(no subject)
Dec. 2nd, 2010 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsIf I had to make an estimate, I would guess that around 60% of FMA fandom is entirely uninterested in Scar, 70% entirely uninterested in Mei, 90% entirely uninterested in Marcoh, and 99% entirely uninterested in Yoki.
So basically that leaves approximately two people who might have any interest in this. Uh, I hope those hypothetical two enjoy it! (And thank you![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
genarti for the beta.)
Title: Ghosts of Baschool
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Characters: Mei, Marcoh, Yoki, Scar
Spoilers/Warnings: PG-13 for mentions of genocide? This probably goes without saying for these characters. Set during the Briggs arc, so spoilers for everything up until then.
Word Count: 3726
Summary: So a serial killer, a mass murderer, a petty thief and a princess walk into an abandoned mining town . . .
(For the record, my mental soundtrack for this fic is Dar Williams' Mercy of the Fallen.)
The town that Scar has brought them to is silent like the desert – silent and dark and cold, like the desert at night, but, to be honest, creepier. The empty places of the desert don’t need people. Traveling through with Xiao Mei wasn’t easy, but Mei didn’t mind it just being the two of them there. This abandoned place does want people, and doesn’t have them; there’s sort of a feeling that spirits might stick around just to fill it up.
All of Amestris is creepy. The shape of the country is wrong. There’s something trapped and sorrowful wriggling under the ground; Mei’s learned to ignore the twitching in her palms and the hair standing up on the back of her neck if she wants to get anything done. It doesn’t bother her really – whatever ghosts are haunting this country, they’re Amestrian, not Xingese, not Chang, not Mei’s, and they shouldn’t have anything to say to her – except when she forgets to remember that she’s not bothered, and it does.
So, while of course she would have been fine with just Xiao Mei for company – she always is – it’s nonetheless a little bit reassuring to have more people around. There’s the warmth from the fire, and the flashes of light as she transmutes the canvas of the packs they’ve been carrying into pillows and blankets. They’ll make their own noise; it won’t be so bad.
“Mr. Marcoh? Mr. Yoki?”
Mr. Marcoh looks up from the corner where he’s poring, yet again, over the notes left by Mr. Scar’s brother. “Hm, Mei?”
“Do you want me to make you places to sleep too?”
“In here?” Marcoh says, a little startled. “There’ll be plenty of room for us all along this hallway, once Scar finishes making it secure – I would have thought you and Xiao Mei would be happy to have your own space again, after that little cabin.” His ruined face creases in a smile that comes more easily now, although Mei can tell that it still hurts him a little. The time that they spent north together has given his face time to heal, and Mei time to get used to looking at it. Not that the scarring itself is a problem for her – though she keeps wondering if she could have fixed it up a little bit better, given more time, so his poor left eye didn’t droop quite so much – but there’s the fact that she’d watched Mr. Scar do that to him, so casually, like ripping open an envelope. Mr. Marcoh had made sure that she knew the reasons for it, and that she knew he didn’t mind, and that made it easier. And Mr. Scar’s one of her comrades now, so she has to take his side no matter what – though now Mr. Marcoh’s sort of a comrade too, whatever Mr. Scar says, which makes it more complicated.
Anyway she can mostly follow the sense of it in her head, but it’s still sometimes hard to think about.
“Well,” she says, sitting back on her warmly silk-padded slippers, “it’s true that at home Xiao Mei and I always had our own room.” They’d always had their own everything, not often of the best quality, but scrupulously set apart nonetheless. Mei loves her clan, but it has always been important for her to remember, and for her cousins and aunts and uncles and all the others who might have been her playmates to remember, that she is neither their peer nor their pawn. She is responsible for herself, as she may someday be responsible for a nation; her room is the chrysalis of an Empress.
It had been strange, traveling first with Mr. Yoki and Mr. Scar, then with Mr. Marcoh. The first night out of Central with Mr. Marcoh she hadn’t been able to sleep at all. The damage to his nose made his breathing laborious, and his snores were louder than any she’d ever heard. And sometimes he talked in his sleep, or shouted, and that was worse.
But on the other hand, she’s becoming a sounder sleeper, by necessity. And at least it’s a distraction from whatever it is that’s under the ground.
“So,” says Marcoh, and starts to get to his feet, slowly, like the old man he isn’t.
“But,” Mei says, before he can finish, “it’s not really safe here, is it? Everything is crumbling, and people are looking for us, and – it’s better,” she announces, jumping up herself, Xiao Mei perched with paws folded on her shoulder, “if I’m here to protect you in case our enemies find us!”
Mr. Yoki, who has been sulking in a corner since they arrived, lets out a sudden cackle of laughter. Mr. Yoki doesn’t have a very good attitude sometimes, Mei thinks disapprovingly. “Yes, the human weapon needs –”
“Yoki,” Marcoh says, cutting him off, and then turns his gaze back to Mei, his misshapen eyes considering her thoughtfully. “That’s a good point, Mei. It’s probably better if we all just stay in the same room.” He glances over at Mr. Yoki.
Mr. Yoki slouches down and ducks his sharp chin into his chest. “You know me, I never make a fuss.”
“I thought so,” Mei says, satisfied, and starts drawing out her alkahestry circles to transmute some more bedding for her comrades. “But,” she adds, glancing over her shoulder, “you should remember to tell Mr. Scar that you snore!” Not all of Mei’s friends, after all, might be as tolerant of such things as Mei. And Mr. Scar might not take well to being told it was his own fault.
After just having chastised Yoki, it would be extremely hypocritical for Marcoh to laugh – not to mention cruel to Mei – and so he doesn’t, but it’s a near thing. Of all his worries at the moment (and, he imagines, Scar’s), sleep apnea has not been the highest on the list.
“I’ll make sure he’s aware,” he agrees. “Though, Mei, he may decide to keep apart – that will be his decision.” He worries about this child who seems to have imprinted on Scar, the scourge of Central, like a duckling on an extremely unlikely drake. Not that he imagines the Ishvalan would harm her – of the two of them, it’s not Scar who has historically been dangerous to the innocent – but he hasn’t seen enough of their interactions yet to gauge how their dynamic exists outside of Mei’s head. It’s hard for him imagine the angel of death playing the role of tolerant guardian to a young girl.
(Marcoh knows, in his head, that Scar is no divine spirit, come in answer to his prayers to deliver vengeance unto him. The stone face and the voice that rumbles like thunder belong to a man like any other. He excuses himself for his occasional trouble in remembering this by telling himself that after so much time in the lair of the Seven Sins, everything starts to look over-symbolic.)
But perhaps it’s Mei , and not he, who has the right of it. He glances over at her and catches a glimpse of her small sure face as it’s briefly illuminated by a flash of transmutation light; she hasn’t even bothered to answer his comment. She looks more secure, he thinks, now that it’s been settled that they’ll stay together. He finds himself hoping Scar doesn’t disappoint her.
“Hey! Doctor,” Yoki whines, and Marcoh blinks at him, startled again out of his thoughts. “The fire’s getting low.” He points, and Marcoh, ambling obediently over, realizes that the skinny man’s voice is so harsh because he’s afraid. Now that he thinks about it, he supposes that the abandoned town could seem eerie.
Marcoh himself finds a measure of peace in the silence and the snow. If there are ghosts here, they’re simple, untroubled ghosts, who died ordinary deaths. They have no grudges to bear, which makes them far preferable to the ones that whisper at the edges of Marcoh’s mind every day.
But Yoki, as far as Marcoh knows, has no such comparisons to weigh against his recent experiences – although now he thinks about it, he realizes there isn’t much he does know about the man, except that he scurries along in Scar’s shadow and voices petty concerns when he thinks he can get away with it. Marcoh is starting to find his constant complaints reassuring, almost endearing. He keeps forgetting that he’s supposed to be trying to live now; that’s one thing Yoki never does. The fire blooms up higher, and Marcoh smiles back over at the other man as best he can. (Another thing he keeps forgetting is that his smile is probably not as comforting as it used to be.)
Yoki sighs and pulls his hat down farther on his forehead before wrapping his arms round his knees, a surprisingly small figure when huddled up.
“Are you not used to the cold?” Marcoh asks gently.
“Hnh,” says Yoki, indistinctly. “If you’re so fine with it, give me your coat.”
“I can transmute you another one, if you’re really cold, Mr. Yoki,” Mei chirps, looking up, and then glances around a little doubtfully. “Maybe I could make it from my pillow . . .”
Yoki looks extremely tempted for a moment, but finally mutters, “No, it’s fine,” and scoots closer to the fire. “Where’s the pack with the food?”
Mei frowns. “Shouldn’t we wait for Mr. Scar to get back to start eating?”
Marcoh climbs creakily back up to his feet. His joints ache, and his bones, but that’s only to be expected; if he were his own patient, he’d have to remind himself that he’s been treating his body terribly. “I’ll go find him and see if he’s done checking the foundations,” he offers. He doesn’t really think, whatever Mei wants, that Scar will choose to spend any more time than he has to in the presence of a man he justifiably hates – but perhaps he can explain to Scar that Mei will find his presence reassuring, and see what he says.
To be honest, Marcoh finds Scar’s presence reassuring too, but not, he imagines, for the same reasons.
Yoki doesn’t see why they have to wait for Scar to get back to eat, but he doesn’t protest as he watches Doctor Marcoh shuffle his way over to the door. Mei talks big, but if another crazy alchemist or troupe of soldiers shows up he’d feel a lot more secure hiding behind the giant serial killer than the midget wonder.
And anyway, Scar’s at least familiar, which is more than he can say for the doctor. He’s still not really sure what Marcoh’s doing here, actually. He’s still not at all sure what he’s doing here. All this about the shape of the country and secret alchemy notes and homuncuthings – this is all over his head, so over his head. Yoki never wanted to save the world. No one in their right minds would ask Yoki to be involved in saving the world.
Then again, if there’s one thing he’s clear on, it’s that none of his current companions are in their right minds. And while it looks like he may be stuck permanently with a bunch of criminals and freaks, it’s still better than being all alone again.
His stomach rumbles, and he reaches out his hands over the fire, rubbing them together. “Mei,” he cajoles, “you’ve got the bread over there, right? Don’t you want to just have a snack?”
“We don’t have very much, so it’s not fair unless we make sure everyone gets the same amount,” Mei says primly, just as he accidentally dips his hand too far down. The flames sear against his fingers and he snatches his hand back hastily and hunches back over. So what if he’s sulking? It’s not like anyone else here has a right to judge his behavior. Scar and the doctor are mass murderers, there’s not exactly a moral high ground there, and the kid is what, eight?
“So what are we going to do when we run out? It’s bad enough that we’re freezing, we have to starve too?”
“I guess we can hunt something,” Mei suggests, and lifts her chin a little. “Xiao Mei’s very fierce!”
Yoki wrinkles his nose and shakes his hand out. He still remembers how it felt to have tiny panda teeth chomping down on his fingers. “She’s fierce when she’s attacking her friends. I don’t know what she’ll do about food.”
“She likes you now!” protests Mei, looking vaguely guilty. “We’re comrades.” Xiao Mei’s squint, Yoki notes, is unconvincing. He hmphs and tugs on his moustache.
Mei is quiet for a moment, and then bites her lip. “Hey . . .” She glances towards the doorway, currently empty of men without names and men without faces. “Mr. Yoki?”
Yoki squints at her over his kneecaps.
“You were in the Amestrian military, weren’t you?”
“I was,” agrees Yoki, raising his head slightly. He’s sure he’s told this story before. “Until that lying little criminal Edward Elric blackened my name unjustly and –”
Usually Mei is perfectly happy to hear an Edward Elric-centered rant, as long he tolerates a paean to Alphonse Elric in return – it’s an unspoken but mutually agreeable arrangement – but today she seems to have other things on her mind. “So, Mr. Yoki . . .” Her voice drops low, and Xiao Mei huddles in close to Mei’s ear. “Did you fight in that war? The one against Mr. Scar’s clan?”
“Huh!” Yoki lets out a hollow cackle. “The Ishvalan War? Not a chance. I had better things to be doing that year than dying.” What good are rank and wealth, if they don’t get you out of a steaming pile of shit like that? Not that Yoki had had much of either, then – but it’s amazing how financially ingenious you start to feel, when your options look like bribing your way out of front-line service or dying in the desert like a dog.
“I didn’t think so,” Mei agrees. “Because you’re traveling with Mr. Scar – so you can’t be an enemy of his clan. But Mr. Marcoh is.” She starts playing with the fraying ends of her sash, winding them fretfully around her fingers. “The war didn’t benefit most Amestrians – it didn’t help their clans at all. It only helped the homunculi, Mr. Marcoh said. And you knew that, so you didn’t fight in the war, right?”
“Right,” agrees Yoki, cautiously. There certainly hadn’t been any pluses in it for him that he could see.
“So . . . why did Mr. Marcoh?”
Yoki sits up straight at this, rubbing his head. Has she been waiting all this trip until meeting up with Yoki again to start this conversation? He can understand, of course, why she would have wanted to talk to him – naturally, the kid wants a role model who’s wise and intelligent, and neither Scar nor Marcoh really qualify. All the same, he wishes she hadn’t.
“He’s an alchemist,” he mutters. “They’re all crazy. How am I supposed to know why they do what they do?”
“Mr. Marcoh’s nice,” says Mei, rather plaintively.
“You wouldn’t think he’s so nice if you’d been the one chased all over Amestris because they thought you were him,” says Yoki sourly. His stomach is grumbling again, and he’s still cold. It’s not fair. Marcoh gets his face completely burned off, and gets less to wear and eat than Yoki does, and it doesn’t seem to bother him at all. Yoki doesn’t have anything like Marcoh’s ghosts to account for; why is it Yoki that’s suffering? Fate is cruel. But Mei and Xiao Mei are still looking at him like they expect him to have some kind of answer, so he elaborates: “Anyway, Mei - sometimes, nice people do things and they don’t think about how bad it is. They figure it out when it’s too late, and they start thinking ridiculous things, like they don’t deserve to be alive, or it doesn’t matter if they’re miserable. That’s Marcoh. And that’s stupid. So the point is, Mei –” He folds his arms, and fixes her with a stern look. Time to lay down some wisdom. “Be nice to people, or you’ll regret it later. Like you’ll be sorry when I die of hunger, because you wouldn’t give me any bread now.”
Mei giggles and Xiao Mei squeaks, and then both clap their hands over their mouths in unison. “Clan warfare is serious, Mr. Yoki! You shouldn’t make jokes!”
Yoki droops back down. Kids never laughed at him half so much in Youswell, did they? He was respected then. “I wasn’t joking,” he complains. Scar had better come back soon.
He stands alone in the tunnel, inspecting the roof. The cracks don’t seem enough to render it completely unstable. But it still might be better to bring the whole thing down preemptively before it has a chance to fall on Mei or Yoki’s head later.
(For a moment, the treacherous thought crosses his mind that it would, every so often, be of benefit to have access to the kind of alchemy he sees the Amestrian weapons using. If he’s living as a walking abomination regardless, it would be nice to at least have the ability to shore the roof up.)
“Scar?”
He turns his head slowly, bringing his cool regard to rest on Marcoh as the other man shuffles down the hall. Through his old dark glasses the state alchemist would have looked gray, ghostly. But then, there’s no need to wear dark glasses here; each of them knows what the other is.
“Mei wanted to wait for you to get back to eat,” Marcoh says. “If you’re finished.”
He considers this, frowning up at the ceiling. He doesn’t think it will fall, but it’s best to be sure. “Stand back,” he warns. Marcoh obeys without question – the obedience has been a constant since their meeting, the lack of question less so – and he brings up his tattooed arm, splaying his hand against the ceiling. There’s a flash of blue light that illuminates the ghoulish white scar tissue that covers Marcoh’s face, and then he pulls his hand down and leaps back out of the way himself, just avoiding the clatter as a large portion of the ceiling falls in.
He swings around and falls into step next to Marcoh without looking at him, hoping the man will stay silent. When he moved solitary through the tunnels, it had been as if he was alone on his quest again. He’d found this silent town of dead or vanished Amestrians almost soothing the first time he came here. It had been proof that the Amestrian hold on a place did not last forever; reclaiming it for himself, an Ishvalan, did not feel like a victory, but it didn’t feel like a defeat, either.
And now he stands here with an Amestrian alchemist, whom he has brought here. With another Amestrian and a child of neither people awaiting his return. All of this is necessary to a greater or lesser extent. (Mei’s presence, perhaps, somewhat less than strictly necessary, but she cannot be left alone to face the dangers of Central in blithe search of a blood-soaked Philosopher’s Stone – and how this became his responsibility, he’s still not entirely clear, but by now it seems to be). But necessary does not mean pleasant, or, in fact, plausible. Since the death of his people, he has walked alone.
Marcoh, however, does not oblige him by allowing him to temporarily ignore his presence. “Mei would like us all to stay close, I think,” he says. “She won’t admit to being afraid, of course, but in this place any child would be.”
“Hn.” He suspects that Marcoh underestimates Mei; small she may well be, and perhaps unnerved as Marcoh says, but she’s faced far more frightening things since coming to this country. She will tolerate what she must.
He sees, out of his peripheral vision, Marcoh turn his head to glance at him. The Amestrian’s voice is tentative, as he adds, “I imagine you must not be used to sharing your solitude so. But of us here, you’re the one she trusts the most.”
“That disturbs you?”
“No, of course not,” says Marcoh, flustered. “I’m sure you’ve earned her trust.” But it’s clear enough to see that despite his words, the doctor doesn’t understand the connection between the scarred killer and the bright little girl.
He feels no need to gift the Amestrian with any more understanding about himself than is necessary. Marcoh is not a comrade. He is here to serve a purpose. There are things that cannot be forgiven; that at least they both understand very well.
“It makes sense, given the forces hunting us,” he rumbles, looking straight ahead still, “for us all to stay close as possible.”
“That’s what Mei said. She also said that I should warn you that apparently I snore terribly.”
Startled, he glances over at Marcoh before he can catch himself, and sees the doctor’s face creased with unexpected amusement.
He snorts, and looks forward again. “It won’t do us any harm to sleep lightly.”
“Given the forces hunting us,” agrees Marcoh, straight-faced, but a flicker of amusement still in his eyes, and then pauses as they turn the corner. The doorway to their chosen sanctuary flickers golden with the fire’s glow, and he takes a moment to wonder if there’s a way to cover the door so the light can’t be seen from outside.
“Who’s that?” This is Mei’s voice, high-pitched and wary; he envisions her readying her knives, just in case.
“It’s us,” Marcoh calls back, and Mei bounds immediately into the doorway, beaming.
“You brought back Mr. Scar!”
“Master Scar’s back?” Yoki’s voice sounds muffled, like he’s chewing something, and Mei immediately disappears back into the room.
“Mr. Yoki! You were supposed to wait –”
“Scar’s back now, isn’t he?”
Beside him, he hears Marcoh chortling - a startling, unfamiliar sound.
For good or for ill, these people’s paths have become entwined with his. There’s no wishing it otherwise now.
“Come on, Mr. Scar,” says Mei, “I want to show you where you’re going to sleep!”
Scar leaves the ghosts of Baschool on the threshold, and follows Mei inside.
So basically that leaves approximately two people who might have any interest in this. Uh, I hope those hypothetical two enjoy it! (And thank you
genarti for the beta.) Title: Ghosts of Baschool
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Characters: Mei, Marcoh, Yoki, Scar
Spoilers/Warnings: PG-13 for mentions of genocide? This probably goes without saying for these characters. Set during the Briggs arc, so spoilers for everything up until then.
Word Count: 3726
Summary: So a serial killer, a mass murderer, a petty thief and a princess walk into an abandoned mining town . . .
(For the record, my mental soundtrack for this fic is Dar Williams' Mercy of the Fallen.)
The town that Scar has brought them to is silent like the desert – silent and dark and cold, like the desert at night, but, to be honest, creepier. The empty places of the desert don’t need people. Traveling through with Xiao Mei wasn’t easy, but Mei didn’t mind it just being the two of them there. This abandoned place does want people, and doesn’t have them; there’s sort of a feeling that spirits might stick around just to fill it up.
All of Amestris is creepy. The shape of the country is wrong. There’s something trapped and sorrowful wriggling under the ground; Mei’s learned to ignore the twitching in her palms and the hair standing up on the back of her neck if she wants to get anything done. It doesn’t bother her really – whatever ghosts are haunting this country, they’re Amestrian, not Xingese, not Chang, not Mei’s, and they shouldn’t have anything to say to her – except when she forgets to remember that she’s not bothered, and it does.
So, while of course she would have been fine with just Xiao Mei for company – she always is – it’s nonetheless a little bit reassuring to have more people around. There’s the warmth from the fire, and the flashes of light as she transmutes the canvas of the packs they’ve been carrying into pillows and blankets. They’ll make their own noise; it won’t be so bad.
“Mr. Marcoh? Mr. Yoki?”
Mr. Marcoh looks up from the corner where he’s poring, yet again, over the notes left by Mr. Scar’s brother. “Hm, Mei?”
“Do you want me to make you places to sleep too?”
“In here?” Marcoh says, a little startled. “There’ll be plenty of room for us all along this hallway, once Scar finishes making it secure – I would have thought you and Xiao Mei would be happy to have your own space again, after that little cabin.” His ruined face creases in a smile that comes more easily now, although Mei can tell that it still hurts him a little. The time that they spent north together has given his face time to heal, and Mei time to get used to looking at it. Not that the scarring itself is a problem for her – though she keeps wondering if she could have fixed it up a little bit better, given more time, so his poor left eye didn’t droop quite so much – but there’s the fact that she’d watched Mr. Scar do that to him, so casually, like ripping open an envelope. Mr. Marcoh had made sure that she knew the reasons for it, and that she knew he didn’t mind, and that made it easier. And Mr. Scar’s one of her comrades now, so she has to take his side no matter what – though now Mr. Marcoh’s sort of a comrade too, whatever Mr. Scar says, which makes it more complicated.
Anyway she can mostly follow the sense of it in her head, but it’s still sometimes hard to think about.
“Well,” she says, sitting back on her warmly silk-padded slippers, “it’s true that at home Xiao Mei and I always had our own room.” They’d always had their own everything, not often of the best quality, but scrupulously set apart nonetheless. Mei loves her clan, but it has always been important for her to remember, and for her cousins and aunts and uncles and all the others who might have been her playmates to remember, that she is neither their peer nor their pawn. She is responsible for herself, as she may someday be responsible for a nation; her room is the chrysalis of an Empress.
It had been strange, traveling first with Mr. Yoki and Mr. Scar, then with Mr. Marcoh. The first night out of Central with Mr. Marcoh she hadn’t been able to sleep at all. The damage to his nose made his breathing laborious, and his snores were louder than any she’d ever heard. And sometimes he talked in his sleep, or shouted, and that was worse.
But on the other hand, she’s becoming a sounder sleeper, by necessity. And at least it’s a distraction from whatever it is that’s under the ground.
“So,” says Marcoh, and starts to get to his feet, slowly, like the old man he isn’t.
“But,” Mei says, before he can finish, “it’s not really safe here, is it? Everything is crumbling, and people are looking for us, and – it’s better,” she announces, jumping up herself, Xiao Mei perched with paws folded on her shoulder, “if I’m here to protect you in case our enemies find us!”
Mr. Yoki, who has been sulking in a corner since they arrived, lets out a sudden cackle of laughter. Mr. Yoki doesn’t have a very good attitude sometimes, Mei thinks disapprovingly. “Yes, the human weapon needs –”
“Yoki,” Marcoh says, cutting him off, and then turns his gaze back to Mei, his misshapen eyes considering her thoughtfully. “That’s a good point, Mei. It’s probably better if we all just stay in the same room.” He glances over at Mr. Yoki.
Mr. Yoki slouches down and ducks his sharp chin into his chest. “You know me, I never make a fuss.”
“I thought so,” Mei says, satisfied, and starts drawing out her alkahestry circles to transmute some more bedding for her comrades. “But,” she adds, glancing over her shoulder, “you should remember to tell Mr. Scar that you snore!” Not all of Mei’s friends, after all, might be as tolerant of such things as Mei. And Mr. Scar might not take well to being told it was his own fault.
After just having chastised Yoki, it would be extremely hypocritical for Marcoh to laugh – not to mention cruel to Mei – and so he doesn’t, but it’s a near thing. Of all his worries at the moment (and, he imagines, Scar’s), sleep apnea has not been the highest on the list.
“I’ll make sure he’s aware,” he agrees. “Though, Mei, he may decide to keep apart – that will be his decision.” He worries about this child who seems to have imprinted on Scar, the scourge of Central, like a duckling on an extremely unlikely drake. Not that he imagines the Ishvalan would harm her – of the two of them, it’s not Scar who has historically been dangerous to the innocent – but he hasn’t seen enough of their interactions yet to gauge how their dynamic exists outside of Mei’s head. It’s hard for him imagine the angel of death playing the role of tolerant guardian to a young girl.
(Marcoh knows, in his head, that Scar is no divine spirit, come in answer to his prayers to deliver vengeance unto him. The stone face and the voice that rumbles like thunder belong to a man like any other. He excuses himself for his occasional trouble in remembering this by telling himself that after so much time in the lair of the Seven Sins, everything starts to look over-symbolic.)
But perhaps it’s Mei , and not he, who has the right of it. He glances over at her and catches a glimpse of her small sure face as it’s briefly illuminated by a flash of transmutation light; she hasn’t even bothered to answer his comment. She looks more secure, he thinks, now that it’s been settled that they’ll stay together. He finds himself hoping Scar doesn’t disappoint her.
“Hey! Doctor,” Yoki whines, and Marcoh blinks at him, startled again out of his thoughts. “The fire’s getting low.” He points, and Marcoh, ambling obediently over, realizes that the skinny man’s voice is so harsh because he’s afraid. Now that he thinks about it, he supposes that the abandoned town could seem eerie.
Marcoh himself finds a measure of peace in the silence and the snow. If there are ghosts here, they’re simple, untroubled ghosts, who died ordinary deaths. They have no grudges to bear, which makes them far preferable to the ones that whisper at the edges of Marcoh’s mind every day.
But Yoki, as far as Marcoh knows, has no such comparisons to weigh against his recent experiences – although now he thinks about it, he realizes there isn’t much he does know about the man, except that he scurries along in Scar’s shadow and voices petty concerns when he thinks he can get away with it. Marcoh is starting to find his constant complaints reassuring, almost endearing. He keeps forgetting that he’s supposed to be trying to live now; that’s one thing Yoki never does. The fire blooms up higher, and Marcoh smiles back over at the other man as best he can. (Another thing he keeps forgetting is that his smile is probably not as comforting as it used to be.)
Yoki sighs and pulls his hat down farther on his forehead before wrapping his arms round his knees, a surprisingly small figure when huddled up.
“Are you not used to the cold?” Marcoh asks gently.
“Hnh,” says Yoki, indistinctly. “If you’re so fine with it, give me your coat.”
“I can transmute you another one, if you’re really cold, Mr. Yoki,” Mei chirps, looking up, and then glances around a little doubtfully. “Maybe I could make it from my pillow . . .”
Yoki looks extremely tempted for a moment, but finally mutters, “No, it’s fine,” and scoots closer to the fire. “Where’s the pack with the food?”
Mei frowns. “Shouldn’t we wait for Mr. Scar to get back to start eating?”
Marcoh climbs creakily back up to his feet. His joints ache, and his bones, but that’s only to be expected; if he were his own patient, he’d have to remind himself that he’s been treating his body terribly. “I’ll go find him and see if he’s done checking the foundations,” he offers. He doesn’t really think, whatever Mei wants, that Scar will choose to spend any more time than he has to in the presence of a man he justifiably hates – but perhaps he can explain to Scar that Mei will find his presence reassuring, and see what he says.
To be honest, Marcoh finds Scar’s presence reassuring too, but not, he imagines, for the same reasons.
Yoki doesn’t see why they have to wait for Scar to get back to eat, but he doesn’t protest as he watches Doctor Marcoh shuffle his way over to the door. Mei talks big, but if another crazy alchemist or troupe of soldiers shows up he’d feel a lot more secure hiding behind the giant serial killer than the midget wonder.
And anyway, Scar’s at least familiar, which is more than he can say for the doctor. He’s still not really sure what Marcoh’s doing here, actually. He’s still not at all sure what he’s doing here. All this about the shape of the country and secret alchemy notes and homuncuthings – this is all over his head, so over his head. Yoki never wanted to save the world. No one in their right minds would ask Yoki to be involved in saving the world.
Then again, if there’s one thing he’s clear on, it’s that none of his current companions are in their right minds. And while it looks like he may be stuck permanently with a bunch of criminals and freaks, it’s still better than being all alone again.
His stomach rumbles, and he reaches out his hands over the fire, rubbing them together. “Mei,” he cajoles, “you’ve got the bread over there, right? Don’t you want to just have a snack?”
“We don’t have very much, so it’s not fair unless we make sure everyone gets the same amount,” Mei says primly, just as he accidentally dips his hand too far down. The flames sear against his fingers and he snatches his hand back hastily and hunches back over. So what if he’s sulking? It’s not like anyone else here has a right to judge his behavior. Scar and the doctor are mass murderers, there’s not exactly a moral high ground there, and the kid is what, eight?
“So what are we going to do when we run out? It’s bad enough that we’re freezing, we have to starve too?”
“I guess we can hunt something,” Mei suggests, and lifts her chin a little. “Xiao Mei’s very fierce!”
Yoki wrinkles his nose and shakes his hand out. He still remembers how it felt to have tiny panda teeth chomping down on his fingers. “She’s fierce when she’s attacking her friends. I don’t know what she’ll do about food.”
“She likes you now!” protests Mei, looking vaguely guilty. “We’re comrades.” Xiao Mei’s squint, Yoki notes, is unconvincing. He hmphs and tugs on his moustache.
Mei is quiet for a moment, and then bites her lip. “Hey . . .” She glances towards the doorway, currently empty of men without names and men without faces. “Mr. Yoki?”
Yoki squints at her over his kneecaps.
“You were in the Amestrian military, weren’t you?”
“I was,” agrees Yoki, raising his head slightly. He’s sure he’s told this story before. “Until that lying little criminal Edward Elric blackened my name unjustly and –”
Usually Mei is perfectly happy to hear an Edward Elric-centered rant, as long he tolerates a paean to Alphonse Elric in return – it’s an unspoken but mutually agreeable arrangement – but today she seems to have other things on her mind. “So, Mr. Yoki . . .” Her voice drops low, and Xiao Mei huddles in close to Mei’s ear. “Did you fight in that war? The one against Mr. Scar’s clan?”
“Huh!” Yoki lets out a hollow cackle. “The Ishvalan War? Not a chance. I had better things to be doing that year than dying.” What good are rank and wealth, if they don’t get you out of a steaming pile of shit like that? Not that Yoki had had much of either, then – but it’s amazing how financially ingenious you start to feel, when your options look like bribing your way out of front-line service or dying in the desert like a dog.
“I didn’t think so,” Mei agrees. “Because you’re traveling with Mr. Scar – so you can’t be an enemy of his clan. But Mr. Marcoh is.” She starts playing with the fraying ends of her sash, winding them fretfully around her fingers. “The war didn’t benefit most Amestrians – it didn’t help their clans at all. It only helped the homunculi, Mr. Marcoh said. And you knew that, so you didn’t fight in the war, right?”
“Right,” agrees Yoki, cautiously. There certainly hadn’t been any pluses in it for him that he could see.
“So . . . why did Mr. Marcoh?”
Yoki sits up straight at this, rubbing his head. Has she been waiting all this trip until meeting up with Yoki again to start this conversation? He can understand, of course, why she would have wanted to talk to him – naturally, the kid wants a role model who’s wise and intelligent, and neither Scar nor Marcoh really qualify. All the same, he wishes she hadn’t.
“He’s an alchemist,” he mutters. “They’re all crazy. How am I supposed to know why they do what they do?”
“Mr. Marcoh’s nice,” says Mei, rather plaintively.
“You wouldn’t think he’s so nice if you’d been the one chased all over Amestris because they thought you were him,” says Yoki sourly. His stomach is grumbling again, and he’s still cold. It’s not fair. Marcoh gets his face completely burned off, and gets less to wear and eat than Yoki does, and it doesn’t seem to bother him at all. Yoki doesn’t have anything like Marcoh’s ghosts to account for; why is it Yoki that’s suffering? Fate is cruel. But Mei and Xiao Mei are still looking at him like they expect him to have some kind of answer, so he elaborates: “Anyway, Mei - sometimes, nice people do things and they don’t think about how bad it is. They figure it out when it’s too late, and they start thinking ridiculous things, like they don’t deserve to be alive, or it doesn’t matter if they’re miserable. That’s Marcoh. And that’s stupid. So the point is, Mei –” He folds his arms, and fixes her with a stern look. Time to lay down some wisdom. “Be nice to people, or you’ll regret it later. Like you’ll be sorry when I die of hunger, because you wouldn’t give me any bread now.”
Mei giggles and Xiao Mei squeaks, and then both clap their hands over their mouths in unison. “Clan warfare is serious, Mr. Yoki! You shouldn’t make jokes!”
Yoki droops back down. Kids never laughed at him half so much in Youswell, did they? He was respected then. “I wasn’t joking,” he complains. Scar had better come back soon.
He stands alone in the tunnel, inspecting the roof. The cracks don’t seem enough to render it completely unstable. But it still might be better to bring the whole thing down preemptively before it has a chance to fall on Mei or Yoki’s head later.
(For a moment, the treacherous thought crosses his mind that it would, every so often, be of benefit to have access to the kind of alchemy he sees the Amestrian weapons using. If he’s living as a walking abomination regardless, it would be nice to at least have the ability to shore the roof up.)
“Scar?”
He turns his head slowly, bringing his cool regard to rest on Marcoh as the other man shuffles down the hall. Through his old dark glasses the state alchemist would have looked gray, ghostly. But then, there’s no need to wear dark glasses here; each of them knows what the other is.
“Mei wanted to wait for you to get back to eat,” Marcoh says. “If you’re finished.”
He considers this, frowning up at the ceiling. He doesn’t think it will fall, but it’s best to be sure. “Stand back,” he warns. Marcoh obeys without question – the obedience has been a constant since their meeting, the lack of question less so – and he brings up his tattooed arm, splaying his hand against the ceiling. There’s a flash of blue light that illuminates the ghoulish white scar tissue that covers Marcoh’s face, and then he pulls his hand down and leaps back out of the way himself, just avoiding the clatter as a large portion of the ceiling falls in.
He swings around and falls into step next to Marcoh without looking at him, hoping the man will stay silent. When he moved solitary through the tunnels, it had been as if he was alone on his quest again. He’d found this silent town of dead or vanished Amestrians almost soothing the first time he came here. It had been proof that the Amestrian hold on a place did not last forever; reclaiming it for himself, an Ishvalan, did not feel like a victory, but it didn’t feel like a defeat, either.
And now he stands here with an Amestrian alchemist, whom he has brought here. With another Amestrian and a child of neither people awaiting his return. All of this is necessary to a greater or lesser extent. (Mei’s presence, perhaps, somewhat less than strictly necessary, but she cannot be left alone to face the dangers of Central in blithe search of a blood-soaked Philosopher’s Stone – and how this became his responsibility, he’s still not entirely clear, but by now it seems to be). But necessary does not mean pleasant, or, in fact, plausible. Since the death of his people, he has walked alone.
Marcoh, however, does not oblige him by allowing him to temporarily ignore his presence. “Mei would like us all to stay close, I think,” he says. “She won’t admit to being afraid, of course, but in this place any child would be.”
“Hn.” He suspects that Marcoh underestimates Mei; small she may well be, and perhaps unnerved as Marcoh says, but she’s faced far more frightening things since coming to this country. She will tolerate what she must.
He sees, out of his peripheral vision, Marcoh turn his head to glance at him. The Amestrian’s voice is tentative, as he adds, “I imagine you must not be used to sharing your solitude so. But of us here, you’re the one she trusts the most.”
“That disturbs you?”
“No, of course not,” says Marcoh, flustered. “I’m sure you’ve earned her trust.” But it’s clear enough to see that despite his words, the doctor doesn’t understand the connection between the scarred killer and the bright little girl.
He feels no need to gift the Amestrian with any more understanding about himself than is necessary. Marcoh is not a comrade. He is here to serve a purpose. There are things that cannot be forgiven; that at least they both understand very well.
“It makes sense, given the forces hunting us,” he rumbles, looking straight ahead still, “for us all to stay close as possible.”
“That’s what Mei said. She also said that I should warn you that apparently I snore terribly.”
Startled, he glances over at Marcoh before he can catch himself, and sees the doctor’s face creased with unexpected amusement.
He snorts, and looks forward again. “It won’t do us any harm to sleep lightly.”
“Given the forces hunting us,” agrees Marcoh, straight-faced, but a flicker of amusement still in his eyes, and then pauses as they turn the corner. The doorway to their chosen sanctuary flickers golden with the fire’s glow, and he takes a moment to wonder if there’s a way to cover the door so the light can’t be seen from outside.
“Who’s that?” This is Mei’s voice, high-pitched and wary; he envisions her readying her knives, just in case.
“It’s us,” Marcoh calls back, and Mei bounds immediately into the doorway, beaming.
“You brought back Mr. Scar!”
“Master Scar’s back?” Yoki’s voice sounds muffled, like he’s chewing something, and Mei immediately disappears back into the room.
“Mr. Yoki! You were supposed to wait –”
“Scar’s back now, isn’t he?”
Beside him, he hears Marcoh chortling - a startling, unfamiliar sound.
For good or for ill, these people’s paths have become entwined with his. There’s no wishing it otherwise now.
“Come on, Mr. Scar,” says Mei, “I want to show you where you’re going to sleep!”
Scar leaves the ghosts of Baschool on the threshold, and follows Mei inside.
