Who: Edward Elric What: In which there is a table, a gift, and some suspicious notes. When: Trial Night! (yeah I know this is super fuckin late) Where: 2nd Circle: Lust Status: Narrative, Complete Warnings: Ed's foul mouth, FMA Manga spoilers
It had to be a trap.
It was just sitting there. Not even in a secure space or anything, just out on a table in the middle of the room.
When Ed had opened his eyes, he'd been sitting in a chair - a overwrought enormous throne of a thing, with elaborate carved details wreathing the too-straight chair back and plush red velvet upholstery. He would have liked it for its ostentatiousness, if it hadn't been so uncomfortable.
The rest of the room matched it for opulence, to a degree that even Ed started to feel was getting a little tacky. Who had this much money to throw away on such rich bullshit? Thick heavy draperies in some sort of fine fabric, with what looked like silk and gold lining the walls. The floors were some sort of gleaming exotic hardwood with a dramatic grain. There was more of this same, overly-elaborate furniture around the room, all in the same carved wood, marble-topped, velvet-upholstered style. It was set up to be something like a sitting room, he guessed, with beautiful thin-cushioned sofas and chairs with hard-angled backs and annoyingly narrow arms.
His chair sat next to its twin, facing the ridiculous sofa. The furniture framed a ridiculous fireplace with an enormous mirror on the mantle. The room was so big and wide, with enormously high ceilings that Ed swore people like whoever'd had this built did on purpose, to make you feel small. Which he wasn't. Bastards.
To his left, between the two chairs was an end table, dark wood against a swirl of black marble, contrasted against a rich lace ivory doily. A relatively simple lamp with a stained glass shade sat there, and under it, just sitting out with nothing to contain it or shield it...
Was a little crimson bead of amorphous material.
The Philosopher's Stone.
Just... sitting there.
Ed stood up from the chair, looking around the room for Kimblee, or maybe one of the Homunculi... something to explain the presence of a Philosopher's Stone here in this room. But he was alone. He couldn't hear any sign of anyone else nearby either.
He looked back at the Stone. Cautiously, he reached out with his automail and poked at it. It wobbled and gave under his finger, springing back into shape when he withdrew. It was the same as the one that Dr. Marcoh had had.
It was just sitting there. Unclaimed.
Ed's human fingers twitched.
There was any number of reasons for him to take it. After how long they'd been searching... With this, he could restore Alphonse. They could open the portal, make the trade for Al's body, and get out again safe. Toll paid, bodies restored, mission complete. Envy's Stone had worked to do it before, when he'd gotten Ling and Envy and himself out of the void in Gluttony's stomach. He knew this could work.
But he could also remember the mass of mutated human forms that made up Envy's body. The crying, pleading voices, the moans of pain and distress and grief. That little deformed arm, reaching out to lay a gentle hand on his head...
Let's play
That was what the Stone really was. Innocent human souls, torn from their lives to be nothing more than fuel... for what? For a transmutation? For him to get his stupid fucking arm and leg back when it had been his own fault he'd lost them?
And here it was just lying on a table like some cheap, tawdry trinket.
It was too suspicious. Too perfect. All this time, all these years... the fruitless travel, the sleepless nights poring through alchemical books and journals... the bloody, vicious fights with Homunculi, and Scar, and all the danger that had chased them through their search... and here he just found it sitting there waiting for him in some random, ridiculously fancy house, in this place that didn't make any sense? No way it could be this easy.
He looked around the room again. There were windows behind the heavy drapes. He pushed one of the curtains back to try and get a look outside. They were on the second floor, overlooking the roof of a lower floor and endless grounds beyond. He could see an (admittedly badass) gargoyle on the corner of the roof, with twisted bat wings and a gnarled face. The garden was just as over the top, with a statue garden and carefully sculptured shrubberies. There was no one out there either, no sign of people whatsoever.
He didn't remember how he'd gotten here. That was starting to get annoying, really. Was this still part of the City? One of the Circles Al had told him about?
Edward let the drapes drop and turned back to face the room. He froze. There was something else on the table that hadn't been there before. A little folded card of paper. He was sure that hadn't been there before.
He hadn't heard anyone come in, but that didn't mean there wasn't. Dropping into a defensive stance, he scanned the room, even looking up into the shadowy corners high in the ceiling. After the kind of people he'd met on his and Al's search, he wasn't taking chances. But the room was still empty save for him. Cautiously, he edged over to the door at one side of the room, peeking out around the elaborate frame.
Another opulent room, this one styled as a gaming room, with an enormous chandelier and fancy poker tables set up for way too many people. But it was also just as empty, and he could hear no sounds.
He turned around, crossed the room as quietly as he could, and peered out the other door. This one led to a grand stairwell landing, also empty of any other people.
Ed turned back to the room. The Stone still lay on the end table, with the little card standing there innocently. Taking the fancy stationary, Ed read the note on it, written in elaborate cursive with excessive flourishes.
He crumpled the card in his metal fist as he stared at the Stone. This was definitely a trap of some kind. Baiting him with the very thing that could restore Al, could restore his own missing limbs, when he knew damn well what it cost.
He remembered how it felt. Using his soul to power his transmutation, the one to seal his wound. It was different than when he'd used Envy's Stone. It hadn't hurt exactly. That wasn't the right word. The human soul was not a body. It was not a physical thing, with nerves and senses. But it had felt wrong and bad in a way that human vocabulary really wasn't equipped to describe. Necessary, at the time. Or maybe not, considering where he'd ended up after he passed out.
He and Al had already decided before they ever even headed north that they couldn't use the stone to restore themselves. Knowing what it felt like, to fuel a transmutation with your own life force, just cemented that.
Al's face appeared in his mind. The Al from here, the older, human Al. His smile. His tears. His arms wrapped tight around Ed for the first time in years. Ed closed his eyes against the lump in his throat. He wanted that for Al so badly...
Slowly, he reached out to touch the Stone again, but hesitated, staring at the marks wrapped around his hand. Lust, his palm read, tendrils of it curling along his fingers like they were reaching. That's right... this was a trial, wasn't it? A test. Now the mark made sense.
He'd had this temptation laid out in front of him not too long ago, too. Before they'd gone to Bizcoul, Kimblee had offered him a Stone if he kept his head down and followed orders.
But they'd come up to Briggs for a reason. That little girl with the weird cat, her expertise in Xing's Purification Arts... that was the angle they were pursuing now. He couldn't - wouldn't - use the Stone. Ever since they'd translated Marcoh's notes and learned what it took to make the Stone, the thought of using it to restore their bodies had made both him and Al sick. Such a selfish waste of human life.
Even if Ed had the nerve and the selfishness to do it... Al would never forgive him for it.
His face softened as he stared at the Stone. He wondered where this Stone had come from, if it was made here, or one of the Homunculi's creations, or what. He wondered about the people who's lives had been taken to create it. What their names were. If they had families waiting for them.
He wanted to leave. He wanted to leave this room, this house, preferably, and figure out where he was. He wanted to get back home, to Amestris. As overjoyed as he was to get to see his brother in the flesh again, he had business to take care of back home to make sure that happened. He was needed there. So this trial, this Circle, this whole damn city... he needed a way out.
The way to fixing what he'd broken was not something he could find here in this room.
He turned around very deliberately and walked away from the Stone. "I don't need it," he said out loud, all bitter resolve. He left the room. Left the stone sitting on the stupid, ugly doily on the stupid end table, and walked away. "I don't need it. So you can fuck right off." He didn't know who he was talking to, if anyone could even hear him. Someone had dropped that little card there.
He paused on the landing, looking down at the crumpled card in his automail palm, where the message had changed.