riverview | Video; un: ilikehorses

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Video; un: ilikehorses

[Laura's been trying to adjust. Part of her wonders if coming here wasn't a grave mistake — she'd come thinking there are more like her, people who would accept her more willingly, and in a way, that's true. However... There are a few... annoyances. Grievances. Her rather overworked case worker Linda has been making sure she goes to school. Today isn't the best day for school, though. She's quiet and 'weird' and the other children usually aren't fond of her and her quiet but present danger.

And for Laura, well. She doesn't do well with anyone 'teaching' her. She's had too much of 'teaching' the last eleven years of her... eleven years.

She may or may not have punched another kid in the eye.

She may or may not have ditched school.

And now she sits on the top of a rather tall and dangerous brick-ish wall in the city, her feet hanging precariously off the edge. Close by, the shadow of a tram wooshes by, and somewhere out there, Linda the Case Worker is having a heart attack. Laura, however, seems more puzzled and annoyed than anything. She sits with a potentially stolen bag of mini-donuts, her favorite glasses pressed up on her forehead and her lovely albeit mildly damaged unicorn shirt clear and vibrant.]

Why do children have to go to classes?

I can learn outside of school.

[There are mean children that exist. She's never ran into children who are so exclusionary; after all, mutants had to stick together.

And teachers aren't bad, but something about the set-up bothers her, in ways she's not sure how to explain.

Maybe it's harder to blend in than you'd think. Not that she had gone into this with any high hopes.]

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Who says you have to go to school?

[Ed, no.]

Linda.

[She says it with some level of dry disappointment.

Linda.]

Does Linda have some sort of authority, here? How old are you, anyway?

[He tends to get shit from a lot of kids for being an adult, so he's waiting for this to go south.]

Where I was before kids only went to school if they wanted to.

[He's not going to mention the whole abandoning regular school to study alchemy thing, nope.]

Linda is — a 'case worker'.

[Linda tries. But she's way slower and way easier to avoid. She seems to completely ignore Edward's question about her age, though; she doesn't care to answer, because it's not important at all as far as she's concerned.]

Where was before?

A what-?

[He doesn't seem to care about her skipping his question, either.]

Purgatorium. The first place I was dragged into by some weird portal or whatever.

[Amestris doesn't have case workers, considering how orphan children seem to just run around everywhere.]

Back home I quit school as a kid and joined the military.

[Of course, living in rural farmville they probably would have left school to tend to crops relatively early or something anyway.]

Case worker. They watch the kids.

[It bothers her a little, but it also isn't so bad. Linda is at least well-meaning. She isn't Gabriela, who risked so much for her, who taught her and helped try to keep her feeling human instead of like some weapon. But she does try. So she doesn't hate her.

Laura's pokerface is hardcore, in the meanwhile.

No me gustan los soldados.]

... Military.

I don't like guns.

Huh. I guess someone has to, if they don't have anyone else here. We didn't really have case workers in Purg, either. We all just watched out for each other, mostly.

[The closest thing Purg had to case workers was Ed and Yuuri, they kept an eye on the kids usually. At the last part he quirks an eyebrow.]

I don't either. Not that I've ever really used them... Perk of being a State Alchemist.

[That thing with Sloth didn't count, okay? Not like it was going to hurt her or anything.]

[She looks skeptical. Thoughtful. She's silent for a moment.

She's not sure what an 'alchemist' is, but she tucks it away for now.]

Do you hurt people a lot?

Of course not.

[What an out of the blue question, from his perspective.]

Alchemists help people, that's why I'm on the Perimeter Guard here.

[A pause, right. Military. She had no frame of reference.]

Most of my work was research.

Military doesn't help. They hurt.

[She frowns. The word research sends sharp, ugly things up her spine, and her eyes are focused, sharp. She has to make sure; she wants to try and read his honesty, though she's not quite so good at 'social skills'.]

Do you research on people?

Yeah, the military didn't have a good reputation back home, either.

[He's watching her, but his expression turns more reserved at the reminder.]

I made a promise, the only way I could keep it was to access the research available through the military.

[It certainly wasn't for a love of the job. His head tilts at the question, flinching if that was a touchy subject. After a moment Ed glances away.]

I don't know about your world, kid. Where I'm from research like I do isn't meant to be done on people. Using alchemy on people is a depraved science, no one should have to go through that.

[He'd been willing to walk away from ever getting his brother's body back through those means if it meant taking on Tucker's job. Which is exactly what they'd wanted him to do, at the age of twelve. Create more chimeras and follow in the bastard's footsteps. It had been nearly ten years and he still got angry and sick just thinking about it.]

[She studies him quietly.]

... Good. No one should.

What is alchemy?

The science of deconstructing and reconstructing matter.

[A pause before he lifts his hand in a sort of shrug.]

Say, for instance, you break something. As long as you have all the pieces, I can put it back together in a second.

[He glances aside for a moment before adding.]

I could give you a demonstration real quick, it's- not as clear on the network, but it'll do.

[Her eyes round a bit, a more childish curiosity crossing her stare.]

...

I want to see.

[She can't fix things, with her power. She can only break things.

But this sounds nice.]

One sec.

[He sets the device down somewhere so that she has full view of what he's doing before clapping his hands together and pressing one to a wall pulling a spear clear from the material there as if creating it out of thin air.

After a moment to inspect it as if to make sure it was acceptable he clapped again, pressing it against the wall until it was absorbed back into place as if nothing had been removed at all.]

Like that.

[He moves back across the room to pick up the device.]

I thought that- might be a better idea than breaking something just to put it back together.

[She stares for a moment, awed. Her voice is quieter.]

... Como un mutante...

Were you born like that?

[He gets the feeling that one word is somehow related to mutant, but he's got no clue what she means.]

Ah... Not really. It's- a science, you have to study it in order to be able to use it. Some of us are just born with a natural gift for it, I guess.

When we were kids everyone credited our abilities to our father, in a way, because of that.

Oh.

Then people like you for it.

[What a weird response.]

If you help them, yeah. It really... depends on a lot of things.

[Not everyone likes alchemy, and even less people like military alchemists, so there was that.]

Some people think alchemists betray the way of the world or defy nature or... something like that. Our abilities are "against the will of God."

[She nods, as if she totally understands.]

Some people say that for us, too. Una ofensa contra Dios —

'Offense to God.'

[Gabriela warned her to be wary of those people. People like the scientists who enjoyed the fact.]

[A blink at 'us'. Mutant. Right.]

You're a mutant..?

[He's not entirely sure what that entails, but he imagines it can't be good.]

People judge you where you're from because of it, don't they?

[He wants to tell her things are different here, that people are more open or she's more likely to find someone that can relate but he remembers Nico and stops short. Some people were still outliers here and he didn't want to set her up for disappointment.]

... Sí. Born with... 'natural gifts'.

[She says it with some solemnness, echoing his own wording to a degree.]

There aren't many left.

[He didn't like the sound of that.]

Your kind?

[Ed wasn't generally one to pry in situations he couldn't help and he definitely couldn't help with her home world, but he had the feeling they weren't going extinct by accident. It made him a little sick to think about. His voice is quiet with the next part.]

I can't even imagine what living like that must be like.

[A shrug. Not exactly indifferent, but just... accepting.]

Está bien.

It's easier to live like that when you didn't know anything else.

...

They said it's better here, though.

[He can relate to that, he's grown to accept a lot of things that outrage people here. At least, he can recognize that's what it is and move on.]

It is. Or... It can be, really depends on who you run into.

[No sense making this place all sunshine and rainbows when he had his own reservations.]

It's better than where I was before, so I'm not too interested in going back, myself.

[video | un: edward.elric]

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