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The piano had been the one thing Ed had missed the most from the before times. From back when everything was simple, and he was still innocent. His mother had always encouraged his musical aspirations, insisting that most of the great alchemists also played an instrument, and so it had to be important to their work somehow. Now, late in his teens, he still agreed. Music was a form of alchemy involving the transmutation of sound and feeling, and it lit up in about the same way a physical transmutation did when it was done right. He had been swept up in the music far too many times to ever try to claim that there wasn't a sort of current that ran through him whenever he performed some sort of piece from deep within his soul.
While he had become more adept at the guitar over the years due to being unable to cart a piano around on his travels, his mother's old piano had still held a special place in his heart. Ed sighed and rubbed at the sheen on the old piano in reverence, like he was greeting an old friend. He'd thought it ridiculous at the time when Pinako insisted on saving this among a few other things from their mother's house before they went and burned it down, but now he couldn't help but be grateful. This was all he had left of his mother by now. He still had his old guitar too, but that one didn't bring up the distinct feeling of her quite so much considering that he caught her practicing some old tunes on the piano from time to time when she thought everyone was sleeping. She'd never been particularly great at the guitar, but had it around anyway because she loved the instrument. So Ed had learned that one so that he could accompany her on the piano. He'd hoped that someday he would be able to play a decent duet with her involving her favorite song, but now that was never going to happen.
He sighed and began to gently press the keys into a soft and sad chord, before moving onto several other equally soft and sad chords. "I miss you", his fingers said, and the accompanying tears reinforced the idea. The thrum of the music flowed through his arms and out his fingers until it danced around him, sullen and a melancholic shade of blue. He continued to play out the various memories he'd had with her, translating them into musical form. The time she had first seen them perform alchemy, the time they had made a mess while playing "laboratory" in their dad's den, the time that Ed had glued pieces of paper all over Al and sent him running around and growling like a monster of some sort while Ed fought off the fierce beast with a stick he had found. Each time, his mom had simply laughed and cleaned up their messes quietly without trying to discourage their creative expression, and he only now realized how unique that made her. Most parents would have been incredibly annoyed at their children's antics, but not her. She seemed to delight in the fact that they were children, and so they delighted in her company in turn.
A streak of purple whimsy entered the swirling mass of light as Ed continued to play, as well as a dance of yellow as it turned the memory bittersweet. His fingers began to pick up speed as they remembered the playfulness of his youth. Trilling along in the higher registers as he remembered chasing Al through sunny fields while his mother laughed at his antics. Was the trilling meant to reflect the sun or her laughter? Maybe he didn't need to answer that, since her laughter had always sounded like sunlight to him. He danced with his fingers through the memories until the pleasantness ran out.
Then the music took a melancholic tone once again, shifting the remaining blue in the space around him to a reddish shade of purple, a deep anguish as he recalled the day he'd come home to see her collapsed on the floor. The music crescendoed to a feverish pitch as the notes quickly descended down the scale, reflecting his feeling of suddenly realizing that his world was falling to pieces around him. His fingers stayed down in the lower registers and rumbled around for a moment with some unnerving chords as the child in his memory felt his insides get tied up in knots as the days and weeks progressed. The purple light swirling around him shifted in hue between being more blue and melancholic to being more red and infuriated over and over again as the child in his memories swung from one feeling to the next as he tried to process what was happening.
Finally, Ed hit a definitive chord somewhere in the middle register and held it for a long moment. The time had come, and there was no going back from this point on. Blackness seeped into the colors around him from the edges and gradually began to overtake the rest of the colors. His fingers began to move again as he slowly played several dark chords. He played out his and Al's tears through the funeral and their despair over the next few days or weeks. He wasn't sure how far into the story he was playing, but the timeframe didn't matter. The feeling was all that mattered at the moment.
Normally once he got to this point, it was always a challenge for him to pull out of this mood for some time. Al tended to get scared of being around him for too long when he had such a dark aura around him, and he didn't want to cause Al to feel that when he was just trying to express his feelings in a safe artistic manner. He thought of Al's smile that he hoped would greet him when he left this room, and the corner of his mouth twitched up a bit. No matter what, that little sucker always found something to be happy about. He didn't know how Al did it, but it was a pretty impressive ability to be able to always find a bright side to everything, even while you were going through hell.
Ed's fingers picked up the pace a tiny bit as he thought of Al's smile. The stupid jokes that Al always told him in order to try and get him to laugh, all the brotherly teasing Al gave him over his apparently obvious crush on Winry, mental images of Al trying out the latest dance moves when he was still in the armor. A subtle form of pink began to pierce through the blackness surrounding him as if even just thinking about Al had the power to wash away his negativity.
Tears began to stream from his eyes again, but for a different reason this time. It was more of a feeling of relief, of knowing that there was someone in his life who loved him so stubbornly that he wouldn't leave Ed no matter what. He might go off and have his own adventures, but Ed knew that he and Al would always be close somehow. He didn't know how he knew that, but somehow he just knew that Al would never abandon him, even though Ed thought he should have a long time ago. He was a walking disaster, but Al didn't see it that way. He never had.
The music swelled as his heart filled to bursting. He had been thinking about Al, but he felt like the music represented both Al and his mom, like they were both in the room with him right now and playing the music along with him. As his fingers danced over the keys, he felt the remaining blackness on his soul crumble away and dissipate into the ether like dust. It was the power of Al's magic smile at work again, even when Al wasn't present. That was how powerful it was.
The music walked up the register and gradually grew quieter as Ed pressed the keys lighter and lighter to show how his soul was ascending through the music. The music grew quieter and quieter until Ed was no longer pressing the keys at all, but his fingers still twitched for a moment as though still playing a hidden melody. The bright colors continued to circle around him for a moment, and then they dissipated like smoke.
He sighed and rested his hands in his lap. He felt better. A lot better. Ed caressed the piano and patted it as a form of thanks before delicately placing the covering back over the keys, and then he excused himself from the room to seek out the real smiling face of Al. And he knew that that smiling face wouldn't be hard to find either, since Al was currently laughing as he chatted in the kitchen with Winry. Little speckles of orange light bounced off the walls as Al's laugh found its way through the hallways.
Ed smiled at the vision and humbly hung his head. He hadn't lost the sun at all. Their mom had passed her laugh on to Al, and Al had carted the sun with him through all their adventures.
"Hey, Al," said Ed upon entering the kitchen.
"Hi, Brother!" said Al, right before flashing Ed one of his blinding grins. "Winry and I are making pancakes with candy in them! Want to join?"
Ed laughed and agreed, and he spent the rest of the morning goofing around in the kitchen. If Al was the sun, then he was the moon, and Winry was the stars. Together, they made up a complete sky. No wonder their little group was so strong.
He took a spoonful of pancake batter and smeared it on Winry's nose, then laughed as she knocked him to the ground in retaliation. They wrestled for a while before they got back to their pancake task, which resulted in some of the batter having gotten spilled in the chaos, so they had fewer pancakes to enjoy. Ed didn't care. The moment had been painted in a playful orange, and was equally as delicious as the color's name implied. It was moments like these that made him realize why he was still living.
As he ate his half done pancakes later, he closed his eyes and focused as much as he could on the sensation of eating the colors of the candy. Something about color was absolutely delicious to him. The pancakes weren't great, but they'd had the spirit of love and childhood playfulness baked into them, and so they tasted like some of the best pancakes in the world. No matter what, he had his colors, and his colors reminded him of his loved ones. The colors kept them close.
"Hey, Brother," Al said, "I heard that the wildflowers are blooming over in the meadow, but Winry's going to be too busy with automail work to go. Want to go and get some later, like old times?"
Ed nodded as he smiled and finished up his pancakes. His life may have had a lot of ups and downs, but the color dynamics were perfect. They painted a beautiful tapestry, with each person he had ever met taking the form of a color in the piece. So long as he had his colors, part of him felt he still had them around.
"Sure, Al," said Ed. He set his plate in the sink, brushed off his hands, and fixed the ponytail in his hair. "Let's go." Al flashed him another sunshine grin and bounded out the door as he left the sound of tinkling bells in his wake from his innocent joy. Ed smirked as he followed. As far as Al was concerned, it was almost like the past few years hadn't even happened and they were still in their innocent years. It was truly impressive how Al could still be so bright and cheery despite it all. It was like Al had swallowed the sun and was now sharing it with everyone he met.
And Ed realized that for just a moment, he had caught the warm fuzzy orange feeling of Al's sunny smile. For this one moment, he was happy. He hadn't lost the sun at all. The sun was waiting for him outside so that they could go and pick flowers together. Just waiting to warm up his soul with that smile of his once again.