bagamnan:

Ashe is rosy-cheeked as she stares down at the cards fanned in her elegant hands. The liquor has softened her features–all but her brow, which is, perhaps, more furrowed than usual as she gazes into the cards she was dealt. How very like her. She plays the game well, her face a solid mask of anonymity. Basch swigs what can only be a fine Nabradian mead as he peers over her shoulder; princess and knight share a seamless bond here. It is enough to curve the edges of Balthier’s lips as he takes note of them both. Basch, bless the sod, is smiling – no teeth, never teeth, but a grin nonetheless lifts his features as Ashe runs her fingers along the edges of her cards. If she isn’t giving her hand away with her face, Basch certainly is.

Balthier eyes Ashe’s naked ring finger and thinks in nothing short of smugness that it’s a rather becoming look on her – it would have never done to have her fidget still over the smooth silver this far into their journey like a pining fishwife contemplating mass genocide a la nethicite in blind vengeance. Balthier applauds his foresight now; watching her hands wring about it even that early into this folly had been tiresome enough then.  

Ashe’s eyes flit up, to the collection of cards on the table, and she stares at them contemplatively for a moment before her eyes shift to Balthier’s. They linger on his, and in that quick instant he can tell – she has misunderstood his gaze. Within hers, now, is a quiet promise and a threat all the same. Balthier doesn’t waver – what Leading Man would in the eyes of royalty? – and merely holds the tension for a second longer, allowing her to be the one who breaks it. Ashe’s attention returns to her cards, and with a graceful surety she draws and flips a card onto the well-loved wooden table, pitted as it is with nicks and chips. Her eyes do not return to him.

She thinks she’s playing hard to get.

She has misunderstood much, and still yet misunderstands, dancing a sparring dance with his shadow as her unwitting partner to a tune only she can hear. He will let her. A princess of her stature does what she wills. Everything surrounding them now is evidence enough of that.

He can’t deny he’s thought of it before. A story of a pirate and princess would be a fun one to tell, oh, to be sure! The trope is a tired one in fiction, but in reality? That would certainly be one for the books and taverns adding, as it would, further rumour to the whispers of his conquests echoing through Ivalice. Yet Balthier will not indulge. They both have baggage enough. He cares not to rummage through hers for the sake of a bullet point on a bucket list – the Strahl hasn’t enough room for the unpacked baggage of them both anyhow. Were he to do so, it would be purely for the tale, and Balthier prides himself on his foresight; it would simply not be worth it, comely enough though she is with all her ruthless Dalmascan grit. And, as if all that isn’t a deterrent enough, he’s doing just fine without his head on Basch’s sword.

Her curiosity of him is a quiet guarded thing, and has been for some time. She expects, he thinks, that he will pursue her. But the pirate harbors no intent. A nasty tangle all this is in itself. He doesn’t want a fallen princess in his bed, nor a reclaimed Queen, and she – she may think she wants him, but she is wrong. Ashe doesn’t know  what she wants. Only  what she does not.

Balthier can say the same of himself. They are not so different, though she is braver, stronger. This, he knows. He would not be this far into their little pilgrimage for someone he deems unworthy of the goal. Balthier is a man who cares not for wasting time. This endeavor has proved, thus far, to be worth his while enough.

He has not forgotten his promise to her; the ring sits, cradled in a handkerchief inside his left belt-pouch, collateral – only to remind her of her duty, nothing more. He is a pirate, for Faram’s sake. Must he remind her of that? There is business to his line of work, though she may turn her pretty nose up to it all she likes.

Without that blasted ring, she seems lighter, now. When she finds what she wants, she may wear it again, along with her crown.

Long has their journey been. Long will it continue to be. And when it is over for them, it will be only just the beginning for her.  Ashe was never meant to rule, but she is well on her way. And Ivalice will be all the better for it. They’ll make sure of that.

For now, they drink. It’s all they can do with the night they are given.

excerpt, Singe.