Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist is not mine.
If you have a spare moment, chaps and chapesses, I strongly recommend that you check out this:
http:/never-home(dot)deviantart(dot)com/art/The-Wizard-and-The-Wyrm-fanart-125407109
It is a rather splendid depiction of Mage!Ed drawn by never-home on deviantart, and it is quite superb. My hearty thanks and congratulations to the artist! :)
Why had he never noticed the diamond-brilliant contrast of gold and black?
Gold, silky-shimmering seducer, hard glint and soft glow, reflecting its radiance in the rough, scarred surface of ebony scale, tumbling chink-chink-chink, gentle playful sound of falling coins that were fortune enough to feed a starving nation. The black Dragon mounted his costly bed with casual ease, but Edward's long observation of the Dragon left him sensitive to the hesitation that meant Roy was tired, the slow movements that showed his pain, the lethargy that denoted melancholia's descent. Battle with the four Knights had wearied his host, saddened him, in ways that Edward simply did not understand.
He was not given much time to contemplate the issue, however; once settled, with a low growl of relief, Roy turned his full, unnerving attention on the Mage. "Your troubles, Fullmetal. I would hear them now, you have vacillated long enough."
"If you are suggesting that I somehow summoned those Knights just to-"
"Mage."
Edward's tirade halted as quickly as it had begun, the firebrand of his anger cooling instantly at that note of impatient knowing in the Dragon's voice. "Th-there has been something," he admitted, shoulders slumping in defeat. Visions of Alphonse clouded his eyes; he hesitated, words inadequate, and faltered. "H-how does one k-kill a Dragon?" he blurted out, hastily.
The clink of tumbling gold announced Roy's shift of position. "...That is what has been preying upon you? Truly now, Fullmetal?"
The Mage chose not to answer; Roy had become remarkably adept at reading falsehoods in his voice, better to feign silent shame than speak.
The Dragon broke the silence. "I...suppose you must know for your book," he said, slowly, and sighed. "It is not a truth I would impart lightly. In faith, there are many proficient in the slaying of Dragons, I would not give them an extra weapon."
Edward thought of the battleground outside, blood and broken flesh and the Dragon lying corpselike, and shuddered. "But is there a different way?" he asked, hiding his shaking hands beneath the voluminous folds of his sleeves. "There...there are old stories that tell of, of a poison so foul-"
Roy interrupted. "Speak you of Dragonsbane?"
Startled by the Dragon's perspicacity, the Mage glanced up to meet a searching pearlescent gaze. "It is not a secret I would have shared," Roy said, seriously. "If I tell you, it must remain here in this room, spoken once and never again, do you understand?"
"I do."
"Then I shall place my trust in your discretion." The Dragon grinned, showing all of his enormous teeth. "Though I believe that I go against common wisdom, conferring such trust upon a wily and tricksome Mage."
Edward scowled and made a sharp gesture with his staff. "Not every story is true, as you so delight in telling me; Dragons do not eat Princesses, Mages do not make it the sole aim of their lives to never speak any word less than a lie. Might you continue?"
Amused, as he always was, by Edward's tartness, Roy chuckled. "I might," he conceded, and curled into a more comfortable position on his gold. "For once, the human legends of Dragonlore have some truth to them; Dragonsbane does exist, and it is deadly to Dragons. In its purest form, it is a thorny plant that grows only in one place, guarded by a rather fearsome set of trolls in the nortthlands. It is believed that these guardians once drove the Dragons out of their mountain ranges through use of Dragonsbane, though it such reasoned intelligence is difficult to believe of the cretinous mounds that today call themselves trolls."
"It is not only Dragons who have suffered a decline with the fading of magics, then?"
"Very perceptive, Fullmetal! No indeed, the trolls of the day are poor, pale shadows of the beasts from whom they descend. Once, trolls were as intelligent as humans, if such a phrase is not a contradiction, and they were capable of almost every hallmark of civilisation. They built cities, you know, great cities hewn into mountainsides. The dwarfs would have it that they are the master miners of this world, but even their most magnificent halls could not rival the troll caves of the north. Regardless of how they have declined, however, the fact remains that they have jealously-guarded their secrets, locked deep within the earth's darkness, and the growing of Dragonsbane is one of the few troll mysteries to remain unsolved."
Edward found himself leaning forwards, curiosity overtaking his guilt at having lied so completely. "And its effects?"
"Devastating." Roy shook his head, grumbling low in his throat. "I have not seen it used, I pray that I never will, but Dragon lore states that it has only to brush against a Dragon's wounds for a heartbeat to taint his blood. Once he has been poisoned, even the strongest Dragon must succumb to the plant; it contains within its leaves the purest opposition to a Dragon's natural magics."
"Then it works by antithesis?" At the Dragon's nod, Edward paused to consider what he had just been told. "'For every magical energy, there is an opposite power, contrary in every absolute, and should they ever meet, they shall be equally doomed.' That's Harlath Ressylion's first principal of magic; when he founded the first Order of Mages, that fact was written into the heart of every Amestrian spellcaster, but surely it does not hold such power as to command life and death?"
Roy's tongue flickered between his lips as he tasted the air, thoughtfully. "Ressylion was the first Mage?"
"The first to call himself 'Mage', at least."
"Then you should honour your ancestor, Fullmetal, he is right in every particular. Unwrought magic, such as flows in a Dragon's veins or Dragonsbane leaves, is the purest and simplest energy. Base magics lack the mongrel strength of the magics you cast, woven, forged or sculpted. They have only their own strengths and weaknesses, and the clash of opposite magics must always destroy each participant."
An image, unbidden, sprang to Edward's mind; his little brother's gauntleted hands, stained brackish black with troll-blood, clasped reverentially about a thorny purple-green plant...Winry's hands moving to cover Alphonse's, an unspoken promise...His brother's sword, the sword Edward had been proud to enchant for him, the sword that could be so easily remade with any magical enhancement that Alphonse might need...Suddenly chilled, the Mage shivered where he sat; would Dragonsbane have a chance to prove its potency? Would he, could he, watch his little brother murder his lonely Dragon, for love and love alone?
Thus engrossed in his own musings, Edward did not notice that Roy was moving until a tailtip tapped him, gently, causing him to start and glance at the Dragon; a taloned forepaw gestured, lazily, to the tempting expanse of Roy's side. "I have warmth enough to share, if you are cold?" the Dragon said, the merest hint of a question in his tone. Grateful of the diversion from his dark thoughts, Edward hastily stood and scrambled up the heap of gold, with considerably less graceful ease than his host, and settled against the furnace-heat of the Dragon's skin. Roy curled his head around to lay a few feet away from Edward, curling protectively up around the Mage.
Wyrm and wizard regarded one another. The fierce, craggy bluntness of the Dragon's face, once so alien and terrifying, was now as familiar to Edward as a casting circle. Wicked fangs glinting in the loww light were no longer a cause for fear, neither was the hot brush of the Dragon's sulphurous breath. The rise and fall of Roy's gigantic chest, burning into the Mage's back, was as commonplace as Edward's own rhythmic breathing; the Dragon's slow, somniferous heartbeat no longer resembled the thudding of war drums, and the otherwordly glimmer of pearly eyes held more memories than mysteries. Edward wondered what the Dragon read in his features, if he had become familiar to the beast as it had become to him.
Roy smiled, suddenly, baring all of his once-frightening teeth. "The thought occurs, that there are yet more tales I have been loathe to reveal to you," he said, apropos of nothing. "As you appear in need of some entertainment, shall I tell you how exactly I came to be a flightless ground-crawler?"
"..."
"Ah, how easily I can bamboozle you. Perhaps you are not interested, after all?"
"No, no, I, I am-" Edward stammered, words tumbling over themselves in his eagerness. "That is, I am very interested to know. It seems inconceivable that so mighty a creature could..." The Mage's voice faltered. Roy, however, demonstrated how familiar Edward had indeed become to him by flicking a wing half-open, causing the silver chains to tinkle, sweet as fairy-bells.
"Just so. Often you have found yourself beginning to ask the question, I think, and halted yourself. I appreciate your restraint, Fullmetal, the weight of curiosity hangs heavy on your insatiable mind."
Edward shifted, uncomfortably, and the Dragon chuffed a laugh. "I have the truth of it, then? You wear your emotions honestly, child, it shall be your downfall; but it is my downfall we are now to discuss. It began, oh, lifetimes ago, when I was young...Listen closely, young Mage..."
Surely there was no greater pleasure than the sun on your wings.
Roy turned his snout to the bright glare of the bitter noonday sun, half-closing his eyes and fanning out his wings to catch the light on obsidian scale. There was a brilliant fire burning in his belly, joyous and restless as birdsong, and, though he did not know its meaning, he was sure that nothing could stop him discovering it.
"It is a source of constant surprise to me that your head has not swelled enough to keep you grounded," came a good-natured grumble, and Roy grinned.
"My wings are strong enough to bear the weight of any ego, Jean, perhaps even yours."
The smoke Dragon laughed, rough as rockfall, and batted the fire Dragon with a grey tailtip. "May the flame of that falsehood burn long in your gut, brother."
"With yourself as constant comparison, brother? I am assured that my superiority shall ever be apparent."
Before Jean could requite Roy's insolence, a high, piercing cry snatched the attention of both males; it was the call of a solitary female, an intruder into the territory of their birth-mountain. Roy caught Jean's eye, read the same eagerness as coiled inside him, and as one, the two Dragons launched themselves into the air, wings beating furiously to lift them up into the clouds.
Roy's shoulders burned with exertion as they climbed; such rapid ascent was incredibly taxing, it was no wonder Dragons would rather drop into flight from a great height. His wingbeats slowed as he rose, however, until he settled into a relaxed glide, tilting his wings to cup the fickle wind. Jean was already ahead of him, swooping in lazy dips and dives; the smog in his blood made him light and sinuous, he curled in the air like smoke itself, and his lack of bulk compared to his fire-breathing brother gave him unmistakable superiority in speed.
Roy did not muse on his brother overlong; instead, he opened his mouth wide to bugle his own call across the sky, deeper and more aggressive than the stranger's cry. It was a warning and a welcome that Jean echoed in his deeper, harsher roar.
They did not have to wait long for a reply. Roy banked into a long, graceful curve when the female replied, much closer now, close enough that he could hear her wingbeats. She was a large creature, perhaps larger than himself, but no older. Though the freezing winds that billowed in his wings could not chill him, Roy felt his body shiver. It had been so long since another Dragon had entered their territory, and that had been Maes, not a young, strong female...
Jean drew up alongside him, excitement visible in his jerky wingbeats, and Roy found a snarl building his throat, the fire in his belly flaring up before he forced himself to quash it. He had never wanted to hurt his brother before...
The shape of the stranger dragon hove into view at that moment, speeding towards them at a fair rate, distracting Roy from his troubling thoughts. It was indeed a female, a great gold-brindle wyvern, sleek and muscular. She raised her fine-boned head to greet them with a trumpeting call, throwing the sharp beauty of her spiked jaw into profile. She was...magnificent.
Roy bellowed back to her, gouts of flame spilling from his lips in his enthusiasm, and he would have quickened his pace to meet her had the most unexpected thing not happened; in front of him, Jean folded his wings with shocking abruptness, falling into a sudden dive whose momentum he used to fling himself up into the air facing Roy, his jaw opened wide to propel a suffocating, explosive cloud of black smog in Roy's direction.
Blinded and choking, simultaneously bewildered and enraged by this unprecedented attack, Roy jerked to a hover, sweeping his wings in great horizontal circles as he coughed the vile stuff from his lungs and shook his head to cleanse his burning eyes. The sweeps of his wings slowly cleared the air, and as they did so, he beheld his brother greeting the wyvern with a playful call, pirouetting over her head and looping underneath her as she circled beneath him, displaying his aerial prowess.
Fury raged in Roy's veins, mindless, senseless fury, and he howled a challenge at the smoke Dragon, his rival, love for his brother burned up in the fire of his rage. Jean met his challenge with a scream, abandoning his brief courtship to hurl himself at the fire Dragon, the looping coils of his body flattened to shoot him, straight as an arrow, towards his brother.
The impact knocked Roy backwards, wings flapping furiously as Jean coiled around him, digging massive talons into the black Dragon's hide. Roy seethed, lunging to bite his brother's vulnerable wing, wrenching until the fragile bones crunched in his teeth and Jean wailed, slashing mindlessly at Roy to get free.
The two males separated, just for a moment, and Roy took the opportunity to dive at his brother, throwing every pound of his bulk into a charge led by white-hot flame; fire could do nothing to a Dragon hatched in a volcano's heart, but Jean snarled as Roy battered into him, spitting glass-shard smog into the black Dragon's eyes. Roy lashed out blindly at the smoke Dragon as they once more tumbled through the air, locked in grim struggle.
Neither of them could last long. Fighting your equal in the air, driven by the most ferocious anger, exhaustion was a greater threat than your bellowing enemy, and it was exhaustion that caused Jean's head to droop jut as Roy lunged for his throat. The sickening crack of his brother's neck breaking reverberated through the fire Dragon's body, and he felt the writhing, battling mass slump into dead weight, falling still and lifeless in his grip. Blood gushed into his mouth, over his scales, and he relished the satisfying feel of firm flesh, yielding to his might. He was the victor.
Releasing his grip, Roy watched, with triumph, as the mangled body dropped like a stone beneath him, falling graceless and awkward, without life, nothing of his brother in that corpse.
With an effort, rage slowly dissipating to leave weariness in its wake, the fire Dragon swooped into a turn, allowing the wind to do the work as he sought his prize. The great female, who had held back during the bloody combat, was flying to meet him, appreciative pride in her fierce amber eyes as she studied him. He puffed himself up, baring bloodstained fangs for her inspection, and she growled delightedly as she drew up alongside him. "I am the Hawk's-Eye," she said, savage in her exultation at having inspired so brutal a fight for her affection. "I am your mate."
"You killed your own brother?"
Roy's eyes were misty with recollection, with regret. "He would have killed me, had I faltered," he said, not meeting Edward's horrified gaze. "For all of our intelligence, Fullmetal, we Dragons are still beasts. You remember that I told you male Dragons cannot live together for long? Jean and I had grown from kits to jacks together, matured together, and we initiated our adulthood with a mating fight. That is normal, for us."
"But...but your brother..." Edward repeated, utterly bewildered. "You...you said that you loved him! That you were the closest Dragons could be!"
"And so we were, but we were also slaves to our natures. I could no more have turned from that fight than you could escape your demon. When that beautiful, terrible creature flew into our land that day..." Roy paused, and when he spoke again, his voice ached with loneliness. "My glorious Hawkeye..."
Edward, moved despite himself, stroked the Dragon's side. "What was she like?"
"Never a fairer, or more formidable creature, ever stood upon this earth. She shone like the sun, my wyvern, she outshone the moon and burned brighter than any volcano's heart...And she broke apart my world when she died."
"Pitiful, useless creature," the malevolent voice sneered, but Roy did not hear it; his mate, his golden mate, his starbright one, lay limp on the ground. Blood covered her dulled hide, lewd in is shocking redness, scarlet on gold, and the black Dragon hunched over her, gathering the body up in his claws to press to his chest. Hawkeye's head lolled as he lifted her, once-radiant eyes dim in death. The bulge of her egg-laden stomach, her prized clutch of their babies who must now perish inside their mother's corpse, pressed obscenely against Roy's underbelly, and he bowed his head over his dead love, knowing not even anger, only despair, only crushing blackness.
The Sorcerer laughed. "And now, oh fallen one," he sneered, to the unmoving hulk of the fire Dragon, hunched protectively over his lifeless, pregnant mate. "Now, you shall become mine."
Evil cliffy! The full story of Hawkeye's death will be revealed in the next chapter, which will hopefully be before Christmas.
