Chapter 7--Pyvrolars

Chapter 7--Pyvrolars

Ed fell to the ground and felt Luna hit the dirt beside him. He closed his eyes as a strong wind bombarded them with gravel. It passed quickly, leaving the two covered with a thin layer of fine dust and chickenfeed. Ed wiped his eyes on his sleeve and timidly opened his eyes. He had to blink a few times to clear the dust from his eyes, and then a few more to help him believe what he was seeing.

The wall of dirt and rock that Ed had made through alchemy seemed to have combined with Luna's shielding spell. The rocks of his wall were each now surrounded by a few lines of dust something akin to transmutation circles. Between them and the other rocks were even spaces, leaving about a half foot apart around each. The spaces between the rocks crackled with blue lightning, and the rocks themselves glowed an eerie green. The lightning crackled, occasionally revealing the astonished faces of their pursuers.

"It seems," said Luna in a voice akin to one who has just seen nothing more than a fluffy cloud, "that your alchemy can combine with my wizardry to produce extraordinary effects."

"So it seems," said Ed, echoing her nonchalant manner.

Luna stared at the wall a little longer. "Well, we don't know how long that will hold, so let's go."

"Luna, we just made something that I've never seen, you've never seen, and you just want to walk away?!" Ed was flabbergasted. The first thing he wanted to do was try and see if they could do it again, and then see if they could do something else, and then attempt to find the logic in combining magic and alchemy and then see how exactly they needed to time things in order to get the most efficient combining and discover if there was a way he could put them both together in a transmutation circle and—

"We need to go." Luna interrupted his train of thought.

Ed looked where she was looking and saw that their pursuers were not quite as interested in studying the alchemic/magic wall. Once they had gotten over the initial shock, they seemed quite keen on getting through. He turned back to Luna and shoved thoughts of research back to the corners of this mind.

"What's with them, anyway? Why are you guys so suspicious of muggles?"

Luna sighed and tugged Ed to his feet. "It's not that we're suspicious of muggles. It's actually muggles that we're least suspicious of. It's strange people—strange magical people that make us a little wary. The wizarding world just went through a terrible war, and a lot a people were killed by a very bad wizard. Now we need to make sure that no supporters of Him are left. Harry's a little uptight because he just went through a terrible ordeal. He had to go through the brunt of it because he's the only one that could kill You-Know-Who."

"Oh. You know, Amestris is in a war, too."

"I figured that. Mum said they were always fighting with someone about something—usually something ridiculous. Muggles are like that, I suppose. Come on, I'd like to get farther into the marsh." She and Ed walked toward the place she had just mentioned.

"Where are we going?"

"Mum's lab, of course."

"Why there?"

"Well, because that's where we'll find clues, of course."

"Clues for what?"

"For sending you home to Amestris, naturally. Watch out," said Luna as a tree lifted it's roots and plunged Ed face first into a mud hole.

Ed muttered to himself about the timeliness of warnings and annoyance of trees that could think for themselves as he struggled to get back to his feet. Luna held out her hand and helped him to his feet. "Let's go, Fullmetal. We've got a country to get you back to." She kept a hold of his hand and they calmly walked farther into the marsh.

"Um, Luna?" Ed said when they had walked a little ways.

"What?"

"I think we're going to need to share a boot again."

A twig snapped, and Ed whirled around to check behind himself for the hundredth time. Despite Luna's assurances that the others couldn't just apparate anywhere in the marsh and that they had a little extra time, Ed was still apprehensive. He trusted Luna, but he didn't like the feeling of not knowing exactly what he was up against. Ed was exceedingly relieved when they finally made it to the clearing and hopped down the stump into Luna's mother's laboratory. It looked pretty much the same as they had left it, complete with pillar jutting up out of the ceiling. Ed debated fixing it and removing the pillar, but under further consideration he remembered that the pillar could be seen from the Weasley's kitchen window and that if the pillar suddenly disappeared, their exact location could be discovered, and thus apparated to.

Or at least that's what Luna said.

Then began a small debate about Luna's intelligence compared with Ed's, in which Ed got confused by they word 'Ravenclaw'—"What does being part of a bird's foot have to do with anything?!"—which led to a discussion about Hogwarts, in which Ed got more confused, which led to a discussion about the existence of Briyal Mortenches, in which Ed got even more confused.

"They attach behind the ears of muggle tourists traveling in Hawaii and make them think that their clothing is actually fashionable." Luna shook her head sadly. "Tragic, don't you think?"

Ed didn't know what to say to that since he didn't know where Hawaii was and what muggle tourists looked like (he was also a little frightened as to where the conversation might go next), so he decided to change the topic back to one that in all actuality really needed to be discussed.

"Luna, what does this have to do with getting me back to Amestris and keeping those other wizards from finding us?"

Luna blinked slowly. "Nothing, really."

Ed was really getting antsy that maybe they should get back to discussing more important things. "So, how are we going to do it?"

Luna gave a secretive smile and began to pick her way through a pile of broken bottles and various bits of things that looked a little dangerous. A large door stood at the end of the lab. She put her wand in her pocket and placed her hand on the second nail from the left. As soon as she did so, a large flaming bird burst from the ceiling and hung over Luna's head. Ed yelped and leaped over the pile, almost tripping over his own feet. The glowing bird glared at him.

"Who dares disturb me?" thundered the bird.

"Luna and her friend, Ed." Luna looked calm, as though this sort of thing happened everyday. The bird looked from Luna to Ed, and then started to shrink, gradually changing from red to deep green. When the bird was small enough to fit in the palm of Luna's small hand the forest green flames vanished, leaving a miniscule, rather unimpressive-looking black bird with a red stripe on its forehead.

"Luna darling! It's so nice to see you again. You haven't been here in ages. I've missed you! You've grown up so quickly! Who's your friend?" The black bird spoke quickly with a slight accent that Ed couldn't identify. Of course, he wasn't surprised. The bird jumped up and down on Luna's hand as it spoke.

"This is Ed," said Luna. "Ed, this is my mother's Pyvrolar and lab technician. Her name is Rosa."

Rosa held out a wing, and it took Ed a moment to figure out he was supposed to shake the tiny wing. The black bird clacked her beak in a smile and hopped onto his arm and up to his shoulder.

"You'd better take good care of Luna, boy," she hissed in his ear. Her tone of voice had completely changed, and Ed could almost hear the flames dripping from her tongue into his ear. He was about to respond, but Rosa had already returned to Luna's shoulder. The three of them went into the Luna's mother's office. Ed looked around and breathed in deeply the smell of books. He hadn't realized how much he had missed it. Every wall in the office was covered in bookshelves bursting with books, scraps of paper, and, Ed noticed as he looked closer, a few plates with bits of fossilized zucchini.

"Rosa, we need a lab notebook of mum's."

"Of course dear, anything you need. What information exactly are you looking for?"

Luna hesitated and glanced at Ed. He tried to arrange his facial expression to give the most support possible. Whatever Luna saw must have convinced her, because she squared her shoulders and said with as much authority as she could muster, "We need to get to Amestris."

Rosa blinked her black eyes a few times, raised her wings, fluttered so she was hovering in front of the two friends, and blew up.

"How DARE you even THINK of trying to get to that AWEFUL place!" the giant flame-bird shrieked as each word brought a new torrent of sparks raining down on Ed and Luna. "That place KILLED your MOTHER! What on earth are you THINKING trying to get there?!" Rosa grew larger and larger, until the tips of her wings were just inches from the bookshelves on each side of the room.

"Rosa, please! Mum would have--!"

"—shut you in your room for EONS for even THINKING about it!"

"But I need it for Ed because—!"

Rosa rounded on Ed with an even bigger spray of sparks. "So YOU'RE the reason behind this! I should have KNOWN! Probably just USING Luna to get what you want! Trying to steal YEARS of research for WHO KNOWS what sort of scheme!"

"I'm not trying to steal anything!"

"A likely story! Who are you working for!? The Droulins? The Yarays? If you even think that for a MOMENT I'm going to--"

"NO!" roared Ed as loud as he could. Rosa bulged at the interruption, but Ed didn't allow her to get a word in. "I'M FROM AMESTRIS! I WANT TO GO HOME!!" He stopped, panting. The heat from Rosa's sparks was really getting to him.

"You're from Amestris?"

Ed nodded. "I need to get back, and this is the only lead I've got. Please. I won't steal anything." Luna nodded as well, her facial expression pleading.

"You should have just said that in the first place. Goodness me, boy. There was no need to shout."

Ed looked up and saw that Rosa had reverted back to her less dangerous form. She was fluttering among different lab notebooks, pulling them out of the bookshelves and making a neat pile on the floor. He stepped carefully over to Luna, who was currently examining a thumbnail.

"Why did your mother keep one of these Pyro--?!"

"Pyvrolars." corrected Luna. "They're almost as good as phoenixes at protecting things, they're fiercely loyal, and they bake the most delicious butter tarts. Pity most people don't believe they exist. They're really very wonderful." She paused and inclined her face toward Ed. "But they do have nasty tempers."

"Really? I would never have guessed. Ouch!"

Rosa had obviously overheard Ed's last comment and didn't appreciate it. She had nipped him on the ear. "I've finished collecting the most current data. There's a lot of it, so you may want to move to the other room to be able to spread out.

Ed glanced over at the pile of data, and then had to look again. There was a pile as tall and a half again as he was.

"Oh, boy." He sighed. "Well, we'd better get started moving them."

Ed sat sullenly in the laboratory. Luna and Rosa were having a good chuckle in the office. When Ed had tried to reach up to the top of the pile to get the books, he hadn't been able to reach. As if throwing his height in his face hadn't been enough, they had even been laughing at his method of moving the books. And then when he had told them if they were going to laugh, Luna had just wiped a few tears from her eyes, pulled out her wand, muttered "Locomoter books," and they had all just gone and set themselves on the lab benches.

Ed had then decided to sullenly march out of the room, sullenly grab the top notebook, pull a stool sullenly to a clean table, slap the book sullenly down on the table, and sullenly open the cover to begin reading as he sullenly listened to Luna's repeated peal of laughter. It was really quite hard to stay sullen, however, when he realized that Luna's mother's information was good. Really, really good. She thought of things from a magical perspective, which Ed had never even considered before. He soon became absorbed in his reading, and almost didn't even notice when Luna came and sat beside him. He did notice, however, when his stomach began growling ferociously.

Luna grinned. "Come on, Ed. I think the butter tarts are done."

He followed her into a side room equipped with a kitchen, where Rosa was in her flame form juggling six rather substantial tart dishes expertly.

They were delicious.

Yay for chapter seven! I'm sorry I didn't get this up for a while, but hey. At least it's more often than some people update. I really enjoyed writing this chapter for some reason. I don't know, maybe it's because I finally added a character that doesn't have to obey a different person's view of everything. Rosa's mine and mine alone. That's kind of a nice feeling.

Or maybe it was the butter tarts.

I've never actually had a butter tart that I know of. I was just listening to a song and they mentioned butter tarts and I really needed to add it in my story somewhere. Does anybody know if they're any good? It'd suck if they weren't. Though I suppose it really depends on the person. I know someone who's really picky, so she probably wouldn't like them. I'm not picky--I'll eat anything except...um...taco caserol (yuk)--so I might like them.

If you look 'random' up in the dictionary it has my name under it.

Anyway, thanks for reading another chapter! I hope you all look forward to the next one, which shall continue with the many adventures of Ed and Luna!

churu

PS. Seriously, guys, I need help thinking up a title for this thing. I suck at that. Thus 'A Picnic'. Sucks, right?

PPS. I just finished reading the book The Redemption of Althalus. Read it. It's sooooooooooo good. And flippin' hilarious.