Hehe...okay, I managed to get out another chapter. Hope you enjoy! Hehe...it's so weird...I always have these plans of lots of plot points happening in one chapter, but now that I'm learning to be more descriptive, I can't fit nearly as many plot points into one chapter as I used to! Waaah! ((Well, maybe that's a good thing, actually. It doesn't end so quickly then, hehe.))
Disclaimer: Heh, I asked a friend if she had an idea for a disclaimer, and one of our ghost friends volunteered one instead. He's the same one that wrote "My Body, Your Soul", "To Believe in a Ghost" and played Ed in "Ed, Roy, and the Foosball Table", but this is his first disclaimer, hehe. (Grr... Okay, fine! Here's your disclaimer... I don't own FMA, because, if I did, I'd have to own Roy Mustang and he's a super beep that likes to screw around with people's lives... or, um, deaths in this case. He's not as tall as he thinks he is either! His head is so full of hot air he's actually floating and can produce fire from his hot head as well. He's not as good looking as, nor will he ever will be, Edward Elric! Speaking of which, i'd like to own FMA if it meant owning Ed, you know why? He's the-) That's about where he was cut off. I have no idea what else he wanted to say, hehe.
"What the-? This is freaky!" Edward tried brushing his hair away from his face, only to have it return to him. He then switched to shaking his head to keep it out of his face, but this only made him dizzy. It was rather fruitless to try and escape one's own hair. He finally resorted to burying his face in his hands in an effort to keep his hair out of his face, and tried to tell Sylvia in muffled yells to cut it off, and quickly.
Sylvia placed her hands on her hips and slowly stood up. She took a step towards the tub which contained the still frightened merboy, and said, "I'll do no such thing. I rather suspect that living hair is a perfectly natural phenomenon for merpeople, and we don't know what would happen to you if I were to try and cut it off now." Sylvia then proceeded to cross her arms in front of her chest for emphasis, and Ed involuntarily shivered. He'd apparently caught the message.
"But..." Ed stammered, at a total loss for words, "This...has never happened to me before! How could it be perfectly natural if-"
Sylvia didn't even give him the time to finish his statement. He would've just been rambling on and on about nothing anyway, even if she had. "Well, perhaps it's because you've never been a merman before?" Ed took his hands away from his face and looked up at her. He was about to object with something along the lines of that he'd been a merman for several days, but this hadn't happened in all that time. Oh great, now he was finally using the word 'merman' to describe himself. Did that make it true now? "Obviously," said Sylvia, picking up on his thoughts by reading the expression on his face, "You've had your hair in that braid the whole time. It couldn't move. This is the first time it's been allowed to move."
Ed frowned. That made sense in a strange sort of way, but he figured that Sylvia was still taking it as no big deal, which kind of annoyed him. Finding out that you were actually a merman all along, and having to accept that unscientific notion, as well as getting used to all the strange quirks merpeople seemed to have without even having any sort of communication with merpeople...well, let's just say that it's not easy. Sylvia didn't seem to be making a big enough deal out of it for his liking.
Sylvia sat down on the upside down washtub once again and looked at Ed. He wasn't looking at her this time, since that hair of his was keeping him fully occupied with him just trying to keep it out of his face. He had at one time reached up to brush some of it away from his eyes, only to have that strand of hair start to wrap around his wrist. Needless to say, he was beyond creeped out.
Sylvia coughed and finally got Ed to turn his attention to her. She raised up her brush so that he could see it, and said, "Would you like me to braid your hair? I'm sure I can still do it, even with moving hair...but you yourself will have to hold still...understand?" She raised her eyebrow and leaned forward, making sure that Ed had caught her message. Ed gulped and nodded. Yep, he'd caught the message. Geez, Winry and her wrench, and Sylvia and her brush. Why did all the women in his life have to carry around a weapon of some sort?
Sylvia got up and headed over to the edge of the bathtub, where she could access the back of Ed's head easily, and quickly grabbed ahold of all Ed's long hair before it could squirm away from her. There wasn't much she could do to tame his bangs, so they were still going to move a bit, but the long strands were what was causing Ed the most grief anyway. She ran a few quick brush strokes through the hair, and then separated it into three parts, twisting each of the parts so that it couldn't squirm loose of her grip. Ed was sitting surprisingly still this whole time. Apparently, he'd finally found legitimate reason to do so, and he wasn't going to move for anything until she'd finished her work on his hair.
It wasn't long before Sylvia finally got Ed's hair braided together and tied in place, so that it couldn't undo itself. It had been a little tricky from time to time though, because his hair had sometimes tried to squirm out of her grip, and she would have to catch it again and braid it in. It was almost like it was trying to avoid being braided, but that didn't seem very logical. How could hair think along those lines of not wanting to be braided together?
When she was finished, Ed reached back to examine her work. It was quite well done, especially considering the circumstances. "Uh...thanks..." he said, albeit a bit hesitantly. Sylvia raised an eyebrow, having noticed something a bit odd about the way he had said that. Upon getting no further explanation from Ed, she glared at his back, which was still turned to her. Ed shivered from the sensation of her glare, which even the most non-psychic person would've been able to pick up, and he turned around to face her. Sylvia's attitude lightened up right away, since she didn't want to scare the boy, so Ed relaxed a bit.
Ed rested his head on the edge of the bathtub and sighed. "Call me crazy," he said, "But it almost feels like...I don't know...like my hair is...trapped...somehow." Understanding suddenly dawned on Sylvia, and she involuntarily nodded. Yes, that made sense to her. The hair of a merperson wasn't merely dead protein like on a human being, but an actual extension of their body. So, they would be able to feel everything that happened to their hair. Ed had only a few minutes ago allowed his hair to feel the sensation of moving about freely for the first time, and so he had been reluctant to tie it back up, even though his conscious mind said otherwise. It must've felt more...well, right...for him to have his hair loose.
Sylvia shook her head. "I don't think that you're crazy, Edward." She stood up and brushed her skirt off, and then picked up her brush, and turned to leave. "I think that you're meant to let your hair hang loose, but you're just not ready to deal with that yet. I'd be happy to tie it up for you anytime you wish...but go ahead and take it out whenever you feel like it, and let it rest. I'm sure it would feel better if you did." With that, she turned and left the room.
Edward spent the next few hours, in between visits from Sylvia, just trying to adjust to this new lifestyle he was being forced into...especially the hair. That was the weirdest part of everything that had happened to him thus far, in his opinion. There was no getting used to it. He could actually feel it when he would touch it with his hands, and when he would duck under the water, his hair would pick of the feeling of every current and ripple that he would create. If his people lived in the ocean, having such an ability to detect such small variations in things actually made sense to have, since it would help them to find food or avoid falling prey to creatures that would wish to do them harm. Yes, it made sense, but it was hard to accept, all the same.
Edward sat back up in the bathtub after having been under the water for a period of time, and rubbed the water out of his eyes. He could still feel his bangs rubbing against him, and the long strands struggling to get themselves loose from the braid, but by now, he was used to it. All of a sudden, the motion in his hair stopped, without any warning. If he had been awake before, he was now much more awake than ever. He placed his hand on his head to try and feel it through his hair...but could feel nothing. His hair had gone back to the dead state that it was at when he was in human form.
Something was definitely wrong here. This couldn't be good. He needed to call for Sylvia. He managed to get the first syllable of her name out before he cut himself off. He had felt a strange feeling in his tail, and he was now gripping it, muttering some sort of random frettings to himself.
"Edward, are you okay?" Edward heard Sylvia's footsteps getting closer. No, she couldn't come in yet. He just needed a little more time, that was all...but there was no time to spare. He'd never tried this, but now was as good a time to try as any. Edward grabbed ahold of the side of the bathtub, and used all of his strength to push himself up and over the side. He landed on the wooden floor with a plop. Now he just hoped that he was correct in what he was thinking...since he was now a fish out of water. Literally.
When Sylvia heard the plop on the floor, she quickened her pace. "Edward, are you okay?" She repeated her question from before, having not gotten an answer the first time. A moment of waiting revealed no answer this time either. "Edward?" she called again, "Edward! Answer me!" Still no response from the blond-haired boy. Sylvia was practically running now, fear overtaking her as to what could have happened to him. All the worst case scenarios that had the possibility of happening, though not the probability, raced through her head, and her heart was beating against her rib cage. If she didn't find out what was going on soon, she was bound to have a heart attack.
Finally, she reached the door to the kitchen, where the bathtub was located, and she thrust it open. Looking around to survey the situation, she caught the sight of Edward quickly adjusting a towel around himself...while standing on a pair of legs! Sylvia was breathless. She absolutely could not believe what she was seeing. She had only ever seen Edward as a merman, so she had never been able to picture him like this, with actual legs!
Edward looked up and saw Sylvia staring at him with her mouth wide open, like her jaw was about to fall off. Ed blushed a bit, since she had had to catch him at a time when he didn't have any decent clothes to wear...though thankfully, he'd been able to find this towel in time, so he wasn't completely naked. He looked up into her shocked face and raised his eyebrows. "What? You said that the spell, or whatever it was, might not have worn off completely yet. It turns out you were right."
Sylvia stared blankly for a few seconds, and then suddenly realized that she was supposed to respond, which she proceeded to do, albeit a bit awkwardly. She walked into the room, and managed to find a place to sit down at without tripping over herself. Edward noticed her lead and proceeded to attempt to do the same, though it was pretty obvious that he was having a bit of trouble maneuvering. It made sense though...he hadn't walked in days.
Ed made himself as comfortable as possible on the upside down washtub and breathed a sigh of relief. The poor guy had obviously struggled more than he ought to have in order to get on his feet so quickly, though he would surely relearn how to use them quickly. Sylvia sat spellbound nearby, not saying a word, until Ed slowly looked up at her, and hesitantly asked, "Um...you wouldn't happen to have any clothes I could wear...would you?"
Sylvia leapt up quickly and blushed, embarrassed that she'd forgotten that he would need clothes in a situation like this. Well, these sorts of things didn't happen every day...so who prepared for them. "Why, uh, why of course!" she said, "My dad has a lot of clothes that he left here, I'll get some of them for you." She started to leave, but stopped long enough to take a good long look at Edward, as though trying to figure out which clothes to get for him. "I'm thinking that you'll need a belt...my daddy's a bit bigger than you, after all." She then walked out of the room in time to avoid the inevitable glare that came from Edward.
In no time, she was back with a few clothes, and she laid them out for Edward to put on, and she made sure to tell him exactly how to do so best so that they would fit as comfortably as possible. Ed rolled his eyes at all this helpful but annoying fussing on her part. True, she lived as a poor person in a log cabin, so she had to know how to utilize every single resource, including clothes that were too big, but he didn't have to be reminded of his size constantly, did he?
Finally, Sylvia left the room to give Ed some privacy, and he began the laborious process of getting himself dressed. He knew it shouldn't logically be this difficult, but his legs were unusually weak. He had in the past gone without using his legs for a few days in a stretch, like when he was sick, but he had never had a reaction like this to being able to walk again for the first time. This was something completely different. Apparently, there was a fine line between staying off one's legs, and not having legs to stay off of.
When he was done, he stopped to catch his breath for a few minutes by leaning against the door frame, and then he pushed open the door and headed into the room where Sylvia was waiting. He caught himself looking up and around at everything. It hadn't occurred to him until that moment that he had honestly never seen the rest of the house. He had been stuck in that bathtub the whole time.
"Edward," said Sylvia, briefly looking up from what she was doing to notice his presence in the room, "When did you first transform?"
Edward reached up and scratched the back of his head like he did whenever he wasn't quite sure of himself and looked at the ground. "Uh...I'm not really sure. I think I had several little transformations before my major one, because I was getting so thirsty each morning that I nearly died."
Sylvia nodded, but didn't make eye contact with him. "Yes, that makes sense that the spell would wear off slowly...but, when was your major transformation, when you actually STAYED in that form?"
"It was on my birthday," Ed said.
"Which was?" prodded Sylvia.
Ed rolled his eyes and sighed. Why was she so nosey? Oh well, he might as well satisfy her curiosity for the moment, or he'd never be able to find out what she was getting at. He hadn't really wanted to tell her much...but, well...what could he do about it? They were both in over their heads. "February third."
"I thought so," said Sylvia, "Look." She pointed to something on the wall, so Ed followed her gaze to find out what it was. It turned out to be some sort of leather wall hanging she kept there that had the various phases of the moon etched on it. Did she practice astrology? That was unscientific, for sure. Oh wait, living out here in the boondocks, she might need to pay attention to the phases of the moon in order to survive. That at least made sense.
"February third was the last full moon," said Sylvia, going into lecture mode, "That signifies completion. Today is the first new moon since your transformation, signifying a new beginning."
Ed put his hands on his ears to silence the sounds he was hearing. This wasn't just basic astronomy, this was astrology to the core, and it was unscientific! It hurt his brain to think about it, and he wanted her to stop. "Why do you believe this stuff? It's not scientific!" He turned away from her, but hadn't quite decided whether to leave the room or stay with Sylvia, so he just stood where he was for the moment. Sylvia leapt at the opportunity.
"Science doesn't explain everything, Edward." Even with his hands over his ears, he had heard that, so he spun around to face the girl, and was about to object, but she held up her hand, and he closed his mouth back up. Darn, that girl had a lot of sway over him! "I mean, just look at your own body! You have a fish tail one moment, and then legs the next. That's not scientifically possible."
Edward licked his lips and stared at the ground. Well, that one statement was true. He WAS some sort of scientific freak for being able to switch between having fins and legs, so she had scored a point there...but only one, mind you!
"And another thing..." Sylvia began again, "That necklace you wear...have you ever noticed anything weird that occurred in connection with it?" Edward reached up involuntarily and fingered the necklace. It happened to be his most prized possession. It must've been because his mother gave it to him. Yes, that had to be it. Edward slowly nodded when he realized he hadn't yet answered Sylvia's question. He hated to admit it, but the girl was right yet again...there were some weird occurrences in connection with this necklace, though those would surely be explained away easily by saying they were illusions or something. Yes, he was certain.
Sylvia managed to catch the reluctance in his nod, and she proceeded to shake her head while muttering, "Edward, Edward, Edward..." She then stood up and slowly walked toward him. Edward's eyes looked up from the ground to the approaching girl, and he gripped his necklace even tighter, like he was trying to protect it from something, though logically, there was really nothing to protect it from.
"Edward," she began again, "I've been studying myths and legends my whole life, and I've found merpeople to be one of the most fascinating topics of study." She stopped and crossed her arms in order to assume a position of superiority, and then continued. "One thing I've always found interesting is that merpeople frequently seem to be magical beings, and it's pretty ironic that the first merperson I ever meet just happens to not believe in magic."
Ed squinted his eyebrows together, and then spun around so that he wouldn't have to look at the girl. Of course he didn't believe in magic. It was unscientific, and anything that couldn't be proven scientifically wasn't real, right? No, he couldn't go with that theory anymore, since he HAD sprouted a tail just recently...though, one never knew, maybe there was a scientific explanation for that too...he shook his head. There wasn't likely to be ANY scientific explanation for that at the present time, so it would technically fall under the category of magic. Anything that had no explanation always fell under that category.
Sylvia walked up to Edward and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Also...you know how, according to legend, fairies and witches are oftentimes depicted with magic wands?" Edward solemnly nodded. Heck, she wasn't asking if he believed in these things, just if he knew about the legends. "Well," she continued, "You have a magic wand too, of sorts. That necklace. You use it to channel the energy from your own spirit through it. It's kind of like alchemy, in a way."
Ed spun around at this, and glared at the girl for a split second before yelling, "ALCHEMY AND MAGIC ARE NOT RELATED!" Without another word, he turned on his heels and stomped out of the room, making sure to slam the door behind him.
Meanwhile, Sylvia was left standing in the room in the same place that she'd been when Ed left, a hand on her face, and confusion in her eyes. "Geez," she said, "What did I say to make him so mad?"
Hope that you liked that. Leave me some reviews, and I'll try to update soon, heh. Suggestions are also, and always, welcome. There are so many plot points in this story that I haven't fully decided yet, so suggestions would still have a pretty big impact, heh. Hope to see you again soon!