Fifteen-
Final Fantasy XII, Basch/Larsa + quote
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"By what, Excellency?" grated out the armored figure at his side.

"Mm." Larsa looked down at the pile of papers on his desk. "What he said about Balfonheim being willing to 'ride the sky' for me. I didn't understand."

"Ah." The Judge Magister inclined his head but showed no inclination to take his helmet off. "An old sky pirate's legend, that one. I had it from a friend of mine once."

Larsa turned halfway about in his chair. "Really," he said. "Tell it to me?"

Instead of answering right away the Judge crossed to the door and shot the bolt. That done, he felt free to pull off his helmet and run his gauntleted fingers through his close-cropped hair. "It is said," Basch said with no preamble, "that if a pirate flies due west into the setting sun until his magicite core runs out--thousands of miles, this is--that he will reach some sort of lawless paradise there, out over the sea."

Larsa frowned. "Do they believe in this, still?"

"Most of them do not, I suspect," said Basch. "I do, however, believe that they wish to believe."

"Ah," Larsa said, slowly. He picked up his pen again and spun it about in his fingers. "So to 'ride the sky'..."

"It is a powerful gesture of trust," Basch said. "Once the ship's magicite core is spent, there is no other way to stay aloft but to ride the sky, as it were. As my friend would have it, it takes perfect faith to allow the sky to take your ship thus, knowing that there is no way back, and no way home."

For a long moment Larsa was quiet, watching the pen in his fingers spin. "Do you think I insulted him, then?" he eventually asked. "Perhaps I did not accept his gesture of trust with as much respect as I ought."

"I do not know," Basch said. He glanced towards the bolted door, then shook his head. "I do not believe so."

"I just wish I knew," Larsa said, abruptly gripping his pen in both fists. The plume groaned. It snapped in two a moment later, showering Larsa's hands and the papers on his desk with fat spots of grayish ink. "I would give so much to simply know that anything I do is right. It seems that I can be certain of so little." Larsa dropped the halves of the ruined pen with a grimace of distaste. "If only I knew how my brother had done it, all those years of perfect certainty--alas, if I understood his method surely I would also repeat his madness. So I suppose I must muddle on through all this uncertainty and hope for the best."

"Excellency," Basch said, and stopped. His gauntleted hand rose slowly and hesitated a moment before falling to Larsa's shoulder. "Know this: for you I, also, would ride the sky."

Larsa rubbed his hands together, smearing the ink, not looking up. "For the memory of your brother, you mean," he said, with a moment of uncharacteristic bitterness.

"No," Basch said. His hand tightened. "Hear me."

"Do they ever come back," Larsa said, his voice a shadow of itself. It was not precisely a question. After a moment he closed his eyes, and swallowed, and spoke again, more normally. "The pirates who seek their paradise. Do they ever come back?"

"Never," said Basch. "And yet still they ride the sky."

"And drown in the ocean," Larsa said. "You would drown for me, then."

"If such was my duty, I would."

Larsa was silent; Basch was still. "Your perfect devotion to duty puts far too much pressure on me," Larsa said, shrugging off Basch's hand and standing up. "I despair of ever being a ruler capable of deserving such service. Thus I despair of myself." His voice was small, sad, empty. "Almost I should wish to have this mighty pressure lifted from me, Judge Magister." And before Basch could reply Larsa was gone, the door to his bedchamber closing, the room still echoing from the rapid retreat of his footsteps.