Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was nothing out of the ordinary about Fullmetal requesting Mustang's authorization for a project.

In fact, it was the basis for their relationship.

There wasn't anything out of the ordinary about Alphonse being the one making the call for that request.

Dealing with the fallout of Edward's shenanigans was the basis for their relationship.

It was completely out of the ordinary for either Elric brother, who both identified as agnostic, with Edward's lack of faith being so strong as to make him openly opposed to the very idea of organized religions, to request Mustang's authorization to officially declare the Fullmetal Alchemist of no affiliation to the divine.

"I'm sorry, Alphonse. I know I keep asking you to repeat yourself, but… what?!"

"They won't let Brother or I leave because they're convinced demons will get them if they do."

Alphonse's voice was shaking – not with anger, but incredulity at their current situation.

"The demons… in their septic pond?"

"It's a bog, Colonel."

"A bog they dropped refuse into."

Roy let himself enjoy the moment of pride at Alphonse's reluctant silence.

"Would you please just send someone? I can't stay away for long, they only let me come into town because I offered to get them medicine and food."

Roy finally let out the laugh he'd been holding in since the beginning of the conversation.

"All right, Alphonse. Give me directions to this camp and the lieutenant and I will be there first thing in the morning."

"Thank you, Colonel Mustang."

The line went dead with an impromptu click and Roy lowered the phone to its cradle, trying and failing to wipe the disbelieving grin off his face by dragging his hand over his eyes. When he turned to where Hawkeye was standing by his desk, he didn't bother to hold in his laughter at the expression on her face. She looked like she was contemplating slapping him to determine if this was a dream or not.

"Sir? What…?"

"Call the team in here," Mustang said once he'd caught his breath, wiping tears from his eyes. "You're gonna wanna sit down for this."

XXX

Edward hadn't thought much about the call for help when he heard it. It didn't have anything to do with the Philosopher's Stone, but they had finished the project review Mustang had sent them to look over in less than a day, and they'd been given four.

They said curiosity killed the cat, and though Edward would never reveal it, his mother used to call him her "feisty kitten."

The man had come to the town, his Cretan accent thick and his hand holding what little money his family had, begging for either a doctor or a priest. Edward had tried to ignore the way his heart had twisted at the sight as he spooned honeyed oatmeal into his mouth outside the café he and Al had been having breakfast at, but he hadn't been able to ignore the way his brother looked at him with those empty holes where eyes should be.

They both knew there was no doctor who would take such a measly sum, and though it wasn't impossible, it was unlikely there were any religious leaders confident enough to announce their professions in such a public place.

This was Amestris, after all.

Edward sighed dramatically and picked up his bowl, tipping his head back, and opening his mouth to all but drop the remaining oatmeal directly down his throat.

Then he'd choked and the man had whirled around at the terrible sound Ed made as his brother slammed a leather palm between his shoulder blades.

"Excuse me, sir, but do you need help?"

The man had run up to them so quickly that Edward had choked again and Alphonse had had to hit him again. The man looked Al up and down, the salt-and-pepper hair on his face showing his age, and thrust the handful of coins beneath Al's non-existent nose.

"You doctor?"

"Um –"

"You priest?"

"Not exactly –"

"We're alchemists, Gramps," Edward spluttered out after punching himself in the chest to knock the last glob of oatmeal out of his throat. "We're better'n both. Wha'dd'ya need?"

The man grabbed Alphonse's empty glove with a strength Edward knew would have hurt if his brother had had bones.

"My grandson… he has demon in him."

XXX

The smell of rotten eggs was cloying but not necessarily unpleasant.

Edward had grown up in a farming town, so where a city person might find the smell of rotting manure to be nauseating, it filled Ed's mind of memories of fried bread at festivals and his breath frosting in front of him as he walked to school on a chilly spring morning. As if in answer to his thoughts, a chestnut gelding swung his head out from behind one of the many wagons stationed around what looked to be a cook fire, whinnying to himself as he flicked away flies with his ears.

The man's son, the patient's father, spoke better Amestrian than the man did, and was quick to explain the situation, his expression something between concerned and apologetic.

"My family stopped here to rest and collect supplies for a few days, what with Athelney being nearby and letting us in." The man paused, awkwardness coming off him in waves. "People like my family aren't usually welcome in towns."

Alphonse tipped his helmet to the side.

"Cretans?"

"Nomads," the man explained, and it was then that Edward recognized the layout of their wagon.

It was common to see caravans of tarp-covered wagons on roads, especially around towns that couldn't be accessed by train, like Athelney. Edward remembered the excitement that would fill him when wagons would come to Risembool. They were often peddlers and entertainers, selling toys and sweets and stories from places where no one had ever been, sometimes places Edward had never heard of.

Edward opened his mouth to ask the man what it was his family did for a living when he heard high-pitched laughter, then closed his eyes when a naked boy, his hair wet and sudsy with soap, ran in front of him. Alphonse made a noise of surprise and covered his helmet with his arm.

A woman, presumably the boy's mother, ran after him, finally catching him when he stopped to stare are Alphonse's hulking frame. She wrapped him in a well-worn blanket and lifted him into her arms.

She looked up from her son and saw her husband, her eyes glowed with hope and relief – hope and relief that was burned away by horrified despair when she saw the child and the metal creature he had brought.

"Laurin… what…"

The woman's eyes lingered on Alphonse and she took a step away, holding her son close to her.

Edward pulled his rage at her reaction into his fist and curled his fingers so tightly he could feel his nails through his glove.

"They say they're alchemists, Rivka," Laurin said and the woman's eyes softened.

"Amestrian alchemists? What can they do?"

"We heard someone was sick," Alphonse said at the same time Edward said, "I heard somethin' 'bout a demon."

Rivka nodded, her posture still wary but concern outweighing her fear. She glanced at Edward doubtfully and Edward, figuring it was because of his age, gave her the smile and wink he had seen Mustang give women when they seemed uneasy. It seemed to work because she smiled at him and started bouncing her toddler, who cooed and started chewing on the corner of the blanket.

"Yes. We came here a little over a week ago to sell tin. This was as close as they would let us be."

Alphonse made a noise of sympathy. An idea struck Edward as the rotten-egg smell grew stronger as the wind changed and anger began to rise in him, this time for her rather than because.

"We saw the lights first," she continued, pulling the blanket out of her son's mouth. "Not an hour later, Jason started crying. He was feverish and shaking through the night. Then the sun came up, the lights left, and he was fine."

Edward and Alphonse shared a glance.

"So… he's not sick anymore?" Edward asked.

Rivka shook her head.

"The next night, the lights came back and so did his fever."

"I've never seen anything like it," Laurin said, his eyes round with fright. "It's like… fire but without smoke. My father said that it's a fè – a spirit. We've angered it by camping in its home, so it has punished Jason with fever."

Ed fought the urge to roll his eyes.

"So why don't you just leave?" Edward asked, hoping there was an unknown reason and not that these people were all as gullible as the grandfather.

The woman frowned and glanced at the nearest wagon. Alphonse understood first.

"Who else is sick?"

"His sister," Rivka said, bouncing her son when he started to fuss. "We were going to leave as soon as Jason's fever broke, but before it did, Florina started shaking." Terror shadowed her gaze and she shook her head, as if denying her family's circumstances might make them improve. "As soon as he stops, she starts, and back again. We've been waiting here for… we've been waiting for it to stop or change, but…"

As Rivka spoke, Laurin went to the wagon, placing his foot on the stepping block and climbing into the back. In the shadow of the tarp, Edward saw the man pick something up. Whatever it was flailed and Laurin's frame started oscillating, rocking back and forth on his haunches.

"I always thought spirits were just stories," Rivka said, following Ed's gaze to her husband.

"What about Athelney's doctor?" Alphonse asked, bringing Edward and Rivka's attention back. "I know they have one. The clinic is right next to the inn. They have to have something for fever."

Rivka's expression turned dark, something almost like hatred clouding her eyes. Her face was fairly pretty and that particular emotion looked ugly on her.

"The general store welcomed us. That's more than most towns will do for my people. Our fathers have been going into the town for days, begging for help. You are the only ones who even bothered to talk to him."

Edward understood before Alphonse did and the anger from before surged forward as his previous suspicions became more likely.

"So that smell," Edward started and Rivka nodded, the ugliness growing.

"This was the closest place to running water we could find that wasn't claimed as private property."

"Running water that no one wants," Ed grumbled as Alphonse said, "Oh, no," then, "You haven't been –"

"Gods, no!" Amusement replaced the hatred in the woman's eyes. Edward was glad to see it go. "We get water from upstream of the pipes."

"Even so, camping next to a… well, that would make anyone sick."

Edward's own anger was dimmed by a spark of affection for his brother and his clumsy attempt at delicacy.

"My family is used to this," Rivka ushered them, her amused expression shifting to something more patronizing. "We know what to avoid and how to avoid it."

Edward glanced to the wagon. Laurin had turned, giving Ed a good look at the girl in his arms. She was indeed shaking, so much so that if he hadn't known better, he would have thought the man was throttling his daughter.

No wonder they were afraid to travel, he thought, internally shuddering at the idea of what the instability of a moving wagon would do to a body already so fragile.

"Where is this demon?" Alphonse asked, reminding Edward why they were there in the first place.

"It only comes out at night," Rivka said, her joviality dampening. Her son, Jason, started fussing, and she began bouncing him in her arms. "It rises from pond downstream of the pipes. When we first saw it, we tried to get closer – well, as close as we could without going too deep in the water – to see what it was. When Florina got sick after Jason, my father-in-law said it was a fè and tried to calm it with an offering of food." Her frown deepened. "The lights jumped high and we thought it was happy… but now I'm wondering if we just made it angrier."

Edward glanced at the sky. It was noon now and it had taken them since mid-morning to reach the camp.

"Well, there's no point in hangin' around here if it ain't here…" He turned to his brother. "Hey, Al, how 'bout we go into town and get the doc to come out here?"

Alphonse's armor creaked as he tilted his helmet.

"But she said the doctor wouldn't see them… 'cause they're Cretans an' all."

Edward shot his brother his signature grin and reached into his pocket, pulling out his silver watch. He guessed by the way Rivka's brow furrowed that she didn't understand the significance of the adornment.

"Don't worry, ma'am. We alchemists can be very… persuasive."

XXX

"Look, it's not my orders, it's Lieutenant Colonel Max Holt's," the doctor said, though his tone of voice suggested that didn't disagree with the town's leader. "Foreigners and refugees are forbidden from taking lodgings in town and the only store that has permission to serve them is Old Emmett down at the general store. You got a problem with it, go to Town Hall and take it up with Max."

Edward's face curled as if he had smelled something unpleasant.

"Look, I'm not just anyone. I'm a State Alchemist under Colonel Roy Mustang. If you get in trouble for this, tell them I ordered you to, and if they come after me, I'll just send someone after Mustang."

"I don't think it works that way, Brother," Alphonse said at the same time the pharmacist behind the counter made a chuffing noise of disbelief.

"Look, kid," and Edward's annoyance bloomed into fury, "Holt made the rule for a reason. Those travelers pick up some good wares, but they also pick up a whole lotta diseases, too. Did ya hear about what happened to that one town… what was it… Rice… Rizz… Rizpool?"

"Risembool," Alphonse corrected the man with a gravity that ironically flew directly over his balding head.

The pharmacist made a snapping gesture with his fingers.

"Yeah, that one. They let everyone an' their mama go traipsing through there, and fever spread through the place like wildfire. I don't think they even figured out which color, they died so quickly." The man leaned forward, his conspiratorial smirk misunderstanding the meta horror on Edward' face for revelation. "But between you and me, my money's on yellow."

Edward's arm twitched and Alphonse managed to press his brother's shoulder down before Ed could lift his arm for the punch he had been planning.

"See, my point is, if the foreigners are sick, it just shows that Holt was right. I mean, I mean no offense to them, it's not their fault, but things are what they are."

"What about the general store guy?" Alphonse asked since Edward was too enraged to speak. "Why isn't he offered the same protection?"

The pharmacist shrugged.

"Well, he's Old Emmett, not Young Emmett. Most of his life's behind him at this point, and besides, I heard the tin he bought off them is really good quality. It would be a waste to not have at least some contact with them."

"Well," Alphonse paused and Edward's anger was calmed by validation when he realized by the slight tremor in the armor that it was so Al could collect his own ire before continuing, "what if we described their symptoms and you sold us the medicine you think would help?"

The pharmacist thought about this for a mere second before shrugging.

"Money's money."

"But I guess people ain't people, huh?" Edward huffed under his breath, which earned him an offended stare from the pharmacist and a scolding, "Brother," from Alphonse.

XXX

Laurin accepted the brown bottle as if it was some kind of demon-deterrent.

"It's just some fever-reducer," Alphonse said. "I don't think it'll cure anything, but it should help. Oh, no, don't worry about it," Al said when Laurin reached for the purse hooked to his belt, "it wasn't that expensive."

Over the pervading stench of sulfur, Ed caught the smell of meat roasting and onions frying. It was midafternoon at this point, a whole half day since he had last eaten, and his mouth filled with spit as his stomach grumbled jealously.

He was distracted from his hunger by the sound of girl laughing. One of the horses, a gray mare, tossed her head and neighed in response.

He turned his head towards the sound of the laughter and shrieked in horror as a naked girl, her hair wet and sudsy with soap, ran out from behind one of the wagons. Alphonse cried out and slapped a gauntlet over his helmet with such force he nearly knocked it free.

"Florina, get back here!" Rivka's voice shouted.

"I take it she's feeling better," Edward said, his eyes closed and his head turned away.

"Yes," Laurin said, though he didn't sound happy. "Now it's Jason's turn."

Edward opened his eyes and turned to Laurin, tapping his brother to let him know it was safe to look. Rivka had caught her daughter and wrapped the girl in the same blanket from before.

"You still have soap on you. I need to dunk you one more time," the woman said, carrying the girl back where she came from. Florina managed to haul herself above her mother's shoulder and saw the brothers. Al waved at her and she smiled at him. Her smile grew when her eyes landed on Edward.

"Pretty!" she shouted, wrestling a hand free and pointing at Edward. Laurin laughed, then abruptly stopped when the girl elaborated, "Pretty yellow! Pretty like the lights!"

Edward felt his face heat as Al giggled.

XXX

Edward whistled as he turned the small tin horse in his hands, studying the details of the molding, the intricacy of the painting. It was an almost exact replica of the gelding, who was cropping the grass in the makeshift pasture.

"Eab," Florina told Edward the horse's name when Ed had fed the animal an apple he'd swiped from the diner that morning. "Means 'mud.' 'Cause he looks muddy."

"This is good quality tin. That quack might be an ass, but he's not a liar – ow!"

The old woman stirring the pot of boiling stew had slapped his ear and said something in Cretan.

"'No swearing around my granddaughter,"' Rivka translated unnecessarily. She was sitting behind Florina, combing the girl's freshly cleaned hair with a wooden comb as Florina ran her hands through Edward's golden hair as Edward perused the family's wares of tin.

"She doesn't know common Amestrian but she knows 'ass'?! – ow!"

The older woman babbled at Edward with a fierceness that reminded him of Pinako, pulling the long wooden spoon out of the pot to point it threateningly at him. Edward rubbed at his twice-cuffed ear, wincing when Florina bunched up his hair and yanked.

"Keep going, Brother. Maybe she'll actually knock some sense into you."

Rivka repeated Al's words in Cretan and the old woman laughed, a croaking sound like a chorus of frogs, and grabbed a wooden bowl from a stack beside the pot. She scooped three spoonfuls into the bowl and thrust it Alphonse, chattering excitedly.

"Oh," Al said, hesitantly taking the bowl from her wrinkled hands. "Thank you." He glanced at his brother, who stared at him pleadingly, then shrugged apologetically. He lifted the spoon to his helmet, lifting that too, and dropped the contents of the spoon through the space he created.

Edward winced from more than Florina's fingers. That was going to be hell to clean later.

He forgot about the problems of the future when the girl's grandmother shoved a full bowl under his nose.

XXX

By the time the sun was setting, Edward had eaten three bowls of stew and Alphonse had splattered his across the inside of his armor.

It didn't pass Ed how the older members of the clan stared at the sky, watching the sun lower, bruise and flatten, then disappear entirely with an air that could only be described as dread.

When the first star appeared in the sky, the two older men went to the cooking fire, reaching over the coals and lifting the iron pot by its handle with a strength that belied their age. Edward watched curiously as they clumsily carried the remains of the supper away, questions forming his mind that were answered by Florina's cry of excitement.

"Lights are here! Time for fè!"

She abandoned Edward's hair, which she had tangled into knots that would take ages for him to undo, and ran after her grandfathers, her mirth the antithesis of their serious procession. Ed and Al glanced at each other, then got up from where they'd been sitting by the fire and followed the three of them.

Rivka remained behind, her expression worried and conflicted.

The rotten egg smell grew stronger and stronger, until Ed's rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia shattered and the smell nearly had him gagging. By the time they reached the cesspool, it was so dark that Edward would have walked into it if the men he was following didn't stop first.

The two men started talking to empty air, not quite a prayer but a clear supplication, and Edward realized what they were doing when they hefted the pot over their shoulders and dumped the remaining stew into the water.

They were offering the demon of the bog food in exchange for the children's health.

Florina danced around her grandfathers, giggling and bouncing.

"Lights! Lights!"

Edward's right arm didn't have any feeling, so he didn't know the girl was pulling on his hand until she pulled hard enough to strain the bolts in his port. She pointed excitedly at the murky water, her white teeth shining in the night.

"Fè!"

Edward followed her finger and knew that if the grandmother had been there, she would have smacked him hard enough to bruise for the words that came out of his mouth.

Balls of golden light were dancing just above the surface of the water, so faint that Ed hadn't noticed them until Florina had pointed them out. They floated lazily, appearing, rising, then disappearing or falling back towards the water. As he watched, the ripples from the deposited stew reached the deepest point of the pond, and the balls sparked into licks of flame, lashing high and bright enough to make a reflection in the steel of Al's armor.

Al himself watched in silence, something almost like reverence emanating from him.

"Al."

"Yeah," was all his brother said.

The flames were quiet, the only sounds the slosh of water and the chirping of frogs, the buzzing of insects in the balmy summer night. One such insect landed on Ed's face. He didn't manage to slap it away before the sharp sting of a bite pricked his cheek.

"Hm?" Al was too mesmerized to form a proper sentence.

"Damn mosquitos."

"Hm."

After a few minutes, Edward sensed himself becoming bored, despite his fascination.

"Does it do anything else?" he asked one of the grandfathers, who must have understood his question well enough to give a confident shake of the head.

"Bouncy lights!"

Florina, being younger and so being much more easily entertained, started raising and lowering her arms in tandem with glowing balls.

It looked like she was conducting them, Ed thought ruefully. Her grandfather must have thought so as well because he snapped something at her in Cretan and her arms dropped, her bottom lip jutting out in a pout.

"I mean, it's cool an' all, but I don't see how it could be dangerous."

"Hm," Alphonse hummed in agreement, then, with the nonchalance of a scholar quoting a text – which, Ed realized in the next few minutes, he was – he said, "I think I know what this is."

Edward was glad it was dark. He wouldn't have wanted his brother to see his expression of unadulterated envy and reluctant impression. He was the older one, coming up with ideas was supposed to be his job.

Instead of saying this, Ed simply asked, "Oh, yeah? Whaddya think?"

"I think," Alphonse said, slow with caution, "that we're looking at a wisp."

"A wisp?" Ed repeated.

"Wisp!" Florina crowed gleefully, happy that her friend finally had a name. "Wisp! Wisp!"

She looked up at Alphonse with new respect.

"Boy or girl wisp?"

He laughed at her question and bent his knees to both rest his gauntlet on her head and to get a better look at the bobbing lights. His leather hand was gargantuan compared to the girl's skull.

"If I remember correctly, the redder ones are boys and the bluer ones are girls."

"This is yellow," Edward pointed out the conundrum, then walked along the bank of the pool, studying the way the light shifted. "It looks a little green over here, so…"

"Blue and yellow for green!" Florina exclaimed. "Girl wisp." She paused for a moment in thought hard. "Illa," she declared seriously. "Illa the wisp. Like Gramma."

Alphonse petted soft hair he couldn't feel.

"That's a very good name."

He stood as his brother came back to his side, his fingers on his chin as they always were when he was thinking hard about something.

"All right. So I'm gonna guess it's not really demon, is it?"

"No," Alphonse confirmed. Florina had either not heard him or was ignoring him, waving in greeting at the swaying balls of light.

"Hi, Illa! Hi!"

Her grandfather shouted at her again and her arms dropped again.

"But people thought they were," Al went on. "I read a book about fairy tales while you were sleeping –"

Edward's face twisted in something that wasn't quite disgust.

"Why were you readin' that?"

"The origins of fairy tales," Alphonse said, his tone warning his brother not to interrupt again. "People used to think that annoying things were caused by spirits of mischief. Fairies."

Florina frowned at him.

"Fè," she corrected him.

"Yes, fè," he was quick to agree with her.

Edward shrugged.

"Probably the Cretan word for 'fairy.'"

"Anyway, before they had science to know about things like germs, they thought fairies caused all sorts of problems. Like, if your milk soured, it was because you didn't hide it well enough from the fairies. Or if you got a cold, it was because there was a fairy up your nose."

Edward snorted at the mental image.

"And this is?"

"Ya know how in the city, they're all about gas?"

Edward snorted again.

"Sure. Place stinks."

"Natural gas, Brother."

"Yeah. And?"

Al sighed.

"They've started digging into the ground to get to the layer where a bunch of dead and rotting things have been sitting under pressure for a long time. The rotting makes gas and the pressure from all the ground on top makes it strong, like a diamonds. They're pumping the gas out of the ground and taking it to people's homes so that they can use it for cooking and heating. It's way cheaper and easier than burning wood or coal."

"Oh, yeah. I heard about somethin' like that on the radio. Some guy turned on his stove but didn't light it. His house filled up with that stuff – natural gas. He died."

Alphonse was quiet for a moment.

"Dark."

Ed shrugged.

"So, what's that got to do with fairies?"

"Well, lots of things live in water. And get put in water. When those things rot, they make gas. The gas gets caught under the water and the water's weight puts it under pressure, so by the time the gas bubbles get to the surface, they're really strong. The bubbles pop, the gas is released, and reacts to the oxygen in the air."

"And the energy made by the reaction takes the form of light," Edward finished his brother's explanation.

"Huh uh. But back then, people didn't know what they were, so they would try to get closer to it to see what it was. Since you can only see wisps at night, the people wouldn't see the water until it was too late. Wisps usually only happen when the water is really thick, like swamps, so once the folks fell in, they couldn't get back out. They would sink into the swamp and drown."

Edward was quiet for a moment.

"Dark."

"Yeah. The people who got out told everyone else about how the lights lead you to your death. So, naturally, they told their kids scary stories about the lights so they would stay away."

"I'd call it stupid, but if the alternative is walking into a pond of rotting garbage, I prefer a ghost story."

Ed was distracted momentarily by the buzz and bite of another mosquito, which he slapped just like the one before it.

"So… I'm gonna guess swamp gas probably doesn't have anything to do with why the kids keep getting sick."

Alphonse's helmet creaked as he shook it.

"It's harmless. It might be flammable, but it's not hot. There isn't enough gas or pressure to make a real fire, like with a gas stove. It's just light, like the static sparks you get when you rub cotton together."

Florina yawned and leaned against Al's sabatons. One of her grandfathers came over and bundled her in his arms. Edward glanced at his brother questioningly.

"Do you think they would understand if we explained it to them?"

Alphonse thought about this, then shook his helmet again.

"Maybe, but if they don't, we'll have to get Laurin or Rivka to translate. We should wait until we get back to the camp."

Edward hummed, considering. He came to a decision, balling his left hand into a fist and punching it into the palm of his automail to pop his knuckles.

"Or… if we can't tell them… maybe we could show them."

"Huh?" Alphonse looked away from the fè lights long enough to see his brother move behind him, sprinting around him and Florina and her grandfathers to other side of the pond, closer to where the lights were bubbling up from beneath the water.

He paused there, contemplating his next step.

"Hey, Al! What is it made out of, d'ya think?"

Alphonse wasn't quite sure what to think. Neither did the grandfathers, judging by they way they were speaking to each other and waving at Ed, as if they were calling him back.

"Um… Sulfur, phosphorous, methane, and oxygen. Why?"

Al's question was answered by Edward pulling his white gloves off and sticking them in one of the pockets of his pants, then raising his arms to clap his hands together.

"Wait, Brother. I'm not sure that's a good idea –"

"Don't worry, Al. You said it was a cold fire, right?"

Edward put his hands together with a clap, the ringing sound of alchemy mingling with the song of insects and frogs. Florina's grandfathers took a few steps backward, muttering to each other. The one closest to the girl reached for and pulled her towards him.

Edward kneeled onto the balls of his feet and stuck the tips of his forefingers in the water – the least amount of contact he could manage. The water hissed like a living thing and the man holding his granddaughter's hand pulled the girl into his arms, the other shouting something that sounded fearful.

Alphonse realized Edward was not going to receive the response he expected.

"Brother –"

It was too late.

The bog bubbled, the water shifting as the gases beneath were forced upwards as Ed shoved water beneath and around them. With each burst of the surface, yellow, green, and blue streaks of flame flickered into life, ethereal hands reaching for the distant stars before melting futilely into the night air.

Florina and her grandfathers watched in awed horror, the colors of the fire lighting up their faces and reflecting off their eyes.

After a reverent silence that was tense to everyone but Edward, Ed pulled his fingers out of the water and stood up straight, wiping his fingers on his pants with a grimace.

"If you guys got any soap for sale, I'll buy –"

Edward's voice trailed away as he turned to the others and saw the way the way the Cretans were looking at him – something between worshipful and abhorred. Ed saw the worship and acted on that, clapping his hands together as if he was dusting them off.

"Not a big deal. State Alchemists like me do stuff like this every day –"

"Dêwo-gonyos," one of the grandfathers said, so quietly that Edward was only able to make out the vowels.

Edward tilted his head in confusion.

"Wha?"

"Dêwo-gonyos," he said again, louder but no less frightened. "Dêwos-gonyos!"

Whatever the phrase meant, Florina must have understood, because she clung to her grandfather, something that wasn't quite fear on her face. It reminded Ed of the expression his classmates would get when old Farmer Sweet would dress up as Pelznickel the day before Winter Solstice to hand out candies and wooden toys he'd carved. Edward had always known it was just his neighbor in a green cloak, but he had still looked forward to the visit, to the bag of candied plums he'd share with his mother and the toy train Alphonse would play with more than he would.

Edward was broken out of his reverie when the grandfather who was not holding Florina dropped to his knees, the meaning of the position obvious. The mortification that rose into his throat made him feel sick.

"No, no, this isn't – it's alchemy. Science! I'm not – please get up."

The man did get up.

He got up and started walking towards Edward as if to embrace him.

Or capture him.

Edward started backing away as the man stepped towards him.

"Um, Al? Al, what do I do?!"

Alphonse glanced between the two of them.

"Um, sir… you're scaring my brother –"

Edward stopped walking to glare at his brother.

"I ain't scared!"

This was a lie and a mistake.

The man leapt forward and grabbed Ed's arms. He startled when he felt the coolness of Edward's automail. He studied it, running his fingers along the cool metal that glinted in the starlight.

"Tha na diathan còmhla rinn."

The words sounded dangerously like a prayer. Edward tried to pull his hands away, but just as with the pot, which was still sitting, forgotten, at the edge of the bog, the old man was much stronger than he looked. As if truly prove this point, the grandfather started pulling him forcefully but not painfully back the way they had come, back towards the camp.

"Knew it!" Florina said breathlessly as she saw the shine of his metal arm, her astonishment blooming into delight. "Pretty fè! Dêwo-gonyos!"

Edward dug his heels in the ground and pulled back.

"What does that mean? What's a – AH! AL!"

Upon his resistance, the grandfather grabbed Ed under the arms and lifted him as if he weighed nothing, holding the boy in front of himself as if he was presenting Edward to some invisible overlord.

Alphonse burst into motion, jumping in front the man with such speed his brother nearly broke his nose on his breastplate.

"Hey! Hey, what're you –"

"Dêwo-gonyos?"

Alphonse froze, his brother's terrified eyes burning into his blood seal. Being the typically wiser one, Al decided to learn from Edward's mistakes. He reached out and placed his gauntlets under the man's hands, hoping the message was clear.

"Um… sure, why not? Can I please have him back?"

The grandfather's support vanished and Edward slid into his brother's grasp with an oomph. The man kept walking back to the camp, motioning excitedly for Alphonse to follow.

"Dêwo-gonyos! Moladh!"

The other grandfather passed them, Florina now on the ground and running circles around him.

"Moladh! Moladh!"

Not knowing what else to do, Alphonse began following them obediently, still holding his brother under the arms.

"You've really done it this time, Brother."

"Are they gonna eat me?" Edward asked over his shoulder, then before Al could answer, "Oh God, they're gonna eat me."

"If they try, they'll be disappointed. Between your automail and your size, there really isn't much."

Edward mad a squawk of rage and started kicking his feet, hitting Al's breastplate with enough force with his left foot to make Al stumble and again with his right foot with enough force to shut him up with a howl of pain.

Chapter Text

To Alphonse's relief – and Mustang's amusement – Roy, Riza, Breda, and Falman did not find a pile of empty clothes next to Edward-sized gnawed bones when they arrived at the camp outside Athelney.

Havoc had laughed so hard tears had streamed down his face, and then had used what breath he had left to beg the colonel to let him come.

Roy had already been going to say no. Havoc's reaction to just the briefing told him his instincts were correct.

Fuery had stared at the pile of wires scattered over his desk, then looked up at Mustang beseechingly.

Yeah, there wouldn't be much use for an engineer on this mission.

Breda had rolled his eyes, scoffing something about kids and trouble being homonyms, and Falman had looked up from the pile of case files he'd been cataloguing.

"Nomadic Cretans? Did he say the name of their tribe?"

The corner of Roy' mouth twitched in the beginnings of a pleased smile. Leave it to Vato to have the missing pieces of their puzzles.

"He did not. But he did say they were tin merchants."

Falman thought for a moment, staring into empty space as he did.

"If I had to guess… and I am… I would say they've come across a clan of Mehri."

It sounded like "marry," and for a terrible moment, Roy wondered if his major had been taken as a child groombride.

"What do you know of them?" Roy asked instead of the question he wanted to ask.

Falman's answer was "Very little," which was better than nothing, which was what the others said.

Vato's barely existent answer and Breda's barely existent reactions earned them assignment to the task of negotiating for Edward's release.

Breda wrinkled his nose and Falman frowned at the smell as they followed the stream leading from town, per Alphonse's directions. When they reached the cesspool, Falman grimaced and Breda made a sound of disgust.

"They're camping next to this? No wonder they're sick!"

"Breda," Riza said, reminding Heymans of his place.

They walked around the pool, the only sounds the steps of their feet and the slap of swats at flies. Roy's must have missed because the stinging on his cheek signaled that something had gotten through enough to bite him. He slapped his own face and swore.

The wagons came into view not too long after that, the poles and tarps making them tents on wheels. Roy saw Alphonse first, the noon-day sun glinting off the steel of his armor. Al couldn't taste or feel or smell, but his body must have been capable of the sixth sense, because he stood from where he'd been sitting next a large iron pot over a formidable fire.

"Colonel!" Alphonse nearly ran to them, his efforts to keep himself at a walking pace palpable. "Lieutenant Hawkeye," he added to his greeting once he was close enough to see who was with Mustang. "Second Lieutenant Breda. Warrant Officer Falman."

"Alphonse," Falman replied simply.

Breda swatted away more flies.

"Why in the world would anyone make camp here?!"

"Breda," Hawkeye said for the second time, sterner than the first, at the same time Al explained, "First Lieutenant Holt – he's in charge of Athelney – will let them in to trade but won't let them stay at the inn." His empty gauntlets curled into fists. "Not even the doctor will see them."

Riza, who had already been frowning in disapproval at Breda, deepened her frown for a different reason.

"How many are sick?"

"Both of the kids were sick when Brother and I got here. Now Laurin – their dad – he has a fever, too."

Alphonse's demeanor shifted into something more anxious.

"The older ones – I can't figure out their names – they seemed excited when Brother did his alchemy at first, but now they're starting to get frustrated. I'm starting to worry they're starting to think that the dad getting sick is Brother's fault. Like, he made the wisp angry so it cursed another person."

"Where is Edward?"

Riza asked, looking around the camp from where she could see. She saw a woman wearing a white dress peppered with green rhombi. She looked like she was wearing a spread of emeralds. Riza had never been fond of dressing or sewing, but the pattern of the stitching and the vibrancy of the color made her feel jealous, if only slightly.

The woman held a bundle of equally entrancing fabric, and when a tiny hand reached out of the folds, her jealousy turned to sorrow.

She glanced at Roy, the words on the tip of her tongue, and saw them in his face as he watched the woman rock her child, her eyes full of helpless fear as she took in their blue uniforms.

Roy sighed and closed his eyes, pushing the memories of sand and blood and fire (his fire, his fault) back into the deepest dredges of himself where they belonged.

"Falman," he said, not opening his eyes until the warrant officer had moved passed him.

Alphonse watched Vato curiously as he approached Rivka. The woman took several steps backward, but stopped when he stopped, and listened intently as he spoke to her. She said only a few words in one sentence, then looked away from him with an air of finality, but not animosity.

Not for the first time, Roy was impressed with how well a man so soft-spoken could soothe someone with his voice.

Falman returned to the group, his expression as neutral as always.

"Her father and father-in-law are keeping Fullmetal in the wagon with the sick," Falman pointed to the second wagon to the left. "They are trying to see if he can persuade his father into taking away the fever."

No one said anything right away.

Roy said, "I'm sorry?" at the same time Alphonse said, "What?!"

"What did you –"

"I told them the truth," Alphonse asked before Mustang could finish his question. "Our dad left and our mom died when we were little." Then, a bit more reluctantly, "Brother looks a lot more like Dad than Mom."

Falman nodded as if that answered every question in the world.

"As the pattern goes."

"Pattern of what?!" No one berated Breda for his exasperation.

To Mustang and Breda's horror, Falman smiled.

"The pattern of béaloideas – folk legends. They think your father was a dèwos – a 'high spirit,' or god, if you will – which would make you and your brother dèwos-gonyoi – 'kin of the gods.'"

Alphonse made a noise that should have been impossible with an empty body, Breda let out a bark of laughter which ended in a grunt when Hawkeye elbowed him in the ribs, and Mustang's face began to turn red, starting with the high point of his cheeks.

"Cretan culture, especially Mehri culture, is often transactional," Falman continued, ignoring their reactions. "Right now, they're trying to determine which god your father is so that they can make a deal with him in the hopes he might take away the sickness, or maybe make a deal with their goddess of healing on their behalf."

Alphonse asked the question they were all thinking since Mustang and Havoc were too busy trying not to laugh and Hawkeye was too busy reminding them why they shouldn't.

"What kind of deal?"

Falman shrugged.

"Depends on the god. Right now, they're caught between the god of smithing and the god of the sun."

"They think the kid is the son of the sun – ow!"

Hawkeye had moved passed elbowing and had given Breda good smack on the ear.

Falman shrugged again.

"Not necessarily. Being god-kin doesn't necessarily mean direct lineage. It's not at all uncommon for Cretan nobility to claim ancestry from multiple deities, and to prove it through heirlooms and abilities."

"Like getting rid of the wisp," Alphonse said.

"They're also fascinated by his arm – and your…" Falman's voice trailed off. He had never known how, exactly, he was supposed to refer to Alphonse's condition. "Not to mention the color of his eyes and hair."

Mustang lost control for a moment and made a sputtering sound, which he desperately tried to play off as a cough. Hawkeye either fell for it or, more likely, acknowledged his effort and granted him lenience.

"So… what do we do?"

Falman didn't have an answer for that.

"Y'know," piped up Heymans, who's patience wasn't particularly strong to begin with, "we could just… storm the place. Rush in, grab the brat, rush out."

"Please don't," Alphonse said immediately at the same time Riza said, "We are not going to terrorize a family that is already scared enough as it is."

Roy raised a hand for a quiet.

"Fullmetal's detainment is an act of desperation, not violence, and we are not going to instigate any."

The quiet that came after that was long and terrible.

"What kind of demon is Fullmetal supposed to have tamed, Alphonse?" Roy asked, not sure if the question would help but not wanting to endure the awkward silence.

"The wisp? Well, it's not really a wisp. It's swamp gas. The lights are from the gas reacting with the oxygen in the air."

Roy smiled in self-satisfaction, considering that Maes the spymaster would have been impressed, possibly threatened, by Roy's intuitiveness.

"Like fire."

Alphonse's pause was ominous.

"Yeah. Like fire."

Roy's smile grew, and is it did, Riza's suspicions grew with it.

"Sir, please tell me you're not –"

"Everyone, I have an idea."

XXX

Edward didn't see how this was supposed to help.

The elders, as Ed had come to think of them, kept him in the wagon with the sick. The air was stuffy and smelled of sweat. Someone was always shaking, the chattering of their teeth rivaling the droning of the cicadas. The elders would bring food for him and whoever's "turn" it was to shake and sweat, though the only one who ate much of anything was Ed. If it wasn't food they brought, it was trinkets – swirling, circling iconography made of tin and iron, stubby candles that smelled of honey and flowers. Sometimes they would hold them in front of him, chanting some kind of incantation, sometimes the elders would offer the objects to him to hold or work with.

Edward, not at all sure that it was a good idea but not sure what else to do, had taken to adding his own embellishments to the ornaments – putting scales on to the looping circles so that they would be snakes coiling over themselves, adding wings to a pig made of copper. They would always react to his alchemy with excitement and Edward, despite his loose captivity, was more than happy to oblige.

Until these rituals continued throughout the night.

Morning came and went and Ed's eyes itched with exhaustion. Edward would lean back and close his eyes in an attempt to sleep, but the constant comings and goings of the elders with medicine and water and rags and symbols kept him from sliding into anything deeper than a doze. Jason's fever broke and Florina's returned. Her father brought her to the wagon, impressing Edward with his ability to climb onto the wooden platform with his daughter in his arms, and wrapped the girl in blankets that were wet with her brother's sweat.

"I'm sorry," Laurin had said as he stroked his daughter's hair, and it wasn't until he continued speaking that Ed realized the man was speaking to him. "Your brother tried to explain to the others and I tried to translate but…" He looked up from petting Florina and smiled ruefully. "I couldn't find the words and I didn't really understand it myself."

"It's okay," Edward said, and meant it. If their roles were reversed – when they were reversed, they were still reversed – he would do anything for whatever family he had left.

Laurin shook his head, not accepting Ed's acquiescence.

"Even among the smaller tribes like us, Cretan culture leaves the final say to those who've lived the longest… but the longer one lives, the more set in their ways they become."

"That's not necessarily a bad thing," Edward pointed out and Laurin laughed.

"I wish I had your optimism," he said and something inside Edward wriggled in discomfort. "Optimism" and "Fullmetal" were not words that were commonly in the same sentence.

"I suppose you're right. Anyway, once they realize your 'powers' or lineage have no effect on the children, they'll move on to something else." He paused, considering his words. "They may take a token, though."

The fear from before, fear that felt silly now, rose up again and Ed told himself he gripped his shirt to try to relieve some of the stickiness from sweat.

"A… a token?"

Laurin shrugged.

"A bit of hair, a fingernail. Something from you to bring to a shaman. Just because the déwoi don't always answer doesn't mean they shouldn't be acknowledged, and new ones are found every day. Besides, only shamen know how to commune with the fè properly. Most people only know the simplest of summons. If their divining doesn't work, it's probably because whatever message the déwoi are receiving is nonsensical. There's a reason why it takes a lifetime of study to become a shaman."

Edward was reminded of a game he would play in the schoolyard during lunch. The kids would sit in a circle and the one starting the game would whisper a secret into the ear of the one next to them. That one would repeat the secret as best they could to the one next to them, also whispering, and so on, until the circle was complete. The words they ended with were never the same as the ones they began with.

To that day in the hot wagon, surrounded by the whinnying of horses and the sounds of Florina whimpering in her sleep, Edward still didn't know how "hieros gamos" became "air from anus."

He could still feel the rap of the teacher's switch on his knuckles, despite his protestations that was not what he had said.

Edward sighed and put raised his arms, putting his hands behind his head.

"Well, if they get the wrong message, I guess the worst thing that could happen is getting sent a lifetime's supply of beans."

The confused look on Laurin's face had him laughing so hard Florina nearly woke, pressing her shaking body against her father's chest and whining in annoyance.

An hour after that, Laurin started shaking, too.

XXX

Edward woke to the sound of his name and a small, overly warm body on his chest.

His neck was stiff from sleeping against the wood paneling and his stomach growled emptily. He heard his name again, whispered and urgent, and the smell of bread and butter had him turning his head.

Ed nearly bit off his brother's gauntlet as he snatched the buttered roll out of it with his teeth.

"Are you okay, Brother?"

Edward wrestled his arms out from under Florina, who must have crawled onto his lap after he'd dozed off, pulling the bread from his mouth, leaving a chunk behind his teeth.

"D'n't w'rry 'bout me. L'rin n'ds m'ds."

Alphonse stared unblinkingly. Edward swallowed the lump of wet bread in his mouth with less difficulty than he'd expected.

"Laurin's got it, too."

"I heard," Alphonse said, then, as an afterthought that really should have been a forethought, "The colonel's here."

Edward nearly leapt to his feet, only managing to stop himself when the beginning of his shifting caused Florina to whimper and fist his shirt.

"He's not, like… being all military, is he?"

"If you're asking if he's arresting them, the answer is no," Alphonse said, glancing towards somewhere behind him. "He is convincing them he's better than you, though."

"What?!"

Edward couldn't stop his squeal of confused indignation, nearly choking on his bread, and Florina lifted her head, making a sound like a hiccup and squinting shakily at Alphonse.

"Hey, Flo," Al said, his voice so soft his words were almost lost in the echoes of his armor. "Is Brother taking care of you?"

Florina's answer was to close her eyes and bury her sweaty face in Edward's stomach. Ed stuffed the remains of the bread in his mouth before any of the butter could slip into the girl's hair.

XXX

They all had misgivings, but Riza was the only one who voiced them.

"They're gnostics, not fools. We should at least try to meet them halfway before we consider tricking them."

"We're not tricking them," Roy said, perhaps too flippantly for her liking because her frown only deepened, "we're going to first try to explain to them in a way they can understand, and if that doesn't work, we'll trick them."

Riza's expression told him that she doubted there was a difference but said nothing for lack of a better idea. Even so, Roy intended to mean what he said, so when he led their small band into the Mehri camp and requested an audience with their leader – Alphonse made a chittering kind of laughter at this, though Roy didn't know why – he had the young woman, Rivka, act as translator as he did his best to succeed where Edward had failed.

"We are specially trained for this, Full – Edward, especially," Roy said to the old man, who did his best to give Roy the respectful amount of attention but looking at Rivka whenever Roy paused to turn Roy's Amestrian into their dialect of Cretan. "This is the result of talent, not some divine gift. I can demonstrate for you, if you would like."

The man said nothing, simply tilted his head curiously and watched patiently. Roy took his silence for permission and raised his hand, ignition gloves already in place, and snapped.

XXX

Edward surprised himself by feeling, not relief, but jealousy, as Roy Mustang approached with hails of "Dêwo-gonyos!" close behind him, a ball of flame dancing in his palm.

"Hello, Fullmetal," he said, extinguishing the fire with a flick of his wrist, placing his hands on the bed of the wagon and pushing himself up, lounging on the edge while propping himself by the arm.

Whatever sly words he was going to pair with his sly smirk faded when he saw the father and daughter beside Edward, trembling hard enough to make the boards of the wagon shake with them. Ed didn't know why, but he found himself placing an arm around the girl in his lap, pulling her closer.

"I see," Roy said, as if Edward had said something, then continued with, "The doctor in town won't treat them?"

Edward's nose wrinkled at the mere thought of the man.

"Says the guy in charge's banned outsiders."

Roy raised a brow at that.

"Has he? Well, we'll see about that." He looked over his shoulder at someone Ed couldn't see. "Second lieutenant, please request these good people to prepare one of their fine wagons? We're taking them into town and I don't feel like walking."

Edward's spine, stiff from sitting against the wood for so long, stiffened further.

"Havoc's here?!"

The look Roy gave him was so self-gratifying that Ed wanted to rip the man's face off his skull. Ed forgave him when Roy clarified, "Breda. Havoc volunteered, so logically, I grounded him to base."

Edward's sigh of relief was quickly sucked back as Mustang flaunted his bloated ego.

"Thank God, right? Which in this scenario, would be us. More specifically, me. They've asked for a clipping of my hair. It's a rather unorthodox form of autography, but –"

Edward slapped his palms together, then slapped the wooden boards beneath him. Roy's train of thought completely derailed as the surface upon which he'd been propping himself by vanished, sending his arm falling through the wagon bed. His head slammed into sanded wood and Roy shouted a word that had Florina and Laurin jolting awake.

When Rivka's father came to the wagon to assess the status of its occupants, he was not at all surprised to find the son of fire and the son of crafting barking insults at each other.

In the béaloideas, such rivalry amongst god-children was only natural.

XXX

The amount of people who came out to stare at them was enough to make Edward self-conscious. But when Lieutenant Colonel Holt came running out of the tiny house Athelney called its City Hall, shouting demands for the "dirty diseased savages to get out of his town," the way his eyes focused on Colonel Mustang said that the wagon and horse were as good as invisible to him.

"Hello, Holt," Mustang said with the nuance of a man who was greeting a familiar colleague as he climbed from the wagon's seat. "We need to borrow your doctor. I'm sure you don't have a problem with that."

Holt's cheeks bulged almost as much as his eyes, his mouth full of words he didn't dare say to a commanding officer. Those eyes travelled from the colonel's face to his hands, hidden beneath signature white cloth, the red fury bleaching into terrified white. Like the coward he was, he turned his aggression to the elderly woman still on the seat and holding the reigns in her wrinkled hands. She looked back at him steadily, a confidence in her posture that was rarely seen outside of her clan, and his own confidence returned in full.

"You…" Holt started to say, his voice gurgling in his throat.

Roy crossed his arms and raised a brow, stepping into the man's line of sight, the old woman disappearing behind Roy's head.

"Oh, no. You're dealing with me." Roy turned just enough to show the stars on his shoulder marking his rank. "Go to your clinic and tell them the State is in need of his services. That is an order."

Holt swallowed and flexed his hands, as if he thought he could catch words out of the air.

"You… you don't understand," Holt said, his voice at least two octaves higher than before. "These people, they come here and bring their problems with them, and then we have to deal with them, too –"

"Which is why I am telling you to get your doctor. These people," Mustang's disgust at the phrase was nearly palpable, "need medicine. Once they have it, they'll be on the road, and so will their problems."

Somewhere behind him, there was the sound of thunking knees and scurrying feet, an indignant sound from Hawkeye from her place in the wagon. Holt's attention drifted but Roy made a clicking sound with his tongue to remind the lieutenant colonel who he was talking to. As soon as Holt's eyes were back where they belonged, Roy made a show of adjusting his gloves, letting the red stitching on the shine in the afternoon light.

"I don't like to be kept waiting, Lieutenant Colonel. I'm sure you've heard about how things are at Headquarters. I'm not so sure you want to know how much is about me."

"And me!"

Holt's eyes darted back to that point beside Mustang, somewhere down and to the left, and if Roy hadn't closed his eyes in resignation, he would have seen the emotions that shifted over Holt's face.

"Fullmetal," Roy grumbled through clenched teeth.

Edward hissed and stomped his foot. "You were taking too long. And you," he snapped, whirling on an intimated Holt, who was not intimidated the way Ed thought he was, "you'd better go get that crackpot of a doctor like the colonel said or we'll turn this place into a charcoal pit. We're State Alchemists, y'know."

"Go back to the wagon," the colonel said a bit more forcefully, but either not forcefully or loudly enough, because Edward reached into his pocket and pulled out his watch, all but shoving the silver circle into Holt's face.

"Fullmetal and Flame. Still wanna deny these people from being men at ease?"

Holt's face turned red as he spluttered out a "What?!"

"Amenities, Fullmetal," Mustang sighed, getting a curious upturned look from the boy. "Amenities. As in basic supplies – food, water, shelter."

Edward studied his feet as he pondered this, then returned to displaying his watch proudly.

"Yeah, that's what I said. You'd better give 'em that. Or we'll make you a man at ease!"

As Holt began biting the inside of his mouth to keep himself from smiling, Mustang's displeasure with his major had evaporated as his tactic changed.

"Now, now, Fullmetal," Roy said, not bothering to hide his own grin, "the lieutenant colonel is our host. We should show him the proper respect. In fact, why don't you give the man a demonstration of your abilities."

Edward balked, the vagueness of the order forcing him to ponder it.

"Like… like what?"

"Like that metal monstrosity you made for the little boy to help him feel better," Mustang said, making sure to enunciate the words.

"I'm not little!" Edward screeched, then realized belatedly that the adjective hadn't been meant for him. "It's a manticore, Mustang," he said as if it had been his original answer. "He loves it. 'Cause he's a bad ass, like me."

Edward turned on his toes and ran to the wagon without waiting for a reply. Holt's eyes were for the boy sprinting across the dirt road. but his words were for Mustang.

"A child is unwell?"

"Children," Roy corrected him. "Two of them, to be exact. And if they don't get medical attention, there could be a third."

"A third what?" Ed asked as he jogged back to the conversation with a speed that no double amputee should have, especially with a squirmy toddler in his arms. "I couldn't get 'im to let go so I brought 'im with. See the lion head? Manticore."

Holt's interest was in the boy hanging from Edward's arms like fresh laundry, as oblivious to the tin toy in the child's hands as the Jason was to the rest of the world as he shook the manticore in his hands, watching the way the movement changed how the sun reflected off the creature's wings.

When the lieutenant colonel never said anything, Edward looked up from also watching Jason's exploration of light refraction to see that Holt's eyes had filled with tears.

"Oh… did I overdo it with the spikes? Miss Rivka said she was worried it would give Flo nightmares."

XXX

The Mehri cook was good at what she did, so good that when the medicine turned the food unbearably bitter, she had known the exact combination of honey and ginger to mask it.

The powder must be taken with food, the doctor had said as he had reluctantly shoved the jar into Mustang's hands.

"What is it for? I mean, what do they have?" Roy had asked, and not just because he and his subordinates had been exposed to it.

The doctor grunted and waved a hand dismissively. His examination of Florina and Laurin had been equally dismissive – a thermometer here, a query of symptoms there.

"It's the shakes," he'd said, as if that explained anything. "It happens sometimes around here. This'll stop it. It might take a couple of days, but it'll stop it."

Then, completely unprompted, he'd said, "You'd best leave as soon as you can. You and your boy have given Max a good spook." The doctor sighed and shook his head ruefully. "And he'd just gotten over the whiskey, too."

"How d'you mean?" Roy had asked, then regretted it at the hollow look in the doctor's eyes.

"There's a reason why outsiders aren't allowed in. Last time some foreigners were allowed here, they brought a case of typhoid. Half the town was dead by the time it ran its course. "

For a moment, all Roy could see was a woman with Roy's eyes and a man with Roy's name, the foggy memories filling his mind just as blood had filled their lungs.

"We lost all of our children – including Nicholas."

"The lieutenant colonel's son," Roy said, his victory suddenly tasting as bitter as the emptiness in the doctor's eyes.

"His son and wife," the man said and the hollowness turned into something toxic. "Leave. You are not welcome in Athelney."

When the doctor took himself back to his clinic without another word and locked the door behind him, Roy couldn't bring himself to be insulted.

But Edward didn't need to know all that, Mustang thought as the kid dug into the celebratory stew the Mehri had made for the dêwo-gonyoi who had obtained the antidote for the demon's curse.

"Well, that went much better than I expected," Mustang said, uncrossing his arms and looking at Edward with an odd kind of approval.

Edward looked up from his bowl, his spoon poised like an artist preparing to paint and a string of roasted onion dangling from his mouth. With the cook fire behind them and Edward's front half cloaked in the darkness of night, it looked as if the boy was a wraith adorned with a crown of spun sunlight.

"I expected a fight," Roy continued as if Ed had said something in reply, "but you reminded that crotchety racist about what's really important. I'm impressed, Fullmetal."

Edward slurped the onion and swallowed his mouthful of food whole, which impressed Roy even more.

"Well, duh, Colonel. Ain't that why I'm here?"

"You were here to make sure the farmland between Angren and Afous had enough nitrogen for wheat season," Riza said from his other side, scooping a potato onto her spoon and bringing it to her mouth.

"Oh, yeah," Ed mumbled, then shoveled carrots and beef into his face. "B'ring sh't – gah!"

The old woman who had slapped the back of his head hard enough to shove a carrot into his throat jabbered in her language as Edward started violently choking. Roy barely managed to catch the boy's bowl while Riza started patting him between the shoulders. Alphonse, who had a great deal of experience with this exact situation, got up from where he'd been playing with Florina and Jason to give his brother an open-palmed punch to the middle of his spine.

Edward lunged forward as he spat up the offending vegetable and sucked in a breath of air with a sound like a train whistle.

"You need to stop swearing, Brother. It's bad for your health."

Edward whirled around the shaved log he, Roy, and Riza were using as a bench and bared his teeth at the woman, who shook her ladle at him menacingly.

"She needs to stop beating the tar outta me before I – hey, that's hot!"

Roy and Alphonse laughed while Edward barely managed to dodge the ladle, steaming with heat from the pot of food the grandmother had been stirring. It was a surprisingly tasty medley of beef, potatoes, mushrooms, carrots, and onions. When Roy had asked the clan's cook what the dish was called, she had simply said, "Lòn," which Rivka had helpfully translated as meaning, "Food."

"You need to respect your elders," Riza said calmly, carefully separating the onions from the rest of her food. She had never cared for the bitter strands.

Edward shot the grandmother a glare over his shoulder as he swiped his bowl from Mustang.

"I'm day-woes-goo-whatever, so she has to respect me."

"Mehri culture prioritizes age over lineage when it comes to hierarchy," Falman said smoothly, carefully separating the carrots from the rest of his food. He had never cared for root vegetables, save potatoes. "Despite your debated ancestry, she is still your better."

Breda wiped the melted lard off the inside of his bowl with a chunk of brown flatbread.

"Guess that means everyone outranks you here, squirt," he said with an unapologetically spiteful grin. "'Cept the twerps over there."

"Flo and Jase ain't twerps!" Ed barked defensively, then, to Breda's horror, turned around and shouted at the cook. "Hey, lady! That guy just called your grandkids twerps!"

The woman may not have understood the words, but she understood the intent.

Alphonse dropped the sheep knuckle he'd been balancing on the back of his gauntlet as Breda crashed into him as Al sat on the ground, the man nearly goring himself on the spike sprouting from Al's helmet in his desperate escape from the cook and her lethal ladle. Al and Florina watched them disappear into the night, arms and cooking utensil waving, then looked back at each other, knuckle bones and river pebbles on the ground between them.

"Okay… that didn't count."

Florina shook her head sagely.

"Nonesies. You owe me a marble."

Chapter Text

True to the doctor's word, it took a good three days before the powder took effect.

When Jason and Florina, and finally Laurin, found the strength to emerge from the wagons to join the clan around the communal fire, the excitement that ran through the camp was something Roy could have only described as fervor.

It proved to be exactly that when, to Roy's narcissistic amusement and then rightful shame as well as Edward's altruistic embarrassment and then empiricist horror, the Mehri unpacked their metallurgy and showed the Amestrians the depth of their skill by crafting a shrine.

It took two days, the fire making Edward sweat from simply watching and the smell of heated copper mixing with the smell from the cesspool making Mustang's face turn such a pallid shade of green that Hawkeye insisted that he have a second dose of powder with his breakfast, and the result seemed simple until one got close enough to appreciate the final details.

Edward had seen Winry use tools of all sizes, but even she had never used a scribe as small as Laurin's, his once trembling fingers as steady as his gaze as he grooved lines and cut hollows into the soft metal. Falman watched the entire process with particular interest, his eyes flickering from one detail to the next with the speed and efficiency of a camera.

The brothers had offered to help, knowing the tin smiths knew their alchemy could make a task requiring hours to require seconds, but the vehement refusal they received in response was almost aggressive.

"This must be from us it won't be right," Laurin had said cryptically, his snappiness so much like Edward's when he was working on a particularly interesting array that Alphonse felt a surge of fondness for the man.

"It's like your journal, Brother. Except I'm sure they'll let us see what it is when it's done."

Edward glowered up at his little brother, the near week he had spent in a single place making him testy with restlessness.

"That's different. Alchemists never share their notes."

"And neither does a priest," Laurin said.

Edward had rounded on the man, his mouth open and breath taken to steal back the last word.

"Good God, what is that smell?"

The brothers whirled around, Alphonse silently thanking Breda for stealing Edward's train of thought.

Heymans was the only one of them allowed into Athelney – an excellent tactical move on Mustang's part, Ed had had to admit begrudgingly. He couldn't help but feel a stab of jealousy as he eyed the bag of fresh laundry thrown over Breda's shoulder and the paper bag of foodstuffs in the curl of his other arm. After a week of the occasional sponge bath behind the wagon with an audience of a mare and two geldings – Alphonse had suggested that the truly poor ones were the horses, as they were being exposed to a reminder of what they had lost; this had taken Ed a full three hours of contemplation to understand, and once he did, he had nearly demanded Al let him check the blood seal to make sure his sweet baby brother wasn't in the process of losing his mind – the idea of a hot shower was enough to make Edward's tacky skin itch with longing.

That and the mosquito bites that kept popping up in the strangest places.

Rivka had offered him a block of lard to rub on his skin to keep the bugs away, but the smell and sliminess of the fat had proven to be worse than the itchiness.

"Copper and tin," Alphonse said, despite the fact that he was unable to smell anything at all. "They're making bronze to make… something. Warrant Officer Falman says it's a Cretan tradition to craft mementos when something important happens. I guess it's their version of a party."

"Party?" Breda said with disgust, putting down the bag of clothes so he could cover is nose with his arm. "Smells like a blood –"

"Heymans."

The use of his first name had Breda turning pale for a different reason as Hawkeye shook her head, though he still wasn't as pale as Mustang, who looked no better despite his extra dose of medicine.

The colonel's eyes were lined with redness. Not forty-five or so minutes ago, Roy must have reached some kind of limit because he told his lieutenant that he needed to step out of the camp, claiming the smoke from the all the fires were bothering his chest.

It was a clever ruse, if one truly considered it, seeing as how even Hawkeye would have accepted the rough sawing noise he made into the arm that covered his face as coughing if she hadn't known Mustang as well as she did.

She had brought him a tin cup of the beverage the Mehri called "absinthe" – Roy had taken one swallow of it, shivered at its strength, and forbid Fullmetal from so much as looking at the jar the drink had come from – and had said nothing about the wetness of his face as he lowered his arm to take the cup.

In the present, Breda tossed the sack of laundry to Ed, who caught it with an "oof," then set the bag of groceries on the ground so he could dig out a metal can, which he tossed to Roy, who didn't realize it was meant for him until it was almost too late and fumbled the catch, the can landing in the bowl of his wrists and pressed against his chest to keep from falling.

"Ah," Roy said once he'd righted his grip on the can and read the paper label glued around it. "Scrumptious."

Ed snorted at the colonel's choice of words as the man stood from the log bench he'd been sitting on and went to the smoldering pit of the cook fire.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Roy shot him a knowing look as he pulled his pocket knife out of his jacket, flipped the blade, stabbed the can, flipped open the top of the kettle he had set in the embers of the fire an half an hour earlier, and poured a good handful of the can's contents into the kettle.

As the rich aroma of brewing coffee filled the camp, drowning out the stench of hot metal, Edward closed his eyes and sighed with satisfaction.

"Ah. Scrumptious."

XXX

Edward had thought it was a doll, when he first realized that what Laurin was carving into the bronze figure were eyes.

Perhaps a toy for Flo, maybe a figurine for him and his brother to keep.

Then he'd thought it was a lamp, when he saw the inside was hollow and the underside was non-existent. This proved to be more accurate when, as soon as the sun had set and the first stars were twinkling overhead, Grandfather Laurin – that was what Edward had taken to calling the one he now knew was the father's father – led the procession to bring the finished product to the pool where the wisp danced, silent and harmless, and placed a candle on the ground as close to the water as one could get without touching it.

"Oh, no," Roy said when the grandfather pulled out his tinderbox to light the wick, "allow me."

He pulled his gloves on and snapped his fingers and, with expert precision, conjured a blob of fire on top of the candle.

Rather than an outburst of applause, Grandfather Laurin gave him a quiet smile and picked up the bell-shaped doll to lower it onto the flame.

The word that came out of Edward's mouth was so vulgar that both Cook and Hawkeye gave each of his ears a slap. He was too awed and frustrated to acknowledge either of them.

The doll had three faces, three aspects, that were of equal and perfect measure – one with round eyes and whorling lines that, now that they were illuminated as they were meant to be, Ed could see they were meant to be spools of hair that bled into a pair of outstretched hands, another with long eyes and triangular patterns that marched from them towards spiked shapes that Roy recognized as balls of flame.

The third was a mystery. Edward and Roy had to turn move from where they could see the aspects they recognized to study the one they didn't. It was almost like two aspects in one, the side touching Ed's dotted with circles, the one touching Roy's struck with blocky lines, but both depicting one half of a face, one half of a person.

"What…" Edward started to say, then nearly jumped out of his skin when his brother blurted out, "Oh!" from behind him.

"They were asking me what I look like. Under the armor," Alphonse explained and Edward felt nausea make the roasted mutton Cook had made for dinner flip and turn inside of him.

"What… what did'ja say?"

Al was quiet for so long that, for a moment, Ed was terrified his brother had told the Mehri the truth.

"Nothing," Al said, and Edward felt the blood drain from his face, so much so that Alphonse must have seen him pale even in the darkness because his brother quickly backtracked. "Not that I look like nothing. I told them I look like nothing anyone would want to see. That's why I wear it."

Edward felt his eyes, already sore from being surrounded by smoke, sting for a different reason.

"Oh, Al."

"So they asked me what I looked like before I needed the armor and I said…" Alphonse looked away, suddenly bashful. "I said I looked a lot like you."

Now Edward's eyes were stinging and his vision was swimming, and he had to stop this before it turned into something very, very bad. He whirled on Grandfather Laurin, who either failed to see his rage in the twilight or saw it and took it in stride, and took a breath of egg-smelling air to end this stupid superstition, end whatever reason these idiots had to think he had or wanted anything to do with their imaginary friends, that they had to gall to think that something as simple as a piece of jewelry and un-targeted pleas could ever undo what he and his brother had done.

"We are not –"

That was as far as he got before he burst into tears.

"Brother?"

"'m fine!" Ed snapped, covering his face with his arms, desperately trying to shove down the sudden onslaught of anger at the Mehri's situation, the soreness of sleeping on wood and dirt with automail for more than a week, the frustration that he could not get it through anyone's head that the closest thing their world had to a god did not care, not about Edward or his brother or little kids like Flo or Jase and certainly not about old geezers that made tributes to nature's fart lamps.

Now Edward's face was sticky and everyone was staring at him and his head hurt and his stomach hurt and… and… and there was a leathery but strong hand in his hair and his face was being pressed into a thick vest that smelled like sweat and smoke and Grandfather Laurin was saying words Ed didn't understand in a rough but gentle voice.

"Where did that come from?" he heard Mustang say, and Grandfather Laurin rumbled something in Cretan.

Smaller, equally leathery hands joined the grandfather's, one pressing the back of his neck and the other shoving itself down the back of his shirt. Edward stiffened instinctively at the breach of privacy and would have pulled away from the two of them if Rivka hadn't taken her hands away.

"He's burning," she said, her voice dejected. "Florina and Jason were the same way. One second they were fine, the next they were hot and cranky."

"M not cranky," Edward grumbled into Grandfather Laurin's shirt. He tried to pull away but just as with the cauldron of stew, the old man proved to be stronger than he looked.

"But… but he's taking the medicine!" Alphonse said, his voice high-pitched with worry. "It should be working. Why isn't it working?"

"It's not that surprising," Roy said. The words were laced with a gentleness that sounded foreign for the colonel. "He's been exposed for so long, I'm more surprised that he didn't start showing symptoms earlier."

"Which means it's had longer to incubate," Falman's flat voice was a welcoming familiarity in the bizarreness of the situation. "But I wouldn't worry. The antibiotic should keep it under control. This is common with most illnesses. He might have contracted a hardier strain, but it shouldn't last as long or prove to be as severe than if he hadn't taken the medicine."

"So he just needs to sleep it off," Mustang concluded. Just as Edward was beginning to wish everyone would stop talking about him as if he wasn't there, he heard Hawkeye say, "I'll take him from here," and smaller, not leathery hands were pulling him away from Grandfather Laurin.

"Time for bed, Fullmetal," Roy said and Edward, not brave enough to pull his face out of his arms, snarled in response.

Alphonse made a hollow whistling sound. "Yikes. You really are cranky, Brother."

"And you are feverish," Riza said, shrugging out of her jacket and wrapping it around Edward's shoulders before he could come up with a comeback for his brother's comment. "Let's get you back to camp. We'll get you something warm to drink and get you comfortable."

Edward mumbled something – not even he was sure what exactly, his head was really starting to hurt – and Riza put an arm around him and gently led him away from the shrine, the fairy lights flaring innocently over the pond.

XXX

Edward could barely remember being made to drink some unbearably bitter tea and being smothered in blankets.

He did remember waking up, the blankets drenched in sweat, and feeling very thirsty and very embarrassed.

"You awake, Brother?"

It was only then that Ed realized that he was in his brother's lap, Al's metal arms holding him against his night-cool breastplate.

"Mmm… Al?"

Alphonse pulled the wet blankets away with practiced softness. One second Edward was in fuzzy darkness, the next light was spilling into his cocoon. He wondered if this was what butterflies felt like when they first emerged, drenched and heavy with their new wings.

"Are you feeling better?"

Al's helmet blocked Ed's eyes from being blinded by the morning sun. Edward answered by pushing himself the rest of the way out of the blankets.

Everyone was moving. Supplies were being loaded onto wagons, horses were being tacked, and the smell of frying bacon and brewing coffee was making Ed's mouth water.

"Ah, he lives," Mustang said, pausing his hauling what looked like several sacks of grain towards the wagons. "Care to join us with breaking camp, Fullmetal?"

Edward blinked at the colonel blearily, looked around as if he expected someone else to come and speak in non-enigmas, then gave up and looked back up at Mustang.

"We're leaving, Fullmetal," Roy said, pronouncing the words slowly as if he thought the boy was hard of hearing. "We're heading to Afous. Y'know, an actual town? With a market and a train station?"

"He's only just woken up, sir," Hawkeye admonished, walking passed Roy with even more, heavier looking sacks slung over her shoulder. This gave Roy pause, and Riza took his minute emasculated confusion to give Edward a calming smile and a proper explanation. "Breda's been sending telegrams to Afous and East City while he's been in Athelney. We've got our own car and boxes. All of us."

"Colonel Mustang figured we wouldn't wanna leave them unless we knew they were okay," Al said when Ed looked up at him, still confused. "So… he's bringing them with us."

"Train! Train!" Florina scampered beneath the adults' feet, waving her arms like a bird as she sang. "Goin' on a train! We goin' on a train!" She saw Edward watching her dazedly and ran to him, giggling with delight, and started ripping the wet blankets off him with reckless abandon. "We're goin' on a train, bicco gonyos! Never been on a train before!"

Her smiled disappeared as she pulled the final layer of fabric off of Edward, her nose wrinkling.

"Ew, bicco gonyos! You stink!"

Roy started laughing so hard he nearly dropped the sacks he was carrying. Riza glowered at him disapprovingly.

"I'll get you something to eat and warm up some water so you can clean up. But please hurry because we need to be in Afous around noon."

Edward yawned and stretched, his own face crinkling disgust at the feeling and smell of his wet clothes.

"Wha' did she call me?"

"Hmm?" Alphonse hummed, momentarily distracted by how Flo was dancing around Mustang, who had dropped the sacks he'd been carrying and was now struggling to pick them up again. "Oh. Rivka says it means… um… Big Brother?"

Edward either didn't hear the tentativeness in Al's voice or decided he was willing to accept whatever lie he had just been told, because he stood up and stretched again, grunting as the bolts in his ribs pulled against his muscles.

"Mmm. That's good. 'Bout time I started gettin' some damn respect."

Alphonse wisely chose not to comment on the fact that the only thing the Mehri had been trying to do was respect him.

This was why he had also wisely chosen to say the opposite of what bicco meant. He didn't let himself dwell on what translation he would give for what Flo called the colonel.

XXX

Edward grunted as he felt what he now recognized to be Rivka's hand press against the back of his neck.

"I'm fine," he insisted for the third time as he pushed her arm away. "Mustang was right. I just needed to sleep it off."

Rivka's frown was just as disbelieving the previous two times, but just as those previous two times, she said nothing and took her hand back. Jason was gnawing on his manticore's mane, the rippling metal shining with spit. Edward watched the baby with a raised brow. He'd accidentally stuck his metal fingers in his mouth enough times to know that the taste was not one someone ought to chase.

"His teeth are coming in," Rivka said, smiling at her son and beginning to bounce him in her arms. "For the past few days, I've been afraid that he may not live to enjoy them." The smile she gave Edward had him blushing and subconsciously rubbing the back of his head. It was a habit Granny said he had gotten from his father.

They were broken out of their conversation by the stamping of hooves. It seemed that Eab was not interested in being led onto the box car with the other horses. He pulled at his bit as the stevedore pulled on the reigns. Eab pulled back and Laurin ran up the ramp to take over, hushing the horse and patting him on his pink nose.

"Didn't know they put wagons on trains," Ed thought out loud.

"Ah, the marvels of modern technology," Roy said beside him as he oversaw the loading of the cargo. Alphonse had Flo, who was silent for once as she stared open-mouthed at what must have looked like a giant metal monstrosity, as Al gently explained how the different parts of the train and how they worked.

The elders were standing as far away from the tracks as they could manage, looking like and looking like they felt like they were completely out of place. They were staring at the wires and electric lights like they thought they might spread diseases and flinched at every train whistle and shout of the conductor.

Edward felt a stab of pity for them. He remembered – and hoped dearly that Alphonse did not – the first time he'd seen a horseless carriage in Dublith, when they first went to train with Teacher.

The stab of pity burst into flaming anger when he noticed a group of his fellow Amestrians, their clothes plain and drab compared to the colors and designs of the Mehri, gathered near the ticket booth, staring at the amazed elders the way a maid might stare at a mouse and only looking away to whisper to each other. One of them, a suited man with a well-trimmed mustache, glared at the Cretans with open disdain. The woman beside him, most likely his wife, studied them with fear.

No, not them.

Him.

The fire under Edward's skin turned into an inferno as he watched the woman clutch her husband's arm as Alphonse stood from where he'd been kneeling beside the conical wheels of the car, Florina hanging on to his every word. He took the girl's hand and started leading her towards her mother, and by proxy Edward. As he moved, the woman pressed herself against her husband, whispering something in his ear. The man's gaze moved from Florina's grandparents to Edward's brother, his face contorting with confusion, then flattening into disgusted terror. He grabbed his wife and a boy standing beside him, most likely his son, and pulled them into the building of the depot, speaking quickly.

"Fullmetal."

Edward's neck nearly hurt with the force with which he spun around, only then realizing that his teeth were bared in a snarl.

Roy's expression was calm but his eyes were dark. He glanced at the depot where the Amestrian family had disappeared and gave an affirming but not permissive nod of his head.

I see them.

The unspoken words and the promise behind them dampened Edward's rage into embers – not nearly as hot, but still smoldering. Ed was quick to plaster a smile on his face as he heard his brother's excited voice growing louder.

"… and the shape of the wheels and the weight of the axels keep the cars from coming off the tracks, even when the train is turning. So you don't have to be afraid, okay?"

Florina still looked nervous as she was Alphonse led her to her mother, her small hand in his comparatively giant gauntlet. When she saw Edward and his smile, she smiled back, her nervousness replaced with confident hope.

"And the Diathan won't let anything happen to us because Bicco is with us and Bicco is their favorite."

Edward's smile faltered and he felt himself blush with more than just embarrassment.

"N… Nah, Flo, that's not how it works –"

"Brother's worked hard to get as good as he is at alchemy," Alphonse cut in, saying what Edward meant to in much kinder but no less certain words. "If anything happens, he'll keep us safe with his alchemy. Me, too."

Whether Flo understood what Alphonse meant or if she had simply added his statement to her beliefs, she gave no sign. She jumped towards her mother, grabbing the skirt of Rivka's dress and fisting it with a strength that turned her knuckles white.

"Mama! Mama! Train wheels are sideways and fat so the train doesn't fall!"

"That's wonderful, mo ghaol," Rivka said, still bouncing her son who was now blinking sleepily as he gummed at the manticore's face.

"When I grow up, I'm gonna be a train-builder!"

These words gave Rivka pause but she said nothing. After a moment, she went back to rocking her son. Edward noticed, but Al and Flo must not have because Al said with equal zeal, "A train-builder is called a locomotive mechanic." Then, more seriously, "You'd have to get an apprenticeship at a train yard, for that you have to go to learn to read and write and do arithmetic. That's why going to school is important."

Flo bit her lip as she considered this, then looked up at her mother.

"Mama, I want to go to school."

She said this with a voice that brooked no negotiation and Rivka paused again. This time, Edward saw that it was from sadness.

"Oh, yeah. Hey, Brother," Alphonse said as if he was only just remembering that Edward was there. "Could you go into the depot and see if they have any marbles? I've lost mine."

Hawkeye's uncharacteristic giggle and Mustang's spluttered, "What?!" were sounds that would stay in Edward's mind for a long time.

He hoped the pounding headache he could feel rising behind his eyes did not.

XXX

"You haven't told them," Riza said as the conductor waved them on board.

The man saluted to Mustang, who nodded back in appreciation.

"They don't need to know," Roy whispered back to her. Then, to everyone's but Riza's surprise, he stepped away from the open car door and waved those behind him forward with the same flare as the conductor.

"They don't need to know what? That you have an ulterior motive or that you have the consistency of a marshmallow on the inside?"

Roy didn't know what to say that, so he didn't. Instead he said, "After you, Fullmetal," who was so eager to board that he was jumping from foot to foot with the need to be on the move

He'd barely gotten the words out before Fullmetal was barreling passed him.

"Sweet, first on! I call dibs on first comp! And window seat!"

"I call dibs on your dibs!" Flo barked back, making Edward pause at the top of the boarding stairs.

Alphonse shook his helmet with enough force to set it squeaking.

"Do not play her, Brother. That's how I lost my marbles."

Roy and Riza stood in silence. Perhaps it was best if the boys didn't know that Mustang and Breda had organized this train specifically for the Mehri, Riza thought to herself. She didn't want them to think that Roy had lost his marbles as well.

XXX

Edward knew how to deal with migraines. He blamed this one on the too many days spent around too much smoke. It was nothing to that some water and a cool train window couldn't fix.

When Edward announced his intentions of going to the dining car, Flo had demanded to come as well and Roy had volunteered to chaperone. Alphonse had taken it upon himself to help the girl's grandparents get comfortable with their accommodations.

He had a lot of experience with being in places that didn't feel like they were meant for him.

"Have you ever had ice cream, Miss Florina?" Roy asked, and the way the girl's eyes bulged out of her head was answer enough. Roy smiled most cordially. "I believe you and yours will find East City most accommodating. We are the most progressive sector of Amestris and an innovator of industrial inventions. I know Fullmetal will be delighted to act as your guide to all the nooks and crannies of urban life. He's also from the country and his stature lets him fit into the smallest of places."

Roy waited with his own delight for the expected explosion, for the the return to normality and the opportunity to show Florina who the real State Alchemist was.

Its absence was his first signal that something was wrong.

Once the absence was noticed, Roy looked away from Florina even as she grabbed his hand and started pulling him down the aisle of the car – proof that Roy had won, which Ed didn't acknowledge either – and felt a stone of worry form in his stomach.

Edward was leaning against the wall, not with leisure but with his full weight, and his face was covered with a sheen of sweat. His forehead was wrinkled from how strongly he was pinching his eyes shut.

"Fullmetal?

"'M fine," Edward mumbled, pushing himself off the wall and scrubbing his face with his left hand. "Jus' got a little dizzy."

Roy told himself that it was for Flo's comfort, as the girl was now studying Edward with large, worried eyes, as he threw his saucy grin back on, this time aimed at his major.

"Got somethin' in your eye again, Fullmetal? You should know that there are only three times in life when a man is allowed to shed tears."

The snarl Roy got smashed the stone into pebbles and he laughed, taking the lead so that he was pulling Flo.

"Yeah – when he's born, when his ma dies, and when I kick 'im in the balls."

Roy whirled around so quickly he almost pulled Florina off her feet.

"Fullmetal! Mind your language! There's a woman present!"

Edward caught the girl by the arm and she reflexively transferred her hold from Roy to Ed, who smirked triumphantly.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry, I forgot about minding your sensitivies."

The pebbles had melted into blood-boiling lava and Mustang growled his next words through his teeth.

"Fullmetal, the moment I've got you to myself…"

If Ed heard the warning, he gave no sign. He and Flo were well ahead of Roy, to the point that Edward was gently telling the girl instructions on how to cross the gap between the two cars.

"I'll go first and lift you over. Don't worry, you won't fall. It's actually really hard to fall off a train. I've run on top of the cars plenty of times and I've never fallen off."

The lava in Roy's blood dropped to his feet and he all but sprinted to catch up to them before Edward started giving Flo lessons on train-running.

XXX

It was only a matter of time.

Their bellies full of ice cream and their bodies warmed by the officers sitting with them, it was inevitable that Edward and Florina would start blinking heavily and dropping their chins to their chests.

Roy, Laurin, and Breda must have all been thinking this, because Roy had glanced at his second lieutenant and said, "Two thousand on Fullmetal."

Edward, who's eyes had been closed for longer than a blink, opened them with a, "Hmm?" at the sound of his name. Flo was sitting on his lap, the two of them sitting next to the window.

Breda shook his head from where he sat across from Roy and Riza and beside Rivka and Laurin, who watched with open interest.

"Flo's younger. I'm putting three thousand on her."

"Four hundred on the Fullmetal," Laurin put in, stumbling over Ed's title.

His wife freed a hand from cradling Jason, who'd fallen asleep as soon as the train had started moving, and smacked her husband's arm. Laurin shrugged a half-assed apology.

"Should I go get Vato's offer?" Breda asked, placing his hands on his knees in preparation to get up and go to the other compartment where Falman, Alphonse, and Rivka's and Laurin's parents were.

"No, you'll mess it up," Roy said at the same time Edward forced his eyes open again and said, "Offer fer what?" which was proof enough that Mustang was right and Breda sank back down into his seat as the colonel glared at him, looking appropriately chastised.

"Sir," Riza started disapprovingly. Roy was quick to wave her away.

"It's just some good-hearted gambling, Lieutenant."

He stared her placatingly for long enough that she rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Five thousand on Edward."

The men whistled and "ooed" at her confidence and Ed grumbled as Florina nestled against his chest. His headache had bloomed in full force despite the three glasses of water he'd drunk and he shifted his rump so that the weight of his spine was pushing his skull against the glass of the window.

The rattling of the train car set his brain shaking and he sat up as the pain morphed into nausea.

He jumped, making Flo squeal in protest, when he felt something soft and warm being shoved between him and the window.

"That's cheating," Breda frowned as Riza returned to her seat beside the colonel, her jacket now serving as a shock-absorbing pillow for Edward.

"If he doesn't sit still, he won't sleep. If he doesn't sleep, neither does she, which means we all lose," she said, then paused as she was about to sit.

"How is that not cheating?!" Laurin said this time when she went back to the and held his jaw in her palm. Edward was either in too much pain or too far out of it to do more than hum.

"Sir," she said, her voice serious and her eyes hard. "I suggest we take Edward to the infirmary as soon as we arrive in East City. I don't think the medicine is working for him."

Roy frowned. He was sitting directly beside Edward and had felt the boy's shaking but had dismissed as the train car shuddering against the rails. Now that he looked, he could see that Ed's jaw was trembling. The car might have been rattling but it wasn't rattling hard enough to make someone's teeth chatter, especially with the lieutenant's jacket under his head.

Breda and Laurin made noises of indignation as Roy shrugged off his own jacket and draped it over Edward's shoulders, completely covering Flo.

"Why are you upset?" Roy asked Laurin as Riza finally sat down, her arm bumping into his without the extra layer of their coats. "I understand Heymans. He's the only one betting on the girl. But the more comfortable Fullmetal is, the more likely you are to win."

Laurin sighed and took his son from his wife, who was beginning to look drowsy herself.

"It's about the principle. I don't want to win if the game is fixed."

Breda seemed to appreciate the man's sense of honor, enough so that when Rivka broke all of their expectations by falling asleep first, her head against her husband's chest, he insisted on paying Laurin the promised three hundred cenz.

"What about us?" Roy asked, though Riza did seemed more preoccupied with monitoring Ed's condition than ensuring her profit. She kept reaching across him to touch the boy's neck, gauging his temperature and pulse. Ed would open his eyes just enough to scowl at her, then would either close his eyes or be distracted by Florina braiding he ends of his hair into knots from underneath Riza's jacket.

"Not your wife, not your dibs," Breda said simply.

Roy didn't push the matter further. He had no interest in losing his marbles.

Chapter Text

"Colonel? Colonel, we're here."

Roy woke with a start, breath hissing through his nose.

He didn't remember falling asleep. He certainly didn't remember letting both Fullmetal and the lieutenant lean into him, both of the using his shoulders as pillows, Riza's coat having dropped to the side and claimed by Flo.

For a moment, he sat there, not quite sure what to do. Rivka and Laurin were already awake and standing, waiting for him with expressions of amused sympathy. Breda, as was his wont, seemed to have gone on ahead.

"I've got 'em," Al said, pushing passed Flo's parents and scooping up his brother and their daughter into his arms. Ed stirred, snuffling and pawing at his brother's breastplate, Flo poking her head out from under Riza's jacket long enough to see what was going on, then ducked back enough.

"Hmmph?" Riza lifted her head off Roy's shoulder, looking around until her eyes settled on Alphonse holding Edward and Florina, who had both gone back to sleep. She frowned with something that looked suspiciously like jealousy.

"D'you want me to carry you?"

The words were out before he could stop them.

He braced himself for her glare or even a good slap to the side of his face. Instead she seemed to consider the offer, then shook her head apologetically and stood up with a stretch.

"I appreciate it, sir, but I'm afraid your arms are a bit too small."

Roy stood up after her, faster than he meant to, so fast he nearly slammed his head against overhead basket.

"Small?"

Riza ignored him, grabbing her luggage from beneath their seat and following Alphonse and Flo's parents out of the compartment.

"Whadd'ya mean, 'small?'"

"Hush, sir. You'll wake Edward."

Edward's face, which had been smooth with sleep seconds ago, was now wrinkled with anger, as if he was having a particularly annoying dream.

"I fulfill my weekly exercise quota. Hell, I go over. The medics at the infirmary told me to take it easy, I was going to the gym so much. Falman was there. You can ask him."

"Yes, sir."

"'Yes, sir? Yes, sir?!'"

Alphonse paused in the middle of the aisle, turning enough that Riza had to back up a step and Roy nearly ran into her.

"Colonel, with all due respect, shut up."

Edward's left hand was clawing at his brother's armor. For some reason, Roy knew Ed was dreaming about ripping Roy's face off.

XXX

"Breda's got the wagons and the horses handled. We'd best go get the… umm…"

He wasn't sure what to call the Mehri. They hadn't given a family name, and as far as Roy knew, no one had asked. He thought for a moment, recalling what little he knew about Cretan culture from his diplomacy classes at the academy.

"What is your clan's name?" he asked Laurin, who was the oldest Amestrian-speaking man, making him the person of highest status Roy could talk to. "Or… should I just call you the Mehris?"

They were outside the depot at East City, a much larger, more sophisticated than the one in Afous. Where Afous's station had a roof of wood, East City's was sheltered by rustless steel, concrete pavement where Afous had gravel. Laurin glanced nervously at his and his wife's parents, who looked even more out of place in this urbanized landscape.

"I'm not sure if we can call ourselves that anymore. Most of the Mehri tribe were claimed by cantons, forced to settle down and give up our ways. Which is why we left."

"So, in a way, you're the last true Mehri."

Laurin gave Roy an appreciative yet sad grin.

"The councils of the cantons can be strict in matters of trade and religion. They would have us stay in one place and do only one thing and worship only their gods – most of them claim to be

dêwos-gonyoi themselves to justify their superiority and forbid the worship of gods except the ones they claim to be descended from."

Roy frowned.

"I thought you said that only priests could determine who is and isn't god-kin."

Laurin's smile turned sadder.

"To be fair, that is what the priests say. It's easy to claim things for yourself when you're in charge of deciding who is most important. After all, all you have to do is say that that person is you."

Before Roy could think of something to say in reply, Florina, who had woken while the grown ups had been talking about boring things and had decided that, after two minutes, she was bored of being bored, nearly knocked her father over by running into Laurin's knee.

"I'm hungry, Papa! Feed me! Feed me! Feed – aah!"

The girl squealed as her father picked her up and swung her around.

"Feed you? All right, I'll pop you in the pot and feed you to the family."

It took Roy a moment to realize the feeling he felt rising up in him as he watched Laurin bury his face in his daughter's stomach and blow raspberries into her skin while she shrieked in delight was longing. He didn't know why, but the realization had him turning to Alphonse, who was holding a still sleeping Edward.

"I think he's coming out of it," Al said, and it took Roy a moment to know what the boy meant. Sure enough, Fullmetal had stopped shivering and seemed to have broken into a sweat, the fever leaking out of him and into Roy's coat.

Roy cringed, all longing evaporating like the moisture on Ed's face. He would have to have his uniform cleaned later. He told Hawkeye to make a note of this, and for some reason, this made her smile.

XXX

Edward was still sleeping as they reached the trolley station.

"Perhaps he is about to grow," Falman had commented. "Adolescents tend to sleep for prolonged periods when approaching a growth spurt."

"Really?" Alphonse rocked his brother in his arms, who didn't so much as snore. "I hope so. That'll make Brother real happy."

Roy, eager to banish any images of a tall Fullmetal out of his mind, decided that it was a getting late and that Flo had the right idea as she continued to demand food.

"It's getting late and you must be tired," Roy said.

They Cretans were not tired.

Laurin and Rivka were glowing with some unnamed emotion, something between hope and nervousness as they took in what was probably the most modernized place they'd ever been; Flo was dangling from her father's arm like a monkey; Jason, who was in his mother's arms again, was babbling two-year-old nonsense; and the children's grandparents were staring at the approaching trolley with much less fear than they had the train, but with enough apprehension that Roy knew it was going to be a trial to get them on board.

"Alphonse, since you've got your hands full," Roy waited for praise for his pun. After receiving none, he frowned at his unappreciative audience and continued, "Why don't you take our guests to you and your brother's hotel? Don't worry about the cost, have the receptionist send me an invoice. If you have any problems, call me. You have my number, right?"

Alphonse didn't answer right away, shocked to silence by the colonel's generosity. Roy sensed it. He also sensed Falman and Hawkeye booting holes into his back with their knowing gazes.

"That's… very kind of you, sir. I… think I can do that."

"Do they have food?" Flo asked, dropping from her father's arm. She would have run onto the trolley if it hadn't been for her father grabbing her hand and pulling her back.

Just like at the train station in Afous, the people already on the trolley cast curious glances at the foreigners and whispered distrustfully to their neighbors. Just like at the train station, Roy raked them with a cold, commanding stare until they were either looking at their feet or pretending to look out the windows. Even if he hadn't been wearing his military coat, Falman was, not to mention, Alphonse's looming presence.

Unlike at Afous, the sight of Edward slumbering beneath two blue jackets and Florina's natural charm seemed to put any untoward thoughts they had to rest. By the time the trolley arrived at what Alphonse declared to be their stop, Flo had befriended everyone on board and had tickled them with the story of how the military had saved her family from a wisp.

Whether or not they took the girl seriously didn't show nor did it matter. The passengers' easy acceptance of her and her family once they got to know her made a rare and odd kind of fondness for the people of his city light up inside of Mustang.

For the first time in a long time, he was glad he had chosen this life.

He was very glad when he, Falman, and Hawkeye got off the trolley and went down a block to their favorite bar; Breda waiting for them at their favorite table as Roy had instructed with Fuery and Havoc already two beers in and tipsy enough to comment on how Riza was holding Roy's wet coat.

Rather than tell them off for their disrespect, Roy waved down the nearest waitress for two whiskeys and a sherry, the glint in both of their eyes showing that he planned on asking her for more once everyone else had gone home.

Hawkeye saw it and, in place of glaring daggers at the young woman who was only doing her job and enjoying her life, made the one sherry two.

"How much damage did the Chief cause? I've put two thousand on more than four hundred thousand."

Fuery shook his head ruefully.

"Ed's an alchemist. He can fix anything he breaks. I said three thousand on less than a hundred thousand.

Roy threw back the whisky the waitress brought him and sent her off for another.

"Absolutely nothing."

Fuery crowed drunkenly and reached out his hand as Havoc swore viciously as he slapped the bills into Fuery's waiting palm.

"How the hell does that happen?!" Jean snapped, then shot Kain a look that could melt granite when the sergeant corrected him, " Ya mean, how the hell does that not happen?"

Roy flashed his teeth at his officers as he felt the whiskey rush to his head.

"You're gonna need another round for this," he said to them, then to the waitress with his second whiskey, "More beer for my good men. Put it on my tab," which was an announcement that instantly sweetened Havoc's bitterness.

XXX

When Alphonse said he was happy to take on Flo and Jase for the night so Laurin and Rivka could focus on making their parents comfortable in such an unfamiliar place, he meant it. When Rivka expressed concern about her son being a bother, Al brushed her worries aside.

"I'm used to taking care of my brother and I know he's a lot harder to deal with than a two-year-old."

Edward had still been sleeping, Al having pulled his shoes off and tucked him under the covers of the far too large bed in the hotel room. Now, as the sleepless boy heard Headquarters' clock tower ring the twenty-third hour, Flo had burrowed herself under his metal arm while little Jason lay cradled on top of his flesh one, still clutching the bronze monstrosity Al's brother had made him. Alphonse sat vigil against the far wall, the room too dark for him to read the open text in his lap.

Al wasn't worried about his brother – Edward slept like this all the time – but he was concerned about the elders (as much as he hated calling them that, Edward's proclivity had become Al's habit). He knew it was hard for older people to adjust to new environments. Having come from a farming town where the families were made up of multiple generations – clans, he realized, not at all unlike the Mehri – the older relatives tended to put their feet – or sometimes canes – down when confronted by the prospect of change. His granny had once told him and his brother the story of when the operator office was added to Risembool's train station.

Farmer Sweet Senior, Pinako had said with grin that was far too amused for the nature of the story, had been so distraught when the telephone solicitor had knocked on his door and asked if the old man was interested in having his house connected that his face had turned the color of one of Mom's tomatoes and had keeled over dead.

Alphonse wasn't sure if he believed the story, but its premise was true enough.

Maybe because it was because he was young or maybe it was because he was an alchemist, but Alphonse couldn't imagine staying in one place, doing only one thing for long. The law that all sciences shared was that everything changes.

Al leaned his helmet against the wall, trying to remember what it was like to sleep, trying to imagine what dreams his brother might be having.

He wasn't sure who he spoke to as he tried to hope.

"Please change. Please."

Later, Laurin would tell Al about how prayer required practice, how he might say one thing and the gods would hear another, and Al would regret.

XXX

Roy had grown up in a brothel.

His aunt and foster mother was the madame. He thought he knew everything the human body was capable of, what parts did what and how they did them.

Nadia taught him how wrong he was.

The next morning, after learning her parting lesson on why it was called the "walk of shame" – Roy had lost count of how many whiskeys he'd downed alongside his three beers, and he'd woken in Lucille's bed with pain in more than just his head – Roy stumbled his way into his office, his legs not remembering what they were meant for and a headache that was worse than when he'd been shot in the calf, he nearly vomited all over the carpet when the phone rang, nails gorging wounds into the chalkboard that was his brain.

He probably would have, if Hawkeye hadn't seen the way he crumpled into himself as he opened the door to suite and grabbed the nearest waste basket with practiced ease.

"I told you to drink water, sir," she said as Mustang poured a bellyful of rejected alcohol over the paper wrappings of someone's sandwhich and mistyped reports, her voice cold and unsympathetic.

Then, when Roy started to sway dangerously with the aluminum bin cradled in his arms like it was the most precious thing in the world, she took his arm and tried to gently lead him to Havoc's desk, who had leapt out of his chair when the lieutenant had lunged for his waste basket.

"Come sit down, sir," she said with belated gentleness. "Maybe I should take you home."

"Can't."

Roy's voice was strangled and there was sweat pouring down his face.

"You can't go home?" Riza pressed him with confused worry, which turned into just worry as Roy shook his head dizzily and then heaved up more whiskey.

"Can't sit down," he said once he'd caught his breath.

Riza glanced at Roy's shaking legs, not comprehending.

"Can't sit… why shouldn't you be able to – "

Jean understood what Riza couldn't and almost pushed Riza in his haste to take control of the situation.

"I'll take it from here," he said as he took one commanding officer by the shoulders and pulled him away from the other. "Come on, Boss, let's get some coffee in you. And some aspirin."

Roy physically recoiled at the thought of anything going inside of him.

Hawkeye watched Havoc lead Mustang into the inner office, then turn to rest of the team, who were either too hungover too lift their heads from their desks or too shocked at the sight of their indomitable leader having been dominated to do anything but stare.

Fuery, either out of bravery or stupidity, broke the silence as he blinked himself out of his stupor.

"Um… what was the name of the girl he was with? The waitress?"

"Nadia," Falman said matter-of-factly, not lifting his forehead from the filing cabinet he was leaning against.

Breda, who'd had his eyes closed against the electric lights, opened them to the point they were bugging out of his face.

"Wait, Nadia?!"

"Do you know her?" Hawkeye asked, doing her best to sound only curious.

Breda shook his head, his over-indulged blush turning pale.

"I've heard of her. Every eligible bachelor in East City has heard of her."

XXX

"Goddamn, Boss, if I'd known it was Nadia… I thought she looked familiar, but I haven't seen her in years."

Roy stared into the sweet darkness of the mug of coffee, the pillow he hid under his desk for naps he'd thought was a secret fluffed and serving as a barrier between his chair and parts of his body he wished he couldn't feel.

Havoc, who was enjoying being the dispenser of knowledge a little too much, gave the colonel a reassuring pat on the back that had turned Roy's agonized trembling into quaking.

"Damn, of all the luck… If I'd known it was Nadia, I would'a given you some pointers on taking it in the –"

The phone rang, cutting off Jean's words and making Roy clutch his head.

"I'll get it, Boss," Jean said, snatching the receiver off its cradle and speaking into it with all the pomp of a general. "Colonel Roy Mustang's unit, this is Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc speaking."

A pause.

A horrible pause in which Roy wondered if maybe it was her, maybe she wanted to do it again and Roy had a reputation to uphold but he wasn't sure if he could –

"Alphonse! Good morning!"

Oh, thank the gods the Mehri thought he was descended from.

"Wait, what? Slow down, you're not making any sense – what do ya mean, glowing?"

Roy looked up from the coffee he wasn't able to bring himself to drink.

"Havoc. Give it."

Jean stared at him dubiously, the phone still pressed against his ear.

"Are you sure, Boss?"

Roy gave him the best glare he could give in his pathetic state.

"Give. It."

Jean shrugged and handed the phone over, watching with a raised brow as the colonel flinched as the younger Elric's shrill voice set his skull to pounding.

"I's me, Alphonse. Wassit?"

Havoc watched Mustang's expression unfold from being pinched in pain to wrinkled with consternation to curved with horror.

"I'm coming," was all he said, then threw the phone back to Havoc, who barely caught it.

"Sir?" Havoc asked as Mustang forced himself to stand and wobbled his way towards the door.

Roy ignored him and opened the door to his office. Riza was standing there, ever present, ever patient.

"Sir?" she repeated Jean's question. Unlike Jean, Roy gave her an answer.

"It's Fullmetal."

XXX

Alphonse had let them sleep well into the morning.

He was surprised when Flo woke up first, yawning and stretching, then snuggling against Ed's chest. After a while, she started playing with Ed's hair, combing it through her fingers, singing a Cretan song Al didn't understand.

She started braiding Edward's hair as he continued sleeping soundly, sitting up so she could reach the locks higher on his head, still singing mostly in Cretan with the occasional Amestrian word sprinkled in.

"Pretty fè, pretty bicco-gonyos, pretty like Illa the wisp…"

Alphonse stood, moving slowly so that he didn't frighten her, and walked as quietly as he could to the side of the bed so that the creaking of his armor didn't wake his or Florina's brother.

Flo looked up at him, smiling, and fisted a handful of Edward's hair to show off her handiwork.

"Look, mòr-gonyos! I telled you! I telled you that Bicco was fè! He has light, just like Illa."

Alphonse did not say anything.

He did not say anything long enough for Florina to sense that something had gone wrong, long enough that the girl's smile disappeared and her eyes filled with tears, long enough to make her jump and cry out with fright when he finally raised his arm and reached for his brother.

"Brother? Ed?"

Edward did not wake up.

Alphonse, ever so slowly, lowered his gauntlet onto his brother's shoulder.

"Brother? Hey, wake up."

Edward did not wake up.

Alphonse lifted his other arm, placed his other gauntlet on Ed's shoulder.

"Brother? Brother?!"

Alphonse shook him, first gently, then roughly, then hard enough to send Ed's head flapping, hard enough that Jason woke and started crying louder than his sister.

Edward did not wake up.

Al dropped his brother and Edward fell bonelessly against the mattress.

He was in Risembool and his brother's thigh and shoulder were wrapped and bloody and his brother did not wake up, would not wake up, and Winry was crying as she explained that his brother had lost too much blood to wake up, that he would not wake, that he might never wake up –

"What do I do? What do I do?!"

He didn't realize the words had left his armor until Flo's tears disappeared as quickly as they came, as she reached for her brother with one arm and Alphonse with another.

"Mòr-gonyos! Mòr-gonyos will fix it with his fire!"

It took Alphonse a second to realize that she wasn't talking about him.

Then he was clanking across the room the desk and scrabbling at the phone with nerveless fingers.

XXX

The Mehri had gathered around Edward, not knowing what to do but desperate to do something.

Rivka held a sobbing Florina, Laurin a confused and distraught Jason. The elders spoke amongst themselves, desperate and frightened, and, though Alphonse didn't know why, remorseful.

Their totems were in the warehouse with their wagons. In their place, they had taken a pad of paper and pen from the desk and drawn all the holy symbols they knew, ripping the papers from the pad and tossing them over Edward's prone body.

Alphonse doubted they had actually expected it to work, but it was better than doing nothing, which was what he was doing.

He was doing nothing because his brother would not wake up ("He's catatonic, Al.") and there was nothing he could do ("He doesn't have enough blood to wake up. Al, he might not have enough blood to ever wake up.") and what if he didn't and what had they done, what had Al done –

"Outta the way."

A very disheveled Roy Mustang pushed his way passed Grandfather Laurin, nearly pushing the old man to the floor. Hawkeye caught him, muttering a rushed apology before following the colonel to Ed's bedside. A third person, someone Alphonse did not know wearing the white of of an infirmary nurse, followed her more slowly.

She paused to stare at the Mehri, her mouth dropping at the stripes and squares of their clothes, and a barked order from Mustang had her looking away from one odd-looking person to another. The nurse almost jumped on Edward, pressing her fingers to his neck to count his pulse, then lifting the lid of his eye to study the sclera beneath.

"Why is he…" Roy's voice trailed away. He wasn't sure which "why" he wanted an answer to.

Why was Edward not waking up?

Why was Edward shaking like he'd been dunked in ice water?

Why was Edward glowing?

Fullmetal had always had more of a tan than most people Roy knew, but now his skin was somewhere between neon yellow and seasick green, a shade so bright and bizarre that it almost hurt to look at.

The nurse said nothing. She stuck her arms beneath him and Roy realized she was trying to lift him. Roy expected Alphonse to volunteer, but the armor said nothing.

He was still in Risembool, still counting the seconds his brother did not wake in a body that could not feel the passage of time.

"Let me," Roy offered when he realized Alphonse would not. The nurse gratefully pulled her arms back so Roy could replace hers with his, and he stood with a painful grunt, lifting Edward from beneath the paper talismans like an apple from beneath dead leaves. For a moment, he swayed dangerously, and the nurse rushed to his side, bracing him.

"Are you all right, sir?" she said, as if just now noticing his sweaty hair and pallid skin.

Roy didn't answer her. He wobbled for a moment, then shook her off, cradling his major in his arms as he walked out of the room, Riza replacing the nurse as Roy's support. Alphonse stared as they left, then slowly, tentatively, followed them. Florina tried to pull away from her mother but her grandfather stopped her with a gentle hand on her head and sad shake of his head.

"Tha e aig an deamhan."

Flo pressed herself against her mother, too frightened to cry.

XXX

"Why didn't you wait for the gurney?"

Roy ignored the nurse outside of the ambulance and hobbled with Hawkeye's help to the prepared stretcher, laying Fullmetal down onto the spread linen with a surprising amount of control for his condition. Edward was lifted into the bed of the ambulance and Riza helped Roy lift himself in after him.

"Stay with Alphonse," Roy said when she tried to follow him. She frowned, looking like she wanted to protest, then glanced back towards where the suit of armor was watching dazedly from the doors of the hotel. A small crowd had gathered and they took turns staring at Al's bulking body and Edward's tiny prone one.

She remembered the Mehri and the way the people at the train depot had stared at them in much the same way, with much more hate, and heard what her colonel did not say.

"Yes, sir," she said, saluting as she stepped back. "I'll send for the rest of the team. He'll need an escort."

They'll need an escort.

Roy smiled appreciatively and nodded.

Then the ambulance doors slammed shut.

XXX

"Are you sure you won't let me check you over, sir?"

Roy swallowed back the growl that grew in his throat as the nurse asked the question for the third time.

"Don't worry about me. Take care of Fullmetal," he said for the third time.

The second nurse pulled away the stethoscope he'd been using to listen to Edward's heart and breathing, trading it for a thermometer that he shoved in the boy's ear. Edward didn't so much as flinch.

"He's tachycardic," the nurse said, then added after removing from Ed's ear and holding it up to the light to study the mercury line, "and feverish."

Roy could have told him that, based on the how hard Ed had begun shaking. The boy's automail was rattling, his limbs bouncing against the gurney.

"Why won't he wake up?"

"We don't know yet," the first nurse said, sounding just as impatient as Roy felt.

"Why is he…"

Roy gestured at the boy's body, the shaking, the yellowing of his skin.

The nurse's face soured, though not from annoyance.

"It means his liver's failing."