A/N: I apologize PROFUSELY to the people who have been waiting for an update. To be honest, I've had this chapter written for a long time, but I kind of fell off my FMA kick and I stopped paying attention to it. I'm not as interested in FMA anymore, but I promise that I will try to finish this story and the sequel I decided needed to happen. This chapter was going to be short-ish, but I already had the next chapter finished so I decided to just throw them together.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, or The Legend of Zelda. The Happy Mask Seller, Padora, and how to work the Truth into the LoZ creation story as heard in OoT are all mine, but they are all based on elements from FMA and LoZ. The Goddess of Time is technically from MM, but the backstory is mine. The history of Termina is imaginative speculation on my part.

Night of the First Day: 156 Hours Remain

He arrived at around 11:00 at night, and began his search for the Happy Mask Seller. He didn't need to look far, as he discovered that she had been making use of his house and his pantry while he was gone. He walked in to his dining room to be met with the sight of a large pile of wood shavings in the middle of the table, a set of paints spread across the open space, and the Mask Seller painting details on a mask.

Knowing better than to interrupt a craftsman at work (he still had several bruises from the last time he bugged Winry), he simply sat back and watched the masterpiece come into being. The mask was pink, almost white, and the pigment changed shades in different lighting. The eyeholes were well disguised; one had to look very closely to see them at all from the front. It was shaped mostly like an angular face, with a sharp chin and high cheekbones. There were very few features on the mask reminiscent of a face beyond that, though. Where the eyes would be, there was only one large eye centered on the mask. It was wide, and the outline was done in a blazing red. The iris was large and painted a poisonous yellow. The eyelashes were made of the outlines of three large red triangles with bottoms that curved slightly inwards, towards the tips. There was a long dewdrop shape outlined down the middle of the mask that reminded Ed of a tear, and it connected to the mouth, which opened in a wide grin, also outlined in red. Ed couldn't place it, but it reminded him of something.

"Thank you for your patience. I trust your return means good news?" She turned around, smiling that creepy smile of hers and setting down the newly finished mask.

"About that..." Ed took out the Lens of Truth and showed it to her.

"You did... get my mask back... didn't you?" Ed shrugged and shook his head. "What? I trusted you! I was counting on you! This is terrible! If she keeps that mask..." The mask seller was freaking out, to say the least. She shook Ed by the shoulders until he almost got whiplash. For the first time Ed had seen, she opened her eyes. Her irises were disconcertingly small and solid black. Still, that grin never left her face, though now there was thinly veiled dismay and horror behind it.

"What's the big deal? So what if it turned me into a kid and put one person into a coma? Even though that person was my brother... How much damage could that girl do with it?"

"You don't understand! That mask could bring about the end of the world!" Ed snorted in disbelief. "You don't believe me? It is called Majora's Mask. Thousands of years ago, it was used by an ancient tribe in hexing rituals, but it kept growing in power and anger." (How could a mask be angry? Ed inserted, but the comment was ignored) "Eventually, they had no choice but to seal it away. It resurfaced again eventually, and nearly brought about the end of the world because of the loneliness of one child. A courageous young lad managed to seal away the evil, for what we thought was for good..."

"But it's back again." Ed still had trouble believing her, but he went along with it for now.

"Yes! This is terrible. The last time the mask resurfaced, it's wearer tried to bring down the moon. It appears that history is to repeat itself. You must get that mask back! If not... the world itself will be destroyed in a wave of fire and trembling earth."

"But how? She kicked my ass the last time I confronted her. Without alchemy or any weapons, I can't do anything. And even if I did stop her, the moon would keep falling. The world is screwed either way."

"Not necessarily. The hero called four giants to stop the moon. You just have to do it again."

"How? And how do you know all this?"

"Are you aware of how and why your country came to be?"

"Yeah. A Homunculus that was created in Xerxes- who was responsible for it's destruction and turning my dad into a Philosopher's Stone- created other homunculi and took over the countries that used to be here. He combined them all into Amestris and started a military with a State Alchemist program to search for sacrifices, so on the next solar eclipse, he could turn Amestris into a Philosopher's Stone and consume 'God.'"

"Exactly. But what of the people that remained from the other countries?"

"I assume they just integrated themselves into the new country, right?"

"Some of them, yes. Others, those of us with pointed ears, could sense the evil radiating from that- Homunculus, was it?- Yes, that Homunculus. We went into hiding, and to this day live in secret from the rest of the world."

"Why are you telling me this? And how the hell did you guys manage that?"

"I tell you this because I sense something familiar about you. It is similar to the feeling I had when I spent time in the capitol of one of the hidden lands, when I was near the Princess. You have an aura of power about you, one that is a gift from the gods. You have a destiny far greater than you realize, one that will carry you to the lands that are hidden." Ed snorted again.

"Yeah, because the gods love me so much... I'm a sinner. I treaded on God's land, where mortals are forbidden. I've been paying for it. God and me don't get along so well. And I ask again: how the hell did you manage to hide whole countries? I've been all over Amestris, and not once have I seen anyone with ears like yours before, or that same creepy feeling you give me." He crossed to the table and sat down. As he spoke, he seemed to grow wearier, as if the weight of the world broke him through his thoughts.

The Mask Seller nodded as if she expected this. "So you do feel it. As an alchemist who has seen the Truth of the Gods, I would expect no less. That you can use one of the tools passed down by a hidden tribe at all is proof enough: you have magic within you. What you sense within me, and will sense within many of the hidden people is that same magic." Edward cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Magic. Really."

"You do not believe me? What else could hide such great numbers of people for so long? What else could provide the alchemy? It is the residual magic in the earth that fuels your science, and those who are skilled in magic are more skilled in alchemy." Ed still looked disbelieving. He did, after all, firmly believe she was at least half off her nut. "Still no? Let me see (Find Japanese for The Lens of Truth) for a moment." She held out her hand expectantly.

Because he was so deeply in thought, weighing his previous knowledge of the world with his new experiences to reevaluate his beliefs, he barely registered the sudden change in topic. Edward's well thought out and very coherent reply was simply "The huh and what now?"

"Oh, you must know it as what they called it in Verità. The Lens of Truth, I believe?" Ed grumbled, but dug out the Lens again. He held it out to her, and she took it before Ed could blink. Before he could ask what she was doing with it, she set it on the floor beside the mask she had just made. She kneeled in front of the two objects, and started speaking in a strange language.

A feeling of dread settled into the pit of his stomach as he realized from where he recognized it. His mind turned back to eight years ago, when the Truth was shoved into his brain. It was many of the things he shoved to the back of his mind in order to retain his sanity. Now that he was hearing it again, he found that he subconsciously understood it, thanks to the Truth. He was surprised to hear it spoken again, because the only time he had ever heard it spoken before was by the Truth Him/Her/Itself, and that was only after he had gone through the gate. As the Mask Seller spoke the old language, flashes of an ancient syllabary flew through his mind, and understanding came with it.

"You understood what I just said, correct?" She stood up and handed the Lens of Truth back to Ed.

"Yeah. It was pretty much 'All-Seeing God, answer my call. Bless this mask with your eyes. Truth, I beseech you. Grant this mask your eyes. Don't let us be tricked by illusion and lies. Bless this mask with your eyes.'"

"Good, you won't have any problems when you arrive. We'll get into this more tomorrow. Now, it is late. Tomorrow, I will teach you how to find the hidden lands, and how to act inside them. It is imperative that you learn." With that, she began cleaning up her mask-making kit, and moved into the living room to set up her bed. Sensing that there wouldn't be much more conversation that night, and deciding he had enough to think about as it was, he followed suit and got ready for bed.

He realized with a pang that the last time he was told to get to bed was when his mom was still alive. Granny Pinako never minded when they got to bed, because she knew they could take care of themselves well enough to do it themselves. If not, they would learn the hard way not to stay up very late again. Missing both his mother and his brother and inserting a mental "bastard" in acknowledgement of his father, he somberly climbed into bed.

He found sleep difficult that night. By now, he should have been used to falling asleep alone, but tonight was very different from the nights he spent in Creta. Tonight, his head was simply too full. Far too much had happened today. He was kind of glad that he saw Hawkeye today, but the circumstances could have been better, and he doubted that she didn't tell Mustang. The change in Padora had been startling, too. She seemed to act exactly like a toddler, mood swings and all. The only difference, besides the sadism, was that she was a grown woman, and had much more power at her disposal to use when she used force to get her way. She obviously did not think of the consequences of her actions. If she did, she certainly didn't care about them. All of that floated through Edward's mind, occasionally garnering enough of his attention to focus on them, but his mind always returned to the conversation he had finished not an hour ago, and all of his thoughts centered around two things, both of which he had vehemently denied for as long as he could remember.

The first was magic, and the second was the existence of God (or Gods, as it may be). Even when he was little, he had never believed in either. His mom wasn't religious, and his teachers for many years were alchemy books. He never read a fairy tale, or stopped to consider fantasy. He was a scientist, born and bred. If it couldn't be explained by science, science wasn't trying hard enough. If it couldn't be proven by science, it didn't exist. He proved his opinion of God well enough in Liore when he was talking to Rose. Gods simply didn't exist. The closest thing there was to God was the Truth, and He/She/It wasn't something most people would want to worship.

As for magic, before yesterday- God, was it really only yesterday?-, he simply knew it couldn't exist. The closest thing to magic was alchemy, and it was a science. You understood what matter was made of, broke it down to its most basic form, and then built it back up as something new. The product had to be of equal mass of the materials, and it had to have a similar chemical structure. You couldn't get something from nothing; he knew that better than anyone. If magic had existed, he and Al would never have had to suffer the way they had. Al would never have had his soul bonded to a suit of armor. Even if it had been, Al could have gotten his body back sooner. Mustang wouldn't still be blind. Havoc would still be able to walk.

And yet... Edward found himself faced with something unexplainable. He couldn't bring himself to call it magic, but he knew it couldn't be science. Changing the human body took a great toll, and Padora didn't seem to lose anything. Neither did Ed or Al. Al was knocked out after Ed was changed, and there was no way he could have gotten his leg back. It was impossible, but he was living proof that it had happened. Magic could explain a few things, like the body he had been stuck in for almost twenty-four hours and how the Lens of Truth functioned. If the Mask Seller was telling the truth, it would explain how the lands hid themselves, and the weird vibe he got from her. There was enough evidence that those hidden lands existed. After all, he knew their language and caught glimpses of them in the Gate. With these uncertain thoughts in mind, Edward fell asleep.