Title: Collections
Author: S J Smith
Rating: Teen
Summary: There's a lot of work to be done.
Disclaimer: No, no, I'm just a fangirl.
Note: Story takes place prior to series. Thanks to D. M. Evans for her edits.
It's still dark when you rise, but you stretch your body and move forward. You take care of the necessities – bodily functions, eating something, drinking a cup of bitter, dark tea to help keep you awake. Your driver knocks at your door at precisely half past five, and you get in the back of the car.
Today, you are touring local orphanages, as you have for many, many months, trying to collect as many boy children as possible. The girl children aren't even considered; your master isn't interested in girls, even in the possibility of raising them up as potential mates to the boys you are collecting. Girls become more of a handful, anyway, you think; remembering your little sister. You wonder for a few seconds what happened to her, after you left home, and joined the military, but then you turn that thought aside. There are far more important things to consider than family. You, you are helping guide this country to prosperity. You will make Amestris great, it's only a matter of time.
Today, you are visiting the far western regions, searching for potential fuhrer candidates. The orphanage here in this town is small, but there have been some amazing alchemists to have come out of the area in the past. You're not sure why that matters; your master doesn't want an alchemist to be the fuhrer, but you're not going to question his motives for sending you to even the smallest towns in Amestris. Besides, it gives you a chance to meet the people, though you think of them more as potential souls for a Philosopher's Stone than anything else.
You know, after all, what's going on behind the scenes, and under the ground. You aren't sure why your master chose you, but you're happy he did. The idea of eternal life intrigues you, even though you know you have to wait to get it. What are a few decades when you know that you're going to live forever? You're content to sit back, and do whatever your master orders. He put his plans into place the second he arrived in the tiny burg that would eventually become Amestris's Central City, creating the power that fuels the alchemists' transmutations, still; opening up the military, carving out a new country from bones, flesh and bone.
And now, a true ruler is needed, one who will lead the country up until the Promised Day, the day that seems so far away, when you think about it, the next eclipse to cover Amestris. That day is in the future, but you're going to be there for it, you and the child you raise up to be eventually known as King Bradley, a good, regal name, worthy of a man who would lead the country under your master's rule.
Now, all you have to do is find that child, or enough decent children without any parents to complicate things, and collect them, and raise them the way you want them to be raised, to be perfectly obedient machines, willing to do everything you need them to do.
Because you know there is a lot work to be done and hell to be raised before the Promised Day, and you're going to be enjoying every second of it.
- end -