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“Touch your thumb to your ring finger.” Thumb… that was the fat one on the side right?

“Stick out your tongue.” She made an expression he could not identify yet. “Another mark on your tongue. That makes 24.” She frowned at her clipboard as she marked it down on a diagram. 4 pointed stars littered his body. 2 on his cheeks, 1 on his neck and each of his hands and feet, a large on one his chest, and 16 more littered his body like freckles.

“Do you know my name?” she asked.

“You are Gold Rhinedottir, my mother.”

The woman- his mother put her clipboard down. “The process needs to be refined more but...”

“...But?” He felt fingers enclose around his face.

Warm.

“Welcome to this world, Nigre

______________________________________

He was the most advanced of all his brothers. He knew this. While he was named after the first step in the alchmeical process, he was closer to gold then anything else.

But… he wasn’t very good at Khemia.

“Dang it!” He watched in dismay as ley line sprout he was supposed to grow wilted and turned to dust. For the third time. “Why can’t I do this?”

He was the most advanced of all his brothers. He was rubedo in everything but name.

He was closer to Gold then anything else.

So why was this so difficult? Why couldn’t he do this?

...He didn’t want to disappoint mother.

__________________________________________

“Social relations are a complicated affair” his mother had told him. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe her, but it was so easy to speak to her. Surely everyone else would be just as easy right?

The homonculus began to understand the extent of this ‘complicated affair’.

His mother was sending him to handle official affairs more and more. ‘To strengthen your social skills.’ she had said (he had a suspicion she was sending him to people she didn't want to deal with.) Give this component to the technology pillars, give this report to the royal advisor, explain this to that person. They were quite simple in theory but got more complicated as he understood more.

When talking to someone you just met you cannot use the same demeanor you would with someone you were familiar with. You had to adjust your tone as you spoke with them. You manged your voice to make you weren’t speaking to loud or quiet. Your expressions must match the mood. Most importantly, you must not tarnish your or mother’s reputation.

This wasn’t to say he disliked speaking to others. He did like it. He saw it as a puzzle

Take the advisor for instance. He was a patient man but did not tolerate absent minded mistakes and commanded respect. It was best to use honorifics with him and have a calm demeanor. The head of the technology department on the other hand was brash and impatient. Speak simply to her, match her energy, and keep her talking if you don’t want her to notice something. The outlander preferred to be addressed by name, speak casually. Members of the Alberich clan needed to be addressed formally lest you be subject to an hour long lecture. Be haughty but not haughty enough for them to see you as a threat. So on and so forth.

Figure out how they want to be addressed, test, adjust, repeat.

Humans are social creatures. They need to speak to others for their mental well being. How they do so varies but it ultimately accomplishes the same goals.

__________________________________________

He didn’t need to breath he found out.

His mother frantically turned his face this way and that. Pinched and pulled his cheeks and turned his hands over and over.

“You’re cold.” She finally said.

“I’m always cold?” He made a confused smile. That seemed to break her out of that state she was in.

“Right. I...I forgot.” Her hand lingered on his cheek. It was warm.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

“But I’m fine aren’t I?”

“People can’t stay underwater for that long. They need to breath. They need oxygen.”

“...But I’m not a people.”

“...Right… Right… you aren’t.”

The humonculous put his hand on his chest. He breathed in and out. His chest didn’t move like most people’s. It seemed he didn’t have lungs to fill with air.

He had a heart, he knew that. He could feel it beating in his chest. He probably had a digestive system or else he wouldn’t have been able to eat. He probably had a brain. But any other organs are a mystery to him. But if he didn’t have them then he didn’t need them.

But he’d been moving his chest as if he was moving up until now. Had he been doing it on instinct this whole time?

“Do you want me to be?”

“What?”

“Be more human. Would it be more helpful to you?”

Mother didn’t answer.

__________________________________________

That boy looks just like me. Too much like me. It’s maddening Her notebook whispered to him.

He didn’t mean to listen. But it was there open to the page with his evaluation. She’d fallen asleep while working again. He just wanted to help but the notebook.

I look at him and see myself staring back. He opens his mouth to speak and my voice comes out.

The presence of the substance as a solute causes hyponicity in the membranes of slimes anskakujunc

Something is wro

He stopped listening.

Whispers followed him across Khaenri’ah.

__________________________________________

“Is that really her son?”

“...an act against nature...”

That last was was silly. Was it not in man’s nature to create? Machines grow ever more advanced with every day. People find new ways to grow bigger and better crops. What makes him, a human cultivated by human hands, different then a Sunsettia that was modified by alchemy to be sweeter?

Or was it that creation of human life wasn’t an act a human should do?

‘That’s dumb. I thought we didn’t worship gods.’

He never responded to these whispers. They didn’t matter. His mother was saving them regardless. Her alchemy was what was feeding them in a place where no sunlight reaches. Not those mechanical constructs.

__________________________________________

Mother had been acting differently since she found that strange substance.

She wasn't exactly warm before but she certainly wasn’t this distant. She didn’t look at him anymore. She got sick a lot and she said things that didn’t make sense sometimes, She stayed up late creating more of his siblings.

He had more siblings then he could count now. None of them looked like him though. A tiny serpent like thing, a dragon the size of a watermelon, and a dozen wolf like things (he swears they double in numbers when he isn’t looking).

None of them could speak to him like his mother. None of them could do alchemy. He knew the dozens of ‘hims’ before him could not do alchemy. He could though. He knew alchemy, he was almost indistinguishable from a normal human.

He wasn’t a failure.

__________________________________________

He messed up.

He messed up and pieces of him had broken and chipped off. His marks spread like twisted inflamed veins on his skin.

He messed up.

Mother was a talented alchemist. Mother could do anything. Mother was perfect. Mother could fix it. Mother would. She would.

“Follow me.” She said. So he did.

“I’m going to be okay right?”

“I’m sorry, mother.” she stopped walking but did not turn to look at him. “I’m sorry. You gave me this form and taught me so much and I…”

“I will take responsibility.” “I should have known something was wrong from the outset...”

“Than what?”

"What's your new year's resolution, Fugo?"

"For me to get at least one good night of sleep." He said immediately.

"What about you Abbacchio?"

"To-"

" 'to be less of a bitch'?" Abbacchio glared at Narancia who was laughing. You and Fugo tried to stop giggling but failed miserably.

"What- hah- what were you going to say?"

"I was going to say drink less but I'm going to need 3 more glasses of wine after that."

"Sorry, sorry! Hah hah." You grabbed a glass and poured some grape juice for you, Fugo and Narancia. "Let's make a toast then."

Buccellati came in and poured himself a glass.

"Alright then! To Fugo finally getting a single night of good sleep!"

"Mabey if he didn't have a god awful taste in music-"

"To Abbacchio being less of a bitch!"

"To Narancia knowing what 2 times 2 is."

"Uh, 8?"

"Close enough!"

"To y/n not having atrocious handwriting!" You laughed.

"And to whoever-"

"Whomever."

"-Shut up Fugo. To WHO ever Buccellati decides to drag in next." You all raised your glasses and drank.