Of Irony and Penance
Hazelle Hoshi
In the silence of the night, when all one could hear was the humming of the crickets, their hearts scream out for one another. Crying out in the loneliness that would never be satiated, the distance that is impossible to shorten.
In her own sanctuary, she embraced her knees towards herself, curling up into a tiny of ball of a mop of blonde mess. Sure, when the daylight's invading everything her azure eyes can see, her façade of happiness was a mask tight and sure on her face. People wouldn't unerstand the pain of waiting forever for a man who wouldn't come back. They wouldn't understand how broken her soul was, for waiting since the beginning of time, and will be waiting till it all ends.
He'll never come back.
In her mind, she was Penelope waiting for her Odysseus to finish fighting his own battles. But then, Penelope had a more fortunate fate. Odysseus came back after his battles. Edward lost himself in his battles. And that was where Penelope got the better bargain than Winry Rockbell.
In the confines of his mind, nothing was more painful than the regret consuming him alive. He had deliberately lost himself years ago as penance for his mistakes. Only he didn't know that his all was not totally lost until he made the decision to give everything up.
The burning of the house, the poetic act of moving on, was not enough. And instead of moving on, he found himself clinging onto the past with every step he took away from the ashes of his childhod bliss. But even then, the constant presence of the surrogate family he had acquired from their mistake had always kept him rooted in the place called Rizembool.
He didn't really know how to lose everything, even after burning down their house. Even after losing his mother, or the fact that his father had died, sacrificing himself for the greater cause of a world unknown to them. He really didn't realize he hasn't lost everything until her arms wound around him, holding him tightly against her lithe form, trying to prolong the eternity that must have been theirs, should have been theirs but was robbed off of them by the greed of men to all things greater. It was when she held him, and he knew that this little heaven was all he could get in this lifetime that he knew this was how it felt to lose everything, everything that he had nly came to realize when he had seen her form running towards him.
He had always hated his father for leaving them. But maybe, all he tried to avoid to do, he had been doing since the day he left Rizembool. And aside from the pain and hurt, he also felt disgusted at himself, for being Hohenheim as leave Winry in Rizembool, in their world.
And he thought to himself, now that only memories were all he has left, if Hohenheim felt this pain when he left their family. If his father felt the regret of being away from his mother. But he remembered the fact that Hohenheim was at the very least, in the same world as their mother all those years ago.
Perhaps, everything he did up to this point was not enough to chastise him for his mistakes. And his penance was really Winry Rockbell.
Author's Note: The idea just popped while I was reading one of Giant Nickel's works. You should check out her stuff.:D
Criticisms are most welcome. :D