Dawn: Ugh, this is so not how I wanted this to go up.

Ed: Then how was it supposed to go up?

Dawn: I wanted to have the first chapter up as well. This is important, yeah, but I'm worried people'll think it's just filler...

Roy: It's not filler! I get mentioned in here!

Ed: Oh shut up, Roy. This is all the screen time we get.

Roy: Why's that?

Dawn: Eh heh heh heh, that's my cue to leave. *runs away*

Roy: COME BACK HERE, YOU! *chases after with random flamethrower*

Ed: *sigh* Okay, reviews will be met with cookies, ImmortalDawn18 obviously doesn't own FullMetal Alchemist, blah blah blah, all the usual jazz that Dawn might put at the end but can't because of the footnotes. Now, please excuse me while I go stop Roy from burning off Dawn's eyebrows because she'll then have Hawkeye make him a woman...


Maintenant et pour toujours (1)

Introduction: Réflexions d'un ange (2)

Into this world, we are born perfect. Once we take our first breath, however, we are made imperfect, and there is only one way to reachieve perfection. Once we die, there, in the realm of Hades, are we slingshot back to perfection. In all my millenia of life, only one way has been discovered to cheat, one method to come close enough to the ethereal perfection of us angels to satisfy the mortals, at least at first.(3)

The only way for the foolish mundanes to reach their perfection prematurely is to kill the body and lose the soul but protect and enhance the mind. I can see your confused look, you who are so new to the life of an immortal, so I shall explain why this is not so impossible as it might seem, but first, we will be forced to examine some common mythology to verify we are on the same page of understanding. I regret the shameless teasing I have put before you, but there is yet another foundation to the world we must exploit before delving back into cheating Ammut of his supper (4), and to those of you who are merely skimming this and waiting for me to get on with the story, I urge you to be more patient; if you don't understand this, you will never fully appreciate the tale I will relate to you.

Magic is real, just as much so as you or I, but not in the ways it is usually misconceptualized as. There is no wishing to know magic, no chants, no spellbooks, no possible manner to learn its myriad of mysteries. A being, no matter what kind of creature it may be, is born with the same magic it will die with, the sole exception being the aforementioned cheaters, but we will disregard them in the present moment. If a person is born with the power to harness the winds, they will die knowing only how to manipulate the wind, no matter how long they may study under the tutelage of another. That is not to say one may not obtain mastery or manifest their power later in life, for such occurrence is commonplace, but such powers will have been inherent from even the womb.

There is magic in every creature, no matter how small a spark may be. Once that spark is touched, to create something, another thing of equal value must be lost. These hold themselves evident in all we angels know to be true, known as the All-Spark Law and the Law of Equivalent Exchange, and they are upheld, whether a person, and I use the term loosely to encompass any sentient being, proves to be a monolith or a polymath. The monolith, the lowest of powers, is one who cannot adopt any form save their own, while a polymath, skilled in the least skillful magic of shapeshifting, may possess any number of aspects to their spark; sadly, the magic has proven itself a recessive trait, so rarely manifesting itself in any race save us angels.

Perhaps it seems fitting then for us angels to be the catalyst for the worst thing to happen since the meteor exterminated the dinosaurs. You see, there are only two ways an angel can fall, either to be cast from our realm or fall in love with a mortal and leave our realm of their own volition. Of course, there is always the Garden of Immortality, whose fruit may kill a mortal or change the mortal into an angel, but so few choose the risk. For untold years, fallen angels lived alongside their true loves and then, once the mortal achieved perfection, the angel would follow shortly after, a practice that abhorred so many of our kind. Thus, the first cheating occurred not to spite death or find perfection, but to prolong love.

What the angel did was create an entirely new race, one who showed themselves to be nigh impossible to kill. The mortals came up with many names for this new race of killers: chasme, vrykolkas, chi'ang shi, lamia, the list goes on. Almost every culture has their own name and association for the savage beasts, the unearthly beautiful creatures most commonly called vampires.

A vampire can be created by either an angel or another vampire since the gene is dominant but are by no means immortal. Their bodies are frozen with death, unable to observe the passing of time, their minds, and thus magic, vastly superior to all save an angel, and without souls, they feel nothing but the most basic of emotions. They are cursed beings, shackled to their carnal longing for blood, but should they ever kill someone while feeding, they turn into true monsters, werewolves, who care of nothing save their next meal.

All vampires will one day become werewolves, but just like perfection, there is a way to cheat. For every vampire, there is one person, just one in the whole entire world, who possesses the lost soul of the vampire. If a vampire can find his other half and restore his or her soul in a ceremony they've known since "birth", neither the vampire nor his or her Soulmate can ever fall to werewolf, having broken the pull of blood.

And what does all this have to do with the story I am about to relate to you? It is, after all, a story of love and sacrifice, not death and despair. This is the story of Roy Mustang, one of the greatest vampires to ever walk the earth, and his chiot (5)


(1)-Maintenant et pour toujours- Now and Forever (French)

(2)-Réflexions d'un ange- Thoughts from an angel (French)

(3)-Into this world... ...at least at first.- This is based off the way my teacher described Edgar Allen Poe's philosophy to us, and just like the principles in this story, Poe too believed there was a way to cheat this principle. If you doubt me, try close reading Cask of Amontillado.

(4)- Ammut of his supper- Ammut the Devourer is a creature of Egyptian myth with the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion, and the hindquarters of a hippo. He resided in the Underworld and ate the hearts of those whose deeds outweighed the Feather of Ma'at on the magical scales of judgment.

(5)- chiot- puppy (French)