Chapter Three: Limbo
Scar rolled over, breathing in deeply. He could smell the warm cinnamon dust of his homeland. Slowly he opened his eyes and squinted. Where were his sunglasses? The room seemed impossibly bright, or maybe he was just used to the dark.
Sitting up, he gazed around the room. It was a typical Ishbalan home, made by honest human hands, with clay of the earth, and white mortar. He was home.
Someone was sitting by his bed.
"Nii-san, is that you?" Scar asked the shape at his side.
"Hey, Camelspit, who else would it be?"
Scar smiled in spite of himself "I don't know, puke-for-brains."
"Feeling any better, dorkus?
"Yeah, I think so, retardo. Thanks."
"Let me see if your fever has gone down, Little Brother." Scar's older brother felt his forehead, "Yeah seems like you're going to live... what a shame." He mock-grimaced at Scar.
"Looks like you're stuck with me." He smirked back. It was so good to see his brother again.
"So can I ask you what in the Living God you were doing wandering the desert all alone like that?"
"I... um..." Scar wracked his brain, trying to remember what exactly he'd been doing...the truth was, he couldn't remember anything leading up to his awakening in this bed. He ran his hand through his hair, but stopped on his forehead, as he felt the familiar smoothness of the old scar, sending a vague uneasiness through him, something was wrong, although he couldn't pinpoint what it was. He had been at West Headquarters, that was the last he remembered. And now he was all the way in Ishbal. How had he gotten here?
"So where have you been all this time?" Scar's nii-san broke through his tangled thoughts.
"I . .. Uh. .. " This wasn't right. . . his mind told him this was a memory from before the massacre. . . and yet, he knew the Massacre had occurred. This was clearly when they were both young. . .before the rift had grown between them. Before lust had twisted his brother's soul into an unrecognizable shape. Before she had driven a wedge between them, before she had tempted his brother away from Isbalah's teachings into the heresy of alchemy.
An image appeared in his mind, and he was at once revolted and fascinated by it. All at once it was his brother's lost love, the woman he had coveted, and also the hideous product of the alchemy his brother had performed. On that day his brother had lost more than he thought in that so-called equivalent exchange. In Scar's mind, that was the day he lost his brother, and the day his brother lost him along with his mind and his future.
The image shifted again, and it was someone he didn't recognize right away. She had the same complexion as the woman he had coveted for all these years, but this face was angular, her hair was bleached and in a severe cut. and a red eye was emblazoned on her forehead.
Then he remembered what had happened immediately before arriving. . . wherever he was. . . was he dead? Did that heretic kill him?
"Has she?" A voice said behind him. He was no longer in his old house, but somewhere unrecognizable as any place on Earth. It seemed to be fluctuating between several places he had been, and some seemed like places he'd only been to in dreams.
For all this, the voice, although he had never actually heard it before, was immediately recognizable.
Scar fell on his face, cowering at the simple two-word question like it had issued from the mouth of Ishbalah himself, and maybe it had been. Scar certainly thought so. "You chose laws of alchemy over My Laws, and so you bound yourself by the rules of the alchemist. If you wish to return to life, you must give up something of equal value in return. That is Equivalent Exchange."
"But I. . . This arm. . . my brother. . . " he knew arguing would only make things worse. . . What could he say that Ishbalah didn't already know? If Ishbalah chose to turn his wrath towards him, then it wasn't within Scar's right to argue, but still his mouth wouldn't obey Scar's sense of divine authority. What did he have to lose now, a part of him insisted, he might as well burn as a man-eating lion as much as a spitting camel, "I didn't want this!" He shouted, brandishing his tattooed arm, "If I turned away from You it's your fault! Where were You when Your people were slaughtered? When we were crying out for Your help! Where were you when she lay dying? Or when my idiot of a brother decided to try to bring her back? Or when he marred his body with these hateful signs? Where were You? Where were-"
But he couldn't continue. A shooting pain like a firebrand tore through his mind in the shape of an 'X' and molten blood oozed in his temples and down the veins in his neck , and into his right arm, coalescing in hot clots of pain, which burned his skin in patterns matching his tattoo, and matching his hate.