Central High

12.4 Home Is Where the Heart Is (Armstrong)

"Slushie! Hey girl!" Skielyr said happily to the fluffy black and white husky that was barking and bouncing along the white picket fence of the front yard, elated to see her owner walking up the side walk to the front door of the house she was staying in. The husky yipped happily as she reached over the fence and pet her head, digging around in her pocket for the house key. She found it and walked up to the door, having to stop petting the fluffy dog in the process, earning herself a whine of disappointment. "We'll play later girl, ok?" she told the canine and it gave her a happy bark in acknowledgement, eager to play.

She put the key in the lock and listened to the tumblers fall and lock into place to allow the door to be opened. It was oddly quiet in the house for the fact that the blinds were drawn for the natural light to flood in to light the rooms of the one story house. "Christin? Are you home?" she called as she dumped her bag down at the dining table, getting no reply. She headed down the hall to her room and heard the shower running in the bathroom across the hall, indicating that the Ishvallan woman she was staying with was in that particular room. She knocked on the door and heard a muffled 'yes?' call from beyond the door.

"That you, Christin?"

"Yeah? You're already home Skielyr? I wasn't aware of the time. I'll be right out in a minute." She called and Skielyr just replied with a response telling her not to hurry on her account and headed into her room. Christin was a nice woman, in fact she was an old friend of her father's. Skielyr was the child of Olivier and Miles and Christin was an old friend of the Ishvallan soldier. When Skielyr had asked about it, Miles had told her that she was a friend of his from when he lived in Ishvall when he was young, back before the war that was instigated by Bradley. Neither of hem had been there when the Ishvallan Extermination Campaign began, both having moved to other places in the country; Miles up north and Christin out to the west edge of Central.

When Skielyr wanted to move into the warmer, big city atmosphere of Central, Miles sent her to Christin and the woman was glad to have her as her own daughter had just moved out to go live out in the south where mechanics were more popular. Skielyr had been staying with her since for three years now, going on to a fourth, and the two had gotten comfortable with each other. Enough so that Christin was viewed as a second, kinder and gentler, mother to the half Ishvallan girl. She'd come to refer to the young woman as her mother accidentally at school more than once, but it wasn't unknown who her real mother was. Olivier was the general that lead the attack on the presidency and Central City on the Promised Day so she got a lot of attention in the books of the country's history and the media as of late.

Skielyr yawned and flopped down onto her bed, her brown hair with a few whitish-blonde highlights splaying out on the pillow behind her head. She glanced over at the book shelf that sat next to the door, lined with novels and manga and spiral notebooks and journals and other various books of all sorts. That was the holy grail of her room; the thing she used the most. She was big reader and that shelf proved it since it was lined with all her favorites along with her alchemy journals. Her reddish eyes shut as she rolled onto her side, tired from her friends at school. She was very popular and she knew that now she was at the highschool, it would be a fight between her and the Elrics' girl for the top spot and neither would give up easily. All hell would break lose if those two clashed physically.

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Christin set the dinning table as the timer went off on the counter by the stove. Skielyr turned the little white and black timer off and the turned off the oven and Christin thanked her, walking back into the kitchen. "You've been such a good help lately, thank you."

"No problem, I don't have anything better to do, anyways." She replied, getting a pair of plates and starting to get her own dinner.

"Was school ok?"