Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist
Edward cleared his throat. It was dry with dust and the pain of recollection. "I am told I lay in my room for three days before rescuers could reach me. I had summoned a maelstrom of magic so wild and destructive that it only abated under the attack of five ArchMages. For a further five months, I wandered through a hellish dreamscape, locked inside my own mind, at the mercy of my own demonic summoning. When I awoke, I had a steel arm from the Princess and her most honoured grandmother, and a furious Mistress to answer to. I am not sure that my brother has ever truly forgiven me for the action."
There was a long pause, during which the Mage brought his breathing under control and stubbornly blinked back tears.
"You are to be commended, Fullmetal One. Not many humans would have survived discourse with a demon."
"Commended? The word humans would use is 'condemned', Roy."
"Nevertheless."
Edward shrugged his shoulders, his eyes fixed on hands that were folded in his lap. "I have never stopped cursing my foolishness," he said, softly. "That thing…it's boon was at least effective."
Warm breath washed over the Mage, and he looked up into the Dragon's hound-sized face, which now hovered a mere foot away from him. He dared not move, so piercing was Roy's gaze.
"Yours is a story whose telling would make the most hardened battlecaster swoon," the creature told him, the wisdom of its centuries filling his voice with a calm certainty. "To remember, and regret, and learn from folly is wise. To be consumed by it is not."
In answer, Edward lifted his shining metal hand into the waning light, watching it catch both the sun's dying rays and the Dragon's gleaming eye.
Roy narrowed his eyes, and, with a suddenness that made Edward gasp, he shot out a forepaw to pick the Mage up, enclosing him in a wall of scale before the human could react. Edward reached out to grip the living walls about him, feeling his stomach turn over itself as the Dragon clambered out of his curled-up position, and onto his feet. Edward craned his head over the top of Roy's paw, acutely aware of the serrated edges of the claws that brushed against him. The sight of the ground so very far away made him gulp, dizzied by the swiftness of the Dragon's impulsive action.
With a delicateness that most would not have credited to a creature so vast, Roy reached around to place the Mage on his back, dropping him so that he straddled the narrow, withers-like crop of muscle at the base of the Dragon's back, a bridge of flesh thin enough for him to straddle comfortably before the creature's back widened out to the great bulging muscles of his shoulders and wings. Bewildered, Edward sat as still as he could, wondering at the beast's erratic behaviour.
Roy let out a satisfied grumble, the reverberations of which Edward could feel. "It would be prudent for you to hold on to my hide very tightly, Fullmetal," the Dragon warned him, with a capricious tone.
Edward barely had time to contemplate what the Dragon might mean before Roy sank into a crouch, making Edward's stomach churn. Like a cat preparing to leap, Roy shifted his weight from foot to foot, unsettling Edward with every movement until the Mage learned to compensate by twisting his upper body.
"Wh-what are you-"
With a joyous bark, the Dragon surged forwards, springing out of his crouch into a sprint that made Edward scream and latch onto the scaly neck with all his might. The hellish, bouncing run abruptly ended in a leap and the thud of an impact that set all of Edward's bones shaking. He felt an odd force pulling him backwards, threatening to yank him off the Dragon's back, and he clung on tighter.
Cautiously, the Mage opened his eyes, feeling the Dragon's body strain with some momentous effort beneath him. What he saw made his mouth gape open in shock, and all of his organs plummet into his shoes.
Paw over paw, methodically digging his claws into crumbling stone, Roy was climbing up the high northern tower of the castle. Climbing it, as if it were not a smooth, vertical structure stretching at least as high as any building in the capital of Amestris. As if he did not have a vulnerable, easily-squashed human clinging in horror to his back.
The Dragon roared a laugh as Edward let out a second screech of terror.
"Surely, after combating a demon, this is no hardship!" he called back to the Mage, his tense voice betraying the difficulty of the climb.
Edward's reply was not intelligible.
After what felt like a decade of torturous, straining muscles and gut-wrenching fear, Roy had clambered high enough to curl his body about the uppermost level of the tower, the massive creature coiling about the circular structure and digging his claws into thick stone. His belly rested mainly on the conical, flared roof of the spire, and he lifted his head proudly to survey the countryside that sprawled out below the volcano.
A surge of movement behind him alerted Edward to the spreading of the Dragon's wings, rising as much as they could to catch the air.
Once the frantic beating of his heart had settled to a manageable level, the Mage felt the muscles of his neck unlock enough for his to lift his chin and share the Dragon's view.
It was...astonishing.
As long as one did not look straight down, at which point one discovered once more the absolute limit of human fear.
Edward looked up, aware of the blood draining from his face, to meet, once again, the Dragon's large, alien eyes.
"Look, Fullmetal," Roy said, his deep voice rich and honeyed with joy. "Is it not a most magnificent sight? Does it not make you feel incomparably small and insignificant?"
Edward nodded, not convinced of his ability to speak.
The Dragon's teeth showed, in a wistful smile. "This is but a fleeting glimpse of the world that I have lost." He shook his wings, the chains chiming for emphasis. The high, freezing wind cut through the master of the castle and his guest, filling the brief silence with a keening, lonely cry. "Never succumb to despair. It is our sins that forge us, cast us in stuff stronger than we might ever have hoped to become," the Dragon counselled, something of the tragedy of the universe tingeing his voice with melancholy. "Without wings, I must walk, whilst you must work your magic with clumsy steel fingers. Yet how strong we are, for having sinned."
Awed, stunned, and a little afraid, Edward could not hold the Dragon's gaze for long, and tore his eyes away to view the world spread below them. For a chance, split-second moment, the question of the chained wings rose to his tongue, but he bit it back.
It was not time for that, yet.
They did not speak of what had passed between them and, once Roy had climbed down from the tower, Dragon and human resumed the routine of day-to-day life, each with a newer, more profound understanding of the other.
For his part, Edward continued to note his observations on draconic behaviour, and exhaust the Dragon's library. They continued to share long, tireless debates on the theory of magic, of the world and its wonders, of days gone by and days to come. Edward was refining his sketches of the creature, taking long hours to capture the minute details of his conformation, as well as trying to tie down the sheer grace and majesty of his captor to paper. Such was his fervency in the matter that he had been forced to request a regular cache of paper and ink to be added to the goods brought by the scruffy wagoner.
And though it occurred to him many times, positively itched inside his head like a plague sore, Edward did not once voice the question he so desperately wanted to ask. The Dragon's mysteries would take time to be revealed.
It so happened that he was pondering that very question, a blur of weeks after the remarkable episode of the tower-climbing, when a most peculiar event occurred.
The Mage was in the courtyard, wearing a cloak of particular thickness to combat the decisive chill of autumn that now pervaded the air. He had taken to pacing the great space when the stifling of study became too claustrophobic. In order that he might retain his physical fitness, despite the limits of his perambulations within the castle walls, he had even recommenced the daily training exercises that had been drummed into him by his Teacher.
He was just considering casting aside his cloak to begin warming his muscles when a shadow fell over him, a wind whipped up, and an odd roaring rush of air filled his ears.
Edward looked up to see the fantastic sight of some huge thing descending from the air above him, at great speed. With a yell of surprise and alarm, he sprang to the side, losing his balance as he scrambled to escape the shadow before the thing squashed him.
Once the reverberations from the traumatic landing had stilled, Edward uncurled himself from his foetal position on the ground, blinking in the cloud of dust that had sprung up, and squinted through the haze. His jaw dropped.
Arrogant, casual, almost nonchalant, a massive scaly figure squatted in the castle's courtyard, hunched low to the ground. In the ever-present glow of lava, the creature's scales shone a deep, sapphire blue. As Edward watched, agape, it unfurled itself from its landing position with slow, lazy motions, allowing endless coils to resolve themselves into a very familiar form, though with its differences. From snout to tailtip, the Dragon was perhaps half as long again as Roy, though its build was much slimmer and lighter, a narrow, coiling serpent of a beast. Its legs were longer, leaner, matching the thin set of its body, and it drew itself up with grace and poise. The spikes that ran along its spine were stubbier, and the end of its tail bulged into a protrusion that resembled a mace; a great, spherical mass of flesh and bone, from which menacing spines emerged. This beast had, it seemed, an extra bludgeoning weapon at its disposal to make up for its lack of sheer mass.
At the opposite end there was an angular, pointed face, inexplicably different to Roy's, longer and flatter, though the huge fangs protruding over the lower lip glittered just as ominously. The stranger Dragon looked about itself, curiously, with bright, jewelled eyes.
It was with a pang that Edward observed, for the first time, the glorious majesty of a Dragon's wings unfurled. The great wings, almost translucent at full stretch, glimmered with blue and purple tones in the light. Their span was twice that of the blue beast's length and their thin hide intersected by bony ribs of flesh, akin to a bat's, that protruded as wicked claws along the bottom edge of the wings. The Dragon shook them out a little, as a dog might shake its head after a swim, and folded them neatly along its back with a snap. The noise was like the sharp retort of billowing sail canvas, and caused Edward to jump, shocking him out of his entranced study.
His jerk made the creature's head twitch towards him, and gleaming topaz eyes fixed him as a fox freezes a rabbit. Edward could feel his heart shuddering in his chest, each tremble of his hands, could feel every grain of grit embedded in his skin, hypersensitive to the movement of the air around him. The grain of his staff scraped raw against his fingers, and his grip tightened as he fought desperately to summon a helpful incantation to mind. Where the hell was Roy?
Luckily, the newcomer seemed ill-disposed to deliver a fiery or bone-crunching death. Its gaze was more curious than hungry, and it snaked out its head to better scrutinise Edward. When its snout was mere feet away, it halted. Its breath scorched the Mage's face, but the sharp tingle was that of frost rather than fire, a rush of cold, slightly foetid air, diametrically opposed to the unbelievable heat of Roy's exhalations.
Its face twisted, lips drawing back to reveal ALL of its teeth, and Edward cursed his unresponsive brain for its complete lack of spell suggestions, before he remembered that a similar expression on Roy's face had, invariably, indicated a smile.
"Well," rumbled a masculine voice lighter than Roy's, alive with something akin to amusement, "what has he picked up this time?"
Before Edward had time to respond, the air erupted with a bellowing, deafening roar, and the ground shuddered as an immense black form thundered from within one of the fortress buildings and flung itself at the intruder.
The two massive creatures rolled, coiling together faster than Edward could see, and thrashed with convulsive, shattering violence. The air filled with their snarls, the deafening impact of their blows and the screeching scrape of diamond-hard scale-on-scale. The Dragons hissed, growled, screamed at each other, and their roiling fury churned up the ground with the ferocity of an earthquake. Within seconds, such dust and grit had been flung up that only flashing glimpses of the combatants could be seen. Edward stood, frozen with indecision, for a long moment, torn between his infernal curiosity and desire to document a dragon versus dragon battle, and his much-neglected voice of self-preservation.
The toppling of a watchtower, due to the impact of the thrashing bodies, decided him, and he sprinted for the relative safety of the nearest building, cursing (and not for the first time) the voluminous cut of his robes. He ducked into the cool shadows, pressing his body flat to craggy stone, listening intently to the thunder of snarls, the chaotic clamour of blows, the cacophony of destruction. It was impossible to distinguish one Dragon from the other when they were so embroiled, either by sound or sight, and he had no hope of judging which beast fared better until the conflict was concluded. But there were preparations he could make for an unfavourable outcome.
Hurriedly, he knelt and began to trace runic patterns in a tight circle about him. Teasing motes of energy away from the atmosphere, an easy task with an epic battle between mystical creatures was but a stone's throw away, Edward charged his invisible inscriptions and pursed his lips to begin the incantations that would unlock their power.
It was then that a particularly loud thud shook the building, and a ragged screech rent the air, before all fell to stillness and silence. Edward paused in his casting, straining his ears. From outside, he heard only the scritch-scratch of shifting scale, and the harsh breathing of the combatants. Whispering the final syllables of his protective charms, the Mage peered cautiously around the edge of the doorway.
A good third of the inner buildings stood in shattered ruin. Debris littered the courtyard, cloaked by an immense cloud of dust and grit. Bizarrely, there was no trace of blood anywhere to be seen, no scorchmarks or stench of burning flesh, only the gaping scars of claw marks, the gouging in the earth of deep trenches by struggling bodies. Edward wondered at that. His golden eyes swept over the courtyard to the far eastern corner, where the two huge forms hulked, motionless but for the rise and fall of their panting breaths. The Mage scrutinised them, willing his eyes to penetrate the gloom cast by the dust-smog, thicker than fog over marshland in autumn.
"You still fight like a sand-lizard," came a deep voice from the shadowy mass, and Edward sagged in relief that Roy was alive and, apparently, victorious.
"And you still fight as though your soul depended upon victory, even in a little egg-scuffle," retorted the other voice, sounding similarly unaffected by the 'scuffle'.
Roy snorted, a sound that was accompanied by the brief glow of a small fireball. "It cannot fail to have escaped your notice, but we are far beyond our egg years, you and I."
"And yet I, the elder, possess the more youthful spirit."
"Hatchling."
"Droopy jaw."
Edward couldn't quite believe his ears. He snuck out from behind the doorway and crept closer, listening with increasing astonishment to two fully gown male Dragons, who had recently been attempting to rip enormous chunks from another, bicker like small children. Judging by the strangled grunt that had just issued from behind the dust cloud, Roy was responding to the last jab by leaning on the other creature's throat.
"You can never take a joke," spat the second voice, after a lengthy pause. It sounded hoarse.
Arrogant menace swaggered through Roy's voice as he replied. "I never have to."
The dust was beginning to clear as they talked, drifting upwards in a vaguely disgruntled manner. Edward could now make out his captor. Roy was perched mostly on top of the blue, who was lying on his side. Their tails, wings and limbs were hopelessly entangled, twined sinuously together intimate as lovers. Closer observation revealed that it was the blue who had swamped Roy in his coils- the more heavyset Dragon seemed to bear the weight with ease, pinning his opponent despite the crushing mass of his enemy curled about him.
Dragons clearly fought like politicians- so close that the slightest mistake might kill you, or your opponent, close enough to see yourself in your enemy's eyes, close enough that it was strength to strength, weakness to weakness. Both blue and black hides showed signs of the 'scuffle'- ragged gouges in otherwise peerless scale, sluggishly oozing blood. Claws and fangs, both still bared, wore lurid scarlet like the gloss on a lady's fingernails. Roy's head was bent close to the other Dragon's, the tip of his snout mere inches from the other's heavily-ridged brows, his whiskers brushing the other's blunt nose.
As Edward snuck closer, the blue let out his breath in a huff and twitched, his entire body convulsing for a split-second, before he relaxed again. "Let me up," he demanded, his mace-tipped tail lashing free of Roy's like an affronted cat's.
The black narrowed his eyes. "You would make so bold, when you are at my mercy."
A snort from the defeated creature sent a tiny plume of icy white-blue mist from its nostrils. "Let me up, or I shall freeze your face and eat your new Princess."
The Mage, completely absorbed in the exchange, stopped dead only a few yards away from them. His outraged pride had a minor duel with his sense of self-preservation whilst Roy let out one of his enigmatic chuckles, and he finally drew himself up in the perfect picture of offended dignity. "I am not a Princess!" he declared, striking the ground with his staff, "and I'd like to see an overgrown lizard try and make a meal out of the Fullmetal Mage!"
Two sets of almost-identical slit-pupils regarded him, one with astonishment, and the other with ill-concealed humour.
"Ah, Edward, so courteous of you to join us," Roy greeted him, with a mockingly polite nod of his head. "As you can see, our self-imposed exile is now brightened by the presence of an honoured and most illustrious guest…"
"Who is most unimpressed by your idea of hospitality," the blue finished, flickering his tongue out at Roy insolently.
"Hush. Edward, this is a very old friend of mine. You may call him 'Maes'."
"Friend?" Edward gaped.
The black tilted his head in question.
"But- But he…The castle," Edward stuttered, floundering. His limbs flailed, arms windmilling to indicate the rubble-strewn courtyard. "He attacked the castle! He destroyed the north wing! You're sitting on him!"
Roy shrugged. "Such is friendship. Is it not, Maes?"
Maes chuckled, the rough rumble of an earthquake's tremors. "Indeed."
Whilst the Mage spluttered, the black delicately lifted his head into the air, shaking out his neck. Blue coils loosened about his limbs, allowing Roy to clamber easily off the other Dragon. Maes waited until he had withdrawn before sitting up, stretching, and resettling himself on his haunches. Both Dragons were still dripping blood from their wounds, but made no move to lick or soothe them. Instead, they both surveyed the damaged courtyard, and each other, with wry amusement.
"A goodly fight," Roy asserted, eventually.
Maes nodded. "A goodly fight. Now," his long head swung around to face Edward directly, "who might you be, Mageling?"
Were all mythical creatures he met destined to call him that?
Edward finally managed to contain his astonishment in order to make a low bow, aware that offending Roy's friend might be a suicidal move, and presented his staff. "My name is Edward Elric, Fullmetal Mage, formerly apprenticed to High Mistress Izumi of the Quicksilver Circle."
"A Quicksilver Mage?" Maes scratched his cheek briefly, absently, with dripping claws, staining his snout with blood. "You've caught yourself a clever one, Roy, you had better handle him carefully."
Edward puffed up a little, proudly. To be described in such terms by a Dragon was no small feat- the Quicksilver Order had long built up a reputation for training only the quickest of minds, the sharpest of intellects. He ducked automatically, however, when Roy's tail swung past him.
"Don't worry, Maes, I have my eye on him," came the response from the black, who took another half-hearted, playful swat at the Mage. Edward grinned, sidestepping easily. It was a good day when Roy chose to take mischievous pot-shots at him- he hadn't landed a blow yet.
"Have you eaten recently?" Roy continued, to the other Dragon, the chains on his wings rattling as he stood on all fours and turned to enter the castle.
"Not for three weeks, I am due a snack!" Maes laughed, following after a moment's pause.
Edward ran to catch up. Dragon interaction was something no human had ever observed before, his treatise would indeed be a masterpiece of scholarship! If only he had a pencil with him…
The castle's corridors, whilst big enough for one Dragon to move freely in, caused a little difficulty for two. Maes was forced to walk in the footsteps of his host, and Roy was obliged to swing his head right round to address the other Dragon. Their chatter was rapid and sibilant, but neither of them appeared to consider speaking anything but the Common tongue (there was another paper in that- 'the origins of language, human or bestial?'). Edward stuck close to the wall at Roy's shoulder, still unwilling to get too close to the new Dragon, preferring the shadow he knew and trusted.
Upon entering what had once been the banquet hall of the main keep, Roy made his way to the centre of the great room and flumped to the floor, causing it to reverberate with the impact, and tucked his limbs neatly under himself. He raised an eyebrow at Maes. Edward watched from the doorway, interested, as the blue made his way over, stepped into a delicate crouch over his bulkier friend, then lowered himself carefully onto the other's back, coiling over and around Roy with serpentine movements. Roy was obliged to lift his limbs and resettle his wings in turn, in order for Maes to wrap himself around the black as fully as possible.
Edward wished, momentarily, that he possessed a painter's skill. The two mythical beasts, curled together comfortably and at peace, were a beautiful study in ebony and sapphire.
Maes rested his head on a paw as Roy looked up to catch Edward's eye.
"Could you bring something for us to eat from the cellars?" he asked, his voice firm enough for Edward to know it was an order, not a request.
The Mage bowed his assent and took a last, searching look at the glittering tableau the dominated the room before turning and hurrying off. As much as he would have preferred to stay and document their reunion (who knew Dragons kept companions as did humans?), he had enough tact to recognise when privacy was desired.
Even so, the arrival of another Dragon to add depth and detail to his study…Edward could barely believe his luck! Two Dragons! Two Dragons who were, against all expectations, friends.
It was as if he was floating through a dream as he made his way to the section of the cellars that Roy had turned into a sort of vast pantry, chilled by its subterranean location, wherein he stored animal carcasses. The Mage enchanted several of the carcasses with a quick, businesslike array (a combination of the levitation circle and the forced movement pattern) and made his eager way back through empty, echoing corridors, unaware that the spectacle of several dead animals floating in his wake was disturbing, to say the least.
As he approached the banquet hall, faint strains of a deep-voiced conversation steadily grew louder until, when he halted outside the huge chamber, he could hear the Dragons' conversation quite clearly. The subject of it had his jaw dropping in shock.
"…always knew you had a penchant for blonde humans, Roy, but this is ridiculous."
"They say the fair-headed have the sweetest flesh," came Roy's voice, in a whimsical tone.
The rough grating sound of a Dragon's snort followed the assertion. "And from exactly what experience do you draw that conclusion? You have never sampled human meat in your life, only the most crass and vile of our kind ever have. You surely cannot have forgotten the Gluttonous Wyrm?"
Roy's scales scraped against one another; a shiver of disgust. "I would be hard-pressed to suppress that memory."
"Indeed- how many villages did he consume?"
"I hesitate to speculate. The humans were fortunate that he succumbed to our combined assault. None of their feeble devices could have stopped him."
Edward snuck closer, to the open doorway, intrigued. This pair were a fighting team? Their mock-battle had all but destroyed much of the inner courtyard, he couldn't help but speculate how breath-taking their battle would be when they stood united. And…they had acted for the good of a human community? Knowledge of draconic attitudes towards humanity was unclear at best, and Edward had never heard accounts of the great beasts actively defending people; traditional accounts told exactly the opposite story.
From inside the room, Roy yawned, drawing Edward's attention back from his internal musing. "You have yet to explain your point, Maes," he said, in a tone of bored reprimand.
"My point, dear friend, is that I fear this time you have taken a greater bite than you can swallow. You've never held a Mage before, whatever possessed you? He'll have your heart out within the week!"
Roy chuckled. "Oh? But he has been under my care for nigh-on two months now. We have an understanding."
Maes' tone took on a pleading aspect, and Edward could hear the restless shifting of scale against stone. "Roy, you simply do not have understanding with Mages. They shake your claw with one hand and trace out a spell for your doom with the other. You, of all creatures, know the danger of magic-users. Mages should be marinated, not entertained."
Edward drew himself up indignantly (marinated indeed!) but before he could storm in, he heard a low thump, the impact of flesh against flesh- a playful buffet? "I appreciate your concern, Maes, I do, and yet…I find myself intrigued by this boy. He has shown me much of his character, willing or no, he is unlike the humans I have encountered before; he amuses me. And I do not think he will attempt to have my heart out before our agreed time. And he is excellent company- we are not such solitary creatures that we fear no loneliness, hm?"
"Roy…"
Edward ignored the squeeze of emotion in his gut and decided it was more than time for him to interrupt. He allowed one of the chilled carcasses drop heavily to the floor, and let out a string of colourful curses, shattering the odd, melancholic quiet from inside the room as Roy barked with laughter.