Al sat in the earth dome with Pride, tapping his fingers against the dirt. His conversation with Pride had ended a while ago. He'd then used the inspiration to think of as many words that started with a 'p' as he could. But they were still in the dome. Was it morning yet? Who knew. It was impossible to tell in the dome. That was sort of the idea. It was nothing new in many ways, but he did wish he knew what was happening with his brother.

What would happen when the Promised Day was over anyway? They couldn't very well just leave Al and Pride in the dome for the rest of their lives.

There was more clanging from Pride. It was getting distracting.

It was strange. Al knew it was late enough most people would've fallen asleep by now. It was one night he wasn't spending alone, and he wasn't actually talking to the person who was awake. Not that talking to Pride was an easy thing, but this line of thought had given him an idea.

"Do you need sleep?" Al asked.

Pride actually stopped clanging against Al's helmet for a moment. "What?"

"Uh . . . do you need to sleep? It seems like you homunculus don't." But then again, the first Greed had implied he had to. Al wasn't going to point that out though. He's probably just end up hearing why Greed sucked.

"No," Pride said after being quiet for a moment. The clanging started back up. "We don't need to sleep. Though not doing so does drain our Philosopher's Stones eventually."

Al filed the information away as something he wasn't sure would help, but could be useful down the line. Then he went back to thinking of words that started with a 'p'. If he ran out, he could always do this for the other six homunculus. Well, five letters. Greed and Gluttony both started with 'g'.

"Why did you ask?" Pride said. Al was a little surprised he'd broken the silence this time. "Hoping to find someone like you?"

The question sounded like an insult.

"No," Al said. He'd already met one person bonded to armor, not that that had been a good time. Al didn't need someone like him, certainly not a homunculus. "Just making conversation."

"It sounds like you're getting bored."

"Don't count on in Pride," Al said. "I'm not bored at all. I have plenty of practice doing this."

He waited, not saying anything more. Pride's only response was to bang Al's helmet a little harder than usual. But Al would take that as a victory. He leaned back, and would've smiled if he could. There were plenty of things that had come in handy from staying up all night. He'd met new friends and learned new things. He'd never expected staying up all night would be good practice for anything, but here he was.

(Is this the end? I think this has to bed the end, for obvious reasons. This story ended up being 30 chapters long, and I never expected that when I started. So, thank you to everyone who read.)