Nina Tucker

Nina Tucker is the young daughter of Shou Tucker, The "Sewing-Life Alchemist", and his wife. She appears to be around 4 years old.

Appearance
Nina Tucker is a young girl of four with mid-length brown hair and blue eyes.

As a Chimera
After being alchemically fused with the family dog Alexander by her father, Shou Tucker, Nina inhabits the body of a dog-like beast, a similar size and build to a small lion. This creature has a brown mane the same color as Nina's original hair. This chimera has the ability to speak, as did the chimera Tucker created from his wife, and is also incomplete, causing Nina-Alexander great pain.

Background
At the point of original introduction, Nina Tucker is the young daughter of Shou Tucker, an alchemist with which Edward and Alphonse Elric stay for some time. Unfortunately, in order for Tucker to remain a State Alchemist and receive funding for his experiments into the creation of chimera, he transmutes both his wife and daughter (at different times) in an attempt to create talking chimeras. The original attempt with his wife was not entirely successful, and so the only way to secure his funding (and thus avoiding a previous life on the streets) was to transmute Nina and the family dog, Alexander, to create a second talking chimera to present to the State Military. Nina eventually escapes in chimera form, but was killed by Scar (when she was defused from Alexander), much to the distress of Edward and Alphonse. In the 2003 adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward and Alphonse lived with Nina and Shou Tucker for a few months while Ed was busy studying for the Alchemy exam. In the manga and 2009 adaptation however, Nina played a relatively minor role in comparison, and her interaction with the Elric brothers spanned just a couple days. In the first anime adaption, Nina helps deliver Gracia Hughes' daughter Elicia while Maes was out in a blizzard trying to get a doctor. She is shown to be very amazed and loves how Elicia is so cute.

Nina's death differs between the manga and the 2003 anime. In the first anime, Nina's body is completely destroyed, only leaving bloodstains behind. In the manga, her body remains intact, and she is killed alongside her father in their house (in the 2003 series, Nina was killed in an alley after making aforementioned escape from the military).

Tucker later tries to recreate his daughter in Laboratory 5 in the 2003 anime. However, despite achieving the first-ever Flawless Human Transmutation and restoring Nina's human body, her soul could not be returned at all, thus rendering Tucker's goals as a complete failure (confirming Ed's statements).

Regardless of how long the brothers knew her, she made an extraordinary impact in their lives. This is best seen after the discovery of her death. Ed comments that despite all of their hard work and praise of their skills, they could not 'save one little girl,' comparing themselves to normal people. In Chapter 108, the incident is mentioned by Ed when he was willing to exchange his alchemy for his brother, saying he has always been a regular person.



Trivia

 * Nina's name happens to mean "Little girl" as she is a little girl herself.