Author's Note
Buna! Vă mulțumim că ați oprit și citiți povestea mea! Sper că vă place acest capitol.
I've recently been able to come up with two different transmutation circles for Anna; a simple one and a more complex one that I'll be having her use later on. I'll try and find a way to link it. In the meanwhile, I'm trying to make a Tumblr specifically for this fic. I'll let you know what it is in the next chapter!
Edward takes the mug of coffee and looks far too grateful for it. His thank you halts halfway through when he looks up at me. Again, I can almost see his thought process projected onto his face, but I can't make any sense of it. What a terrifying boy.
"What is it, brother?," Alphonse asks from the foot of the bed, where he's doing his best not to take up too much space.
Edward stays quiet and stares at me for a while. And a little more. He eventually closes his eyes after a few seconds which is a massive relief; I don't know that I can keep such a determined face on for too long, being examined like that.
"Look, if you're worried about payment—," the alchemist begins, but I cut him off.
"No, I don't care. I know the military's well off. That's not what I want." I try desperately to keep my voice from wavering. Resolve is a hard thing to steel over when someone's life isn't on the line. Clear my throat, clutch my own mug of coffee despite the burn. "I want you to take me with you."
Alphonse stands up faster than I thought was possible. Edward sputters in him mug and Ed's up with half a face full of coffee. He hisses at the pain and quickly wipes himself off on his right arm.
"What? No! No way. It's way too dangerous!" Alphonse answers first. Unexpected.
"Too dangerous for me but not enough for you?," I ask, with maybe a little more bite than intended. Anxiety is making it hard to think before I speak. "Too dangerous for someone who can walk away from it, but not enough for someone who's forced into it? Don't give me that bullshit," I let my mug down on my makeshift nightstand and cross my arms.
"If following you around is that dangerous, you've implicated me as soon as you showed up on our doorstep asking for help. Even if it hadn't been me, it would've been Doctor Moore. Is it alright because he's older? Because he runs a practice? Because he's a—"
"Please—," Alphonse starts, but his brother cuts him off with a hand.
Edward doesn't look at me. Until he does. I can't tell what that is in his eyes, but it's enough to make me take a step back and uncross my arms.
"You saw what happened to me," he starts quietly and slowly. This time, he doesn't take his eyes off me. "This is nothing. I was almost killed more times than I can count. Al? Almost got killed too. What we're trying to do," Ed takes a breath, as if to replace what he wanted to say. "It's putting us on a lot of people's hitlist. But we signed up for this. I signed up for this. I'm not letting you shove your nose in the middle of something like this for no reason, sorry. Try someone else."
I grit my teeth against the violence that threatens to spill out of my mouth. Ball my fist and dig my nails into my palms.
"There's an uprising in Reole," I start quietly, through mostly clenched teeth, trying to reel in my anger. "The priest was cast out but as soon as the military showed up, everything went to shit. I heard Doctor Moore talk with my parents over the phone. That was two months ago. I don't even know if they're..."
I trail off because I don't want to think about it. They headed there to help and now there's no way to know if they're even still alive or not. Screw my eyes shut against the idea of it.
"I hate that I'm stuck here completely useless and incompetent. I can't do anything here, and I've already learned everything I can. If I can access the state libraries, I can learn more about Xingese practices, and I can avoid having to—"
"Xingese?," Alphonse pipes up, much to the apparent dislike of his older brother. "You mean alkahestry?"
I nod. "Everything they do revolves around medicine and healing and just, stitching yourself back together. I can barely keep someone from bleeding out on my front porch, but with that, maybe I could actually help someone for a change."
Edward's legs swing over there side of the bed. His younger brother rushes over and tries to push him back down, but he's swatted away. The elder brother grips the edge of my beds with both hands and stares between his knees.
"...we're not taking you past Central."
"Brother?!"
I can almost taste the knowledge on my tongue. Edward raises his head to level a steady look at me. It feels like a challenge, and I gladly accept it. Take a few steps forward to extend a hand.
"Then I stop in Central and learn as much as I can there and on the way," I reply back, feeling the excitement and determination bubbling through my veins. "And make sure you stay in one piece." Offering help is the least I could do. It may not be equivalent exchange, but it's something.
Edward uses his right hand to shake mine. It feels like a blood deal.
It might as well be.
The note I write Doctor Moore is short and succinct. Met an alchemist, had to heal him, did a pretty mediocre job and I need to follow him around for a bit to make sure he's okay. Headed to central.
And that was it.
I grabbed some of the more important herbs in the way out—comfrey, goldseal, boneset—some clothes and bandages, and whatever small thing Moore probably wouldn't miss or care about. I hesitated with the books, but ultimately brought the most useful herbal and my own journal. If I was going to follow what was obviously a reckless teenager around, I may as well keep my research on me.
It's only once we reach the train station—after over half an hour of walking, during which time I curse Moore's beautifully positioned home—that I realize I have absolutely no money on me whatsoever.
The elder Elric waves off my concern before I can even open my mouth.
"Don't worry about it," he says nonchalantly, paying for all three tickets. "Consider this part of my IOU," Edward ends with a grin, turns and walks off towards our quay. Alphonse and I are left to stutter and rush after him.
He wait for he next train is filled with the brothers' conversation and occasional banter. It begins to bring back memories that I quickly stomp down. Instead, I bury myself in my journal.
The transmutation circle I've been able to design is useful, but clearly needs more work. Bone is still tedious to fix, if that's even remotely possible, and I need to learn how to force the body to produce more red blood cells. And white; infections are still a tricky thing to deal with. I pull out one the more concise herbals to try and compare; there must be something in there that can help the body to produce more white blood cells.
It takes a bit to realize that the Elric brothers have gone completely silent. Nearly jump out of my skin when I look up to see two glowing red-white eyes staring steadily at my journal. Edward crouches a foot or two in front of me, equally transfixed.
"I—uh, can I—is there something wrong?," is the only barely intelligible thing I manage to squeak out.
"White blood cells...," Edward mutters, one gloves hand in front of his mouth. I'm not even entirely sure he's heard me.
"You're trying to find out how to fight off infections?," Alphonse asks, and it takes a second of lip-worrying to answer.
"Yeah, I... Doctor Moore's had a lot of people come to him for one thing or another, but I was usually the one to deal with minor cuts, contusions and smaller infections," I explain, turning my eyes back towards my scratchy handwriting. "I've only really been able to help with herbs and poultices, but I've been wondering if there isn't a way to combine what I know of herbalism with alchemy, to speed up the process."
I sigh heavily and ultimately slap both books shut and hang my head. "It's a complete dead end though. I don't know enough about alchemy yet to come up with something that makes sense, and all the useful information is locked behind a damn military wall!"
My frustration seems to take both brothers aback; Alphonse sits up straighter on the bench next to me and Edward seems to realize something. I can practically see the gears grinding in his head, and he clenches and unclenches his jaw like he wants to speak.
Edward finally opens his mouth.
"We're going to Central anyways, why don't you—"
"Don't worry," I start, waving off the older alchemist. "I entirely plan on abusing your military privileges and have you take me to the library."
Edward frowns, but I can't figure out why. He opens his mouth once or twice, before shutting it one last time. I can see the muscles in his jaw working like he's trying to keep himself from saying something. If he was about to words to his thoughts, Alphonse interrupts him to announce the train coming in the distance. I don't put my journal or book away; at the very least, I can keep myself busy on the train.
We sit down—Edward and I next to each other and Alphonse across us in his massive armour—and I instantly shove my nose back into my book. The brothers were discussing some kind of "fake lead", Alphonse determinedly pointing out that Edward had been far too brash and not nearly mindful enough of his own body.
I stayed on the same page for fifteen minutes without absorbing an entire word on it. Not mindful enough of his own body..?
"Well it turned out alright, didn't it?," he defends himself, gesturing in my general direction. "We found someone to patch me up, right? It's fine!"
"No, brother, it's not fine!," Alphonse replied, more angrily than I'd heard him so far.
"He's not wrong," is what I contribute to the conversation. I keep my eyes glued to the page I haven't been reading.
Both brothers stay quiet. I can feel their stares on me like hot irons. I only lift my gaze after a few seconds. I look to Alphonse across from me first. I imagine he'd look incredulous, if he could. When I look to Edward, my stomach flips. I'M not sure what to make of his expression, but something about it is very upset.
I clear my throat and slowly close my book.
"Your brother isn't wrong," I repeat again, neatly folding my laps. Holding Edward's gaze is a lot harder than I anticipated. "Automail aside, the scarring you already have isn't normal," I explain, quickly glancing down at his chest before looking back up. Whose eyes are that golden? "You seem to constantly put yourself in dangerous situations without thinking about what's going to happen to you. What if you die? What if I wasn't able to heal you, just barely? What would Alphonse do?"
I can almost feel the anger bubbling up Edward's throat. I raise my hand to stop him and shut my eyes, shake my head.
"I don't want to hear that nonsense about how I don't know you. I don't need to." I frown and try my best to emulate the disappointed glare my mother would level at me. "I'm not a doctor, but I'm speaking strictly professionally. You need to take better of yourself. You're reckless. You won't live to see next year if you keep going this way."
Alphonse begins to reach out, but I'm not sure if it's to me or his brother. He aborts the motion either way, lowers his head and nods in quiet agreement. I sigh and lean back against the seat, just as the train leaves the station.
"I don't have the right to say I'm worried about you," I say quietly, closing my eyes and gripping the edges of my books tightly. "But your brother is. That should be enough for you to be safer."
The conversation ends there. Anxiety burns through my like white fire and I wait for an angry retort. But none come. I think to the suitcase that was stowed over my head.
I'll need to ask Edward to bandage him up later.
Nothing heals faster than comfrey.