"I'll lay your bones into the earth & you will haunt my head nomore."
-la dispute
•••
The sun sets.
Ed, having heard enough from the man who had forsaken him, walks back to the house where he told Iris to head over to. He saw Iris's smiling face in the window disappear as she went to open the front door for him.
"I've never been in countrysides, only passed by on trains. I think I could get used to this country life," she says with her take on a southern accent. "The sunset was so beautiful with no buildings to block it out. Did you see it?" Ed doesn't laugh or respond and instead walks past her into the house.
"What's wrong? Did something happen?"
"It's nothing," he dismisses, going into one of the guest rooms that he's stayed in every time he came back home to Resembool.
Iris doesn't think much of it - visiting her mother's grave isn't ever pleasant, either.
The moon suspends itself high that night; Iris finds herself gazing at it longingly.
'It's getting late,' she muses, 'I should say good night.'
She leaves her own guest room and ventures out into the hallway, trying to remember where Ed quartered himself. She knocked then let herself in. Ed was lying on his stomach, writing in his journal. He closes it and puts it on his nightstand next to the lit lamp.
"What is it?" He sounds a bit annoyed, but she approaches him anyway. "Well now is good a time as any... I wanted to say good night. And..." she swallows her pride. "Thank you."
Edward is taken aback by her sudden gratitude and looks away, a pink tint over his cheekbones.
"Don't sweat it," he mumbles.
"No really, I mean it. You-" she cuts herself off as a sinking feeling forms in the base of her stomach. She immediately twirls around. Ed gets up next to her and puts a hand on her shoulder in concern.
"That feeling... It's returning." Her vague explanation leaves him with even more questions. She brushes off his arm and quietly creeps into the hallway, where the feeling gets stronger.
Peering into the dining room she sees Pinako talking to a man with a golden beard and long pulled back hair. His glasses rest on the bridge of his big nose. He speaks, but Iris is too terrified to listen to anything other than the buzz of what feels like millions of people talking all at once.
Ed pulls her back closer to the bedroom door by the crook of her elbow. His cold automail is enough to put her back into reality.
"What the hell are you doing?" Ed whispers to her angrily.
"Ed... can you tell me who that is?" Her voice shakes.
"Why does it matter?"
"Edward. Who. Is. He."
He rolls his eyes in exasperation. "That man left me and Alphonse when we were kids." His fists clench. "Left my mom to die alone." He inches closer to the dining room.
"Is it possible that he..."
"Sssh, I'm trying to listen."
"What they transmuted..." is heard clearly, "Are you sure it was their mother?"
The alchemist gasps, and it takes everything in him to not let his entire body go limp.
"Fuck," he whispers under his breath in realization. He storms into his room, slamming the door behind him. The light emitting from his room into the hallway turns off, and Iris is left alone in the darkness. She eventually goes to her own room, the dark feeling somehow lulling her to sleep.
•••
Iris wakes up to Granny Pinako yelling for Ed, saying that his father - Hohenheim, she learned - was just leaving. She waits a few minutes before getting up herself. Hohenheim is out on the front lawn talking to the old woman. She watches him leave through the window, trying her best to not be spotted.
"What do you think you're doing?" Ed's voice makes her jump and rip the curtain she was grabbing onto.
"You scared me," she sighs. Clapping her hands, she places them on the ripped curtain. While it's sewn back together, it's a little sideways on one side. "I need to get better at not using circles," she notes out loud.
Pinako comes back, announcing that she's making breakfast for the two of them. Iris smiles gratefully, but Edward just grunts.
"Well, after that, I'm going out. I heard Hohenheim last night - I want to see if the bastard is lying. Wouldn't be the first time. But I want to know for myself."
"Very well."
The three have breakfast in mostly silence. Iris tries to bring up questions about Ed and Al before she had met them to spark up some sort of conversation, but it doesn't do much.
The sky is turning grey. Iris watches the clouds move by quickly.
"I could watch this all day," she says to herself.
"Here." Ed suddenly appears behind her, an umbrella in his hands. "You wanted to see the Rockbells, didn't you? Take the umbrella, it's going to rain."
Iris puts her hands on her hips. "And what are you planning to do today, huh?"
He looks straight into her eyes. "I'm going to dig out a corpse that might not even be my mother. Now get going."
Her mouth presses into a thin line. "Let me get dressed."
Her attire was not always the most fashionable of things. She needed practical things, plus things that could fit in a suitcase. While Resembool had rain, it didn't feel cold out, so she wore some pants she transmuted from denim and a navy shirt. She liked her shoes she had gotten from Rush Valley, but opted for her city boots instead - they were better for treading wet dirt.
"I'll be leaving now," she announced, picking up the umbrella that was placed next to the front door and exiting the house. Once on the porch, she opened it up, placing it on her shoulder casually. The rain hadn't started yet, but she could smell it coming soon.
Iris walked down the trail that led up to their house, trying to remember exactly where the graveyard was from yesterday.
'Now was it this way?' She takes a turn, then realizes she's in the wrong place. But instead of going back, she keeps walking. The feeling is getting stronger and stronger as she continues.
'Hohenheim.'
She looks back guiltily at the trail that leads to the Rockbells, but reasons with herself.
'I'll be sure to visit before I leave Resembool. Right now I need answers. And he seems like a guy with some.'
As she gets closer, the feeling almost starts to make her feel physically sick. The rain is coming down in droplets, and she covers herself more with the umbrella.
Turning once again, she finally sees the man who left her friends. He notices her as she walks towards him. He stands in front of the remnants of a building, possibly a house. Once Iris stands next to him, he glances at her.
"You sought me out?"
"Y-yes, I have."
"You seem to have a fear of me, from last night to this morning, and now."
She gulps but puts strength into her words. "I haven't gotten the chance to ask anyone else who gave me the same sinking feeling you do. I want to know - who, or what are you? It's almost like... there's an entire population inside of you... But, that impossible."
The aging man looks at Iris over his wet glasses. Confusion lays over his face. "But you don't look like you're from..." He shakes his head and leaves his sentence incomplete.
"Don't-! Don't avoid the question!"
"Sweetheart," he says to the girl, "you know about homunculi, don't you?"
She gasps, dropping her umbrella.
"You're a homunculus?"
"Not exactly. But you know how homunculi are made, correct?"
"Through Philosopher's Stones. Which are made by... human lives."
"All those people you feel..." he starts.
"They really are inside of those monsters, aren't they? They cry out for help. I hear them every time I'm near them...
"But you... the souls inside you see quiet, somehow. They still linger there uncomfortably, but they don't writhe like the ones in the homunculi do. Who are you?"
He smiles a bit sadly. "That's simple." He picks up the umbrella and points it towards her so that she doesn't get any wetter. "I'm the father of my sons, and the husband to my wife."
•••
Iris returned to an empty house. She went to her room immediately to write down what she had learned from Hohenheim in her journal, and all the questions she had that were still unanswered. Before they had parted ways, Hohenheim gave her a warning that echoed in her head.
'Keep the ones you care for close. Purgatory is about to fall upon this country, and someone like you can be useful for the day it comes.'
She didn't have much time to dwell on all this information, for Edward and Granny had returned. Iris hadn't even noticed that the rain had stopped. She approached Ed with caution, twiddling her thumbs nervously.
"Did you find out if it was your mother or not?"
Ed has an expression she can't exactly place as he says, "We didn't make her suffer twice." She rubs his flesh shoulder supportively, and for some reason, he lets her.
"How were the Rockbells?" Iris looks down guiltily.
"I didn't want to go alone, and I wanted to practice my alchemy so I could be better at transmuting without a circle." Technically, none of it was a lie - she felt a bit uncomfortable at the thought of going alone, and she did want to practice her new skill - she just never got the chance.
"We can go together, then. I'll ask Granny. I imagine she'd want to go too."
Soon enough the three were headed out for the cemetery. When Iris passed by the turn she made the first time, she felt not a single soul out in that direction. Hohenheim was gone.
They reached the graves of Winry's parents just as the sun started to peek through the thick clouds.
Iris let Edward and Pinako do a lot of the talking - they knew the couple personally, after all. Ed ended up being the one to talk about the Ishvalans the two had met in Xerxes. Granny smiled at that.
"It's satisfying to know that my son and his wife spent their lives helping people."
"It even rubbed off on your granddaughter," Iris added.
"It sure did."
•••
"There's one midnight train," Iris repeats to Ed, holding the phone against her shoulder so that the worker for the train station doesn't hear her.
"Book it then."
She puts the receiver back to her ear. "Okay, two, please... The name's King. Thank you." She hangs up the phone and gives a thumbs up to her friend. "We're good to go."
"Great. Are you staying up?"
"If you aren't then I have to," she deadpans, looking at him with exasperation.
"Thank you," he practically sings, then throws himself onto the couch in the living room. Iris swears he starts snoring immediately. She rolls her eyes, but can't hide the smile breaking out.
She wanders into the kitchen, where Pinako is wrapping up some stew into a small container. She hands her it, "For the ride back to Central." She thanks her.
"Ed will probably eat it all before I can get a single spoonful," she jokes, looking over at him. Pinako smiles knowingly, noticing the fond look in Iris' eyes. She decides not to comment on it though and changes the subject.
"I forgot to tell Ed something."
"Huh?"
"It was a message from his mother to Hohenheim. I forgot to tell him. Please, if you ever see Hohenheim again, give him this from Trisha: 'I'm so sorry. I broke my promise. I'm dying first.'"
Iris stares wide-eyed. "I'll be sure to carry that out. And I'll tell Edward as well."
"Thank you."
Iris still had some time to kill after Granny had turned in for the night. She noticed that Ed hadn't bothered to pack up - "such a slob," she said to herself - so she put the responsibility into her own hands. She was never very good at packing things herself, and Ed's suitcase was about as tiny as him; she had no idea how he fit so much crap in there.
She managed though, only leaving out his signature red coat and his watch. Popping up the hood of it, she looked at the engraving again. She didn't get that good of a look at it back when Paninya stole it. It was rough and carved hastily, yet she admired it in a strange way.
Once she realized the time, she sighed. It was almost 15 minutes until midnight.
'What am I doing?'
The pocket watch snapped shut, and she took his stuff out to the living room next to the couch he was sleeping on. Having already packed up her own things, she decided it was time to wake up Ed so they could walk to the train station with time to spare.
He threw on his clothes, put on his boots, and they both walked out of the house in five minutes. The walk to the train station was quiet, but neither minded. She could tell Edward was planning to fall back asleep on the ride, so she wanted to make sure she could say what she needed to say to him.
Boarding the train with only Ed was a new experience, but made for more room. They sat across from each other, their suitcases next to them. The train chugged away, so Iris spoke immediately.
"Your mother made a promise to your father," she started, but Ed was quick to defend.
"You mean Hohenheim?"
"...Yes. She wanted to say, 'I'm so sorry. I broke my promise. I'm dying first.'"
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"I'm not exactly sure. I just... thought you'd like to know."
He simply closes his eyes and tries to get comfortable on the stiff seat of the train.
Iris had planned to tell him about the conversation she and Hohenheim had, but Edward seemed too upset and tired; she didn't want to push. She let him be and tried to get comfortable herself, the scenery before her raveling back into the cities she's used to seeing. Sleep takes her before she realizes it.
