walkersystem | 1 ✶ action/audio

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1 ✶ action/audio

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[No no no no no no. No. That's not her mom. That's not her mom, and this isn't the airport, and it's another nightmare, it has to be. What else could it be? It's a dream and it's not her dream and that means she's trapped.]

[Anybody in New Bark will likely catch the sight of a little girl slowly backing away from the house she'd woken up in with wide eyes before breaking into a run and coming to a stop next to some trees to dig through her backpack. Except it's not her own backpack. And the things inside aren't what she wants or needs them to be.]

[Which is a big stressor to a kid who has no idea what to do.]

Audio, later:

Hello? Mr- Parkman? I didn't do anything, I promise.

[Spoken with the urgency of children who want to prove themselves innocent everywhere.]

Please let me out.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

_{[Molly's still deciding that she's not gonna get much helpful input from this kid, so she's just kind of humouring him. With the older-sister attitude of doing so.]}

Yeah. They're really long, too.

_{[WRATH IS VIRTUALLY NEVER HELPFUL so she's not really wrong.]}

Wow!

It almost sounds more like a chimera than a real animal!

_{[Not that he's seen enough real animals to really be a good judge of that, but he's at least seen enough to know that being huge and spotted and with long blue tongues sounds REALLY WEIRD.]}

_{[... ??]}

What's a chimera?

You know!

When an alchemist takes two different animals and combines them together!

That's a chimera.

They can get pretty weird!

You can't do that.

It doesn't work that way.

What're you talking about? Yes you can, it happens all the time!

I know people who do it!

_{[... OKAY he knows ONE person who does it. And he doesn't really like that person because he's creepy as hell, but.]}

Maybe they're tricking you. Making you see things.

You can't just take two animals and put them together.

They are not! Everyone knows about chimeras!

It's science.

It's not real science. You can't mix DNA like that.

_{[Mohinder would be proud, probably.]}

DNA?

What's that?

It's like ... all the information about who we are. It's stored in DNA. It's in your body.

Oh.

Why can't it be mixed if it's in your body, then?

Bodies can be mixed.

I do it all the time!

_{[... LITERALLY. ... Or literally before he came here, anyway. He can't do it anymore. When he tried to turn his arm to wood, he just hurt his hand on the floor. 8(]}

What do you mean?

Well, I can do alchemy, but on my body.

So I can turn pieces of me into stuff that I touch. Like rocks or leaves!

I could even turn myself into part of somebody else if I wanted, the same way you put animals together to make a chimera!

It's science.

_{[Oh but NOW it makes sense!]}

But then that's your ability.

That doesn't mean anybody else can do it. Right?

--Well, I mean...

_{[Wrath sounds a little uncertain. It's true that he's unique on account of being a Homunculus, and normal alchemists aren't supposed to be able to transmute their own bodies... but that still doesn't make alchemy itself rare.]}

I'm kind of special, but lots of people do alchemy.

It's just part of how the world works.

Yeah, but most people don't have powers.

And you can't make fake powers. You just have them.

_{[right? She's moved on from an authoritative/stubborn tone to a more searching one.]}

_{[She can't see it, but Wrath is sort of scrunching his face in confusion.]}

Alchemy isn't a power. Not really. It's just a THING.

_{[For HIM it's a power-- Homunculi aren't supposed to be able to perform alchemy. Not in the traditional sense. And his ability makes him an anomaly-- humans can't perform alchemy on their own bodies and Homunculi can manipulate their bodies almost however they want, so Wrath is a living manifestation of RULES BEING BROKEN.]

[But alchemy in GENERAL... so many people have it!]}

Tons of people where I come from can do it.

_{[Meanwhile, to Molly, this sounds like genetics. And some people have variations in their DNA that gives them different skills. Her power is genetic, so it's scientific, so it sounds like it SHOULD be similar enough to what this kid is talking about ...]

[Except yeah, they're talking past each other.]

[To her, powers are the anomaly period. But her and others like her are the next step. It's just who they are, it's nothing nobody did to them or they did to themselves.]}

I know some people who can do things. But it's really rare.

_{[Wrath just... still has not really grasped that people are from so many different worlds. It's tough for such a little kid to really wrap his mind around people having no idea what he's talking about when he mentions things that are commonplace enough in Amestris that even he knows about them!]}

I'm special. I can do things that nobody else can.

But humans can make chimeras and do all kinds of things even just with alchemy.

Are you from a place where people aren't allowed to do it?

You mean science?

_{[The way he keeps using a different word is throwing her off a little.]}

People use science and science can do things, but it's not like ... abilities. It's not the same.

_{[she pauses for a moment, then says with a little more hesitation,]} I'm special too. But there's more of us, who can do things. It's just rare. And the others don't really know about it, cause it's a secret.

Alchemy is science! It's equivalent exchange. You can't make something out of nothing, but if you have the materials... _{[LIKE ANIMALS...]} you can combine them. Or change them to something else!

_{[But what she says next grabs his attention. She's the first person here who's referred to having any kind of special power, or being different. Different in a secret way, no less!]

[His eyes get big, and he lowers his voice.]}

... Are you a Homunculus too?

_{[She pauses for a moment, cause that ... does sound sort of like science, but what is alchemy}??]

[Not that she gets an opportunity to comment back on that - now she's busy pondering that strange word he just used about her. And himself.]

... I don't know ... I don't think we have a name for it.

But I don't think I can do what you can do.

I can find people. Anywhere in the world. _{[Dropping her eyes, it's very clear this troubles her:]} But it doesn't work right now.

Every Homunculus can do something different. One of us can change to look like anybody! And another one can turn into water!

_{[He sounds excited. Maybe she's one of them and she doesn't know it! Heck, he didn't know it until Envy showed up and gave him drugs explained it to him.]}

_{[... that does sound like what she's seen! And the recognition of that, even though he's still said some stuff she doesn't get, makes her excited enough to pitch in.]}

I know someone who can read minds!

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