I know I've got another story that is way overdue for an update but I wrote most of this on my phone while sitting in a waiting room (three hours, yippee) and I thought I might as well post it now to see if people liked it enough for me to continue it (I'll at least post another chapter or two so that this isn't left as a cliffhanger, but as far as this story becoming full-length goes, that might be up to reader response). Also, this is all in italics for a reason. It's so short that I'm simply considering it a prologue.

One: Ghosts

He's lying in the sand, panting for air, trying to still the uncontrollable tremors in his hands and knees. There's a dark halo of blood around him. He wouldn't know that it's blood except for the smell of it: the heady scent of iron, copper, and salt, strong enough to make his head burst with ink-bright stars all over again, except it never stopped in the first place. It's too dark out to see that it's red, but it gleams wet and shining under the brightness of a full moon. He's not sure what it's from, really, as he can't feel a wound, but maybe that's the shock, and any minute now the sharper, more twisting pain will set in and he'll discover yet another missing limb or that his gut is split open and spilled all over the sand and he's dying right this moment.

But that pain doesn't come. He's sore, sure, and his head is throbbing, and his skin stings where sand has been ground into him, and his leg stump aches oddly with and extended cramp that must be a ghost pain, but that's all expected. He did just get dragged through the Gate, after all. And on top of that, he did just drag himself out of the side of a sand dune, which is where the Gate spat him out. Which, really, seems unnecessary, especially since he expected it to, maybe… swallow him. Or pick all his atoms apart and dissolve them. Or deconstruct him at the subatomic level and swallow that, as payment for whatever every ounce of him can account for. Not stick him in a sand dune, anyway.

But he's here, wherever here is, in too much pain to be dead, and there's a lot of blood from something or other (probably him because he's lying in it, but you never know these days). And also, though he doesn't have the strength left to check, he's got the suspicion that he's naked.

His flesh hand (oh, good, that's still attached to him, nice to know) curls slightly into the bloody sand. It's still hot. And kind of sticky.

Huh. Gross.

He wants to hope it's not from him, because there's a lot of it, like oops I lost another limb a lot, and he doesn't want to get another automail leg, nor does he want to go through the fuck-all pain that is washing something as gritty as sand out of an open wound. Not that he'll be able to, if this is his blood, because if this is his and he's lost this much, he's going to pass out and then die any minute now. He's pretty damn sure, from the theoretical standpoint, but with his nerves playing tricks on him and no willpower to make himself look and see, there is simply no proof—

He's too dizzy to tell either way.

Still, he thinks, if he's gonna die, this is an okay way to go. It hurts, but in the dull, drumming sort of way that persists unwavering but doesn't spike or surprise him. It's not as much as what he thought the Gate was going to do to him, and there's a fantastic view of stars right above him. He's kind of too tired to look at them properly, but they're there. That, oddly, seems like a comfort, or a reward, or a kindness.

He stays there, like that, for too long to keep on believing that he's bleeding out, because that would have killed him already. He's still dizzy, but that's probably from getting slammed through the Gate at the speed of light, which— He doesn't really remember it perfectly yet, but he thinks that he might have seen something different from last time, or more, and there was the electric flash and spark of alchemy ripping atoms apart or maybe reassembling them, and he thought it was himself being ripped to shreds in exchange for Al or— but now he can't—

Oh, oh shit—

He moves his leg. And then his… other leg. Maybe?

The automail is gone. He can feel that. Automail is uniquely heavy and the familiar weight of it just isn't there. It's very, very gone. But there's something else there, something not as heavy, something he can move, and it might, in fact, be real.

Ed breathes through the pain and effort it takes to twist his body, to curl onto his side and tuck his leg(s?) up so he can see what in the actual hell is going on, here.

He looks. His own nudity doesn't offend him, but he sees… mostly blood, so that's not worth being offended over at this point anyway.

He's got two fully functioning, made-of-flesh legs, and there is a perfectly smooth, clean, white scar circling his left thigh (his left thigh where there used to be a stump and a port, holy shit). And a lot of blood. Which explains the… blood. Sort of. Not really, but?

I didn't ask for my leg back.

No, he had asked for Al back (in a nebulous way, more's to say that he had been weeping Al's name when he came before the Truth, but the Truth seemed to be rather damned aware of what he wanted). He had asked the Truth to fix everything, anything, and in return, Ed had offered… anything, everything.

Shit, he thinks. He moves his new leg. It stings and prickles like the absolute worst case of pins and needles ever, but it definitely seems to be in working order.

It was deconstruction and reconstruction that he saw inside the Gate. His automail was deconstructed and then his leg was reconstructed. And that's not equivalent, nor does it even obey the most basic laws of alchemy, but here he is, with a leg that he shouldn't have, alive when he shouldn't be, completely unsure of what he's paid or what it paid for.

(If he manages to get up and walk, or if he drags himself all the way to Amestris, what will he find? What will be left? He couldn't have saved them all, no, that's nowhere near equivalent, but is Amestris like Xerxes now? If he goes, will he find hollow ruins? Did anyone make it? Anyone at all?)

He slumps further against the sand, which hurts, but it's not as bad as the previous position, and his brand spanking new (old?) leg is no longer folded awkwardly under him, so that'll help the blood flow. Which he's gonna need, if he's doesn't die in his sleep (because he's definitely going to take a nap right here, naked under the open sky, lying in sand that's sticky and stuck together with his own blood). But he moves again, just slightly, and his automail arm scrapes over something… solid.

And he knows the sound of his own automail well enough to know that the solid thing is stone.

With some effort, Ed turns his head. He can see a smoother stretch under his arm there that must be the stone, blood smeared across it, but that's not what's interesting. What's interesting is beyond that, not thirty yards from him.

There's a jagged, dark shape rising up from the ground. He recognizes it, not in the way that he would see the silhouette of, say, a cow, and be able to identify it as definitely a cow, because he grew up in the countryside with a surplus of milk-making cows around, but the way someone recognizes someone might recognize something distinctive they saw only once before, but can recognize it again years later because the shape and memory are both unique.

He's seen this shape. And the shapes beyond it, crumbling and unfinished, are also shapes he's seen before, even though they were in daylight and from a different angle.

These are ruins and he knows them. He remembers Maria Ross, that brave girl, emerging from them bright and alive and beautifully not a burnt corpse. (He also remembers his automail resting too hot against his skin, he remembers being unsurprised but still angrier than he could express with Mustang for being a manipulative liar, and he remembers gazing up at the broken, time-worn remains of an alchemical array carved upon a stone wall, and he remembers... wondering.)

Xerxes, he realizes. This is Xerxes. The ruins. That's where I am.

So far away from where he was. Why? Is this part of the toll? That he should die here, alone, halfway put together in this place where mass genocide occurred? What's the point of that? And can he know, have any certainty at all, that the Gate or the Truth or whatever truly decides this bullshit transaction, that what he's paid for is… there? Is Al alive? Is anybody? What, exactly, is his own existence worth in terms of equivalent exchange? Probably not half as much as Van Hohenheim's, but… it has to have saved… somebody. He hardly expects the Truth to have undone the Promised Day, no, but maybe it protected… someone. Anyone. In his desperation, he didn't really think to clarify. He offered the whole of himself and the Gate took all of him.

But apparently it gave a little back, too, because there's his leg, all bloody and weak but very firmly attached to him and not turning to rot with gangrene.

Well. This is a real mystery he's got here. A real fucking mystery.

But he can't solve that mystery right now, even if that's… possible. Which it might not be. But he hurts, and his head is spinning, and he's never felt this exhausted in his whole life, not even after the terrifying ordeal of bonding Al's soul to the armor or getting his automail port surgically attached. This is a different, deeper kind of tired, not the kind that makes him sleepy as much as the kind that pins him down, heavy and pressing, like a massive weight on his chest. His mind is buzzing, but his body can't make the effort. He's already pulled himself free from the sand. He can't do any more.

If he's still alive in the morning, then… well. He'll see if he can survive the desert. Naked. With automail.

That'll be fun.

It's when he's finally nodding off, pain fading with relaxation and mind winding down, that he sees, from the corner of his eye, a faint, yellow glow. It disturbs his view of the stars.

And then— voices. Distant, stretching over foreign syllables.

The sound of sand being disturbed, kicked up by running feet. The startled squeal of a horse, the snort of another. More voices. More words that sound familiar but definitely aren't Amestrian. Ahh… hopefully not Drachman. (In the desert? Really? Not damned likely, Ed.)

And then, and then, a face, hovering over his, the words pouring from the mouth rough and unintelligible but obviously concerned, almost panicked. Hands on his shoulders, his chest, he's too tired and disoriented to push this person away or even grunt "pervert" in annoyance as if it's this guy's fault that Ed is buck naked. But the person above him, he gets a good look at, especially as the yellow glow comes closer (oh, fire, fire, a torch, well duh) and he can see red eyes made brighter by the contrast of dark skin, all set in square face, framed by cropped white hair.

So, he's not gonna be when of those dumbasses who says that all Ishvalans look the same, because that's ignorant bullshit, but he's about to file a complaint, because there's no pale X on this man's dark forehead, but Ed is damned sure—

He tries to wet his lips only to discover that his tongue is so dry it takes a concerted effort to unstick it from the equally dry roof of his mouth. He speaks anyway.

"Scar?"

As this is a rather unexpected experiment on my part, feedback is appreciated.