He had been outside, sitting in the grass just in front of the house, and in his hands was the little wooden train that his father had handed to him. He set it on the lowest step and pushed it back and forth, fascinated by the way those smooth round wheels turned easily no matter how hard he pushed.

He remembered, in a burst of excitement from the activity, pushing a little too hard and letting go. The little train flew from his grasp and cleared the width of the step in an instant. It sailed through the air – light as it was to accommodate the one it was meant for – and connected sharply with a long leg. With a dull "snap", the toy dropped to the grass in two pieces.

At that point, nothing mattered more to him than that little toy, and there it lay with its battered front severed cleanly from the rest of it. Broken. He stared after it from where he sat, and for even just a moment wanted to do something – anything – to vent those feelings of anger and sadness bubbling up within him.

There was a soft sound of surprise, and then the one who had broken his toy bent down on one knee. He could see who it was more clearly now: a stranger, a man with brown hair secured in a small ponytail, with a long dark line sliding across the bridge of his nose, between a pair of bright eyes that were silver tinted blue. A funny silver object dangled about his neck, its shape carried over on the red marking he wore on his sleeve. It was that shape that drew his attention more than anything else about him, and he was still staring at it when his eyes caught more movement.

A large hand – large as his father's – scooped up the two halves and studied them. Even as he felt anger at the man for breaking and now stealing his toy, he also felt something strange holding it back. It felt a little like fear, but not the bad sort that was reserved for monsters under the bed or bad things that lurked in the shadows. It was… a good kind of fear, a little like what he felt about his father sometimes.

There was a murmur, like a deep rumble from the man's throat, as his other hand took one of the pieces and held it up to look at it more closely. Then, with a second, less certain rumble, he held both pieces properly and stuck them together, the way they were supposed to be.

"… should be about the same," he was saying, probably to himself. Then, those silver-blue eyes were looking his way, softening, "… I'm still no good at this, but…"

Those eyes focused back on the toy, and a strange light flared from the area between the two pieces. The air smelled funny, like the wood from the fireplace, but there was nothing black or covered in red and yellow like he was familiar with. Instead, there was only the stranger still holding his toy, and then the man carefully took one hand away from it.

It held, the break no longer visible. It seemed like new.

The remaining hand turned it over a few times, until at last there was a final hum of approval. Then the toy came back toward him, and he reached for it impatiently until it was dropped in his grasp. With his little train safe and fixed in his hands once more, his earlier feelings were gone, forgotten, replaced instead by warmer feelings of happiness.

Then another warmth was added – a physical one atop his head. The man was patting him like his father usually did when he was happy about something. When he looked up curiously, he saw a smile, also much like his father's. It had that same kindness, yet slight sadness about it.

The door was opening behind him, and then he heard his mother cry out in alarm.

"Ed…!"

The man looked up at his mother, then back down at him. There was something strange about those eyes now, as though seeing something else. But they were still soft – kind of – and they were still warm.

"… I see. So your name is Ed." the man spoke to him, still smiling. Then, the hand left his head, and the man got up again. "Sorry about earlier."

Then the confusing moment was over, and his mother had picked him up. One hand clutched at her dress behind the apron strings, and the other continued to hug his little train to his chest. He was a little closer to the man's height now, making him seem a little less scary.

"May I help you?" his mother asked. She didn't seem as friendly as usual.

"I'm looking for a friend of mine," the stranger spoke. "A short guy with blond spiky hair. We were… separated earlier, and I wonder if he ended up here."

He could feel his mother relax a little, but not by much. "He is… He's over that way, at the workshop. They're fixing his automail for him."

The man paused, blinking slowly, before turning in the direction of Granny Pinako and Winry's home. "… 'automail'?"

Suddenly, someone was shouting something that was probably bad – considering how quick his mother was to cover his ears – before another stranger burst into the open with a look of wide-eyed terror on his face. Hot on his heels was Granny Pinako, still waving one of her heavy metal tools at him.

"Get back here!" she shouted at him. "I'm not done with it, you know! It's your own fault for not keeping that poor thing maintained – I could hear those rusty hinges creak from miles away!"

"Leave me alone, woman!" the new stranger shouted back.

And as the stranger's hand flew up into line of sight, he could see it for all its strangeness – shiny gray, layered and shaped like one of his toys. He had seen, from a distance, people who had hands or legs that looked like that come in and out of Granny Pinako's house before, but no one this close.

The first stranger was looking at it as well. "… So that's what happened to you."

"Just pay the crazy lady so we can go…"

He did not hear anything else; his mother had chosen that moment to take him back inside, especially since more bad words were going about the air. His last sight of either man was that odd silver thing he could still see hanging around the man's neck, just before the door fell shut.

It was a vision from the past – slighted clouded and blurred in the details from the passage of time, but it was a memory that stayed with him, always hanging in the back of his mind and waiting for him to recall it. He could not recall all the details about that moment, but what had been significant about it was what had transpired.

And that silver shape around the man's neck, the shape that looked a little too similar to the design of his silver pocket watch. The shape of the Amestrian Dragon, with its head trapped in mid-roar and a burst of flame from between its fanged jaws. It was not often, but when he focused on just that head instead of the watch on a whole, he felt that memory come back to him.

Ed wondered, in those times, if that had been his very first sight of an alchemist – someone who was strong and quiet. Someone who did what he had to with little show but great care. Someone who could fix anything that was broken… Perhaps that trivial event had played a part in inspiring him back then?

Suddenly, at a loud cry of "Someone get this big oaf off of me!" that practically reeked of déjà vu, he wondered who it was that had gained one Major Alex Armstrong's attention this time. Perhaps it would be a bad idea to turn around too quickly – it might send off the wrong signal and have those huge arms charging his way instead.

"Ah! Brother, look…!"

At last, following Al's directions, he did. It seemed the Major had finally been convinced to release his hold over whoever had shouted, as two strangers now stood before him while discussion took place.

One man was dressed in black casual wear, though being manhandled by the overly emotional Armstrong had rumpled his clothing and tugged the length of his sleeve all the way up his arm to reveal an automail limb that stopped just short of the elbow. Atop his head was blond hair fashioned into spikes, and his eyes were narrowed in a part-exasperated, part-terrified glare.

The other man was dressed a little more formally – looking more the part of a military officer than his counterpart, with dark brown hair secured in a small ponytail that disappeared under the collar of his jacket and a long thick scar slicing diagonal down his face between eyes of silver tinted blue. He was wearing a silver pendant around his neck – its shape strikingly similar to the Amestrian Dragon, and his sleeve carried the same emblem.

"… Hey, Sergeant," he addressed the young soldier escorting them through the building, "who are those two?"

"Oh, you mean them, sir?" The soldier barely looked at them, perhaps having seen and been asked about them plenty of times beforehand. "They are Lt. Colonel Leonhart and Captain Strife. I understand they sought asylum here from one of the neighboring countries, though which one I'm not sure exactly. We don't see them very often, but whatever it is they do, they report directly to Colonel Mustang."

"Are they alchemists?"

This time the soldier shrugged. "Who knows? We barely see them as is, never mind enough to actually witness them transmute anything."

As they passed by the two men still speaking with Major Armstrong – and trying to keep him hugging either of them again – the one identified as Lt. Colonel Leonhart suddenly flicked his gaze to the side, training on the pair of brothers. Specifically, the shorter one.

Feeling the curious gaze on him, Ed met it with a glare of his own, challenging the man, demanding to know what exactly he found so interesting. It was the lieutenant colonel who backed off, returning his focus to one of the other officers and the documents handed to him.

"… Hey." And when he found the brunet looking his way once more, "Do I know you from somewhere?"

The lieutenant colonel regarded him impassively, then shook his head. "Probably not."

The exchange ended there, the teenaged State Alchemist immediately realizing the dire need to flee for his life as the Major suddenly hollered out a greeting and dove at him. Grateful that the loving giant had a new target for a change, the foreign officer returned to the reports, studying them for any sightings of black, shadow creatures that the Colonel and his crew were doing their best to keep under the wraps.

… wonder if he still has that train…

"Did you say something, Leonhart?"

Looking up just once at his blond associate, the brunet only shrugged impassively.

"Cloud and Leon land in Amestris for some reason, and the first person they encounter is Ed. Alternately, would love to see these two as alchemists themselves. Will also give sparkly bonus points for some Armstrong interaction." ~ The Strifehart Kink Meme