It was a rainy day when I got totally fed up with the old books I was trying to learn alchemy from. They were totally useless. Actually, I couldn't understand a word of them. I could only transmute very few things. The only things I seemed to manage to make properly were wooden cups and bread. Well, I could keep on living because of that ability. I sold the cups I had made and bought some food with the money. If I couldn't sell anything, then I could make some bread of the grass in front of the cottage I lived in.
   I was an orphan. My parents had died in the Ishbal war. My dad was ishbalan and my mom tried to protect him. They both died in a huge explosion created by the national alchemists. I had been just a baby in those times and can't really remember anything about it, but my mom's parents had saved me and brought me to Green Village with them, and there I had always been living. My grandparents had died when I was five and after that my life had been horrible... Until that alchemist passed through the Green Village.
   She was a state alchemist, and I looked at her very angrily. She's one of those who killed my parents,I thought and went hiding under an old boat on the bank of the lake near the village. I was only ten years old, after all, and very afraid of all the alchemists, and especially of the state alchemists. I thought I'd be safe there, but I was wrong. The alchemist was going to the island in the middle of the lake, and she, of course, rent the boat I was hiding under. It was the only boat in our village after all, an old rowing boat that I loved.
   The state alchemist came, turned the boat over and found me. I was so afraid that I couldn't even move. She just stared at me, a small, scared kid, and looked kind of surprised. 
   "Who are you?"
I was too scared to answer, but I still couldn't move. The state alchemist was still staring at me, looking somewhat confused. "Is something wrong?"
I tried to answer, but I couldn't, I really couldn't.
The state alchemist knelt down and touched my hair. "Are you afraid of me?" she asked.
   I started crying and nodded. "You're... a state alchemist... My parents were killed..." I said and tried to stop crying, but couldn't.
   "Don't worry", she said. "I'm not going to kill you."
   The state alchemist's name was Zelene and she was very kind. She was the one who taught me how to make bread and cups. She didn't have much time, but she told me that I had the abilities to become a very skillful alchemist if I just tried hard enough. I've never been afraid of alchemists after that.
   Wait a minute, I was telling you about how I got fed of the books I tried to learn alchemy from, right? Sorry, I started telling about totally different things.
   Yup, those books were full of rubbish, really, I've never read books as stupid after that...
   I left the Green Village. I got the money for the train ticket by selling the best cups I ever had made (I had been saving them for some reason) and left the village. I didn't tell anyone I was leaving. Everyone in the village always watched the train leaving, and all of them propably saw me climbing on. They didn't try to stop me and nobody was really surprised of the fact that I just simply left. They had all known I'd leave the village someday.
   I didn't actually know where I was going. I just climbed on the first train that passed by. But I never regretted leaving. Really, I think that my life really started from there.


0sa 2:



I had never imagined that the train would go so fast. It was really amazing. The rain stopped as the train arrived to the next town, and the air was a bit wet and warm. I only visited the store at the train station and bought some apples, and then I quickly returned to the train. This was not far enough from Green Village.
   I kept traveling until I was thrown out of the train when they noticed my ticket had gotten old two stations ago. After that I decided to stay for a while in the town I had been left to. It was much bigger than Green Village, but it seemed to be in a bit poor condition. It was in the middle of a desert and it looked like there had been an uprising or something in there. 
   I still had two apples left, but they were not much for a dinner. If I could do alchemy properly, then I could propably make an apple pie out of grass and these apples, I thought dispiritedly, and made some bread instead. It tasted, well... Extraordinary, when I put some slices of the apple on it.
   After I had eaten, I started to look for a place to sleep in. I didn't have enough money to stay at an inn, so I had to find some kind of a shelter or something to sleep under. I was pretty used to sleeping outdoors since I had not always been living in the old cottage in Green Village. In fact, I had started using it only a month or so ago.
   Well, I found a nice shed with lots of straws in it. I could sleep on them. There was a big horse in there too, but it didn't really matter. I do get along well with animals. It was already about ten o'clock when I got to sleep.
   When I woke up in the morning, I had caught a cold. My throat ached. I've gotten less hardwearing while living in the cottage, I thought. I've got to toughen myself up.
   The town had a big, somewhat religious-looking building in the middle of it, but it was all ruined. There was a big statue going through its roof as if it had fallen from the sky (the statue, not the building). I had gotten to the centre of the town.
   I found it hard to find any plants from the downtown area. It seems that I have to walk a long way until I can find anything to transmute into some bread, I thought sadly. I only had few cenz left of my money, so I propably couldn't buy any food either.
   I was so hungry that I decided to ask from the stall in the next corner if they could sell me something very cheap. I decided that if they didn't have anything cheap enough, I'd pay by working.
"Excuse me", I said to the girl in the stall. "Do you have anything very... very cheap?"
"Oh, are you from far away?" she asked back. "We give food for free, since there's been a great uprising in here and people have no money on their own". She smiled kindly to me.
"Oh. Do you think I could have some food too? Well, maybe not, since I'm not from here..."
"Of course you can get food. You look like you're starving", she said. "Just sit down and I'll give you some."
"Thank you very much!" I said and sat on the stool on front of the stall.
   "By the way, my name is Rose", the girl said. "Who are you? Where are you from? You can't be from anywhere nearby, or you would know a bit more about how the things are in here."
"My name is Blade", I answered her. "And I am from Green Village, the east. I left my home because I got bored with my life like it was. It's just the same, being a poor orphan in Green Village or anywhere else."
"Oh, so you're an orphan", Rose said.
"Yep, my mom and dad died in the Ishbal war. My dad was ishbalan, that's why my skin is a bit dark."
"How on earth have you even staid alive?!" Rose cried.

"Well, my grandparents raised me. They died when I was five years old. Next five years... I don't know myself how I kept on living. Then I met an alchemist who taught me how to do a bit alchemy, and after that I've been doing pretty well. I can make wooden cups and bread with alchemy."
"Mm", Rose said. "Alchemists were also the ones who saved our town."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Well, we got tricked on a false religion that promised  us that even the dead would come back alive. But some alchemists just came by and stopped that rubbish. Well, that caused the uprising, but something more terrible would have happened if they didn't reveal the truth."
I didn't ask for more information. I felt kind of jealous of those alchemists. They had been very skillfull. I understood now how the statue had destroyed the church.
   Well, I ended up selling some cups to the people of the town (for very cheap prices) and buying a new train ticket with the money. There didn't seem to be any opportunities for me in this town. My new ticket was to the Central City, since I had decided to check up the place. Maybe I could find... Well... Something there.