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Map of Stars	By : Brainrat Category: Fullmetal Alchemist > Yaoi - Male/Male > Ed/Al Views: 872 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Full Metal Alchemist, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Map of Stars
- 2-Map of Stars (2)
- 1
- 2
This was written, oh - wait. May of last year? Holy shit how time flies! Anyway, this was written for the late Elricsexual Fluff vs Angst contest - theme, Cassiopeia. Beta'd by Rinnea, who I have no idea where she went. She did an awesome job. :) Oh, and Babblefish foreign language use. It is most likely WRONG.

Map of Stars

Rating: R

Pairing: Elricest Ed/Al

Genre: Angst

Word Count: 25000+

Warnings: Movie spoilers, if applicable

Summary: Al comes to terms with his life in Munich, his relationship with his brother, and his losses.

Something shattered, a fleeting sound of porcelain shards skipping over the worn floorboards of the kitchen.

Al left his brother�s open suitcase and sorted notes half-in half-out. He stopped at the doorway to the modest kitchen, porcelain crunched in fine little daggers beneath the soles of his shoes.

The cabinet doors were flung open in the haphazard manner of wounds. The dislodged handle of a coffee mug lay somewhere between him and the table, and polished curves broken off a simple plate lay all askew. Edward held three dull knives, three dull spoons, three dull forks and three scratched plates in his hands and sighed as a scotch glass cast prism over the floors before it, too, shattered.

Noa�s hands were shaking as she sought and remembered over the mismatched pieces of tableware. Edward said nothing. He used old newsprint to wrap the three place settings and set them in an old leather knapsack. Noa�s dress peeked out from the overflowing trash, and while Al didn�t see the bloodstain that just would not come out, it looked sharper than a handful of broken porcelain.

�Noa?� Miss Noa? Ma�am? What? Familiarity seemed to be expected, but falling from the sky wearing the face of a dead boy, emerging from his armor-coffin only to put Al � Alfons into a real coffin, what rights of familiarity could he build on that? �Are you okay?�

Of course she�s not okay.

Edward was silent, packing bread, sugar, apples, jars of what Al had learned to taste, name, and tolerate. Pickled eggs. Smoked, pickled goose. Everything was slightly on the musty side or pickled � who knew how long they�d go (with a Gypsy dogging their steps?)

�These all have to be destroyed.� She said, eerily calm.

�Uh�why?�

Crash. �They are unclean.�

Edward bristled, busied himself with packing, back to Noa's words.

�Unclean?� Alphonse asked, blandly. Stupidly.

�He would need them.� Noa�s voice was timidly wistful. She had seen blood on Alfons� lips and his hand. �But they�ve already ��

Al nodded. Six feet under the ground and final, death was too simple, too defined, in this world. Can�t even leave an old, well-loved coffee mug in a friend�s hand as a parting token gesture. Or a desperate scramble to glue brown-skinned roots to fair-skinned tradition.

�The landlord�s going to have a conniption over the mess.� Edward finally said when the clink-clash-clatter of tableware became heavier than words.

Noa sent a plate skittering, cracked, along the floor.

�Just don�t touch hi-�the notes. We might need those. Or books, if anything, we can resell them.�

Noa wouldn�t cry. Edward spoke only of places and items. It was an unsatisfactory compromise. Al, confused, went back to the bedroom and resumed folding his brother�s clothes. What else could he do?

He couldn�t wear his red coat anymore. Ed�s red coat. Ed told him it was �sacrilegious�, and Al wanted to know since when the hell did Edward care, but they were going to a funeral.

Edward�s clothes were all wrong colors, dull colors, but if he closed his eyes, he could pretend that the scent there was always brother�s scent, the scent of his red coat was his own scent. He had no other comparisons.

They left the apartment cluttered with broken tableware. They left dirty dishes in the sink, they left condolence cards on the entryway table, they left half a month�s worth of phone, electricity, water and rent paid for. He left his ponytail on his brother�s dresser, and the paper sheers used to cut it. They left pictures and Al was secretly glad for it.

They left mid-day, in a disappointingly anticlimactic dullness. They just walked away, the keys left in the doorknob. Not much had changed, they were still vagabonds in one way or another and a park bench or a hotel bed was the same as any other bed.

The streets had seen better days, patchy and mismatched with new cobblestones alongside worn old ones, filling potholes. The main streets were filled with vehicles that left smoke in their wake, and sidewalks were patrolled by men in distinctive uniform who watched Noa, their mouths set in hard lines beneath the slick visors of their hats.

So they took the side streets, the ones that could barely pass for alleys, where the buildings rose all around them and people shouldered past them with their eyes downcast. The side streets, the back alleys where were the weathered produce stalls were set up, peddling bruised fruit. Between those stalls, bruised, drunken men waited off hangovers on upturned, rickety crates. It smelled of old water and old fruit and old alcohol and old, rotted hopes.

�It�s not like this everywhere.� Noa whispered to him as she took his elbow, steered him between herself and Edward. The gentle smile she gave him was lost when she looked ahead, stony-faced as leers and stage-whispers of �Thief!� trailed after them.

Even so, it wasn�t much different from some parts of Central.

And struggling Lior - �Eight marks each.� �That�s too much, they�re bruised!� �Which is why they are eight marks! Go spend fourteen somewhere else!�

And the seedier parts of the Xing outskirts � �Two-hundred marks per half-hour.� Said a woman to a man as he stood in her doorway, the off-white color of the door peeling, her gentle curves and lovely face were trussed and painted and tired.

Al knew he should have felt homesick for the sunlit market of Rizenbool and the cobbled roads that lead from there to everywhere of Central. He watched in mild dismay as the woman in the doorway turned and the man brazenly tucked his hand over the curve of her hip clothed in old lace. As the drunk leaning against the apple stall finally gave up and uncorked the sick-green bottle in his hand and took a long, long drink.

�Al, hurry up!�

The woman had closed her door, and Al saw some of the apartment numbers missing. An old, stooped lady hobbled past him, a cart of produce and meat in tow, and stray dogs followed not far behind. Edward was scowling at the curious looks cast their way, young and brilliant where everything else was old and unraveling, scowling at him, Let�s go already!, always, always one foot in front of the other. Noa quickly looked away, wistful, pained. Neither of them could quite look him in the eye.

He shouldered his pack and hurried his step. No, not much had changed at all.

It wasn�t a long walk, as far as stepping foot out on the road with food, clothing and notes went. Al remembered long treks through deserts, train rides where towns and countryside eventually blurred together as the sun set and rose, and dogged hunts through unfamiliar towns for a room that wouldn�t completely destroy his wallet.

He remembered field reports and commands over train station telephones and Morse code. He remembered that same dogged hunt for a room, but money was no object. Making sure his brother�s silver watch was tucked away and that no one there knew, remembered or believed in the Fullmetal Alchemist was. These memories overlapped, intertwined, the same red coat would always flutter in a passing gust of wind, sit on the train booth or drape, tired-looking, over a nicked wooden bedpost.

They entered a modestly quaint apartment building. Like visiting one of their mother�s friends when they were younger, a friend he and Edward had met only as babies, the place had no relevance to him.

His brother and Noa walked softly. The hallway was narrow and dim, and smelled old, well-loved, comfortable. The silence of his two companions cloyed, the sounds of bartering in the market filtered through the single, small window by the front door, the light cast shadows over doorways and the guarded, always guarded mask of Edward�s face. Al looked at him, and he knew his brother saw but offered nothing. No words of explanation, no assuring smile and certainly no carefree grin.

New memories and old memories and fake memories in the absence of old memories overlapped again. He was caught off-guard when they stopped, Edward took a key from his pocket, and the door opened to a room that smelled both sweet and rancid.

Al ignored it. He didn�t want to be rude. �Shouldn�t we have knocked?� He asked, and didn�t know why he whispered. The foyer was still, like a graveyard or a place of worship. He didn�t want to be rude.

�We don�t have to anymore.� Edward walked in, his manner familiar with the layout of the apartment, his manner something of struggling relevance.

Noa ushered him in and gently, oh-so-gently, closed the door. Edward shed his coat and draped it over one of the kitchen chairs. On the table, a cup of tea had steeped too long and finally went cold, forgotten. Mold was gathering on the surface.

Al was aghast when Edward began to freely rummage through the papers stacked neatly on the desk and the books lining the bookshelves. Before he could question, chastise, look about for their nameless friend and apologize for brazenness so familiar on his brother, Edward said � �This is the old man�s apartment. He probably has contacts or research we could use-� He sighed and slammed a file drawer shut. It closed with a �bang� that made Noa give a little jump and Al�s heart race. �-if we can make heads or tails of his weird-ass way of cataloguing things.�

After it all, Al could believe anything. He could believe anything Edward told him. He could.

Noa frowned and pressed the side of her hand to her lips, a bad habit, a worse omen, the first time she�d seen Ed�s sweet little brother alight with hope that was truly, honestly free of burden. She didn�t want to see that wide smile fall apart. She turned away and took the moldy tea to the sink.

�Dad�s here? Oh, that�s�brother, that�s great! I was so worried you were here all alone, Ed, where is he? Are we going to stay with him for a while? He�ll help with our research, right?

�right, brother?�

He knew what the cloying silence was. It reached to the ever-blue sky as Noa danced, her white dress fighting a sea of black mourning clothes. They had just walked away from an apartment that suffocated in it. Mr. Curtis was a living manifestation of it. Wrath had haunted it in the hallways of the Rockbell home. It was the blood of a little girl staining her teddy bear amidst all the rubble. It probably wrapped around Gracia in the middle of the night, where Brigadier-General Hughes� arms used to be. It was the pause that followed cruel children�s questions because Alicia�s daddy was never there. It was the ghost behind the commander in Colonel Mustang�s eyes. It was the trigger of Lieutenant Hawkeye�s gun.

In his memories, it was Roze�s horror when her dreams and dedication went up in feathers and down in bile. It was the rasp in her voice that never quite went away. It dulled the spatter of rain that ran red with Nina and Alex. It echoed, sharper than sound, inside where Martel lay, pierced, bleeding through the roughly fashioned shapes that made him.

It was the tearstained letter from the military in Winry�s fist as she wept. It was the white lilies that covered �Trisha Elric� engraved in stone. It was their mother�s bedroom before they burned it all to the ground.

It hand-fed him mourning and things he had once mourned but forgotten as he sat on the couch and all he could smell was their father�s sickly-sweet cologne. His father�s coat had been discarded there, and found a home much too late in his trembling grasp. It smelled like him as he buried his face into it and tried so hard not to cry.

He hated Edward for a brief, flaring moment that made him terrified of himself. He hated his brother�s nonchalant degradation of their father�s work and life. As notes were scanned and organized into �useful� and, to quote, �utter shit�, Al�s boyhood faith that their father would be seen walking up the dirt road in Rizenbool to home was separated into �foolish� and �childish�. It was all he could do to keep replaying that memory where his faith had been rewarded and his father was home and his father looked up at his red, glowing eyes-that-were-not-eyes and called him by his name.

He hated Edward for knowing what it was like to be called �son�, to be smiled down on, to feel the warmth of a handshake because they were their father�s boys, but they hadn�t been children in a very, very long time.

Hohenheim Elric smoked. There was a pipe and an ashtray on the coffee table. His clothes smelled of tobacco smoke. Al supposed that�s what Lieutenant Havoc might have smelled like, too. Auntie Pinako would be smoking right now, but that wasn�t anything unusual. Auntie Pinako was always smoking.

Noa cleaned. She cleaned compulsively when she was upset. She cleaned and Edward kept a wary eye on her, all this unseen through the old, large coat pressed to Al�s eyes. Edward needn�t worry, because she never knew Hohenheim Elric outside of the oddity of a man in a monster�s jaws, and it wasn�t her place to try to appease the foul luck of the dead she didn�t know.

Edward was comparing an old address book to the names of authors on papers he thought useful. Always just �useful�. Noa was polishing away the thin layer of dust on the side tables. None of them could have told what time it was, and Edward barely looked up when he switched the light on.

�How?� Al finally asked, and raged against that silence. His eyes were glassy because he would not, would not cry. He clutched the coat to his chest, and hated the timid pity Edward�s red, tired eyes turned to him.

�Envy.� There was a struggle in his brother�s voice, and Al didn�t know why it comforted him. As he looked, as he listened to the word spoken with such tired venom just so Al could hate something, he saw that Edward held the notes with such tender care, and the �useless� were stacked neatly in organized piles on the floor. �Eckhart used Envy and Dad as the exchange for opening the gate.�

Noa stilled. Shame stilted her posture. In the copies of the Thule Society�s �Vision of Shamballa� Edward held letters became dragon teeth and ink, their father�s blood.

�I used Wrath and Gluttony. Wrath�� I had a choice. I had a choice, and I killed them both.

�The little shit didn�t give you a choice, did he?� Edward said in the fondness of civilians that hear about but do not see the losses of their own soldiers, in the easy �that�s a shame� demeanor of men who read horrors over newsprint. Al couldn�t fault him for it, not when Edward had stopped being�unreachable. Even just for now. �Dad didn�t either.�

Edward knew Al was prying him with those tear-stained eyes, plain little brother eyes, impossible to meet. He went back to cross-referencing contacts and papers written. �He told me he wanted to die in the body Mom loved. I guess he felt an obligation to her.�

He damn well should have.

She�s dead, he wasn�t, we aren�t � why?

�It�s not like he had much of an option anyway. Envy would have, with his consent or without it.�

�Wrath too.� Al didn�t know when his father�s coat became an impromptu blanket, but it was warm in the absence of a fire in the wood-burning stove.

�Guess we�re just lucky bastards, then.� It was said in part irony and part bitterness.

�Opening the Gate wasn�t lucky, brother.�

Noa couldn�t take the frosty distance that had turned the small living room into a wide and immeasurable gulf, one brother on one side, the other across and untouchable. In the end, it�s impossible to re-forge bonds on mistakes and regrets.

�Maybe you can check his room for something? Edward is busy and so am I.� She was timid, stepping into a role she had no right to fill. �Al?�

But she didn�t say �something useful� or �something we could sell�. Just something. It was, in reality, a stupid suggestion. He could have kissed her, held her and wept for it. He could have scowled at her, snapped at her, and wept for the thought of being alone in his dead father�s room.

Instead, he took liberties with the memory of the dead and tucked his dad�s coat around his shoulders, close and warm, and found the most precious of his father�s thoughts.

It seemed no matter the area � ghetto, main streets, alleys � Munich was a city that never really slept. Like Central with its serial murderers or the Amestris western border pressed against the memories of the Ishbalan Massacre. Or the dusty streets of Lior where a Holy Mother prepared the people for an exodus under the ground while the Amestris military insignia flashed on uniforms and tanks and guns on the surface.

Al could feel the lost hours of rest in beds behind walls and windows, in the weary nods of men in uniform that he returned with timid distaste. In the working class that would rather replace sleep with beer and company, in the bundles of newsprint on the sidewalks. It left Al baffled, snuggled into his father�s coat against the chill with his fingers shaking over a stack of journals he couldn�t read anyway, with the lights of the streets dull as they were.

�Al? What the hell-� Edward closed the front door after himself, stifling a cavernous yawn with his hand. �-y�doing out here?�

�I couldn�t sleep.�

�You should try to.� Edward sounded more awake, his voice less caught in that muffled, hazy sleep. He flopped himself unceremoniously on the far end of the bench from his brother, and watched the city lights aglow through bleary eyes. �We�ve got a long way ahead of us.�

�Did you find something?�

�A few leads. A few people to talk to.� He shrugged, rubbed his automail shoulder, familiar habits. �It�s a start.�

�Where are we going?� Al wanted Edward to never stop talking to him. Ever, especially to never stop speaking of familiar processes, familiar plans.

A pause, a beat, the gentle whir of a bicycle as a young man peddled furiously to get out of the cold. He came from the direction of the University, and Edward saw only at the boy�s angel-blond hair and shadowed face beneath a nondescript cap.

�Back when you were � back when I was working for the Military, there was this nutjob who created this thing called an atomic bomb. Worst dumbass invention ever. Wanted to present it to the military-�

�I remember.�

Then Edward finally looked at him, and saw him. He was shorter by a mere few inches, drowning in their father�s coat. He had their mother�s eyes.

A smile that was only skin, muscle, lip deep half-quirked Edward�s lips. Both knew skin and muscle didn�t really go that deep at all. �Yeah. You do.�

Then he reached over and dug his hand into Al�s hair, jostling his head uncomfortably as he ruined the already messy cut. He snickered, low and soft. Edward�s hands were bigger, calloused, gentle, and his voice was deeper in comparison to Al�s.

Edward pulled away, and regarded the warmth lingering on his palm, the feel of hair between his fingers with a deep-settled surprise. Like a surprise from a friend one knew to be spontaneous, or the bite of a snake one knew was already hidden in the grass. He recovered, his hand shaking, and replaced the texture of his baby brother�s hair with his own bed-mussed hair, raking it back into something decent.

�So what about the atomic bomb?� For a moment, Al was terrified it was all lost. His question would bounce off of his brother�s stoic silence, where there were no more half-smiles or brotherly hair tussles to be found.

�It came from our world.� Edward replied with a stuff shrug. His automail must really have been ornery that night. The ease of the Fullmetal Alchemist really must have been gone, nights ago. �Anyway, did you find anything?�

�Um. Yes.� Al held up the journals. They were identical, the two of them, with simple leather covers polished in black and worn with use. They were small, and, it seemed, precious only to him.

�You�re going to read them.� As if Edward knew him so well. He did, beneath the doubt. Al clung to that belief with starving tenacity.

�I don�t know.� I don�t know if I can.

�I don�t know if it�ll help. Dunno what�s in them.�

�Never expected you to snoop into Dad�s stuff.�

�That�yes. That would have been weird.� Edward shied away from Al�s little wane smile, with a casual hop off the bench and a hand in his pocket and his eyes to the apartment. �We�ve got an early day tomorrow. I�m pretty damn sure we can rule out the Thule Society for any leads whatso-fucking-ever, and god-damn if I know where Mabuze ended up. Between him and Alfo�our old sponsors, I think we can dig up a starting point somewhere.� Edward stretched, yawned, and Al became bold because his fear and unsettlement were just too tired to argue.

�Brother?�

�Yeah?�

�I have�I think I�ll read Dad�s journals. Do you think he�ll mind?�

Ed shrugged. Shook his head. Rubbed his automail port. Anything to shut Al up and keep from looking at him.

�And after�� His hands tightened on the small stack of journals. There was a stone in his gut that may have once been his courage. The paper between leather covers crinkled from the pressure. �I have a lot of questions, and I know it hasn�t been�it hasn�t been easy. But�if we could talk?�

Another one of those muscle-deep-lip-deep-skin-deep half-smiles, more city lights went out as people gave way to the sleep they fled from. Ed didn�t say anything, just patted his shoulder and headed back into the apartment.

Al was happy with that. It was enough. He wanted more. He still couldn�t fathom sleep.

�I would like to say goodbye before we leave.�

They were no good with those, Edward and Al. When Noa asked, all Edward could do was nod. Even he must have known it would be terribly cruel to deny her that. With newfound courage, she led the way. Through the back alleys and main streets, through the throngs of the bleary-eyed with another day of work ahead of them and not much else.

Al hadn�t slept. He thought on things, yes, but his thoughts went �round and �round in circles, chasing memories and fragments of pieces to put together. His quarry was wily as his own sharp mind. He sat on that sidewalk bench just long enough for the sun to rise and provide enough light to read the journals.

The journals remained in his knapsack, orderly and unopened. Carrying it was heavier with little sleep, and he clung doggedly between Noa and Edward. He didn�t see the old, worn fruit stands being set up, or the drunks in the gutters, or the married men leaving the conspicuous hotel rooms a few hundred marks lighter in their wallets.

But he knew the smells, the few that wafted through the cloying sweet-decay, rotting fruit on rotting fruit, sweet from a bottle and sweet from the sun.

They were going back, Al realized in an unbearably heavy sense of misery. They were going back, to the dead boy�s apartment. He was tired of dead people�s apartments. He voiced no complaint.

Still, Noa marched on, her shoulders square, her shield the bland expression of her face. She wanted her goodbye.

Winry had learned to not expect goodbyes.

�Just because they look like them doesn�t mean they are them.� Edward told him in a hushed whisper, the language of brilliant lunatics.

�What?�

�Alfo�He looked like you, but he wasn�t you.� Edward spoke factually, his eyes saw only the path ahead, but the clench of his jaw and the hitch of his voice betrayed him.

He wasn�t you.

His bones, the knapsack, they suddenly felt lighter. When they arrived at the semi-familiar building, it wasn�t nearly as intimidating or heartbreaking as he had set himself up for it to be. The flower shop was opened, all sun-catching glass and living, vibrant silk. It smelled of fresh-cut grass and water and the way their mother�s garden used to.

It wasn�t nearly as heartbreaking, until he saw Gracia who wasn�t Gracia. Edward greeted her like an old acquaintance instead of the boy who had helped birth her child, but here, Gracia didn�t have a child. They were �big brothers� to no one. Edward said �Ignore my little brother. He�s kinda shy� with an awkward laugh and an overacted nudge of his elbow. Gracia stared at him, because she recognized him after the name �Alfons Heiderich� and not Alphonse Elric.

Noa was sorry they had to leave, and thankful for Gracia�s kindness. Gracia was sorry they missed Maes, said they would miss them, with a dry eye and a polite smile.

Gracia lived alone with her flowers.

It was strange to see Scar without his�well, scar. Strange to see Lust without a deathly pallor, with brown, soft eyes instead of cat irises and violet, violent glint. He knew their names, but they didn�t fit because dark skin and intense eyes and a strong, stocky jaw would always equate to �Scar� in his mind, and such cold beauty would always be �Lust� in his mind.

He shared a grin with Edward upon seeing them, Scar and Lust, still flint and bitterness and some strange spark that he�d only seen in Ishbalans, in the Roma. Noa chatted quietly amongst the others in her own tongue, talking of mundane things, or perhaps not. Alphonse and Edward seemed to fade into the cargo. For Al, the accepted silence on his part was a respite.

The sun shone, and the buildings of Munich slowly surrendered to overgrown weeds and overgrown grass, to dirt roads lined with half-manicured trees.

Years ago, Al was eleven, he was helping Master Izumi and Sieg clean steaks for the evening�s customers.

Al was eleven, and he was watching, pathetic, as Scar�s hand shadowed then obscured his brother�s eyes, and Edward was not moving. Edward�s arm was shredded, metal bits that had sung and skipped over the cobblestone alley like the tableware Noa had destroyed in Alfons Heiderich�s apartment. Edward�s leg was fine. Edward still wasn�t moving. In a minute, Edward would have been like all those other sorry alchemists, like Nina, like Alex, his face left unrecognizable.

Mason had slit a pig open in the back and Al distinctly remembered the smell, the sound, of blood and tissue splattering onto the floor.

He clutched his head and rested his cheek onto his knees and groaned. His mind whirled. He felt ill. The car hit an unsteady patch and the sun, suddenly too bright, bobbed and weaved in the sky.

�Motion sick?� Edward asked, and the smug little bastard bit into an apple.

�Don�t be a jerk.�

Carnivals were a contradiction set up on tent pegs. There were signs made of wood, painted all manner of color. The signs might have been grand, if not for the chips, the peeling, the dust settled on old paint. There was food, and plenty of it, a lure that Edward followed in an almost zombie-like trance. There was the scent of filthy animal cages mixed with the scent of pastries and cheap food. Al still hadn�t quite gotten used to the scent of automobile fuel.

�Why are we here, brother?� To Al, the carnival reminded him of the Armstrong flood into Lior. There really was no other way to call it when the ridiculously upbeat music blared from speakers and the Strong-Arm alchemist addressed the people with his arms spread open as if to embrace each and every single one of them. Behind Alex Louis Armstrong, new buildings and bright colors would rise, strong and proud and terribly bright in the unforgiving sun.

It was a spectacle. It was a movement. It was downright horrifying.

�Some of the people we worked with are doing a demonstration. I�ll talk to them after, see if they�ve heard anything about -� Ed seemed to think better of it, and leaned close to whisper. � -the bomb, or if they�ve seen anything we might�ve missed.�

Ed found himself on the sharp end of an appraising look. It was something unfamiliar to him, to see the gentle olive color of his baby brother�s eyes express.

�Nothing�s going to explode, is it? We won�t have to make some harebrained escape last minute, right? I mean, we could do it, but�anyway. You�re not going to burn bridges either, right, brother?�

Back then, the words would ring and echo in steel. Now it was just so damn cute he had to resist pinching Al�s round, rosy cheeks. It was just so damn familiar it hurt.

Instead, Ed held his hands up and grinned. He looked so much more like Al�s big brother that way, and the glint in Al�s look softened to something less intimidating.

�Relax. Stick with Noa, enjoy the carnival, I swear I won�t be long.�

Al huffed. �Brother!�

�The strudel�s fucking awesome, get some!� Ed called over his shoulder, before he disappeared in the direction of the wooden tower set on the outskirts of the carnival.

Al hissed something not too kind and raked his hands through his hair. Behind him, he heard a delicate chuckle.

�Has he always been like that?�

�Since I could remember. Always food and projects.�

�I recall a distinct fondness for food, but his projects were always his focus. The little time I�ve known him.� She gave Al a rather meaningful look, and it was the first time Al wondered just how much Ed told her.

�Come on, then.�

Al carried the luggage, Noa carried the knapsacks. The carnival grounds were quickly becoming crowded, men and women and children in their finery, jittery, flitting here and there like a flock of exotic birds with useless, gleaming feathers.

People looked, of course. Curiously, with a bit of scorn, but no one watched.

�Roma work in carnivals a lot.� Noa explained when he asked. �Before I met your brother, I traveled with a group of entertainers. Dancers, singers. Here, we are a spectacle, but we aren�t rare.�

�What did you do?� Al asked, chasing her steps and dodging the crowd. He reminded Noa of a rambunctious puppy. She couldn�t deny that the atmosphere of a carnival lent itself to a carefree demeanor. Carnivals were absurd.

�I told fortunes.�

Al�s eyes went wide, and for a moment, they were so terribly, clearly sky-blue.

�Your brother says it�s unscientific.� She said with gentle, forced humor.

�He did? How rude! It doesn�t surprise me, though.� Al cast an immature face over his shoulder in his brother�s general direction. �There was a lady in Xing who used sticks, and one in Dublith who used cards. That�s all I�ve seen. What do you use?�

�They think I read palms.� Noa�s smile was wry with mischief. It was a good look for her. �But really, I don�t need anything.�

�How?� Al asked, and he was so close to her, as if to find whatever it was that made her tick. So curious with his wide eyes and bright voice, so innocently admiring.

So quick, behind his thoughts. Al, little Al, was still a scientist. Noa wasn�t, but she knew enough to know some things just couldn�t be explained.

�I�m not sure. It just is. Perhaps a gift from God? Or perhaps�we call it �bibaxt�. I believe your term is �bad luck�?�

�Why would it be bad luck? Do you see horrible things?� Now Al was all sympathy, tamping down firmly on his curiosity.

Noa stopped. The crowds parted around them, faceless. �Not more than normal eyes would, I guess.�

They began to walk again, lost in thought.

�But it can be bought, sold, used for bad things. Bad luck.�

�So can anything. Cars can be used to transport supplies to people who need them, or soldiers to kill those people. It happened in my world before. And �� Al faltered, flustered, unsure. Just how much had Edward told her?

�Alchemy?�

Al turned to her, full of hope. She saw him savor the word.

�I read your brother�s fortune.�

Behind the grandiose tents and arches of banners and flags, it was a different world. Horses stood, restless, tethered to the bumpers of open cars. Dishes were dried and stacked on crates that held fireworks. Work clothes and costumes were meticulously separated. The pale acrobats and horse tamers lived in plain, canvas tents. The fortune tellers, singers, dancers and men with brown hands who knew a horse�s reigns just as well as any other camped alongside the horses.

The man with Scar�s face was trying to light a bonfire. The wind kept blowing out the spark between flints. Al lingered, wary, at Noa�s side as she exchanged greetings with those they arrived with. The women were beautiful, the men were strong, and the old women were unpretentious in their brightly-colored skirts and dark hair shot through with gray.

Al honestly did not belong there. He looked young, he was young, and was regarded with very little suspicion. He was welcomed by some, and squeaked openly when Lust-who-wasn�t-Lust pinched his cheek and rattled off a stream of something that made Noa giggle.

�She thinks you�re adorable.� Noa translated, and Al blushed at the playfully coy grins cast his way. The old women with gray and black hair didn�t look too pleased.

�Um�thank you?� He was favored with a sultry smile and a wink, all in jest. Why didn�t she just speak German to him? He was confused, but he saw they were comfortable the way they were. He couldn�t fault them for it.

His blush had yet to die down. Winry often told him he was �adorable�. In Dublith, he�d sit out on the front porch of the butcher shop, scraped and bruised from sparring with Master Izumi, clothed only in work shorts and sweating from the heat. Girls would pass by, blush and giggle.

When he worked at the front counter, girls would say �Hi� to him, either too friendly or too shy, but they all became shy when he returned their smiles.

�It�s because they think you�re cute, dumbass.� Master Izumi told him over strew and coffee one night at dinner when he expressed his confusion. After, he had to endure endless teasing on Mason�s and sometimes Sieg�s part about it.

He still didn�t belong there, and found himself surrounded by a language he didn�t know. He pet the soft muzzles of the horses, and was given carrots by a boy his age. The boy spoke broken German, but they got along well enough and let the horses lip up the carrots from their open palms. He remembered being seven years old and fighting with his brother over who would feed the old farm nag the last carrot from the market.

He and the boy parted with awkward goodbyes. The boy had to see to the horses, to make them ready for the show, and Al had nothing to do, and knew very little about caring for horses. He watched for a bit as soft brushes and cloths were used to burnish the tawny horse coats to a brilliant shine, and vicious-looking picks were used to pry tiny pebbles and clods of dirt from beneath hooves and steel shoes, and polish was applied to give the flashing hooves a-trotting an extra gleam.

There were many horses, so the boy was soon lost in his work, and Alphonse soon lost interest.

Amidst all the crates and grand costumes and grand props, clowns, jesters half made-up wandering to and fro, between German and Romani words thrown about and gales of laughter that matched no matter what words came before or after, something stole his breath away.

Between iron bars, bejeweled eyes flashed and muscle rippled under the patterns of black and orange. It was gigantic, majestic. With its pink triangle nose and long, white whiskers, its huge paws and lashing tail, it was quite easily the most magnificent thing Al had ever laid eyes on.

He�d seen pictures. Grotesque chimera. �Tiger - Panthera tigris tigris�, one of Shou Tucker�s logs had said. The poor beast then looked nothing like the creature before him, though. Al was glad for it.

�Thought I�d find you here.�

Al jumped, torn suddenly from his moony-eyed adoration of the big cat.

Ed smirked, looking tired, just a bit frazzled. Al knew that look, it was a look he�d seen Edward wear countless times. A look he himself had worn, alone, staring into a hotel mirror, in a one-bed room.

�Just asked where they kept the tigers. Geeze, Al, you�re so predictable.�

Al pouted and turned back to the cat. It was curled up; exactly like all the strays he used to keep inside. Little bundles of warmth he absolutely adored. The tiger�s tail, with its little tip of white, curled over the tiger�s haunches. That broad snout was tucked beneath a huge, flat paw.

He clutched his hands together. He wouldn�t do anything girly. He wouldn�t.

�I wanna pet him.� He blurted out before he could stop himself.

Ed snickered. �I wanna eat. Which one�s more practical?�

�Do you think��

�I think you�re crazy. That thing could tear your arm off, and believe me, the prosthetics of this world suck. Let�s go find Noa, then go eat something. I�m starved.�

�You wouldn�t be if you didn�t finish all the food on the way here.� Al waved a forlorn goodbye to the tiger. The tiger flicked a fly off its ear in response, and perhaps snored a bit.

[End Chapter One]
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Map of Stars