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Ling crosses the vast, divisive desert back into his homeland on the week he turns sixteen.
Leaving Amestris has changed him for the better, he thinks. He’s learned a lot. Though, it still felt a little sour. His heart—although full of new friends that he’d never forget or abandon—was a bit hollower; he was unable to deny or shake or coolly play off the fact that there was a new gap in his soul, a hole that would probably never be filled, an injury that'll never recover.
He hums.
When his worn shoe makes contact with the marble streets of his nation, leading back to his province, where the Yao clan ruled, and into the arms of his waiting mother—after being bombarded by her sticky red lipstick in a flurry of maternal kisses and cooing—he sighs, huffs, and takes it without complaint, even though he wanted to remind her that he was nearly a fully grown man now, over a head taller than her, and had been through a war on the other side of the dusty, golden ocean.
Lan Fan snickers warmly behind her automail hand, unable to help herself, and the joints of the metal squeak and vibrate in a way that the two travelers had become used to, like a tuning fork, but it stuck out poignantly to the rest of those in the palace.
He has no time to settle. The first thing he does once he reaches his room is tug Lan Fan in by the wrist, making her yelp a bit as he slams the door behind her. Her blush is dark and she mutters about the impropriety of a guard inside his personal quarters, especially one of the opposite sex. She was supposed to be posted outside his door, as usual—always lingering three steps behind him. Ling tells her to ditch the bullshit script so she does, relief washing over her soft features, though it doesn’t last long when the prince grabs her shoulders and squeezes, looking at her with the same determination he had months ago—when he was wracked with guilt and anger over her arm—and he promises to give her grandfather a warrior’s burial, the most honorable, and adds that he’ll rest in the comfort of the elites.
Lan Fan cried quietly at night, privately, when they were trekking through the harsh desert, in her tent, thinking no one could hear her. As a bodyguard, she kept up the façade—her priority was the safety of her prince and she made that obvious to everyone—but when she thought no one was looking, she allowed herself to fall apart, just a bit, in groaning little flecks and pieces, like the alchemy of the west, always showing the tiny, delicate, fluttering fragments of the whole beast.
For once, in the safety, comfort, and opulence of her young master’s room, she cries properly—a horrifying, emotional yowl. She crumbles, falling onto Ling’s chest and hugging him tightly for support—and he allows her. He allows her, even as he feels the mechanical components of her arm digging bruises into his skin.
His eyes water. Sympathy.
He doesn’t cry though. He rubs her back.
•
•
•
In a week’s time, just as Ling promised, Fu was given a triumphant funeral with the highest esteem. Money, flowers, and pastries were burned so they could meet him on the other side. Lan Fan gives her regards and swears to honor her grandfather in every breath she takes; she tells him she’s willing to put even her soul on the line to protect their prince.
Ling groans when he hears that but he stays stone-faced, knowing he couldn’t change her mind.
He didn’t need protection. He didn’t want it anymore, especially not from a friend.
He wanted… he wanted… He didn’t know what he wanted. He just knew he wanted, and it gnawed at him continuously, each time he inhaled Xingese air.
He skips stones in a garden pond, startling the koi. He notices a few new ones with blackened scales on their heads. He furrows his brows and runs a finger through his ponytail, thinking. “Hm,” is all he says. He squints, even when facing away from the sun.
•
•
•
His mother, aunts, and uncles harass him for details about his trip to Amestris, which—for the most part—he had kept locked behind tight lips. There was a lot to say—a million things—but no way to phrase them, not in a way that made sense. Xing’s history with alchemy was relatively young, despite being such an ancient nation. Very rarely had they used it for combat. Alkahestry was medicine and art, at its core. Even when used to enhance swords and sharpen blades, it was often ceremonial, a show of craftsmanship and dedication, as many of their martial arts were. Explaining the concept of alchemy almost exclusively used for militaristic purposes was… difficult, to say the least. Explaining the war against ‘Father’ was even more perplexing, yet it was crucial to the story.
He doesn’t realize he’s frowning in the middle of the meeting as his elders interrogate him, pressed for details about his journey, and ready to squeeze him like an orange.
He knows how important this is to them—they need him to be king. He wants to be. But they have very different reasons. They want to guarantee themselves more influence and wealth for generations; Ling wants to do it because he was born for it and he knows he can—he has real love for his people and a sense of duty to protect them. If it was only for money’s sake, he wouldn’t do it—he was high born through his mother already, he’d be rich for life. He cared about Xing and wanted prosperity for all its citizens, as any sensible leader should. Social services existed, but they needed major improvements. He wanted to make it happen.
“Stop sulking,” his mother hisses, smacking his leg. With snakelike urgency, she asks, “What have you discovered in Amestris? Have you found the key to eternal life as your father requested?”
He hesitates, combing through his memories, mulling over his words. He feels his first uncle staring at him expectantly.
“Spit it out, son. We didn’t finance this adventure of yours for no reason.”
Ling scoffs. “Finance? I didn’t ask your permission when I left,” he looks around the room at his relatives; governors, vassals, lords, and mayors. “I informed you of my trip, my goals, then I vanished.”
His mother squeezes his forearm with a limp smile, leaning in, “Well, what did you find during this vanishing act, love? I know you must’ve seen something.”
Ling turns his head to the side, away from her and her flowery perfume, so unlike the child he was years ago. She pouts, offended, but keeps her warm hand on him. She knew he was growing up, of course, it was undeniable; but the sharpness of the transition still blindsided her each time she was cut by a new layer. The teenager simply confirms, after a sip of tea, “I have seen enough to secure the position as king… or at least, bump me up ten places in the succession order.”
There’s a pleasant gasp, a birdlike chatter from his aunts, the beating of feathered fans and then— “That’s magnificent!”
He calms the commotion with a wave of his hand and a stern look. “I think… I have to write it down. Myself, no scribes. The things I experienced are too complicated to dictate to someone else and, if possible, I’d like to deliver them myself.”
Quizzical looks, everywhere.
“Yourself?”
“Yes, myself. I traveled the world by myself, surely I can manage myself within my own country’s borders,” he replies sarcastically.
“Why?”
“Forget that. How long will this document take? Do you have an estimate?”
The young man stands roughly, his chair creaking against the floors. He looks at his second uncle and is truthful. Youthful honesty often presented itself like a trickster spirit. He chuckles as he says it and quickly walks out of the meeting after he does, not willing to hear the blowback.
“I dunno.”
•
•
•
Ling is grateful to see a sibling he actually knows. He sees Mei at a gala for the first time since they came back home. She returned separately, later than he had, and he had no way of contacting her—especially with how contentious the situation was with all the different clans.
They hugged and laughed as if they were raised together, drawing confused stares from all the other guests. They were so close that their jewelry got tangled, giant necklaces of wood and gold clicking and clacking into each other.
“Feels good to see a familiar face!” He beams. “How’re the rest of the Changs?”
That was a really peculiar question for folks to overhear. The royal siblings were never one big happy group; they were in a vicious battle for the crown—from the eldest adult to the youngest child. This was the first time they had all gathered in one place, all accompanied by their mothers and advisors and a hefty security detail, who all whispered rumors about their competition.
Ling guzzles white wine and slings an arm over the younger teen’s shoulders, his hand nearly going through the loop of her pinned twin braids.
Their father was aging and ill but there were reports that he was well enough to make an appearance for all forty-three of his children at once. It’d be quite the spectacle if true. Ling doesn’t believe it is. Mei doesn’t care enough.
In fact, she explains that after Amestris, there isn’t much she cares about besides her own wellbeing and growth. Her mission days are over, for now. She’s focusing on herself. Schooling mostly... her local duties... perfecting her alchemy.
“I’ve been writing to Alphonse. I’m hoping the intercontinental phone lines are set up soon so I can call him,” she looks up at her brother, starry-eyed. “He’s progressing. A flesh-and-blood body’s a lot for him to get used to after being out of one for so long. He… He sometimes uses a wheelchair when he’s too tired to walk, most foods don’t cooperate with him, and he has to get used to the strange frothy feeling of brushing his teeth again but… All in all, he’s doing well. He likes the little things he missed. The smell of flowers, soft grass, that kind of stuff. He said he wants to visit Xing as soon as he’s able.”
Ling nods. Her crush on the boy was obvious and unhidden. Perhaps she knew that; Mei didn’t seem opposed to wearing her heart and thoughts on her sleeve. She had nothing to hide and every ability to guard them, so secrecy was unneeded. He respects her fidelity. “That’s swell, isn’t it?”
“It is. I want to give him a tour one day. Mainly my province,” she balled her hand into a determined fist. She’d been given a classy manicure for the occasion, it made her look older, more than the long-sleeved qipao and more than the cherry blossom makeup.
The pair pauses, tracking the newest partygoer as he walks in, slow and authoritative, commanding attention, with a long, regal hanfu trailing behind him and a noticeable beard. Mei sighs despondently.
“Is that… the Feng?”
“Yup. The oldest of us. Hào Rán Feng. Gēgē,” Mei said bitterly. “He’s, like, thirty-two. And rude. He’s all uppity ‘cause he’s the firstborn and thinks the whole discussion of ‘who should be ruler’ is stupid. The answer’s obvious in his mind,” she rolled her eyes. “From what I gathered—snooping around, as I do—his whole argument hinges on birthright alone.”
Ling simpers, folding his arms across his chest. “I’ve heard of him. That’s a really silly position. It’s all of our birthright. Sounds like a real piece of work.”
The princess’ shoulder itches without the weight of Xiao Mei on it.
“Yeah but he’s got experience in governance and he’s got the maturity on us. On top of that, he’s a son. You know His Royal Highness will prefer that,” Mei shrugs. Ling doesn’t argue her point even though he kind of wants to. He was the twelfth son but not twelfth in line, there were a few girls in front of him; and it got very convoluted very quickly. “I don’t care for the position—I mean, I’m, like, thirty-fourth in line—but the criteria is so… strange. Whatever. The only thing that matters to me now is Al’s health. Xing needs to stand firm long enough for him to see it.”
The long-haired boy watches the eldest prince, Hào Rán, maneuver the crowd, socializing and greeting the other families with measured congeniality. “I know him by rumors only. What I know for a fact is that he hates our oldest sister because she’s apparently a better governor than him, despite being, like, freshly twenty-four, I think. She’s from the Lu clan. I think there’s two sisters from the Lu province. Jingyi’s her name. She’s been doing a good job disparaging him too. She’s ruthless but… it’s working in my favor…”
“You really want the throne that bad, huh?”
Ling’s head whips towards her with a swiftness. “I need it,” he corrects. “I was born for it.”
“Yeah but you said it yourself,” the younger gestures around, “We all were. It’ll take a lot more than that to convince dear old daddy.”
“I'll convince him. You know better than anyone else here—I’ve put in the work. I’m the one with the answer he’s looking for, though he won’t like it and I won’t allow him to use it. Death is… natural. Eternal life isn’t,” the boy states firmly. “And when I do become ruler, I’ll make sure the Changs and your region are well taken care of. Consider it… compensation for your help. A gift from this gēgē…”
“Well… you have my support. No matter what my clan says, I think I’d rather it be you than me… and definitely not one of them.”
Tired of talking politics with a little girl, he listens beyond the buzz of the party and the warmth of the sweet wine in his throat. He’s lulled in by the strings of the musicians and soon he’s offering his hand to dance with Mei, who he quickly learns is—despite being even more light-footed than him when it comes to fighting—absolute dog shit at dancing!
Their families watch the two half-siblings giggle and stumble, aghast. The movements are wonky and almost intentionally uncoordinated, but they move like full-blooded siblings… and they laugh like it too.
To no one’s surprise, the king doesn’t show. It appears he won’t, not until he gets the answer he so desperately wants. How greedy.
•
•
•
In the coming days, Ling half-heartedly devoted himself to writing down all the discoveries and oddities he witnessed in Amestris.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t managed to note much.
His pitiful stack of papers and unused ink pens sat at his desk, with the top sheet containing a single line.
〔 西方炼金术科学… 〕
‘Western Alchemical Sciences,’ followed by super lame ellipses…
He couldn’t sit still long enough to do it, even though what happened in Amestris was the only thing constantly on his mind.
Before shutting his eyes to sleep, he thought of how Greed kicked him to the wayside in his last moments—to protect him, yes, but it still didn’t feel good.
When he trained on the specialized exercise grounds, all he could think of were memories of fighting in tandem with the homunculus who took root in his brain—all he thought of was how quickly they took to one another, how they meshed and melded, like a sword’s blade and handle, two halves of one portrait.
When he meditated in an attempt to silence his thoughts and escape the world, somehow the thoughts became more prominent! Greed’s gruff laughter, his challenges, the specific way he argued, joked, jabbed, jibed.
Ling climbed a tree trying to run away from thoughts of Greed, of cupidity.
They followed him with jaguar-like speed.
When he’s back in his room, seated in front of blank papers and empty journals, he sketches the Philosopher’s stone. Luckily—eerily—it came in solid or liquid form, so any misshapen blob he drew was accurate. One of his pens burst and ink spilled all over the sheet and his hands. That looked staggeringly accurate too.
He tries to draw the ouroboros symbol—the sign of the homunculi that was once painted into his skin. He knew it well; it was on his right hand after all.
He watches himself write with his right hand as if it’s a foreign object. His lip twist with disdain as he watches his unmarked hand glide across the sheet.
He didn’t write anything worthwhile.
•
•
•
Every month, his elders hound him about the progress of his report. They were itching to send the notification to the king’s palace, so giddy and gleeful—their very own Ling Yao had mystical knowledge that could extend his life far beyond typical Xingese medicine!
His mother is particularly pushy about it.
He’s doing jump-squats in the courtyard with Lan Fan when she interrupts him.
“Mom,” he greets sweetly, getting up and wiping the sweat off his face. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Don’t give me that, child! Where is the work you promised? Don’t you want to give that information to your father? You’re running out of time, my love!”
Lan Fan winced, feeling like she was eavesdropping. She takes a careful step back.
Ling frowned. Greed. She was greedy. They were all greedy. Even he felt especially greedy—hungry for it, thirsty for it—wrecked with avarice!
“I do, mom. You act as if the man is going to drop dead tomorrow,” he gripes, twirling around her in one graceful swoop. “If he really wants the information, he’ll sit and wait until I’ve polished it. It’s all about quality, mother, not speed. I’ve never been the quick and sloppy type. You raised me better than that. Let’s get it right the first time.”
The woman seethes, quietly and prettily. She stomps her heeled foot, bested. “Fine. But please, love, show some urgency. I know how much you want this but your presentation says otherwise. Everyone is watching. Not just Yaos. Lus, Fengs, Guos, Hans, Changs, all of them.”
“No pressure,” Ling says, much too playful, much too lax, much too dismissive for his mother’s taste.
She wears a faulty grin and clasps her hands together; it resembles a desperate prayer. With manufactured cheer, she says, “No, none at all!”
Just a race against the others, no big deal.
•
•
•
Ling lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, fingers fiddling in his hair.
He was conscious of every rise and fall in his chest, every vacant thought that came with no fanfare, no second opinion, no backlash. Just the silence of him and his room.
His sheets were so comfortable, his space was at the perfect temperature as always, and the air was fresh and smelled of clean linen.
He couldn’t, for the life of him, find solace in any of these things. None of the amenities meant jack shit to him; he wasn’t at peace.
Since he set foot in Xing, he’d been wearing a painted smile, a decoration, like untouched fine china in a cabinet—yet, he was full of cracks; mangled, misshapen, sharp bits, dangerous ones.
He left Amestris with a ton of answers but a boatload of new questions.
His body felt fundamentally changed after the experience, even though the… being was expelled.
Forceful self-eviction. Ling didn’t want it, he loathed it, but that’s what it was; that’s what the situation called for at the time.
A friend willing to sacrifice himself for others—selflessness, ironically coming from the literal personification of greed, of unbridled desire—and Ling despised it! He didn’t want it; he couldn’t live with it just ending like that. Right when he was coming around, right when they were truly becoming grounded in one another, well-acquainted with their counterparts—with Ling’s humanity and Greed’s demonry!
Greed was too big a part of the story to be left out; too critical, bigger than what words could explain! It would never do him justice to just talk about him. Ling knew him. Sure, he’d grown a lot from the bastard he once was, but he knew, if his counterpart were here, he wouldn’t be satisfied with impassive, unfeeling lectures about his existence—he’d want to be treasured and revered. It didn’t even have to be at the level of royalty—he just had to have it—it had to be real and it had to be a lot, enough, just right—and Ling wanted that too! He wanted it, probably even more than Greed would’ve.
He groans and puts his hands over his tightly-shut eyes.
Maybe Greed would be morbidly proud of him for acknowledging the reality of his wants—the severe burn. Ling wanted to be seen, he needed to be—especially because he knew what he could do for Xing. He had the vision, he had the drive and the gall, he just needed the platform—but he didn’t want to be by himself anymore… not after tasting what he tasted.
They’d only been linked for about three months, yet the ‘problem child’ homunculus left an indelible mark on the prince.
Ling’s report stalls…
The better way to state it is that it evolves.
Notes. Notes upon notes. He wrote like he was being held at gunpoint.
He was captive to his thoughts—ceaseless ideas, philosophical questions, mathematical improbabilities, the most intelligent and most insane drivel ever conceived, all at once!
At the table.
While training.
While strolling the grounds.
While leaping from building to building like a monkey.
Out on the town.
In between all that, he wrote.
Resurrecting a human from the dead was impossible, a perversion of science.
However, homunculi weren’t human, nor did they ever really die either.
They were energy made flesh. They only changed forms, never to be fully destroyed, with cores that resembled souls but weren’t quite the same—and thus, couldn’t be corrupted by amateur alchemy the way human souls could!
It should be theoretically possible.
And a theory is all he really needs.
Chicken and egg.
Where did the first homunculus come from?
If he made the others, how did he come to be? Was it possible that he was made? By someone? A person?
Is that a doable thing?
They were closely related to humans, intermingling with their thoughts and experiences—but they weren’t quite the same.
That could work to his advantage.
A year goes by. The king of Xing sees good and bad days—the families hold their breaths, essentially waiting for the man to die.
Ling writes, reads, and draws drafts of transmutation circles.
This should be safer than attempting to bring back a human from death.
This wasn’t death. This was… sculpting dirt. Yeah, from one state to another. This was a fullmetal suit. From iron to an arm. From steel to a head. From metal to flesh.
“It’s a transformation,” he asserts. “This can work. It has to.”
It’s essential.
His elders call him a ‘distracted child’ behind his back.
He works tirelessly towards his goal. Greed. He eats, he drinks, he negotiates, and he ponders. Very greedily, he thinks and pursues and wants. His avarice is unchained and silver-tongued, just like he is—measured unruliness and calculated silence; laughter and constant jokes worn as a mask.
No one knows what the young royal is plotting, they only know that he works diligently towards it.
For months, he blends the holistic nature of traditional alkahestry with the precision of Amestrian-style alchemy, trusting the very chi in his veins to conduct the energy for him. He hopes it reads his intentions and acts accordingly. He takes a deep breath, feeling the stick of chalk roll between his fingers. The streets are too bumpy with stones, so he finds a wall, flat enough to draw on and erase with water if needed.
By day, a sensible prince. By night, he’s a bonafide graffiti artist.
•
•
•
“You don’t get it!” He argues, louder than he’s ever been with them.
“Get what? That it’s taken over a year for you to give anyone even a sliver of information about your journey?” His uncle shouts back with an accusatory point. “Do you even care about these people?”
“Do I care?” Ling mimics, appalled. “I didn’t cross the hottest desert in the world just to dawdle around in their cities! I basically have to write a damn scripture to describe what I saw to him! The king isn’t an alchemist! I'm not an alchemist; not a real one, not an expert! It takes months or years to write! It’s practically a novel!”
“But you haven’t even discussed with us what you’ve learned! Even if you don’t give us everything, we can at least position ourselves in the king’s ear—show that we’re people with valuable intel and excellent spies—a boy who gets things done—”
“I’m not a boy,” the prince snips. “I’m eighteen now. And your prince, if you’ve forgotten.”
“My point still stands.”
“Mine does too.”
“Give us something to work with. A page or two, so we can present something to the king and bump you even further up in line, at least.”
“I’m working on it.”
“You’ve been saying that for ages.”
“Then trust that I am. You’ve been a man a lot longer than I have. Why don’t you have the patience?” Ling lours.
His uncle clicks his tongue and leans back in his seat, his silver earrings dangling. “Because I cannot be sure if I’m being patient for the sake of your negligence.”
“That would be false. I can assure you, I want this more than anyone—more than anything. I’m taking all the necessary steps to get there. Believe me.”
The meeting is silent; his mother pleads for peace with her eyes, knowing discord will only weaken the clan and strengthen the opposition.
The young royal holds his tongue.
“Hmph.”
He doesn’t take the bait.
•
•
•
“Lan Fan, read this. Give me your honest opinion,” the prince waves a page in her direction.
The young woman hesitantly grabs it, skimming, feeling as if she’s intruding.
Ling just cracks his neck and rubs at his tense shoulders. He mutters about needing to stretch.
At this moment, Lan Fan truly notices the growth spurt he’s had over the last few months.
It was a strange thing to witness but his body had taken a predictable shape—growing broader at the shoulders yet more slender with height, and his face had lost the baby fat almost instantly. His body seemed to mimic the shape it took… when Greed took over.
She gulps and continues through the passage.
“It’s good,” she decides, passing it back.
“Just good?”
“It’s great, my lord,” she revises.
Ling pouts. “I hope it’s to their satisfaction.”
“It will be. If this is what a single page looks like, then I’m sure you have enough specialized knowledge to outrank all of the others vying for the throne. Even without the alchemical stuff… you’ve seen the Amestrian military. That, on its own, is worth a lot.”
He snorts. “We kind of helped… in destroying their HQ.”
She knew the ‘we’ he was referring to had nothing to do with herself.
“My point exactly,” she nods.
Ling holds a hand out for one of her kunai.
She gives it to him.
With a dry cackle, the prince tosses it at the ceiling, watching the star wedge into the drywall.
The woman gasps.
•
•
•
Ling and Mei rode in a carriage through town.
The bright red was a dead giveaway that nobles sat inside the boxy vehicle, which quickly drew a crowd of admirers. People were even more surprised to see that it was two royals of opposing clans—but most importantly, the two that traveled to Amestris during its most chaotic times.
The buggy galloped away. Cars passed. Sometimes the novelty of a carriage was better. It lets you savor the view, appreciate the noise.
Plus, it was easier to stop at vendors’ stalls to get dumplings or tanghulu.
Mei was sixteen now and she looked different too.
She graduated school early and was now fighting her mother over a completely separate issue.
“She’s trying to force me to get married,” she whines.
Ling chokes out a laugh; it’s not funny. But they saw it coming from a mile away; most of them had spouses arranged from the moment they were born. Especially, of course, the boys.
“Yikes,” he says. He folds his arms but the sleeves of his nehru jacket were too tight around his biceps.
“I told her I’d rather die,” Mei says dramatically, biting into a candied grape. Xiao Mei trills in her lap. “I’m going to university and I’m waiting for Al.”
“You seem very certain.”
She glares. “I am. What about you? Any progress with our king?”
“I have a lot of files to compile, I’ll say that. It’s a very detailed retelling.” Ling pauses. Mei snorts. “I’ve added you there as a witness. Xingese witnesses are most important in this case. Lan Fan and the late Fu are mentioned there too.”
“Even the deceased?”
“It’s an extraordinary tale. I need all the backup I can get. He and my ancestors can strike me down if I’m lying,” he reasons.
“It sounds callous but I’m honestly shocked the king held on for so long. He fluctuates day in and day out but he’s still kicking. It’s almost inspiring.”
“Mei.”
“Just saying,” she continues. “He’s very old. Decrepit.”
“Mei.”
“Scar’s been doing well.”
“Your Ishvalan friend?”
She makes a wistful noise when thinking about the man. In a couple of months, he’d been more of a father than her own blood—guarding her like a hawk, guiding her path in a different country like an angel, a strange man protecting a strange girl like she was treasure, speaking in his accent to spare hers from being misunderstood—and he was a murderer. His bloodstained hands had been more gentle than every impersonal declaration from her king. His advice had been more sound; perhaps because it was learned through firsthand pain.
“Yeah. Al told me. There’s not many Ishvalans left but there’s talks of reparations for them. I don’t know how long it’ll take but… that makes me very, very optimistic about the future,” she murmurs. There’s a long pause, a tranquil silence, full of nothing but ambient noise, and then— “Ling?”
“Hm?”
Mei stretches her braid out with her hands. It was long and thick enough to fall into her lap and spiral. If she was standing upright, it would surely be dragging across the ground. Her clothes were purple today and the flowers woven into her hair matched.
“Can I braid your hair?”
Ling swiped his ponytail from his shoulder to his back.
He winces. “No.”
The princess grumbles and he wonders if having younger siblings is always like this for the average person.
“You’re a royal pain, you know that?”
Deeply amused, she brings her hands together, thumbs touching, only to pull them apart as if she was breaking apart chopsticks. “Chopstick A meet Chopstick B!”
•
•
•
When the prince is eighteen-and-a-half, almost exactly, he cracks the code. He does it.
When the smoke clears, with the moonlight shining like headlights from heaven, he doesn’t see it, as much as he feels it.
He lurches forward and stumbles. Somehow, he made it to the middle of the circle despite not starting there.
His head pounds and his skin tingles.
He flails his hands in an attempt to fight off the numbness and what he gets instead is…
The impenetrable shield.
His eyes shake as he stares at his forearm, colored like lead, hardened like diamond.
He can barely make a sound—something like a sob mixed with a maniacal howl caught in his throat.
He feels his head throb. A new force was making itself known, taking up space.
The long-awaited arrival!
When he sneaks back into his room, climbing up the side of the walls and tumbling into his bed, he doesn’t sleep, he waits.
He waits for hours until he hears something.
His breath hitches.
“What the hell did you do, pissant?”
He shuts his eyes, grabs a pillow and squeezes, squealing in shock and amazement because somehow, he made the impossible happen!
“Holy shit, Greed. Holy shit.”
“What the fuck did you do? How the hell did you do it?” Greed questions in Ling’s mind, much too loud, much too welcomed.
Having no choice but to, they talk in his head for hours.
•
•
•
“You shouldn’t have brought me back,” Greed explains through the static.
Ling never thought he’d be so glad to see such hellish phosphenes behind his eyelids again—the red and black ebb and flow of lines and blobs, the light buzzing that signaled Greed’s presence, the ghoulish face that poured in from around him, speaking to him with sass and attitude that he so dearly missed.
The prince snaps back. “How could you say that? Asshole.”
“I made such a cool exit,” Greed expounds, with an unhappy chortle that said he wasn’t really over it. “I made peace with what I did and you brought me back.”
“I wanted to.”
“How’d you do it? There’s no way you could’ve done it without sacrificing something. What’d you give up?” He didn’t sound angry or annoyed, just… scared.
Ling answers in Xingese. He feels Greed’s disappointment swirling around in his brain, his upset voice curling in his ears. He reverts to the common tongue. “A bit of my sanity, I guess,” he jokes.
He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care.
“You’re crazy,” Greed deadpans.
“Am I? Do I look crazy?”
“You look so crazy,” the homunculus insists. “You went all 'mad scientist' on me, kid! Since when do you do alchemy?”
“I’m not a kid,” the monarch grunts, floating around in their disjointed mind palace. He swims up towards the apparition comfortably, fearlessly. His voice is soft. “Let me see you.”
“You can see me just fine, prince.”
“No. See you with my hands,” he urges.
In a noiseless moment, Greed takes the shape that Ling has come to love obsessively.
“Better?” He asks, inching closer to the prince, allowing him to touch.
Ling stares at his own face, wearing an expression he never could—because it wasn’t his face. He grins excitedly, his thumbs rubbing along Greed's skin, fingers tracing everything they could, relishing in the feeling of his neck heating up.
He hugs him. It’s a tackle that has them floating in deep space. He can’t help his candidness when he exhales, “I’ve missed you.”
Greed hugs him back, unused to such embraces. Heart-to-heart, so vulnerable. “You brought me back for selfishness, then. For greed.”
“Yes,” he nods. “Yeah, I did. I really did. I don’t care. You inspired me.”
Greed stills, not knowing how to take that.
A low laugh grows in him instead.
“You happy now?”
“Actually, yes,” the prince smiles at him, all teeth. “I told you we were going to rule Xing together, didn’t I? Now it’ll be possible.”
“I didn’t think you would take it so seriously,” the homunculus admits sheepishly.
“My word is my bond, Greed. You know that.”
“I knew you had it in you ‘cause everyone does, but your level of rapacity is impressive. Fuck the danger, huh? You wanted me, you have me,” Greed says with sickening blitheness. He’s never been wanted for himself before! To be desired like that… it was possibly the best type of wanting. To be yearned for, lusted after—not even carnally—but just to be thought of so frequently, so crucially, needed like air—to the brink of mania, even when you didn’t exist anymore!
“I’m not like the others who get what they want by commanding it,” the human whispers. “That’s abuse of power. It’s pure laziness.”
“Sloth,” Greed interjects.
“I get what I want because I go get it for myself. Just like I’ll do with the crown.”
“You’re hungry for that spot,” Greed notes, rubbing his reflection’s arm supportively. “You want, want, want. It’s voracious, your desire. It’s familiar.”
“And it’s not shallow,” Ling reminds him, pressing close, staring at him in a way that wipes the perpetual smirk off his face. “You know it’s not. Compared to the others fighting for this position, well… Would you rather it be my greed or theirs?”
“Money and power for the sake of money and power is boring. Good, reliable, boring-ass pleonexia,” Greed muses, feeling Ling’s rush of emotion flood his senses, almost overbearingly so—desire, desire, desire, need, need, greed, Greed— “You have a more altruistic cause, underneath the selfishness. You’re… the avatar for Xing. The vector to take them to a higher place. You really want to build them into a... big-ass family.”
Greed’s voice wavers when he thinks of that. He remembers his friends, the older and newer ones; he likes to think they were his family. ‘They were the only part of you that you chose.’ Ling said those words to him.
The future king agrees. “Yes!”
While the cacophony around him manifested greed in the negative—for the self-serving, for the loveless—his was for the good of the people, for charity, for love, for unity, for community, for progress!
He looks jubilant, so out of it with delight, like he’s going to burst into flames in Greed’s hands. He looks at Greed like he was weighed in gold. He grabs his hand, eager to have a hold on him—something solid and tangible and so deeply psychogenic—to be felt in every nerve of his body, every part of his brain.
Greed exhales, looking at him in pure awe. “Ling…”
“I… I’ll give you a piece of Xing if you ask,” he says. “I trust your input more than my uncles. You challenge me, you make me think. You’re… good. You’re a good person. I believe in you.”
“You make me… feel,” Greed confesses. The heart in their chest slams with both of their urgency, merged into one beat. “I missed you too.”
“You did?”
Greed chortles. “Yeah, I did.”
Ling rests his head on his shoulder. “Don’t ever hit me again.”
“What?”
“The day you left, you punched me to get me off of you. Don’t ever do that again,” the prince orders.
It was… not about the hitting, not solely. Greed knew that. He makes an unsure noise, not knowing if he can hold himself to such a standard. Ling was his friend. If separation meant his protection, he’d do it a million times over, no matter how badly it hurt. And boy did it fucking hurt!
Greed bites his lip and changes the subject.
“So… does this mean you’ll be showing me around Xing? Gotta see my future kingdom.”
Ling is joyful as can be. “Of course!”
•
•
•
Greedling was so back. Undeniably. Certifiably. Lan Fan was, predictably, first to know.
It’s funny, watching him take a backseat and stare in confusion as the woman goes off in rapid Xingese—so shocked and bewildered that her pitch only raises with each sentence.
“Don’t worry,” Ling soothes, “You’ll be fluent in no time after all this immersion.”
Greed grumbles but is very forgiving once he’s introduced to the food and the sights and the wholesome citizens.
It stays a secret between them and Lan Fan for a while, and the pair, newly combined as Greedling, greatly enjoy training with the woman, feeling the spark of her numerous blades against their armored skin.
Their thoughts intermingle, their voices marry, their sentiments align and soon, it becomes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. It’s like witnessing a metamorphosis, both of their true forms coming out at once.
Greedling is realer than real, more true and tangible than either one of them had been on their own—and they had been forces on their own too.
Greedling was them in totality.
At night, snuggled up in the privacy of their own hybridized soul, they communicated feelings that couldn’t be spoken by the lips, they felt each other’s presence, basked in it, made up for lost time. It was warm.
“So selfish,” Greed says, a fake admonishment.
“I used to be ashamed of such selfishness but I’ve learned to harness it, channel it for a respectable cause, you know?”
“Yeah. Not bad at all. As long as you’re alive, we’ll have wants, we’ll be selfish. We’ll give and take and be gifted—and it’ll feel nice for a while—but it’ll never be enough.”
“That’ll make me a better ruler. It’s not right to become complacent; that leaves you vulnerable, weak…” Ling assesses. “Hey…Greed?”
Greed looks at him, studies him for a moment. He wasn’t that squeaky, prancing jackass he was years ago. He’d matured, by necessity. He looked more like… him. It was weird. Ling was the original, Greed was the copy; but it felt indistinguishable, irrelevant.
He didn’t like that look. The goo-goo eyes. It made Greed feel hot in the face and nervous.
He worried he was giving goo-goo eyes back.
He adored him. As far as he was concerned, this was the king of Xing, laid in his lap, in a place where only Greed could see him, the perfect place to shield his most prized jewel—inside his own head.
Fucking shit.
And they could feel each other’s thoughts—not hear, but feel—viscerally.
He adored him. He didn’t know he could feel so strongly about things, especially people; not for one he’s known for such a short time, and not for someone he obtained rather easily.
“Don’t look at me like that, kid.”
“I’m not a kid. Far from it, actually.”
“This is… I don’t know.”
“Weird?” Ling leans close, too eager to brush his nose against the other, to press his forehead against his. “I’m eighteen. Then nineteen. Twenty. Beyond. How old are you?”
“I don’t know,” the counterpart groans. “It kind of resets every time I come back.”
It’s a miracle he even remembered him. Or anybody.
“Even better,” Ling lays on him, feeling comforted in the drifty nothingness that made up their combined bubble. “We have our whole lives ahead of us. Or… my whole life. Don’t get sick of me so soon. Hurts my ego.”
“Never,” the sin promised. “I… It’s our whole life. One body and all that jazz.”
You’re my prized possession… Though they could feel each other’s thoughts, some were a bit fuzzier than others. Notwithstanding, the sentiment was reciprocal.
•
•
•
Mei immediately recognizes what’s going on when he—out of the blue—calls her ‘panda girl’ the next time they cross paths. She smacks him around properly for that.
•
•
•
One night, after a grueling day of posing for a traditional family portrait—Greed had lamented the entire time, loudly suggesting photographs in the back of the prince’s head—Ling tells the homunculus that he plans to show him to his father in the next few days.
“You’re the secret to eternal life… and he can’t have you,” he hums. “But if he’s a man of his word, he’ll hand me the throne because I was still able to provide him with an answer.”
“Just not one he can use. Sick,” Greed gawks.
“I mean, I’m not intentionally withholding it but… it’s not like we can separate now that we’re back together.”
“I wouldn’t even want to.”
“Exactly. You make me stronger. You’re my battery.”
“Hmm,” the sin had become more used to grabbing hold of the human, molding his soul to properly fit into his as they slept. He didn’t need sleep but it was a pleasant pastime, especially when shared. Ling, affectionate as all hell, presses his face into his like a cat. Calmness graces his features.
“Fuck,” he facepalms with a lopsided grin. “When this news hits Amestris, Edward’s gonna flip.”
“Who cares?” Greed counters boldly, tracing his chin, tilting, making him look up at him. “I’m here now. You got what you wanted and I’ll help you get even more, on that seat, in that crown and robe. He’s gonna have to deal with it, the way I dealt with it.”
“What a mighty pep talk. He still might beat me up the moment he sees me,” Ling shrieks with laughter.
Greed doesn’t care. He doesn’t care at all. He feels warm all over, cherished, wanted—it was everything he ever wanted but could never put into words and it was so freely given by this person in front of him.
“I love you,” he chokes, the realization rough like a stone lodged in his throat. He’s unfamiliar with the feeling but from what he’s heard, he’s sure it goes something like this. “I think I love you.”
Ling stills. Then he wraps around him in a hug.
He adores him; his avaricious monster.
“I love you too.”
The prince goes to sleep with arms wrapped around himself. He wakes up thumbing his own cheek, his hair an absolute mess.
•
•
•
They arrived at the palace with a journal, a folder full of pages, and western clothes—Greed’s style. Torn open blazer, slacks, some pristine gold jewelry on his wrists that he didn’t have to steal this time, only had to grab from the prince’s drawer.
They present themselves before the king as Greedling. A unit made of two.
To say the man was impressed was an understatement, he was absolutely astonished when they recounted the tale of how they met, the dire circumstances in Amestris, the way the entire country was wiped out—souls ripped from bodies to fuel a thing—they kept the Philosopher’s stone a secret—before being guided back to their bodies, an entire nation practically dropping dead at once in the midst of a massive upheaval.
Then the tough news, that there weren’t enough vices to go around. The rest of the sins were too volatile to be kept alive. Greed was different—willingly docile, adaptable, friendly and snarky all at once, bound to Ling alone.
“That’s my prince,” he says proudly, his voice so distinct from their combined one, and terribly bogged down by his abysmal tonal placement when speaking their language.
If they needed any more proof they were different entities, that was as good of evidence as any.
But Greed flexes some of his unique alchemy because… how could he not?
Hardened skin, impenetrable shield here, monstrous fully-armored transformation there, a little bit of spice—techniques out of thin air, completely alien to alkahestrists; just a whole bunch of showboating and a whole lot of taunting Hào Rán, who sat with a furious glare at his father’s side.
Greedling challenges him to beat that; and everybody knows he can’t.
Ling cites his leadership, discipline, decisiveness, and tireless drive as reasons why he’d be the best for the job. He’s very intentional as he points out he has both the brains and the raw power, alongside real-world experience; three things that work in unison to put him over even the most tenured bureaucrat of all the king's children.
With that, he rests the documents in the hands of his attendants and rests his case.
•
•
•
When Ling is halfway to twenty-one, he is crowned king of Xing. The previous king died in the middle of an uneventful slumber, resigned to his fate.
Second to his clan, the Changs are the most spirited supporters. The nation glows with fireworks for twelve consecutive nights.
Balls and blocks parties spring up at every corner, from the highest echelon to the most meager commoners.
He makes a lot of ambitious promises.
But he’s also ambitious enough to stand on them.
He has more than enough time to get there.
His first order of business was more robust services, mainly for education, employment opportunities, and aid for their disabled. After that, an official allyship with Amestris.
His ears feel hot when Greed whispers to him in the middle of a televised announcement.
He hisses at him to ‘shut up’ but the vice just sneers.
“I’ve never had this much before,” he said genuinely, his voice almost purring. He always spoke like that, especially when talking about things. He liked things a lot, that was who he was. He liked the red robe, lined in blue, and the heavy gold jewelry. “I don’t even think I know what to do with all of it… Thank you.”
•
•
•
Ling curls his fingers against the other’s, feeling the coolness of his hand, the heat in his gaze, the focus, like the sparkling tip of a sword, seizing the breath out of him in the best way.
So perfect.
They dropped their linked hands between them, into their laps. They ogle at each other, reading another dutifully, appreciating every little twitch they see, every nuance they feel down to their bones. Their friend. The right to their left. The up to their down. The land to their sea.
Greedling’s heart beats. It’s real and it’s full of love—and it wants, it wants, it wants—urgently, violently, it craves, wishes, demands—
“Hey,” the prince greets airily.
Instead of responding with words, Greed just grabs his hands, cups them sweetly, and traces his lips along the bone, right where the red-inked mark would be. The mark of sinfulness.
He kisses the ring of his ruler, a sign of total allegiance.
•
•
•
Edward, Alphonse, and Winry visit some months after the coronation.
“Long time no see,” Greedling greets at the checkpoint with a lazy peace sign. Mei is at their side, hyperactively bouncing on her toes at the sight of their friends. Xiao Mei is still holding strong, running around between her jumping legs.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Fullmetal says, voice high in disbelief. “For some reason, I didn’t believe it when I read it. How? Why? What?”
He laughs. They shake hands.
“How’ve ya been?”
“Great! How’ve you been?”
Greedling smirks, a scheming expression. “Never been better.”