Stille Nacht

Sorry if a few words got hidden in Alphonse's hair. And I'm sorry Al looks kinda girly ._. It's my first time drawing him like...ever. o_o With long hair at least. I think I drew him with short hair once a looooong time ago. Anywho! This was inspired by the beautiful story my friend Melissa is writing, called The Wooden Doll. Edward died from an illness near Christmas, and he's desperately trying to fulfill Al's Christmas wish for his brother to be home for Christmas. In a brief moment of contact, he sings to Al and Winry in German, so that Al will know for sure it's him. Here's the section.

Al bolted up to a sitting position in bed. What was that that he had just heard? His eyes darted around the room in a paranoid fashion at every little trick of light or rattle of a shutter on a window. He could have just been imagining it, but the wind seemed unusually intense tonight. Of course, it was really only wind, nothing to get worked up about. He sighed and relaxed his shoulders. How silly to get so worked up over a little wind. Just then, his ears perked up. There it was again, what had awoken him in the first place. He hadn’t dreamt it. “Winry!” Al bounded out of bed and ran like mad to Winry’s room.

Needless to say, poor Winry woke up even more paranoid than Al had, being rudely awakened by the frantic boy. Finally, she got her bearings about her. “Al, how dare you come in and scare me like that! What are you trying to do, give me a-” Al didn’t let her finish her rant, but put his finger to his lips and told her to be quiet and listen. She stopped talking and tried to figure out what Al was getting at. The wind continued to howl outside and was banging the shutters furiously. After a few moments, Winry turned her attention back to Al and said, “It’s just the wind, Al. Go back to sleep.”

Al shook his head. He would not be dissuaded so easily. “No, listen closer.”

Winry fussed a bit but decided to play along with Al’s game for a little while longer. “What am I listening to?”

“Can’t you hear a voice?”

“What voice?”

“Listen”

She listened. Strangely enough, the wind did seem to carry a voice with it, but that was just one of the weird things that the wind did on a normal basis, wasn’t it? “It almost sounds like singing, but there aren’t any discernable words.”

“Tell me what you hear.”

“What?”

“The sounds. Tell me what sounds you’re hearing.”

Winry sighed and rolled her eyes. Al was a real crackpot at times, but she loved him in spite of his quirkiness. Whatever game of his this was, she might as well see it through to the end. “Um…I think I’m hearing… ‘Steal…a…knock’…That doesn’t make any sense.”

Al clapped his hands joyfully and Winry could almost swear that he had started dancing. He was obviously excited about something, but what? All she could hear was gibberish. “Yes, yes!” he shouted, “Do you hear anything else? At all?”

Winry shrugged. Al had obviously gone off the deep end when it came to one’s sanity, and she didn’t see any use in fighting it now. She listened to the steady hum of the wind outside before venturing to utter any more nonsense words. “All is…slaved?” she asked after a moment of listening to the gibberish in the wind. She turned to face Al, whose face was illuminated by the moonlight that was streaming through her bedroom window. He had his hands clasped together and was happily nodding, tears streaming down his face. Okay, it was time for some answer. “Al, what the heck does all that mean?”

Al weakly walked over to her bed and plapped himself down on the edge of it. He turned so that he could see her face, which was also illuminated by the moonlight. “Winry,” he said as he brushed a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, “Do you remember the strange way that Brother and I were talking to each other when we came back through the Gate?” Winry nodded. She had feared that they’d gone insane at her first thought, but quickly realized that their utterances had a certain form and structure belonging to an actual language, though she hadn’t a clue as to what they were saying. Al grinned and then continued. “When we were in the country that spoke that language, I learn a certain Christmas carol that has since become my favorite. It was called Stille Nacht.”

Winry gasped. Stille Nacht? That sounded almost like her interpretation of “Steal a knock”. But…how could Al’s Christmas carol that nobody in this world had ever heard possibly be carried by the wind? As she pondered, Al began to sing along with the voice in the wind, and as he sang, the voice in the wind grew louder…until she finally recognized it. Tears began rolling down her face as the two voices sung together in perfect harmony. She was surprised she hadn’t recognized it earlier. She should have been able to recognize Ed’s voice anywhere. Finally coming to terms with the phenomenon she was experiencing, she laid back and listened to the two sing.

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute hochheilige Paar.
Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Hirten erst kundgemacht
Durch der Engel Halleluja,
Tönt es laut von fern und nah:
Christ, der Retter ist da!
Christ, der Retter ist da!

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Gottes Sohn, o wie lacht
Lieb' aus deinem göttlichen Mund,
Da uns schlägt die rettende Stund'.
Christ, in deiner Geburt!
Christ, in deiner Geburt!

Finally, the song ended, and the two voices died down into nothingness. The wind continued to howl outside the bedroom, but it no longer carried Ed’s disembodied voice. Al’s face was wet with tears, and Winry’s was just starting to be. She had thought she would never hear that voice again, yet she had, even if she hadn’t understood a word that was said.

All credit for the above story goes to Melissa McLean. :3 GO MELISSA! =D *blomps her* Oh, and she mentioned the whole thing about Ed singing a song about Jesus being born when he's agnostic, and she said "if it's Al's favorite Christmas Carol, I don't think Ed's going to care about the content of it."