Ishbalans?
The townspeople in Resembool had been keeping an eye out for the three missing blond children for the better part of the day, and Maes was sure everyone was starting to worry—because no one had seen them since...Well, technically, it was since they'd gone to bed last night, because they'd already left the house by the time their mothers got up in the morning to start breakfast. All everyone was sure of was that they had left the house on their own power, but their complete absence that day was still worrying. He'd just finished his last quick check with the townspeople before supper, and there was still no sign of them, not from the children or the adults.
When he returned to the Elric house, he found Riza at the door, gaze questioning and hopeful, but her face fell when he gave his head a shake. "Where could they have gone?" she asked, clearly fretting over their well-being. "We checked the whole of the area the children play in and found no trace—at least, I didn't. Roy isn't back—oh," she paused as she looked past him, so he turned to look, and saw the man in question walking up. His gaze was troubled. "Anything?" she called to him.
"Maybe, but I wasn't sure I should keep following the trail without checking in or getting backup first," Roy answered. "It looks like they might have headed towards the old caravan route the Ishbalans use..."
"Why in the world would they have gone there?" Maes asked as Riza's eyes widened in alarm.
"I don't know," Roy huffed in annoyance. "But I need you to check the marks for me, Maes. I want to know if I was actually reading them right, because if the trend holds, Ed went and did something and Al and Winry followed him."
"Then let's eat supper and get the others to gather some supplies for us so we can track them as far as the trail goes," Riza cut in before the two men could leave.
After a pause of Roy glaring at her (during which she just gazed back evenly), the man sighed and agreed, "Yeah, that's probably the best bet."
When the woman's gaze moved to him, Maes said, "I was never going to run off without refueling."
"Good," she announced, then led the way inside, followed by both men.
During supper, Roy told them about the marks he'd found and which direction they'd been heading in, which produced alarm from both Trisha and Hohenheim. They quickly prepared some things the three younger adults could take with them while the three were eating, then ate as the three said their farewells and headed out. Roy took the lead and showed them where the marks were, pointing them out to the other two. Both looked closely at them, then had to agree Roy probably had assessed them right. Maes especially knew Ed was going to do things no one else would anticipate, but while Roy knew Ed had lived through at least one other lifetime, Riza didn't.
"I still don't know why Ed would have done this!" Roy sighed in frustration as they followed the tracks further away from town.
It was probably time for Riza to know why Ed's behavior was so odd, so Maes said, "Roy, I think you're suffering from the child-like looks syndrome."
"Meaning?" Roy asked in annoyance.
"You were there when I questioned how long Ed had actually lived, Roy. He as much as admitted he's lived more than one lifetime, which also means he knows what events are likely to happen in the future. If he's set out to change them..."
"Wait, what?" Riza asked in surprise, looking between the two men in surprise.
Roy was tense as he asked, "So why wouldn't he just ask us for help if he knew something was about to go wrong?"
"That would depend on what was wrong and what he felt was the best way to handle it," Maes answered in a dry tone.
"But—" Riza began as they stepped past some bushes—and stopped to stare at the obvious remains of a camp. And all three sets of prints led into the middle of it, then stopped. "They found people..."
"At least twenty people I can count, all men," Maes commented, suddenly not so sure Ed had actually known what he was doing this time.
"...Should we be looking for bodies?" Riza asked slowly.
"I don't think so," Roy said that time, crouching to look at the marks more closely just where the three pairs of prints ended. "I don't think the people who were here would have left if they'd killed them. It honestly looks more like this one here, and two others, picked them up to carry them—a kidnapping."
"Slave trade, then?" Riza asked. "We'll never find them if that's..."
"I don't think so," Maes commented, re-assessing the adults' prints. "I think these were Ishbalans, and they don't participate in the slave trade. It's more likely they had planned to attack the town, but when three children found them, they felt it was better to take them and leave. I don't think they would kill them, either, but that would then beg the question of what they would do with them. And we have no idea how much of a head start they have on us."
"Why would they attack a small town like Resembool?" the woman asked in surprise.
"This region supplies most of Amestris with wool. Including the military," Roy told her over his shoulder. "It's likely they would have attacked this and several other nearby communities in quick succession. What's strangest is that there's no sign of a struggle or resistance," he commented, rising. "We have to press forward."
"Then I should go back and let the others know what's happening," Riza answered. "If we all just disappear without telling them anything, we're going to cause a panic."
With a sigh, Roy agreed, "That's probably true. We'll keep going with the supplies, then, and we'll get back as soon as we can, hopefully with the children."
"Take care of yourself—and their parents—while we're tracking them," Maes said to her as Roy started forward in the direction the tracks led.
"You both take care, too," Riza answered, then turned away to go back to town.
Maes quickly followed Roy as the apparently furious man picked up his pace far more than was practical. Grabbing his arm, Maes pulled him to a halt, and as Roy turned to open his mouth with a snarl, he said, "Roy, we can follow at a good pace without exhausting ourselves. We won't be any good to them if we rush ahead too far too fast. Let's keep it to fast walking and occasional jogging. Depending on what the trail shows us, we may still have a good chance of catching up to them that way."
After a moment, Roy huffed and agreed, "Fine."
The two men then set out again at a fast walk, keeping pace and far less likely to over-do it. They already planned to travel through most of the night, Maes knew, so that would likely also help them to catch up to whoever had taken the children. All they could hope was that all three would be well and unharmed when they caught up.
FoWD-HC
Ed drifted to wakefulness as he tried to figure out why he seemed to be moving, only to realize after a few minutes that he was probably in a wagon and the wagon was moving. What surprised him was how his head was leaning on someone's thigh—probably Rashad's by the energy sense—and he was securely bundled in soft cloth. Since it was very dark out (even without opening his eyes, he could tell that), the caravan was likely traveling through the night. Not too long after he woke, he felt the wagon stop, and by the silence which fell, chances were they all did.
There was the sound of someone entering the wagon, then a woman said, "I still can't believe Ishbala would have chosen to manifest in an Amestrian child. Or possibly in more than one."
"Avatars," Rashad answered quietly. Ed, Al, and Winry were most certainly not that, so Ed had to hold back a snort. "I had thought about that, too. But I know for a fact that this child doesn't have 'blood' the way we define it, and you all saw his brother's aura. The girl couldn't possibly have fixed the dart gun so easily unless she had some aspect of Ishbala helping her as well."
"She couldn't just be a genius?" the woman asked, sounding amused.
"...In a way, I suppose she could be. But looking at the company she keeps, would that really be logical?" the Priest asked.
The woman sighed. "I don't know, but all three of those who were sick—near death, even—and the others who were possibly coming down with something are fine after drinking that water. If they stay that way, we won't be able to deny it." Once again, Ed almost felt like snorting in amusement, mostly because he knew they would all be fine, and he was shocked anyone who had seen Al produce the healing water would think otherwise. Then again, it was probably a pretty big learning curve for the Ishbalans to be genuinely helped by Amestrians, regardless of age.
"They'll stay that way," Rashad replied, and Ed suddenly felt relieved for unknown reasons.
After a pause, the woman asked, "Are you still going to leave in the morning?"
Wait, what?
"I have to give my brother warning, as well as asking him about a few of the things this child spoke of," he answered. While the point was logical, Ed really wasn't happy about it. He would prefer that the only familiar man there would stay.
"But you still don't know their names." The woman sounded amused. Didn't he? Didn't Ed introduce them? Wait, maybe not...Oops.
"The boys go by shortened Amestrian names, Edward and Alphonse. The girl's name is Winry, which I believe is just a name by itself. Don't think I don't know," he answered in a dry tone. "Even without introductions, that wasn't hard to work out just by listening to them." Suddenly, Ed realized one of the major points which had made Scar so dangerous to them—he was actually just as tactically capable as Roy or Maes, and he was highly observant as well.
Silence fell for a moment, then the woman said, "Well, there's enough for both you and the—and Edward to eat to tide you over until breakfast, because we're about to set out again."
"Thank you," Rashad answered. Shortly after, apparently the woman had left, because the man commented, "You're quite good at pretending to be asleep when you're wide awake, aren't you, Edward?"
That made Ed chuckle in spite of himself. "Still tired, though," he commented.
As the wagons started moving again, the man sighed and said, "Sit up and eat before resting again." He then paused before asking, "Could you tell me what happened in more detail? It was very strange for you to know something was wrong to start with, but to specify it..."
With a faint sigh, the boy pushed himself up enough to be sitting, and was handed a bowl of soup. He stirred it and took a sample taste before saying, "What I did was a very rare skill of Minerva's people, who were called the Cetra. There were three 'types' her people could have, Healers, Sentinels, and a very, very rare type called Terraformers (1), which there were only ever a few of, even when the Cetra were at their height of population. Technically, I'm a Sentinel, but because of the state of my blood, I qualify as all three, and I'm currently the only one who can use the skills of a Terraformer. By default, I had to start learning and using those skills, mostly from Minerva directly.
"One of the most prominent aspects was to realize something was wrong in an area and to do an immediate repair while targeting the cause—Sentinels and Healers would then fix the cause. Terraformers change large areas of the lay of the land by default—the growth which happened—but to do that, we have to know it's not right. I studied a lot about terrain and geology to learn to recognize things like that, and technically, so close to Resembool, we still should have been in forest, not an arid plain. So, since you wouldn't let me show them my blood—which was probably actually a good thing for several reasons—I thought to go looking for something wrong while doing the initial fix.
Pausing again, Ed ate a few scoops of the soup before telling the man plainly, "When natural events of the world kill people, the results are usually fairly minor and don't indicate overly much in need of fixing, but people killing people...That means all those souls are still a little attached there and the negativity is huge—and negative energy in large quantities is draining. That's why Sentinels and Healers would have to fix the flows once they've been found, or could if the wall wasn't in the way. I hate having to be the one to find those kinds of things...And it's just my luck to be like this..."
For a few minutes, Rashad was quiet, during which they both finished eating. "Was it really 'luck' when you said you were made that way by an intermediary?"
Sighing, Ed admitted, "When it was first done, it was because a scientist got his hands on me and used me in an experiment. It was only because Minerva so desperately wanted to keep me alive that I survived the first experiment. Coming back here put me back in a child's body who had never been through that process, so the intermediary was supposed to give that back to me, only this time, it was with my knowledge and agreement, and with Minerva's and Ishbala's."
"Why would you have agreed to it if it was so dangerous?" the man asked in surprise.
"Two reasons," Ed told him in wry amusement. "One was because the intermediary's intervention meant it was in no danger of killing me, it was just going to hurt like Hell until my body adapted. The other was because Minerva was right when she told the intermediary that my ability to talk so clearly to her, and to Ishbala, was my greatest asset in fixing things. I think I'd have been in worse shape if Ishbala hadn't been aware of my presence and—I think held some of the energy back from me."
Rashad sighed at that. "I know you said it needed to be purified, but there's no way a single person can repair whatever damage was done there. I tried. Admittedly, I'm not really an expert on purification rites, being a Warrior-Priest, but once I felt the energy there, it was enough to make me ill. If the Amestrian military did this—"
"That's the strange thing—they didn't. I don't even think they know about it."
"...Why do you say that?"
"Because that energy is too old. Even if the entity behind all of Amestris' wars came here two thousand years ago—and I'm not completely sure on when he actually got here, just that it was after Xerxes was destroyed—that energy has been sitting there and festering for probably at least double that long. Someone did something horrible a very long time ago, and did it so forcefully the land is still suffering from it now. That's like saying it'll probably take hundreds more years for Xerxes—the desert—to recover from what the First Homunculus did to it unless someone directly intervenes to cleanse it. That was accidental backlash. This was deliberately done, and anchored here. Well, back where we were when I did that."
"Close enough. We're still in the forest you grew then. If history is correct, though, the wars here have really only existed for the last five hundred or so years, when Amestris suddenly started expanding their borders. (2) I wonder if something changed for that being around then?"
"Other than maybe gaining control of Amestris' power base, I don't think so."
Silence fell for a few moments before the man nodded slowly and said, "We'd have to check our records to find out some details, but I think I remember reading about how the people of the original Amestris had been peace-loving and acted as mediators for the surrounding nations. They were also shockingly good at it. If that was the case, it would have been hard for someone intending harm and war to have gotten a foothold there. It could very well have taken many hundreds of years for someone to manipulate their traditions and laws enough to allow them an actual takeover of power."
"That wouldn't surprise me," Ed agreed quietly, then paused for a minute. Finally, he asked, "You're leaving?"
"In the morning. Giving my brother no warning of your arrival won't go over well, especially since they'll have to find places for the three of you. And probably a way to disguise your presence—you can't be blond haired with gold and blue eyes without the Amestrian soldiers realizing you're Amestrian children and trying to reclaim you," Rashad explained.
Blinking, Ed looked up at him in surprise for a moment, then sighed and nodded. "I have a way to change our hair and eyes, and I think other caravan kids can give us one change of clothes to wear until we get to the city, but after that, clothes will still be an issue, for sure, and we couldn't get away with both acting and dressing like Amestrians without raising warning flags. I guess we'll have to also start learning Ishbalan games and things for when we aren't doing other work..." When the man blinked in surprise of his own, the boy asked, "So, why am I not with Al and Winry?"
"You exhausted yourself. You seem to naturally pull my energy, so I thought it best to keep you close until you had recovered enough to be functional," the man told him. "So...when you get to the city, you three should have white hair and red eyes, and if you could manage, darker skin, too, is that it?"
"...Yes, it should be able to do the skin, too, but—is there a range for your people?" Ed agreed. "We could even do that before you leave in the morning."
"You won't have enough energy by then," Rashad answered flatly. "I may not be as skilled in healing and energy sensing as some of the older Priests, but I can still tell you'll only barely be functional by then, not recovered. I don't want you to try anything else until you're actually well enough to do so—probably two or three days from now. I'll be telling the caravaners to follow that same rule. As for your skin color, we do have some who are paler—enough so that even darkening your skin to a light tan would be feasible. My brother's wife is one of them, so if one or two of you stayed with them, her skin tone would justify you being a little paler. (3) There are other families like that who I know of as well."
"Oh," Ed agreed, sighing tiredly. "Fine, we'll work out exactly how dark we want our skin to be."
"Lay down again and get more rest," the man told him, using one hand to beckon him close again, so after a pause, Ed set down the bowl and spoon, then shifted back over to lay with his head on the man's thigh again.
He hadn't expected to fall asleep so easily while aware, but instead—he was asleep again within moments.
FoWD-HC
Morning was shockingly hectic, though on the up-side, it had been very easy to switch out the three Amestrian children's clothes for Ishbalan clothes, meaning all three were in loose, white pants (Winry's tied at the ankle while the boys' were straight), and...not all white shirts. In all honesty, though, Winry's 'shirt' looked more like a dress, and was in a dark red color, while Ed and Al's were shorter, the younger brother's in pale blue while the older's was white. Both boys also wore wide, cloth belts to hold the shirts at the waist, and those were brightly colored, while Winry had a white scarf she could wrap around her head or not. The thing which was strangest was the straw sandals they also now all wore, as walking in those sandals was different from walking in normal Amestrian shoes.
As the caravan set out, Rashad took one of the horses and some supplies and rode ahead, taking the three children's Amestrian clothing with him. The caravan traveled through the day, but that time, each rode in different wagons with other children, who were teaching them games and telling them stories—even started teaching them the native Ishbalan language. Night saw them returning to the wagon the three had first shared, where they compared notes as they drifted into sleep—a task made easier by the fact that they had actually stopped to rest that night. Silence and lack of movement made sleep a lot easier. Morning started out like the day before, other than them not needing to change clothes, and the day progressed in much the same way.
It was evening when something changed, and one of the night watch scouts came to the camp, looking annoyed and apprehensive. He made his way to the three and said, "There are two men—Amestrians—who claim they know you and are certain you're here. What do you want us to do?"
"Did they give their names?" Ed asked in surprise, though his thoughts went to the obvious options, Roy and Maes. Sure enough, those were the names the scout gave, which made Al and Winry look at Ed apprehensively. After a pause, Ed sighed and said, "They've been taking care of us all winter, so I guess we owe them at least to know we're okay and we're not actually being kidnapped, either. But I need to be able to talk with them, or you're going to be in a lot of trouble—they know enough people in the military to get help there if you were to refuse to let them see us. Though, you could choose to take us to them or show them to us here."
The scout paused for a minute, then commented, "We don't want them to try a snatch-and-run if you're really sure you're staying with us, so it's probably better to have them come here. I'll go get them and have the other guard lead them here—I've done enough walking for one night."
"Thanks!" Ed smiled as Al and Winry traded amused looks. The man then left.
Several minutes later, one of the other scouts led Roy and Maes into the camp and to the three children, who readily got up to hug them. "Why did they take you?" and "Why are you dressed like that?" were only two of the questions the men asked, and by the time they had settled down, the small fire most of the children had gathered around had cleared so the five Amestrians would have a bit of 'privacy' to talk.
"So, you're not hurt, are you?" Maes asked as he and Roy sat, Ed between them, Al beside Maes, and Winry beside Roy.
"We're fine!" Winry grinned, and Al readily echoed the words as Ed gave a nod.
"So, why did they run off with you?" Roy asked that time.
"Because I asked their Warrior-Priest to take me to his brother, who studies alchemy similar to a primitive version of mine," Ed replied dryly, voice low.
Both men blinked at him, then asked, "And Al and Winry?"
"We said we were going, too!" Al grinned. "So they had to take us, too."
"They think we're—what was it—touched by Ishbala, or something?" Winry added.
"Priest Rashad—the Warrior-Priest—calls us 'Avatars' of Ishbala, like they think we have part of Ishbala's essence in us. To be fair, though, I sort of do," Ed informed them, and all four others blinked. "But, the fact is, I actually couldn't stay at home once Doctor Marcoh went back to the military, because all it would take is one little, accidental slip about me to cause the military to come after me. And I need to take down that wall, which I need more help for than you, my father, and the Doctor could have given me."
"...So this was a good way to cover both?" Roy asked slowly.
"It was," Ed agreed.
After a long silence, the man asked, "You're really not going to come back to Resembool, are you?"
"I can't," the oldest of the children answered. "I wouldn't have even left if I didn't know I couldn't afford to stay there."
"We could stay with you?" Maes asked.
Shaking his head, Ed reminded them, "Roy, you were helping my father, and that still needs to get done. These people aren't going to hurt us, so we don't need guards or protectors—but the people of Amestris do." The two traded looks, then sighed, but Ed added as he remembered Minerva and the Omega, "Oh, but if you ever hear about a huge meteor landing anywhere you can reach, head for it. I will, too."
"...A meteor is so important why?" Maes asked slowly.
Grinning, the blond told him, "Ask Auntie Sarah and Uncle Yuri—they already know, and will be able to tell you more. Maybe. I guess they might choose not to, but the fact that I mentioned it to you means they should at least share some of it. And this isn't the place, or the time, to share more than that."
"...Fine," the man—both men—agreed.
They spent awhile longer talking before settling in to sleep for the night. In the morning, the two men left, and the three Amestrian children were allowed to ride in the same wagon for awhile.
When they emerged to have lunch, three white haired, red eyed children with tanned skin of varying shades were what everyone saw.
Notes:
(1) Terraformers should have been mentioned at some point in FoWD, so if anyone didn't read that far, here's the note about them—just like what Ed tells Rashad, they're very, very rare and can actually do things like cause, or stop, a volcanic eruption, earthquake, or so on. Most of what they were intended to do, however, was to help restore regions which were overly damaged by something. For example, if a quake literally tore the land apart in an area, they would be able to mend that so the natural flow in the area would be able to revert to normal and re-stabilize. Of course, the down-side to this is that they could never target a fire spell to a single target or heal one person in desperate need of it—their skills are intrinsically geared to wide-ranging areas, and 'small' details are hard for them. Ed, however, is (like always) the exception.
(2) Around 500 years ago was when the major wars which started forming the array were noted to start. Most of this discussion was to make them start questioning the data and the timing of some events. At the same time, though, it would be highly unlikely nothing else ever happened in the area, and this was an issue which predated the First Homunculus...But that doesn't make it any less dangerous, especially since they don't actually know what it was meant to do yet. Adding in the notes about Xerxes, as an event with no specific time it happened, means I've assumed this happened sometime between when Cetra traveled to Earth (2000-ish years ago) and 500 years ago, when things changed. At the time (500 years ago and earlier), the nation of Amestris was much smaller, and was strongly influenced by the Cetra, hence why it took so long to get the necessary wars to happen. I'm only saying this now because I'm not completely sure it comes up later in the story.
(3) The perspective we were first given of Ishbalans is pale (white/gray/silver) hair and red eyes with pale to medium brown skin (I think the 'pale' part has a lot to do with the Japanese favoring pale skin, though). However, the manga and anime both started showing Ishbalan women (in particular) as having black hair and red or brown eyes, which doesn't match with how they've been described. I'm taking that as an editing error or someone forgetting the basic template of the Ishbalans, so unless I specify that an Ishbalan has black or dark hair (and this would probably be someone who isn't purely Ishbalan, likely for several generations), they all have some shade of white, gray, or silver.