Get up

Her fingers grated into the soil as her stomach heaved again. A spasm rushed from belly button to ribcage as yet another large sum of the Philosopher's Stone spilled from her mouth over the grass.

...What would Envy say to you right now?

Worthless. Pile. Of. Dog-shit. Get up and fucking fight!

Reluctance groaned weakly as her pale arms nearly buckled out from under her.

"What's going on...?" Ed called, his voice barely rising to the level of weak, muted panic.

Sweat trickling down her brow, Reluctance managed to look to the side with dimming violet eyes. The loud sonic booms that sounded through the clearing and echoed through the surrounding forest were distant in her ears and almost foreign over the ringing that began.

"She bends time, Brother!" Al interjected, his brown ponytail blowing in the wind as randomized trees and sections of grass stood still in the oncoming wind. Al whirled and watched, hands over his ears, the different objects stilled themselves before springing spontaneously back to life.

Ed's rush ceased as another sigh escaped his lips, "Her power is going haywire... It happened to Sloth too," He visibly cringed as the petite Homunculus squirmed and writhed on the field.

His hands balled into fists at his sides-

"Huh?" Ed articulated.

She was speaking that weird jibberish again.

But then she began to cry. Tears, unlike French, were something Edward understood.

Pity stirred in his heart. He couldn't just sit there like a lump while a little girl cried, even if she did have eyes like that. Nina... But those unnatural eyes of hers made his movements slow and hesitating, and caused the cautious, analytical look to linger in his eyes.

Ed stood up from the chair and took a few steps toward the girl, but didn't walk right up to her or make any kind of comforting contact.

Ed managed a gentle smile, struggling to keep it purely reassuring and not let the distrust born from meeting Wrath or the grief born from losing Nina taint the expression.

"No, I don't speak French," he admitted in a soft, non-threatening voice. "In fact, I don't even know what French is," he conceded with a half-chuckle which did wonders for his smile.

"What's your name?"

"Reluctance."

Ed looked up with a stern expression.

"Brother... She wasn't our sin. Why are we sealing her...?" Al's aqua eyes struck him, and made him feel all the more guilty.

"Because she broke a promise, Al," He whispered, unable to stand looking at the scene anymore. Her long braided pigtails and doll-like features drew back a young face. Needles pierced his heart as the memories seeped farther and farther underneath his skin.

Nina...

"I should've trusted my gut feeling."

Another loud sonic-boom echoed, though its volume was ten times as loud as the other, as the envelope of time swallowed up the entire field, and the sealing circle.

Reluctance cried a weak respire of relief as the alchemy ceased and she looked at the blonde. A bit more stone oozed out of the corner of her mouth as she wormed away, pulling herself on clumps of dirt. The world lurched suddenly and she rolled with it, leaving the worn stuffed duck abandoned in the center of the formerly-glowing alchemic circle. Leaving the circle two feet away, the blonde sighed again.

She gasped and whirled her head around, looking at him with tired, wild eyes...

"Just go. I won't chase you." He whispered with eyes fixed on the grass.

She pushed herself to a sitting position, looking at Ed with a torn expression, "I still don't know where I came from," She whispered, "but I found a family that'll accept me anyway."

Ed's face pulled back into a grimace, "A family of monsters."

Reluctance choked out a laugh, "How is me seeking home with people just like me, no matter what they do... any different from how you joined the military?"

"Becau- "

"No, Edward... Despite what the motives were, they're virtually the same. You're working for a corrupt employer, and doing things you don't believe in-and were taught against-because it's a home to you now. It's a part of you. Admit it, Edward, you feel like you belong there... Just like I know that I belong with the Homunculi. No matter how much of a monster it makes me... or how much of a dog it makes you."

They stared, eyes locked as the meaning sank in... no matter how true, or untrue her theory was... it made perfect, undeniable sense.

And Reluctance turned, crawling away into the living forest.

"Brother, she-"

"I know Al... let's go." Ed whispered as he turned, face unreadable, and moved towards the path out of the clearing.