Ok, people who are reading this. Here's chapter eight for ya! This time, I didn't take forever to do this either :D Yay!

Hayate Izumi: Sorry for not updating in the longest. I'll try to get with you, sometime soon! Thanks for liking my story!

Taysgoinghost: Yeah, I kinda did take a long break, didn't I? Sorry for the wait, but thank you for taking an interest to the story!

You guys rock!! XD

------------------------------------------------

Chapter Eight: A Day in Lior

Time Skip: Ed:15 Aysa:15 Al:14

Sand, sand dunes, and nothing but the Sun. Only these three things were needed to come up with one place: The desert.

"Ugh! Come oooonnnn! How long does it take to find a city in a desert?!" Aysa trudged in the sand tired, hot, and thirsty. She put her suitcase down and took off her cap to wipe the sweat off her face. She didn't have to think twice before deciding not to put it back on because of the unbearable heat. Aysa then leaned forward and put her hand over her head as if shielding her eyes from the sun. She squinted and scanned the area around her. Nothing so far. She groaned and then slumped. "This. Is. Bad…Now what in the world am I going to do?" Aysa then got a horrible feeling. She knew that her sense of direction was totally lame, so what if…

Aysa shot back up.

"Wait! What if I'm LOST?! No, now I'm never gonna make it outta here! What will I do for food? W-what about water? What if I end up living in this dump for the rest of my life?! Am going to hafta eat scorpions from now on?! I'm gonna die here an old lady! No, no, no, no, NO!" Aysa wailed and fell to her knees. She beat her head on the sand repeating the phrase, "I'm dead, I'm dead" for multiple times. She certainly was dead if she had no idea where she was. Suddenly, a voice interrupted her.

"Hey! Need a lift?"

Aysa stopped beating herself up and looked to see the source of the voice. It was a man, but not only that. He was driving a cab! Aysa thought she saw heaven. She nodded her head at the cab driver, smiling.

--------------------------------------------------

"Thank you so much, sir. Thought I'd never make it out here."

The man just made a jolly laugh as he drove the cab, "Don't you mention it! So, where are ya headed?"

"Lior," Aysa said as she put on her cap.

"So…you're going to Lior. Don't mind me asking, but what for?"

"Just going to meet some friends of mine."

"Well, good luck with that. Lior has been a busy place for as long as I can remember. Might take a while to locate them over there."

Aysa leaned back and smiled, "Nah, it shouldn't be too hard for me to find them!" She lied to herself, remembering why she was in this cab in the first place.

The cab driver laughed again, "Well, if you say so. Ah, here we are right now!" Aysa sat up as the car neared the city. Once it came to a complete stop, she came out of the cab and dug in her pocket and gave the man some change.

"Here ya go. Thanks again for the ride, sir."

"Anytime. You take care now. Good luck with finding those friends of yours."

The man then drove off, leaving Aysa at the entrance of the city. She moaned to herself at the last statement the man made. "Thanks. 'Cause I'll need it."

------------------------------------

"Now…This is the life. Just me, myself, and I taking a load off." The girl sighed in a relaxing way as she took another sip of her drink. The fifteen year-old sat in a shack's bar, drinking a fruit drink that she had bought for herself. Her suitcase was on the ground and her beanie lay right next to her glass that she slurped happily in. "Hm. I wonder what's keeping Ed and Al so long? They should have been here by now," Aysa mumbled to herself. She then shrugged, "Eh, oh well. I'm sure they'll be fine. They can handle coming here."

After getting off an assignment that didn't involve Aysa having to be aligned with Ed, Fullmetal had told her that he and Al had maybe found some new leads about the Philosopher's Stone. Knowing that Aysa would also want to have some in on this, he asked her if she wanted to come along. She right away took the offer, and so here she was right now.

From the owner of the shack's words, this place used to be a wasteland before a prophet of some sort came and worked his wonders here, turning what used to be a vacant desert into a flourishing city. The man also stated that he can work miracles, which was completely odd to Aysa. She ran her fingers through her hair as she groaned to herself. Waiting for those two to show up was starting to bug her very much. She took another sip of her drink to calm down, but instead got only a noisy slurp. Aysa looked down in her glass and noticed her drink was exhausted. She then dug in her pockets to see if she had any money left. Empty.

"Aww, man…" That drink was pretty tasty. It was a shame that it was all gone. The owner of the shack, a man that looked to be hitting his senior years, came over to the girl upon hearing her. He was cleaning a glass with a red rag that looked to be tattered from frequent use.

"What seems to be the problem, miss?"

"Nothing, nothing. Just ran outta money…And I'm also waiting for two of my friends to show up."

"Oh, is that so, eh?"

"Yeah. Have you seen them? One is a boy, about my size, and the other walks around in a suit of amour. You can't miss them." Aysa hoped that he had seen Ed and Al.

The old man scratched his chin for a minute in deep thought before saying, "No, don't think I have seen those two before. Sorry. But maybe you should check the temple for them. They probably came there."

The girl tilted her head at the man, "Temple?" Aysa knew that a temple was usually tied in with religion, which she wasn't a big fan of. However, she was more tolerant to it than Ed was.

The man had just gotten through with cleaning his glass when he said, "Yeah. Travelers stay there often. I'm sure Rose wouldn't mind taking you there. Hey, there she is right now." The man and Aysa turned to see a girl about the same age as Aysa with pink bangs and brown hair wondering around the city. "Hey! Rose!" The man motioned her to come over their direction. Once she came over, she asked with a sweet voice, "Yes?"

"We have a traveler here who's lookin' for a couple of friends of hers. I told her about the temple and that they might be there. Mind if you show her the way?" Aysa didn't mind at all for someone to show her the way to the temple. In fact, she knew that she would need the assistance. But if this girl was the one to show her, then she might as well go by herself.

Rose smiled as she looked at Aysa, "Sure. I was just about to go shopping for my offerings, but I won't mind! And who might you be?"

"Aysa. Aysa Lockhart," she answered flatly. She really didn't see a need to answer all giddy to her.

"Ok, Aysa. Follow me." Doing what she was told, Aysa reluctantly grabbed her beanie and her suitcase and followed Rose in the direction of the temple. As they continued to walk, Rose had begun to pester Aysa with some questions. Like why she was here, or why she was looking for her friends. It was really starting to annoy her, although she did not give evidence toward it when she answered each of Rose's questions calmly. Once Aysa and Rose finally neared the temple, Aysa thought that the nightmare was over as she muttered, "Finally" under her breath. When she and Rose stopped in front of the temple, Aysa walked forward, trying to hurry up the time she had left with Rose.

"Well, thanks for taking me here! Really appreciate it! Later!"

"Oh, wait. Before you go…"

Aysa's whole body slightly jerked as she stopped and slowly turned her head to put on a fake smile while she said through her teeth, "Yes…?" The right corner of her mouth twitched. 'Darn. Now it's obvious I'm faking this,' she said sarcastically to herself.

"Make sure you visit Sir Cornello some time. He's the Sun god's prophet, and I'm sure he'll want to give you some of God's blessings!"

Aysa kept her fake smile up and this time waved a phony wave, "Will do! Bye, now!" What she really wanted to say was, "Will do! Please shut up, now!" Aysa carried on with her walk, hoping that Rose wouldn't say anything else. Thank goodness she didn't. When Aysa entered the temple, she sighed and leaned back on the door. "Yes…she's gone…I'm safe."

Aysa went back on Rose's remark about visiting this Sir Cornello fellow. He did seem a bit interesting, but not the way Rose had intended her to be. Aysa knew this must have been the prophet that the old bartender had mentioned to her earlier. She would tell Ed and Al later when she had the chance. Aysa took in another deep breath as she put her beanie back on. She decided to take a look around the place. Of course, she would search for Ed and Al along the way.

The temple's halls and rooms seemed endless as she roamed for what seemed to be like an eternity. To Aysa, it was certainly one of the biggest structures she had ever seen that held worship to a god. She studied the whole sanctuary through every nook and cranny, amazed at its wonder.

As she walked around, she still saw no sign of Ed or Al anywhere. She began to wonder if they were even in the temple, better yet Lior. After a while, she came across a huge carving of what seemed to be a god. This looked to be the main part of the temple, like where the people's worshipping and sacrifices or anything else they did were performed. "These guys must be very big on religion to have this here…Wonder how much time it took to carve it."

Her voice echoed throughout the temple as she came up close to the carving. She took another good look at it. It was then when she concluded that this must've been the sun god that everyone was talking about. The god looked powerful beyond all measure just by the way he posed. This started to intimidate Aysa. She glared at the carving.

"Oh, yeah? I'm not scared of you." Aysa looked the figure as she waited for the god to make its comeback.

Nothing.

Aysa crossed her arms and looked down to the floor. "Hm. Even if you do look kinda freaky…" She said this part low just in case the carving had remarkably grown ears and could hear. She then decided to move to another direction. To be honest, the monument was really starting to creep her out.

"Aysa?"

The girl turned to the caller of her name. It was Al, who was accompanied by Ed. They had apparently finally arrived to Lior.

"Oh, there you guys are."

"Rose told us that you'd be here," Ed said to Aysa.

Aysa scoffed at the "Rose" part, but said, "I met her before I came here…Anyway, I found out a little bit about this place while waiting. Turns out the people in Lior are really passionate toward their religion. Also, seems like there is this prophet, Cornello, who people claim is the one who can make miracles of some sort."

Al nodded, "Yeah, we know. All about it."

"What? You do?"

"Yeah. Wasn't very hard to miss. All I did was ask the people here about him, and the next thing you know I get slammed with all this crap about him working miracles and such." The boy smirked at his last comment.

"Well, they really seem to believe that this guy can, so it wouldn't hurt to check him out later on, right?" Al said.

"Guess so," Ed replied.

---------------------------------

It was late at night in Lior, signaling that it was time for Aysa to wind down. She had found out a little bit more about Rose earlier that day. From what she heard, Rose was in deep despair. She guessed anyone would if they had just lost someone dear and close to them. From what Al said, Rose lost her boyfriend. Her parents died when she was young, so it must have been pretty hard for her. Aysa could not help but to feel slightly empathetic toward her. She understood how she felt.

Aysa walked to her window and opened it, taking in the air that had just rushed in. Strange how in the daytime, the desert was as hot as the flames that Roy Mustang produced from his alchemy. However, in the nighttime, it was as cool as fresh snow. Aysa leaned on the windowsill. The wind felt good running through her short hair. It was refreshing; however, it also gave her chills. The moon was out, so it emitted enough light to make the city glow. To put it simply: Tonight was a beautiful night. Aysa imagined that Ed and Al were maybe sleep seeing how late it was, so she knew it as time for her to rest also. Unwillingly, she closed her window, ceasing the calming breeze from outside. A minute later, Aysa had finally fallen into deep asleep in her bed, getting consumed into her own dreams.

Ok! Well, there is that chapter! Hope I did the order of those events right, because I haven't seen FMA in the longest. If there are any problems, please tell meh! And, of course, tell me anything that I could improve on! Yes, I have made my OC a slight Rose hater. Power to the Rose Haters! Hooya!!! Well, in the next one, Ed, Al, and Aysa see what this Cornello guy is really all about:D