Kidnapped! : A whirlwind adventure

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy XII.

Characters: Vaan, Fran, Balthier, Penelo, Tomaj, Kytes, and Filo with cameos planned.

Summary: FutureFic. Vaan's the target of a rival sky pirate he has wronged in the past. Eventual Vaan x Fran

Chapter One

Growing up there wasn't much she was taught about Humes, but upon leaving the Wood there was so much she began to learn. There were those like her who lived on the outside. They told her things that she would have deemed common sense. One being that Viera do not get close to the Humes. The humes were fickle in more ways than one. Their lives were but a season when compared to the lifespan of Viera. The Hume heart was constantly in flux, constantly changing their needs and desires. What a Hume wants not even a Hume knows.

Fran knew these things. For years she lived among them, paying no heed to the things that she learned from the other Viera. The Humes were like children running towards swift death.

"To grow attached to the Hume is foolish," she reasoned. "Telling me such things is unneeded."

When she met him her entire outlook changed.

The mist, it changes one from the inside. Your mind stirs. Your heart slams violently in your chest. You react. You are a vessel of the Mist.

So too was love.

Everything she knew was rationally true she fought against. She ignored the pitying stares she felt from her fellow outcast Viera when they saw her with him. How would they know? She fought against the thought of him getting bored, of his heart changing. She fought against the thought that even if he never stopped loving her that one day he'd grow old and whither before her eyes.

She had been blinded by a new mist and when she least expected it everything came crashing around her.

"Be reasonable, Fran my dear," he had said to her. "You didn't expect this to last forever."

To which she replied, "I expected more from a 'leading man'."

And with that said, it was over.

Balthier had given no warning, though if the mist hadn't so blinded her she would have read the signs. The very next day there was a young Hume girl with bright blue eyes and a curly mop of sandy brown hair sitting in the cockpit. Her name was Tanja and she was to be traveling with them, he said. You must be Fran, she said.

"Balthier told me so much about you, heehee."

A tart.

Stifled in her new environment she acted her part as navigator.

She had thought Balthier, now on the verge of turning 32, too old for such triviality. But of course that was just wishful thinking. He was a Hume. She should have known better.

She fought against any feeling of resentment towards him, and directed it towards herself. He was just a Hume. She should have known better. Wisdom had left her temporarily but once again she was free from love's Mist. Sure her heart throbbed and ached at times, but in time that would heal.

She had been a fool only once, and she'd be damned if she'd ever let it happen again.

Penelo sent a worried look at Vaan who was sitting and tapping his fingers against the table top. He had been there for the better part of the day, and hadn't moved even to get a drink or use the bathroom. He had been sighing listlessly and sending nervous glances towards the front door.

Penelo shook her head as she stirred the stew that was bubbling over the stove.

"Vaan," she said. "You're the one who told me not to worry and look at you."

Vaan sent a glance over in Penelo's direction before turning to regard the door once again, "I'm not nervous I'm just--"

The door opened and immediately Vaan shot up from his seat and Penelo stepped away from the Stove, wiping her hands on her apron.

"Kytes! Filo!"

"Sorry to disappoint," Tomaj said, entering the home.

"What are you doing home?" Penelo asked, returning to her task at the stove. "Who's watching the Sandsea?"

"What I can't take a break? I trust my workers well enough," Tomaj said moving to sit at the table. "What's new here?"

Panelo shook her head at her husband and looked pointedly at Vaan.

"Vaan's busy worrying over Kytes and Filo."

"Really? Where are those two anyway?" Tomaj asked.

"Kytes and Filo took a mark over from the board at the sandsea," Vaan replied.

"Oh yeah, that one over in the mines…," Tomaj said. "I heard you were going with them."

"Well," Vaan began. "What had happened was--"

Penelo walked over to the table and set a bowl of stew in front of Tomaj, who began to dig in. She crossed her arms over her chest.

"He let those two go on their own with his air ship," Penelo sighed.

Tomaj almost choked on his spoon.

"You did what!?" he exclaimed.

"Well, Kytes is the same age I was when I got my first ship," Vaan reasoned. "Plus I'm the one who practically trained them. I'm sure this mark will be nothing for those two."

"Ok," Tomaj said slowly. "So what's with that worried expression."

"He's having doubts about letting Kytes take the ship."

"You don't understand. She's my baby," Vaan pouted. "You and Tomaj have each other but what about me? I have no one but my ship."

"And whose fault is that?" Penelo said with a roll of her eyes, though she was mostly joking.

Although Penelo and Tomaj had been married for the past 5 years, Vaan was far from lonely. He had practically adopted Kytes as his pirate apprentice after her marriage and even Filo had been around lately. Not only that, but Balthier and Fran were never shy about making an appearance either. If anything, Vaan was living the very life he always dreamed to live: a life of adventure in the skies.

"Well," Tomaj said. "It was an easy mark and they left right at dawn. I'm sure there's no reason to worry unless they don't come in by tomorrow evening."

"But my poor baby-- my precious…" Vaan groaned, setting his elbows on the table and running his hands through his hair. "Those two better not be going for a joy ride!"

"Filo! This is a bad idea… this is a bad idea!" Kytes trembled as he clutched onto his staff at the entrance of the Lhusu mines.

"What? We can definitely do this on our own," Filo assured her companion. "Besides if we couldn't do it, Vaan wouldn't have let us."

With a sigh, Kytes looked down at the paper with the information about the mark.

A rampaging Pit Fiend had been cited in the mines, frightening miners and halting production. Nobody knows how it got there, but they certainly wanted it out.

"Come on, quit stalling," Filo said. "I want to be out of here before dark."

"Yeah, yeah-- I'm coming," Kytes said, following his childhood friend begrudgingly. He knew better than to argue with Filo, and besides, being able to fly Vaan's ship was a handsome reward.

The two young sky pirate apprentices practically skipped to the entrance of the mine, bickering and arguing amongst themselves, not noticing the figures watching from the shadows.

"Well look at this," one of the dark figures said with a smirk. "Seems as if Mr. Sky Pirate let his little ones off on his own. He'll come to regret that real soon."

"Yeah boss," said a hefty blue toned Seeq to the right. "You'll show him."

"Yeah, yeah!" another Seeq chimed, this one a rose like color. "Wait who are we showing again?"

The tall cloaked grimaced, "Vaan, you idiots. Now be quiet they'll hear you!" he growled a little too loudly.

"Uh… Filo, did you hear that?" Kytes said, halting in his steps.

"Stop stalling and come on," was the girls reply.

Kytes took a look behind him and the tall Hume and his two Seeq friends ducked further into the shadows.

"Come on!" came Filo's voice from within the mine.

Kytes shrugged, seeing nothing and disappeared after her.

"You idiots, you almost blew our cover," the tall man growled.

"Yeah, you almost blew our cover!" the blue Seeq echoed.

"Sorry Boss," the cherry Seeq apologized.

The tall man, known to everyone as Sigmund, merely tried his best to ignore the two behind him. It was only chance that had him in Bhujerba that day. They had been spending the week there after some time in Nabradia, when they saw Vaan's Galbana in port. Sigmund saw this as his perfect opportunity to capture Vaan and get his perfect revenge, so imagine his surprise to see Kytes and Filo instead, and all alone at that.

It didn't matter though, because this opened up yet another opportunity for the other sky pirate to get from Vaan what he really wanted.

-to be continued-

AN: thanks for reading. please review.