I have fought with this chapter. Now I'm fighting the internet, and listening to the Gurren Lagann soundtrack. I don't really find this chapter fun, but it was necessary. It sets up future plot. XD Now onto the story.
EDIT: ehxhfdl14 has once again corrected my mistakes. (glomps ehxhfdl14, then stabs chapter) All better! XD
EDIT2: She found more... (hides behind dictonary)
Disclaimer : I no own. You no sue! If you do, I'll sic' Lucky on you!
Mischievious Mustangs
Chapter Three
Something told Ed that morning that it would be wise to wear the leather armband that hid a substantial amount of metal around his right wrist, and the anklet that he hid under his left sock. He warned Winry and Al, and they took their own form of precautions as well.
It hurt, she thought to herself. Seeing those three, knowing that they weren't the original three that she kept mistaking them for—it plain and simply caused a knot in her chest to form.
Elysia flopped onto her bed and looked up at the ceiling of her room. Her eyes traced lazy patterns in the ceiling as she thought.
Ed, Al and Winry had been born when she was eight. At that point, she hadn't even quite grasped the thought that her father was, in fact , never going to come back, and neither were the original Ed, Al and Winry.
The dreams that she had back then were candy-coated with thoughts of the four of them, drinking tea or something like that, all waiting for the next train out of the white-nothingness station that they were stuck in. In the most recurring version of the dream, her father sat with Ed (who had arrived after the elder got there) and then her father would walk off into a Gate, passing Al and Winry as they walked from it.
She had tried to tell her mom about the dreams, but they had just made her mom cry harder.
As Elysia had started to grow up, so had the other three, and the sight of them, children of Aunt Riza and Uncle Roy, but looking like neither...
At age two and a half, Ed had refused to get his hair cut anymore.
That was the event that caused her, at age twelve, to cry nonstop as they toured through the Fullmetal exhibit of the Central museum. She couldn't even go into the room where reproductions of Ed's famous outfit were dressing up a mannequin with a blond-braided wig.
The teacher was therefore surprised when she answered the question, "What is inscribed on the inside of the hero Fullmetal's pocket watch?" correctly.
A kind, handwritten letter from Uncle Roy, hand delivered by an Aunt Riza in civvies allowed for her participation grade to go unnoticed from her grade.
Everyone (including herself) had thought that she had gotten over Fullmetal-crying bouts. She supposed she had...but lately, it had been little Winry, at school setting her off.
While Ed and Al had been more of a very close set of cousins that visited every other year (or in Al's case, every year at least on her birthday), Winry had been a sister that just couldn't visit much.
To see little Winry, every day, was a bit much. It made it harder when the other girl got mad and started to wave around a wrench that she had gotten gotten from who-knows-where.
And now, tonight, Uncle Roy had asked her to baby sit the three.
She only had herself to blame, for she had agreed.
It was probably best that she hadn't yet seen Winry transmute the wrench from a little rod of dense metal that she kept on her at all times in the form of a charm bracelet, or seen the little array that was embossed on the head of the transmuted wrench.
An hour later saw Riza lecturing the three into being good little kids, because Cousin Elysia was going to be watching them tonight. She gave them a stern look when she told them that Roy and she were only going out because their teacher had requested to talk to them in person, and that none of the usual crew could watch them.
They promised to be good.
Elysia knew it was cruel, but she couldn't help the thoughts that keep crossing her mind—the ones that said that if these three weren't here, their originals would be.
She knew it was completely illogical to do so, but a broken heart will only allow so much logic before it casts the rest aside as surplus.
In any case, they behaved and did what she told them to. When they started to get bored at four in the afternoon, she came up with the brilliant (and somewhat cruel) thought that she would take them to the museum.
After all, what six year old actually likes the museum?
Dorothy Echeart sat nervously as she offered tea to the Fuhrer and his wife, her hands making little jittery motions, and not all of those from the thought that there were two uniformed officers standing (one was, at any rate) right outside her classroom door.
She took a steadying breath while looking at one of the wooden flower vases that seemed to have grown out of the corner of her desk. It sealed her resolve to actually talk.
In the end though, words failed her and instead she simply brought the arrayed map out onto her desk, set her fingers down on the array carefully, and then handed Fuhrer Mustang the paper after the transmutation of another corner of her desk was complete.
"I confiscated that this afternoon during geography class."
Edward stared in horror at the golden watch that was held in an armored case with a silver version right next to it, the label claiming that they belonged to the Elric Brothers.
The golden eyes that pinned Elysia down could be explained as only belonging to one person.
It was at this point that Elysia started to wonder about reincarnation.
The plaque beside the box read: These are the watches awarded to Edward Elric and Alphonse Elric. The left one was the one once carried by Edward and has, since his death, turned the color expected of watches that once belonged to State Certified Alchemists. As they are tied to the Alchemists' own unique brand of Alchemy, once the alchemist dies, the watch reflects this in color. As Alphonse's watch was awarded posthumously, it lacks the golden hue visible in his brother's.
TBC
