3rd in the Greed History Series
Title: Calm Before the Storm
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Rating: T
Summary: Greed is curious about Dante's apprentice....
Notes: This is the third in my "Greed History Series"--there's "That First Night", and "Lesson the First", then this one. It's completely inspired by "The Phantom of the Opera". XP Although the last sentence, the ending line may be vague, it's a plain foreshadowing of the next installment, and will be cleared up in that piece. (The whole thing's meant to be light-hearted, since the next one will be...heavy, gruesome angst. T_T; Actually, the rest of the series is gonna be pretty...depressing?)
Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist.
Dante had looked especially scary when telling him to stay away from her apprentice, and Hoenheim had been quite stern, so Greed had seriously listened...but he really wanted to meet Elizabeth. How could he not? She offered company other than the elders--not that there was anything wrong with them.... (Okay, there was something off with his creator, but Teacher was fine.) Still, he obeyed...while stalking the girl quietly at times when he was especially tempted and curious.
First thing he'd done in response to Dante's order was to practice creeping through the mansion halls, which he soon mastered, and to his good fortune, found some hidden passages in the house--large creeping halls that seemed to exist for no particularly sane reason. There weren't any lit candles, but it gave Greed the chance to test his eyes out; they were damn good for seeing in the dark, and the boy felt ridiculously superior. And so it went: inside the mansion, the Homunculus would follow her whenever the urge struck him, yet only used the locked-away halls as a last resort; when outside, he'd slink through the foliage, shelter himself in the trees during his observations.
Watching Elizabeth was rarely boring--he was really getting to know a human, how could that ever turn bland? Hoenheim was too private, and Greed felt no loss in being oblivious to Dante...the alchemist-in-training was far more accessible to the Homunculus, proposing that perhaps the youth were easier than the old. And she was young, only 10 years old; still, Greed thought it more of an accomplishment than his meager month and a half of life. (Nevertheless, the Homunculus had big plans for that life: there was so much to see and learn and do, certainly more than he could fathom currently.)
He watched her--the first time he watched her, all he could think was that Dante dressed her funny. Elizabeth wore an impossibly frilly maid uniform, and every step she took meant another restrained chuckle on Greed's behalf. It took time, but the Homunculus grew accustomed to her bizarre appearance, his eyes drawn more to her work, especially her alchemic training. (There was method to the madness of the maid uniform--Elizabeth managed the entire place, and Greed grew to pity her so much, he'd do at least one of her chores per day; with the mansion's size, he could easily get away with this, the girl would just assume the one or more things he did were actually items she'd check off her list.)
Most of her lessons took place outside, which went over very well with the Homunculus--he preferred outside much better than the mansion, which could become too stuffy and confining most of the time, its only saving features being the library and the kitchen and Teacher. Crouched on wood, Greed's violet eyes would fixate on the arrays drawn in the dirt, both Elizabeth's and Dante's. Of course, the elder redhead's were perfect; the younger brunette's arrays still had imperfections in the curves and jagged angles. The Homunculus thought Dante should've waited until her apprentice could draw perfectly when stationary, but soon figured that she probably knew teaching better in the end. As Elizabeth's arrays were imperfect, so were her results; the sculptures of various creatures sprouted from the dirt were always deformed in some way, but Greed found them endlessly amusing--they were deformed in such a way as chimeras, after all. Repairing things such as broken dishes didn't turn as deformed, but the arrays were still crooked enough for the china to retain a few cracks. But the crackling energy and glowing light accompanying the 10-year-old's transmutations were...pure, didn't form a small pit of fear in his stomach as Hoenheim's and Dante's--mostly Dante's--alchemy did.
Frankly, it was damn fun to watch.
Yet Greed soon found that Elizabeth did love something more than her alchemy, and that was her religion. His fuzzy memories, which whispered that Ishbalan prayer of the dead to him, had spurned the Homunculus to look up the institution through books, and considering what he read, the boy deemed religion to be...fine, but not perfect in the slightest: too many people fought over it, and the various gods he read about came off as much to cruel to him. Those opinions were solidified further by Hoenheim's own distaste for it, although Greed found he could be as harsh as the characteristic gods. So, the girl had made him curious: it was the way she took refuge in her Bible, rubbed her rosary beads and folded her hands in prayer, and her silver cross necklace was very shiny. And from Elizabeth's religion he found her deeply superstitious, and with that he began to scheme.
&&&&&&
"Elizabeth...."
The Homunculus gave a devilish smile as the girl stiffened, her hairbrush pausing in their strokes. He would wait patiently, let her make the next move, so that he may counter.
"...Are you an angel?" Greed blinked; nestled behind the walls, in a hidden passage with an inconspicuous view into the 10-year-old's room--most of the passages had those useful peep holes--the Homunculus had been planning on pretending to be a ghost, but a celestial being would do just as well for his purposes.
"Why would you think that?" Still, Greed wished to play more, he had never played with a human before. Finally, Elizabeth set her brush down, her mousy brown hair forgotten.
"Who else would, well...."
"Have a disembodied voice?" Slowly, she nodded, and the Homunculus allowed her to hear his dry chuckle.
"Why would an angel visit you, Milady?" Surprisingly, he was getting a kick out of the mock-formality.
"Oh! I, uh--" and Elizabeth soon dissolved into blushes and fretting hands, her embarrassment bared for all to see.
"Now, now, ‘twas a simply question Milady; why so anxious?" His voice was coaxing, silky smooth.
"It," she looked up, hazel eyes wide in her heart-shaped face, "it would--I am not important enough for an angel." Elizabeth looked down, and the Homunculus felt the urge to reach out and lift her face up, but the wall would have none of that.
"I'll be the judge of what's important, and what's not." Left eye twitching, Greed marveled at how his attempt at an authoritative tone ended up imitating Hoenheim's; it was...weird.
"Yes," snapped the girl, balking, and now she was imitating him, his deference to Teacher. More weird....
"So it's settled," chirped the Homunculus, rapidly shifting into childish satisfaction. "We'll communicate...as long as you do not mention my presence to a single living soul." Dante could not find out about this, and he was certain that the girl would be inclined to follow this order, as long as it appeared divine.
"Understood, Angel."
Greed loved being right.
&&&&&&
"You've what?"
"Right, I chatter too much on things I really shouldn't, but please, please Teacher, don't tell Dante about the passages and the angel thing--"
"You've watched her undress?"
"...Yes, and that's your only problem? Not my whole direct violation of yours and Dante's explicit orders?"
"...Clearly, I have been lax in my lessons to you Greed--"
"How is kicking my ass lax?"
"Not combat, and things have been more even between us, you are not so thoroughly beaten anymore--anyway, I speak of other things, more...unwritten--"
"As in one of those things that's not in a textbook?"
"Yes, one of those things, more oriented with life's...niceties."
"I'm losing you."
"Maybe you should pay more attention...the point is, there are certain social rules, one of them being to give a young woman her privacy."
"Are you talking about Liz? 'Cause, I distinctly remember you calling her a slip of a girl before--"
"It's Elizabeth, Greed...correction, all females in general, past a certain age of adolescence--those of the opposite sex mustn't watch them undress."
"Why? ...Wait, Liz isn't an adolescent yet, she's only 10--"
"GREED!"
"Uh...."
"...It's Elizabeth, and as I said before, it is a rule of social concepts."
"And as you said before, my eyes glaze over when rules are listed...."
"It just--it isn't proper, it's rude and perverse for a man to do such a thing, it disregards the female's privacy."
"And we all know how you're an advocate of privacy."
"...Do you understand?"
"...Wait, is this something that'd hurt Liz's feelings if she knew about this?"
"Yes, very much so. And it's Elizabeth."
"...Can't really apologize without really screwing myself, but I won't do it again."
"...The fault lies with me for keeping you ignorant; you knew no better, and were simply curious."
"...."
"Also...there is a certain...wisdom in things better left unsaid."
"Is that particularly honest? ...And why can't I call her Liz?"
"An endearment like that means you're growing far too attached to her."
"And this is a problem, how?"
"It'll complicate Dante's future plans."
"Stop being cryptic."
"I will, once you abandon this train of thought."
"What, is this the whole cat killing thing?"
"...."
"Okay, I'll take that as a yes."
"Yet I get the feeling you won't be stopped."
"Of course not."
"Wipe off that damn smirk...Greed, I mean it...DON'T stick your tongue out at me!..."
&&&&&&
Besides general talk that tip-toed around the his burning, yet incriminating questions, Greed soon tried imparting his own advice on alchemy to Dante's apprentice, in the only area available to him.
"Your hands are way too tense, that's why your arrays aren't as smooth as they should be; you need to relax more."
"How?" Asked Elizabeth, laying down her charcoal and picking her head up from the paper.
"You look calm when you pray, am I right?"
"Yes, talking to Our Lord soothes me...."
"Try thinking of prayer the next time you draw, then."
"I do not know if any amount of prayer can stave off Master Dante's--ah, my tongue runs away with me." The girl fretted with her hands once more--it was a habit of hers, he soon learned--totally abashed, and Greed had to bite down a snicker.
"No, your Teacher is foreboding." Still, the Homunculus took a certain pleasure in playing at fancy chatter. "Just ignore her, focus completely on your alchemy."
Her eyes blinked rapidly.
"That's the same thing Master has told me."
"Not necessarily; I was more complete, included Dante in the things you need to block out. Of course, she teaches you, but you have to divorce yourself from the human in her and just concentrate on the lessons she's given you; if you don't, you worry about her approval, or fear her temperament, correct?"
Elizabeth nodded, commenting on how well he read her. He restrained himself from spouting out a playful remark on "all-seeing angels", if only because pride was a sin according to the Bible, and an angel would not partake in such a thing, even in jest.
"Much better," purred the Homunculus, observing how the 10-year-old's charcoal flew over the blank sheet; she practiced a few minutes more, and perhaps would've gotten to at least an hour, if not for the distraction of good conversation: Greed and her dissolved into talk of various things, drifting into Elizabeth's soft snore to signal the end.
&&&&&&
Dante applauding the perfection of the arrays and their transmutations, both the apprentice and the Homunculus beamed.
Greed rushed out of the trees unnoticed, heading straight for the kitchen. He took pains to work with the rest of Elizabeth's schedule that day, making sure he went into the kitchen when she was clear on the other side doing laundry. He worked fast, snapping open a cookbook; violet eyes flicking across the print, both hands went for the cabinets and whipped out all the necessary things, all the appropriate utensils and containers. Amid the eggs and the flour and the batter, the Homunculus made an absolute mess; only a mental image of his creator's face had him clean up the entire thing in record time. Then, racing into her room, he left his work on Elizabeth's desk, carefully placing its accompanying note on her Bible. Finally, he took his place in the passage, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Greed had never waited for the 10-year-old before, actually; normally, he came to her when she was already settled. This new experience wasn't comfortable, not at all; this, was boring. More time passed, and still nothing, and the Homunculus concluded he had rushed too quickly. Hell, without really thinking, he began meditating! As things were clearly getting out of hand, the young alchemist finally entered, and with her, there was a delighted gasp that made the Homunculus melt and feel all shades of gratefulness.
"Thank you," she whispered, simply staring at the small cinnamon roll slathered in cream. "I won't tell," replied the girl, referring to the note. (Besides the order of secrecy, the note also had the message, in bold, messy letters, "CONGRATULATIONS!")
"Taste good?"
"Excellent." Elizabeth only said that in between mouthfuls, fork suspended in mid-air; she was not one to speak with her mouth full.
"Don't expect this on a regular basis; a physical manifestation like this is no easy feat."
"Understood." She gave the brightest smile he had ever seen on her face, and again, he melted. "Again, thank you."
"And again, your welcome," Greed returned, leaning away from the peep holes and against the wall, folding his arms behind his head, a make-shift pillow formed. Eyes closed peacefully, he just listened to any munching sounds he could detect--the girl, at heart, was a quiet one--the clinking sounds of silverware most prominent, and in her hands, very tinkly.
Such content would be lost on Greed in the days to come, once Elizabeth was gone.
...Linking "That First Night" below here.
http://greedyslayer.livejournal.com/5062.html
...Also linking "Lesson the First", the one after that--the one before this piece--here.
http://greedyslayer.livejournal.com/12129.html