/Author's Note: More FF6! Setzer & Darill are a very, very fun pair, especially when alcohol and a certain icy general are involved. I liked this premise too much to pass it up. While I'd definitely throw this in the 'Humor' genre, there's a certain bittersweetness to it if you consider, well, the fate of the couple at hand. Enjoy, readers! End Author's Note/

Of Rogues & Royals

The final notes of the movement rang out for just a little too long, the vibrato quivering just a little too much, before finally coming to an end. Like everything else at the Empire's Year End Gala, the performance had been overwrought, ostentatious, and a little too showy for Setzer's tastes. Surely Emperor Gestahl could have pulled some strings with the Jidoor aristocracy and booked the great Maria for the evening's entertainment, and not this two-bit floozy they had clearly found in some lowtown tavern. To the mass of people crammed inside the ballroom, the singer's rendition of Aria di Mezzo Carattere might have been passable, but to the silver-haired airship aficionado and opera enthusiast, he felt like he had just downed a very sour and poorly-made cocktail.

The one he was actually drinking, he had to admit, was impeccably made. He tipped the bartender generously.

The Royal Starlet Ballroom stood on the high tiers of Vector's upper-east side, sitting like a jewel in the box of charcoal that was the imperial city. The walls were more window than brick, affably inviting in moonlight. The floor was crowded with white-draped tables, themselves cluttered with candelabras and platters of hors-d'oeuvres. Between the tables were bodies - lavishly clothed, glittering bodies, moving, talking, and dancing. The ballroom was only once or twice a year and restricted to the upperclass nobles and the imperial elite – and in this instance, of course, they were joined by Emperor Gestahl, his generals, and a crop of other various important figures - leading Setzer to wonder what exactly he was doing here.

After ordering a second whatever-that-was, his quandary was answered in the form of a lively blonde bounding towards him from one side of the room, a familiar lop-sided smirk ready to burst into a full-blown grin. "Darill," he greeted, raising his glass to her appearance, "How goes the reconnaissance?"

"Setzer," she breathed excitedly, grabbing onto his arms for balance, "I have three things you need – you need – to know about. Okay? Are you listening? Setzer, listen. Listen!"

"I'm listening!" he assured her, a smirk of his own forming in response to the girl's alcohol-fueled mania.

"First of all, there is a man over there who is wearing an oversized banana peel. I'm not even kidding. And I want it. I've already talked to the coat-check girl and offered her a… considerable tip if she can get it to me. Okay? It's seriously like, like, a giant banana peel. And it will be mine."

"That would be Dr. Cid," remarked Setzer, who had spotted the yellow-clad engineer the moment he had entered the Royal Starlet – because it was hard not to. "His choice in fashion has always been… unconventional." Setzer's own dark coat and ruffled shirt weren't the epitome of fashion, but he hadn't yet been likened to any fruit, so he counted that as a victory.

"Right, whatever – it will be mine. Second order of business," she moved the mass of blonde curls from one side of her head to the other before continuing, "The Rhizopas sashimi is to die for. They've got a whole tank of them on that side of the room and are cutting them up! Right before your eyes! You get to watch them die and then – and then you just eat them! People are just gobbling them up as if they weren't dead moments ago! Holy crackers, Empire life is amazing."

"It's certainly something," Setzer agreed, despite finding fish thoroughly unappetizing. "And the third thing?"

"Oh - I made a teeny-tiny, uh, donation in your name to some fundraiser for airship engineering."

It took a moment for the information to pass through the layer of alcohol now coating his senses. "You… wait, what?"

"They're probably going to expect a speech. Say 'Hi' to the Emperor for me!" Darill at least had the grace to offer an apologetic smile, before clumsily claiming a seat at the bar. "One Zozo Whiskey, please! And do you guys serve Chickenlip tenders?"

Setzer smiled at the woman he fell in love with – the drunken, impulsive, blonde mess of a woman – before walking off to his fate. This kind of thing was unquestionably Darill, and he knew he'd have to find some way to get back at her later; she'd won this round, but Setzer always managed to find an ace up his sleeve. Maybe he'd tip off an Imperial guard about a rampant alcoholic attempting to take off with the guests' coats…

Darill was left alone at the bar with the exception of one other patron: a young girl in a dress of cream that made her already-pale skin look white as snow. Her expression was stern as she drank from a crystalline glass, looking very much like she'd regretted whatever she'd ordered – or maybe she just didn't drink much. Her blonde hair, luminescent and wispy, was tied in a bun, with stray tendrils falling on one side of her face in a fashion that was far too elegant for a party-crasher; she must have attended regularly. Her beauty took Darill's breath away – and Darill was not being cliché when she realized this, for the girl's very presence exuded a winteriness that went straight to her throat, stealing her breath. So, of course, the only appropriate reaction was:

"Well, hello there, missy." Darill closed the gap between them, effortlessly moving over four seats until they were side by side. She combed her own ruddy blonde hair with her fingers, moving its mass to the other side of her head again. The girl flinched, then opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by a wave of applause. They looked over at the stage: the young king of Figaro had just made a toast to the Empire, to some alliance or other, and the hall was awash in polite clapping. He was also cute, Darill remarked, but her attempts at seducing kings had been a mixed bag in the past, so she turned her attention back to the radiance of the woman at the bar. Setzer had just climbed the steps to the stage – to more applause, once the MC identified the 'generous and magnanimous young philanthropist' to the crowd.

"Oh, this is gonna be good."

"I'm sorry, who are you?" asked the girl in the cream-coloured dress once she could finally get a word in. She spoke strongly, her low voice allowing for only a slight quiver that threatened to betray her age and inebriation.

"Shh, shh. Let's hear this!"

Setzer presented himself with impressive poise and pomp, standing convincingly among the nobles. He managed his way through a speech, occasionally breaking character to shoot daggers from his eyes in Darill's direction. His clumsy rambles about airships and the progress of technology and the Empire's place in the brightening future of the world, and so on and so forth, were winning the crowd over – and Darill even moreso, watching her silver-haired paramour improvising masterfully. Her man had charisma and he knew how to use it. This was a little disappointing, of course: he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of embarrassing himself in front of the Emperor – something she'd have to punish him for later.

"…So I'd like to once again thank the Imperial Air Force for their work on our state-of-the-art airships, and as a flight enthusiast myself, I can see this money is going to the right hands…"

The stoic girl had muttered something into her glass that tore Darill's attention away from her beloved. "What did you say? Boar latrines?"

"War machines," she spat icily. "Your… friend's donation is going straight into the pockets of men who will do nothing but tear up the world, only now they can do it from the skies as well as the ground." Her words were awkward and forced, subdued and restrained but crackling with anger; the words of someone who rarely spoke their mind. The alcohol had loosened her lips just enough, but Darill could tell that she was struggling to hold herself back.

"He's my boyfriend." She corrected her, "Or fiancé, or something. Except he's married 'to the skies', whatever that means. We've got a thing going. But he should hurry up and tie the knot; this ass isn't getting any perkier," she lifted her leg and gave her rump a good-natured slap, "Right?"

Darill had earned herself a piercing glare from her newfound drinking companion, icy enough to warrant this particular gem of wit: "Yeesh, I don't remember ordering my whiskey on the rocks."

"Typical," responded the woman, with no further elaboration. "This whole Empire is just… just…" her words died in her throat, assassinated by what little loyalty and patriotism she still felt towards her homeland. She called for a refill, not caring that whatever she had just ingested had been a foul offense to all of her senses.

"The world's a crazy place," Darill agreed, still buzzed and not much in the mood for politics. "So, what're you doing later tonight?"

"What am I— Is this some kind of proposition?" Her words were barbed and disbelieving. "Who do you think I am?"

"I was hopin'," Darill creeped close enough to stare into the girl's aquamarine pupils, "That I'd get to discover that for myself, over drinks, somewhere… " She drew the word out in a seductive hiss, "…else."

Darill thought for a moment that she was going to get slapped; luckily for her, such a brazen act of melodrama was beneath her new object of affection, who settled for bunching up her dress in her fists and vacating her seat. She gave Darill a final withering glare and stalked off, feet shuffling clumsily in heels too high, leaving her assailant with a twinge of sadness – for her, for herself, and for the night that could have been.

"Don't tell me you were so fixated by that leggy creature that you missed my brilliant performance?" Setzer had returned and was towering over Darill, who remained seated. She twisted herself around and pulled his waist into a hug, pressing her head into his side and breathing in the musty smell of his coat.

"I was gonna get you a little gift," she whined, "A little toy we could have played with. Together."

"Ah, is this to repay me for the gambling earnings you just threw at the Emperor?"

"S'm'thin' like th't," she mumbled into his coat.

"…Or you just wanted to play with her yourself."

"She w's pur'ty." Darill reasoned, her face re-emerging from his side, "…Who was she, anyway?"

Setzer had always had a knack for remembering the faces that melted so quickly into blurs in Darill's mind. "That was General Celes Chere."

"She didn't seem very general-like. I mean, she was a couple of drinks away from turning into a pickling jar." But then, General Kefka Palazzo was sitting at the head table decked out in a veritable rainbow of colours and clown make-up, so Darill wasn't sure what was proper decorum for the Empire's generals anymore.

Always abreast of the latest in imperial gossip, Setzer offered his own suspicions as to why General Celes might have been drowning herself in liquor: "She's…" He let out a low whistle, "It's really quite a situation; tensions between the Empire and Figaro, a falling out with Doma, and now, whispers of rebellion and civil war in Maranda. I've… heard talk of General Celes and her unit being sent there to, ah, 'keep the peace'."

"Well, shit." Darill's reaction summed it all up.

"I'd be pretty damn stressed if I were in her army boots."

"I feel like I should've offered to buy her a drink or twelve."

A silence grew between them, the trivial chatter of the Royal Starlet Ballroom continuing as always, like the buzzing of flies. Darill was the first to break it.

"Damn. So…" She stood, rearranging her hair once again and stretching her arms, "Think the King of Figaro might be interested in a threesome? I've heard some naughty rumours about the young Desert Devil," Darill mused.

"He's rather dashing," admitted Setzer, "But do you really want to try that after what happened with the last king you tried to seduce?"

"Men from Figaro are considerably looser-wound than those Domans." She stated matter-of-factly. "We may as well give it a shot, Setzy," Darill offered him her arm, and he linked it with his own. "It's a gamble, but I'd say we've had fairly good luck in the past."

"Why not," laughed Setzer. His eyes brimmed with affection for his beau. "The sky's the limit, my dear."

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