"It is the height of sophistication and class, and is the single most pinnacle of strength in the Avian fleet. Over half a mile long, it is made of an undetectable material to most radar, enabling it to go unseen, unheard and un-sensed through any atmospheric pressure and conditions. The weapons system is impeccable, with the trump card being..."

"...The fact that it looks like a giant penis?" Edward interrupted Mustang's rant with a tired ease. Mustang himself, choked.

"...Well, no one said that the engineers weren't horny bastards now did they?" He quipped back, effectively silencing the boy. Edward had been on the ship a grand total of two days so far, and was already a well established, if relatively secluded member of the ship's crew. The fact that he was royalty amongst these people was still something he was getting used to, in fact, the first time he had been summoned by the title of 'Your Highness' he had looked around to see who the person had been addressing. Edward glanced up at the screen which was displaying the outside of the ship for his benefit. The main shaft (Edward allowed himself a small grin) was indeed over half a mile long, with two fin-like structures protruding from around the middle to back area. The whole of the outside of the ship was a chrome-white, which Edward thought was probably to keep the radiation from the sun outside of the ship where it belonged. The outside was impressive, but not nearly as much so as the inside of the large vessel.

Mustang, noting Edward's silence had continued to explain the mechanisms of the ship, but it fell onto deaf ears. Edward was too busy looking about the bridge with the same curiosity and lust for learning that the whole ship had installed upon him ever since his arrival. The entire fact that the ship was interesting was enough to encourage him out of the sleeping quarters he had been given and explore. (He'd gotten himself lost more than once and had to often ask others where he was and how to get back to the spots in the ship he knew.) The ship was, in a word, beautiful. The Avians loved nature, it seemed, and the entirety of the inside was covered in strange plants and tropical flowers. Each room that came off the main hall (A gigantic room that stretched for the entirety of the ship and looked like the rainforests of legend, complete with exotic birds and a creature that resembled a pygmy monkey but wasn't quite one.) was made of steel, but an effort to hide this fact had been made, by panelling the walls with a pinkish wood decorated with a golden-brown sap that was hard and not at all sticky to the touch. Once again, amongst the screens and controls of the bridge, plants were located in large terracotta pots, however, the closer one got to the more delicate controls, the more sterile the environment came due to the risks involved with such instruments.

Mustang looked at him expectantly and Edward sighed. "What?" He asked, knowing all too well that he was caught not paying attention.

"I was just mentioning, Princess, that if you were to look up at the screen about now, you would see that the planet we are orbiting is not, in actual fact, Earth." He replied in that smug tone of his.

Grumbling under his breath, Edward looked up at the screen. His breath stopped.

"That's Mars." He whispered, staring at the blood red planet in awe. It had been something Edward had wanted to see since he knew about the other planets, but he had been unable to do so due to the war.

The pictures he'd seen ever since he was young and the holographic scale models didn't do the planet justice in the least. It spread out in all directions, the surface a palette of a thousand different shades of red, hazing to blue in the distance before disappearing off the scope of the screen. Edward felt his jaw drop and made no effort to hide it from any of the Avians on the bridge, who were all watching his reaction curiously. The beauty of the planet took Edward's breath away.

Mustang laughed. "Tell me, Edward, is that vacant look because of the planet or because I'm so undeniably sexy?" The words made Edward start, and he wrenched his eyes away from the view to glare at Mustang angrily. It was then that he realised exactly how close the man was to him, Mustang's wings were brushing against his side. He took two quick steps back, pointedly making sure that the man noticed. Mustang smirked at him.

"I was just enjoying the view you bastard!" He said to cover the awkward moment.

It occurred to him a moment later that he had said entirely the wrong thing. Glaring at anyone who even dared to look at him sideways, he stormed out of the bridge.

Alphonse had found Edward (still fuming) some time later, sitting in the crux of a low tree branch. He was watching the two rabbit-creatures he had brought with him from Earth, sometimes looking up to locate a bird whose song caught his interest. The creatures on the ground were becoming decidedly filthy, romping about in the leaf litter and mud as they were, but Al decided to let them do so seeing as the prince on the branch didn't seem to care.

Ed didn't even look at the boy as he approached, the glazed look in his eyes suggesting he was much too far-gone in thought to notice anything outside his own little bubble. The male rabbit immediately came up to Al, begging to be petted on the head, and getting over the slight qualm of disgust he felt (Edward had said that the rabbits were perfectly harmless and really quite charming for all their ugliness.) he obliged it, marvelling in the soft croon of enjoyment it made before running off to play once more. Alphonse sat at the base of the tree and folded his wings behind him.

In the end, it was Edward who broke the silence, just as it was beginning to become awkward for the boy at the base of the tree. Without glancing away from the strange animals, he enquired, "It's Al, right?"

Alphonse nodded, then realising that the prince in the tree wasn't looking at him, vocalised, "Yeah, that's right." Edward gave a small smile that lingered only briefly.

A silence neither awkward nor companionable fell over the two, broken only by the joyous squeals of the rabbits and the birdsong from higher branches. Alphonse watched the rabbit-creatures for a while, as they dug what appeared to be a warren in the thick soil of the forest ground. The male attempted to coax the female into the one he had dug for her, but she seemed to prefer playing hard to get and stepped out of his reach every time he came close. Alphonse found it surprisingly easy, just then, to ignore their outward appearance and watch their interactions. He wondered if this was how the prince felt.

Speaking of the prince... Alphonse looked up at him, grinning happily. "It's great that you've come back to us, your highness." He said. "Ever..."

"Don't call me that." Edward interrupted sharply. "How can I be your prince or whatever if I've never even met an Avian before about three days ago?"

Alphonse was taken aback. Ever since he had been a small child, he had been taught by his parents that one day their prince would come back to them, and that they could go back to their home planet. He, personally had been born on the ship, so he didn't know what the planet looked like, but his conversations with Captain Mustang had always assured him it was like the main hall of the ship, only better. The assumption Alphonse had always made, however, was that the Prince would know how to get them back home.

But here was the fabled prince who had been stolen, the one who was supposedly meant to get them to their home world, and he was barely older than Alphonse himself and knew even less about the Avian homeland then Al did. Alphonse was suddenly very angry at himself. He didn't let it show, however. "You can learn." He said hopefully.

The prince, no, Edward, looked down at him sullenly. "How do you even know I'm your prince? I don't even have wings." He slumped slightly on his tree-branch perch. 'Even if I am a prince, I'd probably stuff up being royalty anyway." The dejected tone carried through strongly to Al's ears.

Alphonse sighed. The mystical, strong and heroic prince he'd been expecting hadn't come after all. Edward was just an Avian, like everybody else on the ship. The only difference was he'd been born into the right family.

But for some reason, Al liked this Edward person better than the prince he'd been hoping for.

The Rabbits had passed out of Edwards' line of sight by the time Al spoke again. This time, the tone was decidedly hopeful, like the boy had come to some conclusion within himself and was now waiting for Edward to clarify it.

"I brought you something to eat." He said, "Because you missed lunch." Edward looked down at him and nodded with a small smile of thanks. The glow of millions of small lights scattered throughout the canopy of trees made the pink fruit with faint green stripes Al handed up to him appear to be yellow. Edward looked at it curiously.

The skin of the fruit was covered in light fuzz that reminded Edward of a peach, but there were other elements that made it completely foreign to him. It had hard, melon-like skin that would require peeling and was about the size of a small grapefruit. "What is it called?" he asked of the boy below him.

"Oh!" Said Al, clearly surprised. "It's an Erutuf." He pulled out a small knife to skin another of the fruits. Once finished, he held up the blade to Edward who tried to mimic his movements, but failed miserably, managing to get a mixture of pink, green and the faint opaque white of the flesh painted on his hands. Not one to admit defeat, especially at the hands of a piece of fruit, Edward blamed it on a lack of mobility on the part of his right hand and looked down at Al hopefully.

The boy laughed and, taking pity on Edward, handed up half of the remaining, un-mangled fruit. Edward grinned slightly sheepishly, enjoying the strange sense of belonging. Edward mumbled thanks before biting into the flesh of the fruit tentatively. Strangely enough, it tasted slightly of passionfruit, but without the bitter tang of the seeds. Mixed in with other tastes Edward couldn't quite pinpoint, it was delicate and unusual and surprisingly filling for a piece of fruit. Edward devoured the rest of his half and was eyeing Al's hungrily as the boy finished his delicately and slowly.

Al noticed and laughed.

Edward smiled. It was probably the first time he had done so since boarding the ship. "You know, Avians aren't what I expected them to be." He said, eyeing the other.

Alphonse blinked curiously. "Yeah?"

Edward nodded and continued. "On Earth, we were told that Avians were bloodthirsty and wanted only to destroy humans, and everyone hated them. But here, it's like I'm just living with normal, everyday people, the only difference from Humans they have is that they're winged. Oh, and that really strange belief that I'm their prince."

Al giggled at that.

Edward smirked. "In fact, the only person who's not normal on this ship is probably Mustang."

Al glared up at Edward. "Captain Mustang is the highest ranked man aboard, you know. Except maybe you."

Edward grinned. "That means I can insult him without reprimand then?"

Al couldn't help but laugh. After regaining his composure and shooting a mock glare at Edward (Who knew he was failing miserably at feigning innocence) he commented, "You're different to what I expected too, you know."

Edward grinned, "Yeah? How so?"

Edward, in time, would come to learn that the twinkle in Alphonse's eye never meant anything good for those it was directed at. "Well, for one thing," Al commented in an airy and eerily superior tone, "I expected you to be taller..."

Edward lunged out of the tree with a furious cry, just as Al took to the air laughing. And even Edward's heated yells of "COME BACK HERE AND LAND SO I CAN PLUCK YOUR FEATHERS OUT YOU OVERGROWN BIRD!" Couldn't destroy Al's victory.

The rabbits watched on with looks of strangely knowing amusement.

.
A/n: Because writing Edward spazzing is just so much fun. And the rabbits have wormed their way into my heart despite my many attempts to stop them.

Anyways, no, Al doesn't know that he's related to Ed yet. Its something they'll both find out when the time is right. And for all you who assumed that Al did know? Shame on you. XD just kidding.

Hopefully I didn't mutilate Al TOO much while writing this. Due to the fact that my writing mainly focuses on the reaction between Ed and Roy in most of my fictions, I don't get that much of a chance to write Al. But hopefully I'll soon have a ficlet up that it Al-based with Mama-Elric in it too. -/shameless self promotion-

And OMGWHOAHWTF? 99 reviews? Can you guys not see that this is crap or something? Not that I'm not thankful, but DAYUM. -Throws a party for everyone.- You've made me SO HAPPY! I'd like to thank my Mum, my dad, my dogs... That lizard I found the other day...

The next update may take a while, because I have to be stupid and religious due to my school being a stupid and religious school holding a stupid and religious camp starting Wednesday, and the day after I get back from that I'm going to Melbourne for a week and Adelaide for a few days to see all the relatives. Hey! This fic STARTED in Adelaide so don't complain, okay?

Anyways, leave a review for a hungry Authoress?