[Final Fantasy XII] An Uneasy Alliance (Balthier/Vossler)

[lassarina]

Characters: Balthier, Fran, Vossler, Ashe
Rating: PG
Contains: Spoilers
Wordcount: 2932
Notes: Written for a prompt owlmoose left at newgameplus: Balthier/Vossler or Balthier and Vossler, they don't trust each other but they have to learn to work together.
Beta: seventhe
Summary: An alternate timeline in which the party does not meet up amid the Dalmascan treasury. After the Strahl crashes, Balthier and Fran encounter another pair of sky pirates, who lead them across the Jagd Yensa in search of treasure.

"I don't like the look of that," Balthier said to no one in particular.

Fran humoured him by looking up, and spared him the need to more specifically ask for her input. Her eyes narrowed, and her left ear flicked. "We are near jagd," she said.

"I know." Balthier tapped the panels in front of him aimlessly, trying to plot a course around the storm that had arisen out of nowhere, threatening to sweep out of the Westersand and encompass the entire Ogir-Yensa Sandsea. This close to jagd, he didn't want to encounter anything that might compromise his control of the Strahl. "Perhaps we should have snuck into the palace after all."

Fran didn't quite laugh. "Was it not you who said you would not go near Vayne Solidor for all the gold in Archades?"

"That is hardly the point." Balthier would have made a dismissive gesture, but he needed both hands for the steering yoke as a gust of wind buffeted the airship and made it buck like an ill-tempered chocobo. "The point is that I did not expect to attempt to thread the Strahl through the needle of jagd and sandstorm."

Fran's response, if she made one, was cut off by another violent jolt. Out of the corner of his eye, Balthier saw another airship trying just as hard as they were to get past the jagd and into the relative safety of either the Mosphoran Highwaste or the Ozmone Plain. He tried to pull the Strahl higher, but an ill-timed gust of wind sent them reeling sideways. Before he could properly get control again, they were on the very edge of the jagd. The other airship wobbled similarly, coming perilously close to his wing. He slammed the acceleration lever as far forward as he could, hoping to leap out of the way.

It partially worked, but a second swirl of wind accompanied the true arrival of the sandstorm, and the Strahl promptly nosedived. He heard a horrible noise of tearing metal over Fran's sudden chanting, and less than a breath after the solid warmth of Protect settled over him, a wrenching shudder of the ship threw him out of his seat and halfway across the cabin, much to the detriment of his ribs and back. He was only hazily aware of wind-borne sand streaming into the cabin.

He wasn't sure how long he lay there, his head ringing like a well-struck bell, but at length he cleared enough of the sand from his eyes to see his surroundings once more. Fran was slowly easing herself upright; from here he espied no injuries, but that only meant there was no blood or oddly angled-bones.

"Do you live, then?" she asked him, her ears twitching.

"I do." He pulled himself upright and hissed when it felt like his ribs stabbed into his lungs at the movement. "Naught a few potions won't fix, at any rate."

Fran nicked one of the emergency kits from under the nearest seat and slid it across the floor to him. He'd laid in acceptable supplies before this, and he plucked out the narrow azure vial of Hi-Potion. Potion-healing was ever a tricky business, itching like all hells or else an unwise sojourn into Golmore, but at least it didn't require licensing. When the itching finally eased, he gulped a regular potion for good measure, and then shoved the box at Fran. She took only a single potion, and he wondered how she had come through so unscathed.

Outside, he heard voices.

Even as he loosened the thong that held his gun at his side, Fran slid back so her dark skin and armor became just one more part of the shadows. Her telltale hair was concealed when she eased into the space behind a bulkhead.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nono stagger up to the doorway; upon hearing the voices, the moogle tried to hold himself still, bracing against the wall to keep his balance.

Shadows fell across the portion of the Westersand now invading the Strahl via the gash in her hull—two humes, well-armed. Balthier leaned one elbow against the back of a seat and assumed his most innocent mien.

The first one in was a big man in heavy armour, carrying a two-handed sword nigh the size of the woman who ducked behind him, a slight thing with sand-blonde hair and an expression far too bitter for her years. She carried a naked sword and a buckler shield, and stood with the kind of posture that was usually displayed only by royalty or the truly bone-deep arrogant—not that there was usually much difference betwixt them in the former case.

"It is traditional to announce oneself before charging into another's vessel," Balthier drawled while their eyes were yet unadjusted to the dimness of the interior. He took care to speak so that his voice would echo off the walls distractingly, just in case his new guests were the twitchy type.

The man in front gave an inarticulate exclamation and hefted his massive sword as though it weighed nothing, but knew not where to strike. By the time his party's vision had adjusted, Balthier and Fran both had their weapons aimed; he at the big brute, and she at the woman, whom the leader had instinctively turned to protect.

"I hardly think the vessel that caused ours to crash in jagd deserving of indulgence," the woman said, and yes, her accent was very upper-crust. Fascinating.

"'Tis hardly our fault your pilot was unskilled enough to fly into it, nor foolish enough to jerk straight into our path," Balthier replied.

"You would insult—" The man with the sword took a half-step forward.

"Enough," the woman said, and he paused mid-stride.

Better and better. Those rumours Balthier had dismissed as drunken fancy in Balfonheim looked to have some substance to them after all.

"And to what do I owe the pleasure of this little visit?" he asked, putting just enough of a pause before the word "visit" to give the question some bite.

The woman tossed her head. "We thought to see if you would negotiate for repair materials," she lied, a little too smoothly.

Well, if that was how she wanted to play it, he would oblige. "And what have you to offer?" he asked. He shifted his weight in increments until, to the casual eye, he appeared to lounge against the seat; a careful observer would note that he was ready to fire or dodge at the merest provocation.

Her gaze flicked over the instrument panels. "You're pirates," she said without further preamble. "I know of a cache of treasures nearby, and will share the specifics in exchange for repairs to our ship."

Balthier glanced past her—over her head, in fact, which seemed to irritate her—at her ship. It had fared rather worse than the Strahl, having been sheared nearly in half, and he wondered that they had survived. Perhaps they were licensed for protective magicks.

He glanced at Fran, who flicked her left ear, and he smiled. Fran did like to gamble, and he was sure he held a winning hand. He might not recognize the brute, but he did know the girl.

"I'll make you a counteroffer," he said. "All four of us will go retrieve this cache of treasure while Nono repairs our ship, and we'll give you a ride to Rabanastre, where you can sell your share of the profits and live like a queen."

She drew in her breath with a hiss of anger, and Balthier thought her tame hound might slip the leash for a moment, but he reined himself in at the last minute.

"And we would be on your ship because…?" he asked sharply.

Balthier gestured toward their vessel. "Yours is hardly in any fit state to be repaired in the field," he said. "Ours can still fly. I think I'm being rather generous in offering a ride—and in not leaving you to die in the desert, unremarked and vanished into the veils of history." The little extra jibe was probably unnecessary, but satisfying.

"And what assurance have we that you will not kill us when we tell you where A—" The knight stuttered, further confirming Balthier's suspicions. The woman stepped on his toes, not as subtly as she doubtless intended. "Amalia knows to find this treasure?"

"Why, honor among pirates." Balthier spread his free hand and smiled innocently. "Speaking of which, I presume you are Amalia, which makes you…?" He waggled his eyebrows at the knight.

"Vossler," he grated out. Balthier wondered if the leather collar he wore choked as much as his honor. Dalmasca's knights were not known for their piracy skills; he wondered how long it had taken Vossler to learn even this much semblance of them.

Amalia hesitated.

Fran's bow-arm did not so much as tremble.

At length Amalia sighed. "Very well," she said.

"M—Amalia," Vossler protested.

She cut him off with a sharp gesture. "We have few options," she said.

"Well, then." Balthier kept his gun casually trained on them while Fran slackened the tension on her bow gradually. When they showed no signs of attacking, she picked up the packs that they kept nearby in the cockpit and tossed Balthier's at him. He scooped it up, never letting himself become unaware of where Vossler and Amalia were.

"Let's be off," Vossler growled.

"Supplies first," Amalia reminded him, and ducked out of the Strahl into the blistering heat of the Westersand. Balthier gestured politely for Vossler to precede him, and hid his smirk at the knight's obvious frustration.

The only real question now was whether it was more valuable to sell information on the newly-risen-from-the-dead princess of Dalmasca, or keep it quiet.


~*~

Balthier hated jagd.

It was not only that the Mist-drenched lands were overly rich in magicite, nor even that they were more dangerous than most places on account of no King or Queen's justice caring to lay claim to them. No, it was simpler and more visceral than that. The Mist of the jagd denied him his wings, and he resented being stripped of his freedom thus.

They moved steadily through the shifting wastes of the Ogir-Yensa Sandsea, cutting their way through the Urutan-Yensa with casual disregard. To be fair, the Urutan had struck first. Balthier had cause to be grateful for Vossler's size and stamina (a joke he was going to pretend he hadn't made to himself, at least for now); granted, the knight spent most of his time defending his lady, but he absorbed blows meant for them as well, and turned his wounds back upon his foes. Balthier would not much have liked to have fought him.

The princess fought better than he would have expected; Dalmasca was not noted for arming her daughters along with her sons, but it appeared circumstance had made a warrior of her whether she willed it or no. From the way she slashed through aught that stood in her path, Balthier suspected she had embraced the opportunities afforded her by her fall from the throne—something she doubtless considered only temporary.

"Had I known it would involve a trek through jagd and desert combined, I might have asked for something more weighty," he muttered to Fran one night at the campfire, tipping his boots so the sand would pour out.

She had stripped out of her armour to clean and polish it, choosing to be unaware of how Vossler fought to keep his eyes averted from her form clearly visible through thin fabric, and she made the faint noise that in another woman would have been a laugh. "Ever do you think on this after the fact," she murmured, shifting the metal plates and shaking them gently so that the sand fell away.

Balthier stretched out beside their campfire, making a point of not watching Fran, though he had before and gods willing he would again. "As you say, Fran," he agreed.

"What does she say?" Amalia seemed unfazed by Fran's nudity, though she herself did not strip down—nor did Vossler, which Balthier thought a great pity.

"Ah, merely that I am prone to a certain quickness of action," Balthier said lightly. Amalia and Vossler would not know Fran well enough to read her laughter in the quirk of her eyebrows, but he did.

It was plain to him as he watched them that Amalia was the one who had chosen sky piracy; Vossler was ill at ease with even the lightest of jests, and Amalia seemed simply to face it as one more obstacle on her way back to her throne. She was clever in diplomacy, even here, dropping tiny tidbits that hinted at where they were bound without revealing her birth or the location of their destination. Vossler, for his part, was sullenly silent. Balthier wondered if that was his nature or if he feared betraying his lady with a careless word.

He found himself oddly fascinated by the knight; true it was that Vossler was no pleasant company, but he was certainly pleasing to look upon, and Balthier had to admit that he found Vossler's unwavering dedication both compelling and perplexing. Many men would have abandoned their posts long ere now, or urged the princess to make common cause with another nation—Landis had fallen over a decade since, but Jahara yet stood free, or she could swallow the snake and make alliance with Rozarria, which had an overabundance of princes and an insufficiency of land for them to rule. Yet Vossler stood loyal by his lady's side, following her even into the life of crime his oaths forbade.

Was he so loyal to Dalmasca's fallen line, or did he but seize the chance for misbehaviour and run? More likely the former, Balthier thought, for Vossler's discomfort with piracy was plain. So he watched, and admired, and fancied sometimes that he saw Vossler looking back with something like interest.

As they traveled, he gathered small amounts of information; that they sought a tomb from ancient times, bearing treasures deep within itself. It was spoken of in a tale Amalia had heard from her grandfather. (Fran's ears flicked mightily at that, and Balthier struggled to hold down his laughter at her reaction.) It held an item of particular interest to Amalia, and treasure enough, she said, to sate any sky pirate's thirst for wealth. Balthier found it interesting that by her words, she excluded herself from such company, but by her actions she was as any young and untried sky pirate he'd known (or been himself, though he admitted that only to Fran)—anxious for treasure and comfortable in her own skills.

The tomb was a massive, hulking affair of carven stone, and upon seeing the sigil carved into its doors, Balthier could have slapped himself for foolishness. King Raithwall's crest stood there, proud as the day the Dynast-King had built the Galtean Alliance. He ought to have known that Amalia, formerly Ashelia, would come here. The Dynast-King's relics were rumored to be hidden away where only his own line might find them.

Perhaps this was why Vossler had not counseled his princess into alliance outside Dalmasca.

Amalia led them into the tomb, and straight into the claws of a living wall. They fought frantically as it warped space itself around them; Fran fell first, and Balthier found himself aiming over Vossler's shoulder and firing as fast as he could while Amalia struggled with curative magicks to keep them all on their feet.

When at last the wall lay dead, Balthier spun to Vossler, who yet struggled to catch his breath, and latched his fingers under the knight's collar. Fran lay unmoving on the floor, though Ashe approached her with down of the phoenix in her hand, and Balthier's fury was nearing Solidor proportions. "Did you know of this?" he demanded, shoving Vossler back so that he crashed into a pillar, brought up short by Balthier's hand on his collar. He leaned close enough for a kiss, close enough for a knife between the ribs, and twisted the leather tighter, feeling the pulse beat against the back of his hand. "Did you know of these demon walls?"

He had forgotten, in his temper and his worry for Fran, how much bigger than he Vossler was. The knight spun casually, trading their places as he might move pieces upon a chessboard, and wrapped his hand around Balthier's throat. "Do you think me so uncaring of my oaths that I would lead her into a trap?" Vossler hissed, and Balthier was distantly amused—where he was not panicking at lack of air—that he had made Vossler forget himself so far as to admit what they were, if only in passing.

He reached up and twined his fingers into Vossler's hair, yanking the other man's head down for a hard kiss, teeth scraping his lip with full intent. Vossler slackened his grip on Balthier's throat and kissed him back, his body warm where cold metal did not cover it. Doubtless this was snagging Balthier's fine clothing something awful, but for once he could not find it in him to care.

Vossler broke away at Fran's delicate clearing of her throat; Balthier looked to his partner, whose wounds had been well-knit by crimson feathers and pale magicks, and she smiled. "Perhaps you might continue this after we have explored," Fran suggested so mildly that Balthier had to laugh aloud.

Perhaps this uneasy alliance would be worth it after all.