Ruler's Jewel Part One
Title: Ruler’s Jewel
Author: Sofipitch
Characters: Edward and Alphonse Elric, Ling Yao, Lan Fan, Mei Chang, originals
Series/Timeline: post brotherhood/manga
Genre: Adventure
Warnings: spoilers for the end of the series
Current word count: 3,568
Summary: To solve Xing's population problem, Ling Edward, Alponse, and Lan Fan leave to explore Xing newest territory in the desert, Xerxes.
Thanks to: My editor, my artist,dzioo, for having this copy when my flashdrive was wiped and her patience, and KT for her support!
Part One
Ed couldn't help but roll his eyes when one of the Xingese officials (all present ranged from a mix of politicians and other members of Ling’s cabinet; military generals; and environmentalists), Bird Brain as Ling liked to call him, stood up and started shouting angrily at an environmentalist, Crinkly Face. For what seemed to be the fifth time this week. He looked over at Alphonse for guidance as to what Bird Brain, or Shang, was arguing, and from the flat look Alphonse gave him; it was another useless argument. They shouted at each other in Xingese, a language Ed claimed he hadn’t the patience to bother learning, so he hoped they were debating the uses of the desert land at this point in time, but for all Ed knew, they could’ve been fighting over who had been served the bigger portion of food at breakfast this morning. But Edward knew better than that, they were fighting over the same thing they did every time Ling called for a meeting. Al, for one, always had the same lifeless expression whenever they began fighting about the alternatives of regulating Xing’s population. Al didn’t believe there was any alternative solution, so the look of disgust Alphonse always sent towards the two ignorant politicians was, to some degree, comical. It was getting to the point where Ed no longer thought Ling should continue calling meetings, his advisors were just repeating the same charade they did every time.
Ed looked around the room, taking amusement in the walls and decorations of the room, just as he did every day. (It helped with being stuck in a room for a few hours and not being able to understand what everyone in the room was saying.) The Emperor’s Court wasn’t as decorated with as many tapestries and ordinate statues, as he would’ve expected, as the only ones in the room were only against one wall, but he guessed that Ling’s throne, the most detailed of all the items in the room, alone could have been worth enough to begin a war over if ever stolen. The backrest was a sculpture of millions of little dragons weaving themselves together to create a sturdy back. The dragons came from a mixture of bronze, gold, and jade; each one different and having no resemblance to the others surrounding it. Two of the larger scaled serpents curled outwards to form the arm rests. Ed wondered if Winry would let Al transmute something like that for the living room back home. Maybe of a slightly smaller size than the one Ling was sitting in--practically laying; the seat was so large his feet dangled above the ground and Ed didn’t want to have to go through that humiliation again.
Most buildings seemed to be made out of paper and wood, which Ed thought was ridiculously flammable, but Ling’s court was made out of a thick almost brick-like solution, just as his apartments were. Ordinate paper covered these walls; they depicted scenes from Xingese mythology. Only one wall didn’t have wall paper-the one with the tapestries and statue of a child being born from a lotus flower (It was on this wall you could see the brick the room was made out of). Ling had had to explain to him what each myth meant and why such tales were the ones chosen to decorate the Emperor’s court. In the end it turned out each myth had a moral that involved great wisdom, choosing what’s right, and respect for life. They seemed to have been put in place to offer inspiration to any emperor who was having difficulty making a decision. Ling said he had that paper put in place; the one his father had chosen had depicted ordinate golden flowers. “Useless,” he had said, “Just useless.”
Ling eventually stood up and said something in Xingese (It could’ve been a sentence or only one really long word; from what Ed had been listening to, no one ever seemed to pause or breathe while speaking in Xingese.) and the men stopped arguing and sat back down on their respective sides of the room. Ed wondered what such power must feel like, to be able to utter a few words and have them obey you without question. Ed knew he was the only one who could talk back to the emperor, he figured since they were friends it wouldn’t be a problem. He did get a dirty look from one of Ling’s servants the first time he did it, but during meetings it seemed he couldn’t talk back to the emperor since he knew squat of what they were saying. Although bad mouthing the emperor in a room full of highly educated advisors and cabinet members and more guards than Ed could count try to count (Although he did try once and got to thirty-five guards, twenty cabinet members, and twenty-seven military officers, till the meeting was adjourned and everyone left before he could even get to the cultural and environmental advisors.) didn’t sound like one of his wisest of ideas.
The meeting continued peacefully, without any interruptions and very soon Ling chose to conclude their work for the day. Lan Fan magically reappeared at the end, standing by Ling’s side watching attentively as everyone else filed before Ling did. Mei Chan, who was seated closer to the emperor than most, also remained seated and waited for everyone else to leave. Two other guards stood at the door, also watching to make sure everyone left the room and didn’t sneak off somewhere else. At the beginning of Ling’s term, the guards had managed to oversee someone slip off into Ling’s apartments and waited there to try and attack Ling the moment the perpetrator saw an open opportunity. Luckily, according to Alphonse, Lan Fan could sense the man’s presence before she ever even stepped into Ling’s apartments.
No one spoke as the exited the room, remaining as silent and organized as the end of a funeral. And from the looks on everyone’s faces, the meeting must have been just as exciting as one. It always seemed a little odd to Ed Ling’s career of choice. A life within any government was always so organized and impersonal, and to Ed Ling seemed to be nothing but the complete opposite of formal and distant. To some degree, being present during the meetings only made Edward wonder more about the reasons Ling had wanted to be the emperor so badly.
Once they were out of the room and had exited out into the court’s yard, Edward made his way over to Alphonse, who always translated all the meetings for him in the end. Alphonse wasn’t fluent when it came to speaking, but he had been taught some Xingese by Mei and had spent enough time in the courtrooms and in meeting to understand the language fluently. “So what’s happening? Did they agree to try to build on the land?”
Alphonse let out an annoyed sigh before answering. “They say that they are still going to oversee the condition of the territory before constructing anything on it. There all very superstitious about the land. And not only that, but there’s also the problem with people not really jumping to be living in a desert right now. Most people now would rather move back to the countries they originally came from than going to live in the desert.”
Over the course of the rein of the last emperor at the seat of the Imperial throne, other countries to the east of Xing had been undergoing various civil wars. People began evacuating their country, trying not to get drafted or caught in the battlefield. Although he wasn’t represented as soft and kind in Xingese documents and books, Ling claimed that during his first and last meeting with his father, he had had a gentle heart. It was probably that gentle manner which allowed the peasants enter Xing to seek safety and stability.
But eventually, the number of people pouring in got to be too much. The government began to put restrictions on who could enter the country, only certain people of high wealth or workers the country was in desperate need of would be let in. The rest were simply left to figure out where they were to go next. The economy collapsed in on Xing. Xing went through a rough agricultural period, and many crops failed because of drought and disease. The increased amount of farmers that had their produce failing put Xing behind economically, the large amount farmers were left with little to no money. The large and still growing population became a problem, and the government had to think of ways to fix it, without just dumping their citizens out of the country. Thankfully for the last emperor, he died before he had resolved the problem, leaving Ling with the burden of coming up with a solution for the countries problem.
“The Xingese have mostly lived in the protection of a good climate, they don’t know how to live in a desert. They’re nothing like the Ishvalans, who would prefer to live in the desert. And we can’t just make them leave, we have to find a way to have them go there willingly,” Alphonse commented.
In Amestris, they were also having problems with land and population. Once the Ishvalan Equality Act had been put into action, the new government of Amestris had needed to find space in which the Ishvalans could live. The Ishvalan race didn’t have much land to begin with, but when the act was passed, there was a promise of more land within the document that gave the Ishvalans much more land than the government had to offer.
Well, it didn’t take long for both countries to realize there was a huge area of land next to them that lay completely unclaimed, well kind of. After the destruction of Xerxes, the land was taken over by Xing, only for countries surrounding Xerxes to be lead to believe that the land was cursed, since all of its inhabitants died off in one night. The land legally belonged to Xing, but the Amestrians claimed that Xing had no claim over the land since it had remained untouched for three hundred years. Afraid of potential war with Xing over the land, General Roy Mustang got together with Xingese officials, handpicked by Ling himself, and found a reasonable price for Amestris to be able to buy the land from Xing.
Amestris received the land farther down south, which had a hotter climate and the land was less suited for agriculture rather than in the north, where the land could be sustained easier. But to build a possible railway system between the two countries, Xing preferred that the trains would run mostly through Amestris’ land rather than theirs, since they didn’t feel they could offer enough room to build on the land without making people leave their homes. And since it would be easier for the railway system to be built in the south that was what Amestris chose to buy. There was also the fact that Amestris didn’t have very much money to be able to pay for the land, due to the reconstruction of Amestris after the coup t’ eat and the land to the south went for much cheaper than to the north.
So now Xing was trying to figure out how they should approach getting people to move onto the land and also if it would be safe to settle, with stray Ishvalans possibly living on the remains of Xerxes. Alphonse was there to attend the meetings, already living in Xing and being Amestris’ ambassador of foreign matters. Edward had also been sent, being, other than Alphonse, one of the only people alive of Xerxian descent. As if he knew shit about that desert anyways. Not many knew anything about the waste land, but it seemed since they supposedly came from the desert, they should know how stable the land should be for future development.
“Of course they didn’t decide anything, they never decide anything. Crinkly Face and Bird Brain just keep arguing.”
Ed felt he was just there to keep poor, lonely Ling company. The idiot had been asking for a visit for ages now, saying they needed him for the final decision making felt like it was just an excuse to get his ass over there.
“There’s also the problem of people already living on the land. Both you and Ling met people that were living on the Xerxes ruins, we can’t just go over and shove them off. And they may not want to be residents of Xing either, so we have to figure out a way to let them stay or get them out peacefully.” Alphonse looked down at the scroll in his hands. “So basically we’ve just been debating the same thing we have been for the past few weeks, while still turning up with no answers.” Alphonse gave Ed an exasperated look before rolling his eyes before looking down to review the items written down on his scroll.
“What were Bird Brain and Crinkly Face arguing over earlier?” Ed asked.
“Oh, Ling just made the mistake of proposing that he could go into the desert and talk to those living there himself rather than to let someone else do so,” Alphonse didn’t look up at Ed as he spoke, he just continued to review his notes, so Ed couldn’t tell whether it was a bad thing or a good thing.
“And is Ling traveling a bad thing?”
“Hmm?” Alphonse looked up. “Well to us no, but those working for the emperor don’t believe it’s safe for him to leave and travel through an enormous desert. He’ll probably end up leaving despite what they might want, but it was probably a mistake to let them know about it. Things get messy and more complicated when his court feels the need to put in their two cents.” Alphonse shrugged and gave a ‘what-can-you-do’ expression before continuing on. “They can debate all the pros and cons all they want, but it’s not like Ling is really listening to their advice. I don’t think he trusts their ideas of how to handle the situation.”
Ed rolled his eyes. “He might have been joking about crossing the desert. You know how much he hates the heat.”
“When it comes to Ling, who knows. All I know is that it was a mistake to mention it.”
The debate on how to get people in and out of the desert had been going on the entire time Ed had been there and even before. It was possible Ling had said he would enter the desert himself out of annoyance of wanting to end all discussion and move on to actually get people in action. The only problem being that they didn’t really know who was living there, if there was more than the last time they had been there or less. And in reality, they didn’t want to anger those living there for they were the ones who could tell them how to cultivate the land. Ling wanted to try his best to keep the people there and happy. Everyone else in his cabinet really couldn’t care less for those people.
Ed thought that it was only a matter of time before Ling did in fact get up and walk all the way through the desert himself to fix any problems. He only had a limited amount of patience for the members of his cabinet and anything Edward said went in one ear and out the other. Alphonse received a little more time and consideration, but wouldn’t be able to stop him from doing anything irrational either. Their best hope was Lan Fan, who’d be able to kick his ass first if he chose to do anything stupid, since she was the one keeping constant on all of the idiot Emperor’s whereabouts.
---X---
At the end of the next meeting, according to Alphonse, the council came to a conclusion on what they were going to do. The thing they could not agree on was letting Ling be one of the candidates to travel the desert. Ling spoke in the favor of being able to travel across to the ruins of ancient Xerxes. His main argument was that he had done it before and that if he took his bodyguard with him he would be fine, but they, his council, argued against his case vigorously. But in the end it settled that Ling would travel through the desert to the ruins of ancient Xerxes. Really, in the end, Ling was emperor, and he would do whatever the hell he wanted. End of discussion. Or at least in this respective.
---X---
Not long after Ling’s final decision was announced, Edward and Alphonse were called to Ling’s presence. When they were got to the private room buried deep within the center of passages throughout the palace and expertly guarded by more of Ling’s bodyguards than Ed figured there were protecting the court, (Not that he would know the difference between them, they all looked the same in their black attire and moved too fast for him to tell how many there were present.) Ling and Mei had already managed to be arguing.
The servant who had brought them through the halls and to the room announced their arrival to the royals, but they paid no attention to them, Mei didn’t even turn to look at him as she waved him off, too engrossed in arguing her point with Ling to realize her rudeness. Alphonse thanked the servant in their place and then proceeded to follow the argument, which for Edward was very conveniently in Xingese, and every once in a while putting in his opinion.
Mei Chang had grown since he had last seen her during the fight on the promised day. He could no longer call her bean girl, although he referred to her by that whenever talking to others, and in exchange she no longer insulted him about how in refined and un-prince-like he was. When he had first arrived and he had called Winry, she had overheard some of the conversation and later commented that he may not be as much of an idiot as she had believed. Although she had also made sure reassure him that he was still very much a rude brat. Her hair was also shorter and she had obviously gone through puberty for she looked older and a lot more her age than she had when she was younger. She also spoke more politics now than she did fairytales and seemed to boss Ling around so much about how to do his job you’d think she was his wife (or Lan Fan).
As the argument continued, Ed eventually decided that he deserved to be in on whatever was happening too. So he asked.
Mei turned to him with a scowl on her face. “He doesn’t seem to understand how incredibly irresponsible just leaving the country and traveling into some unknown lands is!”
Ling was seated opposite of where Mei was standing. He was seated with his knees crossed and his hands in his lap; he looked very calm, with the exception of his eyebrows being furrowed together and the tone of his voice. “I have already told you, I’ve done it before. I know what I’ll be up against.”
“That was back when you were a prince, not when you were the emperor of one of the biggest nations in the world!”
And then they reverted back to arguing in Xingese and completely excluding Edward.
Ed was beginning to drift off when Alphonse spoke up. “Do you plan on going with Ling if he leaves?”
Mei turned to look at Alphonse. She looked at him with slightly widened eyes, seeming a little bewildered at someone else having spoken. “No, of course not,” she said. “You couldn’t pay me enough money to make me cross that desert again.”
Ed heard Ling mutter something about her being a spoiled brat, but both Alphonse and Mei either didn’t notice or simply brushed the insult off.
“Then,” Alphonse gestured towards Ling, “If he leaves you would be here too take care of Xing.”
Both royals paused and contemplated on the consequences such situation could bring, but when finding none they looked at each other and nodded as if having reached an agreement. “As long as she doesn’t try to take the crown and become Empress herself, I don’t have a problem with such arrangement,” Ling said.
Mei shot Ling a cold look them shrugged her shoulders. “If Ling shows me what to do, I wouldn’t have a problem with holding such duties.” Ed found it ironic Mei asked to be showed how to do Ling’s job beforehand, for she bossed him around so much you’d think she already knew. He decided it would be better for his health and safety if he kept that comment to himself though.
“Then I’ll have it arranged.” Ling confirmed.
Ed stretched his arms over his head. “Al, I think you should be Emperor. You know how to fix everything.”
Ling jokingly shot Alphonse a defiant look. “Shall we duel for the throne?”
“I think I’m done with getting involved in any arguments for today.”
Author: Sofipitch
Characters: Edward and Alphonse Elric, Ling Yao, Lan Fan, Mei Chang, originals
Series/Timeline: post brotherhood/manga
Genre: Adventure
Warnings: spoilers for the end of the series
Current word count: 3,568
Summary: To solve Xing's population problem, Ling Edward, Alponse, and Lan Fan leave to explore Xing newest territory in the desert, Xerxes.
Thanks to: My editor, my artist,dzioo, for having this copy when my flashdrive was wiped and her patience, and KT for her support!
Part One
Ed couldn't help but roll his eyes when one of the Xingese officials (all present ranged from a mix of politicians and other members of Ling’s cabinet; military generals; and environmentalists), Bird Brain as Ling liked to call him, stood up and started shouting angrily at an environmentalist, Crinkly Face. For what seemed to be the fifth time this week. He looked over at Alphonse for guidance as to what Bird Brain, or Shang, was arguing, and from the flat look Alphonse gave him; it was another useless argument. They shouted at each other in Xingese, a language Ed claimed he hadn’t the patience to bother learning, so he hoped they were debating the uses of the desert land at this point in time, but for all Ed knew, they could’ve been fighting over who had been served the bigger portion of food at breakfast this morning. But Edward knew better than that, they were fighting over the same thing they did every time Ling called for a meeting. Al, for one, always had the same lifeless expression whenever they began fighting about the alternatives of regulating Xing’s population. Al didn’t believe there was any alternative solution, so the look of disgust Alphonse always sent towards the two ignorant politicians was, to some degree, comical. It was getting to the point where Ed no longer thought Ling should continue calling meetings, his advisors were just repeating the same charade they did every time.
Ed looked around the room, taking amusement in the walls and decorations of the room, just as he did every day. (It helped with being stuck in a room for a few hours and not being able to understand what everyone in the room was saying.) The Emperor’s Court wasn’t as decorated with as many tapestries and ordinate statues, as he would’ve expected, as the only ones in the room were only against one wall, but he guessed that Ling’s throne, the most detailed of all the items in the room, alone could have been worth enough to begin a war over if ever stolen. The backrest was a sculpture of millions of little dragons weaving themselves together to create a sturdy back. The dragons came from a mixture of bronze, gold, and jade; each one different and having no resemblance to the others surrounding it. Two of the larger scaled serpents curled outwards to form the arm rests. Ed wondered if Winry would let Al transmute something like that for the living room back home. Maybe of a slightly smaller size than the one Ling was sitting in--practically laying; the seat was so large his feet dangled above the ground and Ed didn’t want to have to go through that humiliation again.
Most buildings seemed to be made out of paper and wood, which Ed thought was ridiculously flammable, but Ling’s court was made out of a thick almost brick-like solution, just as his apartments were. Ordinate paper covered these walls; they depicted scenes from Xingese mythology. Only one wall didn’t have wall paper-the one with the tapestries and statue of a child being born from a lotus flower (It was on this wall you could see the brick the room was made out of). Ling had had to explain to him what each myth meant and why such tales were the ones chosen to decorate the Emperor’s court. In the end it turned out each myth had a moral that involved great wisdom, choosing what’s right, and respect for life. They seemed to have been put in place to offer inspiration to any emperor who was having difficulty making a decision. Ling said he had that paper put in place; the one his father had chosen had depicted ordinate golden flowers. “Useless,” he had said, “Just useless.”
Ling eventually stood up and said something in Xingese (It could’ve been a sentence or only one really long word; from what Ed had been listening to, no one ever seemed to pause or breathe while speaking in Xingese.) and the men stopped arguing and sat back down on their respective sides of the room. Ed wondered what such power must feel like, to be able to utter a few words and have them obey you without question. Ed knew he was the only one who could talk back to the emperor, he figured since they were friends it wouldn’t be a problem. He did get a dirty look from one of Ling’s servants the first time he did it, but during meetings it seemed he couldn’t talk back to the emperor since he knew squat of what they were saying. Although bad mouthing the emperor in a room full of highly educated advisors and cabinet members and more guards than Ed could count try to count (Although he did try once and got to thirty-five guards, twenty cabinet members, and twenty-seven military officers, till the meeting was adjourned and everyone left before he could even get to the cultural and environmental advisors.) didn’t sound like one of his wisest of ideas.
The meeting continued peacefully, without any interruptions and very soon Ling chose to conclude their work for the day. Lan Fan magically reappeared at the end, standing by Ling’s side watching attentively as everyone else filed before Ling did. Mei Chan, who was seated closer to the emperor than most, also remained seated and waited for everyone else to leave. Two other guards stood at the door, also watching to make sure everyone left the room and didn’t sneak off somewhere else. At the beginning of Ling’s term, the guards had managed to oversee someone slip off into Ling’s apartments and waited there to try and attack Ling the moment the perpetrator saw an open opportunity. Luckily, according to Alphonse, Lan Fan could sense the man’s presence before she ever even stepped into Ling’s apartments.
No one spoke as the exited the room, remaining as silent and organized as the end of a funeral. And from the looks on everyone’s faces, the meeting must have been just as exciting as one. It always seemed a little odd to Ed Ling’s career of choice. A life within any government was always so organized and impersonal, and to Ed Ling seemed to be nothing but the complete opposite of formal and distant. To some degree, being present during the meetings only made Edward wonder more about the reasons Ling had wanted to be the emperor so badly.
Once they were out of the room and had exited out into the court’s yard, Edward made his way over to Alphonse, who always translated all the meetings for him in the end. Alphonse wasn’t fluent when it came to speaking, but he had been taught some Xingese by Mei and had spent enough time in the courtrooms and in meeting to understand the language fluently. “So what’s happening? Did they agree to try to build on the land?”
Alphonse let out an annoyed sigh before answering. “They say that they are still going to oversee the condition of the territory before constructing anything on it. There all very superstitious about the land. And not only that, but there’s also the problem with people not really jumping to be living in a desert right now. Most people now would rather move back to the countries they originally came from than going to live in the desert.”
Over the course of the rein of the last emperor at the seat of the Imperial throne, other countries to the east of Xing had been undergoing various civil wars. People began evacuating their country, trying not to get drafted or caught in the battlefield. Although he wasn’t represented as soft and kind in Xingese documents and books, Ling claimed that during his first and last meeting with his father, he had had a gentle heart. It was probably that gentle manner which allowed the peasants enter Xing to seek safety and stability.
But eventually, the number of people pouring in got to be too much. The government began to put restrictions on who could enter the country, only certain people of high wealth or workers the country was in desperate need of would be let in. The rest were simply left to figure out where they were to go next. The economy collapsed in on Xing. Xing went through a rough agricultural period, and many crops failed because of drought and disease. The increased amount of farmers that had their produce failing put Xing behind economically, the large amount farmers were left with little to no money. The large and still growing population became a problem, and the government had to think of ways to fix it, without just dumping their citizens out of the country. Thankfully for the last emperor, he died before he had resolved the problem, leaving Ling with the burden of coming up with a solution for the countries problem.
“The Xingese have mostly lived in the protection of a good climate, they don’t know how to live in a desert. They’re nothing like the Ishvalans, who would prefer to live in the desert. And we can’t just make them leave, we have to find a way to have them go there willingly,” Alphonse commented.
In Amestris, they were also having problems with land and population. Once the Ishvalan Equality Act had been put into action, the new government of Amestris had needed to find space in which the Ishvalans could live. The Ishvalan race didn’t have much land to begin with, but when the act was passed, there was a promise of more land within the document that gave the Ishvalans much more land than the government had to offer.
Well, it didn’t take long for both countries to realize there was a huge area of land next to them that lay completely unclaimed, well kind of. After the destruction of Xerxes, the land was taken over by Xing, only for countries surrounding Xerxes to be lead to believe that the land was cursed, since all of its inhabitants died off in one night. The land legally belonged to Xing, but the Amestrians claimed that Xing had no claim over the land since it had remained untouched for three hundred years. Afraid of potential war with Xing over the land, General Roy Mustang got together with Xingese officials, handpicked by Ling himself, and found a reasonable price for Amestris to be able to buy the land from Xing.
Amestris received the land farther down south, which had a hotter climate and the land was less suited for agriculture rather than in the north, where the land could be sustained easier. But to build a possible railway system between the two countries, Xing preferred that the trains would run mostly through Amestris’ land rather than theirs, since they didn’t feel they could offer enough room to build on the land without making people leave their homes. And since it would be easier for the railway system to be built in the south that was what Amestris chose to buy. There was also the fact that Amestris didn’t have very much money to be able to pay for the land, due to the reconstruction of Amestris after the coup t’ eat and the land to the south went for much cheaper than to the north.
So now Xing was trying to figure out how they should approach getting people to move onto the land and also if it would be safe to settle, with stray Ishvalans possibly living on the remains of Xerxes. Alphonse was there to attend the meetings, already living in Xing and being Amestris’ ambassador of foreign matters. Edward had also been sent, being, other than Alphonse, one of the only people alive of Xerxian descent. As if he knew shit about that desert anyways. Not many knew anything about the waste land, but it seemed since they supposedly came from the desert, they should know how stable the land should be for future development.
“Of course they didn’t decide anything, they never decide anything. Crinkly Face and Bird Brain just keep arguing.”
Ed felt he was just there to keep poor, lonely Ling company. The idiot had been asking for a visit for ages now, saying they needed him for the final decision making felt like it was just an excuse to get his ass over there.
“There’s also the problem of people already living on the land. Both you and Ling met people that were living on the Xerxes ruins, we can’t just go over and shove them off. And they may not want to be residents of Xing either, so we have to figure out a way to let them stay or get them out peacefully.” Alphonse looked down at the scroll in his hands. “So basically we’ve just been debating the same thing we have been for the past few weeks, while still turning up with no answers.” Alphonse gave Ed an exasperated look before rolling his eyes before looking down to review the items written down on his scroll.
“What were Bird Brain and Crinkly Face arguing over earlier?” Ed asked.
“Oh, Ling just made the mistake of proposing that he could go into the desert and talk to those living there himself rather than to let someone else do so,” Alphonse didn’t look up at Ed as he spoke, he just continued to review his notes, so Ed couldn’t tell whether it was a bad thing or a good thing.
“And is Ling traveling a bad thing?”
“Hmm?” Alphonse looked up. “Well to us no, but those working for the emperor don’t believe it’s safe for him to leave and travel through an enormous desert. He’ll probably end up leaving despite what they might want, but it was probably a mistake to let them know about it. Things get messy and more complicated when his court feels the need to put in their two cents.” Alphonse shrugged and gave a ‘what-can-you-do’ expression before continuing on. “They can debate all the pros and cons all they want, but it’s not like Ling is really listening to their advice. I don’t think he trusts their ideas of how to handle the situation.”
Ed rolled his eyes. “He might have been joking about crossing the desert. You know how much he hates the heat.”
“When it comes to Ling, who knows. All I know is that it was a mistake to mention it.”
The debate on how to get people in and out of the desert had been going on the entire time Ed had been there and even before. It was possible Ling had said he would enter the desert himself out of annoyance of wanting to end all discussion and move on to actually get people in action. The only problem being that they didn’t really know who was living there, if there was more than the last time they had been there or less. And in reality, they didn’t want to anger those living there for they were the ones who could tell them how to cultivate the land. Ling wanted to try his best to keep the people there and happy. Everyone else in his cabinet really couldn’t care less for those people.
Ed thought that it was only a matter of time before Ling did in fact get up and walk all the way through the desert himself to fix any problems. He only had a limited amount of patience for the members of his cabinet and anything Edward said went in one ear and out the other. Alphonse received a little more time and consideration, but wouldn’t be able to stop him from doing anything irrational either. Their best hope was Lan Fan, who’d be able to kick his ass first if he chose to do anything stupid, since she was the one keeping constant on all of the idiot Emperor’s whereabouts.
---X---
At the end of the next meeting, according to Alphonse, the council came to a conclusion on what they were going to do. The thing they could not agree on was letting Ling be one of the candidates to travel the desert. Ling spoke in the favor of being able to travel across to the ruins of ancient Xerxes. His main argument was that he had done it before and that if he took his bodyguard with him he would be fine, but they, his council, argued against his case vigorously. But in the end it settled that Ling would travel through the desert to the ruins of ancient Xerxes. Really, in the end, Ling was emperor, and he would do whatever the hell he wanted. End of discussion. Or at least in this respective.
---X---
Not long after Ling’s final decision was announced, Edward and Alphonse were called to Ling’s presence. When they were got to the private room buried deep within the center of passages throughout the palace and expertly guarded by more of Ling’s bodyguards than Ed figured there were protecting the court, (Not that he would know the difference between them, they all looked the same in their black attire and moved too fast for him to tell how many there were present.) Ling and Mei had already managed to be arguing.
The servant who had brought them through the halls and to the room announced their arrival to the royals, but they paid no attention to them, Mei didn’t even turn to look at him as she waved him off, too engrossed in arguing her point with Ling to realize her rudeness. Alphonse thanked the servant in their place and then proceeded to follow the argument, which for Edward was very conveniently in Xingese, and every once in a while putting in his opinion.
Mei Chang had grown since he had last seen her during the fight on the promised day. He could no longer call her bean girl, although he referred to her by that whenever talking to others, and in exchange she no longer insulted him about how in refined and un-prince-like he was. When he had first arrived and he had called Winry, she had overheard some of the conversation and later commented that he may not be as much of an idiot as she had believed. Although she had also made sure reassure him that he was still very much a rude brat. Her hair was also shorter and she had obviously gone through puberty for she looked older and a lot more her age than she had when she was younger. She also spoke more politics now than she did fairytales and seemed to boss Ling around so much about how to do his job you’d think she was his wife (or Lan Fan).
As the argument continued, Ed eventually decided that he deserved to be in on whatever was happening too. So he asked.
Mei turned to him with a scowl on her face. “He doesn’t seem to understand how incredibly irresponsible just leaving the country and traveling into some unknown lands is!”
Ling was seated opposite of where Mei was standing. He was seated with his knees crossed and his hands in his lap; he looked very calm, with the exception of his eyebrows being furrowed together and the tone of his voice. “I have already told you, I’ve done it before. I know what I’ll be up against.”
“That was back when you were a prince, not when you were the emperor of one of the biggest nations in the world!”
And then they reverted back to arguing in Xingese and completely excluding Edward.
Ed was beginning to drift off when Alphonse spoke up. “Do you plan on going with Ling if he leaves?”
Mei turned to look at Alphonse. She looked at him with slightly widened eyes, seeming a little bewildered at someone else having spoken. “No, of course not,” she said. “You couldn’t pay me enough money to make me cross that desert again.”
Ed heard Ling mutter something about her being a spoiled brat, but both Alphonse and Mei either didn’t notice or simply brushed the insult off.
“Then,” Alphonse gestured towards Ling, “If he leaves you would be here too take care of Xing.”
Both royals paused and contemplated on the consequences such situation could bring, but when finding none they looked at each other and nodded as if having reached an agreement. “As long as she doesn’t try to take the crown and become Empress herself, I don’t have a problem with such arrangement,” Ling said.
Mei shot Ling a cold look them shrugged her shoulders. “If Ling shows me what to do, I wouldn’t have a problem with holding such duties.” Ed found it ironic Mei asked to be showed how to do Ling’s job beforehand, for she bossed him around so much you’d think she already knew. He decided it would be better for his health and safety if he kept that comment to himself though.
“Then I’ll have it arranged.” Ling confirmed.
Ed stretched his arms over his head. “Al, I think you should be Emperor. You know how to fix everything.”
Ling jokingly shot Alphonse a defiant look. “Shall we duel for the throne?”
“I think I’m done with getting involved in any arguments for today.”