And here begins Aboard the Strahl.

-Prologue: Fire Illuminates-

There is a sort of tranquil silence cloaking the night, and she is glad of it. It has been a long day, and she is tired. She has been worked hard, and all up to this, the greatest part of said day. Now is the time to relax and watch her companions unwind.

They are stretching, murmuring nonsense, and speaking in an easy way that she just loves. Someone, she isn't sure who, has started a fire; she feels soothed and threatened all at once. Fire is such a tricky being, and being rather predictable herself makes her averse to the tricky types.

Fire glows. She knows this well. It glints off her sides warmly, but does not wander near her eyes and blind her as sunlight occasionally does. It lights up their faces too, although she hardly needs light to know them by now. She knows when each of the shower, for crying out loud.

"It's so quiet."

Penelo speaks first, which is interesting in itself. She hardly talks, and so what she does say is usually valuable.

Vaan places his arms behind his head. They encountered no monsters today, and so he has a familiar restless look in his eyes. "Let's play a game or something..."

"No," Ashe and Basch growl together. Vaan ducks his head and sulks, to no avail. Even she can see that the regal princess will not budge this night. Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca is not one to budge often or at all, but young Vaan is slow to realize this. Still he tries to bend her will. She will be pleasantly surprised and amused if he ever succeeds.

"Well," the youngest Hume boy presses, "let's do something!"

"Yes, quite."

Ah, there was his voice. That was he who polished her sides and fixed her innards. His voice is smoother than oil, as always, weaving around at a leisurely pace to whatever point he currently wishes to make.

"We have a long day of travel tomorrow," Balthier continues, ever their master as he is hers. "I advise that the thing we do should be to rest."

His partner, the other who flies and fixes her, the other she respects, stirs to speak as well, and all others still to listen. She is easily the oldest and wisest, being neither Hume nor machine but viera, and, after Balthier, the Strahl's personal favorite.

"He is correct," Fran says at last. Her red eyes gleam, dancing with the fire. "We can do nothing if we are not properly rested. Should we succumb to games, we would be but prey for the beasts lurking beyond."

She gives Vaan a stern look here, and he ducks his head again, this time contritely—but the Strahl is not fooled at all. Fran doesn't mind Vaan as much as she pretends to. Not now, anyway. She remembers all too clearly a time when Penelo was the only person everyone liked; it is much easier now, when impatience, disgust and outright dislike are pretenses and that only.

"If it's time for bed," Penelo points out, "why isn't anyone moving?"

They all look to Basch then, for it is he who usually dismisses himself first: gets up, stretches, nods at everyone else, looks the Princess's way and hesitates, then walks off. (Of all the new fliers, she has watched the Captain the most.) Now he must explain his hesitance to leave to the others, who have gotten used to his being first to succumb to the siren calls of sleep...

"It's cold," he says defensively, gesturing to the still-blazing fire.

A good icebreaker—they all smile.

Balthier chuckles. She knows he is thinking that Basch doesn't know real cold at all—he's spent most of his life in Dalmascan climate, after all. And the man doesn't know real cold—he wasn't raised or even built in Archadia.

Ashe is looking at her bare left ring finger. She is thinking of Rasler, whom she mentions sparingly, and of the man who has taken one of the tokens of their wedding from her, whom she shouts at quite a lot.

Vaan is looking at—well, at her, the Strahl, admiring how she shines in the firelight. She rather likes the attention. The Strahl is not sure, though, whether the boy is more in awe of her the machine or of Balthier the pilot, his master and (dare she think it?) friend.

Penelo is dozing, or close to. Soon she will be dreaming of dancing, or the skies—or maybe it is her brothers' turn to star in her dreams this time. Her twin ponytails are surprisingly dull under light of fire and stars above.

Fran, on the other hand, doesn't show the slightest sign of being tired. Her long white ears twitch as she decides suddenly to play sentinel. She is quite good at it, most likely because of a mixture of things in her past and the fact that she is used to playing mother in the group, watching the surroundings for danger. Her eyes will sharpen and her posture will freeze, and then she is on alert, and not to be disturbed.

Very well, then. They would watch together, whether the others fell asleep at last or not. Between machine and viera, no beasts would emerge from the woodwork (is that term an insult to Fran, she wonders?) and make them prey tonight.

There is something immensely comforting in watching over these six. She has not seen and gotten to know them as long as she likes to pretend she has, really. There was a time not long gone when something went wrong inside her, where the frightening stuff and wonder that the viera calls Mist almost completely undid her. She was separated from her master for a long, long time. Loneliness threatened to almost consume her before she was rescued from the throes of death. And by one of those cute little things with pompoms on their heads, no less.

Needless to say, she loves those dearly now, more so than she did when they came to her for simpler check-ups.

They are no longer restless. On the contrary, rest seems to be finding them. Now they are... falling asleep. Balthier throws out a pinch of something to muffle the fire as Penelo's eyes close. She gives out the tiny sigh of a satisfied child and then makes no more noise. It occurs to her, still serenely watching them, that if her master falls asleep before she does, she will have trouble settling down herself. His velvet voice calms, lulls anything in range. –Then again, he has had a long day even if an undisturbed-by-beasts one, and it is hardly fitting to have an exhausted sky pirate.

Exhausted sky pirates tended to be caught, tried, and executed in front of unsympathetic lords and ladies.

...Yes, better that he rests.

She shall indeed have to calm herself tonight. Balthier has too surrendered to sleep.

Now Basch is drifting off...

-I do not own Final Fantasy XII, except in that I own the game.

-In my mind, Ashe tricked Balthier just a bit while hesitating, in that she gave him her wedding ring and kept Rasler's on her finger.

-In case the summary didn't clue you off, this chapter was told from the point of view of the Strahl. It will be one of few like that.

Please read and review! Commentary is welcome. My cat is not a satisfactory feedback source.

Iter Iteneris Suscipio...