9. [PM] + [Action] (forward-dated to the 24th)

[rewritethis]

[PM to everyone who so much as spoke to his AU, if he knows their name] [ooc: this can be handwaved or backtagged!]

If you remember the guy asking after me a couple of weeks back: I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.

- Edward Elric

[Action]

[After those slightly cryptic PMs go out, Ed is absent from his usual hangouts for the rest of the morning. It's pretty difficult to miss him if you venture into the training centre, though - he's standing around a small clearing fairly close to the entrance, although after a little while a more accurate description would be miniature wasteland. Fallen grats lie here and there in the torn-up earth surrounding him; a couple are wounded in a way that suggests he impaled them somehow, but most just look like they've been rather viscerally beaten.

Presently, he settles down at the base of a nearby tree, on top of his untidily folded coat. He pulls at the hem so he can start polishing his right arm, but then stops and hangs his head. There's clearly something on his mind.

Not too far in the distance, a large animal roars.]

Comments

[elementofloyalty]

...She was me. If I had just done one thing wrong that I did right. If that one thing had gone differently...

[rewritethis]

But it didn't. So she's not you. [He obviously believes it, but there's still something oddly emphatic about the way he's saying it.]

What do you mean by "just one thing", anyway? Life's more complicated than that, Dash. Change one thing and you're changing a bunch of others, too, no matter what you try. Look at it that way, and it makes sense that she's not you.

[elementofloyalty]

But it was so close.

Ed... don't you have any moment in your life, any moment at all, where if something had gone different it would have completely changed everything you are?

[rewritethis]

A few. [He shrugs, apparently nonchalantly.] Pretty sure that's true for a lot of people. All of these parallel worlds have to come from somewhere, right? Point is, there's no way to quantify "close". All you can say for sure is whether they're exactly the same. And all you have to do to figure that one out is look in a mirror.

[elementofloyalty]

That'd be a lot easier for me to buy if I didn't remember it all.

[Her tone isn't light... but it's lighter. The advice, at least to Rainbow's mind, is very Twilight-ish, which might account for a little of why it's getting through to some extent.]

Hey, wait a minute -- speaking of remembering it all, you're pretty calm about it now considering how you were acting at the time!

[rewritethis]

[He'd just shut his eyes as if thinking about taking a nap, but now half opens one.] Well, sorry, I guess. I just didn't know if you were actually gonna come back.

[Before she can read too much into that, he closes the eye again.]

I wouldn't worry about the memories, either. Memories are just information. You can trick them, you throw them out all the time to make room for new ones without even realising... They're not the same as a soul.

[elementofloyalty]

Whoa, whoa. You can say all that other stuff, but SOME memories are precious! Some memories you keep with you forever and cherish! If you REALLY believed what you just told me, you wouldn't have minded the other me being here because you could've just tricked or thrown out your memories of REAL me!

[rewritethis]

She was annoying. What can I say? [He lets out a somewhat theatrical yawn.] Doesn't change the fact that souls are something different. I should know.

[elementofloyalty]

According to you, I'm annoying.

[She stands up, then steps closer, lowering her head to peer at him curiously.]

She really bugged you, huh?

[rewritethis]

[Irritably as ever, he opens his eyes again.] You don't have to sound so surprised.

[elementofloyalty]

[She grins slyly.]

You're glad to see me, aren't you.

[rewritethis]

[Glower.] Don't push it. "Not as annoying as her" isn't exactly saying much.

[Although he certainly seems more willing to complain about Brushie than the other thing they could be talking about...]

[elementofloyalty]

[Rainbow assumes that the other Ed wasn't really Ed so he doesn't remember it. (Someone hasn't checked her messages today.)]

You like me, Ed. Admit it.

[She grins a challenge.]

[rewritethis]

Don't you have anything else you could be doing right now? 'Cause I do. [He motions over at the mess he's made of the rest of the clearing.]

[elementofloyalty]

[She rears back on her hind legs -- to grab him in another hug.]

Thanks for being so patient with the other me.

You know. Patient for you. I'd have been a lot worse off if I just remembered you yelling a lot.

[rewritethis]

Uh - [He's a little too surprised to put up a token amount of resistance, and barely catches himself in time to avoid just falling forward onto her shoulder.] ...sure. [He manages to smile a bit.] But I should be the one saying that, if anything.

[elementofloyalty]

[That startles her into jumping backwards, and up, a little bit.]

Wait -- that copy-you -- you remember all of that!?

[rewritethis]

[Wait, she thought he didn't -

- goddamnit.

It takes him a few seconds to decide whether he should lie about this or not, but the suddenly blank look on his face probably already said it all.

Without moving much, he seems to deflate.] ...Yeah.

[elementofloyalty]

Oooooh.

Soorrrry I kind of beat you up a lot.

[rewritethis]

[He looks down at his feet.] Tell it to him, not me.

[elementofloyalty]

I wouldn't be apologizing to him. Anyway, Mr. Memories Can Be Tricked, let's forget the whole thing, okay? That wasn't you, and now you're back.

[rewritethis]

...I wonder.

[He lifts one hand to rub the side of his neck, unsmiling.]

I'm sorry you had to deal with him, anyway.

[elementofloyalty]

Well, I'm sorry you had to deal with evil alternate ME.

[Rainbow, Brushie isn't evil just because she likes to paint.]

Well, now that we're both back, how about we celebrate a little?

[rewritethis]

[That's one way to temporarily distract him from his brooding. He blinks.]

I'm gonna regret asking, but celebrate how?

[elementofloyalty]

Weeeell, in Equestria, around this time of year, we have a celebration called Hearth's Warming. It's all about how Equestria was founded, and the spirit of unity, and all that sentimental jazz, but I'm sure you don't care about that. The important part --

Hey, wait here a minute, would ya?

[Rainbow takes off like a shot without any more warning than that.]