Boyd Hatfield folded his hands placidly and repeated himself. "You're gonna have to take the coach."

The boy standing before him wore a red coat and an umbraged expression. "I know there's a train stop at Falstadt," he insisted.

Hatfield shrugged, making no argument. "Sure, but it's not accessible. Track maintenance."

"Right," said the boy furiously, "must have gone the way of their phone line too. Tracks don't take that long to repair. You're telling me there really isn't any chance of the train?"

"Not as far as I know," said Hatfield, squinting as a sun glare reflected off the glass of his booth. "And I'd know."

A few customers had begun to line up behind the irate boy, tapping out their impatience with booted toes.

The lad huffed for a moment before accepting defeat. "When's this coach for Falstadt leave, then?"

"It doesn't. It leaves for Duros. It's the next town over, though; I'm sure you can hitch a ride from there."

He could have sworn a vein throbbed in the kid's forehead.

"Seriously?" the boy exploded. "We're not that far into the sticks! What kind of backwater outfit is this?"

Hatfield frowned. "Hey now, son," he admonished, knitting his old knuckles together. "Sometimes a wrench gets thrown in the works. It happens." The kid scowled, but launched no further invectives. "This coach is what's available. Do you want a seat or not? There's only one left on the next one out. After that you'll have to wait 'til tomorrow."

The kid frowned, considering. He was young, but he wore none of the self-consciousness Hatfield was used to seeing in teenagers navigating long and sometimes confusing transit on their own. The kid looked sweaty and annoyed, but not nervous. Perhaps he was a student trying to get home during a school holiday. Hatfield thought of his own granddaughter, home from school in the south and so desperately glad to see family over the break. The first thing Hatfield had done was make her pancakes.

More gently, the station ticketer prodded, "I'm certain there's a shuttle that goes from Duros. Once you get there it won't be such a hard hop, you'll see."

Possibly the lad sensed Hatfield was trying to reassure him, because he raised an eyebrow. "That's a relief," he drawled. Then he sighed. "How much is the coach?"

Hatfield told him. The lad yelped a protest at the price, and venomously insinuated the train line was trying to fleece customers out of extra cenz. "I'm not in charge of that, sonny," Hatfield said, shading his eyes from more of the glare. "I just take tickets."

The boy slammed down his fee with a white-gloved hand. How dainty, thought Hatfield, amused. Because of his wife and sisters, he had always associated white gloves with delicate dispositions. Only society ladies bothered with them around here; it was too much trouble to keep them spotless during the dusty summers. Maybe it was a city affectation. The boy had come in on the train from East City, where evidently braids were also in fashion. Trendy kids.

Hatfield collected the money and filled out a ticket for the coach. He asked the young man's name and then wrote down Edward Elric in neat print. The traveler drummed his gloved fingers on the booth counter, worn smooth over the years.

"You familiar with Falstadt?" he asked.

Hatfield didn't look up as he wrote. "Been a while," he said conversationally, "but it's a nice area. Me and the wife have vacationed there a few times. Wrought iron and weeping willows." Then, curiously, he looked up. "Ah, I suppose you're not from there, then."

"Nah, just visiting."

Hatfield smiled and said wryly while he finished the ticket, "Perhaps whoever you're visiting will be grateful enough to reimburse the ticket." He slid the paper across the counter.

"I don't know about gratitude," said Elric, equally dry, "but it will definitely be reimbursed."

"Sadie likes The Green Goose Inn. If you need a room, I'd go there," Hatfield advised. "Good stew."

Elric nodded, hefting his suitcase. "You know, every inn I stay at seems to have the name of a color and a noun. One more for the list." He took the slip and the next customer rushed to fill in the wake before Hatfield could fully ponder why the lad had to stay in inns so often.

Marsia adjusted her parasol against the sun. It was an especially dusty day. As ever in summer, the trains kicked up an awful mess around the station. Before leaving her sister that morning, whom she'd been visiting, she'd sighed to Ami's sympathetic ear that she would have to clean her skirts first thing after arriving home. Ami, dear girl, had offered her own traveling skirt but Marsia had kissed her cheek and bade her keep it.

This coach was better appointed, she was told, than the last. It was supposedly quite modern. Plenty of horsepower under the hood, the station master had promised, and more room than a shuttle bus.

Marsia quickly found the departure stand. The coach itself was a large vehicle about the breadth and length of a train car. Sitting above the engine, the driver's cab was slightly elevated from the coach's body and accessible by a couple of small stairs.

She arrived to find the harried-looking coach driver being entreated by a young man in a red coat to modify the route.

"I'll give you another ten thousand cenz," he pressed. "Come on, it's not that far from Duros."

The coachman shrugged irritably and said, for what seemed to be the umpteenth time, that it went against transit authority regulations to adjust the route or add a new one, outside of emergency.

The boy was still arguing when the coachman spotted Marsia and came over to take her luggage, leaving the lad to stew beside one of the passenger doors with his own suitcase in hand.

She passed another Monarch Lines employee loading packages and letters into a separate compartment from the luggage. The coach doubled as the primary mail carrier for Duros. Surely this shipment contained the hat she had ordered from Pell's Haberdashery in Central; she could scarcely wait to see it and lingered to scrutinize the packages for anything resembling a hatbox.

Resigned to waiting for the post, Marsia entered the coach and was pleased to see it was well furnished as the station master said. She had taken some ghastly coach rides before Monarch Lines had endeavored to improve on the old shuttles. The floor was prettily carpeted and the sides were upholstered in a flowery suede. Truth be told, it resembled a comfortable train car more than it did the interior of an automobile. It was tall enough to stand in, and Marsia selected an plush armchair by a window.

A minute later the boy who had argued with the coachman climbed in as well, gazing around in interest, apparently impressed. "Well," he said to himself, "it beats the bus." He fell gracelessly into a chair across the breadth of the coach, picking idly at his gloves as he looked around.

There was something insolent in his manner and Marsia resolved to ignore him for the duration of the trip.

Other passengers filed in, ducking through the coach door and scanning the available seats. Most of them were dressed after the genteel style of Duros and the southeast. Only the strange young man's garish red coat stood out against the earthy corduroys. It was rather hot for such a heavy-looking coat and leather gloves, but the dust did force one to consider exposure.

After sitting, most pulled out newspapers. A distinguished-looking gentleman took the seat nearest Marsia, giving her a pleasant nod she returned in the gracious fashion she'd been taught since girlhood.

Forgetting her resolution, she spied the blonde boy assessing the company from the corner of his startlingly yellow eye. For some reason the color suddenly reminded her of a mangy, lean coyote she'd once seen, midway through shedding its coat and prowling her garden for rabbits that weren't there. Briefly that eye fixed on her and she turned away.

A young lady entered, bringing some welcome female company. She and Marsia exchanged pleasantries with each other, Marsia surreptitiously assessing the woman's lace gloves even as the other woman's eyes went to her new heeled boots. It was like that in the southeast. The gentleman sitting next to Marsia charitably offered his seat to the young lady—who introduced herself as Ms Kady Somers—so the womenfolk might sit together.

The coach driver popped his head in the door. "Be off in a few," he said cheerfully. Everyone smiled save for the blonde lad, whose scowl reasserted itself. Marsia could only imagine he'd continue to harangue the man for a course adjustment.

She and Kady fell into conversation, finding they had common acquaintances in Duros. Marsia found her to be a nice girl and thought of her own brother, recently disengaged from his temperamental fiance. Perhaps she'd introduce them.

At last the coachman reappeared. "Tea time's at two," he announced, "and we'll stop to serve dinner at four. Our estimated arrival in Duros will be seven o'clock."

He turned to step into the cab when the teenager spoke to him in a lower tone. "I've got a question," she heard him say. "If the train doesn't go to Falstadt anymore, why isn't a coach taking its place?"

"This shuttle's been going to Duros for years," said the driver placidly.

"Sure, but you'd think the line would adjust the route since the Falstadt track went out. Isn't that their job?"

His question sounded more curious than sour, which was perhaps why the coachman was willing to answer. He dropped his voice a little and the teenager leaned forward slightly to listen. So did Marsia, only a bit. "Falstadt hasn't renewed its contract with Monarch Lines," she heard the coachman tell him. "The last one ended this past month."

The boy's eyebrows climbed his forehead. "Is that so." He sounded thoughtful. "Does the track actually need repair? Or is that Monarch's stopgap while they haggle it out?"

Shrugging, the driver snapped on a pair of handsome driving gloves. "It probably does need routine maintenance, but it won't be done until the city signs."

He stepped up into the cab and started the engine. The boy sat back in his chair, eyes on the driver's back but not really looking at him.

Marsia had recently spoken with Ami about a lakeside retreat in Falstadt, which was sounding more and more like it might have to wait. The loss of a track, which acted as a lifeline for even the most successful of these outlying cities, was a death knell. Everyone whispered the town mayor was a drunkard now. Falstadt had been so nice once; it was a shame to see it falling slowly into disrepair.

She told all of this to her sympathetic companion, who was similarly aware of the town's troubles.

"Starting off," called the driver, and the coach lurched into gear.

Duros was a booming town, though still smaller than its nearest neighbor, Falstadt, and the road there was not fully paved. Still, it was quite flat and so long as you didn't open the window to let the dust invade it wouldn't be too bad a ride.

"This one's smoother than the last, at least," said Marsia to her companion.

"Oh?" said Kady distractedly and Marsia followed the young woman's gaze to the teenage boy, who had discarded the red coat to reveal a severe black ensemble. Marsia fought back a roll of her eyes. Well, Kady was young. At that age there was less accounting for taste.

The boy pulled out a book from his suitcase and slumped in his chair. The gentlemen in the carriage struck up amiable chat. Mr. Laramie was a pleasant, if somewhat nervous man, and Mr. Hodge was a constable in Duros of whom Marsia was aware, but had never been formally introduced. A few others, businessmen by the sound of their look and conversation, made up most of the remainder.

Two hours passed in peace and a lull settled over the company. Conversation fell off as a few people yawned over their newspapers and coffee. This was always the most boring part of the ride, when the novelty of riding with strangers had worn out.

Marsia pulled out her embroidery. She was stitching a little garden into a blanket for Ami's dear new baby girl, possibly the sweetest little thing there was. Kady complimented her on the embroidering and Marsia blushed in genuine delight.

BANG!

Something like a shot cracked the air. The coach jumped and shuddered massively, and Marsia's fingers slipped. "Ow!" she cried, whipping a glove off the hand and sucking the finger she'd just pricked with her needle.

"What the—" began another passenger as the coach lurched abruptly to a halt. Everything in the coach shook and and flew forward, throwing everyone out of their seats and shattering pieces of china so that Kady had to spring hurriedly off the floor.

There was an awful groan and then a hiss. For a moment no one spoke, only stared around with wide eyes to assess the damage to everyone else. The teenager sprang up first and darted to a window, glancing around before throwing it open and sticking his head out. Smoke began wafting past Marsia's window from the direction of the engine.

"Is everyone okay?" shouted the coachman, taking the steps in a single leap and dashing forward to help up the women. Kady murmured a shaky assent, and Marsia took a hand to assist her.

"What on earth happened?" she asked breathlessly. "Why did we stop like that?"

"The engine fair lost its mind," said the driver. "I'll go see to it." Marsia detected a note of bravado; the poor man had no idea what had happened.

As he jumped out the coach door, Marsia and Kady looked at each other before staring around at the expanse outside.

They were hours from anywhere, and they were stopped.

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I enjoy when my favorite characters are viewed from the perspectives of others, so I decided to give this a shot. Hopefully the original characters aren't annoying. Funnily enough, this idea came as a prequel to something else I was planning to write. This is my first time writing FMA; I'm new to it so please excuse any errors. If you have any thoughts I'd like to hear them!