fandomhighdorms | 3rd Floor Common Room, Afternoon

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3rd Floor Common Room, Afternoon

Alphonse leaned back in a chair, slipping out a yawn. Maybe he really ought to stop being so lethargic.

It was still a little early, so most things probably wouldn't be happening until later on in the day. He decided that he'd finally go out and look at what was around the place then.

Food sounded like a really good idea right then. He eyed the kitchen warily; Alphonse didn't exactly remember the last time he had do cook for himself, and wasn't sure if he was much of one, either. But, hey, here goes nothing. He went to discover what there was before he decided what to munch on.

[ ooc: As usual, open to anyone who happens to pass by. ]

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"Hey! My roomie lives!" Walter plopped down across from Alphonse with a banana and an enormous plate of food that didn't appear to have been prepared in the cafeteria.

He started shoveling the food in with a strange combination of speed, and carefully observed table manners. "How's the settling in going so far?"

"Oh, hi, Walter!" Alphonse greeted. He watched as his roomate began to eat; lucky him. He already had food. His stomach growled.

"Ahh, I'm doing good, so far," He got up and began to shovel through the kitchen, wondering what there was. There wasn't much, other than a few boxes of junk food such as donuts and cookies, but Alphonse wanted food, darn it all. "I guess I haven't been doing much, huh? May as well start now."

Walter watched Alphonse try to find something to eat and shook his head. "I made my breakfast in the fourth floor common room, just to see if there was anyone around. Then I came down here. I cleaned up, but there's more in the refrigerator upstairs if you're hungry."

Walter looked down at his plate, which was laden with everything an English boy of the 1940s could ask for. Food from before concerns about fat and cholesterol interfered with a person's enjoyment of the meaty joys of British "cuisine."

Alphonse groaned, taking a seat back in his chair across from Walter. "I'll get to that later then, I guess. Maybe a place in town will be open."

Out of the need to occupy himself, he took out a few small sheets of paper from his pocket, setting them on the table. He took one and set it on the table, and adjusted the gloves on his hands. He clapped, then set his hands on the table; in a flash of light, the sheet of paper twisted and turned, changing into something else completely. The light went away within seconds, and in the paper's place stood a tiny wooden figure of a horse.

Alphonse picked it up with his fingers, observing it. He used to do simple alchemy like this all the time as a child.

"Nice trick. Are you an amateur magician?" Walter remembered the wide array of odd things he'd already witnessed at Fandom and added, "Or is that some new thing I've never heard of?"

He flicked his fingers and wires gently plucked the horse out of Alphonse's hand, dropping it into Walter's other hand. It certainly looked real enough...

"Magic doesn't exist where I come from," Alphonse responded, then continued, "It's alchemy, which is a science. It's widely used where I come from. In a nutshell, I can basically turn one thing into another if needed, but I can't defy any laws of nature or science; If you're familiar with the Law of Conservation of Mass, alchemy relies heavily on that."

Alphonse looked up as Walter took hold of the tiny figure.

"I've never seen alchemy used like this." Walter scrutinized the wooden horse before passing it back across the table. "Where I'm from, alchemy is used differently." He thought of Alucard and the alchemical inscription on his coffin. "Very differently."

"Oh?" Alphonse's face brightened, intrigued. "You mean there's alchemy in other places, too? That's great! How is it used where you come from?"

Walter doesn't look as pleased by the topic as Alphonse. "I have a... I have a friend who was changed by alchemy. He's practically immortal now. I'm not sure what improvement that was - he was practically immortal before. I think he's just crazier now than he was before."

He shrugged. "But there's magic where I'm from. What was done to my friend wasn't done with alchemy alone, so maybe it's not as bad as I think."

Alphonse's expression faded, looking melancholy. "Oh, I see..." He looked back down at the figurine he created, rocking it back and forth with one finger. "I wish people would see the good in alchemy, instead of using it for the wrong reasons. Even back at my world, while it can be used to do the best of things, there are people out there who give it a bad name."

He sighed; while he couldn't exactly remember everything that had happened to him in the past, there were the stories his master and friends had told him.

"How do you know what the right reasons are?" Walter picked at his food a little more and set it aside in favor of a cigarette. He hopped up to open a window for Alphonse's sake and lit one.

"I mean, they seem like good reasons at the time, right? And maybe it even works. How do you know when you'll really pay the price for it?"

"If it's for the sake of helping people, of course it's for the right reasons!" Alphonse scowled slightly. "But, I..."

He looked away from Walter. Why would he ever use alchemy to hurt anyone? But then, there was what his brother and he had done when they were young. He couldn't remember what happened after it, no, but the people around him had filled him in on their point of views. Trying to revive their mother-- Despite what textbooks had said about human transmuations being forbidden, they attempted it anyway, because even then it sounded like it would make their lives better again.

"... I believe you just have to make the best judgement possible. No one can say whether alchemy can do justice or if it's evil."

"What was done to my friend was excused as being for the sake of helping people. Don't get me wrong, I like him a lot, but I wonder if some day the power he's gained isn't going to backfire on Hellsing, or humans in general."

Sticking a stake in Dracula's heart hadn't been enough to do him in. Walter honestly wondered if Abraham and Arthur hadn't been batty when they'd decided that Alucard's powers needed enhancement.

"It sounds like a tool. Tools aren't evil." Walter flicked a wire out to snag his fork off his plate and bring it to his hand. "If I used this wire to hurt you for no reason, that would be evil, but it wouldn't be the wire that was evil, it would be me, right?"

Alphonse nodded. "A tool, that's a nice way to put it. There was always so much more going on back home that it was hard to think of alchemy as just a 'tool'."

He grinned softly, leaning back in his chair, staring idly at the ceiling. "A complicated tool, at that..."

"It seems like the good tools are complicated ones." Sometimes, when he was feeling what the kids around here called emo, Walter wondered if he was just a complicated tool. Butler. Hunter. It took a lot of killing to be called the Angel of Death at his age. Sometimes there didn't seem to be much chance to be just a person.

Walter took a long drag on his cigarette and looked out the window before turning back to Alphonse with a fresh grin plastered on his face. "You're not at home, I'm not at home, none of us are at home. We aren't tools, we're students. Let's have some fun with it.

"Pippi and I are going to check out locker 327 tomorrow. Have you met Pippi yet? Oh! I learned how to bowl yesterday. You should try it. It's kind of stupid, but fun."

"Sounds like a plan." Alphonse agreed, nodding. "Pippi? I haven't personally met her yet, but I've heard of her."

Because, really, no one starts walking around with a horse and a monkey and not get mentioned.

"Locker 327?" he blinked, puzzled. "What's so special about that one?"

"I hear it's some sort of dimensional portal, that it talks to you sometimes, that things come out of it, and that other students have gone into it with weird things happening.

"I have got to see that."

And he'd found the perfect partner in crime. "Pippi's a nice girl. She has quite a handshake, too."

Alphonse arched an eyebrow.

"If that's the case, wouldn't you want to avoid something like that?" After putting a little thought into it, he gave a shrug and said, "Just like Brother, always running headfirst into things he hasn't a clue about."

"Someone has to do it and there's no one I trust more than myself." Walter shrugged in return. "Where's your brother? Is he back home?"

"I don't have a clue. Nobody knows where he is. I've actually been looking all over the place for him, and there isn't a sign of his whereabouts. Even so, I'll find something eventually." He crossed his arms with determination.

"If there's anything I can do to help you, let me know. I'm a very good hunter. Even if I'm not really used to hunting for humans." Hunting was more fun than butlering or school or just about anything else. Definitely more fun than bowling.

"Sure thing! Thank you for the offer."

His earlier munchies, however, didn't go away. So Alphonse went with picking out a box of donuts from the cupboard and began to eat those. "I guess this'll have to do for now," he murmured.

"Get up earlier, sleepyhead, and I'll cook you breakfast. You just have to share the grocery bills. Arthur never paid me very much and prices are a lot higher here than they were at home."

Walter ground out his cigarette and washed his hands in the kitchenette before returning to his own breakfast. It took more than a discussion of alchemy to put him off his food for more than a few minutes.

"You know, there's a green kid who can run on the walls? I met him in the gym last night. And a huge red talking cat down in town. And I'm almost certain that one of the ducks in the park snarled at me. Ducks don't have teeth where you're from, do they?"

"Really? That'd be nice." Very nice. As far as he knows, he isn't much of a cook.

Upon hearing Walter's tales of his adventures around the city, Alphonse mentally declared that he really should start getting out more. There seemed to be a lot of quirky things and people he had yet to meet.

"No, ducks don't have teeth at my home... Unless someone decided to create a duck chimera sometime, then yes. Ducks can have a lot more than teeth."

"There are no chimeras where I'm from except in mythology. They're sort of goat, snake, lion combinations. No ducks."

The thought of throwing a duck into that mix made Walter laugh, nearly choking on his food.

"There's a lot more to chimeras in my world. Anyone with a lot of skill in alchemy can make a chimera, and you can pretty use whichever creatures you want. They're hard to come by, though. I'm personally not too fond of them at all."

And yes. Ducks were included on that 'whichever creatures you wanted' list.

"I'm not really sure where I stand on that sort of thing. My friend used to be able to turn into a wolf, but after alchemy and magic, now what he turns into is something that's like a wolf from hell." It was handy, but what Alucard had had to endure to get there... Walter wasn't sure it had been worth it.

"I don't see any need of it. But that's just my opinion," Alphonse waved his hand dismissively. "I'd probably sound hypocritical about it, anyway."

He picked up another donut from the box, shoving it in his mouth.

"I guess it depends on the circumstances."

Walter finished his food and got up to clean up his dishes, going for a change of subject, since there seemed to be some landmines in this topic. "Do we have any classes together? I'm taking Creature Languages, Intermediate Math, Sociology of the Paranormal, and Gardening." A butler has to know a little bit of everything, after all.

"Afraid not," Alphonse answered. "I'm only taking Chemistry, Government and Western Literature. Starting off a bit slow with the classes, I guess, but everything else seemed to conflict with my scheduling."

"So we won't be able to help each other with homework. That's too bad."

Walter finished cleaning up and pulled another cigarette out of his pocket. "I'm going down into town to buy some more groceries. Someone mentioned that the Emporium is open. If there's anything you want, I can pick it up while I'm there." It was second nature to offer these sorts of services.

"Oh, no I'm fine right now," Alphonse answered. "I'll go pick up anything I need later. I'll see you then."

"Right. I'll see you later." Walter grinned then put on a mock-threatening face. "I know where you live."

With that, he lit his cigarette and strolled out.

Alphonse grinned, waving as he walked off.

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3rd Floor Common Room, Afternoon

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