Forged in Ice

Forged in Ice 2

1. Vacation

The transmutation circle had glowed. The steel bolt had melted. Envy was exhilarated.
The next morning, Envy made its way through the corridors of Fort Briggs that had become familiar to it over the three months it had been there. It headed for Major General Olivier Armstrong's office.
As soon as Envy had gotten into the office and closed the door behind it, she got to the point. "So, what was this blather about you and your soul and why the hell was it so important that you had to burst in here in the middle of the night to shout about it?" she asked, sounding laconic.
"It was just that, SIR. I have a soul now. As far as I've understood, Father created us homunculi from Philosopher's Stone and fragments of his own soul, or he just made magnificent minds for us, I don't know. But that night I was going through my Stone so I could see how much energy there was and I found this small empty soul thing. That's MY soul."
Armstrong stared at Envy. "How do you know it's yours?"
"How do you know you're you?"
"Why is it so significant that you have your own soul? All humans have one. Your soul may be unique like everyone else's, but it isn't like you're unique just because of the virtue of having your own soul."
"Would you be asking that if you had never had a whole soul of your own?"
"I can see some alchemists being wild about that and using you as a guinea pig for whatever tests, but is your having a soul in ANY way significant to me?" She sounded demandingly irritated by now.
Envy made an angry face. "I guess not! Thanks a lot, now I know better than to tell you about my great achievements. And I am not secretly drawing a human transmutation circle inside Fort Briggs's maintenance shafts and forcing Shrike to activate it!"
Armstrong turned a keen eye at Envy's oddly specific and unwarranted denial. "Good. You can go."
"Fine!" Envy turned and walked to the door.
Armstrong realised that what she had said was basically a permit for Envy to not tell about possible important issues. She was not so restrained as to not correct herself. "You can tell me about your achievements. Just don't do so at night."
"Hmph, sir. See if I do." Envy left.
Armstrong did not like the reply or its tone but thought that she could just question Envy or other people it was closer to if it seemed like something was up.
Envy smirked to itself. While it had told her about its complete soul, it had not shared and did not want to share the accomplishment that had followed from it that realisation. And if Envy could have its way, she would never know, except maybe when it was too late.
What Envy had thought was that if it had a complete soul like a human, it ought to have a Gate and thus be able to perform alchemy. It had tried transmuting and to its surprise, it had succeeded.
Some weeks went by as Envy experimented with basic alchemy on its own, reshaping small items of simple materials. When it started getting frustrated with progressing too slowly, it went through the small library of Fort Briggs and found a few books about the very basics of alchemy. It read them, continued its experiments and progressed further.
Envy did all of its learning in secret. It did not even tell about its doings to Shrike, who was the human closest to it. Shrike would most likely try to keep the secret if Envy asked him to, but if Armstrong asked him about it, he would certainly spill the beans. Envy could not predict what Armstrong would think of it learning alchemy but did not think about her possible reactions very much since it had no reason to tell her or anyone anything.
In addition to learning the basics, Envy also tried to recall the transmutation circle to create Philosopher's Stone. It could not be quite sure about the composition of the circle and obviously could not test it now, but it wrote down what it remembered nonetheless. After a few days of trying to reconstruct the circle, it thought that it would not be good if somebody saw the drawings in its room, so it destroyed them and instead made an encoded version that looked like ventilation maintenance instructions, other related issues and ranting about stupid humans and their physiological inconveniences. It could have written them in cookbook format like alchemists usually did but it thought that was way too overdone and that some alchemist would figure out the true purpose of the text if it used a well-known encryption method. It hid the book in its room.
Envy had the patience to practise alchemy on its own for over a month. After that it felt that being secretive and doing small stuff like reshaping bolts was just boring and it wanted to practise doing something bigger and more complex. It managed to spend two more weeks by studying and transmuting small but complex pieces: a small broken radio it had salvaged from the communication department's trash and a part of automail it had snatched from the hospital wing.
Since it needed to study the parts in detail to know what was in them, Envy read a book about optics and learned to shapeshift its eyes and head to work like a microscope. It also discovered that it was easy to shapeshift the materials of its body so that it had a perfectly usable tiny transmutation circle on its fingertip, palm or other part of the body.
At the end of August, Envy was fast running out of patience, wanting to try bigger and more elaborate transmutations. However, it could not hope to do that in secret in Fort Briggs. It knew that the other soldiers got time off and went home or visited North City on their free time. It had not needed vacations previously, but now it thought that a vacation would be an ideal time to go to one of the old hideouts of the homunculi and practise some larger-scale alchemy.
It went to talk to First Lieutenant Linke when it saw him in their squad's lounge. "Hey Linke. Schedule me a vacation some time soon." Since Linke was Envy's commanding officer, he was responsible for its schedule.
"Huh? A vacation?"
"Yeah. You know, that bit of free time everyone but me seems to be getting."
"Oh. Well..." Linke stopped and did not seem to know what to say. He did not mumble and stutter but just stopped talking and frowned at Envy. "I thought you didn't require any."
"So?"
"I suppose I'm asking why you need it."
"To get some change of scenery for a couple of days. Why else?"
"Oh. Hm... I need to clear it with the Major General. She instructed me to not schedule vacations for you."
"Geez."
Envy was not surprised when Armstrong called it to her the next day. They did not meet in her office since she did not use it much now that she had finally concluded the bureaucracy and hiring of new people that had resulted from the events of the Promised Day. Instead, they met in a small corridor.
"Why do you want vacation?" she asked.
"I want to get out of here for a couple of days. Just taking a break from all of you. Don't worry, I won't kill any humans and I'll come back."
"I still need to assign a few people to watch you."
Envy showed an offended face. "What? Why the heck?"
"I would be willing to let you out on your own for a few days but those uptight people in Central and East aren't. If I don't have my people watching over you, they're going to watch you. And I doubt they would 'watch' you."
"You're worried they might kill me?" asked Envy incredulously.
"No, but if there was violence, it would ruin all relations and they would want to lynch you. And all that would just be a reason for that bloody Mustang to come here and pick a fight. Right now it's extremely important for the country that the military cooperates and plays nicely with everything, so that's what I'm doing."
Envy's expression changed to defiantly serious when Armstrong mentioned Mustang. "Why can't that prick leave well enough alone? Darned idiot." Envy huffed before continuing. "It'd be just inconvenient if some soldiers came along. I wasn't planning on hiking around anywhere where humans could move."
"Too bad. I will not let you out by yourself until those folks at Central get a grip on the important issues like not caring about every single thing you do. But I can assign a couple of people you like to go along with you, like Shrike and Linke. Does that sound acceptable to you?"
Envy sighed exasperatedly. "I hate those bloody idiots down there. Fine, I'll go with Linke and Shrike then. Can I have that kind of vacation every week?"
"No."
"Every two weeks?"
"No. Hm, actually yes. The regular soldiers get a week of vacation for every six weeks of work. But you can't get both Linke and Shrike to come with you each time then."
Envy sighed and twisted its mouth in mock-frustration. "Oh, fine."
#-#
After Armstrong had approved it, Linke managed to schedule Envy's vacation on the next week. They packed supplies for two days and left the Fort in a small jeep.
Linke was driving, Shrike sat next to him and Envy occupied the back seat. Envy had told Linke to head down the main road toward North City for now. He and Shrike were content to stay quiet, but since Envy liked to talk, it talked.
"Linke, what have you been up to lately?"
"Pretty much the same as always. Arranging schedules, making strategical analyses and training troops."
"Weren't you on a long vacation a month ago or something?"
"Yes, I went to see my parents in North City."
"Did they have anything interesting to say?"
"Eh, no. They merely grilled me about getting a girlfriend again."
"Heh heh. You're what, thirty-four? You sure ought to have a wife already."
"What, don't you start. It's hard for a man in the military to find a woman."
"It didn't seem like that whenever I went to a bar disguised as a man soldier. Sure enough, some people didn't approve but they were mostly men. A lot of women liked the uniform."
"Perhaps, but I don't wish to be with a woman who sees nothing but the uniform. Or just a companion for a single night."
"You are so needy."
"What? No I'm not."
Envy snickered a little to itself. "I got Humber and Northrop to break up. Did you know that?"
"Oh? I heard they separated, but I didn't know you were behind it."
"No one else knows either!"
"How did you do it?"
"I stalked them a couple of times to see how they behaved with each other, then spent a while posing as them so that they each only saw me for a week. And during those meets I really dropped some interesting lines. When they finally met each other after that week, they fought, stormed off and trashed some photos. Look at this." Envy waved a slightly crumpled photograph at Linke, who glanced at it, startled and made an uncontrolled movement with the wheel, coming close to driving off the road.
"Linke!" exclaimed Shrike as the other man straightened the car. "Envy, you shouldn't distract him while he's driving."
"Ha ha!"
Linke was slightly sweaty. "Good grief! I fancy her but I don't need to see that kind of photograph of her!"
"Relax, I faked it. I don't even know what she looks like beyond the face and uniform. But my guess probably isn't far from the truth, wouldn't you say?" It showed the "photo" to Shrike who blushed.
"Uh... Uh, how would I know?" asked Shrike in a small voice.
"You wouldn't," replied Envy and melded the picture back to its own body with a tiny red crackle. "Are you going to try wooing her?" it asked from Linke.
"Well... yes, it's just that the break-up was just a short time ago and there's this woman in North City I just got acquainted with."
"So date both of them? Northrop is in Briggs, the other one isn't. Should be really easy to keep them apart."
"I suppose, but there is more than enough to handle in one relationship already."
"Aww!" said Envy in an exaggeratedly disappointed tone. "That's lame." Linke sighed. "Why do your parents care so much about your private life?"
"I suppose that is what parents do. However, I've understood that most often the mother is the one who is most eager to inquire every little detail about their child's personal issues. Isn't that so?" he asked from Shrike.
"Er, I don't know."
Linke frowned. "Anyway, in my family my father is the one who really grills me, though of course mother does too. Always the same questions, over and over again. 'Have you met any nice women lately? Been to that bar I told you to visit last time? Are there new interesting lady soldiers in Briggs? Have you visited your sisters? Did you get promoted yet?' It gets on my nerves. Sometimes excessively so. I wish he would stop."
Envy noticed that Shrike looked askance at Linke. "Oh, Shrike? What's your problem?" it asked.
Shrike suddenly lost his defiant expression and became slightly confused. "Uh, w-what? Nothing..."
"You know lying never works on me! Just spit it out. You obviously have something against what he just said."
"What?" said Linke in a somewhat challenging tone and gave Shrike a glance.
Shrike looked out through the side window. "No..."
"No what?"
Shrike did not reply.
Envy was amused. "It's just his daddy issues. See, his mom died and his soldier dad was never home so – –"
Shrike turned and spoke over Envy. "Hey, Envy, stop. I don't want everybody to know all – –"
"– – they never talked much and they haven't... Huh, really, Shrike? I'd hardly say Linke is 'everybody'."
"Uh..."
Linke continued after a short pause. "Okay, I suppose I see your point. Maybe my father's endless inquiries are more pleasant than him being gone altogether."
"Uhm."
Envy was a little disappointed that the two men had not even raised their voices at each other.
"So... your mother died and father was never home? Who raised you then?" continued Linke.
"Oh... well, he had some friends who also had children and they could take care of me."
"I see. Where did you live?"
"My dad has an apartment."
"So, when you were old enough, you were there just by yourself?"
"Well, yeah."
"What did you do if there were unforeseen problems with the apartment? Or if you needed food?"
"I... uh, went to the landlord. And I went to the store by myself after I turned six."
Linke was baffled. "My parents wouldn't let me and my sisters out alone until we were fifteen!"
"Er, well, the store was only a kilometre away."
"A kilometre! There was no way we could ever do anything like that. Weren't you afraid strangers would rob you or even kill you?"
"Uh... No? I found pretty much everyone rather scary."
Envy found the conversation between the two men tiresome, but by now it was clear that Shrike was uneasy answering Linke's questions and wanted to just stop. That fact was the interesting part of the conversation for Envy, and it wondered when Shrike would stop answering.
"And no one ever robbed you?" Linke went on.
"Some stupid teens did once, but a guard at the store saw it and made them give all their money back to me. I ended up with more money than they had taken."
"What? Didn't you say you had not had that much money?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I was kind of frozen."
Linke was bewildered. "Didn't the store personnel ever wonder why a kid came to the store alone all the time?"
"I guess they did... They asked questions like where I lived but I didn't really answer them much. They gave me candy sometimes but after I told them I could only eat candy on Saturday, they only gave it to me on Friday and told me to save it for tomorrow."
"This is unbelievable. Are you trying to trick me or something?"
"What?" Shrike spoke no more and turned to look out through the side window.
"No way was that a lie. He's being completely serious," commented Envy.
"But... all that responsibility for taking care of yourself must have been difficult. I find it hard to believe a child could do that. And a child, given money and free reign of a store, would buy the shelves empty of cookies."
"Why?"
"Why...? That's what kids do! They crave everything sugary and can eat such stuff nearly endlessly. I sure did when I was a kid." Shrike did not answer. "Shrike?"
Shrike turned away from the side window and faced the windshield again. "What?"
Linke held a short pause. "Well?"
"Um... If you're waiting for a reply, I just don't have anything to say."
Linke frowned but said nothing for now.
The sceneries changed dramatically as they drove. The vicinity of Fort Briggs was snowy and naturally devoid of trees and other plants, but it did not take a long trip until the first bushes and small trees appeared. The winding road took them down from the mountains and into a flat valley where the trees quickly turned taller.
When they were approximately half the way from North City, Envy told Linke to turn to a side road. They drove altogether about four hours. For the last half an hour, they were not on a road or even a path.
At some point, Envy told Linke to stop, hopped out of the car and seemed satisfied, though the part of the forest looked pretty much just like it had looked an hour ago: mostly coniferous trees, little undergrowth and a few now colourful deciduous trees.
"So, we're in the middle of nowhere," said Shrike.
"What are we going to do here?" asked Linke from Envy.
"I sure don't know about you. I know what I'm going to do, I'm going to shapeshift, run over there and come back at nightfall."
"What? Armstrong said we should stay together – –"
"I don't care about what she said. I told her I wouldn't kill humans or do anything else she'd find morally questionable and that's going to be enough. You two might be tolerable but right now I really don't want a couple of humans dragging me down." It shapeshifted into a horse and did it subtly enough to leave the clothes it was wearing lying relatively neatly on the ground. "So long then. Do what you want. And pick those up," it said and pointed at the clothes with a hoof. Having done that, it turned and ran straight into the forest with unnatural speed.
Linke and Shrike stared after it, silent from the surprise and a little disturbed at how the horse had spoken with Envy's voice.
"Well, you know, it's not like there was anything we could've done," said Shrike finally and started collecting Envy's clothes.
"That wasn't... We were supposed to keep an eye on Envy."
"Yeah... I just hope Armstrong won't ask anything about this trip."
"Why would you wish for that?"
"So I don't have to lie about this."
"Why would you lie?"
"Well... I wouldn't, I'm a terrible liar, but I don't want to get Envy into trouble. I mean, if it doesn't go near humans or even look like one, who's going to know?" Shrike put Envy's clothes into the jeep.
Linke sighed. "You won't need to worry about it. I will tell her everything."
Shrike was visibly displeased and even worried but turned his face down and said nothing.
"You don't agree with me, do you? The Major General told us that Envy could be dangerous and that it would be dangerous if he was seen or went off on his own. That should be enough to report to her as truthfully as we can so she can take whatever action is necessary."
"Uh."
Now Linke was displeased and held a pause. "Are you... acting that way because you're in love with him?"
Shrike blushed and continued looking down. "Maybe..."
"You know relationships shouldn't affect our work."
Now Shrike grew rather nervous and thought whether it really was true that he was letting his attachment to Envy affect his work. Technically their current trip was vacation, but Armstrong's commands did make it work. "I, um... Yeah, I agree. I-I'll try better to not let it affect work..."
"Do you agree with me that we need to inform Armstrong about this, then?"
"...Yeah."
"Good. Nevertheless, this situation isn't too worrisome since he is just running in the forest looking like a horse, so let's wait for him to come back." Shrike nodded. "So, what do you want to do? I rather feel like running myself, after that long driving trip. Or would you like to do some close combat training?"
"Oh... uh, I'm really not good at it."
"I'm not that great at it either. We're almost the same size so we should be better matched."
Shrike looked at Linke. "Hm, yeah, I guess. Well... I guess I could," he said rather unenthusiastically.
The two men got ready, stretched a little and spent some twenty minutes wrestling. Shrike lost each round, though for once he had had a few good moments and had almost managed to hold Linke down long enough to lock him. They then sat on a fallen tree to rest.
"You weren't kidding at all when you said you're not good at this," said Linke. Shrike did not reply. "Doesn't First Lieutenant Massena teach you how to fight properly?"
"Um, she does, but I have a really hard time learning." Shrike looked rather sullenly at the ground for a moment. "But... you know, at least I could almost stop you, I've never managed to do that except to this small woman who was in my unit three years ago. She was pretty much the only one I've ever managed to beat since coming to Briggs anyway. And I know I shouldn't have, but I felt so bad after that. I was glad she switched units later."
Linke looked at Shrike somewhat curiously. "You quite dislike fighting, don't you?"
"I do..."
"That is an odd quality for someone in the military."
"Well... Well, since you know about my dad know, you can just blame him for that too. He made me join the military."
"It appears you don't have much respect for him. Is it just because he was not there when you grew up?"
"Uh... I don't... I just don't really know him. I can't say if I respect him or not."
Linke looked even more curious. "Didn't you ever try to get reacquainted with him? It is easier to relate to adults as an adult."
"Sort of... but he's a quiet person and so am I. I didn't really know what to say and I imagine he felt the same."
"Don't you even have some common interest?"
"I don't know..."
Linke seemed surprised. "Right... Listen, I'm not ordering you around or telling you how to live your life, but you really should try to get more in touch with him and try to find some common ground. Having good relations with one's family is beneficial."
"Uh, I guess."
Linke felt a draft on his thigh and felt the spot with his hand, finding that his trousers had a rather wide tear on the side. "What? Darnit, I must have torn the fabric at some point." Shrike glanced at the tear while Linke inspected it and found that he had a scratch on his skin, but at least there was no blood. "You don't happen to have a needle and thread with you, do you?"
"Uh, no... But... I could try fixing it another way."
"Another way?"
"I can do a little alchemy."
"What? Really?" Linke sounded rather astonished.
"Um, if you don't want to, I won't... There's probably a sewing kit in the jeep."
"No, I meant that you've never mentioned that before. Isn't it very useful?"
"Well... yes, but I'm not that good at alchemy either, I can just do simple stuff."
"What do you do with it?"
"Uh... Mostly I fuse patches on pipes and transform misshaped bits into a better condition."
"And you can fix my trousers?"
"Well, I've done similar stuff with the overcoats before. Just... I need to draw a transmutation circle first..." Shrike walked to the jeep and took a sketchpad out of his bag. He then sat down and spent a few moments drawing an appropriate circle. "That should be it. Oh... I'd ask you to take the pants off first, I don't think it's safe if your leg is so close."
Linke spent a while untying his shoes and eventually handed his trousers to Shrike. Shrike placed the paper on the ground with the trousers and transmuted. The tear in the fabric puckered up and became seamless again, though the spot of the transmutation had a few barely visible alchemical flaws and felt more plasticy since Shrike did not know the original fabric's exact weave pattern.
"Um... almost as good as new," he said as he gave the trousers back to Linke.
"Thank you. That's great." Linke felt the patched up fabric for a short while and then started dressing again. "Why don't more people know you can do alchemy? Surely you know that it is useful and important. I can think of a few cases where alchemy would have been extremely useful in fixing some issues with the Fort."
Shrike looked down again. "I'm... I'm not that good. This is just a hobby, I don't have time to study much more." He picked the circle up and put it between the sketchpad.
"Even a little alchemy would be useful. Undoubtedly you could scale down your other duties as well and concentrate on alchemy more. Perhaps you could become a state alchemist! That would be an instant promotion to major."
"No, no."
"What? Why not?"
"State alchemists have to study some area of alchemy very intensely and I have no idea for that and besides, there's no way I could take so much responsibility."
Linke was very disappointed and it showed, but of course Shrike did not see it. Linke wanted to interrogate Shrike and push and convince him to be more ambitious. "What a shame! If alchemy is something you want to do, you should pursue that and become part of the elite. Even you have potential, and state alchemists are the best, are they not? Why would you not strive to be one of them?"
Now even Shrike clued in on Linke's disappointment. He had absolutely nothing to reply, so he mumbled at the ground. "There's no way I can be that good and I don't have time..."
"Didn't I just say you could scale down your other duties to study alchemy? Stop belittling yourself, be more ambitious and take charge of your own life."
"...You're telling me how to live right now," commented Shrike quietly and more than a little bitterly.
"And you don't like that, do you? Why do you partake in the close combat training if you don't see any use in it."
"Because it's compulsory."
Linke gave out a very frustrated sigh.
"I do wish I could skip it and study alchemy instead. I'm small and I'll never be good at it but I could be a better alchemist."
"Then talk to someone about it already!" said Linke. "Nevertheless, a small stature isn't that much of a hindrance in close combat. When I was in Central, following that huge corruption scandal and the fight that ensued, the final showdown was between this super-alchemist and a fifteen-year-old kid who can't have been even as tall as Envy. Good grief, that kid kept pummelling him until he fell."
"Oh..." Shrike felt annoyed since there probably was no reason for him being a lousy fighter except him having an attitude problem with close combat. He sighed. "I wish learning fighting was easier."
"Few things are easy. You should have a little more ambition! You can become better at fighting if you truly want to and spend the effort."
"I guess. But I probably want other things more. Like practising alchemy."
Linke huffed. "I do hope you actually do something about that. Either way, I am a little interested in what you can do. Would you mind showing me?"
Shrike finally turned his head up to look at Linke. He was wary, obviously not happy with the tone Linke had used with him, but he still did think that the First Lieutenant was not trying to be malignant. "Mhm... I guess not... Is there anything particular you'd like to see?"
#-#
Meanwhile, Envy had run off and as a big snake, slithered back to listen in on what Shrike and Linke had to say about its departure. They had reacted much like it had suspected. It was annoyed that Linke would go and tell Armstrong, but at least he had not panicked and left immediately, which meant that Envy could talk him out of it. Then again, if Armstrong asked them directly what had happened, it figured that neither of the men would lie whether they had promised to not mention Envy's running off or not.
It had planned to look for an abandoned farm nearby where it could practise transmutation, but now it thought again about how Armstrong might react. It came to the conclusion that it might be actually more beneficial to make her think like she had gotten her way. After all, if Envy behaved, there would be no reason for her to deny it having another vacation later. She would probably give Envy permission to go running in the forest on its own. That did mean that Envy would not get to practise alchemy so soon, but at the moment it thought it could wait.
While Linke and Shrike fought, Envy discreetly shapeshifted and moved closer to them so that it eventually looked like a large mound of ground behind the jeep.
Over six hours passed while nothing much happened. Linke and Shrike spent their time reading (Shrike had a book about alchemy and a novel which he gave to Linke to read), playing a word game (How many words can you think up that end with i? How about a?), eating, peeing, picking berries and exercising.
Once the sun was low enough that the sky was beginning to dim, Linke said that it would be best to put up the tent. He and Shrike went to get the tent out of the jeep, and that was when Shrike noticed that something was amiss.
"The... uh, this is odd, but I don't remember this mound. We'd have to have circled it or driven over it. But I'm pretty sure we didn't drive over it and maybe that wouldn't be even possible, it's pretty steep... And we can't have circled it either because then the jeep wouldn't be so close unless you reversed but you didn't do that either."
Linke first looked incredulously at Shrike, but then the message started making sense to him too and he stared at the mound.
"Boo!" said Envy. Both men screamed, dropped the tent parts and Shrike fell down. "Ha ha ha! Ahahaha!" Envy laughed for a short moment and then kept giggling as it finally took its usual shape and original outfit. "It took you SO LONG! After the first three hours I thought I'd have to sit there right into the night!"
Linke managed to get his heart out of his throat first. "H-how did you...? H-how long were you...?"
"The whole time! I only ran far enough to make you think I'd gone off, then sneaked back and became a mound while you fought. I can tell you what you did and talked about if you don't believe me."
Shrike staggered upright.
"Ah... But why did you do it?" asked Linke. "You could have rejoined or even scared us very shortly after going off."
"I pretty much wanted to see how long it would take for you to notice me. You aren't very observant, are you? Be glad I wasn't a Drachman spy! Not that you'd have revealed any secrets, but anyway."
Linke did not quite know whether to be relieved, annoyed or amused and just scratched his head while making a funny face. Shrike tried to calm his breath. Eventually Linke shrugged lightly. "Oh well, it happened. Let's put up the tent." He and Shrike picked up the parts and looked around for a proper spot to put it up. Once they had found one, they cleaned the area a little before erecting the tent. Envy pushed the tent's rope holder pitons into the ground since it could do that effortlessly without tools.
"Is that how you originally looked like?" asked Linke from Envy once the tent was set up.
"Yeah."
"That's an... interesting outfit."
Envy rolled its eyes.
"Well I like it," said Shrike.
Linke glanced a little questioningly at Shrike, but he was mostly just confused at how Envy looked. Envy noticed his uncertainty but was not interested in exploring it.
"I'll just eat a snack and go to sleep. I feel tired," said Linke.
Envy and Shrike joined him to eat but did not yet go to sleep. They sat in the jeep while Linke crawled into the tent.
"I won't even sleep much. Are you two going to sleep at different times just to keep an eye on me or what?" asked Envy.
"Um... I don't know, probably."
"You know, babysitting me is just stupid."
"Yeah... I agree. It isn't that sensible."
"I can go off whenever I like and there's nothing you can do about it."
"Mh... I-I guess it's more about obeying and getting Armstrong's trust."
Envy sighed, twisted its mouth into an expression of bored disapproval and stared dully forward. "Humans!"
"Uh, sorry... Is there anything you'd like to do?" Envy did not answer. "Well, I have a book with me, you can read that. Here," said Shrike after digging the book out of his bag.
"A novel? I haven't read fiction in a while. Well, unless you count that history book Pride wrote a few decades ago."
"Pride?"
"Never mind."
Shrike lit up a candle and read his alchemy book while Envy made some unsavoury comments about the novel, such as "Idiot!" "What the heck? What do they think it is?" "This writer is a moron." "No! It doesn't work that way!"
Envy was done with the book in two and a half hours. Then it dropped the book on Shrike's lap.
"Ow! Uh... I take you didn't like it."
"Eh. It would've been better if the writer hadn't been such a moron and if there hadn't been so much stupid human drama."
"Er, yeah. Well, is there something else you'd like to do?"
"Hm? Ooh. That book did give me an idea." Envy turned to face Shrike directly and grinned. "We could play a game called 'chase the human'."
"Uh..." While Shrike was by now fairly used to seeing even Envy's creepier expressions, they had not ceased making him very uncomfortable.
"We play it so that you run into the forest in a panic and I change into random monsters and chase you."
"Uhm..." Envy waited until Shrike had something else to say. "I... that doesn't sound very nice to me."
"Come on, I won't really hurt you and if you watch where you're going, you won't trip too badly. You don't have to even care about getting lost, I can locate the camp later."
Shrike stared at Envy suspiciously for a moment but then looked away. Envy waited again; it had learned that Shrike usually gave in if it let him think long. "Eh... o-okay..."
"Ooh, neat! Well then, grab a head lamp and start running. I'll come after you in a while. I'll keep this on my head so you can tell it's me and not some random animal." It pointed at the nodes on its forehead.
Shrike took a lamp and fixed it over his hat while eyeing Envy and looking concerned. He then started off into the forest.
Shrike ran among the trees, twigs, bushes and darkness. At least the nightly insects did not bother him too much since he was running. The light from the head lamp was not very efficient and bounced around distractingly, so he had to be more careful about where he stepped. He was worried about how Envy would attack him.
After a short while, Shrike considered that maybe Envy had only thought up the game to get him out of their campsite and pondered the reasons while still walking forward. He did not come to any conclusion because he heard some fastly approaching rustling. Tense, he turned to look to where the sounds were coming from, but he saw nothing until Envy launched itself from the dark and attacked him as a large snake. Shrike could only let out a muffled gasp as it curled around him. It giggled at him in its snake form as it watched him.
"Come on! Squirm, struggle and flee! What are you waiting for?" said Envy and wiggled its forked tongue at him. It continued giggling and let Shrike get away once he had struggled a bit.
Envy attacked Shrike five more times as a giant squirrel, ghastly bony giant, dragon, tentacle monster and nightmarish tree. By then Shrike was completely spent and as Envy lifted him into the air, restrained in its branches, he did not struggle at all.
"Would you even try? I won't let you get hurt by falling if that's what you're worried about."
"Ah, I-I... Envy, let's just stop... please." Shrike held onto a branch, breathing heavily and not really caring about the tears that fell from his eyes. "I-I hated..." He did not finish.
Envy glared at Shrike, annoyed and thinking how ridiculously weak humans were. And Shrike seemed to be especially weak; Linke would probably have lasted longer. It sighed and took Shrike back down, placing him on a small hollow next to a spruce. It then shapeshifted back into human form and sat down as well, next to another tree. It looked disappointedly at Shrike who tried to stop shaking and heaving. He tried to wipe his eyes dry now that he was pretty much weeping due to relief, but his hands were so dirty that the attempts just made them sting more. Luckily the tears washed the dirt away soon after.
After Shrike had calmed down more, he glanced at Envy and then dried his face by wiping it on his uniform. Then then looked down and apparently nodded off after a couple of minutes.
"Huh? Falling asleep already?" said Envy.
Shrike startled slightly and drew a deep breath quickly. "Mhm... L-let's just go back to the camp..."
"Fine. I'll check the direction." Envy stretched its head toward the sky, disguising it as a thin treetop as it kept growing. Envy spent a short while looking around in the dark before it located the camp. It brought its head back down and stood up.
Shrike stood up onerously.
"That way," it said and started walking.
Shrike followed it but started collapsing after only a few steps. He grabbed Envy's shoulder and held onto it while not trying to fall.
"Hey? What is it with you?" asked Envy, a little annoyed. It turned to face Shrike and he had to lean on it to stay upright.
"Uh... I-I feel dizzy."
"Dizzy? You can't claim that was so demanding, even of your delicate physique." Nevertheless, it let him continue his hugging for now. It also wondered whether something serious had indeed happened during the chase. While it could not quite bring itself to care that much about Shrike's well-being, him being hurt would be troublesome in other ways. "You aren't actually hurt, are you?"
"...N-no, I don't think so. Just... couldn't walk." He slowly let go of Envy and stood unsupported. He looked at it tiredly for a fleeting moment.
"Can you walk now?"
"I think so."
"Good. I would've hated having to carry you." Envy turned and started walking again.
"But... aren't you really strong anyway? Would my weight make a big difference?"
"No. It would just be annyoing."
"Uh."
"So, you hated the chase game, eh? Do you understand that in war, that is pretty much what you humans do as soldiers? Either you're chasing something or being chased."
"That's... That's awful."
"You really shouldn't be in the military, you know!"
"I can just stay in the Fort! Nothing will get to us there, and my skills are specifically needed inside, and even in the field I really should just be a mechanic or something..."
"Yeah yeah, blah blah. You little pacifist. Even you should know that you having a skillset not suited to combat won't spare you from fights. But I'll give it to the Fort, inside it is probably the safest place a soldier can be." Envy shrugged.
Even though the walk to the camp was not long because Shrike had run in a some kind of circle, he felt like it took forever since he was so tired. Now that he could think of something else than running and being scared, he also noticed that he was very hungry and thirsty.
Once they had arrived in the camp, he went straight for their food and drink reserve. After he had gotten his worst thirst quenched and hands and face better cleaned, he looked around to see what Envy was doing. He saw it standing next to a young tree. Envy looked at the birch in an assessing manner and then grabbed it, bent and folded it into a more compact shape and finally started eating it.
After a few bites and some powerful munching, Envy spoke. "Well, it's not exactly good, but I've eaten worse stuff." It continued eating the birch and finished before Shrike was done with his food. Envy then wandered a little further and ate some more flora it came across.
Shrike had stared at Envy's doings but thought that he should not be surprised at it eating a tree after seeing it fold and eat a knife.
After a few more evening routines, Envy and Shrike crawled into the tent. Shrike took off some of his clothes and settled in his sleeping bag. Envy had not bothered to take one along.
"Hey, I'm going to make Linke scream a bit. Heh heh," it said as it settled between Shrike and Linke and shapeshifted into a large snake once again.
"Great," mumbled Shrike and barely even looked at Envy as it shapeshifted. He fell asleep.
Envy curled around itself and made sure that its tail circled Linke so that he could not fail to see it when he woke up.
#-#
Unsurprisingly, both Shrike and Envy woke up to Linke screaming in the morning. Envy turned to look and giggle at him, and he understood quickly that the snake was Envy.
Linke sighed in frustration and tried to calm his breathing. "I wish you wouldn't do that."
"Why not? Your reaction was just right. Well, maybe less screaming and more shooting would be better for you, but the main point is that you're afraid of a big snake-looking thing in your tent like any good little human. Sure it makes your heart race for a while, but it's like a workout." Linke did not reply right away, so Envy continued talking. "I'm done sleeping. Ssssslitherrrrr." It squirmed and slithered out of the tent.
"I need to sleep six more hours," mumbled Shrike as he turned and settled again.
Linke mulled for a while as he shed the fear and confusion from his mind. He then put on his clothes and got out of the tent.
The rest of Envy's vacation day went reasonably well. It turned out that Shrike had borrowed the alchemy book he had from a library in North City, so naturally Envy wanted to read it too. Shrike was not sure what to make of Envy reading about alchemy but figured that maybe doing something was better than boredom, and he was glad that Envy did not ask to play "chase the human" again.
#-#
They drove back to Fort Briggs in the evening, and Armstrong called them to her office soon after they had put away the equipment they had borrowed.
"How did this vacation go?" asked Armstrong once the three were in front of her.
"I have no problems to report, sir," said Linke. "We drove about four hours and camped in Hillforest. The first thing Envy did was to trick us to believe he had ran away, but he had actually just disguised as a mound of ground."
Envy snickered.
"Why did you do that?" asked Armstrong.
"Well, first I had planned to just run off for the rest of the day to get to be alone, but then I thought you might get your panties in a knot for that, so I just went back and waited to see how long it took them to notice me. It took them over seven hours! And it was such an obvious disguise. Seriously, a large mound of ground right behind the jeep. How could you miss it?"
"And can you prove that you were in fact there all that time?"
"Sure. The first thing after I left was that Shrike and Linke talked about telling you about my running off. Then they fought as practice a bit and Shrike lost every time. Then they talked about how bad he is at combat and Shrike fixed a tear in Linke's pants with alchemy and then they argued about Shrike becoming a state alchemist. That was funny by the way."
Armstrong gave a gather puzzled look at Envy and Shrike.
"Then Shrike showed Linke some little alchemy tricks. He fixed a dent on the jeep's nose. Then they read some books, Linke read this awful novel about some crime scene investigator and Shrike read, what was it, Alchemy and Complex Substances? Then was that word game. It was so boring! Then Shrike peed, then they picked berries – –"
"That's enough."
"Wait, I'm almost done! Then they ate the berries and some more food, talked about something boring that I didn't pay attention to and then exercised."
After a short moment of silence, Linke spoke. "That is what we did, yes. Envy scared us after we noticed the mound. I slept and woke up to seeing a huge snake in the tent. That was Envy too. Today we just loitered about. Shrike and Envy read something and we walked in the forest. Envy ate numerous different things, saying he was testing his digestive system."
"Did you stay awake with Envy during the night?" asked Armstrong from Shrike.
"Yes, sir."
"What did you do?"
"Uh... we played a game. I hated it but we stopped it soon enough."
"What kind of game?"
"I ran in the forest and Envy chased me."
"It was like a simple war simulation," said Envy with a shrug.
Armstrong stared at the three of them silently for a while.
"So, can I have another vacation later?" asked Envy.
"Yes. Linke can schedule them. The arrangement will be similar to this one. Shrike, please remain here. You two can go."
Envy and Linke turned and left.

2. Revelation

Shrike was somewhat enthusiastic about the idea Linke had given him, so he spoke before Armstrong could bring up her topic. "Sir, there's something I want to ask."
"Go ahead."
"I spoke with Linke about my close combat training because I don't... I'm just not good at it. He said that maybe I could do something else instead, like practise alchemy. Is that possible?"
"Practise alchemy? What for?" Armstrong had in fact wanted to bring up Shrike's alchemy skills since she had not hear about them and was marginally concerned that Envy was trying to manipulate Shrike into studying how to create Philosopher's Stone.
"Just... just to be better at it, sir. Linke told me that there have been times when alchemy would have been very useful in quickly fixing some things in the Fort."
"From what I understand, studying alchemy is very intense and demands extraordinary dedication. Do you think you can manage that?"
"Yes, I... I studied alchemy more when I was younger so I know the basics, sir."
"You did?"
"Yes, but it was just a hobby."
"What can you do?"
"I can change the shape of simple objects and fuse patches on pipes. I guess I can transmute bigger objects too but I haven't tried."
"Why didn't I know about this before?"
"Um... sorry, sir. I didn't think it was important. I've told a couple other ventilation people that I can do a little alchemy and I asked Roma if it was okay that I used alchemy to fuse the patches. He just asked me to show it to him and after he checked that there weren't any issues with the alchemically fused patch, he told me that it was okay."
Armstrong frowned at Shrike.
"I'm sorry, sir, I-I really thought it wasn't that important."
"If that's the most you can do, it probably isn't. Or wasn't. So, you say you would rather advance your studies in alchemy than partake in combat training?"
"Yes, sir."
"That is acceptable. Talk to Massena about it and tell her to schedule less combat training for you. But don't cease all training. If it suits you better, practise more with Linke when you go watch Envy on its vacation."
Shrike was flabbergasted. He could not believe resolving the issue had been this easy.
"We don't have many books on alchemy so you need to buy or borrow those from North City or elsewhere. You can talk to the librarian, Corporal Harbin, and suggest that he could acquire more books about alchemy. Are you planning on becoming a state alchemist?"
"Er, no, no, sir. I couldn't, it takes too much work since I'd have to research something and I don't know what and I wouldn't have time for it since I have my job here..."
"Hm. Well, if you can think of a research topic that would be very beneficial to the Fort, you could probably scale down your other duties to free up time for that."
Shrike was amazed again. "Thank you, sir."
"If Envy ever tries to coax you into trying to bring back dead people or learning how to make Philosopher's Stone, tell me immediately."
"Philosopher's Stone? That's just an alchemical fairy tale, sir."
"I take it Envy hasn't mentioned it to you, then. Philosopher's Stone is real, and it's made of living people, which is why people have tried to obscure away all details about it."
"...What?"
"I'm not an alchemist, but what I've understood, the maker of Philosopher's Stone forces many humans into a transmutation circle, then forces their souls out of their bodies and makes a red stone with those souls. Then the people's bodies die since they don't have souls."
Shrike just stared at Armstrong.
"I don't know alchemy or anything more about the making of Philosopher's Stone. You're not allowed to make any. Anything else?"
"Um, uh, no, sir... But, wait, Envy mentioned something about creating souls with alchemy and bringing back dead people a couple of weeks ago. But... it said doing that is impossible. And I know it's forbidden too."
"Hm." Armstrong looked a little confused. "Good then. Was that all? If so, you can go."
His mood elevated, Shrike saluted the Major General and walked to the door.
"And Shrike, I hope you learned something about talking to someone about things you wish to change in your life," she said in her usual stern but otherwise emotionless tone.
"Oh... oh!" said Shrike in a somewhat small voice as he realised that he could have changed his schedule and priorities years ago if he had only talked to someone about it. "Yes, sir..." Shrike left Armstrong's office and went to talk to Massena right away.
#-#
The next night, when Envy and Shrike had a shift of ventilation shaft inspection, Shrike was more interested in telling about his new schedules.
"I am so glad. Massena said she'd schedule less combat training for me so I could study alchemy! I still have one combat session a week and one session got replaced with physical training." He knocked and patted a pipe that seemed rather worn, but concluded that it was sound. "And all because I talked to Linke about it and he said I should suggest it to... well, someone. I didn't really think of suggesting it to my superiors before, I guess I was afraid they'd just reject it. That way I at least had hope."
Envy merely made a bored expression.
"Armstrong even said that if I can come up with a research topic that would benefit Fort Briggs especially, I could become a state alchemist. I'm nowhere near that good and I have no idea what I could research, but maybe some day I will."
"You're unusually talkative."
"I guess. I'm just really excited about this, it will probably wear off in a few days."
"Mmhm. That looks like a tear." Envy pointed at a pipe ahead. They walked to the spot and eyed the insulation.
"It isn't quite a tear yet."
"But if we don't fix it, it will just wear out more and then we'll need to fix it next year or something."
"Yeah... I guess it's better to just fix it now." Shrike took out the transmutation circle he used to fuse patches on pipes and then started searching for a patch in his bag.
"What do you exactly do when you fuse that thing on the pipe?"
"Oh, I just meld and blend both materials at the edges. They become a little like liquid, except not quite because they both should retain their structure. It's actually better than welding since welding heats the materials so much that they break down a little, though the fused part will be stronger. However, then the weak spot will be the material right next to the welded part. When I alchemically fuse them, it will be more uniform."
"Mmhm."
Shrike found a suitable patch and placed it on the pipe.
"Hold on," said Envy.
Shrike looked a little questioningly at Envy. "What?"
Envy grinned widely and shapeshifted its hand so that its palm pictured the same transmutation circle as Shrike's paper. "This is the same, right?"
"Uh, yeah..."
"Then watch this." Envy pressed its hand on the patch that lay on the pipe and transmuted the materials, melding them into each other like Shrike had just described.
Shrike just frowned and looked confused. "You can do alchemy? But how... when did you learn that? And didn't you tell me a while ago that you can't perform alchemy at all in the first place?"
"Turns out I was wrong," said Envy and shrugged. "I found it out and read all the alchemy books in the library and that book of yours yesterday."
"Huh."
"Well, I want to learn more too! Give me some tips."
"Eh, I guess I can." Shrike took a moment to process his new information. "Do you want to become a state alchemist?"
Envy just laughed. It stopped after a while and showed a more serious face, though it still grinned. "Actually, that might be very funny." It imagined how Mustang's face would look like when he found out Envy had both learned alchemy and become a state alchemist. "I doubt it, but I guess it isn't impossible."
"You should tell Armstrong. She was rather interested when I told I had studied alchemy and wanted to study more. She didn't know it before."
"No way, she'd lose it."
"Really? Why?"
"Alchemy can be massively dangerous and I could kill a lot of people with it."
"Well, you could do that without any alchemy... and even just a regular human could, with a machine gun in a large crowd."
"Yeah, sure," said Envy agreeably, not challenging what Shrike had said. "That way alchemy doesn't seem very special. But telling about this to Armstrong still isn't a good idea."
"But... I can't keep this a secret if she asks me. Of course I can just not speak of it, but I'm sure she will ask something about it eventually and then it'll be even worse since we tried to keep the information from her."
Envy looked very annoyedly at Shrike. "Why must you be so uselessly rubbish at keeping secrets and lying?!" it shouted.
Shrike became nervous and backed down a bit, eyeing Envy warily and keeping quiet.
Envy kept looking at Shrike angrily and after a while, it came at him, pushed him to the floor and kept him still with its weight. It made sure to only prevent him from moving and not hurt him in any way. Shrike seemed frightened. "What would you do if I told you to keep this a secret, or else?"
"U-uh... I-I'd, I wouldn't tell it a-and I'd try to lie to Armstrong, b-but..."
Envy stared at Shrike, making a face of disappointment. It sighed and got up. "You're pathetic. I'm going to go check the next section." Envy turned and walked away, exiting the service tunnel.
Shrike took a moment to calm down and wondered what Envy would do. He felt incompetent since he knew he could not keep its secret, but he also knew that keeping the knowledge of Envy's abilities from Armstrong was not right either.
After recalling what Armstrong had said yesterday, Shrike realised that now there was a possibility that Envy could make Philosopher's Stone on its own. However, he did not quite believe that making Philosopher's Stone was possible in the first place. He shrugged and continued with the inspection.
Envy pouted in the next section and eyed the pipes meanly. It thought about telling Armstrong about its new talent and had to agree with Shrike that it would be better to tell her before she found out about it herself. Envy pondered how she would react and sighed several times due to the inconvenience that it had to actually think about such things.
In the end, Envy came to the conclusion that it should just lie that it had only recently read the alchemy books and found out that it could perform alchemy. Lying about when it had learned alchemy did not even contradict what it had told Shrike, so it should be safe.
After Envy was finished with the inspection of the section, it went to the next place to meet Shrike again.
Shrike looked at it a little warily. "Are you still angry with me?"
"Eh, not really. This is the next one, right?" Envy pointed at a service hatch and after Shrike had confirmed that they should check it next, Envy opened the hatch. "I suppose I'll just go and tell Armstrong tomorrow. Who knows, maybe I will become a state alchemist after all, just because."
"Oh, that's good," said Shrike, sounding a little relieved.
#-#
Envy waited until after lunch the next day before going to Armstrong. Her secretary Major Rodney was acting as a buffer again, sitting behind his desk in front of her office.
"Warrant Officer Envy again, eh? What do you need?"
"I gotta talk to her."
"Her who?"
Envy showed a slightly sour face. "That's just tedious, Major Smartypants, sir."
Rodney seemed impatient. Envy guessed that he had eaten something inappropriate. "She's busy."
"Are you sure? This is pretty important!"
Rodney looked like he wanted to grumble but got up silently and went into Armstrong's office. He came back out again after a while. "She said that unless someone's dead or in mortal danger, it can wait."
"Geez!" sighed Envy. "Fine! See you next week then! It's not like I WANT to tell this to her in the first place!" Envy turned and started walking away. "Ha ha! She is so going to regret this."
A week passed. Shrike taught Envy some tricks of alchemy that were difficult to do just by reading from a book. Envy advanced fairly quickly since its own abilities worked in a similar manner.
When Armstrong finally had time to see Envy, it walked casually into her office, took a screw out of its pocket and placed in on her desk.
Armstrong stared at it and then at Envy, obviously irritated.
"Don't give me that face, sir. It's a perfectly regular screw, right?"
"Is that relevant to anything?" she asked tiredly.
"YES." Envy shapeshifted a small transmutation circle on its hand. "Recognise this? Good, now watch." Envy took the screw, placed it on its hand and transmuted the screw into a thin steel disc. It placed the disc on her desk.
Armstrong had frowned deeply and now stared at Envy and the disc intently.
"So as you can see, that thing isn't part of me, which means that I found out I can do alchemy. That's it. And it's obvious you want to hear this too: no, I'm not making Philosopher's Stone or anything. I can't even remember that transmutation circle properly, it's complex."
"Okay... Tell me, if you can do alchemy, why wouldn't you want to create Philosopher's Stone for yourself?"
"What? You're not happy with me agreeing to just not create it?"
"No. I want to hear why."
"Hmph. Well, doing that would seriously hurt my attempt to make a friend. You know, that goal that is pretty much the only reason I'm here. I can't make human friends if I turn other humans into Philosopher's Stone, can I? Besides, you'd throw a fit and I really don't want Mustang to come after me again. And have you seen that circle? I wasn't kidding when I said it was complex. I'd need to experiment and whatever until I got it right and it'd take who knows how many bloody years. Everybody would know about what I'm doing before I could make it work. Is that enough?"
"When did you even learn that much? I thought studying alchemy takes years, or months."
"Well I tried to tell you a week ago but you were being unsocial. I just read the alchemy books in the library and did a few experiments. I read quickly and transmuting is sort of similar to shapeshifting." Envy shapeshifted its hand into a disc much like the one on Armstrong's desk. "Maybe you humans are slower with it." Envy shrugged.
"You read the alchemy books we have in the library? When? Why did no one notice it?"
"What, do you keep tabs on what I read?" asked Envy disagreeably. "Sure, Harbin puts down what I take out of the library, but do you seriously think I take out every book I'm going to read? I rather just sit there. It's quiet and people aren't always bothering me."
"Why did you hide what you were reading?"
"Huh? You think I hid it? If you told Harbin to check what I read, he's incompetent and didn't notice. You may not know it, but he knows that I read several books at once because I get bored with one and change the book often and so I have a pile of them scattered. If he didn't spy me adequately enough for you, that's his problem and not mine. You don't even know that I actually read that Drachman language book you ordered me to read a long time ago, do you?"
"You did? Why didn't you tell me?!" she shouted.
Envy switched to speaking Drachman momentarily. "Because it was boring. It was so boring! And the advanced language books didn't get any better. Cookbooks are more interesting even when they aren't about alchemy."
Armstrong was momentarily stunned again. "And you learned how to SPEAK it as well?" she continued shouting.
"That's why you wanted me to read it, right?" it said and shrugged. It grinned since it had managed to make Armstrong shout. "My pronunciation is probably off but who cares."
Armstrong stared at Envy, looking somewhat contemplative but more angry.
"Are you happy with this information now?"
"No."
"Oh? Eh, that's your problem then. You don't need me to be here while you think, right?"
Armstrom said nothing, but turned her eyes to the ceiling.
"Figured." Envy turned around and walked out, smirking to itself. The situation looked relatively good; she had not freaked out completely and had not seemed too disturbed.
#-#
Major General Armstrong let Envy go on with its alchemy training for the moment. As Shrike studied more alchemy, he also taught Envy and the two complemented each other quite well: Shrike had the patience, conscientiousness and responsibility to learn and practise properly and Envy had the talent, knowledge and courage to experiment more boldly.
While Shrike and Envy concentrated on studying, Armstrong had the Fort and Envy's room searched thoroughly to make sure it really was not trying to construct suspicious transmutation circles anywhere. The searchers found Envy's "journal" that contained complaining about humans, instructions for ventilation machine maintenance and statistics about foodstuffs. Armstrong was suspicious and took the book for analysis.
Envy noticed rather soon that the book was gone. It thought that if it did not bring it up, Armstrong might think that it was being secretive and trying to cover up for something, so it loudly declared its displeasure about the book being missing. Linke knew nothing of it, so Envy went straight to Armstrong. She directly admitted that she had taken the book to be studied just because it was suspicious. Envy did not have much to say to that, but of course it still expressed its annoyance. It acquired a new empty book from the supplies office.
Armstrong had difficulty in finding experts who would know what to look for in Envy's book. She could not trust the impartiality of the few alchemists who were familiar with Philosopher's Stone because they were Edward Elric, Mustang and their friends who she figured had every reason to get rid of Envy in any way possible. In the end, she settled for a few less qualified alchemists and Alphonse Elric, who she trusted to be level-headed enough.
According to the analyses, the book seemed to have light references to alchemy, and Alphonse found some links to human ingredients. He did not find any suggestion of transmutation circles, but he suggested giving the book to a ventilation expert to check that the writings on that subject were not suspicious. Armstrong did as he advised.
The ventilation expert found more faults in the writings and complained that there were elementary mistakes typical of a beginner. He requested that the writer should be educated more and even offered corrections to the writings. However, he too came to the conclusion that there was nothing particularly suspicious besides the fact that the writer had learned while doing rather than by starting from theory.
When Armstrong was done with analysing Envy's writings, she summoned it to her to give the book back.
Envy took the book with a crabby face. "Are we done here?" it asked.
"Now that you ask, not quite. Your writings have some connections to alchemy and rather detailed information about the composition of the human body. Why?"
"When all you have is a hammer, you're going to see a lot of nails, you know. Amazingly enough, that goes not only for you trying to see in whatever's mine an intent to design some transmutation circle for creating Philosopher's Stone or something, right, but also for me in writing in a so-called suspicious way because my abilities work in a way similar to alchemy! Yes, I write about human physiology because that's what I need to know and change when I shapeshift. Did you even notice the animal parts in the writings? I've been reading about animals to make myself better than just an awesome superhuman. It's working pretty well."
Armstrong stared at Envy with a displeased expression. For the first time, Envy felt uncomfortable enough to realise its uneasiness. It would never admit being anxious because of some human things, so it chose to ridicule Armstrong instead. "Are we done with this farce? Stop seeing suspicious alchemy everywhere already. If you're so worried, start studying alchemy yourself so you can see that it was all for nothing."
"Do not talk to me like that."
"Well sorry, SIR!" said Envy with its face twisted. "Even you must realise that I'm annoyed since you took my stuff and then accuse me of being suspicious or whatever."
Armstrong continued her staring. "Don't push your luck. You can go. And don't make me regret letting you get away with this."
Envy frowned and left. It was just as displeased as she.

3.

Shrike got a couple of new books from North City and he and Envy continued practising alchemy. Envy was suspicious of Armstrong and did not want to draw her attention. At least she had not completely freaked out, which Envy found a little surprising even if it was glad of that.