Tales of Flamel

Lark sighed heavily and twirled the pencil in her hand. If there was anything that was going to aggravate her it was this blasted test. For all her studying she still was having trouble with some of the questions presented therein. Getting annoyed, she titled her chair back and closed her eyes.

The room was full of other State Alchemist hopefuls, all taking the same test. Set up in stadium style seating, at long tables side by side, they all stared assiduously at the papers before them. Lark was the only one distracted and it was for one main reason; she had the attention span of a melon wedge. Though she was undoubtedly the most skilled alchemist in the room and the most able to learn, she was having the hardest time finishing. Even for all of her studying through the past year, chemistry was not her favorite thing. That being so, though, being a State Alchemist payed well and there were no job openings for women obsessed with historical warfare. Science ran rampant in her veins…she really had no choice in her fate.

Okay, carbon, she thought. Ugh, blast it…carbon…makes up less than one percent of the earth or anything in it for that matter and chemistry REVOLVES around it. Absolutely ridiculous!…now let's see…

Lark titled her chair forward, meeting the table with a "clunk" and caught a glare from the man beside her. His hair was slicked back and he wore a vest of dark blue over a stark white shirt. Glancing down at her own clothing, a bright green shirt with lace around the sleeves and hem with a tapered skirt and heeled shoes, she sighed.

I don't really look much like a scientist. What in hell am I even DOING here? She asked herself for the millionth time. Tossing her head from side to side, Lark forced her eyes back to the page before her. CARBON. Lark said, resolute.

Alright, let's review some basics…Carbon has over 250,000 separate compounds…more than all other elements combined…I guess it's obvious why it's so important. So, organic chemistry is the chemistry of things containing carbon, and inorganic the chemistry of, well, everything else…Lark returned her attention to the question and immediately dropped her head onto the table.

I don't CARE about the principle of a carbon arc! What are we, welders all of the sudden! Irritable, she answered the question and moved on to the next one. A series of elemental symbols...What do they make up? That one's easy! Carbon Tetrachloride! Next section is on…Scandium! Who discovered scandium, and in what year? That's easy too! Dmitri Mendeleev in wait…he just predicted it on the periodic table…did he discover it too? It was found in his lifetime…let's see here…scandium is number 21, right? Atomic weight is 44.66…or is it 99? 69? No, 96! 34.96…NO, NO, NO! 54.66! UGH, damnation! That's wrong…44.96?

As Lark continued, muddled thoughts bumping around her head, her mother, one Professor Ivy Johansson, waited patiently outside. It drizzled markedly and she watched as men and women in uniforms traipsed about the building with umbrellas up. She sighed, dreading for her daughter.

"She's going to forget the atomic weight of scandium again…I can just feel it."

"44.96, of course. That's an easy one!" piped a young voice in front of her.

Lifting her eyes upward to see what it was casting the shadow over her, Ivy's face lit up into a smile. She had never been so happy to see a suit of armor. That seemed more likely something that would get her daughter excited…

Ivy stood up. "Alphonse! Well, my goodness! Has it really been a whole year since I've seen you?"

The suit clunked slightly as it's head bobbed in a 'yes' motion. "But it really doesn't seem like it's been so long does it?"

Ivy shook her head from side to side, her cropped hair shifting about her face. "No, not after exchanging so many letters!"

Al folded his hands in front of him. "No, ma'am. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were in Central diverting the flood…"

"Yes," Ivy agreed. "I still get chills when I see the rain, I'm afraid…and what's with this ma'am business, boy!" She grumbled. "Do I really look that old? Come on, out with it! Tell me if I do, because if that's the case then I need to hurry up and get Lark married off!"

Waving his hands back and forth in front of his face, Al stammered, "N-no ma'am, er, that is…Miss, Professor, I mean…"

Ivy laughed outright. "You're so cute, I just don't know what to do with you! Maybe when your brother finds the stone and gets you your body back I can have you marry Lark!"

If he possibly could have, the boy would have blushed. "Professor Johansson…I-I-…"

She laughed again. "I was joking, of course! But, speaking of your brother, where is he?"

"Oh, Brother isn't here." Al said. "I came alone to wish Lark good luck, but…between you and I, I don't think he wants her to pass." he admitted.

Ivy frowned at this, momentarily taken back. "He what?" An odd feeling, a mix of pity and irritation, formed in the pit of her stomach. "That's really a shame…and after all the letters she and he have written back and forth…Lark's become quite fond of you two boys, you know." She shrugged as if to try and dislodge the weight of the issue from he shoulders. "Oh, well, though. She's going to be heartbroken that he didn't show. Let's think up a little white lie, hmm?" Ivy winked.

Al bowed slightly. "Sorry." He sighed. "He hasn't really said anything about it to me, but when I left this morning he said he wasn't going to come so I just assumed that his feelings about her being offered a position in the military hadn't changed. I can't imagine why he wouldn't want her to pass, though."

"Pencils down." uttered a voice from the front of the room. Lark's belly flipped several times (or so it felt to her) and she jumped a little. She had finished, but she felt extremely unsure of herself. She wished she shared the confident smiles of the people around her. Her heart began to pound.

As she placed her paper down on the desk in front of the room, she gave a curt bow to one of the officers who had overseen the testing. His stoic face made her feel sick again. She walked at a brisk pace, hurrying to leave the place. Lark put her hand to her chest to feel her heart beat and sighed deeply to quiet its pounding. Her ears stung from it throbbing in her head the past few minutes.

As she left the building she saw that it was still raining and shivered involuntarily. Letting it pass, she held out her hand, stopping a single raindrop in midair.

"LARK! Over here, you silly girl!"

She turned her head to see her mother waving emphatically a few feet away on the steps. Passing a few stone pillars, she noticed that, behind her, Al was there. She quickened her pace. Ivy held her arms out. Lark rushed past her.

Grasping Alphonse's armored hands in her own she smiled brightly. "AL! I can't believe it! What are you doing here!"

"I came to wish you luck!" he replied, cheerfully.

Ivy turned, hurt, and asked, "Lark?"

Twisting her head to face her mother, still clutching Al's hands she smiled. "Yes?"

"What is the atomic weight of scandium?"

Lark stared at her mother for a moment with no reply, then, at length, she said. "Oh, damnit all…."

"You can't remember the simplest things…" Ivy sighed. "You know that if you pass this test you're in, regardless of how you perform in the other half. You've already proved you're an amazing alchemist…"

Lark let go of Al's hands and folded her own in front of her, hanging her head. "I-I'm trying really hard…" How could she make her mother proud if she couldn't prove herself as a scientist? A sharp pain formed in her throat and she knew she would cry. "I-I…." Lark lifted her head quickly and looking serious said, "I know that I'll pass! And if I don't then I'll just try again next spring!"

"That's the spirit!" Alphonse said encouragingly. "Don't give up hope!"

Lark's smile returned and she looked about for a moment. "Where's Edward?" she asked, curiosity in her tone.

"Uh…he…um…" Al stuttered.

Ivy chimed in, "He's sick and couldn't come."

Lifting her eyes to see Al face to face, Lark asked, "Is that true?"

The armor nodded hurriedly. "Y-Yes, Brother seems to have a bit of a cold."

Lark glanced at the ground and raised her eyebrows skeptically. "Oh, I see…"

Ivy sighed, realizing she knew it was a lie. "You're much too perceptive, Lark. Don't be upset."

Lark's head shot up and she grinned. "What's to be upset about? People get sick all the time! I'll just have to pay him a visit!"

"N-no, you can't he…um…you don't want to catch anything!" Al stammered.

"Nonsense." Lark said, heading down the steps, still facing Al and her mother. "I've never been sick a day in my life! I'm sure Ed would be happy to see me, right?"

"Now, now honey! You don't want to do that…!" Ivy trotted after her down the steps, as did Alphonse (though it was more trudging than trotting).

Alone in his room, Edward flipped through the pages of a book he had just found and scratched down important points into a notebook. Twisting to get more comfortable in the chair, he shook his head, looked down at what he had just written and back at the book a couple of times, then erased and rewrote a sentence. Turning a crisp page he stopped and looked at the rain falling outside. He was feeling quite calm when, suddenly, his door burst open and in it's way stood a very cross looking young woman.

Startled, he slammed his notebook shut, gaping at her for a moment. Recognizing her and feeling like he was in for a bit of yelling, Edward set down his pen and ripped a scrap of paper to keep his place in the book he had been reading.

Lark's face softened. "Oh…you poor thing…" Walking softly over to the young man, she took his face in her hands, pressing his cheeks together until his lips puckered out awkwardly. "It's obvious why you didn't come to greet me! You're obviously incapacitated!" Still holding his face, Lark looked over to Alphonse. "I can tell, Al," her gaze turned, piercingly to Edward. "You're just way to sick to come see me!"

Ed turned his head away. "I'm not sick." He replied. "You didn't have to cover for me, Al."

Uncomfortable, Al nodded hesitantly. "I'm sorry Brother…I just-"

"You didn't want Lark to get her feelings hurt." Ed finished. "I know. Sorry about not showing up." He rose to his feet and walked away to a small writing desk and opened one of the drawers. "How'd it go?" he asked distractedly.

"Uh…Okay, I guess…" Lark placed her hands on her hips. "What's got you so down?"

Edward only shook his head. "Nothing, I'm just really busy right now." And with that he sat back down, having grabbed a few loose pieces of paper, and opened his book again.

Lark leaned over his shoulder. "What've you got there?"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing, just a book." He answered.

"Well, I'm gonna go pay a visit to some of the higher-ups, oki-dokie?"

Edward seemed to hardly notice she had said anything at all, but nodded. "Yeah. Professor Johansson, maybe you can help me with this…"

Ivy pushed up her spectacles and, examining the boy, responded, "Of course, dear."

"You too, Al." Edward added. "Come here."

Lark, suddenly feeling as if she was useless, flushed and turned to leave the room. As she turned out the door, closing it behind her, she thudded hard into a pile of books and papers which then went flying about the hallway. Behind them was a young looking boy with black hair who now sat, distraught on the floor, having been knocked down by the blow.

"Oops…" he grunted, getting up. "Sorry about that…"

Lark Squatted down and began to pick up the books and papers, piling them. "No, I wasn't paying attention…Here." She lifted a stack and set them in the boy's arms. "So, what's your name?" she asked, warmly.

He lifted a knee under the armful of ledgers and such to push it farther into his arms. "My name is Daniel Feist…I'm new around here. I was supposed to be an assistant to Miss Riza Hawkeye, but there's someone who's sorta stepped up and taken my place there. This, girl, Rupp…she's such a know it all and a suck up…" he noticed he was getting off subject and laughed nervously. "Anyway, I was sent to the library to see if I could be of any assistance there."

Lark cocked an eyebrow. "Well then, Daniel, good luck. Be more careful, huh?" she ruffled his hair and continued on her way, but then looked back. "Hey, Danny!" she called.

Turning, with some effort, the boy peered over the load in his arms. "Yes?"

"I want you to help me with something…" she trotted up beside him. "I want you to tell me what book someone has out."

Daniel pursed his lips. "I don't think I'm allowed to do that."

"No, no…it's fine!" She assured him, glancing back at Edward's door. "I just wanna know the title…"

Ivy scratched her head in thought. "Honestly, Edward, I don't research the same things as you do as far as alchemy is concerned. I've never even heard of Nicolas Flamel."

Edward sighed and fell back onto the couch, folding his hands across his forehead. "I've heard the name a thousand times, and just this morning I found this book in the library about him."

"But, what does he have to do with anything?" Alphonse inquired.

"What we never realized is that he has everything to do with it. 'It' being the Philosopher's Stone." Edward leaned in and frowned in thought. "Nicolas Flamel was a bookseller who lived in France in the fourteenth century. The story goes that he had a dream where he was visited by an angel who showed him a mysterious book. So, not long after that, when a man came to his stand selling a strange manuscript he recognized it as the book from his dream and bought it on the spot."

"What was in the book?" Ivy pressed, seeing that Edward was beginning to look out the window in thought.

"Well, this book here" he tapped the tome on the table in front of him. "gives a pretty extensive description of what the book looked like and contained." Grabbing the book, he put it in his lap and flipped back a few pages locating a spot in the text with is finger. He read, " ' …a binding of worked copper on which characters of Greek and unknown origin are inscribed. The pages are made of the bark of young trees and the words therein are clearly written with an iron point. The leaves of the book, divided into groups of seven, are separated into three different sections by papers without writing, but with strange symbols that Flamel did not recognize. On the first page the words presented make it obvious that the author was 'Abraham the Jew ¾ prince, priest, Levite, astrologer, and philosopher'. Following this is a list of curses and threats that will befall anyone who sets eyes upon the text therein contained who was not a priest or a scribe. The word "maranatha" is many times repeated on each page. This only caused him to be more intrigued by the texts and diagrams accompanying it. This book was known only as the book of Abraham the Jew.' "

As Edward concluded he closed the book and sighed, seeming greatly troubled.

"But, Brother, what does any of this have to do with the Philosopher's Stone…?" Al pressed, not sure he understood.

Sitting up straight, Edward lifted up his foot and propped it up on his knee. "It's said that in that book, among all of those symbols he didn't recognize, was the formula to create the philosopher's stone. He devoted his life to finding people who could translate it for him, and when he did, he figured out what it all meant and the secrets were transcribed onto the stones of Saint-Jacques-la Boucherie, or the Cemetery of the Innocents, in Paris."

After a slight pause Ivy laughed. "Well how in the world have you missed that all these years? It's just written down somewhere where anyone can come and look at it?"

The boy shook his head. "No. Someone stole the inscriptions; broke the sections off of the sculptures they were inscribed on. For years before that though, hundreds of alchemists went on pilgrimage to the cemetery to study the writing and try to decipher it, but none of them could."

Deciding it was best to let all of this information settle for a moment, Edward stopped talking and re-opened his notebook. It was littered with scribbled notes and alchemic symbols and drawings, all foreign to him-that had been presented in the book he was reading-from Flamel's own notebooks. He covered his mouth with his hand, thinking.

Alphonse raised his head and said, "So…where is this book now?"

Ed shrugged. "The hell if I know…It was probably stolen too, just like the projection powder that he created and the gold he had stashed away all over Paris. Just like the walls of his cellars, where he did his research…all examined and taken, or stolen."

"Well someone has to have it!" Ivy said pointedly. She drummed her fingers on the table in thought. At last she said, "Why not start to search for this book of Abraham or whatever instead of the Philosopher's Stone?"

"I know, Professor. That's exactly what I've been considering." Edward explained.

He had been relatively quiet throughout this discussion, only asking questions to further his understanding, but Alphonse felt suddenly motivated to speak. "There's a chance that this book doesn't even exist anymore, though. Especially if it was all that old when this Flamel person found it. I think it would be better to try and find the sculptures that the final instructions to creating the Philosopher's Stone were inscribed on."

Ivy nodded in agreement. "Yes, that's very true. If this Abraham of the Jews is the same one mentioned in the old testament of the Bible, then that manuscript would have been pretty darned old even in the fourteenth century…but at the same time…" she removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "if this book really did contain the instructions to create the Philosopher's Stone, then why was it kept secret all those years? And what's more, why else do you think that they say that searching for the Philosopher's Stone is the devil's errand? A lost cause, impossible…It must have to do with the curse in the beginning of the book. I don't think you're a scribe or a priest, Edward."

They all paused in thought.

" 'Legend of the Stone: the biography of Nicolas Flamel…'?" Lark fitted her self with a flat expression, feeling cheated. "Flamel….? Isn't that the name of that symbol they wear, too?" She closed the book containing the check-out records and tapped her lip with her index finger…"Flamel…flamel…"

Daniel made a bewildered sort of face as Lark passed him behind the desk. "Uh, did that help at all?" he asked.

"Yeah, I guess…Of course, I don't really know what I was hoping to find anyway." She stopped at the end of the counter and twisted around to face Daniel. "Danny, can you help me?"

"I'll try…I've only been in here for a few hours though." He confessed.

"Help me find a bible…" she requested.

The boy ran a hand through his hair and arched one eyebrow. "A bible?"

"Yeah, you see…" Lark began, her back to Daniel, searching for the right section. "There's a passage in Exodus that talks about Moses holding up a snake on a flagstaff for the Israelites to be cured of snakebites…Then, in John, Jesus compares himself to that very same thing…the snake on the flagstaff, but of course, we all know that Jesus was crucified. That makes it a cross, not a flagstaff…Do you get where I'm going with this?"

Daniel shook his head, confusedly. "I have no idea what you just said."

Lark rolled her eyes. "I think that the flamel, I mean the symbol now, not the person…since apparently there was a person too…has something to do with salvation…or hope, something tangible that you can see that gives you strength, you know? That's why Jesus compared himself to the snake on the flagstaff. His crucifixion served as a visual example of his sacrifice and the forgiveness of sins…" Lark picked up a book with an, "Ah-ha!" and flipped through it. "I knew there had to be a bible in an alchemic library…" She looked up at Daniel. "Oh, and did you know that during the War of the Henrys, German soldiers carried coins depicting the flamel to help cure them of the bubonic plague?" Her eyes lit up. "OH-HO! In your FACE Mom! Knowledge of warfare IS useful! Even in alchemy!"

Again, he could only shake his head. "Are you gonna be okay?"

Lark waved him away, as if he were an annoying insect. "Yes, yes, all I'm saying is that I think I know why they wear that symbol…Since they're looking for the Philosopher's Stone, which, by the way, we don't even know EXISTS, they need something visual as a pick-me-up, ya know? Just like the soldiers used it superstitiously to ward off disease…"

Deciding his brain hurt, Daniel shifted his uniform coat and bit at his bottom lip. "So…uh, is that all you needed then?"

She looked up, Bible in hand. "Huh? Oh, yea, you can go now."