The Picture Perfect Intrigue

Disclaimer: I own nothing; all you recognise is the property of Square Enix. I'm just abusing these characters on the sly.

A/N: I said it would never happen and I lied. Here begins the continuation of my Penelo/Balthier storyline began in "The Picture Perfect Theft" and "The Picture Perfect Heist". If you have not read these stories you might want to as some of this story might not make sense otherwise. If you have read the previous stories, this one takes place four years after "Heist" finished. Needless to say all is not well in the world of Penelo and Balthier...

Lo you and cry, for here comes Time's wing'd chariot; I am done, my race is run, and there shall ne'er be an encore for me.

Blood and sputum splattered over cracked and dust covered mosaic tile, before seeping, vibrant and obscene, into the cracks. The dying man whose blood now splashed primal colour onto a oceanic pastel palette, staggered and wavered, keeping his feet with sheer bloody-minded stubbornness. As metaphors went, he thought in a detached and vague sort of way, he rather thought this one a trifle obvious. Frankly it bordered on cliché. The man spat another gout of blood onto the floor making his generalised disgust for his circumstances quite apparent.

"Nabudis...it would have to be...bleeding Nabudis..."

Knees gave way and the man grunted as he hit the floor; stale dust, the detritus of forgotten destruction, rose up like a phantasmal cloud to envelope his senses. The world narrowed to an off-kilter swirl of blue, liquid green, white, and palest pink. Allegorical maidens, goddesses and abstractions one and all, peered at him from the walls, the floor, and the ceiling friezes. Their broken faces, cracked and desecrated from long abandonment, formed a jig-saw of half-realised enlightenment as the man swayed on his knees, nothing more than a wink and a prayer keeping him from collapsing face first onto the floor. Vision fading, eaten away in slow biting incremental shades of grey, the man felt sure that those blind eyed and broken faces etched into the walls and hidden by a veil of dust held the secrets and very meaning of life itself.

"Ruddy stupid place to keep a secret..." He mused dazedly, blood heavy on his tongue, thick and clotting. He choked as he swallowed and spat again, falling forward, torn palms smacking down hard on the broken tiles beneath him. The room span and the darkness clawing at the edge of his awareness surged just a little closer. The thunder in his ears was nothing more than his own heartbeat, over loud and dangerously laboured. The lightning behind his eyelids merely the clash and rumble of his dying brain pulped and battered inside his poor shattered skull.

He really 'ought be dead by now.

Gritted teeth formed a flood wall against the deluge of blood and thicker, far nastier things, which threatened to make of his death a rather unsightly mess. The man knew it wouldn't be long now, his luck had well and truly run out this time. It was a pity really. This whole debacle seemed such a stupid thing to die for in retrospect, but then again it was his opinion that a good reason to die did not in fact exist so he supposed it was all much of a muchness in the end.

"...Still a bleedin' waste...should have known better...Fran warned me..."

Losing the battle to stay mostly vertical the man fell heavily onto his side, groaning as broken bones and brutalised flesh made contact with the ground. Jagged pieces of mosaic tile jabbed at him, unerringly finding each and every curl lipped laceration and gaping hole in his skin. Summoning the last of his strength the man rolled onto his back, one arm flopping uselessly across his stomach where a lucky bullet had made mincemeat of his innards, created an ugly hole in his fine Rozzarian cotton shirt, and blasted an even bigger hole out of his back. The other arm the hand burned and fingers broken, fell outward and away from his body, palm open to the ceiling as if seeking benediction. A pair of almost garishly bright coral rings, gleaming complimentary pastel in this shrine of marine shaded prettiness, could barely be glimpsed upon two twisted and useless fingers, slicked as they were in blood and scorched ash. Alas but all beauty is fleeting. It occurred to the man, with some dark amusement, that his current dire state could in itself be an allegory for the futility of hume endeavour.

"Fly or crawl...we're all worm food in the end."

Above his head the man watched woozily as the spectacular mural splashed across the ceiling rippled like a mirage and the darkness that swallows all things moved in ever closer. Yet the man's eyes remained rooted to the image of a blonde haired nymph naked as a babe and perfectly rounded where she should be. The nymph was caught and frozen mid-step in a wild dance. She was caught within a thousand painted squares of marble, and each one itself a masterpiece. The man laughed.

"Typical...are you haunting me sweetheart?" Heavy lidded eyes squint to see through the fog of death lying thin as gauze above him. The blonde nymph had eyes as doleful as they appeared ever so slightly reproaching of him as he bled out onto ancient Nabradian mosaic alone save for his own delusions. Once more the man laughed as the lights of life began to wink out behind his eyelids. "Ah, but I think it should be I who haunts you, my bird. This is all your fault after all."

The nymph with the familiar face did not answer him, but in truth the soon-to-be dead man had not expected much of a discourse to start between them. Instead he sighed and once more choked on the well of blood filling his throat. He was all but drowning in the open air; the burnt reek of nethicite and ash clinging to his senses, the copper offal bile coating his tongue, and the skipping thunder of his heartbeat all beginning to fade as his body gave up the illusion of living. Death would be neither relief nor agony for this man; instead he would die with wry annoyance lurking in his caddish heart. He had never expected to know old age, after all, but really this was not the end he had envisioned.

Though perhaps, all things considered, this was the end he had earned most of all?

Eyes opening once again, the man could see only the faint outline of wavering light as the world collapsed into endless black void. An eldritch and watery kaleidoscope, colours too washed out to be beautiful and too shapeless to be arresting swirled before him as he tried to cling to this last meagre scrap of existence. He imagined rather than saw the blonde haired nymph splayed across the wall smile upon him in bitter valediction. Hope died as eternal peace washed through the man dying broken and alone so very far from any place he wished to be. The man closed his eyes again; he would not rant and rave uselessly against that which he could do nothing about. His audience may be lacking but he would still die as befit his part.

He was so tired...so very, very tired.

What a fool he was, what a bloody fool. Ah but his legion of vengeful ghosts will so enjoy making him suffer for this when he meets them all in hell, the man is sure of that much and the thought is less than salutary. The legend has been brought low; the man left exposed and bereft; the infamous sky pirate naught but carrion in the end...And all because of one pig-tailed blonde.

"Penelo," the man exhales the name upon his last breath, "you have killed me, sweetheart."