Fic: Trans-Mutation (FMA, Ed gen)
Title: Trans-Mutation
Author: harmonyangel
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist manga, pre-series
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Ed, Al, Trisha
Summary: As he and Al planned to bring back their mother, Ed made a plan of his own.
Author's Notes: Written for Prompt 146, "Failed Transmutation," at fma_fic_contest, at which it won first place.
Edward Elric had never felt comfortable in his own body. It wasn't just his height -- though he didn't like that, either, hated how easy it was for others to disregard him. But his hatred of his height was more a hatred of his own youth, of the ways the adults around him never took him seriously. If someone would give him just a little bit of respect, he would never complain about his height again.
What Ed truly hated about his body, more than his height, was the way it never quite matched up to what he wanted it to be. He looked too much like his brother, Al -- Al, who had always seemed comfortable with exactly who he was, who never complained or got riled up or stared at mirrors in confusion and nonrecognition. Ed didn't want to look like Al. Sisters, he was sure, weren't supposed to look just like their brothers.
Ed tried to talk to his mom about it. But her eyes would never meet his. When she did listen, she would cry, and Ed was never sure if she was crying because of what he said or just crying the way she'd always cried since That Guy had run off and left her alone with two small children and a ramshackle farmhouse. Other times she'd just shake her head, laugh nervously, and take him for another haircut. So Ed stopped talking about it. He'd already lost one parent, and pretending seemed a small price to pay for motherly love.
Then his mother died, and nothing else seemed to matter anymore.
But soon he and Al hatched a plan: they would learn the art of human transmutation and bring back the only real parent they'd ever known. And Ed, bolstered by the inspirational image of Izumi Curtis and by the threatening onset of a puberty that would make his body even more ill-fitting than before, figured out his own plan. First, they'd bring back their mom. And then, when they'd succeeded at something that no other alchemist had accomplished, then he would use transmutation on himself. Then he'd be the girl he'd always known he was. After accomplishing resurrection, how difficult could it possibly be?
But they didn't succeed. And how can Ed hate his body when his brother doesn't have a body at all? Ed looks at himself and sees a leg and an arm, feels a heart beating in his flat chest and breath rising up from his lungs. How can he still hate a part of his own flesh and blood when his brother would kill for even a tiny piece?
So he pretends, again. For his mother, and for Al, who doesn't look very much like him anymore, he will pretend he's still Edward Elric, that "he" is a word that fits the person he is.
On the day of the failed transmutation, she makes a private vow: until the day Alphonse Elric gets his body back, his sister Edward won't even think about getting her own.
Author: harmonyangel
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist manga, pre-series
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Ed, Al, Trisha
Summary: As he and Al planned to bring back their mother, Ed made a plan of his own.
Author's Notes: Written for Prompt 146, "Failed Transmutation," at fma_fic_contest, at which it won first place.
Edward Elric had never felt comfortable in his own body. It wasn't just his height -- though he didn't like that, either, hated how easy it was for others to disregard him. But his hatred of his height was more a hatred of his own youth, of the ways the adults around him never took him seriously. If someone would give him just a little bit of respect, he would never complain about his height again.
What Ed truly hated about his body, more than his height, was the way it never quite matched up to what he wanted it to be. He looked too much like his brother, Al -- Al, who had always seemed comfortable with exactly who he was, who never complained or got riled up or stared at mirrors in confusion and nonrecognition. Ed didn't want to look like Al. Sisters, he was sure, weren't supposed to look just like their brothers.
Ed tried to talk to his mom about it. But her eyes would never meet his. When she did listen, she would cry, and Ed was never sure if she was crying because of what he said or just crying the way she'd always cried since That Guy had run off and left her alone with two small children and a ramshackle farmhouse. Other times she'd just shake her head, laugh nervously, and take him for another haircut. So Ed stopped talking about it. He'd already lost one parent, and pretending seemed a small price to pay for motherly love.
Then his mother died, and nothing else seemed to matter anymore.
But soon he and Al hatched a plan: they would learn the art of human transmutation and bring back the only real parent they'd ever known. And Ed, bolstered by the inspirational image of Izumi Curtis and by the threatening onset of a puberty that would make his body even more ill-fitting than before, figured out his own plan. First, they'd bring back their mom. And then, when they'd succeeded at something that no other alchemist had accomplished, then he would use transmutation on himself. Then he'd be the girl he'd always known he was. After accomplishing resurrection, how difficult could it possibly be?
But they didn't succeed. And how can Ed hate his body when his brother doesn't have a body at all? Ed looks at himself and sees a leg and an arm, feels a heart beating in his flat chest and breath rising up from his lungs. How can he still hate a part of his own flesh and blood when his brother would kill for even a tiny piece?
So he pretends, again. For his mother, and for Al, who doesn't look very much like him anymore, he will pretend he's still Edward Elric, that "he" is a word that fits the person he is.
On the day of the failed transmutation, she makes a private vow: until the day Alphonse Elric gets his body back, his sister Edward won't even think about getting her own.