Pride & Humility

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Beta: TaintedLetter

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Spring 1914

Elizabeth Luxanna sat in her foster father's office, sorting through paperwork and filling out forms as need be. She had seen Papa complete the paperwork for many years by that point, so she knew what was needed.

Plus if she helped complete his paperwork, he would get to come home for dinner on time and Mumma would be happy.

She sat to the side of his desk, while the führer worked on the other half of the stack. He would pause at certain points to enjoy his tea, or look longingly outside the window, but he worked with diligence that befit a country ruler.

"What a mess," he sighed when he came across a particularly thick binder.

Elizabeth glanced up from the financial reports. "Huh? What happened?"

"Another idiot is running rampage," Papa told her gruffly. "And incompetent men are chasing after him." Papa drummed his fingers on the desk. "Perhaps I'll just dump this cluster on Mustang, since he's always itching to prove himself."

"Mustang?" Elizabeth repeated. "Is he here in Central?"

"He arrived a week ago, and the Elric brothers only yesterday."

Elizabeth brightened at that. "Edward and Alphonse are here?"

"You can't have them over for dinner again," Papa immediately rejected.

Elizabeth blushed. The last—and only—time the brothers had enjoyed dinner with the Bradleys and Elizabeth had turned into a mess. Selim kept making jabs at Edward which eventually turned into a bit of an explosion and escalated into a high stakes game of hide and go seek (or Hunting as Selim lovingly preferred to call it).

Obviously Selim won, but Mumma was less than pleased that her home had become a tad bit destroyed in the process.

She had words with Papa to politely ask Elizabeth to not invite them over for dinner without advance warning so she could wrap up her china and porcelain collection.

"Yes, Papa," Elizabeth meekly responded, still blushing. "Um, although that reminds me... May I pretty please have more cadavers?"

Papa glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow. "The Elric brothers make you think of cadavers?"

"It's because of them that I'm even experimenting on humans," she explained quickly.

"True enough," he said slowly. "Yes, you may."

Elizabeth brightened.

Normally one would request research materials through proper channels, but Papa and Selim told Elizabeth to simply ask them for the corpses. Not one to question them—or care where they came from—she obliged without a fuss.

She also politely asked the Elric brothers to refrain from telling others about what she was researching. Human alchemy was technically illegal, after all. Since she was doing this research largely for them (and mild academic curiosity), they agreed to such.

(Although both still seemed deeply unsettled by the use of the cadavers, but it was hard to argue when she pointed out how essential cadavers were for budding doctors, surgeons, and nearly anyone in the medical field. If they were serious about obtaining their bodies back through the use of alchemy, using a cadaver for safe experimentation was a basic necessity. It probably helped that she reminded them they were donated to science.