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Lina Inverse had been with them for all of a week. Edward still wasn’t precisely sure where she came from -clearly not Xing or Ishbal, and Lina’s explanation of her homeland being “encased in a magic shield created by a dark lord up until, like, a couple months ago” didn’t really help matters. But he knew this much: she was very full of herself, ate like she had three stomachs, and could fly.
Edward was determined to find out how.
So, they had come to an arrangement: Edward would teach Lina alchemy, while Lina would pass on her so-called magical knowledge to Edward. And somewhere along the way they’d try and get Lina back home (wherever the hell it might be.)
So far the magic lessons had been a bust - for all of Lina’s persistence on tapping into your inner energy and thinking explodey things and worrying mentions of invoking the powers of dread gods Edward hadn’t been able to cast so much as a spark. He might’ve thought it was all bunk if he hadn’t seen her launch an arrow made of ice just by speaking a couple of words and posing like an archer.
The alchemy lessons, on the other hand, were going swimmingly.
Perhaps too swimmingly.
“When are you guys gonna give me something hard?” Lina asked, with a huff. She was tying her hair back, the red strands frizzing from sweat and the heat of the day, as she surveyed her latest transmutation - a newly-repaired wagon that one of the local farmers had brought by for the Elrics to fix. Edward had to admit, it was a good job -the broken axle looked good as new, the seam where the material had knit barely visible.
“We have been giving you difficult things,” Alphonse said. “For a beginner, anyway. You’ve gotten really far in a week.”
Lina preened. “Well, naturally.” She frowned, and muttered, “still can’t figure out that no-circle thing, though.”
“There’s alchemists who work their entire lives and never figure it out,” Edward said. “And it took me…” He paused, thinking of how to phrase it, “making some very stupid decisions.”
Lina cast him and Alphonse a curious look, glancing at Edward’s automail arm and Alphonse’s body, but let it go.
“I’d still like something harder,” she said.
Edward shrugged. “Fair enough. Help me get this wagon out of the way so we don’t break it again.”
Soon the Rockbell’s yard was cleared, the wagon now sitting beside a nearby storage shed. Alphonse retrieved some chalk they had waiting on the porch, and cleared the patch of yard they had been using for transmutation exercises.
“All right, I’m going to make something, and I want you to figure out how you would go about it,” Edward said. “You don’t have to recreate it exactly -find a solution that works for you.”
Lina shrugged. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”
Edward had to fight back a retort (he wouldn’t, normally, he certainly didn’t spare them for Winry. But then Winry didn’t often make things explode). Lina had taken to alchemy with ease, true, and she was remarkably talented with it. But she was also remarkably smug about it, and it grated on every single one of Edward’s nerves.
Maybe he could fix that.
Edward gave the dust of the yard a cursory sweep, kicking aside a few spare screws that had somehow made their way outside from the Rockbell’s workshop. He paused, turning over the general idea of what form he wanted in his head until he got something he was satisfied with.
A clap as his hands met, and then blue sparks as he touched the ground, the earth rising beneath his hands, twisting and taking form. The effect was near-instantaneous, but Edward saw it almost in slow-motion, watching the details of the object coalesce into being as he thought them.
And then, with a crack, it was done. Alphonse sighed beside him.
“Brother, you really have awful taste.”
“Oh, please,” Edward said. “It’s awesome and you know it.”
It was, indeed, awesome -a statue of a dragon, well over Edward’s height, posed as if it was from a coat of arms (albeit a coat of arms clearly designed by a fifteen year old.) Huge, tusk-like fangs curled up from its snarling mouth, front claws reaching out towards an unseen enemy. Its wings were spread wide, while the rest of its body rolled and dipped in and out of the dust, its spade-ended tail curled around the rest of its form. Sure, maybe it was a little overwrought, but it definitely looked cool.
Edward turned towards Lina and said with a smirk, “You think you can do better?”
Edward had expected a boast, or a quip, but Lina said neither. Her expression was oddly... thoughtful, index finger pressed to her lips, opposite hand resting on her hips. After a moment she held a hand out to Alphonse.
“Chalk, please.”
Alphonse nodded, placing a small piece in her outstretched palm. Lina stood for a moment, tapping the chalk against her chin, before walking to a patch of earth beside Edward’s dragon, kneeling down, and starting to draw her transmutation circle. Edward watched as she carefully and methodically drew out the inner and outer rings, the runes and anchor points, watched as she would stop every so often to check her work, alter or rub out and rewrite a rune before moving on.
After about ten minutes she stood up and nodded to herself, satisfied.
Sparks again, the earth within the transmutation circle rising and twisting, and then -
“Oh. Wow.”
Lina’s dragon was about the same size of Edward’s -but less like something taken off of a church with some highly unorthodox ideas about gargoyles and more like a sketch from life. Wings pulled taut, jaws open wide as if it were about to breathe fire, its body coiled and twisted over itself. The only thing missing was the feet -Lina seemed to have elected to make both the feet and legs into a loosely detailed support for it, making it seem like the dragon was still rising from the earth, and would finally burst forth at any minute.
It also, for some reason, had cartoonish, googly eyes.
“I was wrong,” Alphonse said, almost to himself, “you both have awful taste.”