A Beach Trip With Elrics, part 2/6
Title: A Beach Trip With Elrics, part 2/6
Rating: PG-13 here
Genre: AU, crack, fluff
Pairing: Hei + Ed
Length: 2230 words
Author: kalikamaxwell
Artist: ketita
Summary: Edward is sent in search of a mad alchemist and encounters the mad alchemist's fishy victims.
Note: Entirely ketita's fault. The original picture was posted here.
The island, it turned out, was quite small. The trees might look like a dense forest from afar but walking ten minutes brought Edward to the other side of the island. Whereas the first side was made of fine sand rolling into the sea, this side was a rocky affair. There were a few huge, flat rocks among the smaller ones and it was on one of those that sat the female chimera who’d helped bring him here. She heard him approach and turned to glare. Her breasts were still bare but this did not seem to be the cause of her unwelcoming behavior.
He held up his hands. “Uh, sorry. I’m just looking for fresh water.”
The chimera pointed to the right and turned away from him to continue sunning herself on the rock.
The island was not round: it appeared to be trying to mimic a water drop, with a big, round end and a slimmer one. He was investigating the round part now and it brought him to a bigger patch of wood where he found not only a stream of fresh water, but also a wooden cabin made so flawlessly it could only have been achieved with alchemy. Plants were climbing on it and the door hung open on a single hinge, hinting the owner hadn’t been around in a while. Edward suspected he knew who said owner had been. He made his way around the cabin and was unsurprised to find a skeleton behind it, sitting in an alchemy-made rock chair. It must have been more a year, for there remained nothing but the bones.
“Sanders Miles, right? So you’re the bastard who made them. Why did the Colonel even want you found? Did he suspect you’d found a way to continue your experiments?”
Miles didn’t respond, on account of being dead.
Edward debated burying the bones, finally deciding the sick bastard didn’t deserve a burial. He was more interested in the man’s records. He knew such records must exist: an alchemist always, always took notes.
He took a moment to drink fresh water from the stream before pursuing his investigation inside the cabin, where he found a hard bed, a table, a single chair and a wooden box. The last contained some clothes and a few personal items plus, at the very bottom, a bound book and several pens. It was the book that Edward picked up. It was well preserved and filled with a large, round handwriting. It was also, surprisingly, not written in code. It was true there had been nobody else to hide it from anyway.
The information within made Edward want to revive Miles just to punch him in the face. It seemed that Miles had witnessed a shipwreck roughly nine years after his exile; the survivors who had made it to the island had become the mad alchemist’s new test subjects overnight.
“They should have executed the bastard,” he grumbled, skipping the details.
He recalled the mission file saying Sanders Miles had fled to Creta to avoid Amestris’ justice. The two countries had been almost friendly in that time, and while Creta hadn’t wanted to surrender Miles for the death penalty awaiting him, they’d agreed to exile him to the most isolated island they could find. The island had also been given to Amestris as a good-will gesture. So much good it had done them: the rise of Fuhrer Bradley had brought war to everyone. Similarly, Bradley’s fall had brought a new opportunity for peace talk. That was why the Colonel had been able to send him to investigate what had happened to forgotten Miles.
And now here he was, alone and left to deal with Miles’ disgusting legacy. Each chimera had its own log, detailing numerous physical and mental health problems. Their ability to speak human language had been removed on purpose, it seemed, and had caused some anguish for the chimeras. At least one had died of ‘lack of will to live’. Most surprisingly, two of the females had been able to give birth, not to humans, but to hybrids like themselves. The idea of fully functional, fertile chimeras boggled Edward’s mind. They were a true new species! Skimming to the later pages, he found records of the birth of the third generation: ‘two fair-haired calves, one male, one female.’ Their names were given as ‘Winry’ and ‘Alfons.’
‘Fons. Alfons.
Edward would have liked to sit down and read all the details he’d skipped, no matter how disturbing, because he had to know what had happened and whether it could be fixed, but his stomach protested the idea. Food first, then. The island most likely did not have any animal bigger than a rat or a bird, but there might be some fruits or wild berries. Failing that, he could ask Alfons to throw him a fish to cook.
When he stumbled back onto the beach he’d first arrived on, holding a few strange yellow-green fruits he hoped were edible, he found out Alfons was still there, though he’d retreated far enough for the water to cover his fish half.
“Hey, Alfons. Want a fruit?”
He tossed one. Alfons proved he had good reflexes by catching it before it fell into the water and then examined it doubtfully. After a moment, he threw it back.
“They’re not so bad,” Edward said chewing through the leathery fruit skin. It occurred to him Alfons might never have eaten fruit: having a tail would make it impossible to collect them.
Using his arms, Alfons pushed himself back at sea and dived. Edward shrugged and went to fetch dry wood: the sun was slowly lowering itself on the horizon and a fire would warm him until he chose to go to bed.
The fire was just beginning to take a liking to the wood when live, bouncing fish started to appear on the beach, thrown out of the sea. Edward gathered them as they came. A dozen fish later, a smug-looking Alfons crawled out of the sea to sit beside him. The fish grew less exited, slowly dying. Alfons picked one up and sank his teeth in.
“Gross!” Edward regretted his reaction when Alfons frowned at him, but he had some difficulties coming to terms with the idea of eating raw, living fish. He had to admit fish people couldn’t very well do otherwise, lacking the ability to gather wood for a cooking fire, but still.
“Okay, fine, you eat your fish alive. I’m going to fry mine…” Judicious use of pointy branches allowed him to cook some food for himself. He sighed in delight as he sank his teeth into dead, fried fish.
“’oss,” Alfons said, wrinkling his nose at the smell.
Edward laughed. “Fair enough.”
Further away on the beach, Winry was sitting with her own stash of wriggling food. She seemed to be watching them but it was hard to tell in the growing darkness.
“She doesn’t like me, huh?”
Alfons made a grimace.
“Okay, so she just doesn’t like two-legs?”
A chirp.
Understandable, he thought. The only full human they’d seen before was crazy Miles and he hadn’t exactly been kind to them or their parents. Winry must have been worried he was also up to no good. He suspected they must have bickered about Alfons saving him. Why Alfons hadn’t just let him drown was a bit of a mystery in itself.
“Are you two the only ones left?” According to Miles’ files, the first generation had already died off, but there should have been some left from the second one. But if there were others like Alfons and Winry, why hadn’t he seen them?
Another chirp.
“Just you two, then.”
Not that much of a mystery then. Simple loneliness. Edward could relate to that: he spent his fair share of time alone on the road, off on some stupid mission while his brother stayed behind in Central to study medicine. It was an horrible selfish thought, but he did occasionally regret the time they had spent together on the road as teenagers. It had been hard to deal with their broken bodies and the terrible doubts that they might never be whole again, but at least they’d been together. It was this close companionship that Edward missed most.
Alfons shifted to sit closer to him, leaning against his back with a lack of shyness that was to be expected from someone who hadn’t had much human (or non-human) contact and certainly didn’t known anything about social norms. Alfons’ hands were cold on his shoulders: his skin seemed thicker than normal human skin, certainly to give a measure of protection against the sea’s cold.
Arms slowly came to encircle his chest and there was a chirp, a questioning one. Edward pretended not to understand, but he didn’t protest either. It was a sad fact that this chimera’s embrace was the closest to sexual contact he’d come with in the last year. He wasn’t about to have sex with a fish (didn’t fish lay eggs anyway?), but he didn’t mind the contact. It was a kindness, though he wasn’t sure who was doing who the kindness.
After some time, Alfons sighed and removed himself, crawling back to the sea to wet his tail before returning.
“Oh, right. That half needs to be wet all the time, huh?” Edward thought about this and brought his hands together. “Don’t move.”
Touching the sand on which the chimera lay, he alchemized it into a tail-shaped glass container that ended where the tail did. He then made a bucket in the same manner and used it to move seawater to this glass bath. The result was satisfactory: Alfons’ tail was submerged in seawater but he could still rest his chest on the sand and benefit from the fire’s warmth.
Alfons’ watched all this with curiosity and seemed to approve, but for a little detail: he reached for Edward, imperiously motioning him closer, until he could rest his crossed arms and head on his thigh. Seemingly satisfied, the chimera closed his eyes. His tail was moving lazily up and down, making small splashing noises in the water.
Lonely, clingy thing, Edward thought. Cute too, not unlike all those kittens Alphonse always brought home, curious critters that climbed on people’s laps like they owned them. Edward paused and considered the creature currently using his thigh as pillow. Very much like those kittens then.
All was dark now: the sky hid behind clouds and there seemed to be nothing left in the world but the two of them and the warm fire. And, somewhere out there, a watching, protective Winry. Were they siblings? He needed to read the records more carefully.
There were strange pale scars on Alfons’ side. He traced them with his fingers, trying to guess what had caused them.
“You got in a fight with some sea creature?”
Chirp chirp chirp. Alfons meaningfully laid a land on his arm.
“A human then?”
Alfons mimed throwing something.
“Someone threw something at you? Like a…a… a harpoon? For fishing?”
Chirp!
“Hell. They confused you for a big fish or something? I see why Winry isn’t too hot on two-legs… You’re pretty forgiving, saving me even after someone else hurt you.”
Alfons raised his shoulders, unable or unwilling to explain.
Edward figured those fishers must have spread rumors after the incident. Someone in Creta must have notified Central about it, suspecting that old Miles wasn’t as alone as he should be. It made sense now.
“Tough life.”
Alfons flopped over to show him where the irregular scar ran around his side and across the top of his tail: there were missing scales there. The harpoon only seemed to have nicked him, but the wound must have been ugly. Considering the lack of medical care available, it was strange that it had only left thin, faded marks: did they have boosted healing?
Edward ran his fingers along the scars and further along the top of the tail, finding no trace of irritation like there sometime was between parts of different creatures. As much as he despised people who made chimeras, he couldn’t help a degree of fascination. Alfons was no monster and no suffering creature: he seemed healthy, smart and functional. And he’d been born that way, with no notion he should be different. How could a madman have been this good with alchemy?
Alfons was squirming under his fingers. Just lower, where the legs split on a human… Edward paused, stared. Retractable penis?
“Oh. No eggs, then?” he said weakly. “Sorry.”
He pulled back, embarrassed. Great, now he was fondling the fish guy.
Showing no regret at the withdrawal, Alfons reached out to touch Edward’s own scar on his left leg and looked up inquisitively.
“I made a stupid mistake when I was a kid,” Edward said briefly. “My brother helped me fix it but the scars are going to stick around.”
After getting up once to gather some more dry wood to feed the fire, Edward settled to sleep in the sand. He could have slept in Miles’ cabin, but it seemed distasteful. He’d make his own shelter when morning came; for now, the fire kept him warm enough. Alfons must have felt the same, for he too went to sleep right where he was, golden head nestled in crossed arms.
Rating: PG-13 here
Genre: AU, crack, fluff
Pairing: Hei + Ed
Length: 2230 words
Author: kalikamaxwell
Artist: ketita
Summary: Edward is sent in search of a mad alchemist and encounters the mad alchemist's fishy victims.
Note: Entirely ketita's fault. The original picture was posted here.
The island, it turned out, was quite small. The trees might look like a dense forest from afar but walking ten minutes brought Edward to the other side of the island. Whereas the first side was made of fine sand rolling into the sea, this side was a rocky affair. There were a few huge, flat rocks among the smaller ones and it was on one of those that sat the female chimera who’d helped bring him here. She heard him approach and turned to glare. Her breasts were still bare but this did not seem to be the cause of her unwelcoming behavior.
He held up his hands. “Uh, sorry. I’m just looking for fresh water.”
The chimera pointed to the right and turned away from him to continue sunning herself on the rock.
The island was not round: it appeared to be trying to mimic a water drop, with a big, round end and a slimmer one. He was investigating the round part now and it brought him to a bigger patch of wood where he found not only a stream of fresh water, but also a wooden cabin made so flawlessly it could only have been achieved with alchemy. Plants were climbing on it and the door hung open on a single hinge, hinting the owner hadn’t been around in a while. Edward suspected he knew who said owner had been. He made his way around the cabin and was unsurprised to find a skeleton behind it, sitting in an alchemy-made rock chair. It must have been more a year, for there remained nothing but the bones.
“Sanders Miles, right? So you’re the bastard who made them. Why did the Colonel even want you found? Did he suspect you’d found a way to continue your experiments?”
Miles didn’t respond, on account of being dead.
Edward debated burying the bones, finally deciding the sick bastard didn’t deserve a burial. He was more interested in the man’s records. He knew such records must exist: an alchemist always, always took notes.
He took a moment to drink fresh water from the stream before pursuing his investigation inside the cabin, where he found a hard bed, a table, a single chair and a wooden box. The last contained some clothes and a few personal items plus, at the very bottom, a bound book and several pens. It was the book that Edward picked up. It was well preserved and filled with a large, round handwriting. It was also, surprisingly, not written in code. It was true there had been nobody else to hide it from anyway.
The information within made Edward want to revive Miles just to punch him in the face. It seemed that Miles had witnessed a shipwreck roughly nine years after his exile; the survivors who had made it to the island had become the mad alchemist’s new test subjects overnight.
“They should have executed the bastard,” he grumbled, skipping the details.
He recalled the mission file saying Sanders Miles had fled to Creta to avoid Amestris’ justice. The two countries had been almost friendly in that time, and while Creta hadn’t wanted to surrender Miles for the death penalty awaiting him, they’d agreed to exile him to the most isolated island they could find. The island had also been given to Amestris as a good-will gesture. So much good it had done them: the rise of Fuhrer Bradley had brought war to everyone. Similarly, Bradley’s fall had brought a new opportunity for peace talk. That was why the Colonel had been able to send him to investigate what had happened to forgotten Miles.
And now here he was, alone and left to deal with Miles’ disgusting legacy. Each chimera had its own log, detailing numerous physical and mental health problems. Their ability to speak human language had been removed on purpose, it seemed, and had caused some anguish for the chimeras. At least one had died of ‘lack of will to live’. Most surprisingly, two of the females had been able to give birth, not to humans, but to hybrids like themselves. The idea of fully functional, fertile chimeras boggled Edward’s mind. They were a true new species! Skimming to the later pages, he found records of the birth of the third generation: ‘two fair-haired calves, one male, one female.’ Their names were given as ‘Winry’ and ‘Alfons.’
‘Fons. Alfons.
Edward would have liked to sit down and read all the details he’d skipped, no matter how disturbing, because he had to know what had happened and whether it could be fixed, but his stomach protested the idea. Food first, then. The island most likely did not have any animal bigger than a rat or a bird, but there might be some fruits or wild berries. Failing that, he could ask Alfons to throw him a fish to cook.
When he stumbled back onto the beach he’d first arrived on, holding a few strange yellow-green fruits he hoped were edible, he found out Alfons was still there, though he’d retreated far enough for the water to cover his fish half.
“Hey, Alfons. Want a fruit?”
He tossed one. Alfons proved he had good reflexes by catching it before it fell into the water and then examined it doubtfully. After a moment, he threw it back.
“They’re not so bad,” Edward said chewing through the leathery fruit skin. It occurred to him Alfons might never have eaten fruit: having a tail would make it impossible to collect them.
Using his arms, Alfons pushed himself back at sea and dived. Edward shrugged and went to fetch dry wood: the sun was slowly lowering itself on the horizon and a fire would warm him until he chose to go to bed.
The fire was just beginning to take a liking to the wood when live, bouncing fish started to appear on the beach, thrown out of the sea. Edward gathered them as they came. A dozen fish later, a smug-looking Alfons crawled out of the sea to sit beside him. The fish grew less exited, slowly dying. Alfons picked one up and sank his teeth in.
“Gross!” Edward regretted his reaction when Alfons frowned at him, but he had some difficulties coming to terms with the idea of eating raw, living fish. He had to admit fish people couldn’t very well do otherwise, lacking the ability to gather wood for a cooking fire, but still.
“Okay, fine, you eat your fish alive. I’m going to fry mine…” Judicious use of pointy branches allowed him to cook some food for himself. He sighed in delight as he sank his teeth into dead, fried fish.
“’oss,” Alfons said, wrinkling his nose at the smell.
Edward laughed. “Fair enough.”
Further away on the beach, Winry was sitting with her own stash of wriggling food. She seemed to be watching them but it was hard to tell in the growing darkness.
“She doesn’t like me, huh?”
Alfons made a grimace.
“Okay, so she just doesn’t like two-legs?”
A chirp.
Understandable, he thought. The only full human they’d seen before was crazy Miles and he hadn’t exactly been kind to them or their parents. Winry must have been worried he was also up to no good. He suspected they must have bickered about Alfons saving him. Why Alfons hadn’t just let him drown was a bit of a mystery in itself.
“Are you two the only ones left?” According to Miles’ files, the first generation had already died off, but there should have been some left from the second one. But if there were others like Alfons and Winry, why hadn’t he seen them?
Another chirp.
“Just you two, then.”
Not that much of a mystery then. Simple loneliness. Edward could relate to that: he spent his fair share of time alone on the road, off on some stupid mission while his brother stayed behind in Central to study medicine. It was an horrible selfish thought, but he did occasionally regret the time they had spent together on the road as teenagers. It had been hard to deal with their broken bodies and the terrible doubts that they might never be whole again, but at least they’d been together. It was this close companionship that Edward missed most.
Alfons shifted to sit closer to him, leaning against his back with a lack of shyness that was to be expected from someone who hadn’t had much human (or non-human) contact and certainly didn’t known anything about social norms. Alfons’ hands were cold on his shoulders: his skin seemed thicker than normal human skin, certainly to give a measure of protection against the sea’s cold.
Arms slowly came to encircle his chest and there was a chirp, a questioning one. Edward pretended not to understand, but he didn’t protest either. It was a sad fact that this chimera’s embrace was the closest to sexual contact he’d come with in the last year. He wasn’t about to have sex with a fish (didn’t fish lay eggs anyway?), but he didn’t mind the contact. It was a kindness, though he wasn’t sure who was doing who the kindness.
After some time, Alfons sighed and removed himself, crawling back to the sea to wet his tail before returning.
“Oh, right. That half needs to be wet all the time, huh?” Edward thought about this and brought his hands together. “Don’t move.”
Touching the sand on which the chimera lay, he alchemized it into a tail-shaped glass container that ended where the tail did. He then made a bucket in the same manner and used it to move seawater to this glass bath. The result was satisfactory: Alfons’ tail was submerged in seawater but he could still rest his chest on the sand and benefit from the fire’s warmth.
Alfons’ watched all this with curiosity and seemed to approve, but for a little detail: he reached for Edward, imperiously motioning him closer, until he could rest his crossed arms and head on his thigh. Seemingly satisfied, the chimera closed his eyes. His tail was moving lazily up and down, making small splashing noises in the water.
Lonely, clingy thing, Edward thought. Cute too, not unlike all those kittens Alphonse always brought home, curious critters that climbed on people’s laps like they owned them. Edward paused and considered the creature currently using his thigh as pillow. Very much like those kittens then.
All was dark now: the sky hid behind clouds and there seemed to be nothing left in the world but the two of them and the warm fire. And, somewhere out there, a watching, protective Winry. Were they siblings? He needed to read the records more carefully.
There were strange pale scars on Alfons’ side. He traced them with his fingers, trying to guess what had caused them.
“You got in a fight with some sea creature?”
Chirp chirp chirp. Alfons meaningfully laid a land on his arm.
“A human then?”
Alfons mimed throwing something.
“Someone threw something at you? Like a…a… a harpoon? For fishing?”
Chirp!
“Hell. They confused you for a big fish or something? I see why Winry isn’t too hot on two-legs… You’re pretty forgiving, saving me even after someone else hurt you.”
Alfons raised his shoulders, unable or unwilling to explain.
Edward figured those fishers must have spread rumors after the incident. Someone in Creta must have notified Central about it, suspecting that old Miles wasn’t as alone as he should be. It made sense now.
“Tough life.”
Alfons flopped over to show him where the irregular scar ran around his side and across the top of his tail: there were missing scales there. The harpoon only seemed to have nicked him, but the wound must have been ugly. Considering the lack of medical care available, it was strange that it had only left thin, faded marks: did they have boosted healing?
Edward ran his fingers along the scars and further along the top of the tail, finding no trace of irritation like there sometime was between parts of different creatures. As much as he despised people who made chimeras, he couldn’t help a degree of fascination. Alfons was no monster and no suffering creature: he seemed healthy, smart and functional. And he’d been born that way, with no notion he should be different. How could a madman have been this good with alchemy?
Alfons was squirming under his fingers. Just lower, where the legs split on a human… Edward paused, stared. Retractable penis?
“Oh. No eggs, then?” he said weakly. “Sorry.”
He pulled back, embarrassed. Great, now he was fondling the fish guy.
Showing no regret at the withdrawal, Alfons reached out to touch Edward’s own scar on his left leg and looked up inquisitively.
“I made a stupid mistake when I was a kid,” Edward said briefly. “My brother helped me fix it but the scars are going to stick around.”
After getting up once to gather some more dry wood to feed the fire, Edward settled to sleep in the sand. He could have slept in Miles’ cabin, but it seemed distasteful. He’d make his own shelter when morning came; for now, the fire kept him warm enough. Alfons must have felt the same, for he too went to sleep right where he was, golden head nestled in crossed arms.