This took me way too long to start writing, but hopefully now that I've actually done so it will encourage me to keep going. I won't give up this time guys, I promise.

The Rosalie fic lives on, as I saw her mentioned in a fic by Sixty-four K and she's such an underrated character I wanted to write about her again, and Pride of course~ I love their unwitting similarities. She still doesn't have a character thing here on ff . net though.

There are a few options for what Rosalie's surname is, since the sub, dub and manga all have it different (Hamburgang, Humbergang and weirdly Harbinger). The katakana is ハンベルガング (hanberugangu), which definitely isn't Harbinger, also I'm way too used to Hamburgang to change at this point.

This is set about a week or so after Bradley (You're a Fine Girl), still during December 1914, but reading that isn't really necessary to understand this fic. It's also in the same continuity of my other fic The Dark in Need of Light, but you don't need to read that either (but of course it'd be awesome if ya did!)

On with the fic, and oh yeah, FMA belongs to Hiromu Arakawa.


Birds of a Feather

Chapter One

The presidential car sped along, and the boy peered out into the bustling streets that whizzed past his pink tinged face. He blew a long breath through the window, watching it freeze into a cloud and stream out like smoke from a tiny chimney.

No snow yet, regrettably. Pride would have preferred the somewhat bland greys of Central be once more cloaked in the pure and powdery whites that winter brought. Not for purely aesthetic reasons (though he was overdue a new coat for the season), rather the familiar chill gave more opportunities for him to cling closer to Mother and soak up the warmth that the cold hollowness of his insides lacked.

Pride glanced behind him. Mother's absence stung somewhat, no matter how necessary given her own tasks for the day, and the unwelcome shape of his little brother filled her half of the car. He went back to watching the scenery flit by, kicking idly over the edge of his seat, shoes brushing the plush covering.

His legs stilled as the coarse texture of Wrath's hand rested on his head, ruffling his hair none too gently, passing it off as just a fatherly affection and certainly not a deliberate attempt at messing up his hair.

"You nervous?" Wrath's fingers tightened between his perfect inky strands, almost a tug. He couldn't still be dwelling on their discussion the week before, could he?

Pride rejected the idea in an instant; it must have merely been something stupid like boredom during their little car ride.

"Not really." He murmured, before he dislodged Wrath's hand and smoothed his hair back down.

Winter brought a general slowness to military proceedings, and in light of the recent attack on Fort Briggs even the winter training exercises between the North and East were postponed until further notice. All these issues combined gave Wrath more freedom than usual, and all the more opportunities to intrude on his space and irk him.

"Tell me about this girl. Rosaline, was it?"

"Rosalie." He corrected his little brother, "Rosalie Hamburgang. She's a little younger than me, I think, and her servant's amazing at alchemy! They say he's better than some State Alchemists!" Pride chirped, not caring at all who 'They' were supposed to be. The rumour mill churned out its latest scrap of gossip, and from it the whispers of the illustrious Hamburgangs' obscenely skilled alchemist reached their ears. The whispers spoke of his long servitude to the family, and a possible successful Human Transmutation. A certain lie, but anyone who got such rumours attached to them was worth a bit of investigation.

And as such, a meeting between himself and the young Hamburgang child had been arranged. During the past few days, Pride heard his mother and hers speaking over the phone in the hushed and anxious tones adult humans used amongst themselves. What could be so complicated about her staying with them for less than a week? She would certainly be well protected at their residence within Headquarters. Why her mother had neglected to accompany her was another matter, but Pride did not care enough about the details to dwell on it for long.

"That's some high praise; I thought Fullmetal was your favourite." Ah yes, the Fullmetal boy and his brother, and their deadly escapades in the north. He shouldn't think on it too much.

"Mister Edward's so amazing already! But I guess meeting some other alchemist could be cool, too." Their disappearance had warranted this investigation into Jude in the first place. At least it seemed Edward was well enough to continue drawing from his 'research' funds.

"I hope me and Rosalie can be friends, and then maybe next time she visits, she can bring her servant!"

"I'm sure by the time she leaves you two will be inseparable."

Soon enough the two homunculi (and their too many bodyguards) stood on the platform at Central Train Station, garnering many glances at the sudden appearance of the führer and his darling child. Why had Wrath worn his regular uniform during their outing? As if he needed anything else to draw unwanted attention to himself. At least Wrath's uniform would make them easy to spot once the girl arrived.

The crowds milled about the platform at a polite distance, though some of the females pushed up off their heels to catch a glimpse of him, cooing as they passed.

Is that Selim Bradley?

He's so cute!

The boy flushed and turned meekly away at the compliment, but inwardly Pride absorbed it without any humility whatsoever. Though his act meant he could only be seen as a child, everyone knew he was above any other child in Amestris – well protected, privileged, pampered. At home, the servants and maids called him Master Selim with such respect, and the population's general adoration of him made this pandering the tiniest bit worthwhile.

The train eased into the station with a blare and a puff of smoke, and Pride rushed along to the end of the platform, not waiting for Wrath to catch up. Wrath rejoined him in far fewer strides, and they waited in front of the carriage marked First Class.

A seemingly endless number of humans streamed from every door; no doubt some of them would be Centralites returning from day trips in the countryside, or holidaymakers making the most of their time off work and visiting the illustrious capital.

Eventually a blob of black pottered out. It was a short, portly man dressed in the standard black of servant uniforms, helping a young girl down the steps. No, the girl leapt down, as if she doubted she could clear the small gap any other way, dragging the man forward as he tried to keep hold of her hand.

"P-Please do not jump like that, Lady Rosalie." The man gasped, careful not to drop the small suitcase clasped in his spare hand.

"Sorry, I'll be more careful next time." The girl replied with a nonchalance that implied she would be anything but, her taking the suitcase. She spotted them, and turned to the man. "Is that them?" She tried (and very much failed) to whisper.

"I believe so."

Pride stood patiently and let Wrath deal with the introductions, the hand-shakings and whatnot.

"I am Maisner, the Hamburgangs' butler, and this is Lady Rosalie. Madame Hamburgang sends her most sincere regards, and thanks you for your graciousness."

"It is no trouble at all. I am sure Selim will enjoy the company." Wrath said in his rough, but more sedate than usual, tone, as if he was actually bothering to keep up appearances for once. Pride just hoped his flashes of 'eccentricity' wouldn't flare up lest the girl be buried in melons on the way home.

"Th-Thank you, Your Excellency!" Rosalie bowed quickly, holding her suitcase tight in two hands.

"Well then, I shall see you on Sunday, Lady Rosalie."

"Yup, see you later!" The child waved Mr Maisner off, and he disappeared back into the carriage.

Pride caught her tiny sigh, and she turned to face them with a nervous smile. She padded closer, and for the first time he could see her outfit properly.

Against the dull, metal backdrop of the train her cornflower blue cardigan seemed striking, fastened with a soft pink bow, and a dress of a paler blue trailed down beneath it, like the winter sky that peeked out in long, thin streaks above them.

"Well, would you look at that, son. Your clothes match." Wrath teased him.

Pride studied his own outfit, his own blues and browns. Pride merely tolerated his Mother's taste in his clothes; such clashing shades were something only a child could be allowed to wear. But as one of Mother's favourites he found himself wearing the colours more often than not. Still, to see the same gentle blues on another was… convenient. Now they would not look out of place amongst each other.

"Hi, I'm Selim. It's nice to meet you, and I'm sure we'll get along!"

"And I'm Rosalie. Nice to meet you, too." She shook his hand with a disarming enthusiasm, too cheery, almost. Her fluffy chestnut hair fell forward at the force of it, and giggling she pushed it back with her headband. "Thank you so much for letting me stay here."

Pride returned her grin with his own flawless, fake one and dragged her off with more inane chatter. As ever, it would be oh so effortless to get what he wanted from this foolish human.


It couldn't be that hard to fool him, right? Four years of practise ought to be enough to play at being the same as him for a few days. If only he knew, then again, that'd only complicate things even more.

Rosalie perched on her tiny suitcase and watched his little blue jacket almost disappear into his bedside cabinet. He returned with a stack of three small scrapbooks.

"I only have these right now, but I think I've done a good job on them." Selim slipped two under one arm and held up the other. "This one's all about the Tiny Alchemist, er, I mean, Edward Elric!" He added, as if catching the confused quirk in her smile.

"You like alchemy?" Rosalie asked him as he handed her to first scrapbook. Even before what had made her end up here, Jude's impairment prevented him from drawing any alchemic arrays, so she settled for skimming through his indecipherable books on the subject. They never held her interest long, with so many other things to waste the days on.

"Yep, alchemy is so wonderful and Edward's really cool! You know he became a State Alchemist when he was twelve? Oh, and the other two are for birds and other animals. We don't have any pets, but I just like seeing all the nice pictures of them." He set the spare books on the floor and sat down, watching her with an encouraging, boyish grin.

Rosalie nodded and leafed through the pages very carefully. Every part of it was filled to bursting with neatly cut-out newspaper articles and pictures of Edward and his weirdo-hollow-little-brother Alphonse. A drawing of Edward lay in the centre of one page, his bright red coat the only part that was coloured, decorated with a strange pattern on the back that Selim had labelled 'flamel', whatever that meant. His arm and leg were also tagged with 'automail (metal limbs)'. That must be why they called him Fullmetal, she thought. Their one afternoon spent together hadn't given her the time to find out such things, but it seemed Selim's respect for the brothers knew no bounds, and she admired his dedication, a little.

Another, more recent clipping mentioned the brothers heading towards North City. Briefly, she wondered what had led them so far away. Maybe they just enjoyed travelling around that much, given how far they had come to visit Jude after all.

Selim scooted closer to her, glancing at the page she'd settled on.

"Edward's so cool...hope he's ok… you know he can do alchemy without even needing a circle? I bet Mr. Jude's great as well. Can he do that, too?"

"I dunno. We don't need Jude's alchemy much anymore. Things don't change much, so we're pretty happy right now." Yes they were; nothing had changed for her to be here…

He nodded with a strange twitch in his mouth, sitting back in his previous place. Rosalie saw a soft, sad flicker in his peculiar purple eyes, or maybe she just imagined it.

She sat quietly, still pretending to read. She thought about the children she usually had to act around at school, and Selim was so much more than that. How could she hope to know how to act around the führer's son? Then again, such a status might have kept him away from other children his age.

Maybe…he's lonely, too.

Rosalie considered this, and wished it to be true enough to believe it. This was no good, she decided, just reading and being so distant would not help in being convincing, or help them become even close to friends. Though a lowly thing like her (lower than he would ever know) didn't have much of a chance of being his friend, she had to try.

Their combined nervousness hovered around them, until she had become more than a little bored in just sitting. The delicious roasted goose for dinner had given her an unbearable urge to be running around despite the risk of an upset stomach. Though, running down the hallways didn't sound like the best first impression in her trickery, so she sat for a moment longer and schemed something more normal.

"Hey," Rosalie called to him, "can we play…hide and seek?"

Hide and seek is fun. Hide and seek is what ordinary children do. And she isn't exactly ordinary, but for him she'll pretend to be. It's the least she can do as a guest.

Selim blinked, digesting the suggestion, but his grin grew, and before she knew it he had pushed the books aside and was on his feet.

"Sure, it'll be fun. But only this floor, so no going up or downstairs. I don't wanna make too much noise so late. I'll go hide, you count to one hundred, ok?" Without really waiting for her to reply the boy dashed off, leaving the door ajar in his hurry. Given the direction his shadow flicked across the wall as he ran, Rosalie noted which side of the house to start on once she'd finished counting.

Tick, tick, tick. Rosalie crawled along to the clock atop Selim's bedside table, watching the seconds.

A minute passed, and she counted through the last forty as fast as she could.

"…98, 99, 100."

Rosalie peeked out into the hallway.

"Ready or not," She said in her best indoor voice. "Here I come!"

The young brunette took a single step before realising the flaw in her plan. Every corridor so far had looked the same. She was going to get lost if she wasn't careful, then Selim would be hiding forever, or until he got bored, or fell asleep in his hiding place. So, she reasoned, the only thing to do was open every single door she saw and then she would know where she'd been. This entailed some snooping too, just in case Selim was there. Rosalie didn't exactly want to go snooping around, but hide and seek provided the most opportunities for her to explore this part of the house at least, and without making the mess that hiding might.

She pushed open the first door, flicking the lights on. The pale yellow bounced off the bare walls, the bare everything.

A spare room…

Well, it made some sense. Her own enormous home in the country, only containing her and her mother (and the servants) was far too big for them, so not every room could have a specific use. With a distinct lack of Selim-sized hiding places, Rosalie turned the light back off and shut the door.

Five minutes later she was rummaging around in some kind of storage room that might have once been a meeting room, ducking under the expensive mahogany chairs. Most of the packed boxes were tied with thread, so she didn't bother with them. He wouldn't be in there.

Remembering her manners, she walked very carefully through the hallway until she came across another door, this time on the same side as Selim's room.

The gentler moonlight poured in through the gap in the curtains, shining over a stack of papers, several full ink bottles and a few quills on the table.

This must be where he gets tutored.

Her mind sparked in suspicion. No tutor would leave things like that just lying around. Selim must have taken them from somewhere to make space for…

Rosalie focused her eyes on the dark shape of a cabinet in the corner. She knelt down, crawled along and reached for the two brass handles.

Almost immediately Selim flopped out. How had he even fit in there?

"Oof…" The boy groaned. He stared up at her from his place half squished in the cabinet, his bright eyes shining in the dark of her shadow, but half closed, drowsy.

"F-Found you!" She said, more in surprise that she actually had.

"Guess so…" Selim yawned while he dragged himself out completely. He kicked his legs a little, as if to wake them up. "That was…fun…"

She saw his flat, tired line of a mouth twitch into a slow, dopey looking grin. She might be tricking him, but he seemed happy.

"Ah, here you two are."

Rosalie helped Selim up and turned her head towards the voice. Madame Bradley smiled at them from the doorway.

"Did you have fun playing?"

They both nodded.

"It's time for bed, dears. Selim, darling, why don't you go and get ready for bed? I'll come and tuck you in after I've shown Rosalie her room." She lifted the suitcase in her hand, and Rosalie realised it was hers. No doubt she had gone to Selim's room first to check on them.

"Ok, Mother." He wobbled towards his mother, and glanced back with a wave. "Goodnight, Rosalie."

"Goodnight." She waved back.

Madame Bradley led her down the identical halls until they reached what would become her room. The room was simply furnished, curtains, some drawers, a table and a bed, smaller than Selim's, but still much more than she needed.

Even so, Rosalie grimaced a little at the effort they must have gone through for her to stay with them on such short notice, preparing a nice spare room, all for her.

Slowly, she unpacked her nightie, hairbrush and the book she'd brought from 'home'. Madame Bradley asked if she could see it.

"Ooh, I don't think Selim has this one. You two should read it together soon." She encouraged her. "That boy loves to read, you know."

While the woman busied herself with the book, Rosalie took off her cardigan, slipped her nightie on over her head, and, due to its lack of sleeves, shimmied out of her dress without much trouble. She folded her clothes neatly into the small drawers for tomorrow, before she slid under the quilt from the foot of the bed and inched up to the pillows before Madame Bradley could attempt to tuck her in. She heard her pottering around for a while longer, setting the book down on the table.

"Have a nice rest, dear." The woman's soft voice echoed along to her as she turned off the light.

Rosalie blinked in the dark. They were good people, and here she was, still pretending to be one of them. Posh little Rosalie, all they needed to see, all anyone should see. Though, she had spent longer now as Rosalie than she had as Amy. Surely that counted for something. And if they accepted her deception, what should it matter? It didn't matter.

Mustering a quiet smile, and choosing to make the most of her time as their guest, Rosalie burrowed in the covers of the bed she barely deserved, and drifted off to sleep.

Regardless of why she'd wound up here, maybe this week could be fun, after all.


Sooo short, man I'm rusty, but hopefully I'll be back into the swing of things soon. I'm hoping to get this updated every week or so. Will we get more scenes from Rosalie's point of view…? Who knows~ not me, for sure.

Maisner's name comes from the English version of the Blind Alchemist manga, even though I'm blatantly disregarding it anyway for Rosalie's surname because I'm a hypocrite. The butler (he's the guy who tries to drag Rosalie off Alphonse) isn't given a name in the OVA so I might as well go with that.

In the meantime, for more Rosalie and Pride hide and seek goodness there's my old ficlet Spectrum, in which Rosalie is the one that hid instead, and there are some other small differences in the circumstances of their meeting.

And as always, reviews and things are appreciated!