A/N: God, I haven't written fanfiction for over a year now. This feels decidedly odd and I'm nervous, but oh well.

FMA is my current thing – this is, I suppose, AU. It wasn't AU when I first started planning it(bloody canon continuation)but no other stories seem to worry about that sort of thing. XD It will have OCs in it, but apparently I've got some sort of ability in not turning them into Sues… I don't know, that's just what I've been told. If it turns out not to be true, please tell me otherwise. XD Anyway, this was at first set between the Exam and Lior, but a sudden attack of the Canon Monster destroyed that, and now I've frankly no idea when it takes place. Most FMA fics seem to float in a strange and timeless environment, oddly enough.

Moreso than the OCs, though, I'm worried about keeping the canons in-character. So, if I slip too severely on the characterisation of, well, anybody, please pull me up on it – I won't bite, falme or remove any articles of clothing from anybody, as long as the critics can spell.

Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist does not belong to me. If there's a character in this who you don't recognise, they probably do belong to me. If you want to steal them I don't mind, but it signifies a dire lack of good taste on your part. XD

Chapter One – Of Hairy Soup and Carnivals

-

How very odd peace seemed after such a long period of general madness.

For once, nothing strange seemed to be happening. Trees slashed past the window, the rolling fields which stretched to the cornflower-blue sky were golden in the afternoon light; Edward and Alphonse Elric were the only passengers in their compartment, possibly in the entire train, and for a few hours at least nothing had gone wrong.

Of course, Ed seemed to thrive on chaos. When there was none to be had, he tended to create more.

"There's a hair in my soup," he said, his voice dangerously low. Sprawled on the seat amidst a great tangle of plates and bowls seemingly kept from cascading onto the floor by inertia alone, he was holding a mug at eye level and glaring into it with a hawklike intensity. When there was no immediate response, he repeated, "Al. There's a hair in my soup."

Alphonse regarded him, wondering what to say. In situations like these, where food was at stake, there was a fine line between giving Ed advice that would be accepted and giving Ed advice that would send him into a howling rage.

"Maybe you should take it out," Al suggested, a little timidly. "And then re-boil it, to kill the germs."

"But I paid for this," Ed growled. "I paid for chicken soup with little dry bits in it, I didn't pay to eat somebody else's hair!"

"Do you want me to go ask for another mug?" Al asked, wincing internally with the memory of the fuss that Ed had kicked up when the train chef hadn't understood his abstract requests for croutons. And then there had been the row over how the soup was not to be made with milk. The staff had been eager to please an apparently rare pair of real-life alchemists, but after ten minutes the novelty had begun to wear loose and they had told him that they would make his soup with soy milk for an extra cost, but would not forego creamy white liquid altogether.

"Excuse me," Ed said as a porter brushed past. She seemed inclined to keep walking – indeed, she seemed to hurry up a little – but he reached out and grabbed her sleeve, his metal fingers clinking as they closed. Squeaking, she turned back to him; Al couldn't see her face, but he could see Ed's, and his brother looked decidedly ferocious for such a little thing.

"Y- yes sir?"

"There appears to be a hair in my soup." At that, Ed plucked a fine thread from the surface of the mug and held it out to her. "I know there's a war on, but soup costs more than enough without it having hairs in it. I could have died!"

"Died? From what?" Al asked, confused.

Ed looked at him sideways, warning him with a look not to spoil the atmosphere of drama before he managed to coax this girl into giving him a refund. "I might not look it, but I have a sensitive stomach. I'm allergic to all sorts of things. If I had digested a single scalp germ…" Leaning back, he shut his eyes long-sufferingly, as if the pain of talking about it was costing him greatly. "I could have been infected, and died."

Realising what his brother was doing, Alphonse piped up eagerly, "he's been like this ever since he was little. If he eats a piece of fresh bread that someone else has breathed on, he breaks out in hives!"

"That must be terrible for you," the girl said, a little sceptically.

"Oh, it is," Ed sighed. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for a refund, that was my last penny and I can't eat this soup now."

"What about him?" the girl asked, nodding toward Al, who quailed slightly.

"I'm allergic to wheat," he blurted out, and she raised her eyebrows.

"So," she said, looking back at Ed with some bewilderment, "you can't eat… anything, and he can't eat wheat?"

"Nothing that's been tainted by other people's germs, like those carried in hair," Ed said. "I'm always searching for food, but it's so hard to find… I think I'm going to starve before long…"

"Oh, so you're malnutritioned?" the porter asked. Ed opened one golden eye and glanced at her forebodingly, and before Al could warn her, she continued, "is that why you're so short?"

Silence descended upon the entire train like a vale of rain, broken only by the whirring of the gears; it lasted for all of a second, before Ed flipped from a seated position into a vertical position in a remarkable feat of flexibility. He began to wave his hands in the astonished porter's face as Al turned away, trying not to snicker.

"Who are you calling a speck so miniscule he could drown in a rain-drop?"

"I- I didn't say that," she protested, backing away. With a crash, the towers of plates descended upon the floor, sending china and soup spraying in all directions. Al took a piece of chalk from his apron pocket – he always made sure to carry one around with him, he never knew when he'd be separated from Ed and need to use alchemy himself – and unhurriedly scratched a transmutation circle onto the floor while Ed abused the unfortunate porter at length.

"That's why you gave me the hairy soup, isn't it? You're prejudiced! You're prejudiced against people who aren't as freakishly tall as you are! Well, you know what? My brain doesn't have to control as much body as yours does, which is probably why I'm smart and you're stupid!"

Clapping a hand down on either side of the circle, Al concentrated for a few moments – it wasn't easy, what with all the distractions – and the shouting stopped abruptly as both Ed and the porter, who was now in tears, looked over to see the source of the white light which now shone around the cabin, splashing on the sunset-dappled walls.

Outside, the fields were broken only by the occasional scribble of fence, line of trees or a rare farmhouse, but in the distance could be seen rising smoke, which had to be the sign of some sort of civilisation. Alphonse lifted his hands and got to his feet with a clanking of steel. On the floor where there had previously been shattered ceramic and scraps of half-eaten food, there were now five plates, two bowls, two mugs and a pie that Al had added for a stylish touch. He'd had to use the food for something, at least.

The porter fled sobbing, and Ed sat back down, acting as if nothing had happened.

"Very nice," he said, and grabbing the pie from the floor took a bite out of it. Muffled by a mouthful of meat and vegetables and hopefully hairless gravy made from the remains of the soup, he added, "it's a good pie, you should go professional."

"Brother," Al protested, "you don't know what's been on that floor."

"My feet," Ed said abstractly, and chewed happily.

A few minutes later, the manager came round in a storm of glory. Vertically challenged in such a way as to rival Ed and without the latter's sinew, he was a spherical and theoretically unimpressive little man; his face was so red and his voice so loud, however, that Alphonse cringed as he found himself being bailed up against the wall by an accusing finger.

"We need the money," the manager barked, "but we don't need it that much. You come in, you yell, you're rude to the staff, poor Jennie is drafting her resignation letter right now! You eat all our food!"

"Actually," Ed said, "that was me."

"No it wasn't," the manager corrected him. "Jennie said it was the older brother."

Alphonse hurriedly restrained Ed, clapping a hand over his mouth before he could yell something incriminating. "I'm sorry, sir," Al said.

"Sorry isn't good enough. Next stop, you're getting off this train!"

"But we can't," Ed protested, wriggling free of his brother's grasp, "we're state alchemists, we're on a mission."

Al decided that it wouldn't be prudent to remind Ed at that particular moment that they were only so urgently pressed for time because the Fullmetal Alchemist had been procrastinating admirably for three weeks.

"Then you can damn well find another train!" The manager turned his back on them. "All our employees are going to the war, even the women. It's a desperate situation. We can't afford to lose any more because of little pre-teen buffoons like you."

Quickly, Alphonse silenced Ed again. The manager disappeared down the corridor, slamming the door behind him. Releasing Ed, who sputtered for breath but didn't show any inclination to chase the manager and set him straight on a number of things, Al sighed and looked out the window. It was getting dark.

"You're so good at getting us in trouble, brother," he said accusingly, "you should channel that effort into your alchemy, you could end the war if you tried."

"No I couldn't, Al," Ed replied, and grinned, seeming to be quite pleased with himself. "And hey, we're alchemists, we'll find another train and pay for it with alchemy. I've got it all worked out. Trust me, Al – I know everything!"

Twenty minutes later, they were cast from the train doors by a pair of burly guards who had sprung seemingly from nowhere. Realising that his suitcase had remained on the train, Ed pursued it along the track, yelling and waving like a maniac while Al stood, a resigned statue, near the entrance of the station. Eventually the case was cast from an open window, and another few minutes passed while the two Elric brothers hunted for the coins that had scattered across the concrete.

"Well," Ed said, seating himself on an uncomfortable wooden bench, "now we wait. Another train'll come along in no time at all."

Silently, Al pointed at a sign on the gate. Leaning forward and squinting to see it in the mostly-dark, Ed let his face fall forward into his hands and swore softly.

It read Station Closed Indefinitely – No Trains Until Further Notice.

"How do we get ourselves into these situations?" Ed wondered out loud as they walked down a deserted street.

"I think it's because you upset people," Al offered, kicking a stone; it whizzed away into the distance and broke a window, and he looked at his own foot in disbelief, before dashing over to repair the damage. Ed waited for him, and once he was done, they kept walking.

Broken streetlights cast a pallid light on the seemingly empty lines of houses, giving the entire place an eerie feel. They had been walking for nigh on ten minutes, searching for a hotel or even a sign of human life, but the place appeared to be a ghost town; not even the cry of an owl disturbed the silence, just the scuffing of the brothers' feet on the dusty road. Old cars were lined in the gutter, with their owners nowhere in sight.

As they paused at a crossroad, Ed looked around and commented, "someone usually attacks us about now."

"Or something," Al added.

Silence.

"Hello?" Ed called into the darkness, gazing down the road to where it disappeared amongst trees. "Is anybody there?" He was quiet for a moment, then yelled "hello!" so loudly that if Al had possessed ears, they would have rung.

Another moment's silence. Nervously, Ed and Al glanced at each other; they were just about to start walking again when a withered hand fell on Ed's shoulder. Yelping with shock, he whirled around, his blond braid slapping against Al's armour as he did so; he was just about to clap his hands together and make something explode when he realised that the creature that had snuck up behind them was not a homunculus bent on homicide, but an old woman.

"G-good evening," he stuttered, trying to force his pulse rate to slow down. It wasn't his fault that he was jumpy – this town wasn't exactly welcoming.

"What are you two doing wandering around on your own?" she asked, her voice crackling like fallen autumn leaves. Her face was so heavily lined that Ed could barely see her eyes, but they were just visible, a clear sky-blue that was the only thing fair about her. She resembled nothing more than an apple, fine and rosy, which had been left out in the sun until it withered and wrinkled into a husk. Somehow, she made Al shiver; he wondered how old she was.

"We're looking for an inn," Al explained, trying not to let the quaver into his voice. At least he didn't have to worry about embarrassing voice breaks – Ed suffered from them occasionally, and they were always accompanied by a bright red face and a sudden silence on the Fullmetal Alchemist's part. "We're stranded here tonight. Our train… uh… it broke down," he lied.

"Well," she croaked, "there'd be hotels nearer the centre of town. I don't know about staff, though. They might all be at the carnival."

Adjusting his cloak, Ed smiled at her, trying to look like the very picture of a grateful teenager. As much as he disliked it when people older than he made automatic assumptions about youth, it was always best not to fan the flames too much; of course, he had forgotten his performance of an hour before, which had quite probably done a great deal of harm to the national teenage population's reputation, at least with the staff of the train. On the other hand, maybe it had only blighted Ed's reputation, which was already so stained as to be almost opaque. Hopefully Colonel Mustang wouldn't hear about it.

Al, however, had other, more important things on his mind.

"Carnival?" he asked, tilting his head questioningly with a screech of rusty metal. "Ouch… Ed, remind me to polish that later. Did you just say 'carnival,' ma'am?"

"No, Alphonse," Ed warned him.

"Oh… but, brother…"

"It's the biggest thing that ever happens in this here village," the old woman told them. "All the kids from the district and beyond go down to watch the magic shows."

"Magic?" Ed repeated, frowning.

"Magic! Those men are wonderful, wonderful magicians. They travel around, some of them, but a lot of them come from the village. They do magic during the rest of the year, of course, but they do it for show on the carnival nights, and such incredible things they do with it too! They can make fire, and they can freeze water quicker than you'd blink your eye!"

"Sounds like alchemy, doesn't it, Al," Ed commented.

"No, it's not alchemy," the woman said eagerly, "alchemy's no use to anybody, it's too scientific, too confusing for commoners like us."

"Well, that's not surprising," Ed growled, "considering it's a science and all. And it's not that hard to figure out…"

"Brother," Al pleaded, "can't we go, just for an hour or so? I haven't been to a carnival since… since Mum…"

"Al, we have stuff we need to do," Ed said, while the woman smiled and walked away. They both watched her go, hobbling up the street, with some surprise at this sudden departure; then Ed sighed and looked at the toes of his boots, frustrated. "We can't waste any more time."

"It won't take that long, we'd only go for an hour! And it would be fun, and it would… make me feel closer to Mum, somehow… like she was almost still alive."

"She's not. Carnivals are just wastes of money, anyway," Ed said, although he could feel himself wavering at the plea in his brother's voice.

"But don't you remember that night?"

He did indeed. Long brown hair and laughing grey eyes, shell-pale fingers trying to stop wisps of the hair from catching in a melting ice cream; watching a fire-eater and crying into her skirt in a moment of certainty that the man had set himself alight; screaming at a sudden break of horses, the distress almost immediately replaced by wonder as they bent their heads to see, their huge black eyes like pools of night; Alphonse eating one too many corn dogs and throwing up, back when he had been able to eat; things that glittered, things that sparkled, things that tasted sweet, and his mother's laughter overall. And at the end of the night, being carried home half-asleep, he over one of her shoulders, his brother over the other.

"Sure I remember," Ed replied, and shaking his head, smiled a little sadly. "Mum's not here, Al. It won't be the same. And seeing all those people there, laughing and eating and having fun… you know it'll just depress you…"

"No it won't," Al insisted. "Really, Ed, I just want to see all those people. It's just for fun, I want to watch the magic shows and see other people having a good time, not fighting and killing each other. It's been so long since we've done anything like this."

"You know the magic will just be alchemy, right?" Ed asked, and Al nodded. "Are you sure you want to? I mean, I don't mind really, as long as we check into a hotel first and we don't go to bed too late… we do have somebody to piss off, remember, and we can't do that on less than eight hours… or an empty stomach," he added, half to himself. Had Al been able to smile, he would have beamed at these words. Carnivals were a childish sort of pastime, maybe, but still.

"I'm sorry, brother," Al said, "I don't mean to be demanding… it's just, I haven't seen anybody really happy for years. I don't care about not being able to do stuff, I just want to hear people laughing and know it's not because they want something, or because they're planning something, or stuff like that."

"As long as you don't call alchemy magic," El conceded, shrugging. "If it makes you happy, we can do it – I mean, I probably don't let you do enough things these days. Come on," he said, hoisting his suitcase onto one shoulder and setting off in the direction to which the old woman had pointed before seemingly vanishing, "let's find a hotel first."

"Thankyou, Edward!" Alphonse said, laughing a little at his own eagerness as he followed his brother down the still-deserted street. The shadows closed over them, and the only creature left on the road was a scrawny cat, grey tabby and so thin that its eyes bulged like saucers.

A/N: Please review, I fear I've lost my touch and need reassurance to either the positive or the negative. Besides, I tend to return reviews.

Bye!