Definition of Soul: In The Beginning
Title: In the Beginning
Genre: drabble
Arc: Definition of Soul
Rating: G
Pairing: Al/Wrath
Warnings: series spoilers!
In The Beginning
I know they think I’m a monster. The girl and the old woman watch me all night and all day, like they think I’m going to do something horrible to their little treasure. They don’t let him see me when he asks and they don’t answer him when he asks them who I am. Maybe it’s because they don’t know.
In the beginning I don’t know who he is. I don’t understand that he is the suit of armor that thought it was a boy, I don’t understand that he is the brother Fullmetal refused to lose. I just see this little kid, squirming under all the attention, alert, seeking, gathering the world in his eyes like he’s never seen it before.
My body is tired, and I sleep more than I have ever slept before, and I think it’s strange to sleep so much, the way humans sleep, every night. I can feel the stones in the core of my being rushing to repair the stumps where the arm and leg that were never mine once attached and the chemical burns that cover the side of my body, making me a blistering red monster and I know I must look frightening to him.
The first time he speaks to me it’s to offer me a glass of milk, and I take it, only half listening to his babble. It’s not until my hand brushes his that I sit up, looking at him for real this time, and demand to know who he is.
“Alphonse,” he answers me patiently; he’s probably told me his name already. “My name is Alphonse.” He chatters on, and I listen half-heartedly while my heart pounds in my chest.
There is something inside of him that is not human.
In the beginning I ask him questions that he doesn’t understand, and he becomes upset with me and leaves. Later the old woman comes in, and I think she is going to scold me for making him cry but instead she begins telling me about automail, the mechanical limbs she and the girl make a living building for people who have lost their own.
For people. I hope that maybe she doesn’t see me as a monster after all, but when she leaves she locks the door with a click, like they always do, so that I cannot harm the precious boy upstairs.
At night I sleep and wake up in the morning, and I’m not used to losing so much of my day, but the girl comes in to rub ointment on my burns and is surprised at how much they have healed. The boy, the creature, Alphonse, stands in the doorway and watches. I think that he wants to talk to me but he never does, and the girl locks the door with a click.
The old woman comes and tells me how they will cut me open and torture me by putting metal inside of me, and how it will hurt me and how I will scream, and she smiles as she says it and I am angry again. I am angry because I realize that I don’t care, there is nothing that she can do to me that will be worse than what has already been done. I’ve been betrayed by the one who created me, betrayed by the ones who made me what I am, betrayed by the very place from which I came and there’s nothing left to care about. She can jam wires into my stumps if she so chooses.
In the middle of my screaming and thrashing and flailing she slaps me, hard, and I flop onto the center of the cot howling and holding my burned cheek. My anger has made her angry and I expect her to get out her knife and begin cutting me open right then, but she shakes her head and leaves the room.
I don’t know that he has been watching until she leaves and I feel a touch on my back, soothing, up and down my spine, a small, gentle hand belonging to a body that houses thousands of human lives. “What are you doing?” I wimper, my face still buried in the clean sheets of the cot.
“My brother always does this for me when I’m upset,” he says, his voice wistful, and I want to know who his brother is. When he tells me I understand in a moment of clarity what has happened. “What do you want me to call you?” he asks me abruptly, and I sit up, raising my eyes from the mattress to meet his own.
“Wrath,” I say, and my voice is hoarse from screaming and crying.
“That’s your name?” he asks, surprised, and I nod.
“The only one I have,” I add, knowing that Izumi called me only “the child” and it was Dante who first called me Wrath, and Dante who I first called “mother.”
“Wrath,” he says softly, glancing behind him as if he thinks someone else is listening, “do you know where my brother is?”
I don’t, but before I can tell him that the girl rushes in, placing herself between us as if she thinks I am going to attack him. She tells me not to talk to him and tells him not to talk to me and I realize it isn’t that she thinks I will physically hurt him. She thinks I will tell him things no one wants him to know.
In the beginning I think that they are going to hurt me. In the beginning I think that they want to destroy me so that they can keep their human-shaped little boy without worrying about him being corrupted by the monster they think I am. He is cautious at first, hanging around in the background, and sometimes I yell at him that I know he’s standing outside my door and why doesn’t he just come in, and sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t. Still, for all I see of him, I don’t know much more about him than he does of himself.
Next: Things That Aren't Mine
Genre: drabble
Arc: Definition of Soul
Rating: G
Pairing: Al/Wrath
Warnings: series spoilers!
In The Beginning
I know they think I’m a monster. The girl and the old woman watch me all night and all day, like they think I’m going to do something horrible to their little treasure. They don’t let him see me when he asks and they don’t answer him when he asks them who I am. Maybe it’s because they don’t know.
In the beginning I don’t know who he is. I don’t understand that he is the suit of armor that thought it was a boy, I don’t understand that he is the brother Fullmetal refused to lose. I just see this little kid, squirming under all the attention, alert, seeking, gathering the world in his eyes like he’s never seen it before.
My body is tired, and I sleep more than I have ever slept before, and I think it’s strange to sleep so much, the way humans sleep, every night. I can feel the stones in the core of my being rushing to repair the stumps where the arm and leg that were never mine once attached and the chemical burns that cover the side of my body, making me a blistering red monster and I know I must look frightening to him.
The first time he speaks to me it’s to offer me a glass of milk, and I take it, only half listening to his babble. It’s not until my hand brushes his that I sit up, looking at him for real this time, and demand to know who he is.
“Alphonse,” he answers me patiently; he’s probably told me his name already. “My name is Alphonse.” He chatters on, and I listen half-heartedly while my heart pounds in my chest.
There is something inside of him that is not human.
In the beginning I ask him questions that he doesn’t understand, and he becomes upset with me and leaves. Later the old woman comes in, and I think she is going to scold me for making him cry but instead she begins telling me about automail, the mechanical limbs she and the girl make a living building for people who have lost their own.
For people. I hope that maybe she doesn’t see me as a monster after all, but when she leaves she locks the door with a click, like they always do, so that I cannot harm the precious boy upstairs.
At night I sleep and wake up in the morning, and I’m not used to losing so much of my day, but the girl comes in to rub ointment on my burns and is surprised at how much they have healed. The boy, the creature, Alphonse, stands in the doorway and watches. I think that he wants to talk to me but he never does, and the girl locks the door with a click.
The old woman comes and tells me how they will cut me open and torture me by putting metal inside of me, and how it will hurt me and how I will scream, and she smiles as she says it and I am angry again. I am angry because I realize that I don’t care, there is nothing that she can do to me that will be worse than what has already been done. I’ve been betrayed by the one who created me, betrayed by the ones who made me what I am, betrayed by the very place from which I came and there’s nothing left to care about. She can jam wires into my stumps if she so chooses.
In the middle of my screaming and thrashing and flailing she slaps me, hard, and I flop onto the center of the cot howling and holding my burned cheek. My anger has made her angry and I expect her to get out her knife and begin cutting me open right then, but she shakes her head and leaves the room.
I don’t know that he has been watching until she leaves and I feel a touch on my back, soothing, up and down my spine, a small, gentle hand belonging to a body that houses thousands of human lives. “What are you doing?” I wimper, my face still buried in the clean sheets of the cot.
“My brother always does this for me when I’m upset,” he says, his voice wistful, and I want to know who his brother is. When he tells me I understand in a moment of clarity what has happened. “What do you want me to call you?” he asks me abruptly, and I sit up, raising my eyes from the mattress to meet his own.
“Wrath,” I say, and my voice is hoarse from screaming and crying.
“That’s your name?” he asks, surprised, and I nod.
“The only one I have,” I add, knowing that Izumi called me only “the child” and it was Dante who first called me Wrath, and Dante who I first called “mother.”
“Wrath,” he says softly, glancing behind him as if he thinks someone else is listening, “do you know where my brother is?”
I don’t, but before I can tell him that the girl rushes in, placing herself between us as if she thinks I am going to attack him. She tells me not to talk to him and tells him not to talk to me and I realize it isn’t that she thinks I will physically hurt him. She thinks I will tell him things no one wants him to know.
In the beginning I think that they are going to hurt me. In the beginning I think that they want to destroy me so that they can keep their human-shaped little boy without worrying about him being corrupted by the monster they think I am. He is cautious at first, hanging around in the background, and sometimes I yell at him that I know he’s standing outside my door and why doesn’t he just come in, and sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t. Still, for all I see of him, I don’t know much more about him than he does of himself.
Next: Things That Aren't Mine