A Viera Walks into a Bar

"Hear they're gonna be marrying the Dalmascan princess off."

"Oh, really? She's of age already?"

"Turning seventeen as of this summer."

"That's a tad young. But I guess that's the way them royals are. Who's the lucky guy?"

"The Nabradian prince. It's a good strategic alliance, what with Archadia throwing its weight around lately. Can't be too careful."

"Haa, I do not understand why we have to put up with the imperials parading around the city. This is free territory, hanta."

"Yes, but the marquis, he does not have a choice, you see. Surely you remember what happened in Landis? I am certain they can make the whole purvama crash, if they have a mind to."

"Kastam…"

"So a viera walks into a…bar…"

"Eh? What's the matter?...Oh, wow…"

"Yeah, he wasn't very happy at all…Wait a second, is that…a viera?"

"Gods alive, take a look at those legs…and that body…"

"…and that butt…"

"That's what you call a surprise, kupo…"

"Hey, d'you reckon I could…talk to her?"

"Kupo? I'd dare you, but I don't want to have to explain to your wife how you died…"

A small, shallow sigh escaped her. She was used to this; after all, she got the selfsame reaction almost anywhere she went. Her kind was so rare in the streets of Ivalice that some people even thought they were a myth. It was somewhat disheartening to witness every day how much progress remained to be made. This was why she had left the Wood. From talking to the very few other viera she did meet, she also knew that more would eventually follow after her. One called Dera—their paths had crossed in Nalbina—had said that her kin were not as severe as they should have been when she left. The shelter of the boughs was becoming too quiet for some of her sisters; it was just a matter of making the first step. But it was a slow and lonely process, which required a lot of strength. Strength to renounce one's past, strength to live a stranger in strange lands, strength to accept, to learn and to tolerate. And patience, lots of patience. But that was something viera usually possessed in abundance. Still, she wouldn't have minded to be spared the staring episode from time to time. Just to feel that she belonged more than she did.

The room was small and rather stuffy, but it would have to do. Bhujerba, with its slopes and cobblestones, certainly wasn't the best place for her needle-sharp viera heels, and her strained calves demanded rest. She glided past the staring eyes, slow and light, unfazed and majestic, despite the tiredness, the sore muscles and the curious aura of half-whispers that usually followed her in public places. Given her circumstances, dignity was always her best bet. The world of humes was cruel, almost fifty years among them had taught her this much, if anything. And seeming to know your own worth was often a major step towards the others recognizing it as well.

There was a vacant table in a corner, where she proceeded to sit down, waiting patiently until the other customers resumed their own conversations, and one of the waiters gathered up enough courage to come take her order. A small glass of madhu. She pulled out a map of the city to locate the moogle workshops. After all, this was why she was here. Fifty years of wandering, and she had never gotten around to visiting the best airship-makers in all of Ivalice.

All the while, ribbons of words spiralled and wafted around her ears. When she first left the Wood, she found the hume world almost too strident to bear. After the peaceful, drowsy whispers of the jungle and the quiet, grave songs of the earth in Jahara, the cacophony of Rabanastre, the first hume city she came to, almost drove her out of her wits. Voices, kitchens, craftsmen, soldiers, airships, everything seemed to be screaming around her, pummelling her eardrums, and her sensitive viera ears rang when she fell asleep at night.

But she had adapted over time. She still perceived much more than an average hume, but she had learned to sort the information, to let the everyday noises slide by and to block out the tangle of conversations that seemed to cling to her as soon as she set foot outdoors. Then one day, she realized she couldn't hear the earth anymore. At first, she thought she had just stowed the voice away with the rest of the superfluous sounds, but when she concentrated, she still heard nothing. She listened more intently still, but never again could she make out anything more than the faintest of whispers. And so she knew what the hume world had taken from her. It would not have mattered as much, had it not omitted to take her as well. The way she was now, she remained poised somewhere midway between the two: a past that had stepped out of her reach, and a future that was shying away from her…

Her left ear perked slightly. For the past few minutes, most of the talk in the bar had been centred on her, on the reasons of her presence, on her ears, her feet, her claws and—what she discovered was a favourite almost anywhere she went—on her sexual habits. "That's all they care about, darling," as an old woman in a bar in Balfonheim had put it to her once. It was frightening, to some extent, how the fact of a tribe of females living in almost complete isolation in the depths of the woods could be distorted. But then one conversation caught her attention. Evidently, some bangaa (there was no mistaking their snarling note), had taken specific notice of a newcomer.

"Hey, didja notice the fellow who just came in? Well, I might be wrong, but I think that's Balthier."

"What? You mean the Balthier? The sky pirate?"

She recalled seeing the name on a "wanted" poster quite recently. The name, and a very hefty price.

"Yeah, looks like him, from what I've heard."

"Well, he's got some guts parading out in the open like this, with that kinda bounty on his head."

"Heh, he's not the kind to care. I hear he's even looking for a partner."

She didn't move, but her eyes found the bangaa, one young green one, with a long, inquisitive muzzle, and one burly, middle-aged black one, with a torn ear, sitting a few tables away from her. The black one was pointing out a man standing at the counter, with his back to them.

She'd encountered some sky pirates before, the good, the bad and the ugly, most of them little more than ruffians who had somehow come by the means to buy themselves a beat-down old carcass of an airship. Some of them had dreams, but not quite the guts, the means or the luck to see them through. And very few ever had any significant bounty placed on their heads. She remembered the sum on that Balthier's poster. It had made her raise an eyebrow. They wouldn't tie such a string of zeroes to an amateur's name. Whatever the man was, he was certainly skilled enough to warrant the trouble. And yet…

She couldn't see much of his face from her current vantage point, little more than a profile, but she could tell he was young. Very young. Granted, most humes would be young to her, by their own reckoning, but this one had, by the looks of it, barely reached his twenties.

(Just a boy…)

On the Cerobi Steppe, on her way to Balfonheim, a few years past. Just a boy as well, a skinny little fellow with big, amazed blue eyes, who thought the world was his for the taking, and she remembered sincerely wishing him well when they had to part at the city gates. She also distinctly remembered that something shuddered inside her when a caravan brought news of his death a few days later. His airship, a sad little piece of junk, had crashed over the Mosphoran Highwaste. Ironically enough, he had called it Hope…

(But this one is not like that.)

The man at the counter was dressed more finely than anybody else in the tavern. Still, it was a rather strange mixture of styles, as if he were blurring tracks.

(This one is hiding.)

The shoes were of local, Bhujerban make, with their upturned toes. The dark leather trousers, Rozarrian craft. The immaculate silk shirt and intricately embroidered vest, Archadian. The abundance of stridently coloured rings on his hands, Dalmascan. The curious twisted earrings, Nabradian. The bullet pouches at his hips and the gun at his back, rare Landisian models both, surprisingly enough. One would almost wonder why he didn't sport a shaved and tattooed head, after the Balfonheimian style, if it weren't obvious that he was going for the utmost overall elegance he could achieve. That, and his bearing gave him away. She believed it should be obvious enough even to his fellow humes. The offhand coolness of the gestures, the slow, calculated movements.

(Archadian. Most unusual, that.)

She observed him as he nonchalantly sipped his drink, and the more she did, the more she wondered. The first Archadian sky pirate she met in her long years, and surely the first one with such an impressive price-tag. He didn't seem to be the bragging kind, either, preferring to stay still and observe. Most sky pirates would already be trying to catch some unwary traveller's ear to recount their exploits. This was beginning to look more and more intriguing.

(There is only one way to find out...)

Once again, eyes turned to the corner of the tavern, as she stood up. Slowly, deliberately, she made her way towards the man at the counter.

(Another day and still nothing…I guess I can't really expect miracles. Still, those imperials in the streets don't make for a very agreeable stay. Maybe I should try my luck in Rabanastre next.)

He raised his eyes to look for the bartender, and found him intently staring at something behind him. At the same time, he noticed the almost unnatural hush that had descended over the whole room, with conversation dropping to animated whispers. That's when he registered the slow tapping of heels at his back. They stopped. And then a woman's voice:

"You are looking for a partner, are you not?"

Now that…that was something he had never heard the likes of. The timbre had a husky, eerily juicy feel to it. It pouted and caressed at the same time. It teased the ear, yet kept its distance. It tasted like a sharon fruit, he could almost feel the sweet, raspy, pulpy texture on his tongue.

He turned around, slowly enough, he hoped, not to betray his interest in what the owner of such a voice could look like.

And whatever he expected, it was definitely not what he actually saw.

From her curiously-shaped, outrageously high-heeled shoes to the spotted black tips of her long white ears, the viera—for it was, of all people, a viera; how he hadn't noticed her when he first came in was beyond him—radiated calm and self-possession. She wore hardly anything, after the fashion of her kind, yet it somehow didn't look as startling as it should have done. Interminable, coffee-hued legs, narrow hips, the pale sheen of a transparent, gauzy stomacher in her rather summary armour, the dizzyingly low line of her bodice, long, wiry fingers with claws of a deceptively innocent, mother-of-pearl hue, a cascade of almost distractingly soft-looking white hair framing a delicate round face, with its characteristic, perkily upturned nose. And those deep, placid ruby eyes…In fact, he tried not to focus on them too much. This kind of perfect self-control was rare. Rare enough to make even his curiosity betray him.

(I would never say it out loud, but…dear gods…)

There were advantages to having been raised as Archadian gentry however. If nothing else, it taught one circumspection, tact and flawless manners. Independently of whether one's father later became a raving lunatic…

Exactly why that particular thought decided to flit through the back of his mind just then, he didn't choose to wonder. Instead, he concentrated on keeping his composure. It would not do to stare at a lady, much less to leave her question unanswered.

He was a boy, just as she had guessed. In years at least. His frame was rather spare, narrow-chested and lean, hardly suited for a rough trade, just as his thin white hands, with their delicately groomed fingers. There were hardly any lines on his face at all, except that little one between his eyebrows, where something in his life had already left its signature. His hair had the hue of desert sand, his skin a beautiful, uniform paleness that also seemed strikingly incompatible with a pirate's lifestyle. His nose was long and thin, with a slight hitch at the tip, characteristically Archadian, conferring him the slightest, strangest hint of fragility. But his honey and amber eyes had a shrewd, wary glint in them. She would certainly not find blundering youthful innocence here. His mouth…She could almost see the traces of kisses still lingering on it.

(So he is that kind then. What do the humes call it? Womanizer?)

He was taken aback, and rightly so, but it was rare to see someone actually remember decorum at being addressed by a viera. She could feel his eyes surreptitiously snaking over her, with unmistakable appetite, but another hume would have barely perceived it. For that, she was thankful. All that actually registered on his face was mild surprise.

"Well, this is rather unusual. You do know what, er…line of work I'm in, don't you?"

She nodded, with a faint inward smirk. His voice rippled like velvety, heady wine, and also had that distinct, haughty Archadian note in it; once again, he belied his years. She knew he'd had his share of victims.

"I am acquainted with your kind, fear not."

The amber eyes squinted, and she knew he was trying to read her.

"Right. Well then, what…shall we say, credentials do you have to offer?"

This time, the corners of her lips tilted up slightly.

(Womanizer he might be, but he is certainly not a fool. Caution first, this is good.)

"I have knowledge enough in the field, if that is what concerns you. I have hunted marks before, and I have skill in battle."

For the first time, he noticed the elegant longbow at her back. This seemed to provide sufficient proof.

"And you are sure that you want to do this?"

Once again, she nodded.

"I am looking to experience new things. Your 'line of work' seems…interesting."

He observed her for a moment more, then smiled approval and extended his hand.

"Balthier, at your service."

Her hand was pleasantly cool to the touch, and firmer than he expected.

"Fran."

Without letting go, he motioned slightly with his head for her to lean in closer, lowered his tone, and, by habit, spoke to where her ear should have been if she were a hume.

"I shall meet you in the alley by the private airship docks come dusk. To discuss details and such."

She nodded yet again, and it served as both acknowledgement and farewell this time, as she took her leave right away, gliding through the staring crowd and out of the tavern door, giving him an opportunity to appraise the full list of her assets.

Once she was gone, he turned back towards the counter and the envious gawk of the bartender, with a slight, disbelieving shake of the head.

"Looks like my day just got better…"