duskofthegods_logs | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

"Winter," she said in a tone that was completely devoid of emotion. "My power has always been over winter, the cold and its winds and snows. Ending up inside of that temple was as much it calling to me as any intention on my part." She didn't really sound happy as she said it.

While they walked, she was making similar notes. She had only been here for a little while, so she wanted to know more about this place. Elsa didn't plan to stay forever, or even very long if she could help it and find someone to serve as a successor, but it served to know what was supposed to be here. Of course, not knowing the language did not help at all, especially as it was so hard to translate or decipher.

"If you would be so kind, could you explain alchemy to me? Your understanding is different than mine."

Ed wasn't always the most perceptive of people, but he still picked up on the tone of her voice when she explained her role here. Was it reluctance? Regret? "It doesn't sound like you like it very much."

So far, and it seemed like any ordinary town. They had only just started walking though.

"Alchemy is the analysis, deconstruction, and reconstruction of matter," he started. "The two biggest concepts are the conservation of matter and the laws of natural providence." He looked over to Elsa. This wasn't the first time he tried to explain alchemy to someone, though he had confused people sometimes when he did. How did Al put it that one time? "So, say you want to make something into steel. First, you need something similar to steel, like another metal or rock, and you'll need as much of that metal or rock as you want steel. It's equivalent exchange."

Reluctance, regret, lingering self-loathing, all of the above. She sighed as they walked and looked back at him over her shoulder. "My power has caused my family and people nothing but pain until recently. To feel as if I was brought here to sit on a throne because of it is not a pleasant thought." Her pace picked up just a fraction as they walked. She had made peace with herself, found a relief in her sister's love and was getting control over her powers now but that did not mean the wounds were any less fresh than they were.

She did, though, listen to his explanation of alchemy. The majority of it went straight over her head, as she had little in the way of study in the sciences. She was no chemist, much less an alchemist, so it made very little sense to her until the last words. "Equivalency can take many forms," she said, almost woodenly. "Is it always physical quantities, or is it sometimes more than simply two plus two equals four?" Because in her life? She couldn't have said where she acquired the water that created the ice she formed, and yet she was pretty sure that there was a real price to her abilities.

She was dead sure of it.

Ed met Elsa's gaze as she glanced back at him. He could hear the pain in her voice and he didn't need to know the details to sympathize with her.

Elsa's question was a bit difficult to answer, perhaps more than she realized. Had it been a year ago, Ed would have confidently given her a straight answer, but after all of his experiences regarding the Philosopher's Stones and the homunculi, it had gotten more complicated. After tossing it around in his head a bit, he figured keeping it simple was probably the best thing. "For the most part, it's basically just a balanced equation. If you have a pound of lead, you can make a pound of gold from it, but no more and no less. You can't make something out of nothing."

Perhaps a demonstration would help? He stopped walking and pushed the cloak Elsa had lent him back a little before clapping his hands together and touching the ground. Without any gloves, Elsa would clearly see the automail up close. There was a bright light and tendrils of blue energy surrounded him a bit before fading to reveal a tiny suit of armor that could fit in the palm of your hand. The ground where Ed transmuted now had a small round hole where it had been flat and even with the rest of the pavement.

"See the ground where I transmuted? That mass was used to make this." He handed the little statuette to Elsa.

She watched the demonstration with curiosity, eyes widening in amazement at the display of alchemical power. However small it was, it was nevertheless impressive to someone who had never seen this kind of power at work. "Amazing. So, you are capable of transmuting one substance into another, so long as there is enough of both?"

Certainly that was what it seemed like he had just done. "Are there any limits to the kind of power that you use, other than this one rule that you cannot create something from nothing?" Oddly enough, if only she knew about philosopher stones, she might have suggested that the thrones might very well have been similar. Items of power that enabled a specific application of power.

Of course, that probably wasn't entirely good.

"You only need enough of one substance to turn it into another. Granted, the substances have to have similar chemical structures to begin with. Like I said before," He pointed to the river. "No matter how hard you try, you're not going to be able to transmute steel out of water. They're too different."

He frowned before continuing. "There's also limits on what kinds of things you can work with." He'd better tell her now before she got any ideas. "Don't even think about trying alchemy on humans. You'll only end up with a rebound." He waved his automail hand at her. "I know from experience."

She looked at the metallic, robotic arm with curiosity and concern. "I would not think of using such a power, and besides. I can only control the weather as I said. Anything else is far beyond me." But, now that she could see it clearly, a thought occurred to her.

"Wait, do you mean that there is something wrong with your arm? I had thought it a fanciful gauntlet of some sort."

Oh, right. Considering Elsa had never heard of Amestris before, Ed isn't surprised that automail is foreign to her.

"It's called automail. It's a common prosthetic in Amestris." He sighed. His point about the dangers of human transmutation being dulled by the fact that he assumed Elsa knew of something she had no reason to. "My brother and I tried it once. It didn't end well." It was usually Al who filled in the blanks. Neither he nor Ed were too shy about what they had done, so long as it wasn't around any military personnel who could court martial Ed for it. They'd rather people know of the consequences then be pushed to believe that it was something they could pull off.

(no subject)

frozen_witch - 2018-03-13 22:43 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

milkisgross - 2018-04-06 17:28 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only