Chapter Text
Not every Xerxian died in Father's circle.
Most of them did. The vast majority was gone. However, it's not so simple to wipe out an entire population.
For example: Xerxes's trade routes didn't thrive, not by any definition, but they still had some contact with their neighbors. High as tensions got with Drachma, the desert kept them from any kind of real war. Xingese disputes for the crown got bloody— but they were also easy to stay uninvolved with. The desert acted as a shield for Xerxes. They were used to dealing with the desert, which made them highly useful for transporting goods. Almost every country that Xerxes bordered had at least a few Xerxians in it, trading or studying. Some had even moved to live with families they'd formed.
So no, the entire population was not wiped out. That's not something that happens. Most of it was, and it was tragic, but the legends about Xerxes forgot that people find a way to thrive no matter what.
Again and again, a group of three or four traders made their way all the way back. The journey was days and days through the harshness of the desert— only to find that there was nothing to come home to.
So they left.
All that was left in Xerxes was bodies and rot. People formed dozens of tiny groups of travelers. Most went West, because they knew what was North and East, and South was mostly more desert. In the West, there were enough separate city-states that they'd be too busy in conflict with each other to make a fuss about some refugees.
Ishval has always been a tiny country with tense relations along her Western borders, but the people who called it home were welcoming. As refugees showed up, they found Ishval was among the kinder places to settle, and one of the easiest to reach. Ishval was the reason survivors could find partners, grow crops, and build new lives for themselves.
When asked why they left, all anyone could say was that there'd been some sort of horrible sickness over the area. That everyone died in some strange ritual, and there was no way to know what had actually happened. There wasn't a person from Xerxes who hadn't lost family— who hadn't desperately tried to figure out why, and been left only guessing. Many peoples' best guess was that the strange alchemy their king enjoyed had angered God— or, Ishvala as the Ishvalans called him— and this was a warning to the world.
Do not reshape the world. It will come with a cost that you are not prepared to pay.
Generation after generation passed, and while Ishval was tense with her neighboring city-states, that never extended to the Xerxians within her borders. Slowly but surely, the Xerxians melted into the Ishvalans, the lines between the two blurring until it was no longer there.
Some families followed more traditions from one culture than the other. There were some people with the bright, crimson eyes of Xerxes; others with eyes of such a deep red it was mistaken for black in the shadows— the native eyes of Ishval. Similarly, some people kept the bright gold of Xerxes or the pure white of Ishval. However, with both hair and eyes, the vast majority of people fell somewhere in between the two.
Both countries' hair textures tended to fall somewhere between curls and waves, and while the undertones differed, their children almost invariably had dark skin. At the start, the two populations had already looked extremely similar, but after 400 years? Only a fool would even try to differentiate the two.
The word Xerxes faded over time. It became synonymous with Ishval.
Obviously, none of this mattered to the Amestrians. They had a genocide to commit.
Trisha Elric had married Van Hohenheim. She was one of the only people in his life to know he was from Xerxes. He had warned her that everyone would assume their children were Ishvalan— which was a half-truth anyway, since what remained of Xerxes was called Ishval anyway— and that would put them in danger. According to him, if they were married, both she and her children would be in danger as the countryside got more hostile.
She hadn't cared for a second.
Hell, she'd assumed he was Ishvalan. Having lived here her whole life, how could she not be aware of the danger? None of that meant she gave a shit. She loved him, he loved her, and they were going to be happy, goddammit.
Just as Hohenheim had feared, his genes were strong. Edward Elric was born bald, with eyes pale yet undeniably red. As he aged, it was clear that he would closely resemble Hohenheim: intense red eyes, bright gold hair, and dark skin.
His second child, Alphonse, took after Trisha a bit more. As guilty as he felt for it, Hohenheim was relieved when Al's eyes were a coppery brown. His skin was tan and his hair light brown. What most resembled Trisha was the shape of his face. Alphonse couldn't pass as being fully Armestrian, but most strangers believed his father was from the southern part of Aerugo.
("I'm glad we're sure one of them is mine," Trisha had once joked while the babies slept. "We might need a maternity test for Ed.")
Nobody assumed Al was Ishvalan unless he was with Ed. Which was always.
Even with the two next to each other, people liked to assume Al was Aerugonian. It wasn't rare for women to be widowed by the war on Ishval. No matter which assumption got made, all three of them— Trisha, Ed, and Al— learned the stare as some stranger analyzed Al's features, and decided what to believe.
Before he left, Trisha had promised Hohenheim that she would give the boys as much of their culture as she could.
"They already look so much like you," she'd told him, tracing his chin with a loving smile. "In a world so cruel to your people, I won't let them see that side of themselves as a curse."
Still, Hohenheim only spoke the language of Xerxes, and he never taught it to Trisha. It was an archaic version of a language with no more speakers. Hohenheim could stumble through modern Ishvalan, but not enough to teach it to Trisha. Certainly not enough for her to teach it to their children. She settled for making the recipes he'd taught her, reciting the stories, and passing down his books.
The written form of the language had been easier for Hohenheim to pick up. When he spent so much time studying, it wasn't hard to start at using a dictionary to translate, and grow to understand what the words themselves mean. Part of him hoped that maybe, if he left a dictionary with the stack of books, the kids would learn like he had.
Ed would call it ironic, in hindsight.
(He'd actually start out with a string of insults aimed at Hohenheim, but none of those are particularly relevant.)
It wasn't just that Ishvalans condemned alchemy— something Ed wouldn't even know until after he'd become a state alchemist. No, it was also that Hohenheim had never bothered to actually be there for Ed's childhood. He never was there for his sons face to face. What he passed down was through books. Through Alchemy. Just like always, Ed was at arms length, just an afterthought for Hohenheim.
What Hohenheim passed down didn't give him the ability to connect with other Ishvalans. Ed couldn't actually learn about the culture that he'd never quite had. All it gave Ed was alchemy. And Ed loved alchemy, he really did, but he also loved his dad— as much as he might not want to— who may as well have been a stranger.
Trisha didn't live long enough to pass down everything she'd wanted to. Edward had memories of stories told to him of foreign lands, with fuzzy details, in his mother's soothing voice. When the world was quiet enough, he could faintly smell her cooking. He'd never learned either in enough detail to ever to replicate it.
Unless—
It was forbidden, but.
Unless he could replicate his mom.
Ed had been stupid enough to think maybe, maybe, his dad could actually be good for something. Instead of just a face that got him spat at and pictures and a hole in his life… Ed could forgive Hohenheim for a lifetime of failures, if his alchemy could bring back Ed and Al's mom. That'd be enough.
All he wanted was his mom; was that so much to ask?
He'd researched the hell out of human transmutation. Ed had been fully ready to try. Years of his and Al's lives had gone towards making the perfect human transmutation circle: researching everything possible, studying with Izumi, reading every last book they could find. Ed knew he'd perfected his research.
Practice was something else.
This was the third circle they'd drawn, and Ed compared it to the small one they'd drawn in a notebook, when they'd been able to trace the circle. It was easy to be accurate when they could use a protractor for the angles and a ruler for the lines.
"This one might work."
Edward frowned. "The angles are off, see?" He shook his head. "If we—"
There was a knock at the door. Ed dropped the chalk. "Pinako!" he grinned. Winry never bothered knocking, and who else visited them? Al raced ahead of Ed, opening the door— only to freeze.
That was not Pinako.
Three soldiers stood at the doorway; a blue wall. Ed didn't notice himself taking a step back as he lowered his head— hiding his eyes. A lifetime of memories flooded his mind. Warnings from his mother about staying indoors as the military passed through. The venom in Pinako's voice (which Ed almost never heard) when she spoke about the war. Even the glances between him and Al; the distaste shown towards him while Al got hesitation.
It would be fine. The military had passed through Resembool countless times.
It would be fine.
"Hello?" Al greeted.
"Just a routine check-in, kiddo," the soldier told Al, ruffling his hair. "I know a little guy like you wouldn't, but we need to make sure you aren't hiding anyone nasty, with the recent attacks and reports. It's grown-up business, alright?"
Ed could hear his heart beating in his ears. Nevermind him, they would find the transmutation circle. He had to go back there and rinse it off of the ground. Human transmutation was one of the worst crimes in the country and he wasn't dumb enough to think he'd get a fair trial—
He'd almost made it to the water when a deep voice stopped him in his tracks. "Knew I saw something."
Close your eyes. Hide the evidence they needed. Lots of Amestrians were blonde; lots had dark skin. Few had both, but if they didn't see his eyes, they couldn't confidently shoot. Stay silent.
Don't. Move.
"What, you kids were playing alchemy?" He kicked at the circle that Ed and Al had worked so hard on. "Thought you rats didn't do that. Looks like your God is gonna be pissed when you meet him in a few minutes, huh?"
Absurdly, Ed wanted to correct him— that he was an atheist, and that he didn't actually know if he was supposed to believe in an afterlife.
"Don't move," his mother's voice repeated. Soft yet firm. "I couldn't bear to lose you, firefly."
He could feel sweat forming on his temple. In any other circumstance, Ed would start yelling. It was so unnatural to freeze like this, to play dead. He wanted to throw himself at this soldier and run and never look back, but he couldn't because only one of them had a gun. And it wasn't Ed.
He didn't want to die, even if that was the only way this situation could play out.
"Why don't you just turn around and open your eyes. No need to make this harder than it has to be. And if you don't," he added, "that's enough of an answer for us to do what we have to do."
"Ed!" It had taken too long for Al to realize that Ed had gone quiet, and that he'd lost track of a soldier.
Everything after that happened in a blur.
Ed turned around. His scarlet eyes locked with Al's amber ones. Both sets wide with fear. The soldier had a grin on his face— he was enjoying this, the sick fuck— and fired three shots at Ed. One missed, one hit his kneecap, and one tore into his calf.
It burned like nothing had ever burned before. He fell to the ground, arms grabbing his leg in shock, only able to stare at the soldier and his smoking gun.
At least make it quick.
He felt a weight on top of him. Something covered his eyes. Ed was dimly aware that more shots were fired, but they were loud and his ears were ringing and the only thing he was aware of was pain, so much pain—
"Come on, let's get out of here," he heard one of the other soldiers say. "We got them. If there were adults here, they would've hid the children. 'Sides, do you see how creepy this is? No way this house isn't booby-trapped or cursed."
"That circle is totally some dark rat magic," the shooter agreed. If Ed's brain worked, he would have yelled that it's just alchemy. The same alchemy that the military's own registered alchemists used.
Instead, he lay there, useless, as they left.
His arms shook as he tried to get himself off of the ground. Ed couldn't stand on his left leg, it was too unstable, but—
Thud.
He looked behind him.
The weight, that had felt like a sack of flour or a bag of books, was his brother. His brother, Al, who had been alive this morning. Al, who would've been safe if Ed didn't look so—
Would've been safe if the military hadn't—
Yet here Al was, bleeding, his chest— Ed couldn't even look at that. And the transmutation circle wouldn't work, couldn't bring Al back, but was enough to get them—
"Al?"
Alphonse didn't move.
"Al, wake up. This isn't funny."
Silence.
"After mom, you can't— No. This isn't fair, no, Al, please—"
He didn't want to see it. There was so much blood. Enough that Ed could pretend he didn't. But as much as he hated his eyes, they still worked perfectly, and they told his brain that there was at least six bullets in Al's chest. Of the six, at least would have pierced Al's heart. Maybe more.
To study human transmutation, you need to know every part of a person. Ed knew anatomy like the back of his hand.
He knew, for example, that there was no surviving what happened to Al.
Ed wished he'd never been born.
"No," he grit out. "This isn't happening." They hadn't studied medical magic enough for Ed could fix this. What they had studied was soul binding, since it was one of the more experimental forms of human transmutation.
Al wasn't breathing. There was no way he had a pulse. Still, maybe, his soul wasn't gone quite yet.
Ed dipped his pointer finger in the blood on the ground— maybe his, maybe Al's, probably a mix of both. He drew one sigil on Al's forehead. With a grunt, he pulled himself to a suit of armor, drawing an identical sigil inside of it.
This better fucking work.
One hand rested on each of the two seals. Ed grunted, straining his arm with the effort— it was hard to reach that high.
Lightning crackled along him. The world split in front of Ed as a gate with an eye opened. Hands formed from shadows pulled Ed inside.
He rubbed at his eyes. Everything around him was white— it hurt to look at for too long. A figure of pure light sat in front of him, grinning.
"Where is Al? Did it work?" He glared at the figure. "What did you do to him?"
"Me? Nothing," the figure laughed. "I don't interfere unless someone dares to knock on the door."
"I didn't—"
"Alphonse's soul was no longer among the living, but hadn't yet reached the dead. It was passing through here, just like all souls do."
"Where are we? Who are you?"
"I go by many names." It wouldn't stop laughing, like it found Ed's situation hilarious. As if there was anything funny about the leg he couldn't stand on, or Alphonse's blood staining the floor, or six bullet holes, or— "Some call me the world, or God, or Truth. I am all; I am one. And I am also you."
"God, huh?" Ed spat. "Some God to let this happen."
"I cannot interfere unless someone has the hubris to knock. And you cannot bargain for a human soul and expect there to be no cost."
"Al's not dead yet," he insisted. "Sure, he's almost there, but—"
"There's no way to bring him back, is there? His soul had started crossing. I'll need a price to keep him from finishing the trip."
"What do you want? Those bastards already took my leg! They can kill him, just like that, but I can't save him? What kind of system is that?"
"The one you live in."
"You've already taken my mother. You can't have Al."
"Sounds like you're willing to pay the price." It shouldn't have been possible for his grin to get bigger. Ed felt himself dragged back through the doorway by those same hands. He saw everything, all knowledge of alchemy, all of it downloaded directly into his mind in a single moment—
And then he was back. One hand resting on blood, drawn over cold metal. The other—
The other…?
He tried to move it. Frowned. Looked over.
That was a lot of blood.
Why couldn't he see his arm?
The last two things he processed were the glowing eyes appearing inside of that suit of armor, and then a dull pain as his head hit the floor.