"I should certainly hope so!" Ling agreed. "Where's your brother, by the way?"

"Back home," Al replied. "There's not much he would be able to do with alkahestry, so he asked me to make sure my notes are good. He'll look at them when I go back."

"I was half expecting to see him running around somewhere," Ling said with a grin. "Is he still as... energetic?"

Al snorted.

"More, even," he said. "Now that he's lost his alchemy, he ended up taking up a couple other crafts in its place."

"Oh my." Ling grinned. "Maybe you can get him to come visit you sometime while you're here." He definitely wouldn't mind seeing Ed again.

"We'll see," Al said. "Depends on how much research I end up doing." He grinned. "Though I bet Brother wouldn't mind if you sent him a letter or something."

Ling laughed a little at that and nodded. "I'll keep that in mind," he said. "When you can drag yourself away, you can come stay with me." He handed Al the address.

"Thanks," Al said, grinning. "And thanks for letting me study here. It's an awesome opportunity."

"It's my pleasure," Ling said. "I suspect you'll liven things up around here." He grinned and left, heading back outside to check on a few things before heading home again to let his poor staff know that they'd have a guest.

At the same time, Garnet and Ruby were headed back to the library themselves. Garnet had her notebook tucked under her arm, and her hair was down again for the moment, covering the ouroboros mark on the back of her neck.

Ling nearly ran right into them. He stopped, surprised, and looked at Garnet, his eyes widening. Greed hadn't been aware there was another homunculus around.

Garnet stopped dead as well, her eyes going wide. Then she quickly looked down, trying to slip past. She didn't want any trouble, and somehow, she knew interacting with him could be trouble.

Greed looked at her but he didn't try to stop her. But he was definitely going to tell Al later on, since he could see they had notebooks and were headed for the library.

Garnet was trembling slightly as she slipped through the doors of the library. She had her notebook in a white-knuckled grip, and her eyes were still wide.

Ruby pulled her to the side once they were inside. "What was that all about?" she asked quietly.

"I... I don't know," Garnet replied. "Something wasn't right. He wasn't right somehow. He set me on edge and I don't know why."

"Normally you're pretty good about things like that," Ruby said, frowning a bit. "That was really odd."

"That was scary," Garnet said frankly. "I don't know what it was, but I didn't like it. Something about him just wasn't right at all."

"Maybe we'll get lucky and we won't run into him again," Ruby muttered. "We can head back if you want, or do something else for a while."

"No, we're here," Garnet said, pulling over a chair to the study table. "And he walked away. So we may as well keep working."

"Alright," Ruby agreed after a moment, settling in again slowly. But this time she wasn't quite as absorbed in her work, actually paying attention to other things.

Garnet disappeared into the stacks briefly to find a few more materials. She paused when she heard someone else in the library with them and glanced around the corner. She blinked when she saw the blond, and went back to Ruby.

"We're not the only ones in here," she said softly.

"That's a first," Ruby murmured. "I'm surprised. Is it a local do you think?"

"I don't think so," Garnet said, shaking her head. "Blond guy, doesn't look Xingese at all."

"Interesting." Ruby shook her head. "Another foreigner coming to study, I guess." She shrugged. That pretty much put him in the "leave him be" category.