fic (fullmetal alchemist)
title: the briefest shining of the dead
fandom: fullmetal alchemist
character/pairing: Winry Rockbell
rating: K+
wordcount: 430
summary: She tries not to remember certain things.
notes: Refers to the disastrous human transmutation, and, as such, contains references to gore. Winry Rockbell has nerves of steel. There is little you can say to convince me otherwise.
First posted in June 2005, in a slightly different format.
Sometimes she dreams that she is holding fiercely onto their hands. In her dreams the three of them are young again, and untainted; Ed's limbs are made of bone and flesh and Al is all human, apologetically taller than almost everyone else his age. Her parents have never gone away, and there is nothing about anyone's family that suggest the hairline cracks that prelude broken glass.
Winry knows that she's not really dreaming. She is just remembering the safe and quiet heat of her young summers. She remembers endless games of tag, their fair hair burning whiter in the bright sun, and their ineffectual attempts to catch fish with their bare hands from the cold river that burbled smugly through the hillside.
But she remembers too the gaunt, hollow look Ed and Al's faces took on after their mother died. And she remembers curling up between them on Trisha Elric's empty bed, weeping sympathetic tears. She remembers holding onto their hands as if she were holding them to life, and being the last one to fall asleep. She remembers Ed's uncommon and fathomless eyes, Al's trembling lower lip; Winry had wanted, more than anything in the world, to make their hurt go away.
She remembers the countless flowers that the boys burned out of their chalk circles. There were enough to cover the grave, the rest of the small hill, to fill her chubby and nerveless hands. The flowers had been white and so fragrant that she knew the scent was only there to mask the smell of newly-turned grave dirt.
Winry remembers too much of what happened afterward: the months of study, Ed and Al's first departure, and the blood that came after their return, the weeping also-Al had not stopped trying to shed tears for hours, his great metal chest heaving oddly, the burnished surface smeared with ugly dark clots of Ed's blood. She remembers, and regrets, leaving Al to his own devices for hours as she and Granny worked to stop Ed from bleeding out. When her grandmother went to the Elric house and took care of the mess the boys had left behind, Winry had at last come to Al and washed him clean, though part of her had pretended the whole time that the dark mess on the armor was just mud. She remembers at least managing a small smile.
She remembers this, but she is trying to forget it, at least a little. In her sleep she dreams of summer, the golden, still inhalation that the world took in before falling apart around her.
fandom: fullmetal alchemist
character/pairing: Winry Rockbell
rating: K+
wordcount: 430
summary: She tries not to remember certain things.
notes: Refers to the disastrous human transmutation, and, as such, contains references to gore. Winry Rockbell has nerves of steel. There is little you can say to convince me otherwise.
First posted in June 2005, in a slightly different format.
Sometimes she dreams that she is holding fiercely onto their hands. In her dreams the three of them are young again, and untainted; Ed's limbs are made of bone and flesh and Al is all human, apologetically taller than almost everyone else his age. Her parents have never gone away, and there is nothing about anyone's family that suggest the hairline cracks that prelude broken glass.
Winry knows that she's not really dreaming. She is just remembering the safe and quiet heat of her young summers. She remembers endless games of tag, their fair hair burning whiter in the bright sun, and their ineffectual attempts to catch fish with their bare hands from the cold river that burbled smugly through the hillside.
But she remembers too the gaunt, hollow look Ed and Al's faces took on after their mother died. And she remembers curling up between them on Trisha Elric's empty bed, weeping sympathetic tears. She remembers holding onto their hands as if she were holding them to life, and being the last one to fall asleep. She remembers Ed's uncommon and fathomless eyes, Al's trembling lower lip; Winry had wanted, more than anything in the world, to make their hurt go away.
She remembers the countless flowers that the boys burned out of their chalk circles. There were enough to cover the grave, the rest of the small hill, to fill her chubby and nerveless hands. The flowers had been white and so fragrant that she knew the scent was only there to mask the smell of newly-turned grave dirt.
Winry remembers too much of what happened afterward: the months of study, Ed and Al's first departure, and the blood that came after their return, the weeping also-Al had not stopped trying to shed tears for hours, his great metal chest heaving oddly, the burnished surface smeared with ugly dark clots of Ed's blood. She remembers, and regrets, leaving Al to his own devices for hours as she and Granny worked to stop Ed from bleeding out. When her grandmother went to the Elric house and took care of the mess the boys had left behind, Winry had at last come to Al and washed him clean, though part of her had pretended the whole time that the dark mess on the armor was just mud. She remembers at least managing a small smile.
She remembers this, but she is trying to forget it, at least a little. In her sleep she dreams of summer, the golden, still inhalation that the world took in before falling apart around her.