May Chang

About May Chang

May Chang is a young princess of Xing's Chang clan who crosses the desert with her tiny panda, Xiao-Mei, hoping a Philosopher's Stone will save her clan's future. She practises alkahestry, Xing's healing-focused alchemy, using thrown knives and transmutation circles drawn at a distance. Small, determined and kind, she befriends Alphonse and Scar, and her knowledge of alkahestry becomes vital to understanding, and stopping, Father's plan for Amestris.

Appearance

May is a small girl of about eleven with dark hair worn in braided loops, round cheeks and a determined expression that appears whenever anyone calls her small, a complaint she shares, loudly, with Edward. She wears pink Xingese travelling clothes suited to the desert crossing, and is never without Xiao-Mei, a panda so tiny it rides on her shoulder or head; Xiao-Mei's own fierce little expressions mirror her mistress's moods. May's fighting kit is a set of throwing knives, which she plants in the ground to draw her remote transmutation circles.

Personality

May is earnest, romantic and brave far beyond her size. She crossed a desert alone on the strength of a clan's hope and her own stubbornness, and she nurses a storybook crush on the heroic Alphonse of her imagination, the real one's armour comes as a shock. She is kind to the core: alkahestry, her art, was built for healing, and she uses it that way whenever she can. Travelling with Scar, of all people, softens both of them; her simple decency becomes a quiet argument against the revenge that drives him.

Background & Story

May is a daughter of the Emperor of Xing by the Chang clan, one of the weakest of the fifty clans: for her people, winning the succession struggle is survival itself. Hoping to bring home the secret of immortality, she crossed the desert with only her miniature panda Xiao-Mei, following rumours of the Philosopher's Stone to Amestris. There she falls in with Scar, the Ishvalan fugitive, an unlikely pairing that grows into genuine trust. Her real value to the story is her knowledge: alkahestry, Xing's alchemy, works on principles Amestrian alchemy has forgotten, principles that turn out to matter enormously to understanding the country the Elrics live in.

Powers & Abilities

• Alkahestry: Xing's healing-focused alchemy, which reads the flow of energy through the earth and the body. May uses it to heal wounds and to fight at a distance.
• Remote Transmutation: By throwing her knives into position and drawing a circle, May can trigger transmutations from far away, a technique Amestrian alchemists cannot match.

Key Relationships

• Scar: The fugitive she travels and heals, her kindness gives the avenger his first reason to question the path of revenge.
• Alphonse Elric: The boy she imagined as a gallant hero before meeting his armour, and who becomes a genuine, valued friend.
• Ling Yao: A fellow Xing royal and rival in the succession struggle, crossing the same desert for the same prize.

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