But Penelo's dress is far more modest, as is her posture. She shrinks back from him slightly, catching her lower lip between her teeth. "How much longer is it to Rabanastre?" she asks.
He looks at the orange clouds drifting past the window and frowns slightly. "Six more hours, if we don't run into any troubles on the way."
"That's a big if." She gives a little half-grin.
"It is," he says. "But it's my hope that this journey is an uneventful one. I daresay the Strahl's seen enough excitement for one day."
"Really?" Penelo leans over the high-backed seat Fran's vacated. "So being a sky pirate usually isn't this eventful? Vaan's going to be disappointed."
"As a general rule, sky pirates try to avoid being captured by Imperial forces. And they mislike being aboard ships about to explode. They also find it wisest to outrun an explosion, not head into the heart of it."
"That makes sense," she says. "But it could have been a lot worse than it was."
"True," he concedes, smiling at her. "The Mist doesn't seem to have caused any fluctuations in the skystone's energy generation. I'm rather thankful for that."
"The skystone…" Penelo frowns and tugs on the end of a braid. He's seen her perform the gesture before, when she's remembering the incantations and gestures for a newly licensed and learned magick or when she's scrutinizing a map and trying to plot the best course through the terrain ahead of them. "That's what keeps the ship in the air, right?"
"That's the gist of it, yes," he says. "Spikes in the flow of Mist can overcharge the skystone, and the resulting power surges overheat the engines and burn the wiring to a crisp." He taps the controls lightly, the rings on his hands making a tiny sharp noise as they strike the glass. "It's one of the reasons I'm so lucky to have Fran. She can sense fluctuations in the Mist better than any hume-made device can."
Penelo nods, although he catches the slight droop marking her features when he mentions Fran's name. "Maybe you can show me the engines sometime?" She turns a pretty shade of pink and seems to realize it, for she clears her throat with all due haste. "I mean, I guess I have to learn my way around a ship if I'm going to keep Vaan out of trouble, right?"
"I'd be delighted to do so once we make port," he says with a little flourish. Her smile blossoms across her face quite naturally. It's a refreshing sight.
"Can you teach me how to use a gun?"
He looks at the crossbow strapped to her back; the recoil from it ought to be enough to send a girl of her size sprawling back, but she holds her ground steadily enough and flinches only slightly when the bolts streak towards their targets.
"You've a serviceable weapon already," he says, arching an eyebrow.
"I know, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to get licensed," she says. "Guns are even better at punching through the things we're facing than this is." She indicates the crossbow. "So will you show me?"
"It's a slow business," he says. "Reloading takes time."
"It takes a long time to cast magicks, too," she retorts. "Usually. I'll clean your gun once you show me how to do it, I'll pay you back for the ammunition I use when I practice, I won't use any of the magicked shot, and I'll save up my share of the loot until I have enough money to buy a gun of my own."
He's always considered Vaan to be the more stubborn of the Rabanastre pair, but the hard line of Penelo's jaw and the glint in her eyes—the firmness behind her gaze reminds Balthier of the cobalt shard of manufacted nethicite that Larsa bequeathed to her on the Leviathan—speaks to steel hidden beneath her dancer's scarves. And she's cleared away any objections he might have voiced.
Fran would find it dreadfully amusing to see him thus lost for words.
"I suppose you've given me little choice in the matter," he says. Penelo laces her hands behind her back and rocks forward on her dust-caked boots; her smile is as broad as the Nebra River, if a trace more self-satisfied than that waterway typically is. Balthier removes the Sirius from its holster and hands it butt-end first to Penelo. "Careful," he cautions her. "She's heavier than she looks."
Penelo nods once, cradling the gun carefully in her palms.
"You know the theory behind the gun's operation, yes?" he asks.
She nods, her head bobbing up and down rapidly. "I think so. The chip of fire magicite strikes the steel, right? And that makes sparks…"
"…and the sparks light the gunpowder, which forces the shot out of the barrel and into your target, if your aim's true," he says, twirling one of the small metal balls between the tips of his fingers. "The mechanism's currently half-cocked—the magicite can't strike the steel in this position, so you're less likely to blow your fingers away."
"Ouch," Penelo says.
"I've seen it happen. I'm assuming you know what the barrel of the gun is."
She taps the hollow cylindrical column inscribed with silver curlicues—sigils for speed and strength, according to the man who sold him the Sirius. "That's the barrel, isn't it?"
"You have it. While the gun is half-cocked, take the powder flask—" he shows her his again "—and tip some of the contents into the barrel. Here." He wraps her fingers around the neck and angles her hand so the powder cascades into the Sirius's barrel, a trail of crystalline white engulfed by the slender darkness. A flush starts to creep up her neck, and he releases her hand gently. "That ought to be enough."
"What do I do next?" she asks.
He thumbs open the catch on a leather pouch stitched to his bandolier and withdraws a strip of soft cloth. "Wrap the ammunition in this and ram it down the barrel, on top of the powder. It should be a snug fit."
She colors slightly at that, too. He can imagine why, although it's hardly the place his mind traveled to at first.
When he hands her the bit of cloth, she grasps the tips of his fingers along with the fabric. She curls her hand in and draws him closer, then balances herself on the balls of her feet as she leans up and—
Balthier can't say the press of her lips on his is—unexpected, precisely; he might not be as observant as Fran, but he's not completely blind, either. Still, he never expected her to act on it with such fervor, crushing her body against his and grinding her hips in a fluid circle, a dancer's thrust, as she teases the edges of his teeth with her tongue. To say that it all renders him speechless is understating the matter. Considerably so. Penelo reaches her hands behind his neck and pulls him forward; the barrel of the Sirius nudges into his neck, insistent as her kiss.
She breaks it, finally, and steps back, flushed with triumph more than shame (or so Balthier imagines).
"…you'll also need to place a small amount of powder in the flintlock's pan," he says, rubbing the spot on his skin where the Sirius's barrel left its mark.
She looks him hard in the eye. He gives her his gentlest smile. She's a pretty girl, yes, and not dreadfully young, but perhaps he should have eased up on his encouragement of her. Girls at her age dream of eternal oaths of love sworn under starlit skies and wedding gowns layered in the lightest white silks, neither of which he's prepared to give.
"…fine," she says, her tone indicating that it isn't.
Balthier stirs slightly in his tent, shaking away the remnants of an odd dream featuring an army of three-headed serpents with his father leading the charge, only to find Penelo's face looming over his. He starts.
"Can…" She stumbles over the words as they leave her mouth, he can tell. "Can I spend the night with you?"
"I don't suppose it's a matter of nightmares and you needing comfort from them," he says rather feebly.
"No," she says, and he feels one of her legs settle between his—the muscles in her thigh are clenched tight and tremble when they brush against the sweat-slicked skin of his bare legs. "You know what I mean. You have to," she adds. "You're a sky pirate."
"I'm not the type to have a woman in every port, if that's what you suggest." Balthier reaches his hands towards her hips to lift her off, or so he tells himself, but she takes one of his hands in her own and keeps it there, pressed to the bony curve just before where her thigh starts.
"I'm not," Penelo rejoins. "But…you've been so nice to me, and—"
"I'm sorry if you mistook my courtesy for anything more, and the blame lies squarely with me," he begins, but she cuts him off.
"I thought you thought I was pretty." Her voice shrinks in the growing dark.
He rubs his eyes with his free hand. "You're lovely, Penelo, and clever, and a good hand with magicks and weaponry alike, and you're shaping up to be a fine mechanic. And I'd lie if I said I never—well. You can imagine."
"Yeah. I can."
"But I'm hardly the sort of man who's suited for…well, much of anything lasting."
"Except with Fran," she says.
"Except with Fran," he agrees.
She shifts her weight further back. "I'm not looking for something lasting, though."
Balthier sighs to himself. Perhaps I ought to have paid Fran more mind when she told me that should I choose to continue to flirt as freely as I breathed, I ought to monitor my breathing more closely. "I know you think that now, but things happen. Unexpected developments crop up."
"I wouldn't let any," she says; he can't see her hand move to her stomach, but he hears it slither over her leather bodysuit. "I know ways to stop—to stop anything like that from happening. There are herbs you can brew. And some magicks you can perform."
"I wasn't speaking of developments such as those," Balthier says, smiling almost in spite of himself. "Although they're certainly worth considering. If things should sour between us—well, we've a long voyage ahead, and we're not likely to be rid of each other's company soon."
There's a pause; during it, he feels Penelo slide from her perch on his legs. "I know. And I thought about that. I did," she adds, an earnest note coloring her voice. "It's just that…I like you. I like being with you, and you don't seem to mind being with me and showing me how to do things…"
"I don't," he reassures her. "It's a pleasure to teach you."
"And—" Her hand fumbles for his in the darkness and finds it. "You're not…um, you're not my first, if that's what you're worried about. And I just thought that…this could be something else that we share, like the lessons or something. It doesn't have to be anything big and romantic. Really," she presses. "I grew up in Rabanastre with Vaan of all people and there's nothing less romantic than that. I'm fine with being—friends, with something extra." The words tumble from her mouth in a stream. "I just think that if two people like each other, and they know the risks, and they've talked about them, and they're okay with it…then something can happen. And it can be nice," she finishes. He can hear the breathless notes lingering in her voice. "Does that make sense?"
He nods, half to himself. "Yes," he says slowly. "Quite a lot of it."
"Then—"
"Perhaps." He finds the back of her head and pulls himself up until he's level with her face; the kiss he gives her is on the lips but chaste. Quick. "We can talk more about this in the morning, if you'd like, when we've both had more time to sleep on it."
"And then?" she asks.
He releases her and sinks slowly back down to his pillow. "And then we'll see."