Dominic had been pounding on the steel for a while, but it seemed he had finally reached a stopping point. He thrusted the hot steel into a vat of water. Sizzling, the steam rose up from it and became one with the air, dissipating before Winry’s eyes.
Dominic slowly stood up, grabbed the steel plates sitting on top of the bricks, and returned. He picked up each sheet of metal with a pair of pincers and closely inspected it. He squinted as he checked each side, making sure that none of the sheets were warped, then he wrapped them up in a thick cloth sack.
“Here, I’ve kept you waiting long enough,” he said, with all five sheets having met with his approval. He pushed the sack with the steel into Winry’s hands. “You drop those on your foot, and you’ll be smarting. You be careful, now.”
“I will. Thank you very much,” Winry said. She packed the sack into her bag to carry it, then stood up, still feeling depressed. She opened the studio door, and bright sunlight poured in. Winry blocked the sun with her hand and started to venture outside when a voice from behind halted her.
“Girl.”
When Winry turned around, she saw Dominic, sitting down and scratching his head, seeming at a loss.
“So, this isn’t the first time you’ve hit a roadblock at work, right?” he asked.
“It isn’t,” Winry nodded and said modestly, “but this is the first time I’ve ever made such big mistakes. I hardly ever made mistakes in Resembool, and when I did, they were super tiny.”
“That’s because you were living in a small pond there.” Though he was laying out a harsh truth by telling her that, Dominic nevertheless continued. “You were in the place you were born in with familiar customers and family for colleagues. Well, then again, I doubt Pinako would go easy on you.”
Dominic, who had been acquainted with Pinako in their youth, seemed to recall an unpleasant memory. His forehead broke out into a cold sweat, but he immediately collected himself and went back to what he was saying.
“When you live in a small world like that, you’ve got small responsibilities and mistakes aren’t a big deal. But now you’ve come to a big place like Rush Valley. We’ve got plenty of shops and plenty of customers, so there’s all the more to learn and enjoy. At the same time, that makes the mistakes bigger deals. In other words, everything you take on has gotten a whole lot bigger.” He muttered the weighty words in a rough monotone. Winry pinched the cord of the bag on her shoulder, sincerely listening to this more experienced mechanic who she looked up to.
“But, while all that’s going on, you’ll get bigger too and you’ll become someone who can take on all of that. You might have tough times for a while—well, that’s not exactly what I mean … uhh, like I was saying, if you worry about the tough times and fear making mistakes, you’ll never get anywhere. I know you must’ve been scared dragging other people into your mistake, but you’re not alone, are you, girl? So what you should be thinking about now is, uh, basically, how do I put this …”
He was a man of few words by nature and his supply of them, which didn’t exactly flow in the best of times, had choked up. Dominic faltered and scratched his head again.
“Ah, can’t get the words right,” he grumbled and crossed his arms, racked his brain, then grumbled again. After searching for what to say, Dominic eventually forced himself to squeeze something out. “Basically, it’s about what kind of engineer you want to be!”
The way he finished off by blurting the words out, it seemed as if he expected his unhelpful advice to be rejected. He set his mouth into a tight line. However, Winry could tell he was trying to cheer her up.
“I’ll try the best I can,” she said.
“And don’t you hold back.”
She bowed her head, then Dominic saw her off with the same scowl he’d had when she had come in.
“guess i just have to get to it,” Winry murmured quietly to herself as she left the way she came. Despite what she had told Dominic, Winry was still crestfallen.
“I need to choose between spending less time working with clients in order to make fewer mistakes or doing less work to dedicate myself to each and every—no, if I take my time, I won’t learn anything new. But I want to make the best automail I can for Ed and my clients,” Winry muttered, trying to figure out a course of action. She started to feel a tickle at the back of her throat. She had been so set on doing well, but had failed, and felt both humiliated and pathetic.
Her now-empty lunch box clattered as accompaniment with each heavy step. Then, the towering rocky terrain that seemed to block out the world opened up to reveal the rope bridge. It was the same bridge destroyed by a lightning strike during the thunderstorm that happened the last time Winry had visited. The bridge had been repaired, and now it swayed in a swirl of wind that blew up from the depths of the valley.
Winry paused at the foot of the bridge. The protrusion of rock that jutted out unnaturally under her feet was Edward’s attempt at making a bridge using alchemy.
“I wonder how Ed and Al are doing?”
She held back her fluttering hair and thought about the two brothers headed to Dublith. At that moment, she would have given anything to talk with them—to have a conversation without a care in the world.
After Winry crossed the bridge, she took three more breaks during the long walk down the mountain path. The sunlight, which prickled her skin, gradually waned as the sky turned from aqua blue to amber, then crimson. In due time, the streets of Rush Valley, tinged in that red, appeared below her.
After she readjusted a steel rod that had worked its way out of her bag while she walked, Winry made her way farther down the slope. When she got close enough to hear the commotion of the streets, suddenly Winry spied a figure curled up next to the cliff she was walking along. She recognized the sound of the person’s quiet sniffling.
“Lettie?”
Winry had found Lettie, dyed in the color of the setting sun and sitting on the bare ground holding her knees.
“Oh, Winry.”
When the girl looked up, Winry noticed that blood trickled from Lettie’s knee. Even though the town was right there, the steep mountains were no place for a child to wander alone. Winry quickly made her way to Lettie’s side and kneeled on the ground next to the girl.
“What are you doing in a place like this?” Winry asked, surprised. She doubted that Darish, with his hurting leg, would have brought Lettie into the mountains. Lettie wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and stared at the ground.