A/N: There, that's three chapters edited. Yay more me!
Disclaimer: I'm going to bed, night all.
Scott pulled a newspaper out of a trash can as she passed. Although she still had a large chuck left of the money that Mustang gave her, Scott didn't want to use more than she had to (This is coming from the girl who rents the most expensive hotel rooms but hey, whatever.). She glanced at the date and saw it was yesterday's paper. Deciding that it was recent enough, Scott turned to the classifieds. She wanted to find a place she could stay for a little more than just a day with the manger knock at her door wanting to know where her parents were. Well one was six feet under and Scott was hunting down the other one like the dog he was, does that answer your question? Apparently it didn't answer the manager's question so she would get kicked out. While scanning through the ads she continued walking. People had to dodge her since she just kept moving in a straight line. A few people swore at her, but Scott wasn't listening.
Room Mate Wanted
Must Have Job-
Nope. Scott thought the moment she read it. She didn't plan on getting a job, the only thing she wanted to do was become a State Alchemist. And that was to simply find her father. After that…well Scott hadn't planned quiet that far ahead just yet.
Roommate Wanted
Must like kids-
Hell no! Scott scowled at the idea. The majority of small children bugged the heck out of her. She didn't want to have to listen to them whine and scream all the damn time.
Housemate Wanted
At 2907 W. Ore
That ad made Scott stop walking. Horns from cars blared at her, since she was standing in the middle of the street, but she ignored them. She thought it was odd that there was nothing else in the advertisement. In fact, it sounded kind of suspicious. They could secretly be demon worshipers who are looking for sacrifices…Might as well check it out. Scott threw away the paper over her shoulder, (Which hit a poor old lady right in the face.) but not before tearing out the ad, and made her way to the address. She passed through what seemed to be the more industrialized part of the city, to the more suburban part. There were pretty houses of all different colors and designs. It was so much different than the village Scott grew up in where basically everything was the same. Everyone went to the same school. They ate the same kind of food. And listened to the same kinds of radio programs. And wore the same kinds of clothes. But here, heck in every city Scott had been to so far, everyone was different. It was rare to see anyone who looked like a mirror image of another. Scott was beginning to like cities more and more. She didn't even mind how unclean the air smelled or anything like that which the locals complained about. Scott walked for nearly two hours before she reached her destination.
Before Scott was an old, three story house. There was a porch that went all the way around the house and was painted a dark green. The house was brown with dark green trimming. There were lots of windows and there were beautiful multi-colored flowers in hanging pots in the front. A trail made of red-brown bricks lead from the sidewalk to the front steps. The front yard had one large maple tree that was to the right if you were facing the house. There was a tire swing hanging on one of the branches and a tree house with a rope ladder. The lawn was a forest green, soft to the touch. When Scott looked upward she saw that the house also had a balcony. It was practically perfect.
"Gag." Scott muttered dryly. "The only thing that's missing is an overly perfect family-. " Her grumbling was interrupted by the screaming of a young woman who fell out of the tree. Scott ran up to her. "Damn, are you okay?" Scott asked. The lady didn't answer for a minute. Then her eyes snapped open revealing brown-gold colored orbs framed by orchid glasses. She looked at Scott and grinned sheepishly.
"Yeah, I'll live." She said with a groan. She sat up and slipped a lock of unruly, curly, light brown hair. The front door swung open inwards as an old woman came running outside.
"Rai, what on earth were you doing up there?" the old woman asked.
"Sleeping, I guess…" Rai frowned a bit, as if she wasn't quite sure. The old woman glared in annoyance, her eyes the same color as Rai's. "Chill out, Grams, I'm fine." Rai stood up shakily then eyed Scott. "No offense, but who are you?" Rai inquired.
"Scott Monroe, uh, I read the advertisement." Scott showed them the paper.
"Oh, of course. Come on in." Grams readjusted her gray hair into a less disheveled bun as the three women walked into the house. They entered the hall which leads to the living room. The entry hall walls were painted a sea green and the floor was a cherry wood. There was a rectangular throw rug that was in the center of the entry hall. It was black with little green dragons all over it. There was a medium sized oval mirror on the right wall with a black end table standing underneath it. On top of the table was a small green glass bowl filled with keys and random things like pennies, pens, and a few sticks of gum. Also there was a candle black stick that held three candles. The candle in the middle was black and the other two were green. Turning right they entered the living room.
The living room décor consisted mainly brown and green, like the outside of the house. The walls were painted the same sea green as the walls in the entry hall. The one big window which showed a view of the front yard, had auburn curtains with forest green lace at the bottom. There was a myrtle-colored cushioned bench under the window. In the right hand corner was a brown lamp with a green lamp shade over it. Against the wall on the right side of the room adjacent from the window was a brown leather coach with shamrock green throw pillows and the same color afghan covered the back. Across the room from the couch was a china cabinet made of a rich, dark colored wood. There was a small coffee table in front of the couch that appeared to be made out of the same wood as the china cabinet. "There are three bathrooms, one for each floor. Four bedrooms on the second floor and three bedrooms on the third. The room you would be staying in is on the second floor. Down here on the first floor is the library/study, the kitchen, the living room and the hall. In the basement are the game room, as well as the washer and dryer." Grams told Scott. Scott was curious as to why she didn't say anything about a dining room, but say anything about it.
"Cool, so how much is the rent?" Scott asked, looking around.
"Well, it's $250 a month. That is, unless you're a student, then there's no rent." Grams said. Scott scowled.
"I'm going to take the State Alchemist exam, so I guess I'm a student. I'll only need a room until after that…you guys aren't like, crazy cannibals or anything are you?" Scott was suspicious, these people were a bit odd…well maybe more than a bit. Rai laughed, and then grinned wolfishly.
"I think I'll like it here."
Scott was blissfully asleep. Her breath was calm and even. She slept diagonally across the bed and a strange (slightly evil) smile graced her features. Her room was dark, the curtain closed, blocking out the hateful sun. It seemed like nothing could disrupt this scene.
That nothing's name was Rai.
Scott awoke to her bedroom door slamming open and a blur zooming past her bed. Said blur then jerked the curtains open, causing the room to be flooded in light. Scott opened her eyes just to feel her retinas burn. With a snake-like hiss she tumbled out of the bed and on to the floor, cloaking herself with her blankets.
"IT BURNS US!!" Scott exclaimed, sounding like Sméagol from Lord of the Rings. Rai knelt down next to the pile of blankets.
"Aw, come on, it's just sun light." Rai chirped.
"Be gone you vile merchant of the blinding light!" Scott hissed. For a second neither of them was sure if she was referring to the sun; or the Rai. Then there was the sound of a couple of people walking to the room. A girl with hair the color of gold peeked into the room. Her eyes narrowed at Rai.
"For goodness sake's Rai, just because you wake up at the crack of dawn doesn't mean you can wake up everyone else as well." The little girl said. She couldn't have been more than ten years old. A boy with silver hair walked past her into the room. He appeared to be the girl's twin. They both had one brown eye and one blue eye.
"Oh, hi Emily, and hello Erin." Rai grinned, her goofy grin. Erin eyed her with much distaste, his short hair sticking out in places.
"Did you even go to sleep last night?" Rai frowned, and then cocked her head to one side in thought.
"I'm not entirely sure…" She replied. Erin rolled his eyes, and then walked over to the window, closing the curtains. Scott emerged from the blankets and stood up.
"…Thanks." She grumbled. They heard a voice from down stairs.
"Breakfast is ready everyone!" Grams shouted. Before anyone else could move, Rai the Blur whizzed past and out of the room.
"Awesome, blueberry pancakes!" They heard Rai downstairs. Scott turned to the children.
"Is she always this obnoxious?" Scott asked. Emily sighed sadly.
"Pretty much, sometimes she slows down, but normally…" Emily told her, dropping off the end of the sentence as she walked away. Erin shortly followed suit.
After Scott had donned her grey trench coat, a black shirt and unwashed jeans, she joined the others downstairs. At the dining table-which Scott knew she wasn't there the last time she entered the living room-sat Rai, the twins, Grams, and two others Scott hadn't met yet. The first one Scott didn't recognize was a man in his late twenties or early thirties. He had short, dark brown hair and icy blue eyes. This man pushed up his silver glasses as he continued to read an ancient looking book. The other person was an old man with white hair and the same blue eyes, only pale looking. He was staring right at Scott, which caused her to see that his eyes didn't shine like other peoples. He was blind.
"Good morning, Scott." Grams said as she entered from the kitchen.
"'morning…" Scott mumbled as she sat down. The old man frowned.
"You sound like a girl. Yet Scott's a boy's name." he said. Scott glared at him.
"Oh hush, Gramps." Said the young man.
"You hush, Samuel." Gramps bopped him upside the head. He had good aim for a blind man.
"You both hush, no arguing." Grams scolded. After that they all ate in silence.
If I had to summarize this household using just one word, it'd have to be…peculiar. Scott told herself.
Scott stared off to space in sheer boredom. At the moment she was in the tree house. It literally looked like a little house up in a tree. It had a porch which was painted random colors, like someone had a little too much fun in a paintball gun fight. The trap door in the porch floor is where the rope ladder was connected to. There was a small white door that leads from the porch to the actual inside of the tree house, which was also a multitude of colors inside and out. The roof of the tree house had real black shingles. There were three windows on the tree house, one on each side not including the back. The sills were painted white for some reason or another they had escaped whoever had painted the rest of the tree house. Inside the tree house was a small patchwork looking couch, made up of different colors and designs. There was also a little wooden table with four wooden chairs. There were drawings, photos, and what appeared to be essays pined to the walls. A calendar also was stuck to one of the walls. There were four crates sitting on the floor, pushed up against the wall. Scott didn't know the contents of the crates simply because she just hadn't bothered to search through them yet.
Right now she was flopped on the couch and reading an alchemy book she had borrowed from the local library no more than three blocks away from the house. Outside Scott could hear the birds chirping, the wind whistling through the trees, cars driving past on the road, and even a dog barking in the distance. She glanced out one of the widows to see a squirrel dart across a telephone wire, and thought vaguely maybe the reason squirrels are so hyper and jumpy was because they're always walking on wires and getting zapped with hundreds of volts of electricity. But she quickly dismissed this, knowing that it didn't make any real logical sense. She kept staring out side, watching the clouds go by, and waving back to Rai on one of the tree limbs-
Wait, hold on a second.
"Rai, what are you doing?" Scott asked. Rai gave her a silly little grin that lit up her whole face. Rai was hanging upside down on one of the higher tree limbs, her glasses missing and her hair falling down around her heart shaped face.
"Hanging." Rai replied. Scott had the strangest feeling that, even if she got to know this girl a whole lot more; she still wouldn't understand her most of the time.
"Why?" Scott asked. Rai paused a moment, as if she didn't know the answer herself. Her eyes sparkled when she came up with an answer.
"Because I can." Rai said brightly. Scott frowned at the girl.
Is she always this strange? Scott wondered.
"Yes I am." Rai told her. Scott jumped, giving Rai an 'Oh my God you're a demon' look. "Oh, I just guess by your facial expression and by your body language that you were wondering about if I am always this strange. And the answer is 'yes I am.'." Rai explained.
"You could tell that by all of that?" Scott asked, then paused, not sure if that sentence had made any real sense.
"Yeah. I want to be a criminal profiler for the military when I'm older." Rai said, as if that explained everything.
"Wow, that's…interesting." Scott said. She tried to go back to reading, but Rai jumped in through the open window and sat in one of the chairs.
"So what about you?" Rai asked her. Scott sighed, and then shut her book. She figured that if she didn't humor this girl, that she'd just keep annoying her until Rai got what she wanted.
"I'm going to become a State Alchemist after I pass the exam and then I will hunt down my biological father, who is already a State Alchemist, and kick him so hard in the nuts that he may never have children ever again." After saying all of this, Scott glared at Rai, as if challenging her to say something against it. Rai's goofy smile, slipped into a thoughtful frown. Her head tilted downward a bit and she stared at Scott. She placed her thumb between her teeth, not necessarily biting it, just holding it there.
"Hum, so your biological father abandoned you when you were a small child. Your mother died a while ago and you were forced to live in an environment which would be considered mentally, if not also physically, unhealthy. So now, after finding a way out of said environment, you seek to vent all of your problems in your life, which you blame your biological father for, by somehow causing him to pay for it all." Rai summarized things that Scott didn't voice allowed. Scott gawked at her. Rai lifted her head and looked at Scott with a slightly friendlier expression. Her thumb left her mouth and hid in her pants' pocket. "Ah, was I right?" Rai asked, even though she knew the answer already.
"…You're a freak." Scott told her after a long silence. The two of them shared a laugh, and collapsed into a fit of giggles.
"Yeah, yeah. I know." Rai told her. "Samuel's been telling me that for over three years now." Rai shrugged. Scott looked at her curiously.
"How are all of you related?" Scott asked. Rai's expression instantly darkened. Her gaze fell to the floor and her whole body slouched more than usual.
"We're not." She said. "Grams and Gramps are married and Samuel's their kid. Erin and Emily were adopted by them when they were a year old. I'm not actually related to any of them, I'm just a boarder like you." Rai explained. This simply confused Scott even more.
"But you and Grams-." Rai cut her off by shaking her head.
"Nah, we may look like we're related but that's just coincidence." Rai said. "Samuel's like a big brother to me, and Grams and Gramps act like they really are my grandparents so I guess that in that way we're a family." Rai told Scott. There was an awkward silence for a bit. Then Scott got a devilish thought.
"Well, it's a good thing that you're not related to Samuel." Scott told the girl. Rai tilted her head to side curiously. "After all, incest is bad-." She didn't even get to finish saying the last word because Rai tackled her and covered her mouth.
"S-shut up, Scott!" Rai voice went up several octaves and her face was covered in a deep red blush.
"Aw, you really do have a crush on him, don't you?" Scott teased. She leapt off the couch and ran for the door. Rai chased after her.
"Hey! I said shut up!" Rai shouted following Scott out on to the porch. Right when Scott got to the railing, she side stepped. Rai, not really paying attention to where she was going, went toppling over the edge. Scott freaked out, she didn't think Rai would be dumb enough to fall off the porch.
"Oh my God, are you still alive?" Scott yelled down, leaning over the railing to see if she could find Rai.
Rai wasn't on the ground. "Where in the-." Scott almost asked.
"Yoo-hoo, up here!" Scott looked and saw Rai sitting on top of the roof of the tree house.
"How is the hell-." Scott nearly asked, and then decided she just didn't want to know. Rai was some kind of monkey ninja or something, and Scott would just leave it at that.
A/N: I wish I was a monkey ninja!