CHAPTERS 1-6 HAVE BEEN EDITED! PLEASE GO BACK AND RE-READ THEM!


Winter Sonata

Chapter 7


The voice over the phone assured him that she was going to be fine. Brian Anderson was quite happy about that. Once he hung up, he turned to the small group sitting at the table in his shop.

"Evening, gentlemen, ladies." he referred to the people sitting around his table. Each in turn either nodded their greetings or voiced it.

They talked about politics and the country. It was then that Brian mentioned, "We will make our first assassination attempt at the Brigg's mountain. We can use the Drachamanians as scapegoats."

This was met the polite applause, and the group continued to talk, this time about who could they hire for the assassination and the circumstances surrounding the death and how they could blame Drachma for the death.


It was cold in the Brigg's mountains, but Armstrong's sister, Olivier Milla Armstrong seemed indifferent to the cold. Roy Mustang however was freezing to death.

"H-h-h-how d-do y-y-y-you d-d-o-o, M-maj-o-or Gen-er-er-al." Mustang managed to stammer out.

"Fine, thank you. Wonderful weather we're having. I'm just glad the weather decided to let up on the snow storm we have had for these last few weeks for your visit."

"Is t-t-tha-t so?" he replied, his jaw starting to hurt from all the stammering. "H-h-h-ow lu-ku-I w-w-we are."

Had Olivier Milla Armstrong rolled her eyes? "Please wait as we do a full body inspection." She left to go inside, leaving them out in the cold.

"W-w-wait!" Mustang cried out, his right arm comically outstretched towards the door the Major General had just gone though. He did a face plant into the snow a few seconds later, only to hear laughter.

He lifted his head from the snow, "What's so funny?" he barked out. "You want to see your leader die of freezing cold?" He saw only white, not a single person was out with him.

"Maes Hughes!" he bellowed. "Come out now or I'll ban you from the photo developing people place!"

There was giggling, as a snowball whizzed past his head, missing him by centimeters.

"Aw." A small childish voice spoke, "I missed him."

"Then try again." Another childish voice said.

"Try to hit the back of his head. Papa says he hates it when people do that." Elysia's voice, he was positive.

Roy Mustang refused to let children have the better of him. Sneaking around, he hoped the children would not spot his navy blue coat which was sticking out like an eyesore in the snow.

"Hey, where did that man go?"

"I thought you were keeping track of him, Lee."

"No, onee-chan said she would."

"That can't be right." Came Elysia's voice, "I said I would make the snowballs." She held up a packed bit of snow that looked suspiciously like a throwing knife. Damn you Hughes, he thought, if I die because you taught your daughter how to throw knifes…

"Then you were supposed to Roy!" his sister accused him.

Suddenly Elysia threw several of the snow knifes. "Found him!" Mustang barely melted the blasted knives before they hit him.


An hour later, when they were finally let inside the fort for their inspection, Mustang demanded, "Why the heck did you leave us out there so long?!"

"It was a test," the Major General said coming into the room. "There is not point in keeping you here if you cannot survive the cold for some time. I am afraid that you," she said, meaning Mustang, "failed."

Mustang fell to his knees with the words 'failure' written in big, bold, letters over his head.

"However," she continued, "It would be treason to let you freeze outside to death." Then she added darkly under her breath, "and insubordination…"

She moved on, approving of Hughes who attempted to show her picture of his family, Al, who stiffly saluted her as she passed by, only relaxing and letting out his breath when the Major General was two people away from him.

She stopped at Lizabeth, to whom she said, "You do not exist. We cannot allow you inside any further."

The twins clutched her jacket on either side as Mustang shouted, "What?!"

"She could be a spy for all we know. The first priority at this fort is the safety of the people of this country. We are the first defense. Any potential risks will not be allowed to see the inner workings of the north."

"She's perfectly safe if you ask me," said Hughes seriously. "The investigation department found nothing on her, apart from the identity problem."

"We are not soft like those in Central. Many missions have gone wrong because one party relied on information from another. I do not allow mistakes in my jurisdiction."


Another hour later, they were all in, and just in time too, for the Fuhrer had his first meeting with the Drachmanians in 30 minutes.

"We demand the whereabouts of the Fullmetal Alchemist. Either that or we have no agreement at all."

Mustang sighed, that Fullmetal pipsqueak was in hiding somewhere and the only contact he had was through his brother Al.

"We do not know where Fullmetal is, now, if we could move on the boundry?"

"No," the Drachmanian leader said, "For the safety of my country, we must know the whereabouts of such a dangerous individual."

"I don't know where he is. Though if you wish to search for him, I'd advise looking at extremely prosperous places, or places with extreme turmoil."

"Are you asking for Drachma to invade you?"

"Eh? Did it come out like that?"


When day one of the talks were over, all that was accomplished was that if the new boundaries and treaties were approved, Drachma would have permission to look for Fullmetal within Amestris, within limits, that was.
Lizabeth was not having a good day. She did not exist. After snooping around in Hughes's notes, she found out that she was not really Lee and Roy's aunt. In fact, their mother's name was Mary. Plus she felt another headache coming on.

She sat down next to the window and watched the twins play outside with Elysia. They were currently pelting Mustang with snowballs/knives, rubbing her temples, she looked into the mirror.

She looked a lot like Riza Hawkeye, her twin who had died in the earthquake.


In day two of the talks, they finally got somewhere.

They were huddled around the map, crossing out and redrawing lines. Finally after much argument, they had the boundary drawn out.

"You do realize that the mapmakers and surveyors are going to kill us?" Mustang asked.

The new boundary was a mass of squiggles going up and down, generally all over the place. But it satisfied the two leaders.

Day three was all treaties. How many dams Drachma could put on the rivers flowing into Amestris, mixed patrols in the neutral zones to promote peace and no logging in that area. Plus economics. Economics took up days three, four, and five. Drachma wanted a foothold in the Amestris woodwork industry, but the northern border already had a monopoly over it and refused to budge. Amestris wanted some oil from Drachma, but Drachma refused to give a drop unless they were allowed to ship their wood products into Amestris.

Day six, everything was put into writing, and a cleaner map was made to be sent to the capitols of the countries for the representatives to vote on. It was agreed that Drachma could export into Amestris as long as there was a somewhat expensive tariff on the items. Drachma gave Amestris oil, but she would have to refine it herself.

Then it was a week of waiting.


A/N: Please note that all the other chapters have been edited and you should go back and read them, I have changed information. In regards to this story, I will have it following canon as close as possible, so there will be spoilers. By cannon I mean book cannon.

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Happy holidays 2006!