For Ambre: The Seventh Circle
To: hieronymousb
From: Santa
Request: Envy as prostitute
Rating: n/a
Title: The Seventh Circle (Work in Progress)
The women's powder room at Baron Reinhart's was the same as any other: a narrow but cozy set of chambers discretely hidden behind the entry to the great ballroom, accessible and well-equipped for making magic at a moment's notice. The fainting couches were painted a demure yellow with papasans to match; servant girls stood off to one side, ready at a moment's notice to bring cups of water or bright pots of rouge. It was here the women of Central lurked, here they worked their tricks and illusions. Society wives and courtesans alike gossiped and swapped secrets in the narrow lounge room, bemoaned the necessary evils of corsets and stockings. It was a room where for a short time, the glamorous let their guard down, if only long enough to repair their mystique.
Envy watched from the shadows, tired of the spectacle, already unmerciful in the light of certain other developments. That he should be back here did not improve his mood. A woman with a hawk's nose was painting her cheeks a brilliant red to draw the eye away from her large and most prominent flaw, while to her left an older woman clipped blonde extensions to the back of her graying hair. Humanity at it's finest, he thought snidely: gilding applied to cover the ugliness underneath.
"Margarite."
A familiar voice, calling his body's name. He ignored her. She was sitting to his right, a picture in verdant silk and yellow taffeta, swooned elegantly across a low papasan. Her fan was out and half-open in his direction. A beckoning gesture, one used for servants - the lady's way of asking for someone to attend to her.
"Margarite!"
"What!?" he snapped, more roughly than he'd intended. Fuck. Other sets of eyes flicked discretely in his direction, measuring him silently, but not openly admitting judgment. It was all he could do not to snarl at them too, and he could tell from the expression on her face that she sensed his rebellion and it infuriated her. Well, good. In this guise he was 'Margarite' - a soft, silly thing, not her real child of course, but a foundling from her finishing school, meant to worship and adore her benefactor. It was a mask though, just a charade...he could take this off later like hawk-nose could take off her face, and then things would be back to normal. Then he would be free to express his real opinions.
"I need help with my corset," Dante said. Her fat lips were pursed reproachfully, plump, pale pink crescents joined into a wrinkled moon. Ready to open wide and devour him, except that there were appearances to uphold.
"I would prefer for you to help me, you know how I like it laced."
Her tone implied this was a privilege, and in a way it was, he considered. At the finishing school she ran Dante only allowed the most skilled of her protégés, the girls whom she called 'her children', to assist her with her dressing. Out here, in the 'real' world, she permitted even fewer people to get close to her. And he was no 'child' of hers -- she had been with him since the first few hours of his creation, and never had she treated him anything like her child -- but neither had she rejected him, unlike that skin-flint bone-in bastard, his ax to bear, his creator.
That fact alone softened his ire enough to respond, and he tried again in Margarite's best schoolgirl titter, gave the calculating eyes around them an affected nervous smile.
"Of course, madam," he said and gritted his teeth, offered an arm to help her back into one of the changing chambers. The room was equipped with thick floor to ceiling curtains to protect a lady's modesty whilst tightening up her bodice. If only they knew, he thought, grinning wickedly. Over the years he could wager he'd seen his mistress out of her clothes as often as in, shamelessly naked in front of men, women, husbands, lovers. It gave him a perverse thrill to know he held these secrets against her spotless reputation, even if retribution was too brutal to risk. Dante liked to position herself as a mentor to children, a lady of the highest character; all of it lies, only he knew the truth. He knew the reptile lurking beneath.
She accepted his help up from the couch but twisted her fingers hard into the soft flesh of his forearm, hard enough to leave bruises if he were the type to bruise. He took it out on the servant girls waiting by the changing curtains, baring his teeth and causing them to scatter. He escorted his 'lady' behind the deep yellow expanse of drape. She hit him with her fan as soon as they were out of sight.
"When I call for you, you will answer," she hissed. "Now do up my laces. I need to get back out to supper."
Sure that you need another feast? he considered asking, but as his cheek was already smarting, he merely huffed and began yanking out all the ties at her back. As he'd learned long ago, there was no point to fighting back physically. He viewed himself as a sensible creature, a pragmatist, and he saw no point in sugar-coating the universe's bullshit. His master's alchemy was powerful, and she knew just how to get to him - which conduits to push, which nerve centers synapse onto pure pain. A fan-tap was nothing compared to the hurt she could (and would) inflict, the greatest of all being no pain at all...just endless, endless quiet and darkness, sealed deep in a room within her twisting mansion, his own horrific relic, his skull grinning at him from its place on his chest. Alone for decades, chained down by his relic, with nothing to do but listen to himself going insane...
He never, ever wanted that again.
There was a full-length mirror in the changing area, he realized belatedly, as a doppelganger of himself scowled right back at him. Certainly it couldn't be the human Margarite, whom he had thrown in the river not two weeks back. He yanked hard on his lady's corset lacing and watched his reflection dispassionately, watched Dante's agonized expressions. He pretended his fists were the reason she was making such exquisite faces.
This body she had most recently assumed was that of a soft girl - pleasing to look upon but ever so slightly plump. Her lumpy middle required a waist restrictor, her fat little breasts needed corsets to keep the front of her dresses up. She was just round enough to be pretty but forgettable when the spotlight wasn't directly on her, all entirely by design. He knew her M.O. by now. Dante preferred to work in the background, knowing all the right people and bowing to no one, arranging through her connections to have things done the way she liked. True power was in controlling power's distribution, she was often fond of saying. He thought perhaps it was really in deception. By convincing people that others thought she was important, Dante had reliably broken into social circle after social circle -- expending no energy of her own to prove herself, instead, schmoozing (and sleeping) her way into the elite.
He himself on the other hand, his method of deception was straight-forward and noble: he simply copied faces, only reluctantly dealt with social vagaries. Dante was forever harping at him to learn the rules, but why bother? 'Margarite', for example, was the very picture of homespun country beauty, a ruddy skinned redhead with cleavage to match. He could probably rearrange all the freckles on his face and still not have any of these insipid humans notice. Sometimes, in fact, he did so to amuse himself. It was a sad but telling game that he sometimes played when he went to 'take a powder'. As his body converted food and life to pure energy, he did not need to void himself - he went to the restroom instead to subtlety rearrange his features. So far, very few of his companions had ever caught on. Depressing, self-absorbed, inattentive beasts.
He finished doing up the last few laces of his mistress's corset and tied them off, leaving her a tightly skinned but now more shapely sausage.
"There, that should hold it."
Newly repackaged, Dante turned slowly left and right, admiring her faux waistline in the mirror. She was breathing shallowly, he noted, and sweating like a stuck pig, but comfort was what was always sacrificed first on fashion's bloodthirsty altar.
"Okay. Now, for the latter half of the evening, I need you to speak to Duke Redcalf," she panted.
"'Margarite' is likely to get tongue-tied around such an influential lord," he said.
"'Margarite' can shove her bountiful assets at him and she won't have to do any talking," Dante snorted and pointed at his chest. "The man's a sot, give him a glass of wine and a bosom to talk to and he'll tell you anything you need to know."
"And what does my mistress need to know?" he asked, because he knew the drill - by 'you' she meant 'I', Dante ran this operation and she would be the one to judge whether the information he fetched was worthy.
She gave him a look that implied he was feeble-minded.
"Don't play stupid, you know the drill. Redcalf has a new beneficiary, an alchemist…he's been going on about how he's going to revolutionize the world of pharmacy. I want to know if there's any truth to it, or if he's just full of hot air as usual. The man's a shipping magnate, I can't see what he'd be doing tangled up in alchemical medicine."
"Unless it's a ploy to make his dick harder," Envy said. And then, because his treacherous mouth could not resist, "after all, some humans seem to find it empowering to attach themselves to those who have real talent."
Bad idea, bad idea, his mind sang, but it was too late - his emotions had been raging all evening, frustration, anger mounting. It would not get him anywhere and he knew it, but he needed an outlet.
His pointed barb was not lost on her. Dante's face twisted in fury and she raised her fan once more, though it seemed her corset bindings were now too tight to allow her to swing it easily.
She kicked him in the shins instead.
"What is your problem tonight, Envy?" she hissed. "You've been a brat all evening."
Dante drew her head back haughtily, eyes flashing - angry, but not yet angry enough to punish him severely, he judged. Lucky for him. Damn it, he knew better than this, he knew not to push her…hadn't he just been thinking of the things she could do, the pain she could inflict? He had sworn to himself that anything would be better than putting up with his relic again, and if he ever openly tried to attack her that was exactly what he would face. The same as Greed had, many, many times over, that asshole never learned…
And that was when it hit him again, the thing that had been bothering him, and he could no longer make nice and refrain from holding back.
"Greed," he said. "Greed's my problem, if you really want to know."
"What?"
He paced back and forth in front of the mirror, feeling like a caged tiger, wanting to shred, wanting to pounce; all the while waiting to be devoured himself. Dante pursed her lips and folded her arms in front of her, visibly nonplussed, and he bristled a little, aware that at any moment, he would be hurt for his honesty.
"That fucking asshole tried to stab you in the back, in case you've forgotten," he snarled. "Ten years ago he tried to run off on us, ten years ago you sealed him for it…and then tonight, tonight he's back on your arm, why is he escorting you…"
He stopped short, voice choked off in his throat. He could still taste the bile that had risen when he'd first seen the asshole sauntering into the room…and his mistress hanging casually off his arm, stroking it with her fingertips. Gazing up at his chiseled physique, adoring him, the way only a true lover could do.
Does all that I do -- all of this -- mean nothing to you?! he wanted to scream. Ten long years of him entrenched in humanity, playing at it, wining and dining and spying for her…but when she needed a date, a companion, an equal, she chose him.
"Oh, Envy, Envy, Envy," his mistress sighed. She reached forward and captured a handful of his body's long, curly hair as he paced by again, gave it a very light tug. He froze instantly.
"So often you live up to your name."
Amazingly, and terribly, she began to twist the very tips of his curls around her fingertips, playing with him, petting him. He bristled all over again at that, how dare she…but he had to keep cool, she had a literal hold on him now, and that was always when she was at her most dangerous.
"…you were the one who named me," he said, as close to the truth again as he dared.
"Ah-ah, but I was not the one who made you," she sighed. "I know it's not your fault that you were made this way."
"Yeah, that fucking bastard…" Even now, two centuries later, Hohenheim's name was still poison on his tongue. The rage was like a reflex, traveling familiar neural pathways to set his entire being on fire. It didn't take much to set him down this path…and yet…and yet…
"But that's not what I'm--"
Dante's grip on his hair tightened ever-so-slightly and he shivered in spite of himself. She tugged his curls like reins, reeling him in.
"What? You question that this was how he made you? Make no mistake, it was he who did it." Her nostrils flared, as if it infuriated her to even insinuate that she could be responsible for any part of Envy's upbringing. Another point in Greed's favor, that ever-loving asshole…because Greed was her responsibility, wasn't he, her creation, her mistake.
No matter how far he strayed, or how many times he tried to betray her, she would seal him and then make up later. Never any lasting punishment, never would he be destroyed. A simple trick of fucking fate, that he was Hohenheim's possession instead of hers, and always he would be second best.
"And you're the one who has me be a whore for you!" Envy spat, swelling up, not giving a damn who might be close enough to hear them. "You trot him out to dance and party, while I spread my legs for Redcalf or Bluecalf or whoever the fuck it is today!"
There was no warning this time, just a sudden searing pain as she jerked him down toward her. A smarter man might have kneeled, but he was furious right now and not ready to cede even an inch of ground.
"Envy!"
Dante's eyes darted left and right, checking in vain to see who might be listening outside the curtain, oh how he hated her…
"How dare you," she hissed, slipping a pale hand beneath his chin, jerking him down to stare into her eyes. "You spoiled little ingrate! Keep your voice down, do you know what you're jeopardizing -"
"And you're not, by bringing out Greed!? You know what he'll do, he'll use you…figure out who to make nice to and go court them himself, the same people you're making me fuck, and then I'll have put out for no reason. Why don't you just give them to him straight off and save me the fucking trouble!"
She didn't even bother to disentangle her hands from his hair, just clapped them together with a fist of his body's red hair still caught between, and he cried out as the transformation came over him involuntarily. It was painful when she did it, like knives ghosting over every inch of his skin, splitting him open, pulling himself out…pulling himself, fuck, that was his own face he was seeing in the mirror now. Not Margarite's freckled country girl cheeks anymore but his own thin pale ones; not girlish curls but long flat spikes of hair, the spines he kept to hide behind. His true face now on Margarite's curvy body, and for a moment it was all he could do just to gasp and gape.
That's my face, he wanted to shriek. What's my face doing on her body, what are you playing at, I'll be good, please, just leave me my face…
"You accuse me of making you a whore," Dante spat the word, as if it in and of itself were unclean. "You don't know the meaning of the word."
She stabbed a finger into his chest and he realized in horror that he could not move a muscle even to recoil from that touch…her alchemy had shut him down entirely for the moment, choked off his access to the pool of lives stored inside him.
"Homunculi do as they are designed, as they are created. They are nothing more, nothing less," she said. "It was not my intention to whore you, you are a better tool than this. Don't presume to know my intentions."
She clapped her hands again and touched the centers of his shoulder blades, channeled energy into the power conduits there. Ohfuckohfuck, he could feel the muscles in his legs contract of their own volition, lifting him up as if invisible strings were pulling him like a marionette.
"You want to be a whore, then I will treat you like a whore," Dante said. "Now march."
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck, and there were no other words because he couldn't even scream. His legs were moving of their own volition, propelling him out ahead of her, and her hand on his back was keeping it that way - to the outside eye a friendly helping hand, to him a literal controlling interest. He could tell by the reactions of some of the servant girls that it was surprising to them that Dante had gone in with one girl and come out with another, but the bitch was too worked up to even think about that now, was she? But humans were stupid anyhow; all she'd have to do was lie and say that curly hair was a wig, hadn't his face always been this way, ah ha ha the miracles of modern makeup…no one would even realize that yes, this was his face, why was she making him bare his true face? That was how he always got through these things, by hiding behind another person's mask. He couldn't conceive of going to woo someone wearing his true face, it turned his body's stomach.
I'll bite his fucking cock off, he thought desperately. I'll change back and rip him a new asshole.
Dante steered him out from the powder room and down a long twisting corridor, into a lavishly decorated side chamber. One look from her and the servants there scattered looking absolutely terrified. She directed him over to a thick, squishy bed and forced him to sit down on the mattress, then shoved him hard until he flopped backward. It smelled of dust and dry sweat.
"The Baron Redcalf will be in to see you shortly," she said, smiling down at him. "And then you will know the difference between what you do, and what it means to be a whore."
She flipped up his thick skirts and pushed back his petticoats, stacked them so high on his torso that he could no longer see her. His eyes were the only part of himself that he yet had control over, and he tried to say IhateyouIhateyou with only his irises.
"Enjoy," she said to someone just beyond her, and shoved Envy's legs wide.
To Be Continued. (Heron editorial: o.O!)
From: Santa
Request: Envy as prostitute
Rating: n/a
Title: The Seventh Circle (Work in Progress)
The women's powder room at Baron Reinhart's was the same as any other: a narrow but cozy set of chambers discretely hidden behind the entry to the great ballroom, accessible and well-equipped for making magic at a moment's notice. The fainting couches were painted a demure yellow with papasans to match; servant girls stood off to one side, ready at a moment's notice to bring cups of water or bright pots of rouge. It was here the women of Central lurked, here they worked their tricks and illusions. Society wives and courtesans alike gossiped and swapped secrets in the narrow lounge room, bemoaned the necessary evils of corsets and stockings. It was a room where for a short time, the glamorous let their guard down, if only long enough to repair their mystique.
Envy watched from the shadows, tired of the spectacle, already unmerciful in the light of certain other developments. That he should be back here did not improve his mood. A woman with a hawk's nose was painting her cheeks a brilliant red to draw the eye away from her large and most prominent flaw, while to her left an older woman clipped blonde extensions to the back of her graying hair. Humanity at it's finest, he thought snidely: gilding applied to cover the ugliness underneath.
"Margarite."
A familiar voice, calling his body's name. He ignored her. She was sitting to his right, a picture in verdant silk and yellow taffeta, swooned elegantly across a low papasan. Her fan was out and half-open in his direction. A beckoning gesture, one used for servants - the lady's way of asking for someone to attend to her.
"Margarite!"
"What!?" he snapped, more roughly than he'd intended. Fuck. Other sets of eyes flicked discretely in his direction, measuring him silently, but not openly admitting judgment. It was all he could do not to snarl at them too, and he could tell from the expression on her face that she sensed his rebellion and it infuriated her. Well, good. In this guise he was 'Margarite' - a soft, silly thing, not her real child of course, but a foundling from her finishing school, meant to worship and adore her benefactor. It was a mask though, just a charade...he could take this off later like hawk-nose could take off her face, and then things would be back to normal. Then he would be free to express his real opinions.
"I need help with my corset," Dante said. Her fat lips were pursed reproachfully, plump, pale pink crescents joined into a wrinkled moon. Ready to open wide and devour him, except that there were appearances to uphold.
"I would prefer for you to help me, you know how I like it laced."
Her tone implied this was a privilege, and in a way it was, he considered. At the finishing school she ran Dante only allowed the most skilled of her protégés, the girls whom she called 'her children', to assist her with her dressing. Out here, in the 'real' world, she permitted even fewer people to get close to her. And he was no 'child' of hers -- she had been with him since the first few hours of his creation, and never had she treated him anything like her child -- but neither had she rejected him, unlike that skin-flint bone-in bastard, his ax to bear, his creator.
That fact alone softened his ire enough to respond, and he tried again in Margarite's best schoolgirl titter, gave the calculating eyes around them an affected nervous smile.
"Of course, madam," he said and gritted his teeth, offered an arm to help her back into one of the changing chambers. The room was equipped with thick floor to ceiling curtains to protect a lady's modesty whilst tightening up her bodice. If only they knew, he thought, grinning wickedly. Over the years he could wager he'd seen his mistress out of her clothes as often as in, shamelessly naked in front of men, women, husbands, lovers. It gave him a perverse thrill to know he held these secrets against her spotless reputation, even if retribution was too brutal to risk. Dante liked to position herself as a mentor to children, a lady of the highest character; all of it lies, only he knew the truth. He knew the reptile lurking beneath.
She accepted his help up from the couch but twisted her fingers hard into the soft flesh of his forearm, hard enough to leave bruises if he were the type to bruise. He took it out on the servant girls waiting by the changing curtains, baring his teeth and causing them to scatter. He escorted his 'lady' behind the deep yellow expanse of drape. She hit him with her fan as soon as they were out of sight.
"When I call for you, you will answer," she hissed. "Now do up my laces. I need to get back out to supper."
Sure that you need another feast? he considered asking, but as his cheek was already smarting, he merely huffed and began yanking out all the ties at her back. As he'd learned long ago, there was no point to fighting back physically. He viewed himself as a sensible creature, a pragmatist, and he saw no point in sugar-coating the universe's bullshit. His master's alchemy was powerful, and she knew just how to get to him - which conduits to push, which nerve centers synapse onto pure pain. A fan-tap was nothing compared to the hurt she could (and would) inflict, the greatest of all being no pain at all...just endless, endless quiet and darkness, sealed deep in a room within her twisting mansion, his own horrific relic, his skull grinning at him from its place on his chest. Alone for decades, chained down by his relic, with nothing to do but listen to himself going insane...
He never, ever wanted that again.
There was a full-length mirror in the changing area, he realized belatedly, as a doppelganger of himself scowled right back at him. Certainly it couldn't be the human Margarite, whom he had thrown in the river not two weeks back. He yanked hard on his lady's corset lacing and watched his reflection dispassionately, watched Dante's agonized expressions. He pretended his fists were the reason she was making such exquisite faces.
This body she had most recently assumed was that of a soft girl - pleasing to look upon but ever so slightly plump. Her lumpy middle required a waist restrictor, her fat little breasts needed corsets to keep the front of her dresses up. She was just round enough to be pretty but forgettable when the spotlight wasn't directly on her, all entirely by design. He knew her M.O. by now. Dante preferred to work in the background, knowing all the right people and bowing to no one, arranging through her connections to have things done the way she liked. True power was in controlling power's distribution, she was often fond of saying. He thought perhaps it was really in deception. By convincing people that others thought she was important, Dante had reliably broken into social circle after social circle -- expending no energy of her own to prove herself, instead, schmoozing (and sleeping) her way into the elite.
He himself on the other hand, his method of deception was straight-forward and noble: he simply copied faces, only reluctantly dealt with social vagaries. Dante was forever harping at him to learn the rules, but why bother? 'Margarite', for example, was the very picture of homespun country beauty, a ruddy skinned redhead with cleavage to match. He could probably rearrange all the freckles on his face and still not have any of these insipid humans notice. Sometimes, in fact, he did so to amuse himself. It was a sad but telling game that he sometimes played when he went to 'take a powder'. As his body converted food and life to pure energy, he did not need to void himself - he went to the restroom instead to subtlety rearrange his features. So far, very few of his companions had ever caught on. Depressing, self-absorbed, inattentive beasts.
He finished doing up the last few laces of his mistress's corset and tied them off, leaving her a tightly skinned but now more shapely sausage.
"There, that should hold it."
Newly repackaged, Dante turned slowly left and right, admiring her faux waistline in the mirror. She was breathing shallowly, he noted, and sweating like a stuck pig, but comfort was what was always sacrificed first on fashion's bloodthirsty altar.
"Okay. Now, for the latter half of the evening, I need you to speak to Duke Redcalf," she panted.
"'Margarite' is likely to get tongue-tied around such an influential lord," he said.
"'Margarite' can shove her bountiful assets at him and she won't have to do any talking," Dante snorted and pointed at his chest. "The man's a sot, give him a glass of wine and a bosom to talk to and he'll tell you anything you need to know."
"And what does my mistress need to know?" he asked, because he knew the drill - by 'you' she meant 'I', Dante ran this operation and she would be the one to judge whether the information he fetched was worthy.
She gave him a look that implied he was feeble-minded.
"Don't play stupid, you know the drill. Redcalf has a new beneficiary, an alchemist…he's been going on about how he's going to revolutionize the world of pharmacy. I want to know if there's any truth to it, or if he's just full of hot air as usual. The man's a shipping magnate, I can't see what he'd be doing tangled up in alchemical medicine."
"Unless it's a ploy to make his dick harder," Envy said. And then, because his treacherous mouth could not resist, "after all, some humans seem to find it empowering to attach themselves to those who have real talent."
Bad idea, bad idea, his mind sang, but it was too late - his emotions had been raging all evening, frustration, anger mounting. It would not get him anywhere and he knew it, but he needed an outlet.
His pointed barb was not lost on her. Dante's face twisted in fury and she raised her fan once more, though it seemed her corset bindings were now too tight to allow her to swing it easily.
She kicked him in the shins instead.
"What is your problem tonight, Envy?" she hissed. "You've been a brat all evening."
Dante drew her head back haughtily, eyes flashing - angry, but not yet angry enough to punish him severely, he judged. Lucky for him. Damn it, he knew better than this, he knew not to push her…hadn't he just been thinking of the things she could do, the pain she could inflict? He had sworn to himself that anything would be better than putting up with his relic again, and if he ever openly tried to attack her that was exactly what he would face. The same as Greed had, many, many times over, that asshole never learned…
And that was when it hit him again, the thing that had been bothering him, and he could no longer make nice and refrain from holding back.
"Greed," he said. "Greed's my problem, if you really want to know."
"What?"
He paced back and forth in front of the mirror, feeling like a caged tiger, wanting to shred, wanting to pounce; all the while waiting to be devoured himself. Dante pursed her lips and folded her arms in front of her, visibly nonplussed, and he bristled a little, aware that at any moment, he would be hurt for his honesty.
"That fucking asshole tried to stab you in the back, in case you've forgotten," he snarled. "Ten years ago he tried to run off on us, ten years ago you sealed him for it…and then tonight, tonight he's back on your arm, why is he escorting you…"
He stopped short, voice choked off in his throat. He could still taste the bile that had risen when he'd first seen the asshole sauntering into the room…and his mistress hanging casually off his arm, stroking it with her fingertips. Gazing up at his chiseled physique, adoring him, the way only a true lover could do.
Does all that I do -- all of this -- mean nothing to you?! he wanted to scream. Ten long years of him entrenched in humanity, playing at it, wining and dining and spying for her…but when she needed a date, a companion, an equal, she chose him.
"Oh, Envy, Envy, Envy," his mistress sighed. She reached forward and captured a handful of his body's long, curly hair as he paced by again, gave it a very light tug. He froze instantly.
"So often you live up to your name."
Amazingly, and terribly, she began to twist the very tips of his curls around her fingertips, playing with him, petting him. He bristled all over again at that, how dare she…but he had to keep cool, she had a literal hold on him now, and that was always when she was at her most dangerous.
"…you were the one who named me," he said, as close to the truth again as he dared.
"Ah-ah, but I was not the one who made you," she sighed. "I know it's not your fault that you were made this way."
"Yeah, that fucking bastard…" Even now, two centuries later, Hohenheim's name was still poison on his tongue. The rage was like a reflex, traveling familiar neural pathways to set his entire being on fire. It didn't take much to set him down this path…and yet…and yet…
"But that's not what I'm--"
Dante's grip on his hair tightened ever-so-slightly and he shivered in spite of himself. She tugged his curls like reins, reeling him in.
"What? You question that this was how he made you? Make no mistake, it was he who did it." Her nostrils flared, as if it infuriated her to even insinuate that she could be responsible for any part of Envy's upbringing. Another point in Greed's favor, that ever-loving asshole…because Greed was her responsibility, wasn't he, her creation, her mistake.
No matter how far he strayed, or how many times he tried to betray her, she would seal him and then make up later. Never any lasting punishment, never would he be destroyed. A simple trick of fucking fate, that he was Hohenheim's possession instead of hers, and always he would be second best.
"And you're the one who has me be a whore for you!" Envy spat, swelling up, not giving a damn who might be close enough to hear them. "You trot him out to dance and party, while I spread my legs for Redcalf or Bluecalf or whoever the fuck it is today!"
There was no warning this time, just a sudden searing pain as she jerked him down toward her. A smarter man might have kneeled, but he was furious right now and not ready to cede even an inch of ground.
"Envy!"
Dante's eyes darted left and right, checking in vain to see who might be listening outside the curtain, oh how he hated her…
"How dare you," she hissed, slipping a pale hand beneath his chin, jerking him down to stare into her eyes. "You spoiled little ingrate! Keep your voice down, do you know what you're jeopardizing -"
"And you're not, by bringing out Greed!? You know what he'll do, he'll use you…figure out who to make nice to and go court them himself, the same people you're making me fuck, and then I'll have put out for no reason. Why don't you just give them to him straight off and save me the fucking trouble!"
She didn't even bother to disentangle her hands from his hair, just clapped them together with a fist of his body's red hair still caught between, and he cried out as the transformation came over him involuntarily. It was painful when she did it, like knives ghosting over every inch of his skin, splitting him open, pulling himself out…pulling himself, fuck, that was his own face he was seeing in the mirror now. Not Margarite's freckled country girl cheeks anymore but his own thin pale ones; not girlish curls but long flat spikes of hair, the spines he kept to hide behind. His true face now on Margarite's curvy body, and for a moment it was all he could do just to gasp and gape.
That's my face, he wanted to shriek. What's my face doing on her body, what are you playing at, I'll be good, please, just leave me my face…
"You accuse me of making you a whore," Dante spat the word, as if it in and of itself were unclean. "You don't know the meaning of the word."
She stabbed a finger into his chest and he realized in horror that he could not move a muscle even to recoil from that touch…her alchemy had shut him down entirely for the moment, choked off his access to the pool of lives stored inside him.
"Homunculi do as they are designed, as they are created. They are nothing more, nothing less," she said. "It was not my intention to whore you, you are a better tool than this. Don't presume to know my intentions."
She clapped her hands again and touched the centers of his shoulder blades, channeled energy into the power conduits there. Ohfuckohfuck, he could feel the muscles in his legs contract of their own volition, lifting him up as if invisible strings were pulling him like a marionette.
"You want to be a whore, then I will treat you like a whore," Dante said. "Now march."
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck, and there were no other words because he couldn't even scream. His legs were moving of their own volition, propelling him out ahead of her, and her hand on his back was keeping it that way - to the outside eye a friendly helping hand, to him a literal controlling interest. He could tell by the reactions of some of the servant girls that it was surprising to them that Dante had gone in with one girl and come out with another, but the bitch was too worked up to even think about that now, was she? But humans were stupid anyhow; all she'd have to do was lie and say that curly hair was a wig, hadn't his face always been this way, ah ha ha the miracles of modern makeup…no one would even realize that yes, this was his face, why was she making him bare his true face? That was how he always got through these things, by hiding behind another person's mask. He couldn't conceive of going to woo someone wearing his true face, it turned his body's stomach.
I'll bite his fucking cock off, he thought desperately. I'll change back and rip him a new asshole.
Dante steered him out from the powder room and down a long twisting corridor, into a lavishly decorated side chamber. One look from her and the servants there scattered looking absolutely terrified. She directed him over to a thick, squishy bed and forced him to sit down on the mattress, then shoved him hard until he flopped backward. It smelled of dust and dry sweat.
"The Baron Redcalf will be in to see you shortly," she said, smiling down at him. "And then you will know the difference between what you do, and what it means to be a whore."
She flipped up his thick skirts and pushed back his petticoats, stacked them so high on his torso that he could no longer see her. His eyes were the only part of himself that he yet had control over, and he tried to say IhateyouIhateyou with only his irises.
"Enjoy," she said to someone just beyond her, and shoved Envy's legs wide.
To Be Continued. (Heron editorial: o.O!)