Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no RenkinJutsushi belongs to Arakawa-san. I just borrow the characters from time to time and hope that I don't break them… too much.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE— The Best Things in Life…
(…are paltry without laughter.)
Hey Al,
Sorry I haven't been able to write to you for the past while. Things have been busy here. But I have some time now, so… Yeah, here's a letter.
The Bastard's been having me do a lot of research, and I just got back from doing a tour of our district with Hawkeye and Caddock and some others.
I've been spending a lot of time in the hospital with that crazy-ass doctor, Muench, and he told me that if I could figure out his code for his alchemy notes, then I could keep them. Thank fuck the idiot's not a State Alchemist.
I cracked his code in an hour.
No, I didn't actually take his notes… I just copied down the stuff that I thought we might be able to use. I'll show you when I get a chance.
I've been thinking about Resembool a lot lately. The plains here are huge, and the wild grasses opened their pods a few weeks ago. Everyone there must have just finished harvesting the wheat fields, right? And the corn'll probably need to be picked soon. I can just imagine how many people have been asking for your help with all of that.
I bet Winry and Granny are busy, too. They always did have a few extra clients around harvest—idiots not used to their automail, getting loose screws or whatever caught in the machines.
It's hard to believe that, in just a few weeks, I'll have been stuck down here for half a year. I'm sorry that I won't be home for your birthday, but I'm heading up to one of the towns in our district—Pontecuti—so I'll find something to send up to you soon, I promise.
Your brother,
Ed
— Major E. Elric to civilian A. Elric. September 9, 1915.
The last remnants of the late summer rains glistened around them as they plodded through the forest north of the Passage Command; crystal droplets balanced on verdant leaves, misted the horses' tack, and burrowed deep into the gold bars on their epaulets. The dirt road leading them was slick with mud, and clods of it leapt from the horses' hooves and flew through the damp air. The jingle of tack and the pounding of hooves filled the air around them, nearly drowning out the faint rumble of the Tevere as it twisted over limestone rock.
The soldiers at his back—officers on their steeds and enlisted men on their own two feet—conversed amongst themselves, and the occasional call of mock offense and resulting guffaws resounded off of dripping trunks. Unlike the trip Edward had taken to the ruins of Rivers, and unlike the nerve-sharpening nighttime scramble they'd endured to make it to the old Plains Outpost, the pace was leisurely, the soldiers were in good spirits, and the mood was light.
It'd been two tedious, grey days since he'd stalked through the Passage Command and pushed his way into the chaos that was Headquarters. He'd woven through the throngs of blue-clad soldiers and tromped up the stairs to Mustang's cluttered little office, a litany flickering about his thoughts like a moth. The debriefing would be simple, brief, and laden with insubordinate comments. Completely useless to his commanding officer.
He'd done this before. He'd done this so many times before. He could do it again.
He inhaled sharply, pushed the door open, plastered six insults and eight ill-mannered remarks onto the forefront of his mind for ammunition.
Mustang was standing before the oversized map that decorated one of the office's walls, frowning as his eyes darted between that and a rumpled, ear-marked sheet grasped between his fingers. Back straight, shoulders squared, he looked as unflappable as ever. A sudden urge to deck the man blazed across Edward's thoughts; he stuffed his mismatched hands into his pockets instead.
"The doctor said he was going to discharge you today," Mustang muttered to the map, almost an afterthought to whatever was already churning through his mind.
A comment. That's all it was. No short joke, no smirk-adorned observation designed to get under his skin. He blinked his surprise, and crawled through his memory to try to find some precedent to draw on.
Nothing. What the hell was Mustang playing at?
He scoffed. "Like you're not the one who pushed to get me out early."
If the man heard, he made no indication of it. Mustang blew out a sharp breath and tossed the sheet onto his overflowing desk with a careless hand. Dark eyes flittered over Edward's cheeks, shoulders, wrist. Then, his evaluation apparently over, the older alchemist leaned back against the desk and slid his hands into his own pockets. "He mentioned that you were suffering from one of the worst cases of alchemical exhaustion he'd ever seen."
Edward absently watched his horse flick her ears backward as a chorus of laughter broke through the air again, and dropped the reins in favour of massaging his left wrist. It had begun to ache just a few hours into their journey—a sure sign that the doctor was right, and he had a hell of a lot more healing to do—and he'd quickly learned that the cool touch of his automail helped control the sharp pangs when they got too noticeable.
The new animal assigned to him by the Passage Command's horse master was tall for a mare, and pitch black from her mane to her socks. She was a placid animal, content enough to obey the commands of whichever soldier she might be carrying, though Edward found himself thinking about Peony's constant fidgeting and foul temper.
He sighed, regathered the reins, pretended to guide the sturdy black mare as she obediently followed Hawkeye's own replacement mount.
"We all have our limits," Mustang said. Then he sighed, and his shoulders dropped just a fraction. "I've been on the radio with Hakuro. I'm being told that, as a number of alchemists have been reassigned to aid in the counter-offensive in the central region, I shouldn't expect a replacement for Blacklung any time soon."
Their eyes met, and Edward nodded his understanding. He was still Mustang's only mobile alchemist—far too useful to be sent away for proper time to heal.
Mustang went on. "It's a risk, but I've rearranged the schedule for the defence detail at Pontecuti. It's not much, but provided that you make an effort to avoid unnecessary transmutations, it should be enough time for most of the lingering symptoms to dissipate."
The snort of derision was completely natural, as was the biting comment that forced its way from between his lips without permission.
But the man still didn't play his part. Didn't say anything that might get a rise out of him—didn't say anything at all. Dark eyes simply regarded him, calm and patient, looking right past the six insults and seven ill-mannered remarks he still had cocked and loaded.
The bastard He knew.
Cold water snuck between the back of his neck and the collar of his dewy uniform, crawling between his shoulder blades and pulling a shudder up his spine. Droplets caught against the knuckles of his left hand and settled into the thick wrappings that decorated his wrist; his flesh fingers brightened until they were a rosy pink.
The plash was slow at first, a timid beat, but then a steady rhythm emerged from the dripping forest around them.
Somewhere at his back, a soldier rumbled out a few oaths. His squadmates laughed in response, and reminded him that the northernmost towns in Amestris were due for their first sprinklings of snow.
"Maybe," someone asked loudly, "you could tell your ma that this southern weather's just too much for ya."
An exchange of words—one dour and rough, the other jovial and teasing—cut through the rain. But then the familiar timbre of Caddock's voice joined the babel, dancing that fine line between kindly and commanding. Don't tell me that you're so scared of a little rain, Private, that you can't walk for another few kilometers before we get to our new post.
A handful of chuckles. A muttered excuse. The conversation was over.
The heavy shock of horror and dread and a thousand other black, oily thoughts swept over him like waves of boiling water, overwhelming him, sweeping the insults and remarks and any lingering cool thought aside. They crashed through his mind, settled deep within his bones and flooded his lungs until it was all he could do to gasp for breath.
He blinked, tried to focus on the stacks of paper that covered the tiny wooden desk. Tried to make out the upside-down script that depicted—he couldn't tell what. Stuka sneered at him from between the pages of a report. Schwalbe raised an eyebrow at him from beneath a few ink-splattered notes.
His throat tightened and a noise clawed its way out from between his teeth.
"Sit down, Fullmetal." Mustang's voice filtered in through the thundering in his mind and the burning brands in his chest. A command. A simple order. All he had to do was obey. "Tell me what happened."
He dropped into the hard wooden chair, a child's toy carelessly tossed to the wayside. Mismatched fingers buried into bangs, hiding a dozen deathly pale faces from his sight, tightening until the sharp ache distracted him from the pain pulsing beneath his ribs.
And then he was talking, though the voice that brushed past his lips was strained and cracked and not at all like his own, shaking as though he were some child still trapped in the bony clutches of a nightmare.
It was like drawing poison from a festering wound, harsh and breath taking in its intensity. Now that he'd started, though, stopping halfway through would only hurt more than if he'd never said anything at all.
"Major? Have you?" A woman's voice cut through the heavy tapestry of memory.
He shook himself, blinked a few times to clear the last of the images away. His eyes were still half-hidden beneath his bangs when he peered over his right shoulder and met Hawkeye's own gaze. "Uh, what? Sorry Lieutenant, I was…"
"It's quite alright." A tight smile offered sincerity to her words. "I'm curious as to whether you had the chance to sort out the duty rotation and other necessities before we left Passage Command. I wasn't sure if you'd been able to, but I've taken some time to come up with a draft if you'd like to see it."
The sky was brighter now, though still brushed with heavy grey strokes, and the steady falling of droplets hadn't ceased completely. They'd broken the cover of the forest, so they must be close to their new post.
"No, it's fine," he said. Twisting around to drag a few creased papers from his saddle bag was simple, and he offered them to the blonde woman. "I went over it all with Mustang when he told me about—about the schedule change."
The silence between them was a fragile thing, a cracked strand of glass ready to shatter. Then Mustang sighed, and his breath sent it tumbling to the rough stone floors. "What happened there is a burden you'll have to carry for the rest of your life. Make no mistake of that."
A meaningless oath, hoarse and barely intelligible, broke free from Edward's lips before he could even remember thinking it, but Mustang just waited for it to join the shattered glass on the floor before he went on.
"I remember what you told me when you first accepted your pocket watch—that you wouldn't kill for the military. The only thing I can suggest is that you take time to ascertain why your resolve changed. In that moment, what was worth killing for?"
When Edward first laid eyes upon the town of Pontecuti, he firmly decided that calling it a "town" was far too generous.
After all, there couldn't have been more than two dozen buildings that made the town's centre, perched oh-so-fucking-quaintly atop a hillock and cluttered together as though they'd simply been scattered by the wind. Clay tile rooves glistened wetly, bright against the backdrop of slate clouds, while sun-bleached stone walls, so pale as to be nearly white, faded into the haze. A single steeple reached from amongst the buildings like an outstretched hand while, at the edge of the town's square, a single building shone like a beacon, yellow lights winking from its windows as it overlooked the Tevere.
Soaked dirt roads criss-crossed the town, meandered down the bluff and headed east toward pale grasses already gone to seed, or else cut west to a single stone bridge that passed over the tumbling river. In the distance, colourful homesteads dotted gently rolling hills, and crouched amongst lowing cows, corn fields, and a smattering of weathered red barns.
Two days later, he still didn't see why the hell anyone would consider the place to be anything more than the backwater village that it was.
He bit back a sigh, parted the heavy oak doors of Pontecuti's town hall—a tiny, two-storey building that was more cluttered with old tax records and previous years' harvest projections than it was filled with people who could keep the damned place organized. Gold light streamed in, stirred dust motes, and invited a warm breeze that danced with his cowlick. He blinked, squinted at the late afternoon sunlight. His boots kicked up dust and he stepped into the flow of laughing foot soldiers and jovial civilians.
"Hey! Major!" He turned, and a book flew in his direction. He snatched it from the air. "Found one for ya!"
"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to throw things at peoples' heads, Private?" The question was dry, though directed more at the thin book in his hands than the man he was speaking to. Cracked leather and peeling letters winked up at him. Prima Materia was an old alchemical text, and a foundation to anyone who knew how to do anything more than transmute iron into rust.
The soldier grinned at him, eyes bright. "Just tryin'a help, sir."
"Like hell you are." After all, the men had been laughing at him ever since someone overheard his outburst about the lack of a real library; the closest thing Pontecuti had was a few bookshelves stuffed against the back wall of a single-roomed primary school.
He handed the book back to the man. "Put this back where you found it."
"Aye aye." The soldier tucked the thing under a burly arm and made to offer a parting salute. It was only Edward's voice that stopped him.
"If you manage to find some old book called Mutus Liber, though, you can let me know."
A laugh, deep and rumbling and shaded with a faint note of relief, bubbled up. "Mutter Leeber, sir. Got'cha."
A grin and a salute, and the soldier ducked in amongst the crowds. Before long, he disappeared down the pitted, winding streets, consumed by the colourful flow of bodies and the bustle of the everyday.
A girl—maybe seven or eight years old—darted between the legs of those around her, a basket swinging from her arm and pigtails flailing wildly while a little white dog kept pace. Two bearded men with matching eyes and haircuts laughed and slapped each other on the back while they hurried down the main road and toward the distant fields. An old woman had a boy in a vice-like grip, and her eyes were narrowed in annoyance while she chastised her charge.
It was so… normal. These people and their everyday lives. A completely different world from the "yes, sir's" and "no, sir's" and "I'm on it, General's" that he'd grown used to. So completely different from long nights of restless sleep, eyes half open and ears perked for the noises that would herald an ambush, from peering over his shoulder and touching his sidearm for reassurance, from the pressing weight of death and fear and duty that strained his shoulders.
Piece by piece, that weight began to crack and crumble, flaking away until it was nothing more than a fine powder. The wind caught it, and it scattered to rest amongst the dirt at his feet. He rolled his shoulders to dislodge the last of it all, and an impish whisper danced across his mind. He shrugged off his tattered blue jacket.
Sunlight brightened the bandages around his wrist until they were near blinding, warmed his arm and shoulder, glinted off his automail in playful bounds. Someone shielded their eyes, made a comment.
He couldn't help himself. Face tilted back to the golden, late summer sun, he laughed.
A corporal walking by quipped something. His buddy chuckled when Edward offered a single-fingered salute in response, then slung his jacket beneath an arm and turned on his heel.
His meetings with Pontecuti's officials were finally over, the rosters were tacked up, the sentries were comfortable with their tasks, the surveillance teams were set up to make rounds of the outlying area… Poring over the alchemical notes tucked safely away in his rucksack at the hotel was an option, he supposed, but would just a few hours spent without burying his head into notes and theories and medical reports really be so bad?
He could explore Pontecuti instead, poke through the side streets and narrow alleys and browse the wares on display at the little market that lined the village's northern border. He could hit up that stone shed calling itself a bank, pull some absurd amount of money from his research funds, and blow it all on booze for his men and the best fucking automail oil available for himself. He could find the worst piece of escapist fiction crap in this backwoods place and hide in his hotel room and read it until dawn. He could—
He could find food. Real food. A hearty soup or a plate heaping with creamy mashed potatoes and a cut of steak, medium-rare. A bowl of ice cream so big, Hawkeye would shake her head and pretend not to be entertained while he demolished the whole thing. A rhubarb pie—an entire rhubarb pie—
His stomach made a noise of agreement.
That was it, then.
His feet lead the way, weaving around soldiers and civilians alike while they beat an almost-familiar path to the main crossroads. The hotel was there, and the squat little public house rested nearby. He'd throw his jacket into his room—it was still warm at night, and everyone recognized him well enough by now that it's not like he actually needed the damned thing—and see what the pub's chef had managed to conjure. With it being the middle of harvest season, with fresh fruit and ripe produce abound, he had no doubt it would be fucking awesome.
He rounded a corner, spied the weathered wooden signed that announced the hotel. Windows decorated with wrought iron and set deep into pale stone winked brightly at him; a few were open to the breeze, and the sound of laughter and chiming mugs of coffee filtered out. Around the entrance, a few of Caddock's foot soldiers lounged about a cheerful covered patio, cigarettes and crass jokes on their lips while violets and lavender tumbled out of clay pots around them.
One man offered him a single wave as he neared, and he returned it easily. "While you've got the chance, Private?" He asked, nodding to the fag.
The soldier laughed. "Something like that, sir. I'll figure out how to kick your ass soon, though."
"I'll take that as a threat." He laughed and stepped through the open doorway. The retort drifted in after him.
"Prob'ly a good idea, Major. Just wait and see until tonight."
Inside, the entire place smelled like good coffee and warm hearths. Rough-hewn wood floors, darkened by an uneven patina of a thousand footfalls, were half-hidden by handwoven rugs and overstuffed armchairs. A tapestry hung over one wall, a horseshoe brimming with good luck rested above the hotel's front desk, and an oversized tabby watched the soldiers coming and leaving with an air of hauteur that only a cat could achieve.
"Hey! Major Elric!" A woman's voice broke through the sound of people enjoying themselves. He spun, searched for the source of the voice. Renault was waving to him from within the place's lounge.
His footfalls drummed a steady beat as he strode beneath a heavy oak archway. A mess of cards and a pile of cigarettes spread across the doily-covered table she'd commandeered with Hawkeye and Caddock, and she dropped her cards to stand when he drew near. The salute was half-assed, more of a formality than anything. "Was wondering when you were going to bother showing yourself, sir. I could really use a hand bringing Lieutenant Hawkeye down a notch, if you don't mind."
"I was planning on grabbing some food…" He muttered. Something speared his light mood, and it deflated like a balloon. He didn't mean to—he really didn't—but his eyes glanced over to Caddock of their own volition.
The man had hardly spoken to him—or maybe he'd been avoiding the lanky second lieutenant—since their card game in the hospital. He'd only been trying to help, sure, but there was just no way he'd understand…
A bright blue gaze met his, though, and Caddock offered him an easy smile. A wooden chair squealed as he kicked it out in invitation. "Seriously, Major Kid, when are you not thinking of grabbing food? Help us kick the First Lieutenant's ass, and then you can stuff yourself on whatever's up for grabs at the pub while Renault and I tell the men you cheat."
"I don't have anything on me. It's not like I walk around with a pack of fags in my pocket."
"You know they won't stop until you give in, Edward," Hawkeye chimed in, covering her cards with her hands. She fixed him with a sharp gaze that he knew too well. "Split mine and pay me back later."
He couldn't disobey a direct order… He threw his jacket over the back of the offered chair, and settled himself as Caddock dealt him seven cards. Hawkeye threw an ante of a single cigarette before his seat and offered him a half-dozen more.
His hand was pretty damned good, he thought, glancing at Hawkeye and Renault and trying to gauge their cards. His mind flashed through the probabilities of three different hands. The queen and ace of spades were definitely worth keeping, as was the ten of the same suit. If he was lucky, he could get a jack and a king…
He grabbed the four other cards and tossed them to Caddock. New ones slid across the table, and he had to remind himself not to smirk when he added them to his hand. A few cigarettes were tossed into the pile at the table's centre—he didn't really care how many—and he cast an eye to Caddock this time, scrutinizing the man as he gathered the two women's throw-away cards.
The king fit rather nicely between the matching ace and queen.
They went around the table one final time. Hawkeye raised the stakes, and Caddock laughed when Renault muttered an oath and folded in response.
"Alright, let's see your hands," Caddock said, sweeping the last of Renault's cards into the deck. "You first, Major."
Edward responded with a feral grin. A steady hand spread the royal flush for the others to see. "Read 'em and weep."
Random bit-tids of information:
1) Mutus Liber—This text, first published in 1677, is considered a cornerstone of alchemy. According to the author, it contains instructions to create a Philosopher's Stone.