Summary: Amestris is slowly starting to get used to a new normal. Everything seems to be going well so far, but there some concerns about how things will develop in the years to come.
Notes: Today the update is fortunately on time despite a brief distraction from writing. We will see of this will endure over the remained of the Christmas period. I certainly hope so, but will not give an explicit promise, because I know my ability to get distracted or run out of idea about what to write. Next chapter we should be at about the middle of Summer 1915.
Since Edward and Alphonse were already in Central for their little research project into the historical development of alchemy, they decided to visit the Bradleys on Sunday. The former first lady was still living in the Presidential Palace out of necessity, although Grumman was slowly starting to run out of patience. He had made it clear that she had to find a new place for her residence, since the man did not want two infants, who liked to start crying at even the slightest unexpected sound, around. Selim's former identity was, however, a large contributing factor.
"Good afternoon, boys," Riza greeted them as they entered. "Good afternoon, Miss First Lady," Al replied with a smile and gave her an elaborate bow with unfurled hands. She clicked her tongue in slight annoyance. "Nice to see you again, Mrs. Hawkeye," Ed said with a laugh. "How is everything going now that you have four new colleagues?" She made a so-so gesture. "The four new guys aren't really much of a problem. They mostly keep to themselves since their portfolios don't really interact too much with my ones."
"Except for the funds," Alphonse pointed out, and the Minister of Finance sighed. "Yes, that is by far the most tiring thing I have to deal with at the moment. So far, I can ensure that Amestris won't go bust for another two months." Both brothers gave her shocked looks. "It's that bad," Edward quietly asked. "Father and his lost did not care. They thought there wouldn't be any creditors that could possibly demand payment. Bradley gave out a ton of state bonds to pay for the conflict with Aurego and Creta."
"But Mr. Henschel is taking care of our relations with them, doesn't that mean we can sell the unnecessary armaments and pay most of it back," Al suggested. "Not really, Alphonse. Military armaments are usually difficult to take apart, and selling them as they are is unwise for reasons that I believe to be self-evident. We have really cut down on the spending for this year as is. Several ministerial offices are glorified warehouses and Mr. Miles' current office is a tent with a table, chair and some filling cabinets."
"Given the weather in Ishval, I don't think he minds that," Edward noted. "I would probably boil even if I jumped into that oasis of theirs." The government sponsored newspapers had been sent to the Ishvalan capital for a special story they ran on 21 April, where the first two pages were dedicated to the rebuilding process that the region was undergoing. Hawkeye gestured for them to come inside and towards the shoe rack, and they followed, taking off their shoes and putting on slippers instead.
"Grandfather decided he wanted the residence to be more homely, so he has banned people from wearing outdoor shoes inside the premises," she explained. "Did you come to talk with him or with Mrs. Bradley?" "The latter," Ed replied. "We wanted to check on her and little Selim, especially. Everything's been okay so far, right?" She nodded. "The doctors have all agreed that there is nothing seemingly off about him, though he seems a bit subdued compared to other infants."
"Subdued?" "He doesn't cry as much as Josephine does. And although they are both energetic and playful, it is clearly that Miss Frederickson's daughter enjoys it more. Mrs. Bradley has argued that it is a leftover of how his was, since, according to her, Selim had always been an introvert." Both Elrics gave her an unimpressed look with the slightest raise of their eyebrows. "Yeah, I know. Come on, all four of them are upstairs, because the kids are currently having their afternoon naps."
They ascended the stairs and Riza softly knocked on one of the doors before slowly opening them. Mrs. Bradley was sitting in an armchair and had her right hand raised in a stopping motion with the index finger extended, while she looked at the nearby crib to make sure her son and de facto foster daughter did not wake up. Once she was assured, she turned the gesture into a beckoning one and turned her head to the door. "Come in, but try not to make a noise," she instructed them.
The brother slowly came in. "Good afternoon," they whispered in turn. "Welcome," she replied at the same volume. "It's nice seeing you again, Edward, Alphonse." They sat down in chairs opposite to her. From their perspective, they could just about see the two children sleeping in the crib. Josephine was lying closer to them on her left side in an orange one piece pyjama. Selim was lying next to her on his back in a light green one. Both were about a foot and a half tall now.
"He's growing well, I assume," Ed asked. "Yeah, I was afraid that there would be problems with him, but he quickly caught up to little Josephine and seems completely healthy," Mrs. Bradley informed him as the door opened much slower and Miss Frederickson walked in carrying a tea set with two cups and a pot of tea. "Oh, we have guests," she realised. "It's okay, Rosemary, just sit down," the Former First Lady implored her.
"Good afternoon," the brother chorused as she put the set down on the low coffee table. "I've told you about the Elric brothers, haven't I," Joan introduced the boys, and she gave them a surprised look. "Oh, it's nice meeting you," she told them. "The pleasure is all out," Al replied, and his brother gave her a smile. "We are her to check up on Selim," he explained. "Is there any problem you noticed with him?"
She started pouring Mrs. Bradley a cup of tea and wagged her head. "No, the boy seems completely fine. He is a lively little boy, though my little Joey is clearly the more energetic of the two. They both keep us on our feet for most of our day." The brothers nodded. "Would you mind if I had a look at him," Ed asked. "If you can make sure you don't wake up either of them, then feel free to go right ahead," Joan said, and he slowly rose. The chair creaked and he flinched. Both women looked at the crib scared.
After a moment the babies only moved slightly and both mothers gave a relieved breath. Edward slowly walked around the crib and came to it from the side that Selim was lying on. The boy looked absolutely peaceful, while sleeping. His hands were weakly lying on either side of him, and he actually looked very cute like this. Ed noted that there was a slight remnant of dried saliva next to the right corner of his lips. Pride would have screamed if he knew he would one day look this undignified.
Edward leaned against the sight of the crib and had a closer look. He could see the little boy's torso slowly moving up and down as he breathed. "Hey, Selim," he quietly whispered, and the boy's hands twitched slightly. Next to him, Josephine moved her head forward slightly. "You better not screw this up. Few people are given a second chance." Even if either of the infants could understand the sentence, let alone its meaning, he sat it far too quietly for them. They did move slightly, and it almost looked like Selim wanted to raise his arm and grasp after something.
Ed carefully took his right hand, and the boy scrunched his face. The teens exhaled and closed his eyes. He had theorised that since the Gate of Truth was needed only for a transmutation, he could possibly use the 'soul as philosopher's stone' trick to see what the little boy was like. Surprisingly quickly, his head filled with noise like an awful tinnitus, and he barely heard the three gasps. "Brother!" That voice got through and both kids promptly stirred.
He opened his eyes and saw Selim had opened his eyes and was looking at him with a confused look. He could see the point, where their hands were touching, shining slightly like a sun lit ruby, but more to the point he saw something very similar right where the boy's heart should be. It was a tiny speck like a grain of sand, but it shone like a star. Guess that's his soul, he thought. There was only one. He looked down and saw a very similar thing shining from his own torso. It was as if he could see through the tissue.
Something deep down told him this was the most he could ever hope to do. It was a weird way to try out an imitation of what Hohenheim had taught the Xingese alkahests, but his head was already starting to spin from the strain. He felt the food in his blood dissipate into energy to allow even this little – a mere passive observation. He felt the Gate of Truth inside him completely shut and refusing to budge even a little. A clear message that there would be no transmutations for the rest of his life, and the gate would only open to allow his soul to pass through it at death.
He looked at Josephine and the three other people, who were standing up and looking at him and specifically their connected hands, in shock. None of the others had the same thing visible in any of them, and he took a deep breath before willing whatever the connection was to break. He almost fell to the floor in exhaustion as it broke and the whooshing in his ears left. He grabbed the crib and that made Josephine fully wake up too. Selim was still looking at him with eyes that looked innocent, as if waiting for something. Perhaps some sort of judgement.
"What the hell was that," Alphonse half screamed as he jumped his brother and pulled him over to sit down. "My attempt at that aura thing the Xingese can do," he explained as he sat down. "Could I have a piece of something sweet and a lot of water? I think I just gave myself hypoglycaemia." "Of course," Rosemary sat as she quickly went out of the room. The kids had started fussing in the crib, and Joan stood up and went to them. "Shh, shh, everything's okay." Selim and Josephine were now both lying awake on their back and making little noises.
"What did you see," Al asked as he thought against the desire to scream at his brother for being a massive idiot. "Pretty sure he's fully human," Ed whispered into his ear. "I saw a little red star in his chest, which was probably his soul. As far as I can tell there is only one, because when I looked down at myself, I had the same thing inside me. Unfortunately, it turns out that pulling this stunt isn't free of charge. I felt the sugar and fat in my blood being consumed to allow me to do even that little."
"You better not have given up another bit of your lifespan, because Winry won't be the only one that will hit you with a wrench then," Alphonse almost yelled into his ear. "Don't worry, I'm pretty sure I either can't do that anymore or it would require a conscious decision. I felt my Gate of Truth, and it told me in some weird instinctual way to not even think about asking it for help with anything related to alchemy. Transmutations in any way are lost to me for the rest of my life." He felt somewhat dejected from having that so firmly confirmed again.
"What did you three see," he asked, and Rosemary barrelled back in with a large chocolate with Riza behind carrying a jug of water. "We saw the point, where your hands met, glow like one of stones." "Did you see the other stuff I mentioned?" "No." "I can say, Mrs. Bradley," Edward suddenly said out loud, "that your son appears completely healthy as far as I can tell." "That's great," she said with more concern for calming down the pair then thinking about that declaration. Edward took the chocolate bar and started to eat it whole before drinking a quarter of the jug.
The next day, Riza had requested a meeting in Mustang's office alongside Benedict Draxler. "Go ahead and sit down. Do you want anything to drink? My secretary can whip it up really quickly." "A small coffee will be fine," Draxler told the brunette. "A larger one for me with some milk in it," Hawkeye added, and the woman left without a word, only bowing to them slightly. The pair of Ministers sat down across from Mustang.
The Prime Minister had put on his glasses ten minutes earlier, because he realized if he didn't do that, then the first thing that would happen the moment his subordinate walked into the room, she would start nagging him endlessly about it. "What did you two want to discuss with me that it was so urgent? Is there some sort of issue in the way our national agriculture currently operates, or something of that nature?"
"There is not a problem per se, Mr. Prime Minister," Draxler explained, "We however feel there is a possibility that one is developing as we speak. Miss Minister has brought to my attention a possible threat of a famine." "A famine," Mustang asked with a shocked tone, but a confused look on his face. Hawkeye gave a firm nod. "I have been wondering about the population growth we are likely to undergo as we enter a period of relative peace," she said, carefully avoiding any mention of Father.
She took a stack of documents out of her briefcase. "I asked Miss Armstrong to send me information from the Office of National Statistics to consult. Fortunately, the amount of people that have died in conflicts is not as large as I feared, so an immediate population explosion is not going to occur just yet." She showed Roy a document showing a breakdown of deaths by cause. On the graph of percentages, there were spikes corresponding to the times that Amestris went to war, but the percentage remained in the single digits throughout.
"However, our net growth is still concerning. I know most countries are happy when they have a lot of children. Some even have natalist policies for that exact purpose. The previous administration of Amestris has however not thought about feeding that many people," Riza continued and Mustang looked at Draxler. "I thought we produce more food than we consume." "We do, but not by much. In terms of net tonnage, we consume almost 80% of the food dedicated for civilian purposes.
In agricultural terms that means our nation's carrying capacity is around 65 million individuals and according to the extrapolation of Mrs. Hawkeye, which the Office of National Statistics confirmed were accurate assuming no change to fertility and a small reduction of deaths, will be filled up at some point between 1930 and 1940." Without a word, Riza pulled out another file that showed graphs of past population growth.
At that point, the secretary came back into the room with two cups of coffee. She sat down the platter on the table. "One small coffee for you," she said and gave the cup to Draxler. "Thank you, Miss," he said and immediately took a sip. "And one coffee with milk for our First Lady," she continued and gave the larger cap to Riza. "Oh, an excellent choice of brew," the Minister of Agriculture cooed. Hawkeye just gave a small nod accompanied by a brief eye contact to the woman.
Mustang had a look at her files. The margins were covered in her calculation and some graphs had line added with a pencil, when she used a ruler to extrapolate. She then pulled out a large graph marked as being made by the aforementioned office, which showed the population of Amestris slowly rising over the past two centuries with dips at moments Father required sacrifices. The black line ended at a point marked with the word 'present day' and three dashed lines continued to the right of that small dot.
There was also a dotted line parallel to the time axis that was placed at 65 million individuals. The faster growing line marked 'fertility increases by 0.5' crossed it around 1929. The next line marked 'fertility remains the same' crossed it around 1934 and the slowest growing line marker 'fertility decreases by 0.5' crossed it around 1941 or 1942. "Is there something we can do about this," Mustang asked as he moved his glasses a bit higher on his nose. Hawkeye took the opportunity to drink some of her coffee.
"Agricultural reforms are the main possibility," Draxler offered. "Despite slow progress, most of our agriculture is still stuck in the 19th century and uses a lot of manual labour. Mechanization could certainly increase our overall output. However, the question is how quickly and efficiently this would occur. Some in both my old and new offices have argued that field limits are the problem." "Field limits," both Mustang and Hawkeye asked as if the idea sounded utterly insane to them.
"Think about it: every field is divided from another by a sliver of land. Now add up all the slivers throughout the country together, and you would probably have a land area equal to thousands of fields," he argued. "Some have said that the easiest way to increase output would be to abolish or greatly reduce the size of field limits." The other two thought about that for a minute and gave hums like they understood, but were not particularly impressed by the idea.
"Are there any other suggestions," the Prime Minister eventually asked. "More productive crops are always an option, but that would require people to gain new experience with a new type of plant. Difficult in the short term, as the size necessary for long term benefits would possibly cause us to enter a famine early. Besides that, most options are outside my portfolio." "Either international trade or population control," Hawkeye noted.
"So, buying food from other countries or somehow making people have fewer children. I think the former would be easier. Miss Armstrong has told me that their family are already prepared to join the world market," Mustang concluded. "It might not be as hard to implement, but I have two concerns," Riza argued, "for one it would make us dangerously dependent on a basic resource and second I had thoughts about the potential consequence of a bad harvest on the country." She looked at the Minister of Agriculture.
"Are you pointing out the fact that we can only afford to lose about 20% of our yearly output before coming dangerously close to a famine?" "Yes. We also don't use that many separate crops, do we?" He nodded. "I assume you are referring to a potential issue caused by crop disease." "That is a possible problem too," Mustang asked, almost bewildered at this point. "It's the reason that monoculture is a dangerous practice. A single plant pandemic can wipe out everything."
"But we practice polyculture," Roy pointed out. "We do," Draxler agreed, "however many of them are in the same category of plants. Seeds and grains account for almost 40% of our agricultural output, and that statistic includes cattle and dairy farming in its calculation. There is currently no hint that a devastating failure causing illness is coming, but it is certainly a possibility that we should prepare for just in case."
"When Parliament meets again next time, I would like to add this discussion into the order of the day," Riza told Roy. "And I voice my support for that," Draxler added. "We don't have to recall them immediately, because we have time. If anything, it will let us do more research and see what can be done about this," Hawkeye told him to calm him down somewhat. "We have spotted this trap early enough, that we can take our time and implement a solution with sufficient thought put into it." "After all these threats about famines, I would hope so," Mustang said.
When he was younger, Miles imagined his future in the military. He did not have the slightest inkling he would end up in administration. Admittedly, being the Governor General of Ishval was pretty high up the chain, but that might have sounded more insane to a younger version of him that the mere category of his current job. He had gone to the academy with the goal of climbing military ranks and not the political ones. Plus, the idea that he would be the administrator of his own people was far from his mind. Back then, the Governor Generals were appointed every six months from high ranked majors and generals.
Some would argue that Yunus did not exactly strike a great pose, when he would spend his days in a tent with only a desk, a chair, a filling cabinet and a bed, but given the current state of his homeland, then he would gladly sacrifice some comforts until everyone got on their feet. Even most of the other Ishvalans were still living in tents, as the clearing of their old capital was still underway. Some had built basic infrastructure for themselves out of carefully carved sandstone, but they all knew that would have to be replaced.
Today, the Governor General walked among his people and received greetings as he passed. Since the Promised Day, he had given back his uniform along with his rank, when Armstrong agreed to his request of an honourable discharge. Mattathias had passed to him information that a meeting of Ishvalan priests had been called at the Temple of Ishvalah, or at least the altar that they had built there a month ago.
The whole construction was still standing in the open air. The statues that had been returned from Central Museum now stood in pairs opposite to each other on the still broken up mosaic floor. Although there was no reason to abide by that convention, when there were no walls except that one pile of stones behind the altar, people started to approach that temporary construction by walking in between the statues as if coming through the old entrance of a building that had been blown apart years ago.
Jehoash was walking around the statues with the frankincense lantern to fill the air with its fragrance. Miles greeted him with a small bow as they walked by each other. The priest was walking on the broken mosaic and between them the large tapestries were lying on the floor, since they had nowhere to be put. The restorers sent by Central Museum would still sometimes work on parts of them.
They showed various scenes from the Ishvalan scriptures, including the Creation of the World and the Manifestation of Ishvalah to his people at this very oasis over a millennium ago. Yunus reached the former front of the Temple and started to come back towards the altar. The other priests were sitting on the surrounding ground with some having their hoods up and other not. Mattathias sat directly behind the altar and just outside the shadow cast by the lone wall left behind.
The Governor General bowed before the priests of his god. "Brother Miles, come and sit down with us," Mattathias invited him inside the space and the apprentices of the priests, who stood along the indent in the floor that indicated where the old wall into the Pure Room had stood, parted for him to enter. "Many of our fellow priests have been looking forwards to meeting you," Jehoash explained, and there were murmurs of agreement from the other men. When Yunus started sitting down, he spoke again.
"Before you take your seat, it was tradition that one entering this holy place would bow before the altar and kiss it. Though the original is no longer here, we wish to continue it nonetheless, so please do this with the new one." Miles stepped forward and took a deep bow to kiss one of the sandstone blocks. Out of his field of view, some of the priests gave approving nods. He then went back and sat down. Mattathias rose instead and put his hand together in prayer, and Jehoash gave the Governor General a gesture to stay quiet.
"Oh, Lord of Truth, who created the World and all the Stars beyond it, bless this meeting of your Priesthood. Send messengers bearing your wise wisdom among us, so that we may be able to make a decision most pleasing to Your Will. Accept our supplications made in the Oasis of Our Oath." After every sentence, Mattathias would stop and all the other priests would repeat after him. After the last line was repeated, he also bowed and kissed the altar before sitting back down and looking to his left.
"Brother Manasseh, as the oldest living member of the Priesthood, would you please begin." The man bowed toward Mattathias and then turned around. Because he was wearing his hood up, Miles could only see his long beard. "Chosen brother," he addressed the other priests, "our prayers have at last been fulfilled and Our Lord has called us back to the land. He has softened the hearts of the Amestrians, which we once only knew as cold and like stone." He then turned towards Miles. "I mean no offence to any one of your friends and family."
"I take none, and I am sure neither would they, Brother Manasseh, I understand what you mean." Only all too well, the Governor General thought, as the oldest priest continued on. "Ishval is now restored and from information I have heard from some sources the leadership of Amestris has even accepted the Lord," he continued with a look at Jehoash. "Not quite, Brother Manasseh. The Führer and the Prime Minister asked me to give them Our Lord's blessing for leaders, since they wanted to honour or law and traditions as much as they could."
"It is still a remarkable occurrence. In all my years, I had never imagined such an act would come from people in those positions," Manasseh argued. "Is the act of blessing unbelievers not blasphemous in and of itself, though," asked a younger priest near the left side of the 'room.' "I do not believe it to be so," Jehoash stated. "Me neither," said Mattathias. "If the request is made with proper intent, then I would ask the Lord to give the blessing as well. I would merely use a conditional phrasing," Manasseh agreed.
"And that is what I did," Jehoash defended himself. "I made the request, but included an explicit deference to the Lord's Will. "Very well, I will remember this judgement in the future, if I am asked to do something similar," the younger priest accepted the explanation. "Before we continue further," Manasseh returned their discussion on the tracks. "I would like to ask our Governor General, if he knows how many of our people there are."
Miles was not expecting that. "I do not know the exact numbers. The last time somebody even tried to count all of us was the 1912 Census of Amestris and the Office of National Statistic has made it clear that the count suffers multiple issues. Many wandering groups, unofficial settlements and other irregular residences were not counted. A significant number of people with mixed ancestry that considered themselves Ishvalan also did not refer to themselves as such, when asked by the officials."
"I don't need a precise number, Brother Yunus, an approximation will suffice," Manasseh explained. "The number is somewhere in the low thousands. It is highly unlikely that it exceeds ten. But we won't know the truth until we conduct a count of our own." "Chosen brothers, given that there are only sixteen of us left and among all of us we have just under thirty apprentices together, do you think we can ensure our people will have access to Our Lord's Priesthood?"
Some of the men made murmurs. "Brother Manasseh, I believe the answer is fully dependent on how many of the young boys will decide to join our ranks," one of the priest on Miles' right said. "Very true," another on the left added, "If our apprentices will themselves each be able to get almost two on average, then the population will be well taken care off. That is all this hinges on." "Why would the boys not want to join the Priesthood," Manasseh asked with a surprised look.
"Ever since our nation's inception, there have always been sufficient numbers to be able to disperse the multitude of Our Lord's blessing among the people. Why would this suddenly change?" "Excuse me," Miles interrupted, and the priests looked at him. "That original version of Ishval is no more, are you certain the same attitudes are still present," he asked Manasseh. "It may not have been here, but our culture has endured the last decade and a half is a decent condition," Jehoash pointed out.
"I do not disagree, but the culture you observe is the sum of the old and the young Ishvalans. Are you certain the way that young people express their belonging to our nation is not sufficiently different from the previous generations?" Manasseh looked at the other with a silent request for comment. "If I may," another priest on the right began, "while spirituality has seen some damage resulting from our Exile, I have no reason to be concerned at this point."
"I have had similar experiences," the priest next to him declared. "The younger generations may not hold us in as high a regard as their parents, but I believe this has always been the case. You cannot become an apprentice to a priest before you even turn twenty years old, so I don't think the renewal of our ranks will diminished just yet." "I am glad that your experiences differ so much from my own, then," a priest opposite them declared.
"You have seen something different," Mattathias asked, and the man gave one firm nod. "Many young Ishvalans I have met have concluded that our nation's fall from grace was an indication that our faith is misplaced," he declared, and many of the priests winced. Internally, Miles was surprised that the experience was not more common. "They refused to return, because, and I quote: 'How can we believe that we won't be forced out again, once somebody else gets into power, when Ishvalah allowed it once'."
"Hopefully the Lord of Truth will arrange for the full nature of his spirit to be manifested to them," Jehoash stated, and there were once more murmurs of agreement. "Like all nations, the young are our future, and it would be sad to see Ishval go. I, like all of you, understand that if such a thing were to occur, it would be in accordance to the insubvertable will of the Lord of Truth, but I do not understand, why that would be his wish for Our People."