Disclaimer: I do not own FMA, as owning people is highly frowned upon.
KarmaHope: Thanks! I'm glad you like the last chapter and hope you like this one as well!
yyh-ygo-fma: I'm glad you liked the chapter. Yes, Hughes' death was the saddest moment (in my opinion) in FMA, particularly Brotherhood.
FullMetalWizardNerd7: I really don't recommend breaking any of your bones. It's not nearly as fun as it sounds. And sorry about the lateness of my updates!
Seize the Rain: I totally get being busy! School can be such a pain! Lol, I'm glad you approve of the LingxOCxGreed turn of events.
Obviously this update is seriously overdue, but my arm didn't set right the first time and I had to have surgery to get it dealt with... again. But it's almost entirely healed now, so hopefully I will be able to update sooner this time around. Also, having my arm broken and typing made difficult for me has made me realize how much of a pain it is to write an author's note addressing each person's review, so I think that this will be the last time I do so in chapter updates. Instead, I'll send a PM addressing each of your reviews. On a lighter note, thank you so much to everyone that wished me a fast recovery! Now, onto the story!
Raven never cried. Not when she'd undergone surgery and rehabilitation for her automail prosthetics. Not when she'd been kidnapped and taken to Lior. Not when she'd receive electrocutions of over 50,000 volts on a daily basis. Not when she'd had both of her arms blown apart right before her eyes. Not when she'd been stabbed by the Slicer brothers. Not even when she'd faced the prospect of death. She had convinced herself that all her tears had dried up, that crying was a physical impossibility for her.
But she was crying now; there was no convincing herself otherwise. There was no mistaking the sting of saltwater or the cool tracks they left as they cascaded down her face. Crying for the man that had been the closest thing she had ever had to a father. Crying because she knew his death was partly her doing. She had roped him into the business of the Philosopher's Stone and military conspiracy, and now he had paid the price for trying to help her. This was his reward for trying to help her achieve her goal- being shot point-blank. And now she had yet another life that would forever remain on her conscious, and a sickening feeling told her that he may not be the last.
Bursting through the doors of Central Command, she didn't slow her pace as she flew down the stairs leading up to the grand building. Through blurred eyes, she caught brief glances of military personnel casting her inquisitive and solemn looks, as if they knew the cause of her tribulation, or at least suspected. Did everyone know except us?The thought was nearly enough to rekindle her initial rage, but in truth, it only made her more depressed.
And so she ran.
Without being entirely conscious of it, she sprinted farther and farther away from the building, allowing her feet to carry her wherever they so chose. She didn't much care where they would lead her, only if they could distance her as much as possible from Central Command and hopefully leave behind the painful memory. Maybe if she ran fast enough, she could leave everything behind and life would go back to normal. Things would be so much simpler; no blood, no tears, no automail, no mistakes, and no regrets. But Raven knew that no matter how many tears she shed, how strongly she wished, or even prayed to some deity, this was her life. This was life; she had always known that it wouldn't be easy. But why does it have to hurt so much?
Clenching her eyes tightly shut, she willed the painful thoughts away but found them still imprinted on the back of her lids like a brand, and just as agonizing. Mentally cursing herself, she realized how pathetic she was being, how weak she truly was. Normally she would put on a brave face and tough it out through any situation, but lately she noticed that the carefully-constructed protective emotional wall she had built up around herself had begun to deteriorate. When did she become so... open?
More than that, when did she allow herself to open up willingly?
Shoving her way past pedestrians crowding the walk, she ignored their annoyed mumblings and protests, too wrapped up in her own world to care much about others. Not for the first time, she found herself envying them for their blissful ignorance. Few- if any- of them would ever have to experience the trials she or her companions faced, and most of them would never know the tragedy that each of the three of their hearts carried. Perhaps it was better to be jealous of them rather than angry; she didn't wish her fate upon any of these innocent people, even if she still held some bitterness towards them in her heart. She didn't linger too much on the subject for fear of angering herself again, and put all of her concentration back into putting as much distance between herself and Central Command.
As much as she wished for solitude, Raven knew that at one point or another she would need to meet back up with the Elrics and Winry that evening. Needless to say, it wasn't something she was looking forward to one bit. If she had responded this negatively toward the news of Hughes' death, then she could only imagine how the other three would react. She had quickly learned after the Tucker-chimera affair that Edward seemed to take this sort of thing particularly hard, and if she had learned anything about the boy, it was that being near him in this sort of state was not the best scenario. Alphonse might be a bit better than his brother, but it would only appear so on the outside; she knew that he would hide his true sadness and bury it out of concern for his older brother. And Winry... Raven didn't even want to begin to imagine the other girl's reaction. Though she knew the pain of loosing someone dear- as Raven had recently learned that Winry's parents had both been killed during the Ishvalan War- this fact would do little to dispel her grief. This was not a scene that Raven was at all eager to return to.
And so, she continued to run until her feet began to ache. At first, the fact did not register in her mind, which had long-since lapsed into numbness and made her oblivious to everything but the beating of her own heart and the pounding of her shoes hitting the pavement. Then it hit her: a sharp stabbing at the balls of her feet as she nearly tripped over the curb on her way across a deserted street. Judging from the soreness radiating up her foot each time she applied pressure on a particular area, she suspected the bottoms of her feet were covered in blisters. Mentally cursing, she took a quick glance around to survey her surroundings.
From the little she could tell, she guessed that she was somewhere close to the southwest outskirts of town. She stood on one side of a small canal that divided the immediate area between residential and industrial on the opposite side. A short stone staircase leading down to the water's edge stood a few meters in front of her, a sidewalk lining the path beside the canal. Momentarily ignoring the protests of her feet, Raven made her way over to the steps and sat near the bottom, folding her arms across her knees and resting her chin on top.
She stared with unfocused eyes at the water's glassy surface, trying to completely empty her mind. Sighing quietly when her thoughts crept back up on her, she buried her face in her arms and closed her eyes. Counting her breaths, she managed to keep focused on this singular task without thinking of anything else. At some point she lost count and opened her eyes, staring blankly ahead of her as she lifted her head and propped her chin back on her arms. She managed to keep thoughts of Hughes at bay, but her gloom still clung to her like the plague and clouded her senses. If the Drachman army came crashing through the town, Raven doubtfully would have noticed, much less cared. As selfish as it was, she was too absorbed in her own self-pity to take interest in what transpired around her at the moment.
That was exactly was she was being, Raven knew: selfish, plain and simple. She should have stuck around to hear Mustang's explanation instead of punching him in the stomach out of blind anger. She should have at least made an effort to catch up with Ed, Al, and Winry instead of going off on her own to wallow. She should have gone to give her condolences to Hughes' wife and daughter instead of reflecting on how she herself was affected by the situation. Above all, she should not be sitting alone throwing a self-pity party for herself while others were mourning the same loss she was. Yet, as selfish as it was, for the time being, she was perfectly content with it. Let me be miserable and get it over with,she contended, fighting back another round of tears that threatened to overflow.
"Hey!" beamed a cheery voice from behind her, wrapping a pair of arms casually around her neck. "Look who I found!"
Nearly leaping out of her skin, Raven fought to keep from letting out a shriek as the familiar voice slowly registered in her mind. Turning her head slightly, her suspicions were confirmed by the normally narrow eyes that were currently shut as he grinned widely at her. "L-ling," she stuttered somewhat breathlessly, still a bit rattled by his sudden appearance.
Grinning widely, the Xingese boy greeted in a sing-song voice, "Hello!" He tightened his hug around her neck. "What's my little Rae-Rae doing here?" he cooed.
Frowning a bit, she half-heartedly replied, "Choking, at the moment. Can you let go of me?" she demanded tiredly, trying to pry his arms away from her.
Taking the hint, he loosened his arms from around her neck and wrapped them loosely around her waist, settling his chin on her shoulder. He peered at her with an almost childlike curiosity, intrigue written plainly in his dark eyes. "But you look like you need a hug," he pointed out.
Raven knew he was right, and she could only imagine how she must have looked. Eyes red and glassy, cheeks possibly still stained with her tears, her body hunched over and curling in on itself as she sulked at the bottom of the staircase, practically radiating depression. It would have come to no surprise to her if there was a black cloud hovering ominously above her head, ready to crack open and pour rain.
Blinking fiercely away any possible existence of recently-shed tears and hastily wiping her cheeks dry, she asked somewhat thickly, "How did you even find me?"
Cocking his head a bit to the side as he considered her question, Ling absent-mindedly took a lock of her hair and began to twist it between his fingers. Raven stiffened at this, but did not object, much to her own bewilderment. In fact, she was surprised by her lack of action against the arm that was still draped loosely around her waist, but continued to allow this as well. "Your Qi," he finally answered, "is practically a big flashing sign shouting 'Rae-Rae is right here!'," he said distractedly. "And you're not exactly one to blend well into a crowd," he added with a small grin that she did not return.
"Why were you looking for me?" Raven asked, her tone making it apparent that she hadn't wanted to be found in the first place. But, as oblivious as ever, it didn't seem to compute in the Xingese prince's mind.
Finally dropping her strand of hair, Ling met her eyes with a flicker of amusement. "I was bored," he stated simply, "and thought I might find one of my new buddies to treat me to lunch."
Finding the corner of her mouth twitching up in a ghost of a grin, Raven said somewhat mockingly, "Still trying to sponge food off of near-perfect strangers?"
For an instant, she saw an unidentifiable emotion flash across his face before disappearing so quickly it was easy to think she had imagined the whole thing. In any event, that smile she had come to think of as idiotic settled back on his face, appearing surprisingly comforting. It was one small thing to be grateful for, his unchanging childish mannerisms while the world around him flipped one hundred and eighty degrees in the blink of an eye. Raven thought fleetingly that it was something she could get used to, just the safety of familiarity. It disappeared almost immediately as she reminded herself that with the path she had chosen to travel, familiarity was a trivial luxury, one that she couldn't afford to indulge if she wished to achieve her goal. And she hadto see it through now or Hughes' death would amount to nothing, and she wasn't about to waste his sacrifice.
Scratching the back of his head, Ling didn't appear the least bit miffed by her earlier comment. "It's not sponging off strangers if I know them," he indignantly replied.
"You're right," Raven amended. "It's sponging off people you call friends."
A grin spread its way across his face as he raised an eyebrow slightly. "So you do admit that we're friends," he noted, to which she shrugged uncaringly. "Eh, good enough," he said, unwinding his arms from her and rising to his feet, brushing off his pants as he did so. With a sigh, Raven groggily followed suit and began to trek back up the stairwell, Ling close behind her.
"So," Ling continued, lacing his fingers together at the back of his neck, ever his chipper and completely at ease self, "where are we staying tonight?"
Raven opened her mouth to respond, but found no words escape her lips as a thought occurred to her. Letting out a small groan, she rubbed her temple as she replied, "At the Central Hotel. Damn, I left my luggage case back at the cemetery," she frowned, thinking of the long trek she would need to take across town. It would take her over half an hour to make the journey, factoring in the amount of foot and vehicular traffic that would be out and about this time of day.
As she began to contemplate simply leaving the case behind, Ling stated, "Don't worry about it," he waved a dismissive hand. "I had Fu and Lan Fan drop it off with the scary blonde mechanic; it's in good hands."
Raven was tempted to point out the fact that she had trouble trusting his goons with her personal items if they couldn't even keep track of their own master, but held her tongue as a different statement caught her attention. Pausing as they reached the top of the stairs, she asked hesitantly, "How did you even know where to find it?"
"Details, shmetails," he answered somewhat frustratingly, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet like a kid who couldn't sit still. He opened his mouth to say more, but was interrupted by the loud roar of his empty stomach. Turning his expression from playful to puppy-dog pleading in the blink of an eye, Ling whined, "I'm starving! Can we eat now? Please?" he batted his eyes for extra effect.
Though she herself wasn't the least bit in the mood for food, Raven knew that the prince would only continue to hound her until she eventually caved in or he collapsed in the middle of the street. Neither option sounding very pleasing, Raven decided it best to humor him for the time being, even if she knew full well that she'd be the one paying for the meal. Sighing tiredly, she responded, "Alright. Where do you want to go?"
The corner of his mouth twitching up in a playful grin, Ling answered, "I know a place..."
"How on earth does this qualify as 'a nice and quiet place to fill up'?" Raven had difficulties keeping the twitching of her eye under control as she glared half-heartedly at the Xingese boy stuffing his face across from her.
Apparently Ling's idea of a 'place' was much in contrast with her own definition, judging from the restaurant he led- though perhaps dragged would be a more accurate term- Raven to. It wasn't particularly fancy, as most of the customers were in casual attire, but one look at their menu quickly changed her initial assumption. While she recognized a few names of meat dishes thanks to Izumi's owning a butcher shop, a quick glance revealed several foreign dish names that she could barely even pronounce, let alone understand what they were. On top of that, the cheapest item on the menu was nearly two thousand five hundred cens, and Ling's voracious appetite refused to settle for one measly bowl of pasta. No, he had to order half of the menu and one of each of the deserts. Raven didn't even want to think what the payment would total up to in the end.
Taking a brief moment to pause from inhaling his steak, Ling glanced up at her with bemused eyes. "Well, it's a nice place and I'm filling my stomach, aren't I?"
Drawing her eyebrows together, Raven continued, "How did you even know about this restaurant in the first place?"
Shrugging, he responded around a mouthful of food, "I saw it on the train ride in."
"I thought you ditched us as we pulled into Central," Raven countered.
"Why do you ask so many questions? Less talking, more eating!" he declared as a waiter brought him a slice of cheesecake.
As he set her slice of desert before her, she stared blankly at the cheesecake before sliding it away from her. In response to the questioning stare Ling shot at her, Raven said, "I'm not hungry."
"Come on!" Ling chided. "Don't let good food go to waste! Besides, it wouldn't hurt you to put on a few pounds."
Raven crossed her arms over her chest and deliberately looked away from him. She knew that he was right in the fact that she should eat something, that she had begun to loose weight and it was clearly showing. Part of her worried about what skipping a meal would do to her, but at the moment she doubted her stomach's ability to retain anything. In fact, she was amazed that she'd allowed herself to be dragged to this restaurant in the first place. She was in no mood for food, much less humoring the Xingese prince she wasn't certain whether or not she even liked. So why did you do it anyway?an annoying voice prodded at the back of her mind.
Because you need companionship now more than ever.
"What do you think, Rae?" Ling's voice broke her out of her reverie.
It took her a while to register the fact that Ling had been talking to her all the while she had spaced out. Blinking, dazed, Raven stared blankly at him for a moment before lamely saying, "Uh… yeah. I guess I have to agree with that."
Ling raised a bemused eyebrow. "I didn't even say anything. I was just seeing if you were paying attention," he explained in response to her confused expression. "You're pretty out of it, aren't ya?"
Shrugging sheepishly, Raven replied, "I have a lot on my mind right now. I'm not exactly having a good day," she added somewhat bitterly.
"Then don't think," Ling said simply, "just relax and eat."
The corner of her mouth twitching up in a small grin, she responded, "I'll leave the eating to you; you're certainly eating enough for two... or twelve." She paused to consider this fact as Ling polished off his second bowl of pasta. "How can you even eat so much food anyway? And how are you not fat?"
Pausing from inhaling his food, he answered, "I burn it all off with my mind; my brain works so fast that it's like exercising."
"So thinking is that strenuous for you that it's the equivalent of a workout?"
"You doubt my genius?"
"No, I just believe in your idiocy."
For a while they were both perfectly silent, staring at each other with blank expressions and hard eyes. Then, Ling broke out in a fit of laughter that made him double over in his chair and clutch his stomach while Raven watched on with slightly bemused eyes. She felt her lips crack a tiny smile at the sight of his light-hearted attitude, suddenly grateful for the Xingese prince's company; it hadn't occurred to her until this point just how much she appreciated the comfort- however small- of a presence at her side. Even she couldn't deny that this strange and joking encounter was much better than the cold solitude she had sought earlier.
Finally catching his breath, Ling directed his squinty gaze at Raven's face, a grin lit up on his own. "You actually dohave a sense of humor!"
"Contrary to popular belief, I'm not always like this; it is in my capability to smile every once in a while."
Ling's grin faltered slightly. "So how come you aren't now?" Raven shrugged tiredly in response, to which he pouted in annoyance. "Come on! For a minute there, you looked like you were actually enjoying yourself!"
"Yeah, well, life decided to sneak up on me and remind me that it's always keeping an eye on me." Raven mumbled distractedly as their waiter set a bill as long as her forearm down beside her plate. "Speaking of sneaking up..." she muttered, casting a quick glare at an innocent-looking Ling before glancing back down at the dreaded slip of paper. Any trace of the good humor she had earlier was wiped clean at the sight of the over one hundred thousand cens payment due. Grimacing as she took out her checkbook, she wrote out the hefty sum that could probably feed a family of four for two weeks. If this became a regular occurrence- which she had a strong feeling it would, due to Ling's ever-resilient persistence- then she would be broke in a matter of a handful of months.
Sighing, she slipped the check into the bill folder and rose from her seat. "Come on, Your Highness," she said dryly as she half-pulled Ling out of his chair and steered him toward the door. "Before they try to get any more money out of me."
"Shouldn't you leave a tip?"
Raven resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Coming from the prince of 'dine-and-dash'? You want to leave a 15% tip?"
"You make a good point. Let's go!" Ling slung his arm over her shoulder and led her out the door and into the street.
The crowds out and about had thinned somewhat during the late afternoon, but there still seemed to be plenty of people out roaming the streets of Central. Raven was somewhat surprised at this, as she had thought that time was passing much faster than it actually was and expected most people to be headed home for the evening. A quick glance at the westward sky told her that a few more hours of sunlight remained in the day, though she had been wishing since noon that the day would just draw to a close already. Just a little longer, she told herself. You just have to hang on for a little bit longer.
"By the way, you really oughtta do it more often," Ling commented as he shoved his hands in his pockets and continued walking down the side of the lane.
Furrowing her eyebrows, Raven matched his stride and looked carefully at his face while she asked, "Do what?"
"Smile," he stated as if it were the most obvious fact imaginable. His expression never changed from its happy calm, but Raven swore she saw some emotion she couldn't identify flash across his dark eyes.
She hadn't thought much of it before, but now she was beginning to notice Ling's attempts to keep a tight lip on his thoughts and emotions, which made her wonder just what was really going on inside that thick head of his. Maybe he's not as big an idiot as I think...she filed the thought away for future reference.
"I suppose I ought to say thanks," she said, "for keeping me company."
Quirking an eyebrow a bit at that, Ling happily responded, "Better get used to it, 'cause I'm not leavin' anytime soon. And that means you're not allowed to go anywhere either."
Now it was Raven's turn to raise a skeptical eyebrow. "Since when do I need your permission to go somewhere?"
"Since you agreed to help me out in my quest."
"I don't recall ever agreeing to helping you look for the Stone."
"But you gave me food! That means you'll help me!"
"I only fed you because your stomach wouldn't shut up and I didn't feel like carrying your unconscious body halfway across town. I never agreed to help you with anything else."
"But why not?" Ling whined.
"Because," she carefully annunciated, "you treat the Stone too lightly, like it's some kind of amusing game to you. I can't stand it."
Ling's eyes darkened as he gauged her tone and expression. "You can't stand the idea of someone using the Stone, yet you yourself want to use it. That seems kinda hypocritical to me."
"And you want to use it so you can live forever; I would use it just so I could live to be forty," she said defensively. "Call me a hypocrite as much as you want, but you're just being-" she broke off just as the thought dawned on her. It was something that had been bugging her since she had first met the Xingese boy and he had revealed his intentions to her concerning the Philosopher's Stone. Only now did she realize how similar his desires were to someone else's she had recently encountered.
Ling raised an eyebrow, waiting for her continue. "Selfish?" he offered.
"Greedy," she murmured.
Something in her voice must have alerted him that she was put-off by her own statement, but he was clearly confused as to why the realization of him being greedy was relevant. "Aren't we all that way? Don't you want something that you can't have?"
Raven's eyes flashed in anger, but she didn't speak. Ling took this as an opportunity to continue, "You know that I'm right. I saw you back at the cemetery, that grave you stopped at. Wouldn't you want to see him again? Isn't that being greedy, to want to cheat death so you can see someone you care about alive again?"
"Stop," she hissed between her clenched teeth. At her side, her hand clenched and unclenched into a fist as she fought to control her temper.
"We're not that different," Ling went on. "You're just as greedy as I am-"
SMACK! Not for the first time that day, Raven thoughtlessly allowed her temper to get the best of her, and she slapped the Xingese prince across the cheek. His head whipped to the side from the impact, and she could already see a red mark blossoming across his skin where her hand had hit. And similarly to the first time, she did not feel a speck of remorse for her actions. She didn't even care that some pedestrians had stopped to stare at the scene she was making.
"I know the consequences of trying to bring someone back to life," she said roughly. "I'm paying for it with my own life. Don't try and tell me that we're the same. We're not." She turned on her heel and marched away from Ling, not looking to see his expression as she left him standing there in shock. She didn't look back once.
The sun had just about set by the time Raven arrived at the Central Hotel, and she was beginning to feel downright exhausted as she trekked up the staircase to her room assignment. All the events of the day seemed to crash down upon her one at a time with every step she took, stabbing at her heart with every stair she climbed. She felt all of her earlier anger fade away into background noise, replaced instead with a hollowness that might have been regret.
For a brief moment, Raven felt her gut twist sharply with guilt. She fleetingly wondered if it had been a mistake to leave Ling standing there, with his red cheek and her anger still hanging bitterly in the air. So far, all her actions of the day had only proven Mustang's earlier point that she was nothing more than a child waiting for every opportunity to lash out at others. It was one thing when she was arguing playfully with Edward, it was another thing entirely when her temper got out of hand, as she had made blatantly obvious in her meetings with the Colonel and Ling. She had been told numerous times in the past that her temper would be the death of her, but she had never given much thought to the prospect of ruining her relationships with people every time she snapped.
But it was far too late to change her words now. There was no taking her actions back. What was done was done, and she was too exhausted to even think about apologizing- that is, if she even decided to apologize.
Deciding it would probably be best to make a quick check-in with the Elrics, she stopped first at the room she knew they were occupying- right next to hers and Winry's- and tried the doorknob. Seeing it was unlocked, she quietly knocked before slipping inside. Walking with leaden feet into the hotel room, Raven's dark eyes quickly scanned the room for any signs of the Elric brothers. She didn't have to look too hard to find Alphonse sitting on the edge of a couch, gazing unseeingly out the window across from him. While it had been made apparent that the younger Elric brother could read her emotions like an open book, Raven had always found him exceptionally difficult to read due to the lack of facial expression, but his body language served just as well.
Upon hearing her footsteps, the suit of armor slowly turned around to face her. "Raven," he said exhaustedly, which sounded odd when paired with his youthful voice. "Where have you been?"
Keeping her expression blank, she shrugged and responded with a vague, "Around."
Something must have shown through in her guise, because Al seemed to be regarding her more carefully than when she had first walked in the door. Even with her one-word response, Al could detect that there was something off in her tone. "I take it you heard." He didn't need to clarify any further than that simple statement.
Nodding once, she answered with a thick voice, "Yeah. You guys too?"
"Yeah…"
Briefly glancing about the room, she noted the absence of two blonde figures. "Where are Ed and Winry?"
"They're both in Winry's room." He paused. "Ling's bodyguards, Lan Fan and Fu, gave Winry this to give to you," he inclined his head toward her travel case resting beside the coffee table in front of him.
"Thanks," Raven said tonelessly, making no move to retrieve the object. She and Winry had planned ahead for sleeping arrangements, and it had been agreed that the two girls would share a room while the brothers had one to themselves. If Edward and Winry were alone in the room, Raven didn't want to disturb them from whatever they were doing. Not that she was suspicious of the idea of those two alone in a room together- she suspected that they were only trying to comfort each other in their mutual grief- but she was none too eager to barge into a scene of Winry crying her eyes out on Ed's shoulder while he himself was battling against tears.
"Mind if I join you?" she inquired.
"Feel free."
Settling herself down onto the floor beside his seat on the couch, Raven rested her back against the leg of the coffee table and joined Alphonse as he stared unseeingly out the window. Neither of them spoke, which Raven took as a nice change of pace from her earlier experiences throughout the day. Closing her eyes, she reflected first on her relatively short conversation with Colonel Mustang before moving on to her discussions with Ling.
It was somewhat startling how quickly the atmosphere surrounding the two of them had changed, specifically how her mood had altered ever since he'd found her moping by the canal. She'd gone from depression, to irritation, to joking all within a relatively short amount of time… and all of it had been Ling's doing. It wasn't until now that she realized how relaxed she had become once Ling had gotten her talking, how she was nearly able to forget the day's revelations the instant her mind was focused on their conversation. Was that his intent from the start? Raven contemplated. After the way that they parted, she didn't even want to think that he'd been doing her a favor by trying to cheer her up. Besides, is he really even smart enough to come up with something like that?
Grimacing to herself, she pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried to put the entire encounter out of her mind before she gave herself a headache. Too late, she begrudgingly thought.
Feeling a warm breath tickle her face, Raven opened her eye a crack and found herself staring face to face with an unmasked and unamused-looking Lan Fan, hovering mere centimeters away. Despite her earlier scare under somewhat similar conditions earlier that day, Raven still felt her heart nearly leap out of her chest at the sudden appearance of the Xingese warrior. "Geez!" she yelped, causing Alphonse to stir beside her. Flinching instinctively backward, she smacked the back of her head against the coffee table, sending sharp stabs of pain pounding through her skull. Clutching her injured head in one hand, she glared up at the other girl with as much irritation as her fatigue and sore skull allowed her to. "You Xingese types really need to work on your greeting skills," she remarked. "What do you want?"
Narrowing her dark eyes at the young alchemist, Lan Fan tightly replied, "Where is the Young Lord?"
"How should I know?" Raven responded in a clipped tone. "You're his personal attendants, so you tell me."
Lan Fan's flat onyx eyes hardened as she clearly fought to keep her patience with Raven. Good, Raven thought somewhat snidely.
"Raven…" Alphonse said, warning coloring his tone.
"From what we know," Lan Fan continued, "you were the last to see him late this afternoon. Where is he now?"
Frowning, Raven diverted her eyes toward the window, where she barely saw the silhouette of the old man Fu hovering just outside the sill. With the little lighting the moon provided, she could see his hard expression and face painted with anxious concern. So much worry over one lone person,Raven lightly mused. Then again, that one person was Ling Yao- further explanation was unnecessary.
"I have no idea where your idiot prince is," she finally answered, though her anger had significantly quelled to an exhausted irritation. "I left him near the center of town not far away from the train station, but he could be anywhere right now."
Lan Fan narrowed her eyes angrily at Raven. "Why would you leave the Young Lord on his own like that? Do you not care what happens to him?"
"… Just leave me alone. The more time you waste bothering me is less time you can spend looking for Ling. So just go already."
The Xingese girl stared long and hard at Raven's face as if she were trying to burn a hole through it, but eventually she straightened up and walked back over to the open window. "He did you a favor," she said over her shoulder as she hovered in the windowsill. "Is it really that hard for you to have done the same?" And with that, she flipped over the edge and disappeared into the night, and Raven wondered for yet another time that night if she had just made a grave mistake.