Fullmetal Alchemist

The Traveler

By SakuraSagura

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA, no matter how much I want to...

Summer was fleeing, seeking refuge somewhere else. The glow of the sun drifted lazily behind thin wisps of clouds. The sky was blue. The grass was green. The path he traveled was home to sudden holes and padded dirt. The trees waved their frail colored leaves at anyone who bothered to glance their way.

It was lonely.

He looked up at the blue sky and wondered why it persisted in being so blue. What did it gain out of that? What was the point of hanging around everyday for a world of good-for-nothings? Why did the sky care to hold onto the world? Wasn't there somewhere else it might want to go?

Hohenheim adjusted his coat and continued walking; hoping the feel of his wearied shoes against the ground might ease his thoughts. He'd left home years ago and he was tired of being gone. A single hour had passed on that fateful day and even then he had felt tired of missing people and being missed. A few years weighed down on him like an ever-growing world on his shoulders. A few years, however, had done nothing to his outward appearance other than etching a frown even deeper into his face. Hohenheim yet again wondered if time was having too much fun aging him inwardly to have any of itself left to attack his actual flesh.

Someone was laughing.

The alchemist looked towards where he thought he had heard the laughing. A hill rolled, its grass giving Hohenheim a lulling bow. The breeze rushed to greet him, tousling lone strands of his blonde hair, and leaving without another show of reassurance. Hohenheim stepped forward, deciding a city must lie ahead somewhere beyond the laughter.

The way he made was across green grass and brown dirt, onward over broken twigs and stray pebbles. Hohenheim heard the laughter again and redirected his way towards it.

When he at last came over another hill to a relatively flat field. There sat a boy atop a rock. A long foxtail lay on his bottom lip, wagging back and forth as the boy pressed the end of the plant with his tongue. A ring of sheep watched him eagerly. The boy grinned, held a deep breath, and waited. The meadow hushed.

The boy blew hard against his foxtail and it flew from his lips into the air. The meadow bowed to him as a wind caught the plant and stole it away. A single sheep cried out and chased after it. After a moment, the others followed.

Hohenheim had watched this event without a sound. The boy would not have known there'd been a visitor to his sheep pasture if Hohenheim had stayed quiet. At the sight of all the sheep toddling after the foxtail, however, Hohenheim had gave a sudden, but understanding, "Ah."

The boy spun around on his rock and spotted his company instantly. Beside his rock there was a wooden rod that Hohenheim suspected the boy had carved himself from a fallen tree branch.

"Hello." The boy said, a faint smile almost begging to become brighter as he looked at the man.

"Hello." Hohenheim returned after a moment of thought.

"Would you care for a bight to eat?" asked the boy.

"I-" Hohenheim began, only to be cut off by his stomach's fervent answer. The boy's smile brightened. He nodded for his visitor to come and join him.

"What are you doing out here, sir?" He asked Hohenheim as the bread between his hands broke in two. He handed Hohenheim the larger half as he waited for a reply. A fluffy creature nudged Hohenheim's leg, which was keeping the alchemist standing.

"Traveling." He answered vaguely as the boy motioned for his visitor to share his rock.

"Ah." Said the boy thoughtfully. He bit into his bread and chewed for a while, looking at a lamb that was peering up at him pathetically for a scrap of food too. Hohenheim, feeling somewhat uncomfortable eating with a total stranger, decided to gaze up at the sky. He wondered if the sky was fine with all that it was seeing right now and if the sky felt helpless to do anything about it if it wasn't all okay. While these thoughts traversed through his muddled mind, the boy ventured a question.

"What?" Hohenheim said, not hearing what was supposed to be heard.

"Why?" The boy asked again.

"Why what?"

"Why are you traveling?"

"Ah." Hohenheim said, trying to think up a believable answer. As he was searching through the murky corners of his thoughts for a reply, the boy said something else. Yet again, Hohenheim's ears had trouble catching the boy's words. He requested for the boy to repeat himself.

"I said 'And don't lie'." He gave Hohenheim a sad smile and admitted, "Sir, I don't like liars." The alchemist's cheeks tinted themselves against their owner's will. Embarrassed, Hohenheim sighed and scratched the back of his head. A cloud wafted passed the sun, shading the meadow momentarily.

"I left my family." He said under the shadow of the passing cloud.

"That was stupid, sir."

"Yes," Hohenheim said, letting his back sagged and his head hang. "But I left for a reason."

"What reason, sir?" The boy asked as he finished off his bread. The man beside the boy stared at a group of sheep nervously staring back at him. Animals had never been fond of him. It was hard.

Inside his head, a small memory played. A wet, little boy with short, blonde hair gazed up at him. Next to him was another boy in drenched clothes. He was older and had longer hair, but the same golden eyes. In the older boy's hands there was a kitten. It was cold and wet. Its fur was matted and its body thin. Its eyes were a bright green and its meows frantic.

It was struggling to get away.

A woman came to his side and touched his hand gently with hers, her blue eyes worriedly looking up into his own. They next landed on the kitten. The boys begged her, cried over the little, struggling kitten, and peered at their parents so beseechingly Hohenheim thought he would break.

He had turned and left the room. The littlest boy ran unevenly after him, babbling through thick tears and the rain that dripped from his head. He asked why they could not keep the kitten, and Hohenheim simply told him that the kitten had its own family somewhere it had to return to. His son had thought about it, staring up at his father. Another round of tears rained from his cheeks much like the sky outside. He went back to the door and stopped there, peeking out at the scene of his brother begging and their mother simply shaking her head. Hohenheim had watched too, and wondered where his sons had gotten such heart. He hoped they kept it.

"Sir…?" The boy said as the memory faded away and blended in with the rest of his muddled thoughts.

"I have to fix something." He answered.

"Is that something broken, sir?" The boy inquired, leaning forward to look up at the man's face. His glasses felt like a barrier as he met the boy's gaze, thankful and yet regretful all at once for the contraption of metal and glass.

"I think so, yes." Hohenheim confided quietly. The boy frowned, his eyebrows raising themselves up towards the blue sky, as if praying for something to aid his saddened visitor.

"Does it hurt?"

"… Very much."

"Ah." The boy said understandingly. A lamb pushed its head against the rock they sat upon. The boy leaned over and tenderly patted its head. "Is the journey you're on a long one?"

Hohenheim nodded as the boy glanced over at him.

"Sir," the boy whispered, his eyes locked on the baby sheep beside him, "visit your family." Hohenheim straightened his back a bit and looked at the boy, who then silently refused to met the alchemist's gaze. "I think," the boy whispered just loud enough for Hohenheim to hear, "that they would like it very much."

"I don't know if I can." Hohenheim said truthfully. He raised his palms upward and studied the dry skin wrapped around his bones. If he could fix what was broken, Hohenheim thought, someday all that would be left of him would be his bones. He lifted his face to the blue sky, which was graced with a beaming sun. Clouds floated away from him and his little companion. He wondered if the clouds knew where they were going and, if the sky someday went away, where they would go then.

"Maybe they can help fix whatever's broken." He turned to Hohenheim and smiled. Hohenheim watched the boy's eyes, and decided to believe that it was a trick of the light and not tears that glistened behind his lashes.

A breeze ruffled the boy's shaggy hair and tugged on Hohenheim's coat.

"Why were you not afraid when you saw me?" Hohenheim asked suddenly. The boy's smile faded away into the smooth plains of his face as he contemplated his answer.

"Well, I suppose it's because you looked so sad, sir."

"Ah," said Hohenheim placidly, "I see."

"Not really, sir." The boy laughed gently. "But that's okay. Maybe you will someday."

"Yes, maybe." Hohenheim said and, for the first time in what felt like years, his etched frown broke from his heavy cheeks and was replaced with a true grin. He stood up and stretched, feeling a little less weighed down than before. The boy smiled up at him.

"Are you leaving?"

Hohenheim gave an affirmative as he adjusted his coat.

"Where, sir?"

"Let me see here," Hohenheim muttered to himself, looking around the meadow.After a minute he turned to the boy and inquired, "Do you know where the village of Resembool is?"

"'Resembool'?" The boy asked, looking surprised.

"Yes, I-"

"This is Resembool!" The boy answered with a laugh that startled the lamb beside him. It scurried away to the rest of the herd. Hohenheim's confused face stared at the boy. "Actually," the boy pointed to the east, "Resembool is in the direction, but we're right on the edge of it… if there is an edge. It's hard to tell where a farm village ends." He grinned up at his visitor and wished him luck with his family and that he hoped whatever was broken would be fixed very soon. Hohenheim grinned back and said he'd strive for that.

"Goodbye, sir." The boy said. Hohenheim peered at the boy for a moment, his mind darkening.

"Please," the traveler began seriously, "flee from this country."

"Flee?"

"Yes. Something terrible is going to happen here."

"Terrible, sir?" He asked. The boy's eyes glanced at his herd and a sad smile again befell his lips. "Sorry, but I have to stay. Without me, sir, those sheep won't make it." They stared at each other, a breeze traveling in the opposite direction of the path Hohenheim was about to embark on.

"Sorry, sir, and goodbye." The boy said.

"Goodbye." Hohenheim said to the young shepherd.

The blue sky above them stretched on and on, measuring the growing distance between the man and boy. It wondered if that was fair. It wondered if the people who chanced into each others lives and made a difference would ever know just how important their words and actions could turn out to be. The sky thought about this and decided that it was very sad. It wanted to cry for them, it wanted to help.

But it couldn't help. All the sky could ever be was a silent observer.

A cloud passed through it over the meadow the boy sat in, traveling with the wind. The same wind had also washed over the man as he walked forward with his wearied shoes stepping upon the green grass, under a sad, blue sky. The trees gave him their reassurance that all would turn out all right with a shake of their branches.

Hohenheim stopped at the edge of a river that he had been to many times before. He noticed that the landscape around him had changed yet again even though he had not. Hohenheim bent to see his reflection in the water, but the waves were too quick and rash for him to see anything clearly at all.

Hohenheim looked up at the sky, and wondered if it knew what his family was doing right at that moment.

Wow, I feel better. Anyway, thanks for reading! Whether you liked it or not please don't let this story strave. Reviews are a fanfic's food! Do what's right and feed the poor thing, won't you?