And entrusted unto them was the power and magick of an eternal bond. A bond of such strength and of such a timeless quality that no force could wrench it, no situation test their almighty, undying and most blessed of loves. Thou cannot perceive the depth and scope of affection bestowed upon those most privileged of Avians to receive the...
Fourteen year old Ronald (Roy -and those who didn't call him that met painful fates) of the noble house of Mustang threw the book to the side of his room with a fierce scowl. The story that the dusty volume contained was one of star-crossed lovers, and was a fairytale that had been handed down through the ages since God-Knows-When. It was basically the stuff that most fairytales were made of, two Avians meeting, one a princess, the other a poor beggar and ("OH NO!" Roy whispered and grinned to himself) they fall in love. Princess gets kidnapped, Beggar rescues, then the happy ever after. The usual drabble.
Unfortunately it was also the fairytale that Fourteen year old Roy from the house of Mustang had to present an oral report on at school the very next day.
And of course,(It was the way the world worked after all) he hadn't started yet.
He growled to himself, contemplating whether or not he could use the excuse that he had accidentally set the book on fire when he was asleep. Then, he remembered that one, he needed his gloves on for that little act, and two, he had control of his power down to a degree of ferocity that none could match. It was why he was called the prodigy of the house of Mustang, he wasn't just good - he was the best.
The house of Mustang, Roy knew, was well renowned for its control of two elements of nature instead of just the one of most of the other houses. Most of the upper Avian classes could control an element, and use it to their will. It was what set them apart from others. For example, the Royal family could bend the mind and create illusions, non reality. Mustangs, on the other hand, could wield fire with a simple snap and specially designed gloves, and to a degree they had the power of telepathy. This meant, to a small extent, that Roy could read minds. It came in handy when he was stuck in a tight spot in any of his school exams. (Cheat? Nah. He preferred caling it "pressing an unfair advantage") But, as Roy was currently in the process of reminding himself, this did nothing to help him get the report done. He sighed, retrieved the book from the far side of the room, dusted it off slightly and began to write on a small, hovering pad encrypted with strange markings.
"The concept of an Avian 'Only' is a piece of shit." He wrote, before scowling, realising that his own opinion would not get him good grades and deleting the phrase. He pursed his lips, thinking. He began again, slowly, as if testing the words out before writing them down. "What is the compelling force that drives one to believe in the truth of the fairy tale, The Beggarman? Is it the off chance that one might find such a fulfilling and complete bond in their lives as the one that the princess and the beggar found? Or is it the mystery that compels a reader? Is such a bond possible or even probable?" He looked back over what he wrote with a satisfied smirk.One thing that could be said about him, was he knew how to 'crap on.'
"Not bloody likely." He muttered, out loud, though he didn't add it to the document.
"The text explores these questions in depth and detail. Both the beggar and the Princess 'remember' the moment of their meeting with crystal clarity, the repetition of this idea enforces the bond of something sacred and worshipped and that all Avians seek."
"ROY!" A female voice rolled up the branches of the tree in which the mansion of the Mustangs was situated. He winced, poking his head out of the window of his tree house home to see the face of his mother turned up at him.
"What?" He called loudly, not quite the yell his mother had given to attract his attention.
"Get ready, fledgling!" She snapped "We have to meet with the majesties in half an hour and you know how long the flight takes to get there!"
Roy winced, pulling his head in from the window. He had forgotten completely about his mother and father's meeting with the rulers of the planet. The boy glanced once at his homework, and decided that it could wait until he got back, and now he at least had a plausible excuse as to not do the work. He growled and saved the few sentences he had written before pulling out one of his best robes for the trip to the palace.
Such an event as going to the palace so that his father could discuss plans with the king was not a rare occurrence in Roy's life. His father was the chief in command of the armies of the planet, and high hopes were for Roy that he would follow in his father's footsteps and secure the position when the new prince was old enough. (Of course, as the new prince was only a four season old baby, that time was significantly far enough away that Roy didn't have to ponder the issue very often.) Standing in front of the tall dress mirror which stood adjacent to his closet, Roy grumbled and wrestled a black shirt over his head with a small emblem of a leaping horse over the right shoulder. It was standard noble custom to wear such a shirt, the house's crest that an Avian wore was nearly as important as the house itself. He glared in the mirror, and his coal grey eyes glared back from under what everyone called his "mother's lashes." He would growl as they said this. It wasn't his fault, after all, that he had inherited most of his mother's features. He scowled at the mirror angrily. A thin, lithe build, narrow face, pale skin, and glossy black hair that fell about his face with elegance few could achieve even after hours in a salon peered back at him with a simalar look.
...Roy hated the fact he was a 'pretty boy.' He truly did.
He struggled with fixing the buttons under his newly developing 'Adult Wings'(These created a whole in the shirt so that his wings could poke through) and gloated briefly in his achievement of being the first in his year group to have their fledgling wings replaced by the larger, glossier, more efficient second set. He was also proud of the colour he had received from his father, jet black and with only a slight blue sheen obvious in the light. He didn't think he would have been able to bear it, if he'd received his mother's dark purple colouring. The comments he would have received about that... Well, they didn't really merit thinking about.
"RONALD MUSTANG WOULD YOU HURRY UP!" his mother yelled from branches lower down his tree home.
He twitched and pulled on his pants with a growl. In a snap decision, he vowed to himself that he would change his name as soon as he was old enough to.
The palace was what one would expect of an Avian structure. Like all the buildings on the small third planet orbiting a White Giant star by the name of Vian, it was built in the towering trees that spanned and covered the whole of the planet not underwater. The height above the forest floor was a significant part of the structure. Any lower, and the ravaging beasts of the world would easily be able to terrorise the occupants of the trees. The palace wound its way around over twenty of the wooden overlord-like trees, and was made from minerals found on the rare and highly dangerous missions of miners on the planet's surface. The structure was mostly wooden, with the occasional large panels of glass (both an exquisite and rare material) and intricate designs of hardened tree sap skirting through gaps in the wood. This tree sap when placed at intervals where itwould catch the light that filtered through the underbrush would sparkle like diamonds. It was rather pretty.
Roy Mustang flapped his overly large wings shakily, still struggling to get used to the ten foot long creations. His struggle to get used to the monstrosities was not going well since they had grown in. He had faceplanted more within the short space of having fully developed wings than in his whole flight career as a fledgling.
Avian wings are much like human teeth. The first set is small, and developed shortly after the birth of the Avian, and generally 'falls off' around the Avian's twelfth or thirteenth year of life, though the age gap ranges to about seventeen, the latest documented case being twenty-five. Less than one earth month later (or one Avian season), the 'angel' goes through a painful, one week process where the adult wings will 'grow in' and the avian will have reached a metaphoric adulthood. Technology which is quickly expanding on the planet has developed medicines or 'growth enhancers' which accelerate this period of growth into a time slot of one minute or less. However, as Roy discovered, this is both much more excruciating for the Avian, and much messier. This was helpful, for it meant that even if an Avian's first set of wings were to be removed, another set would take their place around the creature's fifteenth year of life.
He flapped harder, trying to get a decent enough uplift to reach the level of his mother and father flying ahead of him. Today was the day he was to meet the Avian prince, the first person other than the royal family to receive such a privilege. The baby, only a mere four seasons old had finally grown his fledgling wings and thus was safely able to have visitors. It was meant to be a thrilling experience for Roy, being one of the first to see the infant, but really, as all fourteen year old boys are, he looked upon it with heavy scepticism and an air of regret. He didn't want to see some stupid whiny brat. (Of course, he didn't dare mention this fact to his father. He did have some sense.) He glared ahead at the beautiful Avian palace, and flapped once more almost futilely.
Though he didn't know it, he was moving towards a moment that would change his life forever.
Roy glared.
The baby cooed up at him. So, he glared again.
He had just been informed by his mother and father that this... thing was going to be in his care when he had to leave the planet in five days. The baby didn't even look that special. It was small, (The author allows herself a brief moment to giggle) pink, and almost bald, minus a small amount of blond fuzz covering its head. Its eyes were startlingly golden, and like all infants and fledglings, its downy wings were white. Briefly Roy wondered what colour they would be when it grew up.
"His name is Edward." Queen Trisha told him with a warm smile. Roy looked at the child as if it were a deformed alien with three heads and seven fingers. (That is to say he gave it a completely blank look.) He looked at the queen, who was still wearing that warm smile and gently brushing her chestnut hair behind her ear with an elegant hand, then back to Edward cooing up at him happily and reaching out to grab a black feather that had strayed a tiny bit too close to the child for Roy's comfort.
"Oh." He supplied in a small voice, too stuck by what he'd been told only moments before to worry about titles.
He, him, Ronald Mustang, ROY was going to be looking after this child. On a trip. To the trading partners of the Avians a planet over.And for a year and a half. He didn't know the first thing about children, except that up until he'd received his adult wings, he'd been one.
And not only all that, but the infant in the crib below him was cooing up at him happily, as if nothing could be better.
"I know that it will be hard for you, Ronald." He didn't dare correct the queen, but he flinched slightly at the name she used, "But a disease is quickly ravaging our home. We, those who have not caught the disease must flee before it is transferred to us. We have to leave all who have it behind, and all who have not contracted it must come with us." Her eyes fell. "Edward... is our only hope."
Roy swallowed. The queen was three seasons pregnant. He knew that. He also knew that she would come on the ship while leaving her ill husband behind. And somehow, just by looking at her warm beauty, he knew that it would break her. The queen needed him aboard the vessel to look after the future king and his royal sibling if that happened. Shakily, he nodded. "I'll...I'll go." He stuttered, talking around a lump in his throat and fighting back tears. Be cold, be impassive, be an Avian, have the strength. The words rolled through his mind, the mantra of an avian warrior. "I'll go with you." Inwardly he felt like crying. Outwardly his face was set in stone.
The queen, however, smiled brightly at him. "Do you want to hold Edward, Roy?" She gently picked up her little boy. "He'd love to meet you." Roy gulped and extended his arms, the baby was gently placed into them.
It all happened in an instant and it was a moment he would remember for the rest of his life.It was clarity unlike any other that Roy had experienced in his short fourteen years of existence, and it was frightening. Everything, every sense, every sound, every molecule of his being narrowed down to the small child in his arms. The reeling roll it caused ran up his bones and through his soul. His centre of being was struck with something, some unexplainable need to protect the infant from anything and everything at the same time. It was wonderful yet terrifying. And then, as quickly as the clarity of everything in his life being solely focused on one point struck him down, it left again, leaving him gasping for air and staring in wide eyed wonder at the seemingly innocent child in his arms. Shakily, he gave Edward back to his mother, the baby clinging to him slightly as he passed the boy over.
"It is done then." His father spoke from behind him, and Roy jumped. He hadn't heard the man enter the room. "One and a half years from now, you will return, and all will be well." Roy stared. Did the man mean what he'd just felt? Nothing in his life had ever, ever come close to it, and the only thing he could relate it to was the moment of meeting from the fairytale he had read for school.
He nodded; turning away to look at the baby being replaced in the crib. What was that? He was silent for the rest of the visit.
Days later, the ship with all the healthy Avians they could gather left the port. Roy's parents had stayed behind to help the sick, and some part of Roy cried out for leaving them. Cradling Edward in his arms while the queen saw to her people he felt none of the shocking clarity of the first time he had held the child. He bid his parents a bleak farewell, wrestling with his emotions to make sure his face remained an impassive mask, the familiar mantra of Be strong echoing through his head. Some small part of Roy found it strange that only a week ago, his main concern had been completing an oral in time for school, and that now it was the survival of his species.
The inside of the ship was beautiful, modelled to be exactly like the planet on the outside, complete with smaller versions of the towering trees, and the more docile animals of home. The differences between the ship and home were apparent, though the designers had tried to hide them as much as possible. For example, the air never grew quite so stale on the planet, and you could try and scale the trees for eternities, but never reach the top in the forests, where here if you looked hard enough, the dome metallic roof could be seen. Around the central chamber was a mass of steel, so unfamiliar from the normal wooden surroundings Roy had learnt to expect. Steel had only ever been used for electronic components in the past, due to the difficulties and dangers involved in mining and to see a whole enclosure made of that substance, silicon, porcelain, it was not at all like an Avian to live in such a sterile cage.
It's only a year and a half. Roy kept reminding himself, Just a year and a half, until the antidote is made and we can go home. Still, the cold impassiveness of the interior was frightening and dangerous at the same time.
Roy hated it.
He stepped gently onto one of the steel platforms around the inside edge of the giant dome. He was still holding the infant in his arms as he peered out of one of the triple glazed windows designed to take any amount of pressure. Sadly searching the crowd in the trees below, he saw his mother and father holding up a banner almost dejectedly. "We believe in you." It read, and while normally Roy would have died with embarrassment, he had to fight back tears as he hoisted the child into a more suitable position and waved with one hand.
He wasn't the only young one aboard the ship. The rest were crowded about the windows, children of all ages, sobbing and waving farewells to their parents. The engines of the ship started with a roar and soon they were all floating away, Roy's face still stuck in that impassive mask as below him his parent's faces grew smaller and smaller, until finally, he could not make them out through the trees. Even then, as he lightly bounced a fussing Edward, he did not cry. He did not cry as he took the boy back to him mother's room and deposited him in the baby's crib. He did not cry as he spent the day being introduced to the other healthy children on the ship. Nor did he cry as he ate his lunch with a group of these people who had immediately accepted him and his impassive disposition. He couldn't, as he walked the long steel corridors to the sleeping chambers, wooden panelled to bring a touch of home into the metal monstrosity he was on board. Not a tear fel from his eyes as he changed into nightclothes and pulled back the downy blankets on a futon-like sleeping mat.
He curled up into a tight ball under those blankets, however, clutching a small plushie horse to his chest. And then, the dam broke, the mask fell and Roy Mustang cried. He sobbed until the tears ran out, and he stared blankly into space with red rimmed eyes. Roy of the noble house of Mustang let his brain shut down, until finally sleep filled with dreams of home overtook him.
What happened next, none of the crew ever knew. They had been travelling for nearly a season and were nearing their destination when all communication had blacked out. Navigation had followed as some kind of magnetic storm bore down upon the ship, rocking the contents too and fro. A sleep wave seemed to strike down the ship. Roy, who'd been standing by Edward's crib at the time, looking after the boy under the watchful glare of the queen would only remember later watching Edward's eyes droop suddenly closed, and panic briefly overcoming him until a wave of sleep forced his eyes closed as well. All was silent as the storm outside whistled around the ship, and when it died, the crew would slowly come to, their destination far away from anywhere even close to home.
Sparkling below them was a dusty red ball of rock, a planet no one had seen before, even in the history books. Scattered along its surfaces were strange glass domes where civilisation appeared to be thriving. The people within the domes were strange, Roy noticed as they pulled closer to the planet's surface, now actually within viewing distance of the glass monstrosities. Their appearance was almost identical to that of the Avians, except for their strange lack of wings. The ship pulled down into a graceful landing, the computers producing a printout of the atmosphere and temperature of the new planet. It was quickly decided that with a carbon Dioxide concentration that high, life could not survive out there. Hence the domes.
They had attempted to make peaceful contact with the strange creatures, but they had seemed hell bent on war no matter the precautions taken against it.
So, when one night, while Roy was on obligatory guard duty, it really came as no surprise that they attacked. And Roy told himself, as they stormed the ship, that he could stand up to them, even as he had to watch stronger men than he gutted with high power lasers that could almost cut holes in the ship. He gasped as dead bodies fell around him, and he stood boldly in front of the queen's chambers, fingers raised in the perfect position to snap, to use those techniques he had learnt on his home planet, to continue the survival of the species. He watched as men flung themselves forward only to slump down as their legs were clean shaven off, their flesh burnt, their mouths open in one final scream of agony. He watched as the strange Avians-who-were-not-Avians died at the hands of the soldiers, some stabbed and impaled on the very steel that made up the ship as it rammed out of the wall, through their gullets and splayed their blood upon the far wall in grotesque and misshapen splatters. His fingers were poised in the air, hands ready and willing, but his brain could not get his fingers to move, He couldn't make that single snap as the planet's inhabitants rand forward, and stormed the ship. Men died before him, children younger than he was threw themselves forward to protect both the royals and the heir of one of the most powerful families in the world. Person after person threw themselves outward only to be thrown back, dead.
The bodies began to pile up, and still Roy couldn't move. He couldn't swallow the lump in his throat, He couldn't breathe, and he couldn't get his damn fingers to move! Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the bar coming, but he couldn't dodge. And when it struck, Roy Mustang went down in a world of spinning black, a battle racing all around him and he, unable to participate.
It was that night that the Humans took their prince from them. Roy would learn of it two days later when he finally woke up from the blow. Nothing compared to the pain that gripped him at the news, not even having to leave his parents behind as he traversed through space on the godforsaken space ship that would become his home. Trisha Elric had died in the birth of her second son, some time after that, and the family that took Alphonse Elric in was a quiet one, determined not to let the boy know of his heritage until the opportune time. Alphonse grew up never knowing he was connected to the prince. Roy was not so lucky.
Slowly and agonisingly, fifteen years passed, and the boy who had frozen at what he still considered the crucial moment had become a battle hardened soldier, and the head of the Avian fleet. Still, however, any free time that this position could award him was spent looking for the fate of their prince. Hay moment the man could spare was dedicated to scouring the systems of the planet Mars and the neighbouring Earth in a seemingly futile search for the baby they had lost.
Uncertain to Edward's fate, Roy had been giving up hope until stumbling across a psychriatric file quite by accident during a routine search of Earth's major facilities and professions. A recent acquisition to the largest psychriatric practise in Earth's largest continent had caught his eye. An extremely feminine blonde boy with startling golden eyes had peered out of the case photo. A quick check of age had revealed the boy to be fifteen and a half, and the key, around his neck was the symbol of the house of Elric, of the royal family. Hardly daring to believe his eyes, Roy had looked at the silver winged snake wrapped around a cross pendant. Coincidence was quickly becoming nullified as more and more of the boy's story fell into place. He'd been having visions of wings, similar to those of one about to 'mature', he had a low blood tolerance to alcohol, and he had never felt like he had belonged.
After fifteen years of searching, Roy Mustang had found Edward.
The only question that remained, was would Edward remember? After all, not all fairytales had happy endings.
.
A/n: Hokai. I'm incredibly sorry for the terribleness of this chapter. I had originally planned to have all this set out a completely different way, but I thought you'd want to know a bit about Roy.
This chapter has not been beta'ed, nor drafted. This is it. Raw. Completely typed out and only typed out.
...Usually I have about 4-5 drafts before I even contemplate putting it up. But I thought you guys might kill me if I make you wait any longer.
A few explanations:
Avians have two sets of wings during their lifespan. The first drops out/off around the age of 13, kind of like how humans have lost all their teeth by the age of about 12 (Cos I'm special, I lost my last tooth at 14... but that's not important) THEN the adult wings grow in. The adult wings do NOT push out the other wings.
...Yeah. The Avians have like a FULL biology that is all their own.
To get an idea of what an Avian's wings look like, have a look at the wing structure of an albatross. (biggest bird in the world, yeahman) Roy's wings are black, with a blue sheen, kinda like a crow, or an Australian Raven. Edward's wing colouring is more like the red part of a red Maccaw, while Al's wings, (when they grow in) will be the blue colour of a Western Australian Splendid Blue Fairy Wren.
The wooden structure inside of the Avian spaceship looks like one effing big forest with effing big treehouses in it, while the dangers that wander around on the ground of the Avian home planet...? Did you read Charlie and the chocolate factory when you were a kid? Think the OompaLoompa country, and all the beasts there.
Last but not least, have most of the gaping 'plotholes' been filled yet? There's still a couple of others out there, but they'll be filled up soon.
Anyways, Feed a hungry Author? (And thanks to Cringe for the beautiful fanart.)