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Edward Elric is an odd person.
He is about as fascinating as the stars, can be just as bright on his good days and even on his worst manages to be just as beautiful.
And though he's so much closer he is no less mysterious.
Alfons is sure that he'll walk among the stars before he ever learns about what's hiding behind those bright golden eyes.
He doesn't believe the stories Ed tells him. He is a man of science after all.
How can he be expected to believe in this 'science' that sounds closer to magic? Souls bound to armour to keep them alive? Artificial humans that can regenerate chopped off limbs in a matter of moments?
But what he does believe is that Ed's past hadn't been kind to him.
He believes it because of the uneven clanking whenever Ed wanders through the apartment without shoes. Because of the mechanical whirring when he rolls his right shoulder. And of course because of the scars.
The first time Ed allowed him to see the scars Alfons had almost felt sick.
There were red and raised ones where his flesh met metal limbs, on his shoulder stretching over his collar bone and back, at his leg stretching up his thigh.
However he lost his limbs, it must've been horrifying.
But there were even more.
The one on his stomach and back that looked as if something big had gone in on one side and out the other, the long cuts, the odd ones that Alfons can only guess how they happened.
Some were pale and flat, others were pink or red and bumpy, some looked as if the new skin had been streched to cover the wound.
Edward is covered in scars and he has a fantastical story for almost each one.
Alfons assumes it's because the truth is too painful to even think about, let alone put into words and let out into the world for others to hear. The stories are easier to tell.
The stories can't hurt him.
Sometimes Alfons isn't sure if that's actually what he believes or if that what he tells himself to make it easier.
Moments when Ed's eyes burn golden, like polished coins, or maybe tiny stars, and he can't help but be reminded that that's not an eye colour.
People don't have golden eyes.
Ed's eyes are as golden as his hair and Alfons thinks of Rumpelstiltskin who spun straw into gold and wonders if he did the same to Edward.
Turned a person into gold.
When Alfons learns that the stories are true, that Ed really comes from another world he is shocked, but somehow not really.
Maybe because Ed is too bright for this place. Maybe because around here, people aren't made of gold.