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“Quite the performance,” I heard an unfamiliar voice say from a dark corner. I turned to see a man coming out of the shadows and my eyes narrowed. He…reminded me of someone.
“And just who the hell are you?” I asked, drawing his attention to me instead of Vaan. His eyes trailed up and down, either sizing me up or checking me out. I couldn’t tell which.
“I play the leading man, who else?”
My back stiffened and I took in a strangled gasp as fire burned through my veins. My knees locked automatically to keep myself from falling as the connection between our souls cemented itself.
‘Dear fucking god why did no one warn me that it would be painful?’
My jaw was clenched to keep myself from crying out and alerting the guards, but that was all I could do. I couldn’t stop the quiet, pained groan that crawled out of my throat to escape between my bared teeth. When the fire subsided my soul felt warm and tingly, writhing under my skin and demanding to be closer to the man who was now staring at me in utter shock as I gasped for breath.
“Fuck my life,” I muttered, fire raging in my eyes as my temper seethed at my completely and utterly horrible luck.
“Uh…?” Vaan sounded hesitant and I knew then that I must look either terrible or absolutely livid. Judging from how hard I was trying to keep my voice level and at a normal volume and how much pain I’d just gone through in the ten seconds it took for the connection to seal, I was going to guess it was a bit of both. “You okay?”
‘Tch. Am I okay, he asks. Does it look like I’m okay?’
I slowly turned to face him and in as level of a voice as I could manage I said, “My fucking words just activated.”
He blinked at me. One, two, three times. Then I saw it click in his mind and he took a deep breath.
“Wait, that guy?! Really?!” He pointed at the man who was now looking between the two of us in confusion and I spotted a Viera circling to come up behind Vaan. I snorted.
“No, of course not. It was obviously the Viera who hasn’t spoken yet,” I drawled with a wave of my hand in her direction. She froze and Vaan raised an eyebrow at me.
“Wait how do you know what a Viera is?” Vaan asked incredulously and I rolled my eyes.
“The same way I know what a chocobo is,” not a lie; but I had lied when I told him how I knew about chocobos. “Is that really what you’re going to focus on?”
The man cleared his throat and I scowled.
“What in the name of Ivalice are you two talking about,” he raised an eyebrow at us.
“Nothing,” Vaan and I said simultaneously.
“Well, if it’s nothing then you won’t mind if Fran gathers that magicite and we’ll be on our way,” the man said. I studied him for a moment as Vaan backed toward me.
“You can’t have it! I found it, it’s mine!” Vaan told the girl with the bunny ears as he stood with his back now planted against my side. The man who was apparently my soulmate and had no idea smirked; I appreciated the sight. At least I’d gotten an attractive one.
“And then when I take it from you, it’ll be mine,” the man said.
“It’s not nice to take things from kids; especially poor, orphaned kids,” I said, pushing Vaan behind me and ignoring the indignant sound he made at being called a kid. The man blinked at me.
“And who ever said I was nice?”
I huffed a short laugh as my hand rested on my dagger. “Let’s just call it a hunch.”
A clatter sounded in the hall along with shouts from guards and it drew the attention of the two who were staring us down. I grabbed Vaan’s wrist and bolted for the door that my soulmate and his friend had come through. Once through the door I ran for a set of stairs to the side.
“Why are you running from him, isn’t he supposed to be…”
“He definitely is, but he doesn’t know that and I’m not about to have that conversation in the middle of the Dalmascan palace vault when the soldiers have obviously been put on high alert by something,” I snapped as we turned to run up the next flight of stairs.
We came to an ornate door and I burst through it and onto the palace wall, still dragging Vaan behind me by his wrist as I dashed away from the door into the warm night air.
The sound of battle cries broke my concentration and I slowed to a stop, looking over the palace wall with Vaan to see a battle taking place in the courtyard below.
“The fuck is this shit?!” I cried as I watched an unknown enemy attacking the Imperial guards. Suddenly a missile flew over our heads and into the courtyard and I snarled. “Who the fuck came up with that battle tactic?! What idiot kills their own men just to take out a few of the enemy?!”
“The Ifrit, eh?” I heard a voice that was quickly becoming as familiar to me as my own and whirled away from the wall to see the man standing behind us looking to the sky. I followed his gaze to see an enormous airship, obviously of Imperial design. “That’s quite the entrance. Impeccable timing. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were waiting all along.” I looked back to find him already staring at me.
I pulled Vaan along by his wrist again, breaking into a run. Fran was nowhere to be seen and I wasn’t about to wait around for her to join the party.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans because she shot up over the edge of the wall on a flying motorcycle, landing in front of us and skidding to a stop to cut off our path.
“Shhhhit,” I hissed, dragging Vaan up in front of me. I put my back to his, facing my soulmate as he sauntered forward.
“End of the line,” he told us angrily and my lips pulled back to bare my teeth as I unsheathed my weapons. I didn’t particularly want to fight him, but I would protect Vaan. He held his hand out, palm up, as if he were expecting us to hand over our prize. “You have something that belongs to me.”
I barked out a quick laugh, the irony of his words lost on him but oh so amusing to me in my emotionally charged state.
“Oh, Sweetheart,” I purred at him. “You have no idea how right you are about that.” He looked very confused, but before he could say anything the door we’d come through burst open and Imperial soldiers swarmed out.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me! First he shows up -at the least convenient time ever, thanks for that, Universe- and now we’re gonna get thrown in a dungeon!” I felt more than heard Vaan sigh behind me.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset about it,” he said over his shoulder. “You said yourself that you couldn’t wait to find your-”
“I know what I said,” I snapped, cutting him off as the blond man ran at us calling for Fran to move. I sheathed my weapons, expecting him to leave us to the Imperials. Imagine my surprise when he pushed me out of the way to throw Vaan over his shoulder as Fran drove her floating motorcyle over the edge of the wall again.
“Damn I want one of those,” I muttered before screaming in rage as I watched my soulmate throw my best friend over the wall. I shot forward. Soulmate or no, I was going to break his perfect jaw with my fist.
He whirled and caught my punch just in time, smiling down at me as he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against his chest. My soul was singing.
“Ah, ah, ah. We’ll be joining him,” he told me. Then we were falling. My fingers tangled in his shirt as my hair whipped around us.
“You crazy bastard,” I shouted at him, grinning like a fool. We landed on Fran’s bike and he reached out to snag Vaan’s arm as the bike swooped down to intercept his fall.
“Let me go!” I heard Vaan shout and rolled my eyes, raising my voice to be heard.
“Do me a favor and look down, Kid! If you fall you’ll probably die; either from the soldiers, the missiles, or the impact! Just shut up and quit flailing like a fish!”
The machine we were on sputtered and dipped and I heard the man still pinning me to his chest swear. “What’s going on, Fran?”
“I don’t know! It’s not heeding me!” The Viera replied in a strained tone. That caught my attention. Was this motorcycle…alive? I felt a groan vibrate through my soulmate’s chest and into me.
“I’m slipping,” I heard Vaan cry and I let go of the shirt still clutched in my fingers to reach towards him.
“I need you to trust me, Kid!” I heard him cry a noise of assent and my fingers closed around the magicite, taking it from him and passing it to the hand that was trapped between my chest and the stranger’s. Then I reached out again and clamped my hand down on his forearm, his hand immediately mirroring the movement and locking us together. I looked up into sparkling green eyes.
“You can let him go,” I told him, trusting that he’d keep me safe even if he didn’t know about our connection yet. “But you’ll have to hold onto me tight, if I fall so does the magicite.”
He let go of Vaan and his arm came to wrap around me with his other one, trapping me against his chest in a vice-like grip. I buried my face in his shoulder as I screamed in pain. All of Vaan’s weight had dropped, pulling on my shoulder.
“FUCK, WHY DO YOU WEIGH SO MUCH?!”
I didn’t care whether Vaan heard me or responded, but it seemed that my soulmate had at least found it entertaining. His deep chuckle vibrated through me and it soothed the pain slightly, my soul trilling happily.
Suddenly we connected with something hard and unforgiving, and the physical contact was broken as I flew from his arms.
I opened my eyes to the sound of running water and I sat up with a groan.
“This fucking waterway again,” I muttered, hearing Vaan groan too. I looked over at him to see him looking around with surprise. “I’m starting to think your gods have it out for me, Kid.”
“His gods?” My soulmate was sitting on what used to be a stairway watching us, and I laid back down -sprawled without a care in the world on the cold, damp stone beneath me- to stare at the ceiling. I didn’t want to stand yet.
“I mean I guess they would be your gods too,” I conceded as I examined the hole that I assumed we’d crashed through.
“But not yours?”
I shrugged, staying silent.
“What happened?” I looked over to watch Fran inspecting the remains of her flying motorcycle.
‘Flying motorcycle… heh.’
“Our hover didn’t just drop, it disappeared.” Her strange voice was oddly comforting and I sighed as my soulmate decided we would be leaving through the waterway. Wonderful; more rushing water and grates to cross. I turned my gaze onto him as he spoke with Vaan.
Apparently, judging from the quip Fran had just made, the two of them were sky pirates. Vaan losing his mind over that would have been funny if I hadn’t been preoccupied with my thoughts.
‘Why did it hurt? It’s not supposed to hurt, is it?’
‘No; I would definitely remember being told that the bond hurt, and it wouldn’t be able to be kept a secret if it always hurt as much as that did.’
‘So why…’
I let them chatter about working together for a moment or two before I broke in, my curiosity finally getting the better of me.
“So that thing was called a hover?” Two sets of eyes snapped to focus on me and Vaan scrambled over to me.
“What are you doing,” he hissed and I sat up, rolling my eyes.
“They’re obviously going to find out about it sooner or later. Blondie over there pretty much guarantees that.”
“Balthier,” the man in question interjected and I raised an eyebrow as I met his green gaze. “Not Blondie. Balthier.”
I hummed before turning back to Vaan. “Anyway, there’s really not much reason to hide the truth from them. Besides that; my soul is writhing under my skin, demanding to be closer. The bond is new and it needs time to settle.”
“You never told me how painful it was. You looked like you wanted to scream in the vault,” Vaan said softly, backing up to give me my space. I scowled at the ground.
“I did. It took everything I had in me to not scream,” I whispered, looking over to Balthier. I felt my expression soften slightly at the confusion on his face. I’d explain what happened eventually, but not right now.
“We should get moving,” I said. Balthier nodded once, coming over to offer me his hand. As he pulled me to my feet he pulled a little too hard and I fell against his chest.
My soul purred delightedly.
I rolled my eyes when I felt his hand slip into my pocket. So that was his game. Too bad Vaan had already gotten the magicite from me. My fingers slipped into his pocket to return the favor as my hand that was still caught in his grip tightened.
I stepped away, saw his brows furrowed in confusion, and I grinned.
“Nice try, but it won’t be that easy to get that rock from us,” I told him, motioning toward Vaan. He looked over, obviously surprised when he saw Vaan holding the magicite. When he turned back to me I held up my prize with a sweet smile.
“Next time, keep your thumb out of the way. It makes it much easier to get away with it if your mark doesn’t know as soon as you try,” I said, tossing his coin pouch back to him and turning toward the stairs.
“You said yourself that we should work together, Balthier. I trust you’ll keep your word about that from now on.”
“The Mist swirls strangely around her, Balthier,” I heard Fran say from behind me and I froze. Mist? I… didn’t think I remembered anything about Mist in Brick. “As if she is not a part of it, yet can still wield it.”
“What,” I heaved a sigh and turned back to them, “are you talking about.”
Neither of them answered me and I sighed again.
“Look, I’m not from this world, or universe, or whatever you want to call it.” Vaan came to stand next to me as I spilled my secret to the two sky-pirates. “I don’t know what Mist is, I’ve never seen a Hover before tonight, and I just got painfully and unexpectedly soul-bonded. Which under normal circumstances would be a good thing, but it’s not supposed to be painful; so I’m kind of at a loss as to how to deal with the fact that mine was. So if someone could just answer my fucking questions that would be great.”
“Soul-bonded?” Balthier asked, looking confused.
“Yes,” I replied, holding my arms across my stomach and looking to the side. “It’s a… natural occurrence in my universe. Not something I quite expected to stumble across here, since your universe has nothing like it; but I’ll deal with that. It’s not something you need to worry about.”
Though the lie was easy, that he didn’t need to worry about it, it tasted like ash in my mouth. I wasn’t going to force someone who wasn’t familiar with the concept of soulmates into staying with me just to spare myself a little pain.
Fran graced me with a summary of what Mist was. It sounded like chakra from Naruto. I hummed in thought.
“It appears to be waiting for something, though since you are no magic user I don’t know what it could be,” she said thoughtfully.
“Neither do I,” I said finally, turning back to the stairs I’d been about to take. “But theories won’t do us any good down here and I’d like to get out of here before any Imperials stumble across us.”
I took the steps quickly, splashing into the shallow water on the floor at the foot of the stairs and turning to examine the room. There were two dead bodies off to the side and I grimaced when the others went to investigate.
“Insurgents,” Balthier said, standing up from where he’d stooped down to inspect the corpses. “Most like they thought to take advantage of a lax watch at the palace while the fete’s on to feed the good consul a length of steel for his supper.”
I snorted, “Yeah, good luck with that. Vayne’s not stupid enough to throw a party with no security, and even if he was; random rebels who probably have more experience with peddling wares than holding a sword wouldn’t be able to take him down. I don’t care how many there are.”
“You know the consul?” Balthier looked interested.
“I… know of him. One of the perks of being from a separate universe is that I have certain knowledge most people don’t. Mostly regarding Vayne,” I said carefully. I wasn’t about to tell them how I knew what I did.
“That’s the closest thing to an answer you’re going to get out of her,” Vaan said grumpily before Balthier could ask anything else. “That’s actually more than she ever told me in the three weeks she’s been here.”
I heard him mutter something along the lines of “stupid soul-bond” and I laughed softly.
“Knowledge is power, Vaan,” I told him as I followed him along the path of the waterway, staying close to the wall. “And sometimes that power is a curse. I’d rather you didn’t have to deal with something like that unless it was your own knowledge.”
When we came to the first grate to cross I grit my teeth and glared at Vaan as he crossed it. Balthier had already observed and commented on my aversion to running water, even went so far as to place himself between me and the channel water, but I figured he’d cross with the others and wait for me on the other side.
When his hand met my lower back I startled and turned to see his pretty green eyes looking down at me.
“What kind of leading man would just stand by and leave a lady to face her fears alone?”
My soul shivered and danced under my skin, both at the physical contact and the offer of support. I licked my lips carefully, noticing that his eyes stayed locked to mine when I did instead of looking at my lips like some men would.
‘A gentleman, then.’
“Not a very good one,” I finally responded, hoping my slightly breathless tone would be attributed to the proximity of the rushing water. A soft laugh graced my ears as I looked back to the grate.
“Exactly. Come, I shall accompany you and make sure you don’t fall,” he said softly, leaning down to speak next to the shell of my ear so I could hear him over the sound of the water.
I pulled the corner of my lower lip between my teeth as we started across the grate and I reached up to grab onto his shirt. This was how every grate we came across in the waterway was traversed, and my soul was singing through my veins at his care and consideration and the physical contact. When we weren’t crossing grates or battling monsters he stayed by my side as a buffer between me and the running water in the channel next to us.
Even after we added Amalia to our group and she commented on my apparent fear or my need to be accompanied across the grates, he never faltered; I found myself appreciating him and the match the universe made with us, even if I wasn’t going to force him into it. He worried over me after our fight with the Flans, over how reckless I had been in drawing the attention away from the rest of the group. After that he stayed closer to me, even during fights; never straying or letting me stray more than six or seven feet away.
Then we fought a rapidash and I found that I could indeed control the Mist that gathered around me. After it was defeated, thanks in part to my apparent ability to use water magic, I turned with a grin intending to make a snarky comment. The snarky comment died in my throat when I noticed the imperials on the balcony above us, all pointing what I was entirely sure were loaded guns at us.
We were escorted out of the waterway and into Lowtown with our wrists shackled, where were were left standing in front of the residents like a side show. I stewed silently in my rage. When the guards started to drag Amalia away and she demanded our release, my silence broke.
That ended up leading into an entire conversation with Vayne where I was very sure he was close to summoning Sephira just to permanently shut me up. Even if it meant executing me in front of the crowd that had gathered.
He didn’t, though, opting to walk away while he still had his sanity. He had us sent to Nalbina.
Vaan had been knocked unconscious by one of the Imperials. So, while we sat in the sand on the floor of our cell waiting for him to wake up, Balthier asked me questions about my home. Eventually he landed on the topic of my soul-bond.
“How does it work?”
I hummed thoughtfully for a moment. “Well, once a pair of soulmates say their first words to each other the bond between them, the connection between their souls, is sealed. Normally that connection sealing is described as a pleasant warmth and a tingle; since it’s an unexpected sensation because we have no way of knowing what the words are until they’re said, the body’s reaction is to tense up slightly at first before relaxing when it realizes it’s not in danger.”
“You seemed to be in an unusual amount of pain for just a warmth and a tingle,” he said, his brows furrowing.
“That’s because for some reason, my bond sealing felt like fire ripping through my veins; threatening to burn away everything. My soul included. Only when the fire died down did I feel the ‘warmth’ or ‘tingle’ and that was the feeling of my soul demanding to be closer to the person who had said my words.”
He frowned. “I caused you that pain.”
“To be fair,” I said with a smile. “It shouldn’t have hurt and I don’t know why it did.”
‘But you have a hunch.’
‘No one asked for your help.’
“Also, I had no intention of actually telling you what had happened.”
He looked surprised. “What do you mean? I… activated your words, as you put it, does that not make me your soulmate? Why would you not tell me?”
“Well, for one,” I held up a finger to count off my reasons. “I wasn’t expecting you to follow us for a measly little rock. Two, when you did, I expected you to cut your losses and leave us to the Imperials when they showed up.”
I held up a third finger and smiled. “And, finally, my third reason. You don’t have the concrete idea of soulmates here, just an abstract romanticism of the general thought that two people can be made for each other. I’m not going to force you into something that isn’t natural in your universe.”
He seemed to think about that for a moment. “You told Vaan in the waterway that your soul was writhing under your skin. That the bond was still new and needed time to settle.”
“I did,” I agreed. “Once the bond has been sealed my soul becomes… almost like a physical part of my body. I can feel it flowing under my skin even now. It’s suggested that soulmates stay close and have as much physical contact as possible while their souls settle to the feeling of being bonded.”
“So why would you keep it to yourself? If that is what’s suggested why would you not tell me so that I would stay close to you?” He seemed upset with me and I huffed a soft laugh.
“Well, you stayed close to me anyway so there wasn’t much point, but beyond that it’s for the same reason I wasn’t going to tell you about the bond at all. I’m not going to force you to be a part of something that isn’t natural in your universe. I can handle a little discomfort.”
‘Liar. If you’re right about why the bond-seal hurt then being apart would mean more than just a little discomfort. It would be the ache both of you would feel if this universe had the same natural law. It would be agonizing pain; your soul never resting, screaming to be close to him.’
‘Yes, but he doesn’t need to know that. I will not force this on him just to spare myself pain.’
He had gotten up from where he’d been sitting across the room and settled down next to me while I’d been having my internal debate. His shoulder was pressed against mine and he watched me carefully.
“So if your soul was writhing under your skin, what happens when I touch you?”
I smiled down at my lap.
“It… changes. Sometimes it almost feels like millions of tiny bubbles. Like a vibration under my skin. Sometimes it feels like the purr of a cat. Sometimes I can feel it swirling and cresting like the dance of the ocean.”
“Mm. And what is it doing right now?” He sounded genuinely curious and I sighed, resting my head on his shoulder and closing my eyes without a thought.
“Right now it’s finally calm and quiet. I can rest,” I whispered. I felt his arm shift to circle around my back and my soul reacted by gently cresting against my skin anywhere he was touching me. I sighed contentedly.
“Then rest,” he said gently. “I’ll wake you when it’s time for us to leave.”
So I did. I slipped into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.
Vaan woke up shortly after fell asleep, sitting up and looking around in confusion. When his eyes landed on his friend and the sky pirate who was apparently her soulmate he frowned.
“I guess she explained the bond to you then?” His voice was quiet so he wouldn’t wake her. Balthier nodded, looking at the girl who slept soundly against him.
“She did. She was very adamant about not forcing me into it.”
“What did she say would happen if you chose not to be around her?” Vaan knew his friend well enough that he could guess, but he wanted to be sure before he told Balthier what would really happen.
“She said that she would experience discomfort,” the man said. Vaan snorted softly.
“Of course she did. Self-sacrificing idiot.”
“What are you talking about. Are you saying she lied?” Balthier frowned as he met Vaan’s gaze.
“Not exactly. She explained the soul-bond to me once, but she didn’t water it down or play off the downsides when she did because I’m not her other half. She didn’t think she had to protect me like she obviously thinks she has to do for you.” Vaan scratched the back of his head as he moved to lean against the wall.
“When she explained it to me she said that when new soulmates are apart or, for some reason, one rejects the other; both souls feel an intense ache. That ache is the souls reaching out for each other, screaming to be together.”
Balthier’s frown deepened and Vaan continued, explaining what he was afraid might happen if Balthier decided to leave after they escaped Nalbina. “Considering what was supposed to be a warm and tingly feeling nearly made her scream, it’s obvious that something about this bond is different. I’m not sure what’s different about it besides you being from a world without soul-bonds, but it seems like what she described to me is more intense for her than it should be.”
“So if I were to leave her in Rabanastre once we return there…”
“She would most likely be in unbearable pain,” Vaan finished, glaring at his friend who was still fast asleep.
“Why would she…”
“Because that’s what she does,” Vaan said looking back to Balthier. “You saw her in the Flan fight, she has no reservations about sacrificing herself for the sake of others. If she thinks for a second that her pain or unhappiness could put someone else in danger or make them do something they don’t want to do, she hides it away and pretends that everything is fine.”
“She doesn’t want to force me into something that isn’t natural in my universe,” Balthier repeated, understanding dawning on his face as he realized exactly how far she was willing to go to make sure she didn’t force him into staying with her. Then he looked down at her sleeping form and laughed softly.
“What’s so funny?” Vaan said, immediately ready to protect his friend- his sister.
“It’s just that she went to so much trouble to make sure I didn’t feel obligated to stay near her. She didn’t realize that she had me wrapped around her finger from the moment she took my coin pouch to teach me a lesson about picking pockets.”
He placed a soft kiss on the top of her head before his eyes turned back to Vaan.
“I don’t think I could leave her side even if I wanted to at this point.”
“That’s good,” Vaan said. “Because if you did I would find you and kick your ass. Now wake her up, I’ve got a story I think she’ll want to hear.”