Author's note: Whipped out some spontaneous AlMei, because I had a bad day, bad days are improved by cute things, and AlMei is the cutest thing since the dramatic chipmunk video. ... Tangent. Sorry. *goes and watches dramatic chipmunk video twelve hundred times*
Also, I like oneshots and I never post any. So here's one.
Enjoy the fluff!
At first, Al sleeps badly in Xing. It's nothing like his first night back at the Rockbell's two years ago, because there his brother was snoring deafeningly in the other bed, the familiar calm glow of the Eastern moonlight on the curtains. He could hear Granny walking around the house making final checks of everything before she turned in and smell the remnants of apple pie still wafting up from the kitchen. He had known everyone who lived within five miles of the shop since he was born.
Al has fought impossible beings multiple times, lived without a body for years, and been to the gates of death and back. But this is new. He feels farther from home than ever. He is farther from home than ever.
In Resembool, the sound of rain on grass was comforting. Here, in June, in the south of Xing where the Chang live, the rain is fearsome. It slams against the flagstones, not sounding at all wet, but more like some vast creature, or a pack of them. It darkens the folding curtain over the bedroom window, cutting off the only light source, and Al sits up in the dark, feeling battered, the thought of sleep ridiculous when such calamity reigns overhead and throughout.
When he was small, he would climb into bed with his mother when he was scared at night. The first few times, Al tried to drag him along, but Ed always refused, clinging to the quilt stubbornly until Al relented and fled without him. Ed would give him a look when he left their bedroom, like, "I'm the older brother and I'm too old for that, you dope." Now Al knows how Ed felt. He is seventeen and anyway, both his parents are better off now, where he can't phone them if he gets scared at night. He can't get up and get a glass of milk or make hot chocolate like he did before the nightmares finally went away last winter, since he couldn't find the kitchen in the dark (or, honestly, in the light) and he doesn't think they have hot chocolate in Xing. He once described hot chocolate to Mei and she giggled at the sheer foreignism of it, making his stomach sink at just how far he was from home, and he's experiencing the same thing now.
He really doesn't want to make anyone get up, which would be embarrassing and rude. Besides, Mei's family is so strict in their social rules and customs that he almost doesn't want to know what they wear to bed, since it might violate their dignity. And God (or Truth, or whatever) help you if you should injure a clan's dignity in Xing. Mei's probably never had to do the same, since she has her panda.
What he should really do is just forget about it. He's a mature adult traveling on his own for the first time, and it's better if he just shoves a pillow against his ear and goes to sleep. Easy. He grabs a promising-looking cushion off the mountain of them at the foot of his bed and wedges it between his shoulder and his ear, turns over and tries to lie still.
After steadily and with growing frustration making his way through half the stack of cushions, Al decides that all cushions are useless and throws them back at the others, where they are uncomfortably warm against his feet. He nearly growls in irritation and jerks himself upright, fully awake now, not caring how much noise he makes - something creaks and he doesn't even try to identify it -
"Alphonse-sama?"
He stops abusing the cushions and looks up, dazed. He can't see the princess against the dark of the hallway, but her voice, soft and worried, is familiar and reassuring in itself, and he lays his hands on the silk sheets and tries to smile at her, as if she can see him. "Hi," he says lamely.
Mei steps cautiously into his bedroom and slides the door silently shut behind her. Automatically, his eyes rake the space around her for her panda, but Xiao Mei is nowhere to be seen. "I heard you tossing around," she whispers, footsteps nearing the bed. "I sleep right there, to the south."
The way the Xingese use the directions of the compass like left and right is still a little disorienting, and Al has to think for a minute before deciding that Mei's room is probably to the right. He woke her up. "I woke you up. I'm sorry, Mei - "
"No, Alphonse-sama," she protests, sitting on the edge of his bed and wriggling a little to get comfortable. "Xiao Mei woke me up. She heard you and thought you might need me."
"Xiao - " Huh. Okay. So... "Did I wake her up?"
Mei shakes her head, and he can at least see her eyes amidst the shadows, wide and dark against her pale face. "Xiao Mei doesn't sleep when I do," she explains, sounding like a proud parent. "She stays up and guards me, because our family only has a few guards to protect our halls at night. She's a very good bodyguard."
Al doesn't really know what to say to this.
There is a short and awkward silence.
"D-did the rains wake you up?" she asks tentatively after a few seconds.
He huffs out a short laugh. "I don't think they woke me up."
"You mean you've been trying to sleep all this time?" Mei's voice is suddenly anxious, and she leans forward, looking concerned. "That's - "
"No, it's okay," Al says quickly. I shouldn't have told her that. "Don't worry about it. I was just thinking too much. It was my fault. It's not your fault, Mei, you can't do anything about the rain anyway."
"But you are our guest! Alphonse-sama, the guest is more important than all the ordinary occupants of the house combined! If you were having trouble - "
"Mei!" Her eyes are huge, and he almost laughs. "I said don't worry about it."
She bites her lip, looking conflicted, and Al realizes the rain has subsided a little. The darkness in the room has diminished, and he can see that Mei is wearing a pink silk sleep shift and, as she pulls her feet up to sit cross-legged, matching slippers. "I'm sorry you had to arrive during the rains," she says quietly. "They usually start in the seventh or eighth month, not the sixth."
He stares at her, disbelieving. "You mean it does this every year?" The past few weeks here had been so relentlessly pleasant that he hadn't imagined it wouldn't be this way for most of the year. "All over the country?"
Mei giggles and shakes her head. "Of course not! The ocean is very close here. The crops have to be harvested earlier around here, so they are easy to sell up north. Do you know what a taifeng is?"
Al recognizes the second part of the word - he's fairly sure it means wind - but not the first. "Some kind of wind? Like a storm?"
"Henhao. A lot of winds, moving very fast, in a circle. They come in from the ocean and damage a lot of the coastal villages and ports. The Qin clan bears most of it, but we always get strong winds and strong rains. We spend a lot of time inside during these months."
"How long does it last?"
"Until the tenth or eleventh month."
Al flops back on the pillows and groans, making the princess laugh again. "Don't worry, there are lots of things to do inside. It just means I won't be able to take you to all the places I wanted to before the rains came. I'm sorry."
"No, that's okay. I won't even miss them." Mei smiles at him and starts to slide off the bed to the floor, but Al doesn't really want her to go, so he pushes further. "Tell me about where you were going to take me."
Her face brightens even more and she begins to tell him, about the markets in Heishan near the mines, where sparkling jewels are a dime a dozen; Zhehe, where the widest river in Xing has its source by the ocean; Luzhou, the capital of the Chang lands, which is not a true city but contains the most fertile ground in all the south. Al sits back on the cushions and listens until his eyelids grow heavy. Noticing, Mei rises and goes silently to the door.
She glances back over her shoulder to see him sleeping deeply, the blankets pulled up to his nose, blankets rising and falling slowly with every breath, and she smiles at him. There are many more nights to come, many lessons to be taught and discussions to be had.
The door closes softly behind her.
Author's note: Like all my ficlets set in Xing, research went into this chapter. Not too much, though. Arakawa does not give the location of the Chang clan in Xing, so I placed it south, one clan away from the border. The Qin clan (also not canon) is between them and the border. Henhao means "correct". In case you didn't know, taifeng means "great winds" and means a typhoon; in fact, the word "typhoon" developed out of the Mandarin word. Sound it out. And yes, there are really typhoons from summer to late autumn in southern China.
Heishan = "black mountain"
Zhehe = "winding broad river"
Luzhou = "green provincial capital"
Two beta readers - IvyShort, and another friend who does not have an account here, but they both did a lovely job. Please let me know how I did by reviewing. Thanks for stopping by!