Pride & Humility

V

Beta: Taintedletter

Artwork by me. 

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Another beautiful spring night saw two friends climbing onto a roof and looking up at the night sky. Thousands of stars twinkled above them, and the warm breeze that blew between the two forewarned the oncoming summer.

Gentle music drifted from below. The führer was hosting an annual ball that marked the end of spring, and the start of summer. The two children could hear quiet laughter from the guests that danced in the gardens below them, but neither paid them any mind.

The smaller of the two children was a girl of the age of six. She had dark curly hair that she kept tied off to the side, and bright green eyes like her mother once had. She always dressed nicely, as she was the only heiress to the prestigious Luxanna family and looking anything less than perfect was unacceptable to her grandfather.

Next to her sat a boy who was far older than he looked. He kept his black hair combed neatly, and had dark amethyst eyes that gleamed with unnatural malice. As the führer's "son" he dressed equally as nice as his companion, but he always preferred to wear blacks and grays over his friend's vibrant spring colors.

The girl, Elizabeth Luxanna, looked down at the happy guests dancing.

'That kind of looks fun,' she thought, looking over at her relaxed friend.

"Wanna dance?" Elizabeth casually asked him.

"No."

The immediate and harsh response her friend gave her caught Elizabeth off guard. She peered queerly at Selim, and the homunculus steadfastly ignored her to look up at the night sky. "Why not?"

'No, don't tell me...'

A sly smirk crawled its way on Elizabeth's face, a mischievous twinkle shining in her eyes. "Could it be... you don't know how to dance?"

"Feh," Selim scoffed, his cheeks barely turning red under the pale moonlight. "What a human idea. A homunculus has no need for such useless knowledge."

"Oh, I see. So you can't dance."

Selim's eyes narrowed dangerous, and he growled out, "What?"

"Homunculi can't dance," Elizabeth concluded, chortling. "Gosh, so humans can do something homunculi can't? Who knew."

"Homunculi can dance just fine," Selim insisted hotly.

"Then why don't you show me?"

His face twitched, his shadows swirling around him in a blatant display of irritation. Several red eyes glared at Elizabeth from his shadows, but she paid them no mind. "Don't. Want. To."

"It's okay to admit you can't. Nothing wrong with it," she mockingly soothed, then laughed when Selim's face darkened in color.

He promptly shoved her off the rooftop.

(She landed in the bed of flowers on his balcony below, though)

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Summer 1909

With her second batch of hybrids nearly finished, Elizabeth began to seriously consider testing for her State Alchemist certification.

As a State Alchemist she would be able to set up in an official military-sanction laboratory and test her medicine on volunteering subjects.

But there was one big hiccup.