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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?
A/N: So, Hangebokhan and I sort of fed off each other a bit. I told her about this series before I started working on it, and we went back and forth, a bit, about which of us would enter the wave one of the fandom challenge, before doing the passing ships in the night thing and both entering. (Whoops. ^^; )
Anyway, Han did a series of flamels for the characters (find them on her dA; they're freaking awesome), and then this picture of Truth standing behind Al, and this was the picture that inspired the opening scene in this chapter, a bit.
Chapter Four
-0-
"Alchemist," the figure said almost before Ed's vision cleared from the light of the array. It sounded a little like it disapproved of...everything, but also like it was resigned. Like, maybe, it was getting used to the fact that Ed was going to visit his brother, and damn the price.
Ed nodded toward it – Al would like that, him being polite – then turned to find his brother sitting cross-legged over by the other Door, a fond sort of smile turning his mouth. "Hey, you okay?" he asked as he hurried over to Al as quickly as he could, a bit weighed down by all the things he'd brought.
"Yeah," Al said, shaking his head. "Just don't really have the energy to get up right now. If that's okay?"
Ed dropped everything next to his brother so he could lower himself to sit down next to him, then drag him into a hug, which Al was quick to return. "Yeah," he breathed against his brother's too-long hair, feeling a bit of tension ease out of his shoulders. "You're totally allowed to be lazy sometimes."
Al shoved a finger in his side, then craned his neck to look around Ed at the bags. "What all'd you bring?"
"Presents!" Ed exclaimed, and Al rolled his eyes. But he was grinning as Ed snagged the strap of the nearest bag and dragged it over to open.
The first bag was clothing, and since he didn't really know how long he'd have to visit, Ed didn't insist Al actually get dressed, beyond handing him the thin, coarse desert outer robe he'd shoved into the top, and poking his bony arm until he huffed and slipped it on.
"It's so weird," Al mumbled before he had it fully on, staring down at one of the sleeves, the end of which he was rubbing between two fingers. "Does all clothing feel like this?"
Ed swallowed, torn somewhere between regret and amusement. "Nah. There's softer stuff in the bag. Here, other arm through the slee– Alphonse. I swear, you were easier to dress as a kid."
"What would you know about dressing me as a kid?" Al shot back, his eyes bright and alive. But he did finish putting on the robe, even if both of his hands kept rubbing at the fabric.
"Excuse you," Ed shot back as he reached for another bag. "I distinctly remember someone running around with his trousers on his head."
"You?" Al suggested sweetly.
Ed shoved him, Al shoved him back, and then they caught each other's eyes and started snickering.
For one, brief moment, it was like they'd never tried to bring Mum back. Like they were sitting together on the floor, in the home they'd burnt down, picking at each other because that's what brothers did.
Ed swallowed, his amusement dying, and looked down to watch as he worked open the simple knot. "Did you see my message? About Mum?"
"Yeah," Al whispered, and dropped his head against Ed's shoulder. "Nothing we did hurt her."
"Yeah," Ed whispered back. And then he reached into the bag and found the orange he'd tossed in there without too much trouble. "Here," he said, a bit louder, as he pulled the fruit out and presented it to his brother. "You're gonna have to figure out how to open this on your own."
"An orange!" Al exclaimed, grabbing it and immediately pressing it against his nose, breathing in deep.
"You know," Ed commented, grinning, "the insides smell even better."
"Shut up!" Al cuddled the orange against his chest and looked toward the bag. "What else is in there?"
"All sorts," Ed promised, because he'd made a point of getting a bit of everything for Al, even stuff they'd never had as children. "Most of it should keep for a while, so you can eat it little bits at a time. There's an apple and a couple vegetables you should eat quicker, though. Assuming things don't just keep in stasis while they're here."
Al dropped the orange into his lap and hugged Ed. "Thank you," he whispered.
"Least I could do," Ed admitted, hugging him back. Because they both knew it was his own bleeding fault Al was stuck there.
Al didn't say anything against that, though he did shove a finger into Ed's side again as a show of his disagreement.
Ed just shook his head – at least Al wasn't actively arguing with him about it, for once, though that was probably to keep from a row when they only had limited visitation time – and set the first food bag next to the bag of clothing, then grabbed the other one. "Also food," he explained, shifting it straight over to join the first two bags.
"Are you looking to make me fat, Brother?" Al asked, tone dry, while his fingers played over the rind of the orange, long nails scratching at it and releasing little sprays of juice all over his fingers, the front of the desert robe, and the parts of his legs that weren't covered by fabric; he'd have a fun cleaning that up.
"Maybe," Ed allowed, ducking to grab the last bag and hopefully hiding his grin from Al.
Al's light punch said his attempts were for naught, but Ed wasn't too fussed, because he was smiling when he looked back over at him. "Idiot," Al muttered.
"Don't talk to your big brother that way! Especially after he brought you presents!"
Al caught his eyes and stated, "You're an idiot, Brother."
"Rude!"
Al started laughing, his whole face lighting up, and Ed couldn't even pretend he cared any more, laughing with him.
They both shut up when the white figure stepped up behind them, twisting to look up at it, while Ed reached out and caught the hand Al was holding out toward him, fingers sticky with orange juice. "Hohenheim's journals," the figure said after a moment of silence.
Ed looked toward the bag he'd pulled into his lap and managed to untie before the figure had come over. One of the journals was obvious through the gaping opening, and he swallowed and admitted, "Yeah. What's in those... People shouldn't have that information. They're safer here."
The figure leant down between them, pulling out the visible journal. And while Ed managed to keep from reacting to its closeness, Al flinched away from it, his fingers tightening around Ed's.
Ed's stomach jumped up into his throat, bile tickling the back of his tongue, and he should have asked, he knew, what it was like to be trapped with that freakish figure for...years. If the figure'd done anything to Al, said anything. But he couldn't. He didn't want to know.
He wasn't strong enough to bear his brother's hell, too. (Al always had been the better of the two of them.)
He turned his gaze to the opened bag, couldn't meet Al's eyes once the figure was out of the way.
"Humans will always discover what they should never know," the figure said flatly, the pages of the journal crinkling as it flipped through them with Ed's stolen fingers. "It is one of the failings of your kind."
That...hurt, a bit. But it was also true; more than anyone, Ed knew the horrors human curiosity could unleash.
"These will not be returning to your world," the figure said flatly, even as the journal it had been holding was dropped into Al's lap. (Al jumped.) "Once you have upheld your end of the bargain, they will remain here."
"Fine," Ed agreed, because that sounded like an excellent plan to him.
A thin hand clenched tight around the stump of his right shoulder, and Ed looked over to find the figure right there, his own stolen hand holding tight to the space where it should have been, and he couldn't keep from flinching away. "All of them, Alchemist," the figure ordered. "Even the others."
"Yeah," Ed whispered, couldn't manage anything stronger, even though he'd fully intended to bring all of Hohenheim's journals to this place, save the one he'd given to the tribe, since that one was theirs. (And it didn't have any dangerous secrets in it, unless one counted the truth of Xerxes' destruction.)
The figure drew away, and the empty space where Ed's arm should have been ached.
"Your time is up," the figure said, and Ed's stolen hand landed on Al's shoulder, over the coarse robe, as the sound of scraping stone warned of Ed's door opening.
"I'll be back," Ed promised squeezing Al's hand as tight as he dared. "I promise!"
"I know," Al whispered, squeezing his hand back.
And then black hands were dragging at Ed, pulling him away, and he had to let go of Al so he could grab his crutch before he forgot it – there weren't any trees near him to fashion a replacement.
Al smiled after him, a shimmer of tears in his eyes, while the white figure stood over him, mouth a flat line, and Ed closed his eyes as the Doors closed behind him.
"Ed," Mahdi said, his voice flat.
Ed winced and squinted one eye open. Found himself lying on his back in the middle of his array, in the little shelter he'd made for himself during his first visit to the ruins. When he'd activated the array, the room had been blocked off and empty, a single candle casting just enough light to let him see what he was doing. Now, he was surrounded by Mahdi, Sanaz, and Banu, none of whom were smiling.
Okay, so maybe it had been a bit...implied, that he was supposed to let one of them know when he activated the array, but it had been late and everyone was tired from the trip and–
Ed was freaking starved, he realised, and squeezed his eyes shut so he didn't have to look at the very obvious veins around him.
Someone sighed, and Banu said, "You're impossible," right before the scent of blood filled the air, and Ed was sitting up and reaching for her before he realised it.
He managed to check his momentum before he could snatch at her offered hand, half terrified he'd hurt her because of his desperation. But there was no way to keep himself from catching her wrist and lapping at the blood welling from her palm, and one of them would probably hit him if he tried, so he gave in to the inevitable.
After he'd had enough from Banu and Sanaz to sate his hunger without endangering either of them, he found himself faced with Mahdi's disapproving stare, and hunched his shoulders a bit, looking down at the familiar lines of his array. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"Next time," Mahdi said, his tone hard, "you will let one of us know before you wall yourself in, or I'll put a guard on you."
Well, at least Mahdi wasn't telling him never to visit his brother again? Or kicking him out? (Even if he probably should. And Ed could admit, at least to himself, that a part of the reason he'd not told anyone, was to give them another chance to kick him out; he wondered if he'd ever be able to accept their forgiveness.)
"Yes, Mahdi," he agreed, still couldn't look up at the leader.
Mahdi sighed and a hand ruffled Ed's short hair, probably turning it into a complete mess. "Clean this up before someone starts studying it," he ordered, an edge to his voice that – Ed realised when he peeked up and found Mahdi staring at Banu, who was failing miserably at hiding her interest in the array – hadn't been aimed at him.
Ed pulled out a stub of chalk from his pocket and sketched a quick array that would pull apart the elements of any surrounding chalk, effectively destroying any arrays drawn using it – one of Hohenheim's inventions – and activated it, then made a point of blowing at the resulting explosion of dust, so it didn't resettle in anything like the original array's shape.
"That," Banu said with a sort of resigned smile, "isn't a bad trick."
"My next trick," Ed shot back as he grabbed his crutch so he could get up, "is going to be figuring out a way to work it into the other array, so I can just activate it soon as I'm back."
"Is that possible?" Banu asked.
Ed snorted, while Mahdi shook his head. "Impossible," Mahdi announced, because it was; Ed wouldn't be able to activate the human transmutation array without also activating the one to destroy the chalk, and destroying the array would end the transmutation. (Which was a shame, because people kept finding him while he was in that other place, which meant they could see his array while he was otherwise distracted.)
"How is your brother?" Sanaz asked a bit uncertainly.
Ed shrugged. "Really excited about getting an orange?"
"Oh." Sanaz slumped a bit.
Ed looked down, feeling oddly guilty. "He laughed a bit," he offered quietly. "Made some jokes at my expense, complained about me trying to fatten him up. Seemed happy." Not that any of that meant anything, because pretending cheer when Ed was there was the sort of thing Al would do; was the sort of thing Ed had always done, to keep his brother from worrying quite so much while they were on the road together. Still tried to, a bit, though it was a lot harder to keep things from Al when he didn't know when he was watching.
Pretending you weren't suffering so others didn't worry about you was something of an Elric habit, given Mum had done the same thing when she'd been sick. Had kept smiling even while she was bedridden and coughing up blood, as if she thought her smile would keep them from noticing she was dying.
Ed put on his best smile, then, and started from the room. "I'm going to head back to my tent, maybe sleep a bit. Sorry to drag everyone out of bed."
"Good night," they all offered a bit out of sync, and Ed smiled over his shoulder.
Ed got back to his tent and waited in the darkness for about half an hour, before lighting one of his candles and pulling out the journal he was decoding.
He couldn't stop remembering Al's flinch, and seeing his own stolen hand on his brother's shoulder; he had no interest in the nightmares awaiting him behind his eyelids. Not that night, not ever.
Not needing to sleep was the only part of his curse he was honestly grateful for.
On their way back down from the camp up in the mountains, Mahdi and Sanaz decided they would swing far enough west to travel along the border of Amestris.
"We haven't done because of the language barrier," Banu reminded him when Ed made an uncertain face at the announcement. "But you're fluent, and Behnam is nearly so, which means we have two people capable of communicating with them."
"Okay, sure," Ed agreed, because he got that. "But won't that add time to the trip? And why even bother? We have plenty of supplies for the winter."
"Better to discover villages we can trade with when we don't need it, than to be struggling to find them when we're desperate," Banu replied, her expression almost chiding. "The autumn pickings aren't always so plentiful as they have been these past couple years, and travelling while rationing is difficult."
Ed knew something of that, because there had been weeks when he was on the road with Al, when they either couldn't afford or couldn't find food, especially in the winter months, so he'd had to ration what they had, or go hungry for so long as he could keep pretending he wasn't starving, because as soon as Al realised Ed hadn't been eating, he'd freak out, and Ed hated watching his brother go into a panic over him.
How many mortal struggles had he forgotten, now they weren't a concern for him? How much more of his humanity would he lose before he found a way to end this curse?
And would he ever even be human again, after this? Or would he remain this monstrous half-thing with a taste for blood? The figure had only promised Al would return as he had been.
No, he had to believe the figure would undo this. That he could return to being a proper human again once he'd done his part. Rediscover hunger and exhaustion with Al, want fruit and vegetables and rice, rather than blood.
"I suppose," Ed managed, hoped his internal fears weren't showing on his face.
He seemed to pass muster, at least, because Banu didn't ask him if he was okay, and nor did anyone else, far too busy debating what Amestrisans would be like, as if they hadn't been living with one for nearly three years. (Ed didn't bother pointing that out to any of them, though he heard others – Azad, most often, the arse – loudly pointing that fact out when Ed was in range.)
He spent a large part of the trip to the northeastern-most Amestrisan village with Mahdi, Sanaz, and Behnam, the two elders schooling him and Behnam on 'proper' trading conduct, or some nonsense. (Essentially, being polite, what sorts of things the tribe had to trade, things they wanted or needed, and to ask about any other potential trading opportunities along the route.)
The first place they found was called Bergam, a village – town, nearly – which seemed to be in a constant state of expanding, trying to make something of themselves.
"We're, a lot of us, survivors from that horrible mess in Fisk," the farmer Ed and Behnam had found to introduce them to the leaders of the town said. He shot them an uncertain look, while Ed frowned and Behnam looked around at the stone buildings they were approaching with a healthy dose of curiosity; Amestrisan architecture was rather a different beast than Aerugonian or Drachman architecture, despite sharing borders. "Uh, not that you're likely to know anything about that, being desert folk and all."
"I'm originally from Amestris," Ed corrected a bit absently.
"Oh! I apologise. I just assumed– I mean–"
"Ed's father was a member of our tribe," Behnam explained, coming to the rescue because Ed was still trying to figure out why 'Fisk' was familiar to him. "He left and found love with an Amestrisan woman, and Ed has found us again with their deaths."
"I– I'm sorry to hear that," the farmer said, sounding honestly regretful. "To lose your parents so young..."
"Fisk!" Ed said as it came to him. "The Soapman Incident! My alchemy teacher was following the news, when we got any. Had friends up there – here – or something?"
"Really? I can't think of any alchemist sorts back in Fisk, but I hardly knew everyone."
Ed shrugged his right shoulder. "Oh, don't ask me the specifics; I always tuned him out, honestly. But, yeah. That was, what, ten years ago?"
"About that," the farmer agreed, his smile approving, but something dark haunting his eyes. "There're some die-hards trying to recover, a bit, get the place back on its feet, but it'll never be the same. No good farming land out there, any more."
"What...happened?" Behnam asked, looking uncertain.
"Idiots," Ed muttered with feeling.
"Don't mock us, boy," the farmer snapped, stopping and turning on Ed with a truly ferocious glare.
Behnam got between them, slapping one hand over Ed's mouth and shooting him a glare, before turning to look at the farmer and apologetically offering, "I am sorry for Ed. He does not mean insult, but has a habit of speaking such anyway."
Actually, Ed did mean that insult, but he was reminded that Mahdi and Sanaz had told him to be polite, so he put on his best contrite look and ducked his head like he was ashamed, just in case his contrite look was as terrible as he suspected it was.
The farmer huffed and Ed saw his boots turn to continue leading the way into the small town. "Nasty storm pulled up a couple trees. There were human bodies under them, all turned to soap. The head priest declared it was a sign of the end-times, but the less religious sorts insisted it was just something that happened." The farmer scoffed. "Can you imagine?! Human beings turning into soap is normal to their sort!"
Ed didn't look up, but he suspected the farmer was making a motion toward him. Which, well, fair enough; the science behind the phenomenon made it unlikely, but absolutely plausible, under the right circumstances. Which Ed should...probably not point out. Polite.
"The military sent out some big-name historian and he took a look, dated the bodies to be some hundred years old. Except there was a plague gone through the area back then, and word is he pointed that out, and then the kid who'd come with him sort of started coughing and collapsed, so..." The farmer sighed, sounding a little tired. Old. Like maybe the memories hurt so much more than anyone who hadn't been there could ever hope to understand.
(Ed knew something of that pain.)
"Military came in and put the whole area – everyone that'd gone within a mile of those bodies – under quarantine. Someone – rumour has it was the priest who was going on about end-times – started a riot, talked anyone who would listen into escaping, and the military killed everyone there. Burned everything and salted the earth after."
"That is...horrible," Behnam said with feeling. And Ed was with him, even if he did still think the whole thing was kinda dumb. Totally could have been avoided, if people wouldn't put so much stock in religious leaders. Or they'd just waited to see if they got sick; the kid who'd collapsed could have just picked something up in Central City! "My sympathies."
The farmer sighed again. "Thanks, though it's old history, any more."
"Just because something happened many years ago, does not make it any less deserving of sympathy than what is happening in the moment," Behnam insisted.
Ed couldn't tell if that was partially aimed at him, or in reference to the child Behnam's wife, Ava, had miscarried a couple years before Ed joined the tribe. Not that it really mattered, and that was about when they reached the town's mayor, so he didn't bother asking, just let himself get swept away in the greetings and trade talk.
He didn't really think about Fisk again, and neither he nor Behnam mentioned it when they got back to the rest of the tribe.
A year later, when they stopped at Bergam again, one of the townspeople they'd traded with the year before called out to Ed and, once she had his attention, asked, "Where in Amestris did you say you were from?"
Ed blinked at that and shrugged, because he'd never actually specified, mostly because the tiny village he was from wasn't a name most people knew, unless they lived nearby. "Down by East City," he offered, because that was one city name everyone in the country he'd ever met knew.
"Oh," she said, shrugging and turning away.
"Why?" Ed had to ask, because that sounded a little like he'd given the wrong answer. Or something.
"Ah, just..." She offered him a helpless sort of smile. "Creta's making a mess of the south-west, completely destroyed some town called Wellesley?"
Ed shrugged himself, unfamiliar with the name. "I've never been much further west than Central, honestly, but I...appreciate you letting me know?"
She smiled like she understood his attempts at politeness. "Any time," she returned, and left him to catch up with Behnam, who was looking over some potential trades.
And, again, Ed mostly forgot about Wellesley and the mess out west.
While they were in Xerxes again in June, Ed finally visited Al again to drop off the last of the books. He made a point of warning Mahdi and Sanaz he was heading off to do so, that time, so he had a sort of guard standing outside the remains of a house he set up in – Mahdi and Ed had agreed that it was probably best to keep everyone out; not to protect them from Ed, so much, as to avoid any temptation on their part to study his array – and he'd tried not to feel too self-conscious about that.
He felt rather horrible that it had been two years since his last visit to Al, but his brother didn't seem to care, far more interested in the bags of goodies Ed had brought, and curling as close together as they could get while they went through everything.
And Ed couldn't really say for sure, but it seemed like the figure had given them almost twice as much time as usual.
Without any more reading material, Ed turned himself to actually picking up the other languages the tribe knew. Banu was happy to teach him Xingan, and Ziba – the tribe's unofficial academics teacher, and Banu's sister-in-law – was happy for him to sit in on her Aerugonian lessons. (She'd been trying to get him to attend general lessons pretty much since he'd joined the tribe, and while he'd attended a few to help him learn Xerxesian a bit faster, most of her lessons hadn't interested him. Still didn't, really, but the Aerugonian lessons were too tempting to pass up, especially once he'd realised he recognised a few words from his childhood; a neighbour must have spoken it, but he couldn't say which one.)
Finding a Drachman teacher was far harder, as only a few members of the tribe knew even the basic Drachman needed for trading, but Mahin eventually offered, and Ed was quick to accept, desperate for things to occupy himself with.
Because, maybe, a part of him hoped, he'd find the answer to what he needed to do if he just stayed with the tribe long enough. Too, he knew, he didn't really want to leave the tribe, even as it was looking more and more likely that he'd find no answers with them. But they'd accepted him, all of him, and he didn't want to leave them. He didn't want to lose another family.
And he hated himself for feeling that way. Because every moment he spent not looking for his duty, was a moment Al spent trapped in that other world. And he knew his brother would never begrudge him this little bit of peace, not with his curse – not with the hell that awaited him as soon as he left the tribe, because having people, now, willing to donate blood for him, wouldn't help him when he was alone against the bandits on the road – but still. Knowing Al was suffering alone soured things.
Eventually, Al would outweigh his own fear again, but Ed could almost convince himself, for the moment, that he was better off staying with the tribe. Collecting what knowledge he could, in case it became necessary later.
And then, one afternoon in 1814, while they were at the coast for the spring equinox, Azad caught Ed around the shoulders and flashed him a smile that would probably have looked about right on Ed if his teeth were lengthened. "So," Azad said, his tone worryingly conversational – they didn't do conversational, they did insults – "when are you intending to ask my sister to marry you?"
Ed blinked a few times, thrown, and gave Azad a confused look. "What?"
Azad rolled his eyes up and silently mouthed a prayer for patience – or, well, Ed assumed that's what he was mouthing – then dropped his head forward to better give Ed a flat look. "You've been spending an awful lot of time with Mahin lately, Ed," he pointed out, apparently deciding to take a different track.
"Because she's teaching me Drachman!" Ed returned, starting to feel a bit annoyed; it was common knowledge in the tribe that he was studying other languages. "Everyone knows that!"
Azad raised both eyebrows at him. "Everyone also knows that the only reason she offered, is because she's loved you for years."
"...the hell?" was the only response Ed could find for that.
Mahin...loved him? Despite his curse? Why? There was no way he – a blood-drinking, occasionally murderous amputee with a penchant for illegal alchemy – could be attractive. To...anyone. Let alone Mahin, who was hardly the most religious of the tribe, but had made it clear that she held religion to be more important than science.
Well, okay, basic attractiveness was all just a biological process and utterly dependant on any one person's personal aesthetic taste in partners. In that, sure, if you ignore the missing arm and leg, he supposed he was...reasonably attractive. (He'd been told, before, that he had a nice face, at least. He'd buy that.)
And he supposed it was a thing, especially for females, to enjoy helping someone with a physical impairment – Al had said something about that, once, to explain why women were more likely to offer them a free place to sleep for the night and a meal – and that might be related? Maybe? (Not that Ed understood in the least. Though, given, perhaps that was just because he wouldn't want to live with having to take care of himself; maybe he'd just done better at hiding the worst of his issues from her than he'd thought? He'd been assuming the whole tribe knew he was a complete mess who couldn't sleep for fear of the terrors haunting the darkness behind his eyelids, but maybe he'd been fooling everyone.)
The curse, well... That should have been off-putting, even without knowing the whole of it, but the belief that there would be a cure might negate that, a bit? Maybe?
Still. All of that, everything... He'd have expected her to figure out, over the past few years, that he was so not husband material!
Unless... Was Azad pulling his leg? It would be like him.
Ed huffed and ducked out of Azad's hold. "Using your sister to get a rise out of me is a new low," he remarked drily.
Azad let out a laugh that sounded a little disbelieving. "You can't be that blind, please."
"Not falling for it!" Ed insisted, because experience said Azad would keep on for a while if he thought he might, eventually, be able to convince Ed of something.
Except Azad didn't keep on pushing, and he didn't laugh it off, either. He just turned and walked back the way Ed assumed he'd come from.
Ed blinked after him for a moment, then shrugged and continued toward where Banu and Minoo were giving history lessons disguised as folk tales to the children of the fishing village they set up near. He knew the history behind the stories, certainly, as much time as he'd spent with the two tribe historians over the last five years, but listening to the two women weave their tales was always interesting, as much as he'd hated folk tales as a child. (Perhaps it was simply that he'd hated Amestrisan folk tales? It was easier to believe that, than believe Banu and Minoo were better storytellers than Mum had been.)
He wasn't there for long, before Mahin stopped next to him, her face awash in red. Embarrassed, it looked like, rather than angry or upset. Which didn't help Ed much, honestly, beyond telling him he needed to not open by asking who he should threaten on her behalf. (He'd suspect Azad, but she was generally more than capable of handling her moronic brother.)
"Could we...talk?" she asked quietly, not quite looking at him, but clearly talking to him.
"Of course," Ed was quick to agree, and he grabbed his crutch to lever himself to his feet, completely unsurprised when she automatically moved to help him. (Though, honestly, her idea of 'helping' had only ever got in his way. He just didn't really have the heart to snap at her to stop, because Al'd often tried to help in the same way, and it was nice to have that little bit of familiarity.)
As he turned to follow her away from Banu and Minoo's audience, he noticed Banu watching them, a small, pleased smile twisting her mouth. Like she maybe knew exactly what Mahin wanted?
Ed's stomach felt like it was sinking, a bit, as his mind jumped to the conclusion that, maybe Azad hadn't been messing with him. For once.
They didn't go far, just out of easy hearing range of the story time and the nearest tents. Mahin turned toward him as she stopped, staring at his shirt, instead of his face, her own face still a brilliant shade of red. "Azad told me that–" She coughed and shifted a bit, her eyes sliding toward the sleeve hiding the remains of his right shoulder. "He told me you haven't asked about marriage because you didn't...realise. That I'm in love with you."
And then she looked up, meeting his eyes, the now-familiar gold shade of her eyes lit bright with sunlight and some emotion that Ed couldn't really...understand.
He tightened his hand around his crutch and struggled to swallow down the block in his throat. "That is–" he started, before realising he didn't really know what to say. How were you supposed to react to a friend telling you they loved you? Like, marriage-love, not family-love, which was what Ed felt. Or, well, that's what he thought he felt. They were friends. She was sort of like his sister, really. Not like Al was his brother, but...similar. "I...don't know what to say?" he tried after a moment of struggling to find something more coherent, because his experience with women – especially those in the tribe – said they appreciated it far more when he admitted he was struggling with something, rather than trying to brush it off with a grin, like he'd have done with any of the men.
She slumped. "You don't feel the same," she said quietly. Defeated.
Ed felt...bad. Horrible. Like he'd just pissed all over her favourite blanket, or something. (Not that he'd ever do that to her, but he may have done something similar to her brother. Once. As payback.)
What was he supposed to say?
She nodded, once, then turned and walked quickly away.
Ed just sort of stared after her, feeling so very lost. And maybe a little like someone had just landed a hit to his solar plexus, which was just...messed up. What right did he even have to feel that way?
"That didn't look like it went so well," Banu commented quietly.
Ed twisted and found her standing just to his side, looking sympathetic. Minoo was still telling stories to her audience, likely doing her best to keep the children distracted from Ed and Mahin's little drama. Which–
"Why didn't anyone tell me?" he heard himself asking, then winced, because that was sort of a jerky question.
"We assumed you knew," Banu replied evenly.
Ed shot her a look that, he hoped, conveyed a rather disgusted, 'Have you met me?!' so he didn't have to say it out loud.
She winced. "A mistake on many parts, yes," she allowed, before sighing and asking, "Did you tell her no?"
"I–" Ed cut himself off, wasn't really certain what to say, and barely managed to stop himself from throwing his arm up in the air and dropping his crutch. "She's like a sister, Banu! And how can I possibly think about– about, I don't know, marriage?! I mean, look at me!" He waved his hand at himself, then cursed as he lost hold of his crutch and it dropped to the sand with a muted thump.
Banu stepped forward as she ducked down, grabbing his crutch before he could start the occasionally unsteady process of leaning down to get it himself. "You're brilliant and handsome," she offered quietly, as she handed back his crutch, and he couldn't meet her eyes, torn between embarrassment and disbelief. "Of course Mahin would fall for you, no matter what curses you might be under. Edward–" he couldn't stop from looking up at that, and her gaze was kind, but firm, when he met it "–she loves you, has for years, now. That's not going to change. If you really consider her a sister, you need to give her a definitive answer, even if it's a no; running away isn't fair to either of you.
"And," she continued, something that sounded a little like grief shading her voice, "if it's your curse that's holding you back, perhaps it's time to leave and find the cure; it's becoming clear you won't find anything here."
Ed swallowed against a lump, hating the way his eyes were burning. He looked away from her, toward the ground, so she wouldn't see how much it hurt to think of leaving them at last. Because he needed to – for Al – but he was just selfish enough to want to stay forever.
Would it really be so bad to marry Mahin? Start a family? Be happy for a little bit longer?
But what about his curse? What about Al? What would happen if he was no longer the last of Hohenheim's line? Would the figure consider his duty fulfilled because he'd had children? Having kids couldn't be it, no way that was something Hohenheim had left undone. So, if he fulfilled his mysterious duty by no longer being the last of his line, what did that mean for his deal with the figure? Would he get Al back? Or would his brother be trapped there forever?
He couldn't chance it. He couldn't chance Al.
"Yeah," he whispered, and the word came out thick, weighted with all the loneliness living with the tribe had kept at bay.
Arms caught his shoulders, pulled him into Banu's embrace, and he dropped his crutch again so he could hug her back as best he could with only one arm. "At least wait until after the equinox to leave," she whispered.
He wasn't really certain that would make it any easier, but it would, at least, give him the chance to say good-bye to everyone. Keep people from thinking he was finally just running away. Or was spirted away by a daeva or whatever weird religious insanity they came up with. "Okay."
Her smile, when she pulled back, looked like it hurt, and he tried one of his own, just so she wasn't the only one trying to pretend their chest felt way too tight. "Don't leave Mahin to wallow," she suggested, ducking down to get his crutch for him again. "Go talk to her first. Before you talk to Maman and Baba."
His smile became too hard to keep up, so he let it drop as he accepted his crutch back; he didn't want to have to tell Sanaz and Mahdi he was leaving. He didn't want to tell anyone, really; why would he? "I'm going," he muttered, and made his hobbling way around her – she didn't try to stop him – and turned toward the tent he knew was Mahin's.
Azad was in there with his sister when Ed poked his head in, after getting the okay to enter, and he was glaring for all he was worth. Mahin, for her part, just looked...heartbroken. She wasn't even trying to hide that she'd been crying, and a part of Ed wanted to turn around and run.
But he was twenty-four years old, and he'd done this to her; he was going to bloody well man up and fix things. (Or, well, he was going to do his best.)
"Could I speak to you, Mahin?" he asked in as kind a tone as he could manage when Azad was attempting to drill a hole through to his brain with his eyes.
"Yes," she whispered, only just loud enough for him to hear.
"I'm not leaving," Azad snapped, clearly guessing Ed's next question.
When Mahin didn't tell him to leave, Ed swallowed and stepped into the tent all the way, doing his best to keep Azad at crutch's length, so he'd have the upper hand if the jerk decided to punch him, or whatever. He took a careful breath, trying to organise his thoughts, and then just gave it up as a bad job when that didn't help, and said, "Mahin, I do– I care for you, truly, but not like– Like a sister. Which isn't, I know, what you meant, or want, or– But I–" He grimaced and pressed his fingers tight against the worn marks years of use had rubbed into the wood. "If I wasn't...what I am. How I am, I would...I don't know. We could...try. Maybe. But I'm– I have to...fix this, fix me, before I can do...anything else.
"I should have left two years ago," he admitted, couldn't look at either of them, "when it became clear my cure wasn't...here, but I didn't. I didn't want to leave. Still don't. And that's..." He huffed out a laugh that felt like it tore bloody strips on its way out; he half expected his unnatural hunger to hit him. "Once the tribe heads north, I'm leaving. Back to Amestris; if I'm going to find a cure, it'll probably be there. And, once I've found it, once I'm...fixed, again, I'll come back. I promise."
"Then I'll wait for you," Mahin said, and Azad made a discontent noise.
Ed jerked his head up and met her eyes, so much happier than when he'd first stepped in. But her words had shot straight through him, leaving him hollow and aching, and he shook his head. "No," he said, didn't care if it came out too harshly. "Don't wait for me; I'm not worth it."
"Of course you're–"
"And besides," Ed interrupted, forcing himself to speak one of the little truths of his past that he'd been keeping back, "that's what my mum did, waiting for Hohenheim. And she got sick and died. And then he died, too. So don't. Don't wait, not for me, not for anyone. Just keep living. And if you– If you're not...married, when I get back, then we'll see. Try. But don't hold back just because of me. Okay? You deserve to be happy, not... I don't know. Miserable. Lonely." That was his burden to bear.
She'd started crying again while he spoke, and he had to look away, toward the floor of her tent. "That's...all I came to say. That's it. So I'm going to–"
A body – Mahin's – slammed into him, and they'd both have toppled to the floor, except Azad was right behind her, catching the remains of Ed's right shoulder and bracing him while he got his feet back under himself.
Before he could decide if he should drop his crutch to hug her back, Mahin stepped back, rubbing roughly at her eyes. "Okay," she said, and she sounded a little like she was crying still, but, when she looked up at him, it was clear she was managing to hold the tears back. "Then, when you get back, I'll be here. Not waiting, just...here. Deal?"
"Deal," Ed agreed, and his smile felt like a stab straight through to his heart, but he forced it to remain in place as he nodded to her and Azad, then ducked back out of her tent.
He let it die away as he turned to Mahdi and Sanaz's tent. He wasn't looking forward to this – to any of the good-byes he was about to find himself facing down – but they deserved the chance to say them, this tribe. His family.
And he'd be back. As soon as he could. That should help, right?
(It didn't.)
A week later, as the Xerxesian tribe started their slow trundle north, along the Xingan border, Ed turned the horse he'd been forced to take – he was informed that, immortal or no, the desert was cruel, and he was either going to take a horse to make the trip easier, or one of them were going with him; he picked the horse – and started north back along the path they'd taken two weeks before. Edging his way along the Aerugonian border, passing through the rocky sands of Ishval, and finally making his way across the green fields and bountiful forests of his childhood.
Until, at last, he stopped at the burned-out husk that he'd once called home. He didn't expect to find anything there, but he had to start somewhere, and that was as good a place as any.
And, well, it turned out he was still human enough to hope for the best.
A/N: That's the end of this part of the series! The final side-story, Break Me ~ Al & Truth, is a piece from Al's PoV, so feel free to go read that, and arantxamagnelli's two pieces are up, which you can find the links to in the first and second chapters, or just check the masterpost on tumblr.
RE: The sequel:
The sequel will be titled Body's Struggle, and will be Ed/Greed, with some probable background Ed/others. It'll cover a much longer stretch of time than this one did, as the third in the series is intended to start around the time of Ishval. XD No idea when, exactly, it'll get written, but it absolutely won't happen until next year, as I've already promised to prioritise the second part of Our Sinner's Redemption. Not sorry. XP
Spirit's Fall Chapters:
One || Two || Three ||
Witness to a Shooting Star
Break Me ~ Al & Truth
Body's Struggle Chapters:
Unposted
Soul's Triumph Chapters:
Unposted
.
