hello... since nobody on gaia seemed interested in giving any sort of constructive feedback on anything... ¬_¬ i thought i'd try elsewhere... stumbled across this site not long ago, and i saw you have a fanfiction subforum, so i thought, what better place to try out the beginnings of a fic i've had in mind?

i haven't written an FMA fic before, so i was wondering if i could get a little feedback as this one progresses? i have an account at ff.net...but 98.9% of the fics there suck and most of the other authors, in turn, suck, so i get very little CC for my work there. :stare: sure, it's great for the ego...but not so good in the self-improvement department...

this is the prologue...so ed and party are not in it yet... i'm just curious if you guys think this is a decent foundation to get started with, or if i should...er...rethink the idea. ^__^;; be gentle... i've read most of the manga, but i haven't seen all the anime yet, so if something seems unfamiliar or out of order later on that may be why.

definitely going for the NOT mary-sue character here...so if you guys like and want me to post more, you'll have to help me make sure to keep her in check, just in case. ~_^

there is some japanese in it (in romaji), but even if you aren't very familiar with the phrases i use, you should be able to gather the idea from the context of teh sentence. i like to use japanese in my fics because i think it adds to the authenticity of the story... plus, there are a lot of character traits that just don't come across well in english...

*deep breath* okay, here goes. go easy on me!




shinkume *** ruby eyes

The acrid stench of gunpowder and burning flesh stung her nose as she climbed to the top of the hill; desperate to confirm with her eyes what she already knew in her heart was true. Taking a deep breath to steel herself, she cast her dark red eyes across the devastation that had once been a thriving refugee community. Houses had fallen into flaming ruin, buildings had been laid to waste, most destroyed beyond recognition. Lifeless bodies were strewn throughout the smoldering wreckage, spotting the fiery landscape: points of darkness within the blaze. Those who were not dead were surely not far from it, their anguished cries of pain and bitterness muffled by the roar of the flames that still engulfed half the village.

Her white-blonde hair blew wildly about her face in the hot winds that fed the greedy fire consuming the land, whipping airborne cinders into her bronze flesh. She did not flinch at the needles of hot pain that bombarded her skin as the embers rained all around her...it was nothing compared to the agony that had yet to fully manifest within her soul.

"Arrod! Tou-san!!"

A shriek tore painfully from her suddenly parched throat as she launched herself forward and down the hill into the smoking remains of the place she had once called her home.

"Arrod!" she cried again. "Tou-san!! Doko??"

She raced through the searing heat from the flames, ignoring the burning sensation on the skin of the soles of her bare feet as she scrambled desperately over the cinders; all that remained of the homes of her comrades. As she ran, her crimson eyes scanned the debris for a sign of life, a familiar face...any face...anything to indicate any remaining life in that smoking setting of death.

"Arrod!"

Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted again, her voice swallowed by the billowing clouds of black ash that rose from the village. Whirling as movement caught her attention from the corner of her eye, she dropped to her knees alongside what appeared to be nothing more than another steaming heap of rubble.

There was another jolt of movement--something was beneath the wreckage.

"Ren-nee...janai no??" a weak voice called as her hands hovered above the burning mess. "Ren-nee-chan?"

Her heart leapt into her throat.

"Arrod!!"

She plunged her gloved hands into the smoldering rubble without hesitation, grimacing as the fabric began to melt and burn into the flesh of her palms and fingers. She flung aside handful after handful of the still-burning trash, desperate to find the face...the boy...who belonged to the plaintive voice that had called to her.

"Arrod! Kikoeru no? Arrod!!"

Hurling aside a piece of what appeared to have, at one time, been part of the wall of someone's house, she forbade herself to recoil in horror at the sight beneath it that met her appalled gaze.

"Ren-nee...you came back..."

Her lower lip quivered as she made no effort to respond verbally, and reached her burned arms toward the hole in the rubble to cradle the blackened face of her younger brother to her body. She gently pulled his scorched body halfway out of the ruin and swallowed the lump in the back of her throat.

"A...aa," she affirmed, "modotta da zo... When I heard about what had happened...well, of course I came back!"

There appeared a small smile on the face of the broken and burned little boy. Her horrified eyes scanned the damage to his body, and she gnawed on her lip. His once golden-brown flesh was now blackened with soot and burned so terribly that she was certain he was struggling against the clutches of unconsciousness that were surely trying to pull him into the black, painless blanket of sleep. His sepia hair had all but burned away to nothing, his fierce scarlet eyes the only indications that this suffering child was, indeed, her little brother Arrod.

Her eyes focused sharply.

"Arrod, who did this?" she demanded. "What happened here?" Her breath caught in her throat as the next question came to mind... "Where's... Where's Dad?"

"Dad is...dead," he said, with only a moment of balk before the impossible words slipped from his lips. "Surely the initial explosion killed him..." A soft, bitter chuckle. "I'm sure I won't be far behind him..."

"Iu na!" she cried, placing one hand above his mouth to silence him. "Don't say such stupid things, Arrod! I will--"

"They wore blue uniforms," he continued, ignoring her words, "and came in a group of less than ten... But they were plenty enough to cause this much damage... They set fire to the houses and used explosives and the Forbidden Art to destroy the larger buildings..."

Her eyes widened in anger.

"The Military did this?" she gasped.

"The devils who use the Dark Art for their wars..." Arrod clarified, and his sister's jaw tightened in rage.

"Kokka Renkinjutsushi..." she hissed. "The State Alchemists..." She looked down at the seared skin of the boy in her arms, and choked back a sob. "Shinpai sun na, Arrod," she said forcefully, shifting her weight as she moved to rise. "Don't worry...I'll get you out of here. We'll get to a hospital and--"

"And what?" he asked sourly with a laugh, shaking his head. "You know as well as I do that none of the hospitals will treat an Ishbal refugee. I'm beyond help anyway, Ren-nee..." He smiled and squeezed her hand. "Go. Escape, before they return. Fulfill to Ishbala what I always knew you could."

"Iya yo! I won't leave you here--!"

"Forgive me," he pleaded. "I'm sorry I told on you..." He chuckled again. "I suppose this is the retribution for betraying my big sister, huh?"

"Mou ii!!" she cried, her eyes brimming with tears. "Shut up, Arrod, I don't care about that! To hell with the stupid prophecy, it's all crap! As if that means more to me than my own brother! I'm going to--"

"Ren-nee..." he said softly, lifting one hand above his face to look at his fist, "I...can see Kaa-san..."

"Arrod!?"

"She's calling for me..."

"Arrod, don't you dare leave me to do this alone!!"

A smile split his burned face and he shut his eyes.

"The light," he said. "It's silver..."

And he went limp in her arms.

Her eyes widened briefly.

"A...Arrod?"

Her face screwed up in disbelief.

"Arrod...?"

She shook him gently.

"Son'na...Arrod...hitori ni suru na, Arrod! Kotaero! Arrod~ttara!!" she wailed, tears streaming down her face as she clutched his thin frame to her chest...

...but she knew he couldn't hear her cries anymore.

In a moment of horror, she recoiled suddenly, and her brother's blackened body rolled lifelessly back into the ash beneath them. She raised her own charred hands to her face, shaking her head as the horrific images all around her became overwhelming and began to swallow her up. The flames engulfing her home...the bodies of her family...the shattering of the life she knew... Everything crashed into her at once, stealing her breath and robbing her limbs of their strength.

Lurching backward away from the body of her brother, a flash of gold caught her eye in the firelight, and she paused, panting from the sheer exertion of trying to remain calm. She reached out one quavering hand to brush the dirt from the engraved golden ring on her brother's finger, running her hand over it.

Their father's ring...

Quickly removing it from the body, she clutched the ring to her chest in her shaking hands, her shoulders heaving.

"Kokka Renkinjutsushi..." she hissed. "Those dogs... Those mongrels of the military...they will rue this day... I will see to that..."

And as a rain of ash began to fall like snow from the skies above the village that had once stood alone and proud at the base of the Southern Mountains, it seemed that she alone bore the grief for her people on her shoulders. Not even the pewter clouds that hung low around the hips of the craggy mountain range would weep with her to quench the fires that still ravaged the tiny Ishbalite village.

She wondered if even great Ishbala had abandoned her on that fiery day...?

She looked down at the golden ring sitting heavy in her palm and slipped it onto her thumb, choked back the sour taste of bile in her chest, and grit her teeth before throwing her head back and releasing into the roiling skies a howl of anguish that would have sent a shiver down the spines of the steeliest of men.

And thus the last known Ishbal safe haven of those days was destroyed...perhaps finally bringing to a close the long war between science and piety...between those who called the Alchemists and the powers they used those of the gods...and those of demons...

But even wars are ended sometimes with the question of whether or not they were truly over...? For one broken Ishbal girl, that day was merely the beginning of what would become an even greater war...

...a war that would commence out of hatred for the Alchemists...and would conclude as a battle with her own heart.
***

echo, echo
we come and we go
no, I don't want to be just another
echo, echo...

~vertical horizon

***


and the prologue ends there. now i know it might seem a little cliche to involve ishbal...but i didn't want to go so far as to make up a completely new race or something... i wanted to keep this as canon as possible, so an ishbalite seemed pretty fair game. but don't worry, this doesn't turn into a scar clone, i can promise that.

so...anyone have any thoughts/advice/comments/questions/etc? anyone interested in reading any further?

i only skimmed it, but two things: i don't like some of the way things are described, like "deep carmine eyes" and "platinum hair." it's a little cheesy-sounding and too perfect, in my opinion. second is all the japanese used. the ishbal people aren't japanese, and you're not writing all their dialogue in japanese. it's hard for readers who don't know japanese to understand why there's all the japanese there, and you switch to mostly english at the end. Your fic is written primarily in english, i'd stick to one language. i know that you repeat all the italicized japanese later in english, but basically the japanese is unnecessary. if you're worried about character traits not coming out in english, the problem is that majority of the people won't understand the japanese anyway. it's also confusing because some of the japanese is italicized and some isn't. and and ishbalian wouldn't be named junpei, a japanese person would....that's why the ishbal kids had names like kayal. so that's my take on it. overall though, i think it's very well written, and yes, hope it won't marysue-ify! there will always be people who thing all AU characters are mary sues but i think it's off to a good start.

oh huzzah, a real person with an opinion that didn't consist of "that was great!!!111" or "that sucked!!!!!111"...like i get on ff.net. ~_~

*smacks self in head* you know, it didn't even dawn on me that DUH the ishbalits didn't have japanese names... in fact DUH like no one in the series did... *is a retard now* i used junpei because i just have an affinity for that particular name...but now i see that it was, indeed out of place. i will change that and repost.

really the main reason i put japanese in this one at all (i know not a lot of people understand it... makes...things...so...difficult!!) is the fact that later on, i had a chunk of humorous scenes revolving around a character consistently not being able to get edward's alchemist name right (hagane), so i thought it would be weird to have that part in japanese, but not anything else...

but changing it so that the jokes were in english just sounded dumb...

any ideas? O_o

@hagane_no_tokage: First off, I'd like to say wow. Your right about the stories at ff.net. I can never find any good Fma fanfics there. Even though I don't know that much about Fullmetal-alchemist right now, I still think you did a good job off describing the Ishbala Massacre. You toke a lot of time to describe things, which is good in my book. I hate it when people don't spice up their sentences, and just leave you wanting more. I want them to discribe every little thing and not leave me with a sentence like this: Edward walked down the street. You could easily add more to that sentence to make it sound more interesting, couldn't you? Although I had to take out my japanese dictionary a few times , I had a easy time reading it. I think you did a good job over all, and I can't wait tell you type more.

thank you. i've always enjoyed being able to post my work on ff.net...but it's really only for that little ego boost. no one ever gives any CC there, because they're mostly like... 10-year-olds who watch yu-gi-oh and think that makes them a fanfiction writer. something tells me that the majority of the people who post there wouldn't know good writing if it bit them in the... well, anyway...

so i've got one vote neutral and one vote against the japanese text... i myself could go either way with it, honestly, but what i can't quite figure out is...since parts of the story later on are carried by the japanese terminology (since the puns don't work in english...), do you think it will be cumbersome to have the japanese all of a sudden...? or since it's only for comedy purposes, do you think it will work? plus, my main non-canon protagonist has a strange way of talking that obviously woulnd't come across in english...but ed can't make fun of her if the unusual vernacular isn't apparent...?



any thoughts? that is really the only reason i had it in there at all...since what i had been saying in japanese wasn't pivotal and was then repeated in english... ~_~ help?

I really didn't mind the japanese. I kinda liked it, because its more japanese words to take notes on. I understand the words... Its the whole sentence structure thing that throws me off. I need to buy the book called Japanese the Manga Way by Wayne P. Lammers. It teaches the differences and structures of the language using actual manga panels. Fun and affective.

hontou ka? hmm...see, my audience always seems to be split that way... i've written a handful of fics, all of which contain japanese phrases...and i always seem to get a divided audience... one half loves the japanese, they thank me for helping them learn more, etcetera... but the other half doesn't like it at all, thinks it's distracting, doesn't want to look things up, etc... and while i respect the feedback i get from people...i really have to do one or the other... i can't please everyone... ~_~ aaa, dou~shiyou~? that's why i try and make it simple phrases, easy to discern from sentence context...and i never put important things in japanese, since i know not many people would be able to decipher... *puts chin in palms* but i just can't win, it seems... oh well...

i am glad you enjoyed it tho. i'm really leaning toward keeping it there...especially since i really need it later in order for the humor to work properly... i've put glossaries in my stories before, but, to me, that almost seems more distracting, to go to eth bottom of the page, find teh word, then go back and...'wait...i lost my place now...'...you know? what do you think?

Wow, very good. Bravo! Your descriptions were perfect (in my opinion) and it felt like I was really there! I've preactically stopped visiting FF.net beause most of what I find there isn't worth reading. BUT once and a while you find jewels, and if you're an ED/WINRY fan go to this author's profile:
Vitani FyreWolf

I'm not sure what to do about the japanese either... I think it's a good idea (if you want to keep the japanese) to have your characters say things in japanese and then have them also say it in english, like you did with most of your fic up there. For major points that you want to get across though, I think it would be best to keep those in english for effect. Also, you should probably avoid using full sentences of (untranslated) japanese, like this:
"Son'na...Arrod...hitori ni suru na, Arrod! Kotaero! Arrod~ttara!!" and stick to phrases and such.

Jokes are the HARDEST things to translate, and it just doesn't work sometimes when you cross over to english So, maybe you should try to find a way to work around those jokes and replace them with different ones that are equivalent to the japanese ones? That's what I have to do when I translate chinese stuff.... The same goes for sayings and such.
Anyways, hope you keep up with this fic ^__^ I also don't want it to turn into a marysuish fic, so just be on the lookout for that!

don't worry...i plan on doing everything possible to keep this fic mary-sue free. i hate mary-sues... ff.net seems to be powered by them, you know? i've done a handful of fics usinng my own characters, and i think i've kept them mary-sue...less... i will continue to post chapters here as the story progresses (if...that's okay...?) and if you see me leaning toward mary-sue territory, please throw something at me and i will realign my character accordingly.

i suppose i did go a little overboard on that one phrase that was completely in japanese... i will endeavor to go a little easier on it in the upcoming chapters. as for the joke...the main running gag in the whole fic is the fact that my main original protagonist can't get ed's alchemist name right... hagane.... she calls him everything from hadaka (nekkid) to wakame (a type of seaweed), and anything in between that sounds remotely like hagane...but she never seems to get it right. that's really the only thing that i need the japanese in the story for at all. for those jokes, i will either include a glossary, or ed will explode and repeat what she called him in english somehow... ala how he is frequently called small and comes back with something along the lines of, "who did you say was small like a grain of rice!?!?!" etc. so hopefully that will come across without too much of a hitch.

other than that, of course only small pieces of dialogue will be in japanese, just to keep the jokes from seeming stark against an all-english fic.

Can't believe I completely overlooked this thread. I think you've made an amazing sart with this and even though it's not going to be shonen-ai (kick me, I'm shallow most of the time ) you've certainly peeked my interest! FF.net? You submitted it on FF.net? Now I can't believe I overlooked this story on FF.net either. o.o Oh wait, I can... There aren't many FMA fics that really interest me, so I tend to skip most stories worth my time.

Anyway~

I'm not a fan of "dual-language" either. ;; At least, not when the anime itself doesn't take place in Japan. Some of the words don't bug me, mostly because that's the way I'm used to it. Like Al calling Ed "oniisan" instead of brother, something of the like. But entire sentences and such? ...no, not really.

I'm not helping things much, am I? -.- Sorry.

But the rest of the epilogue was flawless in my eyes. The way you pay attention to detail, grammar, spelling... it's all I look for in a fic overall. You did a great job and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way! Can't speak on their behalf of course, but that's what I think. Not trying to "boost your ego" (much ) just telling you the truth because that's what you're looking for, isn't it?

Uh, the Mary-Sue theme has been discussed already, so I won't waste anymore words about that. Super what you've done so far.

lol, sorry, i don't write shounen ai... don't really mind it, but i have never really had the desire to write it... ;; if it's any consolation, tho i hadn't initially planned on it, i'm thinking of tossing a little ed/winry in the story...

and i know exactly what you mean about ff.net... i went there to read a fic or two to kind of maybe get an idea of what sorts of things people might look for in an FMA fic, since it was a series i hadn't tried writing yet.... unfotunately, like every fic i tried...uh...sucked. i think i found one that was decent, and that was reaching.

all right, it seems the general verdict is that most people are "take-or-leave" with the bilingual theme... so i think what i will do is just tone it down, leave most of the japanese to the fansubbers, and only use it for those parts i really needed it for. sound okay? and if it's allowed (i dunno if you have any qualms about chapter fics being posted here...) i will go ahead and continue posting the story in this thread as well as ff.net? i like the actual feedback i've been getting here...as opposed to the anonymous "this is teh awesomest fic evar!!!111" crap i get on ff.net... let me know if that would be okay? i'm still kind of new here, don't want to overstep my bounds, you know? ;; i don't forsee it being too long...

please let me know. other than that, thanks everyone for your feedback! i hope you will enjoy the rest of the story!

@hagane_no_tokage: Think about putting a Edward/Winry pairing in there, huh? Good idea. You've got to have some pairing, right? Anyways, I can't wait to hear the rest of your fanfiction, so hurry up and spill the beans! lol

;; i don't usually write WaFF-y style fics... heh, call me jaded, but i find relationships to be more trouble than they are worth these days...so i don't find much inspiration to write couple fics. oh sure, i throw a little cutesy stuff in there from time to time, but romance has never been my forte... damn foul luck that i have with men, it's not like i have any good memories to base anything on.

this fic, however, cries for a good bit of winry later on... heh, it's nice to have a good strong canon female protagonist off of which to bounce some good old jealousy catfights. even if the non-canon character has no romantic interest in the canon male character whatsoever... winry does strike as the type to be jealous, even if she is in denial about her feelings, so that should be amusing. it's nice to have a little fluff in a story here and there, it makes a dramatic or angsty story...softer. and we all know ed is harboring plenty of angst...

i'll prolly throw a splash of roy/riza in there somewhere, too, just for $hi+s and giggles. and because they don't get enough air time. and because roy is hot and i'm jealous of riza. *pout*

so hex-sama, can i count on your for a good CC when i put up a new chapter? you seem to be quite interested, so i will keep posting here. yay! i love writing, but it makes it all the more rewarding to know someone is looking forward to what happens next.

and you can call me tokage. heh, my member name is so long...'tokage' dake de ii wa ne...

@Tokage: You can count on me! I'll definatly read it, sense your fanfic is one of the most interesting fanfics I've read for Fullmetal-Alchemist... Well... I did read a few good Edward/Winry ones... Oh well, back to the subject. I'll always scanning through the fanfiction/fanart topic on this forum, so the minute you post the next chapter, I'll be reading it.

crap! i thought i could edit the post title, as well, and that way i could put a note up when i post a new chapter... oh well...

i made another edit to the prologue, because i figured out where the fic fits in the canon storyline... ren's village was near the southern mountains (er...were there any? i don't think we've ever really gotten a good look at a topographical map of the hagaren world...), because ed and party will be stopping in that area on their way to dublith to see izumi, before they make winry's pitstop in rush valley. that's... er... *flips thru manga* okay, this fic would be either at the very end of volume 4, or the very beginning of volume 5... just before chapter 17. just so you know whereabouts within the storyline the events to come will take place.

i'm working on the next chapter as we speak... type... whatever... so it should be ready for human consumption soonly. otanoshimi ni!

woohoo! first post on page 2~~!! XD

please excuse the double-post, but i didn't think it was right to put up a new chapter at the tail end of an old post... ~_~ since i don't want to take up like the entire page with each chapter, i'll only post by section. like, what i have below is chapter one, but there is more to the chapter after what i have here. but if i post it all at once it would be too long, IMO, so i will go little by little... think of each post as a...scene, if you will...and there's a scene change after each piece i post. enjoy! enter ed-gumi! XD



shinkume ••• ruby eyes
chapter one: scene one


"Nii-san, I don't think this is the right stop..."

"Ed, we haven't gone far enough! There's still three more stops before Rush Valley!"


With a heavy sigh and a roll of his eyes, Edward Elric turned over his shoulder to face the two complaining figures standing behind him on the train platform. He was of small, slender frame, with mischievous eyes the color of saffron, and a braided shock of gold hair to match. While his outward appearance not so unlike that of any other 15-year-old’s(*), Edward’s clear eyes told a story that many adults were too traumatized to speak. He may have looked like a child, but he had seen more of the world’s dark secrets than most people who had lived four times his years.


He frowned and shook his head.


Big, bright blue eyes narrowed at him, and he sighed again, running one hand through his hair.


But well…he sure kept odd company, he mused to himself, his eyes scanning the two before him.


Surely it was strange enough that his oldest and closest friend was a girl in the first place...but Winry was no ordinary girl, that was for certain. Winry Rockbell...a slim, pretty blonde with eyes keener than Ed felt comfortable acknowledging...was also his mechanic. A certifiable machine-geek, Winry was one hell of an automail wizard. Having lost two of his limbs in a...failed experiment...Edward would have been completely out of luck without Winry's helping hands. She and her grandmother, Pinako, were the best in the automail business as far as he was concerned. They had replaced his missing arm and leg with steel components that gave him strength and agility beyond anything he could have imagined could come from mere metal prosthetics.


He owed her more than he would ever be able to repay...



...but he sure as hell wasn't going to tell her that...



"I know this isn’t the right stop, Winry," he replied curtly, lifting one dark eyebrow and putting his hands on his hips, "but I received a message from Mustang before we left that we might find something interesting if we made a pit stop here first.(**)" A vein popped out of his forehead at the image of his commanding officer’s smug face. "You know how that jerk just can't resist taunting me..." He compulsively rubbed his gloved hands together. "I'd only play right into his hands if we hadn't come here."

"Datte, Nii-san..." piped up a second voice, and Ed's eyes swung to the second figure, "haven't we fallen more into Mustang Taisa's plan anyway...by coming here after all?"

Ed's eyes squinted dangerously.


"Can it, Al," he snapped, waving one hand, "if the Colonel wants us to see something here...I'm sure it's worth seeing." He grinned. "It's just a matter of figuring out what that narrow-eyed menace had in mind..."


Ed's little brother probably would have rolled his eyes and furrowed his brow at that response...but a suit of armor wasn't exactly such an easy canvas on which to portray one's emotions. Not that Al had much of a choice... Having lost the entirety of his body in the same failed venture that had cost Ed his limbs, Al's very soul had been bound to an old suit of armor as a last resort to keep him alive.

Al frowned (though it was rather difficult to tell) and folded his arms over his chest.

"Why can't you just admit you're curious about it instead of making it out to be Colonel Mustang's fault?"


Ed turned on his heel and headed for the train station's main exit.

"Because I'm not," the smaller one replied. "I just don't want Mustang to win."

Al would have made a face.

"Nii-san, this isn't a competition..."


"If you came anyway, didn't he already win...?" Winry grumbled under her breath as she jogged after Ed. "All right, let's make this fast, though. I want to get to Rush Valley as soon as possible!"

"Hei hei," Ed replied sourly, "you machine-geek."


Winry resisted the urge to twist Ed's remaining flesh-and-bone arm behind his back.

Al hurried after them, his clanking footsteps echoing through the station.

"So...what is this place, anyhow?" Winry finally asked. "I've never been here before."

"Neither have I," Ed admitted, glancing at her over his shoulder as he shoved his hands into the pocket of his long red jacket. He paused a moment as the trio stepped out of the station and onto the stone steps that led to the street. "But...there's something in the air of this place..." he added, taking a deep breath, "...that makes me think that it was a good idea for us to stop."


Al followed them out onto the steps and glanced up above their heads and the huge wooden marquis-type sign that hung over the entrance to the train station.



Winry cast her eyes out across the wide main street that cut through the little city, intrigued by the quaint buildings and low houses. The homes were made mainly of wood and stone, with many windows, and most having only one level. What little bit of grass had managed to grow in the sandy soil of the terrain was well-kept; perfectly trimmed and cornered off into perfect lots of individually owned property. The buildings were also low to the ground…long and wide rather than tall and thin, few of them reaching so high as a second story. Shading her eyes from the mid-day sun, Winry counted only four buildings that rose above the others…and only one that made it to three floors.

‘Arcadia’…was the first word that popped into her mind to describe this quiet, clean, and crisp-cornered little town.


"Sunaba Town," Al read aloud from behind her, and Winry turned to glance above her at the sign.

“So it is,” she affirmed, tracing the carved letters with her big blue eyes, absently brushing her long blonde hair away from her face as a gentle breeze skipped past them. She frowned. “I don’t think I have heard of it before…”


"I think I remember reading about this place..." Al said offhandedly, thinking a moment as Winry smoothed her skirt.

"In an alchemy book?" she asked as they walked down the stairs, and Al shook his head.


"No, actually," he replied, his young voice sounding surreally hollow from the empty reverberations off the inside of his armor body. "Funny enough, it was mentioned in a book we scanned about the war in Ishbal."

"Ishbal?" she echoed.


"Aa," Ed affirmed. "We read a few things about the Ishbal war in our research regarding the Philosopher's Stone, and I think Al's right... That name sounds familiar..." He lifted his eyes skyward and let the city name rest on his tongue a moment. "Sunaba..." He glanced back at Al a moment. "What was it about? That Sunaba incident a few years back?"

Al put a thick finger on his metal chin.

"Wasn't Sunaba the name of an Ishbalite encampment?" he ventured, a bit unsure himself.


Ed paused a moment in the street, narrowing one eye in thought. It was bothering him now.

“Possibly…” he said, glancing at Al before continuing to stroll leisurely down the main road. “I…really can’t recall…”



Winry snorted.

“Al always was a better student than you…”

He snapped his fingers suddenly.

"Aa, sou da!" he exclaimed loudly, preempting any argument that might have then erupted between the other two over Winry’s remark. "I recall now... Sunaba was the name of the last of the Ishbalite refugee camps that was annihilated before the end of the war."


Winry frowned.

The Ishbal war… Just the thought of it made her chest constrict and her stomach twist. The war that had taken the lives of her parents… Though it had ended several years ago, the wounds it left behind were still fresh in her heart.

She shook her head to clear the unpleasant memories away.

"So if this place was destroyed...why is it standing here now?"



"This place was obviously rebuilt," Ed replied, kicking a rock in the street, his eyes scanning the store fronts and simple, clean architectural lines of the homes down the side roads. "As you can see,” he added, gesturing to the fair-skinned men and women in the stores and on the streets, “there are no Ishbalites here."


Al seemed perplexed.

"Then why did they not change the name?"


Winry twitched her nose.

"Maybe to remind people?" she suggested, holding up one finger as they strolled down the street. "If nothing remained to keep in peoples' minds the tragedy of the Ishbal war,"--she bit her lower lip a moment--"then surely people would forget, and history would only repeat itself, right?"



"You are correct, young lady."



All three jumped and spun in tandem when a gravelly voice interrupted their thoughts. Ed's eyes widened a little when he saw the voice had come from a diminutive elderly man on the front porch of a small eatery. He was tiny, hunched, his bony hands wrapped tightly round a worn wooden cane that looked equally as ancient as he did. Loose, simple clothing hung on his skinny frame, but his sunken black eyes were sharp and bright...unusually alert and alive against his crinkled face.

"You were listening?" Winry asked timidly, a mite intimidated by the old man's surprisingly good ears.


The old man nodded.

"Forgive my overhearing," he implored, "but I couldn't help it. It's so rare for travelers to come to this little city... And even rarer that an out-of-towner would know anything about this town's history."

"So it's true then?" Al asked. "This really was the last of the Ishbal camps before the wars ended?"


The elderly man lifted a long arm and pointed one trembly off toward a small field that was roped off near the road that led out of town and into the wide desert beyond the little town.

"Actually," he said, taking a few halting steps forward to lean on the porch railing, "that was the last Ishbal camp, over there."

Ed shaded his eyes and squinted.



Ah, there it was…


He wasn’t sure he would have even noticed it if someone hadn’t told him where to look… It couldn’t have been any larger than the area of two small restaurants…and yet, it had housed an entire refugee camp? He found it a tad hard to swallow. It was barely large enough to build more than four or five houses… Charred remains of what had, at one time, been some sort of structure still stood, but everything else was gone… There weren’t even any headstones to mark where the Ishbalites had surely perished there.


"That torn-up old patch of dirt?" Ed scoffed, trying to hide his contempt for what his own military comrades had done.


"It was burned practically to the ground several years ago," the man explained. "As the war ended, the Ishbal people were driven from their homeland and forced to make camps in secluded areas. However, if any of these encampments were discovered by the State Alchemists, they were promptly destroyed. The Ishbalites were all but annihilated, even before Sunaba was found... That was their last standing safe-haven, and the Alchemists massacred them just as they killed all the others."




The little blond Alchemist snubbed his toe in the sand beneath his feet.


"You…sympathize with the Ishbalites, then?" he asked offhandedly, making sure the silver pocket watch signifying his status as a State Alchemist was completely hidden from sight in his pants pocket.


The old man laughed--a dry, throaty sound, like cracked old wood--and sat down on the steps to the tavern.

"Oh, heck no," he replied quickly, "I just tell it like it is. Just because I say they were massacred don't mean I don't think they're all a bunch of dirty heathens. The death of a race is just a stated fact, my personal feelings on the subject got nothing to do with the fact that they all died horribly."


Al kept his appalled gasp to himself at the man's outright prejudiced and heartless reply, but Ed wasn't surprised.

That seemed to be most everyone's opinion of the people of Ishbal.


Heathens…

Heretics…

How dare they have their own beliefs…?how dare they not look like the rest of us…?


Ed found the entire thing terribly distasteful. Who cared what they looked like or who they believed in? It didn’t make them any less human… Of course, he knew better than to voice his opinions in front of strangers… With his luck, he’d end up strapped to a post and burned at the stake just like the Ishbalites’ beliefs had been…

Winry tilted her head and met the little old man’s gaze.

“So if Sunaba was the name of the encampment,” she said haltingly, “and the encampment was destroyed…”

“This city was built near the ruined camp as a reminder,” the old man explained, “that even though this city thrives, if we are not careful, we may end up the same way.” He tightened his grip on his cane. “This city is clean, safe, and full of life… But surely the Ishbalites who lived in their camp of the same name felt that way, too… Way out here at the base of the mountains, who would find them?”

“But they were found,” Al said softly.

“And so we keep their name to remind us that even though we are remote, we cannot forget that these are unrestful times,” he went on, “and no matter how far from the turmoil we may be, we are never completely safe from it.”


Ed resisted the desire to scoff bitterly.

He made it sound so poetic, that little old geezer… Like the Ishbalites had died so that these people could be reminded of how real their own mortality was?

Fighting his urge to mouth off, Ed simply turned away and started walking down the street again.


“Ed?”

“Nii-san?”



“Young Man…?”



Ed paused, but did not look back.


The old man’s beady eyes sparkled.

“It’s so unusual for us to get visitors anymore,” he said, “won’t you come inside for a bit? Have something to drink?”

Ed waved one hand over his shoulder.


“I want to take a look around this place,” he said, and took another step forward--



Guuuu~



--and halted abruptly when his stomach growled loudly in protest to his decision. He turned quickly.

“All right, fine, you’ve convinced me,” he said, brushing past Al and Winry and tromping up the stairs to the inn. “We’ll go exploring after we eat some lunch.”


Al sweatdropped as he gave Winry a sidelong glance.

“Still thinks with his stomach in a pinch, it seems…” he said, and Winry nodded with a sigh.


“Some things never change,” she admitted, and looked at Ed’s back as he pulled up a seat at the long bar counter. “But I wonder what it is about this place that Colonel Mustang wants us to see…?”

Al shrugged.

“The Taisa gives his orders in riddles,” was all he said, and headed into the bar to take a seat beside his brother.


Winry hesitated a moment out on the porch, and rubbed her forearms a little as the wind brushed past her again. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was something strange about this place… Something…unnatural. Too often a long list of dark secrets was hidden behind a guise of outward perfection…and something told Winry that this town was no exception.


There was something wrong in the air, she could feel it…


But for now, she would settle to have lunch with her friends. Perhaps once Ed’s stomach had been appeased she would bring up the subject with them…

And with an uneasy glance over her shoulder, Winry headed into the building to take a seat and order something to eat.




*--did edward have his 16th in the manga? i'm really leaning this story more heavily on the manga than the anime...but i know he turned 16 in the anime... i didn't recall reading a birthday in the manga...did i miss it or didn't it happen? O_o anyone know?

**--i couldn't find if it was ever made clear if mustang knew when the boys went to dublith or not... ~_~ does anyone know? i hate it when i find out later that something in my fic is inconsistent... ;p



and...scene. i should have the next scene ready in a day or so. CC me! how did i do keeping character during a short introductory bicker? my biggest fanfic fear is that i break character somewhere within my fic, so if i do, please throw something at my head so i can fix it.

@Tokage: *claps* You never went out of character. You did a wonderful job! Good humor, and nice way to make that preminition feeling come forth. Can't wait tell the next chapter! Keep up the good work.

@Hex: *bows* thank you. i love to write, but it's all the more rewarding when other people enjoy it, too. any thoughts on those two little asterisk questions? those were the only things i was really unlcear about... so i figured if the answer was to be had, someone around here would have it...

@Tokage-neechan=D Yay, neechan! Is this one gonna be eighty chapters like all your other fics? *snicker* I like. 'Course, your stuff is always good. The eeeennnnnvvyyyy~... Okay, I'm done. *must have missed the birthday thing as well* ...and I agree with Hex, you did the premonition thing real well. =D I think that's all... get up another chapter and I'll read that, too! ^__^

Ed isn't 16 in the manga yet. He's almost 16... as for the other thing, i dunno. Sorry ^__^()
This is perfect. I think what you chose to do with the japanese was a good thing, and you can really tell how toned down it is. The descriptions flow perfectly and it has good rythym too. Keep on writing^^

@chibi: yay, thanks, i'm glad you're enjoying it. i knew you'd like FMA. *noogie* good to know i can always count on you to read my stuffs. i don't think it will end up being 80 million chapters like omoide...but i make no promises! XD but seriously, i don't think it will even come close to the magnitude of omoide or NnK. longer than ocha, but not as long as my normal epics.

@akaina: thanks for clarifying the age thing... i didn't *think* he was 16 yet in the manga, so i went with that... but for the second one...since as far as i can tell it is never said one way or the other, i'm gonna go with roy knowing that the boys went to dublith, cuz...well...that just makes things easier for this story. i'm glad the toning down of the nihongo is working... *fidget* i can't wait to work in the little jokes here and there later in the works.

@Tokage: *bows back* I'm still some what new to Fullmetal-alchemist, so I'll probably believe anything you say and not ask questions. . lol. Don't sweat it, your doing great!

@hex: LOL, hmm...you'll believe anything i say, huh? ufufufu... i always wanted a brainwashed minion--er, i mean uh...

*whistles and walks out of the room*

heh, i suppose that as a writer, i don't usually rely on my readers for answers to questions i have about certain things in the series i'm writing for...but i figured that since this forum is hagaren based, it woudl serve to reason someone might know that which i am fuzzy on...ne? but i guess overall it's no big. if i learn later that i was wrong, it's pretty easy to rearrange so that it's accurate.

i hope to have the next section up by later tonight... depends on how long i can burn the midnight oil. otanoshimi ni!

again, please pardon the double post...but here is the next scene:

shinkume ••• ruby eyes
chapter one: scene two



Edward took a large bite of his tuna fish sandwich and chewed thoughtfully a moment. Then he glanced at the middle-aged man wiping down the mirror behind the bar counter.

“So,” he said, and swallowed his bite of sandwich, “how long has this town been here?”


The bartender turned and paused a moment to mull over the question, his long bony hands propped on his hips as if he were trying to keep them in place by this action.

“I guess it’s…about 2½ years now,” he said, casting his dark eyes to the ceiling as he pondered the basis of the inquiry. He broke his pose and went back to cleaning the looking glass that cast Ed’s mid-meal reflection back at him. “The main city hall went up about three weeks after the Ishbalites were…eradicated…” he added, “so it’s been just over 2½ years now…”


“Most of the people who live here now,” came the dry old voice of the elderly man from where he sat at a table in the main of the tavern, “came from other cities in this Southern region… The people who grew weary of the hustle and bustle of a big city found peace and tranquility here in little Sunaba.”

“Aye, we like to keep a low profile around here,” the bartender added, and moved on to cleaning glasses and mugs once he had finished wiping down the mirror.


Al absently picked up his fork and poked at the glass of water that had been placed before him.

“But if this place was where an Ishbalite encampment had been destroyed…why did the founders choose here to build?” he wanted to know, and then froze for a moment, wondering if perhaps he should not have asked such an intrusive question.

The bartender slowed his neurotic cleaning for a moment and licked his thin lips.


“The people who founded Sunaba Town didn’t want these Southern Mountains to be thought of as no more than a resting place for the dead of war,” he explained, turning to put the glass in a high cabinet. “So they built this little city here and named it after the refugee camp that was destroyed here in the hopes that people would not only remember the deaths of those who were lost in the war, but remember that you can still move forward after tragedy.”


Winry nearly choked on her iced tea.

“Waitasecond,” she gasped, “you mean this town is built on the land where they died?” She made a horrified face. “It’s haunted?!?”


Ed and Al facefaulted, but the old man just laughed out loud. Winry turned and gave him a wide-eyed look.


“Chigau yo, Ojou-san,” he assured her, “we didn’t build on the land where the Ishbalites were killed… In fact, the town isn’t built on a single square inch of land where the blood from the war had fallen.”

Ed and Al heaved a silent sigh of relief, and the bartender picked up another glass to clean.

“The land where the Ishbal encampment stood is sectioned off at the North Gate into the town,” the younger man explained. “Nobody goes there; no one has set foot on that bloodied earth for quite some time.” He put the glass away and started working on a large beer stein. “The military Lieutenant who is in charge of this area says the old plot is an eyesore though,” he added as an afterthought, squinting at the cloth in his hand. “He says something must be done with it sooner or later…”

A cynical chortle from the old man.

“He says he wants to erect a memorial to the Ishbalites there…”


Al lifted his head and glanced over his shoulder at the little old man.

“A memorial?” he echoed, and Ed frowned, gnawing on the crust of his sandwich.

“A Lieutenant said that?” he asked dubiously. “Why would someone from the military want to do something like that?”


He honestly couldn’t believe that there was someone in military power who actually took pity on the Ishbalites for what the State Alchemists had done. Even if it was war…even if the Ishbalites had retaliated… Hell, even if the Ishbalites had been the ones to start the war, instead of the escalation of a Civil War that was already in progress bringing it upon them, that still didn’t give the military the right to slaughter them the way they had…


The bartender’s visage darkened a little.

“There was discussion, when the town was first built, about what was to be done with the land upon which the Ishbalites had died…” he explained, placing the beer mug on a shelf behind the sink. “There was a different Lieutenant in charge of Sunaba at that time… He wanted to turn the land into the foundation of a large building. The sandy soil of this area made it challenging to build Sunaba at all…but the small plot of land where the Ishbalites had colonized had granite bedrock beneath the sand, and could therefore hold much greater weight than the soft and shifting soil the town rests on… That is why only a few of our buildings have more than one floor. The sand simply cannot withstand the weight of anything larger; the foundations would be too unstable to support heavier buildings.”

“That Lieutenant wanted to raise a library on that land… A library several stories high…” the elderly one continued, “but there was an outcry from the people of Sunaba. They didn’t want the remains of the fallen to be disturbed. They feared the wrath of the Ishbalites’ god for desecrating the resting place of his followers; they feared curses, ghosts, and other such nonsense…”


“So the idea was dropped at the time, and people began to forget,” the bartender went on. Then he snorted contemptuously, and Winry still seemed jumpy about the idea that the ghosts of the fallen Ishbalites might appear suddenly in the mirror behind the bar to smite the lot of them for bringing up such a controversial subject.

She bit off the end of the pickle that had come with her turkey sandwich and chewed nervously.


The bartender picked up another glass and began habitually washing it like all the others. His brow was furrowed, and it was evident there was something else he was trying to keep from saying.

“Hakkiri ni~” Ed blurted, and the man nearly dropped his glass and met the young, wild eyes of the boy before him. Edward popped the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth and sucked on the tip of his finger for a second before continuing, “It’s obvious there’s something else you want to say…so just say it already.”

“Nii-san…” Al chided gently, and the bartender put down the glass and the rag.


“That Lieutenant is just biding his time,” he hissed slowly, and the old man rose to his feet with surprising speed.

“Micah!” he snarled, pounding the floor with the base of his gnarled old cane. “That’s enough.”

“He’s biding his time until people forget again, Dad!” the bartender went on, and Edward went at the task of cleaning up all the crumbs on his plate with a fingertip as he listened intently to the waxing family squabble.

Al looked at the old man, whose clenched fist was quivering around the head of his cane.

“Sir…?” he said timidly, and the elderly one took a deep breath and sat down again.


“A lot of the townsfolk believe that the military has it in for Sunaba,” he said slowly. “Some people think that the Lieutenant never really gave up the idea of using that bloodied land… They think he’s just waiting until the Ishbalites have been forgotten so he can just build on the land anyway.”


Micah scowled and slapped his palms on the countertop, startling poor wired Winry into nearly launching her pickle into the air.

“The military ain’t made up of normal people like you and me, Dad!” he said angrily. “They ain’t scared of anything! Not ghosts, not curses, not even gods or devils!” His dark eyes were afire with contempt for the way his father seemed to be defending the very demons who had put the townspeople in this position. “If that Lieutenant can get a penny more tax money out of using that cursed land, he’ll do it, no matter the consequences.”


The old man’s lip curled in rage.

“Micah, that’s enough—“

Micah’s eye developed a livid spasm.


“What about the people who were injured, Dad?” he demanded. “The people who the Lieutenant sent to start construction on the plot of land? The ones who came back bloodied and white as sheets? White as the ghosts they no doubt saw? What about the ones who didn’t come back!? Did the Lieutenant even bat an eye at those circumstances??

“You saw what happened, Dad,” he hissed, his voice low and dangerous (as Ed continued picking up the crumbs from his plate). “You saw what happened when the Kokka Renkinjutsushi wiped out those people. They didn’t even care that women and children were caught in the carnage. They even killed some of their own allies in order to completely wipe out the entire Ishbal race. The military doesn’t give a damn about the Ishbalites or what they did to them, why would he even consider the idea of raising a monument?? The State Alchemists...they’re monsters, Dad, what makes you think--?”


The old man rose again and gave his son a look that made Al shiver, and Micah immediately stopped his sentence short. He spoke through clenched teeth, “You have gone too far in front of our guests, Micah. Apologize.”


Lowering his eyes to stare at his shaking hands, Micah hesitated, then muttered a begrudging, “Warui na…” and resumed his ritualistic cleaning of dishes.

The old man sighed and seemed to shrink within his baggy clothing.

“Young ones, forgive my son’s outburst,” he implored. “He is hot-blooded, like the rest of my family… He…knows not what he says sometimes…” He bowed his head slightly and then made toward a door at the far corner of the room. “I have some things to attend to…but I do hope you will enjoy your stay in this town. My name is Juniyl; I am on the council to the Lieutenant in charge of the city of Sunaba, so if there is anything you need, please ask…” Juniyl bowed again as he ducked into the doorway. “I look forward to meeting with you again before you go.”


And then he was gone with a whisper of cloth and a shuffle of sandals on sandy tile floor.


Winry gnawed on her lower lip, and turned on her barstool to look at Micah, who was furiously scrubbing an invisible spot from the bottom of a tall wine flute, grumbling something too low in the back of his throat for her to make out.

Ed was quite certain he caught something along the lines of the Lieutenant not wanting to wind up in the same boat with his predecessor, but he didn’t dare ask for clarification.


Not yet, anyway.

He was beginning to understand why the Colonel had mentioned this town might be of some interest...

Winry tapped her fingernails on her plate.

“Does…anyone in the town support him?” she asked suddenly, haltingly, and the bartender glanced up, startled by the sudden break in the silence.


“Huh?” he asked, and Winry fidgeted.


“The Lieutenant,” she explained. “Does anyone actually support him in wanting to build a monument to the fallen of the Ishbal War?” She frowned. “Does…anyone even want that…?”


The bartender shrugged.

“Far as I can tell, nobody really cares,” he admitted. “I know I don’t… Nobody wants that ugly little patch of land there anymore, but they don’t seem to care what is done with it.” He shook his head and took Winry’s empty plate from her, placing it in the sink. “That Lieutenant ain’t gonna put up no stupid memorial,” he went on after a moment. “Why should he? They were just Ishbalites… And moreover…the people who died there died a long time ago… They’re long gone… I’ll bet there aren’t even any bones around anymore, so why should anybody care what becomes of-- Uh…Miss…?”


Winry pushed her glass away from her with such force that the ice clattered and spilled out onto the countertop as she scooted herself away from the bar.

“I’m going to go outside and get some fresh air,” she said abruptly, and walked stiff-legged to the front door and out onto the porch without another word.


“Winry…?”

Al bowed his head to the bartender, then rose quickly to go after her.

“Winry, chotto~!”


Edward and Micah watched them go, and then Ed glanced up at the older man with half-closed eyes.

“Oi, Ossan,” he beckoned smoothly, and Micah met his gaze, “can you recommend a good, inexpensive place for me and my party to stay the night? We'll be here in Sunaba for a few days, I think...”


“Sure,” Micah replied, suddenly seeming to have forgotten all about the outburst and argument from before. He gestured out the front door and then jabbed his fingers to the left. “There’s a nice little inn up the road a bit… The owner is a real nice guy, even though he looks like an executioner (Ed gulped at the description), and the rates are quite reasonable. Plus his wife makes the best spaghetti (Ed swallowed the urge to gag) I’ve ever had. They cater to out-of-towners real special-like, seeing as how we hardly ever get any, so I’m sure you’ll find it satisfactory.”

Ed forced a smile, still haunted by the image of an executioner forcing him to eat spaghetti, but managed to croak out a ‘thank you’ to Micah before pushing away from the bar counter. He reached into his pocket and placed a couple of notes and a small stack of coins on the bar, sliding them toward the older man. Then he shoved both hands back into his pockets and headed for the front door.


He paused.

“For what it’s worth, Micah,” he said suddenly, and Micah paused his ceremonial cleaning a moment to glance up, “I think your ‘ghosts’ are right…”

Micah screwed up one side of his face.

“Huh?”


Ed pushed the front door open with his boot.

“Even if it was years ago…even if they were Ishbalites…”—his eyes flashed dangerously—“the dead should be honored, regardless of the circumstances under which they passed.” He took a step forward. “Perhaps…if Sunaba kept that in mind…” he said as the door began to swing shut behind him, “its people wouldn’t be so haunted by the ghosts of the past…”


And then he was gone…his shadow vanishing from the slit beneath the door as he headed out onto the veranda in front of the tavern.


Micah stood absolutely still for a moment, then shook his head and went back to wiping down the counter.

“Weird kids,” he muttered to himself, then shrugged and tossed Ed’s money into the register.


and...scene. i'm afraid that one might seem a little...rushed... does it? it's not really supposed to be... hrm...maybe i'll go back and tweak it more later... i think there will be one more scene in chapter one... the next scene really just sort of picks up right where this left off with Ed out on the porch...but i haven't finished that piece yet, so i thought i would put this one up in the meantime. since this is a more flexible palate than ff.net is as far as chapter breaking...

thoughts?

@ neechan Lizard. XD

=D Good Job. I commend thee, neechan, on your ... how does one write this? >_<; History of pie.

"Nothing?"
"None."
"Nothing whatsoever?"
"None."

XD Yes. And ... stuff.

~Chibi

yes. pie. this story needs some pie. pie will have a cameo later on, methinks.

@Tokage: Creepy history story, but still as good as ever! I feel sorry for Winry. For crying out loud, let the girl eat in peace! lol jk. I can't wait tell the next chapter, and keep up the good work!

hm...do you think it was too much on winry? i hadn't considered that faction of it, really... well, at least she got to finish her sammich. glad you liked the history of the town. i was going for creepy. heh, i like a little creep in my stories...makes things more fun.

oOoOooo nice. I can see plot-ness forming! I have no advice to give you, this was perfect. I could see Ed's expression when he said that last line... it was perfectly timed and not ooc at all. The description of his retreating shadow really got me as well. Great job ^____^

yes...plot is forming... sorry i've been kinda slacking... ugh, all xmas shopping and extra hours at work and no play makes tokage a dull fanfic writer... ~_~ good, i'm glad that ending scene had that effect, that was what i was going for. i hope to have the next part up in a couple days... *beats head against list of xmas presents still left to buy*

As you know it, I want to eat some chapters, it can be delicious if you make a perfect recipe to make all people hungry for your fan fic.

Waiter! More Chapters please!

@Tokage: It's okay. I understand about holding it off for awhile. I can wait, cause I know its just ganna keep getting better I really look forward to it though. Its like when my aunts send my birthday presents with my christmas presents... I can't open them for 2 months lol

HEX! *pounce* where ya been? i hadn't seen you around in a while! just wanted to let you know i started on that pic for you...the werewolf one... having a little trouble getting the face like you asked, but i haven't forgotten, it's just taking longer than expected. >.<

in other news, glad you are still looking forward to what's happening. i've been kinda slacking on the fic of late. *slaps hand* bad author, no cookie till you get the next chapter up! T_T but i'm about halfway done with the conclusion of chapter one, so i should have it done and posted by xmas. thanks for reading! that in mind...if you like a long read, i have several stories up in my ff.net account...two of which are...quite ginormous. my inuyasha fic is an epic... it's well over 100k words and still going strong. heh heh... ;; it's...so huge... please feel free to check them out sometime if you get bored waiting for me to post the next chapter. ;;

and dragon, great analogy! i was LOL for like a good 5 minutes, that was priceless! i'll be cooking up the rest of chapter one soon, otanoshimi ni! heh, but this restaurant uses slow-cookers to get the best flavor out of our chapters...sorry to kep you waiting. it'll be ready soon. have an appetizer in the meantime. *offers egg rolls and edamame* heh...Hex, you can have some too.

If you offer an appetizer, it should be "side-story" like Rurouni Kenshin Vol. 1, it offer more information about Kenshin Himura in 10th year of Meiji.

Offer more, and Hex, want vanilla milkshakes?

hm...well, i can offer a short rurouni kenshin *fanfic* i worte a couple years ago... ;;

as for a side story...for this fic it kinda is unnecessary, being that i've thrown in the non-canon characters anyway, they'll have an explanation and a motivation once the story gets going a little more...

okay, I will respect to that.

@Tokage: Egg rolls? Thank you! *puts some on a plate* What's edamame? Is it good? I don't think I've ever had it before, but I'll try it. Oh... Where have I been? I was sick last week and I missed a Science test, so I'm taking a lot of time to study for that . I'll definately look up your other stories soon, I'm a medium fan of InuYasha, so I must read that one. Don't deprive yourself of cookies by thet way. *hands her some chunky chocolate cookies*. *Wipes out her chopsticks* Now ,please excume me will I stuff my face *starts shoveling in the egg rolls and edamame*

@Dragons04: *stops eating for a sec and takes the vanilla milkshake* Thank you very much . *offers some chunky chocolate cookies* Take as many as you want *smiles with a mouth full of food* *closes her mouth* Oops! Sorry.

edamame are boiled salted soybeans. i know that sounds pretty weird, but they're *really* good. especially dipped in soy sauce. yummy!

and that wasn't like a...'hey, you! go read my stories or face the consequences!' kinda thing... i just thought that since you seemed to like how i was writing, you might be interested in trying on a couple others. so don't force yourself or anything... the inu fic is huge, so if you're not a hardcore inu-otaku like me, you might be in over your head. ;;

*takes cookie* thanks! don't mind if i do! mmm...coooookie. anyway, i should have the next bit up soonly. so you are feeling better now, i hope? *pet* being sick is no fun... taking sick days from work sure is tho! XD ohohoho! ^o^ heh, don't be like me when you get a job, i set a bad example... ~_^

PS: love your new avatar! very cute!

@Tokage: Oh! That's what Edamame is? Sounds like yum. Bad examples? You don't show off bad examples, silly billy . To me you seem like a hard-working, dedicated person. Nothings going to make me change my mind about that... Unless you buy a replica of Edward's watch and use it as an earring, then I might start asking some questions. Thanks for complementing on my avatar. I'm trying to put my "Hex" Logo in my avatar with Microsoft's Paint, and I'm having difficulties getting it just right . I'll get it one of these days

*taking 100 cookies* thank you and are you ready to introduce us with second chapter?

Heard about the Randy Johnson trade is fallen apart?

@Tokage: *whines* I want to read more of your story . *falls down and goes into the fetal position* Look at me! I'm going through withdraws! . I'm joking... but I would really really really really really really really like it if you posted another chapter please! *cries*

i was reading through the first part again and three minor, minor things caught my eye:

"Iya yo! I won't leave you here--!" (shouldn't it be "iya da yo"?)

"A...aa," she affirmed, "modotta da zo... When I heard about what had happened...well, of course I came back!" (and "modotta zo")

"Son'na...Arrod...hitori ni suru na, Arrod! Kotaero! Arrod~ttara!!" (and "hitori ni shinai de" and "kotaerou"? but i guess "hitori ni suru na" works too, but i'm not sure which one you're going for)

ahaha i have NO LIFE. ignore me XD i'm very nitpicky about japanese stuff because when i get too used to slang like "mirou" instead of the grammatically proper "miyou," it tends to bite me in the butt during tests. but learning about slang is fun, so maybe i'm missing something here

oooh, good eyes, ninja. i wasn't expecting anyone to pick up on my little nihongoisms...

iya yo and iya da yo or yada yo are all the same, that one is a matter of dialect or personal vernacular preference. mine happens to be the first... iya is the exclamatory for 'no' or the like, and the yo is an intensifier...so in my opinion, putting the da between them diffuses the explosiveness of the phrase...

modotta da zo is really not something a girl would say...but i did that on purpose. ren speaks in a sort of slurred vernacular that usually only boys would use, but i made her that way because she was raised by a father and with a brother in a village of mostly males. so of course, she would have been brought up around people who spoke like men...because they were. modotta is a casual past-tense conjugate of modoru, to return... the da zo is what makes it the male slur... a girl would probably say modotta wa ne or modorimashita...but that's not ren's style.

as with iya yo-tachi; suru na and shinaide mean the same thing, but have different levels of intensity/politeness. shinaide is polite, and can be said to anybody without any negative impact. you could say to the prime minister of japan, "hitori ni shinaide kudasai," and he would not be offended or probably even bat an eye at that... but if you shouted at him, "hitori ni suru na!" he would prolly call out his guards on you, cuz that's very rude. a suru na is like saying 'don't you dare [insert verb here]!' whereas a shinaide implies a 'please'.

and kotaero is a forceful 'answer me!!'... kotaerou would be 'let's answer'. with the 'ou' ending it's a 'we' conjugation. an 'o' is a forceful imperative, whereas a 'te' is a more polite imperative.

and it's okay, i have no life either... i live nitpicking japanese, i've had so much fun learning it i can't keep it to myself. XD i've taught myself for several years and learned vernacular japanese from friends in tokyo, so what i know is conversation and not textbook, so it probably does come across less polished than classroom japanese...but i'm confident that most of what i know is quite accurate. but do feel free to call me on it... if you see something else you feel is incorrect, let me know and i will definitely doublecheck it.

kudos on a good japanese vocab and a sharp eye!

and hex, dragon, i should have the next bit up by wednesday or thursday. thanks for being patient, work has been hell lately... ¬ __¬

ooh, thanks for the info! *quickly scribbles down notes* now that i think about it "kotaerou" wouldn't make sense at all. and i wasn't sure about the "hitori ni suru na," because "hitori ni suru" would be "to leave alone," but i wasn't too sure about what the "na" would do to it and if it was the same kind of "na" like the....manly "ne," but obviously it does much more XD i wasn't that sure about the "modotta da zo" either, since modotta is a verb and you usually wouldn't say something like "tabemashita desu" or "tabeta da." same sort of thing with the "iya yo," since i've only heard "yada" and "iya da" used before.

i love learning little things like that XD thanks, tokage!

oh yeah, "modotta wa"....XD reminds me of rukia in bleach. usually she's so rough, but around ichigo's classmates she tries to use the "proper modern vernacular" and in the last episode i watched, keigo wants her to go "bo-hahaha!" and she says in this cutesy voice, "iyada, hazukashiku dekinai wa~~" totally cracked me up. i love japanese. XD

@ ninja: to negate a word, you can use the polite conjugation--adding 'naide' to the end of the -masu form of a verb... "shinaide". but, to make it forceful, or if you just get off on being rude...you can simply add 'na' to the end of the infinitive verb. "suru na". wakaru? XD the 'modotta da zo' is...sort of...well...bad grammar. done on purpose...but even so... 'da zo' is a common tail to a sentence said by a guy...it's just male slang. so the 'da' isn't really meant to be taken as the 'desu' verb... it's also used sometimes by girls...to add emphasis to a phrase. think of...say, cardcaptor sakura, when sakura's older brother calls her 'kaijuu' and she responds with, 'kaijuu jana~~in~da mon!'. same idea. the 'da' really isn't intended to be taken as 'desu' because then the sentence would...like repeat itself de gozaimasu... O_o

^__^ and yes, rukia rules. XD gah, i am sooo behind on bleach... why in the world did he want her to say "bo-hahaha"? O_o

aaaanyway...this is just a shorty, but sticking with my scene-change breaks, i figured i'd post this lil section while i finish typing up the conclusion to chapter one. XD enjoy!


shinkume ••• ruby eyes
chapter one: scene three




The wind blew through Winry’s golden hair again, but this time she made no effort to brush it away from her face. Resting her elbows on the railing in front of the little tavern, she set her chin in her hands, sighed, and cast her eyes to the faraway horizon.

“Mom…Dad…” she whispered, suddenly for a loss at her own voice, “why does everyone hate Ishbal so much? So much that they use that hate to destroy the lives of even innocent people…?”


“Because that is the nature of humans,” echoed a soft and ethereal voice, and Winry did not turn her head.

“That nature is wrong, Al,” she said slowly, and Alphonse folded his arms over his chest and leaned his huge body against the front wall of the bar.

“It may not be right, Winry,” he admitted, shaking his head, “but that won’t change it. People are naturally afraid of things they don’t understand. They fear that which is different… That which is unusual… How do you suppose people would react if they knew my armor was empty?”

Winry glanced over her shoulder at him, and she was certain she saw him give a small, sad smile.

“That is why people fear and hate the Ishbalites,” Al explained. “They fear their dark skin, their red eyes, and the unusual teachings of an unfamiliar deity they don’t understand.”


Winry scowled.


“But my parents weren’t Ishbalites,” she said bitterly.



“No, they weren’t, but all too often, those who understand and accept that which is different or unusual…are punished along with those who believe in it…”


Al snapped his eyes down to look at his brother, who leaned glumly against the railing beside Winry, his long bangs undulating in the breeze. Winry’s eyes narrowed a little at his curiously pessimistic comment, and he turned so his back was against the railing, and lowered his head.

“It isn’t fair, but that’s the way it is,” he went on softly. “You lost your parents that way…I lost my arm and leg that way…and I lost Al’s body that way.”


Al jumped.

“Nii-san, that’s totally different!” he cried.

If there was one single thing Alphonse hated about his brother, it was Edward’s own self-deprecating nature. No matter the situation, if something went awry, chances were Ed would find a way to blame it on himself—especially if Al was involved in the mistake. As much as Al appreciated the way Ed was always looking out for him…as much as he knew he could count on Ed to always be there to back him up…he wished he would just let the blame fall elsewhere from time to time.


Alphonse would have scowled at his elder had the plated steel armor of his head allowed facial expression.

“I agreed to help you try to revive Mom,” he said, his voice softer now, just in case anyone was listening. “It was my own choice, I knew the consequences should we fail…”


Ed’s eyes flashed like yellow lasers and made Al gasp as the sharp gaze fell upon him.

“And it was the Rockbells’ choice to aid the Ishbalites and treat them as equals on the battlefield, despite the foreseeable repercussions,” Ed hissed, fisting his automail hand. “It is the same, whether you believe me or not. A different environment, perhaps, but equal results.” He looked away. “If I hadn’t thought to bind your soul to that armor, you would have died for my mistake—“



Al took a menacing step toward his brother.

“It was my mistake, too, Nii-san,” he interrupted smoothly, and looked sadly at Winry. “The real difference there is that…Winry’s parents didn’t make any mistake…”


No one had any immediate response to that.


The wind whispered past them again, the only break in the suddenly thick silence between the three friends before Winry cast her big blue eyes back to the horizon.

“Ed…Al…” she said gently after a moment, “it doesn’t really matter, in the long run…you know?” She glanced at Ed and smiled prettily, and Ed felt an involuntary blush redden his cheeks a little as she then looked down at her hands. “What’s important is moving forward, right? What went wrong in the past shouldn’t dictate every action we take in the present…or how we plan for the ones we will take in the future.”


The boys smiled, their argument suddenly unimportant, and Ed sat down on the top wooden step of the porch, leaning back on his hands.

“I guess you’re right,” he said. “Mukashi wa mukashi da… Nothing we say or fight about now can change what’s already happened.” He leaned his head back and looked at the rafters above them. “Well…should we get going, then?”


Winry blinked.


Ed gave a rakish grin and met her gaze.

“Micah said there is an inn not far from here that caters real nice to out-of-towners,” he told his two companions, then leaned forward and rubbed his palms together ardently. “Let’s say we go get spoiled—Sunaba style! Heh heh heh…”

Al couldn’t help but chortle at the ear-to-ear grin on his brother’s face.


Well, he supposed that between Ed’s occasional extreme serious gloominess and sporadic extreme genki goofiness…was a relatively happy medium that balanced out most of the time…


Winry chuckled, as well. Even as children, no matter what had happened, Ed always had a way of making her smile. Regardless of the situation the youngsters had managed to get themselves into, Ed somehow made things out to be not as bad as they seemed to be.


“Ikou ze,” he urged, jumping to his feet, and dusting off his rump. “Let’s get a move on. I’m starved!”

Al and Winry nodded and hurried down the steps after the diminutive third member of their party. Winry jogged a few paces ahead of Ed and turned around to walk backwards facing him.

“Ed, how can you possibly be hungry again?” she asked arbitrarily. “You just ate that sandwich!”


He scowled.

“I’m a growing boy!” he insisted, and ignored Al’s tongue-in-cheek, ‘That’s debatable…’ comment. He was about to further debate his case when something ahead of them caught his eye. Squinting a little, he hurried past Winry and jogged down the street to get a closer look.


“Ed?” she called after him, and he waved a hand to signal them to follow, because he wasn’t slowing down for them. Winry scoffed and broke into a run after him.


Edward ignored her calls for him to wait up, and pumped his legs even faster.

Something told him that, whatever Colonel Mustang had intended for them to discover in Sunaba…the first clue to finding it was up ahead…


>__< i know, it was really short, but i had a scene break there, so just to be consistent. besides, i haven't quite finished typing the rest of the end of the chapter... hex, dragon, consider this your appetizer, kay? enjoy! i'll have the rest up soon. ^__^

@Tokage: Wow... Good job of switching the moods smoothly. Yeah, Edward knows how to break the ice in any uncomfortable circumstance . I guess this could "appetizer" here could hold me off for long enough to give you a rest . I still can't wait tell the next chapter , and I don't know what to do while I'm waiting...OH! I'll go read some more RxR fanfictions on that link you gave me . Keep up the good work buddy .

okay, here's the conclusion to chapter one. it's the longest piece yet, so i hope you enjoy it! ^____^


shinkume ••• ruby eyes
chapter one: scene four


Ed estimated that about 20 people or so had gathered out in front of the little convenience store by the time he got there.

What were all these people doing here? Was there a super-special sale on beer or something? Usually the only time people got this riled up about a conbini was when they got something for free out of it…

…or when there was a brawl.


Ed had a sneaking suspicion it was the latter of two options, but try as he might…he simply couldn’t see over the heads of the people in front of him.


With a flustered growl, he shoved his way toward the front of the crowd, and felt a sense of urgency creep up in his spine when there was the unmistakable sound of a woman’s voice crying out in pain. People were such animals… That they would gang up on a woman and then stand around and spectate??

Pushing out the front of the crowd and stumbling away from the mass of bodies, Ed’s eyes met a sight that made his blood boil.


A short person was being picked on!!!


There was a man in his mid-forties, Ed supposed, standing in front of the store, his thick fingers wrapped tightly around the forearms of an adolescent girl who, much to the young alchemist’s delight, was quite small in stature. She was barely taller than he was, and didn’t appear to be much older, either. But as his glee at finding another person so vertically challenged as he began to dissolve into a nagging concern for the safety of the situation, he found his eyes lingering on her in curiosity.

She was hardly five feet tall, with fair skin and flaxen hair streaked with tawny. Her limbs were muscular and stocky—she looked like she could kick like a mule—and her eyes were the most startling green Edward had ever seen. She wore a short purple dress and tall black boots, as well as an ebony elbow-length glove on her right hand. On her left hand were a series of black bands that resembled rings made from fabric that seemed not to serve any particular purpose other than to look interesting.

Ed’s expression hardened a little when he noticed she had a bruise on her cheek and a rather large cut on her arm. As much as he didn’t like getting involved in other peoples’ personal affairs, he couldn’t very well stand by and allow this girl to be assaulted by this much larger, much older man. Why, his male pride would never have allowed that!


He moved to take a step forward and disrupt the situation when the girl growled audibly and gave a sharp yank away from the old man.


“Get yer grubby mitts offa me, you old coot!” she snarled, pulling at his grip tenaciously. “I didn’t do nothin’, so bugger off!”


Ed froze and cocked an eyebrow.

Excuse me?? What had just come out of that female creature’s mouth? Such vulgar talk from a young lady???

Why, as cute or appealing as her exterior might have been, she had the spoken vernacular of a ragged street urchin! To listen to her talk, one would think she had been raised in a house full of rowdy boys!


Seemingly unfazed by her unbecoming vocabulary, the man tightened his grip around her arm until she squeaked in pain.

“Give back what you stole, you little rat,” he oozed, “and you’re free to go. But not before.”

She struggled against him again, her green eyes afire.

“I said I didn’t do anything!” she hissed, suddenly tearing away from him with surprising strength.


“Liar!” the man shouted, startled that she had been able to get away. “I’ll get it back if I have to tear both your arms off to do it!” he threatened, moving to grab for her again.

She twisted away, bouncing a little, and her eyebrows crashed down into an expression of determination.

“I’m warning you…” she cautioned dangerously, and the man just laughed.


“You’re…warning me…?” he asked. Then, before he had the chance to add a sly punch line to his remark, he suddenly found himself flying through the air from a swift, well-placed boot to the gut.

He hit the dusty ground with a cry of pain and shock, and made no immediate attempt to get back on his feet. It seemed uncertain whether it was pain, alarm, or plain embarrassment that kept him rooted to the ground.


Ed rubbed his chin.

He was beginning to like this girl’s style.


He watched in amusement as she folded her arms over her chest and popped one hip, tossing her head defiantly.

“Feh!” she scoffed. “Not so tough when you get dropped on your ass now, are you, Shopkeep?” She leaned back a little and squinted at him. “Bet next time you’ll give it a bit more thought before you throw out wild accusations, ey?”


The crowd suddenly wasn’t sure what to do with itself.

Oh…was the show over already? They began to fidget.


Ed, on the other hand, had a feeling this fight was about to go into sudden death overtime…


The shopkeep confirmed Ed’s suspicions moments later when he let out a furious howl and leapt to his feet, charging at the girl head-on. Her eyes widened briefly in shock, then narrowed to wicked slits. She tensed up, her arms held tight and her leg muscles coiled to spring.


And spring she did…


Straight…



…up…


…into…


…the air…




…




…and down, right onto the shopkeeper’s shoulders, her big chunky boots on either side of his head. He let out a yelp and Edward almost burst out laughing when the girl crouched down low behind his head, covered the shopkeeper’s eyes with her hands, and leaned close to his left ear.


“Shouldn’t ‘a done that, jii-tan,” she snorted, and then dropped backward, locking her knees around his neck and planting her hands firmly on the ground behind them. Then, with astonishing might for someone of her size, she flipped her legs—and, in turn, the shopkeep—over her head and sent him rocketing into the crowd.

Impressive, Edward found himself thinking. Not everyone could pull off acrobatics like that... He absently wondered where this girl hailed from...? It seemed she had had extensive physical martial arts and gymnastics training in her youth. An empty-handed fighter with her skills was quite rare, so far as he had seen…



“Kyaaa~h!”



Jerked out of his thoughts, Ed snapped his head around when a cry jarred his ears.

“Winry!?”


That was Winry’s voice! His eyes widened in alarm as he realized that, while he had been so busy admiring this strange girl’s athletic abilities, it seemed that the both of them had failed to calculate the flying shopkeep’s trajectory.

Glancing up, he saw that, on his current path, the man was headed directly for poor Winry!

And the rest of the people in the crowd were too awestruck by the whole ordeal to bother to think to move out of the way so that Winry had room to evade.


She’d be squished flat!


“Doke doke!!!” Ed cried, trying to shove the dumbstruck crowd aside to get to Winry. "Come on, you idiots, get the hell outta my way!" He looked above the multitude of people for Al’s towering head, but even he was too far from Winry’s position to shelter her from the human ammunition. “Dammit--!”


Ed clapped his hands together in preparation to transmute the ground beneath them into a shield. Winry raised her hands up to her face and cringed away as the man began to arc toward her. Ed dropped to his knees—


—and then froze just before slamming his palms to the ground.



…Well…that had been unexpected…



Winry cautiously opened one eye (barely having realized she had squeezed them shut in the first place) and let out an alarmed squeak.

The shopkeeper was suspended in the air just above her head, his face a twisted mask of utter horror as his rapid descent had been just as rapidly halted. He was making a whimpering sound, and Winry relaxed a little, now out of immediate danger, and her fear for being flattened was now replaced with curiosity for how this man was hovering there.

Her eyes focused on the ethereal glow of the tiny whirlwind that floated above his body…apparently accounting for his ability to defy gravity. Winry’s jaw slid ajar, and her blue eyes moved back up to the strange girl on the porch.


She gasped softly.

“Ano ko wa…renkinjutsushi…??”




Edward’s golden gaze tapered as he turned back around to stare.

So…not only was this girl a gymnast and martial artist…she was an alchemist, to boot.

This whole thing just kept getting better and better.


How in the heck had she done that, anyway? Even he wouldn’t have had the time to draw a transmutation circle…much less the complicated array used to control wind currents, as she was demonstrating. He'd barely had time to clap his hands and begin a transmutation at all… Even without the other girl’s being there, if Edward hadn’t the power to transmute without an array, Winry could have easily been crushed.


Could…could it be that this girl also had the power to use alchemy with no transmutation circle?



He frowned. No…that couldn’t be… His sensei was the only other person he knew of with that kind of power. Surely if there was another—especially one this young—he should have at least heard of her…

Edward squinted a little, noting the position of her arms. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen used in alchemy before. Her left arm was straight out in front of her, her fingers splayed and her elbow locked, her palm pointed at the man as if she was holding him where he was through an invisible extension of her own limb. The other hand was against her outstretched arm, two fingers upright in front of her nose.

He lifted one eyebrow.


It almost looked more like she was casting ninjutsu than performing alchemy.


He watched her eyes widen a little as her level of concentration increased, and she lifted her left arm. There was an alarmed cry from the shopkeep and a general buzz of shock from the crowd as the man was lifted high above them and was safely set back down…


…on the roof of his store.


Edward snorted.

Fitting.

This girl had an attitude he could relate to.



She dusted off her hands, looking rather pleased with herself, and as she did so Edward caught glimpse of something he hadn’t expected. He gasped.

Tattoos!

There were alchemy arrays tattooed on her left hand!



The girl grinned up at the man on the roof and chortled throatily.


“Now, you be a good boy and just sit up there and think about what you’ve done,” she chided, sounding rather matronly, “and when you’re ready to apologize you can come down.”


“You little wretch!” the man screamed, shaking his fists and flailing about (carefully…so as not to dislodge himself from his precarious perch on the roof…). “I’ll get you for this! Get me down from here you--!!” And his ranting trailed off in a stream of obscenities that even made Edward wince.



The girl trotted out toward the crowd and away from the store, still looking rather pleased with herself, and the throng of spectators parted where she approached, as if in fear of being lifted onto adjacent rooftops. She narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her hips.


“Well, what are you blighters all still doing here?” she demanded, and the crowd hesitated a moment, as if unsure if they were supposed to respond or not. She flailed her arms around rather comically, shooing the people away. “Go on, get!” she barked, as if scolding a dog. “Show’s over, nothing more to see here, you can go home now…shoo! Move it along, come on, get outta here!”


Edward hesitated a moment as the crowd began to disperse, apparently no longer really interested now that the action was over. He cast a glance back to Winry, and saw that Al was attending to her, and decided she was in good hands for the time being. He turned his eyes back to the blonde girl in the purple dress. She had gone back to the little convenience store, and had taken a seat on the front steps to address the slash on her arm.

He steeled himself and took a step forward.



“Damn geezer,” she grumbled to herself. “How dare he accuse me of thievery…? Me?! Mou, shitsure~ na~!” She pulled the glove off of her right hand and waved her left over it, touching it with her ring fingertip. The fabric shimmered, then seemed to unravel in her lap, thinning and spilling over in a long, slender strip…suitable for wrapping a wound.

Edward made a mental approval of her resourcefulness.


She wrapped one end of the bandage around the wound, tied it once, then continued wrapping, securing it with a knot and pulling it tight with her teeth. Then, sensing someone before her, she glanced up, the end of the bandage still in her mouth.


“Ca’ I he’p ‘ou?” she mumbled, and Ed made a face, his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

“Hah?”


She let go of the cloth in her teeth and rose to her feet.

“I said, ‘Can I help you?’,” she repeated, her voice a little edgy, and Ed had the sneaking suspicion she thought he might have come to continue the fight the shopkeeper had been unable to finish.


He removed his hands from his pockets and raised them in appeasement, but she tilted her head and sneered.

“If you’ve come to call me a thief, too,” she warned, “you’ve got another thing coming… And don’t think I’ll go easy on your just cuz you’re a shrimpy little kid…”


A vein popped out of Edward’s brow, and he lunged for her.


“Who are you saying is so small he’s not even worth fighting because he can be smushed into the treads of your boots like a bug??” he demanded, and she leapt backward and up the stairs to avoid him, blinking at his reaction.


“Uh…I never said that, kiddo…”


“Nii-san, what are you doing…?”



Two sets of eyes—one green and one gold—turned to look when Al’s soft, concerned voice broke into the dispute. The girl jumped when her eyes fell upon the eight-foot-tall suit of armor.


Deke~! she thought in alarm. How on earth could such a small and timid voice come from a person that huge??

Winry approached cautiously from behind Al, and nodded her head politely to the stranger.

“Thanks for your help,” she said, and smiled sheepishly. “I was really in a bind there for a minute…”

She noted to herself that, while this young woman was certainly a force to be reckoned with, it seemed, she appeared to be only a few inches taller than Edward…and not even quite as tall as Winry herself. She lifted her eyebrows.

Perhaps violence was just a common trait among chibis…?


The girl waved her now ungloved right hand dismissively.

“Meh, it weren’t nuthin’,” she said, and Winry almost jumped at the girl’s startlingly coarse parlance. Was she, perhaps, a wanderer who had never been properly cultured in polite speech? She certainly didn’t look as rough as she talked… Her hair was clean and well-kempt, her skin healthy and clear, her eyes bright and sharp… She surely wasn’t an urchin of the streets by the look of her… Until she opened her mouth, she would have fooled anyone into taking her for a nice, proper, polite young lady (…who could probably kick your ass at a moment’s notice, Winry added for good measure)…

The girl tossed her head and blew her long bangs out of her eyes and chuckled.


“I threw the poor bastard at you,” she added, “so it’s only fair I stopped ‘im from squashin’ you…”

Winry smirked. As tough and crass as she may have sounded…it seemed she was really a nice person at heart. She took a step forward.

“I’m Winry,” she said, and extended her hand.

The stranger’s face lit into a pleasant smile as she moved forward to shake her hand.

“They call me Ren,” she replied, crisply returning Winry’s greeting.


Ed grinned wickedly and decided to pounce on this opportunity to grab the girl’s wrist before she could recoil.




!?




But as his fingers closed on her limb, before he could blink, he had been spun around and his arm twisted behind his back to halt his advance. He couldn’t move!


“—the hell??”

“And just what do you think you’re doing, Short Stuff?” Ren’s voice hissed in his ear, her grip around his forearm tightening just enough to make it ache a little.


He made a face. Gods, she was strong! For someone her size, she had an alarmingly powerful grip… And she was damn fast, too…he hadn’t even had a chance to react before she had him spun and immobilized. She wasn’t hurting him…but she surely wasn’t about to let go right away.

Hm…perhaps he had underestimated her after all…



“R-Ren-san, please, stop,” Winry pleaded. “I’m sure he meant no harm…”

Al nodded in startled agreement, and Ed tugged gently against her grip.

“A-Aa!” he affirmed quickly. “I just wanted to see the tattoos on your hand…”

He stumbled forward when she immediately released him. Whirling to look at her, he saw an expression of surprise on her features. His gaze fell on her left hand, now drawn up to her throat and hidden by the right. He frowned.

“They’re transmutation circles, aren’t they?” he asked slowly, and she scowled. Ed bit his tongue to keep from yelling at her for attacking him like that (though…he supposed he had attacked first…). His expression sobered. “I’m sorry if I startled you…” he said. “I just wanted to look at them…”

He rubbed his wrist. Jeez, her grip had been like a vice! She hadn’t twisted his arm enough to actually cause significant pain, only enough to stop him from moving… But he supposed that, had she really wanted to hurt him, she probably easily could have…

Until he got serious of course.


His eyes narrowed a little.

She was good. To catch even Edward Elric—the Fullmetal Alchemist—unawares…she was good indeed…


Al fidgeted.

“Miss Ren, please forgive my big brother’s actions—“


Ren made a choking noise.

“Big brother…?” she echoed, and that vein popped out of Ed’s forehead again.


Al chuckled and continued, “Yes, I am the younger brother… But he tends to act without thinking…so please don’t think badly of him…”

Ren smiled.

“How can I think poorly of someone who has that in common with me?” she asked jovially, and then glanced up at the sky, as if checking the time by the position of the sun. “But, I’ve no time to chat right now, friends… I’m afraid I have some personal business to attend to…” She flipped one hand palm-up to show Edward the tattoos on her skin, and met his gaze seriously. “These are what you’re wanting to see, right?”


He nodded, and hesitantly traced the lines of the large circle in the middle of her palm with the middle finger of his left hand.

Fascinating… The tattoos were so intricate! He couldn’t imagine the artist that had a hand steady enough to do such perfect arrays on a palate of skin. There were a total of six circles on her hand…each one specific to a certain element of Alchemy. The large air-based array was detailed across her palm, and an alarmingly tiny circle decorated the pads of each of her fingertips… It was an ingenious design… No wonder she had been able to transmute so quickly… She had all the circles right there, in her hand! And the setup was as skillful as the concept. Combining two or more of the arrays on each of her fingertips could create any number of complicated Alchemy formulas. Why, she had the possibilities of a whole book on just her left hand!


After a moment, she pulled back her left hand and extended her right in an offer to shake Edward’s in a friendly send-off. He hesitated a moment.

He was always cautious to shake hands with people who didn’t know who he was… After all, to shake a metal hand would be awfully startling to someone who wasn’t expecting it. But, then, this girl didn’t seem to be shocked by much of anything, so far as he could tell…so he accepted her offer and closed his automail fingers around her untattooed hand.

Ren posed no threat to them at the moment. In fact, he wondered if she wouldn’t turn out to be a useful ally in the future…? But as soon as their hands made contact to shake, a chill ran down his spine.


She closed her hand tightly round his fingers and grinned.

Yappari…

Her grip tightened a little more, and she yanked him close to her to whisper in his ear.


“I knew you would come here, Edward Elric,” she breathed across his shoulder, and Ed recoiled with a soft cry, as if she had bitten him. She laughed softly to herself, then slapped her palms together, twisted them, and a golden glow emanated from her left palm as she pushed her arms outward and around her body in a circle. Her hair began to blow in a wind that floated up from the sand beneath her feet as a circle of blue shimmered around where she stood. “Ja na~!” she howled, and gave a toothy grin. Then, with a wicked giggle and a wild glint in her green eyes, she leapt up in the air, and vanished into the cloud of dust that erupted from the glowing blue circle around her feet.


With a cry, Ed, Al, and Winry all jumped back, and Winry raised her arm to shield her face from the swirling sand and dust. When she lowered her arm, Ren was gone, only the footprints of her thick-treaded boots in the sand remaining in the settling dirt.


Edward didn’t move.


'I knew you would come here…'


What had she meant by that? How did she know that? And, more importantly, how had she known who he was? He hadn’t told her his name, she hadn’t really given he and Al the opportunity… And he had never been to Sunaba before…so he didn’t see how she could have recognized him…

He ran his hands down his face and shook his head.

Auugh, it was all too much to think about right now…everything had happened so fast that he didn’t have the chance to think about it while it was going on… Now he was just left with too much information to try and comprehend all at once…




He felt a pair of eyes on him, and lifted his head.

“Gueh!” he squawked upon catching sight of Winry. She looked…ready to spit nails. “W…Winry…?” he said, and she took a menacing step toward him.


“So…what was that all about, huh?” she demanded, and Ed balked.

“Hah?”

Winry took another step and folded her arms.


“She kissed you, didn’t she??” she accused. "She leaned over and kissed you!!"


“n—da to??” he cried, his face flushing scarlet at the insinuation. How awkward would that have been? “No way! You’ve gotta be joking! She just said something to me!”

Winry wasn’t convinced.

“Aa, sou,” she said shortly. “So what did she say?”


“I couldn’t hear her,” he lied, folding his arms.

“Uso.”


His eyes flashed.

“I couldn’t!” he insisted. “I dunno what she said!”

“So how long has this been going on, huh?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!!”


He couldn’t very well say what Ren had really said… Surely they would both get all upset and start blowing things out of proportion… Winry especially…considering she seemed under the impression that they knew each other somehow anyway. Romantically, even…!?


Al watched a moment as they continued arguing. Then, fearing another crowd would form, he silently walked over to his brother, picked him up by the back of his jacket, tossed him over his shoulder, and started walking down the road again.


“Oi! Al! Put me down, you big tin can!” Ed ranted. “I’m gonna beat the crap out of Winry!”

“No, you’re not,” Al replied calmly, ignoring when Edward started pounding on the metal back plate of the armor. “We should get going, and make sure that the inn Micah-san told you about still has a room we can use.”


“TWO ROOMS!” Ed fumed, pointing an accusing finger at Winry. Then he folded his arms over his chest. “I refuse to share a room with a jealous harpy.”

“Better a harpy than a lying midget,” she snapped, and narrowed her eyes at him. “Besides, with a separate room, it’ll be so~o much easier for your new girlfriend to sneak in.”

Meanwhile, Al was still trying to talk some sense into Edward, “Nii-san, be reasonable. We don’t have the money for two rooms…”


Ed didn’t listen, he was too busy still griping at Winry.

“New girlfriend!?” he screeched, pounding on Al again, “I don’t’ recall having an old one! Who would ever consider someone uncute like you as their girlfriend?!”


“I never said that!!” she howled in response. “Who would be attracted to a shrimpy munchkin like you, anyway?”


Al tightened his grip around Edward’s middle when he lunged for Winry.




“Who are you saying is so short he’d need stilts to even get a date??”


“I didn’t say that much!!”
“She didn’t say that much, Nii-san…”


Al rolled his eyes. And so the bickering continued as they walked down the road toward the inn at the end of the street, the sun slowly heading back down toward the horizon as the sky started to dim gradually with the beginnings of an early twilight.



Ren watched them go from her perch atop a nearby rooftop, her eyes alight with glee.

This was perfect… The Elric Brothers! Right here, in Sunaba!


She had prayed that they might come to her little town one day, but she had never imagined it would actually happen.

She chuckled to herself, and eagerly rubbed her palms together.

With the clout of the Fullmetal Alchemist on her side, there was no way she could fail now…


With a smirk and a toss of her golden head, Ren slid down the rooftop and dropped back to the sand below. She glanced back over her shoulder, then took off running between the buildings and toward the woods that lined the base of the mountains.

All she had to do now…was wait for nightfall.

The rest would happen all on its own…


Oh yes…things were finally starting to fall into place…


* * *



The souls that burn
Will twist and turn and
Find you in the dark
No matter where you run
..............................~Natalie Imbruglia



* * *


couple notes: yes, i know ren has bad grammar. that's done on purpose, she and ed will get into some arguments about it later, so you'll get some insight on that.

also, a suffix you may not have been familiar with, -tan...is basically similary to -chan in it's casualness and familiarity... so in that way, ren's using it to piss the shopkeep off. calling someone -chan just didn't seem right for her character, so i used -tan instead. there, see? you learned something. ^___^

so, any thoughts? i have an image of Ren, too...some of you may have already seen her posted in another thread... but here she is. sorry the picture is so dark, my digicamera is old and cruddy.



XD working on the next scene right now, so hopefuly i can put that up soon... i have some artwork to go with that one, too, so please look forward to it. little roiai, anyone? XD

@Tokage: The ladies just flock after Edward . Edward's right too about Winry, she is pretty jealous of Ren ... And that harpy part was just funny . The earlier description of Ren matched the picture of her you drew perfectly. Winry better watch out, or Ren might steal Edward away from her *lmao* .

aaah, this is frustrating... i want to get more done on this fic, but i have new ideas for some roiai oneshots... *pulls hair* dou~~shiyou~~~?

@Tokage: *pats her on the back* Don't worry, buddy . Just take your time, okay? I'll wait for you, and everyone else should too. Your a great at drawing fanart and writing fanfiction, and if you get to stressed out on it, you might start viewing it as a choir rather then something fun, you know what I mean? So just relax, take your time, and keep coming up with great ideas .