Destination

On a large planet, travel took longer than it did on Gaia. Ed had always known that difference in size, and had traveled enough on both worlds to realize some extent of it, but the biggest difference was that he'd largely used trains to cross great distances and only walked short ones in Amestris. When nearly all his travel on Gaia had been on foot, with only rare other methods (he wasn't counting air transport when that was on a completely different scale, which Amestris really didn't have), having to travel with a slow-moving caravan helped bring the sizes of the two worlds into perspective.

That day, they had suddenly found themselves stopped—and when Ed, Al, and Winry peeked out from the wagons they were riding in, they could see Amestrian soldiers blocking the way and others gathering around the wagons. He was suddenly thankful all three of them had chosen Ishbalan names as similar to their own as they could get, and had been using them already, so they were familiar. Otherwise, the Amestrians would have wondered why Ishbalan children had Amestrian names. So, as everyone was ushered out and gathered nearby so the soldiers could search the wagons, it was the names Jed (for Ed), Ali (for Al), and Winna (for Winry) (1) adults called to gather the three of them close with the other children.

It didn't take long of waiting for the search to finish for the children to collectively get bored and shuffle to the back of the group so they could play games, taking the three disguised Amestrians with them. While Ed would have wanted to watch the soldiers, he decided it was better to play the child just then, so joined a few other boys to play a game with stones on a drawn 'board' on the dirt. Al was with a few other, younger ones, as they used colorful sticks for a game of pick-up-sticks, and Winry and the girls had found a deck of cards to build a card house with. A few groups of older children had also formed, doing similar things. What surprised Ed was to realize a few of the soldiers had quietly come up behind the Ishbalans and were watching the children curiously.

As Ed was about to begin his turn, one of the younger Amestrian soldiers crouched by them and asked, "So, how does that game actually work?"

The children all blinked up at him, then one boy—the oldest of their group—said, "Each stone counts as certain points by where it landed." He paused to tap the stones each of them had already left on the board, one at a time, listing the number from one point to five points. "The hard part is how you 'toss' it," the boy finished, then grinned and looked at Ed as he added, "You show him, Jed—it's your turn."

"Okay," Ed agreed with a shrug, shifting the first of his semi-flattened, circular-ish stones in his hand, then flipping it. His first landed in a three-point zone, and he had three more. The man watched curiously each time Ed 'tossed' another, until he was out of stones. After him would be one more boy before they would total points. It was on Ed's second and third tosses that he also knocked other boys' stones aside, causing groans and one grin in the process.

"What was that all about?" the soldier blinked at the other boys.

"When you start, there's no stones to knock out of the way," Ed answered. "But after the first person goes, everyone else could knock the others' stones out of the way. Because we don't count points until the end of the round, moving the stones changes their points, too, if you pushed them into a different point zone."

"Oh, so all the boys who groaned was because their stones were now going to be fewer points than where they'd first landed?" the man asked, and the boys gave a chorus of 'yeses'. "Doesn't that sort of thing happen a lot in real life—things getting shunted aside by other things that came later?"

"I guess it could?" one of the boys asked in reply, just looking confused. The last boy started his turn—and knocked nearly every other stone into a new position in the process.

"Well, as an example, your wagons only hold so much, so if you had something in one, and had to pick up something else, where would you put the things you already had?" the Amestrian soldier asked genially.

"Our parents aren't that stupid," Ed smirked, knowing what the man was up to—trying to find out if they had hidden compartments. "They know how to pack properly, and won't pick up more than they can fit in the wagons, anyway. Everything we pick up fits exactly the way it's supposed to, without having to move anything or take space away from us."

"True!" the boy who had won the round grinned—the one who'd gone right before Ed. "Never been a problem with fit before. Maybe you have more trouble getting things to fit right because you don't have trade caravans?" That roused giggles from them all as the soldier blushed.

"Fair enough. Could I give your game a try?" the soldier asked.

The boy nearest him let him use his stones to try a few tosses before they started the new round. After the round, the soldier thanked them and left, letting the boy have his stones back. For awhile longer, Ed kept playing, then excused himself because he needed to relieve his bladder. Thankfully, their stopping place had been decent and there were nearby places to use for things like that, so he hid behind a large rock, did what he needed to, and was about to head back—

"What are you doing wandering away from your herd, little piggy?" a voice Ed was very unhappy to hear asked from above him. Ed's head whipped up—to see Kimblee there, a young Kimblee in full military uniform, long hair in a ponytail and grin as demented as it had ever been.

Herd. Piggy. Ishbalans were animals to him. That was why he found it so easy to kill them in droves. Of course, that also meant he thought of everyone as animals, not humans, regardless of what nation they hailed from. But, as the man's smirk grew wider, Ed realized Kimblee planned to kill him, right then and there.

Because he knew that, though, he could also defend against it by turning to run—and using his body to hide activation of Shield arrays. Or, because he didn't have time to wait for the reaction, he short-handed it to the singular, modified array which would tap into his energy and pull on the energy of the deaths in the area. Flames exploded around him as he heard maniacal laughter behind him, and those flames were so strong they shoved him to the ground, despite the Shield. As the flames danced around him, he just laid where he'd fallen, realizing something strange had just happened—he was laying in a patch of grass where no grass had been before.

Angry yelling sounded as the flames began dying out, and he lifted his head to see that an annoyed Kimblee had walked away and was standing yards away with several horrified soldiers and pretty much all the Ishbalans either horrified or angry. This was going to call for some manipulating, and this time, he'd be able to do it right—because there was no way he was going to leave Kimblee alive after he'd done that. Really, he'd wondered if the man had always been insane, and this affirmed he had been. So, using proper arrays, Ed first cast the Death spell on Kimblee, then used a Slow spell on the Death spell. That way, it would take more than a minute to kill him—it would actually take about an hour by the way Ed had set Slow's effects.

He then realized the Ishbalans were being let go as an apology 'for his death' the only way the Amestrians could make one, even though the search wasn't complete. With a faint smile, Ed made himself Invisible (and damn, now he was getting tired, thanks to that stupid wall in the way!) and snuck into the wagon he was supposed to be in, anyway. The others joined him there, not realizing he was with them, and the wagons were quickly on their way.

It took them about half an hour to get far enough away for him to let Invisible drop, shocking the children into yells—then exclamations that he was all right and many, many enthusiastic hugs.

Oddly, that was the first time Ed actively realized the Ishbalans were more tactile people than the Amestrians. When they stopped at night, that hit home again, because everyone was showing their relief at him being okay with rather lengthy hugs.

"If that man sees you again..." one man said as he set Ed gently back on his feet.

"He won't, don't worry," Ed replied with a small smile, knowing his Death spell had run its course and Kimblee was already dead—he'd have felt it deactivate if it had.

No, he didn't like killing people, but he'd been on Gaia for long enough to know some people just did not change, no matter how many chances they were given, and 'bleeding hearts' were full of shit. Only a limited number of people could change to that extent (usually ones who had only committed a crime once, not several times), and only in the right circumstances—which varied from person to person so finding them became almost impossible. Kimblee had just proven he fit in the same category as Fuhito, Hojo, and President Shinra—he would never be anything but a psychotic murderer.

Well, Hojo actually had proven to be different in a few of them due to having less of Jenova's cells and more of Lady Shinra's influence, though he was no less unable to process normal human emotion. He just, on a rare occasion, decided not to be a deliberate sadist. Was there a chance he was with the group on the Omega this time?

"Well, if you're sure, we'll keep going as is," the man agreed. "Get some rest—that wouldn't have been a nice thing to experience."

"Good night, then," he agreed, and headed for the wagon he, Al, and Winry shared to sleep.

That was the thing—after nearly being fire-blasted, he should have been in a panic and needing a doctor's help to calm down. As he sat on his bedding in the wagon, he stared down at his hands, remembering the lush grass under them inside his Shield bubble. Casting Shield had never before had that effect on his surroundings—that was reserved for true Healers, whose energy expelled itself by growing plants in the surroundings. Though, he'd never heard of one doing it at the same time as actively casting another spell...

He may not have known much about what had happened, but he knew there was a correlation between his calm and the growth. Lack of panic was always a good thing, but a situation like that should still have caused it, or so said all his past experience. Until he could talk with Ishbala properly, and maybe with Minerva, he wouldn't have answers to his questions, but for the moment, he'd take what he could get. As such, he laid down and closed his eyes to rest, wondering suddenly what he should tell Al about Kimblee, or if he should even say anything at all.

Finally, as he fell asleep, he realized it just wasn't worth telling anyone what he'd done to Kimblee, but it especially wasn't worth the argument he'd get from Al to tell him. While he didn't like having to keep things from his brother, he had now changed so much that it was inevitable there would be things he'd have to just not share. Though, he'd end up telling Lady Shinra and the Turks...Just not anyone else. Like Al. Ever.

Like his current state and status in its entirety, for that matter. Since he'd already been hiding things, Kimblee's fate at Ed's hands was just one more thing.

No problem. Right?

FoWD-HC

Not long after that incident, Rashad rejoined them for the last leg of the journey to the Ishbalan capital. At first, he and the adults were just exchanging news, then he largely took charge of the Amestrian children, sometimes letting them ride on his horse while he talked with them. They still spent most of their time with the Ishbalan children, though (and Winry had fixed pretty much everything there was to fix in the caravan, much to everyone's amazement, with only some help from the men to move large, heavy things). Finally, nearly a week later, they reached the Ishbalan capital, where they entered the city and people came forward to greet them and collect the goods the caravan had brought. Some adults even collected children.

Rashad put the three children on his horse again (Al at the front, Winry behind him, and Ed at the end), then walked it in the direction of the residential area as he told them quietly, "We have Amestrian observers and spies. My brother and his wife and a couple who are friends of theirs are going to be greeting you like they're your families. You'll also be staying with them while you're all here. But, 'Jed', one of the Priests wants to talk with you before you can rest for the night."

"What about?" Ed asked curiously.

"One heard my brother and I talking about you. He wanted to verify some things," the older man offered, but didn't specify anything.

"We could go, too?" Al asked, and Winry agreed.

"No, that would be suspicious to the Amestrians," Rashad told them plainly. "One child, especially one who they may assume is mine due to our Priests all not needing to stay celibate, could visit the Priests the day we come back, but the other children would all be returning to their families and staying there. Winry, the other couple—Salim and Halimah (2)—will take you with them, but they only live a few homes from my brother's place and mine. Alphonse, my brother and sister-in-law will take you, possibly Edward as well. Unless you want that to be me, Jed?"

"Is there even a way you could have a six-year-old son?" Ed asked dryly.

The man was quiet for a long moment before he said, "About six and a half years ago, I'd been a normal young man with a new wife. She and the child both died in childbirth, and I turned to the Priesthood to try to deal with that loss. It's how I became a Warrior-Priest. The Amestrians don't know those kinds of particulars enough to know if I did ever have a child—they've only been seriously watching for about a year, and because so many of us are transient and this particular caravan hasn't been back for over two years..."

"Then why were we with the caravan?" Winry asked curiously.

"Because friends of our families agreed to take you—it would have gotten you away from the war for the longest time," Rashad explained. "And it's true—some of the adults who most often took responsibility for you are friends of both my family and the ones who will take Winna."

"Big Brother?" Al asked as Ed paused to think about the words.

Finally, Ed agreed, "That was a good way to explain things. And it would make sense that my father, a Warrior-Priest, would take me right to the Temple and the Priests as soon as we get back."

Al whined and Winry giggled, but because Ed was watching Rashad, he saw the man's shoulders relax and droop a bit before the man looked back at him with a small smile and nod. "It would," he agreed. "And because my brother, despite being older than me, took longer to choose a wife, his son is younger than you are. For what it's worth, our families are so closely-knit that you and Ali may as well be brothers regardless of having been born as such. My brother's name is Zahir and my sister-in-law's is Nasima (3)."

"So, for me, that's Uncle Zahir and Aunt Nasima," Ed agreed. "And do Al and I have to call Wnry's 'new' parents anything special?"

"Just Aunt and Uncle for them will do, too," the man replied in amusement.

"Oh, so it's just like back home!" Winry grinned. "Auntie Trisha for me, except now it's Uncles Rashad and Zahir and Auntie Nasima, and for Ed and Al, it's Uncle—um—Sa...lim...?" At the man's nod, she went on, "And Auntie A...No, Ha...lee...mah?" He nodded again, so she gave one herself and repeated the names properly. "Uncle Salim and Auntie Halimah."

"And for Al, Uncle Rashad, too," Ed finished.

"But I wanted to actually be your brother, anyway, Ed," Al pouted.

"My father just finished saying we may as well be, even if we technically were born as cousins," the older boy replied with a grin. "Stop complaining. You're really not losing out on much."

Al huffed, but soon after, they came to the homes, only to realize these people actually quite often seemed to build apartments—and a woman looked out from one apartment on the second floor near the stairs they'd stopped below. None of the buildings they could see had more than two floors, and the 'halls' seemed to be outside, running the length of the sandstone building. A few of the buildings were gray stone, and further towards the outskirts were some actual houses (also in stone), but the area they were in—closer to the market—was all apartments of about twenty residences, ten on each floor, in long, single rows. And a lot of colorful laundry was hanging from building to building on ropes to dry.

The woman's face lit up with a smile as she called, "They're back!" She was surprisingly pale and dressed similarly to Winry, but with a top in green with gold hems and a mostly green head wrap.

The man who followed her immediately from the apartment was as dark as Rashad and with similar, though less muscular, features, and dressed similarly to the boys. Ed smiled, but blinked in surprise as Rashad put his arm around him. "It's been a long time!" the man, Zahir, commented after he and Rashad exchanged a slight, brief nod, as he reached up to take Al off the horse—and for both him and the woman to hug the boy.

The couple who had followed them out of the apartment seemed to be the reverse in that the man was the pale one while the woman was dark, but she also wore a dark red top with a pale, creamy wrap. All of them had the signature pale Ishbalan hair, though Nasima's and Salim's was more like silver than white. Because the men's 'color' was their multi-colored belts, the only real difference in their clothing was that Salim—who gathered up Winry much the way Zahir had Al—had a faintly yellow shirt to the more brown-tan of Zahir's.

Salim and Halimah both also hugged Winry before all of them quickly gave Ed hugs (but they left him on the horse), though Zahir and Nasima's lasted longer.

"You're still planning to go to the Temple before resting?" Zahir asked of Rashad.

"I am," he agreed. "We'll stop at your place for the evening meal, then head home to rest, if you don't mind having us?"

"Of course, Brother," Zahir agreed, reaching up to rest a hand on Rashad's shoulder. "We'll be waiting for the two of you."

"We'll return soon, then," Rashad agreed, returning the grip on Zahir's shoulder. He said farewells to Salim, Halimah, and Winry, who headed a few doors down on the upper floor, then moved Ed forward in the saddle so he could mount behind him. They were riding towards the large, pyramidal Temple in the middle of the city soon after, and Ed yawned as he leaned back against the man.

That was something else—how even his most horrific memories of Scar seemed distant after meeting this man. Rashad's saving grace was going to be now never meeting Kimblee, so never seeing his brother die or getting that scar. Then again, there was no guarantee his brother wasn't going to die, but it wasn't going to be because Kimblee slaughtered them or left him with a token of such suffering. If he had never known Scar, he'd have trusted this man from the first, without doubt. As it was, to have so quickly overcome what he thought he knew about the once-murderer who now may not be...It meant a lot to him, on several levels.

"They said an alchemist attacked you with fire, but you somehow didn't die?" Rashad asked quietly as they made their way towards the Temple through the busy streets. Ed had known something had been bothering the man, but he hadn't wanted to talk about it with Al and Winry there.

Sighing, Ed told him, "State Alchemist Solf J. Kimblee, the Crimson Alchemist. He's just plain psychotic. Oddly, I'm pretty sure the Amestrians are going to start believing in Ishbala and divine retribution."

"Why's that?" Rashad asked, his tone a cross between amused and worried.

"When he attacked me, I had activated a protective shield, but I was forced to the ground by the force of the explosion—and somehow, there was a patch of grass there, under me. I left the grass there, where I would have 'fallen', in a space which should have been scorched black. And, about an hour later, Kimblee dropped dead for no reason whatsoever," the boy explained. "Though, that was because I set in place a working that usually takes a minute to kill someone and used another working to slow it down so it would take an hour. Because I used the 'slow' effect on the spell, not the man, no one would have noticed anything off."

The man huffed a small chuckle and said, "I'm not sure if I should be amused, awed, or horrified by hearing a six-year-old admit he deliberately killed a man who tried to kill him."

"It's bigger than just what he did to me," Ed answered, tone distant and words forming more slowly than normal. "I know he's going to be one of the ones to kill the greatest number of Ishbalans—your whole family included. And he'd have enjoyed it, not just force himself to do it because of orders, but...He'd have done it without orders if they'd tried to stop the war. He couldn't be left alive or a whole bunch of Amestrians and Ishbalans would have died, one way or another. Now, they won't die at his hands."

That caused the man to sigh faintly and release the horse's reigns with one hand to wrap it around the boy sitting in front of him. "You realize that makes me worry instead about how things could be in such a state that a six-year-old feels he has to fix them in such a way, right?"

"I'm not actually a six-year-old, though," Ed answered, tipping his head back to look at the man. "Sometimes, because now I'm in a child's body again, some things come through and I actually act like one for a bit, but mostly...It's my grown, adult self who deals with all this stuff. It's my adult mind that knows what needs to be dealt with and how, too."

Rashad eyed him for a long moment, then looked forward again as they reached the Temple. He had already dismounted by the time he spoke again. "That's what the problem is. And you should ask others for help rather than trying to do everything yourself." He then reached up to lift the boy down from the animal's back as an acolyte who was maybe around fourteen or fifteen took charge of the horse.

Once Ed was on the ground, Rashad led the way into the Temple, skirting the outside of the large worship room (it was all stone with cushions laid out to sit on) to quietly knock on a door to the side. While Ed looked around curiously on the walk, he also stayed close to Rashad, and followed him into the room when they were called to enter. Inside was a rather sparse room where several chairs sat, and one was occupied by an elderly man with a long, white beard and a turban wrapped around his head. He was a full-on Priest by his entirely white robe and drape, not a Warrior-Priest, but Ed was pretty sure he also wasn't the High Priest.

"Priest Ishan (4), this is the Amestrian boy, Edward. He's been using Jed while with the caravan," Rashad said by way of introduction as he stopped just past the circle of chairs.

The man eyed Ed for a moment before asking, "Why do you look like one of our people, our children?"

"Because one of my abilities lets me change things like hair, eye, and skin color," Ed replied, tipping his head to the side a bit. "I'm not trying to hide my identity from you or your people, but from the Amestrians—I'm pretty sure things would go south very fast if they saw Amestrian children here when there should only be Ishbalans."

The man looked thoughtful as he motioned to the chairs and said, "Sit. Relax." As the two did, he added, "As much as I would rather not admit it, there is truth to the sentiment, and at best, we would be accused of kidnapping. Why have you come here?"

"Because there's a made wall blocking Ishbala from interacting with the world, and I need your help to take it down," the boy answered bluntly. "Or, the help of people like Priest Rashad's brother, Zahir. It shouldn't interfere with anything you do or teach as long as most of the people here think I'm just another Ishbalan child."

"I see..." the man murmured thoughtfully, then pushed for more answers to more questions, asking for more specific details.

Ed answered honestly, but finally got annoyed and bluntly said, "Look, the truth of the matter is that Ishbala never told you not to practice alchemy, he told you to be cautious when you did. There are ways to make array systems to prevent mis-use of them, and Ishbala endorses those just as much as Minerva does—and Ishbala and Minerva are the same type of being. It was never an 'all or nothing', it was a 'best way' to use something both useful and dangerous. And as it so happens, only alchemy can take down a wall made with alchemy, so kindly get off your high horse and let us work so you can have your deity back and helping you."

Rashad stared at him in something like horror as the older Priest blinked in surprise, but then Priest Ishan chuckled and said, "Forgive me, I wasn't trying to imply that you were wrong to do what you are. I wanted to know how and why this would work—details most Priests don't care about because all they want to know is that it does. I was also skeptical about Rashad describing you as an elder in a child's body, but you seem to be that, also. Come to visit regularly to update me on your progress, but otherwise, feel free to do your work on your own time. And don't forget to take time to enjoy life while you do."

It was Ed's turn to blink in surprise before he agreed, "Fair enough. Thank you, and I'll try to remember that."

Soon after, he and Rashad had left the Temple to join Zahir, Nasima, and Al for supper, then everyone turned in for the night. It had been a long day.

Notes:

(1) There aren't really many Arabic (since I view Ishbalans as similar to Arabs in many ways) 'E' names, and for the few I found, none were even remotely close to 'Ed', let alone 'Edward'. Jed was the closest, easiest name I could find for him which would make it easy for the three kids to remember, and for readers to remember to reference back to him. Ali is self-explanatory, and is easy to remember. Winna was a chance find, and was probably the only thing which would possibly be close to Winry's name. Please remember these three names, because the three of them (or people around them) are going to frequently reference either or both names.

(2) These two names (Salim and Halimah) were chosen fairly randomly from a list of Arabic names, much like Rashad's name. You need to remember them because they're now taking care of Winry and are more Ishbalan alchemists, but other than their origin, nothing else about the names is especially important.

(3) While I'd like to say Zahir and Nasima were more carefully chosen than Salim and Halimah, they honestly weren't, other than that I personally liked them better. They're still both Arabic in origin, and both are also Ishbalan alchemists who will be helping Ed. Hopefully, I won't need to specifically name any other Ishbalan alchemists by having four of them at hand who are already named for more than one reason.

(4) Once again, this Priest's name (Ishan) was kind of randomly chosen, but is still Arabic, and will have to be remembered because he's going to be the one to interact with Ed the most amongst the Priests. How often is still up for debate.