In the world of Orgrimmar, it is divided into two sides. There is the east side, Thesus, and the west side, The Under City. The two countries are separated by the Bowl of Scrying; it contains the sapphire of Jeubei'Thos, a gem, which was created by the founders of the two countries in order to retain the peace and harmony.
Thesus is the ideal paradise for all. It has many delightful sights such as green fields of crops and corns, grWinrying slowing on the luscious green grass are the purple cows, their hides reflecting the bright sunlight. The flowers are always blooming and the water is sparkling and glistening in the rays of sun.
Farming these lands, are the gleeful Thesusians. Even though they have to work for them to live, they are willing and glad about it. They are usually cheerful and willing to offer a helping hand. Even though they live in plain little cottages, they are content with what they have. In the middle of all these wonderful things, is the tall stunning castle, The Dunningham Palace. Dwelling in its grounds are the royals of Thesus, the king and his daughter and son. They are always trying to find ways to make the citizen's lives easier, whilst preventing the trolls from entering their paradise.
Meanwhile in the other side, The Under City is completely different. It is like comparing heaven to hell. It is a barren wasteland, filled with vultures swooping over the almost inhospitable land. The skies are unusually always dark, with the odd purple cloud. The bone dry earth is spotted will holes, made by the giant trolls, who enslave gnomes, and any other form of life they stumble across. The gnomes must mine for oil; otherwise they get fed to the starving dragons, which are forced to battle for the troll's amusement. Due to lack of sunlight, nothing grows, resulting in the kingdom being very poor. The grounds are littered with wooden huts and fires, built with the wood from the last trees in the Under City. The trolls are forever trying to take over all of Orgrimmar, but are often stopped by the Royals of Thesus.
Suddenly, it just all changed. Thesus started to wilt as though all the life had been sucked out of it. The Jeubei'Thos disappeared. No one knows where it went. It just vanished into the thin air...
Ed poked his head into his sister's room. "Winry! Dad's calling us!" He noticed his sister standing in front of the mirror, brushing her hair in silence. "Again, she's obsessed!" he muttered to himself. "Let's go." He rushed in and dragged her out of her room and down the hallway.
"Hey!" Winry struggled to free herself from her brother's grasp. "Let go!" They stopped outside a large doorway.
"What do you what?"
Shaking his head, Ed sighed. "I just told you. DAD WANTS TO SEE US! DO YOU JUST LOVE YOUR REFLECTION OR SOMETHING" he practically shouted! "No need to shout, you know! RUNT!" Winry just hated her brother so much that she could have almost kicked him there and then!
As she was about to hit him, the door opened…
The king stared at his fighting children. "If only their mother was here to see this." He chuckled to himself, and then coughed loud enough for them to hear him.
"Children! I did not call you here so you could fight!" Winry and Ed looked up her father. "Sorry Dad..." they said in rare unison and then fell silent.
"Now. As you know, the Jeubei'Thos has been stolen, causing our wonderful land to die slowly..."
King Alphonse stared at his children in shock at their confused faces. "You mean to tell me that you don't even know about this!" The King stormed his way over to the shivering children. "Well?"
Ed and Winry just stared at each other. They were shocked. No one had told them anything. A horrible thought entered their heads. If the gem is gone, Theasus was in extreme danger!
"How can the gem be gone?" Ed glared at his father. "That means we're defenseless! The trolls are gonna come and take over!" The king nodded slowly.
"It's true. That's why I need you." King Alphonse looked at his children sadly. "They've sent a ransom note. Unless we send one of you over, they'll destroy the whole palace." Alphonse sat down on his throne again and moaned.
Winry could not take it any longer. She couldn't believe that her father would cave in so easily. "How can we trust them? How do we know they'll keep their promise?"
"We don't. But what other choice to we have?"
"…" Ed sighed. "I'll go."
The king and his daughter looked at him. He was sacrificing himself for his country. A true knight…
"No! I'll do it. You need to go on. You need to fight them. You need to stay!" she said quietly. Tears ran down her cheeks. As Ed was going to refuse, King Alphonse placed his hand on Winry's shoulder. "What your sister said is right. You need to continue on, Winry will go…"
"But!"
"End of discussion." King Alphonse turned his back to them, signaling that they should leave. "Winry, you'll be taken to the borderline at 9am sharp."
Ed and Wnry slowly walked out of the room.
"Why couldn't I go? It's not like I'm gonna rule anytime soon..." Ed looked at his sister. She didn't seem to be sad or anything but she was unusually quiet. "You okay?" He raised an eyebrow suspiciously. Winry eyed her brother.
"Come on. We have to get packing."
"To go where?"
"To go find the Jeubei'Thos of course! You're not going to leave me there with the trolls are you?" Winry ran into her room to start packing. "Always making plans without telling me..." Ed thought, as he stumbled into his messy room. He threw a torch, some matches, his pocketknife and some lollies into the bag. "There, I'm ready!"
"What did you pack?" Winry peeked into her brother's cluttered bag. "You're going to need more than that!" Winry barged into his room and tipped the bag and its contents onto the floor.
"Hey!" Ed put his hands on his hips. "You can't do that!"
"Watch me." Winry put some clothes, Ed's pocketknife, a whistle, and some food and water into the bag. "There." Winry, acting like a mother, stood up, and grabbed one of Ed's hands. She placed a blue, glowing crystal, which was thread onto a chain, into his hand. "Keep it safe." Winry then flounced off to prepare their favorite dragons.
Ed examined the crystal closely. It seemed to have ancient runes etched onto it. He rummaged in his bag to see what Winry had put in it. He then pull out a flute. That had runes etched onto it too. "Where does she find this stuff?" he murmured, as he put the chain around his neck.
Ed walked out towards the stables, scanning the golden fields. "This isn't really happening!" he thought, opening the stable door. He stopped when he saw the dragons. The side bags were full of supplies, no doubt. "When do we leave?"
"Six in the morning." Winry smiled tiredly at her brother, then stumbled off in the direction of her room.
Lord Scar, the ruler of The Under City laughed out loud. He was holding a meeting with his generals to plan how to invade their enemies, Thesus.
One of his strongest warriors had suggested sending back parts of their hostage, whom them were going to retrieve tomorrow, back to their father, the king of Thesus.
Still recovering from his laughing fit, the king said, "That's a lovely idea but I wish Alphonse would send me his daughter. Then, my son, Gluttony will have such a beautiful bride!" At this moment, Troy came in. "Yes, that would be lovely!" he said in a greedy voice. Then all the generals laughed.
Soon the meeting was over and Gluttony retired to his room. It was actually just a dark, wet cave. He sighed. He had to act evil like a witch in front of all the others otherwise he'll be killed like his older brother who against enslaving the gnomes and made the fatal mistake of telling their father. He didn't want to fight in the war, he didn't want to kill and he most certainly didn't want to marry an unknown girl…
"Ed, WAKE UP" Ed opened his eyes slightly. Right in front of his face was Winry's dead white face. He screamed but Winry put her freezing hand on his mouth. "What are you doing? It's time to go!" She said in an urgent whisper! "Come on!" She pulled him up and pushed him into the bathroom and closed the door. It was dark and cold; it was only 5:30am. Suddenly, the door opened and a bunch of clothes flew onto Ed. "Hurry up, put those on and lets get going!"
"Bossy." Ed murmured to himself. Even though he was quite sure Winry heard, she didn't do anything about it.
In 5 minutes, he was ready but he couldn't find Winry. Soon, he realised he was in her room. Winry was sighing deeply and gWinrying into her mirror. Ed knew that she didn't want to leave and she didn't have to. "Winry, stay here. Stay here with father. I'll go as hostage."
In a quiet voice, Winry replied, "We've been through this before, if one of us goes, then the other goes too!" Winry spun to face her brother. "You know that." Winry put her hands on her hips. Ed nodded. They had been through a lot together. "One more thing." Winry walked over to her bedside table and opened the draw. "Are you wearing your crystal?" She pulled out a golden crystal, and put it around her neck.
Ed stared at it. "What is it? And why is there a flute? Where did you get these things?" Ed quickly walked to the stables, followed by his younger sister.
"I'll explain on the way." She gave Ed his backpack, and put on hers. It seemed as though it was about to burst. They mounted their dragons and took off.
"Sire! Wake up Sire!"
A voice rang in the king's head, shattering his horrible nightmare. "What is it?" he demanded, rubbing his eyes.
"They've gone! Their beds are empty!"
King Alphonse quickly got to his feet. "What do you mean they're gone?" The guard quivered. "Their dragons are gone too.." he cringed as he waited for the response.
"Figured they would do that.." King Alphonse sighed. "Always running off.." He saw back down on his bed. "Well, there's nothing we can do now.." The king stared at the ceiling. "Go prepare the troops for an invasion."
The trolls skulked toward the border of the Under City. They were met by King Alphonse and his troops.
"Good morning…brother." King Alphonse hesitated. Lord Scar merely grunted.
"Where's the child?" Lord Scar sneered at his little brother. "I don't see it." He glared at Alphonse.
"It's…I mean she's gone."
"Are you lying to me brother dear? Where did you hide it? Or will I have to raid your town?" Lord Scar knew they weren't half as strong without the jewel, and so his army would win. King Alphonse gulped.
"We..we shall fetch the other child then." King faced one of his guards. "Go fetch Edward." The guard ran off to find a boy with blonde hair. Lord Scar sighed.
"It would have been so much more fun if you had given us the girl.." He turned to leave. "We'll be back in an hour or so." Scar waved as he sauntered back to his kingdom, followed by the other trolls.
King Alphonse wiped his brow. "That was close.." He turned to face the guard he had sent off to find 'Ed'. "Have you found a boy with golden hair yet?"
"Not yet, your Highness."
"Then hurry and find one! We have less than an hour."
The dragons flew over vast, dying fields. "It looks so sad.." Winry murmured, looking down.
"You said you'd explain about." Ed pointed to his glowing crystal, which seemed to be trying to reach his sister's one. Winry nodded.
"I did, didn't I." she sighed, then looked at Ed's eyes. "I found them in the palace once. When we were playing hide and seek." Winry leant over and petted her dragon. "They were attached together, by a note. It said – Two lives. Two hearts joined together in friendship. United forever in love."
"Is that all?" Ed wondered out loud.
"What else do you want?" Winry is really annoyed. "Why is he so stubborn?" she wondered, then continued on. "I thought we could use them to find each other." She looked at Ed. "Incase we get in trouble." She added quickly. "As for the flute-" Winry stopped in mid sentence as her dragon plummeted to the ground.
"Winry!" Ed shouted, diving after her. "Are you ok?" Winry was on the ground, tending her dragon's wing.
"We should have been more careful, seeing as we are flying over the troll territory." She looked at the large hole in the wing with disgust. "To think that they'd be so cruel.."
"It looks like we're stuck here for the night." Ed began gathering sticks to make a fire.
"But what about the things that go bump in the night?"
An hour later, the trolls, King Alphonse and his troops met at the borderline again. "Where is he?" grunted Lord Scar. "Bring out the boy, Alphonse. Give him to me"
A knight came and whispered into Alphonse's ear. Alphonse gasped. They couldn't find any blond boys who are old enough to be 'Edward.'
"He's...gone as well." Alphonse couldn't meet his brother's eyes.
"What did you say? GONE!" Scar loomed over his brother. "What do you mean he's gone?" Scar glared at his brother with pure hatred. "Then, prepare for defeat."
There was a loud shout as the trolls and the humans drew their weapons.
To be continued.
