Gold and Charcoal, chapter 29
Title: Gold and Charcoal, chapter 29
Rating: PG
Genre: AU
Pairing: Multiple
Length: 5, 406 words
Notes: And all is revealed! Sort of. Maybe.
Edward wasn’t sure what to expect, but he suspected it would be ugly and painful, as well as deadly sooner or later. He’d been abandoned in a poorly furnished room (cell?) for a length of time that felt like forever thanks to the way his mind was running circles inside his skull like a gerbil on crack, but with less crack and more ‘being worried sick about Alphonse and fiercely hoping Roy had enough brain cells to flee so they wouldn’t get caught in whatever was going on.’
He was in the middle of trying to brainwash Roy with the power of his mind (do the smart thing and leave, do the smart thing and leave…are you gone yet?) when she came in, her high heels making a detestable sound on the stone floor. She’d always worn them, he recalled, and he used to think they were meant to warn she was approaching.
With abundant hair of a rich gold color, generous shapes clothed in expensive fabrics and little more a few wrinkles in her face to reveal she was past her prime, Dante was generally thought to be beautiful. Edward did not share that opinion: he knew what kind of person hid behind that deceptive façade and beauty had nothing to do with it.
He watched her approach with wary attention coated in burning hatred. He had never been good at keeping his emotions from showing on his face: with one look, she knew his thoughts, commenting lightly, “You don’t like me very much, do you?”
He didn’t remember a single time when he’d been so angry that it made him calm, yet he didn’t feel the need to shout as he replied, “Don’t fuck with me. Envy informed me you ordered him to poison my mother. You’re pretty stupid to step in a room alone with me after that.” He was already arguing with his conscience that twisting her neck wouldn’t be that bad. She deserved it.
Dante ignored the threat, her perfectly plucked eyebrows rising sharply. “He said what?” The surprise was sincere, but he knew better than to think she was innocent: she was only surprised Envy had betrayed her secret. “You know him,” the woman lied smoothly, trying to recover. “He certainly lied to upset you.”
Who was so short he needed to be spoken to like a stupid child? “I’m not stupid enough to believe anything Envy says,” he spat at her. “The symptoms match and now I understand why the doctor was so evasive with us. Mysterious illness my ass. Envy said he meant to kill us all. Who’d want the Fuhrer’s family dead if not his ex-lover, huh?”
Dante hardly reacted. “If I wanted you dead, why did I save you? I risked my life to stop that transmutation of yours. I dare say you and your brother would have lost a lot more than a few limbs if I hadn’t been there.”
He didn’t have a good answer to that one, but he doubted Dante had done it out of the goodness of her heart. At best, she might have tripped on her own high heels and stumbled into the circle by complete accident, and from there had had no choice but to save herself.
He crossed his arms and straightened, silently cursing his small stature: it was difficult to threaten someone so damn tall. “Right. So Envy acted all on his own, not on your orders?”
“If he spoke the truth, I’m afraid so. I’ve always forbidden him from harming you but I don’t control him so well anymore,” Dante sighed, pretending to miss the three tons of sarcasm in his words. “My son’s gone insane, I’m afraid.”
“Understatement of the century,” he muttered. “He’s always been crazy.”
“No he hasn’t,” Dante snapped, unsettling him. “Hoju was a perfectly normal boy, once. A genius boy, smarter than you. He’s been driven mad by jealousy and the one to blame is that no-good father of yours.” She sniffed, anger and resentment beginning to break her mask. “You were always his favorite.”
That sounded like an insult and he reacted accordingly. “As if! Father’s--”
“You’ve always been his favorite.” Dante repeated, ice in her voice and a flash in her eyes. “His perfect little family: the gentle wife without ambition and the child genius.” She approached, all illusions of civility gone. “You’re just like him. His son meant nothing to him, no more than your mother does to you. Men. You’re always so quick to forget those who love you and to abandon them.”
Edward’s mind spun to find something to reply.
Something shifted in Dante’s eyes and she took a breath to steady herself, regaining some self-control. She took a step back and purposefully spoke again, fake sweetness in her voice to better sting. “Your mother still loves you, but what difference does it make to you? You wouldn’t help her become human even if she begged.”
The contempt and the anger were too much to take in. At what point had the world turned itself upside down? He was the one mad at her. She was evil, not him! Grasping for words, he came up with a brilliant, “You can’t make them humans. They’re failures.”
“Not failures, incomplete,” the woman said, and the implied ‘idiot’ was rather loud. “But it can be fixed.” She pulled back, her cool mask returning to smooth her features. “An exceptional alchemist might be able to create the Philosopher’s Stone and it has the power to do anything, even to affix a soul to an homunculus and make it human. I’ve been waiting to see if either of you would become talented enough to create the stone, keeping an eye on your work. You’re also his children after all.”
Nothing made sense. “Why do you collect them if you’re just going to make them human again?”
It was amazing how Dante could make him feel so foolish with one look. “Who else do you expect to take care of them? You abandoned Sloth, your teacher abandoned Wrath and your father did the same to Envy. We can’t let them roam the country.”
Edward mentally rummaged around for the scraps of his own anger but his confusion had muted it and guilt was beginning to creep in. “Just ask my father then.”
“Him?” Dante waved a hand in the air. “He’s gone, disappeared just like that. Off to find himself another pretty thing, perhaps, or he’s gotten sick of his second family too.” Edward was about to object he knew the Fuhrer had made public appearances recently, but Dante was faster, countering before he spoke it. “That was Envy,” she told him again, impatiently. “We can’t just tell the people that the Fuhrer ran away from home. It would be a disaster! Any more painfully obvious questions?”
He sat down on the nearest chair, mind reeling. Too many lies at once and he couldn’t see the hints of truth in them, assuming there were any. “I’m thinking…”
“Think all you’d like, and let me know if it would kill you to make the efforts to fix what you did to your mother.” Seemingly having had enough of him, Dante left the room.
Much better, he thought, glad to be alone with the bare walls to pick apart Dante’s lies properly. Where to start? Everything she said was at odds with what he thought was the truth, or almost: she hadn’t denied Envy’s action very strongly, so she must have been aware of that much. But of course she was, it had been her order, hadn’t it?
Not to mention her ridiculous story about the homunculi… She meant to help them? Impossible. She was not that kind of person. But she was a mother. Could she really still care for Envy? How far did a mother’s love go? How far did his mother’s-- Troubled, he chased these ideas from his mind.
He should have been thinking about escaping. His automail hadn’t been taken away and he wasn’t bound: a windowless room wasn’t enough to prevent his escape. But Dante must have known that, so what was she thinking? He must have been under watch then.
Hardly two minutes had gone by since he’d thought the situation ‘much better’ and he already had to change it to ‘much worse.’ Much, much worse, he corrected, as Sloth cautiously, almost shyly, slid inside. The door shut behind her with a sinister and ill-boding sound.
“Hello, Edward,” she spoke with that soft, stolen voice.
He could hardly stand her sight, but it would have been dangerous to look away. Her face hadn’t changed, hadn’t changed at all! She looked so sad, sadder than she ever had, and he was the one who had done this to her. “What do you want?” he swallowed, standing up and watching her approach with the usual fear and guilt. What Dante said wasn’t true, it wasn’t.
“Do I scare you?”
“No.”
Sloth smiled and reached for his cheek. He scrambled away from her touch; her hand and her smile fell at once. “I’m sorry.”
What was he supposed to say to her? He couldn’t retreat any further, so he sat on the bed, the only furniture in the room aside from the desk and the chair.
“How are you and Alphonse?”
“Why would you care? You’re not my mother.”
“I’m not,” Sloth agreed. “But I have her memories. And you created me.”
He meant to watch her closely, but he couldn’t bear to look at her for another second, muttering at the wall, “We didn’t mean to. That’s not what we wanted.”
“I’m an unwanted accident, I know.” And that sounded unfair, somewhere, but he could not argue. Yes, she was a failure. So close to what he wanted, yet so wrong his whole being rejected her.
She spoke again. “Will you do it?”
“Do what?”
She took advantage of the fact he’d turned his head away, sitting by him and drawing him to her to kiss the top of his head like his mother used to do, her soft voice so gentle, so familiar…and so hopeful too. “Will you create the stone for me, Edward? Will you make me human?”
Had he been asked how he would react in such a situation, Alphonse would have listed panic and violence long before the surreal calm filling him. In a way, he figured it was a relief that it had finally happened. He didn’t have to wonder where was the line between real danger and Edward’s paranoia anymore and could focus on the one and only thing that mattered: recovering his maybe-not-so-paranoid brother. How, he wasn’t sure.
He decided to wait for the snake woman’s return before taking a decision, assuming he had any other choice than ‘run over there and fight to death.’ He and his brother generally tried to avoid confrontations with any of the homunculi, knowing their chances of victory were laughable no matter how hard they fought. If he had to face more than one of those monsters, it would go from ‘losing battle’ to ‘suicide’. It was angering, to train so much, to know alchemy so well, and still be unable to kill or disable an homunculus. Oh, he was not entirely without weapons: he did know how to stop Lust and Sloth, and maybe even Envy. But there were at least three more of them, and any one of those would be enough to crush him to tiny bloody bits.
Roy didn’t share his calm: he’d been on the phone with Hughes for the last several minutes and wouldn’t stop pacing along the desk, his free hand’s fingers twitching impatiently. When Roy set down the phone and turned to him, it was with a perfectly controlled face and voice: the man visibly didn’t know it was his feet and hands that betrayed him. “Alphonse?”
“I’m fine.” His lips tried to form a smile but he suspected it was more like a grimace. “As fine as anyone can be when contemplating their short-term death.”
Roy studied him, unimpressed. “There will be no dying, so you may drop that ‘sad and noble self-sacrifice’ expression right now.”
“Self-sacrifice?” Alphonse almost laughed, but figured it would make him look deranged and didn’t. He instead flexed his automail and rolled the shoulder, feeling it move without a hitch. It was in perfect working order, ready to serve. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he felt thankful he had a weapon in lieu of his left arm. It would be useful in delaying his death, if nothing else. “Did I ever tell you how we got automail?”
The answer was distracted, the tone just a step from ‘don’t bother me, I’m thinking.’ “From performing human transmutation on your mother, I believe?”
“Not why, how,” he corrected. “When we did the transmutation and it started going wrong…” He picked his words slowly but there weren’t any words that could truly explained what it had been like. The transmutation circle coming to life under their fingers, the wonderful warm light turning dark, hope turning to fear. Those tendrils, dark and unreal, yet real enough to seize them, curl about their limbs and just…eat their flesh away. “My brother… his own leg was just disappearing, right, and instead of trying to do something about that, he was trying to help me, trying to get in the way. It worked. It started taking his arm instead. I was just paralyzed. It would have killed him, and I wouldn’t have done anything to stop it. Self-sacrifice is what he does. I’m not as good a brother to him as he is to me. But I have to try.”
“It took his arm and just stopped?” Roy’s attention had been captured by the revelation. Even in the middle of a crisis, that man was curious. It brought Alphonse a touch of comfort: not everything had gone to hell yet.
“Oh, no. It was stopped. Dumb luck. She-- I’m sure you’ve heard of her. She’s not seen a lot but… The Fuhrer’s mistress, they say. They might be right too.” Alphonse couldn’t help a frown; he disliked thinking about Dante. “She came in and stopped the reaction.”
“Oh, her.” Roy nodded. “We call her something less polite. I didn’t know she could do alchemy.”
“She’s very good at it. She stopped the reaction easily and called a doctor. That sounds kind of her, doesn’t it?” He wasn’t sure what he thought of it himself, but he doubted Dante was a kind person: he agreed with his brother on that count. “It’s illegal, what we did, but we weren’t punished for it. Well, not overtly. Things just changed. They didn’t care what we did before then, but after that, we couldn’t go anywhere anymore. It took everything to have short trips out the walls now and then. I thought maybe our father was protecting us, but Niisan always thought they were just waiting for something. I guess he was right.” He was babbling, he realized, and forced himself to stop, lapsing into meditative-and depressed-silence. His brother had been right, and now something bad was going on. They should have tried to escape sooner.
As Alphonse’s mood darkened, Roy’s brightened. The man patted his shoulder almost smugly. “Don’t worry. We’re not out of the game. Hughes will be here in a few minutes. Your phone might be under surveillance, but Gracia’s wouldn’t be so he can contact a few friends for me.”
“Don’t get others involved. We’re just going to run and hide somehow.” It was an illogically optimist plan, but it did sound better than ‘so I’m off to die now.’ Maybe, just maybe, they could escape successfully before an homunculus or three cornered them into a hopeless fight.
“I doubt escaping will be that easy, or Edward would already be gone. They must be watching him closely.” It was kinder than ‘don’t get naïve now’ but just as true. “I have a plan,” Roy told him smugly.
The plan in question was explained to him. As he’d expected, it was pure madness. He said so, and found his objections ignored.
“I know what I’m doing,” Roy said airily.
“I hope so, because I don’t,” he said, giving up. Roy Mustang was clearly a madman, but a mad idea was a little above a suicidal idea.
They had plenty of time to get absorbed in their individual thoughts before Martel returned, slithering back in as quietly as the first time.
“I found him.”
Alphonse jumped to his feet. “And?”
“He’s unharmed. He’s with--” Martel’s nose wrinkled up in obvious distaste. “--Sloth. She’s not hurting him. I couldn’t tell what they were whispering about.”
“Why is Sloth--?” Just the mention of her gave him shivers. “Nothing good, I’m sure.”
“They were in a room with a bed,” Martel added. “We can assume he’s meant to spend the night there.”
Roy nodded. “Good. We need as much time as we can get.”
His brother was safe. Four words that made breathing so much easier. But what was Sloth… It was worrying news, but also good news: if Sloth was Edward’s only guard, he could disable her. He only had to…to… It was distasteful, but he could do it. He would.
“I need to go somewhere.”
Roy eyed him. “Grave-robbing?” He answered with a quick nod. “You can’t go alone. I’ll go with you after I’ve spoken with Hughes.”
“Two people get noticed faster than one. It’s not dangerous. I just don’t want them to know I went there.” If they suspected he had a weapon against Sloth, they would ensure it was of no help to him. “It’ll be quick.”
“I don’t think--”
He might have taken issue with Roy’s opposition to his plans if Martel hadn’t interrupted. “Tell me where you want to go. Nobody will see us if we use my ways.”
Like anybody else with a minimal amount of intelligence, Alphonse would never have considered entering the air ducts knowing what dangerous creatures guarded them. But Roy assured him it was safe to follow Martel, and follow her he finally did. It was a narrow uncomfortable dark space that made him glad for his small size and for his guide too; she was unnaturally quiet, but he could still hear her hands and knees brushing softly against the metal just in front of him. They didn’t have to go far before they ran into the first cat-snakes; their glowing eyes and hissing were warning enough for anyone. These were the only cats Alphonse did not wish to cuddle.
Martel paused to hiss back and the eye retreated quietly. “Come on,” the woman’s voice came in a soft whisper. “They won’t bother us.”
Alphonse glimpsed a few more glowing eyes but, as promised, the chimeras didn’t approach them. Were they afraid of the snake woman or did they obey her? He didn’t know, and had no time to waste finding out.
It was difficult to orient himself from inside the walls; he had to turn back twice before he found his destination. Through the normal way there would have been guards and heavy doors blocking the way to the Fuhrer’s quarters, while this unusual way didn’t have any other obstacle than the grid at the very end. None among the architects and security personnel had considered a scenario where a snake woman might sweet-talk (or terrify?) the guardian chimeras into letting people through.
Martel waited long moments before unscrewing the grid, ensuring they were alone, and helped him down. Once on the floor, Alphonse found himself looking at a room he never thought he’d see again: the living room of their old quarters, where they had once lived with their mother and father.
It was vast and richly furnished, befitting the Fuhrer’s station, but currently creepily empty. He hadn’t expected the Fuhrer to be there, remembering how the man had always spent most of his time trying to run a country that had no few problems, but there was a feeling of abandonment in this room, like no one had been there for a long time aside perhaps the maid. Did the Fuhrer live with his mistress now?
No matter. It was good that nobody was there to get in his way, and doubly good that he couldn’t empty his heart at the Fuhrer because that might have taken a while.
The backyard was just as vast as the residence and just as private, allowing no one to witness the terrible thing he meant to do. Two tombstones were located in the far back corner, shadowed by an oak tree older than any living human. The family graves, as it were. On one, the name Trisha Elric; on the other, Hohenhiem Junior. No dates were provided for either, but while one tombstone was bare, the other featured a myriad of flowers etched in the stone. It was the only time Edward’s artistic taste, if it could be called that, hadn’t expressed itself in an outrageous, over-the-top manner. Not that Edward had been very inclined to create art in the last few years…
A hiss, coming from seemingly nowhere, reminded him there was no time to delay. He forced himself to kneel in front of his mother’s grave, pressing his hands into the cool grass.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered to the stone.
He closed his eyes, thought of his brother, and began to dig.
By the time Roy was done talking, Hughes was gaping at him. “Let me get this straight, Mustang… You want to stage a rebellion to rescue your boy toy?”
Roy leaned a little further into the couch and stretched out his legs, projecting absolute self-confidence at his doubting friend. “I told you, I don’t have any choice. Even if we managed to take Edward back and run, they’d pursue us. They need to be taken down, but we can’t do it alone and if you get involved, you and Gracia will be in danger anyway. The only option I see is to rope everybody into this. We can take those bastards down and gain control of the situation. It would be a nice change, wouldn’t it?” Hughes was eying him skeptically, so he smiled and added, “In other words, yes, you understand perfectly.”
Hughes finally consented to seat himself on the opposite couch, sitting on the edge and leaning over the table between them. The sun reflected in Hughes’ glasses and made it impossible to see his eyes but Roy didn’t need to see them to know how seriously Hughes took this, as he did everything truly important. Roy himself preferred to avoid taking things seriously: taking things seriously had a tendency to darken one mood’s and allow unfun things like fear to take roots. He had no need for fear, doubts or sanity: what he needed was enough recklessness and stubbornness to overcome the odds and come out on top, somehow. Preferably in one piece too.
“But why?” Hughes asked, lowering his head to watch Roy over the rim of his glasses. “You refused to get involved when Bard asked your help to do the same thing, why do you want to do it now? What changed?”
“I knew it wouldn’t work. Bard can’t see past his nose. His approach was to unite the lowest cast and aggress the highest cast in its own fortifications. You’ve seen the walls, the chimeras, the alchemists and the sins: how could they win against all that? I wouldn’t waste my life on such a stupid plan.” If stupidity was to get him killed, it would be his own, not somebody else’s. “I know better, Hughes,” he said firmly. “I know I can make it work. We have a chance now, a real one, and we should seize it.”
“That sounds noble, and entirely unlike you. ‘We have a chance and we should seize it’ ?” Hughes shook his head. “Let me correct that for you: the reason you want to do this is that they provoked you and you’re getting protective.”
“Mm.” He did get a little protective of people sometimes, he couldn’t very well deny it: Hughes could have brought up a few occasions in which he’d done reckless and dangerous things for one of his very few friends. He wouldn’t have called Edward a friend, but he had a claim on the guy, damnit. He shrugged as casually as he could. “More like possessive. Do you know how close I was to scoring? It’s not the time to steal my toys.”
Hughes merely smiled. “That’s more like you. What exactly is the plan?”
“In a few words, we storm the inner city and seize control. We’re insiders so we can arrange to open the gates for the others. That’s the key. Once our troops are in here, we’ll have the upper hand. But we’re not just going to fight ahead blindly: we’re going to target the Fuhrer and all the sins we can take down.” He answered Hughes’ protest before it was voiced, “It’s not impossible. The boys know a few tricks and Alphonse is working on it right now. If we can eliminate the Fuhrer it’ll be much harder for the soldiers to fight effectively and there won’t be anybody to order the sins in the fight.”
Listening with his head tilted and his eyes downcast, Hughes was quick to point out a few flaws in his fancy ‘I thought this up in five minutes’ plan. “The army might still get organized around their generals. And don’t forget the alchemists. There’s a ton of them in here.”
“Alchemists can be shot like anyone else and once we’re inside, they won’t be able to hide so well. Beside,” he smirked, “I have a few surprises for them. I plan to hit them first, and hard. Between Scar and me, we can make a show. Most of those alchemists don’t know what it is like to be in real danger: they’re used to attack from a safe distance. They’ll fold if they think we can match their alchemy. As for the army…”
Roy finally acknowledged Gracia’s presence, glancing at her uneasily: he did not approve of her presence but Hughes had been quite adamant about it. The blonde woman had taken a seat at the dinner table and hadn’t spoken a word so far, listening with rapt attention. When he met her eyes, he saw no fear or horror in them, nothing to hint she might be scared or likely to betray them.
“It would be good if we could have Armstrong on our side,” he said to Hughes while his eyes were on Gracia. “The blondies aren’t so happy with the Fuhrer either. Their life is strictly controlled and the sins watch them. If we can get some of them to join us, it will limit the bloodshed. That’s the other part Bard never understood: many blondies are not our enemies. We should try to work together.”
“Gracia?” Hughes prompted.
“Armstrong might be swayed,” Gracia answered after a moment of reflection. “He has a very strong sense of justice, and he has never been content with the way things are. If there’s hope to change it… As for the others, Roy is right. There’s no love for the Fuhrer and his monsters here. People are terrified. The segregation isn’t that popular either. Many lost contact with family members because of it. And things have changed a little in the last few years: I’m not the only one who defies the law and keeps contact with family members on the outside. I think that someone like General Armstrong could give those people a reason to support us.”
Pleased, he let the tension ease from his shoulders: so far, so good. “Well then, Hughes, does that answer your questions?”
“Only you, Mustang.” The beginning of a smile stretched Hughes’ lips. “Only you would try to get both blondies and mongrels to work together to serve your own selfish goals.”
What could he say? He rose to his feet and took a bow. “Thank you.”
Shaking his head like he couldn’t believe himself, Hughes conceded, “Alright. It’s got a tiny chance of not getting us all killed. I’m in. I’ll contact Bard and Lyra. They went pretty far underground to escape the Fuhrer’s vicious dogs but they’re still there. Knowing them, they can probably deploy pretty fast. I just need to convince them to hurry.”
It was exactly what Roy had wanted to hear: after Envy’s distasteful idea to use his looks to carry out Cornello’s assassination, he didn’t think he should be the one to show his face in the slums. Plenty of people liked to shoot first and asks questions later, if at all. “Thank you. I’ll handle Armstrong and Scar on my end. Alphonse should be of some help about them.”
“The timing is going to be tight, you realize. I don’t know if we can get them in here before Edward gets in more trouble than we can help him with.” Translation: dead.
“I know. We have a spy for that. She found Edward and will keep an eye on him. If it can’t wait, she can try to get him out, but that’s a last resort. I want those soldiers in bed when we attack, not on alert and searching for Edward. The faster we move in, the quicker it’ll be over.”
Hughes rose and they clasped each other’s forearm, grinning like the reckless children they weren’t supposed to be anymore.
Gracia interrupted them, voice soft but words firms. “I’m going with Maes.”
Hughes was visibly horrified by the idea. “You better stay here. It’ll be dangerous.”
Gracia gave Hughes a Look. “Did you forget you’re leading them here? It will be dangerous for everybody. There are many women and children here and someone needs to tell your friends they’re not your enemies. If you want to convince them blondies can be on their side, you need an example, don’t you think? If I can be of some help, I better go.” She paused. “If you leave me here, I can’t promise I won’t try to warm the families to get their children to safety, and that would put your plans in jeopardy, wouldn’t it? It only takes one person to tell a soldier, and it’s over.”
Tough he said nothing, Roy had to admit he was impressed: that gentle-looking woman was more devious than he’d expected. Now they almost didn’t have a choice but to let her go.
Hughes argued and pleaded, but ultimately had to bow to Gracia’s will, unable to oppose his ‘angel.’ Roy held back a smirk. Whipped.
Alphonse returned a few moments later, walking in normally through the door. His clothes were stained with dirt and he’d torn his shirt to wrap up something that he held tight in his fist.
Martel was nowhere to be seen, but Roy supposed she wasn’t far, perhaps watching them right now. That woman was already a precious ally and he regretted being too short on time to show her his appreciation properly. She wasn’t exactly normal but a little strangeness wasn’t enough to discourage him.
“I have them,” Alphonse announced with a flat voice and guilty eyes. “It should be enough to take care of Sloth and Envy. Lust already can’t touch us. Once we have Greed with us, we should be able to handle the others.” Without prompting, the blonde added, “Martel is gone to check on my brother, just to make sure he’s okay. I wanted to go but she said I probably can’t get there without breaking a few bones.”
Amazement bloomed on Hughes’ face. “You’ve put more thoughts into this than I expected, Mustang. We have a sin on our side?”
“I’m full of surprise,” he said modestly, picking up the phone and dialing one of the numbers taped to it. “I’ll inform the Armstrongs we’d like to have a talk with them… Hello? I’d like to talk to Catherine or Alex-Louis please.” He got his wish, but the conversation went downhill in a few seconds, leaving him quite bewildered. “He’s what?” Even hearing it twice didn’t make it make sense. He eyed Alphonse. “Were you aware you’re engaged to Catherine?”
“I’m what?”
“That’s what I thought.”
When I came up with this story, it didn't occur to me to think about HOW one writes something as complicated as a war/rebellion/thing. This is going to be fun... O-o;
Rating: PG
Genre: AU
Pairing: Multiple
Length: 5, 406 words
Notes: And all is revealed! Sort of. Maybe.
Edward wasn’t sure what to expect, but he suspected it would be ugly and painful, as well as deadly sooner or later. He’d been abandoned in a poorly furnished room (cell?) for a length of time that felt like forever thanks to the way his mind was running circles inside his skull like a gerbil on crack, but with less crack and more ‘being worried sick about Alphonse and fiercely hoping Roy had enough brain cells to flee so they wouldn’t get caught in whatever was going on.’
He was in the middle of trying to brainwash Roy with the power of his mind (do the smart thing and leave, do the smart thing and leave…are you gone yet?) when she came in, her high heels making a detestable sound on the stone floor. She’d always worn them, he recalled, and he used to think they were meant to warn she was approaching.
With abundant hair of a rich gold color, generous shapes clothed in expensive fabrics and little more a few wrinkles in her face to reveal she was past her prime, Dante was generally thought to be beautiful. Edward did not share that opinion: he knew what kind of person hid behind that deceptive façade and beauty had nothing to do with it.
He watched her approach with wary attention coated in burning hatred. He had never been good at keeping his emotions from showing on his face: with one look, she knew his thoughts, commenting lightly, “You don’t like me very much, do you?”
He didn’t remember a single time when he’d been so angry that it made him calm, yet he didn’t feel the need to shout as he replied, “Don’t fuck with me. Envy informed me you ordered him to poison my mother. You’re pretty stupid to step in a room alone with me after that.” He was already arguing with his conscience that twisting her neck wouldn’t be that bad. She deserved it.
Dante ignored the threat, her perfectly plucked eyebrows rising sharply. “He said what?” The surprise was sincere, but he knew better than to think she was innocent: she was only surprised Envy had betrayed her secret. “You know him,” the woman lied smoothly, trying to recover. “He certainly lied to upset you.”
Who was so short he needed to be spoken to like a stupid child? “I’m not stupid enough to believe anything Envy says,” he spat at her. “The symptoms match and now I understand why the doctor was so evasive with us. Mysterious illness my ass. Envy said he meant to kill us all. Who’d want the Fuhrer’s family dead if not his ex-lover, huh?”
Dante hardly reacted. “If I wanted you dead, why did I save you? I risked my life to stop that transmutation of yours. I dare say you and your brother would have lost a lot more than a few limbs if I hadn’t been there.”
He didn’t have a good answer to that one, but he doubted Dante had done it out of the goodness of her heart. At best, she might have tripped on her own high heels and stumbled into the circle by complete accident, and from there had had no choice but to save herself.
He crossed his arms and straightened, silently cursing his small stature: it was difficult to threaten someone so damn tall. “Right. So Envy acted all on his own, not on your orders?”
“If he spoke the truth, I’m afraid so. I’ve always forbidden him from harming you but I don’t control him so well anymore,” Dante sighed, pretending to miss the three tons of sarcasm in his words. “My son’s gone insane, I’m afraid.”
“Understatement of the century,” he muttered. “He’s always been crazy.”
“No he hasn’t,” Dante snapped, unsettling him. “Hoju was a perfectly normal boy, once. A genius boy, smarter than you. He’s been driven mad by jealousy and the one to blame is that no-good father of yours.” She sniffed, anger and resentment beginning to break her mask. “You were always his favorite.”
That sounded like an insult and he reacted accordingly. “As if! Father’s--”
“You’ve always been his favorite.” Dante repeated, ice in her voice and a flash in her eyes. “His perfect little family: the gentle wife without ambition and the child genius.” She approached, all illusions of civility gone. “You’re just like him. His son meant nothing to him, no more than your mother does to you. Men. You’re always so quick to forget those who love you and to abandon them.”
Edward’s mind spun to find something to reply.
Something shifted in Dante’s eyes and she took a breath to steady herself, regaining some self-control. She took a step back and purposefully spoke again, fake sweetness in her voice to better sting. “Your mother still loves you, but what difference does it make to you? You wouldn’t help her become human even if she begged.”
The contempt and the anger were too much to take in. At what point had the world turned itself upside down? He was the one mad at her. She was evil, not him! Grasping for words, he came up with a brilliant, “You can’t make them humans. They’re failures.”
“Not failures, incomplete,” the woman said, and the implied ‘idiot’ was rather loud. “But it can be fixed.” She pulled back, her cool mask returning to smooth her features. “An exceptional alchemist might be able to create the Philosopher’s Stone and it has the power to do anything, even to affix a soul to an homunculus and make it human. I’ve been waiting to see if either of you would become talented enough to create the stone, keeping an eye on your work. You’re also his children after all.”
Nothing made sense. “Why do you collect them if you’re just going to make them human again?”
It was amazing how Dante could make him feel so foolish with one look. “Who else do you expect to take care of them? You abandoned Sloth, your teacher abandoned Wrath and your father did the same to Envy. We can’t let them roam the country.”
Edward mentally rummaged around for the scraps of his own anger but his confusion had muted it and guilt was beginning to creep in. “Just ask my father then.”
“Him?” Dante waved a hand in the air. “He’s gone, disappeared just like that. Off to find himself another pretty thing, perhaps, or he’s gotten sick of his second family too.” Edward was about to object he knew the Fuhrer had made public appearances recently, but Dante was faster, countering before he spoke it. “That was Envy,” she told him again, impatiently. “We can’t just tell the people that the Fuhrer ran away from home. It would be a disaster! Any more painfully obvious questions?”
He sat down on the nearest chair, mind reeling. Too many lies at once and he couldn’t see the hints of truth in them, assuming there were any. “I’m thinking…”
“Think all you’d like, and let me know if it would kill you to make the efforts to fix what you did to your mother.” Seemingly having had enough of him, Dante left the room.
Much better, he thought, glad to be alone with the bare walls to pick apart Dante’s lies properly. Where to start? Everything she said was at odds with what he thought was the truth, or almost: she hadn’t denied Envy’s action very strongly, so she must have been aware of that much. But of course she was, it had been her order, hadn’t it?
Not to mention her ridiculous story about the homunculi… She meant to help them? Impossible. She was not that kind of person. But she was a mother. Could she really still care for Envy? How far did a mother’s love go? How far did his mother’s-- Troubled, he chased these ideas from his mind.
He should have been thinking about escaping. His automail hadn’t been taken away and he wasn’t bound: a windowless room wasn’t enough to prevent his escape. But Dante must have known that, so what was she thinking? He must have been under watch then.
Hardly two minutes had gone by since he’d thought the situation ‘much better’ and he already had to change it to ‘much worse.’ Much, much worse, he corrected, as Sloth cautiously, almost shyly, slid inside. The door shut behind her with a sinister and ill-boding sound.
“Hello, Edward,” she spoke with that soft, stolen voice.
He could hardly stand her sight, but it would have been dangerous to look away. Her face hadn’t changed, hadn’t changed at all! She looked so sad, sadder than she ever had, and he was the one who had done this to her. “What do you want?” he swallowed, standing up and watching her approach with the usual fear and guilt. What Dante said wasn’t true, it wasn’t.
“Do I scare you?”
“No.”
Sloth smiled and reached for his cheek. He scrambled away from her touch; her hand and her smile fell at once. “I’m sorry.”
What was he supposed to say to her? He couldn’t retreat any further, so he sat on the bed, the only furniture in the room aside from the desk and the chair.
“How are you and Alphonse?”
“Why would you care? You’re not my mother.”
“I’m not,” Sloth agreed. “But I have her memories. And you created me.”
He meant to watch her closely, but he couldn’t bear to look at her for another second, muttering at the wall, “We didn’t mean to. That’s not what we wanted.”
“I’m an unwanted accident, I know.” And that sounded unfair, somewhere, but he could not argue. Yes, she was a failure. So close to what he wanted, yet so wrong his whole being rejected her.
She spoke again. “Will you do it?”
“Do what?”
She took advantage of the fact he’d turned his head away, sitting by him and drawing him to her to kiss the top of his head like his mother used to do, her soft voice so gentle, so familiar…and so hopeful too. “Will you create the stone for me, Edward? Will you make me human?”
Had he been asked how he would react in such a situation, Alphonse would have listed panic and violence long before the surreal calm filling him. In a way, he figured it was a relief that it had finally happened. He didn’t have to wonder where was the line between real danger and Edward’s paranoia anymore and could focus on the one and only thing that mattered: recovering his maybe-not-so-paranoid brother. How, he wasn’t sure.
He decided to wait for the snake woman’s return before taking a decision, assuming he had any other choice than ‘run over there and fight to death.’ He and his brother generally tried to avoid confrontations with any of the homunculi, knowing their chances of victory were laughable no matter how hard they fought. If he had to face more than one of those monsters, it would go from ‘losing battle’ to ‘suicide’. It was angering, to train so much, to know alchemy so well, and still be unable to kill or disable an homunculus. Oh, he was not entirely without weapons: he did know how to stop Lust and Sloth, and maybe even Envy. But there were at least three more of them, and any one of those would be enough to crush him to tiny bloody bits.
Roy didn’t share his calm: he’d been on the phone with Hughes for the last several minutes and wouldn’t stop pacing along the desk, his free hand’s fingers twitching impatiently. When Roy set down the phone and turned to him, it was with a perfectly controlled face and voice: the man visibly didn’t know it was his feet and hands that betrayed him. “Alphonse?”
“I’m fine.” His lips tried to form a smile but he suspected it was more like a grimace. “As fine as anyone can be when contemplating their short-term death.”
Roy studied him, unimpressed. “There will be no dying, so you may drop that ‘sad and noble self-sacrifice’ expression right now.”
“Self-sacrifice?” Alphonse almost laughed, but figured it would make him look deranged and didn’t. He instead flexed his automail and rolled the shoulder, feeling it move without a hitch. It was in perfect working order, ready to serve. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he felt thankful he had a weapon in lieu of his left arm. It would be useful in delaying his death, if nothing else. “Did I ever tell you how we got automail?”
The answer was distracted, the tone just a step from ‘don’t bother me, I’m thinking.’ “From performing human transmutation on your mother, I believe?”
“Not why, how,” he corrected. “When we did the transmutation and it started going wrong…” He picked his words slowly but there weren’t any words that could truly explained what it had been like. The transmutation circle coming to life under their fingers, the wonderful warm light turning dark, hope turning to fear. Those tendrils, dark and unreal, yet real enough to seize them, curl about their limbs and just…eat their flesh away. “My brother… his own leg was just disappearing, right, and instead of trying to do something about that, he was trying to help me, trying to get in the way. It worked. It started taking his arm instead. I was just paralyzed. It would have killed him, and I wouldn’t have done anything to stop it. Self-sacrifice is what he does. I’m not as good a brother to him as he is to me. But I have to try.”
“It took his arm and just stopped?” Roy’s attention had been captured by the revelation. Even in the middle of a crisis, that man was curious. It brought Alphonse a touch of comfort: not everything had gone to hell yet.
“Oh, no. It was stopped. Dumb luck. She-- I’m sure you’ve heard of her. She’s not seen a lot but… The Fuhrer’s mistress, they say. They might be right too.” Alphonse couldn’t help a frown; he disliked thinking about Dante. “She came in and stopped the reaction.”
“Oh, her.” Roy nodded. “We call her something less polite. I didn’t know she could do alchemy.”
“She’s very good at it. She stopped the reaction easily and called a doctor. That sounds kind of her, doesn’t it?” He wasn’t sure what he thought of it himself, but he doubted Dante was a kind person: he agreed with his brother on that count. “It’s illegal, what we did, but we weren’t punished for it. Well, not overtly. Things just changed. They didn’t care what we did before then, but after that, we couldn’t go anywhere anymore. It took everything to have short trips out the walls now and then. I thought maybe our father was protecting us, but Niisan always thought they were just waiting for something. I guess he was right.” He was babbling, he realized, and forced himself to stop, lapsing into meditative-and depressed-silence. His brother had been right, and now something bad was going on. They should have tried to escape sooner.
As Alphonse’s mood darkened, Roy’s brightened. The man patted his shoulder almost smugly. “Don’t worry. We’re not out of the game. Hughes will be here in a few minutes. Your phone might be under surveillance, but Gracia’s wouldn’t be so he can contact a few friends for me.”
“Don’t get others involved. We’re just going to run and hide somehow.” It was an illogically optimist plan, but it did sound better than ‘so I’m off to die now.’ Maybe, just maybe, they could escape successfully before an homunculus or three cornered them into a hopeless fight.
“I doubt escaping will be that easy, or Edward would already be gone. They must be watching him closely.” It was kinder than ‘don’t get naïve now’ but just as true. “I have a plan,” Roy told him smugly.
The plan in question was explained to him. As he’d expected, it was pure madness. He said so, and found his objections ignored.
“I know what I’m doing,” Roy said airily.
“I hope so, because I don’t,” he said, giving up. Roy Mustang was clearly a madman, but a mad idea was a little above a suicidal idea.
They had plenty of time to get absorbed in their individual thoughts before Martel returned, slithering back in as quietly as the first time.
“I found him.”
Alphonse jumped to his feet. “And?”
“He’s unharmed. He’s with--” Martel’s nose wrinkled up in obvious distaste. “--Sloth. She’s not hurting him. I couldn’t tell what they were whispering about.”
“Why is Sloth--?” Just the mention of her gave him shivers. “Nothing good, I’m sure.”
“They were in a room with a bed,” Martel added. “We can assume he’s meant to spend the night there.”
Roy nodded. “Good. We need as much time as we can get.”
His brother was safe. Four words that made breathing so much easier. But what was Sloth… It was worrying news, but also good news: if Sloth was Edward’s only guard, he could disable her. He only had to…to… It was distasteful, but he could do it. He would.
“I need to go somewhere.”
Roy eyed him. “Grave-robbing?” He answered with a quick nod. “You can’t go alone. I’ll go with you after I’ve spoken with Hughes.”
“Two people get noticed faster than one. It’s not dangerous. I just don’t want them to know I went there.” If they suspected he had a weapon against Sloth, they would ensure it was of no help to him. “It’ll be quick.”
“I don’t think--”
He might have taken issue with Roy’s opposition to his plans if Martel hadn’t interrupted. “Tell me where you want to go. Nobody will see us if we use my ways.”
Like anybody else with a minimal amount of intelligence, Alphonse would never have considered entering the air ducts knowing what dangerous creatures guarded them. But Roy assured him it was safe to follow Martel, and follow her he finally did. It was a narrow uncomfortable dark space that made him glad for his small size and for his guide too; she was unnaturally quiet, but he could still hear her hands and knees brushing softly against the metal just in front of him. They didn’t have to go far before they ran into the first cat-snakes; their glowing eyes and hissing were warning enough for anyone. These were the only cats Alphonse did not wish to cuddle.
Martel paused to hiss back and the eye retreated quietly. “Come on,” the woman’s voice came in a soft whisper. “They won’t bother us.”
Alphonse glimpsed a few more glowing eyes but, as promised, the chimeras didn’t approach them. Were they afraid of the snake woman or did they obey her? He didn’t know, and had no time to waste finding out.
It was difficult to orient himself from inside the walls; he had to turn back twice before he found his destination. Through the normal way there would have been guards and heavy doors blocking the way to the Fuhrer’s quarters, while this unusual way didn’t have any other obstacle than the grid at the very end. None among the architects and security personnel had considered a scenario where a snake woman might sweet-talk (or terrify?) the guardian chimeras into letting people through.
Martel waited long moments before unscrewing the grid, ensuring they were alone, and helped him down. Once on the floor, Alphonse found himself looking at a room he never thought he’d see again: the living room of their old quarters, where they had once lived with their mother and father.
It was vast and richly furnished, befitting the Fuhrer’s station, but currently creepily empty. He hadn’t expected the Fuhrer to be there, remembering how the man had always spent most of his time trying to run a country that had no few problems, but there was a feeling of abandonment in this room, like no one had been there for a long time aside perhaps the maid. Did the Fuhrer live with his mistress now?
No matter. It was good that nobody was there to get in his way, and doubly good that he couldn’t empty his heart at the Fuhrer because that might have taken a while.
The backyard was just as vast as the residence and just as private, allowing no one to witness the terrible thing he meant to do. Two tombstones were located in the far back corner, shadowed by an oak tree older than any living human. The family graves, as it were. On one, the name Trisha Elric; on the other, Hohenhiem Junior. No dates were provided for either, but while one tombstone was bare, the other featured a myriad of flowers etched in the stone. It was the only time Edward’s artistic taste, if it could be called that, hadn’t expressed itself in an outrageous, over-the-top manner. Not that Edward had been very inclined to create art in the last few years…
A hiss, coming from seemingly nowhere, reminded him there was no time to delay. He forced himself to kneel in front of his mother’s grave, pressing his hands into the cool grass.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered to the stone.
He closed his eyes, thought of his brother, and began to dig.
By the time Roy was done talking, Hughes was gaping at him. “Let me get this straight, Mustang… You want to stage a rebellion to rescue your boy toy?”
Roy leaned a little further into the couch and stretched out his legs, projecting absolute self-confidence at his doubting friend. “I told you, I don’t have any choice. Even if we managed to take Edward back and run, they’d pursue us. They need to be taken down, but we can’t do it alone and if you get involved, you and Gracia will be in danger anyway. The only option I see is to rope everybody into this. We can take those bastards down and gain control of the situation. It would be a nice change, wouldn’t it?” Hughes was eying him skeptically, so he smiled and added, “In other words, yes, you understand perfectly.”
Hughes finally consented to seat himself on the opposite couch, sitting on the edge and leaning over the table between them. The sun reflected in Hughes’ glasses and made it impossible to see his eyes but Roy didn’t need to see them to know how seriously Hughes took this, as he did everything truly important. Roy himself preferred to avoid taking things seriously: taking things seriously had a tendency to darken one mood’s and allow unfun things like fear to take roots. He had no need for fear, doubts or sanity: what he needed was enough recklessness and stubbornness to overcome the odds and come out on top, somehow. Preferably in one piece too.
“But why?” Hughes asked, lowering his head to watch Roy over the rim of his glasses. “You refused to get involved when Bard asked your help to do the same thing, why do you want to do it now? What changed?”
“I knew it wouldn’t work. Bard can’t see past his nose. His approach was to unite the lowest cast and aggress the highest cast in its own fortifications. You’ve seen the walls, the chimeras, the alchemists and the sins: how could they win against all that? I wouldn’t waste my life on such a stupid plan.” If stupidity was to get him killed, it would be his own, not somebody else’s. “I know better, Hughes,” he said firmly. “I know I can make it work. We have a chance now, a real one, and we should seize it.”
“That sounds noble, and entirely unlike you. ‘We have a chance and we should seize it’ ?” Hughes shook his head. “Let me correct that for you: the reason you want to do this is that they provoked you and you’re getting protective.”
“Mm.” He did get a little protective of people sometimes, he couldn’t very well deny it: Hughes could have brought up a few occasions in which he’d done reckless and dangerous things for one of his very few friends. He wouldn’t have called Edward a friend, but he had a claim on the guy, damnit. He shrugged as casually as he could. “More like possessive. Do you know how close I was to scoring? It’s not the time to steal my toys.”
Hughes merely smiled. “That’s more like you. What exactly is the plan?”
“In a few words, we storm the inner city and seize control. We’re insiders so we can arrange to open the gates for the others. That’s the key. Once our troops are in here, we’ll have the upper hand. But we’re not just going to fight ahead blindly: we’re going to target the Fuhrer and all the sins we can take down.” He answered Hughes’ protest before it was voiced, “It’s not impossible. The boys know a few tricks and Alphonse is working on it right now. If we can eliminate the Fuhrer it’ll be much harder for the soldiers to fight effectively and there won’t be anybody to order the sins in the fight.”
Listening with his head tilted and his eyes downcast, Hughes was quick to point out a few flaws in his fancy ‘I thought this up in five minutes’ plan. “The army might still get organized around their generals. And don’t forget the alchemists. There’s a ton of them in here.”
“Alchemists can be shot like anyone else and once we’re inside, they won’t be able to hide so well. Beside,” he smirked, “I have a few surprises for them. I plan to hit them first, and hard. Between Scar and me, we can make a show. Most of those alchemists don’t know what it is like to be in real danger: they’re used to attack from a safe distance. They’ll fold if they think we can match their alchemy. As for the army…”
Roy finally acknowledged Gracia’s presence, glancing at her uneasily: he did not approve of her presence but Hughes had been quite adamant about it. The blonde woman had taken a seat at the dinner table and hadn’t spoken a word so far, listening with rapt attention. When he met her eyes, he saw no fear or horror in them, nothing to hint she might be scared or likely to betray them.
“It would be good if we could have Armstrong on our side,” he said to Hughes while his eyes were on Gracia. “The blondies aren’t so happy with the Fuhrer either. Their life is strictly controlled and the sins watch them. If we can get some of them to join us, it will limit the bloodshed. That’s the other part Bard never understood: many blondies are not our enemies. We should try to work together.”
“Gracia?” Hughes prompted.
“Armstrong might be swayed,” Gracia answered after a moment of reflection. “He has a very strong sense of justice, and he has never been content with the way things are. If there’s hope to change it… As for the others, Roy is right. There’s no love for the Fuhrer and his monsters here. People are terrified. The segregation isn’t that popular either. Many lost contact with family members because of it. And things have changed a little in the last few years: I’m not the only one who defies the law and keeps contact with family members on the outside. I think that someone like General Armstrong could give those people a reason to support us.”
Pleased, he let the tension ease from his shoulders: so far, so good. “Well then, Hughes, does that answer your questions?”
“Only you, Mustang.” The beginning of a smile stretched Hughes’ lips. “Only you would try to get both blondies and mongrels to work together to serve your own selfish goals.”
What could he say? He rose to his feet and took a bow. “Thank you.”
Shaking his head like he couldn’t believe himself, Hughes conceded, “Alright. It’s got a tiny chance of not getting us all killed. I’m in. I’ll contact Bard and Lyra. They went pretty far underground to escape the Fuhrer’s vicious dogs but they’re still there. Knowing them, they can probably deploy pretty fast. I just need to convince them to hurry.”
It was exactly what Roy had wanted to hear: after Envy’s distasteful idea to use his looks to carry out Cornello’s assassination, he didn’t think he should be the one to show his face in the slums. Plenty of people liked to shoot first and asks questions later, if at all. “Thank you. I’ll handle Armstrong and Scar on my end. Alphonse should be of some help about them.”
“The timing is going to be tight, you realize. I don’t know if we can get them in here before Edward gets in more trouble than we can help him with.” Translation: dead.
“I know. We have a spy for that. She found Edward and will keep an eye on him. If it can’t wait, she can try to get him out, but that’s a last resort. I want those soldiers in bed when we attack, not on alert and searching for Edward. The faster we move in, the quicker it’ll be over.”
Hughes rose and they clasped each other’s forearm, grinning like the reckless children they weren’t supposed to be anymore.
Gracia interrupted them, voice soft but words firms. “I’m going with Maes.”
Hughes was visibly horrified by the idea. “You better stay here. It’ll be dangerous.”
Gracia gave Hughes a Look. “Did you forget you’re leading them here? It will be dangerous for everybody. There are many women and children here and someone needs to tell your friends they’re not your enemies. If you want to convince them blondies can be on their side, you need an example, don’t you think? If I can be of some help, I better go.” She paused. “If you leave me here, I can’t promise I won’t try to warm the families to get their children to safety, and that would put your plans in jeopardy, wouldn’t it? It only takes one person to tell a soldier, and it’s over.”
Tough he said nothing, Roy had to admit he was impressed: that gentle-looking woman was more devious than he’d expected. Now they almost didn’t have a choice but to let her go.
Hughes argued and pleaded, but ultimately had to bow to Gracia’s will, unable to oppose his ‘angel.’ Roy held back a smirk. Whipped.
Alphonse returned a few moments later, walking in normally through the door. His clothes were stained with dirt and he’d torn his shirt to wrap up something that he held tight in his fist.
Martel was nowhere to be seen, but Roy supposed she wasn’t far, perhaps watching them right now. That woman was already a precious ally and he regretted being too short on time to show her his appreciation properly. She wasn’t exactly normal but a little strangeness wasn’t enough to discourage him.
“I have them,” Alphonse announced with a flat voice and guilty eyes. “It should be enough to take care of Sloth and Envy. Lust already can’t touch us. Once we have Greed with us, we should be able to handle the others.” Without prompting, the blonde added, “Martel is gone to check on my brother, just to make sure he’s okay. I wanted to go but she said I probably can’t get there without breaking a few bones.”
Amazement bloomed on Hughes’ face. “You’ve put more thoughts into this than I expected, Mustang. We have a sin on our side?”
“I’m full of surprise,” he said modestly, picking up the phone and dialing one of the numbers taped to it. “I’ll inform the Armstrongs we’d like to have a talk with them… Hello? I’d like to talk to Catherine or Alex-Louis please.” He got his wish, but the conversation went downhill in a few seconds, leaving him quite bewildered. “He’s what?” Even hearing it twice didn’t make it make sense. He eyed Alphonse. “Were you aware you’re engaged to Catherine?”
“I’m what?”
“That’s what I thought.”
When I came up with this story, it didn't occur to me to think about HOW one writes something as complicated as a war/rebellion/thing. This is going to be fun... O-o;