Chapter 2: The Heretic Alchemist
Tanya Desuna sat alone in the basement of her house, hugging her legs to her chest as she listened to what was going on upstairs. Everyone knew that her mother was the biggest calamity in all of Liore, bigger even than the earthquake that happened some fifty years previously. And her father just sat there and took it. He didn't do anything. He was like a sloth, and that was what her mother hated most about him. She'd hit him, she constantly yelled at him, and occasionally she'd brandish a weapon at him. She closed his eyes and tried to ignore the fight. At the moment she was playing with chalk, drawing designs that just came to mind.
Then, a thought struck her. She crawled across the floor and opened up a vent on the side of the wall. This was the one place that her mother didn't know about, so therefore she couldn't check to see if she approved of what her daughter was looking at. Because of this, Tanya hid all of her most personal belongings there. There wasn't much inside of it, just a locket she'd found on a trip to a lake with her school, inside of which she kept a red stone she'd found burried in her back yard. There was a small bag of marbles which she'd bought as a small child with the first money she was ever given, and a pair of gloves that Dr.Elric had given her for her birthday. They were white and had a pattern on them in red. A circle with strange symbols in it on each one. Dr.Elric had said that they had belonged to a very important man and that Tanya should do her best to take care of them. Out of her own boredom, she took one of the gloves and her chalk and began to copy the design off of it onto the floor. It was very complicated so Tanya was sure to press lightly so she didn't run out of chalk.
Once she was done with her work she looked it over, feeling rather proud of herself and happy to forget that her parents were fighting upstairs. It was a rather nice design, Tanya wondered what it meant, she'd have to ask Dr.Elric sometime. However, in her admiration for her handiwork, Tanya didn't hear the basement door opening. She thought she might try to draw it again when there was a sudden sound of footsteps rushing down the stairs. "Tanya! Get up here and wash the dish---WHAT IN THE WORLD HAVE YOU DONE?" shreiked her mother. Tanya instantly threw herself over her drawing and tried to rub it out, but her mother was too fast. She grabbed her by the ear and dragged her upstairs.
Several hours later Tanya tore through thre streets towards Dr.Elric's house, sobbing, bleeding, and covered in chalkdust. She threw herself against the door, knocking feebly as she panted for breath. Her body was soaked, bruised and in unbearable pain. On her way over she'd almost been hit by a car. She knocked again and heard footsteps from behind the door. Elated she hoped against hope that Dr.Elric would let her in.
"Yes, who is it?" he called.
"Dr.Elric! Let me in! Please!" she cried. Dr.Elric opened the door and looked her up and down. His golden eyes widened, his face contorted in a look of horror.
"Good Lord, Tanya. What happened to you?" he asked. He opened the door and let her in, bringing her over to his couch and giving her a towel to dry herself with. Tanya leaned forwards purposely so her back wouldn't touch the couch.
"I was...Hanging around in my basement like I do...And I found those gloves you gave me." Dr.Elric winced. "And...and I copied the pattern off of one of the gloves...and...then my mom came downstairs and saw it...she gor really mad...and she yelled."
"I'm not surprised." said Dr. Elric solemnly. Tanya's eyes widened and she bit her lip. Tears welled up in her deep brown eyes.
"But why! What did I do? I don't understand!" she exclaimed through sobs. Alphones sighed and dried her tears with the tip of te blanket.
"What you did was against common social code as well as your religion, Tanya. That was Alchemy: an art that your people believe distorts the world God gave them, and that my people believe to be too dangerous in the wrong hands to be practiced." Tanya blinked in astonishment, she'd heard about Alchemy. But her parents had told her horror stories about people sacrificing their loved ones and other such things in the search for power and strength at the hands of Alchemy. Alphonse thought for a moment and then looked back at Tanya. "Well, actually, you only drew a transmutation circle, which is required if someone wants to do Alchemy. It must have scared your parents pretty badly if they threw you out over it, but you're welcome to stay here Tanya, you know that."
Tanya smiled. "Thanks Dr.Elric."
Alphonse shrugged. "It's the least I could do, maybe in the morning we can patch things up with your parents." Tanya looked down and bit her lip.
"I...I don't think they'll be taking me back anytime soon." she admitted. Alphonse cocked his head to the side slightly.
"And why's that?" he inquired. Tanya turned around and lifted up the back of her shirt. Now, any normal person would have vomited on the spot, but after what Al had seen in his more youthful years, this barely fazed him, though he felt extremely sorry for the young woman.
The word heretic was etched deeply into her back and she'd tried in vain to stop the bloodloss with bandages.
In the morning, Tanya wandered around Dr.Elric's house, her wounds treated and bandaged, her body fresh and clean as it could be. A heavy void had found a place in her heart and it was eating up most of her consciousness. She couldn't exactly go to the authorities about this, as far as the world knew, only the truely psychotic practiced or did anything affiliated with Alchemy, so she doubted that they'd do anything but put her away in a home even if she showed them her wounds.
What would she do now, that her parents had disowned her and marked her this way. She didn't have any living relatives and she wasn't exactly sure if she could stay with Dr.Elric forever. He was so kind, but she didn't want to be a burden on the old man. That would be way too much.
Out of boredom, Tanya had taken to wandering Dr.Elric's house. She'd been told that she could go anywhere in the house, though it was slightly messy and therefore he was slightly embarassed. At the moment Dr.Elric was downstairs treating a patient so she had the entire living area of the house to herself. His house was interesting, to say the least. It wasn't particularly large but it had a sort of...character, almost. Currently she was on the highest floor, going down a narrow hallway, looking at the various rooms that had open doorways as if asking her to go inside. At the end of the hall, however, she noticed a closed door, the first one she'd seen since arriving. Dr.Elric had said that she could go anywhere.
She walked up to it and turned the knob, before opening the door.
The room was clean, so that meant that Dr.Elric went in it a lot. She looked around for a moment and then something caught her eye. It was a helmet. The helmet to a suit of armor. She walked over to it and picked it up. After examining it, carefully as it was obviously quite old. She put it down carefully on the desk where it had previously been sitting. The desk was old, worn, and faced a window, and on it sat several pictures and something else. It was like a pocket watch, only it had a strange dragon-like symbol on it. She turned it around for a moment and then put it back down, turning to look at a gratuitous amount of pictures on the wall. The one that stuck out to her most in particular was one of a boy and a suit of armor with the helmet that sat on the desk next to her. She looked it over with interest.
Much to her curiosity she saw that there was a light in the armor's eyes that she hadn't seen in the helmet that sat before her. It was like the armor was...alive. Could Alchemy do that? She looked over at the boy in the picture. His hair was blonde, his eyes were a vibrant golden, and his face bore a distinct resemblance to Dr.Elric's. Was this him as a young boy with perhaps his father in the suit of armor? She looked at the caption written on the bottom of the picture with raised eyebrows.
"Edward and Alphonse Elric. State Alchemists."