Above Love 1/4
i wrote a series of four short final fantasy xii fanfic stories while spending christmas with my mother. i never considered a title or had the following poem in mind while writing it - but the poem (which i'm memorizing as a monologue) seems to fit well. perhaps i'll title it "above love" or "with how sad steps"? let me type it all out, and then we'll see.
Story Name: Above Love 1/4
Rating: G - nothing but Balthier's sly innuendos
Other characters/pairings: Main character is entirely new!
Warnings: Although it takes place after the game, none to speak of
Plotbunny: How does a woman begin a life of piracy (and not find herself in Balthier's bed)?
1.
He arrived at the Sandsea on an edgy afternoon; the sun had risen red, and dark clouds sparked and rumbled on the horizon, intent on paying their own visit to Rabanastre. I'd kept one eye attentive to the view out the window while preparing the Sandsea for the day's visitors; yet, as the tavern filled, naught else seemed anxious over the weather. Even I was not quite anxious, but attentive: timid to imagine welcoming this storm, but filled with a sort of excited expectancy; imagining the power of the winds and the sounds they'd make pushing through the cracks of the window frames.
Then, in the midst of this, came Balthier.
He was not a regular, in that he didn't visit enough to earn the title, nor did he quite fit into the Sandsea clientèle. He'd arrive without fuss, make his way to a table, and sit for a while, not doing anything to draw attention to himself. He gave the impression that he was of a keen and astute nature, and his actions were neither humbly quiet nor extravagant. Yet there was a feel about him, an aura I felt when he walked through the doors that did not disappear until he left, that demanded respect because he deserved it and for no other reason. Yet he spoke to anyone - I or any guest - with the same respect that was only lost by the other's actions. He even gave the same measured respect to the loathed police of the Archadian invasion, when they were all but suffocating the Sandsea while reserving the loft's tables for themselves. Now that Archadia was vanquished and the people of Dalmasca freed, Balthier sat at a small table in the loft - where still very few guests dared to occupy, as if the Archadian police might suddenly break down the doors and throw us all in prison. Because he disregarded such worry, I knew that Balthier was a brave man. He sat at the top of the tavern as if he were a nobleman quietly holding court over the people bustling and clamoring beneath him.
It was towards this table that he now strode, nodding to the regulars with which he was familiar and receiving their respectful nods in return. Upon passing the bar, he matched eyes with mine, nodding to me: "Could you bring a drink to me, Rispah, when you're ready?" Although his manner was formal, a small smile played at his lips. I smiled back to him: he was in a good mood.
I quickly set to drawing up his drink of choice, a mix of mead and mulled cider that, curious though it was, had a pleasant and satisfying flavor; I had come to prepare myself such a pint and toast to his health on an odd day when he was gone.
I quietly sized him up as I tread the stairs leading to his table. He wore his trademark clothing, perhaps the only outwardly extravagant trait he possessed: guilded leather with brocade-style etchings over a loose-fitting white shirt with intricately woven seams; sharp dark leather pants; twin holster belts slung across the hips; fancy shoes; and his masse of earrings and multicolored finger rings. His warm brown hair was groomed neatly away from his face. He sported neither scab nor scar. He was not hard to look at, at all.
I smiled again at him as I set a frothy cup in front of him on the table, waiting to see if he had matters of business or if I could join him. Luckily, he already had his hand outstretched to the chair across from his own: "Would you care to sit? Or have you," his eyes scanned the room below us, "others to service?" Quietly playful, his words.
I returned his quip with, "For you, visitor, I make exceptions." I sank into the cool touch of the wooden chair, smoothing out my apron and looking again out the window. I pointedly ignored the contrast between his bright, expensive garb and my simple, faded dress. "Did my friendly clouds blow you in?" I asked, my eyes noting their position in the sky. "If so, have I only till they arrive to hear of the world?"
He answered, "They need only worry you to shut the doors and windows tight. That storm," he finished with disdain, "is a beast."
At that I could imagine his airship in the midst of rushing winds and pelting rain, of lightning and crashing thunder, with the air around it trying its best to tear the ship to shreds. And I tried to imagine this man at the pilot's chair, hands on the grips, wrestling through the storm. It was a lovely thought. I felt my smile grow.
"And that's almost all the news worthy of sharing. The whole liberation of Dalmasca has left things quite dull," he added, looking perhaps more disgusted than with the storm.
"I hardly believe your neighbors here share the sentiment," I commented drily, though my gaze had already settled on a new piece of metal on his finger. It was a simple, cool-toned ring, devoid of his usual decorative flair, perhaps meant for the first or second finger of someone smaller than he but which fit tightly onto the last finger of his left hand. "You have a new ring," I said as I looked up to his eyes. Waiting for a response but receiving none, I decided aloud, "Ah. A lady." What a lucky girl she must be, were the words that did not pass my lips.
"Yes, but not my own," was his cool reply. His eyes revealed little, and I could not interpret the little they did. He was an excellent mystery, another reason to enjoy our time together. "And you," he continued as his eyes lowered and took in the pendant strung on a chain between my neck and bodice, "also have something new."
How the skin that felt his eyes on it began to warm, as if to the sun on a summer's day. I broke our game of intrigue by looking down and touching the pendant gently. Although small and as worn as my clothing, it was once grand and now as familiar as if Mimi's own hand were gently pressed to my heart. "My grandmother died, and so now I wear it." It felt strange to speak of my home's ruin in such a candid tone to him; and it took a moment before I could meet his eyes with mine again.
He studied me for a moment as he took a full drink from his cup, then commented, "And now you are free."
"Now I am alone," I quietly corrected him, still matching eye to eye, "and free."
"Sad and free," he added as if in echo. After a pause, he asked, "What now?"
"I work to save," I answered. "Now that I only need pay for myself, I can soon see every place of which I only have heard tales." I wondered if I sounded brave when I said that. Years of longing to break free of the walls of Rabanastre had been sobered by the new reality that it was possible.
He nodded gravely, though his nose slightly wrinkled at the word "save". "When I lost my father, I did the same. Travel, that is - not save."
"You lost your father?" I asked.
He studied his cup, his voice becoming quiet and, as I imagined, forcedly matter-of-fact. "I lost everyone."
I nodded in silent commiseration, although I noted to myself that he did not elaborate how he lost anyone. Such nomadic ones must part with their families, alive or no, and only the most modern and understanding of families chose not to disown them for it.
Balthier, possibly a less fortunate son, continued: "Are you going to leave the Sandsea, then, and traverse its counterpart?" He spoke of the distant sandseas, the Nam-Yensa, leagues of quicksand deserts, teeming with treachery and foul play. As I tried to imagine such a place, I watched the faint smile return to his lips. He was resuming play.
"Only if I find a worthy mission for such an excursion," I retorted airily. "Before that I might travel to the Tower. I have heard its rebuilding is complete. Or..." I hesitated to venture further with my words, yet an urge, the one connected to my skin that had soaked up his gaze, begged me to go on. "Or perhaps Balfonheim, the pirates' den. Perhaps I could find work there." He knew I enjoyed hearing of his latest adventure at Port, and had often spoken of it, but never before had I admitted my true desire behind this interest in his stories.
"The work you'd find there would require little travel, mostly lying on your back," Balthier smoothly replied. Again my skin warmed as another image wandered through my imagination; fighting the distraction, I raised an eyebrow to him. "Surely there's more challenging work to be had than that in Balfonheim."
"Few women are accustomed to being employed as more," he quickly retorted, his eyes sharp.
I hid my surprise and murmured, "I'd accept no less." I was taken aback by his swift change in mood; guessing at its source, I ventured, "I doubt, though, that I'd provide you competition for a while."
Balthier's expression softened somewhat, and he proceeded to size me up from tip to toe, as he did the first day I served him his drink. Finally he gave a slight nod, then pulled a ring from his right fourth finger, one he'd worn as long as I remembered. It was a bright metal and teal, engraved with a pattern that formed a cryptic knot. He held it out to me across the table in his open palm, eyes again level with mine. I searched them for meaning, unsure of his intentions, then carefully reached to his hand and lifted the ring from it, studying the design carefully, then looked back to him.
"You've not seen one like it before," he announced. "It provides safety in risky places, such as this Port you speak of."
I took that information in, then asked, "You use it when you go there? They recognize the symbol, and so protect you?"
"No, I don't," came his nonchalant reply. "I am my own protection, and have been my own for some time. It's yours." After a few seconds of my stunned silence, he insisted, "I don't need it."
I looked at him, still dumbfounded, then at the ring. I'd dropped my mistrust out of pure astonishment. I finally found my voice and murmured, "Thank you."
"Try it on," he said, looking expectantly to my right hand. I hesitated, then carefully slid the ring onto its third finger, where it comfortably fit. I felt it radiate a spirit or a type of magick I'd never felt before, but it calmed my last traces of suspicion. "Thank you," I said again to him.
"You understand that with this gift, you must now venture forth - which also requires a refusal to limit yourself to anywhere, including this Port you're going on about. But first, I do not want to see you behind the bar at the Sandsea again. Yes?" I nodded, and in a motion he took my right hand with his own, drawing it slowly to his mouth, where he lightly kissed the ring. I felt his lip brush my finger. He raised his eyes to me and smiled perhaps the largest smile I'd ever seen on his face. "Good," he said.
I smiled a smile larger than his, one I saved for truly special occasions. "Could you excuse me for a moment?" I asked. "I need to go downstairs and quit."
( Chapter Two )
Story Name: Above Love 1/4
Rating: G - nothing but Balthier's sly innuendos
Other characters/pairings: Main character is entirely new!
Warnings: Although it takes place after the game, none to speak of
Plotbunny: How does a woman begin a life of piracy (and not find herself in Balthier's bed)?
- With how sad steps, O moon, thou climbst the skies,
How silently, and with how wan a face.
What, may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrow tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks; thy languisht grace,
To me that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O moon, tell me
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?
Sir Philip Sidney
1.
He arrived at the Sandsea on an edgy afternoon; the sun had risen red, and dark clouds sparked and rumbled on the horizon, intent on paying their own visit to Rabanastre. I'd kept one eye attentive to the view out the window while preparing the Sandsea for the day's visitors; yet, as the tavern filled, naught else seemed anxious over the weather. Even I was not quite anxious, but attentive: timid to imagine welcoming this storm, but filled with a sort of excited expectancy; imagining the power of the winds and the sounds they'd make pushing through the cracks of the window frames.
Then, in the midst of this, came Balthier.
He was not a regular, in that he didn't visit enough to earn the title, nor did he quite fit into the Sandsea clientèle. He'd arrive without fuss, make his way to a table, and sit for a while, not doing anything to draw attention to himself. He gave the impression that he was of a keen and astute nature, and his actions were neither humbly quiet nor extravagant. Yet there was a feel about him, an aura I felt when he walked through the doors that did not disappear until he left, that demanded respect because he deserved it and for no other reason. Yet he spoke to anyone - I or any guest - with the same respect that was only lost by the other's actions. He even gave the same measured respect to the loathed police of the Archadian invasion, when they were all but suffocating the Sandsea while reserving the loft's tables for themselves. Now that Archadia was vanquished and the people of Dalmasca freed, Balthier sat at a small table in the loft - where still very few guests dared to occupy, as if the Archadian police might suddenly break down the doors and throw us all in prison. Because he disregarded such worry, I knew that Balthier was a brave man. He sat at the top of the tavern as if he were a nobleman quietly holding court over the people bustling and clamoring beneath him.
It was towards this table that he now strode, nodding to the regulars with which he was familiar and receiving their respectful nods in return. Upon passing the bar, he matched eyes with mine, nodding to me: "Could you bring a drink to me, Rispah, when you're ready?" Although his manner was formal, a small smile played at his lips. I smiled back to him: he was in a good mood.
I quickly set to drawing up his drink of choice, a mix of mead and mulled cider that, curious though it was, had a pleasant and satisfying flavor; I had come to prepare myself such a pint and toast to his health on an odd day when he was gone.
I quietly sized him up as I tread the stairs leading to his table. He wore his trademark clothing, perhaps the only outwardly extravagant trait he possessed: guilded leather with brocade-style etchings over a loose-fitting white shirt with intricately woven seams; sharp dark leather pants; twin holster belts slung across the hips; fancy shoes; and his masse of earrings and multicolored finger rings. His warm brown hair was groomed neatly away from his face. He sported neither scab nor scar. He was not hard to look at, at all.
I smiled again at him as I set a frothy cup in front of him on the table, waiting to see if he had matters of business or if I could join him. Luckily, he already had his hand outstretched to the chair across from his own: "Would you care to sit? Or have you," his eyes scanned the room below us, "others to service?" Quietly playful, his words.
I returned his quip with, "For you, visitor, I make exceptions." I sank into the cool touch of the wooden chair, smoothing out my apron and looking again out the window. I pointedly ignored the contrast between his bright, expensive garb and my simple, faded dress. "Did my friendly clouds blow you in?" I asked, my eyes noting their position in the sky. "If so, have I only till they arrive to hear of the world?"
He answered, "They need only worry you to shut the doors and windows tight. That storm," he finished with disdain, "is a beast."
At that I could imagine his airship in the midst of rushing winds and pelting rain, of lightning and crashing thunder, with the air around it trying its best to tear the ship to shreds. And I tried to imagine this man at the pilot's chair, hands on the grips, wrestling through the storm. It was a lovely thought. I felt my smile grow.
"And that's almost all the news worthy of sharing. The whole liberation of Dalmasca has left things quite dull," he added, looking perhaps more disgusted than with the storm.
"I hardly believe your neighbors here share the sentiment," I commented drily, though my gaze had already settled on a new piece of metal on his finger. It was a simple, cool-toned ring, devoid of his usual decorative flair, perhaps meant for the first or second finger of someone smaller than he but which fit tightly onto the last finger of his left hand. "You have a new ring," I said as I looked up to his eyes. Waiting for a response but receiving none, I decided aloud, "Ah. A lady." What a lucky girl she must be, were the words that did not pass my lips.
"Yes, but not my own," was his cool reply. His eyes revealed little, and I could not interpret the little they did. He was an excellent mystery, another reason to enjoy our time together. "And you," he continued as his eyes lowered and took in the pendant strung on a chain between my neck and bodice, "also have something new."
How the skin that felt his eyes on it began to warm, as if to the sun on a summer's day. I broke our game of intrigue by looking down and touching the pendant gently. Although small and as worn as my clothing, it was once grand and now as familiar as if Mimi's own hand were gently pressed to my heart. "My grandmother died, and so now I wear it." It felt strange to speak of my home's ruin in such a candid tone to him; and it took a moment before I could meet his eyes with mine again.
He studied me for a moment as he took a full drink from his cup, then commented, "And now you are free."
"Now I am alone," I quietly corrected him, still matching eye to eye, "and free."
"Sad and free," he added as if in echo. After a pause, he asked, "What now?"
"I work to save," I answered. "Now that I only need pay for myself, I can soon see every place of which I only have heard tales." I wondered if I sounded brave when I said that. Years of longing to break free of the walls of Rabanastre had been sobered by the new reality that it was possible.
He nodded gravely, though his nose slightly wrinkled at the word "save". "When I lost my father, I did the same. Travel, that is - not save."
"You lost your father?" I asked.
He studied his cup, his voice becoming quiet and, as I imagined, forcedly matter-of-fact. "I lost everyone."
I nodded in silent commiseration, although I noted to myself that he did not elaborate how he lost anyone. Such nomadic ones must part with their families, alive or no, and only the most modern and understanding of families chose not to disown them for it.
Balthier, possibly a less fortunate son, continued: "Are you going to leave the Sandsea, then, and traverse its counterpart?" He spoke of the distant sandseas, the Nam-Yensa, leagues of quicksand deserts, teeming with treachery and foul play. As I tried to imagine such a place, I watched the faint smile return to his lips. He was resuming play.
"Only if I find a worthy mission for such an excursion," I retorted airily. "Before that I might travel to the Tower. I have heard its rebuilding is complete. Or..." I hesitated to venture further with my words, yet an urge, the one connected to my skin that had soaked up his gaze, begged me to go on. "Or perhaps Balfonheim, the pirates' den. Perhaps I could find work there." He knew I enjoyed hearing of his latest adventure at Port, and had often spoken of it, but never before had I admitted my true desire behind this interest in his stories.
"The work you'd find there would require little travel, mostly lying on your back," Balthier smoothly replied. Again my skin warmed as another image wandered through my imagination; fighting the distraction, I raised an eyebrow to him. "Surely there's more challenging work to be had than that in Balfonheim."
"Few women are accustomed to being employed as more," he quickly retorted, his eyes sharp.
I hid my surprise and murmured, "I'd accept no less." I was taken aback by his swift change in mood; guessing at its source, I ventured, "I doubt, though, that I'd provide you competition for a while."
Balthier's expression softened somewhat, and he proceeded to size me up from tip to toe, as he did the first day I served him his drink. Finally he gave a slight nod, then pulled a ring from his right fourth finger, one he'd worn as long as I remembered. It was a bright metal and teal, engraved with a pattern that formed a cryptic knot. He held it out to me across the table in his open palm, eyes again level with mine. I searched them for meaning, unsure of his intentions, then carefully reached to his hand and lifted the ring from it, studying the design carefully, then looked back to him.
"You've not seen one like it before," he announced. "It provides safety in risky places, such as this Port you speak of."
I took that information in, then asked, "You use it when you go there? They recognize the symbol, and so protect you?"
"No, I don't," came his nonchalant reply. "I am my own protection, and have been my own for some time. It's yours." After a few seconds of my stunned silence, he insisted, "I don't need it."
I looked at him, still dumbfounded, then at the ring. I'd dropped my mistrust out of pure astonishment. I finally found my voice and murmured, "Thank you."
"Try it on," he said, looking expectantly to my right hand. I hesitated, then carefully slid the ring onto its third finger, where it comfortably fit. I felt it radiate a spirit or a type of magick I'd never felt before, but it calmed my last traces of suspicion. "Thank you," I said again to him.
"You understand that with this gift, you must now venture forth - which also requires a refusal to limit yourself to anywhere, including this Port you're going on about. But first, I do not want to see you behind the bar at the Sandsea again. Yes?" I nodded, and in a motion he took my right hand with his own, drawing it slowly to his mouth, where he lightly kissed the ring. I felt his lip brush my finger. He raised his eyes to me and smiled perhaps the largest smile I'd ever seen on his face. "Good," he said.
I smiled a smile larger than his, one I saved for truly special occasions. "Could you excuse me for a moment?" I asked. "I need to go downstairs and quit."
( Chapter Two )