Chapter 3: The Drinking Song

The tent city seemed to sprawl out as far as the eye could see, surrounding the old fort like a scab. It reeked of too many people crammed too close together with poor sanitation and worse food and water. Pigs roamed the spaces between tents, hunting out a meager living on the humans' leavings. The flies were the only things that flourished here. The few children to be found couldn't even find the energy to play.

A man staggered out of one of the tents with a muffled groan as a cold wind ruffled his short, silvery hair. This was his Hell, but he had long since stopped caring. His friend made it all better.

His staggering footsteps took him away from the squalid scrap of canvas he used for shelter, following his beloved friend's siren call.

Alphonse Elric looked down from the fort's walls, only half listening to the regiment commander prattle. "Like children, really." The man said. "Can't even keep their places clean. Letting animals roam all over the place. Filth, really. We're going them a favor by taking care of them."

"Hm. Strange." Al took a long drag off his cigarette, letting his other hand just feel the rough, grainy texture of the stone beneath it. "Some of the neatest people I've ever known have been Ishbalan." He took another drag, then stubbed out the dog end and looked at it. He could hear the gentle tinkle of metal on metal getting closer.

This was going to be funny.

"Alphonse. Lieutenant General Fitzhenry." Izabel said softly.

"Ah." Al smiled pleasantly, turning around. "Lt. General, have you been introduced to my partner, Shadow Alchemist Major Ishtar?"

The man looked as though he had just swallowed a lit cigarette. "I… haven't had the pleasure." He put on a smile that made him look like he was about to be ill and took Izabel's hand; planting a kiss just above the rings that lined her fingers like armor. "A pleasure, miss."

Izabel's eyes locked on the still smiling Alphonse, her expression extremely suspicious as she drew her hand back.

"We were just having the most fascinating discussion about Ishbalans." Al said, producing a fresh cigarette. He twirled it between his fingers, giving both people a boyish grin. "Lt. General Fitzhenry, do you know why my partner is called the Shadow Alchemist?"

"No, Major Elric, I do not." The man said stiffly.

"It's because she has this most fascinating ability with Alchemy. You see, the Major here can manipulate light and shadow… and create the most realistic illusions. She even created an array that allows her to see what's actually happened in a place in the recent past, complete with sound."

Izabel had drawn herself up to her full height (which wasn't very much, to be honest), and the Lieutenant General had lost some of the color in his cheeks. "Really." He said faintly. "How… fascinating."

"Isn't it just? Would you like a demonstration? Major Ishtar?"

"Oh, oh that won't be necessary, no, no, no…" The man said, holding up both hands and putting on a very large, very fake smile.

"Oh, but you just have to see it." Al continued, still twirling the cigarette and smiling like a little boy who'd just put a frog in his sister's underwear drawer. Izabel had her chalk out, her eyes going from Al to the Lt. General and back again.

"We have a sighting." She said, breaking into the tense silence that had sprung up.

Al's head snapped around suddenly, his little game of Torment the Jackass forgotten. "Show me."

"How can people live like this?" Alphonse asked, the horror he felt reflecting in his grey eyes as he walked through the encampment.

"You can get used to anything. And as they say, a body at rest tends to stay at rest." Izabel said, her face as composed as a statue's. "These people are bodies at rest."

"I notice…" the tall blond drawled, "that you seem to be drawing more looks than I am. Why is that?"

"Because I am a beautiful woman, and you, Alphonse, are a pasty man in funny clothing." Izabel said without missing a beat. Al arched an eyebrow, and the woman sighed. "It's very complicated and not any of your business."

"Alright. Now, which way?" Al sighed. He knew when he should push and when he should let sleeping dogs lay.

"Just follow your nose. We're looking for the reek of alcohol." Izabel wrinkled her nose in distaste. "According to rumors, if the man is Scar, he's fallen a long way from the mighty hero I've heard so many stories about."

"Hero?" Al asked, cocking his head to one side, his grey eyes boring into the back of Izabel's dark head. "He was a mass murderer, you know."

"One country's mass murderer is another country's hero, Alphonse."

"Mm." Al looked around him, pursing his lips and running a hand through his hair. "True. But it's really sad when a nation's hero is a mass murderer."

Izabel gave him a long, hard look before letting out a sigh. "Such is life, Alphonse."

"You're too young to be so cynical."

"You're too old to be so lighthearted."

"You're only as old as you feel."

"Then I should be getting my pension about now. We're here." She pointed to a particularly large, grubby tent. A man stumbled out, clutching a bottle as if it were a life preserver. Izabel wrinkled her nose as the man staggered past.

"Off we go, into the breach…" Al sighed, reaching for the tent flap.

"What do you mean 'we', kimosabe? As I recall, Scar kills people like me."

"That was a long time ago."

"I'll stand guard out here, thanks."

"Wouldn't think you'd be afraid of going into a bar."

"Alphonse, I have the utmost respect for you." Izabel took three large steps forward, closing the distance between herself and the much taller blond. She looked up at him, menace in her eyes as she touched the small arrays etched into her rings, letting them cover her fingers in hard, sharp metal sheathes. "But I am not going in there. Not even if the Furher himself ordered me to." She held one of the claws up under Al's nose. "Am I clear?"

"Like crystal." Al said, giving her a little smile and a pat on the head. He knew when she was actually angry and when she was just making a point. Izabel was more or less an open book to him. "I won't be long."

Heads turned as the tall blond man entered the tent city bar. His gray eyes scanned the drinkers until they came to rest on a familiar profile. He slid gracefully into the seat next to the larger, older man and ordered a drink in passable Ishbalan.

Scar turned a red eye on the newcomer beside him. There was something familiar about the man, but Scar could not quite place it through the haze that covered his mind.

The young man did not speak again until after his drink arrived. "Still out to kill all the State Alchemists?" he asked softly.

Scar looked back up from his glass to meet the gray-eyed gaze head on. "I… know you…"

"I once asked you if you thought I was human."

"…Alphonse…"

"In the flesh." The man said with a nod.

"…What do you want?"

"To help you." Alphonse said.

"I don't need help." Scar growled into his glass, turning away from the younger man.

Al's eyes traveled over Scar's worn, tired face, then around the dive of a bar, then to Scar's drink. "Are you sure?"

"Very." Scar rose unsteadily to his feet, glaring down at the younger man. Alphonse looked up at him.

"Someone is pretending to be you." He said quietly, meeting Scar's gaze steadily. "He's killing people, and it's making life even harder for Ishbalans than it already is."

"I don't…"

The world would never know what Scar didn't do, for at that moment his body decided that enough was enough, and that it wanted to lay down RIGHT NOW.

"Well." Al said to himself as Scar crashed to the floor. "That makes the next part a bit easier."