Disclaimer: I don't own FMA, the 2003 anime, or Brotherhood (despite how badly I may wish otherwise…)! Also, the name "Seresu" is one of the translations of Fai (from CLAMP's Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE)'s home world, for anyone who's interested in knowing.

Thank you to my wonderful beta, Haruta! I honestly wouldn't have been able to do this without you!

I. Spited Tribulations

October, 1908

A storm had smothered the sun early that evening, shrouding the mountain in an unnaturally dark night. Snow dusted its sharp, unfriendly peaks, but the small town that existed in the mountain's shadow somehow managed to escape the unfavorable weather.

Seresu was one of the few towns in the North that wasn't precariously perched upon the cliffs of some mountain or another. It was still unbearably cold for the better part of the year, but its few months of summer experienced a booming tourist season. Civilians from the other provinces of Amestris flocked to Seresu to ice-skate, watch dog-sled races, and experience a charming winter without the hassle of having to live in it all year. But during the rest of the year, during those insufferably frigid months where you could go weeks without seeing the sun, Seresu was nothing more than a mining town, reaping the most flawless diamonds and sapphires Amestris had to offer.

The lives that the townspeople eked out were miserable during those months. Although their particular trade yielded a high salary, living without any light for so long would inevitably extinguish any warmth and all hope in your soul. During those months, the townspeople looked to Tara Iridell.

Tara Iridell was the town's pride and joy. Tara was as gracious as she was beautiful, with long waves of hair that seemed to sparkle even in the absence of the sun and coy chartreuse eyes. Although she had retired from service by the time she and her husband Colonel Michael Iridell had arrived in Seresu, Tara was widely known as the Emerald Alchemist. She could masterfully manipulate the soil and air around a plant to make it grow most favorably, even changing the structure of the plant itself to make it grow more swiftly. It was with these gifts that Tara made it possible for the townspeople to grow fresh produce all throughout the year, improving their lives and earning herself a place in each of their hearts.

While investigating the mining industry for the Führer, the Iridells had fallen in love with the hospitable town and decided to remain there. Shortly after their arrival, Tara had given birth to a son. Three years later, she and the Colonel had been blessed with a daughter. But now, for the first time since her arrival in Seresu nineteen years ago, Tara had been faced with a loss.

The Colonel had been dispatched the previous year to monitor the situation in the East—the small revolts of the Ishvarlan people that seemed to be growing in violence and frequency. Tara had remained strong, raising her children with unparalleled grace and wisdom and hiding from them the festering wound Michael's absence left in her heart. It had been a while, though, since she'd heard from her husband, and a few days ago, she'd received shocking news: Colonel Michael Iridell had been killed in the bloody Rebellion that had taken place the week before.

Tara hadn't taken the news well. As soon as she had learned of her husband's early death, she'd shut herself in the library of their house and hadn't come out since, not even when her now-teenaged children had threatened to knock the door down. And on that particular stormy night, her son finally threw caution to the wind and picked the lock on the door.

Alec Iridell, who was now nineteen and had been certified as a State Alchemist just a month before, knew what his mother was planning. He knew that it was a plan doomed to fail, but at the same time, he knew that it would be impossible to stop her. It was with a heavy heart that Alec pushed open the broad oak door and peered into the library.

The scene that met his eyes was worse than he'd imagined. Tara had pushed the bookshelves against the wall, leaving a conspicuously bare patch of carpet in the center of the room. Leather-bound books of all shapes and sizes littered the floor, having been hastily opened and then tossed aside. An enormous transmutation circle spanned the carpet, painted in what appeared to be thick black ink. At the center of the circle, a white shroud rested peacefully over a misshapen figure. Protruding from beneath the blanket was a charred, gruesomely patchy arm.

Alec felt bile rise in his throat.

And then there was Tara, kneeling at the edge of her transmutation circle, head bowed mournfully. She hadn't looked up as her son had approached, but she sensed his presence. When she spoke, her voice was soft. "I know what you're going to tell me, Alec. It won't change anything."

"Be rational, mother!" the young man exclaimed. He wasn't surprised that his mother had known he was there.

"How can you say that—like it's easy, like you know the truth?" she whispered, finally looking around to meet his gaze. Their eyes were identical in color and intensity. Her voice rose. "You don't understand anything, Alec! None of us do! Alchemy is a gift, and what good would it be if we couldn't use it?"

"Alchemy isn't anything more than doing a job that doesn't belong to us! You're being selfish—think of all the times human transmutation has failed in the past! Think about your children—what about me? What about Lizzy? We have to maintain a balance, mother—by altering the natural world, we're glorifying ourselves to the status of gods!" Alec shouted, curling his hands into fists. This wasn't his mother. This woman's eyes were wild, cheeks flushed with reckless determination, chest heaving like she'd run a marathon. Her pale, elegant fingers were dripping with gore, and his eyes followed the bloody trail to the transmutation circles she'd traced on each of her limbs and over her heart. At that particular moment, Tara Iridell bore no resemblance to the charming, graceful woman who had so gently raised Alec and his younger sister.

She had become a monster.

"When have any of us ever believed in a god?" Tara cried. "I let you make your own choice, and even as a child you didn't believe! And since there aren't any gods, there aren't any boundaries on our power—and since there aren't any boundaries, there's nothing to stop me from bringing him back!"

And with that Tara slammed her hands down on the edge of the transmutation circle.

X

X

X

January, 1909

It was another one of those rainy nights, one of those balmy but relentless showers that seemed to leave Central waterlogged for days afterward. While you're inside a building, the arrhythmic drumming of raindrops can almost be a soothing, nostalgic thing—but when you're making the thirteen-block trek home from work, rain is undoubtedly a nuisance.

At least, that's what Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang thought as he irritably trudged through the downpour. He hated rain—it weighed down his clothes, it distracted his colleagues from their work, and it rendered his specific brand of alchemy useless. While he accepted that rain was a necessary evil, did the storm have to wait until the one night he'd forgotten his umbrella? Sighing, he pulled his fedora lower over his eyes and shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his long overcoat.

Roy wondered if it rained this much in East City; he was due to be transferred at the end of the month. Although it upset him that he was going to be farther removed from his ambition of becoming Führer, he couldn't help feeling a little bit satisfied. As Maes had pointed out yesterday, his sudden transfer meant that his superiors were intimidated by the aptitude he'd demonstrated during the War.

It was this line of almost-melancholy thoughts that occupied the Lieutenant Colonel's head as he headed to his flat. The dim streetlamps cast pale yellow halos onto the sidewalk as he sloshed through the rain. And then, rather abruptly, his quiet walk was interrupted by a high, feminine voice.

"Oh, damn it!"

Roy glanced up, surprised at hearing a woman curse so openly, and found himself halfway across the bridge that stood between his flat and Central Headquarters. A few feet ahead of him, there was a young woman reaching over the edge of the bridge, standing on her toes. She lifted her left leg, pointing her toe, and reached her right arm so far over the railing that for a second, she looked like a porcelain model of a ballerina. The umbrella that she'd been holding fell to the ground as she used her left hand to grasp the railing for support.

Roy felt his lips curve into a smile; perhaps tonight wouldn't be as pointless as he'd originally believed it would. He stepped forward to help her, and he hadn't acted a moment too soon.

The girl slipped.

She gasped—Roy saw her eyes widen—and nearly toppled over the edge. It was only by the favor of fate that he caught her in time. Hauling her back to her feet and making sure that she was steady, Roy appraised her. She was younger than the women that he normally would have wooed, but she was unusually pretty. Her skin was pale and her long, dark hair almost seemed to repel the rain. An ornate oval locket hung from a heavy chain around her neck. She wore a cornflower blue dress that hung to her knees and a fitted black coat that clung to her figure. But something about her seemed…off. Dark. Secretive. Roy blinked.

"Do I know you?"

The girl, who had been gasping to catch her breath, choked and looked at him with incredulous, unnaturally chartreuse eyes. "What, does that line usually work?"

"Excuse me?" Roy asked, and it took him a second to realize that she thought he was trying to pick her up. Well, he had been…but for a moment there, he'd had the strangest feeling that he'd seen her face before. He decided to turn on his charm anyway—why waste an opportunity? "Isn't it working now?"

"Evidently not," the girl said, flashing him a mischievous, crooked smile. "Thanks for catching me, though."

At that thought she seemed to remember that she had dropped something, and she gazed down into the water. Roy followed in suit, a bit baffled by the fact that his charms didn't seem to be having any effect on her. In the dark, churning water, he could barely make out a small square of paper floating down the river. When he glanced back up at the girl, she was sighing and running a hand through her hair.

"I suppose there's nothing to be done about it," she said to herself, bending to pick up her umbrella. As she did so, her hair fell about her and revealed what appeared to be an imperfectly circular tattoo hidden on the side of her neck, but when she straightened up, she tossed her hair over her shoulder so that it once again concealed the marking. She smiled. "Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, sir!"

"Are you sure you're all right?" Roy asked as she began to turn away. She stopped and peered up at him over her shoulder. "Why don't you let me escort you to tea? I'll feel better once I know that you've had a chance to catch your breath before you go off on your own again."

Roy had never once been refused, so he shouldn't have been surprised when the girl laughed lightheartedly. "Oh, is that your pick-up line, then? I really must be going—my cousin's waiting for me. But thank you again, sir!" she called over her shoulder as she started away.

"Wait! May I at least have your name?" Roy called valiantly, thoroughly at a loss. Although the girl didn't turn around, he could have sworn that in the wan light of the streetlamps, he had seen her cheeks lift as she smiled.

She had rejected him. Rejected him. What had just happened?

He watched her until she was out of sight, dumbfounded. As he watched her go, he found himself strangely grateful that there was no one else around to have witnessed her humiliating rejection. And then she disappeared around a corner and Roy found himself alone on the bridge, clothes growing more sodden by the second, wondering if she had ever really been there to start with.

X

The next morning, as Roy was sorting through the things in his office—labeling the things he would take with him to East City and the things that he would leave here at Central—a newspaper clipping fluttered out of one of his files. He picked it up and made to set it down before he realized that the face in the picture looked familiar. Squinting at it, he was surprised to discover that the woman in the picture was the same woman he'd encountered last night. The headline of the article read, "EMERALD ALCHEMIST RESIGNS FROM DUTY".

Roy frowned. Was that why the girl last night had seemed familiar? Had he seen her before because she was—or had been, as the case seemed to be—a State Alchemist? He remembered the tattoo he'd caught a glimpse of on her neck. Now that he thought about it, the marking had resembled a transmutation circle. He'd known some alchemists to tattoo transmutation circles on themselves, so perhaps that's what he'd seen. But she had been so young…

Something in the puzzle didn't fit. Curiously, he opened the file. Sure enough, the picture staring out at him was a portrait of the girl he'd seen last night, at least for the most part. The file stated that her name was Tara Iridell, but the numbers on the paper couldn't have been right. The file stated that Tara was over fifty years old, but that was impossible. When he'd seen her last night, she hadn't even looked half that age. In fact, she'd looked even younger than she did in the picture that headed her file.

But how was that possible? The furrow in Roy's brow deepened. How could Tara appear younger now than she had thirty years ago? What could give her the power to do that? It only took Roy a few seconds to reach a conclusion.

She'd used the Philosopher's Stone.

X

A/N: Well, that was Chapter 1! Hope you enjoyed. I've only ever seen the 2003 anime, but I am currently reading the manga and watching Brotherhood (though I'm not very far…) and I think that this story will end up containing elements from the 2003 anime, Brotherhood/the manga, AND original ideas, so it'll be a little AU. Not terribly so, though, and not until it gets closer to the action of the story (which takes place around 1914, unless I'm mistaken). Anyway, thank you for reading!