"El is fine. Better than Elizabeth."

Happy cuddles. "Okay, Elizabeth."

Grumpy noises.

But she's still smiling.

That's the best result, really.

She shifts so she's more comfortable, apparently perfectly content to fall asleep wrapped around her sister.

For tonight, it'll do.

As they're drifting off, sleepily: "We should find a better name for me, too."

"First thing tomorrow."

"M'kay."

And sleep.

Sleep. Straight through til morning.

Mary's up bright and early the next day, not much after their new teacher (who is not a conversationalist first thing, apparently).

Over breakfast: "El, you said we could talk about names for me in the morning."

"Did I? ...oh, yeah."

"I don't like Mary. It's - Mary's a girl who wears dresses and behaves and says please and thank you and all the old people like her cause she's so helpful. There's a lot of Mary's."

"What kind of name do you want?"

"One other people don't have, maybe, or at least not other girls. Something pretty and dangerous and not a cute little girl."

El recalls their conversation of the night before. "What about... Lion?"

"Maybe!" She experimentally bares her teeth. "But a cat feels like your nickname for me..."

"So like a name-name?"

"Yeah! Doesn't have to be super a normal name, but - something I can say's my name?"

"Hm... Enyo?"

"Pretty. What's it mean?"

"A war goddess. Greek."

"Enyo Elric! Hm..."

"The Romans called her Bellona. Or there's Scathach, from Eire, if you want something with more bite to the sound."

"Bellona," she says, rolling the sound over her tongue. "I like that! Bellona Elric! And Lion wouldn't be a weird nickname from that."

"Okay."