The next morning, Al looked over to see Maya blinking the sleep out of her eyes.
"Morning." She mumbled sleepily.
"Good morning." Alphonse replied
She sighed. "I'm really not a morning person." She stood up and began rifling through one of the cabinets. After retrieving a roll of gauze and a pair of scissors, she knelt at Edward's side. As she changed the bandage around his leg, Ed shifted.
"Can't I sleep in for a few more minutes?" he whimpered.
Maya giggled. "Good morning to you too."
"Huh...what? Oh it's you." He said more fully awake. "So you're Maya Suzuki? Al told me about you while you were asleep."
"Uh huh. Is this too tight?" She said tying off the bandage.
"No, it's fine."
"So what are the infamous Elric brothers doing in a small town like this?" She asked as she started undoing the bandages around his neck.
"Well, we were heading North but because of a scheduling problem, trains aren't going that direction for a few days." Alphonse supplied.
"Yeah, and now we're stuck here for a while. It wouldn't be so bad if the people here were more hospitable."
"I know what you mean. Although he puts on a show, I don't think the word hospitable is in Marchello's dictionary."
"It's not just him." Ed complained. "When I told those people at the inn that we were alchemists, they freaked out and shoved us out of the place. Was it because I'm with the military?"
"Don't blame them. They have a reason not to want to associate with alchemists or the military." Maya said solemnly. "When Marchello came here, he made it illegal to harbor alchemists. This lead to many normal people being imprisoned as well. Those people at the inn didn't want to risk suspicion."
"It was still rude though." Ed muttered.
"And kinda weird." Al added. "Why would he arrest alchemists?"
"I don't really know. I haven't been able to figure out what he gained from it."
"So anyway," Ed changed the subject. "we were hoping to learn more about you too."
"Well I can tell you all I know about alchemy.."
"We were actually wondering about something else..." He said casually. "Al told me you know something about the Truth?"
Maya started and jerked at the bandages she was tying.
"Ow!" Ed yelped.
"Why do you want to know about that?!" She snapped, ignoring Ed's outcry.
"Uh, well..." The brothers shared a questioning glance.
"Since you seem to know what it is, let's just say we've run afoul of it before." he said carefully.
"You mean you've...that's why you don't need transmutation circles?" Realization and shock was clear in her tone. Then her voice softened. "Who was it?"
Ed cleared his throat. "Our mother. I paid with my left leg and Al with his whole body."
"Huh?" Maya said incredulously looking towards Alphonse.
"I'm hollow inside of this armor." Alphonse explained. "Brother transmuted my soul to it. For that, he sacrificed his right arm."
"I should have figured it out." She murmured thoughtfully. It was then she noticed the silver of automail glinting through small tears in his jacket and pants. "Sorry I snapped. It's just that I have a history involving it too."
"How do you know about it?" Al promoted. "You said that you need transmutation circles."
"Both of my parents were skilled healing alchemists and acted as doctors for this town for as long as I can remember. We were happy but then when I was about 9 years old, we found out that my mother had cancer. By the time we realized it, multiple secondary tumors had formed. My father tried to use his alchemy to destroy the cancerous cells, but they were hard to locate and he couldn't risk harming her healthy cells. She soon died and we were grief stricken. My father felt responsible because he couldn't save her so he attempted to bring her back."
"But it didn't work, did it?" Ed asked solemnly.
"He paid with his heart to create something hardly resembling a human, much less my mother. I found him collapsed on the floor next to his creation. He was barely alive but he managed to tell me about what he had seen and forbade me to attempt human transmutation. He also told me my mother's last wish. She wanted me to follow in their footsteps as an alchemist and to help people. Then he joined my mother. I've lived on my own ever since."