Hey ya'll. Thanks for enjoying the story so far :)
For those of you who didn't quite get why her name was changed partway through this story (last chapter), this chapter might help.
For this chapter and the following ones, I will be taking my time with the dialogue.
I don't like to steal lines from episodes as I'm not just writing another character into an already written script. This is an entire story built in between the episodes already out.
Read, review and enjoy :) Follow to receive updates when new chapters are released.
P.S. Shilo, thanks for the pre-post review 3
Mara stared out at the town before her. Although small, it was clearly not impoverished. Respectable houses of various colors dotted the sides of streets. The center of the town contained tidy shops and outlets that would likely satisfy any person not content to be a homebody.
Envy had taken her a great distance but she wasn't sure why he had picked this particular location. It seemed like a random choice but, for all Mara knew, it could've been a very strategic selection.
They walked through the empty roads, the street lights and moon being the only illumination. Despite an apparent lack of life outside, when they entered a bar, Mara was surprised to discover a multitude of customers downing drinks with cheer.
She turned to Envy and was shocked to see a young blonde woman standing in his place. It took her a few moments to register that she was, in fact, still looking at Envy and not some pretty stranger. "Envy?"
"Mara, I'm Kira. Don't tell me you forgot my name already?" The girl gushed. She gave Mara a look screaming are you serious.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry." Mara mumbled under her breath. She wondered when Envy's morphing ability would cease to shock her.
They took a seat together at a bar and it wasn't long before two men approached them. The scent of liquor and cigarettes hung on their breath as they got uncomfortably close to the pair. Mara cringed when one placed his hand on her thigh and she began questioning her investment in their endeavor.
Envy was very charismatic, however. He smoothly spoke to the gentlemen with a soft, bubbly voice. Mara guiltily wondered if Envy was prettier than her in this form.
After several drinks and a lot of random chatter, Envy and Mara stood. They moved outside with the company of the two men, Envy claiming that they wanted someone to walk them to their inn. One of the men struck up a conversation with Mara as they walked. She smiled and attempted to reciprocate the interest resonating in the man's voice.
The man speaking to Envy was lean and blond with brown eyes and a square face. The one speaking to Mara, whose name she discovered to be Jacke, was a bit taller than Envy with dark brown hair and green eyes.
As soon as they rounded a corner Envy turned around and sliced the neck of the man chatting with (her?) using a finger-blade. The man had been mid-word and his eyes widened, pupils dilating to become saucers. Blood began spurting from his jugular and some trickled out of his mouth.
Jacke turned and stared for a few moments, the sight so unexpected he just couldn't respond. His mouth opened, "Alec?"
Reality seemed to set in as Jacke watched his friend slide down to the floor. Alec was clutching his neck, futilely attempting to stop the blood spurting from the wound. Jacke took off running.
"Mara, the fuck are you doing?" Envy had resumed his normal form.
Mara's mind became once more functional and she glanced at the receding figure ahead of her. The ground pushed up beneath his feet, knocking him to the ground. He scrambled to get to his feet again but Mara was rushing after him. She encircled his legs with rock, locking him to the ground.
He flailed as Mara approached him, Envy close behind.
She reached out to the wall, brushing her hand on a metal slate as they passed it. With a violet light, she slowly withdrew a sharp knife from the metal surface. She approached the man. His skin had turned white and he was clawing at the rocks encasing his legs.
Mara froze as she got close. She was standing over Jacke, blade positioned in hand, but she couldn't move. Her hand began to shake. "Envy, I—I don't think I can do this." It fell to her side.
"What do you mean, you don't think you can do this. Mara, fucking finish him off."
Mara gritted her teeth as she began to feel flashes of memory—from the time when she was Emilee. That girl was always helping people, so nice, how could she ever come so low as to kill someone.
But then, that moment flickered past. She thought of all the times people around her old town had been useless or taken advantage of her. Emilee had always helped them, but she couldn't remember a single time that anyone had come to visit her. No one had ever offered her help of any kind. No one seemed to care for that poor little orphaned girl. And why?
Mara felt her eyes wet. That girl, Emilee was a push-over. She helped everyone else despite the favor never being returned. She tried to follow in her mother's lead, but she didn't even know the woman she had called mother. Her mother and grandfather killed numerous people, leaching off their lives to increase their own strength and power. Emilee was weak.
But Mara wasn't.
Mara took the knife, leaned in close to Jacke.
He tried to edge further away but was impeded by his restricted legs, buried in the rock. "Please," he begged. "Don't do this."
Mara stared deep into his green eyes but said nothing as she kneeled closer. Her hand pulled the blade out in preparation for the strike.
"I'll give you anything you want. Please don't do this. I have 3000 cenz, it's all yours. I have a family. I can gi—." His mouth dripped blood as Mara swiped the blade across his neck.
She hadn't cut the jugular as neatly as Envy but she'd gone deeper. Blood poured out at an easy pace. The flow getting faster and slower with each of the man's heartbeats. She could make out the silvery trachea shining, partially severed, through the wound. He watched her slowly withdraw, bloodied knife in hand. She could hear a gurgle escape his lips when he tried to speak.
Envy laughed and clapped his hands. He flipped her around fiercely pressed his lips to hers.
Mara closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck, letting their tongues entwine over the sound of the man behind them sputtering blood and clutching the wound in vain.
"Why do you always have to get in trouble?" Lust eyed Envy as he entered the main room.
Envy laughed and shrugged, taking a seat on the couch.
"And now you're even getting Mara involved in your misadventures." Lust crossed her arms.
Envy rolled his eyes. "I thought you'd be happy I determined that Mara is willing to kill humans."
"True," Lust nodded. "But who knows how much attention you've drawn."
"Why'd you call us in here?" Ed asked, stretching and rubbing the back of his head with his flesh hand.
Colonel Mustang looked at the two boys over his folded hands. "Two men were murdered last night in a small town."
Ed and Al glanced at each other.
"That doesn't explain why you've called us in here," Ed stated flatly. "There are many other people who can handle that kind of situation." He crossed his arms. "What's the real reason you called us in here?"
Mustang smirked. "Perceptive as usual." His face became sterner. "The two men were last seen leaving a bar with two women who were not residents of the town. One of them perfectly matches the description of the one you gave me for that girl from Lorne, Emilee."
Ed's eyes widened and Al took a step back. "What?"
Mustang pushed several papers across his desk to face the boys. "I figured you'd like to handle the case, given your responsibility in her disappearance."
Ed and Al nodded. Ed picked up the papers and he swiftly left the room with brother close behind. They walked to a park a short distance from Central and took a seat on a bench.
"Do you think it's really her?" Al asked softly.
"I don't know," Ed said as his eyes darted across the pages. "I don't know why she'd end up with some strange blond woman or why she'd become a murderer."
"But the description matches hers."
Ed sighed. "Yeah but there can be similar looking people in the world. Besides, everyone at the bar seemed confident that both women's names ended with an 'a'. That doesn't fit her."
"But she could've just used a fake name in front of the people there." Al whispered.
Ed nodded. "That's true. They were all also drunk."
"So, what should we do, brother?"
Mara laid in Envy's bed—she'd snuck in the moment he'd left to the main room. She curled up and smelled his scent wafting off the pillows and sheets. She closed her eyes and pulled them closer.
Was this all a dream? A large family, a home filled with it, someone she could love—things she'd deeply desired since even before the death of her mother. She felt so happy she wanted to cry and she buried her face in Envy's pillow. She didn't understand how she could have ever wanted to leave this castle.
The door creaked as it was pushed open. Mara's eyes flickered open and she lifted her head up to see Envy standing in the doorway, a silhouette.
He cocked his head to the side. "What are you doing in here?"
Mara sat up and shrugged. "You come in my room all the time unannounced. Thought I'd return the favor."
Envy smirked and meandered to the bed. "Can't say I disapprove."
He sat on the bed and pressed his lips to hers. Her hands snaked up behind his head to entwine the green locks within her fingers. Their tongues danced as he pushed her back down on the bed.
Clothes were quickly lost and Envy bit harshly into her shoulder. Mara gasped a bit, feeling a single drop of blood rolling over her collarbone.
He flipped her over and penetrated her roughly. As soon he could see she was responding positively he began to slowly carve into her back with a blade.
Mara hissed as the blade sunk deeper into her skin, about the depth of the laceration that had once been carved into her arm. She shifted and tried to pull away but Envy held her in place with his other hand
"Stop," Mara cried into the sheets.
"I thought I prepared you well for this.
"It hurts."
Envy didn't respond as he continued to carve a letter into her back, loving the sensation of her tightening around him. Her distress was also itself a turn on.
The wound, being significantly deeper than the ones he'd created during their past sexual encounters, bled significantly more. Blood rolled off her back and dampened the sheets of the bed.
After the completion of the single letter, he leaned down and licked the blood trailing across her skin, sucking on the deep laceration for a few moments. Mara began to moan again, the pain ebbing into arousal.
She seemed to respond better when he carved the next letter, not apparently in the severe pain she'd experienced before. But once again, she tightened around him as the blade moved.
By the final letter, Mara's body had relaxed and she was moaning loudly
He lapped up the blood and bit her neck. His finger slipped onto her clit, eliciting a moan from Mara. He worked her area with precision, ultimately bringing her to completion at the same time as him. The usual shock pulsed through his body.
While Mara recovered he took a step back to admire his work. He smirked as his eyes drifted across the weeping "Envy" carved across her back.
Mara's lay in Envy's bed, her stomach pressed against the bloodied sheets. She tried not to move as the wounds on her back ached with every movement. Her breathing alone, something unavoidable, stretched the lacerations and prevented a comfortable rest.
She retained this position for the five-minute century it took Envy to return with first aid materials. By the time he returned, she was staring at the wall with strained eyes, counting the bumps or impurities in its surface.
Envy wiped the blood off her back and cleaned the extensive area with alcohol. Mara gritted her teeth through the agonizing burn as the alcohol encountered the open flesh. The harsh effect lasted for a while after he completed the cleanse.
Even with her back bandaged, she was unable to shift from her position for a day and struggled to move for a week after that point.
"What did you do to her?" Lust asked as she surveyed a very slow-moving Mara. The girl appeared to struggle with even taking a single step and clenched her teeth throughout every motion.
"I just marked her." Envy said triumphantly.
"What? Are you a dog now?" Lust grinned, her eyes remaining fixed on Mara.
Envy threw Lust a glare which was, frustratingly missed as Mara's struggled movements were, apparently, much more entertaining. "No. I just wanted to make sure everyone else knew exactly who had claimed her."
"So, you're a dog?" Lust laughed. Envy groaned in response.
Mara paused her painful walking attempt and turned towards the sounds of amusement. Lust and Envy's eyes quickly pointed to different directions. She sighed, they weren't particularly good at pretending that she wasn't the target of their laughter.
Her struggle around the house firmed her mind around the plan to never let Envy do that shit again. He hadn't told her what he had done but the movements had given her a pretty good suspicion that it was his name.
It wasn't something she was particularly happy to have scrawled across her back to begin with.
"What do you guys want?" She huffed to the pair who then ended their avid avoidance of gazing upon her crippled form.
"How are you feeling?" Lust asked sympathetically.
Mara scoffed. "How do you think I'm fucking feeling?" She glared at Envy. "Not peachy."
He reciprocated with a grin. "Your welcome."
"We're going to go take care of a situation," Lust said. "You should remain here and do you best to—um—recover."
Mara sighed. "I'll be in the library, drowning my agony in paper, if you decide you want my help."
"You mean if we want entertainment?" Envy chuckled.
"Shut up." Mara walked slowly to her unfairly far destination. "What idiot decided to build the library on the other fucking side of Amestris? They should go fuck themselves. I'll fucking carve a word in their back and let them toil at..." Her mumbling slowly faded out as she struggled out of the vicinity.
"She seems irritable when she's in pain," Lust said as if noting the observations of a research subject.
"Indeed." Envy nodded.
Envy and Lust rode in the train car just behind the one in which the Elric brothers resided. Lust held up a newspaper while Envy leaned back with his arms crossed.
"You know, you don't have to pretend to read a newspaper." Envy sighed. "It's not as if anyone is even paying attention to us."
"Did you know gold is down 3% in the stock market. Oh! And Old Mill Liquor just released a new type of vodka." Lust lowered the paper. "They're calling it the Annoying Palm Tree."
Envy snorted. "Aren't they the ones who made that Rum called Go Fuck Yourself?"
"The whiskey they produced last year," Lust whispered sensually. "Envy Dies on Train, was rated very highly by Lust Industries."
Envy began to laugh so hard he had trouble regaining his breath. Lust simply returned her eyes to the newspaper.
Ed stared out the window, cheek resting in hand, at the passing countryside. "Do you really think those girls—the one's who murdered those two men—do you think one of them is Emilee?"
Al looked down at his metal hands. "I don't know, brother."
Ed's eyes drifted to the suit of armor. "You sounded much more confident back at Central."
Al didn't answer for a few moments. "One of them matched the description, brother. Surely that means something."
Ed smiled and looked back out the window. It helped to have at least one of them remain optimistic and Ed usually had the other side covered.
A woman's voice spilled from the speakers. "We're now stopping in Mandarran." The train lurched as it stopped at the station. "Please don't forget your bags. Next stop, Arwan."
Ed and Al rose to their feet before shuffling down the aisle and out the door. Ed stretched out in the warmth of the sun. "Whether it is or isn't her." He lowered his arms. "Let's figure it out."
"Right," Al said cheerfully.
They began to walk down the path towards the bright town laying ahead of them. Ed focused his mind on the question at hand and developing a plan. As they traveled, they discussed a strategy for their investigation.
They were too focused to notice the dark figures trailing not far behind.
Ed: Woo! Finally back in the fic.
Al: Does this mean we can be the main characters now?
Ed: Yes! We'll call it 'Fullmetal Alchemist'
Al: Brother, I think that will be copyright infringement.
Ed: Shhhhh, hide. The US CO is coming.
US CO: Be vewy vewy quiet. I'm hunting cwiminals.