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rose_in_winterCharacters: Balthier, Fran
Rating: G
Contains: Spoilers for Balthier's backstory
Wordcount: 1249
Notes: Forgenprompt_bingo, "Partnership" square
Beta:seventhe
Summary: Trust is important between partners.
Balthier muffled his curse when he let the door scrape too loudly, but he might as well have not bothered. Guards came running in an instant from both directions, and seized him. Their gauntlets left marks on his cuffs, and he preemptively winced in anticipation of the cost of laundering the shirt. They did their best to drag him to their master, but he was quicker on his feet in leather than they were in steel, and it was under his own power that he made it to the lord's solar.
Vizconde Adalberto de Varela looked down at him from a carved wooden chair set high on a dais, steepling his fingers in front of his narrow patrician nose. So must generations of his forefathers looked down on those brought before them. Balthier wondered if he put away the dramatic tapestries and throne-like chair when House Margrace came to visit. No one in Archades would thumb their noses at House Solidor so, and he had no reason to believe that Rozarrian politics were any less cutthroat.
Adalberto was watching him silently, so Balthier looked around the room, which was more interesting than a sour Rozarrian nobleman's expression. The west wall featured narrow, high windows, doubtless to defend against arrows, that now leaked the last dregs of crimson sunset light. The walls were lined with paintings in heavy frames. Beautifully carved wooden furniture perfumed the air with lemon oil. Though the furnishings themselves could qualify as works of art, they were weighed down with statues, bowls, and other pieces, each of which was worth enough to fuel the Strahl for a month or more. Balthier's eyes lingered on a lapis lazuli statuette of Kadesh, the goddess of love, rising naked from a pool. The statue was strewn about with rose petals, indicating that Adalberto felt some degree of piety to her.
His attention did not go unnoticed.
"A lovely piece, is it not? Galtean, of course," Adalberto said.
Balthier said nothing.
"So you're the thief," Adalberto said thoughtfully.
"Sky pirate, if you please." Balthier accepted the cuff to the back of his head from the guard with good grace; there were plenty of potions on board the Strahl.
"A thief," the Vizconde repeated, "in my treasury."
"Where else would I be?"
This time Adalberto raised his hand, stopping the guard who was about to give Balthier another bruise for his trouble.
"I am curious, thief. Who sent you?" Adalberto leaned forward on his carved throne, resting his chin atop those steepled fingers.
Balthier shrugged as best he could with his arms twisted behind him. "Your collection of Galtean antiquities is known over all Ivalice, Vizconde," he said. "Who need send me, when I could hear that for myself?"
"And your buyer?" The Vizconde leaned further forward, teetering on the edge of his seat.
"I was planning to find one afterward. Shopping for a buyer when one hasn't the goods in hand is as good as advertising the planned attempt, wouldn't you agree?"
Adalberto raised an eyebrow. "Smarter than I expected, for a thief."
"Your mistake was in applying the expectation of a thief to a pirate." Balthier listened intently, but there was no sound of conflict from the rooms above. Everything was proceeding as planned.
"If you turn over your partners, I will petition the magistrate for mercy," Adalberto offered.
He was a worse liar than anyone Balthier had ever questioned while he yet wore Judge's plate, but rather than comment on it, he listened, and heard the faintest scraping sound at the window.
Just a moment more.
"Answer me!" Adalberto rose half out of his chair, and the guards' hands tightened on him.
Precisely on time, smoke bombs rained down from the high, narrow windows above. Balthier held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut. He heard the familiar twang of a bowstring, followed cries as the guards holding him received the gift of Fran's arrows. He held out his hand blindly, and she dropped a handkerchief and a vial of eyedrops into it.
While he dealt with the aftererffects of her rescue, she slipped away. He heard the Vizconde give a startled cry. "My ring!"
Balthier rolled smoothly backwards as the guards drew their swords and slashed at the spot where he'd been a moment before, pausing to pour the drops into his eyes and don the pair of goggles he'd kept in his pocket—dreadfully unfashionable, but goggles did not rate the same level of engineering for form as well as function that an airship might. He hurried to the east side of the room, and grabbed the statue of Kadesh from the display, scattering the rose petals everywhere. Then he dashed back to the windows and climbed the rope Fran had helpfully dropped, following her up and out the window. He had to turn sideways, and it was a tight squeeze, but he made it without damaging himself or, more importantly, popping the buttons off his vest.
Fran had left the scooter on a ledge just above the window, and they jumped easily to it and set off immediately, soaring into the air and then dropping low to skim barely above the treetops of Adalberto's personal woodland, which he kept for hunting.
"Did you get it?" Balthier asked as they left the compound behind.
Fran's ear flicked in annoyance. "Do you not trust me?"
"I trust you implicitly, but sometimes things go awry," he said.
"As they did with you?" She sounded amused, though it was hard to tell when her ears were so still if she meant it or not.
"My capture was part of the plan, I remind you. A plan you devised."
She made a faint sound and swooped down, landing just the other side of the woodland. The Strahl hovered above, invisible in her cloaking technology.
Fran waved her left arm thrice, paused, then twice, then thrice, in the prearranged signal for Nono. The Strahl drifted gently downward so that they might board.
Fran led the way, and took her seat in the cockpit while Balthier packed away the statue of Kadesh. There were many in Archades who'd pay handsomely for it. Balfonheim might be better, as no one would ask pesky questions as to how he'd come by such a fine piece of Galtean art.
When he rejoined Fran in the cockpit, she handed him a neatly rolled scroll. He unrolled it, and skimmed its contents. A slip of paper fell free and landed in his lap.
"Better than we'd hoped," he observed aloud.
Fran's ears swiveled. "I do not care for blackmail," she said, easing the Strahl up and pointing her nose east.
"We won't use it as such," he agreed, in full accord with her. "But the code, on the other hand…" He dangled the slip of paper from his fingertips. "The same one used by the traitor in the Nabradian treasury to communicate with Rozarria about the scarletite shipments. And Nabradia has no need of that now."
Fran pressed the throttle forward. "What would you have done," she asked, "had it not been the right code?"
"Why, Fran." He stretched until his shoulders popped, and straightened his cuffs. "We always have a contingency plan."
Fran's lips moved the faintest amount, and he leaned back in his seat and gave a pleased sigh. "Onward, then, to the Ogir-Yensa," he said, and watched Rozarria fly by beneath them.
Rating: G
Contains: Spoilers for Balthier's backstory
Wordcount: 1249
Notes: For
genprompt_bingo, "Partnership" squareBeta:
seventheSummary: Trust is important between partners.
Balthier muffled his curse when he let the door scrape too loudly, but he might as well have not bothered. Guards came running in an instant from both directions, and seized him. Their gauntlets left marks on his cuffs, and he preemptively winced in anticipation of the cost of laundering the shirt. They did their best to drag him to their master, but he was quicker on his feet in leather than they were in steel, and it was under his own power that he made it to the lord's solar.
Vizconde Adalberto de Varela looked down at him from a carved wooden chair set high on a dais, steepling his fingers in front of his narrow patrician nose. So must generations of his forefathers looked down on those brought before them. Balthier wondered if he put away the dramatic tapestries and throne-like chair when House Margrace came to visit. No one in Archades would thumb their noses at House Solidor so, and he had no reason to believe that Rozarrian politics were any less cutthroat.
Adalberto was watching him silently, so Balthier looked around the room, which was more interesting than a sour Rozarrian nobleman's expression. The west wall featured narrow, high windows, doubtless to defend against arrows, that now leaked the last dregs of crimson sunset light. The walls were lined with paintings in heavy frames. Beautifully carved wooden furniture perfumed the air with lemon oil. Though the furnishings themselves could qualify as works of art, they were weighed down with statues, bowls, and other pieces, each of which was worth enough to fuel the Strahl for a month or more. Balthier's eyes lingered on a lapis lazuli statuette of Kadesh, the goddess of love, rising naked from a pool. The statue was strewn about with rose petals, indicating that Adalberto felt some degree of piety to her.
His attention did not go unnoticed.
"A lovely piece, is it not? Galtean, of course," Adalberto said.
Balthier said nothing.
"So you're the thief," Adalberto said thoughtfully.
"Sky pirate, if you please." Balthier accepted the cuff to the back of his head from the guard with good grace; there were plenty of potions on board the Strahl.
"A thief," the Vizconde repeated, "in my treasury."
"Where else would I be?"
This time Adalberto raised his hand, stopping the guard who was about to give Balthier another bruise for his trouble.
"I am curious, thief. Who sent you?" Adalberto leaned forward on his carved throne, resting his chin atop those steepled fingers.
Balthier shrugged as best he could with his arms twisted behind him. "Your collection of Galtean antiquities is known over all Ivalice, Vizconde," he said. "Who need send me, when I could hear that for myself?"
"And your buyer?" The Vizconde leaned further forward, teetering on the edge of his seat.
"I was planning to find one afterward. Shopping for a buyer when one hasn't the goods in hand is as good as advertising the planned attempt, wouldn't you agree?"
Adalberto raised an eyebrow. "Smarter than I expected, for a thief."
"Your mistake was in applying the expectation of a thief to a pirate." Balthier listened intently, but there was no sound of conflict from the rooms above. Everything was proceeding as planned.
"If you turn over your partners, I will petition the magistrate for mercy," Adalberto offered.
He was a worse liar than anyone Balthier had ever questioned while he yet wore Judge's plate, but rather than comment on it, he listened, and heard the faintest scraping sound at the window.
Just a moment more.
"Answer me!" Adalberto rose half out of his chair, and the guards' hands tightened on him.
Precisely on time, smoke bombs rained down from the high, narrow windows above. Balthier held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut. He heard the familiar twang of a bowstring, followed cries as the guards holding him received the gift of Fran's arrows. He held out his hand blindly, and she dropped a handkerchief and a vial of eyedrops into it.
While he dealt with the aftererffects of her rescue, she slipped away. He heard the Vizconde give a startled cry. "My ring!"
Balthier rolled smoothly backwards as the guards drew their swords and slashed at the spot where he'd been a moment before, pausing to pour the drops into his eyes and don the pair of goggles he'd kept in his pocket—dreadfully unfashionable, but goggles did not rate the same level of engineering for form as well as function that an airship might. He hurried to the east side of the room, and grabbed the statue of Kadesh from the display, scattering the rose petals everywhere. Then he dashed back to the windows and climbed the rope Fran had helpfully dropped, following her up and out the window. He had to turn sideways, and it was a tight squeeze, but he made it without damaging himself or, more importantly, popping the buttons off his vest.
Fran had left the scooter on a ledge just above the window, and they jumped easily to it and set off immediately, soaring into the air and then dropping low to skim barely above the treetops of Adalberto's personal woodland, which he kept for hunting.
"Did you get it?" Balthier asked as they left the compound behind.
Fran's ear flicked in annoyance. "Do you not trust me?"
"I trust you implicitly, but sometimes things go awry," he said.
"As they did with you?" She sounded amused, though it was hard to tell when her ears were so still if she meant it or not.
"My capture was part of the plan, I remind you. A plan you devised."
She made a faint sound and swooped down, landing just the other side of the woodland. The Strahl hovered above, invisible in her cloaking technology.
Fran waved her left arm thrice, paused, then twice, then thrice, in the prearranged signal for Nono. The Strahl drifted gently downward so that they might board.
Fran led the way, and took her seat in the cockpit while Balthier packed away the statue of Kadesh. There were many in Archades who'd pay handsomely for it. Balfonheim might be better, as no one would ask pesky questions as to how he'd come by such a fine piece of Galtean art.
When he rejoined Fran in the cockpit, she handed him a neatly rolled scroll. He unrolled it, and skimmed its contents. A slip of paper fell free and landed in his lap.
"Better than we'd hoped," he observed aloud.
Fran's ears swiveled. "I do not care for blackmail," she said, easing the Strahl up and pointing her nose east.
"We won't use it as such," he agreed, in full accord with her. "But the code, on the other hand…" He dangled the slip of paper from his fingertips. "The same one used by the traitor in the Nabradian treasury to communicate with Rozarria about the scarletite shipments. And Nabradia has no need of that now."
Fran pressed the throttle forward. "What would you have done," she asked, "had it not been the right code?"
"Why, Fran." He stretched until his shoulders popped, and straightened his cuffs. "We always have a contingency plan."
Fran's lips moved the faintest amount, and he leaned back in his seat and gave a pleased sigh. "Onward, then, to the Ogir-Yensa," he said, and watched Rozarria fly by beneath them.