East City Train Station, Amestris 1917

With an hour between trains, Ed had some time to kill at the Eastern Station while he waited. So, the former alchemist decided that lunch would be a good idea. There was a small cafe just to the side of the station which suited his needs perfectly. Even though Ed no longer needed to provide the energy and nourishment to keep Al's body alive, the blond could still pack quite a bit away.

"So, your manners improve only after you've left the military?" Ed looked up after he'd finished his meal to see Roy Mustang in his military blues standing over his table, "As did your sense of taste."

"What do you want, Mustang?" Ed asked.

"I heard you were going West from Gracia and generously decided to give you a lead for your research," Mustang said.

"What's the catch?" Ed demanded.

"No catch. You've earned at least that much," Mustang said sliding Ed a folder of papers, "Strictly speaking I shouldn't even be telling you this." Ed raised an eyebrow.

"But?"

"You're probably one of the only people who might be able to figure this out. After all, your specialty is chasing down things that are supposed to be mythical, and actually finding them," Mustang replied.

"What's supposedly mythical in this case?" Ed said reaching a gloved hand for the folder and carefully sliding it towards himself.

"What do you know about the country Amestris was before?" Mustang asked.

"Not much. A few bedtime stories. Though, that's what Al and I thought about Xerxes," Ed said.

"Strange things have been happening since the Promised Day. I want you to find out why," Mustang said.

"Should be interesting." Ed picked up the folder and tucked it under his arm.

"Officially speaking, we only discussed the fact you have recently proposed to your mechanic," Mustang said.

"How the hell did you know that!"

"I have my ways. Best of luck, Ed," Mustang said as both stood.

"Yeah, you too, Mustang," Ed said. The blond walked away from Mustang at a sedate pace until he saw the time.

'Shit!' He dashed the rest of the way to board his next train, the Hylian earning more than few stares in the process.

"Mommy! Why does that man have pointy ears?"

"It's impolite to point, Maria!"

"A Hylian? I thought most of their kind lived in Central?"

"Hush, John, he can hear you! Their kind has better hearing than the average human!"

Ed ignored the whispers as he opened the folder Mustang had smuggled him.

'The Western Town of Kakaro was reporting strange occurrences within the forests outside their city limits. Alchemists passing through reported a strange energy interfering with their alchemy and they had theorized it was also behind some of the odd things happening. It was also believed a mad Alchemist hiding in the ruins of a nearby defunct temple could be the source of the energy and the other incidents.' Ed saw a note tucked into the pages from Mustang,

' Full –Edward, if an alchemist is the cause, you will call me immediately!'

Ed snorted but skimmed the folder that held each incident report.

'The sudden appearance of semi-sentient man-eating plants, strange glowing lights with lanterns, moving amorphous slimes, land dwelling octopodes* that had mouths on their heads instead of underneath like a proper cephalopod, and mentions of other abnormal creatures.'

'This all sounds like a bunch of "chimera!"' The former alchemist set his face in a hard line as he flipped the folder shut and slipped it into his suitcase. He pulled out his new notebook and began to write down his notes, encoded as always. He even included a random recipe to throw off any would-be code cracker. It was actually the real recipe for his mother's stew, but since most of those didn't include vile bovine excretion, it would confuse anyone who read it and make them think it was an alchemical formula.

Ed snickered a little to himself at that thought and then pulled out a few sheafs of paper and began to write.

"Dear Al,

This is only the second time in our lives we've ever been apart. Feels pretty strange. I'll be learning as much as I can over here, so you'd better learn all you can in the East!" Ed paused before he carefully coded the next part so that Al could understand it. It was a simpler cypher than his notes, but unless the one reading it was an Elric brother, they'd simply think Ed was telling Al about his travels so far. In reality the encoded message read as such,

"Mustang is worried about a few odd things happening out in the West. He's asked me to look into it. If it's an alchemist, I promise I'll call for back up. So far, from the reports, it sounds like we missed a Philosopher's stone." Ed finished the letter with,

"Stay safe in Xing. I'll do my best to do the same here in Kakaro.

-Ed"

PS. She said "yes."

Ed filled out a couple of sheets with encoded summaries of the incidents Mustang had him investigating before he tucked it away into a small notebook buried at the base of his suitcase. To keep the letters to Al arriving at a regular basis, Ed planned on writing several over the course of a few days and then staggering mailing them.

Ed stood at the station in Kaydar waiting on yet another train change. Originally, Ed had intended to keep heading south and west into Creta, but with this unofficial mission he'd been given, he now had to take a train that headed north and towards the western Drachman border instead.

It was nearly half a day later whenever Ed arrived at the small, almost rundown station of Kakaro. The eighteen year old made sure he had everything before he disembarked. Ed walked down the small platform steps into the small mountain town. He could hear the whispers start again,

"Is that-?!"

"It's a Hylian!"

"I thought they were extinct!"

"I thought Hylians had blue eyes like Amestirans do?"

"No. Hylians often have lots of different eye colors like humans do, but their ears are pointed."

"Do you think it's true that they can hear better than humans?" Ed wanted to growl out an answer of,

'YES I CAN HEAR YOU!'

But, after the first and only time he yelled about that as a child, he had learned to keep it in. Perhaps that was why he let himself go over the short rants, but now even those were a thing of the past as he finally had grown taller than Winry.

Ed approached the only Inn of Kakaro. He walked through the doors to see the somewhat bored clerk perched on their stool staring off into space. Whenever the young man noticed Ed standing there he pinwheeled comically before he fell with a thump. 'That looked like that hurt.'

"Sorry about that. Welcome to the Grand Kakaro Hotel. How long will you be staying with us Mister?"

"Elric," Ed said.

"Elric. That name rings a ball. Do you have any family?"

"Only my brother," Ed said.

"It'll come to me eventually," the young man said, "Name's Talo. You're our only guest in town, so you have your pick of the rooms."

"I just need something that doesn't leak, has a nice bed in it, and no infestations," Ed said.

"Ok then I'll give you room #3," Talo said as he reached into a drawer and pulled out a key at random. Ed followed him down the hall and up the stairs to the first floor. It was the second door on the right. Ed took the key and opened the door to find a nice, if small, room with a bed and a view of the forest. Considering Ed had slept outside before, he could officially say he had stayed in worse.

"Now, it's about 40 Cenz a night. Do you know how long you'll be here?" Talo said.

"Probably at most a week," Ed said setting his suitcase on the bed. He opened it up and carefully dug through it, placing his auto mail maintenance kit on the nightstand before pulling out his wallet. He counted out the proper bills and handed Talo 640Cenz.

"That enough for four days?" Ed said.

"Yes," Talo said before he snapped the fingers of his free hand.

"I've got it! You're one of the Elric Brothers, aren't you? You know, the famous alchemists? Though, the rumors never said either of them was Hylian…"

"I'm Edward Elric," Ed said.

"The Fullmetal Alchemist! Can you show me some alchemy?" Talo said.

"Sorry, I don't do that anymore," Ed replied.

"What brings you to Kakaro, then?" Talo said.

"Rumors of strange energy and things," Ed said, "Those rumors wouldn't happen to be true, would they?"

"I couldn't tell you if every rumor was true, but I've seen a few things. Though, I have to say, a Hylian appearing after strange things have been plaguing our town is definitely the oddest thing."

"How so?" Ed asked.

"What do you mean "how so?" Surely you've heard the stories?" Talo said. Ed shook his head.

"The only Hylians I knew growing up were my brother, my fiancée , her parents, her grandmother and my mother. None of them sat around telling us "stories" that involved Hylians arriving in towns after weird things have happened," Ed replied.

"Oh, I guess that was slightly racist. Sorry. Well, the legends go that whenever Hyrule needs him, a Hylian will hear the call of the gods and put an end to the strife," Talo said.

"You're telling me that people are that worked up over a few bedtime stories?" Ed asked.

"They're not bedtime stories to us, Mr. Elric," Talo said. Ed nodded before he walked out past Talo. He stopped.

"Sometimes there are legends that are real, but you'll wish you hadn't found them," Ed said

Ed walked down the streets and listened, for once glad he had enhanced hearing via Hylian genetics.

"Old Man Georgi's cows were massacred by those plants!"

"I'm telling you, it wasn't me who killed your mangey mutt! It was a ball of floating light!"

"Liar! You were always getting after me because he kept bothering your chickens!"

"Did anyone else see that the old Temple was glowing the other night!"

"No, really?!"

"Is that-It is! A Hylian! A real live Hylian!"

"Blessed Goddesses! You're right for once!"

'So much for that,' Ed thought before he approached what appeared to be the hub of the town, a small bazaar. The stalls were set up hocking wares that were clearly geared towards life in the small town: lanterns, replacement wicks and oil, hoes, rakes, plows, scythes, cloth, some had prepared foods, and most of the others were produce. Ed's eyes were drawn over to a booth manned by what Ed thought had to be a Chimera.

The one behind the booth had leathery yellow skin with rock like patches on their elbows, knees, and crown of their head. The eyes were rounder than a normal humans, and nearly avian and colored a dark blue that was almost violet.

"Goro-Goro! A Hylian!" the creature said.

"What kind of Chimera are you?" Ed asked as he examined the creature.

"Chimera, goro? I am not a Chimera, goro! I am Arun. I am a Goron! The three goddesses made me like this surely as they made you a Hylian!" the "goron" (Arun) said. The species name actually was familiar to Ed.

"Goron, huh? I thought Gorons went extinct as a race about two hundred years ago?" Ed said.

"It was a close call, goro. We lost our mountain, goro, and now we live here," Arun said. Ed heard a shuffling sound and turned to see what appeared to be a more rock-like goron shuffling out from another stand. This one had white hair on its (his) head pulled into a topknot and a long beard that dragged on the ground as the hunched over form creakily made his way towards Ed. It began to speak in a strange language rapidly and he seemed to be pointing at Ed quite a bit.

"I take it, he's also surprised by a Hylian being here?" Ed drawled to another nearby Goron.

"More than that, goro, he's mistaken you for-I'm sorry, that was rude, goro," the Goron said before another goron smacked him along side the head and stopped him mid phrase. Ed raised an eyebrow before he turned to continue walking.

"What brings you to Kakaro, stranger?" Ed turned back to see Arun had calmed down the elder and the elder was now speaking Amestrian.

"I've heard some things and wanted to see if they were true," Ed said.

"Goro, Strange energy has been emanating from the Forest Temple and it has brought back the monsters of the past," the elder said.

"So, that old temple is the source, huh? Thanks," Ed said.

"I am called Darun. What are you called?" the Elder (Darun) said.

"Edward Elric," Ed said, "But you can call me Ed."

"If you seek to go to the Forest temple, goro, it's too dangerous for someone on their own," Darun said, "I ask that you use this, goro." Darun unsheathed a sword and handed it to Ed. It was a double-edged bastard sword with a simple cross guard and a plain rounded pommel. Though used to spears or the transmuted short blade of his formerly auto mail limb, Ed carefully gave the sword a practice swing. It felt nice. Well balanced. Ed couldn't have transmuted something better.

"How much for the blade?" Ed said.

"Make it back alive and we'll discuss price, goro," the Goron said handing Ed the sheath and the sword belt. Ed buckled it on and let the sheath hang across his back so his right hand could reach it easily. With that he guided the sword into the scabbard. Ed looked back at the Gorons.

"One last thing: where is this temple?"

Notes:

I did the time honored Zelda tradition of giving characters names similar to past characters, because why not?
Plus, I had to slip in the "It's not safe to go alone line."
*The proper plural of "Octopus" is not "Octopi" it is, in fact either "Octopuses" or "Octopodes."
On another note, my computer kept correcting "goron" to "boron" and "goro" to "toro."
About the type of sword I gave Ed: I gave him a hand-and-a-half sword (AKA bastard sword) based on the handle length I'd observed from the Master Sword. The Zelda wiki called it an arming sword; I respectfully disagree because of hilt length. Plus, Ed's favorite insult? I couldn't pass that up.
Final note: Males are blond, females are blonde. Fiancé-male, Fiancée- female. This is due to these words being French in origin and, therefore, still falling under their gender rules of adding an "e" to adjectives or words for the "Feminine" form.