"I see. Hmm -- how good is your memory?"

"Very."

"If you can memorize which maladies go with which arrays, you and Mrs. Shahidi could work together while I supervise. That way you both get practice."

"Well enough." Assuming Shahidi is agreeable?

She is! A bit bossy though.

She is Darth Occlus of the Dark Council, head of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge. She holds her seat by right of others' blood and her own strength, and this backwater healer does not have more force of personality when she chooses to show it.

The lady still insists on wrapping the bandages, it's obvious Occlus doesn't know how to do it properly.

She's only here for the alchemy.

... does that mean she will let the other woman do the bandage-wrapping?

Yes.

Then everything is fine with her.

There's an array that requires precise placement of thin needles at the right points in the paper and the subject. Mrs. Shahidi insists on placing them since she has steadier hands and experience with acupuncture.

Occlus plucks them out of her grasp one by one and drops them neatly into place. Without touching them. And then raises an eyebrow at the woman.

The woman looks livid. But she inspects Occlus's work and finds no fault with it, and lets it go. (Not without some complaining, though.)

This begins to grow... tiresome. For the alchemy, she will bear it.

At least the complaining is mostly good-natured. There are no more disagreements after that.

Hohenheim relaxes enough to start chatting with his soul-people.

After a few hours of working, he offers to get food. Mrs. Shahidi stymies his attempts to purchase something from a vendor and waves at one of her children, who hands all three of them more rice.

Filling, and provided in sufficient quantity. It suffices.

After they eat they get back to work. There are no more disagreements for the rest of the work day, which ends a couple hours before sundown. They end up with slightly more money than they would have had doing the same work in Hohenheim's hut the day before.

"I'm going to talk to Adina about an arrangement for the next two weeks. I would recommend getting started on memorizing the rest of that sheaf."

She nods, and begins gathering their things.

He accompanies Mrs. Shahidi upstairs.

With luck, he'll not give the extra money they made today away by the time he comes down.

Nothing of the sort happens.

Hohenheim announces his return to their room by dumping out his sack onto the floor and transmuting the pile of scraps into a mountain of paper, a giant inkwell, and several pens. "I'll need to use the desk tonight. Will you have trouble sleeping if I leave the light on?"

"No. What will you be doing?"

"Writing more lessons."

"Good luck to you."