A/N: So I randomly got super into FMA again (blame youtube's algorithm sending video essays analyzing it my way), and along with reading a ton of old and new fics, I also went through my old fanfics and found this wip in my unpublished files. I've edited and added quite a bit to it, and changed some of the direction from what I first planned years ago. For the better, I think, but I'll let you be the judge of that, haha.
I may or may not do these in chronological order. I'm still undecided if I'd like to do more of a series of interconnected oneshots or something more like a full length story.
Alchemy had been a part of Riza's life for as long as she could remember.
When she was too young to even say the word let alone understand what it meant, she knew it simply as the reason why her father spent all his time behind doors where flashes of light sometimes appeared. In the glimpses into this secret world, she would see him hunched over a messy desk, notes piled every which way as he muttered words she didn't understand beneath his breath.
Later, as Riza grew older, she wanted to learn more about the mysterious thing that always claimed her father's attention. She asked endless questions, the way children do, and typically received responses too complicated for her young mind to understand, on the rare occasions her father chose to answer them. So, she learned to stop asking him directly, and instead, she snuck into his study and stole his books to read through as best as she could.
-o-
She was an only child and their house was in a tucked away area far from any neighbors and even farther from town, so her only playmate was her mother. Though her mother did her best to spend time with her—and Riza certainly loved the hours they spent together, whether it was making flower crowns or playing games or helping with the simpler chores—she could not be with her all the time. Inevitably, there were many lonely hours when her mother was busy with the household chores that Riza wasn't allowed to help with, or she went to the market to buy their groceries and didn't want her daughter along too. Young Riza had learned early on not to bother her father, and she filled these times on her own.
Mostly, Riza read. Picture books at first, then ones without any at all, devouring each text eagerly, so that she often quickly ran out of reading material. As she grew tired of her own tiny collection of books, she realized there were many, many book she had yet to read in her father's study
-o-
It was not an easy transition to go from children's books to the thick alchemy texts her father favored. Even the ones labelled for "beginners" were filled with many unfamiliar words. But Riza persevered, and she spent long hours tracing words and reading definitions, until the ink on the pages bloomed into understanding.
Eventually, she understood enough of the theory that she grew unendingly curious about the practical aspect. There were many simple arrays meant for beginners to start with, ones that posed little risk aside from a few wasted supplies, which they had plenty of anyway.
So, one day, when her mother was at the market and her father was in his study as always, Riza grabbed everything she needed and eagerly returned to her room to begin.
-o-
"What are you doing?"
-o-
Heart pounding in her chest, Riza was still as a rabbit caught in a trap. She froze where she was, hands damningly raised in the air, hovering over a chalky transmutation circle she had painstakingly copied from the open book also on the ground. Caught red-handed, Riza prepared for a fierce scolding.
But her father looked neither angry nor disappointed in her disobedience.
Instead, there was an unusual glimmer in his eyes, a spark of interest—in her, that she had never seen before. Most of the time, her father barely even seemed to notice she was there. This was the first time she'd had so much of his focused attention on her.
"Activate it," her father finally spoke, including his head towards the transmutation circle she'd drawn.
Still with her heart pounding wildly in her chest, though for a different reason now, Riza obeyed, her shaking hands slowly moving down—
-o-
In another life, she placed her hands on the circle and nothing happened. She would try again, a few times, slamming her hands down with increasing fervor and sending stray particles of dust flying through the air, but achieving nothing else. The glimmer of interest in her father's eyes would die out instantly. He would tell her to clean up, dismissing her without another word, heedless of the way Riza's eyes started to tear up at her own failure.
-o-
In this life though, when her hands made contact with the circle, light immediately flashed, bright and blinding. Before her eyes, the wooden floor slowly rose up and formed a little wooden dog. A wide, giddy smile broke across her face, and when she raised her head to look at the reaction her transmutation received, her grin grew impossibly bigger.
Because, for the first time in her life, Riza saw her father looking proudly at her.