A/N: Sorry I haven't written in a while, I lost my alchemy muse. I don't own FullMetal Alchemist, Watership Down or any associates.
'My heart has joined the thousand, for my friend stopped running today.'
Roy had never gotten to give Maes his book back. Roy had been reluctant to read it at first but now everything that had been written on the paper rang true in his life. Roy didn't know whether they were going to meetagain in hell or not anymore. He didn't even know how he and Maes had become friends in the first place because Maes was so optimistic but he was so closed off and dark. Roy still had Riza but she never knew Maes as he did. Although Maes was an idiot, Roy loved him more than any other person whom he had loved in the past.
'There isn't any danger here at the moment. But it's coming – it's coming.'
Indeed it was coming. Roy now fully believed that fact because Maes had died to let him know. Roy didn't know why but the guilt that came upon him at hearing the news that Maes was dead was overwhelming. Now Roy was preparing himself to fight in a battle that he was sure to have won alongside Maes. Although Roy spun around to smile at Riza when she tapped him on the shoulder to let him know that it was time to go into battle, inside he was breaking for reasons that no-one knew. No-one knew that he was breaking. His heart broke but he smiled on the outside.
'Very soon they came across traces of blood that the rain had not yet washed away.'
The battle was over. A battle that he had lost because Maes wasn't there, fighting by his side. Roy was still mourning Maes and he had no idea what was happening on the other side of the field. Riza hadn't reached him yet because Riza was never going to reach him again. A sobbing Jean took her place of telling him of this vital information. Roy wouldn't cry but on the inside he was breaking.
'The stranger's ears were shining with faint, silver light.'
There was someone standing there. Roy didn't know who but he looked vaguely familiar in the darkness. As the silhouette drifted closer towards him, it became extremely familiar for the reason that it was one Maes Hughes. Roy hadn't cried in months but now he did. He couldn't stop crying now that everything was becoming clear to him. He looked at the face with its friendly smile and the body with a welcoming hand and clung to it like he would fall to pieces if he didn't. Maes held him because he knew that Roy would fall apart if he didn't hold him.
'Together they slipped away, running easily through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom.'
Roy took his friend's hand and allowed himself to be lead away from life, book still tucked in his bag.