In a Sky Pirate's Eye

In a sky pirate's eye, at least an experienced one like Balthier's, a shield is completely useless.

One, you should never be that close to something that could attack you.

Two, your hands are better suited for something more useful like ammo.

Three, a leading man would never be caught with a scarp of metal like most shields one sees these days.

So, Balthier was quite shocked (as one might suppose) the day he found himself thanking the gods for the shield.

It had started off as a good hunt, something easy, something to take their minds off of everything. As usual Balthier and Fran were together, and this time the tag-along-sky-pirate-in-training accompanied them.

Balthier and Fran stayed further away from the fiends then most of the group. Ranged weapons were useful this way. They could do plenty of damage, without a fiend getting close enough to ruin the leading man's perfect bone structure.

Now normally the fiends would be easy enough to take care of, these were only the lesser ones before they got to what they were being paid to kill off. But today it seemed harder then usual, perhaps because the royalty of the group decided she need her knight and they got the less experienced street urchin. Or perhaps it was the fact that Fran was doing more healing then attacking.

Vaan didn't have the skills of their own soldier, instead he hacked away at the fiends, hoping to gods is sword hurt them, more then he was being hurt. Normally Balthier would be disgusted with Vaan's like of talent with the sword, but this was turning out to be a far from normal day.

Balthier couldn't help but watch the boy move. Though his sword moved at an awkward angle, and it was clear that the sword was far too heavy from him, the boy seemed almost graceful.

There was agility in his steps that could only be born of years of pick pocketing and avoiding the guards. Balthier couldn't quite understand how a boy like that could dance circles around the fiends, but continued to be pummeled by the said attackers.

Balthier continued staring until he caught Fran's eye.

In that annoyingly vierra way of hers, she knew more about him then he knew about himself. Sure he was staring at the street rat, but what did that truly mean. From the look in Fran's eyes he was pretty sure she thought she knew. But she was wrong. A leading man was attracted to no less then a leading lady (or every now and then a sidekick male).

While his thoughts were rather distracting his eyes managed to continue to fight. Or at least try. Without the rest of his body involved all they could do was see the silver flash of those damned snakes that burrowed underground and appeared when least expected.

Balthier knew in only a way sky pirates know, that he would be hit. Luckily those vipers could barely touch him and Fran would heal him near instantly. He just had to wait the blow out, and move when the opportunity presented itself. Of course Vaan didn't quite understand this system.

When a tan body flashed before his own, protecting him from the viper, he almost cursed the gods. Luckily he stopped as he heard the skull of the viper strike the metal. Metal that could only be Vaan's shield. Of course the impact from the viper was enough to send Vaan back a few steps into the leading man, leaving Balthier in quite an awkward situation.

Faintly Balthier could hear Fran's light chuckle, and a wiz as her arrows flew by them. The viper being done with Balthier could perhaps figure out why he was so flustered by the younger boy whose body seemed to match his perfectly. But that's something he definitely did not need to think about at this moment.

Caught between staying where he was to suck the warmth right out of Vaan, or moving away he was…not scared… but shocked when Vaan made the decision for him, one that could be good or bad depending on Balthier.

Good: He thought the boy had a beautiful face, so it was nice to be face to face with it. Vaan's bone structure was nearly as good as Balthier's.

Bad: Maybe an inch in-between their lips, and that was a valley Balthier wasn't sure he wanted to cross. Oh to be sure, he wanted to cross it, but not with someone he couldn't just disappear from in the morning.

Vaan busted out a huge grin, his eyes lighting up dramatically. "I saved you!" He nearly squealed. "I saved the great sky pirate himself!"

"My boy you did nothing of the sort," Balthier willed his voice to be silky and seductive. Not that he was trying to seduce the boy… not at all. "I was merely waiting for the opportune moment to strike, unfortunately you crashed over here and got in the way."

The smile faltered, barely enough to notice. The eyes almost shimmered down.

"You mean you planned that?" Always the naïve one.

"Of course I planned that. I am the 'great sky pirate' as you said." Always the one to take advantage of someone's naivety.

"Oh."

"Oh is right, but might I say you've gotten a tad better with that shield." Balthier had no idea why he threw in a compliment, even one as weak as that.

The grin was back, as were the lights in Vaan's eyes. Vaan flung himself away from Balthier almost dancing with joy. He began acting out his story.

"Basch has been teaching me so much! He's trying to show me the best ways to block with the shield, and when to use my swords. And--"

"And here I thought you were my apprentice." Balthier wanted to die after saying that. He didn't want to say that. The boy was not his apprentice…

Vaan's eyes got more sparkly then ever before. For a moment Balthier was sure he would be a lovely girl, but perhaps he liked the boy version better…

"Of course I'm your apprentice but Basch is teaching me to use the sword—"

With a sigh Balthier brushed the sand off his arms, heading toward Fran. Vaan was left running after Balthier trying to catch up.

Ah. How Balthier detested swords.

-End of Chapter One-

Next Time: Swords.

Authors Note:

Okay this is a new project for me. One I hope to stick with for quite a while. I hope I stayed true-ish to the real personality of the characters but hey… I'll try and do better next time.

If you decide to review (pretty please) then it would be amazing if someone would like to beta read this story for me. I know there was pretty much no interaction this chapter but the next one… definitely.

Binocular