"Winry! Winry!" a light voice called loudly. It echoed through the plains of the evening eerily, like a war horn before the first wave began on a battlefield.
Everything was as it should be; the sun was settling softly in its cradle, the clouds were blowing bubblegum letters in misty swirls of pink and orange, and a summer wind was up and ready again, picking in from the hills onto the undulating farmland. But what was missing was, to a little boy, something of greater importance.
He was getting worried. It had been hours since he last saw his friend, hours that could've resulted in her lying in a ditch, or her sinking slowly in quicksand, or her being captured by a rogue Ishabalan for ransom. Or she could've tripped and drowned underneath blue waves, the soft curls of her blonde hair already drifting away at sea...
"No!" he said. "No!" he shook his head to the side, picked up a small grey rock, and threw it angrily at a sea of green fronds. "She can't be... she wouldn't ..."
He sat down on the grass out of exhaustion, and buried his head in his hands.
It was near seven o'clock, and his stomach was rumbling. He knew that hers was too, and he felt anxiety prick its way up his veins like little woodpeckers digging for bugs.
He thought he'd seen all the ranges of her emotions before, but he hadn't known the extent of devastation that could mar her eyes until today. Until the officials came. The sorrow and disbelief etched on her face drew him towards her like a moth caught in the rays of a glowing lamp.
He clenched and unclenched his fists, imagining her downcast expression and the turmoil of emotion hidden beneath its blue depths. She had been crying- even as she tried to hide it, and he wanted to protect her the best he could. But he didn't understand the foreign feeling. And when she most needed a friend, he looked away and pretended she wasn't there.
He remembered his indecisive and faltering words. He had wanted to say something comforting, but he worried its meaning would get caught in his mouth and his words would mean nothing more than breaths of air. He was afraid he'd make everything worse, that she didn't want his sympathy; apprehensive that the feeling of his dead mother would suffocate him if he tried to bring up feelings of empathy. But while he had been debating with himself, Al had already dried her tears with his sleeve and told her to keep her head up. The boy watched blindly as Al patted Winry's head and spoke in soft tones. Then, he had even offered to give her a piggy-back ride home.
And Winry had smiled.
The boy sighed heavily. It was everything he couldn't bring himself to offer.
He stared at the horizon, weaving his hand back and forth with the wind.
The breeze picked up, and soon the trees by his feet near the lower end of the hill were waving at him, the ruffles of their dress light and supple against the orange-blue sky.
"Ed!" a voice called over the breeze, "Ed!"
"Hey." He said, waving a hand and looking back, though he knew who was coming. "Al, did you find her yet?"
"No," the blonde-haired boy replied, his eyes wide with worry. "I didn't... I thought she'd look for you, actually."
"Me?" the boy asked. "Why would she look for me?"
"Dunno," Al murmured, scratching the back of his head. "Just a feeling, Ed. Just a feeling."
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(To be continued)
