Archive of Our Own

She is never alone anymore. Guards’ footsteps always echo after hers. In every corner awaits a maid. And behind every fern hides a sky pirate. Not truly dignified, but what can a man do? Leaving her secret messages inside invaluable tomes and tied to the neck of chocobos is very dashing and mysterious, clear proof of Balthier’s prowess and stealth abilities. But like anything you do for too long does, it has grown wearying.

Ashe’s answer in turn is royal silence. But since it’s not a royal murder or a sternly worded royal letter, it doesn’t displease her.

’But it is not proof that it pleases her, Fran. How can I find such proof, I wonder.’

Her patience frayed, she stretches the silence in revenge.

‘Please, Fran. For all the pleasure I take in my words, even I tire of monologues.’

‘That is a surprise. And if a man would like to know, he would need to ask. Simple as that.'

So that is the reason he is lurking behind a fern at Rabanastre Royal Palace: asking. At least, he hopes, it will be a surprise and that’ll salvage some of his dignity. What a brave, fearless man, that Balthier. Infiltrating a palace and asking a woman… He almost asked her once, in the dead of one desert night. But he refrained, in the end. And so did she.

There she is, flanked by two large Dalmascan guards. He sees the changes first. Her elegant clothes, untouched by sand, mud, or worse. No bruises along her arms. Her hair is down to her shoulders now but still practical — because she is still lurking underneath the Queen. The eyes are the same eyes that’d steal glances at him from her seat on the Strahl. The lips and the smile are the same.

It’s Fran’s turn now. He’d apologize to Fran for always roping her into his schemes and stunts, but letting her do the same to him is the foundation of their friendship. The air ripples and the guards fall to the ground, asleep. Ashe turns around with a sudden dagger in her hand.

Better to step out of the shadows with his hands up, just in case. ‘I expected a kinder welcome to the hero of Dalmasca.’

Disbelief. Relief. And then annoyance. Her face is a treasure. ‘The Hero of Dalmasca could have sent word or requested an audience. I've found he is very skilled at sending messages.’

‘But his messages aren’t skilled at getting answers. A man as upstanding as the Hero of Dalmasca would not assume encouragement to… visit when there might be none.’ She walks past him and he follows. ‘And anyway, I’m a sky pirate. We don’t knock.’

She looked over her shoulder. ‘But you do knock out people.’

‘They will wake up soon, as you are aware.’

‘They will wake and then demand an explanation.’

‘Which their Queen will provide and they will find most unremarkable.’

She is on the balcony now, looking down at her city. Her figure is stark against a backdrop of stars, warm city lights, and the shadow of Bahamut. He walks next to her, rests his hand next to hers. ‘Will they?’

‘You are right. They will find the explanation remarkable. After all, their Queen becomes the most remarkable woman in the eyes of every man who sees her.’

‘Every one of them?’

‘Yes. I have it on good authority.’ He must do something before the dark of the night tears a question out of him. ‘Your city is remarkable too. It has recovered very quickly. Soon it’ll be as gilded as it used to be.’

‘No, because you would steal the gilding.’ There is a moment of silence, of calm, before she also chooses not to ask. ‘Do you want to know? What I have been doing?’

‘Always, princess.’

The messages appear in the strangest places and at odd times. Sometimes a waitress drops them inside Balthier’s wine and he must dry it in order to read Ashe’s elegant letters and rough language. Other times he is hired to deliver goods and discovers the goods are for him. He tracks down ciphers and solves puzzles. One time, he opened a chest inside a long-forgotten temple only to find a blank piece of paper. A very clear message to him, although even Fran thought it too cryptic. Later on, during a very rainy night at the Tchita Uplands, Vaan confessed to having delivered it but refused to say anything more. Loyal to his Queen to a fault.

‘I think you know the reasons better than I do,’ he had said. Then he had smirked, the damned kid. Well, the young man now - but still as disrespectful as he had been as a little runt of a pirate.

In return, he sends her intricate Archadian mechanical puzzles and leaves the message tucked in the box. Flowers from distant lands show up on her bed at dusk, their meanings blooming into ancient Galtean poetry. It’s a diversion as he travels lands he knows like the back of his hand to do what he has done a thousand times before. After all, a sky pirate must chase after treasure and face death every day, just like a young Archadean man must chase after power. Every now and then he lets a blade he could have deflected graze his flesh. Who knew being the leading man could be so tiring?

The Nebra mirrors the stars as it has always done, but the village has changed. New homes. More merchants. Less danger. Impressive, that one could see change even if one stayed in one place. But the pier is still rackety and slightly too fragile. That’s why he has decided to try fishing. These days, he is sampling life’s many pleasures. One never knows when a surprise lays.

So he takes a quick lesson from an enthusiastic teenager and sits down. His feet are dangling off the pier, the moon is bright, and fish are escaping from him. Belated punishment, maybe, for all the times he has escaped both his captors and consequences.

He has been entrusted with a message from Al-Cid to be delivered directly into the hands of the Queen. He can either journey to Rabanastre or stay in a small village for days, loudly proclaiming himself to be the famous sky pirate Vaan. What an important man Balthier has turned out to be, forever entangled with the fate of nations. He has not read the message because there is no need to: everybody in Ambervale knows the Margraces intend to turn one of their many spare princes into the new groom of the widow queen. She needs to be forewarned — an alliance with Rozaria could sound enticing, but it would upset the delicate balance of power on Ivalice. Larsa Solidor would not care but the nobles of Archadia would.

So in the end, his travels led him back to Rabanastre, back to one of his many beginnings. Back to the woman now walking down the pier and sitting down next to him. Her hair shines silver under the moonlight. One or two guards stand on the shore, shifting their weight from one foot to the other.

‘You are an adventurous queen.’

‘Do you find me so cowardly now that you would consider this an adventure?’

‘You wrong me.’

‘No, if I wanted to wrong you I would note that fishing is not an adventure befitting a sky pirate either.’

‘Then why don’t we make peace? I shall say that there are many types of adventures, none more valuable than the other.’

‘I will agree then.’

It is as if time has not moved on since they last stood on this desert, chasing after some mythical quarry, but also as if centuries have dashed forward since he last saw her. He is but a ruin of a man, all his hard edges sanded down by time but the core remaining still. ‘I have a message for you.’

‘I wondered why you had made such an spectacle of yourself.’

‘I always do.’

‘That much is true. The message is from Al-Cid, is it not?’

‘Yes. It is about…’

‘I know. I have become a great prize: a widow, a queen, an ally to both Archadia and Rozaria. No jewel shines brighter than me.’

‘No more shining jewels for us, princess. May I ask…?’

She turns to look at him. ‘I was under the impression that is not something we do.’

He moves his hand closer to hers, close to the hand where she still wears her ring. A reminder of many things. ‘I have a reputation as a surprising man and I cannot keep it if I do not change every now and then.’

‘I see. I shall reject their proposal. A prince of Rozaria will not accept being anything less than a king. As the queen, as myself, I do not…’ Her eyes focus on the horizon, away from Balthier’s. ‘I do not need a leading man.’

‘Hm. I see.’ His hand covers hers with the same tenderness one would use to caress a skittish chocobo. ‘You see, there is something curious about leading men. All of them eventually leave the stage.’

Her fingers caress his when they intertwine. ‘So… may I ask?’

That moment stolen from a night long ago has faded but now, looking at her eyes so full of stars she seemed a decade younger, it is vibrant again. He had leaned forward back then and she had tilted up her head. So many words he had chosen not to say. Her lips, a breath away. The distance that they had not breached.

‘Have you not asked before? A cold night many nights ago? Because I will not take back what I did not say back then, princess.’

Her lips, a small breath away. ‘Then I will not take back my answer either.’

And then a distance breached.