FIC: Our Lights Yet Shine ~ FMAB ~ Teen

[batsutousai]

Title: Our Lights Yet Shine
Series: The Shortest Day
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood/manga
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Spoilers, loneliness, warzones
Summary: A companion piece to Candles to Light Your Way: How Team Greedling, Team Mustang, Lan Fan and Fu, and the group in Liore celebrate the last winter solstice before the possible end of the world.

Disclaim Her: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Arakawa Hiromu and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
The poem is The Shortest Day, by Susan Cooper, and doesn't belong to me. (It has become nearly synonymous with the season, for me, and I've started thinking of this series by the poem's title, so I couldn't not include it.)

A/N: Last year, I had the urge to write something about the FMA characters celebrating the winter solstice following personal losses. This summer, it occurred to me that I'd rather like to do a fic covering everyone's final solstice before the Promised Day (except Roy and Gracia, since they were in CtLYW), and anotherfmafan gave me an excellent excuse to do so, with her Days of Yore event on LJ.
I wanted to get this piece done for Yule, but I procrastinated by watching Daredevil, and then my mum took the whole week off (we celebrate the solstice), so writing time was a bit scarce. Still, at least I got this done for the chat? ^^;

Team Mustang is kind of grouped together, despite being spread out, because it made more sense to me to break them into one group. Also, their experiences are all rather short, comparatively. Sorry/not sorry?

I'd intended to include a couple of other groups – Alex and Olivier, Scar and Marcoh, May and Envy – but I was struggling a bit with a couple of them, and coming up on my deadline, so I scrapped them. Maybe next year. ^^; (Oh, Merlin, did I just suggest I would write another piece to this set? *flops*)

For Lan Fan and Fu's section, if you're reading on AO3, tumblr, or LJ, you should be able to hover over the hanzi and a transliteration and a translation will pop up. (It's not for everything, just proper titles and the food. And the greeting. I did not use it for their given names, mostly because I was having a terrible time finding something for Lan Fan. If someone has hanzi for her, please feel free to share.) For those reading on FFN and dA, I left it in English, so feel free to disregard. :P

You can also read this at Archive of Our Own, Fanfiction.Net, or deviantArt.

-0-
Team Greedling (Darius, Ed, Heinkel, and Greed)
-0-

The thing about going to war and then being turned into a science experiment for a bunch of fucking nutters alchemists, was that Darius had pretty much stopped caring about the holidays of his childhood. He was nearly certain Heinkel felt the same – it was hard to get a read on him, but Darius was getting better – and it was pretty clear that Greed couldn't give a rat's arse about human customs. But Fullmetal...

The kid did care. About birthdays – his brother's had apparently been at the end of November, which Darius only knew because Fullmetal had gone slumped and pathetic as soon as he heard the date – and about the winter solstice.

"No candles this year," the kid had murmured into his pack the night before the longest night.

And Darius hadn't got it – he was a westerner by birth, and their celebrations were built around noise, not light – but Heinkel was from near Central, and he'd quietly agreed, "Afraid not."

"What are you lot yammering about this time?" Greed snarled in that testy tone he used when they'd spent too long away from his creature comforts of booze and sex.

"Yule," Fullmetal and Heinkel said, nearly in unison.

Darius let out a silent little 'oh', while Greed snarled, "I'll what?"

"The winter solstice," Darius clarified, before Fullmetal could start snarling insults about Greed's shoddy hearing, or whatever. (The last thing any of them needed was another brawl when they should have been sleeping.) "The longest night of the year."

"It's tomorrow, and humans celebrate it," Heinkel added in that quiet, soothing tone that actually worked. (Most of the time.)

Greed grunted and shifted in his bedroll. "Is there a party?"

"Sometimes," Heinkel agreed.

Darius raised an eyebrow at that, wondering when the solstice wasn't a party. Well, if you had little kids, he didn't suppose you could be loud and obnoxious all night long.

Greed was quiet for a long moment, before ordering, "Go to sleep."

Surprisingly, Fullmetal didn't snarl anything back.

-

Greed practically dragged them all out of bed in the morning, chivvying them through breakfast and packing up, so they were on the road well before the sun dragged itself over the eastern horizon. He didn't quite demand a forced march from them, but it was close enough that Darius seriously considered just stopping and refusing to go on, because he was fucking out of the military.

It was actually Fullmetal's slump that stopped him, reminding him all-too-well of that day watching the kid droop on his clinic bed, looking so much like he was giving up on everything because he couldn't celebrate his brother's birthday with him.

It had been a long time since Darius had resigned himself to celebrating holidays without his family, but he still remembered that bitter loneliness from the first time, and Fullmetal's bearing brought it back every time.

At the least, he decided, if they were marching, the kid was moving, wasn't just collapsing in on himself again.

Just before sunset, they reached a town. Not a polite little farm with four times as many animals as people, not a little village made up of three and a half houses; an actual, honest-to-goodness town. With an inn that looked warm and inviting, a line of homes and shops straight and long enough to make a main street out of the dirt road between them, and a quaint little town square, where crowds of people were gathering with loaves of bread, barrels of fruit and vegetables, and platters of meat.

"Oh," Fullmetal breathed, and he looked so grateful, Darius' chest hurt a little.

"Not quite as lively as I was hoping for," Greed said a bit absently, his head tilted to one side, "but it'll have to do."

"We don't have an offering," Heinkel pointed out before any of them could race forward, one hand falling to Greed's shoulder to keep him from doing so. "It's polite to bring something to share."

Greed scoffed, but Fullmetal spun, called a quick, "Be right back!" and then vanished back into the little wood they'd been walking through for the past hour or so.

It was only because of his enhanced senses that Darius caught the flash of light and crackle of energy that heralded alchemy, and when Fullmetal joined back up, he had a basket in one hand that was filled with mushrooms and some root vegetables – the kid had already proven a number of times that he was an excellent forager, even in winter – and two dead rabbits in the other hand.

"Nice," Darius said, and Fullmetal's responding smile was sharp and almost as lively as it would have been on any non-holiday day.

"Now can we go?" Greed demanded, casting Fullmetal's finding a disgusted look. (Darius couldn't say if it was because he was just that done with foraged food, or because of the wait. Wasn't really sure he cared, honestly.)

"Yes," Heinkel agreed, and they started toward the town square together, Fullmetal ushered to the head, since he had the food.

"Welcome, visitors!" a man called as he stepped forward to greet them, beaming.

"Hey," Edward returned, not quite as carelessly as he usually greeted strangers when they stopped somewhere. "We're just passing through, but we were hoping to join your celebrations tonight? I'm afraid we couldn't find much to bring, but–"

The man let out a loud boom of a laugh and patted Fullmetal's head – Darius imagined he could hear the kid grinding his teeth. "It's the winter solstice, my dear boy! It's a day of friends, new and old! Of course you're welcome!"

He ushered them forward and they were quickly introduced to the innkeeper. Fullmetal passed on the food, then the followed the innkeeper back to his inn to drop their packs in a couple of rooms. They made it back to the town square just in time to stand and watch in silence as the sun vanished behind the western horizon.

"Do you think," Edward whispered, quiet enough no one but Darius and probably Heinkel would have heard him, "any of us will be here next year?"

Darius clenched his jaw, wished the kid hadn't actually asked that question, because he didn't want to think about it, didn't want to remember that the potential end of the world was that spring.

"Yes," Heinkel said with a quiet certainty that Darius couldn't begin to guess the origin of. "We'll make certain of it."

Noise of voices and good cheer picked up around them, candles and torches being lit all around, filling the square with light. It wasn't quite the loud revelries of his childhood, but it still reminded him of the origin of the holiday: Scaring away the darkness so the sun would rise again. It was a season of hope. Of new, better, beginnings.

"We'll beat the darkness," he said, felt Fullmetal and Heinkel both looking at him. "The sun will rise again, we just have to make a little noise to help it out."

"You're fucking ridiculous," Fullmetal said with a scoff.

But, when Darius glanced down at him, he was grinning, eyes reflecting the dancing lights all around them. "Maybe," he agreed.

"Sometimes, all you need is a little bit of belief," Heinkel murmured before stepping into the crowd of people around them, heading for the spread of food.

"Belief, huh?" Fullmetal said, looking toward the western horizon.

Darius debated for a moment, then stepped forward and turned the kid to face the eastern horizon. "Face forward, kid."

Fullmetal hit him, but it was a light blow, meant more for show. "You're full of shit, Mr Gorilla."

"Would you stop calling me that?!" Darius snarled.

Fullmetal's grin was a flash of brilliant mayhem, and then he was off into the crowd of people, far too short to find easily.

Darius huffed to himself, torn between irritation at the continued nickname and gratitude at seeing the kid cheered up, and made for the food tables, because he was starved.

Hours and hours later, when sheer determination was the only thing keeping them upright, Darius somehow found Heinkel and Fullmetal again – Greed had vanished with a bottle of alcohol and a married couple into their home some hours before – and they all sort of leant on each other to watch as the eastern sky lightened and, finally, the sun popped up over the edge of the world.

"Happy Yule," Heinkel murmured, his voice heavy with exhaustion.

"Happy Yule," Darius replied, almost at the same time as Edward. "Bed?" he added.

Heinkel and Fullmetal weren't the only ones within hearing range to laugh, but they were the only ones to go with him to the inn.

-0-
Team Mustang
-0-
- Riza Hawkeye -

Riza couldn't say she was particularly surprised to find herself running errands well after the sun had gone down. She tried not to think about the empty place at her grandfather's table, where she'd always been welcome to spend the winter solstice while they'd been stationed in East City, or the candle waiting for her in her cold flat, assuming Black Hayate hadn't decided to eat it because he was just that hungry.

She wouldn't put it past him; he was usually a wonderful companion, but these long nights when Bradley kept her as busy as possible, he'd been known to resort to eating whatever he could find because he was just that starved. She couldn't blame him, really, hated that circumstances meant he was constantly getting the short end of the stick, but he was far safer hidden away in her flat, than allowed anywhere near their non-human Führer.

By the time she made it home, it was well past midnight, and she was exhausted. She gave herself a moment to slump on her way up the stairs to her flat, just wanting to sleep, but knowing she was going to have to feed Black Hayate and take him out to pee before she could. She'd probably have to clean up a mess, since she hadn't managed to make it home for lunch.

When she pushed her way into her flat, Black Hayate was waiting for her, her candle held carefully between his teeth and his tail wagging wildly, like he knew he'd done good.

"Oh," she whispered, and dropped to her knees in front of him as the door fell closed behind her. She took the candle from him, then gave him a firm scratch, saying, "Good boy."

Black Hayate licked her face once, then ran off into the flat. In the time it took her to stand again, he was back with his leash, and she managed a tired laugh as she set the candle carefully out of the way, then leant forward to accept the leash and clip it to his collar.

Their walk didn't take long, Black Hayate already used to her constant state of exhaustion in the evenings.

She seriously considered leaving the candle unlit and waiting until tomorrow to find whatever mess Black Hayate had left her. But a childhood of clutching at her precious, secret candle, wasting matches because she needed it even though her father believed it was ridiculous, meant she couldn't go to bed without lighting it. At least for a little bit.

So she kicked off her shoes and shrugged out of her winter coat and uniform jacket, then stepped into her kitchen.

When she turned on the light, though, she found a bottle of wine and a note waiting for her on her table. Frowning, she set the candle down next to the wine and opened the note. The handwriting was familiar, and she felt her eyes filling with tears even before she started reading the note.

'Lieutenant,
'I somehow ended up with an extra bottle of wine for tonight and thought you might benefit. Fed and walked Black Hayate so he'd let me leave in one piece.
'Blessed Yule,
'Mustang'

Riza looked over at Black Hayate's bowl and saw the stray pieces of meat that meant he'd eaten within the past four hours or so. "That lazy idiot," she said, her voice maybe a little thick with grateful tears; leave it to Roy to know exactly how to best help her celebrate the holidays, without overstepping that carefully laid boundary between co-workers and friends.

She hunted down her matches and lit the candle, setting it into its holder in the centre of the table, next to the wine bottle, then went in hunt of a glass and something to eat, because she, unlike some men she knew, wasn't in the habit of drinking on an empty stomach. Somehow, she was unsurprised to find takeout from Madam Christmas, a slice of her infamous solstice pie under the sandwiches, on the top shelf of her refrigerator, and she laughed and shook her head as she took it all out.

"I suppose," she told Black Hayate as she gave into his wide, hopeful eyes and slipped him just a little bit of sandwich meat, "we'll have to thank him by giving him a day off from nagging." She laughed at herself, just a bit, because it wasn't like she could nag him any more; she'd have to find some other way to thank him. An accidental shipment of paperclips, perhaps, for him to flick at people or attach them to the noses of his stupid paper aeroplanes.

She stayed up for another hour, watching the steady flame of her trusty candle and letting the thoughtful food and the panting form of Black Hayate chase away the memories of shadow monsters in the shape of little boys, and scatterings of gunfire throughout the long desert night.

When she finally blew out her candle and turned in for the handful of hours of sleep she'd get, she'd once again unburied that well of hope for the future that she'd almost lost as things started falling apart around them. Maybe times were bad, maybe they were scattered, but they weren't alone, and she – all of them – wouldn't give up. Not now, not ever.

- Vato Falman -

Vato had been in the military long enough to know not to expect anything too special for the winter solstice when they were so far removed from civilisation. What he hadn't expected was how well the men and women of Briggs managed to celebrate, even under the unforgiving gaze of Major General Armstrong's replacement.

Vato was told, by his roommate, that they usually found a massive evergreen and brought it into the mess, but they were told that wouldn't be allowed that year. Something about 'childish traditions' and 'the military doesn't stop for your little superstitions', which was pretty much the same line Vato'd heard since he'd first enlisted over twenty years ago.

Even with their anti-holiday commander glaring around at them from on high, it wasn't hard to find ways to celebrate:

Tinsel and little handmade ornaments appeared tacked along the bottom edge of the serving window in the mess, where it was hidden from the brigadier general's daily checks.

The outdoor scouts snuck in miniature evergreens and branches from larger trees, and they were squirreled away into dorm rooms, leaving the hallway outside smelling like pine. The one in Vato's room was decorated with a bit of tinsel and some ornaments his roommate had pulled out of a well-worn wooden box hidden deep under his bed. Vato had folded some little animals out of scrap paper – something he'd learnt as a child and thought he'd have forgotten, but the motions came back to him all too easily when he sat down to try – and added those to their tree, too, and his roommate had grinned and patted him on the back.

Sometime during his shift the day before the solstice, a white taper candle appeared on his pillow. He took it with him on the day, and wasn't particularly surprised to find that everyone around him pulled out their own little candle as they watched the sun sink below the horizon, a few people also pulling out matchboxes so they could light them.

By the time the last glow of the set sun left the sky, everyone's candles had been lit, leaving dozens of little pinpricks of light along Briggs' ramparts, everyone cupping their little flames against a gust of wind. Once the wind died down for a moment, a couple of people handed off their candles so they could light the massive torches that usually cast light and heat for those stuck on the wall at night.

When Vato's shift was over and he made his way down to the mess, he wasn't surprised to find that every other soldier in Briggs was holding a lit candle in one hand, their other hand carefully cupped around the flame. The food was the same as always, but the atmosphere of the mess – warmed with laughter and little pinpricks of flame – more than made up for it.

When he turned in for the night, Vato's candle wasn't the only one sat next to the little tree in his room, glowing steadily throughout the long night.

- Kain Fuery -

Kain's winter solstice promised to be an awful, bloody affair, trapped in the trenches of the battlefield just south of Fotset. He'd already lost one partner because of Aerugonian shelling, and he halfway expected to lose at least one more before the end of the year, because that was just his luck.

He would never regret throwing his lot in with Colonel Mustang, not even if his live ended in front of a firing squad, because the vision the colonel had was...everything he ever could have wanted for the future of their country. But a part of him – a tiny, lonely part of himself – wished he'd never followed the colonel to Central. It had been safe in East City, away from the terrible machinations of military command, and he'd only been a single train stop away from his family. Only a stop away from home-cooked meals filled with love whenever he started to feel too stressed at work, or dozens of broken radios and miscellaneous motors that he could pull apart and put back together without anyone asking him what he was doing with 'expensive military technology'. (He'd played with some of that technology as a kid; little of what they were given was truly 'expensive'. Though he enjoyed his rank and pay far too much so say as much to anyone likely to question his work.)

Still, he'd gone with Mustang to Central, fallen straight into the hornets' nest with his CO, and was promptly assigned to a hellhole of blood and gunpowder, running phone lines between command positions that would either be overrun or moved forward almost before he could connect them. It was the worst kind of work, and there were far too many hours when he wished he could trade places with Second Lieutenant Havoc, because he didn't need to be able to walk, not really.

Right?

He'd actually almost completely lost track of the days, would never have noticed it was the longest night, except someone – he wasn't positioned to hear who, but he'd bet his own life it wasn't Bradley or any other member of the Amestrisan military command – had called a twenty-four hour ceasefire.

"Why twenty-four?" a soldier asked after the local CO finished filling them in.

The CO shrugged, clearly didn't care, but someone else said, "The Aerugonians celebrate the shortest day, not the longest night. It's the same holiday and all, but the focus is a little different."

"Huh," Kain said, along with plenty of others in the huddle of soldiers; so, to accommodate both sides, they would all lay down their weapons for the full twenty-four hours. That was...surprisingly thoughtful.

So, as soon as the sun rose, weapons were put down and everyone around Kain relaxed. A lot of them clearly intended to sleep, including his cable partner, and Kain couldn't really blame them, was sort of thinking of doing the same thing, himself. Others were taking the chance to look over and clean their weapons, or check and rebandage wounds. A couple poked their heads cautiously over the edges of the trench and, when it became clear the Aerugonians would be respecting the ceasefire, jumped out onto no man's land to, Kain could only assume, find whatever ammunition/weapons/living souls they could. He totally respected that dedication, but he had neither the courage nor the energy to go out there, so he drooped back against the cabling backpack and closed his eyes to catch the first good sleep in months.

-

Kain woke long before he was ready to, to the sounds of loud voices echoing across no man's land. His first thought was that someone had started a brawl, and their brief respite was probably shot all to hell – potentially literally – but then he saw a soldier a bit down the trench jumping out onto no man's land with an armful of military rations. He took a chance and peeked over the edge of the trench and found a group of Aerugonians and Amestrisans sitting together among the curls of wire and bloodstained mud, laughing and sharing ration packs.

Kain debated, then shrugged – his cable partner was out there, and he was the only guy Kain really knew – and found a ration pack of his own before struggling out of the trench and jogging over to join them.

He didn't speak a word of Aerugonian – he was nearly certain that none of them spoke the other's language, honestly – but that didn't really hinder him, especially once he found himself facing an Aerugonian tech. They traded words for the little pieces of broken technology they were both carrying with themselves, and somehow managed to build a radio that picked up what sounded like a Cretan broadcast station, which had everyone there laughing.

As night fell, some soldiers returned to the trenches, while new ones came. Someone procured candles from the gods alone knew where – Kain half suspected they were more human fat than wax, and absolutely refused to touch them – and someone else figured out how to light them with a handful of bullets they'd pulled out of their pocket, so they had some candles that burnt far too quickly to last the whole night. But it was better than nothing, and Kain and his Aerugonian counterpart had managed to tune their little cobbled-together radio so it picked up a station that was playing music, and someone thought to unload a bunch of ration packs from both side onto a miraculously clean shirt, so they got to pick and choose what they wanted to eat.

It wasn't anything like being at home – smelling the delicious food wafting from the kitchen and listening to his cousins and sisters screaming outside as they chased each other, while he fiddled with the radio or phone or (once, because it had died without any warning) the refrigerator – but it was better than ducking shells and bullets while running cabling past dead and dying soldiers. It was a single, brilliant moment of peace amid the hell of war, and it reminded Kain of Mustang's promise, that he would see Amestris at peace with her neighbours, so her people no longer had to die in pointless wars.

For, perhaps, the first time since joining the military, Kain could see a glimmer of that future, and it was absolutely worth fighting for.

- Heymans Breda -

Given he was a known hostile under fairly constant surveillance, Heymans had expected to find himself up to his eyeballs in paperwork and trapped in the office during the winter solstice. Except, well, he wasn't. He didn't end up having to go in at all; apparently, West City Command completely closed down for the solstice.

As soon as the sun went down and the screaming and laughter started, Heymans sort of got why.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" he asked the first soldier he spotted in the dorm hallway, after giving up doing anything in his room.

"You don't know?" the guy asked, looking shocked.

Heymans considered that for a moment, remembered what he'd heard about different areas celebrating yule in different ways, and explained, "I grew up in the east."

Whether or not the guy understood the significance of that Heymans couldn't say, but he explained the noise all the same: "They're scaring away the darkness and trying to wake the sun. Ancient tradition, from back when no one was smart enough to get the science behind everything, but, well, it's a lot of fun to spend the night shouting, so it's kept on."

Heymans could absolutely understand that reasoning – he had plenty of nights where he just wanted to scream in frustration – and he offered a brief, "Thank you," before retreating to his room to see about finding civilian clothing to wear out.

Once he was sufficiently attired for an evening out, he left the dorms and headed for the nearest screams. He half expected to find a crowd of people with their heads thrown back, screaming at the sky. Possibly a bonfire, or with everyone holding a candle or something. Instead, there was a line of mismatched tables stretching along the street, covered with an amazing array of food, with the glow of lights pouring out of opened doors and windows and the bright shine of streetlights making it so everyone could see. There were people with their heads thrown back, screaming into the sky, certainly, but there was also a queue of people picking through the food on the table, while others carried empty or full platters between houses and the table, and a group of children a bit away from the tables kicked a ball around.

It was a neighbourhood potluck at its finest, and Heymans was pretty much in love at first sight. When no one looked at him side-eyed as he joined the food queue, he fell even more in love, and he didn't pause for more than a second at the sign about donating a bit of cenz for the cooks, before he pulled out the fold of notes in his pocket and dropped almost all of them into the donation tin.

The food was delicious, and there was no one there to stop him from going back for seconds and thirds and even fourths. He took a turn screaming at the sky, just barely stopping himself from spewing profanities – it had been a shitty year, but not quite so shitty that he forgot about the kids within hearing range – and settled in with a group of men happy to gossip about local happenings, mentally cataloguing everything he learnt so he could pass on the relevant stuff to Mustang through his network of contacts later.

Daybreak found him sat on someone's front stoop, losing – badly – to an elderly man at chess, and struggling to keep his head up. Most of the shouting and screaming had stopped a few hours before, but a long, delighted howl of voices picked up as light bled across the wreckage of picked-over platters and forgotten utensils. Heymans couldn't quite keep a tired smile off his face, and when his chess partner added his own voice to the noise, Heymans followed suit.

With a promise for another game that weekend, and a loaf of fresh bread that had been brought out to serve as breakfast filling his belly, Heymans finally returned to the dorms.

"Good yule?" someone asked just before he reached his dorm door, and it took Heymans a moment to recognise the soldier he'd asked about the noise.

"The best," he announced, and the other man's laughter followed him into his room.

In his window, the candle he'd forgotten to blow out before he left had burnt down to nothing, and he saluted it before starting getting ready for bed, because he sort of understood how it felt. Still, if this turned out to be his last winter solstice, at least he would be able to say that it had been a good one.

- Jean Havoc -

Jean had made a habit of coming home for the winter solstice every year, and Mustang had always been willing to give him the day off. (Say what you would about how not fair the arsehole's dating habits were, or how ridiculously lazy he was about pretty much everything; when it came to a member of his team wanting to visit their family, especially for the holidays, he always found a way to make it happen.) When they'd been transferred to Central, Jean had expected that to change – taking an extra day for travel was very different from just leaving a couple hours early – and had sort of halfway made plans with Heymans to do something together.

He hadn't planned to lose his mobility to his psycho ex-girlfriend and end up back at home just in time for the holiday.

While his parents set about preparing dinner and lighting the candles – all things he could no longer do – Jean set about going through the lists of suppliers that he'd one day inherit from his father, looking for anything that could help him help Mustang and them. Because he might not be able to fight with them – no matter what bullshit that idiot colonel spewed about catching him up – but damned if he was gonna continue lazing about being a useless lump on a log. His family's shop had been supplying the locals with all manner of things for generations, and maybe it had been a while since they dealt in arms, but he bet he could find a way to do it again.

He wrote out a new list of names. A couple of them dealt in contraband tobacco products and alcohol – just because the military said no, didn't mean one's preferences were going to change – while others had supplied them with weapons in Jean's great-great-grandfather's time, when parts of the east area were still prone to break out into minor skirmishes. He doubted he'd have much luck with any of the latter's information, but he hoped he might be able to track down a line to someone else who did deal in weapons.

At the bottom of the list, he added the info for that Xingan smuggler the prince had set them up with; he'd much rather use Amestrisan contacts when dealing in civil war, but at least he knew the Xingan was still around, if it came to it.

When his mum called him for dinner, he shoved his list into the pocket he'd cut in the padding of his chair, and took all the other paperwork back to his father's office, before rolling his way out to the table.

While his mum said the familiar blessings, Jean closed his eyes and promised himself that the coming year wouldn't be the end for them, not if he had anything to say about it.

Maybe he couldn't walk any more. Maybe he'd spend the rest of his life keeping a general shop just outside of East City. Maybe he'd die without ever shooting another gun.

It didn't matter.

Mustang wasn't going to stop moving forward, but he'd said he was going to wait for Jean to join him, and damned if he wasn't going to do his absolute best to catch up to the smug arsehole.

-0-
Fu and Lan Fan
-0-

There would be no accompanying the prince and his family to the Yao shrine during the day of the winter solstice, that year, standing apart and keeping their senses sharp for any attempts on their lives, while they paid respect to their ancestors. There would be no warm fire waiting to welcome them home after the long day of guard duty, no 湯圓 shared between her family, or listening to her grandfather go on about how much he missed eating 饺子. (As if her grandmother or, once she'd passed, her mother wouldn't have been perfectly happy to make him some.)

Lan Fan grit her teeth against a wave of tears and turned away from the window, outside which she could see the sky changing as the sun set. She told herself the tears were a natural reaction to the pain of her shoulder, as it slowly healed from the surgery to attach the metal port, but she knew the truth: She missed her family.

Almost as though he'd heard her thoughts, her grandfather strode into the room with a cheerful, "冬至节快乐孙子!"

Lan Fan sighed and tiredly replied, "冬至节快乐祖父."

He was still and quiet for a moment, likely parsing through her tone and body language to discover her thoughts. And then he said, "Ah," and turned around and left.

Lan Fan closed her eyes, because didn't that just figure. She probably should have at least tried to respond with her usual cheer, but she couldn't seem to find the energy. Too lonely, too much a failure, too much in pain.

(How that irritating little boy the prince had befriended had managed two surgeries, she couldn't begin to imagine; her respect for his strength had certainly increased, even if she did still want to throttle him. Just a bit.)

"I have a surprise for you, 孙子," her grandfather said, making her start, just a little; she sometimes forgot that he had been the one to teach her the art of silent movement.

She opened her eyes and found him kneeling in front of her, holding a little covered plate he must have borrowed from the automail specialists who had taken them in. She tried on a smile, because it was expected, and asked, "A surprise?"

"Of course." He pulled the cover off the plate and revealed a cluster of 饺子. "They aren't quite right, but they're as close as we'll get here."

Tears sprung to Lan Fan's eyes anew at the sight. The smell wasn't quite right, no, but neither were they, really, stuck in this foreign land when they should have been at home with the rest of their family. "Oh," she whispered, and wasn't particularly surprised when he set the plate aside and shifted to sit on the edge of her bed, pulling her into a gentle hug. She hugged him back as best she could with her single arm, taking what comfort she could from his familiar scent, though it was slightly dulled under the cover of foreign soaps.

"It's never easy, being away from home," he said quietly, "but so long as we have each other and our duty, we can stand strong. We'll see your parents again, and I am certain your mother will have 湯圓 waiting for us, even if it is a bit out of season."

"Yeah," she agreed thickly, pulling away a bit so she could scrub at her wet face.

He unveiled a handkerchief and took over, drying her eyes and offering her a quiet, fond smile, one of the rare few she'd seen. "For now, however," he said as he tucked the handkerchief away, "you'll have to suffer me and my cooking."

A laugh burbled up her throat, and she let it out to tickle the air between them.

The lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled in that way that meant he was laughing inside, and he picked the plate back up, holding it between them, where they could both easily reach.

They didn't taste quite the same as they did back home, but Lan Fan couldn't say how much of that was due to inferior ingredients, and how much was due to the lingering loneliness.

"祖父," she said after a moment, as much to distract herself, as because she was curious about a story her grandmother had told her as a child. "奶奶 told me your village before the Yaos took you in was destroyed?"

He hummed around a 饺子 and nodded as he swallowed. "Yes," he agreed.

When he didn't continue, simply picked up another 饺子 between his fingers, Lan Fan said, "And?"

He sighed and cast her a considering look. "Ah, well," he murmured, finished another 饺子, and set the plate on the little table next to the bed, within range for her to take more, should she please. "It was not so glorious as you're envisioning," he cautioned. "I was very young, younger even than you are now. Raiders came to our village, and my mother pushed me through a loose weaving in our house that animals sometimes got in through. There was a little hole hidden by bushes, there, and I stayed hidden there while those raiders killed everyone."

Lan Fan swallowed and set back down the 饺子 she'd just picked up, uncertain, a bit, that she really wanted it any more; he'd been right about her thinking the tale a far more glorious one.

"I cried some," he admitted with a careless little twist of his shoulder, like it didn't really matter, "and thought to go after the raiders. It was my luck that the current lord of Yao was passing nearby and found me before the raiders. He offered me a place in his household, because he was a kind man, like our young prince. It was my choice to join his household guard, because I didn't want to be forced to hide ever again."

Lan Fan had known, certainly, that he'd joined the guard out of a desire to not be weak, but she hadn't known it was because he'd been forced to hide while his family was murdered around him.

She had sworn her life to protect her prince because that was what she'd been raised to do, but she'd cut off her arm because she'd only been endangering him, and now she was getting this Amestrisan automail so she could become stronger. So she could, next time, face off against the monsters and protect what was hers.

In her own way, she had walked the same path as he grandfather, learnt the same lessons, and come to the same conclusion; her grandmother had always said she was far too much like her grandfather.

But, unlike her grandfather, she wasn't walking her path alone, and there wasn't a gutted house waiting for her. She – they both – had family waiting for them, a clan to return to, with 湯圓 in their hands, just as he'd said. All they had to do was save their prince and bring him home safe. Which sounded easy enough, but would probably serve to be ridiculously difficult, because their prince – gods bless him – had a way of overcomplicating everything.

There was no time for loneliness or feeling sorry for herself. She had to get stronger and do her duty and, soon enough, she would be home again with all of her family.

She picked up another 饺子 and shoved it into her mouth with absolutely no attempt at manners.

Her grandfather, rather than telling her off, chuckled and said, "Ah, there is my little warrior."

She made a face at him and barely resisted the urge to throw a 饺子 at him.

He stood with a groan, then said, "Eat up, 孙子. It's going to be a long, hard winter, and you'll need the strength." He stopped and looked back at her once he reached the door, adding, "Gods willing, we'll be home before the next one."

"We will," she agreed quietly, determined.

His eyes smiled at her, even if his mouth didn't, and he left the room.

She wasn't even a little surprised when he came back later with more 饺子 to share.

-0-
Team Liore (Al, Hohenheim, Winry, and Rosé)
-0-

Intellectually, Al knew he had to have celebrated the winter solstice with his father before, but all of his memories of the solstice with his family involved only an empty place at the table where he – and, later, Mum – should have been. (He'd always wondered, just a bit, if Ed had any memories of that last Yule, though he'd never been crazy enough to ask.)

So, even though it wasn't his first Yule with Dad, it felt like it, and a huge part of him mourned that they couldn't share it in the house they'd burnt down, finally be able to, once again, fill one of those two empty spaces.

"Al?" Winry called, bringing him out of his meandering thoughts, and back to the task of lighting the candles they'd placed in every window of the little house the people of Liore had lent them.

"Sorry," he said, holding out his hand so she could drop another spent match into it; as much as he liked being able to light the candles himself – it had taken him years to talk Ed into letting him do it – his fat fingers couldn't handles the delicate little matches, so he'd resigned himself to holding the spent matches.

"Thinking about Ed?" she asked as she turned to lead the way from the room.

"Sort of," Al admitted, shrugging with a rattle of steel. "Thinking about empty place settings." Which, gods, he hadn't even thought about the fact that there would still need to be two empty spaces at the table again this year, because his brother was still missing.

"He's alive," Winry said. Insisted.

"Of course he is," Al agreed, tried to fill the words with every ounce of hope he contained. He wanted to believe that he'd know if Ed was dead, somehow, but there was always that nagging suspicion that, well... He was just a soul clinging desperately to a suit of armour; for all he knew, whatever connection that would have told him if Ed was alive or dead, was with his body.

Still, Dad seemed to think that, if Ed was dead, Al would have followed him, because he said Ed's theory of their souls crossing during their attempt to revive Mum was pretty solid. So, you know, if Ed died, Al would no longer be able to find his way back to the armour; he'd have 'died', such as it was, when his soul detached from the armour.

Al clung to that theory – that hope – with everything he was, because he couldn't imagine a world without his brother in it.

"I hope, wherever he is, he's finding a way to observe tonight," Winry said quietly as she struck the next match and held it against the wick of the candle she'd stopped in front of. "I know he hates the story."

"The story, maybe," Al replied, "but everything else – the meaning, the point – he respects that, I think. I mean–"

"Science," Winry interrupted with a scoff and a roll of her eyes.

It was such an apt impression of his brother, Al couldn't help but laugh, and Winry joined him after a moment. Her eyes sparkled in the candlelight, and it wasn't until she reached up to wipe at them, that Al realised she'd been trying to hold back tears.

"Winry?" he whispered, concerned.

"I'm okay," she whispered back, her voice thick as she scrubbed her sleeve across her eyes. "I promised. But I–" She sighed and slumped, looking so tired, so heartbroken. "I'm used to you two being away for the solstice, but together. This year he's alone."

"He's not," Rosé said from the doorway, and Al was comforted that Winry also jumped and twisted to look a little too fast. Rosé smiled at them, that same, heartsore smile he remembered seeing on her when she'd assumed they'd managed to bring Mum back. "We don't need to be with someone physically, to be with them. Right, Al?"

Al looked down at his hands, his borrowed body that was only housing his soul, and knew what she meant; he'd hadn't physically been with his brother for the winter solstice for the past three years.

"That's different, though," Winry said quietly. "We know when Al's around, but Ed doesn't know we're thinking about him; probably doesn't even know we're alive."

Al didn't really have a response for that, but Rosé tilted her head to one side, considering, for a moment, before saying, "Then you'll just have to think especially loud good thoughts toward him, won't you?"

Winry blinked a couple of times before her expression relaxed into a helpless smile. "I guess so," she agreed.

Al shook his head and said, "Just try not to think anything too rude at him; even if it would be nice to know where he is, we are still on the run."

Winry and Rosé both laughed at that.

"So," Winry said once the girls had both quieted a bit, "is there a reason you came up here? I thought you were keeping an eye on Uncle Van, so he didn't mess up the food."

"Ah! Yeah, actually, I came to tell you it's all ready, if you were done with the candles?"

"Almost!" Winry called, and hurried out of the room and down the hall to the last window.

As soon as the last candle was lit, they all trooped downstairs and joined Dad around the table, which had been set with five places, because Al had insisted on a spot for Ed, and Winry had insisted that he have a plate and utensils, too, even though they all knew he wouldn't be able to eat.

The other three quickly served themselves, Al happily passing serving trays and platters between everyone, and they settled in to eat.

Al didn't manage to sit through the following silence for long, eventually asking, "Dad? Did you celebrate Yule as a kid?"

"Not as a child," Dad said with a bit of care, and it took Al a moment to remember that Winry and Rosé didn't know about his past, not really. "But we observed it, certainly. Rather like how you celebrate it in the eastern area, spending the night up with family and friends. But we did it more to keep the evils of the night at bay, than to help the sun rise again."

"Evils of the night?" Winry repeated a little sceptically, and Al wondered if she realised how much she sounded like Ed in that moment.

Dad laughed and shook his head. "I know, but they were a suspicious lot, very attached to the scriptures of their religion. But, even in Amestris, your celebration of the solstice is built on a local religion; it's why the celebrations change from area to area."

"Wait, really?" Winry asked, while Rosé made a polite noise of enquiry from behind her hand, her mouth clearly full.

"Yeah," Al agreed, because he actually sort of knew that. "Remember when Brother and I called you from Teacher's?" he asked Winry, and she nodded. "She wouldn't let us stay up all night because that's not what they did, there."

"Huh. I don't think I realised that's what you two meant," Winry admitted. "I mean, I just sort of figured she was one of those people who believed kids shouldn't stay up all night because then they're too tired the next day."

" 'But' ," Al and Winry nearly chorused, their minds clearly jumping back to the exact same overheard conversation, " 'that's what the winter holidays are for'!"

Winry grinned at him, wide and brilliant, and if Al could have, he'd have grinned right back.

"If you travel outside of Amestris," Dad offered with a faint smile, "you'll find even more ways to observe the winter solstice, all just that littlest bit different, because the cultures that shaped them are just a little bit different; there's no one way to acknowledge the longest night – or the shortest day – of the year.

"That said," he added, holding up a finger, "every one I've observed has one thing in common: This is a time to be with your loved ones, be they friends or family, and remember those who have passed."

Al couldn't quite keep himself from looking at the empty place setting next to him, and he didn't doubt for a moment that Winry, at least, was doing the same thing. For one, brief moment, Al could almost see his brother sitting there, rolling his eyes and shoving something into his mouth, because he had far more important things to be doing, than listening to Dad talk.

"Hope," Dad said, his voice over-loud in the silence, and Al turned back to watch as he took a sip of cider.

"Hope?" he repeated.

Dad looked up and met his gaze, the thump of his cup against the thick wood of the table loud in the silence. "The other thing all observances seem to have in common: Hope for the future. For a new year that will be better – warmer, brighter, happier – than the one that's in the process of ending. The winter solstice is a time for looking forward, and seeing the good in the world. It's a lot easier when surrounded by the people you love and who love you, but I think Edward will manage to find some of his own, all the same. Wherever he is."

And, even though Al knew what a diehard pessimist his brother was, he also knew that Ed always managed to be positive on Yule, no matter how hard things were. Wherever he was, he would be looking forward, thinking about the day they would reunite, both in their flesh bodies, whole again.

Perhaps it was time Al remembered to do the same.

-0-

So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us — Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

-o0o-
To you and yours, I wish a very happy holiday, whichever one(s) you celebrate, and a happy New Year!
Thanks for all your kind words and support this past year!
~Batsutousai ^.^x
-o0o-

The Shortest Day Series:
Candles to Light Your Way
Our Lights Yet Shine

.

Comments

[anotherfmafan.livejournal.com]

Much enjoyed!
Especially the first section, in which I totally walked straight down the soft velvety carpet toward HxDxE hahahaha <3

And Vato! <3 <3 <3 Such love. He will always be a favorite of mine.

Thank you! <3