Heading North

It was two days later when the blond boy finally woke, but he did so while no one else was actively in the room with him. Not that they weren't nearby—Rude was only downstairs having a quick drink and meal—but Ed woke confused, mobile, and ready to leave the room. It only took the boy a few minutes to dress and leave the room, slipping out through the tavern below and into the town.

Quickly, he headed for the town exit, only to realize someone was standing guard there, so he quickly looked around the ledges and canyon walls around him—where the Hell was he?—until he found a path leading down to a lower level of the canyon trail. He took it, and got right down to the bottom before realizing he had no idea where he was or where he should go from there. Since he was on the north side of town, he kept heading north, hoping it wouldn't be too long until he found something useful.

What was it he was trying to escape from, though?

Also, he still realized he wasn't in a ten or eleven-year-old's body. How old was he? Fifteen? That would mean he lost five years of his life somehow, or maybe more. Of course, he was depressingly—well, he hadn't grown much. What had happened to Al, exactly, and to his leg? And the scars on his shoulder...what were those from? And his longer hair? Especially, where was Al and how would he find him? First, he had to figure himself out and figure out where he was...

Suddenly, a sound like a phone ringing made him yelp and search his person for the source, which was a strange, silvery device in one pocket, opposite some kind of sphere he didn't bother acknowledging. It was still ringing, on the fourth now, so he—fiddled with it, managing to get it open and reading a name and phone number on the screen he could now see. By the eighth ring, he found the 'talk' button and pressed it, then held the device to his ear and mouth, mostly just guessing the position.

"Um—yes?" he asked warily.

"Oh, good, you did manage to answer," a strangely cheerful voice commented.

"...Er, are you that person called Genesis Rhapsodos?" the boy asked tentatively. He again had the strange sensation of familiar not-familiarity.

"I am," the man agreed mildly. "Which side of town did you leave from?"

"Why, so you can come get me?" he asked angrily.

To his surprise, the man laughed. "Oh, no. I'm safely on another continent from you right now, so I couldn't go get you even if I wanted to. No, I daresay you don't know where you are, right? I can give you directions if I know which side of town you left from. Oh, given your lack of memory currently, there're also things I need to inform you of or you might get into more trouble than you can manage."

"I'm strong," Ed felt the need to pout.

"Of course," the man agreed evenly. "I'm aware of that. But you're not omnipotent, and you do have weaknesses, things you only became aware of recently. If you've forgotten all your recent memories, you won't know those things. Better to be safe than sorry, you know. Unless you've got a death wish? In that case, I'll leave you on your own."

"No, don't!" he found himself saying, even though a part of him had wanted to have the man do exactly that. Finally, after a short pause, he said, "I went north."

"North from Cosmo Canyon would be Nibelheim, at the base of the mountains. The town is about two days' journey from Cosmo Canyon past a river ford at about the half-way mark, and you didn't bring a tent with you for protection from the monsters overnight. The terrain isn't too tough in itself, mostly desert and grassland, but it will get colder as you go, and most of the monsters won't try to poison you or anything. Just try not to get hit if you wind up attacked, because you don't have anything to heal injuries and the monsters around there include Dragons—those could wipe out even someone strong in one hit," the man informed him, then he heard a door close as the man heaved a relieved sigh. "Finally, the privacy of my own office."

"What?" the boy asked, feeling a bit cheated for some reason.

"Oh, I was talking with you down the hall to my office, and there are some things I don't want to say publicly, you know. Anyone's weaknesses count amongst those, especially yours. First, though, I'm curious to know if anything you've seen looks familiar to you at all."

"Er..." How did he explain that? "Well...I sort of thought that darker man looked familiar, but I don't know why, and things like the room and bedding in the town I just left sort of did...When I looked at your name on the—phone, I guess—I though it was familiar somehow..."

"I see. That's actually a good sign. Now, on to the next topic, your weaknesses."

"...So what are these weaknesses you think I have?"

"Not think, know. In the world at large, no one knows what alchemy is, and you only talked with me about it because Materia works based on alchemic arrays, arrays which I am aware of. You can't go talking about alchemy to anyone but some of the people at Cosmo Canyon and to me, so you also won't be able to show it at Nibelheim. While you should be able to use it on the way there, it would be impossible for you to use it near Mount Nibel, because there's a Mako Reactor there. According to you, when you tried using it near a Reactor not long ago—the first Reactor you'd ever tried using it near—it just didn't work, and you admitted to having to rely on physical combat and Materia in those areas.

"Also, Materia themselves are debilitating to you, forcing you into a state where you effectively connect with all the knowledge stored in the Materia, but you become immobile and unaware of your surroundings in the process. You can't touch them with your bare skin unless you're using caution, and as far as I understand it, you also didn't bring along any of your bracers, weapons, or Materia—all but one shard which had been in your pants pocket. That one is powerful, but not something you can rely on or use frequently, so for the moment, make every effort not to touch Materia bare-skinned, and take care to pay attention to how well your alchemy is working. If it starts not working, get to a safe zone as quickly as possible."

"...I really forgot all that, things so important?" Ed asked, suddenly feeling lost.

There was a silence, then a small sigh as Genesis asked, "How old do you think you are right now? I mean, based on the memories you have?"

"Um...ten."

"...Ten? And you got down Cosmo Canyon's wall to the lower level on the north?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Good grief...I can only guess at how much trouble you caused your caregivers at that age. To the best of my knowledge, you're currently sixteen—your body, anyway. The amount of knowledge you'd have lost to wind up back at ten..." Another pause followed the words before the man said, "Just take care of yourself and try to recover the memory you suppressed. I won't lie to you—I doubt any part of what you'll remember will be pleasant, but you still need to know it if you want to survive in the Mt. Nibel area, unless you manage to get to Nibelheim, then just stay there."

"Hey! I know how to hunt and trap and how to make a campfire and all that! I can survive just fine!" the boy pouted again.

"Can you? That's another benefit, then. Just one question...The dark skinned man you woke with last night has been traveling with you for some time, his name's Rude. Would you like him to join you again, or would you rather stay on your own for now, Edward?"

The words and the memory of the concerned man from the time he'd woken in the night made him pause, then he said tentatively, "Not right now. I just...feel like I have to do this myself, whatever 'this' is."

"Huh," the man on the other end of the line puffed out. "Very well. Remember, your destination is north and only slightly east of where you are if you're straight north of Cosmo Canyon. Do you know how to use the device in your hand to make calls? That is, to actually use it to find a phone number and phone the person?"

"If I did, I don't now..." the boy answered with a small sigh.

"Then, how about if I call you, say, once a week—just to make sure you're okay?" Genesis asked.

"Hmm..." There were a lot of reasons Edward could have said no, but something that felt a lot like loneliness made him sigh, grumble, and say, "I guess that's okay. What if I don't answer right away?"

"I'll try calling...three times that day. If you haven't picked up by the third, I'll send Rude to Nibelheim to check on you. Otherwise, he'll wait at Cosmo Canyon for you."

"Okay, thanks."

"Off you go, then, and good luck, Edward." With that, the dial tone sounded, signaling the fact that he'd just hung up.

Shutting off his own phone took a few minutes—he finally found the 'end' button—then he started north again.

Everything was so weird. He was sure he wasn't in Amestris anymore, but had no idea where he was. How could alchemy not work? Also, if things were actually going to attack him, alchemy wouldn't do him any good, so he'd have to rely on fighting or running. There were so many things wrong with everything, and yet, it all seemed so natural, so if this was someone's prank, it was really detailed. He didn't think it was, so there was a good chance he'd meet those 'monsters' the man had mentioned.

But—dragons? Weren't they just fairy stories? Then again, what kinds of names were Genesis and Rude?

There were only a few minor diversions around canyon rocks leading out of the desert region and into a grassland. He was hungry, but since he knew how to hunt from his stay on Yock Island, it didn't take him much time to catch a small, grasslands critter a lot like a mole to cook and eat. Taking the extra with him, he pondered catching another soon, hopefully so he'd have the evening meal and one for the morning without having to hunt for it. As far as he could tell, his more adult body was stronger and had better reflexes—wouldn't Teacher be so proud?—but it took more food to fill and was obviously used to eating well. And he really hadn't prepared for the trip, so he had no money or weapons.

He'd really screwed himself by running off on his own, hadn't he?

It wasn't until evening when he encountered his first monsters, a pair of things which looked a lot like bull-headed gorillas with big horns and spiked arms with big claws on front and hind paws. At first, they seemed intimidating, but Ed quickly noted how they weren't all that fast—but just fast and strong enough to deal with. When they tried to attack him, he jumped back from the first attacks, but then shot forward between them, hitting each with a good punch and kick on the way. They both swung blindly at him, enraged, but wound up hitting each other—prompting them to begin fighting each other and ignore him.

That taken care of, he made his way the rest of the way to the ford, where there was a floating bridge sitting across the water. There were no trees on the side he was on, so he crossed to the other one where he could see a lone tree near the shore. Since he had to get out of the way of 'monsters', he wasn't going to do that by sleeping on the ground, but in a tree, they'd have a hard time reaching him, and he'd done it before on Yock Island.

Not long after he'd climbed the tree, he heard a yip below him, so looked down—and just stared at the brown, maned wolves he saw there, suddenly very glad he'd had the sense to climb a tree. Especially when there were three right below him, another two groups of three several yards away, and another two groups of two around the other side of the tree. It was probably the whole pack, assuming these wolves were like the ones in Amestris, but at least they looked mostly like normal wolves, save the mane.

When morning rolled around, he found the wolves sleeping around the base of the tree, so ate the meat he'd carried into the tree with him—leftovers of the second mole-thing he'd found—and contemplated the group below him. They didn't seem hostile, but he doubted it would be safe for him to just jump down and walk away, even though he really didn't have another option. Why had they stayed around the base of the tree, anyway? Just because of the meat he'd taken up there, meat he now smelled like? That was even worse.

After a pause, Ed started trying to find something he could draw with, but up in the tree and without chalk, he had very few options, especially for the purpose of drawing an alchemic array. Finally, he realized his only two remotely viable options were tree sap or the green dye in the leaves around him, and the better of the two was the latter, so he began plucking leaves and crushing them between his fingers, then drawing a rough array on the tree trunk. With each leaf, the array took greater form until he'd completed it (this was only possible because the tree's bark was a fairly smooth variety) and was ready to activate it.

With fingers stained green, the boy placed his hands down on the circle's rim and sent his energy into the array as he'd always done, picturing grasping roots to grip and hold the wolves for a little while so he could put distance between them. Yes, the wolves could track him, but would they? Most would only go so far as their territory border, and what he was about to do might just scare them off following him. With his thought about grasping but non-fatal roots, the tree's roots flexed and bent, then shot out of the ground to wind around the waking forms of the wolves, who were yipping, snarling, and struggling in shock and fear.

Assured they were bound, but would break free later, the boy jumped from the tree and bolted north across the plains. He had good stamina—he'd always had good stamina, actually—but his new, older body had more of it still, and he could set a good pace without running out of energy in an hour or two. Once he'd slowed from a full-out sprint to a quick jog, the pace didn't cause much, if any, distress on his muscles, so he had plenty of juice to keep going.

Until he needed to eat again.

His day after hunting for lunch kept about the same pattern as the day before, but besides that first wolf pack, the only wolves he saw were at a distance and didn't come towards him. It was coming up on dusk and he'd started looking for another tree to climb when he saw lights in the distance, up the slopes he'd been climbing for the last couple hours. If the lights were the town, it would probably be better to just try to get there rather than searching for a tree when there obviously were none nearby. As he kept moving towards them, the lights stayed steady and stable, so he felt sure he was right and it was the town ahead of him, so picked up his pace.

At about the time he noticed some wolves pacing closer to him on either side, he went into a sprint and made it to the town gate before the wolves reached him, much to the surprise of the guards at the gate. The two men had enough sense to fire off their guns at the wolves to scare them off, and pretty much shoved him into town as they kept their eyes on the grasslands in case more wolves came. Since he obviously had permission to enter town, Ed walked slowly down the main street to the square, feeling almost like he was back in Resembool. His panting from the sprint slowed as he took a look around, and he noticed the well in the middle of town. It wasn't a farming village, but it was similar enough, because other than a lack of space for fields, it looked so much like his hometown.

Near the well were several of the village children, mostly around twelve, thirteen, or fourteen, and there were only a few girls in the group. Didn't he look about their age? Moving closer, he noticed they were talking about leaving Nibelheim to go to Midgar and get jobs—mainly the boys planned to leave. There was one blond boy with blue eyes and really spiky hair with a short ponytail who kept himself apart from the rest and mostly sneered at them. Until the lot of the boys somehow decided they should leave town right that instant and turned to head towards the gate.

"You know the Nibel Wolves will eat you alive if you leave at night, right? And you haven't bothered to get together any supplies, and I know none of you can hunt or even find your way through the mountain passes. But if you really want to get yourselves killed in your stupidity, be my guest," the blond boy told them harshly, making them all turn to face him in anger.

"You're just a coward, Cloud!" one of them accused.

"Now hang on—" a dark haired girl began.

And Ed cut in with, "Did you hear the gunshots earlier?"

Everyone looked at him in shock, one of the angry boys snarling, "Who the Hell are you?"

"Wolves chased me into town just now," Ed replied simply, and they all froze as their eyes widened in alarm. "I was lucky I was close enough to the gate, and that the guards scared them away. It's bad enough I got stranded by myself in the middle of nowhere, but at least I know how to hunt and trap and make campfires, even when I don't even have a knife on me. Can you?" It was a slight fudging of the truth, since he'd left entirely on his own power and had been given directions on where to go from the Canyon, but if it kept them from being stupid, well...

The other boys started looking away and shuffling their feet, and finally, one of them said, "Even if we leave, we should probably plan it at least a little bit..." The others gave mild agreements and they began wandering away, leaving behind the fourteen-year-old blond boy (did they really call him Cloud?), the brown-haired girl, and two other girls who had paler brown hair than hers, all three of whom looked about thirteen.

"You actually came from south outside of town?" the dark brown haired girl asked curiously, even as all four stared openly at him.

"Yeah," he agreed. "'Course, now I don't have anywhere to stay, but..."

"The guards must have been worried about you since you're a kid, about twelve or thirteen, right?" the girl asked. He gave a shrug, which she took as confirmation, since she asked, "What's your name?"

"Edward, or Ed for short," he answered with a smile.

"Aw, how cute!" the other two girls giggled happily.

"Cute?" Ed blinked.

"You are," the darker haired girl said, in mild amusement. "Most of the boys here look like chunks of rock, but you're all angles and slender and all. Anyway, I'm Tifa, the Mayor's daughter. These are my friends, Kinny, Fatina, (1) and Cloud. Well, Cloud will tell you he's not anyone's friend, but..."

Cloud snorted and said, "That's because all those boys are so stupid and the girls don't want anything to do with me. Their loss."

Tifa sighed in exasperation as the two other girls glared at the blue-eyed blond, so Ed commented, "You're really arrogant, aren't you, Cloud? Can you actually back up that attitude with something besides words?"

While the three girls gaped at him, Cloud turned a glare on him and asked, "Can you back up your claims? I mean, you have to have them yourself if you'll pick a fight with me."

"I'm not picking a fight, just making an observation and asking a viable question. Have you actually earned the right to be an arrogant sod, or are you just putting on airs to compensate for your short-comings? Not that I ever understood the whole 'putting on airs' or 'arrogance' in the first place, but..." Edward knew he was taunting the other boy, but he really couldn't help it, as he knew he'd be able to take him anyway, in anything he chose to challenge him on. Well, if he'd lost six years of information, maybe not...

"Come mountain climbing with me tomorrow," Cloud offered mildly. "Tifa and I both know the mountain trails, so we won't get lost—at least, if you can keep up with me, you won't. If I lose you, I'll go back to find you. In a few hours. We'll see how long you can survive in Mt. Nibel alone."

"Cloud, there are Dragons there! He could die!" Tifa glared at her 'friend'.

"Yes, and someone smart can avoid their nests easily enough," Cloud countered.

"Dragons? Really?" Ed asked excitedly with a grin. "That sounds like fun! And I like hiking and stuff anyway, so it won't hurt. When do we leave?" He'd been honestly wondering about the Dragons since Genesis had mentioned them, so to him, he wasn't even taking a dare, but doing something he wanted to do anyway.

The others all had to stare at him for a minute, then Cloud chuckled, seemingly in a much better mood. He pushed off from the side of the well where he'd been leaning and said, "Come home with me. Mom won't mind. We'll leave after breakfast." The other boy then paused and asked, "Did you just completely miss the fact that I gave you a dare, by the way?"

"No, I knew you were trying to rile me up into doing something stupid, but that only works if I didn't want to do it in the first place," Ed answered dryly, gaze amused. "I've wanted to climb Mt. Nibel for awhile and never managed to get here before now to do it, so that accident earlier was very useful! Oh, thanks for offering me a place to stay."

"Sure," Cloud agreed, then led the way to a home down a side street from the square. "I never knew anyone besides Tifa who wanted to climb Mt. Nibel before."

"I like to be active and do things that are interesting. You know, like exploring and seeing new things. Otherwise, everything's boring," Ed replied, and Cloud chuckled.

Notes:

(1) Random names which never show up again, so feel free to forget them.