Stephonika's Universe

Final Fantasy XII from Balthier's point of view.  Balthier and his sky pirate partner take to the skies (and far reaches) of the world of Ivalice in times when the political powers are shifting.  Soon, the pair find themselves among strangers--riffraff and royalty--and must decide whether or not answer the call to help abate an Empire from taking over.

Archades did not matter anymore.  Let it wage its war with Dalmasca.  Though he did not agree with the circumstances that had come to pass, he was not about to become involved in the intricacies of warfare.  Just see where bloodshed gets them.  It did not concern him.  The only thing he was interested in were the little rewards he could get his hands on amidst the conflicts.  Besides, what was a war without a little thieving?  Honest thieving, though, for he did not take what he did not need.  At least, that was how he saw things.

The life he had made for himself had become much better off without his past ties, and he had been more successful than most independent souls.  Not that he was solely alone in life, though.  His partner provided all the social comfort he could handle.  Surrounding himself with a crowd of people was only something he preferred doing when necessary.  If he could stay away, stay in the sky where he was free, then everything would be better off ... for everyone.

But no matter where he was, those images were always somewhere in his head.  And as he stared up at the ceiling of his cabin aboard the Strahl, it was as if they were photographs taped above him and staring back down.  With every blink he tried to erase them, but it seemed more difficult the more tired he became.  

They had been chased throughout continents trying to find the information they had acquired just hours ago.  It seemed a good conversation was hard to come by when there was a price on your head.  Nevertheless, he and his partner were well on their way to uncovering a rather interesting artifact.  Yet, it had come at a price.  The Strahl had taken some damage during their last launch, and though their lengthy chase through the streets, rooftops, and skies during the night had thrilled him, his bones felt the aftertaste of legarthy now that they were safely on their way.

His eyes drooped off, and he instinctively kept shaking his head back awake.  He shifted onto his side, seeing if that might help steal those pictures away from his eyes, but even as he turned, digging  his face into his cushion-like pillow, those images had been burned into his skull.

At last, though, sleep found him, and he dozed off, mumbling.  The images in his head played through his mind like a series of snapshots.  They were just tiny moving pictures at first.  

He and his partner flying their ship.  

A few years ago wondering through the Jungle.  

And then ... a sixteen-year-old boy sat in his room, his luxurious room.  He was sitting on the railing of his balcony, gazing out on the city of Archades.  The bright orange and red sunset loomed as a painted backdrop behind the towering buildings.  He could even see the poor sectors from his room, see the little children playing in the streets.

He could hear the voices then as he shifted in his sleep.

"Ffamran, where are you?" a muffled voice called.

The boy turned to look into his room, but the new presence within had already located him.  The armoured man approached him, removing his helmet.  "Thought I might find you out here," the short-cropped blond haired man said with an amused grin.  

Ffamran stared blankly back at him for a moment.  Of all the Judges, Gabranth was likely the most tolerable, not that he preferred any of them.  He turned away, looking back at Archades.

"What is it you're looking for when you look at the city?" Gabranth asked, as he approached the balcony and laid his helmet down on the railing under his crossed arms.

The boy did not reply; instead, his eyes remained on the city, as if he were straining to maintain the gaze.

"I understand that you don't agree with the Empire's ways, but I assure you, if I did not believe it best, I would not serve it so freely," the Judge said.  Yes, the Judge within Gabranth was now speaking.  The side of him that defended the Empire, his precious Empire.  Was the building of fleets of air ships and the invention of stronger weapons truly the ultimate aim of Emperor Gramis Solidor?

Would not serve so freely, would he?  Ffamran nearly broke his vacant expression in amusement.  Did the other Judges truly think him ignorant just because he was so very much younger than them?  Drace had always passed him sympathetic glances and had offered many times to take him under her wing, but he had always declined.  He had been observing their conversations and actions ever since he was a toddler, and there was little more he needed to be taught in the ways of their corrupted politics.

Obviously, Gabranth realized that he did not intend on speaking to him, so he finally cut to the chase.  "You're father's been looking for you."

And I suppose looking for me in the most obvious place is too much out of his schedule, Ffamran thought.  He nodded to Gabranth, and the Judge left his side after a moment's hesitation.

No matter what you may think ... I don't need your sympathies.

Ffamran listened as Gabranth exited through the door and heaved a sigh the moment he was finally alone again.  He did not much mind the man save for his attempts to pull his emotions from within him.  Did the man not understand that he was an independent soul, one that needed not the company of another?  He did not need pity.  He did not need comfort.  He had been without it for so long that being without had become a way of life, second-hand nature.

And I've had about enough of this as I can take, he thought as he leapt down from his perch with the sound of clanking metal.  He adjusted his breastplate and his gauntlet before he returned inside, and then he, too, left the room.

The halls were quiet save for his echoing footsteps.  He turned the corner into an open room and stepped into the elevator along the right side of the junctioning chamber.  He punched in the correct floor and waited as the elevator hummed to life.

When the elevator halted, he stepped out of the automatically opening doors and strode down the hallway stretching before him.  There were imperial guards flanking the hall and the doorway at the end, and as Ffamran came to it, the guards were already in motion of opening the doors, nodding to signal that he was allowed to enter.

As he stepped inside, he looked about.  He did not see his father anywhere, but papers were scattered about on his desktop at the corner of the large room.  A wraparound balcony stretched around the bottom level of his father's office, floor-to-ceiling windows encasing the room in the glow of the outside.

Just as he was about to turn toward the spiral staircase leading to the upper tier of the office, his father began descending them.  He was mumbling to himself again.  "Yes, yes.  Oh, yes," he chuckled.  "That is absolutely a novel idea."

When his father came to the bottom and stepped out into the room, he moved directly past Ffamran to his desk.  He leaned over it from the front, looking at various papers.

Ffamran took a step forward, but his father held up a hand, "Yes, my son, a moment.  I must-- Oh, indeed!  That is splendid.  Splendid!  Ah, Venat, right again."

His son frowned at that.  What was that word he always heard?  Was it some kind of muse?  Was it some invention he was working on?  He could never fathom it, and so it always appeared that he was just talking to himself.  He did not know if all "great" scientists were like this, in fact, the few he had met in the Draklor Laboratory were nothing like him.

He was just an insane, babbling fool.  Full of empty promises.

"Oh!  Well, this is simply ingenious!" his father announced, stroking his bearded chin as he turned toward the door.  "Sorry, boy, I'll have to speak with you later.  Something brilliant has come to my attention."  He stopped alongside Ffamran for a moment, but without looking to him, he asked, "Why don't you come by the laboratory in a few hours.  I'll have something interesting you may want to see."

And then he left.  Ffamran's gaze was cast downward.

His gloved hand clenched into a fist before he realized that his fingernails were digging into his palm through the leather material.  Relaxing his muscles, he looked up again, out past the panes of glass.  The outside.  That beautiful sky.  It looked so inviting, so free.... Better that any of this.  For so long he had gazed toward it, longing.  He had often wondered what it would be like to live away from all this.  The constant pressure not to step too far out of line with the other Judges watching his every move.  Being right under the nose of the imperial Solidor family.  Just seeing Vanye feud with his older siblings made him understand that he was a man not to be crossed openly.

Politics.  That was what he had grown up knowing.  But it was time, perhaps, to finally end the mundane life he had been presented by the Fates.  I think it's just about time I took fate into my own hands.  Waiting by and letting it unfold hasn't done much for me so far.

Ffamran looked to the polished metal of his gauntlet, gazed over its intricate designs.  The armour, his very role in the Empire, a gift from his father.  But it could not make up for any of it, any of the things he had done--or had not done.  And so, his mind was set.  It was time to find his own life, make his own living.  Anything could be better than remaining under the watchful eyes of the Empire, destined to remain silent of his true beliefs for the rest of his life.  So many in Arcahdia loathed or admired him for his high position in his youth, but to be hated or loved were two things he did not care for.  If he managed to make something of his life, he would rather be some simple name in the crowd.  Fame was not exactly what he wanted at the moment, but maybe someday....

Right now all that mattered was the short term, where he was going to end up sleeping the next day.  He had a few friends in the city that would likely take him in without reporting his presence.  It was not that he trusted any of them in the least, but most had proved helpful in getting him out his worst spots of misfortune--which his father had never known about.  If the good doctor had known of his meddlings in the rich and poor sectors of the city, he thought it likely that travel into Archades for him would have been restricted without a chaperone.  Not that the doctor cared for his wellbeing.  It was simply that he would not want someone of his good name to dilute his reputation.

No matter, no matter, thought Ffamran. None of that will matter anymore.  I could smear his name if I wished....  It's time this ended.  I make my own life from here on.  I've had enough.  Enough insanity.  Enough silence.  Enough empty promises....

He looked into the fading sunset once more, his expression resolute.

He stirred then, a dull sound beeping louder and louder until he awoke fully.  Groaning at both the disturbance of the sound and that of his dreams, he sat up in his bed and looked at his night stand.  He grabbed the flashing communicator from its polished resting place and flicked the switch on the side.  "What is it, Fran?" he grumbled in his thick accent.  A memento from his father that sometimes bothered him.  It was not that he did not like his smooth-talking voice, for it had proven rather useful with the ladies, but the dialect that had been imprinted on his speech had been a little something of his father, and it was a harsh reminder sometimes of the high society from whence he had come.

"We are closing in on Rabanastre now.  Should I land in the plains to avoid unwanted eyes?" the familiar feminine voice of his pirating partner asked.

"No, no.  We're party crashers.  We've got to arrive in style," he replied into the device, as he swung out of bed and shuffled his feet into his shoes.  "Bring her over one of the landing sites and signal in for clearance.  I'll be up momentarily."

He flicked off the communicator and shoved it into a pouch on his belts.  He bent over to lace up his shoes and then stepped over to the table in the middle of his cabin.  He grabbed up his shirts he had laid over the back of a chair and slipped into the laced sleeves and collar of the white one, and after adjusting the sleeves, he pulled on the more decorative vest-like shirt.

Fully dressed, he opened the door of his cabin and stepped out into the corrior.

===============

He joined his partner in the cockpit a moment later and sat down in the seat to her left.  He adjusted himself in the seat as his partner looked to him.

She was a dark-skinned viera, seemingly a woman but far different from his race of humes.  Her dark, armoured clothing fit her tightly, and much of her skin--like most of the vieras he had met--was exposed.  Her beautiful long, white ears grew out the top of her head and bounced at the motions of the Strahl.  Her white mane of hair stretched back across her spine down and out of an ornate helm that fit firmly around her ears and eyes.  Her darkened eyes sharply gazed toward him, and her black-tipped ears bobbed as he took the controls.

"Feeling better?" she asked.

"Ah, yes, of course.  Like a new man," he returned, but he immediately changed the subject to their situation at hand.  "Have you called in our dietary needs?"

"I have."

"And?"

"We are to land in number three," she said.

"I take it there were no problems then," he said, adjusting his course toward the areodome to compensate for their landing coordinates.

"None."

"Good," he nodded.  "I want Nono to get a look at the Strahl as soon as we land.  It was a little bumpy getting out of Bhujerban airspace.  I don't think we should announce our next visit."

"Agreed," said Fran as he flicked one of the controls on their approach.  Then she looked out onto the streets below. "Vayne Solidor did not waste time in placing soldiers around the city."

"It's a new toy for him.  Honestly, they get more paranoid every day.  Too much security can be a bad thing, you know," he said, bringing them to hover over the third hangar of the areodome.

Fran looked to him as they waited for the ceiling below them to open.  "For whom?" she asked in an amused voice, already knowing the answer.

"Well, for them, of course.  The more soldiers, the worse their pride hurts when we slip by."  He winked at her as the hatch below opened, and he guided the Strahl gently downward.  His gaze hardened then as he piolted his ship.  "Let's just hope our source was correct.  Collecting on rare and precious treasures is usually better if they're where they're supposed to be."

"I did not sense falsehood in him.  We will find the Queen's Magicite in the palace treasury," assured Fran.

"Well, call me distrusting then," he mumbled.

"I do."  He shifted his glance to her then and flashed a grin.  The sense of humour of his viera partner was always something that could brighten up his day.

He then took a last glance toward the sky as they flew down past the ceiling of the hangar.  He could not help recognizing that the sky was the very same colour that the young Ffamran had seen the evening he had deicded to abandon his home.

The sky pirates stepped down the ramp of the Strahl, and the viera looked to her partner as he breathed in the scent of the bustling areodome.  He had never seen her smile, really, but there was an expression about her that he had come to realize was her way of showing her amusement or pleasure.  At the moment he could see that lift in her eyes, that minute widening that allowed the lights to shine in her eyes and make them sparkle.  It made his lip curl at a corner, but he did not look directly at her.  Instead, he stretched his arms behind his head, exhaling with a relaxing sigh.

“Ah, nothing like a speedy flight from Bhujerba to relax those stiff neck muscles,” he winked as he rubbed his neck, letting his hands flop down to his sides afterward.

“With the way you sleep I am surprised your neck is all that remains stiff,” Fran countered, as she started away into the main hub of the areodome.

He looked after her as she walked away, her legs carrying her across the space like some angelic figure that had descended from the sky.  He had been among many strangers and the different races of their world called Ivalice for years, but he had to admit to himself that the veira, especially Fran, always seemed to dazzle him in many ways.  The way her body swayed and the way her hair bounced against her back and shoulders just made him that more appreciative of his place in life and his fortune in being able to form not only a partnership with her but a friendship as well—a friendship that seemed much more to the both of them.

Forget the fact that he was an outlaw in more than country.  Forget the simple knowledge that there was quite a hefty sum on his head.  Forget that there were more men after him than there were soldiers in the Imperial army.  In fact, the army was looking out for his face as well, he presumed.

He closed his eyes for a moment, shaking away the thoughts and Fran’s comment.  Since when did she spy on him when he slept?

He laughed inaudibly at himself; it did not matter either way.  The mere thought of her peeking in was ridiculous anyway.  She was the protective sort, as protective of him as he was of her, but he could not see how she would deliberately watch him from the doorway.  The mere thought of it brought a renewed smile to his face.

It just was not Fran-like.

He twisted about when he heard a soft pair of feet on the top step of the ramp of his airship.  “Nono, check her out will you.  Make sure everything’s dandy inside, eh?” The little moogle creature hopped in reply as it nodded and shuffled back inside, the ramp beginning to close in its wake.

The sky pirate reminisced for only a moment before moving out of the hangar bay.  How handy moogles were.  It seemed they could fix just about anything even in their small stature and limited speech.  He saw the sky—so orange and splattered with various colours—as he stepped into the crowded areodome centre.  He stopped for a moment, both dazzled and bothered by the sight.

Well, moogles could fix almost everything.

Fran seemed to see the drop in his face, and she left the desk whereat she stood to return to his side.  She had been listening to the talk about the hub, but the split second of intensity in his eyes was something she could not ignore.  “Is all well?” she asked plainly, her accent filled with that familiarity that sounded as if she had a strained half-lisp.

He cocked a brow as her turned to look at her sideways.  “Of course,” he rubbed it off.  “Just admiring the view.”  Though they shared a special bond, he still had trouble in flooding his feelings onto his laced sleeves … for anyone.

Fran was quiet for a moment, watching his expression change merely under his attempt to shield his true feelings from her.  It was a hard thing for humes to master—to trick a viera’s senses—and it was something that he rarely got away with, but for the moment, whether she had picked up on anything or not, he noticed that she said nothing more on the matter.

In the silence he fished for something to occupy them, and so he returned them to the reason why they had come to the city in the first place.  “Right then.  The palace, eh?”

“Yes, the palace holds this artefact.  Yet, Rabanastre is in a flurry; talk bustles about the festivities taking place there this eve.”

“Well, we knew we were party crashers,” he nodded with a grin, yet it dropped almost as quickly as it had lit his face, “but there’s something else I just don’t understand.  Not everyone could have been so impressed that Vayne Solidor would take up a seat here.  Why would he hold such an event?  Sounds silly enough to paint a target on your head to where you’ll be, giving so many access to your whereabouts.  It’d be like if you and I were to suddenly announce to this very crowd ‘Hello, I’m a sky pirate with a nice price on my head.  Won’t you try to take me in?’ Not that they’d be all that successful.”  He had not taken his eyes off the jostling crowd for a single moment—he and his partner remaining wallflowers to the scene, but he gave Fran a little wink as he said the last under his breath.

“The only thing I’m wondering is why and who,” he finished.

“Who?” she repeated, either confused or wishing to know if they were indeed thinking on the same level.

“Yes….” He deliberated for a moment.  He looked toward her and said his mind aloud, answering her question with another.  “Who’s he trying to herd into the open?”

“You believe him to be bait?” she asked, but her face did not turn incredulous at such speculation as some other’s likely would have.

“It’s an explanation,” he said, observing the crowd still.  After a paused he shifted toward her, murmuring, “Do you sense anything?”

“Faintly.  The air is warm with more than excitement, I feel.  There is also resentment, but also something more,” she said, staring unblinkingly into the swarm of humes, viera, bangaa, and other races.

“I haven’t seen this city so full since the marriage of the princess two years ago,” he said as he watched a passenger ship docking, every window holding faces that looked outward.  He seemed disgusted by the recollection, but though his statement may have been filled with an uncomfortable memory of merely watching the wedding procession that day, the more pronounced feeling in his words was the fact that the citizens actually welcomed Vayne Solidor—in his eyes, an Imperial scum of a son to Emperor Gramis—with as many smiles as the marriage of Dalmasca’s one and only princess. 

Today should have been a rather depressing day for these people, for, if his intelligence served him correctly, as it so frequently tended, then the consul had spoken publicly that day about the change in Rabanastre’s government.  Where there should have been outrage, enthusiasm had instead blossomed.  To think that the people of Rabanastre—of Dalmasca—would welcome the appointment of the Solidor son so grandly as they had once whistled their cheers during Princess Ashe’s wedding … a princess that—as it was said—had taken her life after the death of her husband, his death having been just days after they had been united in matrimony.

He shook his head clear of these thoughts and returned his focus.  He peeked outside.  The evening was beginning to fade into night.  “Ah, well, seeing as we arrived a stretch later than I would have liked, I suppose that we’ll have to cancel our waltz and cut to the chase.  No time to scout ahead.  I’m afraid we’ll have to play this one out of the limelight.”

She looked at him with her head half cocked in that blank stare, secretly smiling in that elegant viera way of hers.

“Time to get going,” he said, though he could not help smiling back at her.  He then stepped past her, touching her shoulder only in indication of her next move.  She would return to the airship for a little something, and he would wait outside … inconspicuously, of course, as he waited for her.

===============

He had peeled away his armour for simpler attire.  Though, his clothes still bore a definite closeness to the high, classy life, it was all he had.  But he liked it, liked the pleasures that such a society brought him, liked all the expenses that he could afford.

But it was all worth nothing to his heart.  Despite his clothes, his neatly cropped short hair, and his healthy body.... None of it let him feel free.  He was glad that the constricting armour was finally off … figuratively as well as literally.

He was packing a bag.  Just one bag.  Of clothes and the other necessities, little trinkets that reminded him of his mother, and a few small daggers from his secret cache of weapons the Imperials had confiscated from prisoners.  Some of them had just been too nice to slip through his fingers.  Nice things had always attracted his eye, and some things were just simply … irresistible.

Ffamran had just tossed a few coin purses of both gil and chops into his bag just as he heard heavy footsteps clanking into his suite-like room down below.  He peered over the railing that connected his bedroom with the living room below. 

Gabranth.  Again. 

Why oh why did the Judge seem to always peek in at the most inconvenient of times?  About five minutes later would have been much preferred.  Yet, as Gabranth saw him and began walking up the stairs that would bring him into the youth’s private chamber, Ffamran sighed.  Might as well humour him, try to act as if I’m not about to be leaving … for good.

Ffamran swiped his bag from the covers of his bed and kicked it out of sight behind it just as Gabranth entered.  The youth greeted the Judge with his usual blank stare and disinterested eyes.

The blond haired man did, however, see Ffamran’s armour strewn across his bed.  Hard to hide, that.  But no matter.  Ffamran would endure his line of questions until he was appeased and left again.

“Why aren’t you dressed?” he asked immediately, looking puzzled as to why the youth would have taken off his Judge’s metal clothes.

Ffamran did not answer, but cocked a brow.

“The Judges convene with the Emperor today.  Surely, you did not forget?” he said, seemingly astounded that he had not remembered such an important event.

“Ah yes,” Ffamran replied. “Must’ve slipped my mind.  I suppose I’ll shine myself up again and be along in a little while.” He turned away, grasping the rail as he leaned against it, looking off into the room below—though, keeping a watchful eye from his peripheral on the location of Gabranth in relation to that of his hidden bag.

Yet, the Judge did not seem convinced.  He took a step forward.  “Is anything wrong?”

“Is there reason to be?” he countered.

“I can tell when you’re hiding something from me.”

Ah, so you know me that well now? Ffamran chuckled to himself.  He supposed he would not have been so bothered by the comment had Gabranth not made it so personal.  Had he simply excluded the ‘from me’ then he would not have had so much of a problem with the man’s presumptuous attitude.

“What is it you presume I hide then?” Ffamran asked, his tone obviously irritated.

But no response came, at least not the one that he would have preferred in his momentary distraction.  “What’s this?”

Ffamran glanced behind him fully to see that Gabranth had stepped toward him and had turned about to see the edge of his bag poking out from behind his bed.

“It looks like my bag,” he said, the annoyance still not far from his voice.  Though, he tried to make his words sound more agitated at the obviousness of the item’s identity rather than the fact that he was displeased that Gabranth had seen it.

Realization dawned in the Judge almost immediately.  “You’re leaving?”  He sounded aghast, his feelings mixed so that Ffamran had difficulty isolating the truth behind his comrade’s emotions.

“Why, yes, if you must know,” he said casually.  “I am planning a bit of a vacation.”  He was now turned to him, back against the rail, hands still gripping the cool metal.  His palms sweated, heating the horizontal pole.  He had to tighten his hold so that his perspiration did not let his hands slip away.

Gabranth eyed the youth carefully.  He almost believed him, Ffamran could see.

Almost.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Ffamran returned, as upbeat as he could manage in trying to also flush the irritation from his accented voice.  As he spoke he swooped over to the bag and grasped the strap.

“Of course you do,” he said, and Ffamran heard the accusation in his tone now.  He paused, half slouched over his pack.  There was more than an allegation in his words … something else.  A kind of resistance that made Ffamran freeze in that moment.  Would Gabranth try to stop him?  He did not wish to come to harm, nor did he like the idea of struggling against Gabranth and possibly injuring him.  Such an action against a Judge of the Empire would already dash him an outcast.  At least by sneaking out he had had the possibility of someday returning.  But he realized now that that would never be his intent.  The only thing that truly made him fall away from any aggressive action was the knowledge that neither of them wanted to hurt the other.  They respected one another too much to do something like that.

But would Ffamran’s wish of freedom be too great?

Would Gabranth’s sense of duty weigh too heavily?

===============

The feel of the air beating at his face finally grew too great, and he fell from his daze.  Had he been dreaming again?  The life of the young Ffamran had kept snaking in and out of his consciousness, and he found it utterly distracting.  He tried to shove it away as he blinked drowsily awake, his eyelids pushing away the restlessness he felt.

Nearly at once then he was aware of his surroundings.  Whether he had been sleeping or simply daydreaming, he had not known, but there was a job to do at the moment, and he was not about to let Fran have all the fun.

She guided them along as she drove their vehicle stealthily through the alleys toward the palace.  It was a kind of odd design really.  Fran piloted the hover-chair from a lower, frontward end, seated perfectly in her seat.  She was leaning forward with her hands covering the sides of the green, bubbling spherical device that served as a steering panel.  Meanwhile, he sat in a higher chair that had panels which allowed him to control a number of other systems.

He held his trusted weapon at hand, his Altair type shotgun.  Its smooth cocking action and speed of its shells had never failed him … when in a tight spot.  He tried to use it as infrequently as possible, but if the chance arose that he could take out a few Imperials while in the palace then….

But that was, of course, if he happened to be spotted, which he was counting against.  Besides, better to remain neutral in war times.  It was more beneficial, more profitable … since he could then essentially pocket whatever he pleased from either side without feeling any kind of remorse.

Although, he had to admit … taking from the Empire and not the Insurgence was a lot more fun, and usually, much more rewarding when it came time to count the gil.

He realized they had made it to the outside catwalks of the palace now, and Fran threw her foot down on the right braking lever, making them skid to a rather loud stop.  None of the soldiers below them in the courtyards seemed to notice, however, and he leapt from his seat down to the ground, landing smoothly, of course.

He rested his shotgun comfortably on his shoulder then, looking toward one of the palace’s upper side entrances with that crooked smile.  “Well then,” he breathed confidently.  And then he heard music echoing outward from a hall far beneath them.  “Come then, Fran,” he said as he started toward the doors.  “They’re playing our dance.”