Written for fma_fic_contest, in which I got first place! Prompt was "Overheard".
Title: Shadow
Summary: She knew it all.
Rating: K+ for mild implications
Characters: Ling, Ran Fan
Mangaverse
Word Count: 242
A/N: Been a while since I did one of these. I just got back into the fanfiction swing, so I thought I should. :) Enjoy! As always, FMA belongs to Hiromu Arakawa.
No one noticed her.
That was how it was supposed to be. Emperor Ling needed her to be there, to listen, ready and waiting to fight if need be. He wanted her to hear everything, be ready for everything.
Once she'd overheard a wine servant talking about a plot to murder the Empress's child- Master Ling's, child- while still in the womb. The conspirators were found, and executed.
The Empress knew of no plots, no brewing wars or peace treaties until the day they were made public, and even then, Emperor Ling did not tell her of them.
But Ran Fan knew it all.
She was his shadow. She did not live in it, the way some people would say. She was his shadow; bound to his every step, slipping between cracks and around corners, going where he could not. A part of him, in a way the Empress would never be.
She did not envy the Empress. It was not her place, for one. For another, she would not have wanted to be that woman no matter what it would have offered. A place in Emperor Ling's bed? Birthing his child? There were times where she saw flashes of herself doing those things and wished for it, but the Empress existed for those purposes alone.
And Ran Fan did not.
As she stood on the rafters, observing the crowd, lights dancing before her, Emperor Ling's eyes caught hers, and he smiled.