Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.
A bit of an odd chapter, this...hope you enjoy it, anyway!
Why shouldn't he be fooled by the dream? It had seemed so real, after all.
Edward of Elric chewed at the end of his pencil, staring through the window in a distant fashion. Central City sprawled beneath him, the massive walled city a testament to the strength and ingenuity of the Amestrian people, though none of its magnificent spired towers stood as tall as the one he currently occupied. The Palace of Light was inn, university and court for any Mage that chose its hospitality; centre of schooling for the Quicksilver Order, testing ground for combat Mages hoping to enlist in the Mercury Circle, seat of justice for the trial of magical transgressors and final resting place for the most honoured members of each of the Five Orders; Quicksilver, Starshade, Turquall, Lytefire and Ressylion. It had been Edward's home since he became the country's youngest Mage, all those years ago.
The eldest Elric turned away from the view with a sigh, ignoring the nagging voice that insisted he head out and take some air before sunset. The parchment in front of him was covered in dense, tightly-packed scribblings in his own untidy hand, the writing so cramped that he could barely read it even with his nose mere inches from the words. It had become his practice, of late, to sleep with both pencil and parchment to hand, and his sleeping self had covered page after page with endless notes and diagrams, all concerned with one single purpose; the study of Dragons.
Studying the latest batch of nearly-indecipherable notations had taken up the greater part of his day. The intense wealth of detail astounded him, as did the elaborate fantasy his sleeping mind had concocted. A Dragon, capable of human speech and intelligence, that possessed a moral character superior to humanity's? The whole thing was a nonsense, contrary to every fact ever recorded about Dragons. They were vicious, territorial creatures, prone to extreme greed and capable of only the darkest deeds; why, civilisation owed its very existence to the fearless courage of human Knights, whose tireless stand against the relentless assault of the Dragons had saved many a town from ruin by the beasts.
So why was his mind so intent on constructing this false image? Night after night, the dreams had come; dreams of a lone Dragon, chained in his castle, and of the dark history the this Dragon related, piece by piece, to his enamoured dream self. Edward might almost suspect Sorcery, had the last Sorceror not been vanquished generations ago.
The Mage was distracted from his musings by a knock at the door. "Enter!" he called, hastily pulling a book open to cover the parchment and turning to the door.
Sir Alphonse of Elric, Knight Champion to the King's second daughter, poked his head into the room. "Still at your books, brother?" he asked, cheerfully. "You have been holed up in here all day, fusticating like a Ressylion elder when the sun has been shining so beautifully."
"You may keep the sun," Edward informed his brother, importantly. "We Mages have better things to do with our time than fritter it away with silliness."
Alphonse laughed, causing his older brother to grin, and clapped a hand to the wizard's shoulder. "That is as may be, O Splendid One, but even a Quicksilver Mage needs a little sunlight every now and then. Come, the Princess requests our company at dinner and she has charged me with ensuring that you appear in clothes befitting of your rank."
Edward groaned as he was dragged to his feet and pushed in the direction of his wardrobe. "Must I attend?" he whined, putting up a token show of resistance. "You and Winry will spend the entire time directing huge calf-eyes at each other and I'll have to talk to boring diplomats who only want to suck up to me so I'll perform some stupid magic for their awful country. And my dress robes are uncomfortable."
"Your dress robes are very becoming," Alphonse told him, mock-sternly, as he riffled through the shambolic wardrobe in search of the appropriate garments. "Red and black as you requested, brother, even though Quicksilver's colours are grey and blue. Besides, it's only one night out of the month and I'm off troll-hunting tomorrow, it'll be our last chance to eat together for months."
At that, Edward's sulkiness gave way to a more serious air. "You are resigned to it, then?"
The Knight shrugged. "I have little choice," he said, lightly. "Either we route out these monsters now, or see the harvests fail because the farmers had no-one to protect them. Anyway, the city stifles me, you know that; it will be good to be on horseback in the country once more."
"It will be good to be smiting the forces of evil once more, you mean," the Mage commented, with an older brother's wry insight. "You have been chafing at your own bit for weeks, Al, don't think you were being subtle. I was half-expecting you to go haring off last Monday when that crazy old man wandered into the open court and starting spouting dire prophecies about a fire-Dragon gone mad in the north-west."
Tugging the dusty outer-robe from Edward's shoulders in advance of replacing it with the refined elegance of his courtly attire, Alphonse acknowledged his brother's perceptiveness with a smile. "What a fool I should have looked, too."
"More than you usually do?" Edward teased, then ducked under the swing Alphonse aimed at his head and took up his staff from its mounting on the wall. "Come on, then, if we're going, may as well hold your hand if you can't face all those politicans alone; honestly, my little brother, the great Knight, afraid of a few wet-nosed, pen-pushing, backstabbing-"
"Yes, brother."
The Great Hall was impossibly hot. Edward scowled as he tugged at the collar of his shirt. Royalty often dined at the Palace of Light, enjoying the ancient grandeur of the vaulted ceilings and the impressive, magic-soaked elegance of its construction. The Palace was older than the city, older even than the office of Kingship, and the monarchs knew it was their duty to honour their most august subjects.
Tonight, the largest of the Palace's ballrooms was a veritable thrashing ocean of colours. The muted refinement of Quicksilver grey and blue served to brighten the harsh purple and gold that marked out the Lytefire Mages; similarly, forest greens and browns mingled with the lofty dignity of white and silver where Turquall wizards met their Starshade bretheren. Even a smattering of Ressylion Mages, resplendent in burgundy, had descended from their isolated studies to enjoy the royal spectacle. Not to mention the whirling, twirling, kaleidoscope display provided by the richly-clad nobility, gaily flitting from acquaintance to enemy and back with barely a change of demeanour. At the centre of the furore, Princess Winry clasped her betrothed's arm, glowing with life and happiness, all the beauty of the Faye shimmering from her as Sir Alphonse escorted her about the room.
It was all so boring. Edward snorted into his chalice (plum juice, thank the Stars, his reputation had preceded him and not a drop of alcohol had darkened his evening). These extravagant occasions were all very well, but he could not celebrate his presence here; this was the pinnacle of society, glorifying and enjoying itself, hypocrisy and innocence dancing hand-in-hand, and he would much rather be spending his evening alone with a large sandwich and a hefty tome of magical theory.
"My, my, Fullmetal Mage, how bored you look."
Startled, Edward whirled, combat instincts sending him into a defensive crouch, staff raised. The speaker raised an eyebrow at him, brushing at a now-juice-spattered sleeve. "Good evening."
The Mage relaxed, bringing his staff back to the floor and meeting the man's look with a glare. "Only an idiot surprises a Quicksilver wizard," he stated, coolly.
The stranger, a sturdily-built man who looked possess around thirty years of age, tilted his head so that shaggy black hair fell into impossibly-dark eyes. "I had thought you might hear my footsteps," he returned, gesturing to shiny black boots encasing his legs up to the knee. "Perhaps you were too deeply engaged in projecting death at the company below."
Edward grinned. "I was, a little," he admitted, amused to be caught out. "And you have me at a disadvantage, sir. Though I know you are from some sort of ancient family, and a fairly rich one, and I could know more by probing your mind, it is more polite for me to ask you your name."
The noble dipped into an extravagant bow, hard muscle flexing under silk and velvet. "My friends call me Roy," he said.
Edward awoke with a start. His breath came fast and sharp, urgent as the fluttering of his heart, and he struggled free of tangled sheets to stumble to shuttered windows, throwing wooden panels wide open so that the crisp coolness of the night could caress his heated skin. The stench of brimstone hit him, grounding him in an instant, and he leaned on the cold roughness of the castle's stone. That had been...a most distressingly-vivid dream. But just a dream- he was certain of that. Visions left a sour taste, a queasiness in their wake and dreams left only a memory.
He could still hear the Dragon's voice, smoother, smaller, less resonant; it sounded wrong from a human's mouth, ill-suited to so soft and small a vehicle. Running a shaking hand through messy blond hair, Edward blinked at the shadow of the treeline beyond the volcano's jagged rim, feeling his brother's large, calloused hand wrapped around his arm once again, the touch from a dream constructed from memories; sudden longing for Alphonse filled him, opening like a wound inside him, and he found himself blinking moisture from burning eyes. Stars, he had been so caught up in the Dragon's story that he had forgotten his own...
Spinning on his heel, the Mage summoned flame to his hand with a muttered incantation and picked up one of the many omnipresent sticks of chalk from his desk. Kneeling, spinning the fire into a ball that he tossed into the air to light his work, Edward hurriedly began to scrawl circular sigils into the floor, working with fevered energy until symbols of the scrying art surrounded him. Taking a moment to compose himself, drawing the magical flame back into his chest so that his energies could be focused entirely on a single task, the Fullmetal Mage allowed power to build behind his eyes, waking the magic in the circle with the enticing pull of his own magical energy. The white heat of oracle began to diffuse through his body, warming his blood and boiling in his belly. Edward opened his eyes, felt the world shrink, and cast his consciousness out, sailing over the dull mass of humanity to the burning brand of his brother's flame.
The images took several heartbeats to crystallize into clarity. Scrying was never an exact magic, one that Edward preferred to avoid due to its tricky, unreliable nature. However, his deep bond with Alphonse made locating a vision of the Knight comparatively easy, no matter how far away he might be.
The first picture to become clear was that of Alphonse himself. Edward smiled to see his brother's honeyed hair, shining even in the weak autumn sunlight; this vision was a sight of his brother from the very recent past, not the current moment. The Knight was seated on...ah, a rock, he was outside. Edward's brow furrowed as nature's green began to colour in the background; what cause did Alphonse have to be in the wild north? That vegetation was unique to the north of Amestris, but Alphonse was meant to be in Central with...oh, but Winry was seated next to him, the Princess' usual finery replaced with leather and honest cotton, an adventurer's outfit.
Edward strained to make out their location, grappled with the sullen shifting magics until the images resolved themselves with greater sharpness. Alphonse was holding his sword, its blade black with what looked to be ogre blood...what cause would the Knight have, endangering his lady on a monster-slaying hunt so soon after their return from the Dragon's keeping?
But that was not all...the Mage concentrated, fuelling the circle with the strong flame of his own power, too impatient to wait for the magic to coalesce by itself. Alphonse looked weary, dark circles surrounding his eyes, Edward's heart thudded painfully in his chest for his little brother's exhausted countenance, then his eye caught on something clasped in the hand that Winry held in her own; a flash of purple and green, some sort of plant. As if prompted by the Mage's curiosity, Alphonse opened his fist to reveal...
Oh Stars, no. Not that. Anything but that...That flower was jealously guarded by the trolls of the northern hills, thriving only under their simple but diligent care, and Alphonse must have braved the rage of those fierce guardians to have acquired so fine and plentiful a specimen. Edward released the magic of the oracle slowly, replacing magic's light in his veins with the heaviness of exertion. The sight of that deadly plant in his little brother's grasp, that singular flower whose name would strike fear into any reptilian heart.
Dragonsbane.