Penelo's estate
Dalmascan Esterlands
10 years later

They were walking through the orchards on their way back to the manor from the tenant village when Balthier posed the question: "Do you suppose your family would have liked me?"

In response, Penelo tipped her head back and laughed uproariously. Balthier fixed her with an affronted glare, but it served only to further her amusement; she cackled her mirth until she cried. His pique persisted.

Amidst her easing snickers, she said at last, "No."

"You might at least have attempted to spare my feelings somewhat." Miffed, he folded his arms over his chest, leaning away when she would have kissed him to soothe his offended dignity.

Sighing, she hooked her arm through his. "Balthier," she said patiently, "my father and brothers would probably have beaten you to a pulp just for looking at me." At his pointed glance, she amended, "Well...tried to beat you to a pulp, anyway."

"Am I such a poor bargain, then?"

Another silvery laugh. "Of course not. But I ask you, if some arrogant pirate had behaved with Kaiya or Aislin as you did with me, would you be predisposed to like him?" And she tilted her head to indicate their two daughters, who were frolicking among the trees alongside a passel of the village children.

Balthier made a disgruntled sound in his throat, unable to reconcile his own lack of shame for his less-than-honorable form of courtship with his horror as a father that one day some similarly unsuitable young man might behave towards his daughters as he once had with Penelo.

"It's different," he said roughly.

"It's different when it's not your daughter, you mean," she said.

"I don't expect to have to worry about chasing off unscrupulous men for years yet," he replied. "They're still just children."

Penelo bit her tongue in an effort to avoid pointing out that he had once been one of those unscrupulous men he now seemed to revile so. "Kaiya will be nine, come summer. And Aislin is only two years behind her. It's not really going to be that many years off." She sighed. "I was seventeen, you know...that summer on the Phon Coast, when you spied on me at the hot spring."

He groaned, covering his face with his hands. "I can't think about that...not when we're discussing the girls." Gods help him, if he ever caught some insolent young pup entertaining those sorts of thoughts toward either of his daughters, he'd skin him alive. And if such a cretin were to act on such thoughts, heaven forfend, well...he would be forced to think up new and inventive forms of torture.

Penelo patted his arm sympathetically. "If it's any consolation, Mama might've liked you, I think."

After the myriad liberties he'd taken, the countless sins he'd committed against her beloved only daughter? "No, she would not."

"She would have thought you were handsome and dashing. Don't laugh, I'm serious!" she chided. "Maybe she wouldn't have approved of you initially, but I think you would have won her over."

"And you? Suppose a man like me came courting one of our girls. Would you approve of him?"

She snorted. "You didn't come courting, Balthier, you came seducing."

"I maintain that you seduced me, darling girl. You came up on my blind side; I never had a chance. And I got around to the courting eventually, if you'll recall." He shot her an indulgent look and forged on. "But the point stands - would you approve?"

A smile blossomed on her face, a smile he'd spent the past ten years cultivating, a smile full of memories and years of blissful happiness and a family that had bloomed and thrived before their eyes. She leaned close to press a swift kiss somewhere in the general vicinity of his lips.

And she sighed, "If he made her as happy as you've made me? Of course."

Imperial City of Archades, Archadia
Two months later

Penelo covered her face with her hands and slunk down in her seat. Beside her, she could feel Balthier's shoulders shaking with mirth. To his credit, he was making an honest attempt to disguise his amusement, but she was going to blame this whole debacle on him anyway.

And to be fair, Kaiya and Aislin had made it three-quarters of the way up the aisle before the inevitable fight over possession of the flower basket had begun.

She ought never have agreed to let them participate in Larsa's wedding. She still wasn't entirely certain how Balthier had talked her into it. But then, both girls had desperately wanted to do it, and they'd had Balthier wrapped around their little fingers from the very moment of their births.

She peeked from between her fingers, somewhat relieved to see that Balthier was not the only amused party. Larsa and his bride - a lovely, exuberant Rozarrian girl named Sheena - were valiantly suppressing their own snickers, in deference to the momentous occasion.

It could be worse, she supposed. A mere skirmish such as the girls were currently embroiled in was a minor amusement; this much she would eventually live down. She could only hope it would be a short-lived battle, and that the loser would cede gracefully. Kaiya was the stronger, of course, being two years older, but Aislin...Aislin took after Penelo, and that made her sly and sneaky. It would be a fair fight.

At least it was a quick one, for in short order Aislin thrust out her foot, stomped on the hem of Kaiya's gown, and tore the voluminous ribbon off the back, the sound of rending fabric scratching clean through the respectful silence of the grand cathedral.

Kaiya surrendered the basket with an indignant squawk, shouting, "Mama, she ripped my dress!"

The audience roared with laughter.

Penelo groaned, dropped her face into her hands once more, and slid further down in her seat. This, she would surely never live down.

Balthier nudged her shoulder with his. "Come now, it's not so bad as all that," he said in a low murmur. "They've made the wedding memorable, at least."

She glowered at him. "What did Larsa ever do to you, that you would inflict our girls upon him?"

"A fine thing for a mother to say about her children," he chided. "Look, they're moving again."

Sure enough, the girls tromped up the aisle, oblivious to the waves of laughter rolling through the crowd, Aislin's fingers clenched around the basket, Kaiya dragging the ruins of her bow behind her.

The ceremony concluded with no further incident, apart from the intermittent chuckles from the crowd as the girls glared at one another, and Penelo sighed with relief when it was over.

Balthier left her briefly to wrangle the girls, who still looked as though they might at any moment go for one another's throats. The perils of raising daughters, she lamented silently. But he bent down to whisper something to them, and they brightened, at once shucking off their pique with one another, affecting the aura of childish innocence she had learned too well over the years not to trust.

Together they left the cathedral, the girls skipping happily ahead, basket and ruined ribbon long forgotten. Balthier slipped his hand into hers and leaned down to murmur in her ear. "I promised them ice cream on the way to the reception if they behaved," he said. "Just the four of us."

And she smiled. "Well...four and a half."

"Four and a..." Balthier jerked to a halt beside her, wide-eyed with amazement. "Really?"

"Mmm." She covered her mouth to smother her laughter as his expression ran the gamut from shock to elation to trepidation. "Middle of winter, I think."

"That's wonderful." He drew her into his arms, squeezing her to his chest...and sighed, as the high-pitched squealing alerted them to the fact that their girls had discovered something new to argue over.

She met his gaze, expression grave. "We're done for," she said. "We're going to be outnumbered."

He dropped a tender kiss on her forehead. "We'll manage...somehow."

Somewhere on the Phon Coast
Three days later, well after midnight

"You're holding it the wrong way! Give it to me!"

"I am not! Mama, Kaiya's being mean to me!"

Penelo planted her fists on her hips, turning to face her daughters who were currently engaged in a tug-of-war for a crinkled, aged piece of paper. "Kaiya, be nicer to your sister. Aislin, you are holding it the wrong way." She gently disentangled two sets of grubby little fists from the paper, turned it upside down, and offered it back. "Play nice. Papa gave this to me a long time ago, and I'll not be happy if it's torn."

"Bickering again, are they?" Balthier inquired as he carried a bundle of firewood to the center of the little clearing they'd chosen as their campsite and built up a pile of logs.

Penelo rolled her eyes. "When are they ever not bickering?"

"Point," he acknowledged, kneeling to strike flint and steel, sending sparks into the tinder piled carefully beneath the wood, setting it alight. For a few moments he fanned the flames until at last they caught, and the wood blazed, ringing the campsite in soft firelight.

The girls stopped their customary racket, momentarily transfixed by the flickering flames. And Balthier took the moment to survey his daughters for once at rest - Kaiya who looked like him, with her tawny curls and high, exotic cheekbones, and Aislin who looked like Penelo, with her white-blond waves and sweet, cherubic face. Still just little girls, full of mischief and laughter, but with the promise of future beauty there in their faces.

He was going to have to brush up on his marksmanship. He was the father of daughters who would one day attract a good deal of male attention, and he would be prepared. Perhaps he'd settled a bit too much into a life of comfortable obscurity. It had been more than a decade since they'd restored Ashe to her throne, and he and Penelo had settled happily at Penelo's country estate, traveling every so often, but widely eschewing court life, and their notoriety had, over time, died down. Perhaps - with two daughters not so very far away from presentations and coming-out balls and courtships and other godsawful things no father wished to consider - Ivalice required a reminder of how dangerous he had once been, how dangerous he could yet be were there any threat to the safety and happiness of his family.

A hand settled on his shoulder, jerking him out of his plotting. Penelo whispered in his ear, "Whatever you're scheming, cut it out right now. I know that look, and I won't have it."

He turned towards her, affecting an innocent expression. "Darling girl, I have no idea to which look you might have been referring."

She wagged a disapproving finger in his face. "You're not as sneaky as you think you are. I've spent the past ten years learning all your tricks. I've got your number by now."

He grinned, leaned forward, clasped a hand around the nape of her neck, drawing her towards him. He rubbed his cheek along her jaw, whispered in her ear, "On the contrary; I've got a few tricks left in me. Someone's got to keep you on your toes." And he nipped her earlobe, relishing the tiny gasp and shiver that ran through her.

But she composed herself, pressed her lips together, stifled a laugh, and patted his cheek. "Balthier, that's why we have children. Who are watching." She jerked her head subtly toward the other side of the campfire, where their two girls were peeking over the edge of the paper they held, both giggling uncontrollably, amidst exaggerated smooching sounds and comical retching.

He brushed his lips over Penelo's, grinning as the retching sounds increased in volume.

"That's so gross!" Kaiya complained. "I'm never gonna kiss a boy!"

"Far be it from me to object to that. I'll take you to my solicitor first thing tomorrow and we'll write out a contract to that effect," Balthier said as he attempted to dodge Penelo's swift jab to the ribs, without success.

Aislin chirped, "Mama, how come you're allowed to hit Papa but I'm not allowed to hit Kaiya?"

"An interesting question indeed," Balthier said snidely with a sly glance at Penelo, rubbing the spot her elbow had struck. "Why is that, hmm?"

Penelo neatly sidestepped the question, holding aloft a small bag. "Who wants marshmallows?"

A flurry of excited screeches rent the stillness of the night as the girls dived for the coveted bag of treats, spearing them on sticks to roast in the fire. Balthier grabbed up the abandoned piece of paper and held it as the girls settled on either side of him, picking happily at their sticky sweets. Penelo, too, crouched near, her head bent over Aislin's as she leaned over to look.

"This one, here," he said, pointing to a spot on the paper, "is called Eritenya's Compass. Do you see it, right up there?" He gestured to the eastern sky, pointed out the cluster of stars, glanced at Penelo over his shoulder and smiled.

"I remember," she said, and squeezed his shoulder. She reached out and traced the pattern of another constellation on the paper. "The Judgment of Canteras," she said, and located it for the girls in the sky. "It looks like a scythe. See it, just there?"

"I see it, I see it!" Kaiya squealed, bouncing excitedly.

"Me, too!" Aislin chimed in.

"And there," Penelo pointed toward the western horizon. "That one's Papa's star. The Pirate Balthier."

"It's so bright!" Kaiya said. "Look at it sparkle; it looks like it's winking at us!"

Penelo laughed. "I suppose it might be," she said, ruffling Kaiya's curls affectionately.

Aislin searched the sky, her lower lip thrust out in a petulant pout. "Where's Mama's star?" she asked.

Balthier smiled, reached for Penelo's hand, and drew it down over his heart. "Right here," he said.