Chapter 7

A bright half moon illuminated the path that led the way home. Even if the pullers plied their trade at night (Stanno was still considering affixing lanterns to the rickshaws), Scar would still walk. The council of chieftains approved allowing Circus Chimera to visit Ishval, but not until concerns were voiced and discussed. Miles made the observation that the chimeras were victims of the state trying to make their way in the world, just like the Ishvalans. Both Miles and Scar declared that they could vouch for the good characters of Darius and Heinkel. This might have been a slight stretching of the truth, but they were prepared either to be vindicated or take the blame. Then Scar would blame Miles, and Miles would blame Mustang, but that would strictly be between the two of them.

But the circus and the relative merits of its performers were not at the forefront of Scar's mind. Stanno, who readily approved the measure as being good for business, had approached Scar at the conclusion of the meeting.

"That Miss Rockbell is quite a girl," he remarked with a grin.

Scar, who instinctively distrusted Stanno's motives nearly every time he opened his mouth, looked at him narrowly. "Is she?"

"She's apparently quite talented," Stanno went on. "She's coming by my workshop tomorrow to use my lathe, for which I will charge her only a modest fee."

On the one hand, Scar wasn't surprised. Greed tended to be Stanno's primary motivator these days. On the other hand, since this was Stanno, it made him angry. "You're charging her?" Scar asked indignantly.

"Don't get all high and mighty with me," Stanno retorted mildly. "She's a shrewd little businesswoman." His smile returned with a somewhat predatory gleam. "Someone I can work with."

Scar would have shot back with a sizeable inventory of threats, but Kamyar, the chieftain of Wahir, took that moment to approach him with further questions about the circus, and Stanno turned around and left with a satisfied look on his face.

Stepping through the front door of his home, Scar glanced around. All the domestic activity seemed to be concentrated down the hallway in the vicinity of the bathroom, judging by the sound of splashing and giggling.

"I'm home," he called out.

Rada leaned her head out of the bathroom door. "Hello, dear!" she called back. She looked back into the bathroom. "You'll be all right, won't you, Winry?"

"Oh, sure!" Scar heard the girl reply. "We're just about done, I think."

Rada came down the hallway to put her arms around her husband. "How did it go?" she asked, tilting up her face.

Scar kissed her lightly on the lips. "As well as expected. In a few weeks' time, the circus will come here," he told her without very much enthusiasm.

"I think that's wonderful!" Rada replied. "The children will have so much fun!"

"We'll see," Scar said cautiously. "I hope their acts don't include a seemingly normal human suddenly transforming into some sort of grotesque animal. That might appeal to Amestrian audiences, but it won't go over well here. It's certainly not the sort of thing I want my children to see."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Rada said easily. "If your friends are anything like Mr. Jerso and Mr. Zampano—"

"They're not exactly my friends," Scar added.

Rada shrugged off the comment. "—who I thought were very nice, then I'm sure you don't have anything to worry about."

"From your mouth to the ears of Ishvala, my love."

As Rada dimpled at him, Scar headed toward the bathroom, stepping aside to let Danika trot past him, wrapped in a towel. She grinned up at her father.

"Hi, Papa!" she greeted him.

"All ready for bed, little blackbird?"

"Yup!" Danika replied as she went on to her room. "I just gotta say my prayers."

"I'll light your lantern, sweetheart," Rada said, going into the girl's room.

"I'll be there in a few minutes," Scar said.

He looked into the doorway of the bathroom to see Winry toweling off the twins. She was concentrating on Little Winry, and Mattas shrugged out of his towel as soon as he saw Scar and tried to run past him out into the hallway. Scar blocked his way and lifted him off his feet. The little boy squealed indignantly, but his father wrapped him back in his towel.

He smiled warmly down at Winry. "Thank you for helping with the children."

"Oh, it was fun!" Winry replied, rubbing the little girl's hair with her towel. She wrapped the towel around Little Winry's head like a scarf. "Wasn't it?"

"Ooowikagershbigsh!" the toddler replied.

Winry gathered her up in one arm and picked up the kerosene lantern with her free hand. She went out of the bathroom and across the hall to the twins' room.

Following her with Mattas, Scar said, "I hear you're going to be doing some work in Stanno's shop tomorrow."

"Uh-huh." Winry set the lantern on a table between the two beds and laid Little Winry on her bed. She reached for the basket of diapers. "Could you get their pajamas out?"

Scar opened a wooden chest against the wall and took out a couple of small bundles of clothing. He handed a small nightdress to Winry. "You need to make sure Stanno doesn't cheat you somehow."

Winry just grinned. "I'd like to see him try."

"I wouldn't," Scar replied darkly. "But if he tries anything, I want you to let me know."

Winry glanced at Scar with a knowing, indulgent look. "Like what? Like getting fresh?"

Scar glowered. "Especially that."

Winry shook her head. "I can handle that myself, thanks all the same." She pulled a clean pair of rubber pants onto Little Winry and sat her up to pull the nightgown over the toddler's head. "Okay, that's you. Next!"

"All the same," Scar said, setting Mattas down on the bed and picking up his daughter. "I'm not comfortable with this."

"You don't have be comfortable or uncomfortable with it," Winry said smoothly. "I know my way around a workshop."

Scar picked up Little Winry. "But you don't know your way around Stanno. I've known him for most of my life, and he's never had a wholesome character."

Winry gave a little chuckle as she worked Mattas' pajama pants over his feet, which he was waving around evasively. "You mean he's a pervert?"

Scar gave an exasperated sigh. "Yes, that's what I mean."

"Well, I'm pretty handy with a wrench," Winry replied, sitting back on her heels so Mattas could fall into her arms. "And I don't just mean around nuts and bolts. Honestly, don't worry about me!" she insisted. She looked up at Scar and made a mock scowl back at him. "Your face is going to stick like that if you're not careful."

After a moment of surprise, Scar smoothed out his features and managed a smile. He wouldn't pursue the matter, but it would be against his better judgment.

Winry gave her hand a flick to shake off the sawdust, then bent her head back down to concentrate on the piece of wood that spun on the lathe in front of her. Stanno had given her a choice of woods to work with, oak, pine, and meskaa. She knew that oak was hard and therefore durable, but pine would be a easier to work with. She finally decided on the meskaa, which Stanno explained was just as hard and durable as oak but had shorter fibers, making it less likely to warp. Winry liked the color of the piece that Stanno told her she could use, which he called the red heartwood of the meskaa tree, and since it was a local product, she thought it would be the most appropriate to use.

She left the house that morning dressed in her overalls and bandana, leaving Scar to frown all he wanted. It was oddly endearing, but honestly, it really didn't concern him. She stopped by Bojil's shop and took a number of measurements of his arm. It gave her a deeply pleasant thrill to know that the scarred tissue at the end of Bojil's stump had been the work of her father. She could tell that he was thinking ahead, restructuring the remaining muscles to accommodate a potential prosthesis, whether it was automail or not. Winry felt a renewed sense of resolve to complete her father's work.

She then headed on to Stanno's workshop. He seemed cordial enough, although he was extremely proprietary about his equipment. He started to explain the workings of the lathe and cautioned her a number of times until she politely but firmly told him to stop. He continued to hover over her until he was convinced that she wasn't going to break something, and then he finally went to the other side of the shop to work on his own projects.

While Winry adjusted the angle of the tool rest, she glanced around the shop. It was spacious and well-kept. This was a two-story building, and she could see a staircase through a door at the back, making her figure that his living quarters were upstairs. Judging by the size of the ground floor, the living area was pretty sizeable for one person. She wondered why someone his age (she guessed him to be in his mid-thirties) wasn't married, considering this was Ishval and everybody was all about rebuilding everything, including families. She figured it wasn't her business to ask.

She found out that she wasn't the only one who was curious. While she was glancing around, she caught Stanno regarding her with a look of interest. Having met his glance and looking away, Stanno seemed to take this as an invitation to start a conversation.

"So tell me, Winry—can I call you Winry?"

Winry lifted a shoulder. "Go ahead."

"Winry, how did a nice Amestrian girl like you come to be such good friends with Scar?" Stanno pronounced the last word ominously.

Winry gave a quiet sigh. Good friends might have been a bit of an exaggeration. "It's kind of a long story." For a number of reasons, she wasn't going to recount all of it. "I guess fate sort of threw us together."

Stanno kept watching her, apparently expecting more, so she continued, somewhat reluctantly. "We were both trying to get away from the same person, so we ended up working together."

"Don't tell me you were on the run from the law, too!" Stanno remarked archly. He crouched down on one side of the desk he was working on to sand a section with fine-grit paper. "Somehow I find that hard to picture."

"No, I wasn't on the run from the law!" Winry retorted. "I didn't do anything wrong. I just got mixed up in the whole…government plot thing," she explained with a vague wave of her hand.

"Really?" Stanno looked over his shoulder at her, genuinely surprised. "How did you manage that?"

"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess," Winry replied. She ran her thumb along the surface of the piece of wood she was turning, then measured it with a pair of calipers. "I was being used as a pawn to force a good friend to do things for the military that he didn't want to do."

"About what you'd expect from Amestrians," Stanno remarked, then at the look winry gave him, he added, "Sorry. This was a good friend other than Andakar, I take it?"

"That's right." Winry smiled. She would never get tired of telling people. "My fiancé, as a matter of fact."

"Do tell?" Stanno exclaimed. "Well, well! What a fortunate young man, to be sure!" He adjusted his piece of sandpaper, which he had wrapped around a wooden block, and continued to carefully scrape it along the surface of the wood. "And he doesn't mind that you've run off to Ishval to spend time with a lonely old bachelor like me?"

Winry kept the frown of disgust off her face. You really are a pervert. When she thought about it, Edward might actually mind rather a lot. He might also mind that she was staying with Scar. But considering how seldom he called, she would probably be back in Resembool by the time she heard from him again. She was not, however, going to share any of this with Stanno, and she had no problem lying to him.

"No, of course he doesn't mind." Then she thought she would throw in a grain of truth, and she smiled a little. "Andakar's the one who minds."

"Hm!" Stanno turned back to his work. "I bet. I suppose he told you all about me," he remarked drily.

Winry gave him a quick, cautious glance before setting the tip of the gouging tool to the spinning stock. After a moment, she stopped the lathe to measure her work again. "A little," she said finally. "If you really want to know, I heard most of it from Rada."

Stanno had straightened up and was running his hand over the top surface of the desk. He stepped back with a frown on his face. "You did, huh?" He sounded noncommittal but Winry thought his interest had actually sharpened. "That must have been quite a story," he muttered sullenly.

Winry felt a little awkward. Up until now, Stanno did not strike her as someone who cared much about others' opinions of him. It appeared he had one sore spot. She wasn't sure if she ought to feel sorry for him. "Well, if you really want to know, she was actually pretty charitable," she said. "I mean…considering…"

Stanno made no reply to that, and Winry was just as glad. She didn't want to spend all her time here chit-chatting. They both went back to their work. Winry concentrated on moving the tailstock of the lathe to work on hollowing out the end of the piece where it would go over Bojil's arm. Making it fit properly and without discomfort would probably be the hardest part.

Stanno had begun to rub tung oil onto the surface of the desk, pouring it directly onto the wood and rubbing it in with a cloth with an even, circular motion. The scowl on his face could simply have been one of concentration, but it looked to Winry as though it went much deeper than that. After a time, he stepped back, considering his handiwork with a critical eye.

"Those kids could have been mine," he said, his voice a mix of quiet bitterness and resignation.

Winry had stopped the lathe for a moment, otherwise she wouldn't have heard Stanno's comment. She wished she hadn't. She couldn't even think why he would say something like that in her hearing. Maybe it was because she was an outsider who might have a more objective view. She was willing to give most people the benefit of the doubt, unless they raised the bar a little too high. She hesitated to reply, but the silence that hung in the air begged to be broken by something other than the whirring of the lathe's headstock.

"Even Danika?" Winry suggested.

Stanno seemed to expect that question because he simply considered it for a few moments without any sort of surprise at having been asked. He poured more oil onto the wood and worked it in.

"Maybe. I might have gotten over it in time," he said.

Winry raised an eyebrow. He sounded more like he was trying to convince himself and wasn't doing a very good job of it. "It's not about the kids, is it?" she said cautiously.

Stanno glanced at her then applied to cloth to the desk again, his movements a little more forceful. At least, Winry thought, he was enough of a craftsman to not take his aggression out on his work. Winry picked up the bowl gouge to start on the end of the piece. She worked slowly, stopping the lathe periodically to take measurements. The heat was starting to build up in the workshop. Stanno had already peeled off his shirt and Winry decided to follow suit. She paused for a moment to unzip her overalls, slip the heavy fabric from her shoulders and tie the sleeves around her waist. Feeling much more comfortable in her cropped top, she bent back to her work.

Then Stanno suddenly swore in Ishvalan, and Winry looked over at him with a start. He stood glaring morosely at the desk, and Winry wondered if he had somehow damaged it.

"She's still the most beautiful woman in Ishval!" he declared. He pointed at Winry with the oil soaked cloth in his hand. "If it hadn't been for you bloody Amestrians, she'd have been—" He stopped and stared at her.

Winry bridled. "Don't go blaming me!" she shot back. "You've got yourself to blame just as much! And I don't want to talk about this anymore! I just want to get done here, so shut up!"

Stanno continued to regard her silently, much of his own anger apparently dissipated. A smile began to lurk around his mouth and he turned his attention back to the desk, moving around behind it and applying oil to the back surface. He glanced again at Winry with an appraising look.

"You're full of surprises, aren't you, Winry?" he remarked.

Winry shook her head. "Yeah, yeah," she muttered. "Surprise, surprise."

"All right, how does that feel?" Winry asked. She held the concave end of the wooded arm securely over Bojil's stump. She had placed a scrap of wool over the area to act as padding. "Does it feel tight at all?"

Bojil frowned slightly. "Maybe a little." His scarlet eyes slid toward Winry's bare midriff then looked away quickly, but Winry didn't notice.

She nodded. "It needs to be a little looser then. It has to accommodate a little more padding."

"I'll trust to your judgment, Zhaarana." Bojil smiled at the girl's intent look of concentration as she peered into the concave end.

She tapped the edge of the wood. "It could go a little bit thinner without affecting the integrity," she murmured. "I just need to scrape out a little more." She examined Bojil's stump one more time. "Yes. Right about there. Okay, Mr. Bojil!" she said brightly, standing up. "I just have to see how the attachments are coming and pick up the leather straps! I'll be back tomorrow!"

"Thank you so much, Zhaarana Winry!" Bojil said, taking the girl's hand. "God bless you for your kindness!"

Winry gave him a cheerful smile and climbed back into the waiting rickshaw. "Okay, Atash!" she called to the puller. "Could you take me over to the fort? I have to see one of the engineers."

"Anything you say, Zhaarana." Atash had to tear his eyes away to face forward. He grinned as he trotted down the street, reveling in the stares his passenger was attracting.

"This is a nice set!" Winry said, admiring the tap and die tool kit that Lieutenant Arliss, the army engineer, showed her. "I should get one of these! My set is getting pretty worn."

"This is one of the latest models," the lieutenant said, taking out an intermediate tap. "This should be the right size for your piece. How are the attachments coming?"

"I have to stop by Zhaarad Sepehr, the blacksmith. He's working on a couple of basic hooks." Winry gave a little laugh. "He's also fixing up a nutcracker."

The lieutenant nodded and smiled. "He does fine work. Bring them on by here as soon as they're ready and I'll cut the threads into them."

"Thanks, lieutenant!" Winry bounded back outside, skirting around Miles and Benjamin as they walked by and giving them a quick wave. "Hi, Colonel! Hi, Benji!"

As she hopped back into her waiting rickshaw and rolled toward the gate of the fort, Miles gazed after her. He shook his head. "There she goes," he murmured.

Benji chuckled quietly. "Miss Winry's always had a mind of her own," he said. "But she's in for a bit of sunburn on all that bare skin if she's not careful."

Miles echoed the sergeant major's laugh. "She might be in for a little more than that."