24Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist or any other series to be found here.
A while later found Ed stuffing his face with food in the palace, Ling sitting across the table from him and waiting for his guest to finish eating.
"Say, have you got any pretzels?" inquired Ed as he polished off a bowl of chow mein.
"No." one of Ling's eyebrows twitched as he continued observing the alchemist. He wanted his questions answered, and he wasn't that patient of a person.
"Darn. I'll have to keep any eye out for that pigeon again." Ed commented and reached for a platter of gyoza. Ling smacked his hand, only to bite back a curse. Damn, that had been the automail arm! The young emperor rubbed the hand that he had hit the artificial limb. Nevertheless, his point had gotten across, for Edward had withdrawn his arm back to himself despite the looks of longing he cast what remained of the veritable feast before him.
"Pigeon?" Ling questioned, wondering what a pigeon had to do with anything.
"Yeah, this bloody bird just came out of nowhere and stole my pretzel. Next thing I know I'm waking up to a freaking tiger of all things." the foreign teen scowled, and Ling stared with bemusement. Had whatever happened to bring Ed to Xing also addled his brains?
No, that couldn't be it. After all, this had to be a different Ed than the one he knew, yet somehow sort of the same. Ling could understand if Ed needed a new automail arm – arms did have the pesky habit of finding themselves detached from their owners, Ling had found – but de-aging and losing his memory? But what was most damning of all was that the fact that the alchemist was indeed a practicing alchemist once more, as the transmutation he had performed to escape the cage proved.
Realizing that Ed was waiting for a response – and had started to focus on the food again – Ling returned completely to reality to address the strange alternate version of his friend.
"Alright, so you somehow came here because of a pigeon. I suppose I can believe that; it's not too hard to believe when you live in a world of alchemy, alkahestry, body-stealing gates, and body-sharing homunculi." Ling admitted, even though it pained him to admit that he was probably crazy just for living in a world that had all this and seeing it as perfectly reasonable. Or at least, it would have if he had not grown up in this world and instead had a more mundane world to compare it with.
"Alkahestry?" Ed honed onto the unfamiliar term, although his eyes narrowed in suspicion at the emperor's knowledge of the Gate and homunculi.
"It's only Xing's equivalent of alchemy. More medical and stuff." Ling explained flippantly.
"Xing?"
Ling gaped now. He knew that alkahestry might be unknown to this version of Ed (and wasn't that a scary thought, two of him running around in one dimension), but surely he was aware of his country's neighbors!
"Uh, hello? It's only the country that forms the eastern border of the Xerxes Desert."
"Amestris has neighbors?"
"What the– are you seriously that ignorant?" Ling's esteem of this Ed was dropping.
"Hey! I'm not ignorant! I just have an incomplete rural primary school education! And as far as I know, Amestris and Ishbal are the only countries around." Edward objected.
"Look, we're getting off-track, and I can't believe that I have to be the sensible voice here."
"Well sorry for being frazzled after finding myself in an unfamiliar place with a tiger and then placed in a cage." the Fullmetal Alchemist scowled.
"Alright, so hear me out here: I think you're from an alternate dimension. I know because I know you. Well, not you you, but a different you. There's also the fact that your world is apparently restricted to only two countries, your automail, your younger age, and the fact that you can still perform transmutations. Anyway, you obviously came here somehow, and there's probably a reason that you came here of all places." Ling explained.
"Yeah, I already knew all of that. I've also deduced that the pigeon is the source of my current situation." Ed stated coolly.
"Wha– how?! I was so proud of figuring that out!" whined the emperor of Xing.
"Because I'm a genius, duh." boasted the alchemist, while checking to ensure that his brochure titled 'So You've Found Yourself in a Fanfic' was tucked out of sight in a pocket of his leather pants.
Ling continued staring despite his eyes being shut as they usually were for several more moments, before reclining back and shrugging.
"Makes sense."
An awkward silence spanned between the two for a while. Not knowing what to say, both the royal and his guest were growing fidgety. The former was finally the one to break it.
"What now?" he asked.
"We wait for the convenient plot device."
"Oh, alright. Wait a second, what do you mean by–" Ling never got to finish his sentence, for at that moment the air near the ceiling disassembled to form a glowing portal out from which flew a pigeon, pretzel still in its clutch.
"Hey, gimme back my pretzel!" Edward exclaimed and leapt to his feet, but the pigeon dive-bombed him and Ling. Another portal formed before it between the two and it fell through. So did Ed and Ling, as the portal developed a gravitational pull and sucked them in.
LINE BREAK
Author's Note: Yes peeps, after a long hiatus from this story I present to you another chapter. It's short like all of the others, but meh, deal with it. I suck at dialogue, so I was stuck on how to execute this for months. I eventually decided on less serious exposition and more comedy.
