Aha, hi. Been a while, FMA fandom.

So, well... this story is a birthday fic for a few people I've come to know as fans of this series and the inevitable pairing you can see by paying attention to the filter info. Happy (early) birthday to Potions for Foxes and YukinoKara and happy belated birthday to kittyebony13.

Well, this will be a multichapter fic because it feels like it should be divided as such, but it won't be a particularly long one.

Happy reading, I hope!

Contrary to popular belief, Edward Elric hated libraries. It wasn't the books, he loved the books, and it wasn't the fact that they were free, either. It was the fact that he had to share them. While he wasn't the sort to befoul books by writing in them, having to take them back to the goddamn building one a month was a pain, just like having to wait for some idiot who no doubt needed a dictionary to get past the first page to give up and hand it back. Just to add extreme insult to this thorn-in-his-side, most of the tomes he desired were reserves.

Were he a religious man, Ed might have called librarians the devil. He wasn't, so he settled for motherfuckers.

Alchemia was the elusive book Ed had placed on hold some six months ago, and he had to wonder the hell kind of bastard would actually learn Latin. Sure, he knew enough to decipher, but he was a genius. A genius pissed off beyond seeing reason or hypocrisy, as a matter of fact. It didn't even give him a sense of elation, knowing that the book was finally awaiting him, just fury that it had taken so bloody long. When he pulled the book off the shelf, however, he was amazed to find a place marked with a bright pink ribbon. When he pulled this page out, he found a note, clearly written on a typewriter, declaring:

If you are looking at this crap, you must be bored.

Go to the nearest park at 3:45 tomorrow.

Find the fifth tree from the corner of Hampton and William Streets.

It will be a treasure hunt, and you will be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams.

Ed snorted. "How stupid," he muttered. He wasn't the bored one, he just… needed a lot to occupy his mind. Obviously it was some bored prank designed to mess with some impressionable wannabe genius' head, and he wouldn't be the bait to the stupid prank. His mind didn't need that kind of occupation, just distractions.

Yet… wildest dreams. Even Ed still had dreams he still clung to, and every day each one seemed wilder…

Before he realised his hand was moving, Ed pocketed the bookmark.

Let me know what you think, if you think anything about it at all in this early stage.