Happy Birthday Eia!

Disclaimer: FMA and the characters therein are not my property. I just play with them, like plushies.

Warnings: Spoilers for end of series and the movie.

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Adria had been born without a home and never knew the need for one. A child of travelers learns early to value other people – family and fellows – more than places. To seek shelter in others as much as in wagons and trucks. Although there had been many hungry days of late Adria thought that, even so, maybe she was satisfied. She certainly never felt homeless.

Still, when she met Nicolae it was as if she had discovered she was hollow inside. He scared her, but not because of his imposing height, his shoulders like hillsides, or his arms and hands that looked made to bruise and break. What frightened her was the yawning pit in her stomach that opened up whenever she looked into his eyes. Eyes that were a shade of brown so fierce they seemed red. Even his low, even voice and the kinder touches of his calloused hands brought emptiness.

At least that was how it felt at first.

Days later, when he had settled into their caravan, she dreamt of him. Dreamed him with fearsome scars that marred his whole body, here and there – the most striking one branded his face. At first, she was terrified that she had been "gifted" with visions like some of her kin. And then, when she dreamt of herself (another name, another body) with fingers that moved like daggers and a deep hunger constantly scraping at the insides of her belly, she thought she was just crazy. A crazy gypsy just like all the outsiders called her.

She decided she could live with insanity, as long as she could still get some sleep. The long open air car-rides were conducive enough. That is, until – somewhere between Munich and Linz – she woke from yet another nightmare world, this time an endless desert, to find him holding her shoulders fast, his broad palms warm through the thin fabric of her shirt. And when she heard her name in his whispered voice and looked into his eyes, she knew that he was haunted too.

Adria allowed Nicolae to hold her close as the terror faded and that was the first time she felt it. Like a drop of water hitting the bottom of a dry well. And then another. That night she was standing at the bottom of a well in a soft rain and the water wet the stones and rose around her ankles. Something was filling up.

And when it finally overflowed, when he held her close in the night, his heavy arms a comforting weight, she began to wonder what it felt like to have a home.

A month or so later they stopped to pick up two blonde boys – brothers – on the side of the road. Nicolae rumbled a greeting, which was unusually expressive for him. Looking at them, Adria felt something inside her tumble loose. And as they chattered to each other in the bed of the truck behind her she unconsciously leaned closer to the stoic man beside her. When the longer-haired one (older? he seemed rather small) asked her name she answered and was surprised to find it tasted wrong.

They made camp just short of the next town, and laying in their tent that night Nicolae answered the question she had not even found yet.

"I dreamt of them too."

She was scared, but not terrified. She ran her hands idly over the expanse of his chest as she hummed her acknowledgement. They were both uneasy. An expectation waited outside, but the terror of the dreams was absent.

Adria wondered again about home and felt that – wherever, whatever that was – maybe they were heading towards it.

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Author's Note: So this was all pure speculation based on those last few minutes of Conqueror of Shamballa. Scar and Lust were obviously gypsies. As for the names, Adria means "dark one" (appropriate to her coloration) and Nicolae means "victory of the people" (one hopes this for him).