Epilogue: 707 O.V: The Imperial Capital Archades

Balthier woke with the lark and before the linnet. The scent of linen soap and fresh cotton filled his nose as he lifted his head from the pillow. Today was the day. Rolling over in his bunk Balthier stared up at the ceiling of his cabin aboard the Strahl and contemplated the steel in a cheerfully mindless sort of fashion for a few moments.

Today was the day. The big day; the pivot point for tomorrow….and various other clichés amounting to more or less the same thing.

Ten weeks of laborious, tedious negotiations; ten weeks of Ashe throwing her weight around as much because her councillors expected it as any real sentiment of emotion, and finally the ink was dry on the new treaties and the Nabradians had been transported en-masse to Balfonheim, or in the most severe cases, to the specially augmented medical facilities in the newly re-opened Draklor.

Today was significant for another reason however, because today was the day Ffamran (call me Balthier) Bunansa was invested with the directorship of the engineering and aviation department of the great Draklor labs. It was the post his father had once held when Ffamran was a boy.

Still Draklor was not the reason Balthier's heart thumped uncomfortably in his chest; Draklor did not scare him and never had. The lab was just a convenient foil.

Idly Balthier brushed a hand over the permanent mark of Fran's handprint emblazoned over his breastbone. Ten weeks after the initial injury and Balthier was now mostly recovered, but every now and then he felt a definite twinge deep to the chambers of his heart. He suspected he always would – dying wasn't something a man shrugged off that easily.

With a deep sigh Balthier forced himself into action finally. He threw back the sheets and swung his legs down onto the cold floor of his cabin. Moving gingerly across the cabin to his sink he washed and shaved and groomed himself to the usual high standards before contemplating the wonders awaiting him in his closet.

What does a former dissident criminal and military deserter wear to his investiture back into Archadian high society, hm? A noose; a hair shirt with matching flagellation whip; an apology? Well Balthier didn't possess any of the above and wasn't about to apologise for anything – he'd been right, after all.

Perusing the depths of his closet Balthier mused on the vagaries of life in some detail. Generally speaking pondering the expanses of his closet was the time Balthier took to really stop and take stock of his life.

It really was a funny old Ivalice, he decided on this particular morning. Every day for the last however many weeks Balthier had awoken only to ask himself how it was that things had fallen out in this manner. In the last year he'd gone from crashing a sky fortress into the doldrums of intense boredom, to a trip over the edge into despair, then on to a short sojourn beyond death and back to life again. Even by his frenetic standards this had been an event filled year.

Now he was back in Archades – and of his own volition. It really was a funny old business – being alive that is. In comparison death was positively straightforward.

Jules (that slimy son of a gigantoad) had been delighted to discover that his 'old mate' master Ffamran had come home to take up the old man's former work. The street ear had been almost salivating with joy. It was possible to see him thinking over the best ways to manipulate state secrets out of Balthier like watching the wheels turning in the creaky clockwork of his rat-like mind.

For his part Balthier had decided to take the high road for once and had refrained from shooting the loathsome little man right then and there. Fran had been greatly impressed with his unusual show of restraint.

Of course Jules was just the proverbial tip of the purvama.

His once almost-sweetheart Anna Zargabaath had been equally delighted to discover that he was returning to Archades and had seized upon the opportunity to exact her own, rather long and drawn out revenge on Balthier for that little act of kidnapping back in the day.

The dreadfully populist rag she wrote for had, subsequent to his arrival, started running a very successful, completely contrived, serialisation of Balthier's life story (or at least the paper alleged it was his life story). Balthier, who actually lived his life, had suggested otherwise, but no one seemed inclined to care.

Presently the serial had reached a point where brave (but secretly very patriotic in a strangely anti-Imperial way) Ffamran Bunansa discovers the wild and untamed Viera beauty Fran. The illustrations that accompanied Anna's outrageous and possibly libellous flight of fancy could make the eyes pop.

Balthier had thought he might have to restrain Fran the first time she had laid eyes on the artistic interpretation of her physical form the cartoonist had created. Balthier himself had not realised his beautiful partner was quite so well endowed. It was a wonder she could bear the weight of mammary glands and stand upright.

(Equally disturbing was the sheer number of times that, for seemingly no reason whatsoever, illustrated Balthier's shirt seemed to fall off. Firstly this annoyed him because Balthier always took exemplary care of his apparel and disliked the idea that he would wear shoddy clothing and, secondly, because he wasn't bloody Vaan to go haring about with nipples to the wind).

In conclusion it could said that Anna was a woman who knew how to exact the perfect revenge, and had that revenge not involved his public mortification Balthier might have been impressed by the artistic refinement of her sadism.

Eventually and back in the present of the moment, after much time spent standing in a stupor before his closet, Balthier finally settled for his usual white shirt and back lacing vest emsemble. The vest was a highly becoming velvet green with black fretwork, and the boots he wore over his comfortable well fitted black trousers were some of the nicest he owned.

As he always did in the morning Balthier carefully checked the contents of his belt pouches before twinning his double belts around his hips.

Ready to face Ivalice at large – or at least Archades – Balthier left his cabin. He already knew that Fran was elsewhere and so didn't bother to look for her. Nono, he soon discovered, was also absent.

Balthier was a trifle concerned about Nono's absence, as the Moogle founder of the altruistic Fraternity of Kupo, had been somewhat too enthusiastic when Balthier had suggested that Archades was a potentially untapped market for conversion to the ways of Kupo. The thought of what the Moogle might be doing presently to profligate the message of the Fraternity was just a little worrisome.

There would be blood on the streets and cultural revolution in the high echelons of Grand Arcade by the end of the week, Balthier could feel it in his bones. No force in all Ivalice could stand against the sheer irrepressible force of Nono in full evangelical fervour, after all.

Well, it couldn't be helped. That was the price of enlightenment, or so Nono had told him.

Balthier shrugged off his slight concerns and left the Strahl. His best girl was still not up to snuff; her left wing retracting coupling was stiff and unwieldy and the aft-glossair ring in the back was still not rotating properly. This was a source of some guilt for Balthier as he was, more or less exclusively, responsible for the Strahl's present lack of perfection.

Of course matters were in hand to remedy this situation. Balthier intended to fully exploit his new position as head of one of the greatest aviation labs in Ivalice to finally give his Strahl she deserved. Yes, doing so was a flagrant abuse of power for personal gain, but then again, Balthier had spent the last seven years as a pirate – he saw no conflict of interest whatsoever. His interests were solely invested in his own gain and ever had been.

He did feel somewhat conflicted, in a general and quasi-metaphysical sense, however, as he entered the city from one of the outlying residential districts. It was all so bloody strange. It left one feeling quite out of sorts.

Seven years had gone by but familiar landmarks in the city had withstood the test of time, and seemingly, Balthier's best attempts to forget them; the bench in Grand Arcade where he had sat and watched the skies as a boy was still there; the view exactly as he remembered. The Watertoll Bridge where he vaguely remembered walking with his Nanny Penpo as a very young child was still just as quaint and peaceful. The gate of Akademy brought back the vivid memories of name-calling and hair pulling from his less than halcyon school days. All of it exactly the same as he had left it.

On an intellectual level Balthier supposed that it made sense that he should feel a trifle conflicted walking the streets of the Imperial capital, especially as a free man. He was supposed to be a dissident; a loud and determined critic of all things Imperial. If there was any justice he should have come back to the city for his execution and no other reason.

Still it wasn't any highbrow political or even ethical considerations that made him squirm even as he looked around him like a wide-eyed and filthy Vulgar who had just made it up to the heights of the city. Balthier could live quite happily and without a twinge of conscience if it was merely a matter of turning his political coat. (He had always been good at desertion, after all). What he found harder to live with was the strange sense of pleasure he felt every time he found some facet of his old life still extant and vital here in the city Imperial.

He'd told Fran that he needed to walk on the ground like any other man, but what he had meant was that he needed to walk the streets of his home again. He needed to know what had changed and what had not. He needed to know how much of his disdain for Archades was fabricated from his resentment towards Doctor Cid and the regime the old man had once been a proud proponent of.

Balthier needed to remember why he hated so he could decide if that hate was justified. He needed to find his Archades, because once upon a time, this city had been his home just as it had always been Cid's.

In the quiet of the morning Balthier's feet moved silently over the affluent residential street he walked down. The golden brick facades of the townhouses were as he remembered; implacably Archadian with swept front stoops and wide front doors, raised from the street level by a series of steps. The trees lining the street were heavy with bright green leaves. There was an oddly ordered neatness to it all. Every paving stone in place, every window sparkling clean, every bush, shrub, or tree groomed and tamed to Archadian standards of perfection.

The rebel in Balthier very, very badly wanted to pitch a rock through one of those lace curtain swathed windows; just to break the monotony of sterile perfection. Of course, he'd have a bugger of a job finding a rock to hurl in the first place around here.

He picked up the pace when the silent neatness started to make him uncomfortable and was rather relieved to finally make his way out of the still, artificially perfect residential quarter and into the slightly less perfect and slightly more active Molberry district of the city.

Balthier (or Ffamran as was) had always liked Molberry.

Molberry district was filled with eateries, bakeries, butchers, tailors, and an upstairs tavern that could comfortably house no more than twenty people at a time. The tavern had existed when Balthier had been a cadet in the Imperial Army Elites. It was called "Barnum's Engine House" - why it was called that Balthier did not know, and wasn't sure anyone else did either.

This early in the morning the district was quiet. The scent of breakfast pastries wafted out of an open hatch facing out to the street from Mona's Quality Eatery and Balthier stopped to savour the aroma of fresh baked bread, jam rolly-polly, apple turnover, and mince pies. Across the street Ernst Tailoring for the Discerning Gentleman was still closed. Balthier made a mental note to check in later with the tailor to see if his order had been filled yet.

'Morning master Balthier,' a young ardent boy, bright faced and with that avaricious and eager gleam in his eyes, bounded over to Balthier carrying a satchel loaded full of newspapers. The satchel was almost too large for the boy to carry. Balthier eyed the rolled newspaper the boy held before him like a rapier in the way one might look warily on a loaded weapon.

'Want a copy of today's paper?' The boy asked him impishly. 'You're on the front page today sir.'

Balthier rolled his eyes. 'I'm always on the bloody front page.' He muttered handing over the right amount of Gil plus a coin or two for the boy and snatching up the offered rolled newspaper.

It was true, as well. The Prodigal's return to Archades had warranted more type face than the new treaty signing with Balfonheim and Dalmasca and had garnered far more attention than the miraculous survival of the Nabradians combined. There was so much wrong with this alone that Balthier gave up trying to quantify the individual flaws within the Archadian public consciousness and simply accepted that the Archadian mind was a very strange one.

He eyed the ardent newspaper boy, who was called Ian, with a wary look. 'How bad is it?' He knew the boy would know precisely what he meant.

The boy beamed at him, 'Yer shirt gets ripped off in the second drawing.'

Balthier sighed, 'Bloody marvellous.' He shook his head and gestured for the boy to be off, 'Go on with you then.'

The boy scampered off. He was headed for the sky cab dock in Trant where he would catch the workers on their way to open stores, and the shoppers on their way to loiter in the streets. Soon hundreds of people would be treated to another illustrated centrefold spread of Balthier's equally illustrated nipples. It was galling, unutterably galling, to think on.

Balthier followed the boy at a much more sedate pace towards the cab rank. The sky above was heavy with faintly grey clouds and the humidity was building even at this early hour. Somewhere beyond the cottony quilt of cloud the sun was waiting to bake the red brick streets of the capital once again. Balthier tucked the newspaper under his arm. He never read it without Fran present – partly because he gained a perverse enjoyment out of witnessing her unguarded disgust (she was so rarely demonstrably incensed, after all, that it was something of a treat to see).

A trio of Imperial guardsmen clanked up the road from the opposite direction. Balthier suspected that they were looking to break their fast with a morning pastry before taking up sentry duty at the port or the bridge spanning the river leading to Old Archades. Balthier's fingers flexed against his thighs as he passed the trio; it was still passing strange to saunter by an Imperial without incurring instant arrest or worse.

'Aight mate?' One of the guardsmen waved a gauntleted hand. His visor was up and the face he turned to Balthier was that of an adolescent Vaan's age. A muscle in Balthier's jaw twitched but he forced himself to nod politely and pass by without incident. He didn't breathe out until the trio had clanked away.

Archades was a city mired in the past for Balthier; he still remembered the days when he had dragged himself through the city in plate mail every miserable sodding day. Looking into that idiot guard's milksop face it really didn't seem that long ago.

Trant was already growing busy when he reached the district; the sky cabs were operative and streams of people were already spilling out onto the streets in a wash of iridescent silks and parasols. The opera house had employed a young ardent girl fresh up from Old Archades to run around promoting an upcoming line up of new arias and the poor girl seemed completely confused. It was doubtful she even knew what an opera was.

In the distance the red spires of the Imperial Square and Grand Arcade loomed above. Draklor's ornate and imposing architecture stood proud, dwarfed but not cowed, by the immense spire of the Imperial tower. The high echelons of Archadian society, represented by that thicket of spiky spires, appeared to resemble nothing so much as a fistful of needles driving up into a milky white sky.

The soft click of heels over street paving heralded Fran's arrival. 'You are dithering.' She murmured dryly coming to lean against the railing beside him.

Fran too liked to wander the streets of the Imperial capital early and alone. Balthier never asked her where she went just as she did not ask him what he thought about as he drifted along these once familiar streets.

'I'm entitled,' Balthier told her, 'Tomorrow I shall be expected to work for a wage; therefore I shall enjoy my last day of indolence to the fullest.'

Fran made a soft noise, half amusement, half disdain. 'I would sooner believe the sun shall fall from the sky than believe you will ever work when you have no will to. Wage or no, you are not to be tamed.'

Balthier smiled thinly leaning against the railing over looking the river and beyond that the rise of the higher city. 'Yes, but the good tax payers of Archades do not need to know that.'

Fran cocked her head to the side; he suspected she was listening to the sounds of the city he could not, and never would be able, to hear. She twitched her nose minutely, sifting through scents he could not catch on the breeze. He almost asked her what she sensed from the capital – was it fair or foul to her nose – but he didn't. In some ways he felt it better not to know. Instead he covertly examined his partner's chosen attire for the day.

Fran had chosen to wear today a modified tunic in the dove blue-grey colour of Draklor researchers and Balthier suspected this could be nothing but a deliberate choice. The tunic clung to her powerful, yet lithe, physique in a way that could only be described as alluring.

Since entering the city as a resident, not a secret saboteur, Fran had modified her manner of dress. Her usual attire, coupled with the prevalence of those bloody illustrated stories in Anna's paper, had made too much the stir in buttoned down and habitually repressed Archades society. It had grown embarrassing to see grown men break into cold sweats while gawping at his Fran.

Ordinarily Fran cared not for the ill-mannered looks of humes, but the sheer volume of attention she had received had motivated Fran to modify her wardrobe somewhat while staying in the city. Today she was wearing a hat, with a long pale lilac feather, jauntily perched on her head. She had cut the fabric of the hat to create ear holes and she wore her hair loose. Balthier thought her outfit quite fetching indeed.

'You make for Draklor?' She asked him nodding her head to the nearby sky cab rank. Balthier shook his head, tucking away further appreciation of Fran's charms for a latter moment of reflection.

'Not yet - wouldn't do to be seen as too keen.' He smirked. 'I wouldn't want to give the wrong impression regards my motivation and work practices.'

'Ah,' Fran cocked her head to the other side, eyes thrown into shadow by the brim of her hat. 'So today is the day? You will pay your visit, will you?'

Balthier sighed and turned to look down to the gun metal roil of the river below. His gaze tracked up to the filthy sprawl of Old Archades. He noted the collection of building supplies and the loitering knot of imported bangaa workers. Larsa's proposed renovation of the slums moved forward at a glacial pace, but at least something was happening down in the alleys.

'Yes,' Balthier agreed quietly. 'I think I'm overdue a visit.'

Fran was watching him and her hand, curled around the railing near his own, moved a fraction of an inch closer. 'You go alone?' She asked softly. Balthier flexed his fingers over the railing, causing his little finger to brush against hers.

'Yes, I think it best that way.' He watched a flat bottom barge, more rust than metal, ooze slowly up river towards the quay. The barge was loaded down with unrefined magicite ore.

'I shall not delay you, then.' Fran said stepping away from the rail. 'I shall await you at Draklor.' Her clicking steps began to recede and Balthier turned around and called after her.

'Fran.'

She stopped, turned, watched him from under the brim of her hat. Her unbound fall of white hair spilling down her back fluttered in the light breeze rising from the river. Her long, powerful legs demurely cloaked in elegant white stockings were still shapely and lovely. She waited for him to speak.

He smiled eyes twinkling as he arched a brow and gestured to her ensemble. 'I like the hat; the plume is particularly fetching.' His smirk widened, 'I dare say you shall start a trend with the women of this city before the day is out.'

(Balthier had already heard a rumour that there happened to be a particular gentleman's club in Rienna where the female wait staff had been encouraged to wear long, false fabric ears for the pleasure of the wealthy clientele. Balthier could only hope, for the sake of the poor old letches, that Fran never got wind of this.)

Fran was silently thoughtful for a moment, considering his compliment seriously, then she shook loose tendrils of her hair from around her face. 'Naturally,' she said finally, 'For is it not the manner of humes to wish to be as legends are?'

Balthier laughed as he heard the humour thick in her tone. 'So very true,' he agreed pulling the paper from under his arm and gently throwing it over to her.

'Here – for your reading enjoyment. Apparently I am shirtless by the second caption, once again.' Fran caught the paper neatly in one clawed hand.

'So long as I am not, I care not.' She told him fastidiously before turning on her heel and sauntering away. Balthier chuckled as he watched her depart. He had no doubt that the paper would be so much shredded pulp within the hour.

After a few more minutes just watching the city rise to wakefulness around him Balthier decided he had dithered long enough. He sauntered down to the sky cabs, flashed his chops, and settled in for the ride up town.

Before he was entirely ready for the journey to be over he had arrived before the imposing gates of Highhills Cemetery. He looked at the wrought iron with deep scepticism and not a little loathing.

How many years had it been since he'd last set foot in this supposedly hallowed ground? Something approaching eighteen years, he estimated. He wondered if the interior was as he remembered – did cemeteries change all that much, in any regards? It was not as though the dead cared for the whims of fashion.

Balthier shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun now fighting free of the milky clouds. The gleaming ribbons of lush green grass undulating in rising hills and gracefully sloping valleys had not changed since that one ill-starred day when he had come here with his father. The mausoleums were still there, just as he remembered, rising from the veldt of emerald green like bad teeth. The crypts were still huge, ornate and ostentatiously ugly, and the silence was anything but restful.

Balthier's palms itched, that old aversion to all things dead (sharpened by his own recent experiences of being almost deceased) rose up within him. His heart throbbed in the cage of his breastbone and he felt the twinge of his sword wound make its presence felt. A tickle of sweat prickled at his top lip and the back of his hands. He took a (supposedly cleansing) breath and pushed open the wrought iron gates.

The sentry trees lining the winding path through the cemetery appeared overburdened with a veritable bounty of foliage. They cast comfortable, dappled shadow over the still ominous white marble statues rising up beside the haphazard rows of headstones. Up on the far hill Balthier squinted at the large obsidian crypt housing Solidor's dead and gone. The twin serpent insignia of House Solidor, wrought in gold and rising from the steepled roof like a lightning rod, flashed in the sunlight as the clouds finally lost their battle and rays of golden light spilled down over the bone city like a flood.

It was going to be a warm pleasant day in the capital, but Balthier felt cold. He had promised himself that he would do this, that he would make this macabre pilgrimage, from the very moment he had decided to return to Archades while staring into a broken pane of glass in Balfonheim. For the last ten weeks he had managed to contrive means to avoid fulfilling that promise; reasons enough to slip back into that comfortable well of self-denial were easy to come by for a practice prevaricator like Balthier.

Not today, however. Today he was here and he would not run from this.

Inevitably his feet took him to the very doorstep of the Bunansa tomb. Balthier looked up at the dull white mausoleum, the heavy wooden door grown warped and in need of a good coat of varnish, and that damned bird perched atop the steeple roof that had so frightened him as a child.

He laughed abruptly to see that during the wear and tear of the years the eagle had lost its head. There was something fitting about that; the Bunansa guardian had lost its head, the Bunansa heir had flown the nest, and the last Bunansa lord had lost his mind.

The door to the tomb was locked, but trifles like that never bothered Balthier. He had the door open in a jiffy. A great rush of stale air assailed him as he hovered on the threshold looking down into the hot, close, claustrophobic depths of the crypt.

He could turn back; a traitorous little voice wheedled in his mind. No one would know – and it was not as though there was anyone inside who would care. This whole notion was ludicrous. He didn't owe his dead relations any observance.

Then again, this wasn't about making the posthumous acquaintance of his dead mother and his two dead brothers. This wasn't even about the father he had helped to kill.

In actual fact this had little to do with the actually dead and everything to do with Balthier and his own resolve to keep living. In a strange way it occurred to Balthier that cemeteries, funerals, all of it, had nothing whatsoever to do with the genuinely dead. They were all sops for the living; a means to defy the nothingness of death while seemingly enshrining it in marble.

Balthier descended into his father's tomb. His footsteps echoed on the dust covered stone steps loudly.

He lit the old crystal lamp wall sconce and was vaguely surprised to find it still functioned. Cobwebs hung like gossamer bunting from the ceiling and the corners of the rectangular chamber; heavy with dust. There was the unpleasant musty but astringent odour of vermin, rats possibly, hanging in the heavy air and Balthier curled his lip distastefully. He wouldn't be seen dead in such a hovel.

The walls were covered in names. Long dead Ffamran's and Cidolfus' from past generations, a few Mid's and Demen's flung in for good measure and some other names of ancestors Balthier couldn't care less about. Tracing the names Balthier finally came to a stop when his fingers, grimed in dust and muck, found the engraved epitaph for one Ezria Bunansa.

'Hello mother,' Balthier murmured, 'Sorry it has taken me so long to introduce myself. I'm your son, the one who killed you in childbed.' Balthier winced, feeling a fool even as he spoke, 'Dreadfully sorry about that.' He moved on to the next two names.

'Hyram, Vassili – brothers.' He hesitated but then decided that if this wasn't the time for honesty he'd be buggered if he knew a better time. 'Bugger-all but I wish one of you had lived, then our father could have made you a sodding Judge and not me.'

Balthier stopped and considered if more aught be said. He had the feeling that, under these circumstances, another man might have felt some sudden and inextricable connection to his lost bloodline at this junction. Perhaps another man would weep for the mother who had never held him, or the brothers he had never had opportunity to compete with, but Balthier was not like other men. He could not contrive to feel anything for three people who had never existed as flesh and blood in his mind.

'Right well, glad we had this little chat, mother, brothers,' He nodded briskly to the cobweb covered plaques in abstract fashion. 'I for one feel much better.'

Balthier readied himself and released a pent up breath carefully. He stared at the newest name to be engraved in this tally of dead Bunansas.

'Hello old man.'

Fingers traced the stark and emotionless engraving of the name: Cidolfus Demen Bunansa and the dates 648 - 706 Old Valendian.

That was all there was. No epitaph, no one to claim he would be missed or grieved for and to etch that promise into the cold stone alongside his name. Gods be damned there wasn't even a curse to rot in the fires of hell for that matter. Just the old man's name and his dates, and for a long time Balthier just stared at that cold steel plaque set into equally impersonal marble. If asked he would not have been able to say what it was he thought – if he thought at all.

No pity for me, those had been the bastard's last words, or near enough, back up in the Pharos as he melted away. Well, Cid had what he wanted then. Not even an epitaph left for the Empire's greatest weaponsmith. No funerary parade, no trooping of the colours and full honours as his plaque was sealed into place in this dingy, hot, and stifling stone prison.

'Was it really worth it, Cid?' Balthier's fingers continued to trace the curves of the letters, the harsh finality of the dates. 'History in the hands of man and all that, but blast it, what good did it do you?'

Balthier let himself lean forward until his brow was pressed against the cold stone. He laughed sourly.

'I aught know better than to even ask. This conversation has long since been over. You stopped listening years ago.'

He twisted around and let himself slide down the stone until he sat with his back to the marble just below his father's plaque.

From the inside of his belt pouch Balthier pulled out the carefully wrapped miniature portrait of father and infant son that he had carried with him, in secret, since the Filpots had given it to him. With the exception of the Strahl, this portrait was likely his most prized possession and he could barely even bring himself to look at it.

'Did you know that all your initials have been removed from the Remoras, and the Cutters, and the Rooks; from all the bloody weapons you made for the Empire?'

He asked the smiling man in the portrait as his fingers ran over and over the enamelled surface. 'Still use the things, of course, but the new, moral Empire wouldn't sully herself by evoking the name of bloody Doctor Cid.'

Balthier felt heat build behind his eyes and forcibly ignored it. This was his opportunity to say his piece and he was not going to ruin it with over-wrought and trite emotionalism.

'You built this Empire, father.' He said quietly. 'You made her what she is, more than Gramis, more than sodding Vayne; it was you who served your mother country best.'

Balthier's lips twisted in disgust. 'You fed Empire's bloodlust and you invented her victories, and now the complacent bastards try to use everything you made to exonerate their own guilt, but would deny that you ever existed.'

Balthier leaped to his feet unable to stay seated. He clutched the portrait to his chest with one hand and spun on his heel to point a finger at the plaque set in the wall.

'Does that please you old man? Your precious Empire never loved you, Cid. They used you, all of them, the bloody judges, Vayne, even your beloved Venat. You were a tool old man.'

It was only the pain as his knuckles rasped against the cold steel of the plaque that brought Balthier back to his senses. He stared at his grazed fist in surprise and drew back, trying to catch his breath. His lungs burned, his chest heaved, and his heart…his heart just hurt.

'Standing on the shoulders of the would-be gods, was it, you senile old fool?' Balthier sneered shaking his head almost sadly. 'You never realised, did you? History is only ever written by the victors, Cid – and you lost your war when you lost your mind to a bloody stone.'

Balthier looked away from the name and the dates, those meaningless dates, and looked down at the smiling man with the laughing baby captured for all time by some hack painter in miniature.

'You had it coming, old man.' His voice was soft as the dust smearing the floor. 'You deserved far worse than the death you received. Death is too good for you.'

The hot silence of the crypt swallowed his words like a sucking void. Balthier looked down at the dusty floor, where his feet had tracked footprints through the accumulated muck. He breathed in the scent of nothingness. It tasted like decay.

There just weren't any words; all this time and he'd been fighting with a dead man; arguing the toss with a lunatic - and it was a ruddy hard habit to break away from. After all, if he didn't keep talking to the old man, then no one would.

Balthier folded up the portrait in its specially made case once again, and then tucked it away in the kid skin cloth. He placed the portrait down on the dirty floor beneath the plaque like an offering. He straightened up, brushed off his hands, and turned away. It was time to get on with things; he'd pandered to the dead too long as it was.

Balthier stopped on the third step ascending out of the tomb. He'd left the door open (in response to an irrational terror of being trapped inside) and through the opening he could see streaks of blue sky slicing through the thin veil of dissipating cloud. He could hear the rustle of a warm breeze through tree branches and the almost subliminal murmur of the city below the hill.

It was time to move on; he had airships to build and a future to carve out for himself. There were matters to discuss between himself and Fran; very important and possibly emotionally uncomfortable matters, but necessary fodder for discussion all the same. he couldn't waste anymore time on those who had long since ceased caring one way or the other.

He had a life to live. The past did not control him anymore.

Hadn't you best be off – fool of a pirate?

'Damn it,' Balthier broke his paralyse, twisted on his heels and bounded back down the steps. He scraped over the dust covered floor, spoiling his own perfectly preserved footsteps. He scooped up the portrait, and in one fluid movement, stuffed it carefully back into his belt pouch once again.

Maybe the conversation was over; maybe he had failed to save the old man from himself. Maybe he'd never had a hope of doing so to begin with – but just because the bastard was dead and gone was no reason to stop trying. Cid might have given up the ghost, but Balthier hadn't.

Satisfied with an eternal stalemate, because stalemate was better than conceding defeat or living with hollow victory, Balthier bounded up the steps and out of the crypt. He slammed the door of the tomb without looking back. He took a deep, cleansing breath of fresh air and stared up at the sky. He released his breath.

'Well, that's done.' He said on the exhale. 'And to think, it only took me eighteen years to gather the courage.'

Balthier didn't waste time examining the scenery on the way back to the city, or indulging in any more introspection, instead he made haste for Draklor. He was already late for his own investiture.

Fran was waiting for him when the private sky cab dropped him off at the docking bay outside the sixty-seventh floor. Memories of his last visit to Draklor, accompanying Ashe, flitted through his mind. Hopefully there would fewer gigantic mastiffs trying to rip him limb from limb this time.

'Late, I see.' Fran clucked her tongue, 'You shall set a poor precedent.'

'Hmm, I do hope so.' Balthier looked over at the small knot of faces waiting for him by the doors leading inside.

The Imposter Gabranth was in attendance for this momentous occasion, and one or two senators whose names Balthier supposed he'd have to make a point of remembering. He also saw Anna smiling disarmingly and he scowled. No doubt tomorrow there would be a double page inside spread of himself, pointlessly shirtless, being given the key card to Draklor. He was fast coming to hate the woman, he truly was.

Fran came up by his side as one of the white and lavender clad senators gave some manner of self-important speech.

'You are sure of this Balthier?'

Balthier stood, arms folded across his chest, wondering how long he'd have to wait before he could get at the aviation labs. He wanted to do a full inventory of his own; his fingers itched to get his mitts on some of the parts sequested away in those sealed vaults. The sort of parts a man could not steal for love nor Gil in all Ivalice - and he should know, for he had tried it enough times.

'Bit late now for self doubt Fran,' he murmured back, 'But yes. I am sure.'

He glanced at his partner. He was fairly confident that had Fran not had her own interest in Draklor she would have said something by now, but even so…..'And you, Fran; ready to embark on a new career as an Archadian wage slave, hm?'

Fran gave him a droll look, both of them completely ignoring the Archadian pomposity going on around them. 'I am curious. I would see where this new path leads.' She told him and Balthier was reassured.

'Hm,' he smiled. 'It should be an entertaining diversion for a short while.' He shrugged, smile shading into an impish smirk, 'At least until I've harvested everything of worth from Draklor's vaults and re-fitted my girl with the best of Empire.'

'If they hang you I shall not save you.' Fran warned him dryly as the bumbling old fool of a senator continued to witter on to the bored gathering of gentry and officialdom who had nothing better to do with their day.

Balthier felt his smirk widen. He was sure that, even though the man's helm was on thus obscuring his face, Basch was glaring at him for his inattentiveness. It only made Balthier smile all the more.

'They'd have to catch me first.' He murmured in aside to his partner.

'So you would fly still, while building a nest in Archades' high arches?' Fran murmured shifting her weight from one foot to the other and only Balthier could tell she was as impatient with the geriatric windbag senator as he was.

'I enjoy the irony,' Balthier agreed mildly.

His eyes narrowed as it seemed the oration was finally winding down. The old man paused to draw in a breath within the hollows of his thin chest. Balthier leaped forward, seizing his moment.

'Oh well done,' he clapped wholeheartedly, 'well said that man.'

The senator and everyone else gathered to stare and look ineffectual, turned to blink at him in surprise, not that Balthier minded this. No one knew how to make the most of an audience like he did. Fran stepped up to his side silently and easily. Balthier strode forward to seize the reins of this grand farce.

'Well then, gentleman, ladies, iron clad harbingers of doom,' he nodded ironically to the Judge Imposter, 'shall we get started then?'

He strode forward towards the entrance to the sixty-seventh floor without waiting for an answer – because he didn't care what anyone thought one way or the other. He also ignored the outraged flush mottling the old senator's greyish pallor as he passed him.

No one else seemed to mind the interruption however and quite swiftly the little crowd was hurrying in his and Fran's wake. One particularly eager young man in a Draklor researcher's tunic managed to stretch his legs to trot alongside Balthier.

'Start with what, sir?' He asked holding a quill pen and pad poised in his hands to take notes and his scampered along.

Balthier grinned. 'Buggered if I know,' he admitted honestly. 'But I dare say I shall enjoy doing it, whatever the "it" ends up being.'

The young researcher dropped back, somewhat confounded by that answer. Balthier and Fran swept forward. Balthier knew where he needed to go: the storage chambers on the fifty-fifth floor.

In short order he had one of the storage hangars opened up (he didn't need to wait to be granted use of the official key card). He stepped into the hangar and the crystal lights automatically cast illumination down upon the veritable treasures revealed within.

No man had ever been so happy to see so many dust sheets, of this there could be no doubt. Balthier's grin was wide enough to climb right off his face. Fran eyed him with obvious amusement.

'It is good to be alive, is it not Balthier?' She asked him dryly.

'It is today, dear Fran. It is today.'

Balthier beamed at her; a smile both boyish in its bright enthusiasm and worrisome in its gleeful promise. Fran was momentarily taken aback; it had been years since she had seen that look upon his face.

This was it, a little euphoric voice was shouting in Balthier's mind as he cast an artisan's eye over the stockpiles of hume invention laid before him. This is flying; not the literal kind granted, but flying of the soul, all the same. We are home; the voice cried. We are doing what we were born to do. Just think of what we can do with all this.

Think of the dreams we can give form to; think of the airships we can make, said the voice of Ffamran in his mind. Balthier surged forward, clasping dust sheets and ripping them away from hidden delights of engineering.

The soul in ascendant and the dead given their dues, this was Balthier's true resurrection. This was his reward. This was tomorrow, come in all her glory, and yesterday could finally be at rest, nothing more than a bittersweet memento hidden in a deep pocket.

When Balthier, without thinking, reached for, and twinned his fingers with Fran's, she did not break his grip. She did not even think to, and instead squeezed back.

'Come Fran,' Balthier grinned. 'We have wonders to create!'

Legends to wonders to simple man and woman; it was time to start a whole new chapter in a different sort of adventure. Hand in hand the partners in sky, in life, and perhaps, one day, in death as well, walked forward to make of their lives something wonderful.

13th October 2008 to 12th October 2009: And thus the curtain falls and the stage fades to black, but where one story ends others wait to begin.

To everyone who has read this story thank you, and I can only hope you have enjoyed reading what I have written here.

Spikey44