fandom: fullmetal alchemist (brotherhood)
pairing/characters: lingfan
rating: K+
A/N: hey guys! so I'm just posting some stuff I put on tumblr and forgot to post here too. this is pretty much a standalone drabble, but I've decided to start a multi-pairing and character drabble series for fma. angsty lingfan for the first installment. enjoy! as always, please review if you can!
Lan Fan watched patiently from the shadows cast by the yellow moon hanging over the palace courtyard. The humid air of the Xingese night made her automail stiff and her clothes stick to her skin, but she was nothing if she could not weather just a little discomfort. Her fingers wrapped tighter around the kunai hidden in her sleeve as she watched the Gao clan girl stumble out from the Young Lord's bedchamber, giggling and trembling, her crimson robes hanging off her frame precariously.
Don't be selfish, Lan Fan, the bodyguard reminded herself.
Ling lay on the rumpled satin sheets of the bed shirtless and with both hands tucked behind his head, wearing the goofy smile Lan Fan knew well. She had to remind herself to breathe.
Don't be selfish, Lan Fan.
"I'm going to be emperor soon, you know," Ling says abruptly, with his back to her.
"I know that, Young Lord."
"I wonder which clan will offer me a wife first," he mused.
"Probably the Gao clan," Lan Fan replies witheringly. "You've already staked your claim haven't you?"
And Ling just laughs out loud. Lan Fan's heard his laugh a million times a day from when she was just a little girl in the plains of Yao territory, but she can't help but feel her heart fall into her stomach.
Don't be selfish, Lan Fan.
Those were the words her grandfather once told her, as soon as he saw his young, stoic granddaughter becoming too attached to the twelfth prince of Xing. But as she fell onto his bed sheets and he linked his bare arm around her metal one, she couldn't help but feel angry at the mantra she's been repeating for so long. She had given him everything, her arm, her life, her loyalty, her love.
She can be selfish for a few more nights.