The next morning Bernard woke up on the sofa in the living room. He was not sure what time it was, but the sun was already out and was illuminating the room rather nicely. The sofa, at its position a few feet in front of the large windows by the patio, blocked the sunlight from waking up Bernard but he could obviously see how much light filled the room. Bernard pressed his eyes shut and opened them again before blinking few times. He then looked up at the wall on the other side of the room by the fireplace to see that the clock read eleven-thirty. Bernard's eyes popped open in shock. He never slept in that late.
How much of that spiked cider did I drink? He asked himself. God, I don't remember. Or was the alcohol content in it really that strong?
He sighed and sat up on the couch. After he pushed the light blanket he was using off to the side where his feet were, he began to use his hand to comb through his hair. As he straightened out his hair, he looked at the floor in front of him to see a folded-up piece of paper with his name written on it.
She left me a note? Bernard thought.
He picked up the piece of paper and unfolded it. Inside it read in Galicjan and in Dante's handwriting: "Bernard, I'm going to the post office in town and am going to do a few things. I'll probably be back around one. Then, we can assemble the rolly thing for the rosebush."
Bernard sniggered at his mother's choice of using the term "rolly thing" for the apparatus they were going to use to transfer the rosebush from indoors to outdoors. He then looked back at the clock and decided that he had enough time to grab some breakfast and do a little bit of snooping. He continued to have this tic in his brain bringing his curiosity back to the question of whether or not Dante kept anything around in reference to Hoenheim.
After he went to the refrigerator and had a peach with a slice of bread, he walked out the kitchen's exit leading to the same hallway which contained the staircase. If he turned to his lift, he would end up approaching the staircase and then continuing to the living room. However, if he turned to his right, he would continue down the hall where there were three rooms: a bedroom on the left, a large, almost spa-like bathroom in the center, and another bedroom-sized room on the right. Bernard ventured to this end of the hallway to find himself standing in front of the bathroom and between the two other rooms. He knew from the other times that he visited his mother that she used the room on the left as a bedroom and used the room on the right as her mini-laboratory. Whatever was in the right-side room most likely consisted of similar materials that Dante kept in the basement during Bernard's childhood years.
Bernard glanced over to the right-hand room. Obviously, the door to the bathroom was wide open and at the same time, the door to Dante's bedroom was ajar just a tad. But the third door was definitely shut. Curiously, Bernard decided to see if he could open the door. He highly doubted that it would be unlocked. If Dante ever left it unlocked at all, she definitely would not do so knowing that Bernard was alone in her house.
However, the circumstances posed quite the opposite. To his great surprise, he was able to twist the doorknob and open the door. With shocked eyes, Bernard slowly opened the door to his mother's lab and stepped inside.
Granted, he had only been inside his mother's lab once and that one time occurred nearly two hundred years ago. However, from the bits and pieces of memory from the day he and Damia used the red stone, Bernard could recall enough of the general set-up of the basement in Xerxes. The room she was using at the present time held the same general set-up of the basement. The best way to describe it was a controlled, scattered chaos. The room was not messy, but it appeared to be a bit random. For instance, an entire desk was occupied with about ten different stacks of notebooks, with every stack standing what appeared to be a foot tall. Meanwhile, there were chairs with various books plopped on them along with flasks of all shapes and sizes in different areas of the room. Some were on shelves, some were on tables, and there was even one sticking out of a desk drawer. This was no surprise to Bernard. His mother always did have an odd sense of organization.
The least cluttered area of the room was a long table situated against the right-side wall. Bernard saw that on this table were two boxes, a large crate and a small, professional-looking polished wooden pen-set box. Also on this table were five corked test tubes, each of them containing some type of fluid.
Bernard decided to approach this table. He walked over and bent over to look at the test tubes. Every one of them were filled to the five milliliter mark. After observing the liquids, Bernard's face twisted and he felt a slight turning feeling in his stomach. He swore that one of the test tubes contained urine and that another one contained diluted blood. As he moved along the table, he decided to open the sleek wooden box. Upon seeing five syringes neatly arranged in the box's finely-carved pen slots, Bernard immediately shut the box and stared ahead of him at the wall for a few moments.
Bernard sighed and looked to his right. The last item on the table was the wooden crate.
Do I want to look inside that? He asked himself as he inched closer to the crate.
He decided that he would peek inside since he already saw enough eerie or disgusting items on Dante's table. Almost as if playing a game of "choose the box that won't have a laughing clown spring up in your face", Bernard gingerly lifted up the crate's lid and peered inside. He quickly moved his head away from the crate and shut the lid upon seeing that the foot-tall item was about two-thirds filled with various bones.
"I rest my case," he said. "I shouldn't have looked in there." He looked around the room he was standing in and uncomfortably raised an eyebrow. "I shouldn't have even gone in here. I just don't have the stomach for whatever she's doing in here."
Like that, Bernard added silently to himself when his gaze once again caught the test tube with the yellowish-colored liquid.
Bernard exited the room and shut the door behind him. At least now it made sense to him why Dante would leave her mini-laboratory unlocked. For starters, she learned two centuries ago not to leave anything too important lying around. There was no chance that she would make the same mistake twice after her red stone got used without her consent. And then, Dante knew her son too well. She knew that Bernard would most likely decide to cease snooping in her scientific things if he found bones and oddly-filled test tubes. And, of course, her hypothesis was spot-on.
However, Bernard's plans to snoop around were not thwarted by his experience in the lab. Instead, it brought him to take a look upstairs and after, if he had time, to revisit the cedar desk in the living room. After about forty-five minutes, he decided that he should stop looking around. It was five minutes before one o'clock and Dante should be returning home at any time.
Bernard fixed himself a sandwich and ate it in the kitchen. As he ate, he thought about what he had encountered over the past hour. Surprisingly, there was not much of anything odd or unusual in either of the upstairs rooms. The room with all of the plants contained nothing besides plants, a few ceramic pots, a jug of water, and some potting soil. The other upstairs room was relatively empty. It seemed to Bernard that Dante hardly ever used the room, or if she did, that she used it as a storage room. For instance, all Bernard noticed in there were some old newspapers and magazines along with a map of the continent hanging on the wall.
When he fingered through the newspapers and magazines, the only reoccurring theme was that all of the magazines were old editions of "Saabenz Enthusiast". The newspapers were completely random and none of them were older than ten years old. However, Bernard hardly had the time to look through all of them, as she had about eight stacks of newspapers situated along the wall. The only thing he noticed in particular was that Dante occasionally would circle a story listed in the paper. But there was no unusual pattern in regard to what stories or what type of stories she circled. Most choices made perfect sense, such as the circling of the headlines "Tension Still High in Northeast Amestris" and "Galicjan Ruler Tsar Dmitri Lebedev Claims Invasion is Not Necessary". There was also a non-political circled headline from three and a half years ago that Bernard saw which concerned Damia: "State Alchemist Detects Flaw in Imported Stress-Relief Medication". So, in general, Dante's choices in circled news stories were either in relation to either Amestrian-Galicjan affairs or to a few instances where Damia was mentioned in the paper.
All of the other marked stories were at random, but with no connection to each other. They could be anything from "New Pet Store Opening on Coleman Avenue" to "Neu Landen Teen Charged with Arson". Any other markings on the newspapers were nothing but either solved puzzles or attempted puzzles with frustrated phrases like "You've got to be kidding me", "I hate who made this puzzle", or "That's low – you're an ass" written next to them.
Nothing unusual. And in the cedar desk downstairs? Besides some remaining remnants of Damia and Bernard that somehow survived two hundred years, all that occupied the desk were pens, pencils, rulers, protractors, and unfilled notebooks. It contained nothing that would not be expected in a desk besides what Dante was able to keep of her son and daughter …
… remnants of her son and daughter, but nothing, not one item in the entire house in reference to Hoenheim.
It was not necessarily a surprise to Bernard that his mother would have gone on with her life as if Hoenheim never existed. Even though his parents were able to work as a team in regard to their occupations as alchemic healers, the two of them did not seem to get along all too well in a personal manner. Bernard could remember minor spats of yelling occurring at least on a monthly basis during his childhood. The spats never lasted all too long and every time the person yelling was Dante. He and Damia used to joke that if they each had a dollar for every time a word like "stupid", "moron", or "idiot" came out of their mother's mouth in regard to their father that they would be able to buy the Fuhrer out of his position in Amestris.
By the time Bernard finished his sandwich and wiped down the kitchen counter, Dante had returned. She walked into the kitchen to find him and asked him if he was ready to work on the "rolly thing".
"Yeah, all set," he replied.
"Okay. Come with me to the shed," she said. "I assume you know the transmutation circles we'll have to draw in order to connect things."
"Um, yeah …" Bernard said.
I swear sometimes she thinks I'm stupid, He thought. It's probably because I resemble Dad …
"Do you know the circles or not? Why is this hard?"
"I do, Mom, so can we get it done?" Bernard replied.
Why is she so hyped-up? He asked himself.
Without saying another word, Dante brought him outside to the shed, where she already had some materials isolated to the side. She quickly explained what she planned to do and began to draw transmutation circles on the various items in order to be able and bind them together. There was a period of silence as the two of them began assembling the apparatus. Bernard was confused at the current ambiance at hand. It was odd to him how his mother's mood was almost the complete opposite from what it was the previous day. Granted, these type of mood swings were not exactly anything that Dante had not done throughout her entire life, but perhaps Bernard had forgotten the skill or technique of how to respond to them.
"Bernard, are you happy with your life?" Dante asked randomly.
"It's fine," he replied. "It's like anything. Could be better, could be worse."
Dante successfully attached a wheel to the main plank of wood. It took a few tries to get the wheel connected to its axle on the proper angle. She moved to the next one, now having the knowledge of exactly how to perform the task.
"I can finish it," she told him. "You haven't gotten even one wheel yet." She shrugged. "That's okay. I'm not exactly at my best when I have to draw circles, either." She laughed. "It's funny. You or I can perform advanced alchemy without the specialty gloves but nearly gawk at having to go back to the basics. I'd assume Damia avoids drawing these things at all cost."
"No, not at all," Bernard replied. "She'd have this done in no time. But I think all of the State Alchemists have to be able to draw perfect transmutation circles on cue and in stressful situations."
"That's good, I'm glad," Dante said as she finished connecting another wheel. She then added lightheartedly, "But I think I should practice traditional alchemy more before your sister outdoes me, don't you agree?"
What the hell is she talking about? Bernard thought. His mind flashed to a conversation he and Damia had shortly after she joined the military.
"Maybe with the genetics data I receive, I'll be able to find out how to speed the aging process in our cells. Maybe that can make us human," he remembered Damia saying. "But if there is no choice but to fight Mom for the stone … if she made another one … well …"
He remembered how Damia stalled in her speech and sadly looked down at her hands before she softly added, "Electricity … my alchemy … If I could vanish a Homunculus rat when we were at University, then if I must … for our mortality …"
He wanted to change the subject. Like Damia, he did not want to end up in a situation where their chance at mortality would cause them to have to fight their mother. At this point, Bernard would not care if he had to vanish Hoenheim out of necessity, but he would really prefer to be able to reason with Dante as opposed to fighting. Meanwhile, he needed to say something in response to his mother and he had to say it soon.
"Damia's great at anything alchemy but put a gun in her hand and she's like us faring with these circles right now," Bernard said with a bit of a laugh. And his laugh was genuine, for the image o f Damia sticking her tongue out at a pistol completely disintegrated his memory of her near-tears statement implying the vanishment of Dante.
Dante smiled weakly and shook her head. "What am I to say about that …" she said flatly. As she responded to Damia's discomfort toward pistols, she refused to look Bernard in the eye. There was an air of guilt about her as she processed the statement.
"But the military trained her well with a sword," Bernard added with a smirk. "Damia used to be slow but that Olivier Armstrong really whipped her into shape. She's faster than I am now and has been since her initial military training." He laughed. "You know, Mom, if I was a more macho type like those Galicjan boar hunters in the mountains, I'd be running around like a madman trying to outdo Damia's military training. But, I guess if I was like that I would have joined the State too."
Dante got up. She finished assembling the apparatus.
"It's not too late to join the State if you're interested, Bernard," she stated. "But personally, I don't think the role of a State Alchemist suits you."
"No, not here," he quickly agreed. "I –" Without even realizing it, his hand immediately went to feel the nape of his neck. "Not here. Not that uniform."
There was a short pause. Dante took a breath and asked, "Do you think you could wear the Amestrian military uniform as a costume?"
Bernard started to laugh. "What? Okay, I'll dress up as 'Colonel Elric' for Halloween and Damia can dress up as 'Bernard – the guy who works at the deli'."
"I'm not suggesting you play a game with one of Damia's uniforms," Dante said coolly and seriously. "I'm not implying you should join the Amestrian military, either. Like I said, it doesn't suit you." She smiled. "But, perhaps you wouldn't mind doing an internship in my Amestrian military."
"Mom, what are you talking about?" he asked flatly. "Can you just be straight-forward with me? I don't like playing word games."
She sighed. "There's something I would appreciate you doing, if you're able. I would do it myself but I don't particularly have the time nor do I desire to make the time. If you can't do it, it's not a problem. I can manage. It would just make things run much smoother if you did it."
"What is it, then?"
Dante looked Bernard straight in the eye. Her gaze was serious, yet at the same time it was obvious that a part of her reveled in her thoughts regarding what she was about to disclose.
"I'd like you to go to Ishval at the end of December," she said.
"The Sand People!" he exclaimed, taking a step back from his mother. "Mom, that's disgusting! You said you'd go there yourself!? Why!?"
Dante chuckled. "It's okay if you don't want to do it, Bernard," Her voice then continued in a very serious tone, "But, what I'm requesting of you is extremely important. So, I'm going to tell you my request. If you can't do it, say so. If you can, tell me now and if you change your mind, let me know no later than the end of July." She paused. "I want you to put on one of Damia's uniforms and disguise yourself as an Amestrian soldier. Not a State Alchemist, just a regular soldier. It won't look suspicious for you to be in the city just over the boarder because there are some Amestrian troops situated there." She put a finger to her lip and scanned her son's appearance from top to bottom. "You may want to tie your hair back and wear a hat, though. As far as I know, the troops there are from West Central, so they're mostly Amestrians of the Western ethnicity. Not too many blonds over there."
"So, what am I supposed to do over there?" Bernard asked.
An impishly sinister smile formed on Dante's face. "Just kill a few people," she said without much emotion at all. Her statement was very matter-of-fact despite how she obviously adored the concept of killing Ishvalans. "Just kill a few people and leave. No big deal. Just take a pistol and shoot some civilians. Bang, bang, bang, and you're done."
"Does Damia know about this?" he asked.
"She will when my letter reaches her," she replied. "Upcoming conflict in Ishval. That's all I wrote. So, if you're going to do this for me, by all means inform your sister." There was a short pause. "But the question is still posed, Bernard. Are you going to be my ubiytsa or not?"
Ubiytsa … Bernard thought. Assassin … something Mom would do on her own but actually trusts me to do …
Bernard smiled slightly. "It's no problem, Mom. I'll do it," he said. "After all, being an ubiytsa sounds like a subliminal intent of revenge. A simple human emotion. It's just going back to basics."