Chapter One: Winds of Change

"Ugh Granny do we really have too?" Winry said with frustration and sadness.

"Yes, I finally found an affordable place to reopen the shop, but there is no way we can both live there."

"But why? I mean I'll be losing all my friends, and I'll have to live there, and I won't ever see you, save for holidays and summer break! Hey! Where are going with that!" winry tell to the two men who had begun loading her bed into a moving truck parked out on the street while the two women were arguing, but they just shrugged it off.

"Come on Granny can you reconsider? Please?" Winry said with puppy dog eyes.

"I Said you're going and that's final. After your parents passed I promised myself I would take care of you and give you the best opportunities, and I fully believe that this is best not for just me but you as well." Granny said

"ugh fine!" Winry huffed off to go pack what she was allowed to bring to her new school, being a boarding school.

After two days of packing, Winry and her Grandmother mad the three hour move from Davenport to Madison, to where her Granny's new Automail shop will be. It was a small shop placed conveniently on a street conner, with what used to be a hardware store on the ground level and a one bedroom apartment above it.

"This is going to be your new shop Granny?" Winry said with a little disappointment.

"Yes, it is and once we get every thing unpacked I will take you to your new school." Granny stated.

With a heavy sigh Winry entered the building she wasn't too surprised by the shape the former hardware store was in. It had looked to her as though no one had be in it for at least five years, with dust and cobwebs everywhere seeming to blanket the unused shelving, and counter tops. She then headed upstairs to see where her Granny and her dog Den would be living from now on. And much to her surprise the upstairs living area was in a lot better state then the shop. She remembered her Granny saying something earlier about it having been rented by someone recently who only used the upstairs apartment and also that the apartment had a back entrance that led to where the driveway and alleyway where so there was no need to use the front door of the shop.

After getting most of the big furniture where she wanted it and all the boxes placed so she could unpack as needed, Pinako paid the movers, signed with the realtor finalizing her purchase of the building. She then went to make dinner for her and Winry and she just so happened to make Winry's favorite because it would be there last night together for a while and wanted to make it special.

"Thanks Granny this is delicious as always!" Winry said while stuffing her face with another spoon full.

"You're welcome dear, it's the least I could do it being our last night together for a while, I just wanted to make it special. And I know that you aren't too happy about changing schools so I wanted to try and make it up to you, I know it's not much but it's a start." Pinako said feeling a little bad about moving to a completely different state and having her only granddaughter leave behind all of he friends, to live apart from her for most of the year. It pained her but she knew she was making the right decision, she knew it would be best for winry. She knew winry had to get out and get used to living without her, because she knew she was getting old and sooner or later she would have to fend for herself. She hoped that this new school would help with that.

The next morning Winry had woken up early so that she could have breakfast, even though it was only cereal, and pack up her things so that when her Grandmother was ready they could leave, shortly after Winry finished packing she was on her way east to Muskego, which she thought was quite the weird name for a city, it was only about a two hour drive so it wasn't all that long.

Soon they had arrived in the city which wasn't too big, it was larger than what she had thought it would be but it was nowhere near as big as her home but it was nice nonetheless, It seemed quaint. From the looks of the city she thought that maybe she'll like this new school.

They had arrived at the front gate of the of the school, it was a large rod-iron gate which seemed to be pretty old and on the arch of the gate read in big gothic writing 'EDGEWOOD ACADEMY'. There was a little guard house at the gate, probably more for opening the gate and giving directions Winry thought, and the guard came out saw their papers, opened the gate which had to be done manually, and gave them directions to the main building.

When the car rolled up to the main entrance Winry was pretty amazed, what she perceived was the main building where the class rooms and administrative offices where located looked like something out of a vampire movie or something. It was a large gothic mansion, you could almost call it a castle, that almost seemed out of place in the town. And there at the front door was a man who could have passed for a butler but Winry new that probably was not the case. The man greeted them and told them that the headmaster was waiting to see them and escorted them to the headmaster's interior of the building was a completely different from the exterior, on the outside it had a feeling of 'this place is haunted' but inside the school was completely modern and almost looked like it had been remodeled.

After about ten minutes of walking Winry heard the guide say "We are here." which snapped Winry out of the slight daze that the school building had given her, and when she looked up, she saw two great mahogany doors being opened in front of her. Which she thought seemed kind of out of place with the rest of the interior.

"Ah, come in, come in, please have a seat," a short and elderly man said while waving the two women over to the large desk he was sitting at, "you must be Pinako and Winry Rockbell?" the man said while standing up and shaking their hands.

"Yes" they said in unison.

"I am Markarov Dreyer, the schools founder and headmaster..." Winry heard him say then started to zone out while he went into a long rant about the schools history and who knows what else, which didn't interest her that much, until she was handed a stack of books with a copy of the schools handbook, then the large doors to his office opened up revealing the man from earlier and a blue haired girl who looked about her age. "Headmaster, Levy McGardon as you requested" the man said. "Ah! Great timing Richard, that will be all for now" the headmaster said and with that the man left closing the doors behind him.

"Winry Rockbell I would like you to meet Levy McGardon, she will be one of your roommates, and will be your guide until you get your bearings" the headmaster said introducing the two young girls.

"Hello I'm Levy, its very nice to meet you" she said with a pleasant smile.

"Winry Rockbell, it is too, oh! And this is my grandmother Pinako"

"It's nice to meet you ma'am" Levy said with the same pleasant smile.

"Now unfortunately I would love to keep you here and learn more about you Winry but as headmaster I am very busy with the new year about to begin so this is where I will have Miss McGarden here show you around, and I hope you enjoy your time here at Edgewood" the headmaster said as he walked the three women the door of his office. And with that they said goodbye to the headmaster and went on with the tour of the school, during which Winry had gotten to know Levy a great deal, such as how she likes reading, and various other hobbies, and that she is also from Iowa, Des Moines to be exact. And various other things about her family, and the school. Likewise Levy learned that Winry's parents had died in a plane crash coming back from vacation when she was in middle school, and about her grandmothers automail business.

The tour of the main building only took about forty five minutes and soon they were at Pinako's car to grab Winry's things.

"Do you have everything?"

"Yes Granny"

"Good, now be a good girl, I don't want any phone calls about you being in trouble" Pinako said with a semi-stern look on her face.

"I will Granny don't worry, I'll be just fine, I love you." Winry said as tears started to form, and gave her Granny a warm embrace.

"I love you too, dear, take care."

And with that her Granny drove off back to madison and her automail shop, and when the car was out of sight Winry suddenly felt a little emptiness in her stomach. She then turned picked up one of the boxes she had brought with her belongings in it, and turned to Levy who also had a couple boxes in her hands and said "well show me to where I'll be living."

"Right, this way," Levy said as they started walking "our room is in the west dorm building, which is where most if not all of the upper class men live, the underclass men live for the most part in the east dorm."

After about ten minutes they reached the front door of the dorms, the building was just as grand looking as the main building but did not look as large as it was only two stories tall, but unlike the interior of the main building the interior of the dorm building was colorful and had a 'well lived in' feel to it, the hallways had very extensive graffiti and artwork on the walls almost like that was how it was designed. As they made their way up to the second floor where their room was Winry noticed how very few kids where around.

"So where where is everyone?" Winry asked.

"Well class doesn't officially start until the middle of next week, and most of the students either work during the week or don't have a car to get here so they usually end up showing up this weekend, and like you and me most of the students here are from out of state, my parents decided to take a road trip for the second year in a row and practically kicked me out of the car ok here we go room 220" Levy states as she put the boxes that she was carrying down and fished her keys out of her pocket. When she opened the door winry noticed that it was a fairly large room, well at least larger than her previous one, and a large book shelf full of books opposite the set of bunk beds and one single bed next to it in the corner. Next to the single bed under the window was a long dresser with eight drawers, adjacent to the dresser and the window was a small door, and when Winry open it "Wow you guys have a balcony!" she said with excitement in her voice. "Yah only the west dorm has them, it sort of goes with the whole being upperclassmen thing," Levy explained. In the opposite corner of the single bed was two more tall dressers and in between the dressers and the bunk beds was a small closet, next to the bookshelf there was a medium sized desk and next to that the bathroom with only a toilet and a sink. Noticing this Winry spoke up while setting the box she was carrying on the small circular coffee table in the middle of the room, "So where is the shower?"

"Oh yah, well see the headmaster kind of has a thing for Japanese culture, specially they way they have their bathrooms, so instead of having a shower or bath tub in every room there are two Japanese style bathrooms, one for guys and one for girls. I know it might seem weird at first, I was kind of shy about it when I first came here, but it they are actually quite nice, you'll get used to them eventually," Levy answered reassuringly.

"Ah, ok. So are we the only ones in here or...?" Winry asked.

"No, my roommate Lucy, she usually doesn't get here 'till the day before classes start, it's usually because she takes a vacation to some exotic place the week before as a birthday present."

"Oh? Like where?"

"Well last year she went to the Bahamas, the year before that it was a Caribbean cruise on her family's private yacht." at the mention of the yacht Winry's jaw dropped. "Yah, I know her family is super rich, but she's actually pretty normal, she really doesn't want people to know about her being rich, because she doesn't want people trying to be friends with her just to get to her money, so don't say anything about being rich, okay?"

"Yah sure, I won't say anything." 'I think I'm going to like this school' Winry thought and smiled to herself.

"So you can have either the top or bottom bunk, seen as I already have dibs on the single." Levy exclaimed pointing towards the set of bunk beds, "And you can put your clothes in one of the tall dressers," Levy offered pointing towards them.

"Oh, ok," Winry said as she took out her pillows and a blanket from one of the boxes and put them on the bottom bunk, and took out some clothes and started to put them in the dresser nearest the closet. Then Levy started to help her unpack and put things away, which didn't take long considering Winry didn't have much that she brought with, mostly just knick knacks from home, and a picture of her parents that she put on top of the tall dresser.

"Well that's all of it," Winry said as she put the boxes on the floor of the closet.

"Great!" Levy said standing up from her spot on her bed, "I seriously need a bath, you wanna join me?" Levy asked grabbing a change of pajamas from the long dresser.

"Yah sure, I could probably use one too," Winry said grabbing her pajamas from her dresser.

After about an hour and a half the two girls were back in their dorm room, and after about a two hours worth of chitchat the two decided it was time for bed. As Winry lay in her new bed she couldn't help but feel sad, realizing that her Grandmother wouldn't be tucking her every night, or even having Den to keep her company. But then she had remembered all of the new and great things she saw and met today, especially Levy, sighing lightly she gently drifted off into her dreams with a content smile on her face.

So there you have it thats the first chapter, to make things a little more clear its the the last week of august and they don't start classes until the the wednesday of the first week of september.

Thanks for reading, if you have any questions comments or concerns, and or creative critiscism please use the comments, i look forward to reading them.