Searching For...

Mother

1 Year Later

"Ed! Al! (Name)!" Trisha called out for the three children as she climbed up the stairs, a little basket of tomatoes in her hand. "Where are you?" She opened the door to her husband's study.

"Oh, my," Was all Trisha could get out. The trio had made quite a mess. Books were scattered all over the wooden floor, some sprawled open and some closed. Al was on his stomach reading while Ed and (Name) drew transmutation circles on the floor with pieces of chalks. "You boys made a mess of your father's study again," She sighed. "And you brought (Name) along with you, too,"

"I wanted to come here!" (Name) protested. "They always left me out whenever they come up here! And Ed said that the books here are really interesting!"

"You three really love to read," Trisha then noticed the circles on the floor that were drawn by Edward and (Name). "Hey! Don't doodle on the floor," she scolded, not knowing that the circles had to do with alchemy. "Your father's going to be mad when he comes home,"

"I'm not doodling," said Edward. "Watch this, mom." The young boy placed his hands on the circle and a flash of blue light and some sparks erupted from it. The light made Trisha close one of her eyes to block out the brightness. When it all faded, there stood a little wooden bird in the middle of the circle.

"...That's alchemy, right?" Trisha asked as she knelt down, staring at the wooden bird made out of the floor boards in amazement. "Did your father teach you that?" she asked.

"How can someone who's never even home teach us anything!?" Ed replied strongly with a pout on his face.

"We learned from a book," Al chirped in.

"From a book...?" asked Trisha with a somewhat shaky voice, surprised laced into them. "Can you understand this stuff..."

"Kind of," the two brothers answered.

"And (Name), you understand it as well?"

"Well, at first, I didn't really get it. But Ed and Al helped me out!" (Name) placed her own hands on her circle, transmuting a wooden doll with a long nose. "This doll's nose is really weird looking..." she muttered, frowning at her creation.

"... If the alchemists of the world heard about this, they would probably faint..." Trisha muttered, sweat dropping.

"Did we do something bad?" Ed asked, looking dejected.

"Not at all! I'm really impressed!" A look of joy and pride was on Trisha's face as she brought the three children into a hug. "You boys must take after your father. And (Name), you are truly talented!" The young girl broke into a huge grin, returning the hug.

That's how the trio became caught up in alchemy. A simple idea to make their mother praise them. That was all it took for them to dive headlong into studying alchemiy.

But the summer of that same year, things went all wrong.

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"It's mine!"

"No, it's mine!"

(Name) and Ed and were fighting. About what exactly? Well... Something really silly. They were fighting over a book, the book that contained other little information about alchemy. But, then again, they are only five years old.

"I want to read it!!" (Name) argued as she tugged on the book.

"Well, so do I!!" Edward countered as he tugged the book back. Their hands slipped and the two kids stumbled back and fell on their bottoms, sending the book flying. They both slowly stood up and looked up, glaring at one another.