Chapter Seven
Mabel woke up sore. Where had she fallen asleep? Why was it so dark? Oh, right. She was inside Al. She knocked on the chestplate.
"Sorry I fell asleep. I'm up now. Would you let me down?"
"Um, no."
"No?" Mabel was confused. She sat up to look out through the chink. Al was walking towards the living room of the dorm. So they had gotten back.
"She woke up, Ed."
"Oh, did she?"
For some reason Ed annoyed Mabel right now. Probably his tone. "What is this? If it's a joke then I don't like it."
"Not much. We just wanted to ask questions. So, where were you staying before you came here?"
"Tch." Mabel was annoyed now. "I said I didn't want to tell you. And I don't really know, this is my first time away in years. Or do you mean which wall I was sitting next to?"
"No, really I want to know who was taking care of you."
"I'm not going to say."
"Why not?"
Because."
"We can keep you stuck in there until you tell us."
"So?"
"So just tell us. At least tell us why you won't say."
"I think that you would be enemies. There. Happy now? Dumb shortie
"Don't call me short! Besides, you're just as bad, living with chimeras."
"What?"
"See, I figured it out. Who else would take in a chimera than a chimera?"
Mabel felt like cold water had been dumped over her head. "Then, you think of chimeras as less than human too?"
'Maybe not less, but certainly different-"
"Ed, shut up!" Al said suddenly.
If she had been free, Mabel would have run away. She sat down and leaned her head forward. Her sense of happiness, of acceptance, if not belonging, which had been growing ever since they had let her stay, broke.
There was a long silence.
"May I get down?" Mabel said quietly.
Neither of them said a thing, but they opened the front of Al's armor. Mabel climbed down. She avoided the eyes of both of them, and walked into the kitchen. She sat down behind a counter, in the one place out of sight of them. She felt like crying.
There was another long silence.
Mabel bit her lip. The tension had only been growing thicker. She wanted to leave, but she already knew how that would go, and she didn't have any other childhood friends to happen by. She heard whispering behind her, but she didn't even try to understand what they were saying.
A few minutes later, Al and Ed both came and sat in front of her.
"Mabel, we apologize for what we said. We don't think of you as less than human."
Al ducked his head, and pushed down Ed's as well. "Will you let us explain?"
"Yeah."
"See, in the way that you are different than a human, we are also different."
"How? You aren't chimeras."
"No, but this," Al gestured to his armor. "Is all that I have for a body. I'm not somewhere else controlling it. Even Ed is not quite human in his body."
Ed rolled up one sleeve and one pants leg to reveal metal limbs.
"But see this?" Al pointed to a mark on the inside of his armor. "It's called a blood seal. It's what ties my soul to the armor. My soul is me, more than my body ever will be. No matter what kind of changes happen to your body, your soul is still human. And you have a soul, Ed has a soul, I have a soul. We are all still human, no matter how different."
Mabel thought that she understood. "So then, what you said earlier…"
"I was more talking about the opinions of chimeras that most people have. After all, we took you in too, didn't we?" Ed said.
"Yeah, you did. Then, I'm not less than you?"
"No."
"Then, you can't force me to do things that I don't want to, ok?"
"Ok."
"Then I forgive you."
Mabel got up and hugged Ed tightly. Then she turned and hugged Al too. "I'm-I'm really glad." Then, to even her own surprise, she began to cry. After a minute she sat back and scrubbed at her eyes.
"But, I will tell you some more things. I've been living with Greed-sama. He has a lot of chimeras with him and they all work for him voluntarily because he gives them a home and a share of the profit. I was like a pet there, and I didn't like it, so I ran away. But I'm not going to tell you where they are, or what they're planning to do, because I don't want to betray them."
"But, if they didn't treat you well-" Ed started to say.
"They did treat me well. I just didn't like it. I wasn't a human to them, hardly even a chimera, I was just a cat. Like a loved family pet."
"Oh."
"Can you see now? I want to help you and Al, but I can't betray them."
"Yes, I see."
Mabel stood up. "Al, do you think that you could teach me that first chapter now?"
"Yeah."
"Thank you!"
Mabel went with Al to get the book out of the bedroom and Ed went back to his papers. Mabel tried her best to learn. She didn't want to be a pet again, but that was all she knew how to do. So she would learn to do as many other things as she could.
Unfortunately, she didn't figure out how to transmute water that day. Nor the day after, or the day after. She didn't know what she was doing wrong, and neither did Al. Ed also had bad luck. He didn't find any clues in his papers, and he started to get tense.
Mabel was used to touching people to get their attention, rather than calling their name, mostly as a result of being treated like a pet, and she had been actively trying to rid herself of this habit. But it was a long formed habit, and she still used it often. Because of this habit, she learned that Al had no sense of touch, and he also told her that he was unable to eat or smell or sleep. He could feel vibrations, so it she tapped his armor he could feel it, but if she just laid her hand on it he couldn't. Mabel figured that this must make him lonely. She asked often if she could ride in his armor. Since he could feel vibrations when she moved, she thought that this might make him less lonely. She didn't ask to confirm this assumption, though. She didn't know how to go about it.
Once, only once, she had batted at the end of Ed's braid. But he had spun around so quickly, his face showing just how disconcerted he was, that she had promised herself that she would not do that again.
But after that, she had been hit with a desire to touch his hair again. It had been soft and fluffy, softer than her own hair, though not as soft as her fur. She decided that she would very much like to braid it for him one morning.
She walked into the living room just as he was brushing his hair.
"Can I do that?"
"Huh?"
"I mean, can you braid my hair, and then I'll braid yours back?"
"I-I guess."
Mabel was happy. She had managed a double win! As much as she disliked being treated like she was an animal, she had to admit, she had always like people rubbing her head or brushing her hair. She sat in front of Ed and he brushed her hair and then braided it. She wasn't sure how long his hair had been long enough to braid, but it must have been quite a while, because he braided her hair quickly and it stayed tight. Then she got to brush his hair. She had always wanted to brush someone's long hair, but most of the chimeras had very short hair, and those that had longer hair refused to let her touch it. She braided his hair, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Braiding was one of the few things that she could do. Since her own hair was long she occasionally braided it, so she was able to do it.
"Thanks!" She said when she had finished.
"Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks to you too… I guess."
Mabel could tell from Ed's face that the entire situation was awkward to him. But at least he didn't dislike it. Maybe if she waited a few days, he would let her do it again.
Still, it frustrated her that she couldn't learn the alchemy. Ed tried to help teach her too, but it didn't do any good. They also tried other things instead of water, thinking that that might be the problem, but that didn't do anything either. So finally Mabel agreed to give it up, at least for the time being.
She still wanted to learn something though, but she didn't know what.
And then, Ed's time was up. He hadn't found any of the chimeras, much less caught any of them, and he was being given a different job. It was small, and it was simple, but it wasn't bad. Ed was assigned to fix things that were broken by the crime in the city. Since Al could use alchemy as well, he went along too, and the both of them fixed things. Mabel came too, sometimes walking, and sometimes riding, but she began to feel bad. She had put them to this job, by not helping them find chimeras, and she hadn't helped them in any way yet. Further, she was living in their house and eating their food, and she had no way to pay them back. She didn't even know what to do to start helping. She had helped clean the house the few times that it had been deemed necessary, but that wasn't really worth much.
So I might have to upload these more slowly. I had written ahead quite a bit before posting the first chapter, but at this rate, I'll catch up to myself in no time. Please review! Let me know if I should keep going.
