The blurry scenes of snow covered rocks, broken only by the occasional wooden cabin sitting lone among the pine-trees, whizzed past the window as the train trudged up the side of the mountain. A gentle snow was falling outside, as it had for the past few weeks, though it seemed almost like a blizzard through the frost-covered windows. On the inside of the cabin, jacket pulled tight around him, Edward was laying the book he had been reading down on the red-covered train seat.
He had the whole bench-seat to himself that day, as he normally did on train-rides, but the spots on the seat he wasn't occupying were filled with books that he'd brought from the Central Library. Several pages had escaped from his messily scrawled note-books and were scattered across the compartments floor. But unlike normally, the person sharing the compartment with him wasn't complaining. Instead, his partner for this mission was sprawled on the seat across from him; fast asleep with out a care to the way that their compartment was getting colder by the second. But then, Roy hadn't been much company even when he was awake.
As it was, the cold air was what had gotten the younger alchemist's attention. The higher up the mountain the train went, the colder and more frigid the air got. And while it may have been a little too cold for the sleeping Colonol's taste, it felt more like the window was sitting open to Edward. But that was just one of the many flaws to having to limbs made out of automail.
The flaxen-haired alchemist pulled his jacket tighter around him as he scowled out the window, some vain hope wishing that his glare would melt the snow out there. Unfortunatly for him, the coat that he was wearing was meant for summer weather. Not snow. And certaintly not the amount of snow that would be coming down when the train finally came to a stop near the top of the mountain.
Edward, knowing full well that his glare wasn't about to do anything to the snow falling outside, instead turned it to the sleeping man across from him. There was no doubt in the boy's mind that it was Roy's fault he was freezing. In fact, it actually was the older mans fault.
The mission was not an alchemist specific one. The Fuhrer had just requested two alchemists to go to the mountain town of Bendri for a standard check of the coal mines there. And for reasons that Edward could only guess at, and none of these guesses were very kind, Roy had decided that the two Elric boys were going to go to the mine. And, like always, they had been in the middle of a very important find on the Philosophers Stone. An actual book lead, the type that Edward was best at solving, that looked like it might really get them somewhere.
As such, the two couldn't afford to leave it be and let it go stale. Not with what happened the last time they had a book lead (the whole library had gone up in flames). So the young alchemist had sent his brother to the library and told Roy that he would be going to the mine on his own. The lead was just to important for them both to go. So Roy, in some scheme that Ed hadn't fully discovered yet but was obviously there, had said that he would accompany Fullmetal on the mission.
So he was fully justified when he claimed that it was Roy's fault he was so cold.
And on top of that, of having the lead on his mind and someone he didn't fully know what to say about asleep in the same compartment as him, Edward couldn't sleep. And that was something that irked him even more then the cold.
See, when the young alchemist was in a hotel or at the dorm he shared with his brother, even during the few times he managed to get away to the Rockbell house, he had a difficult time getting to sleep and when he did get to sleep his dreams were wracked with nightmares and thoughts of the Truth. Haunting thoughts that had him waking in a cold sweat all through out the night, gasping for air and clawing at his throat, willing the taste of blood in his mouth to go away. But when he was on a train, somewhere he spent most of his life at, the boy generally didn't have problems getting to sleep; just keeping his mind blank.
And yet today, when he needed the sleep most so he could work through all the equations swimming around in his mind, he couldn't get even a fleeting grasp on the desperatly needed sleep. The slow hum of the engine, the foot-steps going up and down the aisle-way outside of his compartment, even the gentle rocking movement of the train itself only served to further the head-ache he had forming behind his temple and push any thoughts of sleep further from his mind.
And, for a reason only Edward himself knew, that was starting to scare him. It meant that a new round of the game was starting; and he was beginning to wonder just how many more rounds he could take before he lost the Game.
Shaking his head slightly, golden braid swinging around to smack him on the side of the face, Edward pushed his thoughts away from the nasty direction they were taking. And, as he once more pulled the jacket around him and settled back against the seat to try and get a little sleep, it was all that he could do to ignore the heavy feeling of dread that was settling in his chest.