A woman comes through Resembool one September with alchemy flowing through her blood. She's like a sorceress from Al and Winry's favorite storybooks, her millions of dark braids whipping all around her face in the storm's sharp fury. The pouring rain soaks her skin, her clothes, her hair, but it only makes her look even more enchanting. Ed and Al watch on as she single-handedly saves the entire town from being flooded over by alchemically constructing a giant dam and pushing back the surge of muddy rainwater from the river. She doesn't even use a transmutation circle!

She's just traveling, she says, just a housewife passing through and lending a hand to those in need of one.

But in Ed and Al's eyes she's so much more. Not just a traveler passing through, she's an opportunity. She's exactly what the need to further their knowledge and learn the alchemy they need to bring Mom back.

If she can't help them, then nothing can. They need her.

They run up to her after she has been thanked by the volunteers and is now speaking to her traveling companion, her voice drowned out by the rain. The water is so high that it almost floods into the tops of Ed's rain boots as his feet squish in the mud. She sure got here in perfect time.

There's something frightening about her. Something in her dark eyes that doesn't scare Ed per se, but still makes him uneasy. Maybe it's the way she holds her shoulders high or the way her raincoat looks exactly like the one Mom used to own. Whatever it is, it makes him nervous to get her attention as he comes up behind her, his arm hovering.

The man she came here with notices him before she does and his eyes soften. Despite his large size and intimidating appearance, there is a gentleness to his expression that makes him look more understanding than her.

Gentle giant, Al would have described him as Ed knows, because Al's always trying to describe everyone in storybook terms.

The man makes a nonverbal gesture at the woman and she turns around, facing Ed and Al in their matching blue raincoats, now covered in mud.

"You're an alchemist," Ed says when her eyebrow raises at him and Al.

There's a stern edge to her face, but despite that, she smiles. "I know a few tricks," she replies jauntily like she didn't just transmute the most mass Ed's ever seen transmuted all at once.

He knows she's downplaying her skills and it only strengthens Ed's resolve to push harder. Who knows what all she knows that she isn't letting on? He's never seen anyone like her.

"Are you kidding? You're amazing! I've never seen anyone do alchemy without a circle!"

At this, she smiles weakly and says nothing.

"Will you be our teacher?" Ed asks, adding on a long 'please' for effect. "My brother and I are alchemists too and we're looking for someone to teach us."

The woman turns back to her companion, both their eyes flashing and saying something unspoken for a moment before she turns back down to the two small boys in front of her.

"I don't take apprentices," she states, turning and walking away.

"Please! Please!" Ed begs, chasing behind her while Al makes his best attempt at puppy dog eyes beside him. "We're really good, I promise we are!"

The woman continues to deny them until she asks them where their parents are and a man from town tells her the Elric boys have no parents. They're both dead and gone. That's the kiss that breaks the spell. Instantly her face softens, something of a wistfulness coming over her façade.

Something in that moment has changed her. Ed would have been curious what exactly it was if he hadn't been so excited about her agreeing to teach them.

They learn her name is Izumi Curtis and that the man she is traveling with is her husband, Sig, and they live in the big city of the south, Dublith. As soon as Izumi is feeling better, the four of them will take a train back to Dublith and the boys will begin training with their new teacher.

Izumi purses her lips when she finds out Al is deaf. It isn't a face that is sad or angry or even one of the nasty ones people make when they find disdain in someone so different. Ed doesn't have a word for that expression, just that it reminds him of one that Mom used to make sometimes.

Ed hates that he can't read her and it makes him want to lash out at her, their boots splashing in the rain and him pinning her down in the mud. He doesn't want her to say yes only to change her mind now that she knows. So often people get the wrong idea about Al when they find out he's deaf. They mix disability for stupidity and automatically categorize him as dumb just because of the barrier between communication. It infuriates Ed to no end every time. It's garnered him quite the reputation in town, in fact, since there has been more than one occasion when insult has turned to injury and Ed beat some kid who insulted his little brother bloody in the schoolyard.

If this woman is along that same line of bullshit thinking then forget it, she isn't worth it. They can find someone else who isn't a prejudiced piece of shit to teach them.

Funnily enough, though, the woman makes no comment on the matter at hand, only agreeing with what seems like staged reluctance to Ed and tells the boys to come.

They stay in Resembool for three more days. Ed can't figure out the specifics to their new teacher's condition, but he knows it involves a lot of stomach cramping and a lot of vomiting of blood. Teacher and her husband, Sig, are old pros at handling the situation as efficiently as possible.

"She just needs to rest," Sig tells the town doctor in his deep baritone when Izumi is taken to the only hospital room in town, save the Rockbells'. The doctor sputters in indignation, clearly wanting to prescribe her some sort of medicine or alternative, but bends under Sig's glare. Ed smirks at the situation.

They make an interesting pair, Ed signs to Al, and Ed smirks when he sees Izumi narrow her eyes at them, clearly frustrated that she has no idea what they're saying.

Interesting for sure, but I think they're softer they look, Al signs back. She wouldn't have taken us on if she was really as mean as she tries to come off as.

Maybe, but Ed doesn't care about niceties. He isn't going to Dublith with the hopes of enjoying himself, he's going so he can figure out how to bring back Mom. Oh, that reminds him, we shouldn't tell Teacher about what we're planning on doing.

Why not? She might be able to help…

Because, it's written in every book that human transmutation is forbidden. What if she tries to stop us? What if she turns us in?

Al brings his hands up like he wants to argue, but finally resigns them back to his sides. Ed knows he doesn't want to send the rest of his life trapped in some metal prison of the State's either.

Ed also has a deep feeling that if Teacher were to find out what they were up to, she'd try and stop them. They've only known her for a couple of hours, and though Ed can't read people as well as Al can, he can already tell she's a very by-the-books type of person. She's the kind of person that, once she figures out her own moral code, she'll refuse to deviate from it no matter what.

They leave town with Granny's reluctant blessing. She doesn't seem too keen on them going, but she doesn't argue when they tell her their plan for apprenticeship. Instead, all she does is take a deep drag on her pipe and tell them she has no right to keep them tied here. She isn't their mother after all.

Al sleeps for half the train ride, his golden head resting in Edward's lap as the train chugs on. Ed lets his brother sleep, he himself is too mesmerized by the world outside his window. He's never left Resembool before.

The earth continues to expand beyond the horizon. It's an endless sea of flowers and buildings and fields and sky. All this time it's like they've lived in a tiny snow globe, their entirety trapped in a single glass globe.

There's a whole world out there they'll never know.

It's warmer here in the south, more humid too. The moisture in the air clings to Ed like a second skin and it makes him feel icky. There're so many people here, all packed together into one space. Ed doesn't know how they can stand it. In Resembool everyone had acres and acres of meadow to themselves.

We should go swimming, Al signs to his brother, his brown suitcase situated awkwardly under one arm to allow him to tell Ed. It's so warm here, I don't know how they can stand it.

Ed voices the thought to their new teacher and instantly knows it was a bad idea when she smiles that dangerous grin of her.

"That's an excellent idea. Let's go."

They take a boat across the lake, the three of them (they leave Sig behind with their traveling cases) and a man called Mason pulling the oars. They haven't even seen the quaint butcher's shop that Teacher claims they run yet.

The group makes it to an island in the middle of the lake and Teacher orders them out of the boat.

Ed has a sinking feeling they're not going swimming anymore.

It feels like a rock has been dropped in his stomach when Teacher hands him a sheathed dagger. They have to survive, one month on the island, no alchemy.

Oh, and they have to figure out the meaning of One is All, All is One.

It's going to be a hell of a month.

.oOo.

Brother, seriously, it's not a big deal, Al signs the best he can with his left arm caught in Ed's right hand.

Quit moving, is all Ed signs in response, pulling Al's arm back to him and using the bottom of his shirt to dab at the cut.

Al lets out a dramatic huff of breath. The wound isn't anything serious, it's deep, sure, but it doesn't hurt much. Al's pretty sure it's better than it looks but the blood dripping out of his skin doesn't really aid his argument.

It was a rock that sliced open his arm. Al was groveling on the ground looking for something, anything edible, but when he swiped his arm under a log across the dirt he was cut with one of the sharp rocks on the forest floor.

Take off your shirt, Ed signs, finally letting go of Al's arm dissatisfied.

What?

Your white over shirt, Ed gestures. We can rip off one of the sleeves and use it as a bandage.

Al doesn't think that that will prevent infection any more than doing nothing to the wound at all seeing that his shirt is filthy with dirt, but he does it anyway. Al doesn't have the patience to argue with Ed right now.

Despite the cut not being such a pleasant thing, it isn't an unwelcome distraction either. It keeps his mind on the stinging of his arm rather than the clawing emptiness of his stomach.

They've been on this island for three days. Three days without food and they're both absolutely starving.

They've tried everything from fishing to trapping, but the prey always seems to slip their grasp at the very last moment. Al thinks Ed might be doing that on purpose, that he can't bear the idea of killing an innocent creature, but Ed would never admit to something like that even if he was caught red-handed, so Al doesn't bother to ask.

Al has to thank his lucky star that the water of Yock Lake is fresh water rather than salt water. They'd surely be dead if it wasn't.

If they don't find food soon, however, they'll surely starve to death.

And then there's the barbarian of Yock Island, which is a whole other matter entirely.

He wouldn't really believe their new Teacher to be so heartless that she would leave them stranded on a foodless island where their only other companion is a beast of a man in a mask who's dead set on killing them. Surely she must be unaware.

Al shakes his head and refocuses on the situation at hand when he feels the pressure of a tightening knot on his arm. The left sleeve of his button up shirt is gone (which is a shame considering Al really liked that shirt) and the makeshift bandage is already stained red with spots of blood.

Ed offers him a hand up and Al takes it, regaining his footing.

Right. Looks like they're back to searching the island for food.

.oOo.

There's a fire burning in Ed. It was once bright and furious, eating up all the fuel that it was fed with unseen fury. Except now it looks faded. Faded, not gone, that is, but the sharp edge of its sword is now dull.

That is the problem with primary reinforcements. They're just so hard to live without. It's thoughts of food that mindlessly consume every inch of his brain, all memories of their original purpose for being here forgotten. He can't think of anything except finding their next meal.

He's doing this all, suffering out every moment here in this dreadful place for Mom. By coming to Dublith to learn with Teacher, Ed thought it would bring him even closer to her, but now it makes her seem even farther away than ever.

First he has to worry about making sure he and Al can survive until the next sunrise, then he can think about Mom.

Ed lies on his back looking up at the stars through the canopy of trees that cover them. It seems the barbarian has called it quits for the night and crawled back to wherever his cave is or whatever.

There's a gentle melody of cicadas buzzing in the night and the grumble of his belly mixed with Al's light snore. They're not going to be chubby little kids anymore when this is over and done with. By the time they get off this island–if they ever get off this island–they're going to be nothing more than sallow skins and piles of bones. They'll end up looking like that woman they saw at the Dublith station pleading for coins, draped in a blanket and rattling an empty cup.

Al's always claimed there's more kindness in this world than Ed realizes there is, that people are nicer than we give them credit for, but Ed isn't so sure. He watched as everyone passed the begging woman without a second glance.

But there are also instances that prove Al's optimistic theory of human kindness true. The barbarian, the one who has continuously tried to beat them death with his club every night, saw them sick and starving in the rain on the tenth night without enough energy to scamper away when they saw his shadow approaching, and took care of them. He let them sleep in front of his fire, made them fish to eat as they sat there and sobbed.

Perhaps the world doesn't go either way. It isn't good, it isn't bad. The world pulls in both directions, it's just a neutral player and people are the ones that set the stakes. Some people draw a lucky hand, a winning card, and some get less they deserve.

Ed rolls over to his side and watches the ants march along in their little military lines, carrying their own food back to their queen. Pieces of leaves and branches and other things Ed doesn't have a name to put to. They gather in a cluster around a corpse of one of the singing cicadas, it's voice now fallen silent as it decomposes on the forest floor.

Even the ants, the smallest and most insignificant of all the creatures, are better at finding food than they are.

It's not like they're completely useless though. They did manage to hunt a rabbit and eat its fire-cooked meat. It was hard, at first, to make the kill, but there was no way around it. Their stomachs argued too loudly for them not to skin and eat it. Ed let Al drive the knife through its heart as tears streamed from his golden eyes and fell onto the twitching corpse.

Life is so damn complex. The living must rely on the dead until the living themselves die and become the dead for the next generation. There's a never-ending cycle at play here like the spinning of the earth or the rise and fall of the tides. No matter what anyone does, no matter how groundbreaking and earth-shattering a moment may be, the cycle ends for no one.

When Mom died and Ed felt his whole world fall to pieces the cycle didn't stop. His world stopped, Al's world stopped, but no one else's did. That was their cross to bear alone, and though it changed their everything, it meant nothing to the fundamental inner workings of the world

Life doesn't care about your intentions. It doesn't care about your hopes or dreams or goals or sorrows. Life's nothing more than a neutral spectator.

And of that whole that is the earth, Ed is only a very small piece of it. From dust he was born and to dust shall he return. Only every individual part coming together and working in the machine can the whole exist.

It funnels back to the fundamental principle of alchemy. Perhaps equivalent exchange isn't a two-way street, maybe it's just one giant circle. It isn't about giving and taking, destroying and creating, it's about destroying to create, creating to destroy. Those things aren't mutually exclusive, they work together in one single flow.

Ed sits up, shocked by the revelation. That's it! One is all, and all is one!

He is one, one tiny, insignificant cog in the system. Nothing on his own, for cogs are just little, infinitesimal metal pieces, but together they make something greater than themselves. The world needs all its parts to run. When one gear is broken, another is created to sit in its place.

He cheers out in excitement and immediately smacks his hands over his mouth. He doesn't want to alert the barbarian of their position.

There's a renewed vigor in him now. If one is all and all is one then that means Mom is still out there, she still somewhere contained in the stratosphere. All they have to do is pin down her essence and bring her back. Conservation is the very principle upon which alchemy is founded upon. That means her soul isn't gone. It isn't contained, encapsulated in her now decomposing body, but she is made up of so many little pieces that so long as they bring them all together in the right ratio then she can come home to them.

When Teacher returns to the island to fetch them a month later, Ed tosses the knife back at her feet with the same nonchalance she displayed when she threw it to them a month ago.

He's learned to use it, learned to draw blood and wield metal against life.

"I am the one, the world is the all."

She laughs. "Is that all? Well then, let's move onto your real training."

.oOo.

Training is hard. There's no better word to describe it. It's a bone-weary exhausting.

But there's rather a deep appreciation that Al has for it. It feels like work, real work. Al knows it takes feeling this kind of weakness that training with Teacher brings in order to become stronger.

Teacher is a firm believer in the idea that in order to strengthen the mind, one must first strengthen the body. For the first month of training, the first real month of training, there is no use of alchemy, no talk of it whatsoever. She won't even let then draw circles until they're fit enough to meet her standards.

This, of course, drives Ed up the wall. He goes off every chance he gets about how their teacher must be some mad woman and how this was a bad idea, but Al refuses to agree with him. He sees value in her methods. They have to build up their skill, their character, before they can build up their brains.

Body, soul, mind working flawlessly in conjunction.

Brother works double time translating every instruction Teacher gives to him. Ed will usually sign as he speaks back to her so Al can follow what he says, but he knows it has to be annoying. Teacher always seems to look at him with irritation in her eyes every time any kind of direction take twice as long to get across as it should.

Al doesn't think it's a look that stems from a place of malice though, just impatience. She's never rude to Al, not in the way Al comes to expect of people.

He and Ed are having a conversation by the display window in the butcher shop one morning when Izumi stalks up to them. Al stares up at her, ready for her to admonish them for not doing what they're supposed to, but instead, she turns to Ed and asks him something.

Ed looks back at her puzzled before opening his mouth and replying something very short. They then proceed to have an entire conversation while Al sits on and watches.

This kind of thing doesn't bother Al, he's plenty used to it by now, but it's not like Brother to leave him hanging without trying to clue Al in at least a little. Whatever it is, it must be important.

Finally, they both to turn to look at him and Al shies under their glances.

She's asking about names, Ed signs, catching Al off guard.

Names? What would she want to know about names?

Ed shrugs. She says she's been reading up on sign language. She borrowed some book from the Dublith Public Library and has been learning what she can in her free time, but she's curious about how names work.

Al wonders why Ed doesn't just tell her himself, he knows as much as Al does.

But also the statement touches Al. She, their teacher with her piercing eyes and hardened muscles and merciless training, she went out of her way to learn this for him. No one's ever done that for him before.

She wants a name, Ed follows it up when Al doesn't sign anything back for a while.

Oh, that makes more sense then.

There's an unspoken rule among them that only Al is allowed to assign people names. He isn't creative with them, usually keeping them short and really more on a basis of what his relation is founded on with the person he names. She wants to be named.

A smile spreads across Al's lips. They must have picked the right teacher after all.

Al meets her eyes. I-Z-U-M-I, he signs, spelling out each letter individually and waiting for her nod at the end in recognition. It's clear she knows the letters because she smiles at him understanding. He then brings both hands up to his forehead with his thumbs touching his index finger and brings the sign forward, then flattening his hands facing each other and bringing them downwards. Teacher.

Ed laughs. Teacher? Really?

What? Al signs back, that's what we've been calling her. It's not like I'm going to start calling her Izumi.

Teacher repeats the action and Ed has her repeat it multiple times until Al nods his approval that she's gotten the gesture just right. They can learn from each other, alchemy from her and language from him.

She laughs at something Ed says to her and Al knows he's told her that the name simply means 'teacher'.

Next Al watches as Ed spells out his own name E-D-W-A-R-D. Ed's name, much like Teacher's, is less of a name and more of a title. Winry and others just call him Ed by spelling out the E-D since it's so easy on its own, but Al always signs the word Brother for his name. Brother must tell her this for Al watches as she mimics the two letters of Ed's name and then the word 'brother'.

She turns to Al next. Name? she signs and Alphonse outwardly beams at her. She really has been practicing. He's never known anyone outside of his immediate family to do that for him.

Al spells out the letters of his name one by one slowly. A-L-P-H-O-N-S-E. Unlike Ed, Al has a unique sign for his name. He isn't sure where it came from, though he suspects Mom was the one who came up with it, but he knows it has always just been a part of him.

It's another little piece of his identity, one that was gifted to him like a jewel from a treasure chest.

Teacher's hands are sloppy and unpracticed as she follows the gesture, but he knows with enough practice she'll get it right.

.oOo.

Training is difficult and not quite what Ed first imagined it would be when he envisioned becoming an apprentice of alchemy. Ed can't decide if likes that or not.

He like the feeling that he's doing something that brings him closer and closer to reaching their goal, but it is a lot of work. But what Ed does know is that every day, every bruise and every fight, brings him one step closer to Mom. All of it will be worth it in the end for her, and that's what keeps him kicking through the rough times.

For Ed, Mom is like an obsession at times. She is his hopeless hope, his single aspiration. Monomaniac, Al once called him, but Ed doesn't care, he'll take the title.

He has resolve and stamina. Teacher tells him that. He can work for extended periods of time for so long that it impresses even her, and she is not so easily impressed.

Ed just laughs at the comment. If only she knew how long he's really been working.

And so Dublith is a breath of fresh air. It's so far removed from everything he's ever known, so different than everything that came before, yet something about it feels like home. He isn't sure if it's the atmosphere, the people. It definitely isn't the landscape or the buildings, Resembool is quite different in that regard, but something about this new temporary home of his feels safe.

Still, that doesn't discredit the moments of homesickness Ed does sometimes feel. Sometimes he feels like he's trapped here, trapped in a world of eternal freedom. He doesn't want freedom though, he doesn't want knowledge or power, Ed just wants Mom back.

When Ed feels like this, he bottles it up over time until the bottle breaks and shatters and the feelings spill over like fine liquor. He just makes sure it's after everyone else in the house is sleeping so no one can see him when he's weak.

Because if Ed has any other trait that matches his levels of stamina and ambition, it's his pride.

.oOo.

Three months into their training, Ed falls sick. It isn't a bad illness, nothing serious, probably just a cold or something, but it sends Al into a state of restless chaos.

Teacher refuses to teach them that afternoon. She says there's no point only teaching one of them and then trying to play catch up with the other once Ed has recovered. They get the day off.

Al knows that Teacher must see the small panic that this sends Al into. It isn't that Al has some fear of sickness really, that's not it. This fear stems from his mother and what's happened in the past. Mother faded just the same. She felt sick and then she died. Al knows it's irrational to think that's what's happening to Ed too, but the fear persists. What Mom had was serious, something more than a measly cold, but that doesn't mean she didn't look the way Ed looks now. Pale and sweating with his eyes scrunched close in restless turmoil. Al can't stop the fear from coming. Being sick will forever be melded with Mom's death.

Al looks up to see Teacher standing up behind him with her arms crossed in front of her chest. She's been trying to distract him, he knows, but no matter what she entices him with, nothing can pull him from his brother's bedside.

I have someone I want you to meet, she signs to him and Al arches one of his eyebrows.

She's picked up really quickly on their sign language and Al is really proud of her. Sometimes at night after training, when his muscles feel too stiff to move, Al'll sit with her in the living room and help her practice.

She's never had them meet any visitors. They've met some of the people in town when they pick up groceries for her from the market or other small tasks she needs done, but never anyone else that's required a formal visit to distinguish it.

Teacher promises Al that Sig will keep a good eye on Brother and not let anything happen to him and then proceeds to leads Al downstairs where he's expecting to find the visitor, but the shop is empty of people save Sig and Mason who are working behind the counter.

Al slips on his shoes when he sees Teacher nod to them and he follows her outside. She leads him through a few streets of the town until they're standing before a blue cottage a few blocks outside the center of town.

The house doesn't fall into the typical style Al's used to seeing around Dublith. Something about it reminds him more of the style of the house he would find in Resembool and it startles him that he's now deemed that as 'old fashioned' in his mind.

I, Teacher starts, gesturing to herself and then pausing to think. She starts again, but pinches up her face in dissatisfaction and pulls out a notepad and pen tucked away in her pocket.

Sometimes when sign language fails them, Izumi or Sig will speak to him by writing. It's easier for everyone since it's a form of language they all know, but Al's always pleased by the effort they make to try and sign to him when they can.

We deliver to the woman who lives here from time to time. She's lived in this town longer than anyone can remember, but I think you would like to meet her. I should have thought of this sooner.

Her handwriting is a messy cursive like Brother's, but he's good at deciphering the tall letters that loop across the page. He doesn't understand what he would have to do with one of the patrons of their shop, but he's not going to question it until he actually meets the woman herself. Teacher is always full of surprises, so there's no telling what this will turn out to be.

Teacher leans over him and presses the doorbell. What looks like lightning flashes in the windows of the blue house and a moment later a woman steps out onto the porch.

Whoever Al was expecting, she isn't who he thought Teacher would have brought him to the meet.

The woman on the porch is older, probably even a couple of years older than Granny. She's wearing a flower printed dress that falls down almost to her ankles with a white, knitted shawl. There're blue and purple veins that trail down her arms like crisscrossing spiderwebs and her white hair is swept back into a bun that descends into a ponytail that falls down her back like a frozen, snow coated waterfall.

She's beautiful in a way that makes her feel like she leaped out from one of the pages of a storybook and into the real world. Al imagines how the book would describe her, regal in a way that most people aren't, probably someone who was once very pretty.

Al does hate that common description of older characters in books simply for the implication that those characters are no longer pretty. She's probably prettier now in her older age than she ever way, Al can image. She stands with a certain grace born of wisdom, her back surprisingly straight.

The woman says nothing as she swings the door open for them and turns back into her house. Teacher nudges for him to follow when he doesn't know what to do. The white-haired woman motions for them to sit when they follow her into the parlor and Al does.

She leaves them sitting there as she stalks off into what Al presumes is the kitchen and Al looks at Teacher wide-eyed.

The room is decorated full of older things. The room doesn't look old, in fact, it's quite clean, no dust to be seen anywhere, but all the of items and artifacts that line the shelves look like they're from another time. There's a gold-framed photo of a woman in a white dress smiling with a man in a suit she locks finger with, and Al presumes this is probably the woman and her husband on their wedding day.

There's a globe on the shelf that shows Amestris still the shape it was before they annexed Ishval. A stuffed duck in flight. Several novels and cookbooks lined up in neat rows against the shelves.

I'm going to go, Teacher writes on her pad of paper.

Al looks back at her confused so she goes on, scribbling in the notepad. You'll like Mrs. Caufield, I promise.

She rises and Al flounders as he watches her go. She can't just leave him here! He'd prefer staying on the island for another month to this, but any moment now the woman who let them in is going to walk back in here, see Teacher is gone, and try to ask him about where she went off to without anyone there to respond to her. What is Teacher thinking?

When Teacher is gone, Mrs. Caufield returns out of the kitchen holding two cups of tea like she knew Teacher would be leaving. Al wrings his hands together in a nervous fit, but graciously accepts the tea with a bob of his head.

Over the rim of his teacup, Al watches the older woman take a big sip of her drink and then set the cup and saucer on the coffee table beside them. He has no idea what to do in a situation like this. Usually he has someone there to guide him, Brother's hand to hold. He isn't typically left this helpless.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but your name is Alphonse? she signs and Al almost spills half the cup of tea on himself.

You can sign? He rushes out quickly, placing his cup beside hers. Teacher never told him that the woman she was bringing him to meet was also someone who spoke sign language.

Well of course. I'm deaf too, she smiles, clearly amused about his reaction.

The shock must show in his face, for she lights up in a laugh. You've never met anyone who's deaf before?

No. I mean I know other people who can sign like my brother and Winry—our neighbor—but no one else who is actually deaf.

Well then I'm happy to be your first deaf acquaintance. She introduces herself, signing out her name for him and Alphonse exchanges his in return.

He finds out pretty quickly that Mrs. Caufield has a rather agreeable personality. She's warm and bubbly and acts much younger than someone he expected of her years.

She tells him about her kids that moved away to Central and her husband that died a little over a decade ago. She says that in all that time she's never signed with anyone, never had a real conversation that didn't involve her spelling out the words for people on sheets of paper. He's the first person she's really talked to in ten years.

Al wonders what it must be like to lead such a lonely existence and it makes him grateful for the wonderful family he does have. Granny, Winry, and Brother, all who took up signing because they understood how necessary it is to include him in things. Sig and Teacher who, while they may not be as practiced as he and Ed, still try their damned hardest because they know that housing someone deaf under their roof means they have to take on all the necessary accessories that come with it.

He knows that she's just telling her story when she signs all of this to him, but it ignites a fear in Al that he's never had before. He doesn't want to end up like her, isolated and lonely with not a single soul to speak to. He doesn't want to be trapped in a world where no one understands him or gives him the time of day. He fears being cut off from the rest of the world like that, fears dying alone in an empty house with no voice and no one to hear him wither away.

He can't even begin to process how devastating that must be for her, and while Mrs. Caufield always remains so cheery, Al can read between the lines and see that it has eaten away at some part of her like a moth unraveling lonely sweaters tucked away in the dark.

During that first visit they sit there in the living room sharing stories and drinking tea for hours. When Teacher comes to fetch him once the sun has drooped, he doesn't want to leave.

He starts visiting Mrs. Caufield regularly after that. He brings Brother to meet her too because while Al knows that when he comes and keeps Mrs. Caufield company it means the world to her, she still by nature is a very social person and so meeting Ed will increase the number of people she can communicate readily with by twofold.

She shows him lots of things, and in a way, is just as much his teacher as Izumi Curtis is.

She shows him the books she learned from, the ones she had when she was seven and went deaf after a bad summer illness. She lets him look at the grainy, black and white photographs of her graduating class at the school for the deaf she attended in Central when she was young.

She teaches him about culture and people and the ways their community works—the community Al didn't even know he existed as a part of. Apparently there are whole inner workings of networks of other deaf people across the nation. There are gatherings and socials and a million other things that allow them to meet and connect on the basis of their deafness.

Most importantly, however, she teaches him the main advantage she has above him in terms of communication.

Mrs. Caufield can read lips.

She can't speak herself so the conversations that she's a part of are very one way, but she winks and tells him that it makes her an excellent secret keeper. A secret-keeper of secrets people don't know she's aware of.

It's really hard to pick up on at first, but Mrs. Caufield's a good teacher. She's had decades to practice and so she shows Al what she does know.

Mrs. Caufield is a firm believer that lip reading is 10% reading, 40% common sense, and 50% guesswork. She also says you can go far on a firm nod and a kind smile. No one will know you couldn't have made out any of what they just said.

It doesn't take long for Al to find out that reading Mrs. Caufield's lips is a lot easier than reading lips other's in real time. For one, Mrs. Caufield cannot actually speak herself, so when they practice she just imitates the shapes that people make. He also finds out that when she tries with him, she moves her mouth in a way so where she is speaking slowly and clearly.

But the real world is not so kind. People talk fast. There's facial hair and a lack of eye contact and people putting their hands in a way that covers their mouths whenever they speak to worry about. Also lighting is one of the biggest factors that Al never really thought about either. Mrs. Caufield's house is always very nicely lit, but the real world not so much. There's the sun in his eyes and when the sun sets in the evening, well that's a whole other hell.

Lip reading is nice when it works, but it's neither a very convenient nor flexible skill.

But on some level he already gets that. He can't sign with anyone when there isn't any light either. Darkness is the limiter to his language. However, the people he does actually sign with have already grown accustomed to that so it's never an actual problem.

It's nice for Al to have company that understands him though. Brother understands him fine, so does Winry and everyone else, but there's a bond he shares with Mrs. Caufield that he just can't explain. Maybe it's the whole deaf culture aspect to things that she told him about. They connect in a way that Al's never connected with anyone before.

Most afternoons, after his training with Teacher, they'll sit on her porch and drink lemonade (Mrs. Caufield makes the best lemonade in the world!) while her cat sits on the railing like a bird ready to leap into flight at any moment.

They people-watch, mostly, and sign while they do it.

Do you see the woman there, the one in the green dress? Mrs. Caufield asks him one afternoon. She was supposed to marry my son. She already bought the dress and everything, but things never went through.

Why didn't they marry? Al asks back, sure she has some long-winded story to go with it. Mrs. Caufield is filled with interesting stories about all the regulars of the area.

I was never sure, but I think it was something my son did. He left town suddenly after and never returned. Now when she passes she won't even turn and wave hello to me. She used to be so kind to me, one of the nicest people I knew too. I think whatever he did to her, I think it broke her in some way. She hasn't seen anyone since and she always walks with that hunched look about her.

Al ponders what kind of terrible act Ms. Caufield's son must have committed to break another person like that, but Dublith's people always seem to unfold with layers of unexplored horrors. He's aware that often times Mrs. Caufield always knows more than she actually says.

When Mrs. Caufield doesn't know someone, she makes things up about them. At first Al found it such an odd thing to do, but as time carried on, he thinks he starts to understand.

There, Al signs, pointing out a man in work coveralls with a scratchy beard carrying a bouquet of pristine roses across the road. Who do you think he is?

Him? she asks and Al nods. I think he works at the sawmill down the road. He forgot his fifteenth anniversary yesterday after coming home tired from a long day at work and his wife is mad at him, but she won't tell him why. Today, while at work, he figured it out and immediately rushed out to buy those flowers for her in apology, hoping to make things up to her.

Al leans in closer, watching the man with his eyes squinted. The story is very plausible. There looks to be a nervous edge to his walk and a little speed in his gait as he rushes home to his wife. There's nothing to suggest otherwise.

There's even a silver wedding band wrapped around his ring finger if Al looks hard enough.

Okay, now you try. What do you make of the woman in the pink sweater? Mrs. Caufield asks him.

The woman can't be much older than Teacher, though Teacher's age is a hard thing for Al to pinpoint, but relatively speaking. Her dark hair falls freely around her shoulder in messy coils. Continuously, she clenches and unclenches her hands in a nervous gesture. There's a red suitcase at her side.

That girl is waiting for her best friend. She grew up here but moved away when she was only a teenager. Her family moved because their business fell into bankruptcy, but she's finally back, all these years later, and is nervous to reunite with her friend after so long without seeing her.

Less than a minute later, a man comes rushing up to her, one with hair slicked back in the popular style of the day and in a fancy looking suit. He sweeps the woman in pink off her feet and spins her around for several moments before setting her back on the ground and planting heavy kisses across her lips.

I guess I was wrong then, Al signs, a bit dejected. Mrs. Caufield is never wrong, but every time Al proposes a theory he always seems to be disproven shortly after. Either there's a touch of magic to her (which is quite possible in Al's opinion), or she's just good at what she does.

It's a curious little game, but after a few rounds of playing it, he thinks he's finally seeing the individual trees for the forest they comprise. This isn't a game about individual stories of the many strangers that come by, this is a game about language.

It's not language like Al's ever thought about it before, but there's a way that Mrs. Caufield views the world which seems so much bigger than anything Al's ever considered. He doesn't know how to explain it to her to ask her to show it to him, he has a feeling it's just something that comes with experience, but it enchants him all the same.

The game is more about seeing what lurks behind the obvious rather than storytelling. People say a lot more about themselves than they express just with their words. There are stories told by people through their appearances, their actions. Stories that are more truthful than the things they speak.

Language isn't always the exact science that people pinpoint it to be. There's something deeper about it, something that goes beyond words or signs or voices.

There's a tiredness in people's hunched spines, an excitement in the crinkles of eyes. There are whispers in the unspoken. What he cannot hear doesn't limit his experience, it just implores him to look deeper and find out things for himself. He has four working senses to rely on, so he needs to employ them to their full capacity.

There's a part of Al that thinks he's already learned this lesson, just never properly digested it. He understands the signals of happiness and pride when Brother pats his head. He understands Winry's assurance in the way she laces her fingers through his when he's scared. Sometimes people speak through touch, and that's a much more powerful language than anything.

Mrs. Caufield sees people for who really are, people beneath their superfluous lies.

That's a skill Al would give anything for.

After nine months of training with Teacher, their time in Dublith comes to a startling halt. She tells them there is nothing more she can teach them so abruptly one afternoon. The rest they will just have to learn on their own.

She buys them train tickets for the next week and Al spends the remainder of those last few days wondering why everything is suddenly happening so fast. He says goodbye to Mrs. Caufield and tells her he'll miss her. He really will. He'll miss everything about Dublith, from Teacher to Sig to Mrs. Caufield to the strangers they observe. He tells her he'll come to visit her soon. He doesn't want to leave her here lonely again.

When they go back to Resembool, there won't be too much left to do. If Teacher thinks that's all she can teach them for now, then they're probably ready to bring Mom back. Al thinks they have the knowledge they need to attempt it.

The time has come.

And just as quick as it came, their time in Dublith is over.

.oOo.

When Ed and Al return to Resembool in the beginning of June, Ed notices that the summer here is decidedly colder even though it's only just begun. Maybe that's because Dublith was just so darn hot that anywhere more north feels like an absolute tundra, or maybe it's the feeling that comes with returning home in different skins with stronger bones. So much is different now, and though they left Resembool being more knowledgeable in alchemy than most alchemist, they're even more skilled than before. They could take on the world if they wanted, just Ed and Al and their brains filled with more knowledge than ever before.

Except they aren't aiming for the world, only a mother's gentle embrace.

They take the train by themselves when they go back home. The Curtises see them off at the station. Sig says goodbye first, wrapping both Ed and Al in a gigantic bear hug and lifting them up off the ground which makes Al kick and giggle. Sig signs something to Al in the limited sign language he has picked up since he met them which makes the boy laugh, but Ed is pulled away by Teacher's hand on his shoulder.

He turns to her, and there's a glint in her eyes that he's never seen there before. They're always like deep coal, matte and dusty and hardened in a way that only the pressure of the earth weighing down on one's back can make them. Now they gleam like polished and shined obsidian.

"Teacher?" Ed asks in a voice that comes out weaker than he means for it to be. He winces, expecting her to immediately chide him for his timor, but she doesn't even react.

"Take care, Ed." Her voice sounds like it's coming from a recording of her and not spoken at the moment through her lips and off her tongue. "And don't do anything you'll regret."

We won't, Ed thinks in silent response. He has no intention of failing now.

"Good."

The next thing she does is squat down until she and Ed are at eye level, and pulls him into a hug. It's not something Ed ever would have expected of Teacher, in the nine months he's known her it doesn't fit her character, but it isn't unwelcome either.

He hasn't been hugged like this—hugged like a child by a parent—since Mom.

She's always been kinder than she gives herself credit for. Somewhere under that brusque exterior is a maternal instinct and a warmth that seeps through her skin. She isn't warm in kind in the way that Mom was, the way Mom is going to be, but they're not so different after all. As unkind as Teacher might appear to an outside eye, she is very kind at heart. She bought them candy apples when she saw them staring longingly at the cart in town. She let Al keep the teddy bear he found on the shelf of the powdered blue guest room when he'd asked why she had it. She sat in their room from sunrise to sunset the weekend they both got sick like an eagle watching over her hatchlings.

So Ed falls into the embrace. He can feel her arms as she pulls him close and he tucks his face in the crook of her neck the same way he used to when Mom would hold him. It all comes back to him so naturally, and to think he's almost forgotten this.

They pull away as the conductor comes by, yelling about the last call for passengers to board the train.

They grab the handles of their suitcases that they brought with them the day they came to Dublith and board the train. There's an empty booth waiting for them like magic and Al pushes the window open immediately, sticking his head out and waving at Teacher and Sig who stand there below them.

"Don't be a stranger!" Teacher calls out and Al nods, clearly pleased with himself for understanding so flawlessly.

The train begins to move and soon the two of them standing there in the station become only two in a sea of a million little blurs as the train snakes down the tracks headed eastbound.

We should come back to visit, Al signs when the station is out of sight. I think Mom would like them.

Ed nods.

That's right, they aren't going home to the same old lackluster Resembool, the town that doesn't shine like it used to. They're going home to Mom.

It's the most hopeful thought Ed's had in a while, but that doesn't explain the emptiness that persists in his stomach as the train marches on and the distance between him and Dublith grows farther and farther.

.oOo.

The first thing that Al notices when he gets back to Resembool is that the 'OCK' has fallen off the ROCKBELL AUTOMAIL sign that greets people at the edge of the Rockbells' yard. He wonders how long it's been down, it could have come off yesterday or nine months ago when they first left. Either way, he'll never know, they've been gone for so long and time passes slowly.

However, despite the typical temperament of Resembool, time isn't completely stagnant here.

Perhaps that is best seen in Winry, who greets them on the porch in a clumsy hug with Den bouncing at her heels.

Her hair is longer, blonder somehow, and she's definitely grown taller. When they left, Al remembers that green jumpsuit she wears now being just a bit too long around her ankles. Now it looks to be too short.

But height isn't the only thing that's different about Winry, she's grown in other ways too.

Dinner's a chaotic affair. Al does his best to follow Ed and Winry's rambunctious conversation, with their flying hands and waving arms and fast-moving lips. Reading the words of others is hard, really hard, but trying to do it like this is even harder.

It's so much easier when the lighting isn't as dim as it is here in the Rockbells' kitchen and when he's being spoken to directly instead of trying to watch the conversations of others. It's majority guesswork on a good day, but this has taken that aspect of it up several notches.

It doesn't help that they all have their mouths full.

Granny gives him a sympathetic look and he smiles back.

They're talking about Dublith, she signs, trying to clue him into the wild conversation. And some island you two stayed on, she adds with a raised eyebrow, just as confused as he is it seems.

They wash their dishes when dinner's over and Granny and Ed both retire back to their rooms, leaving Winry and Al standing in the kitchen shelving porcelain plates.

How've you been? Winry asks him with a tap on his shoulder. Ed won't seem to shut up about Dublith and your teacher and the alchemy you learned there. It seems he enjoyed himself.

He smiles. She's certainly right there, Dublith has left Brother in an extraordinarily good mood and Al thinks it has more to do with how close they are to bringing Mom back than actual Dublith. She's so close now, just on the edge of the world waiting for them to come find her. It will only be a few weeks now and then they'll have her back.

Dublith was… amazing, but I'm sure Brother already told you all about that. What have you been up to here while stuck in Resembool? He says it almost like it's a curse, that being in Resembool the past few months has been some kind of prison, but that isn't quite what he means. Now that's he's seen the world beyond the sheep farms and the rolling hills of green, or at least a small part of it, he realizes how limited his world has really been all this time. He's had a taste of the low hanging fruit that is the rest of Amestris and he wants another.

There's a whole other world right outside their backdoor, one he'll probably never know, but one he would like to.

There're other people out there, so many people with so many different stories and he wants to hear them all. Al thinks of Mrs. Caufield and her kittens that she nursed back to health and her veiny, weathered hands that moved as quick as birds.

Stories told through words and voices and text and hands and bodies and actions.

Winry takes him upstairs into her room and sits him down and shows him all the projects she's been working on lately. Granny has been giving her larger and larger responsibilities around the workshop and now she's servicing customers completely by herself with a little help from Granny on some of the detail work.

Pride for her swells in Al's chest like a helium inflated balloon. He and Ed haven't been the only ones learning and growing, Winry has too.

He's glad they still have their easy energy about them. Winry was always so effortless to get along with and with the exclusion of Ed, since Ed is his brother, Al would consider Winry his best friend in the world.

When she's done showing him the pair of legs she's been working on for a man out in East City who came all the way to Resembool to receive their automail, she turns to Al and they both just laugh for a moment, so happy to be back in the company of each other. Al didn't notice it before, but only now when Al feels the tension release does it feel like he can finally breathe easy for the first time in nine months. The city air really is something else.

They move over to the bed and Al tells her about what he's learned while in Dublith. He pretty heavily glosses over all the alchemy stuff, not wanting to give away what they're going to do in the coming weeks by accident. He tells her instead about Teacher and Sig and the butcher's shop that they run. He tells her about Mrs. Caufield and little bowls of milk she sets out for the neighborhood cats and the way she's opened up the door to a whole new world with helping him practice reading lips.

Wait, Winry interjects when he gets to that part, so you mean I don't have to sign to you anymore because you can now read lips? She seems so genuinely perplexed by the whole idea and Al guesses he would be too if he were someone who knew him who could hear. It must be jarring to speak with someone one way their entire life only to find out that the method is obsolete.

Winry, funnily enough, would be the person best suited to practice out his lip-reading skills best on.

See, the rules of grammar with sign language are different than those of spoken and written Amestrian. Where the spoken word follows the same grammatical patterns that the written word does, sign language has its own grammar rules entirely. That's only formally though, there's also the more informal style (which is easier for most hearing people) where if they're speaking and signing, they just move their hands along with the words in the same grammar as the spoken word. Either way, it's just as easy to understand for Al.

Winry typically follows the grammatical convention of the latter. She has a habit of speaking as she signs, even if it's only Al there to hear her. It isn't something Al takes offense to, though some suspect he would, but rather he finds it endearing. It's such a cute, little quirk.

It's also beneficial to him in some sense of the word. It makes her someone good to practice his lip-reading on when he can, but when he gets lost in it he can follow her hands to guide him back in.

Don't stop, he signs to her and explains to her that while he may be on the track to reading lips proficiently, it's still one of the hardest things he's ever had to learn to do and signing is so much easier.

They both fall asleep in her bed that night sometime around 3 a.m. and for a couple hours it's like nothing has changed. Like nothing will change.

.oOo.

While the ingredients are plenty cheap, not all of them are easy to come by. There's an apothecary who keeps in stock most of what they need, but not all of it. There're still things that they have to special order from him that will take a few weeks to arrive.

He raises an eyebrow when they ask for things like saltpeter or large quantities of lime, but he's so used to them asking for obscure items for their transmutations that he doesn't question it enough to ask them. Not enough to stop them.

Not like they would have told him what they were planning to do anyway.

They tweak and perfect their formula, their circle. They're aiming to do the impossible so it has to be perfect. Not only are their lives on the line here, but now Mom's life is too.

There's been a renewal in the strength of Ed and Al's relationship since they returned home and Ed takes notice of how his brother has grown since before Dublith. It was so subtle at the time, but now it feels glaringly obvious like a blinding lighthouse on the midnight coast.

Since day one they've had to be there for each other more than any other siblings usually have to be. When there's no one else to rely on, they would rely on each other. Ed knows what it means to be there for Al, because Al only had so many people who were willing to be there for him in the first place and now half of them are either dead or have deserted them.

When your circle of people you can communicate is so limited, it strengthens the bonds you do have even more tightly like the two sides of rope on either of a knot being pulled tighter and tighter.

Every action since then furthered that feeling even more. Hohenheim abandoning them, Mom dying.

That deep-seated love and protection for each other never dissipated, never waned, but Dublith brought upon a renaissance of such feeling. Perhaps the island did it, Ed having to live with the only voice in his ears being his own, but his brother's tinkering hands always right next to him, talking and working and playing.

They still live tangled in a world of small touches and actions.

If actions speak louder than words, then perhaps the language of the silent is the loudest language of them all.

Al's as strong as he is kind. Not strong in the physical sense—though he is strong that way too if training with Teacher for hours a day has anything to say about that—but strong in character. He has a bigger heart than anyone Ed knows. He's always had a big heart, but it seems to shine more powerfully now when things look dark.

It's a kind of strength, a gentle quiet, that people so often mistake for meekness. They think him shy, easy to push around in the storms they don't create, but Ed's pretty sure no one sees the strength in his simplicity, the power in his everlasting patience and benevolence that stands above the rest. Everyone who thinks Ed is the stronger brother just because of his brash attitude and his tendency to rush in head first with no thought or method is wrong. These things are not virtues, not the way Al's gifts are.

Perhaps compassionate is the word for it, though no single word or phrase in any language can sum up his mannerism completely.

And then there's Winry too. She's done a lot of growing since they've been gone. She's so passionate about her automail that she'll babble his ear off about it for hours if he's not careful and lets her. Usually Al is a good substitute for those kinds of situations since he cannot have his ear talked off.

Still, that doesn't mean Ed's not excited for her. He genuinely is and he's so happy she's found her niche. He may not understand her science or her automail, but he sees the joy it brings to her and understands the joy it will bring to others and by God he respects the hell out of it.

Ed wonders sometimes if he's grown too, if he's become a stronger, better person. He doesn't know, he doesn't think he has, but he'll let Mom be the judge of that.

.oOo.

The wind bites sharply at Al's cheeks as he climbs up the hill behind Ed and pulls his jacket tighter around his shoulders. August is never this cold, it's always as hot as any summer months, but ever since they returned from Dublith, the Resembool air seems to be filled with a persisting chill. Maybe it's just they've grown accustomed to the southern heat, or perhaps it's something else.

Ed pushes open the iron gate as they enter the cemetery. The black paint is starting to chip, leaving the rusted metal underneath partially exposed. Al wonders what will be done about that, if anything. It seems things around here are decaying faster and faster than ever before.

The cemetery is set up like a maze. Gray headstones spring from the ground like trees and Al is constantly having to watch his steps as to not run into them. That said, if he tries hard enough, Al could probably navigate this place in his sleep. He can find his way back to Mom always.

Mom's polished headstone is cool to the touch. In the five years since she's died, erosion has worn it down significantly. Mosses and lichens take the bottom inches, sinking their shallow roots into the stone and crumbling it to slow pieces. They've almost won the war again the 'TR' of her name, seeming to start from the left and working their way right as any sensible thing would. They seem of damn determined to bring her grave to bits and pieces.

Ed and Al sit in the grass, their shoulders brushing up against the other's as they sit there, eyes tracing the cracks.

There's a bouquet of wilted daisies propped up against the headstone, no doubt the doing of Granny. Most the petals are missing, fallen off the drooping stems and scattered with the wind. To anyone else it would probably be a pitiful sight, but to Al it brings some kind of warmth. It tells him that it's not just him and Brother who miss Mom, but that there are other people out here who love her desperately too.

This is the last time we'll see Mom like this, Ed signs, though seeing Mom like this isn't like seeing her at all. He carries on, by tomorrow evening she'll be back to us and returned to the world of the living.

Al doesn't give anything in response.

You're not scared, are you? Ed asks in a way that makes sure Al knows he's not mocking him. Al recognizes that if Ed's asking that so genuinely then there must be fear building up in him too.

Al ducks his head slightly, but looks up at Ed. No, he lies, afraid that if he tells the truth then it will only worsen the anxiety that Al tries to keep unseen.

Good.

They sit there for a couple more hours saying nothing at all, and Al feels nervousness wearing away at him like acid in his belly. They watch the sun set over the hill, the sky fading from orange to pink to purple, glinting off the shiny stones of the gravemarkers in a pattern like a secret message being read off.

When the sun sinks below the line of the horizon, Ed takes Al's hand and leads him out of the cemetery. Maybe they're too old for such childish things, but something inside Al feels quite small in this moment. It's like he's just a little kid—a littler kid—and that his skin has grown much too big for him to wear. Maybe that's what the slight panic that a life-changing event leaves with people, or maybe it's like the sixth sense that Granny claims Den has every time he howls at a storm yet to come.

Ed and Al fall asleep in the living room with their boots still on, not caring about how the mud on their shoes muck up the floors. They have more important things to worry about.

The next morning they skip breakfast and lunch and immediately get to work in the basement study. They don't even need to give any kind of direction to each other, just immediately falling into their known places. Ed remeasures each ingredient for the thousandth time and Al draws the chalk lines that zigzag across the basement floor in a giant array.

There's a sudden draft in the basement, something that worries Al, but Ed promises won't have any impact of their work. Goosebumps prickle up all across Al's arms in the cold like a rash. Something about it feels so very wrong.

Al carries flasks and beakers of material after material to the basin in the center of the circle, stepping lightly through all the intricate lines of the circle in a funny kind of dance.

It's almost midnight by the time they finish with their preparations.

The liquid in the basin seems to bubble up in a golden kind of color that matches Brother's eyes. The dim light of the kerosene lamps that sit on the desk keep the room only visible enough to see what's important, brushing over all the small cracks on the stones of the floor and the walls and illuminating the dust in the air like fireflies.

All there is left to do is add the blood. Their blood from her blood, if they're right—and they're definitely right—then this will be what makes Mom Mom.

Al watches the silver knife that Brother holds. It sparkles brightly as he spins it in his fingers. He goes first, cutting across the tip of his index finger. The red blood buds at the edge of the cut in small drops like dew stuck on the threads of a spider's web.

The drops fall into the basin and mix in with the swirling liquid, their color fading in the gold.

Al goes next and bites at his lip at the sharp pain of the knife through his finger. The cut isn't deep by any means, only enough to draw out the secret ingredient, but it's enough to hurt. When he's done, he places the bloodied knife on one of the back desks by the suits of armor and rejoins Ed at the edge of the massive circle.

There's something sinister about the scene in the same way there's something sinister lurking about the annual harvest bonfires. It's not that the fire or the dancing of the people is particularly scary itself, but rather what lurks out beyond the range of the firelight that petrifies Alphonse so. When he's here in the basement preparing for the biggest transmutation of his life, he's outside of the soft, warm glow of the firelight and he feels like any moment he'll be snatched and devoured by some shadowy monster. Maybe the big suit of armor with the big spike on its head will jump out at him when he's least expecting.

Al kneels beside Ed at the edge of the circle, his back turned towards the three suits of armor his father stacked against the back wall. He and Ed had gone back and forth several times about the tin basin that holds the sloshing liquid that would soon become their mother. They had endlessly discussed about whether the tub was counted as a material in the transmutation, if the body would have the wrong composition and this entire attempt would be in vain. Still, they couldn't just pour everything on the ground, there had to be something to hold the reactants in.

It is a risk, but then again all of this already is.

That only makes the pit in Al's stomach cave in deeper.

Al turns to look over at his brother at the little tap on his shoulder.

You ready? The yellowed lighting from the two lamps is barely bright enough for Al to see Ed's hands clearly.

As I'll ever be, Al signs with a sigh.

This is it. Make it or break it time.

Ed nods and brings his hands up to clap in front of his chest as he sits back on his haunches and Al follows suit.

A single deep breath, the touch of his palms together, and then Al slams his hands to the ground.

For a moment nothing seems to happen. Al looks up from where he was staring at the chalk lines and brings his eyes up over to meet Ed's. Al's greeted with the same look of confusion in Ed that he knows must be reflected in his own face.

But it only seems to last for a second.

Al can feel the ground beneath where he kneels beginning to shake now. It rattles his bones and sends vibrations up his spine in an out of body tremble. Every hair stands up straight up on his skin.

Ed shoots him a cocky smile, this is it, reads in his eyes, but Al doesn't see it the same way.

Flashes of both hot and cold shoot through his limbs. It's not a feeling he knows how to describe, but it terrifies him and suddenly he wants this all to stop.

It will be worth it! It will be worth it! the back of his mind cries out. You're getting Mom back so stop acting like a baby because it will be worth it!

And then the culling begins.

Crackling energy swirls around them like a storm and the contents of the basin that are supposed to be Mom bubble up like a geyser ready to burst. There's a dark color to the room, a slightly purplish hue, and Al turns to Ed but he can't make out his face in the chaos.

There's a tingle in his toes, a twitch in his fingertips, a burning in his lungs.

It doesn't seem like the kind of scene that should play out silently, but it does. It does because Al never had any choice for it not to.

And then it all goes wrong