12 June 1920
Al's feet slipped dangerously on the floor as he sprinted towards the double doors, nearly tripping as he rounded a corner. His heart was pounding in his chest, which heaved in and out as he struggled for air. He had gotten out of shape the past few months.
The guards looked alarm to see him there, but true to their job they wouldn't let him in even when he panted that he needed to see the Empress to give her urgent news. He had to wait for one of them to check whether she wanted to let him in or not.
Finally as he stood there with his hands interlocked behind his head trying to catch his breath (and show the guards he wasn't hiding any weapons — or at least not obviously) the door opened and he was let in.
Mei was still dressed in full robes from the court session about an hour ago, crown in place. Her dark eyes were wide with worry and apprehension. "What is it Ambassador? What's wrong?"
"It has to be told in confidence, Empress. I have strict orders to not let anyone but you hear." She glanced at the guards inside her room, then jerked her head.
"Your Majesty—"
"Just outside the door. You will be able to detect any malicious intent and stop him from there if necessary."
"But Your Majesty—"
"Leave!" The guard nodded stiffly, then they all left.
Mei immediately hurried over to him. "What is it?"
Al took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly, "I am out of shape."
She frowned. "What?"
"I'm really out of shape. I was still recovering from the Gate the last time I had trouble running that far."
"What? Al," she said impatiently, waving her hands. "If that's the problem—"
"No, there isn't a problem. Well I suppose being out of shape is a problem but..."
Her jaw dropped. "What do you mean there isn't one—?"
"Well there is," he amended quick enough to cut her off. "And it's not my shape. I mean… never mind. The problem is that you haven't been outside the Palace walls except on your Ascension parade since being named heir. You're overly stressed and you haven't even been among the people you're supposed to be ruling—"
"Supposed to be?" she asked, eyes narrowing.
"Are," he said quickly. "You are ruling. Which is why I brought this." He pulled a drab blouse that looked almost like a tunic from one of his giant pockets and held it out to her.
"… what?"
Al was convinced he had the Empress utterly confused at this point and couldn't help but smile a little as he tried for an explanation. "It's something you see the peasants wearing around Chengshi a lot. You're going to put it on and we're going to go out and see the Capital as it was meant to be seen — from the streets and not from the Palace."
She stared at him, not saying anything as her mouth opened and closed. Finally, she managed to choke out the words "Where on earth did you get an idea like this? Why would you think I'd go along with it? Why did you lie to me and my guards? Alphonse!"
"Mei," he said firmly, reaching out and grabbing her arms so he could look directly into her arms. "I told you I was going to be your friend, but we haven't even had a single one-on-one conversation since. So I'm being a friend and staging an intervention. No one will notice you if you're not in your Empress attire. Everyone in the Palace probably saw me running in here. They'll think you're involved in a priority meeting with me about Amestris. Your guards already have order to leave us along in here. Two hours."
"Two hours?"
"That's it. Two hours in the city. I can show you my favorite places and we can get something to eat. Then we'll come back and I leave to call Fuhrer Mustang to keep up pretenses. No one will have to know."
She stared at him as if she had never seen a creature quite like him in her entire life. "You're really serious about his aren't you?"
"I am."
Mei bit her lip, then called for her main guard. Al made a sound of complaint, but she silenced him with a look.
"The Ambassador and I have urged business to attend to," she said in a whisper. "No one can know we are gone. Keep up all pretenses that we are still here. We will be unaccompanied. I can take care of myself and no one will even know we're gone."
Lien Ma grit his teeth and glared at Al (who had marshalled his face into a worried and anxious expression) but nodded.
"Good."
Mei took the tunic from Al's hand, then smiled, eyes shining differently than Al thought he had ever seen them. They looked very nice when she smiled like that.
"Look away while I'm changing."
Al grinned.
It was tricky getting out of her room and then the throne room, but Al managed to get his hands on some cheap dye that turned his hair an odd dark color. If anyone looked closely at him they would be able to tell from his gold eyes that he wasn't anything near Xingese, but for sneaking out of the Palace it did well enough.
As soon as they actually reached fresh air, Al took a deep breath and grinned widely at Mei, who looked uncomfortable in the abrasive clothing he had managed to sneak in for her.
"Is it the wrong size? I could only guess—"
"It's not that, Al," she said quickly. "It's just… I haven't worn anything like this is in four or five years. It's… uncomfortable to go back to. My family was poor for so long… I don't like having to go back." Al's brow creased, but he nodded.
"I can only imagine what it'd be like to have to go back to that armor. I don't know what I might do," he eventually settled on answering.
"How has it been, really? We've never gotten the chance to talk about it."
Al smiled, a real genuine smile as he started walking towards the bustling city outside the Palace. She fell into step beside him. "It's been amazing Mei. I don't even know how to describe it. Just… everything. I love it all. Being able to breath, eat, feel, even get sick! The first time I got a cold, I nearly cried every time I blew my nose because I had actually gotten sick."
Mei smiled at him, tucking her arms around her as she walked. "Well I'm glad at least someone in the world can be happy to be sick."
"Well, I'm not so happy about it anymore, but it was fun at the time. I still love the rain though. When the monsoons came, Rikui and Fei had to keep track of me all the time to make sure I wasn't spending all of my time out in it."
"You were trying to go out into that?" she asked with a raised eyebrow, which only cause Al's smile to widen. It was about a ten minute walk from the palace to the city itself, so the nobility could be close enough to the city to get what they needed without actually having to interact with the peons of society. If there was anyone coming the other direction they might think it was odd that these two apparent peasants were walking away from the Palace at all. Luckily, very few people traveled that direction.
"Yes, I was actually. You're not the first person to call my crazy for it."
"Not just crazy, lucky for having survived it. I'm amazed you didn't get sick, or got hit on the head by a tree branch or something. The monsoons were bad this year."
"Well I couldn't avoid getting sick completely, I got sick a couple of times actually. You don't remember? I couldn't even drag myself out of bed, let alone go to court."
He step faltered for a bit before she continued walking. When he voice next spoke it was quieter. "No… I don't remember."
"It's alright. I mean, you were pretty busy with the… uh… I think it was treaties with Xiongnu."
"Right. I was pretty preoccupied with that."
There was silence as they continued down the road before Al decided to break it. "But no more politics. Ling talked enough politics to make me dizzy. For the next two hours—"
"Hour and a half," she corrected. "We've easily spent half an hour trying to get out of the palace."
"Fine. For the next hour and a half, you are not the Empress and I am not an Ambassador. We're just two people who are going to go out and enjoy the city."
"And you're some… half Xingese, half Xerxian are you?"
"Precisely. I actually found a very interesting account in the library a few months ago about the Western Sage. Apparently the First Emperor offered him one of his daughters for a wife?"
Mei shrugged. "I wouldn't be able to tell you, but that doesn't surprise me. Back then, there was no chance for a daughter of the Emperor to become Empress. The best they could do was get married off. A powerful alchemist like the Western Sage, who taught our people what would eventually become alkahestry? I'd probably offer him one of my daughters for wife too."
"You wouldn't."
"I don't know Alphonse, just think how close you came to have Xingese great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great—"
"Mei!"
"—great-great-great-great-great nieces and nephews!" She was smiling now in her teasing, and Al didn't think he had seen anything that made him happier the entire time he had been in Xing.
"Please don't say something like that," he said, even though he wanted to tell her how beautiful he thought her smile was. "The thought's just far too weird…"
"I have forty-two siblings, Alphonse."
"Yes, but none of them have been dead for hundreds of years. I mean, really, he lived for four hundred years. Ed and I don't know if we do have any relatives. That's not exactly a conversation that came up in the two or three hours I actually knew the man."
"Well did the records say that he accepted the wife?"
"No, it says he turned the Emperor down. Thanked him for her generosity, but turned him down. But that's not to say there weren't other women over the years. There are no records of other marriages, but then again, there aren't any official records of his and Mom's marriage. I'd like to believe that Mom was the only one that he loved enough to want to have children with – Granny told us that he was terrified when he found out that he was going to be a father. So I can't imagine him exactly going around having kids lightly. Then again… I don't know."
"I didn't know your father very well," Mei said, starting off slowly. "And I spent a lot of that time crying over your dead body – well, armor. But the way he was willing to sacrifice everything to help you and Ed… I can only imagine that you two meant the world to him. And I don't think that would come from a man who's had other relationships over the years.
Al smiled at her, which she returned. Their hands brushed, and Al acted on the sudden impulse to grab her hand.
"That's not a royal no-no, is it?" he asked, raising an eyebrow when she looked sharply at him. She visibly flushed before pushing back her shoulders.
"But you forget Alphonse. I'm not the Empress. I'm just Mei Chang." Then she smiled at him and ran forwards the last few yards separating them from the city, dragging him behind her.
"And where is your enthusiastic friend today, Mr. Al?"
"I told you, Song," Al remarked with a smile. "It's not Mr. Al, it's just Al. I come her so often, I might as well be keeping you in business."
Song chuckled, dropping the dumpling in a paper bag and handing them over as Al counted his money.
"And I greatly appreciate it, Mr. Al."
Al shook his head, then handed over the money. "Fei couldn't come with me today. So I'm showing Mei around Chengshi." Mei was standing a distance away from Al, who was buying them lunch. She was standing at the edge of the street, watching people bustle by with a fascinated look in her eye.
"Ah, yes, the young beauty. She is quite something. Is she another noble?"
"I'm afraid not. I don't only associate with the rich people on the hill, Song. I'm talking to you aren't you?"
"You're also a crazy foreigner." Al laughed along with the vendor, who threw his whole head back when he laughed and almost shook the cart with the force of the laugh.
"Too true, my friend. Too true. No, Mei's just new to Chengshi."
"She holds herself like one. If you two aren't careful, you're going to get yourself mugged."
"Thanks for the tip, Song, but we might have more than a few surprises for someone who tries to mug us. Thanks for everything, really. And stop calling me Mister."
"Of course, Mr. Al." He waved the tongs in lieu of using an actual hand as Al shook his head and made his way over to where Mei stood, offering her the bag.
"I've sampled a lot of different food here in the city and got food poisoning a couple of time, but I've never tasted anything better than Song's dumplings."
She reached her hand into to grab one of the dumplings, then stared at it for a few moments.
"Do you want me to check it for poison first? Because if you insist, I would be perfectly happy to check all of them for poison before you eat. Wouldn't want you to get hurt after all."
"Oh really?"
"In fact, I think he might have even been dastardly enough to poison only one side of the dumpling, so I'll have to check both sides on all of them."
"Right," she said dryly. "Thank you for the offer, but I think I'll take my chances."
"Taking your responsibility to the throne lightly are we?" he asked with a grin, before it quickly faded. "Wait, no, I shouldn't have said that. Not something to joke about, I'm sorry. I didn't mean in any way—"
"It's fine Al. Really. You were just joking."
All the same, he could tell something about his words had affected her. She had flinched when he said it, then avoided looking him in the eye afterwards – though she did start nibbling on the dumpling.
"Really… I'm sorry."
"It's okay."
He sighed, then looked to the side, watching the flow of traffic. People were hurrying up and down the streets, buying food and entering shops. Yelling and haggling and discussing and even in some cases slapping each other. Al had to hold back a grin.
"Let me make it up to you," he said suddenly.
"Hmm?"
"Let me make it up to you. I'll give you a ride all the way back to the Palace."
"What?" she asked, staring directly at him. The attention made a slight knot in his chest loosen. He hadn't offended her that much if she was going to look straight at him that quickly. Then again he had just made a rather audacious suggestion.
"I'll give you a ride on my back all the way back to the Palace. You won't even have to walk."
"If this is something about my status, I'm perfectly able to walk—"
"No, it's because I'm a friend. And in case you never learned that lesson in all of your training growing up, friends do weird things to cheer each other up. So, I'm volunteering to be your stallion on the way back to the palace."
"When you put it like that, it's hard to refuse."
Al grinned, then handed her the bag of food. "Save half of them for me." He crouched down, getting his arms ready to catch her legs when she jumped.
"You're crazy, Amestrian."
"And I am proud of it, Chang."
He felt her hands on his shoulders, then her body tensing. A few seconds later, he felt the impact of her landing on his hips and he caught her bottom of her thighs with her hands as she wrapped her arms around her necks.
"Well what are you waiting for," she asked, voice very close to his ear. "Giddiup, horsey."
Her laugh echoed in the street as he let out his best impression of a horse's whiney.
For having been so out of breath running down the halls of the palace, he managed to keep up a very steady jog on their way up to the palace. He had to put her down and reclaim his portion of the dumpling as they got close enough to the palace to be seen, though. Sneaking back in was much trickier than getting out, but after enough time they managed to get in (Mei made the dry comment that she wasn't sure how safe she should actually feel anymore considering this) and back to her room in enough time that Lein Ma wasn't even freaking out by the time Al left the room babbling about how "Yes, Empress this seems like a perfectly good solution, I'm so happy we could work this out."
Luckily they were both good enough actors that neither of them cracked to show the smiles they were holding back.
Al couldn't quite hold it back as he was giving a report to Fuhrer Mustang over the phone though. It was a good thing not too many of the Xingese could speak Amestrian, or they might think it was odd all Al and Mustang talked about after such an urgent meeting was how Ed was handling getting ready to be a father.