Disclaimer: All ownership of the amazing world of Fullmetal Alchemist belongs to Arakawa.

Author's Note: Fu's character is amazing. He is surprisingly harsh on Lan Fan in the series, punishing her for failing in her duties, which led me to believe he had a heavy influence in her discipline as a child. This includes her training and, by default, Ling's as well. The mindset of an old warrior teaching children to fight is extremely interesting. That said, this chapter doesn't have much fighting. But there is tough love! That counts, right?

Also, much credit must go towards RaposaBranca and her Ling/Lan Fan art. She's on deviantart, and I would highly recommend you check out her stuff! Thanks for your work, hun - it was a big inspiration behind this chapter, particularly the cuddling with Ling and Lan Fan. (cuddling Ling = cuddLING! Yesssss)

Sweat Saves Blood

Aside from one hazily-remembered incident in which his half-sister had tried to assassinate him on his third birthday, Ling could not recall a time before in all his six years of life when he had felt closer to death.

"S-surely iss not so bad, young master?" Lan Fan knelt at the table and looked down with concern at her prone lord, holding a wet cloth against the small boy's forehead.

"Lan Fan, be silent!" Fu barked from across the table. He glared at his granddaughter sternly. "It is not your place to tell the young master what is and is not so. Do not ever make light of the sufferings of the royal family." Another low moan escaped from Ling's gritted teeth, and Fu sighed. "And, young lord, stop your belly-aching. It truly is not so bad."

"I'm dying!" Ling protested, opening his eyes to stare dolefully at Lan Fan's worried, upside-down face. "And Lan Fan is the only one who cares!"

"With all due respect, young prince," Kama's voice was thick with amusement as she ladled out soup into four small yellow bowls, one for each of them. "You were also dying yesterday evening, and the evening before that, and all the nights before then." Replacing the lid over the large pot of stewed fish and leeks, Kama reached over to tickle Ling's round belly playfully. "You always seem to recover miraculously after dinner."

Ignoring the chuckling adults in the room, Ling continued to practice his piteous look on Lan Fan. "That's because Kama's soup is magic," he said very seriously, repressing a smile when Lan Fan's eyes widened.

"Really?" she breathed, looking down at the cloudy stew reverently. Fu's moustache twitched with amusement.

"Young lord," he coughed. "It is unjust to toy with your subjects. Dinner is ready; you must take your meals on time."

Wincing, the small prince complied, and a sudden whoosh to his head made him sway on the spot.

Immediately, but without panic, Fu leaned forward across the table and clapped his hand behind Ling's nape. His weathered palm easily cradled the whole of Ling's small head. "Breathe deeply," Fu instructed. "Your blood is simply tired from the day's work. Breathe, and remember your meditations."

Screwing shut his eyes and ignoring the nausea swirling in his stomach, Ling did his best to repeat the lessons he had learned since his stay. Heeding Fu's advice, he allowed the discomfort to register in his mind before passing it over.

"Pain is both fleeting and ever-present," Fu had told Ling the first day the prince had been unable to complete a simple jog up the back hill. "You know this feeling, it is familiar to you. You must acknowledge it, not indulge it. If you can suffer it, you will feel better after you have taken your meal."

Inhaling and exhaling noisily through his nose, Ling soon established a rhythm of breaths that - while not completely erasing the nausea – did help to ease a bit of his dizziness. "Heirs are strong," he thought. "I'm strong. And sitting up is easy."

"Good," Fu nodded with approval when Ling had regained his balance. He gruffly released his hold on the boy's head and resumed his own seat. There he helped Kama rearrange the few plates which had been scattered during his sudden reaching for the prince.

She thanked him gratefully, and was obviously trying quite hard to appear unconcerned about her foster son. Unfortunately, her smile stretched just a shade too wide, and her hands trembled from where they showed beneath her robe's voluminous sleeves. Ling hated to worry her.

Lan Fan sat next to him, silent and grave and wide-eyed as an owl, watching her young friend and master teeter to his knees.

To Fu's credit, the old man certainly knew how to read his charges. Just as the very appealing urge to just lay back down swooped through Ling, Fu spoke harshly. "That is enough. Sit up. Now."

Sore as his bones may be, weeks of training with Fu had done little to alleviate his awe of the old man. If anything, Ling respected him even more. And if Fu said sit up, you sat up. Fu said many things – "up at dawn", "do not eat that", "run to there", "jump to here", "look at my eyes when I speak to you – do not pick your nose!" – and Ling had learned to do them all with minimal complaint.

He sat.

A small part of Ling rejoiced; Fu's strict regime of diet and training had begun to show noticeable results. He could now go much longer without dizziness, and sometimes he went days without collapsing. But the larger, more exhausted part whined that being strong hurt, and bush tea tasted gross, and why should emperors be so strong anyway?

Of course, Ling knew perfectly why – Fu had told him again and again as they meditated in the mornings before breakfast.

Breathe in. "Focus your mind on a single thought. A single truth."

Breathe out. "Why must you train so hard? Why must you get stronger?" Breathe in.

"The answer is your truth. An emperor exists to serve his people."

Breathe out. "You must train, and grow stronger," breathe in. "For your people."

Breathe out. "…young lord, you are drooling. Wake up and pay attention."

Despite the drool, Fu's message had eventually stuck in the small prince's mind. Ling had always known that he was heir – Kama constantly told him not to slouch, or whine, or tease the chickens, because those are Things Heirs Don't Do. But it had never truly sunk in that "heir" meant "king-one-day".

Ling quite liked the idea, it made him feel all sorts of important, and so he sat very straight at the kitchen table, ignoring the twinges in his muscles as he did so. Once he had picked up his spoon, the rest of the table followed suit. It was an unstated rule in Fu's household – the heir must always eat first.

This rule made perfect sense to Ling – after all, an emperor was meant to protect his people, right? Dinner must be no exception. Therefore he sternly directed the table, as he had done every night: "Hold on. I'll try it."

He took a small sip of the soup, slurping loudly. Across the table Kama and Fu waited indulgently, food untouched before them. Ling furrowed his brow, deliberating, before giving a sharp nod. "Good. It's not too hot." He turned seriously to Lan Fan. "You won't burn yourself."

But just to be safe, the small boy leaned over and blew lightly over Lan Fan's bowl. His kingly duty to protect his people completed, Ling happily tucked-in to his own meal. Head bowed over the savory dish, he completely missed Kama's silent giggle and Fu's moustache twitching to hide a smile.

"This food seems to agree with you, young lord," Kama noted, expertly flicking back the trailing sleeves of her robe before taking her tea. "Already you appear more hale than before."

Ling beamed.

"Gran'father," Lan Fan lisped softly. "What does 'hale' mean?"

"It means strong, or healthy, my granddaughter." With a wide smile, Ling looked over at Lan Fan and positively preened. He was hale! After living so long with people telling him that he had weak blood, Ling never got tired of hearing compliments.

Lan Fan returned his smile with a tiny one of her own, and Ling did not mind her lack of enthusiasm. Everything about his friend was small: her smile, her nose, her side-buns, and even her voice. But that was fine with him – Ling grinned big enough for the both of them.

"Oh." There was a lull, in which Lan Fan stared down at her lap with a light frown.

"Gran'father," she asked again. "I know iss bad to 'make light of the suff'rings of the royal family'," she quoted dutifully. Fu nodded. "Is it okay to ask about the suff'rings of the royal family?"

The wrinkles around his eyes deepened with his fond smile. "Yes, so long as you are polite."

"Oh." When the young girl did not pursue the conversation, the family continued to eat in silence. Several minutes passed, before - "young lord, will you please tell me why you weren't 'hale' before you came here, please?" Lan Fan asked, with very careful politeness.

Ling did not know the answer. He knew that he had always felt light-headed before coming to Fu's house, but he did not understand what the old man had done to make all of that go away. He still missed his old home, and thought often what Han and his cousins were up to, but Ling had never felt better in his life. He just didn't know why. Luckily, Kama spared Ling from admitting his ignorance by answering in his stead.

"It was largely my own fault, Lan Fan," she said serenely, neat black bangs falling into her eyes. "The young lord requires a very specific type of food. Without it, his blood grows too slow, and his muscles weak. But I did not know this, and continued feeding him the wrong foods without giving him the proper time to rest, and so the young lord grew sick."

"Food made the young lord sick?" Startled, Lan Fan eyed Ling's bowl suspiciously. "How?"

This time, Fu took up the explanation. "The prince takes after his royal mother in this sense, Lan Fan. Even before she was taken to the palace, she was like a small sapling – and the prince is the same way. A sapling requires sunshine and water to grow strong, else it wilts. You cannot feed a tree with wine and rice. The young lord needs meat and green leaves like a tree needs sun and rain."

Ling did not know how he felt about being a tree. But then again, trees were tall, and nice to sit next to. He wondered if one day he would grow tall as well.

"Oh," Lan Fan said, nodding. Then, without hesitation, she set down her spoon with a click. Reaching across her plate, she picked up a set of chopsticks and began to deftly pick out chunks of fish and kale from her soup. Large drops of broth pattered onto the shiny surface of the table as Lan Fan carefully doled them out, from her bowl into Ling's. He smiled and pushed over his rice.

"Trade you," he whispered conspiratorially. She blushed, and accepted the bowl happily.

"Well done, granddaughter," Fu praised. "You must always put the needs of the young lord before your own." To Ling he instructed, "Pay special attention to eat the kale, young lord. You will need all your strength in the morning."

"Okay," Ling said. "Why?"

"Because, tomorrow morning we shall begin your training."

Ling paused, a hunk of limp seaweed halfway to his mouth, before shaking his head. "No," he said slowly. "We already started that. See?" He held up his left arm. "I'm already very strong."

Kama's cough sounded very suspiciously like laughter; Fu did not share in her mirth. "These past few weeks have been to condition you, my prince, and they have done so. Aside from the occasional spell, you are now as strong as any young man your age.

"But that is not enough. You must be stronger than the other boys. You must be stronger than everyone. It is an absolute imperative."

"Must he become stronger than you, as well, Fu?" Kama teased lightly. Fu 'harrumphed', picking up his bowl to take a large bite of his steamed vegetables.

"No need to set unrealistic goals," he replied gruffly. "At any rate, we will start slowly, to get you used to your training."

Ling groaned. "Oh come on!" Heirs did not whine, Kama had said, but Ling knew that whining and complaining were two very different things. "I already train!"

"You have trained so far to function as a boy," Fu corrected. "It is time to take it to the next level. Now you must train to function as a warrior."

Ling mimicked Fu's earlier 'humph', forgetting that heirs do not slouch and sinking deeply onto his ankles. "Well what about Lan Fan? What's she gonna do all day?"

"Lan Fan has already begun her training. She does not study the same arts you will be learning, but her lessons are no less strenuous." Seeing the young prince's crestfallen expression, Fu added: "And they will be taking place at the same time as yours, so Lan Fan will continue to train with you."

Placated, but still not very happy with the situation, Ling threw out his final complaint. "Kama doesn't have to train though. Kama isn't getting strong at all."

"That is quite enough, young lord," Fu said sharply. Ling winced. "Heirs do not whine."

"I'm not whining. I'm complaining," Ling suggested meekly.

"You are acting like a petulant child. And while you are heir, you have quite a ways until you become the emperor. Do not concern yourself with the affairs of others just yet – you will have plenty to worry about on your own." Glancing at Kama out of the corner of his eye, Fu added, "And you should never underestimate the strength of a woman."

Kama bowed her head, braided pigtails rolling over her shoulders. In a flash of disorienting perspective, Ling saw that Kama – whom he'd always considered as a larger-than-life superhuman - suddenly looked very small next to Fu, despite the steadily-growing bump in her belly.

Smiling, she pushed Ling's bowl forward. "Eat, my lord. Look, Lan Fan has already finished her food. It is almost time for bed."

Ling gasped, looking over to where Lan Fan sat quietly – her bowls all but licked clean. "No way! I lost again?" He picked up his bowl and scolded his friend through messy slurps. "That doesn't count, Lan Fan. You only finished first 'cuz you gave me most of your food!"

Lan Fan did not correct him, but her self-satisfied smile smacked of triumph.

Elderly and composed he may be, Fu was not without his own fair share of agendas. In fact, he operated under the staunch belief that every person had at least two or three tucked-away interests somewhere, no matter all their attempts at selflessness.

Kama, for example, may have seemed generous and self-sacrificing in staying behind to help Fu care for the two children.

"While Young Master stays with you, there will be an extra mouth to feed, more work around the house. With your permission, I'd like to stay as well to help in any way I can."

Fu had heard perfectly well what Kama had not said. Han had been perfectly comfortable with Fu's skills as a warrior to guard the prince. Clearly, Kama was not. She would remain behind, and keep a close eye on her charge, under the guise of pure generosity.

Yet Han himself was not without ulterior motives. One may think that letting his wife stay far from home, for the sake of the well-being of the Yao prince, had been an act of selflessness on Han's behalf.

(Although, to assume that Han had let her stay with Fu would be an egregious error. Nobody ever let Kama do anything. She was a sweet girl, but she was also a Yao. You did not make the mistake of telling a Yao woman what to do.)

Fu knew that the arrangement appealed to the farmer greatly. After all Kama was young, barely into her mid-twenties, and pregnant with their third child.

But most notably, Kama served as the surrogate mother of the Twelfth Son. Ling had developed an extreme emotional attachment to the woman – a fact well known to the other high-level clans.

Han's farm had guards, all focused on protecting the young lord. And the young lord only. But not all attacks had to be physical. An assassin could all too easily target the unprotected foster mother of the young prince, and completely devastate Ling in the process. In her current state, Fu had no doubt Han worried for his wife's safety. He may have let Kama go with all the appearance of reluctance, but Han considered his wife to be much safer in the well-hidden house of a celebrated bodyguard than his own very public farm.

Even Fu operated under a motivation other than honor and duty. After all, Ling would one day become the emperor – Fu literally held the future of the country in his war-beaten hands. Only a fool would fail to take advantage of the fact.

Fu was no fool. Ling Yao was young, a mere child, and children were very impressionable. So long as the boy remained malleable, the future of Xing remained malleable. Fu saw no shame in teaching the boy more than martial arts; if Ling Yao grew up believing, as Fu did, in the importance of the people, then Xing would be all the closer to Fu's idea of a perfect country.

Fu had seen how the other clans reared their heirs, bred on ambition and greed and pompous arrogance. Ling Yao would be different, and that difference would end up earning him the throne.

However, much to his pleasure, Fu had soon discovered that he would not have to make quite so much of an effort enforcing his philosophy on the child, and he suspected the credit belonged to none other than Lan Fan.

Her friendship with the prince was an unexpected, but extremely beneficial, consequence of Ling's tutelage. Hopefully the friendly attachment would bleed over into how the prince considered all of his people – as precious individuals instead of mere pawns.

So Fu did not despair as other warriors might have done, when he went to awaken Ling the next morning to find the young prince cuddled up closely to his granddaughter.

Having ignored his own bedroll in favor of Lan Fan's, Ling slept with his arms snug about his friend's waist and his face nuzzling her belly. One of her legs had been completely trapped by both of Ling's, and Fu suspected that should he lift the boy up by his scruff, Lan Fan would inevitably follow.

Not that his granddaughter seemed to mind. Lan Fan herself had curled her free leg loosely around Ling, one hand buried tightly in his shirt's collar. Head back, mouth open, and snoring lightly – Fu had never seen Lan Fan so at ease before in his life.

They cuddled closer than a pair of slumbering puppies, almost inextricably intertwined. Fu paused with his hand on the weathered doorframe and allowed his old heart a soft moment of indulgence to watch his young charges sleep. Surely a good thing all-around, he thought, for Ling to develop a strong friendship with a servant.

Though in the boy's case, "friendship" was not the word. Truthfully Ling seemed to have developed a strong case of hero-worship towards Lan Fan. (When Fu had first ordered Ling to walk up the hill with no breaks, the prince had stoutly refused. When Fu sent Lan Fan up the hill in his stead, Ling scampered after her like a baby goose.)

This cheerful adoration did wonders for Lan Fan as well. Living alone with only a stern old man for company surely did the girl no favors. Aside from the occasional visit from her sisters, Ling served as Lan Fan's sole companion, and she was fast becoming quite protective of the boy. Yes, Fu thought, this friendship had many beneficial uses.

Lan Fan sneezed in her sleep, and Ling muttered something under his breath about camels. Fu straightened, smoothed out the dark fabric of his gi, and decided that they had rested long enough.

Over the duration of the boy's stay, Fu had employed many tactics in waking Ling, from loud bangs to chilled buckets of water. Today, he thought, he would try something different.

It would be a test, of sorts.

With a careful eye on the dozing children, Fu concentrated on his not-unimpressive aura, allowing it to fill Lan Fan's tiny room. He moderated its release in waves, trying to gauge at what level his charges would register his presence.

To his great surprise, it was Ling and not Lan Fan, who reacted first. The fact would have proved promising, had the boy not simply cracked open his eyes, snorted, and then nuzzled back down onto Lan Fan's stomach.

Fu raised one eyebrow – deliberating between amusement and disappointment – before establishing his presence one notch further. Almost instantly, Lan Fan snapped her eyes open. Her response pleased Fu much more, despite the belated realization. She half-rose on her futon, one arm groggily supporting her weight and the other curling protectively around Ling's head.

"Gran'father?" she whispered tiredly when she recognized the intruder. "'s it time to wake up now?"

"Yes," Fu nodded curtly. "Rouse the young Lord and have him outside in ten minutes. Eat quickly."

Rubbing the last vestiges of sleep from her eyes, Lan Fan startled and looked down. As he left, Fu heard his granddaughter ask: "how did you end up here, master?"

"I didn't. You're dreaming."

"Oh….but, gran'father says iss time to get up."

"Nooooo…"

Fu's moustache twitched.

By the time the two children had woken, taken their breakfast, and tumbled outside, Fu had only been waiting for twelve minutes.

"For your tardiness," he spoke sternly. "You, Lan Fan, will run around the base of the hill five times. If you are not finished in half an hour, there shall be additional penalties. Young Master, you will run as well, but up and over the hill. Five times as well. Be finished by the time Lan Fan has completed her third lap."

Ling laughed almost hysterically. Lan Fan shuffled her feet.

"Go," Fu said. "If you fail, you must clean the urinal."

They left like a shot, leaving Fu with the task of attempting to meditate while blocking out the heavy pants of his granddaughter and the wild curses of his future emperor.

"Done," Ling announced some time later. Fu cracked open one eye to see the boy drenched in sweat and red-faced. After directing Ling towards the well to cool off with a bucket of water, Fu stood up solemnly.

"You will arrive at training on time in the future, correct young lord?"

Ling's response was half-gurgled, the boy's face practically submerged, but affirmative.

"Good. Now stand up, and watch me." Once he had the young lord's attention, Fu took a deep breath, and moved into a series of katas so quick that Ling dropped the bucket with surprise. Finishing off in a deep bow, Fu turned to look at the awe-struck boy. "That is the first form you shall learn. It is the first of many in the Changquan style. As you progress, we will move into other styles. For now, watch once more – and then you will repeat it. Precision is key. You must mimic this form exactly."

Ling stared with uncharacteristically wide eyes as Fu crouched down low. His movements this time were slow, exaggerated for the sake of his audience.

Imagining an enemy attacking from his right, he moved from the crouch into a side-kick, flashing his fist down towards the ground to finish off the fallen man before turning, delivering a palm-strike to a second phantom attacker.

Next – a swift uppercut designed to knock another opponent to the ground, followed by a swift stomp which would shove their nose back into the brain. Grimly Fu mimed a jump-kick, his leg a ninety-degree angle, which he had used in the past to crack an enemy's jaw.

Lunging forward, he swung both hands around in a motion that would box a man's ears and throw off his sense of balance, giving an opening for the final blow: a sharp jab with a pointed hand, hard and fast enough to pierce through the soft skin of the belly. With a twist, emphasizing the importance of clenching the fist and jerking upwards, Fu demonstrated clearly to Ling a form that looked graceful, and would spill a man's intestines if done properly.

He repeated the kata twice more, Ling watching studiously, before Lan Fan approached the two of them. "If this form is not perfected by midday," he told Ling. "You will run to the edge of the meadow and back thirteen times tomorrow morning. Now practice."

To Lan Fan he directed: "Perform the Dao, Jian, and Nandao sequences in their entirety. Then come to me – today you will practice with me on the throwing range."

Fu sat beneath the large tree on the edge of the practice field, calling out corrections and criticisms towards his students. They both worked with a hard-edged determination blazing across their rounded faces. As Lan Fan mimed striking a blade into a man's forehead, and Ling stumbled through a form that would take incapacitate several attackers at once, Fu watched and reminded himself of the necessity. There were forty-nine other clans aiming towards the young prince's death.

But Lan Fan's aim was deadly – Ling's form already true – and Fu had over three years to polish their skills. One day, he swore, those clans would wish that they had never crossed paths with the blood of the Yao family.

AN:

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