A.C.: Hah, thanks for the reviews. Nice to know that people actually reads this :D No action in this one, mostly explanations. Mostly.
Summary: Upon finding the diary of the legendary Phoenix Alchemist, Edward is thrown into a plot long since launched into motion by the fabled war hero...
Timeline: Sometime before Hughes is dead.
Warnings: oocness, grammar/structure/spelling mistakes, spoilers?
"Phoenix Alchemist"
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"His name was Ryan Mogust"
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"He's a legend,"
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"He's a taboo"
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"It's said that he created a legendary item"
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"He's still alive..."
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"Ryan Mogust... the Phoenix Alchemist is you?"
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A general of an army,
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A cocky womanizer,
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One who suffers...
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Roy Mustang slowly nodded.
"The Flame Alchemist was my mother." looking back at Ed, he gently adds, "I took her name after she retired."
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Children were precious, miraculous things.
She brushes a loose strands of gold from the cherubic face, wondering where all the time had gone.
A red dragon painted on the wall glares irately at her. She looks back at the giant gold eyes, her gray eyes softening.
The time had not gone anywhere, it was she who had moved on.
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"Why didn't you tell us!" Ed snarls, furious at the older alchemist in front of him. "You could have told us...! You could have spared us from all this meaningless...!"
Mustang didn't even flinch
"Of course," Ed says bitterly, "You wanted to use me as your goddamned lapdog."
"I will not deny that you were useful but that wasn't my point."
"Oh and what was Flame? Or is it Phoenix!"
"Maybe if I had gotten to you earlier, yes, I would have stopped you. But Edward..." with one gloved finger, Roy taps the automail arm. "It wouldn't have necessarily done anything. You would have still gone on trying to revive your mother."
There is a shocked silence as Edward tries to recollect himself.
"You... you...!"
"Do you know why I was named the Phoenix?"
Edward shakes his head, somewhat thrown off guard.
The blond had wondered about that. Their names were not something given lightly to them, the aliases were chosen with care, like shoes of a horse... or a collar to a dog...
They were tailored to fit, just like Fullmetal and his affinity for metal, Flame and his control over fire.
Phoenix and miracles.
With a sad smile Mustang lay his gun down to lean against the wall. Tugging at the blue sleeves, he slips out his jacket before working on the shirt beneath.
Edward's face blushes a lovely shade of pink as the General frees one arm from the confines of his clothing.
The left arm is exposed to the nights air, the yellow glow from the window illuminating the web of scars that extends from behind the shoulders to arching well below the elbows.
"As you might have known already, I tried to bring back my father when I was eight. I wanted to know what he looked like, I wanted to see who it was that made my mother cry herself to sleep every night. I wanted to yell at him, I wanted to bring him back and kill him myself."
Edward's face pales marginally,
"I just wanted to know who he was..."
It is as if he has been caught in a whirlpool of his life,
"I was young, I was foolish and I almost paid for it with my life."
His face was grim, tense, almost as if expecting a verbal attack from the short blond.
"Luckily, or rather unluckily, my losses do not have many outward signs."
The gloved hand brushes through the ebony locks.
"I lost some of the bones of my arm... and the rib over my heart."
Roy nods at the house,
"The Rockbells were as well known as they are now, I had the bone replaced. I was lucky I didn't loose my entire arm."
"But you use an array... you're useless in rain!"
Roy rolls his eyes at the word 'useless'.
"I'm getting to that part. Seeing what I created and killed, being chewed out by my mother didn't stop me. In fact it encouraged me further. In 1897, without my mother's consent, I changed my name and became the Phoenix Alchemist... it was raining that day..."
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It was raining hard enough to flood Amestris out of existence.
"Roy? What are you doing here?"
"I'm doing it mom, I'm going to be a state alchemist."
The expression on his mother's face was enough to make him want to swallow back the words. But he couldn't turn back now, he couldn't, wouldn't. Hardening his eyes, he gave his mother a curt bow.
"I'm sorry."
Neither knew who had said the two words.
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"I was never useless in the rain, only afraid. Afraid of risking repeating the past, afraid I will become what I was. Afraid of the responsibility, afraid of what the word 'Phoenix' meant to me after all these years."
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He relished the attention he was given through the foggy vision. The rain had lightened, just a tad, but the cold drizzle was still falling, twisting down the collar of his jacket. The mud stuck stickily to the bottom his boots, he could see the fuhrer staring at him.
'One day...'
There was a sign,
He tensed,
Then relaxed.
He held out his hand and the world exploded around him.
Later people would claim that the sky had burst into colorful flames. They went on about how a gigantic fire bird had consumed the boy in a conflagration of ashes. How despite of the danger, the boy charmed the crowd and kept the fire at bay. How the judges had named him on the spot, the youngest State Alchemist of the century, the Phoenix Alchemist.
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"Do you see now Edward? Do you understand why I kept this away from you?"
Edward shakes his head once more.
"No," Edward answered hoarsely, "It doesn't matter now does it?"
Roy gave him another sad smile,
"It matters, just... not as much as it should."
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She picks through the pages delicately, almost as if she was dealing with a rare orchid. Her fingers dance frivolously across the margins, eager but at the same time hesitant to touch.
She could already see the array, painted stroke for stroke like a masterpiece on the walls and the ceiling. The curves and twists took a life of their own, curling into feathers of mighty wings forming the magnificent image of a phoenix.
The phoenix...
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The sky was inky midnight, only the stretch of stars illuminating the night. They stood side by side, neither saying a word, neither offering words of comfort.
"...I lost your journal."
"Ah..."
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"He has returned."
A swish of floral perfume, ghost dancing in the moonlight.
"Yes"
She would no longer need Pride for momentary comforts... it had been so long since she had a lover...
"He won't be missed?"
"No, he will be tried for treason."
A smile, a dip to the floor and her hair brushing against the ground.
"Good."
"Of Lust?"
"Hmm..."
The Colonel-turned-General was an infamous womanizer in central, a coy look from Lust would have him wrapped around her razor nails faster than one could snap.
"She might still be of use, I will keep her for now."
"Yes mistress Dante."