Every spell of the Wild Magic comes with a price. Where the High Magick is precise and formulaic, each spell a careful construction of well-defined symbols and ingredients with a mathematically predictable result, the Wild Magic is more like an ongoing exchange of favours with a vast and distant force. A Wildmage doesn't do magic so much as ask for it. All their rituals and formulas are just fancy ways to make requests.

Alcarian sits down with all the tools of her calling - the Book of Sun, the Book of Moon, the Book of Stars, the herbs and candles and incense - and she makes a demand.

"The world shouldn't be the sort of place where this can happen," she says, setting down a bowl of seawater and stabbing tall candles into the soft sand of the beach. "She didn't deserve that. Almost no one ever does. I can't think of a purpose this could serve that would be worth it." Strikes sparks onto tinder, lights the candles. Snaps a rope of pearls and pours them into the bowl, last year's birthday gift from Kala. "I don't care what you take from me. I want my best friend back even if I won't be here to see her."

A knife scores her fingertip, and blood drips down into the water, each drop a plume of curling wisps like ink or smoke, ringed by ripples that glitter in the candlelight. The tears running down her face fall beside the blood, and the mingled waves turn the surface of the water into a fractured landscape of wavering lights.

"Fix it," she hisses—expecting nothing, expecting silence, expecting to cry into a bowl of seawater for an hour and then go home unsatisfied.

Instead, she feels a Mageprice settle into place, the heaviest she's ever borne, a pressure so intense that for a moment she wonders if the spirit can be crushed like the body, if the reason why no one ever brings back the dead is because the effort of even trying is enough to kill you before you have time to finish.

When, a scant few heartbeats afterward, she is abruptly swallowed by an all-consuming darkness, her first thought is that this must be what death is like, and if so she's glad she got Kala out of it—

But the burden of Mageprice still weighs on her soul. She's not finished yet. Whatever the Wild Magic wants from her, this is not the end of it - this is the beginning.

So when she feels the void nibbling at her edges, feels the cold making her slow and numb, feels the indescribable sensation of her mind and body coming apart into individual layers that twist and writhe and spiral out into the nothing until they start to become nothing themselves... she clings to that heavy Mageprice, and holds together by sheer force of will. Her mind is hers, her body is hers, and she has need of both for urgent practical purposes. She will not give them up.

The void has her for long enough that time loses all meaning. It never ceases in its attempts to eat her, tugging incessantly at her skin and her hair and the cold frightened fringes of her thoughts. She holds fast through all of it.

And then she lands in a place that is not the void, and experiences sensations that aren't cold or numbness or the constant fight to stop herself unraveling into the dark.

It takes her a few minutes to begin to organize the reports of her senses. There is light, though she can't tell how bright; warmth, though she can't tell how much; pressure, in a pattern she eventually deciphers as representing the ground she is lying on. At some point she must have remembered how to breathe, because she's doing that.

She makes a hesitant effort to move, curling her fingers and then relaxing them again. It seems to work fine.

Next, she tries opening her eyes.

She's on a platform of wooden planks. A giant one. On either side of her, at the bottom of depressions in the platform, pieces of metal lie carefully arranged in the shapes of ... ladders? ... which each extend into a tunnel under a stone bridge. Further out from the arranged metal on the ground she can see metal columns and supports holding giant glass overhangs aloft. Opposite the bridge, these overhangs join into a glass roof.

If it even counts as a building, it's probably one of the largest she's seen.

She sits up, slowly. Her clothes are gone but all her skin appears to be intact, which is really the important thing here. And of course her Three Books are stacked neatly on the platform next to her right hand, innocent as ever.

Her new Mageprice isn't asking anything of her. It's just... sitting there. Waiting.

Well. When you don't know what to do, do the job in front of you. At the moment, that means focusing on the basic survival necessities: food, clothing, shelter. Along the way maybe she can figure out where in the world she is, if indeed she is still in the world.

She blinks her blurry eyes and rubs her chilly arms and looks around some more.

She's naked. Well. She won't be feeling too cold, at least. It's reasonably warm.

It's also very early in the morning. The sun is just peaking over the horizon. The few people she can see are under the overhangs, sitting on benches and reading or looking at their wrists.

Showing up out of nowhere naked in public is the stuff of minor nightmares, but although she feels awkward, she's not going to solve anything by curling up in a ball and waiting for something nicer to happen. The warmth of the sun slowly banishes her lingering chills as she squints at the people, trying to figure out who if anyone she should approach for help. It might be better to just pick up her Books and run off, except that she has no idea where to go.

After a short while the platform crowds with more people. Everyone mostly keeps a wide berth. Someone in a large hat tosses her a coin. 

That's useful. She picks up the coin and smiles awkwardly at the hat.

Probably, whatever these people are doing here, not many of them have any spare clothing actually on hand. The weather seems warm enough to discourage extra layers. She should probably leave and go somewhere else. But without a concrete plan in mind, it's hard to make herself get up, and without the most basic understanding of what kind of place she is currently in and how she might get to a better one it's hard to form a concrete plan. It seems clear that all these people are waiting for something, but she has no idea what. It's certainly not obvious from the architecture.

Several minutes pass. If if she's looking in the direction of the glass structure she can see a woman with a child at her side talking to another woman in a blue uniform. She can't make out the words from this distance, but the first woman is definitely pointing at her.

Unlikely to be a good sign, that. But she doesn't know what things might help...

It is probably a bad time to try to do magic, just on the principle that when the world is very strange to you you should probably try not to be strange right back. But she opens the Book of Stars to see if the Wild Magic has any useful advice.

The War Magic is wielded most usefully by one who understands the nature and function of the world.

...that wasn't helpful at all. She sighs and closes the book.

A head peaks out from over her book. "Miss? I'm going to have to ask you to come to the train office. You're disturbing people."

The woman in the blue uniform is crouched inches away from her. On closer inspection she's carrying a bag full of papers.

Well, that's better than some ways this could have gone.

"Okay," she says hesitantly. "Do you, um, have something I can wear? I don't - I don't know where I am. Or how I got here. Or..."

She trails off. (It might be most expedient to just act like she took a blow to the head and has forgotten everything she ever knew. Assuming no one has lie detection magic it's probably going to be a lot more believable than the truth, and if they do have lie detection magic then she can tell the truth and explain her reasoning.)

"Got some underwear at the office. Let's go quickly, there's a train coming by soon." She moves to help her with her books.

The books are small, each about the size of a day planner, and leatherbound. One has a sun motif engraved into the cover, one a crescent moon, and one a cluster of three twinkling stars.

She lets the stranger take them, keeps the thrown coin in her hand, and follows her to - the train office, wherever and whatever that is.

(It took her until the word 'train' to notice, but this isn't the language she grew up speaking. It feels every bit as familiar. What is going on?)

Rebecca strides forward through a growing crowd and eyes a leering man with distaste, looking back periodically to make sure Ms. Naked In The Middle Of A Train Station is still following. They aren't quite at the office yet when the train whistle cuts through the muttered conversations on the platform.

She jumps slightly, startled by the sudden noise. Everyone else seems to have been expecting it, though. What...?

"Gosh, you're spooked. You're safe now, alright?" Agh, Rebecca is very very not police, what's policy even supposed to be for flashbacks? 

She tries for orientating information first. "You're -- hm -- you're standing on the train station platform for East City, it's early morning on a Sunday in August -- damn, what's the date today --"

She blinks confusedly, absorbing this information. 'Sunday', 'August' - she recognizes that those are a day of the week and the name of a month, but can't place them in her mental calendar.

They enter the office and the door shuts over a fleeting image of a vast moving object the size of a small building slowing to a stop.

"Phew. Alright, I know a guy doing police work who knows the people who trick in this city, so you should really tell us anything you can remember about what happened to you last night --" Rebecca faces forward and hears, oh damn, footsteps.

"Buuuuut first let's get you into clothing okay come on bathroom is this way --" 

.... Alcarian is being dragged. Before she knows it another door clicks behind her. 

She goes where she's pulled. It seems the thing to do.

She's left there for a while. She can hear Rebecca gossiping with another voice -- male.

The door quickly open and a hand tosses her some underthings, a loose shirt, and some blue pants, before slamming shut again. A muffled, sunny "anyway, you should really look at the second one from the top --" can be heard from beyond the door. 

She puts on the clothes, tucking her coin into a pocket and her Three Books into a different one. She has to roll up the pants a slightly ridiculous amount to stop them dragging on the floor, but she feels much better with clothes on even if they fit badly. As soon as she's dressed she pokes her head out of the bathroom.

Rebecca grins at her. "All done?"

"Yes. Thank you," she murmurs.

"Have you eaten? I know a restaurant that's not too far from here."

She considers the question.

Tentatively: "I think I'm hungry?"

"Great! Let's get going."

The bar they stop in is deserted except for a thin old man polishing the counter. Rebecca orders food and steers them towards a booth in the back.

So many things about this world are strange. Pretending total amnesia is probably the way to go. She eats her food and waits to see what if anything this kind stranger will say.

"What's your name? I'm Rebecca."

She considers this question, too, and frowns in pretended confusion, looking down at her plate. "I don't - I don't remember."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"I..." She looks at her plate as though searching it for secrets. "...Just - waking up on the - the platform, at the train station. Nothing before that. That's - that's not right, is it."

"You probably didn't appear fully grown on the train platform, no."

She giggles softly, then trails off and puts her head in her hands. It is not at all hard to pretend to be overwhelmed and confused and lost and helpless. That is pretty much exactly how she feels.

Sigh. "I'm doing this all wrong. I was in the area couriering paperwork, it's just my luck I was the only one around in a blue suit."

"I don't," she says, half-giggling half-sobbing, "even know what that means..."

Oh boy. "What about what I said do you need me to explain?"

"'In a blue suit'—?"

She gets favored with an incredulously raised pair of eyebrows. "Military. You know, responsible for public safety, protecting the borders, that kind of deal."

"I don't - I don't know anything," she says. "I didn't recognize your uniform, or the train station, I don't know my own name..." She hunches in her seat and wraps her arms around her stomach. "I... I don't want to be a bother. You probably didn't wake up this morning and think 'what a great day to meet a girl with no memory and help her figure out how her entire life is supposed to work'."

Yyyep, this girl definitely does not have to know that that horrible woman was going to complain to Mason to have her arrested for public indecency. “Sweetie,” she starts. “Hon. You’re fine. Okay? This is our job. We’ll help you take care of it and we’ll get you somewhere safe.”

Somehow. Does she even know anyone who works for Douglas? Does she even want to take this to Douglas, Mustang and Hawkeye and their team have been angling to do more of the heavy lifting in police lately anyway.

She orders some more food for the both of them. 

She looks up at Rebecca with an uncertain smile. "Thanks."

"No problem," she says distractedly. "I'm going to go out and make a call, okay? The phone booth is right over there," she points the girl's attention through the bar window, to a person-sized box made of wood and glass sitting on the other side of the road. "The proprietor's name is James, he's a good guy."

"Okay."

This is a good person. Alcarian feels a little bad about lying to her. But - for most relevant purposes, the lie is more informative than the truth, because the truth would come across as 'I'm a crazy person and nothing I say can be trusted to resemble reality'. And she doesn't know anything about this world.

Rebecca grins widely at her before skipping off to the phone booth. It's not occupied, which at this time of day is a godsend. Now, what to do from here ...?

What she should honestly probably do is call Riza, who will be able to tell her how to avoid attracting the ire of Colonel Henry Douglas: Notorious Stick-In-The-Mud regardless of what decision ends up being made about the girl. She doesn't work directly for Douglas, but she definitely knows him better than Rebecca does. 

She makes her call and waits boredly for the operator to connect her to the right office.

“You’ve reached the office of Lieutenant Colonel Mustang, Riza Hawkeye speaking.”

“Riza! Riza, it’s Rebecca, the weirdest thing just happened –"

“… aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“I am! I found someone you, er, both, might be interested in, and I’m really glad to have gotten to them before –“

“Public line.”

“Anyway! She’s, um …” Rebecca takes a second to think of a plausible lie. “She’s an alchemist! You know how Mustang jumps on opportunities to enlist those.”

“Of course. We’ll be over right away.” Click.

Rebecca heads back inside the bar and sits down at the booth. "They should be here in about thirty minutes. Maybe forty five, if traffic is bad."

The language seems to think thirty minutes is equivalent to a quarter of a bell. She's not sure how it knows that, but okay. She nods thoughtfully between bites of food.

"So, you said you can't remember anything? Nothing at all?"

"I... know some things. I can talk, I can understand what people say, I knew how to put on clothes, I know what forks and doorknobs are and how to use them. But I don't - there's just nothing there, before I woke up on the platform, it's like I wasn't... like I didn't exist. And even from the forks-and-doorknobs category there's things missing, like when I was surprised by the whistle at the train station, or how I didn't recognize your uniform..."

"Do you remember anything about those books?" Gesture.

"...they look... familiar. Nothing else looks familiar. But..."

She pulls one out of her pocket and opens it. The Book of Stars again.

It shows blank paper, blank blank blank for as many pages as she flips through, because that's what the Three Books do when someone who's not a Wildmage tries to read them.

Blink. "Oooh, they're pretty. The paper looks really old-fashioned. Those would cost a lot of money in a stationary store."

"I can't find any words on it anywhere," she says, flipping to the front and back and turning it over to show the spine. There's just that engraved star motif on the cover, nothing else. "I have no idea what I'd be doing with three blank books. Maybe they're some kind of family heirloom, if I have a family. Maybe I just carry them around because I like them and I haven't written anything in them because they're too pretty to use."

She closes the book and puts it back in her pocket.

"Well, why don't you start! You could make a list of things you know you remember and things you don't, and I'll try to fill in the blanks."

"I know... forks and doorknobs and clothes and streets and restaurants, and I don't know train stations or military uniforms or phone booths? Is that the kind of list you mean?"

"Yep! Exactly!" Grin. "Wanna use the notebook or a napkin? I have a pen in my bag --" she starts fumbling with it.

"Maybe a napkin. It doesn't seem like the kind of list I want to keep with me forever."

Pen retrieved! Alcarian is handed it and a paper napkin. "You should also maybe think of a name or a list of names before Roy 'n Riza get here -- oh, but you might not know any names. Hmmm." She gets her own napkin, finds yet another pen from inside her case, and starts listing some.

She glances over the list, looking for one that feels at least vaguely right.

"Anne," she says decisively, as soon as Rebecca writes it. It's almost like someone took her real name and cut off the last syllable and then dressed it up in the local alphabet. Definitely close enough to be going on with.

"That was fast. D'you think that might have been your name? Before ..." she waves her hand vaguely.

"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe it was just someone I knew. But you said to pick one, so I picked the first one that sounded sort of right."

"Maybe it's 'cause it starts with the first letter of the alphabet," she teases. 

She giggles.

"Or maybe there was some other reason you didn't decide on Mildred. Or Norma. Or Phyllis. Maybe you just hate my taste in names." Her smile grows wider.

"Maybe your taste in names is no good!" she teases back.

"This is probably why I have so much trouble keeping boyfriends," she sighs dramatically. "I give them lists of my favorite baby names and they run off! You'd think at least one of them would like one of the names on my lists, but no."

Giggle. "But you're so nice! They should give you a chance!"

Rebecca huffs. "Well, enough about my lack of love life. Do you want me to explain anything? What do you have on that list so far?"

Known things

• Food, forks, plates, restaurants
• Doorknobs, streets, buildings, houses

Unknown things

• Train stations, trains
• Phone booths, phones
• Military uniforms

"So, trains are giant machines that travel on all around the country --" she sketches a train. It is ... not a very good sketch, but it gets the point across. "And they travel on train tracks, that look like this." Drawing. "If you hear the whistle it means a train is coming and you should stay as far away from tracks as possible."

"Phone booths are where you go to use a telephone. Or a phone. Those are for talking to people who're far away. You speak into one end --" More crude drawings! "-- and the sound comes out the other end. You connect to the person you want to talk to by dialing the right number."

"I'm wearing a military uniform right now. It's -- it's honestly kind of weird that you haven't seen this uniform, it's been basically this style for the last hundred years." Frown. "I guess your school didn't do history lessons."

"If I'd seen it but only once or twice, or in drawings, or something, I might not remember it," she says thoughtfully.

"There are some towns that don't see much military going through. But ever since the --

"For eight years there's been military all over the East Region. Maybe you're from somewhere else."

"Or maybe I don't get out much," she says wryly.

"Do you mean like in stories about girls being kept in their family cellars?" Rebecca suddenly looks very concerned. 

"I don't know, and I can't imagine how I might find out."

"I can't either."

"Yeah."

"Well, you know you like books? And you can read and write."

"That's a good start, I guess."

"Gotta say, I thought you were ... otherwise employed. When I first saw you naked in the middle of the train station. It's still a going theory."

"What—? Oh," she says. "I don't... think so? I guess I wouldn't know."

"The people I called will know. Might jog some memories, might not."

"Okay."

There have been metal boxes with passengers moving to and fro visible through the windows. Anne probably doesn’t notice a military vehicle turn into a side street next to the bar.

She might notice a man --

-- and a woman -- enter it. Especially since they're wearing those blue uniforms.

Rebecca certainly does. "Roy! Riza! So busy these days, we never get to catch up," she calls from her table, cupping her hand around her mouth and waving.

"It's nice to see you too, Rebecca." She takes a seat next to her friend. "But we're here on business."

"You were going to introduce us to your friend. What's your name?"

"Anne," she says, glancing self-consciously at the napkin she got it from.

Rebecca frowns. "You don't recognize her, then?"

"Why would I? She's way too young for me."

"I found this girl," deep breath, "naked. In the middle of the train station. Nothing on her except a pile of books. And then I find out she's some kind of amnesiac. Probably drugs, unless you can do that kind of thing with alchemy."

".... I see."

"You do get the --"

"I do. She's not one of Madame's."

"Still, thank you for bringing this to us," Riza says mildly. "Douglas probably would not have handled it well."

"Oh?" Lean forward.

"... he would have done investigations slowly enough that the press would have found out. And that brings the wrong kind of attention. Both for Madame and for Anne here." Gesture.

"Amnesia, though ... and since she's not one of Madame's she can't just go back."

He turns to look at Anne. "Do you want us to find out what happened to you?"

Anne has been listening quietly to this whole exchange. She looks up when addressed.

"I want... to have a life," she says. "Not necessarily the same one I forgot. Maybe I'd want to look for it if I had any idea where to start, but..." she trails off with a shrug.

“That sounds like a good goal.”

“… and I’m sure Madame would take her in for a short while until she can find her feet.”

"Are you seriously foisting her off on the owner of a --" she looks over at James, who is very busily distracted with cleaning a spot on a stool. 

She lowers her voice anyway. "a brothel? She has other options, you know."

“Well, she’d have a place there. And employment, if she wants it."

“I can’t believe you! I – Anne, you’re staying at my apartment, okay?"

"Okay."

"Perfect!" He rises from the table and turns to leave. "We should get going. Work to do, you know how it is."

Riza moves to follow him. When they're halfway to the door she looks back at the table, over her shoulder. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

"It was nice meeting you," she says shyly.

"Same to you." Smile, turn, and the two disappear through the door with a click.

"You have interesting friends," she says once they're gone.

"I've known Riza since the Academy. The Military Academy, the first word's usually implied because everyone knows what you're talking about. We spent years there. And they were both in the war. She didn't fight under Roy but afterwards he specifically requested her as a subordinate. People talk about them being together but it's complete bullshit, they're married to their jobs and wouldn't be caught dead breaking fraternization rules."

"Did Roy really want me to go work at a... place... or was he just making a joke?"

Rebecca puts her head in her hands. "Honestly? I think he said that just so I'd agree to house you."

"Not that I don't want to! Or wouldn't be good with it otherwise, or, um, you seem like a perfectly lovely person." She backpedals. 

She smiles. "It's okay."

Smile. "Right! Great. New house guest. We should -- we should go there, actually, you need to know where things are. I can't stay long, though, I'm still technically working. And I have ..." She looks through her briefcase, counts papers, and blanches a bit. "I have some work left to do."

The briefcase claps shut, Rebecca pays for their food, and they're out the door.

The streets by now are crowded. Commuters go by on sidewalks and cars rush by on roads. Children sell newspapers from street corners.

She follows Rebecca, looking around curiously. The cars are... an interesting phenomenon.

Quite!

They pass by factories and warehouses first. (Thankfully they mostly stay away from the smelly meatpacking district.) Those make way for streets of shops and offices, which are more numerous, denser, and cleaner than Anne is probably used to.

Armethalieh was supposed to be the biggest, brightest, densest, cleanest city in the world. And then there's this place. It's a little daunting, but at least she's got Rebecca on her side.

Rebecca, meanwhile, is chattering about the area. She points out the homes of some of the people she knows, explains how the streets work ("mostly in a grid, but tilted sideways 'cause it's pointing at Central City"), and mentions which shops are honest and which ones cheat customers if they don't know what they're doing ("you shouldn't have too much of a problem with that, though, you don't look foreign or Ishvalan").

"You know a lot of things."

Rebecca seems pleased. "Ah, well, I bet anyone would seem that way to an amnesiac."

"Well, okay, probably yes."

"Ahhh, no, you're supposed to say 'Yes, Rebecca, you are obviously the smartest and the best person, it wasn't at all stupid, blind luck that dropped you on that courier route when I needed help!' Sheesh."

Giggle. "Okay, I'll remember that for next time."

"Good." Grin.

More explaining, this time about their neighbors. Mrs. Potter in the room above them sings in the mornings and she's not actually very good, but if you compliment her she bakes you cookies. The Weber kids will run errands for a specific kind of candy you can only get on the other side of the city. The Tuckers run a nearby animal shelter and the husband is trying to be a State Alchemist.

"A State Alchemist?"

"Alchemy's a kind of science. It lets you change one kind of material into another and fix things, using energy from underground. State Alchemists are alchemists who work for the military. They get automatic special privileges and a giant yearly stipend, but you have to pass this hideously difficult test to get in."

"Hmm," she says. It is the 'hmm' of someone who thinks hideously difficult tests might be right up her alley.

(It is also the 'hmm' of someone who is remembering what the Book of Stars told her when she got here. The War Magic is wielded most usefully by one who understands the nature and function of the world - that could be a reference to State Alchemists, the closest the book could get since it was written in her world and can only show her what people from her world have written in it.)

"Something familiar about it?"

"Not... exactly," she says. "But I think I might be the kind of person who thrives on hideously difficult tests."

"Are you." Appraising look. "Well, I'm not sure where you'd get study material for that. There are stores that sell it but there are also a lot of people who try to learn alchemy for the watch -- the stipend is a lot of money."

"Alchemy sounds pretty useful even without the - watch?"

"Oh, sure, if you have the patience to learn to consistently freehand a perfect circle." She makes a face.

Anne giggles.

"I guess you also need to know a lot of chemistry? And math. I don't know, I never went into it. You should ask Tucker. Or Mustang, come to think of it, he's a State Alchemist."

"Maybe I will!"

"If you want something nearer-term you could learn typing or clerical work, I do some of that at my job. Hmm, other jobs that require tests ... computing, if you're good at math. Sewing or working a loom at a factory -- those are dangerous, though."

"I might be good at math."

Rebecca grins. "Oh, I suppose there's clerking local shops too. Although that's not going to pay well at first and it'll be a bit before anyone trusts you with their books --"

She stops at the next few street corners to buy newspapers. "These have classified ads, you'll look through them to find computing jobs or things further from where I live."

She smiles, cheered by the prospect of having something to do.

Well, that's a good attitude, if nothing else.

They get to the apartment building. "I don't have a key for you yet but there should be enough to eat even if you don't know how to cook ... I'll go grocery shopping later. What foods do you like?"

"I—don't know. I don't think I'm picky?" she says doubtfully.

"Well, I hope you like dry cereal, because I eat a lot of that."

She shows her around! There are three rooms: a kitchenette that opens into a windowed living area with a plush chair and a table set, a bedroom, and a bathroom. "I don't really have anywhere for you to sleep. I could maybe buy some blankets or quilts from someone if you don't like the chair?"

"It would be nice to sleep in, um, not a chair," she says. "But the chair is probably fine in a pinch."

Whoops, she should have offered to let the girl sleep in her bed. Or should she? Ugh, she's so bad at this. "I'm glad!"

More showing around produces locations for various foodstuffs, as well as instructions for how to work the stove and the names and locations of the aforementioned neighbors drawn on a bit of scrap newspaper.

Anne absorbs this information cheerfully. She has no complaints about anything and is determined to be as helpful a guest as possible under the circumstances.

After Rebecca's relayed all the emergency information -- this takes about an hour -- she grabs her briefcase and heads out to go back to work. She leaves the key in case Anne wants to talk to the neighbors.

She means to get organized and figure out what her goals are and exactly what her next steps should be—

—but instead she goes to the chair and curls up very small and cries for half an hour, because she's sixteen years old and all alone in an alien world with no means of getting home, lying to everyone she meets because she can't trust them to believe the truth.

Then she gets up and goes to the bathroom and washes her face and sits down with the newspapers to read about all the jobs she could potentially get. And the other things that appear in newspapers.

The front page is plastered with articles and op-eds about the Ishvalan ghetto in the city that's been forming after the civil war. There's a science section with a cute piece about automail limb replacements for animals. Another piece is about efforts to increase road coverage in rural areas. There are even a couple of engagement announcements.

No piece, article or editorial or advertisement, is ever critical of the military.

The classifieds are in the back. The ones Rebecca mentions are there, plus nanny, housecleaning, and repair jobs. (The last will apparently pay double for an alchemist.)

She definitely wants to learn alchemy, but until then, one of these other things will do. Computing, maybe housecleaning.

That lack of criticism of the military is an interesting omission. Puts her in mind of the history books about Kellen's War, how Armethalieh was so choked by censorship that they mistook good for evil and evil for good. Hopefully things aren't quite that bad in Amestris. Maybe their military is just that flawless. She doubts it, but stranger things have happened.

After organizing all the classified ads by how much she wants the job in question, she rereads the newspaper to familiarize herself with all the unfamiliar things in it, then opens the Book of Stars again, looking for a hint.

The greatest accomplishments often require the greatest sacrifices. A Wildmage must be sure to take only what is freely given.

...not very comforting, as hints go. Is it talking about her, and her journey here? Advising her that she might need to seek significant and possibly dangerous help? Warning her that there's someone around here who might sacrifice others for their own gain? Is it going to be like that line about the War Magic and only make sense once she has the context to understand it?

Well, sitting and waiting for Rebecca to come home isn't going to help her find out. She decides to try meeting the neighbours instead.

The Webers don't always have their door open but it's a very near thing, what with all the going in and out the kids do. There's one arguing with his sister in the doorway about who has to buy groceries.

(Presumably the Tuckers are to the other side of the apartment building, next to Rebecca's place.)

It's impractical to be shy. She should go introduce herself.

...but she is in fact shy.

The kids will continue to argue, oblivious to her shyness! Until their mother admonishes the volume of the arguing. They switch to furious whispering.

Yeah this is not working out for her. She retreats back into Rebecca's apartment.

She doesn't want to just hide uselessly in this chair and wait for Rebecca to come back. She wants to do something. But there's just - too much that's unfamiliar - maybe there's something around here she can clean, or something. That sounds preferable to curling up and crying again.

Rebecca sure hasn't washed her dishes in a while. There's a pile of them in the sink. Her bed isn't made. There's dust on the floor and on various surfaces, including the table on which the pile of newspapers sit. The bathroom is spotless.

Well. She's pretty sure she can manage the dishes. And the dust.

Before too long Rebecca's entire kitchen is spotless! If she decides to go back to her chair she can look over towards the next room and admire her handiwork.

Rebecca's still gone and won't be home for several hours.

Yeah.

Can she - no, she won't do any better than last time if she tries meeting the neighbours again right now. She sits in the chair again instead, frustrated by her limitations. It's probably unreasonable to expect herself to be able to power through every single obstacle in her path on force of will alone, but she still feels like shyness and uncertainty shouldn't be as big a problem as they are.

Does the Book of Stars have anything to say about this?

It is normally more useful to live in the world you see rather than the world you imagine.

Well, that's... less cryptic than usual. Okay. Regardless of how silly it is, she does have this problem, and resenting herself for it won't make it go away, and stubbornly trying to ignore it won't help her achieve her goals. So. It's not exactly optimally productive, but maybe for now she can skim through the Book of Sun and the Book of Moon to see how they're adapting themselves to the new context. The descriptions of ingredients and procedures for common spells in the Books are known to change depending on local conditions, but no one has ever written an edition of the Three Books for this locale.

It turns out they're managing the change pretty well. There are a few blank spaces in ritual descriptions or ingredient lists, which is unsettling. Maybe she's supposed to fill them in herself. Hopefully not through trial and error.

The minutes tick by. Literally -- Rebecca has an audible clock on the wall.

Eventually, the doorbell rings.

"It's me!"

Anne gets the door.

It's Rebecca! She grins, and holds up a book. "I got you this, there was a sale on my way home from work."

The title is Alchemical Basics. There's a bookmark in it that says "50 cenz" on the top.

She beams. "Thank you!"

"It was no problem, honestly, you only need to spend 100 cenz for a cup of coffee. And not even good Roman coffee."

"Well, it's useful and I like it, so thank you anyway!"

"Thank you!"

Rebecca starts on dinner, which is a pot of some grain with butter and salt. "Oh, you cleaned up! Thank you!"

"I wanted something to do, and there were dishes, so I did them."

"I'm impressed!"

She grins proudly.

"Wanna hear about my day?"

"Yes!"

Rebecca starts talking. And talking. Her words don't contain any details about what she actually does, aside from vague mentions of couriering documents from one place to another in the city. She does spend several minutes complaining about her boss, Lieutenant General Grumman. She mentions post offices (she resents being treated like one), chess (Grumman is apparently very good), and horses (she likes them except for that one horse who ate part of her bag a year ago). 

It's informative about context and soothing to listen to. Anne approves.

And then Rebecca serves the food! It's hearty and simple. She stops talking to wolf her portion down.

Anne approves of the food, too.

"How've you been feeling?"

"Okay, mostly. I wanted to introduce myself to your neighbours but then I was too shy."

"We could go meet them now! Ooh, or we could make cookies first and give them cookies!"

"That sounds like a great idea!"

Cookies! Rather more than could possibly be eaten by two women who just had dinner. Funny.

They go ring the Tuckers' doorbell first.

"Yes? My wife's not home if you wanted to see her ..."

"Oh, no! I wanted to introduce my new roommate; this is Anne. She's interested in alchemy."

"Hi," says Anne. "We have cookies!"

"I can smell them! Come in, come in."

Their apartment is filled with books. He takes the cookies and sets them on a table. "I haven't been cleaning lately; I've been so busy studying for the exam."

"Oh wow," says Anne, impressed. "That's a lot of books."

"Oh, yes, I suppose so," he scratches the back of his neck. 

She smiles at him. "Are they all for studying? Must be some exam!"

"One of the requirements is original research or demonstrated combat applicability of a technique, and you need a lot of books to do that properly." He frowns.

"Oh, what are you researching?"

"Animal medicine, mostly."

"Do you like it?"

"It could pay more." He laughs.

She giggles.

"I own the local animal shelter downtown," he clarifies. "My wife's there now."

"Oh, she works with you? That's sweet."

"It's convenient."

There's a cry from another room. It sounds like a baby. "Oh. She must have woken up from her nap."

"Aww!"

He goes into the next room and soothes the baby with a bottle. "Feel free to look at the books if you'd like."

"Thank you!"

She examines the books.

The section she's currently looking at is about dogs! There's a dog anatomy book -- several, actually -- a book about dog vocalization, a book about dog aging, a book listing various doggy diseases. Rebecca grabs one about breeding and starts to read.

Gosh. Dogs.

What else is there?

Further down she recognizes a copy of the book Rebecca gave her, alongside several other books about alchemy basics.

These ones are more to her liking.

Books!!

Books!

After a while she can hear faint snoring from the other room. It doesn't sound like a baby.

Cute. Well, maybe it would be politer to leave once her host falls asleep, but he said she could look at his books so she is absolutely going to keep reading about alchemy.

The books are variously helpful. One of them has various exercises to help her practice drawing perfect circles quickly. Another one focuses more on some of the science behind some basic transmutations. Some chemistry, some physics. (That one contains some math exercises.)

Useful to have a source on local math notation. She reads those until she's got it figured out, and the chemistry and physics to try to get a sense of how this world's knowledge differs from hers. It looks like they have a much more detailed understanding of at least some things.

Shou pokes his head out through the door. He looks exhausted. "Ah. I ... fell asleep." he blinks wearily. "I have ... some errands to run, out of the apartment. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave. But feel free to knock any time."

"We'll do that!" Rebecca takes her nose out of the book she's reading -- still about dogs. She snaps it shut, stands up, puts it approximately back where she found it, and grins at Anne.

"Thank you for letting me look at your books! They're amazing!" says Anne. She grins back at Rebecca, and puts the book she was reading carefully back where she found it, and follows Rebecca out.

"I barely ever talk to the Tuckers. That was really nice."

"It was!"

"Did you learn anything?"

"I learned that I know some math and not much chemistry or physics. And that chemistry and physics are really interesting."

"Chemistry is interesting! It's too bad I wasn't allowed to keep my chemistry books from the academy, they were really good."

"Not allowed?"

"Well, they had military secrets in them! We can't have Drachma spies learning how to make our explosives by stealing our textbooks, right? We weren't even allowed to take them home."

"Oh. That makes sense."

Rebecca has pulled out her key and and opened the door to her apartment. When they're inside she yawns hugely. "Damn," she says. "It's not even that late. I'll grab you my extra pair of sheets, how about?"

"Okay."

She fits them around the chair. Then she frowns and grabs some extra blankets out of her bedroom. The resulting structure looks not unlike a blanket fort.

Anne approves!

"It's so weird that you don't remember anything. I keep wanting to ask what your family was like or how things were done back home for you."

"I keep wanting to ask me that too," she says wryly.

"Yeah.

"I'm going to bed. You know where the lights are if you want to stay up or if you need to go to the bathroom?"

Nod nod. "Goodnight."

"Night!" Hygiene routines occur. (Rebecca bought a toothbrush for Anne.) Then, she disappears behind the door to her room.

And Anne goes to... chair.

Well. At least it's a cozy chair.

She sleeps okay, but wakes up early and doesn't feel like trying to snatch another hour.

Rebecca goes to work early. 

If she goes to the table she'll see a note. Food's in the fridge, please help yourself to anything you need. You can contact me at this number at work, they'll take a message and I'll see it within three hours. If you need help working the phone you can ask Mrs. Weber or Mr. Tucker next door. Below that are some other emergency numbers.

Okay. So... food, studying, and then maybe she can clean some more things, and after that... maybe she can try visiting Mr. Tucker again, once it seems like a reasonable visiting hour.

It's a bright, cheery day. Somewhat less hot outside than yesterday. The sun shines through the window as she works.

When she knocks on Mr. Tucker's door he calls "Hello?" faintly, then creaks towards the door and cracks it open. "Oh! Anne, was it?"

"That's me! I get awful bored sitting around Rebecca's place by myself - do you need any help around the house? And can I read your books some more? I like your books."

"... I haven't dusted in a while ... I can't pay you."

"That's fine!" she says sunnily.

He shows her in and finds her a duster. "I'll be in the bedroom with the baby if you have any questions."

"Okay!"

She dusts, thoroughly, and then picks up where she left off on the alchemy texts.

Studying! There's another whole book on math that she could add to her pile. It was close to where she found her first two books, so it should be around the same level of difficulty. 

Ooh, math.

Math! Particularly a survey of topics, including proportions, statistics, and geometry. (There's another few books on those topics, and some others, individually.)

The survey is good; it lets her translate what she already knows into the local style. She can go through the more in-depth stuff later.

Tucker walks by her on his way to the fridge, which is full of bottles of baby formula. His shirt is soaked in something-or-other. When he sees her he gives her a half-hearted smile that doesn't reach his eyes. 

"You okay?"

"Nina's being difficult. Could you help me clean up a mess in the bedroom?"

"Sure."

In the bedroom she will find a baby in her crib. On the floor in the corner is a mountain of cloths for wrapping the baby's pelvis. Next to it is a towel, and next to that is a large puddle of excrement and urine. "We have gloves and soap in the kitchen. The drawer is just to the right of the sink."

She nods, and fetches gloves and soap, and cleans up the mess. It's not that much worse than other baby-related messes she has seen.

Tucker's still having trouble with it. The bags under his eyes indicate severe sleep-deprivation, which might be related. "My wife is here at night," he offers. "She wanted to thank you for the cookies."

"Well, maybe I'll stick around to tell her you're welcome."

Tired smile. "She'll appreciate that."

They clean the whole room. Anne's better at it than he is.

Yes, she is, but that's fine. He seems like he really needs the help.

He really does.

They're still working when Rebecca gets back. "Anne!" She calls from outside the door. "Anne! I need your help with something."

"Guess I'd better go. See you later!" she says to Mr. Tucker, and goes out to see what Rebecca wants.

Her skin shines with sweat, but she's grinning. It was a fun adventure, finding the thing, and Mustang did owe her a favor. "I have a mattress for you! But you're going to have to help me carry it upstairs."

"Okay!"

They go to the street level.

Waiting in his car outside the complex entryway is Mustang. A mattress is strapped to the roof of the car with rope.

He spots her. "Anne! I trust you've been settling well?"

"Yep! I found out I like math!"

"Excellent! What do you think you'll use it for?"

"If Mr. Tucker keeps letting me read his books, I think I'll learn alchemy!"

Will she respond best to reverse psychology or flattery? The latter's safer. "If you're good enough at it I hope you join the State Alchemists. We'd be lucky to have you."

"How do you know you'd be lucky before you know if I'm any good?"

"Because I get a promotion if I'm responsible for recruiting one."

She laughs.

"Mustang! Help me with these ropes!" Rebecca's been cutting the knots she can reach with a pocket knife, but she doesn't have good enough leverage for some of them.

"Gladly." He exists the car, circles it, and snaps his fingers. There's a soft hissing sound from the other side of the car as some of the ropes fray slightly. "That should help."

"You could use a knife."

"I could."

She finishes cutting the ropes. "Anne, take the other side for me?"

"Sure."

She does that.

They lift it off the car and star hauling it upstairs.

"Think about it!" Mustang calls from the driver's seat. 

She giggles.

The mattress barely fits through the doorway. "The extra sheets will fit on it. I don't have a frame but there's definitely room if we push the chair away from the window."

"Just a mattress will do. Where'd you find it?"

"Let's just say I called in a favor."

"Well, thank you. I really appreciate it."

They get it set up! It's slightly smaller than most mattresses, which makes Rebecca grumble. "At least it's not too big. Then the sheets wouldn't fit. Will you be comfortable on it?"

"Yes, I think I'll be fine."

"Oh good!" She starts on some tea. "What did you get up to today?"

"I visited Mr. Tucker and read his books and cleaned up after his baby. He seems really tired."

"I don't know much about him, to be honest."

"I like that he lets me read his books."

"Yes, that's really nice of him. I'm thinking of surprising Riza with a dog and it was good to be able to take notes on how to take care of them and what kinds there are, I didn't grow up with dogs and I don't know much about them."

"Oh, does Riza like dogs?"

"Yep! She had one as a kid and it died when we were in the Academy, she was so broken up about it."

"Aww. It's really lovely of you to get her another one, then. I hope it makes her happy."

Grin.

The tea is done. Dinner is leftovers. Rebecca digs in cheerily.

Dinner! Nom nom.

And soon it's time for bed.

Mr. Tucker continues to let her read his books, although he requests more and more of her assistance taking care of his daughter. She never sees his wife, but there are signs of her presence in the apartment -- books disturbed that Mr. Tucker was unlikely to have been reading, the kitchen used in ways she knows Mr. Tucker doesn't know how to imitate.

Mr. Tucker is a useful neighbour to have. She spends most of her time at his place, reading his books and helping with his baby, but dedicates at least an hour every day or so to collecting and pursuing job offers.

With that Mageprice still weighing on her, and not much spare time or materials, she's a little reluctant to do any proper magic. She keeps her Three Books with her but goes days at a time without looking at them.

A couple weeks later she knocks on the door and a woman's voice answers her. "Yes?"

"Hi, it's Anne!"

"Who's that?"

...not previously mentioned, huh?

"I'm a new neighbour, I've been helping with housework so I can read the books!"

"... Oh! Shou's new help." She exclaims awkwardly. "Well, then let's, let's get you settled inside."

She opens the door and lets Anne in. "What kind of work have you been doing?"

"Mostly I help clean things up."

"Brilliant, you can get started in the kitchen." There are quite a few pots left unwashed.

"After that I have to head back to the shelter -- normally I'd take Nina with me but I don't suppose you'd mind watching her here?"

"I don't mind at all!"

"Oh thank you. God, if I knew Shou's help was right next door I wouldn't have taken Nina to work nearly as often, she shouldn't be outside breathing factory air."

"Well, I'm glad I can help," she says.

She's fuming slightly. But when she turns back to look at Anne she's wearing a genuine, sunny smile. "Did he tell you my name?"

Oh dear. "I don't remember him mentioning it."

"It's Nancy, nice to meet you. Well, let's get started on those dishes!"

She's not angry. Well, she's not angry at Anne. She might be scrubbing a bit more forcefully than necessary.

"Nice to meet you too," she agrees.

Dishes! Anne is very efficient at simple domestic chores.

Nancy is impressed!

When they're finished she goes off to the shelter and leaves Anne with the baby and the books. 

It is not very efficient to combine reading with watching a baby, but she manages all right.

Nancy didn’t tell Anne when she was supposed to leave. It’s dark when she gets back, groceries in her arms. Shou is trailing behind her.

Nancy smiles tightly at Anne. “Thank you so much for helping around the house this last week. Are you interested in helping more regularly, longer term?”

"I'd like that!"

“Perfect!” Nancy says. “Shou, what do you think of a shift system? You both can alternate with the baby and I’ll do all the daily work at the shelter? You can come in on Mondays for the less frequent tasks?”

“I told you. We’re selling the shelter.”

“Shou,” her voice cracks, “I need to work. You can’t not involve me in – tell me about Anne, or about selling our –“

“The land belongs to me, I can decide what I want to do with it, and we need someone to take care of the baby. Selling the shelter is a good idea.”

“Anne is helping with the baby, Shou.”

“Anne barely knows us and could leave at any time, and only wants to spend the time studying anyhow –“

“Which is why we set up something long term! A written agreement! Why are you so averse to having anything in writing, Shou?”

“Why do you care more about the shelter than your own daughter?” He roars thunderously. 

She starts crying.

Anne shrinks away and drops her eyes, exactly like a frightened teenager.

They're ignoring her at the moment. Eventually they come to an agreement: they will sell the shelter and Nancy will look for jobs to support them.

"I'm so, so sorry you had to see the yelling. I just -- I just wanted to be on the same page as everyone." Nancy says to Anne, when Shou leaves the room. Anne might say something in return, but Nancy doesn't seem to hear it at all, let alone look like she's listening. She spends some more time justifying the argument and shoos Anne out the door. 

The following day someone has pushed a note under the door of Rebecca's apartment. It says that, while her help with the baby has been appreciated over the last week, the Tuckers will no longer be needing her assistance.

The Tuckers seem like they need different assistance than she has been giving them, really. Although it will be a pity to lose access to all those lovely books. Still, it'll free up some time to look for actual employment, and Shou Tucker can't be the only source of good books about alchemy in the world.

...if she gets a chance, though, she's going to try to talk Nancy into taking the kid and going somewhere her husband isn't. Even aside from the overt red flags, something about this situation gives her the kind of feeling she recognizes as a nudge from the Wild Magic. It might just be that she's remembering that ominous note from the Book of Stars about sacrifice, and its tenuous connection with the category of her neighbours... but then again, that's exactly the sort of medium through which the Wild Magic might deliver a nudge.

There are jobs! Military jobs, farming jobs, laboring jobs, factory jobs, construction jobs, office jobs.

The newspaper is quite informative, but it seems to focus most on the military jobs -- and the military versions of civilian jobs. They get the largest print and the most space to describe their ideal applicants. They also pay the best.

(It's almost as if Amestris is a militocracy or something.)

Sometimes she finds a job that doesn't look like it's associated with the military. If she does digging she'll see that the factory or field is owned by Lieutenant-Colonel something-or-other.

Anne has no objection to a military job, unless the military job is going to want awkward things like background checks. She puts together a list of all the ones she seems best-suited to - things that pay comparatively well and rely on skills that she actually has or at least could pick up easily - and then starts applying.

There's a waitress job, a bartending job -- another cashier job is extremely close-by but doesn't seem to pay very well. There's also a clerking job available for a local automail mechanic.

Best paid are three listings: one for a computer, one for a courier, and one for a librarian. But those all require security clearance.

Well, she can try applying for the computing job and see what they make of her. More realistically, she hopes for the clerking job, but she'll settle for any of the rest.

The clerking job and the bartending job both seem to think she's a qualified candidate!

Clerking it is, then. It's more within her skillset.

The automail mechanic is a small, excitable, wiry man whose grin seems to large for his face. He summons her to his house the following day. "Hello! Hello!" He shakes her hand furiously. 

"Hello! Nice to meet you!"

"Likewise, Anne -- oh, remind me what you put for your last name, I can't remember --" he invites her into his house and they navigate from the foyer, which has been redesigned into a waiting room, and into a study, which seems to act like an office. There are papers strewn haphazardly everywhere in no semblance of order, but there's also no dust on anything. 

"Isaacs." It was the closest local name she found.

"Yes, right, Anne Isaacs."

He pauses awkwardly, staring into space as if his brain has momentarily shut off.

"Right, you were the one to get a perfect score on the financials quiz I sent out. How much do you know about automail?"

"Not very much," she admits. "I'm good at math but I'm no engineer."

"Good at math is what I'm hiring for! And a certain ... organizational sense. Work ethic -- you'll be running around, following up on orders -- I need certain kinds of metals, some of them are hard to come by."

"That all sounds like something I can do!"

"Great! If you don't know anything about automail I'll give you these to get started --" he gives her a stack of eight or so books. They all look fairly dense, like it'll take her months to really work through them.

"I bet you'll be able to get through these after two weeks."

"I'll do my best!" she says cheerfully.

"Good! Let me show you around the place."

He does that. He also lists off the addresses and phone numbers that place the most reliable orders. He seems to be expecting that she's familiar enough with the area to understand shorthand for street names, station names, place names. "Sheep town's got my biggest competition around here -- there's a master automail engineer and surgeon living miles and miles from East City, but people still travel to meet her. That's usually how it is with automail, people find favorites and never switch, even when they're suddenly based halfway across the country."

"Sounds inconvenient for the people who have to go halfway across the country."

"The train system is good enough that that's not usually a problem. Most mechanics are based in Rush Valley; enough people make regular trips there that train tickets are discounted for Rush Valley visitors. Particularly during low-traffic times of the year? I'm not sure exactly how that works." He waves his hand dismissively. 

"Huh! I didn't know that!"

"You don't get outside of East City much, do you?" He cocks an eyebrow.

She smiles and shakes her head.

"Well, familiarize yourself with the train system, you'll be using it. I'll give you a week to start reading up before I want you to start helping me with orders since you'll need a basic understanding of automail parts and pricing to bookeep properly. When you're ready I'll have you processing clients too." He tilts his head in the direction of the mess of an office.

"Okay!"

Cheerful! He likes that. "Get to it!"

"Will do!"

And now that she has a specific short-term concrete task, get to it she does. Things are so much easier when there's a clear goal in front of you. She is going to make an excellent clerk.

She is!

Automail is hideously complicated. Some of the books Mr. Tucker had on-hand are helping her understand it, but most of learning it is rote memorization of hundreds of parts. How is she at that?

Better than most people would be from the same starting point. She has a good memory and a really intense work ethic.

She now has an encyclopaedic knowledge of automail anatomy and a working understanding of the train system and its stations! Her boss, whose name is George Hoover, quizzes her and is pleased with the results.

On her eighteenth day of working, Mr. Hoover sends her out of East City. "I need a second opinion on these pictures for a client of mine. You'll be taking them to a Mrs. Pinako Rockbell in Resembool. Say that I sent you, and give her this --" he shoves a bundle of notes into her arms. 

"Sure thing!" she says cheerfully, accepting the bundle.

When she looks in her book tonight she'll see that it wants her to leave tomorrow night. After dark.

It's kind of heartening to have such a weirdly specific and seemingly pointless directive to follow. Makes her feel like a real Wildmage again.

She gets on the appropriate train.

And who does she meet there but Mrs. Tucker. "Anne! How are you?"

"I'm doing well! I got a job clerking for an automail mechanic. How are you? How's Nina?"

"We're both well -- Nina spends most of her time at home with Shou -- Shou made a formula so I don't have to breastfeed her, which freed me up to look for a job myself -- the one I got is pretty far from East City, but it pays well. Nursing work." She smiles.

"I've been a little worried about you," she admits. "I'm glad you're doing okay."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about me," she says. "My job takes me all over and Shou stays at home. I have more independence than he does."

"It's just—he was kind of scary, with all the yelling."

"I can understand that." She frowns sympathetically. "I'm so sorry you had to -- tell you what," she says. "I can talk to Shou about giving you some of the beginner alchemy texts so you can study them on your own time. And I have one here."

She pulls out a book on human chemistry. The Composition of the Body: a Theoretical Perspective. 

"Oh—that's really nice of you! Thank you so much!"

She beams. "He's due to try for the state alchemist exam in September of next year. I just have to support us until then and we should be fine."

"Well, best of luck to him, I guess. You're sure you're all right?"

"I like working, and it's nice to be able to travel. And I can trust Shou with Nina."