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rose_in_winterCharacters: Ensemble, Ashe/Balthier
Rating: PG-13
Contains: Epic spoilers.
Wordcount: 8446
Notes: Written for thesunalsorises as part of the 2011 round offf_exchange.
Beta:seventhe
Summary: AU: In which Ashe chooses differently atop Pharos, and the party reacts.
Ashe spun to her left, lightning already a crackling mass around her left hand, but found no target for her spell. Gabranth and Reddas lay dead by each other's hand, and even now Dr. Cid fell beneath the edge of Basch's finely honed blade, while Balthier's gun finished the water Esper. For a long moment in the aftermath, there was no sound save the susurrus of the Esper demanding a new master.
Ashe breathed deeply of the Mist that ran so thickly here, and breathed it out again in a burst of blue-white light that soothed physical wounds. When the cure-dazzle faded from her sight, she saw again the three bodies strewn across the floor, and Basch kneeling by his traitorous twin's side. Balthier stood with his arms folded and his back to the entire tableau; it fell to Fran to close Reddas's sightless eyes, and Penelo Dr. Cid's.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Vaan lay a hand on the blue Mist-crystal of the Esper, and invite the beast into his care. The ringing sound, as of fingertips run round the edge of a moistened glass, faded into nothingness.
Ashe turned to face the Sun-Cryst. It pulsed with living Mist like a heartbeat. Beyond it, in the denseness of its Mist, she saw Rasler beckoning her onward. She stepped forward, and placed a hand against the Sun-Cryst. It was not cold to the touch, as the blue and orange crystals were; this crystal was hot like blood, like life itself, beating against the confines of its structure like a bird in too small a cage. Ashe felt the rapid flutter of its power against her palm. Once, she had been like that, trapped in her role as princess, as wife, as widow, as figurehead. Would choosing to cut a shard only build gilded bars anew, to hold her to the course chosen by the Occuria?
She heard the faint shifting of fabric and metal behind her. Without looking, she knew her five companions had formed a loose ring behind her. No one spoke. The stench of blood and death and the weight of magic-laced mist hung heavy in the air. She knew the lines she had been assigned in this play, but they came not to her tongue.
"King Raithwall stood here," she said instead, her hand resting on the hilt of the Treaty-Blade given her by the Occuria. "With this sword he cut the Sun-Cryst and took its power in hand."
It was the sky pirate who challenged her, as she might have expected. "And will you do the same?" he asked, his tone that goad that ever he used with her. "Cut yourself a nethicite bauble, and lose yourself in it?"
Ashe's spine stiffened, and she bit her tongue on a number of impolitic replies. "My choices are few, and Dalmasca's need is great," she said. "I alone cannot stand against the might of Archades and Rozarria combined, no matter the loyalty of Dalmasca's people or their desire to be free." Her hand dropped from the hilt of the Treaty-Blade, and she saw from the corner of her eye that Vaan extended the Sword of Kings.
Beyond the Sun-Cryst, Rasler raised his hand to her. He wore white armour, as he had on their wedding day, as he had after she had washed his body and laid it out, with death-wounds neatly hidden behind the pale shine of lacquer and enamel. He beckoned, his eyes dark and serious in the ghostly shroud of Mist.
"You want revenge," Ashe said to him, her hand still half-extended to Vaan. "You would have me use the stone?"
Rasler held his hand out patiently. He had done so soon after their betrothal, when he had invited her to dance, and Ashe, in shyness and the awkwardness of thirteen, had been unwilling. He waited now.
"You would have me destroy the Empire?" she spat. "Is this my duty? Is this what you want? I cannot." She reached for the Sword of Kings.
Black blood poured down Rasler's side, from a death-wound she had seen too many times in dreams. Ashe raised the blade, and Rasler stepped between her and the Sun-Cryst.
She thought of the words flung at her in bitterness by Gabranth, and in counsel by Reddas. Rasler beckoned her, pale with death and Mist and grief. Through his form, Ashe could see the Sun-Cryst, and the power of Mist that cloaked it.
"Rasler," she said, and her voice cracked. "My prince. Our time was short. Yet I know this: You were not the kind to take base revenge!" Her sword slashed through him, sparing the Sun-Cryst, and his form dissipated. The sword clattered to the floor, and Ashe drew the Treaty-Blade.
"Ashe," Vaan protested.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing, Princess?" Balthier's tone mocked her, and she set her shoulders resolutely.
"I do," she said, and raised the Treaty-Blade. "Not to destroy, but to protect. I will not see another war. I will put an end to this, as Raithwall did."
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fran's ears flick. "You will still be mortal, in the end," Fran said. "Will your heirs be as wise as you?"
"I shall have to make them so." She let the blade slice downward, and a chunk of crystal the size of her closed fist fell off. She caught it in her left hand, and felt the beat of the stone against her hand as though she held a heart therein.
Rasler's form reformed, darkened, and the metered voice of the Occuria rang forth. "You are our saint, Ashelia B'Nargin. You must use the nethicite! You must be the one to straighten history's weave!"
Ashe snarled, and raised the Treaty Blade. She hacked at the shade of her fallen prince until he was gone, though tears burned her eyes and closed her throat. "I am no false saint for you to use!" she snarled.
"Ashe--" Vaan did not quite touch her, but his hand was extended.
Ashe let the sword fall from her hand, to ring on the floor as its counterpart had. The shimmer of metallic sound hung heavy in the air, a counterpoint to blood and Mist.
"In all Dalmasca's history, not once did we rely on the Dusk Shard," she said. "Our people resolved never to use it, though their need might be dire." She sighed, looking down at the shard in her hand. "That was the Dalmasca I wanted back--but she is gone, and Archades and Rozarria threaten. It is no use to sob after childish dreams." She turned her back on the Sun-Cryst as its light faded and the Mist lifted from the air.
Basch fell into place before her, her sword and shield though she bid him not. She marked how he resolutely turned his eyes from his traitorous brother's body. She would not forgive Gabranth his actions against Dalmasca--against her father--and neither would she lend mercy to Judge Zecht for destroying Nabradia, but she owed Basch much. Then, too, it was Reddas who had stood to defend her against Gabranth's taunts, and when Dr. Cid had ambushed them all, both Judges had turned their blades upon him, at least momentarily.
"What would you have done with him?" She prayed Basch did not hear the hesitation where she substituted "him" for "it." "Would you bury him in Dalmasca, or have him returned to Archades?"
Basch hesitated. "He would not welcome my impulse, which is to put him to rest in Landis," he said reluctantly. "But neither would he wish Dalmasca--he did not love it as I do."
Ashe thought of the Archadian prince, and the trust unstinting he had placed in his guardian. "Then perhaps it is best he be returned to his--" She bit her tongue on the word master, and found another. "To his charge."
Basch marked her hesitation, but did not question it. "Your Majesty is gracious," he said. "I know full well what my brother did."
Ashe looked up when the shadow fell across her face, and knew that her jaw hung agape, but could not help it. The airship that loomed outside the windows of the Pharos was enormous, bigger by far than any Imperial dreadnought. She saw the name writ upon its side in ancient Valendian script, Bahamut, and marveled. Majestically, it turned and sailed toward the mainland.
"It would appear Your Majesty's chariot did not know to await its passenger," Balthier said sardonically.
Ashe turned and raised a questioning eyebrow to him, but it was Fran who answered her. "The Bahamut was doubtless wakened by the Mist," she said. "Its presence will give the Archadians confidence--though with a shard in hand, none would question your proclamations."
Ashe bristled at the implied question. "I only want Dalmasca to be free," she snapped.
"There is no such thing as freedom when you enslave yourself to nethicite of your own free will and with eyes wide open," Balthier snapped.
Though it tore at her heart, Ashe forced herself to turn away from him. "Judge me by my actions, not your father's," she said, and pretended she did not hear the hiss of his suddenly indrawn breath.
Basch stepped in to fill the awkward silence that stretched thin and brittle over them. "Whither go you?" he asked.
Ashe did not need to look behind her to know that Fran and Balthier traded glances. "Well, the villain of this piece isn't dead yet, is--he?" Balthier said, and Ashe held herself from a flinch at his deliberate pause. "What kind of leading man am I if I leave the job unfinished?"
"We'll help you," Vaan volunteered immediately, and Penelo sighed, but added her voice to the chorus.
"We can bring the Strahl up here," Fran said. "Not all of us need descend at the same time."
"Ere we left Balfonheim, Uncle Halim sent me word of a battle between the Resistance, Archades, and Rozarria," Ashe said, through a painfully dry and tight throat. "I must go, and tell the Resistance to stand down. I cannot--" She made herself take a calming breath. "I can no longer travel with you, after this."
"As you will," Balthier said, and she heard no warmth in his tone. She thought she might almost have heard regret when he said, "Fare you well, Princess."
"And you, pirate," she said. There were more words, things she might have said, but they crowded close in her throat and none could slip through. Perhaps that was just as well.
She turned away, and held herself still and silent.
~*~
The princess dragged Judge Gabranth's body into place near the windows with her captain's help, clanking metal accompanying each movement. Balthier kept his face schooled to impassivity as best he might, and turned toward the stairs. It was a long way back to the Strahl.
"Hey Balthier, what are we gonna do about Reddas?" Vaan asked. "And--uh--and about--" He stuttered to a stop.
Balthier opened his mouth to say that Dr. Cid could rot here, in the ruins of what he had wrought with his Venat and his nethicite and his experiments, but the words would not come. "We can take him back on the Strahl," he said reluctantly. "Return him to Vayne, and let them sort each other out."
Fran's ears flicked disapprovingly, though she said nothing. Balthier rounded on her nonetheless. "You would have me bury him with honors? After all this?" He waved his arm wildly to encompass the Pharos, the Ridorana Cataract, indeed all Ivalice, and she only met his gaze with steady patience.
"I would not have unquiet dead left to soak in the Mist of this place," she said, and her lack of inflection was a censure all its own.
Penelo tried to soothe. "Balthier, if you can just bring up the Strahl, Vaan and I can take care of them," she said, and part of him noted how she canted her body slightly in Reddas's direction, as though to imply that his corpse was the more valuable. He smiled grimly to himself. She just might survive in a Solidor court, if that was indeed her desire and Larsa's intent, with skills like that.
"We'll be okay up here," Vaan said.
"We will return," Fran said firmly, and her long stride carried her to the stairs. Balthier followed, angry and resentful but with no way to express it. His steps rang loud on the stone stairs with the force of his frustration.
"You will draw the attention of the monsters," Fran observed.
He grimaced, and took some care with his steps thereafter. "I can scarcely believe she did that," he said.
He could not see Fran's face as she strode before him, but he sensed her faint smile. "Are you angry because she chose, or because she did so against your caution?"
"Both," he said, and surprised himself. "She saw what it did to him. Reddas told her what it did to Nabudis. She saw what happened on the Leviathan."
"And yet she has also seen what weal it brought the descendants of Raithwall, these thousand years past," Fran said. He could not tell if she advocated Ashe's choice, or but played at it.
He let silence fall heavy between them like the velvet curtains of a stage until they reached the Strahl and began their pre-flight checks. "I would not see her lost to the Stone," he said, and his heart ached. "And I will not make myself watch it."
Fran paused with her hand resting on a lever. "Are you so certain that she will not master it?" she asked. "She is not him."
"I won't do that again," he said firmly, "so whether she masters it or it masters her is of no consequence." Brave words, quickly spoken, but he could not stop himself from glancing up at the bulk of Bahamut as it sailed smoothly away before them. In the Pharos somewhere above him, Ashe held the power to destroy entire nations in her hand. Somewhere above him, someone he had not meant to love was turning away from him for a cold, Mist-soaked stone. He drew the role of the leading man around him like a comforting favoured cloak, but found it rubbed threadbare at the shoulders and worn thin at the seams.
~*~
Balthier had fallen silent after his proclamation, and Fran chose not to break the stillness between them. Silence was a rare thing when Balthier had an audience, and she was loathe to waste it, however oppressive he made it with his sulking. Fran read the panels before her and flipped switches to start the Strahl's engines. Noting that Balthier sat staring at the panels before him rather than running the diagnostics, she initiated them herself instead.
Power was a tempting lure, though Fran thought that it was not all that Ashe had desired when she cut the Shard from the Sun-Cryst. There had been a longing in her voice when she spoke of the Dalmasca she'd wanted back. Still, the Shard was a powerful tool, and men and women better than Ashe had lost their virtue to things less powerful in years gone by. Fran had witnessed some of those events, and heard of others.
She brought the Strahl up to launch, and flew in rising circles around the rising lance of the Pharos. The Mist that yet streamed from the pinnacle troubled her not, though its flavor was sharp and spicy like that on the Shiva. She saw the children anxiously perched on a windowsill, awaiting their arrival.
Balthier roused from his sulk long enough to open the hatch, but did not go to aid them in bringing the bodies on board.
Fran folded her hands in her lap, and waited until the clamor of Vaan and Penelo approaching meant that her question would not have to be answered immediately. "What will you run from now?" she asked him, and saw the scowl that darkened his face a moment before he dragged his mask back into place.
"So where to now?" Vaan asked, flinging himself lengthwise across two of the rear seats.
The communications unit on the dash crackled to life, and revealed the face of Al-Cid Margrace. Balthier swore ripely and reached for the disconnect switch, but Fran beat him to it and opened the channel instead. "Al-Cid," she said politely. "I presume you have reason for this intrusion?"
He tipped his head to acknowledge her point. "I do," he said. "The Resistance, Rozarria, and Archades gather to fight above Dalmasca. The Lady Ashe is needed there now. I thought perhaps I might ask assistance of you."
"In what way?" Balthier snapped. "Have you need of someone to hold your coat while you preen for the princess?"
Al-Cid raised an eyebrow at the hostility, but appeared to ignore it otherwise. "No," he said. "My little birds tell me that it is Vayne Solidor himself who commands the Imperial fleet, and I see for myself the Bahamut coming to him like a peregrine to its master's fist. Lady Ashe may well be able to put a stop to this fight for now, but as long as Vayne Solidor remains in power in Archades, there will come a day when she must use the Shard to defend Dalmasca. I think all of us would rather not see that. A powerful Stone held in waiting is a formidable deterrent, and with the right powers, it need never be used."
"You would have us assassinate Vayne," Fran said.
"What a nasty word." Al-Cid made a face. "No. I suggest only that perhaps he should be informed of how his plans have been ruined, and his two most effective subordinates removed. And I could hardly expect you not to defend yourselves if he should...lose his temper."
Balthier made a noise of disgust and slapped the disconnect switch with enough force to vibrate the dash.
"He makes a powerful point," Fran said mildly. "Vayne remains a threat."
"I don't like cold-blooded murder," Balthier spat.
"A moment ago, you advocated it," Fran observed blandly. "Is it only the source of the most recent suggestion that irks you?"
He glared at her.
"But he's attacking Dalmasca again," Vaan protested. "It's our home, Balthier. I want to defend it."
Penelo took a softer tack. "Al-Cid's right, you know," she said. "If Vayne weren't there to lead the Imperial forces, Larsa would withdraw, and Ashe wouldn't need to use the Stone at all."
Balthier snorted. "It won't be that easy, you know."
"If it were easy," Penelo said, "it wouldn't be worthy of a leading man."
Fran turned her head, ostensibly to check a panel, but in reality to hide her smile.
Balthier heaved a sigh. "Very well," he snapped. "Set a course for Rabanastre."
Fran's hands danced over the panel, and the Strahl streaked through the sky.
~*~
Basch carefully did not look at any of the three bodies neatly arranged at his feet, nor at the silent woman who stood with her back turned to him, her gaze resting unseeing upon the metal walls. Her sword-hand opened and flexed as though she yet sought the blade she had sheathed upon her back. Her shield-hand was clenched tight around the Shard, Mist seething up her arm as though it sought to reach out from the stone and engulf her. He looked at the Shard, at the Queen he had served since she was but a child, and wondered if she would unleash its power.
It would be no trifling matter if she did, and Basch honestly did not know what he would do if she were to call on the power to annihilate the Empire. She had seemed furious at Rasler's--had it been truly Rasler?--suggestion that she use the shard for revenge. The princess he had guarded would never have countenanced such a thing--but the Queen that Ashelia had become was very little like the child with sunlit blonde curls who had run to him and Vossler to demand that they play with her. He suspected that Ashe lay buried in the sewers of Rabanastre.
"Will you leave me too, then?" she asked, and for a moment he did not realize she spoke to him.
"I do not understand," he said, hoping to draw an explanation from her, that he might choose the right words.
"The pirate washes his hands of me, for that I chose differently than he would have," she said absently, while her fingertips patiently learned each crevice and facet of the Shard. Basch could not help but stare, fascinated and repulsed at the same time by the Mist that shimmered over its surface and twined indiscreetly around her hand. "I presume Fran goes with him, and Vaan and Penelo are so disappointed in me." She turned abruptly, and her gaze bored into his with a force like a physical blow. "Do you, too, leave me to my own devices and those of this stone?"
"Majesty, I gave you my oath," Basch said, for he could find no other words.
Her mouth twisted. "Would that all held a word-bond so dear," she said, and the bitterness in her voice made him want to flinch.
"What use do you intend?" He had not meant to ask the question, but once it hung between them, he felt as though a weight had slipped from his shoulders. He would honour his word, but better he know from the outset just how high a price he had set on his soul.
Her mouth twisted downward, and she made as though to spin away and halted herself mid-rotation. "I do not intend to use it at all," she spat. "I intend to hold it up for all to see and tell them to get out of my territory, and then I intend to take my crown and leave the Stone in abeyance, for if I use it, it is of no value to me."
Her words untwisted part of the knot that had wound tightly in his throat, though he marked as well what she did not say. He contented himself with a nod.
The silence spun out between them, and it was he who had to look away first.
"I would not see done to anyone what was done at Nabudis," she said, almost too softly for him to hear, "and I shall endeavour to avoid it. But if that is what it takes to see Dalmasca whole--"
"Your Majesty must do as you deem best," he said, and gave her a deliberate bow.
He pretended not to see how it made her flinch, or how she turned away to brush at her eyes.
~*~
Penelo stared out the window at the rippling blue vastness of the ocean as the Strahl sped toward Rabanastre. On the other side of the aisle, Vaan couldn't seem to decide if he'd rather pester Balthier about how to fly the airship--anyone could see that Balthier just wanted to be left alone, or at least anyone not Vaan--or if he wanted to go talk to Ashe about the Shard. Penelo really hoped he didn't decide to do the latter; so far every time he'd started toward the door he'd thought better of it, but she wasn't sure what Ashe would do if he went down to the cargo hold.
Not being sure gave her a little ache around her heart. She thought she'd grown to understand Ashe as they traveled; she couldn't quite connect the dots between the woman who'd climbed the stairs of the Pharos with one hand on the Sword of Kings, and the one who'd drawn the Treaty-Blade instead after the battle. Maybe it was the duel between Reddas and Gabranth, or the fact that Balthier's father--Penelo snuck a glance at him, as though he might be upset at the direction of her thoughts, but he was engrossed in the controls--had fought them as well.
It had been bad enough watching Reddas and Gabranth fight, after Gabranth had arrived and started taunting Ashe about the Sun-Cryst--Reddas had snapped at them all to stay back when they would have helped him--but to have been distracted by Dr. Cid's arrival and ambush, such that they did not even realize when Reddas had fallen, tore at her heart. She felt as though she had left a friend to die when she might have made other choices, and though she knew that Reddas's death was Gabranth's fault, she still felt a little responsible.
And now they were flying toward the Bahamut, toward Vayne and a battle Penelo wasn't sure she wanted to fight. Vayne had certainly done his share of evil, probably more than they even knew about, but he was still Larsa's brother, and she knew Larsa cared about him. She didn't want to hurt him.
She startled back into the present when Balthier snarled at Vaan to shut up and let him fly the Strahl as he knew quite well what he was doing, thank you kindly. Vaan stormed out of the cabin and she followed more quietly.
"It's not fair," Vaan said when she caught up to him in the hallway. "Ashe wasn't going to do it."
"But she did," Penelo said. "We can't change that."
Vaan swung his arms in frustration. "D'you think she's going to use it?" he asked her.
"I hope not." Penelo tried not to stare at the door to the cargo bay, where Ashe and Basch were--keeping watch? Standing guard? She didn't know what they were doing, only that Ashe had flatly refused to join them in the cabin.
Vaan laced his fingers behind his head. "So we're gonna fight Vayne," he said. "Are you--okay?"
"What do you mean?"
Vaan shrugged. "I mean, there's Larsa," he said. "They might not get along all the time, but they're still brothers."
"Yeah." Penelo thought of how Larsa had confided his hopes for Archades, and his hopes for peace. "I don't know."
"Well, there's not much we can do about it until we get there," Vaan said, and wandered back into the cabin, though he took a seat quietly and didn't talk to the pilots further.
Penelo lingered in the hallway, absently tracing the inlays on the hilt of her staff. After a few minutes, she gathered her courage and knocked on the door to the cargo bay before she opened it.
Ashe turned to look at her, stony-faced. Basch nodded politely.
"I don't know if you heard over the intercom," Penelo said, striving for calm. "Al-Cid says that the Resistance and the Empire are facing off over Rabanastre. Balthier is setting a course there now."
"What?" Surprise broke through the mask of anger on Ashe's face. "Over Rabanastre?"
Penelo gave them the short form of what Al-Cid had said. Ashe's face settled into grim lines, and Basch watched her warily.
"I will not see my country ground to dust beneath the heels of my one-time allies and the Empire," Ashe spat, her fingers turning the Shard over and over.
"Maybe they can be talked down," Penelo said.
"I think the time for words is past," Ashe said.
Basch started to say something, but glanced at Ashe and fell silent. Ashe bowed her head and studied the floor beneath her feet.
"If I can persuade Vayne to desist without destroying Rabanastre, it would be a boon," she said slowly. "If I cannot persuade him, as seems likely--" She looked up, her face grim but her eyes sad. "I hesitate to ask this of you, but I would far sooner deal with Larsa than with Vayne. I--Dalmasca--will owe you a great debt."
Penelo nodded to show she'd heard, and retreated back to the cabin. She wondered what it must be like, to hold the weight of such a decision on your shoulders, trading these lives for those. Maybe that was why Ashe had wanted the Shard--a reminder of the costs of those decisions. Maybe she wouldn't use it after all.
~*~
Vaan checked his weapons again, but it was only so he'd have something to do that wouldn't get him yelled at. Penelo was worrying about Ashe and about Larsa, Balthier was ready to take the head off anyone who talked to him, and Fran wasn't much for conversation anyway. He didn't dare to go talk to Ashe, even though he wanted to hear her say what made her choose the Shard.
They were almost to Rabanastre now, racing over the Estersand toward the aerodrome. The silence in the cabin felt like it was pressing down on him and smothering him with its weight. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. He'd sort of assumed they were going to fight Vayne, yeah, because Vayne was really bad news and nobody wanted that kind of bad news to be head of an empire as powerful as Archadia, but he'd thought they were going to do it after the Sun-Cryst had been destroyed. This way felt too much like the kind of tricks Archades had pulled on Dalmasca--what was that phrase Balthier was really fond of? False pretenses, that was it. It didn't feel honest.
Funny that a street rat who stole for a living and wanted to be a sky pirate cared about honesty.
He looked down at Rabanastre, and wondered if it would look like Nabudis by the end of the day--a broken husk, overrun by unquiet spirits and horrible monsters.
The Strahl docked smoothly, and he headed for the exit. That meant he had to go through the cargo bay, though, and he wasn't looking forward to facing Ashe by himself. Penelo hurried to join him, and he was grateful for her presence. Penelo had never let him down. They'd gotten through everything okay up until now. They could do this.
Ashe turned to face them when they entered the cargo hold. "Thank you, for all you've done," she said, and she wasn't their traveling companion anymore. Vaan felt like they were standing on opposite ends of a room that kept getting bigger, even though she was only a few steps away. "I'm going to join Uncle Halim, and try to stop this nonsense."
"Good luck," he said, because he didn't know what else to say. He couldn't stop himself from looking at the Shard that pulsed with reddish light in her hand. He wondered why it was red. The Sun-Cryst had been sort of sea-coloured.
Ashe closed her hands around it. He wasn't sure if she was being possessive or defensive. "Take care," she said, as Balthier and Fran entered the cargo bay.
"Not going to join us for the end of the show, Princess?" Balthier asked, and his tone was sharp enough to cut.
"I am going to try to stop this before it gets--absurd," Ashe said.
Balthier snorted. "This passed 'absurd' quite a while ago," he said. "Not even a kiss to send the leading man off? I was good enough for you before you had some soul-sucking bit of rock."
Ashe laid a hand on Basch's arm when he started to defend her, and turned to face Balthier with her head held high. "I chose what I thought was best for Dalmasca," she said, "and I stand by that choice. It is for your sake, as well as my own, that I will try to stop this battle from happening--but if I cannot, I hope you will leave here unscathed." That floor was getting wider with every word she said; Ashe had never been approachable, but now she was as remote and cold as the stars over Paramina. "I thank you for your assistance ere now."
Balthier made a scornful noise and slapped the button to open the bay door with enough force to make Vaan wince in sympathy. Fran inclined her head faintly, and Ashe nodded back, more deeply. Then the pair of sky pirates left the Strahl.
Vaan followed, but stopped at the top of the ramp and turned to look at Ashe. "Please don't use it," he said in a rush. "I know you want to defend Dalmasca but it won't be ours anymore if you do--and it is ours, Ashe, just as much as yours."
"It belongs to us all," Penelo added softly.
Ashe said nothing, but her hands tightened on the Shard. Mist leaked between her fingers like blood.
Vaan turned and sprinted after Balthier.
~*~
Vaan couldn't help it: he always flinched when he had to fly over the sinking hulk of Bahamut where it tilted drunkenly in the Dalmascan desert. Almost unconsciously, he flexed his left shoulder, where he still had a scar from Vayne's sword. Magic couldn't heal everything, and it still hurt when it rained, which was ridiculous when he wasn't even twenty-five, but at least being a sky pirate gave him excuses to skip around avoiding rainy seasons.
He had to admit that the Galbana Lily wasn't the Strahl, and he did miss the six months he and Penelo'd gotten to fly the Strahl while Balthier and Fran were off recovering from Bahamut or something, but the little airship held her own as he ducked and dodged through the barely-controlled chaos that was the small-craft side of the Rabanastre aerodrome and settled into his usual berth. He waved to Nono as the moogle hurried forward, and continued into the aerodrome.
Westgate and the Southern Plaza looked the same as ever. He needed to swing past Clan Centurio's headquarters and pick up his reward for the last hunt he'd taken on--one he probably shouldn't have, to judge by the ache in his ribs even after multiple Curagas, but the reward had been too cool to pass up. He'd detour through the East End first, though, and check in on Migelo.
He wasn't sure when Rabanastre had started not being home to him. It had begun to seem bizarrely small sometime after he'd first seen Balfonheim, but he was pretty sure that it wasn't until after Bahamut that the city had become a strange one to him. It wasn't that Ashe was an evil tyrant or anything; after she'd used the threat of the Shard to drive the Resistance, Rozarria, and Archades all out of Dalmasca, she had ruled like any other queen, and as far as Vaan knew the Shard she'd dubbed the Oath Shard had sat unused in the Royal Treasury since that day. It was just that there was a feel in the city he didn't really like. Even during the Imperial occupation, people had still laughed and carried on with their lives as best they could despite the empty seats at the dinner tables and the soldiers who walked the streets in clanking armor and terrorized anyone less powerful than themselves. Now, there was a faint chill, almost like the Mist in the Oath Shard had permeated the city.
Dalmasca was still here, but it wasn't the Dalmasca he'd known. He wondered if Ashe felt the same.
Vaan looked up, shading his eyes, as an airship temporarily dimmed the desert sun. It was a Rozarrian cargo craft, massive and ponderous with the weight of whatever it carried. He grinned. He'd have to make sure to check the aerodrome rosters, see what she'd carried and where she was headed next with the undoubtedly lucrative results of her trade. He hadn't gotten into trouble with Al-Cid enough recently anyway.
Vaan headed for Migelo's, and told himself that this time he'd stop by the palace, say hi to Ashe. If Balthier could do it, he certainly could, and he missed her. Besides, the queen could probably use a friend, right?
~*~
Penelo woke slowly to the muted glow of crystal lights, a colder bed than she'd expected, and the faint sound of paper rustling. She stretched and turned on her side. As she'd guessed, Larsa was sitting at the desk in the corner rather than curled up in bed with her. He had put on a robe, at least, but his feet were bare. When no one was watching him work--or rather, when he thought no one was watching--he often propped his chin on his hand instead of sitting up utterly straight. He was doing it tonight, with his fingertips absent-mindedly drumming against his jaw.
More and more often lately, she'd woken up like this on the nights she stayed in Archades. Though she did still fly around Ivalice with Vaan--sky pirate antics were an excellent cover for less-than-conventional diplomatic missions, and besides, she liked to see new places--she more and more often found herself in Archades, and continued to be astounded at her own influence. People came to her, an orphan from Rabanastre, to get her to influence the Emperor in their favour. She didn't think she'd ever get used to it.
Larsa seemed to notice, belatedly, that she was awake; he rearranged his posture to one more typical of an Emperor, and turned to face her with a smile. "I'm sorry if I woke you," he said.
Penelo smiled back, and held out her arms. "Come make it up to me," she suggested with a wink. This was the easy part of being Larsa's lover--she refused to call herself his mistress, though most of Archades named her that.
His gaze sharpened with interest at that, but when he rejoined her on the bed, he pulled her close against his side and combed his fingers through her hair instead of accepting her invitation in earnest. Penelo curled tightly against him, one leg thrown across his as though she could keep him here with her with that slight weight.
"I might need you to visit Dalmasca," he said, and her heart sank. Larsa had done his best not to make her choose between the country she'd grown up in and the needs of Archades, but she had been worried that this was coming. Archades had taken on a different cast over the last five years; it had never been home to her, but when she'd first come here, there had been a sense of hope and relief as Larsa took the throne. Yet despite his overt friendship with Ashe, Archadians viewed Dalmasca as an untrustworthy ally at best, and muttered among themselves that they might have been better off had Dalmasca been annexed and absorbed.
"Larsa..." She pressed harder against him, until she could hear his heartbeat beneath her ear.
"I would not ask you to betray Dalmasca, or your friendship with Ashe," he said, and she heard a lingering "not yet" that hovered between them like an elemental, a threat ready to lash out at the faintest provocation. "I only wish to know what the people of Dalmasca think; you will be able to talk to them in a way my agents cannot." He stroked her back soothingly, tiny glancing touches that raised gooseflesh.
"You want to know if they think Ashe is going to use the Oath Shard," Penelo guessed.
Larsa didn't say anything; he didn't really need to.
Penelo thought of the Oath Shard pulsiing like a heartbeat in Ashe's hands, Mist dripping off it like blood, and wished it didn't feel like such a betrayal when she nodded.
~*~
The line of petitioners awaiting a few minutes of Her Majesty's time was much shorter than Basch remembered it from Raminas's day. He would like to think it born of fair policies, justly enforced--and in part it was--but he knew also that the people of Dalmasca feared to bring themselves to their Queen's attention. It was not that Ashe had threatened anyone. Indeed, she had even pardoned some of those who had colluded with Archades, though he knew that choice to be more cold practicality than any sense of mercy; they had possessed information she needed, and she had thought it more likely to learn what she must know through enticements than threats.
Ashe did not threaten her people, but they had all heard the echoing power of her voice, amplified by the Strahl's broadcasting system, when she informed the combatants gathered over Rabanastre that she held the Shards and wanted them all out of her lands. No one wanted another Nabudis. Only their small travelling band had known that the statement was not quite true; Ashe had indeed held several Shards, but all save the Oath Shard had been drained of their power. That Shard alone, shedding Mist that had fairly crackled with power even in the projected image, had been enough to send the armies packing. Only Basch had heard her sigh of relief when the last airship departed. The people of Rabanastre had not seen that, and though they had welcomed back a daughter of Raithwall's blood, they were wary of what she might do.
When the audience ended, he escorted the Queen back to her chambers, and handed her over to the care of others of the Queen's guard. Divested of duties and armour alike, he went into the city in search of a quiet drink. He was not exactly surprised to find himself in the Sandsea, at a table near the hunter's board. It was only five years ago he had stood here with Ashe and chosen Marks they were likely to defeat without undue harm. The Sandsea had felt different then; there had been a sense of shared camaraderie even among those hunters who competed for the best Marks. Now, fewer people congregated casually at the bar. Hunters still checked the boards, but they did not casually form hunting parties for tougher Marks.
It put him in mind of the days after Landis fell, when he and Noah--strange, that after so many years, his heart still flinched at the name--had slunk through border villages in search of somewhere else to be, and the threat of the Empire had hung heavy over every village, a pall like a funereal vigil. The worst of it was that he knew Ashe noticed--she could hardly fail to see--and the more people held back in fear, the more remote she became. He had attempted to speak of it to her, once; it had ended in an argument, and nigh a week of stony silence. And so the gulf widened, for what she had chosen could not be undone.
It was a hard thing to live with, to have the power of utter annihilation within one's grasp and endeavour not to use it.
This Dalmasca in which he served now was not the Dalmasca he had chosen, over a score of years ago when first he swore his oaths to Raminas; yet, he chose those oaths freely, and had repeated them to Ashe of his own will at her coronation. She had been willing to let him go, had offered him a pension for his years of service, and he had declined; his place was with her.
He would not be foresworn, but he did tip his tankard faintly in a salute to the gods, who must surely be laughing at him now.
~*~
She had almost accustomed herself again to the different patterns of being a pair, rather than a party; she had not thought to miss their companions, but it did make hunting easier. She found herself having to be more conservative when she chose their Marks--Balthier was so reckless the first two times after they healed from Bahamut that she told him firmly she would select their opponents thenceforth. He claimed the bills were insufficiently detailed. Fran was unsure whether he sought a glorious death in battle or he wanted some victory so grand that Ashe could not ignore him; perhaps the truth lay somewhere between the two. In any event, his judgment was no longer to be trusted when it came to such matters.
Fran checked the controls and handled the pre-flight checks for both of them, since Balthier had yet to return from whatever bed he had fallen into the night previous. It was an occurrence that had become progressively more common over the last several years. Where once he had worn the cloak of the leading man to remind himself of what he could be, a sham of confidence that Fran had been able to see through like clear water, now it was as though he sought to lose himself in the myth he had wrought. He had not yet grown careless when they were out hunting, or when an act of piracy was planned, but more and more often he grew careless in ports.
She heard the grating shuffle of his boots on the metal floor plating, and the thud as he stumbled into the wall. Her ears flicked in irritation. Even from here, she could smell the alcohol on him, stale and bitter from last night's excess. "You are not fit to fly," she said sharply.
"I am always fit to fly." He sighed. "I'm sorry, Fran."
She said nothing. There was nothing to say.
The silence spun out between them, a sticky spider's web to entrap their words and hold them both tense and struggling against its force.
"Give me half an hour," Balthier said at last, and at least his words were not slurred. "I'll make myself presentable and we'll hunt."
"We will hunt," Fran agreed, and he staggered out of the cabin. Her nose twitched at the smell left behind, and she flicked the switch to engage the cabin's fans.
Her claws lingered over the knobs and panels of the Strahl. When she had left the Wood, she had not thought to find herself encased in a ball of metal and glass, streaking through the sky at impossible speeds. She had only wanted to see Ivalice, and know what was beyond the savage green bounds of her home. Though the Strahl's man-made shape was as far from the Wood as one could get, it had nonetheless become another home to her, a comforting den she shared with a hunting partner and sometime mate.
She would miss this place, this home, when she moved on. She was Viera still; change came slowly to her when it came at all. Yet this suspension between the height of glorious success and a long slow slide into oblivion was not something she could endure much longer. She had stood by her partner, and had done her best to see him through the aftereffects of their journey with Queen Ashelia, but she could not save him from himself unless he wished to be saved, and it was more apparent every day that he did not.
With a heavy heart, she waited for his return, and breathed in the inevitability of it.
~*~
In truth, it took him only moments to strip off his old, soiled clothes and wash himself with tepid water to lessen the offense he caused Fran's nose, but Balthier lingered over the ritual of ablution. He washed the grit from his eyes and stretched until his tendons cracked, then sat on his bunk and dropped his head into his hands.
He had been Fran's partner too long to miss the signs, even hung over as he was. There was a set to her shoulders when they had stayed too long in one particular city; it had been there, too, when they waited at the entrance to Eruyt. She was ready to be gone from this place--and it was the Strahl, not Balfonheim, that she desired to leave.
He did not know if he could change her mind, and he did not know if he should. He had not been a good partner to her since Ridorana; perhaps it was time he stopped trying to live a life he'd no heart for, and let himself sink into obscurity, one more failed leading man.
He tried to work up a sneer at his own despondency, but it fell far short of his standards. Had someone told him, six years prior, that he would have fallen in love with a deposed princess and helped her win back her throne, only to be left with empty hands and not so much as a fare-thee-well when she chose power over him, he would have laughed until his sides ached and signaled the barkeep that the teller had consumed too much.
Drace had been fond of saying that a truth was often stranger than the most elaborate lie, back when he wore Judge's plate.
Why couldn't someone else have straightened history's weave for the damned Occuria?
He closed his hand over the ring he still wore on a chain beneath his shirt, the same one he had taken from Ashe's hand in Rabanastre. He had thought of sending it back--gods knew he needed no more reminders of her when he could hear her trenchant commentary running constantly in the back of his mind every time he did something she would have deemed foolish, which he was honest enough to admit was often. Yet when the time had come to tuck the ring into the envelope with the note he'd sent her--as a challenge? An ill-fated attempt at wooing?--he had closed his hand tight around it, and sent only paper and ink.
After all, he had yet to find something more valuable.
He reached for clean clothes and dressed himself mechanically, taking no pleasure in the feel of fine linen against his skin, or the look of well-made clothes. He could admit that he was being melodramatic, at least here in the privacy of his cabin, but in truth he felt betrayed twice over. Ashe had known of the lure of nethicite--how could she not, after Nabudis and her father's murder?--and yet when given the chance to destroy the damned stuff forever or grasp its power in both hands, she had chosen the latter.
He straightened the vest that had fit better last year, and set his shoulders. He had little hope left for himself--what he had was as cold and hard as nethicite in his chest--but he would at least give Fran the courtesy of admitting it, and taking her wherever she sought to go. He owed her that much.
Still, he cast a longing look in the direction of Rabanastre as he took his seat at the controls. He wondered if the nethicite left a taste like ashes in her mouth, or if the loss of her friends had been supplanted by the eerie Mist-charged glow.
Rating: PG-13
Contains: Epic spoilers.
Wordcount: 8446
Notes: Written for thesunalsorises as part of the 2011 round of
ff_exchange.Beta:
seventheSummary: AU: In which Ashe chooses differently atop Pharos, and the party reacts.
Ashe spun to her left, lightning already a crackling mass around her left hand, but found no target for her spell. Gabranth and Reddas lay dead by each other's hand, and even now Dr. Cid fell beneath the edge of Basch's finely honed blade, while Balthier's gun finished the water Esper. For a long moment in the aftermath, there was no sound save the susurrus of the Esper demanding a new master.
Ashe breathed deeply of the Mist that ran so thickly here, and breathed it out again in a burst of blue-white light that soothed physical wounds. When the cure-dazzle faded from her sight, she saw again the three bodies strewn across the floor, and Basch kneeling by his traitorous twin's side. Balthier stood with his arms folded and his back to the entire tableau; it fell to Fran to close Reddas's sightless eyes, and Penelo Dr. Cid's.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Vaan lay a hand on the blue Mist-crystal of the Esper, and invite the beast into his care. The ringing sound, as of fingertips run round the edge of a moistened glass, faded into nothingness.
Ashe turned to face the Sun-Cryst. It pulsed with living Mist like a heartbeat. Beyond it, in the denseness of its Mist, she saw Rasler beckoning her onward. She stepped forward, and placed a hand against the Sun-Cryst. It was not cold to the touch, as the blue and orange crystals were; this crystal was hot like blood, like life itself, beating against the confines of its structure like a bird in too small a cage. Ashe felt the rapid flutter of its power against her palm. Once, she had been like that, trapped in her role as princess, as wife, as widow, as figurehead. Would choosing to cut a shard only build gilded bars anew, to hold her to the course chosen by the Occuria?
She heard the faint shifting of fabric and metal behind her. Without looking, she knew her five companions had formed a loose ring behind her. No one spoke. The stench of blood and death and the weight of magic-laced mist hung heavy in the air. She knew the lines she had been assigned in this play, but they came not to her tongue.
"King Raithwall stood here," she said instead, her hand resting on the hilt of the Treaty-Blade given her by the Occuria. "With this sword he cut the Sun-Cryst and took its power in hand."
It was the sky pirate who challenged her, as she might have expected. "And will you do the same?" he asked, his tone that goad that ever he used with her. "Cut yourself a nethicite bauble, and lose yourself in it?"
Ashe's spine stiffened, and she bit her tongue on a number of impolitic replies. "My choices are few, and Dalmasca's need is great," she said. "I alone cannot stand against the might of Archades and Rozarria combined, no matter the loyalty of Dalmasca's people or their desire to be free." Her hand dropped from the hilt of the Treaty-Blade, and she saw from the corner of her eye that Vaan extended the Sword of Kings.
Beyond the Sun-Cryst, Rasler raised his hand to her. He wore white armour, as he had on their wedding day, as he had after she had washed his body and laid it out, with death-wounds neatly hidden behind the pale shine of lacquer and enamel. He beckoned, his eyes dark and serious in the ghostly shroud of Mist.
"You want revenge," Ashe said to him, her hand still half-extended to Vaan. "You would have me use the stone?"
Rasler held his hand out patiently. He had done so soon after their betrothal, when he had invited her to dance, and Ashe, in shyness and the awkwardness of thirteen, had been unwilling. He waited now.
"You would have me destroy the Empire?" she spat. "Is this my duty? Is this what you want? I cannot." She reached for the Sword of Kings.
Black blood poured down Rasler's side, from a death-wound she had seen too many times in dreams. Ashe raised the blade, and Rasler stepped between her and the Sun-Cryst.
She thought of the words flung at her in bitterness by Gabranth, and in counsel by Reddas. Rasler beckoned her, pale with death and Mist and grief. Through his form, Ashe could see the Sun-Cryst, and the power of Mist that cloaked it.
"Rasler," she said, and her voice cracked. "My prince. Our time was short. Yet I know this: You were not the kind to take base revenge!" Her sword slashed through him, sparing the Sun-Cryst, and his form dissipated. The sword clattered to the floor, and Ashe drew the Treaty-Blade.
"Ashe," Vaan protested.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing, Princess?" Balthier's tone mocked her, and she set her shoulders resolutely.
"I do," she said, and raised the Treaty-Blade. "Not to destroy, but to protect. I will not see another war. I will put an end to this, as Raithwall did."
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fran's ears flick. "You will still be mortal, in the end," Fran said. "Will your heirs be as wise as you?"
"I shall have to make them so." She let the blade slice downward, and a chunk of crystal the size of her closed fist fell off. She caught it in her left hand, and felt the beat of the stone against her hand as though she held a heart therein.
Rasler's form reformed, darkened, and the metered voice of the Occuria rang forth. "You are our saint, Ashelia B'Nargin. You must use the nethicite! You must be the one to straighten history's weave!"
Ashe snarled, and raised the Treaty Blade. She hacked at the shade of her fallen prince until he was gone, though tears burned her eyes and closed her throat. "I am no false saint for you to use!" she snarled.
"Ashe--" Vaan did not quite touch her, but his hand was extended.
Ashe let the sword fall from her hand, to ring on the floor as its counterpart had. The shimmer of metallic sound hung heavy in the air, a counterpoint to blood and Mist.
"In all Dalmasca's history, not once did we rely on the Dusk Shard," she said. "Our people resolved never to use it, though their need might be dire." She sighed, looking down at the shard in her hand. "That was the Dalmasca I wanted back--but she is gone, and Archades and Rozarria threaten. It is no use to sob after childish dreams." She turned her back on the Sun-Cryst as its light faded and the Mist lifted from the air.
Basch fell into place before her, her sword and shield though she bid him not. She marked how he resolutely turned his eyes from his traitorous brother's body. She would not forgive Gabranth his actions against Dalmasca--against her father--and neither would she lend mercy to Judge Zecht for destroying Nabradia, but she owed Basch much. Then, too, it was Reddas who had stood to defend her against Gabranth's taunts, and when Dr. Cid had ambushed them all, both Judges had turned their blades upon him, at least momentarily.
"What would you have done with him?" She prayed Basch did not hear the hesitation where she substituted "him" for "it." "Would you bury him in Dalmasca, or have him returned to Archades?"
Basch hesitated. "He would not welcome my impulse, which is to put him to rest in Landis," he said reluctantly. "But neither would he wish Dalmasca--he did not love it as I do."
Ashe thought of the Archadian prince, and the trust unstinting he had placed in his guardian. "Then perhaps it is best he be returned to his--" She bit her tongue on the word master, and found another. "To his charge."
Basch marked her hesitation, but did not question it. "Your Majesty is gracious," he said. "I know full well what my brother did."
Ashe looked up when the shadow fell across her face, and knew that her jaw hung agape, but could not help it. The airship that loomed outside the windows of the Pharos was enormous, bigger by far than any Imperial dreadnought. She saw the name writ upon its side in ancient Valendian script, Bahamut, and marveled. Majestically, it turned and sailed toward the mainland.
"It would appear Your Majesty's chariot did not know to await its passenger," Balthier said sardonically.
Ashe turned and raised a questioning eyebrow to him, but it was Fran who answered her. "The Bahamut was doubtless wakened by the Mist," she said. "Its presence will give the Archadians confidence--though with a shard in hand, none would question your proclamations."
Ashe bristled at the implied question. "I only want Dalmasca to be free," she snapped.
"There is no such thing as freedom when you enslave yourself to nethicite of your own free will and with eyes wide open," Balthier snapped.
Though it tore at her heart, Ashe forced herself to turn away from him. "Judge me by my actions, not your father's," she said, and pretended she did not hear the hiss of his suddenly indrawn breath.
Basch stepped in to fill the awkward silence that stretched thin and brittle over them. "Whither go you?" he asked.
Ashe did not need to look behind her to know that Fran and Balthier traded glances. "Well, the villain of this piece isn't dead yet, is--he?" Balthier said, and Ashe held herself from a flinch at his deliberate pause. "What kind of leading man am I if I leave the job unfinished?"
"We'll help you," Vaan volunteered immediately, and Penelo sighed, but added her voice to the chorus.
"We can bring the Strahl up here," Fran said. "Not all of us need descend at the same time."
"Ere we left Balfonheim, Uncle Halim sent me word of a battle between the Resistance, Archades, and Rozarria," Ashe said, through a painfully dry and tight throat. "I must go, and tell the Resistance to stand down. I cannot--" She made herself take a calming breath. "I can no longer travel with you, after this."
"As you will," Balthier said, and she heard no warmth in his tone. She thought she might almost have heard regret when he said, "Fare you well, Princess."
"And you, pirate," she said. There were more words, things she might have said, but they crowded close in her throat and none could slip through. Perhaps that was just as well.
She turned away, and held herself still and silent.
~*~
The princess dragged Judge Gabranth's body into place near the windows with her captain's help, clanking metal accompanying each movement. Balthier kept his face schooled to impassivity as best he might, and turned toward the stairs. It was a long way back to the Strahl.
"Hey Balthier, what are we gonna do about Reddas?" Vaan asked. "And--uh--and about--" He stuttered to a stop.
Balthier opened his mouth to say that Dr. Cid could rot here, in the ruins of what he had wrought with his Venat and his nethicite and his experiments, but the words would not come. "We can take him back on the Strahl," he said reluctantly. "Return him to Vayne, and let them sort each other out."
Fran's ears flicked disapprovingly, though she said nothing. Balthier rounded on her nonetheless. "You would have me bury him with honors? After all this?" He waved his arm wildly to encompass the Pharos, the Ridorana Cataract, indeed all Ivalice, and she only met his gaze with steady patience.
"I would not have unquiet dead left to soak in the Mist of this place," she said, and her lack of inflection was a censure all its own.
Penelo tried to soothe. "Balthier, if you can just bring up the Strahl, Vaan and I can take care of them," she said, and part of him noted how she canted her body slightly in Reddas's direction, as though to imply that his corpse was the more valuable. He smiled grimly to himself. She just might survive in a Solidor court, if that was indeed her desire and Larsa's intent, with skills like that.
"We'll be okay up here," Vaan said.
"We will return," Fran said firmly, and her long stride carried her to the stairs. Balthier followed, angry and resentful but with no way to express it. His steps rang loud on the stone stairs with the force of his frustration.
"You will draw the attention of the monsters," Fran observed.
He grimaced, and took some care with his steps thereafter. "I can scarcely believe she did that," he said.
He could not see Fran's face as she strode before him, but he sensed her faint smile. "Are you angry because she chose, or because she did so against your caution?"
"Both," he said, and surprised himself. "She saw what it did to him. Reddas told her what it did to Nabudis. She saw what happened on the Leviathan."
"And yet she has also seen what weal it brought the descendants of Raithwall, these thousand years past," Fran said. He could not tell if she advocated Ashe's choice, or but played at it.
He let silence fall heavy between them like the velvet curtains of a stage until they reached the Strahl and began their pre-flight checks. "I would not see her lost to the Stone," he said, and his heart ached. "And I will not make myself watch it."
Fran paused with her hand resting on a lever. "Are you so certain that she will not master it?" she asked. "She is not him."
"I won't do that again," he said firmly, "so whether she masters it or it masters her is of no consequence." Brave words, quickly spoken, but he could not stop himself from glancing up at the bulk of Bahamut as it sailed smoothly away before them. In the Pharos somewhere above him, Ashe held the power to destroy entire nations in her hand. Somewhere above him, someone he had not meant to love was turning away from him for a cold, Mist-soaked stone. He drew the role of the leading man around him like a comforting favoured cloak, but found it rubbed threadbare at the shoulders and worn thin at the seams.
~*~
Balthier had fallen silent after his proclamation, and Fran chose not to break the stillness between them. Silence was a rare thing when Balthier had an audience, and she was loathe to waste it, however oppressive he made it with his sulking. Fran read the panels before her and flipped switches to start the Strahl's engines. Noting that Balthier sat staring at the panels before him rather than running the diagnostics, she initiated them herself instead.
Power was a tempting lure, though Fran thought that it was not all that Ashe had desired when she cut the Shard from the Sun-Cryst. There had been a longing in her voice when she spoke of the Dalmasca she'd wanted back. Still, the Shard was a powerful tool, and men and women better than Ashe had lost their virtue to things less powerful in years gone by. Fran had witnessed some of those events, and heard of others.
She brought the Strahl up to launch, and flew in rising circles around the rising lance of the Pharos. The Mist that yet streamed from the pinnacle troubled her not, though its flavor was sharp and spicy like that on the Shiva. She saw the children anxiously perched on a windowsill, awaiting their arrival.
Balthier roused from his sulk long enough to open the hatch, but did not go to aid them in bringing the bodies on board.
Fran folded her hands in her lap, and waited until the clamor of Vaan and Penelo approaching meant that her question would not have to be answered immediately. "What will you run from now?" she asked him, and saw the scowl that darkened his face a moment before he dragged his mask back into place.
"So where to now?" Vaan asked, flinging himself lengthwise across two of the rear seats.
The communications unit on the dash crackled to life, and revealed the face of Al-Cid Margrace. Balthier swore ripely and reached for the disconnect switch, but Fran beat him to it and opened the channel instead. "Al-Cid," she said politely. "I presume you have reason for this intrusion?"
He tipped his head to acknowledge her point. "I do," he said. "The Resistance, Rozarria, and Archades gather to fight above Dalmasca. The Lady Ashe is needed there now. I thought perhaps I might ask assistance of you."
"In what way?" Balthier snapped. "Have you need of someone to hold your coat while you preen for the princess?"
Al-Cid raised an eyebrow at the hostility, but appeared to ignore it otherwise. "No," he said. "My little birds tell me that it is Vayne Solidor himself who commands the Imperial fleet, and I see for myself the Bahamut coming to him like a peregrine to its master's fist. Lady Ashe may well be able to put a stop to this fight for now, but as long as Vayne Solidor remains in power in Archades, there will come a day when she must use the Shard to defend Dalmasca. I think all of us would rather not see that. A powerful Stone held in waiting is a formidable deterrent, and with the right powers, it need never be used."
"You would have us assassinate Vayne," Fran said.
"What a nasty word." Al-Cid made a face. "No. I suggest only that perhaps he should be informed of how his plans have been ruined, and his two most effective subordinates removed. And I could hardly expect you not to defend yourselves if he should...lose his temper."
Balthier made a noise of disgust and slapped the disconnect switch with enough force to vibrate the dash.
"He makes a powerful point," Fran said mildly. "Vayne remains a threat."
"I don't like cold-blooded murder," Balthier spat.
"A moment ago, you advocated it," Fran observed blandly. "Is it only the source of the most recent suggestion that irks you?"
He glared at her.
"But he's attacking Dalmasca again," Vaan protested. "It's our home, Balthier. I want to defend it."
Penelo took a softer tack. "Al-Cid's right, you know," she said. "If Vayne weren't there to lead the Imperial forces, Larsa would withdraw, and Ashe wouldn't need to use the Stone at all."
Balthier snorted. "It won't be that easy, you know."
"If it were easy," Penelo said, "it wouldn't be worthy of a leading man."
Fran turned her head, ostensibly to check a panel, but in reality to hide her smile.
Balthier heaved a sigh. "Very well," he snapped. "Set a course for Rabanastre."
Fran's hands danced over the panel, and the Strahl streaked through the sky.
~*~
Basch carefully did not look at any of the three bodies neatly arranged at his feet, nor at the silent woman who stood with her back turned to him, her gaze resting unseeing upon the metal walls. Her sword-hand opened and flexed as though she yet sought the blade she had sheathed upon her back. Her shield-hand was clenched tight around the Shard, Mist seething up her arm as though it sought to reach out from the stone and engulf her. He looked at the Shard, at the Queen he had served since she was but a child, and wondered if she would unleash its power.
It would be no trifling matter if she did, and Basch honestly did not know what he would do if she were to call on the power to annihilate the Empire. She had seemed furious at Rasler's--had it been truly Rasler?--suggestion that she use the shard for revenge. The princess he had guarded would never have countenanced such a thing--but the Queen that Ashelia had become was very little like the child with sunlit blonde curls who had run to him and Vossler to demand that they play with her. He suspected that Ashe lay buried in the sewers of Rabanastre.
"Will you leave me too, then?" she asked, and for a moment he did not realize she spoke to him.
"I do not understand," he said, hoping to draw an explanation from her, that he might choose the right words.
"The pirate washes his hands of me, for that I chose differently than he would have," she said absently, while her fingertips patiently learned each crevice and facet of the Shard. Basch could not help but stare, fascinated and repulsed at the same time by the Mist that shimmered over its surface and twined indiscreetly around her hand. "I presume Fran goes with him, and Vaan and Penelo are so disappointed in me." She turned abruptly, and her gaze bored into his with a force like a physical blow. "Do you, too, leave me to my own devices and those of this stone?"
"Majesty, I gave you my oath," Basch said, for he could find no other words.
Her mouth twisted. "Would that all held a word-bond so dear," she said, and the bitterness in her voice made him want to flinch.
"What use do you intend?" He had not meant to ask the question, but once it hung between them, he felt as though a weight had slipped from his shoulders. He would honour his word, but better he know from the outset just how high a price he had set on his soul.
Her mouth twisted downward, and she made as though to spin away and halted herself mid-rotation. "I do not intend to use it at all," she spat. "I intend to hold it up for all to see and tell them to get out of my territory, and then I intend to take my crown and leave the Stone in abeyance, for if I use it, it is of no value to me."
Her words untwisted part of the knot that had wound tightly in his throat, though he marked as well what she did not say. He contented himself with a nod.
The silence spun out between them, and it was he who had to look away first.
"I would not see done to anyone what was done at Nabudis," she said, almost too softly for him to hear, "and I shall endeavour to avoid it. But if that is what it takes to see Dalmasca whole--"
"Your Majesty must do as you deem best," he said, and gave her a deliberate bow.
He pretended not to see how it made her flinch, or how she turned away to brush at her eyes.
~*~
Penelo stared out the window at the rippling blue vastness of the ocean as the Strahl sped toward Rabanastre. On the other side of the aisle, Vaan couldn't seem to decide if he'd rather pester Balthier about how to fly the airship--anyone could see that Balthier just wanted to be left alone, or at least anyone not Vaan--or if he wanted to go talk to Ashe about the Shard. Penelo really hoped he didn't decide to do the latter; so far every time he'd started toward the door he'd thought better of it, but she wasn't sure what Ashe would do if he went down to the cargo hold.
Not being sure gave her a little ache around her heart. She thought she'd grown to understand Ashe as they traveled; she couldn't quite connect the dots between the woman who'd climbed the stairs of the Pharos with one hand on the Sword of Kings, and the one who'd drawn the Treaty-Blade instead after the battle. Maybe it was the duel between Reddas and Gabranth, or the fact that Balthier's father--Penelo snuck a glance at him, as though he might be upset at the direction of her thoughts, but he was engrossed in the controls--had fought them as well.
It had been bad enough watching Reddas and Gabranth fight, after Gabranth had arrived and started taunting Ashe about the Sun-Cryst--Reddas had snapped at them all to stay back when they would have helped him--but to have been distracted by Dr. Cid's arrival and ambush, such that they did not even realize when Reddas had fallen, tore at her heart. She felt as though she had left a friend to die when she might have made other choices, and though she knew that Reddas's death was Gabranth's fault, she still felt a little responsible.
And now they were flying toward the Bahamut, toward Vayne and a battle Penelo wasn't sure she wanted to fight. Vayne had certainly done his share of evil, probably more than they even knew about, but he was still Larsa's brother, and she knew Larsa cared about him. She didn't want to hurt him.
She startled back into the present when Balthier snarled at Vaan to shut up and let him fly the Strahl as he knew quite well what he was doing, thank you kindly. Vaan stormed out of the cabin and she followed more quietly.
"It's not fair," Vaan said when she caught up to him in the hallway. "Ashe wasn't going to do it."
"But she did," Penelo said. "We can't change that."
Vaan swung his arms in frustration. "D'you think she's going to use it?" he asked her.
"I hope not." Penelo tried not to stare at the door to the cargo bay, where Ashe and Basch were--keeping watch? Standing guard? She didn't know what they were doing, only that Ashe had flatly refused to join them in the cabin.
Vaan laced his fingers behind his head. "So we're gonna fight Vayne," he said. "Are you--okay?"
"What do you mean?"
Vaan shrugged. "I mean, there's Larsa," he said. "They might not get along all the time, but they're still brothers."
"Yeah." Penelo thought of how Larsa had confided his hopes for Archades, and his hopes for peace. "I don't know."
"Well, there's not much we can do about it until we get there," Vaan said, and wandered back into the cabin, though he took a seat quietly and didn't talk to the pilots further.
Penelo lingered in the hallway, absently tracing the inlays on the hilt of her staff. After a few minutes, she gathered her courage and knocked on the door to the cargo bay before she opened it.
Ashe turned to look at her, stony-faced. Basch nodded politely.
"I don't know if you heard over the intercom," Penelo said, striving for calm. "Al-Cid says that the Resistance and the Empire are facing off over Rabanastre. Balthier is setting a course there now."
"What?" Surprise broke through the mask of anger on Ashe's face. "Over Rabanastre?"
Penelo gave them the short form of what Al-Cid had said. Ashe's face settled into grim lines, and Basch watched her warily.
"I will not see my country ground to dust beneath the heels of my one-time allies and the Empire," Ashe spat, her fingers turning the Shard over and over.
"Maybe they can be talked down," Penelo said.
"I think the time for words is past," Ashe said.
Basch started to say something, but glanced at Ashe and fell silent. Ashe bowed her head and studied the floor beneath her feet.
"If I can persuade Vayne to desist without destroying Rabanastre, it would be a boon," she said slowly. "If I cannot persuade him, as seems likely--" She looked up, her face grim but her eyes sad. "I hesitate to ask this of you, but I would far sooner deal with Larsa than with Vayne. I--Dalmasca--will owe you a great debt."
Penelo nodded to show she'd heard, and retreated back to the cabin. She wondered what it must be like, to hold the weight of such a decision on your shoulders, trading these lives for those. Maybe that was why Ashe had wanted the Shard--a reminder of the costs of those decisions. Maybe she wouldn't use it after all.
~*~
Vaan checked his weapons again, but it was only so he'd have something to do that wouldn't get him yelled at. Penelo was worrying about Ashe and about Larsa, Balthier was ready to take the head off anyone who talked to him, and Fran wasn't much for conversation anyway. He didn't dare to go talk to Ashe, even though he wanted to hear her say what made her choose the Shard.
They were almost to Rabanastre now, racing over the Estersand toward the aerodrome. The silence in the cabin felt like it was pressing down on him and smothering him with its weight. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. He'd sort of assumed they were going to fight Vayne, yeah, because Vayne was really bad news and nobody wanted that kind of bad news to be head of an empire as powerful as Archadia, but he'd thought they were going to do it after the Sun-Cryst had been destroyed. This way felt too much like the kind of tricks Archades had pulled on Dalmasca--what was that phrase Balthier was really fond of? False pretenses, that was it. It didn't feel honest.
Funny that a street rat who stole for a living and wanted to be a sky pirate cared about honesty.
He looked down at Rabanastre, and wondered if it would look like Nabudis by the end of the day--a broken husk, overrun by unquiet spirits and horrible monsters.
The Strahl docked smoothly, and he headed for the exit. That meant he had to go through the cargo bay, though, and he wasn't looking forward to facing Ashe by himself. Penelo hurried to join him, and he was grateful for her presence. Penelo had never let him down. They'd gotten through everything okay up until now. They could do this.
Ashe turned to face them when they entered the cargo hold. "Thank you, for all you've done," she said, and she wasn't their traveling companion anymore. Vaan felt like they were standing on opposite ends of a room that kept getting bigger, even though she was only a few steps away. "I'm going to join Uncle Halim, and try to stop this nonsense."
"Good luck," he said, because he didn't know what else to say. He couldn't stop himself from looking at the Shard that pulsed with reddish light in her hand. He wondered why it was red. The Sun-Cryst had been sort of sea-coloured.
Ashe closed her hands around it. He wasn't sure if she was being possessive or defensive. "Take care," she said, as Balthier and Fran entered the cargo bay.
"Not going to join us for the end of the show, Princess?" Balthier asked, and his tone was sharp enough to cut.
"I am going to try to stop this before it gets--absurd," Ashe said.
Balthier snorted. "This passed 'absurd' quite a while ago," he said. "Not even a kiss to send the leading man off? I was good enough for you before you had some soul-sucking bit of rock."
Ashe laid a hand on Basch's arm when he started to defend her, and turned to face Balthier with her head held high. "I chose what I thought was best for Dalmasca," she said, "and I stand by that choice. It is for your sake, as well as my own, that I will try to stop this battle from happening--but if I cannot, I hope you will leave here unscathed." That floor was getting wider with every word she said; Ashe had never been approachable, but now she was as remote and cold as the stars over Paramina. "I thank you for your assistance ere now."
Balthier made a scornful noise and slapped the button to open the bay door with enough force to make Vaan wince in sympathy. Fran inclined her head faintly, and Ashe nodded back, more deeply. Then the pair of sky pirates left the Strahl.
Vaan followed, but stopped at the top of the ramp and turned to look at Ashe. "Please don't use it," he said in a rush. "I know you want to defend Dalmasca but it won't be ours anymore if you do--and it is ours, Ashe, just as much as yours."
"It belongs to us all," Penelo added softly.
Ashe said nothing, but her hands tightened on the Shard. Mist leaked between her fingers like blood.
Vaan turned and sprinted after Balthier.
~*~
Vaan couldn't help it: he always flinched when he had to fly over the sinking hulk of Bahamut where it tilted drunkenly in the Dalmascan desert. Almost unconsciously, he flexed his left shoulder, where he still had a scar from Vayne's sword. Magic couldn't heal everything, and it still hurt when it rained, which was ridiculous when he wasn't even twenty-five, but at least being a sky pirate gave him excuses to skip around avoiding rainy seasons.
He had to admit that the Galbana Lily wasn't the Strahl, and he did miss the six months he and Penelo'd gotten to fly the Strahl while Balthier and Fran were off recovering from Bahamut or something, but the little airship held her own as he ducked and dodged through the barely-controlled chaos that was the small-craft side of the Rabanastre aerodrome and settled into his usual berth. He waved to Nono as the moogle hurried forward, and continued into the aerodrome.
Westgate and the Southern Plaza looked the same as ever. He needed to swing past Clan Centurio's headquarters and pick up his reward for the last hunt he'd taken on--one he probably shouldn't have, to judge by the ache in his ribs even after multiple Curagas, but the reward had been too cool to pass up. He'd detour through the East End first, though, and check in on Migelo.
He wasn't sure when Rabanastre had started not being home to him. It had begun to seem bizarrely small sometime after he'd first seen Balfonheim, but he was pretty sure that it wasn't until after Bahamut that the city had become a strange one to him. It wasn't that Ashe was an evil tyrant or anything; after she'd used the threat of the Shard to drive the Resistance, Rozarria, and Archades all out of Dalmasca, she had ruled like any other queen, and as far as Vaan knew the Shard she'd dubbed the Oath Shard had sat unused in the Royal Treasury since that day. It was just that there was a feel in the city he didn't really like. Even during the Imperial occupation, people had still laughed and carried on with their lives as best they could despite the empty seats at the dinner tables and the soldiers who walked the streets in clanking armor and terrorized anyone less powerful than themselves. Now, there was a faint chill, almost like the Mist in the Oath Shard had permeated the city.
Dalmasca was still here, but it wasn't the Dalmasca he'd known. He wondered if Ashe felt the same.
Vaan looked up, shading his eyes, as an airship temporarily dimmed the desert sun. It was a Rozarrian cargo craft, massive and ponderous with the weight of whatever it carried. He grinned. He'd have to make sure to check the aerodrome rosters, see what she'd carried and where she was headed next with the undoubtedly lucrative results of her trade. He hadn't gotten into trouble with Al-Cid enough recently anyway.
Vaan headed for Migelo's, and told himself that this time he'd stop by the palace, say hi to Ashe. If Balthier could do it, he certainly could, and he missed her. Besides, the queen could probably use a friend, right?
~*~
Penelo woke slowly to the muted glow of crystal lights, a colder bed than she'd expected, and the faint sound of paper rustling. She stretched and turned on her side. As she'd guessed, Larsa was sitting at the desk in the corner rather than curled up in bed with her. He had put on a robe, at least, but his feet were bare. When no one was watching him work--or rather, when he thought no one was watching--he often propped his chin on his hand instead of sitting up utterly straight. He was doing it tonight, with his fingertips absent-mindedly drumming against his jaw.
More and more often lately, she'd woken up like this on the nights she stayed in Archades. Though she did still fly around Ivalice with Vaan--sky pirate antics were an excellent cover for less-than-conventional diplomatic missions, and besides, she liked to see new places--she more and more often found herself in Archades, and continued to be astounded at her own influence. People came to her, an orphan from Rabanastre, to get her to influence the Emperor in their favour. She didn't think she'd ever get used to it.
Larsa seemed to notice, belatedly, that she was awake; he rearranged his posture to one more typical of an Emperor, and turned to face her with a smile. "I'm sorry if I woke you," he said.
Penelo smiled back, and held out her arms. "Come make it up to me," she suggested with a wink. This was the easy part of being Larsa's lover--she refused to call herself his mistress, though most of Archades named her that.
His gaze sharpened with interest at that, but when he rejoined her on the bed, he pulled her close against his side and combed his fingers through her hair instead of accepting her invitation in earnest. Penelo curled tightly against him, one leg thrown across his as though she could keep him here with her with that slight weight.
"I might need you to visit Dalmasca," he said, and her heart sank. Larsa had done his best not to make her choose between the country she'd grown up in and the needs of Archades, but she had been worried that this was coming. Archades had taken on a different cast over the last five years; it had never been home to her, but when she'd first come here, there had been a sense of hope and relief as Larsa took the throne. Yet despite his overt friendship with Ashe, Archadians viewed Dalmasca as an untrustworthy ally at best, and muttered among themselves that they might have been better off had Dalmasca been annexed and absorbed.
"Larsa..." She pressed harder against him, until she could hear his heartbeat beneath her ear.
"I would not ask you to betray Dalmasca, or your friendship with Ashe," he said, and she heard a lingering "not yet" that hovered between them like an elemental, a threat ready to lash out at the faintest provocation. "I only wish to know what the people of Dalmasca think; you will be able to talk to them in a way my agents cannot." He stroked her back soothingly, tiny glancing touches that raised gooseflesh.
"You want to know if they think Ashe is going to use the Oath Shard," Penelo guessed.
Larsa didn't say anything; he didn't really need to.
Penelo thought of the Oath Shard pulsiing like a heartbeat in Ashe's hands, Mist dripping off it like blood, and wished it didn't feel like such a betrayal when she nodded.
~*~
The line of petitioners awaiting a few minutes of Her Majesty's time was much shorter than Basch remembered it from Raminas's day. He would like to think it born of fair policies, justly enforced--and in part it was--but he knew also that the people of Dalmasca feared to bring themselves to their Queen's attention. It was not that Ashe had threatened anyone. Indeed, she had even pardoned some of those who had colluded with Archades, though he knew that choice to be more cold practicality than any sense of mercy; they had possessed information she needed, and she had thought it more likely to learn what she must know through enticements than threats.
Ashe did not threaten her people, but they had all heard the echoing power of her voice, amplified by the Strahl's broadcasting system, when she informed the combatants gathered over Rabanastre that she held the Shards and wanted them all out of her lands. No one wanted another Nabudis. Only their small travelling band had known that the statement was not quite true; Ashe had indeed held several Shards, but all save the Oath Shard had been drained of their power. That Shard alone, shedding Mist that had fairly crackled with power even in the projected image, had been enough to send the armies packing. Only Basch had heard her sigh of relief when the last airship departed. The people of Rabanastre had not seen that, and though they had welcomed back a daughter of Raithwall's blood, they were wary of what she might do.
When the audience ended, he escorted the Queen back to her chambers, and handed her over to the care of others of the Queen's guard. Divested of duties and armour alike, he went into the city in search of a quiet drink. He was not exactly surprised to find himself in the Sandsea, at a table near the hunter's board. It was only five years ago he had stood here with Ashe and chosen Marks they were likely to defeat without undue harm. The Sandsea had felt different then; there had been a sense of shared camaraderie even among those hunters who competed for the best Marks. Now, fewer people congregated casually at the bar. Hunters still checked the boards, but they did not casually form hunting parties for tougher Marks.
It put him in mind of the days after Landis fell, when he and Noah--strange, that after so many years, his heart still flinched at the name--had slunk through border villages in search of somewhere else to be, and the threat of the Empire had hung heavy over every village, a pall like a funereal vigil. The worst of it was that he knew Ashe noticed--she could hardly fail to see--and the more people held back in fear, the more remote she became. He had attempted to speak of it to her, once; it had ended in an argument, and nigh a week of stony silence. And so the gulf widened, for what she had chosen could not be undone.
It was a hard thing to live with, to have the power of utter annihilation within one's grasp and endeavour not to use it.
This Dalmasca in which he served now was not the Dalmasca he had chosen, over a score of years ago when first he swore his oaths to Raminas; yet, he chose those oaths freely, and had repeated them to Ashe of his own will at her coronation. She had been willing to let him go, had offered him a pension for his years of service, and he had declined; his place was with her.
He would not be foresworn, but he did tip his tankard faintly in a salute to the gods, who must surely be laughing at him now.
~*~
She had almost accustomed herself again to the different patterns of being a pair, rather than a party; she had not thought to miss their companions, but it did make hunting easier. She found herself having to be more conservative when she chose their Marks--Balthier was so reckless the first two times after they healed from Bahamut that she told him firmly she would select their opponents thenceforth. He claimed the bills were insufficiently detailed. Fran was unsure whether he sought a glorious death in battle or he wanted some victory so grand that Ashe could not ignore him; perhaps the truth lay somewhere between the two. In any event, his judgment was no longer to be trusted when it came to such matters.
Fran checked the controls and handled the pre-flight checks for both of them, since Balthier had yet to return from whatever bed he had fallen into the night previous. It was an occurrence that had become progressively more common over the last several years. Where once he had worn the cloak of the leading man to remind himself of what he could be, a sham of confidence that Fran had been able to see through like clear water, now it was as though he sought to lose himself in the myth he had wrought. He had not yet grown careless when they were out hunting, or when an act of piracy was planned, but more and more often he grew careless in ports.
She heard the grating shuffle of his boots on the metal floor plating, and the thud as he stumbled into the wall. Her ears flicked in irritation. Even from here, she could smell the alcohol on him, stale and bitter from last night's excess. "You are not fit to fly," she said sharply.
"I am always fit to fly." He sighed. "I'm sorry, Fran."
She said nothing. There was nothing to say.
The silence spun out between them, a sticky spider's web to entrap their words and hold them both tense and struggling against its force.
"Give me half an hour," Balthier said at last, and at least his words were not slurred. "I'll make myself presentable and we'll hunt."
"We will hunt," Fran agreed, and he staggered out of the cabin. Her nose twitched at the smell left behind, and she flicked the switch to engage the cabin's fans.
Her claws lingered over the knobs and panels of the Strahl. When she had left the Wood, she had not thought to find herself encased in a ball of metal and glass, streaking through the sky at impossible speeds. She had only wanted to see Ivalice, and know what was beyond the savage green bounds of her home. Though the Strahl's man-made shape was as far from the Wood as one could get, it had nonetheless become another home to her, a comforting den she shared with a hunting partner and sometime mate.
She would miss this place, this home, when she moved on. She was Viera still; change came slowly to her when it came at all. Yet this suspension between the height of glorious success and a long slow slide into oblivion was not something she could endure much longer. She had stood by her partner, and had done her best to see him through the aftereffects of their journey with Queen Ashelia, but she could not save him from himself unless he wished to be saved, and it was more apparent every day that he did not.
With a heavy heart, she waited for his return, and breathed in the inevitability of it.
~*~
In truth, it took him only moments to strip off his old, soiled clothes and wash himself with tepid water to lessen the offense he caused Fran's nose, but Balthier lingered over the ritual of ablution. He washed the grit from his eyes and stretched until his tendons cracked, then sat on his bunk and dropped his head into his hands.
He had been Fran's partner too long to miss the signs, even hung over as he was. There was a set to her shoulders when they had stayed too long in one particular city; it had been there, too, when they waited at the entrance to Eruyt. She was ready to be gone from this place--and it was the Strahl, not Balfonheim, that she desired to leave.
He did not know if he could change her mind, and he did not know if he should. He had not been a good partner to her since Ridorana; perhaps it was time he stopped trying to live a life he'd no heart for, and let himself sink into obscurity, one more failed leading man.
He tried to work up a sneer at his own despondency, but it fell far short of his standards. Had someone told him, six years prior, that he would have fallen in love with a deposed princess and helped her win back her throne, only to be left with empty hands and not so much as a fare-thee-well when she chose power over him, he would have laughed until his sides ached and signaled the barkeep that the teller had consumed too much.
Drace had been fond of saying that a truth was often stranger than the most elaborate lie, back when he wore Judge's plate.
Why couldn't someone else have straightened history's weave for the damned Occuria?
He closed his hand over the ring he still wore on a chain beneath his shirt, the same one he had taken from Ashe's hand in Rabanastre. He had thought of sending it back--gods knew he needed no more reminders of her when he could hear her trenchant commentary running constantly in the back of his mind every time he did something she would have deemed foolish, which he was honest enough to admit was often. Yet when the time had come to tuck the ring into the envelope with the note he'd sent her--as a challenge? An ill-fated attempt at wooing?--he had closed his hand tight around it, and sent only paper and ink.
After all, he had yet to find something more valuable.
He reached for clean clothes and dressed himself mechanically, taking no pleasure in the feel of fine linen against his skin, or the look of well-made clothes. He could admit that he was being melodramatic, at least here in the privacy of his cabin, but in truth he felt betrayed twice over. Ashe had known of the lure of nethicite--how could she not, after Nabudis and her father's murder?--and yet when given the chance to destroy the damned stuff forever or grasp its power in both hands, she had chosen the latter.
He straightened the vest that had fit better last year, and set his shoulders. He had little hope left for himself--what he had was as cold and hard as nethicite in his chest--but he would at least give Fran the courtesy of admitting it, and taking her wherever she sought to go. He owed her that much.
Still, he cast a longing look in the direction of Rabanastre as he took his seat at the controls. He wondered if the nethicite left a taste like ashes in her mouth, or if the loss of her friends had been supplanted by the eerie Mist-charged glow.