The Strahl's engine hums to life under his hands, and Vaan sings back under his breath to it, in the way he imagines Balthier might. It's barely a whisper, a melody that his mother may never had rocked him to sleep with, and his voice holds a better tune than the sky pirate's. The airship growls as the stranger prizes his fingers into places they should not be, and Vaan only hums louder, as if he's trying to talk to the machine.
And it's stupid, stupid, nothing but childish. He slides the components in and out, tugs at machine guts and twists the sky stones, and the Strahl's song is one he still does not understand. When his eyes focus once more, his fingers are slick with oils.
He is no pirate, and Bahamut will not heed him.
In the doorway, almost hidden by the hiss of steam and thrusting of pistons, Penelo stands, arms folded, and eyes full of concern. Getting to his feet and touching her lightly on the wrist, he promises he'll sleep soon, and convinces himself that tomorrow will be like any other day.
-
It's four AM, and Basch is wandering the corridors like a man possessed. There's sickly feeling twisting in the bottom of his stomach, and it reminds him just who's got such a grip around his throat; and when he looks out of the Strahl's windows, when he fixes his eyes on the Bahamut looming over Rabanastre, he looks right through his own reflection.
A patter of footsteps passes him and he barely notices; by the time he turns to see who they belong to, the only company he has is their soft echoes. He groans, presses his palms flat against the cold glass, and the heat from his hand and breath fogs up the window, like grubby finger-prints of some ghost.
Wiping the window clean, Basch tries to rest comfortably in the knowledge that there are no reflections when Noah looks in the mirror. He scolds himself for the thought, and soon enough his fingers are wrapped around the handle to the Princess's cramped quarters.
-
Balthier's heart is beating harder than usual. His breathing is hitched in his throat, and he tries to inhale-exhale with the steady rhythm of the Strahl. The room reeks of too many things for him to count, of more things that he cares – of crystals and magicks, or him and her, of the Mist seeping and fires burning – and he lifts one arm to wipe the sweat from his brow.
Shifting so that his head rests on his pillow, Balthier turns to face Fran and does not offer either of them the cover. She is sitting by his side, as naked as he is, back rested against the headboard. She does not look at him when he seeks her eyes.
Good, Balthier thinks, teeth grit: no one needs to see the leading man so quietly distressed, the ragged rise and fall of his chest as he seethes for breath. He's already ripped apart the creased sepia photo, the one he thinks Fran doesn't know he keeps hidden in the bottom draw. Once upon a time it captured a moment of what might have been a past life. When Balthier thinks about it, it feels more like a dream.
Still, he murmurs something he knows she will not hear, voice so quiet it barely amounts to a whisper, in the hope that she'll turn to him anyway.
-
When Penelo passes him in the Strahl's narrow corridor, Basch does not turn to greet her, and she is grateful for it. Her thoughts are so erratic, and she is so far from home (even if the airship does hover above harsh desert sands) that she can hardly find reason enough to fight anymore. Throwing herself into the tiny cabin, Penelo sinks into the bedsheets and hopes she never has to rise. She would be content if they wrapped her up and swallowed her completely, and dawn never broke.
She misses Larsa, and it feels as if he's been gone for so long. Penelo has to stop and remind herself how little time she's really known him for, and finds herself caught off-guard; she's truly not built for all this adventuring. Rubbing her fingers where Vaan squeezed her wrist (perhaps a little too hard, if only to remind her that he's still there), Penelo licks her thumb and works at the trail of sticky-black prints he left there. Dully she realises she misses Vaan too.
When the tears start, they don't stop. She misses Reks, too, as fiercely as she misses her own brothers, each of them taken by this damned war or that damned plague. She misses her parents, Migelo, the children around Rabanastre, and barely remembers how to dance.
She wipes the tears away, as if seeing straight will help her think straight; and there's only one thing for it. She'll wrap her hands around a katana or a dagger, a longsword or whatever she can find the strength to lift. She'll fight; and she won't have to miss anyone, anymore.
-
Fran pretends she's not as out of breath as Balthier is. With her lips pressed together tightly and hands bundled at her sides, she inhales and holds the air in as long as her lungs will permit, and lets it out slowly. Her own heart pounds with a force she has not felt before, and she thinks that the Mist is making it jerk in her chest so.
Certainly, this isn't fear.
Minutes pass uncharted, and over time three sets of footsteps rattle the grid-iron flooring outside of Balthier's room. She ignores such sounds, and listens deep: listens beyond the Strahl sighing beneath her, beyond the ringing of metal twisted like vines under a canopy of steel plating. Fran listens through the air, to the earth, as if it's really going to speak to her, to let her listen, this time.
She strains, and instead she hears Balthier murmur. Today I killed my father, he might not say, and she cannot tell, because Humes and their words have always played tricks on her. And you... You know I would not leave you. She chooses not to listen to the rest, and does not look at him.
A hand presses against her stomach, and glancing down at it, she smiles: bright blue-red-green rings stare back at her, and even through the after-effects of the Mist she can tell that nothing in Balthier has truly changed. In the morning he will be smiling, telling her how he is in love with the sky, and the smell of gunpowder will be all around him.
Fran takes the hand in her own, forgets thought of conquest, and does her best to sleep.
-
Ashe is not happy in her quarters.
She will not admit it, but she is beginning to miss the long nights spent together with the mismatched group in front of roaring fires, keeping guard against fiends when battles bested them. But now, with the Lord of the Skies blocking the sun, Balthier is with Fran and she dare not interrupt them, and Penelo is keeping tired watch over Vaan. Ashe has no reasons good enough to as why she hasn't sought out Basch.
She closes her eyes softly, and tries to take some comfort from the Strahl, tries to imagine she really could fall asleep, peacefully, in the all too small bed and rough bedsheets. Ashe sighs, and can think of nothing but Dalmasca – is she really so alone now?
Her dead husband is not even a ghost.
In her mind, she blocks out all the faces of the people she once loved, of the people she could love, and thinks of nothing but fighting; of the swords she will carry, the burdens she will bear, and the Espers bound in thralldom to her, carved into her skin. Somewhere amongst these thoughts there is a light knocking, and the door slips open, cautiously.
The man who was once a traitor, the man who she spited above all others walks in, and oh, she thinks, he's the only one left now, isn't he? She does not stop herself from such thoughts, because she has thought of nothing but war for two years, and deserves to be selfish, just once.
Basch bows deeply, and it is far too formal between them. He does not need to be told to rise, but waits for her to order him nonetheless, before quietly sitting on the edge next to her.
And perhaps it is the tiredness set into her eyes, or perhaps it is something else altogether, but without another word, she rests her head against his shoulder. How heavy it feels, even without the weight of a crown. It does not surprise her that Basch is ever ready, willing to abide her every whim.
Something moves her, and Basch, too, closes his eyes as she presses a thumb above his left eye. Awkwardly, and without waiting for royal permission, he wraps his arms around her in anyway he can, because he does not know where her scars are.
"We will fight for Dalmasca," her captain murmurs, with her till the end.
-
That night, the Strahl sings the same song for everyone.