"Why don't we talk a little about ourselves." A pale little girl with gauze wrapped around her eyes asked. The young man who looked more like a girl with long green hair looks at her startled.
"Why would you want to do that?" he snapped regaining his composure.
The girl shrugged, "Why not? It passes the time."
"You know that with your powers you can find out these things on your own."
"But where's the fun in that?"
He rolled his eyes and put his hands on his hips, "All I'm here for is names of alchemists to make the stone."
"Then an exchange. You tell me something about yourself and I'll give you a name."
"Okay, what do you want to know?"
The little girl thought about it for awhile, "What's your natural hair color?"
"Red."
"Liar."
"It's close enough."
"If you're color blind!"
"Just give me a name!" he snapped and the little girl giggled.
"The most powerful alchemist in the world would be a good person to try."
"I hate you." He growled.
"You know I'm telling the truth…unlike you." She retorted and laughed. "Let's try again. I ask a question and you give me an answer... this time an honest one."
"Fine what do you want to know?"
"Does the carpet match the drapes?"
"Of course."
"Lovely!" the girl exclaimed in delight. "Now for your answer…"
Sheska woke with a gasp, her face crimson. She glanced around the camp area. The flickering fire, the warm gray sand and trees surrounding her and found Envy missing.
She felt a moments panic, remembering the last time the homunculi left her alone. Alert, breaths coming in silent gasps, Sheska listens for indications once again she's been found. There are only the sounds of crickets and the crackling fire.
Assured she's alone and under no immediate threat, Sheska turns her attention towards analyzing her latest vision. The girl was obviously a young Nicollete and was talking to Envy, so it must have happened in the past. They had recently met, if the bandages were any indication.
But what was the importance of this occasion? Why was I shown this? Sheska wondered. Could it be the mention of a stone? A remark about the person Envy is taking me to? Or…
Sheska's cheeks turned pink, "Why did she ask that question?"
"Another vision?"
She let out a loud scream and Envy, arms loaded with sticks and firewood merely rolled his eyes. He dumped the kindling across from Sheska as she sputtered and finally started forming words.
"Yeesh! You almost gave me a heart attack!"
"Would solve a great many of things if I actually succeeded." He responded with a wry grin. "Head ok?"
"It's fine." She said and added positively, "In fact, it doesn't hurt at all."
"Mine does. You have quite a loud voice."
"You startled me!"
"I don't see how. You are a psychic." Envy countered and Sheska sighed.
"A crappy psychic." She corrected. "I didn't see Lust in time on the train. Was oblivious when I met Gluttony and most times all I seem to see is disjointed past images."
"Sometimes the past can help in the future. What did you see this time?"
"Nicollete as a child chatting with you while she was in the hospital."
"Learn anything?"
"You tend to lie and the carpet matches the drapes."
Envy stared at her briefly, clearly caught off guard by her response and then burst out laughing.
"Of all the…" he cackled.
"The first part was informative." Sheska argued. "And I know you're not a red head."
"No, I'm not." He said with a laugh and Sheska scowled. She clenched her hands into fist beneath the sleeping bag and turned her gaze to the fire. The warm reds and bright yellows dancing over blackened embers made her recall something she'd seen.
"You're blond." She exclaimed. "At the hotel when you were drying your hair, the tips were gold."
"Would you believe me if I said yes?" Envy shrugged, "But as you've found out, I do lie."
"Not this time." Sheska replied with confidence. She pointed a finger at him and proclaimed. "You're a natural blond."
"Congratulations, Miss Homely psychic. But there was something a tad more important in that conversation than my hair."
Sheska thought back to the vision. He was there for names of alchemists. A stone that the most powerful alchemist in the world could make…why does that sound familiar? A Stone…
"The Philosopher Stone! You wanted her to help you find someone to make it." Sheska exclaimed and Envy clapped. Her mind began to race.
"Ohmy.. Ed's report about Lab 5..but if you wanted to be human why wait almost four hundred years? There were rumors of other…your master! You wanted it for her!"
"See? Knowing the past can help in the future."
"She's already powerful and with a Stone she'd be unstoppable. Why if rumors are true you could…" Sheska turned toward Envy, cold dread filling her body. "You said she has knowledge that extends over hundred of years. She hasn't, you know.."
"Been alive that long? Yes, she has." The homunculi said cheerfully. "But on the bright side, she can't actually make the Stone. She knows how, but lacks the power. But with your psychic ability, she could discover where to find those who could create it. Right now, my master has to devise situations like Ishval to have a stone and the alchemist could always back out."
"So the war…all those lives." The ruthlessness of this woman's machinations horrified and stunned Sheska. She couldn't understand how one person, no matter how long lived could ever think of or was willing to do something like this.
"Your kind think us homunculi are soulless and evil? Guess what, we have nothing on humanity." Envy chuckled. "Even without the Master's influence, humans destroy each other. You envy what other people have. Everyone is greedy. Wrath, gluttony, lust… get what I'm saying?"
"Homunculi are named after sins but humanity is the ones who truly embody them." Sheska replied. "It's your master's idea of a joke, right?"
"Pretty funny, huh?"
"No." She argued. "And not everyone is like that!"
"Oh?"
"I'm not."
"Sure you are. You're a glutton for knowledge." Envy retorted with a smile adding. "And so is the Master."