Sorry for the delay! I've got the next two written, and then another one I need to write, then another pre-written...and then the last three O.O It's nearly over D:

93. Tightrope

It was bright, early morning outside, but it felt like sunset underneath the sheer circus tent. The billowing pavilion was filled with a warm red glow, the grass underfoot dry and yellow, and Ed had to stop himself from yawning from the sleepy atmosphere and the smell of popcorn hanging in the air. He'd stayed up all night so he could sneak out of his master's house, but that - and the days of hard work - was starting to take its toll.

"H-hello?" he ventured, and almost expected an echo. There wasn't one, of course, it was a tent, but it was so big and empty it might as well have.

"Tent's off limits until performance, dipshit," came a voice that would have been lazily sarcastic if it hadn't been half shouted.

Ed leapt back, startled, and stepped on a discarded bucket, tumbling onto his rear. His new position, however, afforded him a perfect view of the speaker, who was sitting on the tightrope which spanned almost the length of the tent.

"Buh?"

"I told you," groaned the slight figure, hands braced on either side of him (well, him by Ed's guess; it was hard to tell from the voice, let alone from this far away) and legs kicking in the empty air, "no one's allowed in, unless you're a carnie, and you en't no carnie, honey."

Ed blinked, not quite sure how to answer. He settled on being stubborn. It always seemed to work on Izumi. "How'd you get up that high?"

The person - Ed was starting to think 'female' now - laughed, long hair crackling around her body like it was alive. "How dumb are you, pipsqueak? There's a ladder on both struts." She grinned, and Ed caught a glimpse of very shiny, if not altogether clean, teeth. "O'course, if you wanna believe I flew, you can think that too."

"Why would I think that?"

She raised her legs and twirled around, making Ed's heart skip a beat as she looked about to fall before she wrapped her legs over the rope again and flipped upside down, hair hanging down in a curtain of green. "Carnies are magic, pipsqueak. Everyone knows that."

"Oh. Well, I'm not everyone."

"Who are you, then?" She - he? Ed was becoming uncertain again - cocked his head, making him dizzy trying to follow the gesture. "Haven't seen you at our shows yet, and we've been here near a month now. I'd remember a cute little pipsqueak like you."

"Stop calling me that! I'm not a pipsqueak, I'm just a long way down!"

The carnie laughed, sending a prickle down Ed's spine. "Gimme another name to call you and I'll consider it."

"Will I get in trouble? You already said I'm not supposed to be in here -" Something hit his forehead, making him blink and look down at the half-popped kernel of popcorn on the ground. "Wuh -"

"Name, loser." The carnie crossed his arms, making his position all the more precarious, although he didn't seem to mind.

"Where did you...?" Ed abandoned that thought. "You have good aim." He paused. "I'm Ed. Edward Elric."

"Oh cool, E's. I love Es. I'm an E, too, you know. The only one in the whole circus." The strange figure flipped himself back upright, doing a somersault before planting his feet on the rope.

Ed took a few more steps into the tent, raising his head even more to look up at 'E'. "Um. Cool. So you're one of the...performers?"

"Every idiot should know that! I'm only the main attraction! You really haven't come to see us, have you?"

Ed shrugged. "Haven't had the, uh, time."

"Well, make it."

"Circuses aren't really my thing."

There was a sound akin to a horrified gasp, and the carnie wavered on the rope, clasping his hands to his chest before he lost his balance and fell off the tightrope.

"Sh-SHIT!" Ed ran forward, only to grind to a halt and almost fall over again as E's descent halted about four feet from the ground.

"Hehe. You thought I actually fell."

Ed glared at the grinning joker, and then at the rope he was holding onto, hands and feet entwined into it. "That seems pretty precarious."

"Pre-ka-what?"

"You're going to fall on your head and break something."

He laughed. "Gimme some credit! I been working the ropes for a long time, pipsqueak."

"I told you my damn name, why don't you use it?" Beat. "How long?"

"Eight years."

Ed twisted his body around until he could see E's face right side up. "You don't look that old, though."

"I started young. We all do."

He raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, but wouldn't you have been, like, eight?"

The green-haired enigma frowned at that. "No. Ten."

Ed straightened up, suddenly dizzy from the rush of blood to his head. "...Ten? You joined the circus when you were ten?"

"Yep!" E flipped upwards, grabbing the rope so that he was standing upright again, feet coiled in the rope. Ed was distracted momentarily wondering how he wasn't breaking his feet that way, and then focused back on the acrobat.

"Ten years old."

"Mhm."

"...So you ran away from home?"

The difference was disconcerting. The cheerful, sly look on the acrobat's face disappeared in the blink of an eye, replaced with a snarl, purple eyes gleaming darkly. Even as Ed realized belatedly that perhaps it hadn't been his place to say that, E lashed out, leg swinging around to catch Ed in the chest and send him flying backwards.

E swung backwards on the rope, the tip of his toes touching the ground as he recovered from the kick. "Fuck off," he hissed.

"Wh-wha - I - s-sorry?"

"It's none of your goddamn business, pipsqueak!"

Ed was too shocked even to try get to his feet, staring nonplussedly at the performer who had been until a minute ago chirpy and friendly. His voice had changed too, raspier and rougher compared to the smooth one he'd put on before.

However, Ed being Ed, he couldn't leave well enough alone. "What happened? What did you run away from?"

"I didn't run away," he growled. "That's what cowards do. Besides, everyone leaves home eventually -" He shrugged, faking a little of the previous lightheartness. "I like my life."

"You're awfully skinny for someone who likes their life."

"What part of 'none of your business' are you not getting?"

"I bet I could count your ribs from here," continued Ed as if E hadn't spoken at all. "I've seen how many people pour into this tent, and you can't eat enough? Or do you just have to keep yourself light enough to walk the wires?"

E started to pull himself up the rope again, away from Ed. "How about you piss off right now?"

"How about you listen to me? You don't have to live like this."

"Live like what? The way I want to?"

"You knew what you wanted at ten?"

"Shut up!"

Ed sat up, and then slowly rose to his feet, offering his hand. "I'm serious. Try putting your feet on the ground."

For a moment, the pale boy looked like he was considering it. Then his eyes narrowed again. "Go to hell."

Ed let out a deep sigh, knowing when he'd lost. "Have it your way," he murmured, turning his back and walking away. Izumi was bound to notice he'd snuck out now, and he'd get another lecture about how 'if you want to find this thing, you work at it, damn you'. He had other things to do.

Still, he wondered.

The next day, still smarting all over from Izumi's 'lecture', he went into town for groceries - and couldn't help but notice the circus tent descending.

"Huh?" I thought they were in town for another day or two... Curiosity overtaking responsibility, he headed over to where the carnies were packing up their caravans. "Hey, you're leaving already?"

One of them turned around, peering over dark sunglasses. "What else did you expect, y'little josser?"

Ed blinked. "What do you mean?"

A woman looked up from tying a knot around a horse's middle, and leaned over to murmur in the man's ear, "I think that's him."

"Ah? Really now?" The man, easily twice Ed's size, put down the rope he was coiling nonchalantly before swivelling around and driving his fist into his stomach, making him drop the bag of groceries. "That's for messin' with us," he hissed, before grabbing him by his hair and throwing him to the ground.

"Wait, what did I do? - Is this -" Ed struggled to his knees, only to be kicked down in the dirt again by the woman who had spoken earlier, her eyes red as blood and carmine lips thin and pursed. "Is this about yesterday? Because I didn't mean to make trouble - I just - he was -"

Another fist slammed into his jaw - this time from a boy who couldn't be more than fourteen, matted black hair held back by a ragged brown cap. "His name was Envy!"

Before Ed could recover enough to stutter out another confused question, they were on him again, kicking and punching until he could taste blood in his mouth.

"Hey! Get off of him!" Another voice pierced through the noise, and Ed thought groggily he recognized it. A moment later, the carnies backed away as a slim figure wrestled through them.

"Leave it alone, sweetie," growled the man in sunglasses, adjusting them on his nose. "Carnie business."

"I don't care whose business it i, leave him be!" The blonde glared at them angrily. "You're packing up. So leave."

They gave both her and Ed wary looks, but soon dissipated. Ed got to his feet. "W-Winry?"

"Ed, what did you do to get them on you? You know how circus folk are." She knelt by him, running a hand over his forehead before trying to help him up. He batted her away.

"I - no, Win, I think I might have deserved that...I..." He fell silent for a moment. "I dunno. I think I might have accidentally convinced one of them to leave."

"Huh?"

"I was talking to one of them yesterday morning... Tried to convince him to leave the circus." Ed shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't realize it would be such a big...deal..." Even as the words left his mouth he could see her face go pale. Something nagged at him.

His name was Envy.

Winry clapped a hand to her mouth, looking about ready to throw up, and then recovered herself, although she still looked on the verge of tears. "W-was it the one with...with green hair?"

"Yeah, the long green hair and the black outfit... Why?" A surge of panic rose in his chest. "What - what happened?"

So Winry told him. She told him about how people had thought it was just a grisly decoration, some appeal to the macabre as they were pushing and sliding into their seats. She told him about how the light had played off of it just enough to make it look fake, a black silhouette in the red shade.

She told him about how someone had screamed, one of the performers as she'd come out into the ring, and that was when they realized the figure hanging by its neck in the middle of the tent was real, green hair lank and its face blue.

She told him about how the show had been cancelled, how they'd all left even without demanding their money back... She told him about the sobs she'd heard, even if the carnies had looked stoic as anything every time she'd seen them.

All Ed could think about was how perfectly balanced Envy had been on the tightrope, skipping around as naturally as breathing.

He hadn't thought for a moment someone like that could lose their balance.