"The journey's difficult. The only real routes are through the Great Desert, which is nearly impassable, or the coast, which is long and goes through many, many other countries first. The coastal nations have a higher Xingian population, since Xing has historically had a powerful and far-reaching maritime force, but Amestris is land-locked, and most find little reason to settle here."

"That makes sense."

She nods, and continues on to going over lab safety protocol in exhaustive detail. Chemical safety sheets are here. She doesn't expect them to memorize everything, but they need to be in the habit of checking the safety sheets before working with a chemical. Notable warnings are in symbol form on the containers; they do need to memorize those. Personal protective equipment works like so. Mostly, they'll want to use lab coats, gloves, and goggles, but sometimes they'll want more or less protection. Here's how to use the vent hood. Here's how to use the sink to wash your eyes out if you get something in them. Here's how to put out assorted types of fire. Here's how to start and contain assorted fires safely. Here's a list of notable chemicals to never mix without preparation (especially cleaning chemicals - if you don't know what's in a bottle and how it reacts, don't mix them). Here's the first line of treatment for assorted burns. Here's the first aid kit, and over there's the bigger first aid kit, and down the hall's the fully stocked medical lab. Medicine will be part of what she's teaching them, but she can go over basic emergency first aid now. Do not rely on alchemy for any of this, since you don't want to be trying to form and control an array in an emergency.

El listens carefully. Dying in a lab accident would be a stupid way to go.

Bellona bites her lip, focusing intently.

She wraps up the lecture just when it would've started getting hard for them to focus.

They should take a break, now, to explore the area around here and then have lunch; it's good to break up mental activity with physical, and vice versa, to ensure better retention of information. They will be reviewing this material later, as well, towards the same end.

After the break, would they rather focus on first aid lessons, or start on ascertaining their knowledge base for chemistry and alchemy lessons?

...First aid.

Yeah. Bellona doesn't want El getting hurt, so.

Then first aid it will be. First, though, off with them. Get familiar with the area, maybe. Don't poke any plants labeled as contact poisons. Don't eat anything in the gardens. Have fun.

They can go explore the town some.

Bellona's eager for that!

The town contains many shops, and many residential areas, and more than a few bars, and even some rough areas (Resembool had had areas that were worse off than others, of course, but they didn't have this soft air of danger to them). There's a few museums, and a pretty good-sized public library with a play area next to it, and a long scenic path by the lake, and studios advertising dance lessons and music lessons and martial arts lessons...

"Big place."

"So big!!!"

"We should come back to the library, and the museums..."

"Yeah. They look like the best parts."

"Lots more to do here than Resembool."

"Definitely. Resembool was just sheep and boring people."

"Boring people and boring sheep. And the Rockbells, I guess."

She laughs. "Winry was sometimes cool I guess."

"But not worth staying for."

"She wasn't you."

"I'm the only me."

"Maybe we should use alchemy to clone you and then I can have many bestest sisters."

"You can't clone me with alchemy because the only thing that's as good as me is me."

"Yeah, you're worth more than a whole city of people," she says, laughing. "Two cities, even."