You groggily opened your eyes and looked at the ceiling of your room. Slowly turning your head, you saw light flooding in from the windows, sun already high in the sky.
"Ugh, how late did I stay up to sleep this long?" You groaned.
Your talk with Alphonse had lasted a bit longer than you meant it to. You eventually had to say goodnight to him and drag yourself back to your room.
You sat up, peering over at a mirror attached to the dresser. You had an impressive bed head on your noggin at the moment. You rolled off of your bed and fell on the floor.
"Ow," you said grumpily, crawling over towards the dresser and grabbing the brush, beginning to tear through your rat's nest of (h/c) locks.
The bedroom door clicked open and the tea set from yesterday came zooming in. The small family of three stopped beside you, nearly ramming into the dresser. Your mind raced as you tried desperately to remember all of their names. You didn't want to offend any of them, but names were one thing you were absolutely horrible with.
"Good morning sleepy head," the sugar holder said. "Sleep well?"
"I'd say so, but my hair feels like birds built a nest in it," you chuckled.
"Do you need any tea?" The little tea cup asked. Gosh she sounded cute, you nearly squealed just listening to her.
"Tea would be great, thank you," you smiled.
"It's no problem at all, miss (Y/n)," the tea pot with glasses commented. He poured some tea into the tea cup. The tea cup carefully hopped closer to you so you could pick her up. You cautiously did just that, taking a small sip.
"Before I forget, you're Mr.Hughes, or Maes, your wife is Gracia, and the little cutie in my hand is Elicia, right?"
Elicia giggled at your compliment, and you couldn't help smiling.
"That's right," Mr.Hughes confirmed.
"I'm surprised I remembered that correctly. I'm usually horrible with names."
"Well, we wouldn't be offended if you forgot ours," Gracia told you.
After you finished the tea, you set Elicia back down, and they started to depart.
"Do you need any servants to help you get dressed?" Gracia called from the door as they went out.
"So rich people really do have servants for that. No, I'm fine," you told her.
The door clicked shut, and you turned back to your hair, which by some miracle had managed to return to its untangled state. You looked down at the dresser and opened the drawers, deciding to get dressed. You took another look out the window, noticing something you hadn't before.
Whiteness.
A layer of snow, several inches thick, blanketed the ground outside.
"I guess it snowed after we got back. I knew it felt cold when we were in the forest," you said to yourself.
After finding some warm clothes, which consisted of a fluffy sweater and some comfortable pants, you headed out of your door.
As you walked down the hall, you looked at one of the clocks along the wall.
'12:18. I really did sleep in late.'
After some wandering around the halls, you found your way to the dining room. Lunch was just about to be served, and Edward and Winry were sitting at table, plates already in front of them. They were talking to each other, and surprisingly they were laughing as they talked. You glanced around and saw Alphonse sitting away from the table, reading a book instead.
'I guess it makes sense, since he can't eat. Why sit around waiting for something you can't have?'
Your thoughts were interrupted when Winry noticed you standing there, and finally acknowledged you.
"Hey (Y/n), took you long enough to get up," she smirked.
"Well excuse me, Al and I were having an engaging conversation and we stayed up too late."
"Well I got up early and worked on Ed's automail. Look at it now! It's all shiny and fixed!"
You glanced over at Edward, who held out his arm. Sure enough, Winry had put her touch on the mechanical limb.
"Hmm, I guess the way to Winry's heart is through automail," you said, quiet enough for neither of them to understand you.
"What?" The two said in unison.
"Nothing," you replied in a sing-song tone. You grabbed a plate of food from the table and sat over near the suit of armor reading a book.
"Hey Alphonse," you greeted. He suddenly looked up from his book, fumbling to close it. He hadn't actually been reading it since you entered the room.
"H-hi (Y-Y/n)," he stuttered.
"There's no need for you to be nervous. Now that I know the truth, there's no secrets that could be given away when you're talking to me," you finished, stuffing a bite of food into your mouth.
"R-right."
"We should go out in the snow later," Winry suggested, calling from the table a few feet away.
"Yeah, I was just thinking that," Alphonse agreed.
You eagerly nodded your head, mouth still full of lunch.
"Well," Ed said. "If you're all going, I guess I'll have to come to."
"Yeah! We can build snow forts and everything! And we have some of that bird feed in one of the closets!" Al started getting excited. He got up and went to go get the feed.
You quickly finished eating, scarfing down the rest of your food. When you finished, you stood up and ran after him. In your haste, you ended up bumping into him from behind.
"Careful (Y/n), don't hurt yourself," Alphonse advised.
"Sorry, just wanted to come and help."
"Okay, do you wanna help carry the bird seed?" You two entered into the closet where the feed was kept. You nodded your head eagerly.
"Sure!"
After you guys found the food for the birds, Alphonse got it down and handed you some of it. When he placed it in your hands, you fell to the ground from the weight.
"(Y/n)! Are you okay?" He asked, hovering over you in worry.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just not physically strong at all."
"Here, I'll carry it," he said, taking it back from you with one arm and helping you off the ground with the other.
"Thanks Al," you said as you started walking towards the castle's entrance to go outside. "Sometimes I feel absolutely useless. I get weak from carrying just about anything relatively heavy."
"You're not useless, you just have different areas of strength. You're smart, and kind, and b-beautiful," he averted his gaze as he finished.
Immediately, your face heated up, and you stared down at your feet.
"Th-thanks Alphonse."
You quickly ran forward and opened the front door for Al. He walked out, still looking at the ground. Edward and Winry were already outside, waiting for you two to come out.
"There you are! We were getting worried something happened," Winry ran up to you.
"Nope, my lack of strength just caused some problems," you laughed.
"It's been a long time since we fed the birds, huh Al?" Edward said.
"Yeah. The last time we did was probably with mom,"Alphonse responded.
Edward seemed to start reminiscing about those times, until he suddenly snapped back to attention.
"I think you're right. Well, let's get started!" Edward stuffed his hand into the bag of bird food and pulled out a large handful.
You, Al, and Winry did the same thing, and you all started trying to get birds to eat your food.
Winry and you were surprisingly having some success with the avians. Winry had a couple on her arms. You had one siting on your shoulder like a pet, eating out of your hand. You were even able to pet it.
"(Y/n), look! I got some!" Alphonse called from a distance. He had a few sitting on his shoulders, and another one in front of his helmet, resting on the pointed part of his chest plate.
You carefully walked over and joined him, making sure not to disturb your bird.
"Careful, they might think you're a statue and poop on you," you chuckled.
Al tensed up a little.
"Do you really think they'd do that?"
"Probably not. But if they do, I'll clean it off for you."
You glanced over towards Edward. He was holding his arms out to the birds, hands cupped and running after them. The birds were all flying away as he tried shoving it towards them. Whether the birds were flying away because they thought Ed was trying to eat them or just trying to scare them you couldn't tell.
Alphonse sighed a little, and you turned to look at him.
"He acted exactly the same when he was little. He'd try to force the food into the birds faces. He never figured out you have to be gentle with them."
"How the heck do you get these birds to listen to you!?" Ed shouted, scaring all the birds close to him away.
Winry slowly walked over to him and started showing him the proper way to get the birds to come eat from your hands.
"You have to be calm, let the birds come to you."
They were now both crouching on the ground, a trail of food leading to Ed's clawed hands. Eventually a bird hopped into his cupped hands, and Ed looked happily, and surprised, at Winry.
You smirked as you watched them, and had Al had a body, he would have been making a similar expression.
"I have a feeling those two might end up liking each other," you said.
"Guess we have the same feeling, then."
Winry stood up and walked away from Ed to behind a tree, where you saw her looking back at him.
Edward had somehow ended up with a massive amount of birds sitting on top of him.
"Since when was Ed the king of the birds?" You asked sarcastically.
"I don't know, but it looks like Winry's about to start a war."
Winry had made a snowball in her hand, and she was now aiming it carefully at Edward's head.
You quickly bent down and started making a snow ball of your own. Alphonse didn't notice you doing so, so you took the opportunity to escalate the snow ball war to guys versus girls.
Winry launched her own snow ball at Edward, hitting him and scaring off all of his birds. He looked around surprised, then saw Winry laughing at him from behind the tree. He started piling snow together with a mischievous look on his face.
Alphonse chuckled, watching it all unfold. He was quite surprised when a snowball came flying at him from the side and knocked his helmet clean off.
"Hey!"
"Guys versus girls!" You shouted, running behind the tree to join Winry.
"Come on Al! We've gotta get 'em!" Edward shouted to his brother.
Alphonse quickly put his head back on, then looked over at you and Winry. You were peaking out from behind the tree, hand over your mouth as you giggled and smiled. He stared at you until you ducked back behind the tree when you saw Ed try to throw a gigantic snow ball at you two girls. It backfired as Winry threw her snow ball and made the giant one fall on top of him.
"Gah!" Ed shouted. "It's cold!"
"I'll save you, brother!" Alphonse at last ran over and clapped his hands together before placing them on the ground. After a flash of light, a snow-firing cannon was formed from the transmutation and was ready to fire.
"Good thinking Al!" Edward shouted, brushing the white powder off of him. He ran over to the cannon and was prepared to start using the snowy weaponry. "You go chase them from behind the tree, and I'll fire the snow at them!"
"Right!" Alphonse ran towards the large tree you and Winry were hiding behind. You poked your head out from behind one of the sides, before hiding behind it again, giggling. Al started creeping around the tree to sneak up on you.
"I'm gonna getcha!" He shouted playfully. His sneaking wasn't very affective, seeing that he made noise whenever he moved. He darted around the corner of the tree, and even though you knew he was coming you jumped. He hugged you when he reached you, trapping you in his arms. Winry ran around the other side of the tree, away from him and you.
"Run Winry! Save yourself!" You called dramatically.
Winry ran to the front of the tree, where she immediately got hit with a big powder flurry of snow.
"Cold cold cold cold cold!"
"Nooooo! Winry's down! I'm the last one left!"
Al reached down into the snow and scooped up a big handful. He proceeded to drop it directly on top of your head.
"AHHH IT'S FREEZING!" You squealed.
"You shouldn't have declared snow-warfare on two alchemists," Alphonse chuckled at your high pitched squealing.
"I HAVE MADE A GRAVE ERROR IN JUDGEMENT!"
"Well I'm pretty sure the snowball fight is over. You can go inside and get warmed up. Sorry I made you so cold."
"You're still hugging me, I can't move!"
Al noticed you were right. He was still hugging you. Looking down and blushing, he let go, and you ran inside. However, you stopped just inside the building.
"Come on Alphonse! Edward and Winry are coming in too! If you stay out there you'll be all alone!"
Al's red orbs looked back to you, surprised. Even when you were freezing cold, you were worrying about him before yourself. He quickly ran over to you as you waited at the door for him. When you were both standing there, you walked into the warmth together.
A large group of servants had been watching from one of the windows the entire time you all were out there. They were now talking about how you all were acting with each other.
"It seems FullMetal might have a chance after all," Roy stated, smirking slightly.
"We can't make assumptions just yet. There's the possibility of them only being friends. Or him and Alphonse could end up liking the same girl," Alex put in.
"No, I don't think so. (Y/n) and Al are a lot more likely to like each other than Ed and (Y/n) are," Sheska declared.
"I'm guessing Edward and Winry will be together, and then Alphonse and (Y/n). But that's just speculation," Riza agreed.
"I can't see anything!" Elicia was jumping up and down behind all of them, too small to see. "What's going on!?"
Maes and Gracia looked down at their daughter, chuckling.
"We'll tell you when you're older," Gracia told her gently.