The small house, built into the rock itself, was empty by the time he awakened, the hour impossible to guess due to its lack of windows. It wasn't really more than a hovel; all the furnishings were dusty and worn just short of the point of collapse. On the kitchen table was a covered plate of bread, soft cheese, and a wrinkled, brownish fruit obviously intended for his breakfast. They looked barely able to feed themselves, never mind look after a stranger. How odd these Dalmascans were. Kind, but odd.

Cleaned up and fed, he unlatched the front door to find himself in Hell. The dust found its way into his eyes and mouth after scarcely a breath. The heat was so thick it choked—it felt like breathing light. "Holy…" he gasped, and slammed the thick door shut. He had known in the abstract sense Dalmascan summers were hot, every schoolchild does, but it did not prepare him for the sun stabbing clear through his eyes into his brain. There was nothing for it but acceptance. He was a wanted man in Archadia by now—its summer rain showers were a world way, and would be for a long time to come. What were a few luxuries in comparison to his freedom?

He took a deep breath of the relatively cool air underground and set out again for the Strahl. He found his rescuer already at the ship, who strolled out to meet him when he heard Ffamran's footfalls on the hardbaked mud. "There you are! You gave us a bit of a scare. The wife and I were afraid you weren't going to wake again."

"Afraid I wasn't going to wake? By the look of the sun it's barely ten in the morning," he said, glancing up in puzzlement.

"Oh, tis. The day after you dropped out of the sky. But you look well enough now, and it gave us time enough to put your ship back together."

"That was quick work."

"Wasn't all me. Wasn't even mostly me," he said, chuckling. "Still looks a mess with all the scorch marks, I know, but she tells me it should be flyin' true as Raithwall's arrows now. Would you like to meet the hands behind it?"

"I'd be delighted to meet your…mechanic." From the looks of it, this was a Bangaa mining town. The woman who slid herself out from underneath the thruster casing was not a Bangaa. If she had been dressed in something other than a dirty apron and a welder's face shield, he would have no difficulty picturing her lounging on silken cushions and sipping rare vintages aboard a pleasure cruiser. She paid him no heed while she pulled off the protective gear that bound her hair safely away from stray sparks, and when the snowy fall was freed, along with two perfect black-speckled coney's ears, he could not help but stare.

Finally she seemed to notice his presence. "Have you never seen a Viera before?" she asked, eyes narrowed.

The truthful answer would have been 'not outside the pages of a geography textbook', but how far could an aspiring sky pirate get on the truth? "Your pardon," he replied, inclining his head by way of apology. "I've met a few, but most Viera haven't a taste for carbon steel and engine grease."

"I am not like most Viera."

"Obviously not," he said, wondering if her face was capable of forming a more pleasant expression than faintly insulted disdain. That bit of fantasy seeped quickly downward into imagining what she looked with a more pleasant expression while naked. It wasn't difficult. Under the canvas apron, she wasn't wearing much in the first place.

"Shall we proceed with pre-ignition testing?" she asked, her voice flat with barely concealed irritation.

"Of course, " he said, extending a hand up by way of invitation. She didn't waste any time in brushing past him onto the ramp. All business, it seemed. Rather dull for so pretty a woman, but they'd only just met. "I'm afraid I never caught your name...?" he called up after her.

"Fran," she tossed back, pointedly refraining to ask for his.

"That's what I like about Humes," said Arturus, who had watched the entire exchange with a faint smirk on his face. "You turn all sorts of interesting colors when you're worked up over something. Like right now--you're all funnily pinkish in the cheeks."

"I am not."

"To be honest…no, at that particular moment you weren't. But you certainly are now."

Ffamran rolled his eyes and followed Fran up the gangplank. He was not blushing. He was not.

-----

As frigid as her manner was, the woman was a mechanical genius. She'd patched and bypassed damaged circuits with junked heavy machinery scrounged up from around the camp. The power levels weren't as high as they could be, but the fact they were operating above fifty percent capacity was a miracle in itself. "Time for the big show," he said to her over to intercom. "All clear from the engine room?"

"Yes. Go ahead."

He turned the key. There was a bang. Fran screeched. After that followed a string of thumps and angry hisses, which Ffamran guessed (rightly) were the rough Vieran equivalent to "contrary esper-blasted rusteaten whore's whelp of a ship."

"You all right down there, Fran?"

No answer.

"Fran?"

Nothing.

Was she hurt? It was hard to tell exactly what happened through the com, but something definitely blew out, and the power levels had plunged accordingly. Just as he was about to run to her rescue, the darkened control panel flickered back to life.

"Try it now," came the toneless voice over the radio.

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"Fine," she said in a voice so unmistakably icy the tone made it all the way through the fuzz of the radio. He shrugged and twisted the ignition peg again. This time the rings spun up sweet as honey, and the test flight around the small encampment went as well as it possibly could. She'd done it.

He set the Strahl down again and leaned back into the chair cushions. Life was looking good again. Fran ducked under the bulkhead behind him (gods she was tall) and leaned into the cockpit. "Is it acceptable?"

He craned his neck over the headrest and grinned at her. "Better than acceptable. Your work should hold for a long while. Would you care to test it yourself?"

"Not particularly," she said, and came a few steps farther in to lean against the doorframe. "You…stole this ship, didn't you?"

"Certainly not," he said, affronted. "One steals a loaf of bread. The Strahl I commandeered."

"And you flew it all the way from Draklor Laboratories with malfunctioning directional thrusters, by yourself?

"I'm a better pilot than I look, eh?" he preened.

"Perhaps, but my first thought was that you were soft in the head."

He opened his mouth to thank her for the compliment he was expecting, but nothing came out. She was perhaps the rudest woman he had ever had the (dis)pleasure of conversing with. Nobody in Archades dared to speak to him in such a manner. Nobody.

"I don't believe you ever told me your name."

"I'm…Balthier," he said. It was the first thing that rolled off his tongue, and coincidently the name of the leading man in a series of novels of dubious historical accuracy favored by impressionable Archadian youths with a taste for vicarious adventure. Damn. At least she wouldn't know that. Next time he introduced himself he'd have to think of a better alias.

"And where do you make for?"

"I'm still pondering my options."

"Word among the cloudskippers is that there is royal coin for such enterprising individuals as choose to harry Archadian convoys."

"Is there really."

"So it has been said," she said, and paused for a long moment. "I have a proposition for you, Balthier—if that is your name, which I doubt. I have been stranded here for some weeks. In return for passage on the Strahl, I will serve as first mate until we reach Rabanastre, and find you landing clearance, which you do not have."

"I would not be able to secure this clearance by myself, I take it?"

"You are an Archadian citizen piloting a stolen vessel. Without the assistance of staggeringly large bribes, it is highly unlikely."

"Fair enough," he said. Not like he had much choice. He'd stashed away a fair amount of gil, but it had to last a long time, at least until piracy became profitable. "This makes me captain, doesn't it," he said to himself. Captain. That sounded terribly sweet to his ears. He could see the scene spread out before him: a dashing privateer, answering to no one, with a rifle on his back and a dark, exotic beauty at his side…

"But I will not be taking orders from you. And Balthier?" she said, bending low over his shoulder until her gossamer hair brushed his arm. "If you lay a finger on me during this journey, I will not hesitate to relieve you of it, nor any other cherished pieces of your anatomy. Know, also, that I am not a woman in the habit of making idle threats."

He couldn't help but shift uncomfortably in his seat after she'd stalked away. This Fran had now bypassed 'rude' and edged over into 'criminally insane'. Whatever else set her apart from her Viera sisters, she shared their reputation for being violently unsociable (who were also said to be inhumanly strong and skilled with a wide array of spells and armaments). Maybe it would be better to rework scene one. Second draft: A dashing privateer, answering to no one, with a rifle on his back and the dark, exotic beauty as far away from him as possible.