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Who: Edward Elric and YOU~
What: Ed's arrived to Vernos Bay and he's confused. He's also a bit frustrated. Please help him.
When: All day
Where: Out and about as he gets his bearings
Warnings: Well, it's a loud-mouthed alchemist tossed into where he's going to have to accept that gods exist. Mild swearing and yelling are inevitable. Will update if anything else develops.

The past couple of weeks had been pretty hard on Ed. First, he was stuck in Briggs, and wouldn't you know it, Kimbley finds a way to dangle Winry in front of his face as a hostage. When they finally find a way to get her out of that, he and Al are forced to separate and he ends up with a steel rod through his gut. Then he has to lay low while healing up and is forced into hiding. No matter where he goes he can't seem to find Alphonse, and when he does run into someone he knows and trusts, she greets him with a wrench to his face. Now, to top it all off, he's not even in Resembool anymore, despite being there a moment ago. Hell, with the architecture here, he was pretty sure he wasn't even in Amestris! Winry, Greed (Ling? GreedLing? Gring?), Gorilla and Lion man are no where to found. Frustrated, Ed does the only thing he can do. Walk around to try to get his bearings and try to find out what the hell just happened.

The locals don't seem to be very helpful. He tries to ask a few people where he is, but they seem strangely unable to answer his questions. Whether it's because he's speaking a language they don't understand or if they're just too xenophobic to respond, he's not entirely sure. At the same time, it's evident that the town has some kind of pollution problem as the air is chocked with smog. It seems to get thicker in areas where the breeze is more stagnant, but regardless of where he goes it's thick and difficult to breath. He walks with his hand over his mouth, covered int he sleeve of his shirt to help filter the air, but it doesn't help all that much.

Getting increasingly frustrated, Ed continues to try to find someone who will at least try to communicate with him. By this point though, his attitude alone might be pushing people away.

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Ed's brows furrowed as he listened to the young woman speak. Ed thought that maybe it was because the locals didn't understand his language, but if there was something keeping them from speaking entirely, then something bad was going on. He didn't like it, and he found himself glancing over his shoulder in case anyone was listening in on them, assuming it was some work of whatever government was here keeping its people from talking to outsiders.

He also didn't like the fact that the person he bumped into who could speak to him was just about as new to this place as he was. He'd just have to work with what he was given. Come to think of it he was probably lucky enough to find someone to talk to. "Do you remember how you got here?"

He rubs his arms a bit. It's snowing and he doesn't have a coat since it was a fine Spring day where he came from.

The glances of suspicion were just visible enough that she could notice and Elsa simply nodded towards him, beckoning deeper into the temple itself. She could understand suspicion right now. The need for a mortal to sit on a throne and claim 'godhood' to allow the people of this world to speak and write? It was, to say the least, suspicious. "Come inside. I apologize if it is a little cold. I am still getting used to things here."

As she walked, she shook her head. "I do not remember arriving at all. I remember only going to sleep in my castle and waking in this strange place, surrounded by a world that is sick and in need." Her eyes looked back towards the arm he rubbed, curiosity there. "Are you feeling well?"

"I'll live." He follows the young woman inside.

Ed had mixed feelings about her response. On one hand, it showed that he wasn't insane and it gave him a little comfort to know that she experienced the same thing he did. On the other, it also meant that she wouldn't know how people got here or how they could leave. "That sounds like how I got here, though I don't even remember going to sleep. It was like I blinked and suddenly I wasn't where I was before." He shrugged off the last part of her statement there. She wasn't wrong. There was definitely something wrong here, but Ed cared less about the problems of people he didn't know and had no relation with than his own problems.

"I'm fine," he said has he continued to shiver. "It's just cold." He glanced at her outfit. She was certainly bundled up, even wearing gloves. "You know where I can get a coat?"

If he looked carefully, the gloves might have been the only part of her outfit that was truly that bundled. Her dress, while it covered her skin entirely, was not a heavy winter one. When she breathed, there was no mist that formed in her wake. She looked back at him for a moment before unfastening the cloak over her dress and offering it to him.

"I should do something about the temperature in here," she said in an apologetic tone. As she turned, her hands moved in front of her and she focused, breathing in and out slowly. When she did the air temperature started to settle, to warm noticeably and some of the frost that rimmed the pillars faded a little.

"That should help." Turning back, she shook her head. "Go ahead and use my cloak in the meantime. It is taking time to get used to this."

Ed gratefully takes the cloak. "Thanks." He was about to ask her if she would be ok in the cold, but then she mentioned raising the temperature. Was this place hers? After being here for only two days?

And then she just kind of...waves her hands. Ed raises a brow, wondering what the heck she's doing, but notices the temperature rise a bit, and it's not because he has a cloak on. He looks around, expecting to see something that would explain it, but there's nothing. No lit fire place, no heaters, nothing that could immediately explain it. "How did you do that?"

She turned and looked at him quietly for a moment. Not more than a month ago, she would never have displayed her powers this openly. But the acceptance of her people, of her sister, it went a long way. Still, she couldn't help being a little nervous about it.

"I do not like to talk about this very much, but magic has always flowed strong in my family. I am a friend of the cold." It was a roundabout way of beginning to get at it, without really saying everything. He hadn't reacted with active suspicion of her yet, so the word magic was a good way to test how he would to the topic in general.

Ed's face fell at the word 'magic.' This isn't the first time someone used that to try to explain away what they were really doing. However, the last person that claimed to be using magic or creating miracles was a power-hungry egomaniac, and whoever this young woman was, she was clearly not that.

"Look, I don't know what you feel like you have to hide, but I'm an alchemist. You can just tell me who's pulling the strings here." Perhaps the wavy arm thing was a signal to someone hidden from view, and they did something to raise the temperature inside. Granted, it was a pretty quick change, but come on. Magic? Please.

This was a first. When she demonstrated her powers in the past it usually didn't result in immediate skepticism, especially from someone who said that they were a follower of one of the ancient arcane arts. It actually felt a little endearing in a way, to see someone doubt her powers, so very different from what she was accustomed to. One hand reached out with the palm up and she gently removed her glove.

Focusing, frost formed along the palm of her hand before it sparkled and scintillated in an ever growing ball. Crystallizing in her palm, the ice gradually formed into the form of a rose. "I would think that an alchemist knows a thing or two about magical power. I control ice, snow, frost and the cold of winter." A tap of her foot, and the floor around the two of them turned into ice, radiating out from where her foot landed as she gave him a bemused grin.

Before he could say 'Alchemy is a science, not magic,' the young woman took off her glove and displayed her abilities. Wide-eyed and speechless, Ed gazes at the frost condensing in her hand, then form itself into the shape of a rose. He stumbles back when she taps her foot, caught completely off guard. He slips on the now icy floor and lands on his rump. He's more flabbergasted than hurt. Major General Armstrong suddenly had a contender for her title of 'Ice Queen.'

He picks himself up, his breath condensing and forming little puffs from the cold. He scrutinizes her. There's no sign of any transmutation circle anywhere. Even if there were, there was no light like there would have been if she had transmuted something. It wasn't alchemy, that much he was sure. But he was a skeptic to the core. He was not about to accept magic.

Still, upon his closer look, he noticed that her breath wasn't showing like his. He was intrigued. Still in the mindset that magic could not exist, he wanted to investigate and find out the secret to her incredibly elaborate and convincing trick. "Ok, ok. That was...pretty good."

She definitely couldn't compete with how much of a hard-ass the Major General could be, even if she could pull off a literal ice queen routine very easily. Suppressing a laugh when she saw him tumble, she moved her free hand over the floor, causing the ice to slip back and disappear once again before walking towards the main throne of the temple.

"Thank you. I can do a lot more, and I may eventually but I want to be sure of my control. It feels as if I have much more power here." It was like plunging just a finger into a deep pool, one whose wellspring had almost no limits. Her power was already incredible, but there was so much here now that she had the throne. It was frightening in its own way.

Slipping her glove onto her hand, she walked up and settled herself down on the throne. "I am sorry. I should have introduced myself earlier. I am Elsa, Queen of Arendelle." And currently the goddess of winter, but no. She wasn't going to use that title with someone like her.

Wait, she could do more?! How was there more?! And wouldn't you know it, she is a literal ice queen.

Ed does his best to keep himself composed, but it's pretty obvious that he's still working out what just happened in his head and coming up with nothing. He's going to need to take a look around before he jumps to any conclusions.

"Edward Elric. I'm a State Alchemist from Amestris." Not that he thought she'd know about Amestris. He sure as hell has never heard of Arendelle. "You seem pretty comfortable for someone who's only been here for two days." She was sitting in the throne of all places. Ed would have mistaken her for the monarch of...whatever this place was if she hadn't stated otherwise.

"I am not sure that I would say I am comfortable here." Her brows knit together as she said that. After a few conversations, she wasn't surprised at all that she had never heard of this Amestris place. Everyone seemed to be from some far off land. The mere idea of a court magician was far more shocking, though she kept that to herself for the moment.

"There is something about this place that is very familiar to me. I feel as if it called to me, and in it I can be myself. But, it is not my home, not a place that I know. It is hard to explain." She sighed. "All of these thrones are hard to explain."

He couldn't say he could understand where she was coming from. He had never felt any kind of 'calling' to anything, though he also didn't have any kind of spiritual outlook on anything that might give people that kind of feeling.

"What thrones? Like the one you're sitting on?" He was hoping that magic wasn't going to be involved in this explanation, but what else could he expect from her now?

She was a bit of a special case. Those wintery powers of hers already attuned with the throne's authority so much that she'd felt an urge to come here almost from the start. Still, she'd been the one who chose to sit on the throne in the end. Winter needed to be done properly, not what she'd seen in her short time here. But, in a way, it was a bit more spiritual.

"Like the one I am sitting on." She put her fingers on it, and the more that she did the more that it looked to be covered in frost, full of scintillating ice patterns, ornate and abstract. "There are several in the city, and they seem to be tied to how this world works. I do not know exactly how, but the snow would not fall properly until I sat down and claimed this throne. I have been told that it is like this with the others."

And on the subject of their earlier conversation, it seemed appropriate to mention one other tidbit. "I have been told there is one in town that without it, the natives cannot speak properly." No, not admitting that they thought of this as a temple, and the one on the throne was a god. Damnit, she had a little self respect. She was royalty, not some goddess.

Edward kept an eye on the throne as it became covered in frost. If he ever got the chance, he wanted to dismantle that thing to see how she got it to do that. It might also shed some light on her abilities period.

He frowned at her explanation. He didn't see how sitting on a fancy chair could change weather patterns or effect a group of people's ability to speak. Surely, the changing weather when she sat on her throne was just a coincidence. "That doesn't make any sense. How is sitting on a chair supposed to help with anything?" Then again, how was she able to control the temperature, pull frost out of thin air, and turn the floor into a sheet of ice? Ed was sure he could figure it out if he was allowed to poke his nose around long enough.

"I don't know what's up with the people here, but the air pollution isn't going to get fixed just by sitting around. You have get up and do something about it!" His frustration was starting to show again. He felt like he was back in Liore dealing with people who believed that Cornello was God's right-hand man.

She crossed her legs as the frost started to rim its way up and along her dress, seemingly transforming it into an elegant white gown, just as covering but with scintillating white that looked like it was made of nothing but frost and ice. His confusion and disbelief wasn't something that she could really fault. After all, "I am not sure. I think that the thrones may be items of power, and a person uses their will to control the item but I cannot be sure."

She shook her head, clearly a little disturbed by the lack of understanding. "It does not help that it feels like I am using my own powers through the throne. What I am doing, it is something I know how to do already. I do not know how it would be for you. I cannot, however, claim more than one of these at a time. I am certain of that."

That wasn't actually true, though she didn't realize it. However, the idea of claiming multiple thrones would have felt like a power grab, and she wasn't the sort to do that. "What would you do, if you had the ability to cleanse the air here?"

Ed felt positive he could figure out Elsa's trick behind the frosting throne, at least until it seemed to spread to her dress and transform it. Ed could transform his clothes too, but that required a clap of his hands and a visible energy transfer. As much as it looked like her clothes and the throne were being transmuted, the other signs of transmutation were completely absent.

"You're really trying to convince me about this magic stuff, aren't you?" As much as he hates it, she's doing a damn good job. He has no idea how else to explain what she's doing at the moment, and that makes him hate it more.

"If I could clean the air then I'd just clean it!" Transmuting it wouldn't work too well. Besides, it'd only solve the symptom, not the problem itself. "Whatever's pumping the crap out just needs to be cleaned and filtered."

She arched an eyebrow when he said that. It was a little confusing. "You did say that you were an alchemist, did you not? I was under the impression that it was one of the magical arts." Admittedly, she knew very little about it. The only types of magic she knew were her own bloodline and the work of the trolls, which was closer to fairy magic. "I am not trying to convince you of anything."

She frowned some and looked at him before leaning forward. "We could try to find the source if you wished? Or the source of power affecting it at least." That made her think that there was probably a Temple of Air here, and of Water. "I doubt the locals can help us much."

"Alchemy is a science. It's based on strict scientific laws and principles." She wasn't the first person to make this mistake. Hell, people from Amestris tended to jump to the conclusion that it was all magic, and since she clearly believed in that mumbo-jumbo, he's not surprised at her confusion.

"As much as I wanna help, I've got to get back to Amestris and take care of some business." He turns to leave, but realizes that he has no idea how to get back. "You wouldn't know where to go to find out how to get back where we came from, do you?"

Ah, so that was it. The sciences were the rise, even in Arendelle, though her small kingdom was distant to the rest of the world. Elsa was only aware to a limited extent of the existence of the sciences. The idea of them opposing magic didn't really make sense to her, not exactly. "I imagine my powers obey certain laws and principles, though I am usually blind to them. I focus my will, and I can conjure certain effects, but there are limits and I must have a care or lose control."

The request, though, made her shake her head. "I tried when someone mentioned that you could not leave, before I came here. I had to be sure. If you walk along the roads, at a certain point, you will find yourself walking towards the city all over again. I do not know any way to leave." But, if he was a man of science, maybe he would prefer to see it for himself. "I can show you, if you wish."

Ed was half expecting Elsa to reject his explanation, or at least shrug it off. The fact that she considered her powers might follow some principles, scientific or not, helped him accept what was going on. He could relate to the problem of using a power you think you understand only to be shown how ignorant you really were about it. "Maybe you just need some help setting up some way to study it."

Ed's face morphed from skepticism to alarm. He was strongly reminded of when he, Ling, and Envy had gotten themselves swallowed by Gluttony. The place they had ended up in, while different in that it seemed to stretch on forever and not loop in on itself, felt too similar for Ed's liking. "Yeah. I need to see this."

Well, everything had to follow rules of some kind, didn't they? The trolls had certainly been clear that there were rules of a sort that related to these things, though she had never spent enough time with them. Not after that day long long ago when she had hurt Anna on accident. She was regretting that mistake right now. It might have helped her a lot to have their colorful sort of wisdom here. "I think that would be wise. I am likely to overdo it if I am not careful." It had happened before.

Rising from the throne, she started to walk down the hall and towards the entrance. It wasn't as if she needed to be in this building constantly, now was it? "Come with me then. I doubt you will like what you find." Her tone said she certainly hadn't.

While Ed wasn't sure if Elsa was speaking from experience or not, he knew very well the dangers of 'overdoing' something or going too far.

He was pretty sure that he wasn't going to like it if what she said was true. So far she had proven that she wasn't exaggerating or lying, so Ed was already trying to mentally prepare himself for whatever they would find. Granted, he had been in a worse situation before. This place wasn't a vast void of darkness with a sea of blood, so there's that. He follows Elsa out of the temple.

"You mentioned something about thrones before. Do you know anything else about them?"

Oh yes, they both likely knew plenty about overdoing it. Her sister had almost paid the ultimate price for that, as had her people.

She pointed to one of the buildings in the distance when they walked out of the temple, though she didn't turn in the direction of it. "That one over there is one of them. The girl inside did not speak my language, so I had trouble understanding what it was. But it seems that there are several around the city. Each is supposed to control something different."

Her pace was not as fast as she would have liked as she walked. This filthy air didn't make for a brisk jog, after all. "I know that there are thrones for each season, and most likely the elements and some of society, but I could not tell you all of them." She had only barely arrived. Her claiming this throne had only been because she was who and what she was.

As Ed followed, his brows were furrowed as he listened to Elsa explain how things seemed to work. When she mentioned that she had bumped into someone who didn't speak their language, Ed felt a little foolish. Before he had run into Elsa, he had been trying to get the locals to talk to him. Maybe they didn't answer because they couldn't understand him? Still, they could have opened their mouths and let him know. But then again, hadn't Elsa mentioned that they couldn't speak for some reason?

Even after he had seen Elsa's display of power, he still couldn't help but roll his eyes behind Elsa's back as she listed off the thrones she knew about. It sounded stupid. It was stupid. But regardless of how accurate it was, it was still a lead to follow. Something was up with these thrones. Got it. "So what was your throne then? Winter? Ice?"

Meanwhile, Ed did his best to keep track of their surroundings, keeping track of certain buildings or other features so he would notice if they started to repeat.