Almost Home

Once, so long ago, before the Dwarf in the Flask cursed him, Hohenheim had a home. He may have started his life out as number 23, but Xerxes had still been home. His master had, for the most part, been a fair man – it hadn't been unusual to hear of slaves killed for learning to read and write. Master had taken him as an apprentice instead.

Hohenheim had taken to learning like a fish to water. It didn't matter if the subject was literature, alchemy, or calculus – he devoured it all.

And he'd thought of the Dwarf in the Flask as his brother.

What a blind fool he'd been.

Xing had almost felt like home, but Hohenheim didn't dare return there. Not after he'd become immortalized as the Western Sage. The stories – and even accurate icons – still permeated Xingese culture 400 years later.

No, Xing could never be home, even though it had been a respite after Xerxes.

But Resembool . . . Resembool had felt more like home than Xing ever had.

Always before, when he'd stop in a town for more than a month, the people there would ignore him. It didn't help that he always spooked the animals. Oh, the people would take his money, and ask how his day was, but no one ever bought him a drink or invited him to join a card game.

Not until Resembool, when a petite firecracker named Pinako pushed past the chills that his presence seemed to generate and broke through the walls he'd erected.

He'd stayed in Resembool far too long. He'd grown complacent, because, for some reason, the souls inside him quieted in Resembool.

Perhaps it had been the simplicity of life in a small country village, or the pastoral scenery surrounding them. Whatever the cause, Resembool was the balm to every soul within him, but especially his own.

So much so, that Hohenheim had actually forgotten – for one blessed evening – the horror he carried inside him.

I'm going to marry Mr. Van when I grow up.

Those were the words that had re-awoken the one soul whose vices and pleasures Hohenheim would never – could never – indulge.

The man who'd liked to play with little girls.

Trisha – precious, innocent Trisha – was suddenly the star of the most horrific fantasies Hohenheim had ever heard.

That was why, in the dark hours before dawn, Hohenheim packed his bags and snuck out of Pinako's home.

The half a million souls inside him were no longer silent, either, and he was ever so grateful that they'd all come to the defense of little Trisha. But he couldn't stay in Resembool any longer.

He wanted to remember Resembool as his place of peace.

He would post a letter to Pinako at the next train station. It would not do to abandon his only friend without a farewell.