.:Seven:.

A Wild Mirkworm Appears! Edward Uses Sarcasm! It's Not Very Effective…

.

Ed stumbled from the bus and pulled his coat closed against the autumn chill. He was grateful that they'd had very little luggage—Al had scrounged up a bag in which they put two of the alchemy textbooks and a spare change of clothes each—because the warmth of the vehicle and the afternoon sun had lulled him into lethargy, and he was only now beginning to shake it off.

He started trudging downhill, glancing back at the bus as Al fell into step beside him. "That wasn't such a bad ride," he said through a wide yawn. A year ago, Ed never would have thought that he'd look forward to long voyages, but there was something comforting about the familiar worn seats, the weary passengers, the cramped spaces. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he'd missed this form of travel—landscapes flickering past with Al at his side. Trains and buses were almost a second home to them.

Al hummed in agreement as they followed the unpaved trail. Ed's yawn turned into a series of coughs, and he ignored the look of concern his brother gave him. The area around them was heavily forested, spiking into tall peaks in the distance to their right. "It's this way, Brother," Al said absently, pulling his brother to the left toward a sloping foot trail that descended into the woods.

"Are you sure?" Ed asked, but he turned to follow his brother all the same.

"I went this way last time," Al confirmed.

Ed frowned. "I don't remember being here before."

"I came here alone," Al said gently, "when you were gone. It's a small place, but their library has information that you can't find anywhere else."

"What kind of information?" Ed asked warily, kicking the dry leaves.

"About the Gate," Al clarified. "I wasn't doing anything dangerous, Brother, or going after the philosopher's stone. I just thought that there might have been some kind of loophole. A weakness in the Gate that I could…" he trailed off, brow furrowing. "Anyway, I didn't find anything much."

Al smiled weakly and turned away. It was hard to remember that he'd spent so much time on his own, that he'd lived and done things Ed didn't know about…suddenly, Ed wondered what Al had done all that time, where he had wandered in search of answers.

"Anyway," Al said after a moment, before Ed could figure out what to ask, "it's a nice place. Small and out of the way, like Risembool, with little neighborhoods where everyone knows everyone else. You can pass by without even realizing it's there." He looked around wistfully at the gnarled trees that lined the path and twisted above their heads. "And sometimes, it's nice to just spend time in the forest. You could stay in here for ages...oh! Look, Brother, we're almost there. I can see the chimney smoke."

Sure enough, they cleared the tree line a few minutes later and found themselves in the valley, where buildings were scattered up and down the slanted land and half-hidden behind clusters of trees.

Ed could see how the village would have charmed his brother; it made for a beautiful setting in the late afternoon light, with its quaint wooden houses, stream that babbled downhill toward an ancient stone grist mill, and foliage that was just changing colors for the fall. But there was something unnerving about it.

"Is it always this quiet?" Ed asked his brother. Aside from a few women hanging clothes to dry and a lone farmer, the town appeared deserted.

Al led the way, following the worn trail around houses and thickets alike and weaving a path to the inn. "No," he murmured thoughtfully. "It seemed busier last time I was here."

"I guess news of the Beasts has even reached here too," Ed said. "If they haven't made it here themselves."

The innkeeper, who introduced herself as Nora, greeted them as they entered the building. "Need a room?" she asked, smiling in spite of her businesslike tone.

"Just for the night," Ed agreed. "We'll be catching the bus back tomorrow."

Nora nodded and scribbled into a notebook on the desk, her short, greying hair falling into her face. She looked up and studied them for a moment, before deciding, "You're here for the caves."

"How did you know?" Al asked

She beamed at them, dimples pocketing her cheeks. "Most everyone comes here for the caves. You could say they're the main attraction around here. Though most people stay for more than just the one night…" She hesitated. "Not that I'm—! Well, I'm glad of the business, anyway. Haven't had our share of travelers lately, what with talk of those monsters spreading all over. Some say the world's ending; me, I think it's just a hiccup that's bad for business."

Ed, struck by her cavalier tone, couldn't help but ask, "Have there been any attacks here?"

"Just a few," she said, wiping her hands on her apron and motioning for them to follow. "But I wouldn't really call them attacks. The monsters we've got are just tiny ones compared to what you hear about on the radio." She stopped in the hallway, handing them two keys. "Here's your room. You heading out right away? I'll give you a few pointers," she added with a wink.

"Sure," Ed agreed easily, suppressing a cough as he dropped their single bag over the threshold and pocketing his key. "What can you tell us?"

"Well," Nora began, walking over to rummage through a nearby closet, "people come from all over to see the paintings. Alchemists, historians, artists, researchers…but I like to give people a few words about the caves before they just dive right in." She pulled out a stack of papers and peeled one off the top. A map. She handed it to Al. "The paintings are easy enough to reach, and the caves aren't too dangerous, but we have our fair share of accidents. And this place is so out of the way that accidents can turn serious real fast, if you catch my drift. We've got a few people good at healing, but if there's a real emergency, the nearest hospital is over in Fotcett, 'bout an hour away by bus. Things don't—"

There was a long, rough howl from somewhere outside, followed by another. The brothers froze, but Nora shoved the papers back into the closet and bustled down the hall, slamming the windows and doors shut.

"What is that?" Al asked, peering out the windows. Ed thought he already knew.

"Those monsters." Nora called back. "Look, they're over here." She pointed at a window across from the front desk, where a pair of brown-haired beasts trundled, their enormous, jagged teeth glinting in the dying sunlight.

"What is that?" Al asked again.

"Howlers," Ed said quietly.

"Where—do they even have eyes?"

"Not sure."

"S'alright," Nora said softly, leaning against the window. "They don't eat people, anyway. Not that we've noticed," she said wryly. "They only eat those monsters."

Ed noticed the black Gatekeepers for the first time, writhing up the side of a tree and shrieking loudly.

"Not that we were sad to see the little ones go," Nora said. "But something about the teeth rattles most of us, even though that fool Tamry over at the mill went up to pet one. Everyone else's been keeping indoors when they're around—oh!"

They watched as one of the Howlers spurted forward suddenly, snakelike, catching a Keeper in its massive jaw. The black Beast disappeared down the Howler's throat with a whimper, and something about it made Ed jolt, a strange sensation that he'd felt before, with the Pyro, and that made his skin shiver. Something he couldn't place, a word on the tip of his tongue.

After a few moments of musing, he became aware that he stood at the window alone. Nora and Al had pulled themselves away from the window and were chattering away. Nora had gathered the tools that she was lending them: lanterns, a map, and water canteens. Al shoved them into his pack, along with the alchemy book and their notebooks.

"Are the two of you sure you want to head out?" Nora fretted as Ed approached, wiping her hands anxiously on her apron again. "There might be trouble for you if you do."

"It'll be fine," Ed assured her. "We'll stay as far away from those things as we can get."

Nora shook her head and gestured toward the window. "Those ones out there are one thing, but I've been hearing horrible things on the radio."

"We'd better get going before it gets too dark, brother," Al said calmly. Despite his initial worries, he seemed willing enough to follow through with this plan now that they had started.

The innkeeper sighed and muttered to herself as they stepped outside, keeping an eye out for the Howlers. "Watch your backs," she called after them.

The sun had dipped below the trees, but there was more than enough light for the pair of them to make their way through the village and into the undergrowth, following a trail that had been worn by the steps of a thousand boots.

As they trundled through the forest, Ed watched the way his brother adjusted the pack, grabbing it only with his good arm. Ed wordlessly plucked the bag from his Al's back and shouldered it himself. "Do we really both need to go in?" Ed asked, silencing Al's protest before he could start. "You're hurt."

"So are you, Brother," Al said patiently. "And I thought we weren't planning on running into trouble?"

"We aren't," Ed confirmed. "But just in case."

"It'll be faster with both of us," Al insisted, "and we need all the information we can get. We may not know how to get to the alchemy we need, but knowing what kind of alchemy to use is equally important. First things first, after all."

Ed hmmed. Hecouldn't ignore his brother's logic, and his own footsteps had never slowed or faltered. He hadn't really expected Al to let him off so easily.

.

There were only two entrances into the caves, and the one that Nora had directed them to was a small one. Al lit their oil lanterns at the cave mouth, and they wordlessly stepped down into the darkness of the cave and away from the fading sunlight.

In testament to the frequent visitors, the path down was eased by wooden stairways and strategically placed rocks. The air chilled around them as they descended, as though it were winter instead of fall down here. Ed was grateful for the lanterns as the darkness thickened.

After a five-minute trek, clusters of paintings began to litter the wall to their right, growing closer together as they moved on and branching off into the adjoining tunnels. Ed glanced at them when he was not watching his footing: horses, humans, primitive weapons, shelters, and strange beings that could only have been the spirits, which they now called Beasts.

The way forward branched off again. Al checked the map before leading them down a passage that narrowed and dropped into a slant. The ceiling lowered, and they hunched over a little to make their way. Just as Ed was beginning to feel claustrophobic, they stepped out into an enormous chamber that stretched twenty feet above their heads and farther to their right than the lantern light could reach.

"It's beautiful," Al said in a hushed voice, as though he was afraid to disturb the air. In the light of his raised lantern, the walls glowed and flickered with surreal brightness. Stalactites glimmered on the ceiling, hanging like teeth, and water trickled somewhere off in the distance.

But the most beautiful things were the arrays painted on the far walls, dancing across the surface in vivid colors and spirals as though someone thought that these arrays, too, should be considered artwork. The Elrics stepped forward, boots treading through puddles of water, as both of them moved their lanterns to see as much of the designs as possible.

"It's this one, here," Ed said quietly, recognizing a giant array that stretched fifteen feet at least. "It's the one from the book."

"And this one," Al said after a moment, finding another nearby. "And…this small one has some of the same designs…"

"It would have had to be huge," Ed remembered. "Does that mean that…?"

"—that it doesn't fit on the wall?" Al finished. "We're meant to piece them together on our own, I think."

The silent cave swallowed up their words as they both pondered that for a minute.

"Alright," Ed said finally, "let's get started."

.

They spent the next eternity settled down onto the driest part of the cave floor, staring in silence and scribbling into the notebooks now and then as they began to recognize the sigils of the elements, of time, of renewal. The designs were balanced and firm in a manner that was not at all apparent in the books, and the designs spoke to each other in a way that would only be truly understandable once they were combined into a single array.

It was trying work that evolved past their idea of simply copying bits of the array; the pair of them became engrossed in intertwining the designs, in fitting them together. A good portion of the time was spent simply staring, fitting sigils together like puzzle pieces in their minds.

Ed wasn't sure how much time had passed when he broke away from his task, arrays still dancing before his eyes. Hours, if the stiffness in his back and legs was anything to go by.

Al worked dutifully beside him, grasping his notebook as his eyes flickered from one design to the next. But something had broken Ed's concentration, something nearby. It was the same feeling he'd had earlier, the strange and flickering feeling that made his skin shiver.

He realized what it was.

"Al," he said suddenly, "we gotta move."

"What?" His brother blinked as though waking from sleep. "Where?"

"There's something in here—a Beast. We need to get out of here."

"What—how do you know?" Al asked, although he began shoving their things back into the pack and squinting into the darkness that the lantern light could not touch.

"I can feel the alchemy," Ed said.

Al paused, pinning his brother with a startled gaze as they rose to their feet. "You can feel it? You didn't think to mention that before, Brother?" he hissed.

"Well, I just—it never came up!" Ed said defensively, as the prickling of his skin grew stronger.

"Never came—!"

Ed grabbed his brother by the arm and began dragging him away, further into the caves. The strange feeling of alchemy, the alchemy that now belonged to the Beasts, was emanating from the way that they had come.

They staggered deeper into the tunnels, stumbling across the slippery surfaces and holding their lanterns up as well as possible. Any doubts Ed had had about his own sanity disappeared as they began to hear faint slithering sounds that came from the narrow tunnels behind them.

"Do you at least know what it is?" Al panted as they hugged the wall.

"Working on it," Ed threw out, though he had his suspicions. "Just what we fucking needed," he grumbled to himself. "Like we didn't have enough fun with monsters already."

The path below their feet was slanting downward once more, and suddenly they slid into icy, ankle-deep water. They stopped cold. "The river," Al breathed.

Nora had explained that some of the oldest cave paintings were accessible only at certain parts of the year, when the water was low. Unless you brought a boat. Ed grabbed his brother and pulled him forward. "We don't have any other option," he said, and added, "and I don't think it will be able to follow very well in here."

They pressed on. The icy water filled Ed's boots, gradually rising past his hips to almost swallow his shoulders as the floor slanted unevenly beneath their feet. With the lanterns and pack above their heads, they stayed close to the wall, where the floor was highest. If it got much deeper…

The current was weak, though it lazily pulled them onward. Al nearly lost his footing as he hurried forward; Ed threw out a hand to steady him. "Not so fast. I think it's following by the sound," he said. They waded as quickly and silently as possible as they pressed on.

When the sound of splashes reached their ears, Ed risked a glance behind him. In the dim light, almost outside of the realm of his lantern's glow, was a creature Ed knew as a Mirkworm. Its long, pale body was covered in dark moss and fungus, and as it thrashed about ineffectively in the deep water, Ed noticed with a shudder that its yawning mouth was still more than wide enough for a human to fit through.

The creature backed up awkwardly, thwarted by the deeper water. It retreated little by little, slipping out of the water and back into the tunnel behind them. Its head peered in their direction—maybe not, Ed thought, since he was fairly sure it was blind—and it noiselessly disappeared into the darkness.

"That's right," Ed growled to himself. "Get out of here, you stinking earthworm."

They continued wading slowly rough the water, the light from the lanterns glimmering off the surface of the water as they strained their ears for any sound other than the distant dripping of water.

After a few minutes, they came to an uneven patch of ground that rose sharply. When they stood on it, the freezing water only reached their knees. Al fumbled for the map, which was soggy in one corner, as Ed began to wring water from the bottom of his braid.

"Where are we?" he asked, still shivering from the cold. He knew from studying the map that the cave system was extensive. It might take a day's travel by foot to reach the opposite end where the river flowed out, unless they found one of the smaller side exits. And as wet and cold as they were, hunted by a Beast at their backs, it would be a long and miserable journey.

Al didn't answer right away, holding the lantern steady as his eyes darted around the paper. "I think we're here," he said triumphantly after a minute, lowering the light a bit to jab at the paper. "So…there's an exit ahead—I can't tell how far." He scoured the darkness before them, lifting his lantern to see. "Come on. Let's get out of here, Brother."

"What I wouldn't give for a change of clothes," Ed muttered to himself, shaking water from his icy, drenched coat.

They trudged forward, the water receding until they splashed onto slick earth once more. Al navigated their way through the adjoining tunnels. By now, though, his hands were shaking from the cold, and the lantern light danced wildly on the walls. Ed's skin prickled again as well, but not from the cold.

He spurted forward, but he barely had time to call out before the Beast slammed into Al from somewhere above, crushing him hard against the wall before careening sideways. Al crashed to the cavern floor, his lantern shattering beside him and flickering out on the wet ground.

Panicking, Ed rushed to his dazed brother, hoisting him up by the front of his shirt and propping him against his shoulder. "Walk, Al!" he commanded, throwing an arm around his back as he quickly staggered forward. Behind them, the Mirkworm seemed stunned from the blow; it was moving slowly, brushing against the walls as though to get its bearings.

The ground began a steep rise below their feet, and Ed half-dragged his brother uphill, slipping on the slimy ground and trying to manage Al and the lantern at once. Ed could hear the Beast, feel it behind them as they stumbled again.

"There," Al murmured weakly. Ed's eyes flickered around, looking for what his brother meant, when he saw a narrow hole twenty feet away from them on the right side of the wall.

"The exit?" He felt Al nod.

"'Bout time," Ed huffed, doubling his efforts. The wet floor did them no favors. It sloped upward still, like a ramp leading to the exit, and the wall to their left disappeared suddenly, the ground falling away in a steep drop.

A feeling of energy rushed toward them, alchemy strong enough to make Ed's skin prickle and the hair on his neck rise. Ed pivoted to do—something—as the Beast rolled forward, toothless mouth opening wide.

He slid to the side, pulling Al after him as the Mirkworm fumbled blindly forward. Ed caught a whiff of its breath, of decay and rot, as it rolled past. "Awesome," Ed choked, and once he started coughing, he couldn't stop. He struggled for breath as the Beast thrashed around with its gaping mouth, sweeping the pair of them to the side. Ed lost his footing, stumbling backward and gasping for air. Al weakly struggled to keep them both upright.

The Beast had gotten its bearings now that it had blindly knocked into its prey, and it pivoted quickly, blocking the exit.

"You're in the way, you fucking slug," Ed panted, mind racing as he steadied himself, adjusting his grip on his brother.

The Mirkworm spurted toward them, and Ed danced to the side again. This time, he stumbled, his lantern crashing into the Beast's thick skin. Terror flashed briefly in his mind as he processed the prospect of being alone with the creature in total darkness, but the flame did not fade. Instead, it sparked brightly, igniting on the moss and mold that covered the Mirkworm's back.

The creature soundlessly began thrashing and writhing against the fire. Its tail struck Ed, who stumbled away from the exit and into the darkness. Though he tried to keep upright, he lost his footing, and he and Al tumbled backward into the gloom, hitting the solid ground hard.

Ed was dazed for a moment, head swimming and struggling with the inclination to vomit, but he pushed himself up to drag Al out of the way as the flaming Beast began writhing closer. It thrashed into the walls, freeing rocks from the sides and ceiling of the cave, and Ed shoved Al against the wall, sheltering his brother as the stones began raining down in earnest. "What the hell…?" Ed muttered to himself.

Rocks pelted them as the din became almost unbearable, and Ed closed his eyes against the dust and debris that flew everywhere. After half an age, the noise gradually lessened, and Ed chanced a look around them.

In the darkness, he could barely make out a pile of rubble that covered the exit and stretched even to the tunnel they had just come from. Patches of flames were dying among the stones, glimmering against spots of pale flesh that peeked out from underneath the pile. As Ed's eyes adjusted to the dimming light, he realized that pale moonlight was streaming faintly from a few holes in the ceiling.

There was no way out.

"Great!" barked Ed, startling his bleary-eyed brother. "You couldn't just off yourself, you stupid insect. You had to practically take us with you and seal off the fucking…"

After a few beats, he sighed wearily and looked at his brother, who blinked at him confusedly. "Come here," Ed said, running a hand through Al's golden hair and feeling something slick between his fingers. He pulled his hand back, and in the moonlight, he could just make out a dark liquid. He swore softly to himself.

"We're okay?" Al said hazily.

"Yeah," Ed said instantly. "We're both gonna be fine. Lay down, Al."

His brother obediently leaned back onto the slanted earth, breathing shallowly. Ed shook himself, his frustration slowly bleeding away as he checked over his brother, taking inventory of the situation.

They were trapped down here in relative darkness, but they had somehow managed to hang onto their pack with the water canteens and notebooks. They were safe, for the moment. Al was hurt—a concussion, Ed thought from their shared experiences, but he couldn't be sure—and there was not much that could be done to care for him. They were both soaked to the bone and exhausted. But with a bit more light in the morning, they might manage to climb out of the darkness. In any case, Nora knew where they were, and with any luck, they might be found.

He ground out a sigh again, but this one turned into a coughing fit before he could help himself. The day's events caught up with him all at once as the adrenaline ebbed away, and Ed wearily settled onto the ground beside his brother. He ripped a piece of fabric from his shirt and pressed it to the back of his brother's head to stem the blood flow. Al groaned.

"Sorry," Ed murmured. "Try to sleep."

"…you?" Al asked weakly, shivering. Ed pulled his brother's coat closed with one hand.

"I'll sleep in a bit," he said.

Al hummed and fell asleep, just like that.

Ed kept the fabric pressed against Al's hair, watching as the last of the flames flickered out and the stars began to wheel overhead. By the time the bleeding finally slowed and stopped, Ed was numb from the cold. He huddled beside his brother, his drift toward sleep interrupted only by fits of shivering.

Exhaustion finally took its toll, and Ed fell asleep with the comforting feeling of alchemy tugging at his chest.

.

.

.

A/N: Poor Ed. He might be a genius, but his ideas don't always work out as smoothly as he hopes. At any rate, he's still alive, and that's what counts!

Not quite sure I'm satisfied with this chapter, but I could go on tweaking it for all of eternity…so I'll let you guys at it. Thanks for tuning in! Please leave me a review, and I'll see you next time!

~ket

Edit (4/13/12): A quick note about concussions: it's actually a myth that you shouldn't fall asleep when you have a concussion. Research shows that sleeping can actually be one of the best ways to deal with one. However, it's a good idea to occasionally wake the concussed party to check for additional dizziness, confusion, etc., but otherwise, rest is the best way to heal. This information is accurate to the best of my knowledge, but I'm no doctor, so...yeah. Ed may or may not be alert enough to actually wake Al throughout the night at this point, but there wouldn't be any harm in letting him sleep!

Next Chapter: Being an Account of the Near Murder of Edward Elric at the Hands of One Brigadier-General Mustang