(Untitled)

[tengu_mod]

It was raining. Drizzling. Water dripped onto open umbrellas at the funeral site, into the open holes awaiting their caskets - five of them, austere in black and silver. A large amount of the town stood murmuring to one another between the lines of the sermon, clustered beneath their umbrellas. How appropriate, they muttered, was the weather?

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[ashyperfume]

Apart from them, away from the chatter and up a small hill, stood a woman in a long overcoat. Red lips matched her red nails, and she stubbed out a worn-down cigarette beneath the toe of her shoe. She lit another, her breath a trail of smoke in the damp air.

She did not cry.

[wes_bluemarine]

'Chaotic' wasn't even the beginning of the state his head was in, and certainly just barely scraped the surface of the emotions rushing around inside him. His heartbeat was erratic and he hardly remembered he had five senses at all. What was going on? What just happened?

His body had been in the middle of walking, a realisation he came to only when he shuddered to a wobbly stop. There were images, and sounds, and smells... His senses were returning. He felt wet. Instinctively, Weather pressed his fingers to his forehead and looked, expecting to see blood. To his surprise, there was none. It was raining; he was wet from the rain. Not only that, but his body felt whole. He was standing on two feet, and no part of him ached in the slightest.

Was... This the afterlife?

Weather looked around in confusion. Wasn't there supposed to be big pearly gates? Singing angels? Virgins at least? 'Ha, wishful thinking,' he told himself. So then where was the fire, the demons, and the pain and torture

[ashyperfume]

Nudged out of her solitude, the woman flicked her gaze towards him, taking him in with a long, appraising glance. Whether or not he met approval, however, was not something her face revealed.

"New, are you?" she queried, tapping the ashes off her cigarette. "Or drunk?"

Either way, she didn't seem to wait for an answer. "The McCoy family funeral."

[wes_bluemarine]

Weather wasn't sure how to take that comment. For one thing, it certainly didn't give him any clear hints as to where he was and what he was doing here. Maybe this was what there was after death. It seemed more possible than another random stand attack. His world had already been fading to black, what point would there have been?

McCoy. That cell phone in his pocket said something about that, but Weather hadn't paid terribly long reading it. An object shattered or something, it hadn't caught Weather's interest. If anything, it seemed like a hoax, or one of those annoying chain messages. Apparently it wasn't completely lying.

"Huh," he replied more to himself than her. He completely ignored her question and said with a smirk, "So you're from around here, then?"

[willofjustice]

Wearing a black dress, Amelia found herself in the midst of the crowd, standing nearly in front of the caskets, raindrops plopping softly onto the canvas umbrella above her head

[alphonse]

Perhaps it said a lot about Al's life that upon suddenly finding himself standing in the middle of an apartment that was not his own, his initial feelings were more akin to disorientation and vague annoyance than outright shock. His father (a man Al had not seen in ten years) and his brother (limbs seemingly intact and looking more relaxed than Al could remember him being since he was five) were attempting to usher him out the door, all the while going on about a funeral the family was supposedly late for

[willofjustice]

At the voice, Amelia's eyes startled up from the cell phone immediately, flicking and darting over the crowd to find the source.

It wasn't too hard. The three Elrics were a shock of gold against the grays and blacks . . . and Al was looking directly at her. One could almost see the wiggle arise in her, starting from the toes and working its way up like a puppy unable to stop its body wiggling with its tail. Al might well be in danger of being pounced upon.

"Alphon--. . . !" But she got cut off as Gracia flicked her ear, recalling her to reality. Several people around them sent shushes their way.

But it was Alphonse. And Ed! Though unable to move from her spot, Amelia trailed after them with anxious eyes, trying to communicate. Telepathic ability would be nice right about now.

[alphonse]

Amelia's recognition wasn't something Al had expected, but seeing it flooded him with an immediate sense of relief. Briefly, a grin flickered across his face, but he was quick to school his expression back to something more solemn.

If there'd been any doubts that this was the Amelia from the other world, a closer look at the cell phone she was holding dispelled them. Obviously there was a lot the two of them needed to talk about, but how was he supposed to approach her in a situation like this?

Carefully, Al weaved his way through the crowd to where she stood, acting as if he wanted to be closer to pay his last respects. For a moment he bowed his head towards the caskets, both because death was something he held in reverence and because he felt guilty for using their tragedy as a cover for his conversation.

"How are you holding up?" he quietly whispered to Amelia, words heavy with double meaning.