Perfect After All: Odds Without Ends

Sand And Shade

Jaya Mitai

Disclaimer - Don't own FMA. Making no money. Don't sue.

Anime-verse. The first in the Perfect After All: Odds Without Ends series is this little drabble, that I can safely guarantee will be in only three parts because it was written back in January. I was discussing PAA Havoc with Liffey and made reference to it without thinking, and of course he had no idea what I was talking about because it was written in email and traded to Silverfox for fic. So technically this is in past PAA canon, which is FMA canon because PAA has always and remains within the rules of the anime canon (excluding the kidnapping of Olivier from the manga).

So consider this a PAA prequel, if you will. This particular drabble lays out the first meeting of one Major Roy Mustang and one Sergeant Jean Havoc.

- x -

Burn burn burn.

It hurt more in the end, but less in the beginning, and it was faster. He didn't even look anymore, just kept right on attacking, trusting it to tell him where his men were, and where their men were.

Burn burn burn.

The long-term pain was getting quicker to set in, and there was a worrying slickness to it that jarred him more fully awake. It was bone-deep, so he knew it was bleeding again, and blood was water, and water was necessary for fire but not to this extreme-

It was soaking through the glove.

Mustang raised his left hand, leaving what fire was burning where it was and taking on the flank. There were two of them, fast, and he could feel projectiles cutting through his air currents, not swiftly enough to be bullets. Arrows.

He could burn arrows.

Three more snaps, all quick, and he found he had the same problem. He'd been trying to favor his left hand, had been the entire time, and so when he had to rely on it to this extreme, the calluses weren't as well-formed. A mistake that had never occurred to him, and of course always too late. Still two of them, he hadn't hit them yet, and he used the fire in the air to ignite the gas he'd gathered above them, knowing it wouldn't get there fast enough, wouldn't burn hot enough.

He did manage to sear several of them, but of course the piros were desert-born to begin with, then boiled down. Searing wouldn't take care of the problem. They needed to be incinerated, and even then the ash could sicken.

And, of course, there was the immediate problem, which was that they were arrows, and even by themselves could be fatal. He could only hope their aim was as bad as his.

Some of the men had regrouped; he could hear both rifle and pistol shots, but he didn't listen too terribly closely. He was bleeding into both gloves. He needed another source of fire, or he was going to be worthless. Twelve miles from base camp, having hit two pair of warrior priests already, it was just not the time. He was torn between taking the gloves off to let his fingers scab over again, or leaving them on and trying to keep the fire burning indefinitely. He had little concentration to spend and less to spare, and when he found himself hurtling toward the sand and rocks and knowing that he hadn't moved himself and no arrow that big could have reached him undetected he knew he was in trouble.

Roy Mustang struck out just before he hit the ground, delayed reflexes working in his favor as the rock beneath his elbow made his strike stronger. It was a knife that slipped from his attacker's hand, and Mustang identified the weapon and its position without any emotional reaction whatsoever. A second later a third figure pounced the second, and the three of them went rolling before something he decided was a fist glanced his right cheekbone, and both of the figures rolled off to grapple with each other.

He leaned up, intent on getting to the knife, before he realized his pistol would probably be more useful. The thought almost made him smile. Almost. She'd be pleased she'd finally beaten that into his thick skull.

He hadn't had enough attention to spare for that passing thought, and he paid for it when what felt like a rock slammed into the back of his head.

Roy Mustang remained where he'd fallen a moment, then another, but nothing else happened. It seemed like everything was somehow quieter, and brighter. He felt like he was on his back instead of his chest, which was contributing to one hell of a case of vertigo, and worse, after careful consideration he decided that the fighting was over.

There must have been whole, entire, blissful minutes of unconsciousness that had passed, and he'd totally missed them.

He groaned, half in despair at being conscious again, half because his head felt as if it had been split open, and with his luck, the second was probably true. Hadn't he just been thinking he'd had a hard head? Clearly it wasn't hard enough.

"You with us, sir?"

There was a gradual darkening, and Mustang took a slightly deeper breath, wondering how hard it would be to pass out again. The ground was digging quite sharply into his arm, or maybe the impact of elbow to rock had been more damaging than he'd originally thought. Someone patted his face, gently for an enlisted, but he winced, turning away from the contact.

"Major?"

Get away from me.

It occurred to him thinking it and saying it were two entirely separate things, so he settled for opening his eyes and glaring, which was far easier. There was, in fact, an Amestrian soldier hovering over him with concern, but he forgot his fury at being woken when a canteen was held to his lips. This served to make his head hurt worse, not better, but it did wonders for his mood.

"Thank you," he managed, when it was taken away. He was offered a hand so he accepted, and then he was pulled into a sitting position. Instinct ground into him over the course of the last month had him carefully removing the glove from his right hand without conscious thought, ignoring the so-familiar burning sensation, before he gingerly touched the back of his head.

More blood, and a hell of a bump, but for better or worse he'd survive it.

It just wasn't fucking fair. Why hadn't he stayed out for the rest of the trip? It had been almost fifty hours since he'd last slept, and here he probably had a nice concussion . . . his elbow ached sharply in protest of being bent, and he winced again.

"We were afraid he'd gotten you," the enlisted told him, relief evident in his voice, and why would that be when he'd so clearly failed to protect them?

Then again, he supposed they figured the scenario was the other way around. They had been sent by General Gran to pull him off the front lines and escort him back to base camp, so he could understand their confusion. They just didn't understand how easy it was for those damn priests to get by the front lines in pairs and come in from behind the lines. They didn't understand how easy it was for a pair of Ishbalans to take out an entire garrison. Particularly one that was as well-prepared as the pair that had attacked them.

Speaking of which- "Report."

The enlisted saluted. "Eight men dead, sir, and another two on the way. Just two red-eyes. Not sure how many were out there."

So, both of them. "Supplies?" Well, supplies wouldn't be a problem if a fifteen-man party had been taken down by ten. He turned his head carefully to his left, where he last recalled his attacker and rescuer rolling, and found a blonde soldier with his throat opened from ear to ear.

So if the Ishbalan had gotten the knife back, who hit him over the head?

"Reynolds figures we're about twelve miles off base camp, so enough to get there. We should get there by midnight or so, if we push on through the night."

Mustang gave no signal saying he agreed with the course of action or wished to change it, but the enlisted seemed to take the hint, and left him alone to contemplate his headache and the best course of action. They'd been attacked in the hottest part of the afternoon, which the Ishbalans usually didn't do. No one in their right mind crossed the desert in this heat, native or not, so the fact that it had happened meant trouble.

He was being targeted. It explained why Gran would send half a platoon to recall him rather than radio. Not that his orders were any clearer when given by mouth. No reason for the recall, no further orders, just an ASAP recall from the front lines back to base camp. And considering how crucial he'd been to keeping the front lines in front of base camp, and how hard they'd been getting hit lately-

Of course, it was only the sections of the line containing alchemists. Though he was beginning to think the priests were taking a special interest in him. Maybe they didn't like black-haired men.

He rotated his head the other way, stretching out his aching neck, and focused on a sand-colored soldier taking shelter under a too-small rock. He, too, was blonde, or at least the sun had bleached him that way, and his eyes were closed. He was still clutching his rifle tightly, though his right forearm had been slashed and his handkerchief had been bound tightly just above his elbow. While at first he'd mistaken the man for resting, he could see now that he was breathing shallowly and irregularly, and there was a faint twitch in his left leg.

Roy turned away. So that was what he'd meant by 'two on the way.' The Ishbalan 'fire,' the condensed venom from the scorpions they called piros, was a death sentence. Even exposure on unbroken skin would cause days of fever and tremors, and in a desert it meant death nearly as often as getting it into the bloodstream. It was a neurotoxin, and the priests put it both on their arrowtips as well as their knives. It was by far the most effective weapon in the Ishbalan arsenal. Besides numbers and persistence.

He knew Dr. Marcoh had been studying it before he'd been called away, and while he'd been tempted to look at the chemical structure a time or two himself, he hadn't had much of an opportunity. They'd all learned to recognize the source, however – tiny blue-shelled scorpions that liked nothing better than military-issue boots. Copperhead antivenom was occasionally used as a successful treatment, if it was done soon enough, but of course it was a difficult drug to get and even harder to store, so as far as the enlisted were concerned it was completely unavailable.

Certainly the medic that had accompanied this platoon wouldn't be able to do more than he'd done, which was tie off the affected limb and delay the inevitable.

Which was what the priests were doing in the first place. Poison-tipped blades or not, they had to get close enough to use them, and while it was true that a priest could take out twenty enlisted, there were far more enlisted than there were priests. Even taking him out would only give them a brief reprieve before another alchemist was assigned to his area, and another. There were some that were far more effective than he was, and with rumors of a new alchemic amplifier on the way-

Mustang shook his head, testing his balance before he stood. He wanted the war over, but not like that.

"Your orders, major?"

Set up camp and wake me up in two days.

"We continue, sergeant. The priests attack in pairs. The rest of this area should be clear, and we have sufficient water."

The sergeant saluted sharply, and he stood stock-still, getting used to the revolution of the planet again. The enlisted scrambled over the rocks, taking what they could from their fellows and murmuring brief words of prayer over the fallen. They didn't have the men to take them back, nor the time to bury them.

Their mothers had been promised that their boys wouldn't be left in the desert. Another pleasant lie in distant Central. By the time it was exposed, it wouldn't matter. In the time a group could be dispatched to get the bodies, the desert would have consumed them, and it would be impossible to tell the Amestrians from the Ishbalans.

That was one thing Ishbala had right. They both broke down into the same thing. Dust.

He rubbed his fingertips together, trying to gauge how torn the pads were. They'd already scabbed over, it was one thing the dry air was good for, and it flaked off his fingers. They were oozing that clear fluid again, too, and he went ahead and pulled the glove back on. It would dry soon enough, and while his gloves were stained, the enlisted wouldn't know where the blood had come from unless they saw the state of his hands.

And he wasn't going to let anyone see the state of his hands. He couldn't afford to. In fact, he was half-afraid Gran was recalling him to ask him why he hadn't completely subdued his sector yet.

Motion at his right caught his attention, and he glanced to see one of the enlisted stripping down the wounded soldier. His eyes had half-opened at some point, but they weren't seeing earthly things, and his hand had only tightened on the rifle in death.

He'd passed away right there among them, and no one had even acknowledged it.

"Leave it." This time his mouth said it before his brain thought it, and it took the enlisted a moment to realize that the dark-eyed weapon was talking to him.

"Sir?"

"The rifle. Leave it."

"But sir-"

"That's an order." He wanted to explain that the priests wouldn't take it, since the mechanism had been transmuted in a factory in Central, but it would take too much effort, and honestly the only thing a rank of Major had brought him was a pain in his ass and the ability to forgo arguing. It was dictating, but he didn't care, and the enlisted saluted sharply.

"Yessir! May I relieve the sergeant of his food and supplies, sir?"

Mustang inclined his head.

In ten minutes a company that had been reduced to less than half its original size was on its way again.

Two more never-ending hours passed throb by throb, and Roy counted them by putting one foot in front of the other, occasionally stretching his hands to uncrust his fingers from the gloves. He knew he appeared indifferent and aloof, but that didn't matter so much. It was better than the alternative, which was the truth. He was exhausted and he wasn't sure how many more attacks they could withstand before he was completely shot. Alchemy took effort and concentration, and lack of rest and sleep had stolen both from him. If these men around him realized how weak the great Flame Alchemist truly was, they wouldn't continue so eagerly, they wouldn't waste their own precious energy scanning the horizons, trying to keep him safe.

If they knew, they'd let him die like that sand-colored soldier, and then they'd take his supplies and leave him for the sun.

He supposed in the great scheme of things it was better that it was in a desert, where bad technique wasn't likely to take out a thousand acres of farmland. He couldn't accidentally burn anything but humans and piros, and the fewer he had to protect, the easier it would be. It was far too much like rationalizing a mistake for his liking, and he swatted at his wandering thoughts in irritation.

Another plus. Fewer bugs in the desert. Almost no mosquitoes.

But more rocks, the spiteful kind that would crawl into the toes of your socks when you weren't looking. It was so bad some officers had taken to not wearing socks at all. It was hard to tell during inspection, and no one on the front lines took inspection seriously anyway. There was no point. An Ishbalan would kill you whether or not you were wearing socks, and they weren't thick enough to protect you from snakes or scorpions or anything else besides annoying small rocks.

Or annoying big rocks. He knew the spot; it was called the Lion's Gate, and it marked the road from East to Liore. It had been a hard-fought area, but that was months ago, and now it stood imposing and empty in its bare desert, the way it had been before the uprising, before anyone had needed to fortify the road. Even the bulletwounds on its granite face had been washed away by the constantly blowing sand, and now there was no evidence at all that man had ever fought on the spot.

Mustang looked the rocks over, though, just to be sure. If he was going to make a camp to escape the heat of the day, he would do it here.

Or course, if he did, he would have spotted them several miles ago and hidden. The risk was too big to take.

"Split off. We'll go around," he croaked, but loudly enough that the sergeant heard. He repeated the order, marking the groups, and with a single word they fell into two lines.

Such discipline. Gran would have been proud of how quickly they responded, and how quickly they got cut down.

Just because the Ishbalans wouldn't transmute guns or use transmuted goods didn't mean they didn't have guns of their own, and lined up targets made for easy targets. The sergeants at the heads of both columns were down almost before the first synchronized step had been taken, and suddenly there was a pile of people on top of him and he was on the ground with his right hand pinned beneath his chest.

"Move!" he yelled sharply, struggling to get up, but the soldiers were intent on covering him, and through the roar of gunfire he wasn't even sure they heard him. One of the men covering him jerked, and his weight increased tenfold, pushing him further into the sand. Gritting his teeth, Mustang freed his left arm enough to get his fingers poised, but he couldn't pick up his head to see what was going on. The sand directly to his left jumped into the air, and he knew he'd been spotted.

"Fall back!" he bellowed, as loudly as he could with a flattened diaphragm, and then he snapped his fingers.

Burn burn burn burn burn burn!

He knew where the other column would have gone, knew that no one had charged the rocks. The newly formed scabs were immediately broken, and he used the sparks he'd already created to spawn new flames. He couldn't easily and quickly move existing fire, however; the gas would ignite before it had been gathered in the proper concentrations and lines. By sustaining the fire, all he could really do is create weak but widespread explosions, and burn the living daylights out of everything in the area.

So he torched the granite area, as much of it as he could, and he used the natural winds to swirl flames around the structure a couple times to get anyone that might have jumped off looking for safety. It was impossible to keep track of all the currents of the desert wind striking and breaking off and whirling around the only tall rocky structure in sight, and it wasn't long before he was only controlling one lone flame, keeping it safe in a lee in the rocks, and he used the currents to bring him more oxygen-

Bingo. He heard the explosion clearly, though he couldn't tell how big it was, and there was blood in his eyes, so he closed them. Only he was sure it wasn't his. Blood in his mouth, too. He spat it out, feeling the trickle coming from his cheek, and from there maybe his ear? There was a tickle-

The men that had been covering him had been killed. It was their blood, neither warm nor cool to his skin.

He knew he'd lost the fire in that last uncontrolled explosion, and he knew there would be no more creating any, and he didn't hear a single gunshot nor a single shout. He heard nothing at all but settling dust and rocks from the final blast, and the wind. The men that had covered him with their bodies were silent and still, and they would have been easy shots for any snipers. If they were hit, they were dead, and if they were faking it, they were doing a great job. He heard nothing at all from the other column, couldn't tell if they'd fled or all been cut down as well.

And then he was reasonably sure he fell into tragically brief, blissful sleep, because the next thing he knew, one of the bodies above him shifted, and there was light on his face.

This time, though, he didn't care enough to open his eyes. He was done. If it was an enemy, he was dead or captured no matter what he did now. There was still weight pressing down on him, there was nowhere to run, and his gloves were too blood-soaked to use. The best he could do would be to suffocate them, but with the breeze it would be difficult on the best of days, and he was just too exhausted.

And if it was his one of his men, well, they could set up camp and do the same that had been done to them, and let him sleep the night.

But then another of the weights skidded off him, obviously not resistant in the slightest, and he heard a musical language that he'd never bothered to learn. His left hand had still been visible, and that wrist was grabbed and held up at such an odd angle he thought his arm might break. It was enough to make him gasp, so he held his breath instead, hoping that they couldn't see his chest or back moving through the blood and the cloth and the last man, half-draped over his middle.

They couldn't see his right hand, either. He supposed, if the blood was dry, he could get a spark, but he would certainly risk torching himself along with them. He was too exhausted for the kind of control that attack would take.

No, he'd been right the first time. He was captured or dead. Usually the Ishbalans didn't take prisoners, but these weren't priests, not if they'd been using guns.

The glove was ripped off his hand, his wrist almost going with it, and it was with extreme relief that he felt his arm dropped back to the hot sand. Almost immediately thereafter was the sharp report of a rifle, at some distance, and it wasn't until the other one threw himself to the ground, then another distant shot echoed, that he realized someone was shooting at the Ishbalans.

In fact, someone had already shot them.

He heard no more motion to his left, though he waited quite a long time he was pretty sure he hadn't fallen asleep in the interim. When it was worth risking, he cracked open an eye, but of course all he could see was his shoulder and some sand. He raised his head after a moment, knowing there was enough blood on him that he could fake extreme disorientation and get away with it, and he found himself staring at a pair of red eyes.

They couldn't see him, though.

The other one was about five feet away, and had taken a round to the chest. He didn't seem to be breathing, but of course with the constant wind it was difficult to tell, just as it had been hard for them to get a read on him. Curiosity got the better of him, and Mustang struggled into a sitting position, craning his head back in the direction of the gunshots.

In the direction they'd come.

There was a blue uniform, though it was almost too dusty to pick out, wandering in what seemed an almost aimless fashion towards him. It stumbled repeatedly but didn't go down, and it had a rifle slung over its shoulder. About midway between them was a body, and then immediately around him were three of the enlisted.

The other column hadn't even been that spread out.

They were all dead. All of them.

Mustang pulled himself out from under the third, muttering an apology as he did so, and he retrieved the glove the man had inadvertently removed when he'd been shot. It had been a head shot, but not a particularly clean one. Then again, at that distance with that wind, it was still impressive one had been made at all. He couldn't have done it.

That wasn't saying much, though. He wasn't a soldier. He was a human weapon. They were entirely different things.

He turned to look back at Lion's Gate, noting that all the scraggly bushes were totally gone, and that there were bodies there as well. So it had just been a group of traveling Ishbalan soldiers they'd encountered, because they'd been traveling themselves when they shouldn't have been.

If he hadn't woken up after the ambush by the priests, the Ishbalans would have probably moved on before he and his group got here. It was just a round of bad timing.

Mustang glanced back toward the tottering figure, then at his feet. The least he could do was line the bodies up properly, but for now, he borrowed a canteen and headed back the way he'd come. The blood that had trickled across his face had dried, and he had mostly rubbed it out of his eyelashes by the time the other figure was close enough to hail.

Of course, he didn't have to. He knew who the figure was.

He was the sand-colored soldier that had died three hours ago.

They met without word, and he accepted when Mustang offered him the canteen. His arm was still bound with his handkerchief, though his grip on his rifle was much weaker. Roy knew better than to ask to carry it for the man, so he offered him his shoulder instead, and once he was finished drinking, the two trudged back to the rock formation.

They stripped the dead the same way the sand-colored soldier himself had been, and when they had collected all the food, water, and ammunition they could carry, Mustang picked out a decently shielded flat on the lower portion of the formation, and the two gratefully collapsed.

The sun was set by the time Mustang opened his eyes again, but this time it had been glorious, delicious sleep, and he felt as though he'd actually experienced it. He wasn't sure what had woken him, doubtless a drill sergeant couldn't have managed it but something much softer must have. The wind was quite a bit cooler, and would only get worse, and he picked up a particularly heavy head to see what was around.

He'd already burned away all the brush, of course, so there wasn't much in the way of fuel that wasn't also useful for something else, such as cover or clothing. He'd also, for better or worse, burned both the Ishbalans and their supplies.

However, there was something that they had plenty of, and it just so happened to also make an excellent oven. Without thinking, he snapped.

Burn.

It hurt so badly he actually lost concentration altogether, so that the brilliantly blue flame was there and gone in almost a blink. More than long enough to scare the shit out of his companion, who shot bolt upright with a shaky oath.

"Sorry," he apologized through his teeth. Damn, but it felt like he'd just ripped his own fingers off.

His companion seemed to be having trouble calming down; the sergeant's breathing continued to shake. "Hell of a way to say hello, sir," he finally managed, in a voice that wasn't much steadier than his breathing.

Shivering. He'd been cut with a knife blade – or an arrow – that had been dipped in piros.

"Just trying to warm us up," he replied after a moment, and this time he massaged his left fingertips with his thumb for several moments before snapping. It still hurt, but not nearly as badly as his right had, and this time he was able to maintain the almost white flame. It was quite small but searingly hot, and he fed it until he was dizzy. He wasn't sure how long that was, but when a light breeze dissipated his cloud of oxygen to the point that the flame was constantly orange and unstable he finally gave up.

Not that it mattered; the cranium-sized piece of rock was glowing slightly from the heat, and it radiated it as well as a wood-burning stove.

Quite a long time passed before his eyesight was re-accustomed to the darkness, and once it was, he licked his split lower lip, considering his options. The sergeant was still shivering, that much was obvious, but he seemed to appreciate the heat, because after a while he let out a little sigh.

"How're you doing, sergeant?" He didn't really know what to say to the man. He'd left him for dead in the middle of the desert with no shelter, no water, and no supplies. For all intents and purposes, he should be. He was completely untreated, save that tied-off arm, and it clearly wasn't completely stopping circulation because he was still able to grasp with that hand.

The sergeant swallowed loudly, and Mustang heard him root around a moment before he located and popped open a canteen. "I've been better."

Now that was an understatement. Roy's stomach growled, embarrassingly loudly in the silence the wind seemed to accentuate, and the sergeant chuckled. "Sounds like you have been too, sir."

He found himself wondering, quite suddenly, if he was talking to a ghost. All he could see was a man-shaped rock, the wind was whipping around their little shelter and it seemed like any moment it might just pass through and blow the sand ghost away like any other desert dust.

"It's Mustang." Ghosts had no use for rank.

"Havoc, sir," the sand-colored man replied, setting the canteen down on the rock beneath him with a muffled metallic clank. "Help yourself to the grub. I don't think my belly's fit for it yet."

He felt his eyebrow raise, but he did reach into the pack he'd taken from one of the enlisted, rooting around for a tin. It would be saltier than just about anything ought to be, but it was better than nothing at all.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

It took the ghost – Havoc, he reminded himself – a long time to respond, but his voice still held a quality of relief to go with the tremors. "The heat helps."

"How is it you're still alive?" It sort of blurted out of him, and he tried to suck the words back into his throat as he put all his concentration on the tin. His right hand was burning quite badly, which probably meant it was infected, and that was no surprise at all. Fuck, of all the times to be dragged before the general-

"Dunno," Havoc murmured, shifting in the darkness. "Got bit a few times by copperheads when I was younger. This feels about the same."

Mustang paused as he fished what he hoped was a cube of some kind of meat in a soup of some kind of gravy out of the tin. As he recalled, most copperhead attacks on children were fatal, due to the venom and the size of the child. This ghost of his was tall, taller than he was, so even assuming he'd been a tall kid . . . neither of them were over twenty. It wasn't like it had been that long ago.

"How did that happen?"

Havoc coughed, and some of Roy's biology courses started coming back to him. Copperhead venom, like scorpion venom, was a neurotoxin, so tremors, convulsions, excessive salivation, difficulty swallowing . . . but he didn't sound like he was choking, and outside of what he now knew was shivering, this Havoc didn't seem particularly distressed.

"Found a nest in the barn when I was tossing the moldy hay. Got me pretty good, and I pitched out of the loft just to make things fun." He made a weak sound Roy chose to interpret as a laugh. "Ma almost fell out."

Havoc fell silent, and soon the tin was empty of its almost-meat, and Roy's stomach was realizing he'd sustained a hell of a knock to the head and it wasn't too happy with all this salt. He drained his canteen to the halfway mark, staring at the faint outline of his ghost on the other side of the small chasm.

His body was too exhausted to stay awake and keep the man company, but there was some miniscule piece of his brain that was still chewing on neurotoxin. His eyes didn't need to see for his brain to work, though, and there was bright sunlight when next he used them.

- x -

Author's Notes: Seeing how this really is a drabble I guess I don't feel the need for author's notes, but it's habit. Don't worry - working on the next chapter of PAA as we speak, just figured I should start posting this since I was explaining it to Liffey but then thinking, huh, I guess it would be easier if he just read it, and then why not just post it for everyone else to read too so the same sitch doesn't happen again .

This'll be a series because I have a feeling that I won't be able to put PAA away entirely, so it's sort of a sandbox for me (or anyone else) to feed drabbles in the PAA universe to the masses.