Ed considered for a moment asking Sasori what might have been considered abnormal about himself, as there was nothing evident in his appearance even up close. Perhaps his hair was a bit more vibrant shade of red than he'd ever seen before, but it wasn't anything shocking. He let go of the idea quickly as it seemed like too personal a question to ask somebody he'd just met and offered explanation instead.
'Well, the world I've been in for the past three years didn't have any very advanced medical technology. Prosthetics there were things like peg-legs, so this would have stood out a lot if I didn't keep it covered.' It was nice to have the conversation brought around to a topic he was more comfortable with. He had a working knowledge of automail and human anatomy, but alchemy and physics were the area where he excelled. 'Pride would be the extreme example,' Ed said quietly, unconsciously stroking the homunculus' hair. But whoever made him is either dead, disfigured or killed a lot of other people to do it...'
Ed pushed that away in favor of a more stepped explanation. 'The simplest form of alchemy is just going to be changing the shape of an object, or the physical state of the material, like water to ice. The more advanced alchemy would be changing the chemical composition of things, like turning water into it's separate elements of hydrogen and oxygen. The more complicated the compound, the higher the difficulty level. When you get into working with organic compounds, even simple carbohydrates, it's already pretty advanced alchemy.'
Ed watched Sasori as he talked, making sure he didn't get that bored, irritated look that Winry had always put on when he and Al started talking alchemy, or anything to suggest that his explanation was going too fast or too slow. 'Organic alchemy is the most complex because the chemical compounds are much more complex and there are some alchemists who work on a DNA level. I don't practice much organic alchemy because I don't feel confident on where to draw the ethical line, but I knew a couple guys who were really talented working with plants. Alchemy can be used to dramatically increase cell-division and make plants grow really fast, and while the same concept can be applied to animals, since animals tend to have more firmly set parameters on healthy growth, using alchemy on more complex organisms tends to result in a lot of cancerous tumors and such.'
Ed took a breath and glanced down at his copy again. 'Pride is what we call a homunculus. A false human created through alchemy. Usually they're the result of an alchemist trying to resurrect someone who's died...' Ed chewed on his lip uncomfortably. 'It will almost certainly result in a rebound that could kill the alchemist and anyone else in the room, and even if it works, you won't end up with the person you were trying to resurrect. And obviously Pride isn't me, though I'm pretty sure that was the attempt.' He sighed and rested his chin in the palm of his free hand. 'Sometimes they don't even look human, at first,' he said quietly, gazing down at the top of Pride's blond head but seeing, in his mind's-eye, an inside-out cluster of exposed organs and ribs, writhing in pain on a dusty wooden floor.
Ed shook himself slightly and glanced back at the table for distraction, catching sight of the scroll again. 'I'm sorry, I don't really understand about this,' he said gesturing. 'The tools were inside? Where does the mass of the object go?' His curiosity was managing to push that memory back much more readily than normal, thoughts of hyper-cubes and the possibilities of fourth-dimensional alchemy percolating in his mind.
no subject
Ed considered for a moment asking Sasori what might have been considered abnormal about himself, as there was nothing evident in his appearance even up close. Perhaps his hair was a bit more vibrant shade of red than he'd ever seen before, but it wasn't anything shocking. He let go of the idea quickly as it seemed like too personal a question to ask somebody he'd just met and offered explanation instead.
'Well, the world I've been in for the past three years didn't have any very advanced medical technology. Prosthetics there were things like peg-legs, so this would have stood out a lot if I didn't keep it covered.' It was nice to have the conversation brought around to a topic he was more comfortable with. He had a working knowledge of automail and human anatomy, but alchemy and physics were the area where he excelled. 'Pride would be the extreme example,' Ed said quietly, unconsciously stroking the homunculus' hair. But whoever made him is either dead, disfigured or killed a lot of other people to do it...'
Ed pushed that away in favor of a more stepped explanation. 'The simplest form of alchemy is just going to be changing the shape of an object, or the physical state of the material, like water to ice. The more advanced alchemy would be changing the chemical composition of things, like turning water into it's separate elements of hydrogen and oxygen. The more complicated the compound, the higher the difficulty level. When you get into working with organic compounds, even simple carbohydrates, it's already pretty advanced alchemy.'
Ed watched Sasori as he talked, making sure he didn't get that bored, irritated look that Winry had always put on when he and Al started talking alchemy, or anything to suggest that his explanation was going too fast or too slow. 'Organic alchemy is the most complex because the chemical compounds are much more complex and there are some alchemists who work on a DNA level. I don't practice much organic alchemy because I don't feel confident on where to draw the ethical line, but I knew a couple guys who were really talented working with plants. Alchemy can be used to dramatically increase cell-division and make plants grow really fast, and while the same concept can be applied to animals, since animals tend to have more firmly set parameters on healthy growth, using alchemy on more complex organisms tends to result in a lot of cancerous tumors and such.'
Ed took a breath and glanced down at his copy again. 'Pride is what we call a homunculus. A false human created through alchemy. Usually they're the result of an alchemist trying to resurrect someone who's died...' Ed chewed on his lip uncomfortably. 'It will almost certainly result in a rebound that could kill the alchemist and anyone else in the room, and even if it works, you won't end up with the person you were trying to resurrect. And obviously Pride isn't me, though I'm pretty sure that was the attempt.' He sighed and rested his chin in the palm of his free hand. 'Sometimes they don't even look human, at first,' he said quietly, gazing down at the top of Pride's blond head but seeing, in his mind's-eye, an inside-out cluster of exposed organs and ribs, writhing in pain on a dusty wooden floor.
Ed shook himself slightly and glanced back at the table for distraction, catching sight of the scroll again. 'I'm sorry, I don't really understand about this,' he said gesturing. 'The tools were inside? Where does the mass of the object go?' His curiosity was managing to push that memory back much more readily than normal, thoughts of hyper-cubes and the possibilities of fourth-dimensional alchemy percolating in his mind.