The smile Balthier gives him is kind, but also sad, and without the veneer of his usual facade. It's utterly unlike him, and somehow seems a hundred times more real than any other moment he's ever shared with Jack. He seems profoundly tired, with eyes that speak of eons, even with how strangely young he seems when he's quiet.

"Long ago, I killed a young man in the Imperial city. All his sins and virtues, the whole of his history, were left up there in that golden palace. It doesn't matter that his grave is empty; no one is ever going to look. He isn't ever coming back. Not even the gods can resurrect the dead if they've no will to return to their lives."

Silence, then, as he breaks in his story to continue eating, just for a moment. "It's a facade, you see," and he picks up his wine glass, looking at Jack again. "An outlaw with manners. It's theater. People are charmed and entranced by the romanticism of it, this pirate who could be an actor. And with how damn good at either I am - what's the difference?"