Abandoned

Sallow opened her mouth to retort, and then thought it over. It didn't seem like he was being hostile. Maybe he just wanted to give her advice.
" I'm not planning on mingling with them very long, but I'll try." She finally said.
She walked into the nearest bedroom and looked around, putting her hands on her hips decisively.
"Alright. Where are the clothes and how do they work."

Envy made his way over to the first dresser he saw. By luck, it apparently had been owned by a woman. He personally believed that clothing didn't have to match the gender of the wearer, but a dress would likely be the best thing for the nymph to wear if she wanted as few pieces of clothing as possible.

"The clothes are in dressers like this," he said. He started to dig through the drawers. Once he found a dress that would fit her and was long enough, he turned back around and held it out to her. "You just put it on over your head."

She grabbed the material from him and ran it through her hands, looking for an opening large enough to fit through. It looked like the large one at the bottom was her best bet. She awkwardly fit it above her head, her arms tangling in the dress as she hunted for armholes. To make things more complicated, her hair had started growing again since she had cut it, and it was getting in her way. Finally, with a frustrated screech, she managed to find the right holes and poked her head out the top.

"What a hassle." She found a mirror to examine herself in, shying away from looking at her pointed face. She looked just like her sisters. "It doesn't look too ridiculous, I suppose."

Now that all those social formalities were out of the way, Jaron felt he had enough permission to walk over to Reyes's sword. "How'd you do that?" he whispered, poking at the sword and looking up to Reyes in curiosity. "I, uh, saw that fight with Lunis. I'm a bad judge, but, I think he's not taking it very well."



Lunis strode down the hallway to where he heard voices. The nymph was screaming in frustration, while Envy was talking about a dress. The panther felt a lot like the nymph at the moment, so he wasn't all that pleased when Kendrik tapped him on the shoulder.

"What's this 'bout?" Kendrik hissed, glaring up at Lunis. The hound paled and seemed to shrink as the panther turned around, but that didn't stop him from saying, "Yer little ego?"

"I'm not having a great day," Lunis growled, pulling Kendrik into an adjacent bedroom. "I'm better than this." The panther swung open one of the dressers and began rummaging around. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kendrik try to slip out of the room. Lunis snarled; Kendrik stopped, took a few steps back, and set himself down on the bed.

"So don't sit on my face and blame me for it," Kendrik mumbled.

Lunis pulled out a green shirt, littered with holes and tears. He liked the aesthetic, so he slipped it on. "I'm not good at this whole responsibility thing," Lunis said, spotting something gleaming at the bottom of the dresser. "And I just wanted to get on your nerves so you'd come with me."

Kendrik opened his mouth, hesitated, and closed it.

"I don't like saying sorry," Lunis said, reaching out and picking up a simple necklace. It was a black cord with a blue gem at the end. He walked over to Kendrik and put it in the hound's hand. "Especially not around other people. So here, go give this to lover boy back there."

The hound growled. "He's not -"

Lunis rolled his eyes. "Fine, boyfriend. But don't say you got it from me."

Looking down at the necklace for a few seconds, Kendrik closed his hand. "Thanks," he said, rising up and walking away.

The panther followed suit, but headed over to the next room. "Happy now?" he said to Envy and the nymph, poking his head through the doorway.

Reyes smiled. It had been a long time since he had met someone without them mistaking him for the Fuhrer, and an even longer time since he had last seen his Elrics. Jaron reminded him just a little of Alphonse, but that was enough for him. He really missed having someone to talk to in that way.

Sloth and Greed took the hint and slipped downstairs, leaving the two to chat.

"I'm guessing my...brothers-" Reyes still had trouble associating them with family, after being afraid of them for so long."-already explained that we're homunculi, since they're going by their actual names."

He held out his sword. That was what Jaron seemed most interested in, even though it only played a small part in his ability to fight. "Every homunculus has some sort of specialized ability. Mine is that I'm an excellent swordsman." He used his free hand to lift up his eye patch, revealing a scarred eye and the Ouroboros tattoo that marked the location of his philosopher's stone. "It's called the Ultimate Eye. It helps me predict my opponent's moves, although I can be beaten if I'm taken by surprise."

Jaron's eyes widened the more that Reyes explained his abilities and powers. He fixated on the Ultimate Eye. "The integration of something non-biological in origin to a biological system," he muttered, looking down at his prosthetic arm. "To surpass the limitations found within that said biological system, is possible?" He could feel numbers and ideas swirling around in his head, but he knew he needed to learn more about the Ultimate Eye first.

Before he could say anything to Reyes, though, Kendrik walked back into the room, carrying something in his hand. The hound stood behind Jaron, and the fox could feel a necklace slipping down his forehead and resting around his neck. "Oh?" said Jaron, turning his head up to see Kendrik. "What's this?"

"'s a gift," said Kendrik, smiling awkwardly. "For you."

"Oh." Jaron said. He turned around and gave Kendrik a kiss on the cheek.

Turning back, Jaron focused on Reyes's tattoo. "How does the eye work? What allows someone to have one? Can it be controlled?" Jaron could feel the hound give him a hug, then, out of the corner of his eye, saw Kendrik stumble back to the bedframe and sit there, propping his chin on his hands and watching intently.

"Happy?" Sallow turned around to the feline-like creature, "in here? Not exactly." She paused to go over and peer out the window. "Call me pleastantly surprised. I've never exactly been inside these houses."
She wished that she could stop babbling to these strangers. Something about her being alone so long made her do that.

Lunis nodded. He leaned against the doorframe. "If it's possible," he said, "I wouldn't mind ste - taking some of this back home. Looks nice, and Zech and I don't exactly have a house full of stuff."

She chuckled a bit and waved her hand. "Oh, help yourself. I have no qualms on these objects. Besides, I'm trying to get rid of all of this anyway. You'd be doing me a favor."

Reyes tried his best to process the list of questions. It would be difficult to answer them with his current lack of knowledge on how exactly his philosopher's stone worked, but he luckily had been spending time with his siblings - and they knew more about it than he ever would have been able to guess on his own.

"I'm not sure how the eye works," he said. "I know how it was created, but it's a mystery to all of us. I was implanted with something called a philosopher's stone. It allows the owner to bypass the rules of alchemy, though I don't fully understand how that makes the eye function the way it does. My siblings have ones of their own as well, though they were present from the time they were created."


Envy, who had been awkwardly standing by the dresser as Lunis and Sallow chatted, slipped out into the hallway when he heard two of his three brothers coming towards the room.

"They're having a conversation about stealing the clothes and things in the room," Envy said. Sloth opened his mouth, but Envy continued talking. "Please don't ask. I have no idea why Lunis is doing that or how he's planning on carrying all the stuff with him"

Sloth closed his mouth.

Greed gestured behind him. "Reyes and Jaron are talking about his fighting skills. And probably about the Ultimate Eye, which is the one ability none of us understand. You've got my Ultimate Shield, your shapeshifting, Sloth's strength, Lust's nails - which are a total ripoff of my shield - Pride's shadows, Gluttony's stomach-" He paused. "You know, I don't understand those two either. How does bypassing the laws of alchemy allow you to manipulate shadows and have another dimension in your stomach?"

Jaron nodded. The fox was slightly disappointed - how could Reyes have such little awareness of how his own abilities worked? - but couldn't stop the flood of questions in his head. "What does a philosopher's stone look like?" he said, standing on his tiptoes to look at Reyes's tattoo. "What do tattoos have to do with it? Could I find a philosopher's stone? How do you have such a big mustache?"



Lunis sighed. "I can't carry half of this stuff right now," he grumbled. "I'll have to take it when we're finally ready to get out of this place."

She nodded and slipped past him into the hallway.
"Alright!" She announced, "can we please go to the temple now? I'm getting claustrophobic."

She paused for a second and eyed the two new creatures. Now that she had a chance to examine them, they felt of the same energy to her as the two brother-creatures.

"The philosopher's stone is red, the tattoos just seem to pop up wherever ours are, you can't find a philosopher's stone because it involves human lives to make one and I just let the mustache be." He gave Jaron a warm smile - the steady stream of questions was exactly what he was used to with his boys and Winry.


Greed nodded. "Just give me a second to grab our last brother, and we're all set to go."

"How does it involve human lives? Do people have to die? Does it hurt people, or drain them of energy a little bit? How many people? Do they have to be human, or anything sentient? Do you control where the philosopher stone goes on your body? Does the tattoo vary depending on the person? Does..." Jaron bent over and wheezed, grabbing onto Reyes's shoulder for support. That whole breathing thing annoyed him.

Kendrik placed a hand on the fox's back. "The others are talkin' a lot," he said, sounding a little unnerved. "We might have ta go soon."

Jaron sighed and slumped his shoulders. He didn't like time either. Still, he shook Reyes's hand eagerly. "Thank you!" he said.

"I'll wait outside then." She nodded toward the front half of the house and walked down the hall, tying up her hair as she went. A leaf fluttered from her head to the ground. She let out a sigh of relief when she finally stepped into the sun.