Disclaimer: All ownership of the amazing world of Fullmetal Alchemist belongs to Arakawa.

Author's Note: I am back from camping! Had a wonderful time, got dreadfully ill, and managed to get some writing done in-between. Just as an FYI, I wonder about the strangest minor details while writing this fic. For example, I've thought extensively over what Xiao Mei eats all the time. If anyone cares, she sometimes eats bits of the camel's feed but mostly consumes large amounts of jerky. If you are disturbed at the thought of a panda eating dried-out rabbit, that's okay. So am I.

Author's Question: Does anybody know why most of the Ling/Lan Fan fiction on this site is listed under Ling/Madame Christmas? I find this very odd and vaguely nauseating.

Day Seven

An odd tickle in her lungs kept Mei awake through most of the morning, as though she had breathed in too much dirt and it was sticking in little clumps to the insides of her lungs. It was painful, and made breathing extremely uncomfortable. But she was a princess of the Chang family, not some weakling who couldn't handle a sore throat. So Mei took a leaf out of Lan Fan's book, and stoutly ignored the cough.

By midday, a fierce fever had broken her resolve and seen her bed-ridden, gasping and wheezing for air. Lan Fan watched with furrowed brows as the young girl retched weakly, and Ling insisted on taking over Mei's watch while she rested. Xiao Mei attended her mistress stubbornly, patting the washcloth against Mei's brow and chirping pitifully.

While the desert cooled as night fell, Mei's fever did not, and both Ling and Lan Fan declared her unfit for travel. They relocated camp to a more secure area, and settled down to wait out Mei's illness. Lan Fan hunted, and did her best to boil a broth that Mei could stomach. Ling sat outside his sister's tent and glared at the two steadily shrinking skins, which held the last of their water.

Day Eight

The small cliff under which they stayed stank slightly of mold and some kind of nesting animal, but its shade was a blessing from the rising sun. Sitting cross-legged, with his back to the shelter, Ling neither saw nor heard Lan Fan emerge from the tent. Years of training had left her steps silent, making less noise than the sun as it beat upon the sand.

Still Ling could sense her chi, steady and calm, and therefore did not startle when she suddenly appeared, crouched, at his elbow. Together they sat in the shade, watching as the dawn progressed and forced back the cliff's shadow, inch by creeping inch.

"How's she doing?"

"The fever has not yet broken." As she spoke, a small brown lizard with bulbous eyes and sharp, pointed horns scurried across the rocks. Lightening-quick, it shot up towards a crack in the boulders – Ling thought for a moment that it might make it, but then thok! The lizard slumped, dead and hanging, pinned against the stone wall by a long senbon. Ling had not even heard Lan Fan shift beside him for the throw, yet she continued her report without pause. "And there is a dry rattle in her lungs which disturbs me."

Ling nodded, weighing their options as Lan Fan rose to fetch her weapon and kill. Her movements startled two mice out from their dens as well, and within moments they shared the same fate as the lizard. Three small animals, all thinner than his wrist – they would make a meager breakfast.

He waited for Lan Fan to finish collecting, watching as she meticulously cleaned and stored her throwing-needles, before he announced his decision. "I know that you were scouting to avoid others while we were traveling, Lan Fan. It was a good thing to do. We don't exactly need any extra attention. But we do need water, and Mei needs help. I think it's time you changed tack, and found us some civilization."

"Yes, my Lord. Shall I return with them, or come back to fetch you?"

Ling considered. "We don't want to make enemies, so avoid blatant theft and abduction if you can." He regarded her solemnly. "Don't hesitate if you have no other options."

"Yes, my Lord." Habit dropped Lan Fan down to one knee in a respectful bow, and she took a deep breath to ready herself for her journey. Realizing her intent, Ling placed his hand on her shoulder just before she could dash away.

"I didn't mean for you to leave right away," he said, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. "Wait until dusk, okay? Then see what you can find."

Beneath his hand, Ling felt small tremors shake through Lan Fan, and could guess at their cause. The shade provided by the cliffs was only marginally less hot than the surrounding desert, but Ling knew that Lan Fan's arm held both the heat and the cold stubbornly. So early in the morning, it would still be chilled from the night before.

He wondered how it felt, having something so cold bolted directly into your bones. He wondered if it felt good to her, when the sun rose and the steel gradually warmed and thawed out the chill from her joints. He wondered, with an odd thrill, if maybe his hand felt good to her, already quite warm and pressed firmly against her shoulder.

Moving his thumb against her cool skin, hopefully light enough that Lan Fan wouldn't notice, he asked, "are you cold?"

"No, my Lord," she replied promptly, yet her shoulder still trembled under his warm palm. He could feel the firmness of her muscles quivering beneath his fingers, the delicate curve of her collarbone pressing against his thumb. The sun had left freckles there, he saw, on the soft skin of her neck, beneath the flecks of mud and sand.

As she knelt, her pants torn and uneven from her constant ripping of them for masks and rags, Lan Fan's knees showed scuffed and red.

The future king looked down at his servant and smiled sadly. "I work you too hard, Lan Fan."

"No, my Lord," she insisted, eyes still turned down subserviently. Allowing himself the indulgence, Ling looked closer and discovered that even more freckles had appeared around Lan Fan's nose, a scattered trail dusted across her cheekbones, a tiny whorl by her temple.

Without a thought, Ling brought up his other hand to cup her face, fully intending to follow the pattern with his thumb and fully forgetting all the reasons why he shouldn't. But at his touch, Lan Fan startled and jerked back. Looking up sharply, she grew still and wide-eyed as a frightened deer.

Ling dropped his hands immediately.

Throat tight, he found that he didn't have to fake the lightness in his voice when he laughed. "Well anyway, I think I'm about to pass out! It's high time for breakfast. And you know what would really hit the spot? Dead rats." He pretended to catch sight of the rodents in Lan Fan's hand, and clutched his heart dramatically. "And what do I see before me, but dead rats! What are the chances? Hungry, Lan Fan?" Beneath his fingers, he could feel his pulse thrum erratically.

"Yes, my Lord."

Mei's gasping breaths had grown weaker as the sun fell, and Lan Fan wasted no time in securing her weapons for her journey. She had spent the day quite productively, and a heap of skinned and gutted animals piled back in the cave as proof of her labor.

Still, she worried that Ling would run out of food before her return. Steadfastly ignoring her lord's insistence that he could go out and find his own food, Lan Fan scattered the entrails of her kills around the edge of their shelter. Hopefully the smell would bait larger animals, allowing Ling to "hunt" without leaving Mei unattended.

With food provided for and safety relatively secured (she had also insisted on leaving behind a majority of her bombs), Lan Fan tied the Yang mask in place and pulled up her hood. She bowed deeply to Ling and then fled, quick and soft as moonlight.

Ling remained behind, feeling more than useless as he held a dwindling bag of feed up for the camels to slobber through. "I am sick and tired," he told the grunting, chewing animals. "Of not being able to do anything. I am sick and tired of my companions sacrificing themselves for me, or getting injured, or dying of the plague or whatever it is that Mei has. And I can't do a single thing about it, even though I have a Philosopher's Stone. As soon as I become Emperor of Xing, I'm learning alkahestry."

He moved the feed away from his camel and it grunted, biting at his bangs in protest. It tugged painfully, and Ling scowled, batting it away. Combing his fingers through his hair, he grimaced when they came back covered in slimy oats. "The second thing I'll do when I'm Emperor," he growled at the pack of smug animals, "is order the three of you, euthanized."

The camels all looked decidedly unimpressed.

Moving on to feed the last beast, Ling's thoughts drifted back to alkahestry. It was more than useful, and he was certain that he could learn it. He just wasn't sure if the Emperor of Xing was allowed to practice alkahestry. Mei would know; she was always instructing him on how he should behave as king. The bossy little thing...but she was ill now, and he worried for her. Mei was his friend, his ally, his little sister, his -

- his. He was thinking like Greed. Again.

Ling shuddered. He pulled the drawstrings tight on the pouch, ignoring the outraged bellow of the camels, and slid to the ground. Knees drawn up, face buried in his hands, he exhaled, slowly.

Forget alkahestry. Ling was pretty sure former homunculi shouldn't rule countries either.

"I'm not him. I'm not him. I'm not. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not."

Sometimes it felt as if hosting a homunculus had marked him irreversibly, as if his soul had been stained, like the inside of a cup dyed brown from holding tea for too long. Greed had been a decent companion, and a true friend in the end, but he had still been avaricious to the extreme. And Ling, through the homunculus, had felt and thought things which he would never have done with his own mind.

For example, when Greed had learned of Ling's goal of succession, he had subsequently discovered the arrangement of the Fifty Wives. An immediate demand for more had shuddered in Ling's mind. But why only fifty? the homunculus had whispered. Become Emperor, rule the country, and take them all. Why stop there, though? Lord of the World – every person, and every woman, mine and mine alone!

There had been a disturbing sense of rightness to the thought, and Ling had felt it like a gavel in his gut. The other greedy souls in the Philosopher's Stone had screamed their agreement, howling, bawling, chanting into his spirit: mine mine mine.

Breathing deeply through his nose, Ling rubbed at his temples with shaking hands. He, Ling Yao, had never wanted the Fifty Wives. He was a Royal Child - he had grown up knowing first-hand the terrible results the system had on children.

The Elric brothers had been right to laugh at the image of Ling leading a princely life. While he had been raised knowing exactly who he was and what he would someday become, Ling had not grown up in opulence.

The Royal Children of Xing were far too numerous to house in the palace. Instead they were sent to be raised by the most affluent members of their clans, usually relatives of the Wife. However, the Yao Wife had been an only child, and so Lan Fan's second aunt had served as his wet nurse, and later his surrogate mother.

In all his life, Ling had visited the Golden Palace no more than twenty times, and none of them were particularly enjoyable. Mostly, they consisted of annual visits on his birthday to his Honorable Mother, speaking respectfully to a silhouette behind a screen. He had never seen his father.

The first assassination attempt on his life had occurred during his third year, at the hand of an older sister. Ling remembered watching, wide-eyed, as Luan Kwan-Chin, tenth princess of Xing, had been solidly dispatched by one of his older cousins. They'd sent her body back to the Kwan-Chin clan, wrapped respectfully and accompanied by ten pieces of silver. She had been sixteen years old.

His cousins had never tried to assassinate each other. His cousins had known both of their parents, had seen them everyday. Ling had promised himself from an early age that no child of his would ever have to fear his brothers and sisters. No child of his would wonder what their parents looked like.

This resolve had only strengthened during his time in Amestris, seeing the bond between the Elrics in all its glory: brothers who would laugh together, fight together, die for each other. Ling swore that the families of Xing would be modeled in that likeness, driven by love instead of ambition.

He, Ling Yao, had never wanted the Fifty Wives, never mind every woman in the world. But some dark part of him, back in that loud and screaming place, had hummed with approval along with the tide of all that Greed, echoing back mine mine mine.

Ling sighed and rested his head back against the belly of his camel. "The third thing I'll do when I'm Emperor, is dissolve the harem." He looked into the camel's narrowed and dewy eyes and shrugged jovially. "I mean, fifty? Let's be reasonable. With these good looks, I wouldn't stand a chance! I may be young and virile, but even I couldn't keep up with so many ladies clamoring after me." No, instead the wives would re-enter society and join his people, his subjects, his. Still his.

That was what he wanted: a nation of his own, that worked under his own ideals. He idly toyed with the Philosopher Stone draped around his neck, trusted into his keeping while Lan Fan was away, and plotted out not for the first time how he would use it to manipulate his father from the throne.

As the sole guard of their camp, Ling could not afford to sleep. With plans of a coup, a sick patient to wait upon, and plenty of meat to strip and cook, he succeeded in distracting himself throughout the night. And if the image of wide and surprised black eyes flashed through his mind once or twice, or if his fingers burned with the memory of trembling soft skin, he told himself it was nothing to worry about. (Mine.)

Day Nine

Lan Fan did not return in the morning.

Ling filled the silence by attempting to threaten Mei's camel, which had taken to laying on its side moaning pitifully, back into good health. It did not respond to promises of abandonment, or consumption. Neither did it listen to Ling's very sensible lecture on the follies of sympathy-illness. "No matter how sick Mei is, you laying there is not going to make her better." The camel merely lowed piteously. It did, however, flick its tail with irritation when Ling declared it too sick to eat. He considered it a step in the right direction.

To his immense relief, Mei's fever finally broke. Unfortunately, the young girl now shivered uncontrollably and was coughing up things black and green. Ling did his best to keep her rest area clean, and heaped every blanket they owned on top of her. Xiao Mei lay on top of the pile, refusing to leave her mistress's side. During her brief lucid moments, Ling forced spoonful after spoonful of broth down Mei's throat, desperate to get some food into the girl.

"You should not be in here, Lord Brother," Mei had protested weakly when she'd gained enough awareness to recognize her nurse. "It is not proper."

"Shut up," Ling had responded, firmly not caring about the custom which dictated Ling, a male, away from the sick bed of a woman. "You're my sister, so the rules don't really apply. Plus, who else will make sure you eat?"

"Where..." Mei had wheezed. "Where is Lan Fan?"

"She's out hunting. She'll be back sometime tonight. Now try to keep some of this down."

"I'm also sick and tired," Ling said conversationally to his camel that night, "Of people who are supposed to be my subjects telling me what to do. I'm their King. If I want to help, I will." It spat derisively. "And if I want to skin you alive when we run out of food, I will."

It would not be necessary. Lan Fan's bait had drawn out a fox and two coyotes, and Ling added their meat ruefully to the impressive pile of rations. "I'm also just plain tired. I haven't slept in days. I'm thirsty too."

Lan Fan did not return.

Day Ten

Ling looked into the empty water skin and up at the sweltering sun. His fourth grand act as Emperor, he announced to his camel, would be to outlaw deserts. They were completely unnecessary and, to be frank, a downright bitch.

Mei weakly reprimanded his un-kingly language from her tent, sent into a series of hoarse coughs for her efforts. Ling swore to never swear again (and recognized the irony), and promised to leave five jade bracelets at the altar of whatever god would condescend to save his sister.

Day Eleven

Mei's fever came back.

Ling's vision began to swim.

And Lan Fan did not return.

Day Twelve

The tall man, face obscured by a brown-striped turban, shook at the point of Ling's sabre. Blood, red as the tall man's eyes, trickled daintily down the blade, and a crazed thought of just how thirsty he was caused Ling to lick his dry and split lips.

Then, a blessed and beautiful voice protested, "my Lord!", and Ling lowered his weapon with relief at the sight of a sand-covered, badly burnt Lan Fan leading a supply-laden camel. "He is a doctor, my Lord."

The tall man glared, and Ling shrugged. "You should have said something, then," he said lightly. Sheathing his sword, he turned to grin at Lan Fan, and collapsed for the first time since leaving Amestris.

Day Thirteen

Scalp twinging and something wet trailing down the side of his face, Ling awoke some time later to find his camel chewing contentedly on his hair. He was laying beside a pool of crystal water, under the shade of something green and fragrant.

"I'd think I died and made it to heaven, except no god in his right mind would let you in as well." His camel simply drooled more vigorously, and Ling rolled away with a disgusted grunt.

"I'd show more gratitude, if I were you." A fat and balding Ishvalan sat, amused, by Ling's side. "That beast carried you here with great speed. Here, drink this." A cup of something sweet and cool rested beneath his nose, and Ling gulped down a mouthful. "No more, or you'll get sick. You have extraordinary luck. Do you make a habit of fainting in the middle of nowhere?"

Ling laughed. "Find me some food, and I'll tell you."

"Next time, Lan Fan, do take your time in coming to my rescue. I didn't have the chance to relish the feeling of wasting away. And in Mei's case, well, who really needs two lungs anyway?"

Red-faced and extremely apologetic, Lan Fan ran to fetch more food and water. From her blanket next to him, a recovering Mei told Ling in no uncertain terms what she thought of his childish teasing. "I'm fine, Lord Ling. And you are fine as well. Poor Lan Fan nearly broke her neck getting back to us. Besides, Xiao Mei was taking good care of me." Her voice was raw, but strong, and she sat with her panda in her lap with all the regal bearing of a queen.

Ling snorted and closed his eyes, intent on sleeping for at least a decade.