Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot!
Her mind had been wiped clean, the only memories she had were of the last ten minutes. She had no idea who she was, she had no idea where she was and she had no idea how she got there. All she knew was that she was terribly injured and could barely move.
"Everybody, we're moving now! Pack your things!" A loud yell came from outside. A man marched into the tent soon after. He had a skinny face covered in old scars on one side and he looked very angry.
"What's going on?" Sabrina immediately got up and asked.
"The bloody military, they've got a whole ton of people combing the area; we need to move out before they find us!" His gaze fixed onto her. "This is probably all her fault, I told you she's connected to them! The military is after her!" The man barked.
Sabrina spoke back "Listen Josei, this woman is suffering from amnesia, she can't recall any details of her life, she can't move and we have no proof that they are after her. If we're leaving I'm taking her to continue treatment, we can't just leave her here for the military to find. Who knows what they would do to her, you know they have evil intentions and I'm not willing to sacrifice any more lives under my watch."
"Why do you care so much for this Amestrian? You do realize she is of the people that tried to exterminate us many years ago. How do we know she's even telling the truth?"
"The look on her face is enough. She is completely lost, we should do everything we can to help her," Sabrina walked over to her bedside and looked her straight in the eye, the caring nurse facade completely gone, "you are not lying to me, right? The military has no reason to be after you, right?"
"It's true, I really can't remember anything. I don't want to be taken by the military; I really don't think I have anything to do with them. Just please, let me stay with you for a bit longer, I have nowhere else to go." Riza realized that she was completely lost, as of now these people were her only acquaintances, if they left her she didn't know what she would have done. Being taken by the military sounded like the last thing she wanted to happen to her. These people were nice enough to treat her, they couldn't be bad people.
"Alright," Sabrina walked back over to the man. "We're going to have to load her onto one of the carts to get her to the new campsite."
The man looked angry as ever, "Are you serious? We need that storage space for our supplies. We don't have room to house a person in place of them; we only have three carts to carry things in the first place."
"Listen, we're going to make room. Stop wasting time and gather the rest of the people, I'll take care of this woman so you don't need to worry about her. You can pretend we left her here, alright?"
Instead of responding he stormed angrily out of the tent.
Sabrina lowered herself back down next to her bedside. "I'm sorry about that, that's Josei. He's sort of the unofficial ruler of our little encampment. He can boss around anyone here except me."
Riza thought that was a bit strange, "Is he an older relative of yours?" she asked. He didn't look old enough to be a grandfather, but perhaps an uncle or a father. It was the only reason she could think of that he couldn't tell her what to do.
"Actually, he's my husband." Sabrina paid no attention to Riza's eyes widening for a split second in shock and added "Before you ask, we married when I was 16 and he was 35, it was not my decision."
"I see. I'm..." Riza wasn't sure how to respond.
"I'm sorry, that might have been too much information. Forget I said anything. I'm going to get some of the villagers to help me load you onto the cart so we can leave, just hang in there alright." With that she breezed out of the tent.
Riza had felt quite embarrassed and helpless being lifted out of the tent and onto the cart by four strangers. Nevertheless the moment had passed and now she watched the trees go by as they ventured deeper and deeper into the lush grasslands.
"Excuse me, Miss Blonde?" A small voice squeaked at her side.
"Amerie! How did you get up here? Shouldn't you be behind with your grandmother? You're not supposed to be up here!" Sabrina said, scaring Riza slightly as she hadn't realized when she had gotten on the cart with her.
"Nana is fine by herself. You promised you would tell me when she woke up so I could talk to her!"
"She is in no condition to talk right now, please don't bother her."
"Hey! I saw you talking to her perfectly fine earlier. At least tell me her name so I can stop calling her Miss Blonde."
"Listen, this woman is suffering from something called amnesia. She can't remember any details of her past, including her name."
The girl turned to Riza and stared at her for a moment. "Is that true Miss? You can't even remember your name?"
"I can't remember anything." Riza finally spoke to the girl.
The girl looked to be no older than ten years; she had bright red eyes and white hair that stopped right below her ears. She wore a white dress and faint scars were visible on her arms and legs.
"In that case, I'll help you remember! I'll just list off a bunch of names and you tell me which one you'd like me to call you!"
"Amerie stop badgering the poor lady and let her rest." Sabrina chided.
Outright ignoring Sabrina, she just continued "Margaret, Beth, Janice, Elizabeth, Susan..."
"W-wait..." Riza felt something, a memory trying to come back. One of the names resonated within her, she still couldn't remember the connection but she was sure this had to be her name. "Elizabeth. That was my name. I'm sure of it."
"Alright, from now on you are Miss Elizabeth!" Sabrina had given up on trying to end the conversation and decided to just let her be. "Oh, I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is Amerie, I live in this camp with my Nana. I was the one who found you by the cliff last night, it was really scary."
"I'm sorry I scared you." The girl seemed sweet enough. "I'm grateful that you saw me, I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you."
"Don't thank me; it was Sabrina who really saved you. She is such an amazing healer! She even treated my own wounds back when I was a baby; she probably saved my life as well. In fact, most of the villagers were saved by her." She held out her arms for her to get a closer look. "When I was a baby my arms and leg were caught in flames, they would've hit my entire body if my parents hadn't saved me..." The cheerful girl suddenly looked very sad. "Unfortunately, they didn't survive, my Nana was the one who was able to get me out and raise me since then."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to bring up memories like that." Riza felt awful, of course she wasn't even sure who her parents were and f they were alive or not, but she felt like she connected with the girl on some levels.
"It's alright! I was just a baby, I can hardly remember them. Plus, my Nana told me a whole bunch about them so it feels like they never left!"
A lot of people would benefit from this girl's optimism, Riza thought.
Amerie continued. "Sabrina had to deal with a lot of burns after the flames attacked us."
"What? The flames attacked you?" Riza questioned.
Sabrina finally spoke up again. "That's one way to put it. Almost ten years ago the Amestrian military had a goal to exterminate our entire race. All of those who travel with this camp are from a town on the outskirts of our old homeland. When the war started we didn't even know about the extermination until it was too late, we thought we could escape before they reached us but one day our entire town went up in flames. It seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. Many were simply burned on the spot, only about 100 of us were lucky to have not been caught in the brunt of the fire."
"That... why did they want to exterminate you in the first place?" Riza was astounded by the story. It was a true living nightmare.
"We had been at war for several years; I guess they just decided to end it once and for all when they called in the state alchemists. We never did anything wrong, we had never been involved we were completely innocent. The one who burned down out town and many others was known as the flame alchemist. Just saying those words brings my blood to a boil."
Alchemy. Alchemists. She remembered this art, in which you manipulate and alter matter using natural energy. "You're saying this alchemist could control flames? He set you're town aflame in one instant?" That was hard to believe, how could one person control something so devastatingly powerful?
"Josei is the only one who has seen him face to face so I can't tell you for sure, but we know he was responsible for many of the deaths during the extermination. Our town was not the only one that was burned to the ground by the likes of him."
"I'm really sorry about what happened to you guys. I really can't imagine how much you suffered." Riza didn't know what to feel, heartache for all the ones they lose, or anger towards the military for committing these sins.
Sabrina's anger slightly subsided. "Now you know why we absolutely hate the Amestrian military. Recently they have come back trying to rebuild what they destroyed, but we're not going to fall for that trick. We know their true intentions and we will never allow them to march back into our homeland and try to tell us to forgive them for everything they did. Nothing is going to be enough to ever forgive them. They are all monsters."
Riza couldn't agree more. With everything she had heard she was certain on where she stood. The military could not be trusted.
They were all monsters.
