Notes: AU for Chronicles of Narnia and Fullmetal Alchemist, though I think the Magician's Nephew timeline is sufficiently vague that I'm not outright spitting on it. :-) It starts right after the FMA anime series, before the movie canonically starts. Part 1 of I don't know yet. Polly/Edward if you want to see it, maybe less subtly later if it works out that way.
...very soon, before you are an old man and an old woman, great nations in your world will be ruled by tyrants who care no more for joy and justice and mercy than the Empress Jadis.
That light—only once before had she seen anything like it.
And even that had not really been like this, this blazing column of violet stabbing up into the clouds.
It's from another world, Polly thought, and before she knew it, she was running towards it.
Too late. The light shrank and dimmed, and just as Polly reached it, vanished. She had reached a blind alley, dark, the ground wet with the recent rain. She began to turn to go, but a motion caught her eye, a shifting shadow, maybe.
"Hello?" she called.
No answer.
She went closer slowly.
The shadow moved again, and Polly saw that it was actually a young man struggling to lift himself from the ground.
She hurried the last few steps, calling, "Are you all—"
And stopped short. His hand, propping him up on the cobblestones, wasn't a hand at all, but some sort of machine.
He lifted his head and looked at Polly through his bedraggled pale hair. His face was dirty, his eyes a strange gold.
She took a deep breath and knelt beside him. "Are you all right? Can I help?"
"Where am I?" he said. His accent wasn't English.
"Islington," Polly said. It didn't seem to mean anything to him. "In London," she added.
He sat up and pushed his hair out of his face. Polly tried not to stare at his mechanical arm, but it was difficult to know where to look, because she saw now that he was wearing nothing but trousers considerably the worse for the wear, and that his left leg was metal too.
She felt herself blushing, and stood and pulled off her coat perhaps a bit more forcefully than she might otherwise have done. "Here, have this. You must be cold."
He took it and got slowly to his feet. Polly turned away for a moment while he put it on.
"My name's Polly. Polly Plummer," she said, looking back at him.
"I'm Edward Elric."
"Pleased to meet you," she said, since he seemed to expect some sort of reaction. She was a little surprised to see how slight he was, some centimetres shorter than she.
She wanted to ask him about the light straight away, but he was still shivering despite the wool coat. "I don't live far from here," she said. "You can come along with me and at least warm up."
"All right. Thanks."
He seemed a bit steadier now, but as they walked Polly noticed him lifting his hand and flexing the metal fingers. She bit her lip and looked down at the ground. There were so many things tumbling about in her mind that she couldn't sort them out. She didn't think he had come from Narnia. But to meet someone else who had travelled between worlds...it made her almost giddy with excitement and curiosity. Maybe he would trust her enough to tell her his story.