Beta: TaintedLetter

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Spring 1911

"Hey, Ellie," chirped Selim, carrying a wagon filled with metal canisters into the greenhouse. "I got something for you."

Elizabeth set down her notes and looked up at her best friend from her seat at the table in the greenhouse. It was a decently sized white metal table that she used to work on her genetic equations, and to sometimes play with her lab rats.

The rats had been given to her by Selim when she first received the greenhouse, and they were the first to try out her new medicine.

Elizabeth had, admittedly, grown very fond of them and upgraded them to a large cage filled it with decorations, toys, and other fun things for them to play with. She chatted with them merrily while she worked, and they chirped and squeaked back at her sometimes.

She even gave them names, and moved them to the most beautiful and warmest part of her greenhouse: the cat walk.

"For me?" Elizabeth repeated, surprised. Selim's sweet smile drew her curiosity and she stood up from her seat. "What's in the wagon?"

"Human bone marrow," Selim said cheerfully.

Elizabeth gasped. "What? Bu-But how? Where did you get it? How did you get any volunteers?"

"I asked very nicely," Selim said with an wide smile. "Why don't you try transmuting this with your hybrids? It's only a very small part of a human, and not even alive or sentient, so you aren't breaking the law or committing a taboo."

Elizabeth rushed over to examine the canisters, her eyes wide with astonishment. "This is—this is amazing. Thank you so much, Selim."

"What are best friends for?" he asked, still smiling.

"This had to have been hard to get, though. I can't believe you went through so much trouble—"

"Really, it was no issue," Selim reassured her. "Barely a few hours' worth of work, really. It's all fresh, too, so you should probably try the experiments sooner rather than later."

"I—I will! I'll work up the equation and transmutation circle right now," Elizabeth gushed happily, rushing forward and tackling Selim into a tight hug. "Oh, thank you, Selim! This means so much to me."

Selim gave her back a few pats, his smile softening.

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

One month later...

After much debilitating, and debating with herself, Elizabeth Luxanna finally thought it was time to try for her State Alchemist Certificate.

She knew she was certainly not ready to be a soldier—although her new lessons provided by much kinder tutors were proving fruitful—but she was ready to continue her research into medicine. With research funds designated to each State Alchemist, Elizabeth would be able to build her own proper laboratory and conduct trials.

The only other way for her to do so would be to attend medical school for nearly ten years to get her necessary degrees and then use her family money.

Elizabeth was nowhere near patient enough to take that route, which left the State Alchemist exam.

So she swallowed her nerves, confessed to her new family she was ready to take the exam, and by the end of the week Mr. Bradley—er—Papa had scheduled her exam.

Elizabeth Luxanna arrived to the testing center early in the morning on a warm Saturday, dressed in her best outfit picked out by Mum. She was greeted by stern-looking guards, and taken to a massive dimly-lit room with dozens of sour faced men glaring at her.

Elizabeth took a deep breath, nervously presenting herself before an assortment of the military senior staff, including her foster father.

"Elizabeth Luxanna, you may now begin," Papa told her.

Elizabeth pulled back her gloves and then clapped her hands together above her head. Lightning shot out from in between her finger tips, barreling up and hurtling out the open skylight above them. It exploded with a resounding crack, and thunder boomed right after it.

There were a few ooh's and some general murmurs of surprise.

Elizabeth didn't have control over where the lightning went. All she could do was create it and it would shoot out in the generation direction of wherever her fingers pointed. Knowing this, Papa arranged for the skylight to be opened up, and told Elizabeth to raise her hands up.

After all, Elizabeth wasn't becoming a State Alchemist to fight. She was only a small child, and while she was receiving combat training from new tutors (courtesy of her foster family), it would still be a couple years before she could stand toe-to-toe with another soldier.

The lightning was purely a last minute attack that may or may not save her life.

"Is this the end of your demonstration?" inquired the führer.

"Yes, sir," Elizabeth said.

"Very well. We will take this and your submitted research into consideration. Dismissed."

Elizabeth curtsied, her eyes roaming around to take in the dozens of eyes that stared at her impassively.

She recognized a pair of them that had a calculating gleam inside of them.

She gave a small smile and wave to Mustang before she left.

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

When Papa came home to dinner that night he gave Elizabeth a small white box, and wore a grin. "Congratulations, Elizabeth."

With a gasp, Elizabeth opened up the box to find the silver pocket watch that signified she was a State Alchemist.

"Oh my," Mum fretted. "You passed her?"

"She's exceptionally talented, Katherine," Papa said. "I'd be a fool not to. Besides, I have no intentions of sending her out to the front lines, or any such nonsense. Her work is better suited in a laboratory. This simply lets her do that."

"Congrats, Ellie," Selim exclaimed, throwing his arms around her. "We should have a big dinner to celebrate."

Mum smiled sweetly. "Yes, you're right. As long as she stays safe, I won't put up a fight. Why don't we all go out to eat? Elizabeth's choice."

"Ah—no—um—Selim, choose for me, please?" Elizabeth squeaked out, panicked at having to make a decision so abruptly.

"Cassio's!" Selim declared immediately.

The adults chuckled at Elizabeth's sigh of relief.

"Very well. Let's go out and have a lovely dinner to mark the start of Elizabeth's career as the Spring Alchemist."

Elizabeth grinned so widely it hurt her cheeks.

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Summer 1911

Out of the thirteen canisters of bone marrow Selim had given Elizabeth, all of them had been used up in her attempts to implement them into her hybrid.

Out of these thirteen tries, only three of them didn't immediately kill the plant.

And of those three, only one produced a successful batch of human blood.

Beyond excited after realizing she was (potentially) successful, she injected a very small amount of the blood into her lab rats, and then dashed back inside to ask one of the servants to tell Selim to come to the greenhouse when he could.

Upon returning, Elizabeth noticed her rats were feeling amiss, and by the time Selim arrived...

One of them had died, with the rest nearly following suit.

"Well," Elizabeth said tersely, petting her poor sick rats, as Selim came up behind her with a raised eyebrow. "it appears that, um... my blood is a little too potent."

"What?" Selim deadpanned.

"It seems that when Hearty's produced blood meets with mammal blood it, uh, well... it triples."

"It... triples."

"The blood cells inside begin to rapidly reproduce until the quantity has been tripled," Elizabeth explained. "It's... I don't think it's an issue if I cut back on the amount given, but... my poor rats."

Elizabeth mournfully picked up her first deceased test subject, giving it a small kiss on the head. "Poor thing. I'm so sorry."

"You're apologizing to a rat."

"Who bravely gave his life for science," she retorted, hugging it closer. "Because of his valiant sacrifice I was able to find out what was wrong and save the others before it was too late."

Selim continued to look at her in plain disbelief. "Ellie... it's a rat."

"A brave rat who will be buried in the gardens," she said firmly. "As soon as I make sure everyone else is okay."

Selim took a deep breath, let it out slowly, turned on his heel, and walked away.

Elizabeth watched her best friend leave before she shrugged, and went back to nursing her test subjects.

'Extra treats for them tonight. We'll have a feast to honor their fallen brethren,' Elizabeth thought to herself.

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

There was a knock at the greenhouse door, causing Elizabeth to pause in her charting. She hadn't been expecting any visitors, but that didn't mean much. Papa had an odd habit of stopping by at completely random hours to check up on her.

And to steal more custom made tea leaves, of course. She always made it a habit to prepare a canister of his favorite tea leaves when they were ready because of such.

Elizabeth placed her pen behind her ear and headed to the front door. She opened it up to find a boy older than her with golden hair and eyes. He dressed in black with a blood-red cloak, and behind him towered a man in armor.

"Are you Elizabeth Luxanna, the Spring Alchemist?" asked the golden boy.

Elizabeth blushed at her titled, and resisted the urge to nervously fidget. Instead, she shyly admitted, "Yes. M-May I help you?"

The boy grinned cutely at her. "I'm Edward Elric, a new State Alchemist. I was wondering if my brother and I could ask you a few questions?"

She vaguely remembered at dinner Papa mentioning a "cheeky brat" at the State Alchemist certification exam after her own. The name Edward Elric seemed like it belonged to the same person, but Elizabeth wasn't certain.

She gave the two brothers a once over look, and found that neither of them felt bad.

She didn't get the icky feeling inside of her when she looked at them like she did with many other humans.

Call it intuition, or instinct, but a part of her genuinely judged these two boys as not bad.

Which was a true rarity.

Elizabeth smiled brightly at the two, and stepped back into her greenhouse. "Come on in. There's a table over there if you'd like to sit there. Would either of you like tea?"

"No, thank you," Edward responded, stepping into the greenhouse and looking at it with wide eyes. "Wow. You grow all of these?"

"Yep," Elizabeth said proudly, puffing out her chest.

"I've never seen plants like these," came a sweet voice from behind the suit of armor.

'He sounds younger than me,' Elizabeth thought in disbelief. 'How is he that tall? How old is he?'

But she knew better than to directly ask someone how old they were.

"The plants you see here are all of my own creation," Elizabeth explained, guiding the two brothers over to the white metal table at the end of her greenhouse. "I used alchemy to create hybrids between different species of plants and repeated this process several times."

"That's amazing," Edward exclaimed, taking everything in with wide eyes.

Elizabeth's cheeks grew hot again, and she cleared her throat to try and distract herself from the praise.

Strangers praising her didn't normally affect her.

'How queer,' she thought, taking a seat at the table across from the brothers. "What did you want to talk about?"

The two brothers exchanged looks before Edward turned back to address Elizabeth. His eyes burned with intensity that made Elizabeth uncomfortable, and he firmly asked, "Would you please tell us how you've been able to transmute life?"

Elizabeth blinked in surprise at that question. She supposed she shouldn't be so shocked another alchemist might be curious about her field of study, but... She was transmuting plants, nothing so nearly as impressive as trying to make a chimaera or transmute humans.

"Why?" Elizabeth asked, tilting her head. "Why are you drawn to this field?"

"The truth is..." Edward trailed off, his brow furrowed. What could only be described as intense pain flickered across his face and—

—sympathy flooded through Elizabeth.

She reached forward and gently patted both brothers' hands. "S-Sorry to have asked an uncomfortable question. I don't mind sharing my notes with you, but I don't have them here with me. Can you two come back tomorrow morning?"

The brothers seemed surprised by this. Edward's eyes were wide and he stumbled, "Y—You're going to help us?"

"Yes," Elizabeth responded after a moment. "I will."

"Th-Thank you!" they exclaimed, and Edward reached forward to shake Elizabeth's hand. It was such a novel reaction that Elizabeth couldn't resist smiling at the two of them.

When was the last time any fellow alchemist shook her hand as an equal?

She bade the boys goodbye, and escorted them out of her greenhouse so she could return to work.

Elizabeth stared down at her hand after the two boys left, questioning why she had tried to comfort them.

She didn't... care about other humans. Ever since the Bradleys brought her in, they were the only ones that mattered to her.

She didn't feel an iota bit of sympathy for other humans. Certainly not enough to reach across and try to comfort one of them.

But there was something... something off about those two.

There was this deep-seated feeling inside of Elizabeth that instantly warmed up to the two of them.

For the first time in forever she felt like she could like other humans.

She felt like there might actually be good humans.

'I wonder if I'm coming down with something,' she worried, raising a hand to touch her forehead. To her surprise she didn't even feel warm, let alone feverish.

Could it really be her instincts?

Could those boys actually be good?

'Why do I feel like I know them from somewhere?' Elizabeth questioned. 'Why do I feel... so strange?'

'Why do I feel suddenly hopeful?'

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

"I met the Elric brothers today," Elizabeth remarked later that evening. The family had moved into the seating room to relax after dinner. Papa and Mum sat beside one another and were currently reading the same adventure novel.

Selim and Elizabeth, on the other hand, were currently engaged in a game of chess that Selim was winning.

"Eh? You mean the other kid alchemist?" Selim asked, mercilessly claiming Elizabeth's rook.

Elizabeth grimaced at her lost piece. "Yeah. He and his brother stopped by my greenhouse this morning."

"You don't say? What did they want?" Papa asked, lowering his book. Mum was apparently too engrossed, as she didn't react to anyone around her.

Mum's face was also twisted into disbelief, so Elizabeth guessed she was reading about some kind of big plot twist.

"They wanted to talk about transmuting life, and asked if I could answer their questions. I told them I'd meet with them tomorrow about it," Elizabeth answered, spitefully taking Selim's knight which warranted a glare from him. She stuck out her tongue.

Papa lowered his book, raising both his eyebrows at Elizabeth. "That's surprisingly trusting of you, Elizabeth. I didn't think you liked being around others."

"I don't," Elizabeth admitted, giving Selim a dirty look when he murdered her queen. "But, um, I like them."

Selim froze, his mouth dropping open as he stared at her in aghast. "What? You like hu—them?"

"I can't explain it, but, yeah," Elizabeth admitted, scratching her cheek. "I get... I get a good feeling from them. I think they're good people, and it... I don't know. It feels like I know them, you know? I know it sounds crazy—believe me, I know—but that's how I feel."

Selim's eyes darkened and he abruptly put her into checkmate. "You're right. That sounds absolutely absurd."

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

The Elric brothers met her outside her greenhouse at dawn.

Both groups were surprised to see the other there so soon.

"Why are you here so early?" Elizabeth questioned, tugging behind a cart filled with boxes of paperwork and notebooks.

"We didn't specify a time," Edward explained, abashed.

"Oh. Well, come inside. Brunch is usually brought out to me in a couple hours if you can wait."

"That'd be great, thanks," Edward thanked her. "Are those...?"

"Hm? Oh, yes. These are all of my notes on transmuting living specimens," Elizabeth answered, pulling out her greenhouse key and unlocking the front door. The brothers held the door open for her as she pulled her research inside, and once everyone was inside she gestured to it. "Have at it. They're boxed by dates, so I would start with the oldest ones first. If you have questions, please let me know. Um, there is more, but I thought you should go through these first to understand my later notes. I tend to skip a lot of steps later on."

Edward opened up the first book, pulling out some tattered notebooks. A quick flip through them had Edward grinning excitedly upon seeing all the math and diagrams drawn into it. "You really know your stuff, huh?"

"Math and science are about the only things I'm good at," Elizabeth admitted. "Well... let's get started, shall we?"

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Edward and Alphonse Elric were brilliant alchemists, Elizabeth concluded after spending her morning with them. They rapidly read through her notes, quickly connecting dots that took Elizabeth several days originally. They still had a handful questions, but each one proposed was thoughtful and Elizabeth enjoyed being able to give detailed answers that they both immediately understood.

It was such a novel experience for the young alchemist. While Selim was undoubtedly every bit as bright as these two boys—if not more so—he lacked their enthusiasm for alchemy and Elizabeth's research. He would always listen if she wanted to discuss, and she was still able to relish debating with Selim, but it wasn't his passion.

These brothers clearly loved alchemy, and Elizabeth found their enjoyment infectious.

Time skipped right by the trio and to Elizabeth's surprise it had already reached noon.

"El-lie!" sung the sweet voice of Selim as he entered the greenhouse.

The trio stopped their work upon Selim's entrance. The homunculus was dragging a cart filled with food—their stomachs let out a gurgle as soon as they saw it—and a smile on his face. Although Elizabeth thought the smile looked more forced than usual, which made her frown in concern.

'Bad morning?' she wondered, standing up from where she had been sitting beside the Elric brothers at the table. "Hi, Selim!

Selim dragged the cart over to them. "You didn't come in for breakfast, Mother thought you might be hungry."

"Sorry," Elizabeth apologized, brushing back one of her bangs. "Oh, um... Selim, this is Edward and Alphonse Elric. Edward is the Fullmetal Alchemist that Papa mentioned. Elrics, this is my best friend: Selim Bradley."

Selim's smile turned into the grins he'd wear when dealing with irritating old men that Papa had to work with. "Wow! You must be very young, you're barely bigger than Ellie."

Edward's eye twitched, a dark anger behind his eyes. "Hard to imagine a brat being friends with someone like Elizabeth."

Elizabeth cleared her throat when she noticed the instant anger behind Selim's eyes. "S-So, will you be joining us for brunch, Selim?"

"No. I have piano lessons," Selim answered, his voice saccharine sweet.
Elizabeth sighed with relief from that. Selim always enjoyed his music lessons. He'd surely have a better day if he got to play around on the piano.

'If he's still in a bad mood, I'll have to play hide and seek tonight with him,' Elizabeth thought to herself. Selim loved hunting her. Especially with his shadows since Elizabeth knew what he was. He found great pleasure in being able to scare the color off her by jumping out and grabbing her, or hanging her off the roof—Elizabeth rapidly got over her fear of heights when playing with Selim—and whatnot.

Elizabeth was getting the hang of finding spots that Selim couldn't easily find, too. She was finally starting to put up a challenge against him, and she thought that made him even happier when he did find her.

"After dinner tonight, wanna play hide and seek?" she asked him, resisting the urge to hug him.

Selim tolerated her bursts of physical affection, but since he never actively sought them out Elizabeth wasn't sure if he liked them or not. She figured he tolerated them out of fondness for her, but it wasn't something he enjoyed.

That got a genuine grin out of Selim. "If you want."

"Yes, please."

"Well, if you insist!" Selim waved goodbye. "Bye-bye Elric brothers, bye-bye Ellie."

After Selim left, Elizabeth turned back to the brothers and suggested, "Why don't we take a small break to eat."

Edward's stomach let out another loud gurgle, and the small boy rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Y-Yeah, good call."

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Answer: Central of course!

Question: Who would you like to learn under in the FMA-verse?

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