AN: I have to admit that everything I posted so far was written in one very productive week or so and now I don't have anything else until like, the Liore situation (and that's really bad and needs to be re-written) so updates are probably going to slow wayyyyy down and for that I apologize. I already have one indefinite hiatus fic and I don't want to do that again, so I'm going to try really hard to write this regularly!

In his boyhood days, Alphonse and his brother had stumbled across a truly fearsome alchemy teacher who had stranded them on an island for a month to see if they were worthy of becoming her apprentices. He promised not to do the same to his two charges, but the fact that he had told them the story at all made them wary.

Regardless of legends, however, the island was a lovely place. A little deserted perhaps, but that was the idea.

"Now, I didn't bring enough food to last us more than a day," Al said. "Part of your training here is going to be catching and cooking your own meals."

"What if you're terrible at cooking?" Roy asked.

"Once you're hungry enough, that doesn't matter," Al said. Roy made a face at Riza, who shrugged. She didn't eat.

"You're also going to have to find or make your own shelter, but the climate here is pretty mild, so you won't have to worry too much about that," he continued. "Basically, you need to learn to survive alone in nature, without depending on other people."

"So we aren't working together?" Riza asked.

"I won't be working with you," Al explained, "not for the survival part, anyway. You two can cooperate."

Roy was feeling better about the whole escapade already. It would be easy enough to make a fire, certainly, and he had gotten good enough at manipulating other elements to make a crude shelter.

"And one last thing; no alchemy."

"What?" Roy cried, startled out of his planning.

"You heard me, no alchemy," Al said.

"But Master, you said that we came here so I could practice using my flame alchemy-"

"And so you will," Al said, "but you won't use it after you're finished practicing with me. Alchemy is great, but sometimes you need to do things without it." He turned away from them and began rifling through one of his large bags.

"Tough luck," Riza whispered.

"It's alright for you," Roy hissed back. "You don't need to worry about any of this stuff."

"It'll be good for you, city boy," she teased.

"Alright," Al said, straightening up. "I have your rations here; you can choose to eat them now, or save them for later." He handed the paper-wrapped package to Roy, who put it in his own bag. Al nodded approvingly and then clapped his hands. "Let's start with your lessons, then. Since we were on that boat for a while, we'll begin with sparring."

.

Al let them off after a few hours of physical activity, telling them to go get started on their dinner before it got too dark to hunt. Riza went to go catch the food while Roy started work on a rudimentary hut for the night.

Riza had expected hunting to take a long time – she hadn't done it in over a year for one thing, and for another, she was certain she scared off every animal within earshot just by existing. But she found that once she located a likely spot for game to appear and settled in to wait, she was as quiet as she had ever been. Quieter, even, for not needing to breathe or adjust her body for discomfort allowed her to be completely still.

The island was teeming with animal life, and so it was within a quite reasonable span of time that a large rabbit hopped into view. Riza shot it straight through the head.

"Alright!" she cried, scrambling out of her hiding spot. She scooped up her kill by the legs and returned to camp. The sun was still entirely above the horizon.

Roy, however, had not had Riza's luck. He had managed a tent-like structure for himself and a large canopy of leaves for Riza, but there was no fire.

"Back so soon?" he asked, hastily stepping in front of the sad wood pile that was supposed to be ready to cook the rabbit.

"Roy," Riza sighed.

"Look, making a fire without alchemy is hard!" he said.

"Apparently so," Riza said dryly. "Can you skin a rabbit?"

"Uh," he said.

"Right. Well, I can't do it with one hand, so I'll talk you through it. I packed a knife in my bag," Riza said. She handed the rabbit to Roy. "Hold this while I get it."

He stared in vague disgust at the body, but did ultimately hold it. Riza returned with her knife and set it and the rabbit on the ground.

"Okay, so the first thing you do is slice the skin on the stomach open, all the way from the neck down."

.

It took a lot longer than it should have, but Roy managed to skin the rabbit and get it cooked with Riza's help.

"How do you know all this?" he asked after he'd taken the first hunk of meat off the spit.

"Where do you think all our meat came from before we moved to Central?" Riza countered. "My dad didn't have money to buy it."

"But you were only ten!" Roy protested.

"You were eleven when you came up with a theory of human transmutation," she said. "Hunting's easier than that."

They fell quiet, Roy pondering the implications of Riza's admission, and Riza wishing she could smell the cooking meat.

.

Al woke Roy at sunrise the next day, much to the boy's chagrin. He had fallen straight asleep after putting out the fire, but that had been very late, since Riza had insisted he cook all the rabbit meat that night. She was perfectly chipper, and had all sorts of observations to share about the nocturnal animals on the island. Roy seethed quietly at her over his breakfast of cold rabbit meat.

"It's so different from living in a populated place," she said to Al while he and Roy ate. "There was some noise, I think it was frogs, that didn't stop the entire night. And I saw some foxes sniffing around where I buried what was left of the rabbit."

"Sounds like you're going to be a regular biologist," Al said.

"Well, it's good to learn about the wildlife here if we have to live off it," Riza said. Although her body language was all but impossible to read, Roy could hear the quiet pride in her voice. His grumpiness softened a bit.

After breakfast, it was another round of sparring, and then a lecture on ecosystems. Al used it to explain what he considered the central truth of alchemy, beyond even equivalent exchange; One is All, All is One.

This was something his teacher had taught him – or rather, had him learn – on the very same island many years before. She had apparently discovered it for herself during survival training on Mt. Briggs for a month, but the two students weren't sure how much of that tale they believed. Regardless of its origins, it was a beautiful theory.

"One is all, huh," Roy murmured that night as he stared into the stars. He had decided he didn't care for his poorly made shelter.

"I like it," Riza said next to him.

"It sounds really grand, sure," Roy said, "but I don't think it's really practical."

"Why does it matter if it's practical?" Riza asked. "It's true."

"You sound awfully sure of that."

"It's what hunting's all about," she said. "Everything you eat ate something else, that ate something else, that ate something else, so you're eating all those things too. It's like everything is connected, so you can't have one thing without a bunch of other stuff."

"And I'm supposed to be the alchemist," Roy grumbled, rolling over.

"Oh come on," Riza laughed. "It's not just an alchemy thing."

"I guess it's what makes alchemy possible in the first place," Roy said, almost to himself, and rolled back to stargaze. "One is all. So how about all is one?"

"Well I don't know," Riza said bluntly. "I bet that's the alchemy part of it."

Roy laughed.

.

The next day, Al brought out a truly alarming number of clay discs that he must have alchemized from the island's soil.

"Today we're going to help Miss Riza with her shooting," he said. "So Roy, you take half of these and go to that side of the clearing. I'll stay over here, and Riza, you go down to the edge there. We're going to throw the discs one at a time, and you have to shoot them out of the air."

"So it's moving target practice," Riza said.

"That's correct. Now get moving, you two!"

They scattered to their respective positions. Riza checked the reload on her gun arm to make sure it was as smooth as ever, and then settled into a secure, but hopefully mobile stance.

"I'll throw the first one," Al called. "And then we'll alternate. Ready?"

"Ready!" Riza shouted back.

The first disc flew up, and she took aim and fired. But the disc started falling, and her bullet went high over the mark.

"Next!"

Roy's disc was lower, and she again shot too high. She noticed dimly that when the discs hit the ground, they didn't shatter. Al threw another one, and she over compensated and her shot went just under the disc's edge. She clipped Roy's next one, but could not get a solid hit in for a while.

When they were finally out of discs, Riza was frustrated. She stewed over the difficulties of shooting a flying target as she swept her bullet casings into a pile while the other two collected the fallen discs. Al returned carrying most of them, but Roy set his stack down in front of her on Al's instruction.

"These are all the ones you hit," Al said. "Congratulations."

"Thank you," Riza said tersely.

"They'll be a useful study tool. For instance," he continued, "we can see already that you're remarkably consistent. Almost all of these shots are grazes. If you weren't aiming properly, you either wouldn't have hit any, or what few shots you made would be scattered in different places on the discs. I'd say you're adapting to moving targets quite quickly, Riza. You should be pleased."

"Yes, thank you," she said. She had a shell in her hand and was rolling it idly around her fingers.

"I think we'll start doing this daily," Al said. "The practice will be good for you." He glanced at Roy, who was rubbing his exhausted shoulder. "It'll be good for all of us."

.

As the days wore on, Riza's accuracy improved. It was a slow process, but visible, and it mollified her frustration some. What also mollified it was Master Al introducing a joint target practice after Roy proved himself able to pinpoint his flames. These exercises involved Al standing by an almost comically large pile of clay balls – a smaller target for Riza, but also more easily thrown - and throwing them rapidly in the general direction of both children. Roy was to explode them in midair, and Riza was to shoot them down.

Al was a master of misdirection, and frequently surprised both of his students with his irregular throwing patterns. This had the desired effect of teaching them to be ready for anything, and the bonus of flustering them when they were well and truly caught off guard. Roy had a most undignified squawk that he reserved for being hit in the chest by a lump of clay.

By the end of their month on the island, Roy was catching, killing, skinning, and cooking his own meals. Riza was very proud, but she also could not help but feel a little left out. She didn't say anything, but as Roy finished the last of his fish, he looked over at her.

"Thanks for teaching me all this stuff," he said.

"Huh? Sure, no problem," she replied.

"No," he said, looking down at the fire between them, "I really mean it. I would hate to ask you to do all this stuff for me when you don't benefit from it."

Riza could not come up with a response, so she nodded and hummed.

"So I've decided that I'm definitely going to get your body back," he said. "And the first thing I'm gonna do is cook you something."

She was so surprised by his earnestness that she laughed. Roy flushed and threw a stick at her. That only made her laugh more, but she held out her hand in a peace offering.

"I'm not teasing you," she said. "That's really sweet."

"Yeah, well, it's the least I can do," Roy said sulkily into his arms, which he had crossed over his knees, which he had pulled into his chest.

"Thank you," Riza said softly. "I can't wait."

She couldn't smile, but her voice made it obvious that she was anyway. Roy ducked his head and started putting out the fire.