Enigma
By TeriyakiPrinces
Rating: Teen+ Audiences, but whatever.
Warnings for the chapter: Science talk. Cursing.
Disclaimer: Not mine. To see original content, look up Hiromu Arakawa
A/N:Thank you so much to the people who read, followed, favorited, and especially reviewed the first chapter. This is still the set-up of the main plot, but it is essential to the development of Gaia, and her relationship and future with the Rockbells.
Please, PLEASE, please if you have absolutely any suggestions or criticism, express it, even if it's bad, but please also explain your view if criticising- I can't fix what I don't know is broken.
Reviews are welcomed with open mind and open arms.
When Gaia's fever died down, the three female occupants of the prairie house in the countryside of Resembool began implementing a physical therapy schedule, disguised as housekeeping, for the young woman.
At first, she would help Pinako with the cooking, which slowly became Gaia cooking lunch to allow Pinako time to teach Winry everything about muscle groups and different bodily functions in human beings. She'd cook, and they would sit at the large kitchen table strewn with medical texts as she listened.
Gaia, though, was set in expanding her chores, because dammit she needed to do something for these two. Something more.
So, she began cleaning- first it was just dusting and returning the multitude of medical and mechanical manuals around the house to their respective places on the old oak bookshelves in the living room.
It was two weeks or so into her new life with the Rockbells that she wandered into the attic of the house. There, Gaia found the proof of the differences of this world to her original one.
The expanse of the attic was completely filled with stacks of books and what she could only expect to be boxes filled with similar materials. There was dust covering everything in an even carpet that looked to be a few month's worth of accumulated grime, and the window at the end of the room was cracked.
Some of the books were strewn across the floor, open, as if they were left there in great haste. There were papers with what she could barely make out as writing and drawings of strange diagrams on them- written in a childish hand.
Transmutation circles, her mind promptly supplied when she knelt to take a closer look.
All of a sudden, she felt the urge to properly sit down and read through all the notes and books forgotten, shunned, even, in this dusty, dim room.
A treasure trove of information on how to do the impossible lay before her, and she ached to tap into that power.
Only, it wasn't impossible now, this magic, was it?
She studied like a mad-woman.
She started with a book she found shoved in the back corner of the room- however much she disliked it, she needed to start with the basics of Alchemy. Just like in art or writing, if you didn't know the basic structure of an object or human being or you didn't know basic grammar there was little you could do to improve your skills, Alchemy had concrete principals you needed to know, not to mention understand, to be able to apply or even attempt to transfer energy to transmute even the simplest of elements.
For this new brand of study, she started off with the Periodic Table of Elements and the make-up of those elements, including the atom formations and charges. Aside from theory (which she wasn't completely hopeless at, thankfully) her ability in practical application exceeded most standards- give her some facts and instructions, and watch her go!
Despite Gaia's barely-passing grade in physics and chemistry (she was more of a history and art kind of girl), she actually wasn't half bad at it. She was, used to be, prone to procrastination and laziness, which didn't endear her to her teachers, and without much motivation to get out of such a rut, she had little interest in the subjects' coursework (such as doing her homework).
Now, though, she had all the motivation in the world. It could, someday, get her out of an actual life-or-death situation.
She wanted, nay, needed to be useful if it came to that.
Call her paranoid, but that was damn good enough reason for her continued diligence in her new-found studies. She didn't want to be owing anyone life debts, now did she? Self-sufficiency had a lot of advantages.
And so, she picked up pen and paper again to start picking through dry (though most were, in fact, quite fascinating) tomes of theory on the once-fantastical manipulation of the material world.
She enlisted the help of spry, young, Winry ("I'm old and my back hurts, come ooon!") to carry the heavy boxes down the rickety attic stairwell and out to the backyard. There, she aired out the musty and dusty (and some which were damaged from a leak in the roof) books. Pinako had watched from the back porch as she rocked in her rocking chair and smoked a pipe, exasperated as her two girls (when had it become her two girls?) lay out books that had led two boys she had helped raise down a dark path.
She had her suspicions, of course, but she wouldn't voice them quite yet.
Every day, without fail, Gaia would sit out on the porch, or inside on the colder days that still cropped up on the tail-end of winter in Resembool, and sketched out rocks, wood, and other inanimate objects in her sketchbook. She reckoned she'd written out more equations in those first few weeks than she had ever done before in her own free time. Sometimes, she even caught herself wishing for old Mrs. Keisa from sophomore year to be there to check over the more complex work she'd not been so confident about, or those math books with the answers in the back, but instead she went either to Pinako ("Granny", she'd insisted) or to Winry.
Their first reaction to her questions was awe at her detailed depictions of the limestone chip she had found, or the spruce pole holding up the porch. She tried to deflect their questions on the subject of her drawings, as she was actually quite stiff after so little practice for so long, and back to the math that she's starting to despise a bit less.
Alas, "You're an artist, eh?" and "Oh wow! That's really good!" get her drafted into helping Winry study anatomy and the use of technical illustrations in Automail design, which the young girl is decent at already, honestly. But Gaia had the experience, skills, and knowledge to help the 13 year old improve, so that's that.
Within two months of studying and teaching, Gaia wonders about Truth.
Not Truth, per-say, but the Truth. Was she like Edward, Alphonse, and Izumi? If she clapped her hands, would she find that she could transmute anything without a transmutation circle?
Did her lung pay the price for Truth? Because, fuck, she really didn't think so.
Truth (or God, or the Universe, THE ENTITY, dammit) had already done so much to the world she found herself in, and she thought that was what her organ had payed for, but now she wasn't that sure. What if, if she tried, it would take something else from her? Her memories of her life before? Her free will?
She wouldn't, couldn't, risk it.
Either way, she was now nearly perfect at drawing those glorified circles, so she had that going for her.
In the following months, Gaia fully settled into life in the countryside, and, more importantly, life with the Rockbells.
It was a quiet life in the outskirts of the Eastern quarter of Amestris, interjected with rigorous hours of poring over books she had no idea how old (not to mention trying to decipher the boxes of journals she suspected were written by Hohenheim, and, furthermore, trying to read his handwriting, because damn, it was like another language.) and runs to the town for food and other supplies.
On one such supply run, Winry and Gaia split up- Winry to the post office for a vintage Automail model delivery she was expecting any day now, and Gaia to the Thursday market for the most important part of her day- food.
Halfway to the butcher's, Gaia was almost bowled over by an over-enthusiastic blonde ball of energy. Winry was squealing, jumping up and down (with her hold firmly around Gaia's waist). She was likely trying to have Gaia jump up with her, but as her shorter height most often dictated in such actions against her taller companion, she was simply jostling her friend around with her enthusiasm.
"Oi, Winry! Stop! I'm gonna drop all the bags!" And true to her words, a bag full of plump apples fell to the dusty ground, no doubt bruising their perfect red sheen.
Winry, thankfully, let go of the older girl, and started to twirl around instead. Gaia let out a snort that morphed into a bark of laughter at the ridiculous girl in front of her as she stumbled on the uneven cobblestones of the Market Square.
"They wrote! Wrote! We haven't heard anything, nada, in months! I can't wait to read it! But Granny will want to read it, so we have to get back home as soon as possible! How much longer 'till you're done?"
Gaia basked in the brief warmth that filled her being at having herself included when Winry talked of their home, and grabbed the ecstatic teen by her tanned shoulders to steady her, pointed behind herself with her thumb, and indicated the butcher shop one door down from their current position.
"Got to go to Isaac's first, and then Otto said he'd give us a ride back." They began walking. "So, who wrote? Is it the Elrics?"
Winry, sobered up, gave a small, sad smile.
"Yeah, it's Ed and Al."