Before October

I certainly did not title this as "Blue Hour" originally. Now that I think about it, all of my fanfics begin with the letter A, B or C... I promise, it's not intentional.

Please enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 2: Snowball Fight Priorities

Winter 1904

He sneezed, smoke clouds dancing in front of his face. As he rubbed the condensation away, the skin between his gloves and coat came into contact with an ice-cold sensation. He looked up, flabbergasted, to see the first drops of snow falling from the sky. It never snowed in the East, although this winter had nearly been as blizzardly as the North.

All an onlooker would see was the innocent mesmerisation of a child witnessing winter's prowess, mouth agape, layers of clothing bundled and hastily abandoned in the jumble of his pockets. But he was fiendishly planning his next offensive within.

He had lost to his brother. His younger brother too. And he was not content with a stalemate. In the countryside, he prided himself in knowing every crevice as he dodged an incoming attack. He knew who were his friends and enemies…who were still his friends, but that was beyond the point. When the teams were decided, he usually paired up with his brother. As the other children scurried inside for their warm cocoa, allies would turn against each other. He knew the terrain and how to scoop the quickest stash of snow before hurling it at his brother, adjusting the angle so it would whack his brother in the chest.

While he received a disheartened scowl from his sibling, he was anything but disheartened. A victor's glee. He couldn't beat his brother in a fight of fists; he was his equal in intelligence. That left only snowball fights. Even with a snowball fight, he felt that he achieved much with his chilling victory.

And then they had arrived in East City on an outing, although their mother had not planned for the heavy forecast of snow. With winter beginning to wane, she must have hoped for a faint glimmer of sunshine, but it was overcast, murky clouds looming above, with no evident signs of relenting. The perfect weather to replenish his supply of ammunition.

He wasn't adapted to this terrain. The flat, repetitive land with hardly a tree in sight for shelter! And he couldn't throw free range without a fistful of snow colliding with a window or rooftop. It was ridiculous, and he secretly admired at how Al had slid down a bannister, like they did at home, to aim a snowball into his mouth. That was what had secured his now-smug sibling his success.

His barley-coloured bangs limped down the side of his face. It had only been hours ago when their mother had barrelled the two of them onto the train, still sleepy in the absence of the morning light. Accompanied by yawns and mumbles as replies, when the train whistle finally trumpeted with the arrival of the dawn, everything changed. His reaction was like an animal awakening from hibernation. He frantically ran along the length of the train, moving against the train's power, followed closely by his brother who stumbled into him once or twice as the transport suddenly halted at a station. They had inspected the skies, the landscape, and even asked the conductor, where they were going. But the conductor said nothing, as though he knew the secret plotting of their mother. A late season shopping trip.

Al had seen the sign first. He pointed at the frost-tinged surface, frozen water beginning to melt as the Sun edged to its pinnacle. Welcome to East City! Enthusiastic as he had felt but he had been defeated…and he was a sour loser.

His feet scoffed into the iced-over earth by the side of the pathway, like a very misshapen chocolate cake (he was thinking of the one Winry had made for his recent birthday) and shivered impulsively. In truth, it seemed to be becoming colder too, as though even the Sun was snug its blanket of clouds. He looked around, street lights dotting this way and that way, pedestrians hurrying to and fro cafes, the soft clink of bags being carried back to their owner's homes. The snow pellets obscured the road signs, lost amid the flurry of white. Reluctantly, he sighed exasperatedly, admitting that he was lost.

Why had he run away in a storm of anger when Al had puffed out his chest and their mother had praised his younger sibling…but also him too. Why had he been born as such a hot head?

That thought made him frustrated. He dragged his body forward, hands firmly tucked in his pockets, but his senses were alert for the indent of Al's boots on the cobbled streets, the stern cry of his mother calling out his name…

"Edward?"

He stared around, shocked. That was not the voice of his mother. What had answered his unspoken tangent was a male voice, fringed with contemplation and boredom, like the dull finale of a bonfire in which only ash remained. As he snapped out of his daydream, he stared upwards, at where his feet had brought him. There were huge iron gates towering several times his height. From their corners and lower versatility, they must have been wrought from cast iron. Cheaper and not as efficient as steel. Its percentage of carbon he estimated to be…

No stranger would have expected that this buttoned-up, grimacing child was a prodigy.

Two lions were situated proudly on a plateau, guarding the corner of each gate. Beyond an unidentified cluster of buildings rose from the ground. He hated to admit his feeling very small compared with the wider scope of the world. He admired its worn-down grandeur with the same inquisitiveness that had captured his imagination like the snow. Little did he know that this was the headquarters of the organisation he so despised; ever since the unsettlement in the East Area, his pastoral hometown of Resembool had never been the same. Military armament.

But he had more important things to think about…like where exactly he was. Edward Elric the alchemy genius, surpassing the skill of many credited professors at the age of 5, who couldn't interpret directions.

Ed shook his body vigorously. He had reached the end of the road, which only entered the foreign campus. And as his attention-span ran dry with the grey-speckled trees in the distance, he turned around, bracing himself for the stampede of plights from his mother and taunts from his brother, when he cocked his head to the side.

On a bench outside the gates shedding snow, a solitary bench hosted a solitary stranger. Their head was buried into their knees. His messy black hair was forced away from his face as he looked up intently into the headquarters' crevices, as though he saw details hidden from his own childhood naivety. Something was crumpled firmly in his hand, bearing the toll of his evident strain.

He had called Ed's name. It could have been no other. There was an invisible boundary line between the city's plaza and here…wherever here was, that only few would cross.

"Did you call my name?" The tone was sceptical, but he couldn't help wandering towards the man, intrigued. No stranger would recognise a boy born in the countryside. Not even him. The man suddenly choked in shock, snorting into the disguised cup appearing from the fronds of clothing beneath his coat.

"I didn't expect you to hear me, that's all," the stranger shuffled along on the bench, shoving the creased paper deep into his overcoat and throwing the cup directly into the bin without looking. He was beginning to earn Ed's immediate respect. He slumped further down the bench, until he was of an even height with Edward. "You look scarily similar…"

"I know. Mum always says I look just like…him." Ed blushed, thinking of the time nearly two years ago. On a springtime day when he and Al were still learning to tread around the house without falling into a pile of freshly harvested fruit, dormant from the long winter. The birds were singing, although their chorus was not loud enough to drown out the murmurs of sound drifting down the hallway. He had shuffled under the covers. And then a hand had poked the back of his neck, the warm breath of Al, whispering indistinguishable words but his hand reached to his tummy and Ed knew. He was his big brother.

They had stumbled out of the bedroom, passing the study and along the hallway every morning. The smell of sizzling eggs would quicken their pace. But their father was never awake. He was never in the hallway with a suitcase. And he had never shut the Doorway on their lives before.

"Hohenheim." The man nodded, looking at Edward. Ed ignored the scrutiny and instead returned the favour. Charcoal-coloured eyes framed with exhaustion, but glittered with a hint of spice and intelligence. He saw the same spark in Al's eyes, in Winry's eyes. In return, his aurous features must have reminded the stranger of his father, as they fondly reminded Granny Pinako of her "old drinking counterpart". She smiled strangely whilst reminiscing about "those days".

"Edward Elric, I'm glad to finally meet you." He raised a hand as if to shake but lowered it with a second thought. He rolled his eyes to himself.

"How did you- …" He gasped, thrilled that someone recognised his inheritance from his mother, especially when he was the replica of his father. "Everyone assumes my name is Edward Hohenheim. Win called me Edweim for nearly a year…"

"Of course I knew. Your parents never married." He dismissed the fact as a half-hearted shrug, as though the matter was too trivial to dwell on. "And I am Roy Mustang, a firm admirer of your father's research."

"Mum has only started to let us read his books…it was quite confusing at first. Wait, does that mean…" He scratched lightly at his gloves, fingers numb with the frigid air before they rested in his lap. He turned around to look clearly at the man, eyes widening in astonishment.

"You could say that I'm an alchemist." None of the neighbours could perform alchemy, and his father wouldn't have given him a demonstration; it was more likely that he would show them paternal affection for once. The snow was starting to diminish in his line of sight and stopped falling entirely. The world was left in a barren, white landscape, with every speck of nature tasting winter's bitterness. He buried his neck into his scarf and the warm air made him feel drowsy. It was almost beautiful.

Roy on the other hand was staring out into the nothingness. He blinked and said words under his breath. They were not audible, but the wisps of steam rising from his lips stated otherwise. After a pause which lasted but seconds, he was up on his feet, a solemn atmosphere around him. Where there was a sound of snow slumping from the gates to the ground, he jarred backwards. Ed remained seated, perplexed, wondering if all scientists truly were insane. His mind, beginning to slip back to the snowball fight, refocused on the young-old alchemist. Somehow, he knew those words possessed…Truth.

"You bastard…" The alchemist's words resonated into the chilling silence.

Without feeling the unconscious movements of his hands, they clumped around a wedge of snow and Ed threw the awkward snowball…which missed valiantly. It landed next to the stone lion but the movement caused snow to dislodge and land on Roy's head. Time slowed as the man looked up, a silent cry and instinctive panic causing his feet to skid impulsively on a hidden layer of ice. He tottered around during this unrehearsed interlude and caught his shoe in a stone. His other foot accelerated forwards and he landed face-down in the snow.

Ed blanched for a moment, his eyes intent at his newly-formed strategy. His grey-sheened pallor was substituted with a fiery intensity, adrenalin pumping through his veins. This fight he would not lose.

And he laughed so much.

A snowball was thrown at his head in response. The ice stung like miniature bullets, his clothes became heavy and soggy, dragging his five-year old's body down. But that was all forgotten. He forgot about his father and alchemy as he hurled snowball after snowball in a whirlwind of pick, scoop, throw.

"I despise brattish children." Ed had won. They were slumped out on the bench, their breathing finally having returned to a normal rate. The man's hair was completely soaked and his expensive overcoat literally ruined of all its finesse. But he was faring no better, except the contempt smile beaming across his face.

He didn't reply but instead gazed at the wrecked landscape. Not a trace of untouched perfection remained, makeshift barricades formed to be destroyed minutes later. The gates had experienced their most thorough cleaning throughout their fifty year history. And the ground looked like an ice cream parlour with the mounds of snow dug up from the earth, glimmering in sunlight. The Sun had lied to all the weather forecasters, despite how little Ed cared about that. The light faded, as the Sun continued in sinking behind the horizon. Only then did Ed realize how much time had passed. Al and Mum would have been really worried and an unspoken guilt surged through him.

"I have to go." He stood up, looking down at Roy, who had absent-mindedly pulled out the piece of paper, still immaculately crumpled and untouched by the elements of nature. Ed reached out a hand before dropping it to his side again. The man didn't deserve his respect.

"Hopefully not, urchin boy," he nodded to himself. "I'll do it. Unfortunately, you children need protecting, and someone has to do it." The pen clicked. Roy wrote his signature on the piece of paper, not spoiling it with the upmost delicacy. He shut the paper similar to his sealing his fate chained to the military's State. Now and forever.

"I'll see you around then. Next time, I want a demonstration!" Ed cried backwards without turning his head because he had heard his mother's voice. Faintly at first, but the call was becoming louder. He could hear the squeak of Al's voice too. He broke into a sweaty run, pummelling himself forward as fast as possible.

But then he stopped. He glanced around. The bench was empty.