The Afterward

“Vaan, the Strahl is in your hands.”

The sirens have stopped blaring. Perhaps they’d been busted out or the system finally malfunctioned. He didn’t know.

“You’d better take care of her, you hear?”

He limped down the metallic gangway, burning pieces of metal falling all around him. He was hunched over, protecting the woman in his arms.

“If there’s one scratch on it when I get back—“

He was interrupted, the radio transmitter so far away, he could barely hear it.

“Roger that,” Vaan said, “We’ll be waiting for you.”

Three things happened at once.

Ashelia B’nargin Dalmasca mumbled, “Balthier…” nearly as sad as she was when she had found out her new husband had died in battle.

The Bahamut cleared Rabanastre, and finally touched earth in a series of explosions.

And one of the falling beams met its mark, striking the sky pirate squarely across his neck and back.



He had always heard from other pirates that in a time of great peril or a brush with death, their lives flashed before their eyes. Remembering this, he half-expected to be forced to watch his life come by, from the earliest memory to the split second of time right before he was hit.

However, he was subjected to one memory, and while viewing it, as one would view a movie, he wondered why in the hell would his subconscious bring this dreadful little piece of time up.

Ffamran Mid Bunansa was five years old. Today was his first day in school with other children. He had come in the middle of the year, so the teacher – damn his soul – decided to stop class to properly introduce the son of the scientist.

“Now, class,” he began, holding one hand out to direct their absentminded attention to the little boy standing astutely next to him, “this is-“

“I believe I can introduce myself.” The child said coldly, stepping ahead of the teacher. With his hands behind his back, completely dead serious, he said,

“My name is Famfam Banana. My father’s name is Seedolphins Banana.”

In the silence the children and teacher sat in, the current ‘Famfam’ pleaded his case to his mind, “Please, give me a break! I was a mere child, and that name was atrocious! That was the first sign my father gave of his hatred of me. Ffamran, for god’s sake!”

However, the children did not hear his pleads, and promptly began to bust out laughing. It would be two years before dear ‘Famfam’ could beat the funny completely out of the joke, and still his paranoid ears detect a, ‘pfft, Famfam’ from under the breath of a deckhand or a waitress to this day.

After the memory was over, the movie theater he believed he was sitting in went completely dark.

After what seemed like only an instant, he heard someone mumbling in his ears.

The words were incoherent at first, but he managed to catch one word.

“Famfam.”

His eyes snapped open. He was nose-to-nose with a viera, his partner. Her eyes were half closed and her lips pulled up into a sort of half-grin. “That’s amusing.”

“I beg your pardon? Who did you hear that name from?”

“From you. You were mumbling it.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. Now please get up. I’m starting to lose feeling in my legs.”

He blinked. He realized he was lying sprawled on top of the viera woman, their bodies contorted so that they were looking each other full on the face. The evil beam that had struck him still was on top.

He managed to rise shakily on his palms, flipping over so the beam fell with a crack to the side and he lay next to her.

They lay in silence.

After about ten minutes, she spoke, her voice cracking a little.

“Vayne… he was scary. Freaked me out right good.”

“You weren’t the only one. Did you notice he primarily attacked me? I did not appreciate that.”

She laughed along with him, and when he stood, accepted his hand. He pulled her up, and she accepted his arm to steady herself. They slowly made their way down the sloped hallway, passing corpses and debris.

When they finally made it to the docking bay, they looked out across the large lake they had landed in. Again, they stood in silence.

“Do you really think they’ll take good care of the ship?” she asked him.

“Of course,” he replied with a slight grin, “he’ll do fine. Us, on the other hand…”

“I thought the leading man never dies.”

“He doesn’t! I was wondering what I’m going to do with you when you die. Are you up for a swim?”

“Bet you I could beat you there.”

“You’re on.”

The sky pirate Balthier Bunansa and his partner Fran looked at each other, grinned, then leaped off the dock, hand in hand.

They had no idea how the hell they were going to get across the lake. None at all. But they would worry about that when they hit the water. They’d find a way to survive.

They always did.