds I had sustained toward the end of the fight. Some of the guards surrounded me, asking inane questions. I ignored them and stared at what had been Balthier, devoid now of his personality and the spark that had ever driven him forward. In life he had rarely been still, even in sleep, but now his limbs hung slack and lifeless. Even his face was blank and still.

I heard someone shout for order, and then Atheris, the captain of my personal guard, knelt in front of me. "Your Majesty," he said, and I heard the tone in his voice, the same awful note of sympathy that Basch had used when he lay Rasler's body at my feet. "Your Majesty, please, come with me. We will arrange for—for Lord Balthier to be brought back with us."

Balthier would have hated that, I thought as Atheris helped me to my feet. He had disdained any kind of noble title, in part to leave Archades behind but also because it amused him when my courtiers were unsure of the specific variance in rank between themselves and him.

Atheris escorted me back down the cliff face with the greatest of care and settled me beneath a large white tent in the guards' camp. He sent two of the guards off to fetch our things from the small campsite Balthier and I had shared, and I sat silently where I had been led, staring at nothing.

I had given Rasler, with whom I had spent only a few months as his wife, a better-send off than this. I had given him a farewell. To Balthier—a man who had shared my bed for some twenty years, off and on, the man to whom I'd borne two daughters—I had given angry words and cold silences, and the bitter verbal sparring that so often characterized our conversations.

I had thought—I do not know what I had thought. Perhaps I had thought he might be gravely wounded and change his mind in time for curative magicks to have an effect. Perhaps I had not imagined, had not dared to imagine, that he would truly lose, intentionally or not. Balthier hated to lose.

I pulled one of his shirts out of his pack. It smelled of him, of him and sweat and the sandalwood soap he used. The scent was a piece of Archades he had never wanted to leave behind, much like the sandalwood chops he had carried for years. I twisted the shirt around my hands, breathing in his smell, and swore to myself that I would not weep where any could see me.

~*~

The guards, ever careful of my welfare, had taken the shortest way back to the palace, with one of them maintaining the Blizzard spells that would preserve Balthier's body until I could have a state funeral prepared. Atheris had simply nodded assent when I told him that Dalmasca would honour Balthier's sacrifice in that way. Then he had given me a canteen of water, and gently suggested that I should lie down during the heat of the day, and we would travel at night.

When we reached the palace I nearly balked. I did not want to tell the children. I had found the letters, bound neatly together with string in Balthier's pack, one for each child and the date it should be given written on the outside of each letter. There had also been a letter for me, a very heavy one, which I had not yet dared open. If I did, I would begin to weep, and I could not fall apart now.

I declined to freshen up before going to break the news; this was going to be all over Rabanastre before I could blink, and better they hear it from me than from a gossiping servant. I found them all clustered in the sitting room that connected their bedrooms. Rasler was playing Raithwall's Gambit against himself, and Demenia was buried in a pile of engineering texts. I recognized the titles of some, but others must have been new additions to her library. I wondered if Balthier had brought them. Ophelia was storming back and forth in front of the fireplace, vehemently reciting the soliloquy from The Queen's Nightmares. They all turned to me when I entered, and it was Rasler who understood first.

He got up from his chair, grave solemnity in every line of his face, and escorted me to a sofa as though he accompanied me to a formal party. As soon as I sat down, Demenia came and perched on the arm of the sofa, and Ophelia knelt at my feet, while Rasler himself sat beside me.

They were all looking at me expectantly. I had no words for them. It was a simple enough statement, but I could not bend my tongue around the words.

Ophelia cuddled close, her forehead furrowed with a frown. Demenia looked as though she couldn't decide whether to throw down a gauntlet or cling. Rasler just rested his hand on my shoulder. "Mother," he said, and it was the pain in his voice that goaded me.

"Balthier is—" I had to stop, and take a deep breath. "He won't be coming back to Rabanastre. He—he died fighting the dragon."

I had kept from saying the words out loud, or even to myself. They were too real. They fell heavily, stones dropped into a previously clear pond. I felt the little shudder that rippled through Ophelia before she pressed her face against my knee and began to cry, short gasping sobs that tore at my heart. Demenia curled up, balanced precariously on the sofa, and pressed her face into her knees, her shoulder shaking. Rasler made no sound, but I could see out of the corner of my eye the tears that he let run freely. He put his arm around me and hugged me tightly. He hadn't done that in quite some time, not since he had assumed the dignity of adulthood, and my own control shattered.

I do not know how long we stayed thus, the four of us crushed together on a sofa not quite large enough, but it was long enough for my eyes to be gritty and my head to be pounding when at last the tears eased enough that I could breathe without sobbing. The girls took a bit longer to stop, but I suppose I had had more time to grow accustomed to the idea, much though I had avoided it. Rasler squeezed my shoulder before he rose from the sofa. "It's late," he said, and I was grateful for his little attempt at normalcy. He had grown up so fast, this son of mine; scarcely had I blinked and he had gone from a gawky long-limbed lad of thirteen to this young man I saw before me.

I nudged the girls very gently to their feet, and kissed them both. "In the morning, I have something for you," I told them all. "But for tonight, we all need rest."

I tucked Ophelia and Demenia into bed myself, not trusting them to their governesses tonight. When I emerged from Demenia's room, Rasler was waiting for me.

"Mama," he said. "Are you—will you be all right?"

I nodded, not able to bring myself to speak the words. I had survived the death of one man I had loved; though it was not the sort of thing to which one grew accustomed, there were tricks that could be learnt to circumvent grief when it threatened to overmaster one's control.

Not content with my wordless assurance, Rasler walked with me to the door of my chambers before relenting and permitting my guards and maids to take over my care. I bathed, only because the maids insisted it would make me feel better, and then I curled up in the middle of my wide, empty bed and wept again. I would have thought I had no tears left, yet they seemed nearly endless. I loathed myself for being so enslaved to my own emotions, but this was something beyond my control.

I should not have helped him.

I could not bear the thought that he might have died alone.

Sometime past midnight, I calmed enough to sleep. There would be much to do on the morrow to plan his state funeral.

~*~

In the end, I did not make so grand a gesture as I might have, at least not in terms of pageantry. My court bard had worked day and night to have a minimalist account of Balthier's heroic last battle to save Dalmasca from the Mist Dragon prepared for the ceremony, and when he was done with his recitation, I daresay there was not a dry eye in the room. I posthumously elevated Balthier to the rank of High Duke—a decision he would have railed against, but he was not there to gainsay me, and much like Basch, he had earned it twenty years ago.

He was buried in state, as a consort might have been, in a formal tomb in Dalmasca's royal cemetery. I did not go so far as to have his legal name marked on the tomb, electing instead to let him be known to history as he had chosen to be known to Ivalice: not as Ffamran Bunansa but as the sky pirate Balthier.

At the end of the funeral, my subjects lined up to express their condolences. Most were sincere; the heads of the merchant guilds did a poor job of concealing their relief that he would plague their shipments no more. Grimly I wished that Fran would teach them a lesson or two, just to keep them from getting complacent. She had not attended, nor had I expected her to. She would remember him in her own way. Larsa and Basch had sent notes of condolence, which I had found last night on my bedside table, accompanied by a small gift that only Vaan could have chosen, and a more suitable tribute from Penelo.

Lady Vesania had deliberately taken the last place in line, something that surprised me as she was ever one to jostle for the front. Also to my surprise, she had attended in the simplest of dresses and with her face bare of cosmetics. Without the expensive paint reshaping her face, she looked her age of three score and five. When she reached me, she spoke the ritual words of sympathy and sorrow, but after the niceties were done, she tarried a moment longer, her hands still clasping mine.

"I do not pretend to be your intimate, Your Majesty," she said softly, "but I have buried two husbands and a lover. It does not get easier with repetition. I am sorry."

I opened my mouth to respond, but she continued. "He deserved to be made a High Duke," she said absently, gazing at the coffin draped in the banner of House Dalmasca. "Your Majesty was correct to say that I overreached. For that, too, I apologize." She made me a deep and respectful curtsy—perhaps the first time I had ever seen her give that obeisance and the appearance of meaning it—and withdrew into the crowd.

I endured the remainder of the ceremony, the well-wishes and the gifts, and stood silently by while the workers sealed his body within the tomb. I held my daughters' hands while the priest intoned the last blessing over this final resting place.

This was my selfish choice: entombing him as what he had been in fact if not in law, my consort. The court recognized it for what it was, and most of them feared to comment.

Lord Draclau approached me as the attendants dispersed, and bowed as though it were my coronation or wedding. "Your Majesty," he said, "I have already expressed my condolences, but as someone you have betimes considered a friend, please permit me to aid you if there is any way I can."

"Thank you," I said, and meant it; there were reasons I had chosen him so many years ago. Beside me, I sensed Rasler's sudden interest, and the moment he realized that there were certain aspects of Lord Draclau's appearance that mirrored those of his own. I hoped he would not be angry with me.

Lord Draclau bowed again to me, and then to the children, before departing with the rest.

There was work to be done, as there always was, but I could not quite bring myself to do it. I simply stood, staring at the monument of carven stone.

"Mother," Rasler said softly, putting a hand on my shoulder. "You should rest."

I wanted to hold vigil here, as I had done for my husband. I shook my head.

Rasler tightened his grip. "Mother," he said again, more sharply. "Come with us, please."

Temper surged to the forefront, halted when I saw that he was not nearly as calm as he appeared; his face was drawn and pale, and there were marks of tears around his eyes. I bit down on the angry tirade that wanted to escape, and led the way back home.

It was childish and foolish, but I refused to do any work today. Instead I retreated to my rooms, and the letter Balthier had written to me. I had not dared read it yet, not when I suspected it was going to make me fall apart, and that was a luxury I could ill afford.

The bundle was heavy, and when I untied the string that bound it, a key slid out of the folded parchment. I picked it up and examined it; it seemed the sort that might fit a door, rather than a chest or gate. Curious, I turned it over in my hands, but it bore no identifying markings.

There was no further delay to be had. I took a deep breath, and unfolded the letter.

At the top, my face was sketched into a corner of the parchment. Not some overly flattering image that sought to make me look as young as I'd been when I ascended the throne, but instead a more realistic picture with all the lines that time, laughter, and tears had carved. I appreciated the honesty.

Princess,

I've no doubt you're angry at me. I don't blame you for that. I've a bit of business to attend to first, and then we can get on to what I did.

I left documents with Larsa transferring ownership of the Bunansa house to Demenia and Ophelia in joint. He has promised to keep our secret, not that he didn't already know, being a reasonably intelligent Archadian pest. If you choose to acknowledge me as their father publicly, he'll pass the documents on to the girls. Just do me a favour and do not let Demenia anywhere near Draklor until she's grown, will you? I already made Larsa promise the same, but I trust you more. He is, after all, a Solidor.

The other bit of business is to do with Rasler. Fran will be by sometime before his name-day with his gift. It's an airship. Don't argue. I would have given it to him anyway.

I expect by now you have already determined what truly happened with the Mist Dragon. If you are actually reading this letter and haven't burnt it in a fury, I am grateful. I knew going into that fight that one of those who fought it would have to sacrifice their life to keep it sealed again. I wasn't going to let it be you. And, too, there was the matter of my choices. I know they were selfish, and you've every right to be angry. But I couldn't have chosen otherwise.

I hope, at least, that the process of getting to the Mist Dragon gave you back some good memories to go with the bad ones. Truly, before I made this decision, I thought very hard about whether I could be content in Dalmasca, if not happy. I probably could have. But you deserve better than a bitter old sky pirate who no longer has his wings.

Besides, I'd never have the patience to deal with your court, and you'd be quite put out with me if I set cactuars loose in the council room or some similar prank.

Do you know, I never really intended to help you, all those years ago. You were a complication I assuredly did not need. Deposed princesses make for grand stories, but as we all learned, the process of returning one to her throne is a wretched pain in the arse with far too much danger and far too little pageantry. But there you were, and even though I meant to say no, I said yes instead.

I suppose it turned out well enough, don't you think?

I don't really know what else to say to you. What I've said already was hard enough. I hope one day you forgive me.

Odd how these things go full circle; do you remember the payment I demanded of you when this all began? And in the end I will leave you, as he did, only I won't do it for heroics and glory, I'll do it for myself.

I really do love you, you know.

Love,
Balthier

p.s. If you dare bury me under my birth name, my ghost will haunt you. This I vow to you. I know I won't stop you from making some grand gesture—it will soothe your heart, and I've no right to deny you that—but please, Ashe, I'm begging you, anything but that. It's a ridiculous name.

I had to laugh at that, despite my tears. How very like him, to read me so well.

I read the letter over a dozen times or more, hardly noticing when the maids came in to light the lamps for evening or to bring me a tray for supper. I traced his words with my fingertips, seeing where the writing grew shaky as he apparently fought with his own sentiments, and a few places where drops of water had marked the edges of the parchment.

When dawn arrived I was gritty-eyed and weary, but possessed of some measure of peace. Whether it was due to sheer exhaustion, or acceptance, I could not have said. I locked his letter away in a small box I kept for personal trinkets, and walked to my balcony to watch the sun rise.

I tasted the desert wind, and hoped that he had found his wings once more.