north star (14) [ffxii, basch/ffamran, al-cid, fran, nono, jules]
Fandom: FFXII AU
Title: North Star, Part 14 (of 16!!)
Characters/Pairings: Basch/Ffamran, Al-Cid, Fran, Nono, Jules
Rating/Warnings: M
Other: Eheh, sorry this took so long for a filler chapter. Self realised I needed more chapters. Also, full credits for Sight Unseeing go to 88keys</lj> .

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Basch had not known what to expect, a blind man fighting, but Margrace seemed to think it no unusual thing. Even Nono instructed Ffamran as though the man merely unpracticed instead of incapable. It seemed foolishness, a game, a pandering to his lordship’s whim; Basch could fight through Sochen with Al-Cid and Fran, and Ffamran could wait; they would return for him later—

Such a thing was not possible. He may have wished for it, an easy way, Larsa to be safe, hidden; Basch knew there could be no simple way here. Larsa was dead; Ffamran would be Emperor, then. Larsa was not, well, then; Basch would not wish, for wishes could only be frustrated. Ffamran would come with them through Sochen; against the confines of the cave-palace, the press of the beasts within, they would be sore-pressed to ensure Ffamran did not fall behind, or fall hurt.

Where Ffamran’s disappearance had instigated this city riot, Basch doubted his reappearance could resolve it; what word or face could stop a nation’s broken rebellion?

The day’s wait allowed Basch’s agony to full flower.

Not an assistance was Ffamran’s own visible distress under the press of the pirates. Margrace and Nono called instructions, warnings, directions. Ffamran was not there to fight, to strike; they had him stand to defend, to move, to keep with them regardless of pace, of terrain. Ffamran stumbled less so for his incompetence at that than his visible fear of that possibility of failure, until Margrace turned and yelled, so thick-accented in his strain: “You prefer to fall behind and die than fall once or twice on your face?”

“Yes,” Ffamran shouted, “yes, gods, have you any idea what this is like? I’ve never been down there; I’ll be lost! I’ve never fought like this! What am I, some master of weaponry with fifty years of practice behind me that I can avoid a blow I can’t see coming?”

“Enough,” Basch said, at last; he drew himself out of the Little Bird’s shade, tugged his shorts straight, and approached.

Ffamran’s face turned at the sound of footsteps though his stiff-set shoulders did not, his expression unreadable. Sweat darkened caramel hair at the temples, flattened that unruly wave. Basch looked instead at Margrace, and found that man’s expression almost, inexplicably, angered.

Avoidance; Basch knew it. He would not look at Ffamran though the urge lingered, hungered. The leather that Margrace had found to fit Ffamran sat overtight, huggingly so. Basch had never seen such a thing, the entireity of the piece made out of plaited leather, basket-weave almost that the garb stretched around limbs and joints without a single point of weakness. The sole solid panels of leather, boned with abstract curls of mythril, were sited only where a direct blow would have caused fatal injury. The rest, the rest, that weave; altogether too much of Ffamran’s pale flesh showed through that weave, but uncompromisingly that Basch could not consider a complaint for vulnerability an excuse to have Margrace find another set of garb. Plate or mail, akin to what Basch wore and achingly reminiscent of his old garb in the Order, could have afforded Ffamran more protection, at a loss of speed.

Basch could not find it in himself to air a protest, though such a thing filled his throat with guilt; for that lingering fit along Ffamran’s flesh, for eyes that wanted to stray.

“Ffamran,” Basch said, “my lord, you will walk at my side, close enough that I can shield you; Margrace and Fran will flank to the sides, and we shall fall back to defend when attacked. Margrace, give him a staff that he can feel his way.”

Margrace’s mouth opened, half a snarl that Basch started to realize that anger was directed at he, not Ffamran. Yet it was that Archadian that stepped between, graceful though his lips were still parted for want of breath.

“Margrace,” Ffamran said, “my apologies for my temper. It’s the heat; the remnant smoke; I’m hungry and have a headache fit to kill, me or someone else. Kindly withhold your laughter when I fall on my face; let’s go again.”

“Certainly,” Margrace said, cool again, “your apologies are unnecessary; it is indeed the heat, and I assure you I would not laugh but offer my hand. Bear left, and follow my sound.”

Margrace loped with slow ease this time, a ground-hungry pace nevertheless less taxing than a sprint; Ffamran hesitated, his head tilted as if to better hear, and then he pursued to very nearly match Margrace’s speed. Basch could read in the tension across Ffamran’s shoulders that fear, the ground unknown, sloping. He should have stumbled, for length of leg if nothing else, but for the occasional jarring step Ffamran did not fall.

“You Humes put altogether too much value in your sight, solely because it is the one sense you possess sharper than any of ours.” Nono made a huff, a snort, and rubbed his nose to continue. “Seeing is believing, you say; I see, I see, as though sight were the one true sense and smell, sound, sensation all lesser. Viera, Moogle, Bangaa, even sly snorting Seeq; blind one of us and we should not consider ourselves incapacitated.”

Basch looked down only for long enough to ascertain Nono’s patience, and turned hs eyes back to where Ffamran ran. “He has not your animal sense of smell, nor your hearing.”

“Animal?” Nono asked, and wrinkled his nose. “Ah, well, if that is the word you wish to use. Ffamran was always rather animal, then, back when I first knew him; simple and selfish; instinctual and impulsive. How he handled his guns, deft, in the dark, the depth of starlight the only suggestion of shape, he would stand astride crumbling castles to castigate– what, what? –but shadow, or shifting shape, or uncertainty? – no. He would hear the marlboro stir, he could smell the stink, and he would fire, with finness; the scream of a shot-struck beast shattered the night; a smile’s ready spread to stir that hesitant Hume’s honour-bound heart.”

“Somewhere, someone had taught him to mistrust his senses. He is greedy, to demand sight as well as everything other.”

Basch turned, nodded a vague greeting as Fran approached. Her face expressionless, she ignored him in favour of watching that distant pair. Margrace stood back to back with Ffamran and had him move, synchronized, that they did not bare vulnerability to the imaginary beasts. Fran hummed a contemplative sound, such wariness therein that Basch considered if perhaps he would find an ally in his aim to take this foolishness of fighting from Ffamran’s head.

Yet, then; Fran drew one of her great guns from the trio slung about her person, one at each hip and the third across her back. “Call him over; let us see how true his aim holds.”

Basch could not restrain the protest. “Well enough if he can shoot a still target, even a moving one with enough luck and help, but we will be out there. How shall he distinguish between us or an enemy?”

“Strategy,” Fran said. “What else did our travails teach us, Basch, but that every beast has strength, weakness, all for avoidance or exploitation? Sad to overlook the potential that Ffamran may offer us.”

“You found it then?” Nono asked. “I had never thought the thing to be useful; the spell would wear off often before the technick could be applied.”

“Ffamran’s blindness has not such a time constraint.” Fran raised an arm and waved, vigorous, to set her sleeves fluttering; Margrace hollered an acknowledgement and, without further warning, sprinted back to the camp. Ffamran floundered a moment in his sudden disappearance, that Basch took swift steps forward as though to go to his aid.

Fran’s hand fell heavy on his shoulder, halting him. Ffamran walked, though slowly, his head tilted up towards the cloud-heavy sky as though using that veiled sun as a compass – for even without that clear direction he came, unerringly.

“So many children for a childless man.” Fran’s smile was in the set of her ears, her gaze distant. “Ashelia; Larsa; Ffamran. This time will teach you; everything, everyone changes, grows, old or stupid or wise, as it were. Even the eternity that is a city stands in stasis only for as long as you watch it; bound by the act of perception where it should be freed, by revelation. Glance away, and back; all has changed.”

Margrace arrived, vibrant for all the pounding effort of his sprint – “ah, see, your lithe lordling does well enough on his own, Basch!”

“Foolishness,” Basch growled, “no, Margrace: stupidity. At the best we will navigate with Ffamran at our heart and be forced to defend from a stationary position. What game do you think to play here, indulgent, indulging – indulging yourself, perhaps, preying pirate?”

“I am aghast,” Margrace said, “you insult me, ever and always. Had I wished to seduce the man I would have done it while I had him naked before me, awaiting my attentions to assist with his dress. And—” Margrace took a half step back, tipping his glasses to bare the surprise beneath, “get your berserker sense under control, man, for that indulgence I distinctly did not.”

“Did not what?” Ffamran called; Basch stepped away from Margrace, unaware he had even pressed so close. He turned instead to where Ffamran made his way up the steep slope to where they all stood. When Ffamran slipped to plant one leather-laced knee in the grass, Ffamran gritted his teeth and steadily resumed the climb.

“Did not do something stupid,” Margrace replied.

“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing,” Ffamran said, “I find it is always for the noblest of motives.”

Margrace laughed at that. “I won’t believe you. Nobility never needs motives even if it does have abundant stupidity. Tis only the hapless citizen who thinks he needs either motives or nobility.”

“I should be insulted, but I’m too damned tired. You’ve run me to the ground.” ” Ffamran stretched when he reached their proximity, so that his leather groaned, and Basch had to step out of the way of his unwary fist.

“It’s scarcely midmorning!” Margrace said. “Whatever deprivation of clean air you’ve suffered, you can’t be tired midmorning.”

“Lunch, then,” Nono said, “no languorous leisure, but time for learning ancient lore though newly rediscovered, just for you, Master Ffamran.”

“It will avail nothing,” Basch said. “Let him rest.”

Ffamran visibly drew his shoulders straight, and swallowed a yawn. “What would you have me do, maleficent Moogle?”

“Why,” said Fran, “learn a lifetime of thaumaturgy in a single afternoon.”

“Ah,” Ffamran said, “nothing too taxing, then.”

Basch had never been one to avail himself of technicks to any great extent. His skill with the blade, with weaponry, had proved sufficient knowledge to enable him to serve; it had been this way since his youth, where Noah would read and chaunt, memorise and practice which Basch instead ran, trained, threatened the local wilderness with an unready blade. Thus did he first learn of the lore, and knew of its uses; Basch could count the hours Vossler had spent in study of telekinesis that he could strike without proximity, the days of dedication behind Vaan’s study of every sly transmutation of their travails into a weapon. Whatever Fran thought to teach Ffamran, he wondered at the use of such an effort, for surely they had not the time to teach?

Basch did not speak to complain; this, at least, was not the foolishness of fighting that Margrace had insisted on. Basch busied himself with food and preparation, as the pirates did not seem so enraptured of such a task compared to accommodating whatever whim Ffamran provoked in them. They did seem quite grateful when he descended from the Little Bird to return to them a substantive lunch, however.

By then, the sunlight bared the evident frustration on Ffamran’s sun-kissed face - “One thing that has ever stopped me with such skills, my lady – when one cannot read, one cannot study.”

“Then,” Fran said, “you will listen.”

Their persistence took the form of singsong instruction, Fran and Nono in eerie counterpoint – “A focus,” Margrace said, “that clears the mind for the extent of the technick.” Ffamran struggled to retain his good humour against that; Margrace attended with a scarce helpful anecdote, a mouthy interruption around his application to lunch.

Basch settled himself away, far enough that all he could hear was the occasional pitched hum – but he could see, could read the extent of Ffamran’s mood in the shifting plane of his shoulders. Ah, so short a time, yet Ffamran proved easier to read even with only a few months compared to the years knowing Ashelia; this lordling was most perturbed.

Ffamran’s mood had never tended to the caustic when he could focus on a singular attendant. Noah had noted such in his reports; Basch had experienced that, the wry sharp tongue that performed as soon as more than one pair of eyes were present. As the Archadian swiveled to face not one but three sources of instruction, Basch could read the acid intent growing. It astounded him then that Ffamran instead kept his usual bitterness bound; he nodded, and listened, so patient, so unlike himself, that Basch could not abide.

“I’m going into the Uplands,” Basch said, as he stalked past their circle, “to oil my blade on a beast’s hide.”

Yet, he did not draw Durandal though his palms itched to strike, at something.

Perhaps it had been that recurrent thought of his brother; Noah had always reverted to force when frustrated, that Basch could not acknowledge such a thing. He had no right to be frustrated, thus Basch ran instead of fighting. He circled about the prides of couerl whose stink gave away their presence, kept well distant from the ruins and their conglomerate nattering hoards of marlboro. The weight of his borrowed mail was light, far lighter than Noah’s magister plate armour, that running like this felt like a memory, a dreamlike fluidity of the flesh. The weeks, the months of measured tread of Noah’s full plate restriction melted away. Basch ran, as he had in his youth compared to the stolid sure tread of his brother; Basch ran, ran thoughtlessly and in solitude, only the stretch of muscle, the burn, the regulated breath for contemplation; like this he had only his flesh to consider, no words, no memory of Ffamran’s vow of distance from the day before, nothing of the night’s cold insomnia; that cold solitude but for echoes of Larsa, silent but for Ffamran’s soft sleeping breath up on the bunk. Basch could not permit himself to contemplate Ffamran’s stubbornness now that would probably get the man killed.

Between one stretched step and the next, Basch closed his eyes.

At last, after all the afternoon seeped away in avoidance of the beasts, it was the ricochet of gunfire that had Basch head back. The nape of his neck was stingingly sunburnt by then, for he lacked the length of hair that had protected him in Ashelia’s cohort. The fresh scrapes on his knees cracked, bleeding anew with his pace. Sweat stung in the rawness of his palms when he sighted what had that gunshot – first, second – echo through the humid air.

Basch drew Durandal and set himself to greater speed, too late, too late. A coeurl’s body lay crumpled, another struggling, dragging itself away as though mortally wounded, but the third, the third ran – Margrace and Fran did nothing – nothing! – not even their weapons drawn where they stood well away from Ffamran’s stiff posture; he stood, braced, steady, Fran’s gun held one handed and deft for all that length, that weight, his face turned away – not even in the direction he should fire – not even, towards that coeurl whose snarling lope brought it closer—

A slow exhalation; Ffamran’s arm steadied, that wavering tip of the gun firmed, his eyes opened, still away, still away, and when he at last ran out of air Basch saw that moment of precise, perfect stillness, a gunman’s unnatural calm, and then, the flame, the flare, the shot.

Not true. Of course not true, but close, closer than Basch had thought Ffamran could or would target. Still, that bullet should not have even winged the coeurl.

The coeurl missed its stride, wept a sharp, whimpering aroo, and crumpled. Its forward momentum had it tumble still, a massive weight to match Ffamran’s even slack, but that Fran pulled Ffamran out of the way and Margrace leapt; Basch ran, arrived, and not too late.

“It worked?” Ffamran asked, too serious a tone for the grin that would not stay away from the corners of his lips. “Third time perfect?”

“Fortuitously so,” Fran said. “The technick at the moment of firing proved sufficient?”

“A strange feeling,” Ffamran replied, “to surrender even the modicum of control to a spell, but if it works—”

“What is this,” Basch asked, cried. He slammed Durandal home, grabbed at Ffamran instead to turn that smirk to where he could see it.

It was Fran who answered him. “Sight Unseeing, a thaumaturgy of technick laid on the bullet, to call its spin to a visualized target instead of the visible. Of great use at delivering nigh-critical strikes, for the mind can visualize a target as precise as the small fluttering valve of a heart, where the eyes would see only a chest. The sole liability; that a man must be blinded to focus so accurately.”

“A liability, that blindness, were it not unavoidable,” Margrace said. “Now it is a weapon.”

“I made a spell,” Ffamran said, “to give the bullet a mind, my mind; in metal, Basch. My mind, bound in metal, bound in the spaces between the pieces that say ‘metal’; that was where I was, between ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’. I felt the wind as I passed; I felt the blood as I hit, warm and wet; and I turned, and burrowed, and found – a heart, Basch, and it fluttered; it shattered when I touched it—”

Basch could say nothing, suggest nothing, but he had his hands still spread on Ffamran’s upper arms, palms wet and stinging on that braided leather. Ffamran raised an arm, wrapped a hand about Basch’s wrist, and tightened.

Ffamran’s return grip was a surprise, almost as warm as the man’s smile.

“Well,” Basch said, helplessly, “I see.”

“Sharp,” Ffamran added, still musing. “The world is very sharp, the way a bullet sees. A much better dream than the smoke.”

“At dawn, then,” Margrace said, “let us dare Sochen with a full alchemical inventory and a new thaumaturgy; perhaps this time the going shall be easier for having passed once.”

“Spoken like a true virgin,” Ffamran appended, to step away; Basch wiped his palms dry of blood and sweat on his own shirt. He left no mark on the dark shining leather of Ffamran’s garb.

“What happened to you?” Nono asked, with a firm tug at Basch’s shorts. “A curious coeurl? A malicious marlboro?”

“I tripped,” Basch said; Margrace and Fran had led Ffamran far away enough that he would be out of earshot. “I fell. Nothing spectacular.”

“Though quite a spectacle,” Nono said, “had any been present to see it. Did you fall off the side of the earth, or merely from the apex of a mighty myst-wrought mountain?”

That night they packed; a day’s worth of travel yet a month’s worth of itinerary. They did not take food – “worthless weight,” Fran said, “if we are in Sochen long enough to need to eat we are lost beyond redemption” –nor further weaponry beyond the staff set to be bound across Ffamran’s back. They did take water, though, drawn from the Little Bird’s still tanks; water, bullets, potions in excess. “Would that Penelo were still available,” Margrace mourned when he surveyed the pile of that latter, “a finer-crafted magecraftsman I have yet to encounter.”

They ate of the rare viable flesh of Ffamran’s slain prey, and set aside the roasted meat for the morrow. Nono sat still beside the Mooglecraft stovetop, the remnant heat radiating with the sharp ping of cooling metal; he looked unwilling enough to move. Basch reached to touch Ffamran’s shoulder, startling whatever close-eyed reverie had taken the man after sating himself past satisfaction.

“To bed, my lord, we will be up before dawn.”

“No,” Ffamran said, “you bedded on the floor last night and did not sleep at all from the set of your temper today. You sleep easy tonight and not in my presence. I’ll stay out here.”

“It will get cold—”

“Give me blankets,” Ffamran said, “a pillow, I’ll sleep in Margrace’s old shirtsleeves; I’ll pretend I can see the stars. A shame I can’t target them with Fran’s technick.”

“Oh,” Nono said, suddenly startled, “assuredly that technick is an old, old one, Ffamran; perhaps you could re-write it for such a task.”

“The mathematics would be impossible,” Ffamran laughed. “Where is the triangulation to determine the distances, mad Moogle? I stand as a fixed point, the motion of the beast is the target, the fixed mass of the earth the third vertex in that calculation—”

“Yet you know as well as I that the earth which seems so sturdy instead spins like a stoned Solidor at a sunset celebration; consider instead your assumptive equation flawed for the earth is ever in motion, if predictable; the stars are likewise predictable; perhaps it is merely your own flesh the fickle fallible figure in that trinity.”

“You intrigue me,” Ffamran said, that dismissive smile falling into an expression far more contemplative. “Would that I could draft the way I used to, for I’m sure I see a gap in your logic but without ink to design the diagram–”

“A matter of memory,” Nono said, disdainfully; “What Moogle has ever used imperfect implements when memory could hold sharp and true instead?”

“Unless some mystic malady malformed my face along with my ability to make use of mirrors, I was unaware of having been turned into a Moogle.” Ffamran felt along the ground beside him, fingertips light across the grass until he found his discarded fork from supper. “Here, take me to a clean patch of earth, I’ll draw you what I mean; if we are to target something that far distant as a star, then the technick needs a far greater distance for a point of triangulation or the errors, simply compound–”

“The moon,” Nono said, whiskers flicking rhythmically, “simply, the sun.”

Basch tried to intervene, once, twice; neither the Moogle nor the Archadian listened. Only when he realized he could no longer see his hand in front of his face did Basch capitulate; he sourced Fran’s outdoor blankets, a stray shirt, and set up the bed away enough from where they had eaten that midnight scorpions would not cause injury.

“My thanks,” Ffamran said, as Basch led him to the bed and placed his hand on the turned edge. At the mouth of the airship, some sentiment had Basch turn back as to give one last try to call the man to bed inside. He could not look away then, for Ffamran peeled off his leathers as he stood, uncaring for Nono’s arguing presence nor the expanse of the sky overhead; he was especially diligent in ensuring all the laces and buckles aligned before he lay the doffed garb where he could reach it in the morning. Such precision in that motion, such possessive care; Basch ached, unwillingly, and forced himself to bed. He could still hear Ffamran and Nono arguing, debating; Ffamran’s occasional delighted laugh; Basch did not pull the pillow over his head, for it smelled of Ffamran’s hair from the night before, and the night before that—oh, he ached, stinging knees and demanding desire all. He ached now, at night, when he could not use the day’s distractions as a reminder of duty. He did not relieve himself of worry, tension, desire. His flesh was not – had never been – his own to command.

Navigating to Sochen in pre-dawn’s light proved a facile ease of teamwork. Nono stayed behind, unwilling enough to broach Sochen so soon – “stay away from the wyrms,” he warned, “they’re riled,” that Margrace rebutted, “only because you stirred them so!” With the four of them, Ffamran middling, Fran behind, Margrace with his spear and Basch with his sword to flank forward, they moved, almost in unison. When the early-minded coeurl approached, Margrace called; Ffamran took the first shot, every time; what remnant of mortally wounded beast left was dispatched with a single, easy blow such that Fran stopped bothering to draw her own guns.

Ffamran’s stride took on a decidedly cocky swagger.

“We will see how well this strategy works in Sochen,” Basch said, disgruntled. “There is neither the time nor the space to allow such strategic play; we will be pressed, hardpressed, and most likely cornered. The beasts are thick.”

“I have my staff,” Ffamran said, “to fall back on. After that shot I’ll stand back, behind Fran or you, Basch, and wait for your word.”

How Basch regretted his nay-saying word once they did gain the mouth of Sochen, that dank cave heaving with the stink of undead – as though his word had been their downfall.

“Faugh,” Ffamran coughed, “it smells like…wrongness.”

“Zombie flesh,” Margrace said. “Past even rot, by now. I doubt you would have encountered this before, my lord; your travels seemed always to site you under the sky. Zombies only ever linger as they did in life: under a roof.”

“Fallen once-Archadians,” Ffamran said, his interest undeniable even as he scrubbed at his nose. “All astir for the riots above?”

“Such a sentiment would be gifting the beasts with too much connection to a country’s impermanent name,” Fran said, “too much recollection of life under an Archadian sky; they have not the wit for such a thing. Just flesh, and hunger, mindlessly obeying the word of their magicked command.”

“Such a habit strikes me as strangely familiar,” Margrace said, “eh, Basch?”

“Take yourself to hell, Margrace.”

The scarce light that filtered through Sochen’s malformed roof lit the way, just enough to make it disturbing, again. Basch had never had such concerns with confinement compared to heights, though; he slowly assumed the lead where Margrace fell behind, the pirate bemoaning the clamminess of the cave.

The first shambling undead that approached, Basch stood to the side. “Yours, Ffamran.”

Everything went as expected, Ffamran’s slow exhalation and the concentration evident on his face, the release of his bullet, even the precise corrected direction of that errant curve – but, but, when it struck –

Ffamran retched, dry, recoiled, near dropping his borrowed gun. “Gods,” he swore, and grinned with a pained expression at the ceiling even as his throat worked to surrender his once-tasted breakfast. “Draw your blades, I can do nothing to it. It’s all—inside, it’s all dry. What good targeting a heart when it can’t strike a beat?”

Margrace and Fran exchanged something in a wordless glance; Margrace unslung that long spear even as Fran moved to the fore, lifting her daggers instead of her gun. Basch put his back to Ffamran, close enough to feel that still-shivering warmth, and drew Durandal as another undead shifted about the corner.

“Are you well?” Basch asked.

“I want a bath,” Ffamran said. “Imagine thrusting your mind into the midst of that morass. Repulsive, Basch, utterly rank. When I die burn my body, will you?”

“Yes, my lord.” Basch shifted his shoulders, set them square; he could feel Ffamran turning to set his own height in inversion. “Though if you want the bath to come before the burning, I suggest you wield your staff and ready your guard.”

The shallow heights of Sochen were light enough, of ease enough; the undead were scarce here that Ffamran still took his shot frequently at the various live fiends that dwelled in strange symbiosis. The deeper they delved, though, the darkness thickened, until only zombie flesh walked for no other sustenance could be found for even the least fussy of fiends.

“It surely wasn’t this dark last time?” Margrace asked, his voice a stern whisper for the weight of the cave.

“Last time there were numerous torches.” Basch could barely see Fran’s silhouette, and that only for the white curve of her ears; she touched something on the wall. “They are warm still; shall we light them?”

“Who lit them to begin with,” Basch asked, “who put them out? Will we not merely make of ourselves a target?”

“It’s the wyrm-hunters,” Ffamran said; his voice came unexpectedly loud from the darkness, no whisper where the rest of them spoke with that hushed hesitance the cave and its blackness provoked. “And the wyrms that put them out. There are two of those, great ones, in residence here, and the hunters light the way that others can walk it. Nono told me his venture down here was to sight the pair, to take their measure; he dallied with them while you dallied with me, in Archades.”

“Why does Nono speak to you when to me the furred festering fiend just spouts insult–”

Margrace’s plaintive comment was silenced by a shivering roar, a sound that came from the heart of the stone beneath them so they did not first think it a cry but rather a quake. Basch clutched at the wall for some solidity. His ears rang in the aftermath.

“If that is one of Nono’s wyrms, I would rather not know.”

Fran spoke in Margrace’s wake. “Are they fire wyrms?”

“Yes,” Ffamran said. “So Nono said.”

“So,” said Fran, dryly, “no lighting of flame then; I shall curse the Moogle for rousing the beasts that they wander in this darkness apace with us. Ffamran, will you take the lead?”

“I—”

“You are the best at determining the path in total darkness; another circuit of depth and we shall be all as blind as you, with less experience in navigation. Would that we had you study the map, but instead, tell us what paths you feel; we shall meet every junction with consensus.”

Their pace turned to a limping one after that, for consensus was never as simple a matter as that. Ffamran hesitated often enough that Basch walked into the back of him, too often; when he growled a curse regarding the possibility of knocking the man into a chasm, Ffamran made a disdainful sound – “what palace, even an old Archadian one, had chasms on the ground floor?”

Ffamran felt openings as a movement of air. “Fresh to the left,” he would say, “stinking of serpent to the right so we’ll not go that way, dry to the fore.” Fran invariably concurred with his perception, with that fleshy flap of sound that Basch began to recognize as the violent twitch of her ear for punctuation; nevertheless, they could not feel a way by such a thing.

“How many rights,” Margrace asked, “how many lefts, how many forks have we passed?”

“I can be precise about four junctions,” Ffamran said, “uncertain about what felt like another six random openings, left or right, atop that. Margrace, I can’t give you more.”

“Then follow the fresh,” Fran said. “The air shall lead to the open sky, eventually.”

“And when it is back at the Tchita gate instead of Old Archades?” Basch could not resist asking.

“We should have been better prepared,” Margrace said. “But every other time we passed here there had been sufficient light! Oh, womb of the earth, to swallow me without that scant succor from the sky.”

“Skypirates are accustomed to winging it,” Basch said. “Or so one told me, once. Now get me to Archades, Ffamran.”

The first time they fought in that near-total blackness it began with Ffamran’s warning; Basch felt the man brush against him, three quick steps back, and then he stopped, laughed, and said: “All’s fair in the dark, Basch?”

Basch could not have conceived that Ffamran would hurl himself forward at that shuffling horror that hungered, or he could have held the man back with that brief touch. Instead he heard the scrape of Ffamran’s boot on the stone, the impact of staff against sick, wet flesh, Ffamran’s sudden harsh breath.

Durandal sang when it came from the sheath; Basch had Ffamran’s shoulder in his other hand, and pulled, back, away; the half-felt form of the zombie crumpled with a single blow.

“I still have years of experience on you yet,” Basch said, striving for calm. “I would not let an untried youth – an untried man – take any battle above his experience; not again, for twice over I’ve learned that lesson the most difficult way. You will fall back the next time something approaches.”

“Something approaches,” Ffamran said; in the dark they stood too close, that Basch could feel the breath from those words on his cheek. “To your right, my left.”

Basch was spinning, too desperate against the hungry darkness to consider words or Ffamran’s compliance, for stinking clawed flesh reached for him again, again. He heard Fran’s cry, Margrace’s shout; could not think until there was silence again, but for their harsh breath. Basch’s bare arms stung with the lacerations, that he drank potion like water and would regret such haste on the morrow.

“Let’s not do that again,” Margrace said, his cheerfulness strained. “I hate caves near as much as I hate palaces.”

“Ffamran,” Basch called. “Ffamran!”

“Here,” came the voice, far distant. Basch spun, wondering how Ffamran had got so far past the fight. “There’s a shift in the air up here.”

The cave ahead was flooded with light, not so bright compared to true daylight but enough that Margrace let slide a shuddering breath, that Basch had to squint his eyes. Sand filtered into the air from above, a silvered spill reminiscent of water that he realized how much thirst he felt over the false quaff of potion. Great chasms, whatever Ffamran’s earlier commentary, split the terrain, a thankful terrestrial happenstance for Basch could see the distant shamble of further undead pent by the gaps.

When he turned at last to Ffamran, he saw how chapped the man’s lips were, recognized the matching thirst. “Here, my lord, drink.”

Ffamran took the proffered flask and drank, tilting his head back to pour rather than setting the mouth at his lips. That scarce stream of water glittered. Basch looked away.

“Where are we?”

“No where I know,” Margrace said, dismayed. “The map, Fran, that we can see where we turned astray.”

“My apologies,” Ffamran said, smoothly, “if you’ll give me further instruction now you have the map, I’ll see that I steer you better.”

The darkness proved all the more cloying the next time they ventured; the very air grew hotter, thicker, as though they approached the bowels of the earth. “I can’t bear the silence,” Margrace said, sudden, “it weighs the darkness all the more, the cave closing in. Sickening, this.”

“Oh?” Ffamran’s words came without that sharpness Basch expected. “Pretend you’re a-bed instead, Margrace. Shall I sing you a lullaby for comfort’s sake?”

Ffamran sang much better without intoxication to impare his perception of his own true tone; the cave’s light echo did not deduct from the clear tenor. It was not until they sighted, ahead, that strange sharp edge that distinguished the fall of light from the all-encompassing dark, that Basch realized he was humming the tune. He knew this song; a lullaby for sure. A Landisi one though, not an Archadian one whatever the words Ffamran put to the melody. The sudden realization struck Basch, that Ffamran’s own mother had never had the chance to so sing to her son, instead leaving Noah that strange task.

“I should be patronized,” Margrace said, wry, across the thread of that harmony; “yet I cannot find it in me to take offence at the sound of that, especially sighting that promise of the sky again.”

They gained Sochen proper wrapped in the shivered edges of that song and the sharding firmness of light, again, deflected from above that it could scarcely lighten the shadows but so blinding after that nothingness, so much surfeit sensation.

“Ready your technick and your gun, my lord,” Basch said, “the beasts in here are not those foul undead of the caves below.”

And then, then, everything spanned too quickly; Ffamran’s sharp, true shot, Margrace or Basch to strike the blow that ended that staggering beast; the occasional complexity of excess attack. Ffamran’s curiosity went unanswered as they rose up the lift – “Myst, or mechanics? Where’s the dratted Moogle when we need him?”

Old Archades, once they gained that height, seemed unchanged from Basch’s memory; then he realized his nostrils had grown too accustomed to the scent of his own sweat, his own shed blood, for the very air hung with that mixed miasma of men and mayhem. The occasional heavy thread of smoke creeping through the alley was near a relief.

Arrowfire screamed from the sky, somewhere; Fran heard with scarce enough time to direct them, stumbling, back into the shelter of the alley with a curt cry.

“Inside,” Margrace said, “a house, somewhere; we need to avoid all notice. Do you know anyone down here?”

Their eyes turned to Ffamran. That sole Archadian shook his head. “Whores and dealers, Margrace. Will you shame me to seek them now?”

“Yes,” Margrace said, and grinned. “Avail yourself of some relief, Ffamran, for the hard way up is a hard way indeed. Ah, gods, for all there’s no sky down here at least we have some horizon.”

“The hard way?” Ffamran shook his head. “I must profess to know no one here, or what favours asked later of me, should Larsa be deceased – no. Yet everyone knows me. My face, even. If you think this is the only way.”

“No, Ffamran—”

Ffamran evaded Basch with too much ease, stepping out into that dangerous street, his arms raised. He did not speak, but angled his face to upwards to where that volley of arrows had come.

One stray shaft shattered on the stone, and only that.

“Our prodigal Bunansa,” called a voice, a drawl, that lax langorous tone that on the instant set the skin of Basch’s nape prickling. Over the papapet a bow appeared firstly, several, then enough to line the entire skyline; only then did a man dare to poke his head over. He propped that on his crossed arms, a pose of relaxation whatever the weaponry that flanked him. “Wherever have you been, Ffamran? Such a party we’ve had in your absence. At least you’re dressed for the occasion; terribly fetching, that fit. A man suspects you robbed a Viera for her spare wardrobe – and lo, observe if you have the eyes to do so; in your wake trails such a creature!”

“I need Zargabaath, Jules. Get me to him, or he to me.”

“Not your usual tastes, my lord, not usual indeed, and a man knows the difficulty in difference; the expense. I do see that you have your erstwhile hound on your back, a-lingering or malingering; have you outgrown him so, then, that you need an oil-slick Rozzarian atop that which Zargabaath offers?”

“Your games disinterest me to the extent I lament the breath I waste to tell you so.”

“Such brave words for a blind man,” Jules said, smilingly. “Shall I tell you to the count how many arrowheads target your heart?”

Ffamran raised his gun and pointed it, well away from the source of the voice that a stir of laughter came from the rooftops. Basch could not help but move forward to his side, then to his fore. His presence would avail nothing if the arrows fell, the weight of his mail; nothing. Ffamran's question came too nonchalant for the extent of that threat.

“Did you fight for me or for Larsa?”

“For—” Jules laughed. “What do we care in Old Archades who sits on what chair? For shame, my lord, for shame; we fight to keep Old Archades free of the chaos above.”

“Yet we came from below,” Basch growled, “not above.”

“Your preference for inversion is duly noted, Magister Gabranth.”

“Enough,” Ffamran said. “This farce appeases no one.”

“’Enough’,” Jules mocked, “or what, my lord: will you shoot some poor errant architecture?”

“Do not fire,” Basch said, a comment undirected, “or we’ll all die.”

Ffamran hesitated visibly before he lowered the gun. His leather creaked as he took a single step forward, to set his heat against Basch’s back. “If you wish for peace, get us to Zargabaath, to Larsa if he lives.”

“Peace,” Jules said, “and a piece, of course.”

“A piece of what?”

“Oh,” Jules said, “your monopoly, perhaps.”

Basch felt Ffamran stiffen. The sharp exhalation came tinged with rage. He had not suspected Ffamran was quite so possessive of his father’s endeavour, for Basch had never seen the man involved in what directorial role he played. Ffamran’s voice held true for all that fury Basch could veritably feel, radiant.

“Such things are not to be discussed in the open, but rather in private, with Zargabaath present, preferably.”

“An impartial party, if one imperial.” Jules’ grin was expansive. “A man knows true impartiality is worth any number of chops, ships or shares.”

At some unseen signal the bows were lowered and Jules’s head disappeared; Margrace and Fran stepped out of the alley, ill at ease, as the streets instead filled with men and women grimed and grim, full armoured that their surrounds looked like a prison escort than any kind of guard.

“See? That was not so hard,” Margrace said, appeasingly—

Ffamran choked, tried to speak, and choked again. “Gods,” he managed, at last, “he could ask for anything! All of Rabanstre relocated for the sake of the weather, even!”

Margrace blinked. “…you could afford to shift a city?”

“Ah, well,” Fran said. “We did not know that. Well, then.”

“No ideas,” Basch warned, “I know the pair of you, mind.”

“So suspicious,” Fran said, with a faint smile. “Surely you trust that we have Ffamran’s best interests at heart in such a tryst, no?”

Ffamran walked ahead of them, his stride lengthened, careless with a stiff anger whatever his uncertainty on this terrain. Basch took Ffamran’s arm to steer the man up a flight of uneven steps. The proximity permitted Basch to lean close, to say, low that their escort did not hear: “Just because he asks does not mean you have to give.”

Ffamran considered that, and smiled as he slid his borrowed gun with crisp familiarity back into its holster.

.

on to fifteen