![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
batsutousaiTitle: Spirit's Fall
Series: The Blood Toll Saga
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood/manga
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Mature
Pairings: one-sided Edward Elric/Original Female Character
Warnings: Ed's potty mouth, Vampire!Edward Elric, blood, canon typical violence, questionable morality, character death
Summary: Born too early, Ed and Al don't manage to find a way to return Al to his body before his soul leaves the armour for good. Ed will do anything to save his brother, including making a deal with the closest thing to the devil he believes in. Can he keep his humanity long enough to save his brother, or are they both doomed to the separate hells that Ed's deal has trapped them within?
Despite his disability, Ed did his best to pull his own weight whenever possible. He and the tribe leaders, Mahdi and Sanaz, had butted heads more than a couple of times, in the beginning, about how much he would be allowed to do – the language barrier hadn't helped, especially since Ed had a bad habit of losing his temper when someone suggested he was too small or too young to do something – but they'd eventually settled on a handful of tasks that the two leaders felt okay letting Ed do, and he tried not to get too annoyed by having people around who actually worried about his safety.
One of the tasks he was allowed to help out with, was gathering materials or foraging for food whenever they stopped for more than a night – so, holidays and trading stops. It was kind of tedious work, especially when their surroundings were more desert than woods, but it gave him something to do to stretch his legs a bit, and he felt a little better about them sharing their food and travelling accommodations with him.
Gathering wood and wild food while they were stopped in the mountains for the autumn equinox was actually quite a bit more challenging than anywhere else, for Ed, because of his crappy balance. He'd actually considered taking the disabled track and sitting those expeditions out, but his sense of equivalence wouldn't let him, so he just watched his step and moved as slowly as he could, ignoring the jeering from the children who were ordered out because the adults were tired of them being under foot.
It was one such trip, Ed keeping a sharp eye out for berries within easy reach for him, while also trying to watch his steps, and lagging behind, when he heard a bear roaring ahead of him, in the general direction that the younger members of the tribe had wandered off in five or ten minutes before.
Ed had overheard plenty of lectures from the older members of the tribe on the dangers of various animals they chanced coming across, so he expected the kids knew how to handle a bear, assuming they were even close enough to it for it to be a concern, but still. It was a bear, and it made him nervous to think of the tribe's children walking the woods on their own with one so close.
Ed grimaced a bit as he debated, but then he heard a second roar, followed by a human scream, and he quickly unhooked his gathering basket from his crutch, leaving it to spill across the ground as he moved as quickly as he could in the direction of the sounds.
The twins, Ghoncheh and Zhaleh, passed him before he made it far, both of their eyes wide and terrified. "Ed!" Zhaleh called, slowing as they came within speaking range, while her sister kept running.
"Get back to camp!" Ed ordered in return, and she didn't argue, just pelted past him, and he hoped at least one of them had sense enough to grab a couple of the more capable members of the tribe; immortal or no, Ed wasn't certain even he could handle an enraged bear, and he wasn't much interested in letting the Xerxesians know about his curse, anyway.
He found the bear before the other children, raging at where one tree had fallen between two trees that were close enough together to catch it with lower branches and form a small shelter. Too small for the bear, who was probably about twice as tall as Ed, but just about the right size for the other three children, the gold of their eyes and hair just bright enough to be seen despite the shadows.
That said, it looked rather like the bear wouldn't take too long to either make itself an opening, or drop the fallen tree on the heads of the children, and Ed spotted a few bright red splatters of blood, including one inside the entrance of their shelter – because spotting blood was freakishly easy for him, any more – but he couldn't see any wounds on the bear. Not that he could see the whole bear, but still.
They desperately needed a distraction so they could get back to camp, and Ed had no idea when reinforcements would come, which meant it was up to him. At least suicidal life choices were a tradition of his?
Ed let out a whistle and threw his crutch at the bear, since it would only get in his way while trying to lead it away from the children. "Oiy! Easy prey, right here!"
"Ed, no!" the eldest of the three, Shahin, called.
It was too late, though, because the bear was already turning, snarling in Ed's direction.
Ed just flashed his best troublemaker's smile, then turned and ran as best he could into the trees, going at an angle to the camp, so the others could make it back safely, but reinforcements shouldn't be too long in coming.
Someone shouted after him, but their voice was lost under the sounds of the bear following him, catching up way too quickly for Ed's comfort. But, then, running away had never been part of his repertoire, so he grabbed for a branch that was going mostly parallel to him as he passed it, raising his legs off the ground as much as he could and letting his remaining momentum swing him around the tree's trunk.
The bear raced past him as Ed hit the dirt, and he didn't give himself time to feel the shock to his bones, just started sketching an array in the dirt with his finger, then quickly activated it and used the resulting spear to help himself stand.
He just barely got the spear up to block the bear's first swipe, lost the tip to the follow-up swipe, and grimaced and ducked forward, jamming the pole into the bear's belly.
The bear roared, took another swipe at Ed and connected with the side of his head.
Pain exploded in Ed's head, and he stumbled back a step, caught himself with his broken spear, and looked up through his one good eye as he licked the blood off his lips. "Ow," he complained flatly, the pain already starting to fade as his curse kicked in.
The bear snarled in response and took another swipe at him, which Ed ducked, blinking a bit as vision returned to his other eye. (That would never not be weird.)
The bear managed to catch him against the scarred remains of his right shoulder with its next swipe, and Ed lost his balance and tumbled down the slight incline a bit, losing his pole in the process.
He hurriedly drew another array and summoned a second spear as soon as he stopped his tumble, but ended up having to cut the transmutation short to dodge another swipe. Still, he had a new spear, even if it was a little short, so he ducked low and ran at the bear, sharp stone point forward, and connected solidly with the bear's belly, grimacing as claws raked against his back.
He shoved down on the end of the spear, the bear roaring above him, pushing it down into the dirt hard enough to get stuck, then tried to roll back out of the way. He tripped a bit, ended up tumbling backward instead, but he still managed to get out of range of the bear's claws, so whatever.
He stopped to breathe for a moment, watching as the bear raged between wanting to kill him, and the fact that the spear in its belly was keeping it from going forward.
Just as he was reaching down to draw another array, summon up a weapon more suited for killing a bear, it let out another roar for no discernible reason, then slumped forward over Ed's spear. A couple of spears were sticking out of its back, far more permanent affairs than the desperate attempts Ed had been transmuting.
He let his shoulders slump with relief and reached up to run his hand over his face, only to touch slightly tacky blood and freeze.
Shit. How the hell was he supposed to explain not being wounded? And how much had he lost? Enough that the hunger was starting to get distracting, now the adrenaline was wearing off.
"Ed?" Akbar, Shahin's father, called. Not quite panicked, like he maybe hadn't caught sight of Ed yet.
He tried to scramble to his feet, get away before anyone saw him, but then Akbar rounded the dead bear, and Ed saw his eyes go wide before he shouted, "Ed!" Panicked, afraid.
"Stay away!" Ed insisted, finally managed to get his peg leg under him and shoved with his left leg so he could stand.
A couple of other men who usually went out with the hunting party rounded the bear, and Ed could see shock, then concern flash across their faces, even as Akbar held up his hands. "We need to get your wounds looked at, Ed. No one here's going to hurt you; the bear's dead."
Ed shook his head, drawing a complete blank on any arguments that would help, and turned to run further into the trees; he needed to hunt down some animals, drink enough that he could think again, come up with some sort of solution to this.
Something let out a cracking noise, almost seeming to come from beneath him, and Ed had just about enough time to be confused, before his peg leg gave out under him and he tumbled to the ground. The too-familiar taste of blood bloomed across his tongue, and he suspected he'd cut his tongue or the inside of his lip on his lengthened canines.
He twisted and looked back at his peg leg, couldn't keep in a hopeless moan when he saw it was snapped in half; the bear had probably swiped it at one point, since he'd never had it break on him because of running before.
"Ed," Akbar said again, approaching slowly, "it's okay."
Ed's eyes caught on Akbar's throat, the spot where he knew a vein pulsed just under the skin, and bared his teeth as much at himself, as he did in a warning for Akbar to get away.
Akbar froze, his eyes going wide with what looked like fear, and someone let out a curse, while someone else breathed, "Daeva," which was the Xerxesian word for creatures very like the demons found in most of the Amestrisan religions Ed knew of.
Ed took his chance and fled, moving in an ungainly cross between crawling and limping, but it was the best he could do with his broken peg leg, and he needed to get away, to protect the Xerxesians from himself.
Once his hunger was sated enough that Ed could think straight again, he sat down and cursed himself, because that had turned into such a complete and utter screw-up on his part. At least he'd managed to keep from hurting anyone – the day's single saving grace – and he recognised that he hadn't had a lot of options when it came to saving the children from the bear, but still.
He was going to have to leave the Xerxesians. Go back to travelling on his own, having to watch for bandits on the road, killing whatever poor fool decided to try killing him for his rather useless possessions.
Well, he could leave Hohenheim's one journal with them, the one he'd always meant to give them. He very much doubted that was his father's forgotten duty, but at least then the Xerxesians would understand a bit better what had really happened to the home of their ancestors; they were owed that much, at least, for taking Ed in for almost two years.
He'd have to wait until dark, sneak back into the camp to collect his things when most of them were abed. He was plenty familiar with the habits of the night watch, as rarely as he chanced more than a brief nap, for fear of nightmares, so it shouldn't be too hard for him to sneak in and out again. And if they really did think he'd been... What? Possessed by a demon?
Whatever.
At any rate, it was extremely unlikely that they would expect him to return for his things. With luck, they wouldn't have moved them out of his tent yet, but, if they had, Ed was familiar enough with the camp, he knew where his things were most likely to end up, so it still wouldn't be hard to get everything and get out with no one the wiser.
As for where he would go...
Well, he could travel in Drachma for a bit, he supposed. He only knew a handful of their language, but it wasn't like he needed to go into towns or speak with people, or anything, since he hardly needed any of the amenities most travellers required – food, drink, a bed. Eventually make his way back to Amestris, maybe head back to the burned remains of his and Al's house, see if he couldn't somehow find answers about his supposed 'duty' there.
He would manage, as always, would survive alone, once again. The Xerxesian tribe was far better without the danger he was hanging over their heads, anyway, and it was pretty clear he wasn't going to find the solution to his and Al's curse here, so he might as well move on.
It was for the best. For all of them.
Ed covered his face with his hand and tried to pretend the wetness on his cheeks was just blood.
As Ed had expected, it hadn't been hard to slip into the camp unnoticed, and since his little one-person tent was still up, he went there first.
It didn't look like any of his things had been touched, and Ed couldn't quite silence a relieved breath, because he hadn't really been looking forward to hunting his few belongings down. Most of it was still packed, even, because he'd got in the habit long before joining the tribe, of only unpacking what he absolutely needed when he stopped for the night.
He quickly packed up the last of his things, then sat down on the floor with a piece of blank paper ripped out of one of Hohenheim's journals, and the journal explaining the man's history, intent on writing at least some sort of note, though he wasn't really certain what to say.
(He understood why Hohenheim had always avoided this tribe, honestly; a part of him so desperately wanted to stay with them, despite everything.)
He wrote, 'I'm sorry.' But then frowned, because that wasn't really a good way to start a letter, was it? So he moved his pencil to cross it out, before stopping himself, because maybe it wasn't a good way to start a letter, but it was the most important part. Because he was sorry. Sorry he had to leave, that they'd found out at all, that he'd maybe scared some of them, that he'd...
Ed closed his eyes and swallowed, forced a smile onto his face, because then he could convince himself it hurt less:
He was sorry he'd made any of them care for a monster.
"And here I thought," Behnam's voice said from behind Ed, "that it's against a daeva's nature to apologise."
Ed froze, couldn't think anything other than, 'Oh, fuck.'
A pair of legs moved around him, stopping in front of him and resolving themselves into Behnam as the man crouched down in front of him. "Hello, Ed."
Ed swallowed and let his forced smile fall. "Behnam," he whispered, at a loss for anything constructive to say.
Behnam considered him for a silent moment, then glanced toward where Ed's packed bag was so innocently sitting. "Didn't think it was in their nature to run away, either. More about hurting people, the daevas."
"I'm not–!" Ed started before stopping himself and shaking his head, looking down at the letter he'd been in the process of writing. "I told you: Daevas don't exist. They're just excuses people bandy about to excuse their actions when they do something horrible." Because they had discussed religion at one point, when Ed'd had to ask for translations of some of the terms the others used, and Behnam had had to resort to stories so Ed could equate the words to the closest Amestrisan concept.
"Ah," Behnam murmured, a faint hint of amusement in his voice, "there's the Ed I know so well. And, look, no fangs." He looked past Ed, toward the entrance to his tent.
Swallowing in trepidation, Ed twisted to look over his shoulder, and found the two clan leaders – Sanaz and Mahdi – standing just inside his tent. The flap was being held open by someone outside, and Ed was near certain he saw the point of one of the hunting party's spears in the small space between the two elders. He swallowed again, struggling with a wretched lump in his throat, and quietly said, "If you've come to scare me off, there's no need; I only came for my things."
Sanaz frowned and folded her hands together in front of herself, clearly disapproving of some part of what Ed'd said, but it was Mahdi who replied, "How cruel do you think us, that we would scare off one of our own without just cause?"
Ed couldn't hold back a laugh, and it broke from his throat like too many pieces of sharp-edged glass, shattering to the ground between them. " 'Just cause'?" Ed repeated, couldn't stop from spitting the words, hated that his only defence, once again, was an offence. "And what is that, I wonder? It differs so much from village to village."
"We are not Amestrisan," Mahdi snapped back, his disgust for the country of Ed's childhood and her people all too obvious in the way he said the word. "We do not judge without the facts."
Ed's face twisted with a parody of a smile without his say-so. "Oh, but you have the facts, do you not? I am a cripple who took on and survived a bear twice my size. Bit covered in blood, but not a scratch on me. And then, right! Fangs."
"I see no fangs," Mahdi shot back without missing a beat.
Ed curled his lips up in a snarl, but he had no control over when his canines lengthened, so the effect was rather diminished.
Sanaz placed a hand on Mahdi's arm when he opened his mouth to reply, and it snapped shut with an audible 'click' of teeth hitting together. Then Sanaz stepped forward and slightly to the side, crouching down where Ed didn't have to twist quite so awkwardly to face her. "You're afraid," she said quietly, and Ed couldn't keep from flinching back slightly, hated that that confirmed her statement. "That is what Akbar told us, that you were afraid, and I see it again, now, that you are afraid to stay. You want us to curse you? To cast you out?"
Ed swallowed, had to look away from the concern and caring he saw in her eyes.
"There are those facts, yes, that are full of so much fear, because there has always been something none of us can understand about you. Some dark secret that always makes you smile so wretched a smile when someone asks how you lost your limbs, and yet you never once have said. Or that you're so often up with a candle in your tent all night, and yet never look a bit tired. Or how you sometimes forget to eat or drink, and don't seem to notice the lack, even in the terrible heat of the desert.
"But there is, also," Sanaz continued, "those facts of goodness, which so outnumber our questions. Your insistence that you must be given a task to help, to do your part. That you have been so willing to teach your native language, to any who ask about it. That you have shared alchemy with Banu and Minoo and any other with interest, always giving them warnings, before teaching them something new, as though you fear most for their safety. And, this afternoon, that you saved Shahin, Azar, and Pari, without fear for what might become you."
A hand brushed gently against Ed's cheek, and he turned back to meet Sanaz's gaze, so impossibly kind. "Will you explain to me, please, why you are so certain we should cast you out?"
Ed wanted to say no, to just run away, because he didn't want to see that kindness turned away from him. But...didn't he owe them this much? Didn't they have the right to know what sort of monster they'd been sheltering for the past twenty months?
He tightened his hand around his pencil and looked down at the journal and the paper in his lap – couldn't face her or Behnam, sitting in front of him – as he admitted, "I'm cursed. Immortality. Except there's a price: Any blood I lose, I have to replace, by drinking it from another living being. And I can't–" His voice caught and he squeezed his eyes shut, forced himself to take a deep breath and continue, "I can't control myself, when I'm really low. I just...attack. I'm not safe."
Ed fell quiet, felt rather like he was awaiting a blow, knew he'd deserve it, after admitting he'd been putting them in danger for over a year.
Except, it wasn't a blow that came. Instead, arms came around him, and he found himself being hugged tight as Sanaz whispered, "Ed, my child," in such a broken voice.
There was something trapped in Ed's mouth, a sound clamouring to be set free, and he tried to bite it back, but it was stopping him from breathing. He parted his lips just enough to gasp in air, but the sound slipped out in the process, forming into a sob that made his eyes feel far too wet, and he knew, if he opened them, that either tears would start to fall, or this would turn out to be the absolute cruellest dream his subconscious had yet devised. So he kept them squeezed tight, let go of his pencil and reached up to grab Sanaz's arm, wasn't sure if he was checking to see it was real, or just holding on because he couldn't–
He was a monster. Cursed to murder without any control, and someone was hugging him. Someone who knew he was a monster. Who didn't–
Ed stiffened, couldn't stop his eyes from opening wide as it occurred to him: Al had known. Two years ago, he'd already known everything Ed had done, and he'd still hugged him. Had stood there, holding on to Ed, even though he'd been shaking with the effort. He didn't–
Al hadn't hated him. Had even apologised because Ed was being forced to stain his hand, while Al could only watch. 'Safe', he'd said, because no one could touch him, in that place, while Ed–
Ed died, over and over again. It had never mattered to Al that Ed'd been forced to kill, had it? He'd only cared that Ed – just like before, when Al'd been in the armour, freaking out over every little wound Ed got, because Al couldn't bleed any more – was being hurt. Again and again and again. And there was nothing Al could do.
Fuck, he was an idiot, wasn't he?
"You are, a bit," Behnam said in Amestrisan, which caught Ed's attention mostly because he only rarely heard it. When he shot the man what he hoped was a confused frown – he felt off-kilter, wasn't completely certain he trusted his facial expressions, especially since his face was wet because his eyes hadn't stayed closed, the traitors – Behnam said, "An idiot."
'An idi–'
Oh. Shit. He hadn't meant to say that out loud.
"Translation," Mahdi said flatly, his voice far closer than the entrance to Ed's tent.
Ed twisted to look, being careful not to dislodge the arm Sanaz still had around his shoulders, and found Mahdi standing just a little behind him on the opposite side from his wife.
"Ed said he's an idiot," Behnam offered, and Ed couldn't stop a grimace, reached up to wipe at his face in hopes it would hide the expression. Whether it worked or not, he couldn't say, but Behnam did add, "I don't think you intended to let that slip out, however."
Ed couldn't quite stop a snort, and figured that was answer enough.
"You rather are a fool, to think we would cast you out," Sanaz commented.
Ed turned to stare at her. "What's that supposed to mean? It's obvious why I can't continue to stay here; I'm a danger to everyone! And do not start citing that I led the bear away!" he added as she opened her mouth, didn't quite care that he was trampling right over one of the unspoken rules of the tribe. "What I do when I'm thinking straight doesn't change the fact that I can't control myself sometimes!"
He tried to shrug her arm off, but her grip tightened around his shoulder enough to make it clear she wouldn't be dissuaded, even as she, quite calmly, replied, "I don't think that's true."
Ed opened his mouth to tell her...he wasn't actually certain what his response was going to be, but it would almost certainly be idiotically rude, so it really was for the best that Mahdi snapped, "You will be quiet, Ed."
Ed's mouth snapped shut and he scowled down at his lap.
Sanaz sighed and shook him a little bit. "We have heard the story from the others, and it didn't sound as though you had no control. Rather, that you attempted first to warn them away, then scare them away. And when neither worked, you were the one to flee, despite a broken leg." Her free hand reached down, into Ed view, and tapped a finger against the top of his peg leg, which was extended diagonally out in front of him, the closest he could get it to a cross-legged position.
Ed frowned, thinking back to that moment out in the woods. He'd definitely felt starved for blood, but he couldn't say exactly how starved. Enough that he'd struggled to come up with responses to the hunting party, and he'd messed up the array to repair his leg at least four times.
He didn't really suffer the worst level of starvation – unable to control himself as he ripped out the throat of the person nearest him – unless he was on the road and someone killed him. Or when he'd just come back from that other world, when he'd gone after that squirrel. He didn't really know enough to say how close he'd been that afternoon.
But, when he thought about it – put aside the familiar horror, the self-hatred – honestly... Fighting that bear, as many hits as he'd taken – the back and right side of his shirt had been nearly soaked through with blood, not to mention the mess his hair had been – he'd lost at least as much blood as having his throat slit on the road, and yet...
What was the difference? What decided if he went mad with hunger and attacked the nearest living thing?
Did he have more control over his curse than he'd thought?
Mahdi let out a grunt as he knelt next to Ed. "Whether or not you pose a danger, I cannot say," he commented, and Ed glanced up at him, even as Sanaz scoffed. Mahdi shot his wife a brief irritated look, then focussed on Ed, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. "But it is true that you've lived with us for seven seasons now, and still no one has been hurt, save yourself." And he actually sounded...upset about that?
(A very large part of Ed suspected he was dreaming, and was waiting with a heavy heart for the part where all of his hopes were crushed; his dreams hadn't ended well since his own ego had trapped his brother in metal and lost himself an arm and a leg.)
Mahdi grunted as he shifted again, into what Ed suspected was intended to be a more comfortable position, then he ordered, "Explain this curse to us. Fully. How it came upon you, what you've observed of it, everything."
Ed looked down at his father's journal, considered just leaving and never looking back, as he'd intended. But, honestly, he didn't want to leave. He loved travelling with the tribe, with the people who shared that half of his heritage that he'd never even known about until after his father was dead. He loved feeling like he belonged, because he hadn't had that in...too long. With Al, certainly, but not with a community, not since they'd left home and sworn never to look back.
He wasn't certain he deserved it, but he didn't want to turn his back on this family he'd found. (For Al's sake, if not his own.)
"It's a complicated story," he warned quietly, brushing the paper he'd written 'I'm sorry' on off the cover of Hohenheim's journal, "and the 'how' is connected to the events that led to Xerxes' downfall."
"The sudden deaths?" Behnam said, before coughing and whispering, "I'm sorry."
When Ed glanced up, he found both Mahdi and Sanaz giving Behnam silencing looks, and he couldn't quite stop a smile – not a particularly happy one, but a smile nonetheless – as he agreed, "Yes." He picked up the journal and held it up in front of himself, catching all their attention. "Banu told me, when I asked, that you were surprised to hear my father's name because he shared it with the man who survived and went to Xing."
"This is true," Mahdi agreed, his words cautious.
Ed nodded and set the journal down on the ground between them. "King Xerxes wanted to become immortal," he offered, staring at the journal's cover, "so he asked for the help of one of his court alchemists, who had created an artificial lifeform – a homunculus – using the blood of one of his former slaves. The homunculus knew alchemy far beyond the knowledge of any human alchemists, and it told King Xerxes how to create the array he'd need. But he didn't tell anyone the price it would cost, or that King Xerxes wouldn't be the recipient of the wished-for immortality.
"My father, Van Hohenheim, originally Slave 23, shared blood with that homunculus, and so he received half of the lives of the people of Xerxes." He looked up, then, meeting each of their wide eyes, before looking back at the journal again. "He was one of the two survivors of Xerxes, and the one who travelled to Xing, refining the art of alkahestry in return for their kindness in sheltering and feeding him while he struggled with the thousands of souls inside him."
Ed sighed and shook his head, then tapped the cover of the journal. "He meant this for you lot, so you'd know what had happened, but he'd never found the courage to actually give it to you. It covers pretty much the entirety of his life, up until the village he died in. He was...trying to find a way to die, I guess. Because he didn't want to outlive my mum and my brother and me."
"Instead he passed his immortality on to you?" Behnam asked, and Ed found a vaguely confused look on his face, when he glanced up at him.
Ed couldn't quite stop a snort. "No." Then he stopped, frowned a bit as he recalled why the figure had cursed him. "Well, yes, actually, in a way. It's–" He sighed and rubbed at his mouth for a moment, then shook his head.
"Hohenheim left when I was four," he said, because none of them really knew his personal history, not the whole of it; it was quite true that he'd always avoided telling anyone about how he'd lost his arm and leg, or where his brother – who he sometimes mentioned – was. "My mum died shortly after, sick from an illness that had struck our village. Al and I had been learning alchemy from some of the books Hohenheim had collected and left behind when he'd left, and I got the brilliant idea that we could use it to bring Mum back." He reached up and touched the remains of his right shoulder, quietly admitted, "I was a fool.
"There is no equivalent price for transmuting life, and we paid for my folly with our own bodies. I lost my leg, and Al lost his whole body. I managed to attach his soul to a suit of armour standing in Hohenheim's study, for the price of my arm, keep him alive." He fisted his hand in the fabric of his shirt, ground out, "I didn't want to be alone."
He still didn't, or he'd have done the smart thing and just left, rather than telling them his story; he hadn't grown up at all, had he?
Sanaz reached across him and gently pulled his hand away from his empty sleeve, and her eyes, when Ed met them, were kind as she said, "If humans were meant to be alone, we wouldn't be born surrounded by our family."
"I know that," Ed muttered, looking away from her. "We went looking for a way to get our bodies back, but–" he put on a smile that felt sickly "–it turns out souls can only be attached to vessels other than their own body for so long before the connection falls apart. One day, Al just stopped moving, and I–"
He stopped, swallowed, tried to figure out how to explain what had happened. "When you...perform– No." He huffed a bit and looked up at his audience, found them all with varying levels of heartbreak writ across their faces, and had to look away, ended up staring down at his hand. "This is about half hypothesis, but I believe everyone who has the potential to use alchemy has a...a sort of door, inside them, or attached to them but stored on a separate plane of existence, I don't really know." He grimaced a bit. "I don't suppose it really matters how it's connected or where it's stored, but it's there, and it determines the price of any alchemic exchange. Like, if I wanted to add skulls or something to my leg–" he tapped his peg leg "–that door would determine exactly how much energy the transmutation would cost, and how much, if any, material would be lost in the process, if that makes any sense?" He chanced another glance around at them.
"As much sense as alchemy has ever made when you've tried to explain it?" Behnam offered, because he'd sat through a couple of Ed's tutoring sessions with members of the tribe who'd been interested in learning a bit about the science, even though he very obviously hadn't cared one way or the other.
"It makes sense," Mahdi announced. "The amount of energy and material required is wholly dependent on the knowledge, finesse, and innate talent of the practitioner, not to mention the array being used. As such, there can't simply be one formula, but an ever-evolving balance. And the most sensible way to determine that balance each time a transmutation is performed, would be if each person has their own set of scales."
Ed couldn't help but shoot Mahdi a disbelieving look, and heard Sanaz muffle a laugh on his other side.
Mahdi scowled, looking between Ed and Behnam. "You can't truly believe my daughter and yourselves to have been the first members of this tribe to realise knowledge is necessary to avoid danger," he snapped.
Sanaz coughed and said, "Mahdi spent a few years studying alkahestry in Xing when we were a little older than you, Ed."
Mahdi shot her a betrayed look, but Ed apparently startled all of them by laughing, and he ducked his head. "I'm sorry," he managed, was fairly certain his amusement was still all-too-obvious in his voice.
Mahdi sighed and ruffled his hair, bringing Ed to peek out at him. The man was smiling faintly, his expression a little bit helpless. "The science of transmutation is in our blood," he admitted, "and even the wisest among us have felt the need to rebel at one point."
"My world view is completely shifted," Behnam announced, and he was wearing the widest grin Ed had ever seen on him when he looked over.
"Be quiet," Mahdi ordered, though he sounded more resigned than cross, and Behnam looked away with an amused cough. When Mahdi turned back to Ed, though, his expression had gone serious again. "You hypothesise that each of us has access to a sort of balancing object?"
Ed sighed and nodded. "A door," he agreed, and Mahdi raised his eyebrows at him. Ed took a deep breath, then quickly explained, "When you perform human transmutation, when part of the cost has to come from your physical being, you're dragged over to this other...plane of reality, I suppose. And there's a stone door and a...a gatekeeper, there. And the gatekeeper takes whatever physical part of your body you've given in trade."
Mahdi had closed his eyes at the words 'human transmutation', a sort of air of ancient grief forming around him.
"Your arm and leg, then...?" Sanaz said quietly.
Ed shrugged. "Yeah, they're in that other place." He looked down at his remaining fist as he clenched it. "With Al."
Sanaz let out a pained noise, while Behnam cursed.
Ed glanced at Mahdi again, found the elder simply watching him, sorrow in his eyes, but no sign of judgement, and that made it a little easier to admit, "When Al– When he stopped moving, I knew where he'd end up, so I went in after him. The gatekeeper, he – it, really, I guess – told me that Hohenheim was dead, but he'd left something unfinished, some duty that the gatekeeper needed seen to. It proposed a deal: I finish what my father left undone, and Al would be returned to this world, body and soul.
"Of course I said yes," Ed continued with a smile that felt wrong on his face, turning his attention to his hand again, as though all the answers were there. "I didn't care about the cost, fully intended to just trade myself for his life, if I could, but I–" He shook his head. "I thought I'd got off free, that time, except a few oddities I couldn't explain, like not really feeling hungry or tired, until later, on the road, when I–"
No, he wouldn't go through this with them. He couldn't.
He shoved his hand down against the ground next to him, shifted his right leg around to start the difficult process of standing, but he was halted by hands on both of his shoulders; Sanaz and Mahdi.
"Ed," Sanaz said quietly, while Ed stared down at his peg leg, "it's okay."
He let himself settle back down, swallowed with some difficulty, then opened his mouth and somehow got out, "A robber slit my throat, while I was taking a break. I thought–" He couldn't stop a wretched sort of laugh. "I thought that was it, I'd failed, but then I opened my eyes again and I didn't... There were– My teeth–" he reached up and tapped his canines with his fingers "–had grown. Fangs. And I just sort of...acted on instinct. Ripped out his throat, drank his b-blood."
For one, horrifying moment, he was once again surviving his first death and murder, the taste of blood thick on his tongue, and bile climbing his throat–
"Ed!" Mahdi snapped, and Ed flinched, realised he was breathing way too fast, his hand clenched white-knuckled tight around his peg leg.
"Sorry," he rasped, and his voice sounded as ruined as if he'd just thrown up, but there was no sign of such. He swallowed and shook his head, couldn't look up as he forced himself to explain the specifics of his curse, since Mahdi had asked for that: "I don't really know the rules or anything, but little scratches – losing a little blood here, a little bit there – is fine, I don't really notice it. Kind of a vague sense of... I don't know. When you're not really hungry, but you wouldn't refuse a couple berries or whatever. That.
"But, it adds up, it always does. And I can– Animal blood sort of...holds off the, the hunger, for a bit, enough that–" He stopped, shook his head. "I can't keep down real food or water or anything if I...need blood. Animals work, just enough – for long enough – that I can play at being normal for a couple days."
A hand squeezed his left shoulder, and he chanced a glance over, found Sanaz watching him with sad, worried eyes. "You've been doing that with us?" she guessed.
Ed shrugged, attempted to sound casual as he agreed, "Of course. It's not like I've had any cause to drink any human blood, and it would have looked strange if I just refused to eat, or threw up after every meal." He shrugged again, looked away from her, toward his father's journal. "Apparently I was already skipping enough meals to be suspicious, though."
"This duty your father didn't complete, what is it?" Mahdi asked.
Ed looked over and shrugged. "No idea." He waved a hand at the journal laying on the ground between them. "I'd hoped to find the answer in there, or one of his other journals, but all I've learnt is his history and some alkahestry."
Mahdi nodded and met his gaze. "So," he said flatly, "you had no idea of how to free yourself from this curse, and you're incapable of controlling it."
Ed flinched, had to look away.
"Mahdi–" Behnam started, before falling suddenly silent, likely having been glared at until he shut up.
"It seems, to me," Sanaz said quietly, "that you've come to a crossroads. You can leave us and continue looking for answers while avoiding other humans for fear of what you might do to them, potentially missing the answers you've been seeking in doing so; or you can learn to control your curse, and eventually leave to search without fear."
"Control it?" Ed repeated, disbelieving. "And how would I accomplish that? Live in a constant state of starving for blood until I can walk through the camp without wanting to rip out someone's throat?"
"No," Sanaz replied, unperturbed. "Your control is best found in learning to stop yourself before you kill whoever you're drinking blood from."
Mahdi let out what might have been an intrigued noise, but Ed could only just hear it past the strange rushing sound filling his ears. "Are you insane?!" he demanded, shoving at the ground with his foot and hand, shifting away from her, because he could already see where she was going with this, and it was horrifying. "No! I'd rather spend the rest of my life killing bandits on the road, than hurt any of you!"
"What if it isn't just bandits?" Mahdi asked, his voice hard. "What if you fall and crack your head open one time, and the closest person to you when you go looking for blood is a child?"
Bile was climbing Ed's throat, panic clawing at the inside of his chest, and he sort of shifted back again, his fingers nudging against his crutch. He grabbed for it, used it to haul himself to his feet, even as he bit out, "I'm leaving." Couldn't say what his voice sounded like, but it didn't matter. He just needed to get out, get away.
So he turned, half stumbled out of his tent, ignoring Behnam calling his name behind him, and ducking a half-hearted grab by one of the guards still standing outside his tent, didn't look to see who it was.
He returned to the woods, kept going until he couldn't any more, then bent over his crutch and coughed up stomach bile; he hadn't eaten real food in almost twenty hours, of course there was nothing to come up.
He walked a bit further, couldn't think about what Sanaz and Mahdi had said, so he turned his mind to other matters, matters he'd been trying so hard not to think of for years: Al.
Al, who he'd shunned. Who was all alone in that other place, with only that being for company, and watching Ed screw up as entertainment. Which, given, Al had always seemed to derive a certain amount of pleasure from watching Ed's various failures, so maybe it was actually entertainment to him? Sometimes?
He stopped to rub at his chest, over his heart, then at his mouth; he missed his brother. Had been missing him for far too long, but now that he could admit that, maybe Al missed him, too, the longing was so much stronger.
Well, he'd only found just enough animal blood to last him the night, anyway, since he hadn't intended to stay any longer than it took him to collect his things; there was no harm in taking a trip to see his brother. Assuming none of the tribe came out after him.
He wasted an hour hunting down a cave, transmuted the opening most of the way closed – he had no interest in suffering suffocation, and he'd need the light of the rising sun to see what he was doing – then quickly sketched the array that was becoming far too familiar. He set his crutch aside, uninterested in losing it in transit again, then pressed his fingers to the array.
A/N: There is a side story that falls between this chapter and the third, titled Witness to a Shooting Star. It's OC-PoV, explaining, a bit, Sanaz and Mahdi's reasoning for letting Ed stay with the tribe.
Art for this chapter:
Ed by arantxmagnelli
Spirit's Fall Chapters:
One ||
Witness to a Shooting Star
Break Me ~ Al & Truth
Body's Struggle Chapters:
Unposted
Soul's Triumph Chapters:
Unposted
.