As living armor went when Alphonse Elric wished to be quiet, he could be surprisingly quiet. So when he happened to notice his brother had fallen asleep reading a report about an unusually damaged train car, Al quietly picked up his older brother and tucked him into bed.
But he still wasn't silent enough to not wake Edward as he clanked back to the desk full of reports.
"Al?"
"Go back to sleep, Brother." He told him. "I'll tell you what I find out in the morning."
Ed pulled out the tie at the end of his braid and rolled over. He quickly settled and was inaudibly snoring within minutes.
"Sometimes I wonder how you can go to sleep that fast." Al said fondly before turning back to the report.
Train car B 112 suffered damaged to left side door. The edges were cleanly cut and pieces were scattered from three to five miles outside of Central. Blood was also found inside the car near the damage edge but no persons were found inside or along the path of debris.
Also inside the car were two puncture marks. One by the door that led to the passenger cars and another near the blood stains on the floor. The weapon used for these two marks determined by the size and shape is estimated to be a pickax.
Al looked at the pictures of the gouges in the floor and the door and immediately recognized them. More precisely who made them.
It was that homunculus, the one called Lust. Al wondered. What was she doing on that train? Whose blood is that?
Al quickly flipped to another report and began reading.
Analysis of blood sample: It is my opinion that the sample (71280-B) is not blood but a degraded alchemic amplifying agent. Sample coincides with a sample of material taken from the captured homunculi subject.
"It doesn't make any sense." Al asked himself. "Why would Lust injure Envy? They're on the same side."
Unless it had something to do with Sheska, he realized. Envy and Sheska were last seen together and this so-called blood is from him.
Al frantically flipped back to the previous report and checked with the details on the train car. He was relieved to note that there was no account of any human blood seen anywhere.
"So Envy escaped with Sheska and was traveling in the train car when Lust attacked. But only Envy was injured and…what could've happened next? No one was seen where the remains of the car were. If Sheska fell out the hole then she would have —"."
"Envy prolly kicked Lust out." Edward muttered in his sleep. "Jerk's tough enough to take anyone on."
It does add up, Al realized. He shuffled through the paperwork until he found a invoice and matched the train car to the train, then compared it to the station's schedule. He found the train in question was headed east.
But what doesn't add up is, why would Lust attack Envy? Could it be— she wanted Sheska?
He turned back to the notes his brother made about the girl who start it all. One Nicollete Azure.
Lying on reclined in the bed, she looks small in the pale blue hospital gown. Her skin pale as the white bandages around her face and eyes. Intravenous lines pouring life saving fluids into her thin arms.
"Hello." She greets him in a voice roughened by pain and drugs. He steps inside the room and places the bundle of flowers he bought inside a cup beside her bed. He ignores the restrains around her wrists and fusses with his spur of the moment impulse buy.
"Thank you for the flowers." She tells him. Envy pauses and looks over at her and she continues with a quiet laugh, "I can taste their scent."
"Ah."
"But I know they're pink daisies."
Envy attempts not to do a double take over the revelation and she laughs again. He studies her for a moment as he gains his bearings.
Her hair is a dark blond, almost brown in color cut boyishly short. Not at all long and dark like her mother's. She is slender, almost lean in build, her skin ghostly white. Not like her mother at the same age at all. An apprehensive wave courses through him.
He can't find a piece of her left to him
"Would you like to play chess?"
Startled and caught off guard by her question, he can only stand there staring at her tongue-tied. Chess? She plays chess?Just like—?
"I promise not to cheat— much.", she says this with a smile much reminiciant of her mother and Envy too smiles.
"Okay."
They play with pink petals. His pieces have slices missing from the tips while hers are left untouched and after an hour, Envy is stunned. Not because she's able to play the game blind but because he recognizes her moves. Seven years ago before she ran away, her mother and him played this exact game.
He's delighted to finally to able to complete their unfinished game.
"Checkmate." Nicollete calls out an hour later Envy looks and sure enough, even without touching any of the pieces, she knows their layout and won.
"You cheated." He retorts good humorly and she giggles.
"Your strategy really was that obvious." She tells him. "I just had to play it the way I learned."
"You were cheating" he stuck his tongue at the blind girl and she returns the gesture to his satisfaction.
"Prove it." She replies and Envy laughs, his heart at ease. The little girl cocks her head to the side. "Ah, I understand."
"Hm?"
"Mommy and I had the same color of eyes." She smirks. "She wanted you to have some small thing of her so she taught me chess. Mommy knew you'd come see me… Envy."
His face fell, "So you—"
"Before mommy and daddy left, she told me she wanted me to meet someone special and this was the path leading to that. Mommy didn't have any regrets and now I know why." Nicollete's sigh is heavy and the sound strange coming from one so young.
"She knew she was going to die, she was aware her powers would transfer to me upon her death as her mother's did before to her. And the reason she never told me about this power was I was fated to blind myself. It was something necessary."
"Necessary for what?" Envy asks and she giggles.
"It's a surprise."
He smirks, "Can't you give me a hint."
"No."
"Not even a little one?"
"You're a mean little murderer." she replied sweetly and he scowled.