Edward Elric was out for a walk when he ran into her.

Well, technically, she'd run into him. The girl was dashing down the street, panting, ice-white hair flying behind her. She looked back and ran straight into Ed, knocking them both down.

"Watch it!" the alchemist shouted.

The girl popped back up with a strange motion. An icy wind swirled around them, lifting her hair away from her sweaty face. She panted something – an apology, he thought.

Ed nodded, transfixed by her eerie silver eyes, aimed just below his own. "That's okay." He didn't know why he was forgiving her so easily. She just – she had said something, he didn't know what, and he could already sense the innocence rolling off her. He pushed himself up, retrieving the glove that had flown off his automail hand.

She spun around, falling into something that looked like a fighting stance. Ed listened – yes, there were footsteps, coming around the corner –

The girl kicked out as her pursuer raced into view.

Ed had just a moment to think that she was much too far away to do anything before the blast of fire blinded him. He stumbled and fell again. Enemy reduced to a smoking ruin, the girl bent over him. She whispered something unintelligible.

Then she ran off.

"Colonel Mustang!" Ed swung into Roy Mustang's office with an insolent grin. The colonel sighed and put down his paperwork.

"What now, Fullmetal?"

The boy came in and took the chair in front of Mustang's desk, swinging it around and resting his arms on the back. "Have there been any reports of unauthorized immigrants?"

The colonel felt his face settle into a deep frown. "There are always reports of unauthorized immigrants."

The Fullmetal Alchemist waved his hand. "I know that. I meant strange ones – really noticeable ones. A girl, sixteen – seventeen maybe, white hair, silvery eyes. Someone like that can't hide for too long, right?" Metal clinked against wood as Elric tapped his automail fingers against the chair.

Mustang rubbed his chin, relishing the new challenge. He hadn't heard any reports of a girl like the boy was describing, but he supposed he could always ask Riza to keep an eye out. "Any other distinguishing features?"

"Besides the hair and eyes?"

"Yes. Besides the hair and eyes."

Elric glanced around nervously, then leaned forward, intent on the colonel. "She shoots fire."

Colonel Mustang couldn't keep his eyebrow from creeping up. The Fullmetal boy knew full well that the colonel was the Flame Alchemist. With the amount of time they had worked together, surely the boy would be used to explosions.

Seeing the doubt on his face, Elric hurried to explain further. "Not like you, sir. I don't think that there's any alchemy involved. She just kicked out, and – bam."

The Flame Alchemist's brow furrowed.

"I will find out what I can."

Elric stood and spun the chair back around, then bowed. "Thank you, sir."

A little over a week later, Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes pored over a newspaper article detailing the fascinatingly gory details of a murder. It was the article's title that had caught his attention: UPSTANDING CITIZEN TORCHED! The body had been found charred to a crisp, seemingly caught in the action of running. Only a rogue State Alchemist, the writer asserted, would be able to cause such a rapid demise.

Hughes wasn't so sure; his friend Roy Mustang had asked him to keep an eye out for something like this. The article claimed that someone with long white hair had been spotted fleeing the scene. Roy's description pertained to a girl (young, perhaps seventeen) with long white hair. A girl who, coincidentally enough, could shoot fire.

Wasn't that interesting?

Hughes stood up and went to go on a search.

It was Riza who found her, huddled in an alleyway, flame tucked in her palm. It had been three weeks since her encounter with Edward, and she looked gaunt, lost, and terrified. Riza had made sure to keep her hands far from her gun as she entered the alley.

The girl seemed to see this as more threatening, though, and had moved as if to shoot fire at Riza. It had only been when Riza had dropped her arms to her side that the girl had relaxed. As the lieutenant had approached her, the girl had shied away – not fast enough to hide her weakness, though. Her hair was knotted and filthy, and her icy eyes seemed unable to focus.

Riza swore silently and scooped her up.

Ayonn woke up in a hospital.

Well, that was what it smelled like, in any case, and what she could feel through the thickly padded bed seemed to support the assumption. People walked briskly around her, pushing something with four wheels and a bed on top. Some were nervous, some were calm, some were dead or dying – could they tell? Ayonn wondered. Was it obvious to anyone else that the pulses of the nearly-gone were flagging?

She reached over her head in search of metal. There – her fingers touched the steel support of the bed. Everything was clearer, not as muffled by the mattress and blankets. Ayonn noted with fascination how much better she felt.

Someone approached her bed. Ayonn gripped the pole, listening intently for anything the metal could tell her. Whoever was coming toward her was a woman, tall-ish, with a long coat on. Her stride seemed almost military in nature. And what was that thing on her hip? Metal, clearly, but Ayonn couldn't fathom any use for such an oddly shaped object.

The woman sat in a conveniently placed chair next to Ayonn's bed. Ayonn rolled to face the woman and opened her eyes. It didn't do any good for her, of course, but she'd found it made other people more comfortable. The woman leaned forward.

She said something, Ayonn knew. It was what she'd said that was unclear. Ayonn decided to try communicating herself. "Where am I?"

The lack of response was enough for her to know that the barrier went both ways. She gave it another shot, resorting to the basic point-and-name method of speech. Laying a hand on her chest, Ayonn said, carefully and slowly, "Ayonn."

The woman nodded. Everyone else was hitting the floor hard enough that these small vibrations were coming through with an amazing amount of detail. There was something to be gained from heavy traffic. The woman pointed to herself and enunciated. "Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye."

It was the strangest name Ayonn had ever heard. There was one more basic fact that she had to get out of the way, though. She pointed to her eyes and shook her head, then closed the lids just to demonstrate. "I'm blind," she whispered, knowing the woman wouldn't understand. "I'm blind."