Sigh. "Don't do anything irreversible."

He doesn't seem like he's about to stop her, though.

He seems to lack faith in her discretion.

To the border. Simply to look, for now.

It'll be a single digit number of hours by train. Significantly more by foot.

Via train.

She needs to pay for a ticket. She can change money in the city she started in ... for a fee. A rather exorbitant fee. 

Tch. Non-universal currency. Fine, then.

Now she can buy a ticket! 

Two tickets. If the situation is favorable, she'd rather not wait.

"Oh, you want me to come along?"

"We have a world to save, yes? One might almost think you do not wish to."

"Fair. To the border, then."

(She might have caught him eyeing one of the bars. She might not.)

This is only the second time it's happened, and he has not thus far presented significant resistance to being prodded to action. If his vice presents a problem, she will deal with it at that time.

They train. Hohenheim spends almost the whole time talking to himself. Internally.

Occlus has a stack of paper, and is sketching partial arrays. It would be useful to not have to rely on moneychangers to switch her coin. Such things are certainly officially frowned upon, however. Thus: only partial arrays. With luck, no one looking will be enough of an alchemist to put the disparate pieces together only seeing one at a time.

And luck she has! ... until one of the stops nearest the desert border. A soldier moving by her to find a seat looks at her papers suspiciously and starts muttering about codes.

"<Do not look!>" she says in Xingese. "<This is my artwork, it is not finished. You do not have permission.>"

Eye narrow. "Miss, I want to see if your papers are in order."

"<You are a rude young man, do you know that? Does your mother know what it is you do all day?>" But here are her papers. She is, indeed, a traveler from Xing.

He relaxes. Maybe he thought she was an undocumented immigrant. "Thank you. Enjoy Aerugo."

She sniffs. "<Small chance of that. You westerners are all so terribly uncivilized.>"

He doesn't seem to understand her!

He hands her her paperwork back. The train arrives at the station near the border.

And the crossing? Guards, fences, gates?

High security. They post more personnel here than in the trade cities to the south. There are also more native soldiers, instead of both native soldiers and soldiers from Roma.

The guards patrol irregularly. That is, the watch system seems to be somewhat randomized -- there's no opportunity for her to learn the schedules and slip between one of them.

The walls aren't thick, but they are high, with electric fence and barbed wire on top. The gates are made of a similar material.

And the people who cross? What are they like? Traders, soldiers, nonexistant?

No one crosses into the desert except for soldiers.