Chapter Three
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(THEO)
Maes and I were sparring in the garden when we heard her. She had her arms around my neck, my back to her. One of my hands were matted into her tangled mess of black hair, the other was trying to get her to buckle her knees and release me. She straighted when I yelled,"Sarah!" once her screams erupted.
We ran to where we had left her, just moments ago, and I saw the fear on Travis' face as he was slowly swimming across the pond.
"Sarah!" I cried as I saw her little pale hands go under.
I immediately started to dive for her, but stopped.
"I can't swim-!" I said to Maes, but she was already in the water.
Sarah was deep under in the water, but Maes found her, and dragged her up to the surface.
The seconds felt like minutes, and for a moment, part of me wondered if Sarah was ever going to breathe again. Of course, it was mere seconds before she sputtered out the water in her lungs, her blue lips returning to the rose pink they normally were. I genuflected and propped her head up on my knee.
"Sarah..."
"I'm f-fine..." she whispered, but started to cry. I pulled her into my chest just as Travis was coming out of the water.
"Oh my God, hey, are you okay?" he asked. I looked up at him, and I knew my eyes were burning. I saw Maes in my peripheral vision look from me to her brother. Kneeling beside us, she whispered so only Sarah and I could hear.
"Hey, let me take you into the house and get me some of my clothes to wear. You're gonna catch a cold out here." Maes wrapped her jacket around Sarah, and her tears that were sticking to her cheeks got wiped away by Maes' gloved hand. Sarah weakly smiled. I turned and followed them into the house, but Travis grabbed my arm.
"Hey, man, I'm sorr-"
"Sorry?" I hiss, turning on a dime. "Sorry? You're sorry?! " Travis looks scared as he slowly nods.
"You almost killed my sister you ass-hole!" I scream, shoving him. Travis' eyes get dark and his chest puffs out as he tries to come at me.
"Hey!" I feel a soft cotton fabric brush my arm as I turn to see Maes, holding me back. I look to Travis as I try to break from Maes, but see Sarah, one hand on his shoulder, the other on his forearm, holing him back. His eyes slowly stop burning as they look at her. He touches her face as I stay at them. Sarah's eyes meet mine, and I know she can tell I'm hurting.
"Theo-" she whispers, but I bust out of Maes grip, angry and too forceful as I left, letting my rage engulf me, the only thing that can cover up the hurt.
Sarah just instinctively choose to come between Travis and I
But she stood in front of Travis.
What's happening?
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(SARAH)
Theo went back inside, obviously angry. Maes went with him.
I released Travis' forearm and begin to follow them, wringing the water out of my hair as I walked.
"Hey! Sarah!" I heard Travis shout behind me. I didn't feel like talking, especially not to the person who caused me to nearly drown. I kept walking, not looking back. "Sarah!" He came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.
I stopped for a second and took a deep breath, then turned to face him. "I don't wanna talk, okay?" I said, my eyes tearing up again.
"Look, I'm sorry. Really, I am. I didn't know you couldn't swim." he said apologetically. I shot him a look of anger, my mood changing in a flash.
"No, it isn't just that. That's not all I'm upset about." I said through clenched teeth. "All of these little flirty games you're trying to play aren't cute. It's just totally embarrassing. For you AND me. And it's just plain stupid!"
His face got slightly red and he made a sad expression. I continued anyway. "You do realize I'm thirteen, right? And you're what, seventeen? Stop acting like a pedophile and just get a life!" I shouted, then ran after Theo, not even bothering to hear Travis' side of the story. Maybe I was a bit harsh, but I was soaked and upset.
When I caught up to Theo, he was still seething with anger. I was too, but not quite as much.
Mrs. Mustang stopped us as we walked inside. She took in my soggy appearance and Theo's anger. "What happened?" she sighed.
"Travis is being an idiot." Maes replied, then started to lead me and Theo upstairs, where our rooms were.
Mrs. Mustang kept a calm face, but as soon as she went outside and shut the door behind her, she shouted at Travis so loud that we could hear every word.
I went to my room, with Theo and Maes following me.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Maes asked, genuinely concerned.
"I'm fine," I said, sitting on the bed.
Maes nodded and said, "Alright. Either way, I'm going to go have a serious talk with Travis." She left the room, her black shoes barely making a sound.
I got up and shut the door, then turned to Theo, who was now sitting on my bed, though he looked like he would rather be somewhere else.
"We're getting distracted." I stated.
Theo sighed, then quietly said "Yeah."
"We need to go talk to Fuhrer Mustang. Like, now." I said. "We have to take action if we're going to help Uncle Alphonse. We can't waste any more time here." I went over and sat next to Theo. Staying at the Fuhrer's house got us distracted from all of our worries, but now the worries seemed more frightening. Uncle being missing, the military not willing to help us, even though the Fuhrer seems to know Uncle Alphonse personally. And, of course, we were far away from home, not knowing what lies ahead, or if we'll ever be able to go back. We missed Mom and Dad and Grandmother terribly. Would we ever get to see them again?
"I know..." Theo said.
"Then come on." I said, pulling him out of the room by his wrist.
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(THEO)
My thoughts weren't where they were supposed to be as Sarah pulled me down the hall to meet with a man who seemed to be the end of our problems, and yet, the beginning.
My head was spinning. My confusion, anger, hurt, and loss all displayed by my pout and my furrowed brow. I just wanted to run to my room and lock the door. I wanted Maes to come in a little bit later. I wanted Maes because I knew I'd be too angry to listen to Sarah. She would tell me how to calm down and I would be fine by the next morning.
Or, that's how I wanted it.
Maes would be a good girl for me, I thought. She was sweet and kind, even though dark. She was caring. She saved my sister, a good reason for knocking on the door to her room in the night to thank her.
"...Need to find out what's going on."
"Huh?"
"Theo are you listening?" Sarah said in disbelief.
"Trying not to..." I mumbled. She slapped me. I didn't think she'd heard. She sighed as she knocked on the Fuhrer's door. Brosh, the guard who let us in the first day answered.
"Hey!" he said. "Mustang! Look who's here!"
The Fuhrer looked up from the paper work in his hands and smiled.
"Ah, the young Elrics." He laughed. "That sounds awful funny in my mouth considering I said it so many years ago to a different set of children. It still feels like it just happened..." I groaned at his nostalgia, not even thinking how much I should be psychoanalysing it.
"Come, sit," he said, laughing at me. My eyes turned to slits. "You know, Theo, you're quick to anger, but not so quick to admit to it," he said as I sat. "You're father wasn't afraid to show how he felt-well, particularly in the field of anger. You're softer, though."
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING SOFT?!" I finally yelled, standing. Mustang burst into a laugh as did the two guards behind me. I hissed as I slowly sunk into my chair again. Wiping the tears of joy from his eyes, the Fuhrer sat.
"Alright, alright, enough laughs. After observing you for quite some time I've noticed you're ignorance-"
Sarah had to hold me down at this point, as I started screaming again.
"ON THE SUBJECT of the past of not only this country, but of your father's and uncle's. Which, surprising as it may seem, are quite intertwined and determined by the other."
Sarah and I exchanged unsure glances.
"Go on," I said.
"How much do you know?"
"What should we know?" Sarah replied.
Mustang pursed his lips as he looked between the two of us.
"I suspect Ed and Al were just younger than you when they came to me...Oh, the hell they had been through! We'll...I guess I'll just have to tell you the story of the Elric brothers and starting from the beginning. Do you know about you're grandmother?"
"Pinako?" Winry asked. Mustang sighed, his eyes closed. His sigh wasn't of impatience, but pity. I shifted uncomfortably.
"No, you're Paternal Grandmother."
"...I never thought about it," I whispered, my mouth dry.
"Then I guess we'll start there..."
***
(THEO)
Sarah and I stared, slack jawed at the end of the story. Sarah was crying, and I had a few times too, hiding my head in my sleeve.
"Alphonse...he got his body back...right?" Sarah asked.
"You idiot!" I yelled, hitting her. "He has a body now, doesn't he?"
"Yeah..." she sighed, wiping her tears again.
"I can't believe this..." I said, my face in my hands.
"I guess now we get to work."
"Work on what?" Sarah asked.
"Work on finding you're Uncle."
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(SARAH)
I was happy to finally hear the truth about everything, Father and Uncle's past. But, all of it just scared me to death... The very thought of all of it... I had to keep wiping my tears from my eyes because they wouldn't cease.
It all just seemed impossible. But there was no use in denying the story. All of the pieces fit together too well for it to be fake. But I still didn't understand alchemy very well. The Fuhrer gave a little information on it, enough for us to understand what he was telling us, but not much. Alchemy started to frighten me. It seemed like only bad things came from it. The things Fuhrer Mustang said about "the Philosophers Stone" and "Homunculi", and not to mention the attempted resurrection, all of them were things that alchemy had caused. Did people still use alchemy? If so, for what purpose? Evil? Good?
Something came to my mind... The stories that Father would tell us when we were younger... Mother told him to stop telling them to us because...they were true. Only I didn't realize it until then. The stories had been slightly altered--such as names, appearances, and places-- and he left out the more traumatic parts, but nevertheless, they were about him and Uncle. I particularly remembered a few stories, though I was rather young when he had told us. There was one about two boys stopping a criminal who could freeze things he touched. There was another about the same two boys encountering a pickpocket in a valley. And there was one about two young boys surviving on an island for a month. I made a mental note to ask Dad about these stories the next time we saw him.
The word "if" came to mind. "IF we saw him again." Which was stupid to think, because now we had the Fuhrer of Amestris helping us! Finding Uncle Alphonse wouldn't be near as dangerous for us.
"So." Theo said, interrupting my train of thought. "How do you suppose we're going to get Uncle Alphonse back?" The question had been on my mind as well. We weren't even sure where the people who took him could be. From what I knew, the people had something against "Ishvalans" and anyone helping them. The Fuhrer didn't really go into detail about Ishvalans, or why people hated them.
The Fuhrer pulled open a drawer on his desk and got out a folder full of papers. He sat the folder on his desk and looked through it for something. He finally found what he wanted and studied the paper. "This is the first report of Alphonse's disappearance." Fuhrer Mustang handed the paper to us. "It seems that right after he went missing, the princess of the Chang clan alerted Emperor Yao of Xing. It seems we all have very close ties to one another." he kind of chuckled at his last remark, but he immediately regained his serious expression.
Theo and I glanced over the paper Fuhrer Mustang gave us. It was actually a letter from the emperor of Xing himself. He wasn't kidding about the close ties.
"Well, why the heck weren't we informed about this sooner?" Theo asked, upset that we'd been kept out of the loop for so long. Father hadn't even known about his own brother's disappearance, but the military had the information that could've been given to us.
"Many reasons. For one thing, Edward isn't in the military anymore. That makes it a little more difficult to get information to him. We're not really supposed to talk about things like this to civilians until we have an understanding of the matter, even if the information involves someone in their family." The Fuhrer sighed and looked at Theo. "Look, if I could have told Edward, I would have. You have to understand that--" A knock on the door cut him off. "Come in," Mustang shouted.
His wife opened the door and stepped into the room, pulling Travis alongside her by his ear. "You need to have a talk with your son." she said, narrowing her eyes at Mustang.
The Fuhrer looked back over at us and, with a wave of his hand, said, "We'll continue this in a moment."
I nodded and left the room, with Theo following right behind.
