(no subject)
X-posted at my journal, Fanfiction.net, and fma_het. Though it might be welcome over here as well.
Summary: Sometimes Winry has to remind herself that Ed isn't the only one with a desire to work miracles. [Introspective Angst, Professional!Winry, PG, vauge Ed/Winry]
Prostheses
Sometimes she cannot bear to look away from people’s hands-the spindly fingers and their fleshy palms, made up of elaborate lines and creases, tiny wrinkles and scars. Her own hands are maps of fine lines, fingerprints, scratches, and small imperfections. The variance in the layer of epidermis fascinates her.
On her workbench, she keeps a wax model of a hand, the skin peeled back to show off the painted interior: complicated webs of veins, the shock-white tendons, and the marbled pink and red muscles. While she welds together the steel plates for yet another prosthetic limb, she studies it.
She wants to be capable of creating that, and because of her work-the visual puzzle of affixing tiny screws and wire into their rightful positions-she understands what this kind of miracle would take.
Late at night, when she has no more metal to distract her, no welding or melting or refining, she inspects medical texts and teaches herself to understand why the traceries of nerves and hair-fine capillaries are more art than science. Mentally, she peels away the layers of epidermis, dermis, and cutis on her fingers, glimpses the smooth protrusions of bone.
She imagines holding dissected hands up to the light, thinks of the tendons connected to her wrist and elbow as clearly as if they were an illustration: the inelastic tissue connecting muscle to bone, rows of elongated cells with little substance. They are densely arranged, almost parallel, almost beautiful, woven of fibrous proteins.
She falls asleep staring at pictures of dissected cadavers and dreams of the shadows that blood vessels cast when held up to the light. She dreams of equal trade and formed elements and odd promises: to do good and to uphold the law.
To rebuild the fingers, hand and arm of a boy her age out of metal, to articulate them without flesh.
She dreams of a science dictated by what you can create, not by what you can give.
When she wakes, she reminds herself that mechanics, despite appearances, are also an art: one of precision, delicacy, and strength.
Hope you all enjoy this; comments are appreciated.