Hagane no Renkinjutsushi - Volume 3 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

PARADISE BELOW

EDWARD AND ALPHONSE made their way down the cliff, following Ruby along the narrow ledge. In places where the path became too narrow to walk safely, wooden stairs and pathways gave a tenuous support. By the time they reached the bottom, night had fallen.

The brothers looked up the way they had come and gasped. From above, the town at the bottom of the hole had seemed cramped and narrow. But from down here, the night sky was stunning, a wide ellipse ringed by the black line of the rim. Somehow, the lack of a horizon made it look as though there were nothing holding the sky in place—like it might come crashing down, stars and all.

All Edward could say was “Whoa.”

“You’re gaping like a fish,” Ruby said with a smirk.

Edward snapped his mouth shut. “What was that you said about teasing?”

“Come on, you two,” Alphonse said with a laugh. “No more fighting, please.”

“What a jerk,” Edward grumbled. Inside, he was glad that, for once, he wasn’t the troublemaker in the bunch.

Ruby led them into the middle of town. She pointed as she walked. “To the right of where we came out is where the mayor, Mr. Raygen, lives.”

A large white mansion stood in the direction that Ruby pointed. It towered over the other houses in town, surrounded by a large garden. 

“The sluice gate is right behind the mansion,” Ruby continued. “That’s where they control the flow of the water, to keep the river running through town without washing it away.”

Edward stretched his neck to see the large wall of the sluice gate. “What do you do with the water that doesn’t come through town?”

“There’s another waterway that runs under the mansion,” she explained. “That’s where they send it. The two waterways—the one underground and the one that runs through town—join back together on the far side and leave through the cliff wall,” Ruby explained, sweeping her hand from the right side of the village to the left. Edward could just make out a crack where the water flowed into the cliff wall. It seemed that the crack ran all the way from the top of the cliff to the bottom. It was the same on the side of the town where the river began. Edward realized that Wisteria had to be part of a longer canyon system. For some reason, the canyon had widened right at this spot, creating the perfect place to build a town.

Edward looked up at the twinkling stars above and got his bearings. He recalled seeing a river on their map. At the time, he’d thought it was odd that they hadn’t found any tree line giving away its location during their search for Wisteria. “This river … There are some mines further upstream, aren’t there?”

“That’s right,” Ruby said. “Very deep mines, too. We get quite a lot of gravel and sand washing down the river, and sometimes ore and jewels, even. Normally, you’d have to dig pretty deep beneath the earth to find such things, but in Wisteria, they just come floating down the river. It’s our most valuable natural resource … and the reason why those bandits want to get in so badly.”

“So, you collect the gems for sale … but how do you get them out?”

Ruby’s chest puffed with pride. “That’s my job.”

“Your job?”

“Once a month, we gather all the ore and gemstones together and carry them out of town. Of course, the bandits know we’re coming. That’s why I go along as security. When there is no shipment, I keep things safe down here in the village.”

“That’s why you’re so strong,” Alphonse said, impressed.

“Strong-headed,” Edward grumbled beside him.

“Ed …” Alphonse glared at his brother. “Ruby, aren’t you a little young to be a security guard?”

Ruby laughed. “I’m just doing what I can to help Mr. Raygen. He’s so nice, you know. He helps people who don’t have the means to make it on their own, who don’t have a place to go. He gives them work. That’s why everyone here is so happy, me included. He helped me when I was still very little, and now I’m repaying the favor. Because of Mr. Raygen, I have a new life. This truly is paradise. Sure, it’s a bit inconvenient without electricity, but we get by with alcohol lamps and the like. See?” she said, pointing toward the middle of town. “They’re turning on the lights now.”

The brothers looked to see a man carrying a long stick with a flame burning on one end. He moved from lamp to lamp, lighting each one as he went. Gradually, the town at the base of the cliffs began to glow with a warm light.

“Paradise in the wasteland,” Edward muttered, looking at the town stretched out before him.

They continued walking. Before long, they met their first villagers—some men sitting by the side of the road.

“Hey there, Ruby. Welcome back,” said one of the men, noticing them.

“Ruby! They give you any trouble today?” another said with a wave of his hand.

Ruby waved back. “Nothing I couldn’t handle! Are you all on break?”

“You bet. We fished up a big rock today, we did. The other shift is polishing it now,” the first man told her.

“It will fetch a pretty price, that one,” his friend commented.

“We got some extra time off,” said the first, “so I loaded soil for a new field. See?” he said, raising his hands. “When’s the last time you saw me with dirty hands?”

“I can’t remember the last time I saw you lot without dirt all over yourselves,” she shot back.

The men laughed, slapping at their grimy clothes. Their faces were dirty, but their eyes had the shine of people who were truly content with their work. The men called out cheerfully to Edward and Alphonse.

“Say, you’re a new face!”

“What’s that, armor? That’s a fine-looking suit!”

“Th-thanks,” Alphonse stuttered. He was used to people pointing and staring at him, not complimenting him. The man’s eyes went next to his brother’s right arm.

“And is that automail? Guess we got something in common, then,” he said with a smile, lifting his arms so Edward could see. “I’ve got some automail m’self. Helps me get those tricky jobs no one else wants, eh? I used to curse the army with every breath for doing this to me, but since I came here, well, it’s almost a blessing.” He slapped his metal arms together, making a loud ringing noise. “I’m just glad I found a use for these things.”

“Yeah,” his companion echoed. “Better putting them to good use down here than up there, where a person can work day in and day out and have nothing to show for it.”

“I hear that,” the first man said, nodding. “And to think it’s the law of the town that lets us live like this. Now that’s a blessing for sure.”

“What’s this ‘law of the town’ everyone keeps talking about?” Edward asked their guide. But before Ruby could answer him, one of the men pointed down the road ahead.

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Raygen went down to the town square just now. We had three people come to ask permission to live here. They’re probably still there talking.”

Ruby’s face brightened. “Mr. Raygen? In the square?” 

With all the energy of a young girl, she bolted down the road, leaving the brothers behind and Edward’s question unanswered.

“So this Raygen guy is the mayor, right?” Edward asked.

“I wonder what kind of fellow he is,” Alphonse wondered out loud.

The brothers followed after Ruby until they came out into a large town square. 

“Mr. Raygen!” Ruby ran over to a man talking with several others in the middle of the square. “Mr. Raygen, I delivered your letter safely! I brought you a receipt.”

“Ah, Ruby! You’re back,” he said, turning. The one she called Mr. Raygen was an older man, with silver hair down to his shoulders and a face wrinkled by the passing years. He looked around sixty. His blue eyes twinkled as he smiled and reached out a hand from the cloak he wore to keep off the night air, taking the receipt from Ruby. “Thanks, as always. Sorry to send you off on personal business like that.” His voice was deep and rough but kind.

“I know you like to keep up correspondence with your old friends, Mr. Raygen. I’m happy to help!” Ruby smiled, pleased with the praise.

“Is that the same girl as before?” Edward muttered to his brother. “She’s so sweet all of a sudden.”

Alphonse chuckled. Raygen looked up. “I see we have some new visitors.”

“Oh, right,” Ruby said hurriedly. “I, um, just outside the village, those bandits had me surrounded, and these two came to help. I thought I should thank them … Don’t worry—they haven’t come to live here or anything.”

Edward frowned as Raygen gave Ruby a suspicious look. “Maybe we’re not going to be able to stay?” he asked quietly, but Raygen shook his head.

“No, no, you’re welcome, of course. Normally, we like to screen visitors to the village, but Ruby says you helped her out of quite a scrape. To turn you back now would go against the law of the town. Stay with us awhile. You must be tired from your journey here.”

“Sorry … the ‘law of the town?’ ” Edward said, still curious about this law that everyone in the village felt was so important.

“Ah, yes,” Raygen replied softly. “Here in Wisteria, we base all our interactions on the principle of equivalent exchange.”

“Equivalent exchange?” Edward and Alphonse said together, startled to hear such a familiar term used so out of context.

All alchemy worked on the principles of conservation of matter, so the concept of equivalent exchange was central to much of the work alchemists performed. 

“I’m a little confused,” Alphonse said honestly. “How does equivalent exchange apply to a civil law? That’s the first time I’ve ever heard it used that way.”

Raygen’s warm smile faded, and a slightly sad look crept into his eyes. He turned and looked over the square. “Yes, it is uncommon, as you say. Yet as surely as one equals one, there is an equivalent for all things in our world down here. Not so in the world above, however. In exchange for peace, the military kills. In exchange for hard labor to build industry, workers are underpaid. The world overflows with absurdities.”

Raygen fell silent. “Some despair, thinking that the absurdities of the world are their fault because they lacked the strength to do what others told them to do. My experience with alchemy taught me the wonders of equivalent exchange, and so now, I pass on what I’ve learned to improve the welfare of all our people, to give them hope.”

“You know some alchemy, don’t you, Edward? Don’t you know about equivalent exchange?” Ruby said, giving Edward a playful slap on the shoulder. She must have seen him using alchemy in the fight with the bandits above.

Raygen’s eyes opened wide. “An alchemist? You?”

“Uh, yeah, sort of …” Edward mumbled. Clearly, the folks living here in Wisteria had little love for the military. If they found out that he was a State Alchemist, Ed and Al would lose their welcome here for sure. The townsfolk would probably wonder exactly why a State Alchemist had come in the first place, and then the jig would be up. Central would find out that Roy hadn’t gone to check out the town himself, and there would be hell to pay … out of Edward’s pocket, no less.

Raygen took the look of consternation on Edward’s face as a sign that he had only dabbled in alchemy and didn’t understand the finer points of the science. After all, he was only a boy to Raygen’s eyes.

“Perhaps you know a little about it, yes?” Raygen asked, smiling.

“Just a little,” Edward mumbled. He glanced up at Alphonse and signaled with his eyes to keep quiet. He didn’t want to start out on the wrong foot with the people in this town.

“During my studies of alchemy,” Raygen began, sounding for the world like a teacher talking to a slow student, “I found that the law of equivalent exchange provided a perfect, easily understandable set of guidelines under which a community of people could live together in harmony. With equivalent exchange, I could create an even, fair society where each received due for their work and efforts. I wanted to help the people I saw struggling with the unfairness of the world above. As a novice alchemist yourself, try applying what you know of the law of equivalent exchange to what you see around you in this town. Ahem.”

Raygen straightened and turned to the three men with whom he had been speaking before Edward and Alphonse arrived. “As I was saying, our town was founded to help those unable to help themselves. Only those in true need are allowed to enter. You understand, I trust?”

The three looked at each other. These must be the applicants for residency, thought Edward. One of the men was so thin he seemed as though he might collapse at any moment. Another appeared to be a merchant, wheeling a broken-down cart piled with goods behind him. The third appeared to be a traveler of some sort, carrying a walking stick and little else.

The merchant scowled and spoke. “So, you mean to tell me that a merchant like myself isn’t welcome?”

“I’m sorry,” Raygen replied. “But if you have a home to go back to, we have nothing for you here. As you can see, our available space is quite limited. And why have you come to our town?” he asked, turning to the traveler.

“I heard Wisteria was a paradise,” the traveler replied, taking off his hood as he spoke. “I thought I might be able to make some cash.”

“You have family?”

“A wife, sir …”

“Then go back to her. A man should live in his own home, am I wrong?”

“Y-yeah, but …” the man stuttered.

“You do not require what Wisteria has to offer,” Raygen said gently. “Your wife can provide you with all that you truly need.” 

He turned to the last man. “And you?”

“I’m without home or family … Lost both in the war, and what’s the military give me? Nothing. I figured something was wrong with the world … and that’s when I heard about this town,” the man said, between nervous looks at Raygen’s face.

Raygen answered him with a warm smile. “You have no home? Then you may live with us. There is much work for you to do here.”

“Yeah … work. Er …” the man stuttered sheepishly.

“Something the matter?”

He grimaced and scratched at his neck furiously. “There’s something I should tell you,” he said at last. “I, uh, at the last place I worked, someone took my job, and I, uh, I got mad and …”

Raygen held out his hand to silence him. “You have no place to go home to. That is reason enough for you to join us.”

“Wait a second!” the merchant butted in. “This man could be a criminal! You’d let criminals walk right in, but you keep a respectable citizen like myself out? I traveled a long way here just to earn a little bread. Look at my cart: it’s half ruined!” The man spat, his face red with anger. “Everyone knows how well off you Wisteria folks are. If you don’t open up your gates soon, those bandits will break them down for you! You say you want to help people? Feh!”

“Was that a threat?!” Ruby shouted, glaring suspiciously at the merchant. “Who are you to talk to us like that, anyway? The problem is with the world outside, not with us in here. They talk about peace, sure, but then the military comes in and wrecks everyone’s lives! Mr. Raygen only wants to help the victims, can’t you see that? I’ll never forget what he’s done for me—and if bandits want to come and take our paradise away, let ’em come! I’ll fight them off myself!”

“That’s enough, Ruby,” Raygen said, putting his hand on Ruby’s shoulder.

“But Mr. Raygen!”

“I appreciate your spirit, Ruby. Though I do pity the man you choose to spend your life with,” he said with a chuckle.

“Why … why would I spend any time with anyone but you, Mr. Raygen? I owe you so much.”

“That’s not what I was talking about,” Raygen said, not unkindly. “You’re a very pretty girl, Ruby. Pretty like a rose, but those thorns of yours are likely to scare off potential partners. And I look forward to seeing you start a happy family here in Wisteria. I know you had it hard outside.”

Raygen paused, then reached a hand out and touched the merchant’s broken cart, piled high with goods. Edward and Alphonse noticed an alchemical circle drawn on the sleeve of his cloak.

“You traveled far to come here. Few people know what it is we truly do here at Wisteria. They merely come, lured by tales of wealth and riches. I understand why you’re upset. Allow me to fix your cart for you.”

There was a brief flash of light on the cart.

The man yelped. When Raygen took his hand off the cart, the broken wheel looked as good as new.

“Again, we welcome within our borders only those who cannot find happiness outside. Please understand.”

Raygen called the guards at the entrance of the square to show the two men he had refused out of town. He handed the third man over to the care of another guard before turning back to Edward and his brother.

“I’m sorry to take your time. Please, enjoy Wisteria during your stay. We are grateful for your help. You need not worry about food or money while you stay with us.”

So saying, Raygen turned and with slow steps made his way back to the large mansion at the head of the river.

EDWARD AND ALPHONSE were taken to a small home near the waterway, a short distance downstream from the town center. It appeared that someone had been living here before—there were shelves and beds and a lamp already waiting for them. 

“There’s a restaurant to the right of the square,” Ruby told them as she lit the lamp. “And there’s a bucket outside. Just go to the waterway if you need any water.” She turned back around. “Well? What did you think of Mr. Raygen?” she asked, pride resonating in her voice.

“He’s awfully kind to take in people like that,” Alphonse said.

“Yeah,” Edward agreed. “It’s not easy to find homes for all the homeless people these days.” Edward was impressed. He couldn’t condone turning a blind eye to someone with a possible criminal record, but the man’s generosity was overwhelming.

Ruby smiled. “Isn’t he great? Truly a remarkable man! He’s actually accomplishing what no one in the world above can hope to do—he’s created a society of equals here. Up there, there’s all this theft and bribery and corruption. In the end, it’s the people at the bottom who pay. They lose their jobs, their families, their homes. But here, we have a clear rule to guide us: equivalent exchange. That’s why we all work hard, even on the really tough jobs, because we know we’ll be rewarded in kind. It’s amazing that with all those people and all that money, the military couldn’t do what Mr. Raygen is doing all by himself here.”

“You really respect him, don’t you?” Alphonse said cheerfully.

“I do. That’s why I swore never to leave his side. And …”

Ruby grew suddenly quiet. She looked down at the floor and fidgeted for a moment before looking up at Alphonse and then Edward.

“What?” asked Edward with a scowl. He was ready for another bout of name calling, and so what she did say took him by surprise.

“Thank you …” she said at last with some difficulty. “Thank you for helping me. I swore to stand by Mr. Raygen forever. And to think, if those bandits had stopped me there, I might never have been able to see him again,” she explained, a look of determination in her eyes. “I know I was kind of mean back there, but I really am grateful.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Alphonse said, waving his hands. “We just happened along at the right time. We’re the ones who should thank you for showing us into town. See, we help each other out.” He looked down at his brother. “Right, Ed?”

“Right,” Edward said. “I liked it better when you were being a jerk, anyway. You made me look good.”

“Whaddya mean, a jerk?!” Ruby shouted, raising a fist.

Edward quickly shuffled back, out of range. “Hey, I thought you were grateful!”

“That was before you called me a jerk!”

“Hey, I meant well,” Edward insisted.

“If that’s the kind of thing you say when you mean well, I never want to hear you when you don’t!”

Alphonse stepped in. “Now, now. Say, Ruby, what are you up to now?”

“I should go soon—it’s almost time for my shift on guard patrol. I should say my farewells.” Ruby pointed up at the rim of the high cliffs. They could barely make out the shape of the security guards at the top, carrying their rifles as they paced to and fro along the line where the deep blue of the nighttime sky joined the black wall of the cliff. Occasionally, they would stop and brandish their weapons, as though scaring off would-be interlopers.

“I’ll be off now,” she said.

“Yeah, thanks for the room!” Alphonse said, waving.

Ruby smiled. “Bye now, Alphonse.” Edward couldn’t help but notice the way she stressed Alphonse’s name and didn’t mention him, Edward, at all.

“Ed, please …” Alphonse muttered, chuckling to himself as he went back inside. “I’m just glad that we have a place to stay. So what are you going to do? Do we begin observing? Or can we take a break?”

“Well, you know the colonel. I think we should start observing straightaway. How about we begin at the restaurant?” Edward said with a grin. Just then, his stomach grumbled loudly. The two laughed and set down their luggage before heading toward the restaurant near the town square.

THE RESTAURANT was quite large and filled with a lively crowd of workers seated at tables piled high with food. 

“Evening, gentlemen,” a woman in her mid-forties sitting near the entrance called out to them as they entered. “Mr. Raygen told me you’d be coming. He told us about you helping Ruby out, too. Dinner’s on the house! What would you like?” The woman smiled warmly and handed them a menu.

“Oh, we’re happy to pay for our food,” Edward said, hesitating. Visions of the head chef at that restaurant accusing them of being deadbeat diners flashed through his head.

The woman thrust the menu into his hands. “We go by the law of equivalent exchange in this town. You helped out one of the townspeople, so now we’ll help you.”

Edward nodded and accepted the menu. He was famished. “Then, I’ll take this vegetable soup and the oven-baked lamb, and could I have some potatoes and a cup of coffee with that?”

“Sure thing!” she replied, writing down Edward’s order and turning to Alphonse. “And you?”

“Oh, I’m not hungry.”

“You sure? Okay. Well, just let me know if you change your mind.” 

The woman left, and Alphonse turned to his brother. “Just the lamb? You sure that’s going to be enough, Ed?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” he said, standing on his tiptoes to whisper in his brother’s ear. “See, I was kind of afraid they might ask us to pay later on. So I only ordered as much as I could afford with the money in the wallet.”

“Aha, I see,” Alphonse said, chuckling. “I haven’t seen any banks in town, for that matter.”

“Exactly. That means, if it comes to it, we really might have to eat and run—and that would be kind of hard when the whole town is surrounded by cliffs.”

“I can tell you’re still traumatized by that restaurant,” Alphonse said laughing. 

Edward scowled. “Yeah, and I know just who I have to blame for it, too.”

The two brothers laughed. The woman came back with potatoes and vegetable soup. Edward picked up his fork and prepared to dig in when he was interrupted by a man at the next table.

“Ah, I see you’re eating one of my potatoes!” He was grinning and holding a glass of wine in one hand. “We don’t get a lot of sunlight, but still I think they turned out pretty nice. How they taste?”

“Mmph, sweet!” Edward said through a full mouth of potatoes.

The man laughed. “Aren’t they? Got to eat good if you want to do good work! You’d better eat your fill, too, there,” the man added, leaning over to give Alphonse a clap on the shoulder. By now, a few other people had turned to look at the new visitors.

“That’s right,” said one. “We’re all working to help Mr. Raygen’s dream come true.”

“Can’t work on an empty stomach, and can’t earn a livelihood if we don’t work. If we don’t earn a livelihood, this town is through.”

“See? Right there is the top-earning man in Wisteria, and look how much he’s eating!”

One of the men pointed toward a large fellow eating a whole chicken. He looked sturdy, with a square-cut jaw and ropy muscles on his arms—by all accounts, a man built for doing hard labor.

“Hey, Neil!” someone shouted.

“Huh?” The man washed down a mouthful of chicken with his wine and turned to look over at Edward and Alphonse. “Hey, those the guys that saved Ruby? Ruby told me all about it. She says you two are all right.”

Neil walked over, carrying his glass of wine, and pulled a chair up to Edward and Alphonse’s table.

“All right, huh?” Edward said, wincing, remembering how she had chewed him out before they came into town.

Neil saw the look on his face and laughed out loud. “Hah! She’s a tough one, that Ruby, and I don’t just mean her fighting. But the girl’s dedicated to Mr. Raygen. She’s one of the best security people we’ve got.”

“Yes, we talked to her about Mr. Raygen. She really admires the man.”

“Yeah, something about Mr. Raygen saving her a long while back,” Neil explained, nodding. “Of course, pretty much all of us here can say the same.”

Neil leaned over and rolled up the cuffs of his trousers. Both legs were gleaming automail. “My legs got shot off by stray gunfire during the war. Lost my family, too, every last one. But the army wouldn’t do a thing for me. Sent me a letter telling me they’d done what they must to put down unrest, and they were sorry for my loss—that’s all! I got real depressed then, started hating everything, and that’s when Mr. Raygen offered me a job. Was I grateful? You bet! Still am, too. I know that the more work I do, the more I’ll earn here. It’s simple, but it works, and I work. Now I’m glad I have strong legs that never get tired from too much work.”

Another man to the side spoke. “I’ve still got all my arms and legs in the right places, but my family, they got real sick. I tried to buy the right medicine for them, but I just couldn’t make enough money—no matter how hard I worked—to make ends meet and pay for the treatments. In the end, my family died. I blamed myself, ’course. I got in a bad way, then, doing whatever it took to survive. But I knew what I was doing was wrong, and so I came here, to Wisteria—my last hope. And Raygen, he took me in. I’ll never get my family back, but now I know it wasn’t my fault I couldn’t provide for them. It’s that twisted world up there. And now I’ve got something else to work for: making this town the best place it can be.”

The man smiled through his entire sad tale. The people listening nearby nodded as he spoke. They must all have similar experiences, thought Edward. And they all must thank Mr. Raygen from the bottom of their hearts.

“He’s a saint, Mr. Raygen. Helping people who can’t help themselves.”

“You bet.”

Edward looked up and saw that the woman who had taken his order had brought his lamb. She put the plate on the table. “And Mr. Raygen helps too. He says that alchemy should be for the people, so he fixes our houses and our tools for us.”

“Impressive,” Edward said, and he meant it. Few people who practiced proper alchemy in this day and age took the time to help the public like that. He liked, also, to hear people talking about alchemy in such a favorable light. Too often, he and Alphonse heard stories about alchemy being used for the wrong reasons by the wrong people.

“This really is a great town. I envy you all,” Alphonse said. Neil smiled and slapped him on the shoulder.

“So, what’s your name, anyway?”

“Oh, I’m Alphonse.”

“Alphonse! I’ve seen you walking around in that armor like it was no more than regular clothes—you must be pretty strong. Why, you could make a fine living in Wisteria with a body like that. How about it? Why not join us and live here?”

He must think we’re like them, Edward thought, victims of the war.

“Wisteria opens its doors to people without a home, to people who have seen the injustices of the world above, and looking at you two, I’d say you’ve seen your fair share,” Neil said, confirming Edward’s suspicions. “You might have come here by chance, but I think if you tried, you might find it’s the right fit.”

“Y-yeah, maybe,” Alphonse muttered, nodding. No one looking at them would guess the real reason for their automail bodies: they had broken the taboo of human transmutation. Alphonse wasn’t about to tell these men that.

“Of course you would.” Neil grinned. “With a body like that, you’d make top earner in no time. You earn what you make here, don’t forget. Equivalent exchange!”

“But if I were the top earner, wouldn’t that mean that I would be making more than you, Neil?” Alphonse asked, sounding worried. “I wouldn’t want to have to compete.”

The men around them laughed, and Neil shook his head, smiling. “Fine by me. It’s all for the good of the town, and Mr. Raygen. And after all, we all live a newer, better life here. How could I have hard feelings?” Neil stood. “So, I propose a toast! To our new prospective citizens, Alphonse, and …”

“Edward,” Edward said through a mouthful of lamb.

“Yes, Edward! Though you look a bit slight for any real hard work …”

“Whoa! Whoa!” Alphonse shouted, waving his arms. The last thing he needed was Edward blowing his top in the middle of their welcoming toast. He looked at his brother, but Edward was so engrossed in his lamb that he hadn’t heard the comment. 

Edward looked up. “Something wrong, Al?”

“Oh, uh, nothing,” Alphonse said, visibly relieved.

Neil raised his glass. “Here’s to our new guests!”

“To Wisteria and Mr. Raygen!”

“To a good day’s work!”

“To the future!”

The men around them joined in, giving toast after toast, their joyful faces showing no trace of the sadness they had known in their former lives.

“I’M STARTING TO THINK that maybe this town is really as great a place as it seems, Ed,” Alphonse told his brother as they walked back to the house that served as their lodgings. Edward smiled. The cool night air felt good after the warmth of the restaurant. 

Alphonse stopped on the small bridge spanning the waterway that crossed the middle of the town square and looked back the way they had come. Even though it was already the middle of the night, there were still people in the restaurant. The sound of laughter spilled into the square, echoing off the cobblestones.

“The woman who served us said that most of the people here are men who’ve lost their families … That’s why everyone eats so late. They don’t have anyone to go home to.”

Alphonse turned his gaze away from the restaurant and looked up at the night sky. “These people can carry so much pain inside, yet still they manage to greet every morning with a smile. They seem to live healthy, productive lives … It’s really amazing.”

The stars shone brilliant in the night sky, glimmering jewels on a carpet of deep blue. In the town below, fires still burned in the furnaces. Their light spilled out of the factory doors each time the doors opened and spread into the night, along with the sound of the fires crackling.

Neil and several others had left the restaurant when they did. They had said they intended to polish the gemstones they had found that day. They were probably working in the furnaces, Edward assumed.

“Everybody works so hard here,” Alphonse said, looking up at the lights around the mansion and factories near the head of the waterway. Suddenly, he slapped Edward on the shoulder. “Ed, look!”

“Huh?”

Edward had been looking in the opposite direction, toward the quiet part of town downriver. He turned around to see Alphonse pointing at one of the factories. As they watched, the upper part of the factory’s domed roof slowly rose. Moments later, a tremendous plume of steam came billowing out, and a sharp, cracking noise shot across the town.

“Heat plus water makes steam—they must be using it to process the stones there,” Alphonse reasoned.

“Yeah,” Edward said, nodding. “It looks like a first-rate operation they’ve got going there. They must get some nice gemstones coming down the river.”

By their nature, ore veins running through the ground rarely came to the surface. If you wanted the precious metals and gemstones they held, you had to dig them out by hand—but the deeper veins were difficult to reach. Here in Wisteria, the river did all the digging for them, delivering the deepest ores and gemstones right into their hands.

“Still, it’s not easy work moving rock and gravel that’s been submerged in water for any length of time. Equivalent exchange or no, those people in there are working hard for what they earn, I bet.”

Several nice houses stood around the mansion near the head of the waterway. That’s where the top earners must live, Edward thought.

“Since Mr. Raygen has guards who carry all the town’s produce out for him, everybody here working the gemstones depends on him, don’t they …”

Edward turned toward the main road, thinking about how the town’s economy worked as he walked, mumbling softly to himself. Alphonse turned back to him and laughed.

Edward looked up and frowned. “What?”

“That look in your eyes is the same one you get when you’re working on an alchemical problem. I’m starting to think this observation job is perfect for you. And that hand on your chin—just like the colonel!”

Edward started, quickly pulling his hand off his chin and shaking it in disgust. “Give me a break!” he said, scowling.

Just then, he heard a small voice call out, “Ruby.” They had just stepped out onto the main road leading up to Raygen’s mansion at one end and the town homes where Edward and Alphonse were staying at the other. Alphonse was far enough ahead of Edward that he hadn’t heard the voice, so only Edward stopped to look.

He turned around to see the front of a large house protected by a large iron gate. A small boy stood before the gate, dwarfed by the high metal rails.

In the light of the street lamps, the boy’s hair shone a brownish gold. He was about Edward’s height, but from the size of his hands and his face Edward guessed he was younger—around twelve or thirteen years old. His wavy hair curled up at the bottom, blowing gently in the wind. 

Ruby stood in front of him, her hand on the half-opened gate, looking down at the boy. She wore a slight, irritated frown. She didn’t notice Edward standing on the road.

As Edward watched, the boy reached out both hands to Ruby. He held a bouquet of flowers.

“Here.”

Ruby sighed. “How many times do I have to tell you? Making bouquets doesn’t do any good for the town. You need to find some other work to do.”

Her voice was different from when she talked to Alphonse or the other townsfolk. It was cool and flat.

“But this is the only work I can do,” the boy said in a voice so quiet it was hard to hear. He held out the flowers again, insistently.

“What am I to do with you?” Ruby said, fishing a coin out of her pocket and handing it to the boy. “Here. Now find a job that helps Mr. Raygen, please.”

The boy handed the small bouquet of flowers to Ruby. Ruby accepted them, then she did something odd. She pulled out only the white flowers and gave them back to the boy.

“I don’t need the white ones. I don’t like them. Later.”

Ruby closed the iron gate with a clang and, holding the bouquet dangling loosely from one hand, went back inside the house.

The boy stood a moment looking at the coin in his hand, then walked down the road toward the town square, shuffling his feet in the dirt, his eyes cast down at the road.

“Ed, what is it?” Alphonse called, finally noticing that Edward had stopped.

“Nothing …” Edward said, shaking his head. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something about the scene at the gate left him unsettled. He started walking again, looking back at the gate over his shoulder.

The gate and the fence around it stood nearly two meters high, shutting out the rest of the town. They rattled faintly as the wind blew through the bars.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING found Edward sitting on the bed in their house. Alphonse had left earlier, saying he would begin their work by going to see Neil’s workplace. Edward had slept poorly after their late night, so he merely groaned and watched Alphonse leave from under his covers.

He was wide awake now, the sun already high in the sky, but he still hadn’t left the house. He hadn’t told his brother about the nasty blister on his right foot. They had been wandering around the mountains for days before getting this assignment, and the two extra days of trudging through the wasteland to find Wisteria hadn’t helped matters.

I wonder if my shoes don’t fit anymore, thought Edward, sticking his foot in a bucket of water to cool it and grinning a little. Secretly, he fantasized that he would grow so fast he would have to buy new shoes twice a year just to keep up with his feet. “Oops, there goes another pair. I keep buying them and buying them, but I just can’t keep up!” he would say to the clerk at the shoe store, and they’d share a knowing laugh.

Thinking that the blister on his foot was a sign of growth made it easier to bear. Edward smiled and pulled a writing pad and pen out of his traveling trunk. He then placed the trunk on the bed, using it as a makeshift desk.

“Time to write my Wisteria observation report,” he said to himself. If he was going to be stuck here until he finished this miserable chore, he might as well get it over with as quick as possible.

“Let’s see, the good parts and the bad parts … and something about the town leaders. I should probably complain about the colonel, too. This is my chance …

“Let’s see, the good parts first. Mr. Raygen has a good idea with this ‘equivalent exchange’ concept of his, and the town really seems to be pulling it off. And there’s the fact that the town takes in people who have had it rough in the world outside, people who don’t have a place to go home to—that’s got to be good. Everyone works happily in Wisteria, and they’re all paid their fair due …”

Edward stopped suddenly and looked at what he’d written. “Funny,” he muttered. “Looking at this, it seems almost too good to be true.”

From what he was writing, this place really did look like paradise on earth, but for the first time, Edward realized that he wasn’t buying it. He shook his head. “Maybe I’m being too cynical …”

He put down the pen, flopped down on the bed, and thought back to what Alphonse had said before he left the house that morning.

“You know, Ed,” he had joked, “if we stayed here long enough, even I might smile.” Indeed, Neil and the other men they had eaten with the night before all seemed as happy as could be to live in this town and work for Mr. Raygen. Alphonse had been deeply impressed. When he left that morning to watch Neil at work, Edward knew Alphonse was only half going to observe for the colonel. Alphonse must have been curious himself to know more about life in Wisteria.

“Maybe it is as good a town as Al says it is …”

Edward stretched his arms and looked out the window. From his room, he could see the top of the sheer cliff wall, and above it, a clear blue sky.

Edward understood why Alphonse liked this town so much. In the world above, homeless men lingered on every street corner, ripped from their lives by the war and poverty. He didn’t mean to ignore them, but it never seemed as though he could realistically do much to help. When his kindhearted brother saw those destitute and broken men, he saw people who hurt inside even more than he did. That’s why, to him, this town must seem like heaven.

Raygen helped the people that everyone in the world outside ignored. He took them into his town and gave them work. Once the people he saved realized that they would receive fair pay for the work they did, even if the work was hard, it gave them hope. They forgot their pasts and simply lived each day to the fullest.

Edward lay on his side on the bed, watching a cloud slowly drift across the sky. The cloud reached the edge of the cliff and slid out of sight. Edward’s eyes went down to the cliff side. Now that it was daytime, he could clearly see the little ridges and irregularities he couldn’t see before. The sun reflected hot off the rocks, but here and there, patches of darkness pooled where small shelves of rock cast shadows.

Edward sat there dreamily gazing up, when something small and white entered his field of vision.

Edward sat up, took his foot out of the bucket, and opened the window. Another white thing flew down and came right in through the window, landing next to him on the bed.

“What’s this?”

Edward reached to pick up the tiny object when another followed it through the window, drifting down to land on the floor.

“Snow?”

Edward looked up at the sky, but all the clouds were small and fluffy. There was not a storm cloud in sight, and besides, it was still far too warm for it to be snowing.

He picked the object up and brought it close to his face. It smelled sweet.

“A … flower?”

He realized that what he held in his hand was a tiny white flower petal. Edward stood and stuck his face out the window, wondering where it could have blown in from, when he saw a boy standing at the foot of the cliffs downstream.

“It’s him!” Edward said, remembering the boy from last night who had given the bouquet to Ruby.

ALPHONSE STOOD in the sorting room of one of the factories near the mansion. Here, they separated gemstones from the gravel taken from the river. He had been helping the workers carry rocks since he’d arrived that morning.

“I’ve got a good one here!” he called out.

“Great, put it on that table over there,” one of the men directed.

“Sure thing!”

Alphonse carried the lump of wet rock to a nearby table. There, several dozen men and women worked at separating the rocks. It was hard work. Even though a cool breeze blew in through the open windows, everyone there had worked up a good sweat.

“This is tough,” Alphonse said to the woman who had served him the night before in the restaurant. She worked here in the sorting room, too, it seemed.

“Nah,” she said, her hands still moving, sorting the stones. “We got it easy out here. It’s much worse farther in.”

Alphonse found that hard to believe. The sorters had to pick up heavy piles of rock—some larger than their own heads—and inspect each one carefully, sometimes cracking them open with a pick to see if they held gemstones. Then they sorted all of the rock shards into the appropriately labeled containers.

“Why do you work here?” Alphonse asked innocently. “Can’t you earn a living just by working at the restaurant?”

The woman smiled. “Oh, I could. This work helps the town directly, so it pays the best, to be sure. Still, the people who grow food and work in restaurants all support the workers here, so they get their fair share, too. I’m just helping out to make Mr. Raygen’s dream come true a little faster.”

She pointed to a box filled with sorted rocks. “You think you could carry those to the next dome over for me?”

“Sure thing.” Alphonse put the tray of stones on a metal cart and pushed it out of the factory. Stepping outside, he could hear the sound of water crashing against the sluice gate nearby. The gate was large enough to handle all the water that came out of the underground stream there, but still, standing that close, the force of the water against the gate would have impressed anyone.

When the water first came into the valley, it was filled with gravel, ore, and rocks of all shapes and sizes. Heavy with water, most of the rocks fell out of the upper stream just before the sluice gate, going down to pass under the factories with the underground river that crossed the town. The rocks then fell into grooves carefully carved into the bottom of the waterway. From there, they rolled into boxes set out to catch them. Men would then haul the boxes out of the water, carry them into the factories, and dump them onto the sorting tables.

In the factories, men and women used magnifying glasses and sunlight coming through the skylights to sort the piles into ore-bearing rocks and gemstones, sending on the valuable ones to be polished up in preparation for being sold.

Alphonse pushed his cart into the next factory. He could tell from the wavering air that it was very hot inside the dome. Along one side of the factory stood several burning furnaces, each one set to a different temperature. Here was where the actual refining of ores occurred. The heat created here generated steam to polish the gemstones. The trip down the river filled the porous rocks with a considerable amount of water, and getting the steam out of them and out of the factory took a group effort. Every few hours, everyone in the dome would come together and crank a large wheel that opened the roof. Just seeing how hard they had to tug to move the gears that opened the roof made Alphonse feel tired.

“Neil! Brought some more rock for you,” Alphonse shouted from the dome entrance. Neil, hammer in hand and sweating from the effort of shattering stones, had stopped to check on one of the furnaces. The roar of the furnace all but drowned out the sounds of steel on stone.

“ ’Lo there! Thanks a bunch! Bring it over here, would you?” Neil beckoned Alphonse over, setting down his hammer. Alphonse pushed his cart over.

“See? You’re perfect for this kind of work. Only a few of us here can handle one of these beasts.” Neil grinned, seeing how easy it was to push the cart with Alphonse helping.

“You always load this many stones in a cart?”

“Aye. I go from here to the sluice gate fifty times every day.”

“Fifty times?! Wow. Take care not to hurt yourself.”

Alphonse had made the trip only a few times himself, but he could well understand what a difficult task that would be. Pushing these carts demanded not only strength, but considerable skill. The carts wobbled, and if you lost your balance, the rocks might spill. That was fine if your hands and feet were made of automail, but if one of those rocks landed on a foot made of flesh and bone, it would mean a trip to the hospital for sure.

Neil looked startled for a moment, and then he began to laugh. “It’s been a while since anyone worried about me. My wife used to tell me to watch out all the time.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you …”

Neil shook his head. “Not at all, not at all.” They finally arrived with their load before the furnaces. Neil paused to wipe the sweat off his forehead with a towel. “That’s all in the past now. Oh, the time I wasted, chasing after my legs and the family I lost. That was before I realized I had to understand who I am now, accept it, and think about moving on.”

“Moving on …” Alphonse repeated.

“Aye.”

Neil looked at the men working in front of the other furnaces and dabbed at his forehead with the towel. “I thank Mr. Raygen for helping me realize that. The others here are all the same,” he said, pointing to two men standing at another furnace. “Some of them, the military had targeted as dissidents, taken them away from their families. They lived rough lives … but not anymore. Trying to get back the past will get you nowhere.”

One man sat, cutting a gem out of the large boulder and talking to the man next to him, who laughed a loud and carefree laugh. Neil looked at Alphonse. “We’re making a new world here, Alphonse. Won’t you join us? Help make Mr. Raygen’s dream a reality.”

“Making a new world … ?”

“The world above—the world the military made—all it’s got is disorder and confusion. Mr. Raygen sees a world without trouble, without chaos. One where no one has to lose a family or rely on the laws of an oppressive government. We can live by the law of equivalent exchange. It’s simple, yeah, but it’s strong. In Mr. Raygen’s world, everyone can grab a bit of happiness for themselves with their own two hands.”

“My own two hands,” Alphonse repeated. “I’d never really thought of grabbing anything like that with … these,” he said, flexing his armored fingers. 

“But you can!” Neil took the towel from around his neck and wiped the grime off Alphonse’s armored gloves. “I don’t know why you wear that suit of armor. I don’t know what’s in your past, and I don’t care to know, either. In Wisteria, you are who you are now, here, today. Nobody wants to go back to the past. Why would we? We think about the work we can do now. That’s living, and we know how good that is.”

Alphonse recalled now that, the night before, they were practically exchanging toasts with the other men at the restaurant before anyone even bothered to ask them their names. And when they met Ruby outside the town, they had exchanged names, but she hadn’t asked them anything else. Normally, when they met someone, they would have to field a mountain of questions about Edward’s automail or Alphonse’s armor, but Ruby never showed the slightest interest in either. Was it because the people in this town didn’t look to the past? Because they only looked forward?

Neil turned and looked at Alphonse. “Have you accepted who you are?”

Alphonse fell silent. He couldn’t say he had. His eyes went down to the floor. Under the domed roof, the floor was bare earth, covered with a layer of gravel made by the leavings from countless stones that had been shattered to reveal the gems and ores inside.

Alphonse looked at his feet, standing on the gravel. The trips by the sluice gate had covered his legs and feet with a spray of water droplets that had been catching dust from the air as he walked. Yet he hadn’t noticed the icy water or the layer of grime coating his feet until he looked down … because his armor lacked the sense of touch.

He felt nothing. He was never hungry. He never slept. He couldn’t even tell whether something in his hand was hot or cold. How could he just accept this? His body shone bright in the light that spilled from the furnaces, yet he was dull to the world. That was why he and Edward had traveled so far in search of a way to get back what they once had been.

ALPHONSE helped Neil with his work a bit longer, then walked back to the house, thinking. The usual sounds filled the town: clanging and the roar of fires from the factory, water rushing down the waterway, and the far-off howling of the wind as it blew down the sheer cliffs. But the streets themselves were quiet. Everyone had work to do. They tilled the fields or sorted and hammered in the factories. Reaching the empty town square, Alphonse found a bench and sat down, looking at his hands in silence. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when a high, clear voice rang out in the square, calling to him. 

“Alphonse!”

Ruby ran over to Alphonse. He lifted his face as she approached.

“What’s the matter? You look blue,” Ruby said with a kind smile as she took a seat next to him.

“Hiya, Ruby.”

“I heard that you were at the restaurant with everyone until pretty late last night. I thought you might be resting at home,” she said, covering her mouth as she yawned.

“Are you tired?”

“Yeah. I stayed up all night on watch duty at the entrance.” She nodded her head toward the stairway that climbed the side of the cliff to the top. “The bandits are getting bolder these days. They’re attacking more frequently. That’s why we had to strengthen the guard.”

Alphonse looked up. He could make out five security guards standing by the gate at the top of the cliff path.

“That many bandits want to get in here?”

“Wisteria is the only place with any wealth in this whole region. And we’re very close to the border between the Eastern Area and the Southern Area here. That means we border two military jurisdictions, which works in the bandits’ favor. They do what they want on one side and then just cross the border to get away from the military when they come—which isn’t all that often.”

“I had no idea …”

The two sat silently for a moment.

“So,” Ruby said brightly, “what about the town? You like it?”

“Yeah,” Alphonse nodded. “I’m impressed with how positive everyone is. I’ve never met so many people with automail limbs who don’t consider them a curse. They’re even proud of them. You don’t see that very often.”

Alphonse paused slightly, chewing his words. “You know,” he said, “I hadn’t really noticed this before I came here, but I think I’ve been denying who I am all this time.”

“Who you are now?” Ruby asked.

“Yeah … I don’t know. It’s like I’ve been denying that this body is me. I’ve been so busy trying to get back the body I had before.”

Ruby looked confused. “So … why do you wear that armor?”

“Well, it’s … uh …” Alphonse stuttered. “It’s sort of a habit—except it’s not really a habit. More like a necessity. It’s the only way I …”

He couldn’t bring himself to tell her there was nothing inside the suit.

Ruby laughed. “You don’t have to tell me what happened if it’s that hard. You know, I think you’re fine just like you are. And that armor looks really great.”

“You’re good at accepting things as they are, aren’t you, Ruby?” Alphonse said, glad that she hadn’t pressed him any further.

“That’s right. What happened in the past doesn’t matter now. You have to accept who you are today, and just move on.”

The words sank deep into Alphonse’s heart. For the first time, he found himself questioning his desperate search to get back his original body. He had been in denial for so many years, constantly unhappy with the way he was.

But the people here, Ruby and Neil and the others, they were living for tomorrow with whatever bodies they had. Instead of lamenting about their losses, they were working hard for themselves, and for others … and they were satisfied.

Alphonse lifted his hands and opened them slowly. With these hands, he could push that cart filled with heavy stone without fear of injury. With his armored feet, he could walk and walk without ever getting tired. There were things he could do because he had a body of armor. Of course, he had known this before, he just had never seen it in that light.

I could live like this, as I am now.

Of course he wanted to get back his original body, but at the same time, if he could help people with the body he had now, that would make him happy, too. Alphonse’s hands clenched into fists.

What if he could throw out the old self, the one always looking backwards, in love with his old body? What if he could grab on to the future as he was … He was surprised to find how happy it made him to hear Ruby say he looked great. Alphonse looked at the girl sitting next to him.

She had probably led a hard life, too. But she had overcome the hardships. She lived a new life now.

“Ruby?”

“What?”

“If I went to the mansion, could I meet Mr. Raygen?” If Raygen had single-handedly given all the people of Wisteria hope for the future, maybe he could help Alphonse, too. Alphonse had already grown quite fond of the man, hearing all the stories of his kindness. He felt certain Raygen would help him make sense of his worries, help him overcome his own past, and maybe even give him some good advice for finding his future.

To Alphonse’s surprise, Ruby frowned, her brows furrowing. “Well, it’s not that simple, really. Only certain people are allowed into the mansion, and the people they know well.”

“Really? So when does Mr. Raygen come out into town?”

“Well he’s a busy man, so he doesn’t come out that often. He comes out to talk to people who want to live here, of course … Is that why you wanted to talk to him?”

Alphonse shook his head. “I just thought it might be nice to talk to him.”

“I see.”

“And,” he added hopefully, “I don’t think we can stay here very long, so I thought if I could meet him today …”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do, but even security guards aren’t allowed to just walk up and ring his doorbell without a good reason.”

Ruby thought a while, then she snapped her fingers. “I know! I’ve got a great idea!”

“Huh? What’s that?” Alphonse asked, tilting his head. 

Ruby grinned and gave him a wink. “You’ll see!”