A/N: Sorry this chapter is largely academic (and most of the information came from Wikipedia to boot.) It is one of the problems Roy's been having with the past couple of chapters though, and is the reason he's in Xing to begin with. The other chapters will take him out of the realms of learning alkahestry/teaching alchemy, and into other aspects of Xing.

Of course, he can't just wander around and get into trouble like a couple of Royals in Brotherhood. :)

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Flame and Fullmetal
Chapter 34 – Dragon Pulse

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The first step to Alkahestry turned out to be meditation. That took a while to get the hang of, because a scientist's brain never stopped thinking.

Still, he was an adult and adults had to slow down. Even if he was an adult with less experiences than some others. A major with one war under his belt, and if the stories of Ishbal had been anything to by, he'd hardly seen war at all. He'd been to military academy, at least, so maybe a hardened warrior could pull it off faster (or who knew, it may be a disadvantage to them), but after a few false starts, he found himself slipping into the quiet meditative phase on demand – provided there weren't too many distractions around.

Then came the hard part, trying to feel the Dragon Pulse, the source of Xingenese Alkahestry.

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May Chang was a better teacher than her predecessors, if only because she spoke with the simpleness and frankness of a child. Still, he was patronised even there, because it seemed understanding of the flow of energy in the earth was something every Xingenese person knew from the early days.

'We call it the dragon pulse,' she repeated. She tended to repeat things from the start. 'A long time ago, dragons used to land on our mountains to sleep away the winters, and their energy would flow with the rivers, down the mountains and through the towns and all the way to the springs under the earth where they pooled. So places that lie low have the greatest energy and are the most fertile. So that's why all the farms and stuff are there, and the villages and markets are on higher ground. And then there's the palace which is just a little shorter than the lowest mountain. That's supposed to show its superiority over the rest of Xing, but also its respect to the dragons and the Gods who have given our land and means to us.'

In front of her was a childish drawing she'd rendered in the process of explaining. The mountains were no better than triangles with a character in their centres, and here was where he began to struggle. Simple transmutation circles used simple shapes: circles, triangles and squares and stars with a varying number of points. More complex ones involved other shapes, and sometimes written script as well. But what May was showing him was simple vocabulary. The word for mountain, encased in a triangle meant to symbolise it. And other words: village, inside a square that wore a triangle as its hat, and valley or farm –

He frowned. Which one of those was it again?

'What is it this time?' May asked.

Roy pointed at the character. 'Valley or farm?' he asked.

'Valley,' she replied. 'Farmland is what we've turned it into. Just like villages on the plain, and temples on the mountain tops.'

She'd mentioned the temples before, built to worship the dragons that slumbered, and the Gods they talked about. No-one was sure in this day and age if the dragons had physically spoken of these Gods, or even if these Gods existed. Roy, as a scientist, didn't believe they did. More likely it was people who'd climbed the mountains and had used the dragon somehow.

The Xingenese believed dragons had many properties, after all. Their blood made healing potions, their hearts gave longevity (and apparently, old Emperors of Xing used to eat dragon hearts. Though anyone who murdered a dragon was an enemy of Xing, breaking their flow of energy into the earth).

Roy copied the symbols onto rice paper and May's explanation as well. He was getting better at recognising, but writing them off the top of his head would take a little more time. Meanwhile, May drew a new symbol. 'This is the dragon pulse,' she explained.

Roy gaped at it. He had seen that symbol on Scar's arm.

'What?' May asked.

Roy shook his head. 'Thought it looked familiar,' he lied. 'Kind of like the ouroboros. My commanding officer wears the symbol on his coat.'

May didn't seem to believe him, but she let it go in lieu of a more interesting topic. 'What's your commanding officer like?'

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It turned out that alkahestry circles were based off the pentagram instead of the hexagram…and it would have really helped matters if someone had corrected him in that before. 'The basic circle includes a balance of each of the five elements,' May continued, drawing symbols at the tip of each point in the pentragram. 'Huo – fire, Tu – earth, Jin – metal, Shui – water, and Mu – wood.' Then she drew arrows connecting them: fire to earth, earth to metal, metal to water, water to wood and wood to fire. And then another set of arrows: water to fire, fire to metal, metal to wood, wood to earth and earth to water. 'Generation and destruction,' May explained. 'The first set of arrows show the direction of the creation of energy, while the second set show its usage.'

'Destruction and reconstruction,' nodded Roy, except May had drawn them the other way around.

May frowned at him. 'Those are hard words,' she complained.

Well, she wasn't the one who'd had to learn a new language in a matter of months.

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May's teaching, too simplistic for any Xingenese but working for him, also set the precinct for his meetings with the other scholars. 'Our alchemy uses energy generated from tectonic plates,' he explained to them. 'There are several ways to feel them, and once an alchemist can feel them without the aid of any external materials, they can use a transmutation circle to harness that power.'

He just had to forget he was talking to people who were quite knowledgeable, and pretend they were completely ignorant. And, funnily enough, the process was saving both sides misunderstandings.

'Alchemy also consists of three steps: comprehension, deconstruction and reconstruction. Our base is the hexagram which possesses eight points and represents each of the four elements.'

'Four?' one of the scholars repeated. 'There are five.'

'In your Alhakestry,' Roy replied patiently. He'd gotten through this part with May. 'In our alchemy, there is only four: fire, water, earth and air.'

'Air,' another scholar mumbled. 'No metal or wood.'

'No metal or wood,' Roy agreed. 'Though my commanding officer does specialise in metal manipulation. It's a combination of fire and earth alchemy –'

'As opposed to metal as an element in itself,' finished the first scholar. 'Pity your specialty is fire. That would have been interesting to see.'

'The young Prince Ling is acquainted with him,' mumbled a third in Xingenese, but Roy's studies had come along far enough for him to catch that someone in the palace knew his commanding officer as more than just his commanding officer. Fullmetal sure has gotten around. Explained why he was interested in Xing, at least. 'Perhaps we should arrange –'

'And put the knowledge entirely in the Yao clan's hands?' another hissed.

'Speaking of,' said a scholar who'd been largely quiet, recently. 'I hope you are not explaining anything alchemy related to the little Chang princess.'

'No,' said Roy, though he was instantly on guard. 'The agreement was for my aide to show her some sharpshooting skills in exchange.'

There was a sharp conversation that Roy couldn't follow, after that, before Roy decided that, understanding or not, those tones did not sound pleased. 'It was either that or us walking away after wasting a year together,' he snapped. 'There were too many barriers to jump over, and a child has a far franker way of looking at and explaining things. Not to mention no-one was teaching me enough Xingenese to get all this.'

'Ambassador should learn Xingenese from Amestris,' said the first scholar, after another muttered conversation. 'But we see point now. Lots of progress made.'

'Yeah, I guess.' They had made a lot of progress, in understanding each other's forms of alchemy anyway. How it would look to the top brass was an entirely different matter.