Title: Circumference
Author: Doubleplusgoodduckspeaker
Summary: What is the cost of death? What is the price of a life?
Disclaimer: I do not own Full Metal Alchemist!
Notes: Set in the semifinal/final episode of the anime series, when Ed comes back in through the gate. Philosophical musings and slight references to fractals.
Matter and Energy.
Two concepts inextricably linked to one's understanding of their world (what they choose to call their world).
By their laws, they shape our world. It is how we shape our world with alchemy, manipulating matter by using energy. Before something can be reformed, it must first be broken down, until nothing but energy is left.
That same energy flows through each of us. I feel it. I know it.
I know (knew) that energy cannot be created or destroyed. But energy for alchemy, which essentially is energy—
It's like a circle. A transmutation circle.
I can't accept what Hohenheim told me. That world, on the other side of the Gate—do their lives mean nothing? It is the energy of their deceased which fuels the spark of our own transmutations. When I think back to every alchemic reaction, it all seems so pointless. Did someone have to die for me to fix a radio? To save someone else's life? To save my own?
So many died to form the philosopher's stone. I saw with my own eyes the destruction in this world and the one beyond the Gate (is there no end to the war on either front—?) and can't imagine the cost that was paid in lives simply to fuel the reaction.
It's like a circle.
In death, energy is released which fuels alchemy in our world. In our world, deaths release energy which forms the philosopher's stone. The philosopher's stone breaks the cycle of equivalent exchange, the cycle of death, but in this action a new cycle starts. It's a cycle of cycles, and it starts (and ends—?) in death.
.
What is the cost of death? A high price, paid for in years, experiences, emotions, memories…
.
What is the price of a life?
.
Life is the anomaly. What must you pay to light that spark which burns so brightly inside of you? What do I pay with each beat of my heart? Each clap of my hands?
Life sustains the circle. Without Life, there would be no death.
Then what does it mean to be born only to die? To draw air into your lungs, knowing that it is simply a matter of time? There has to be more.
Because the World is so much larger than we can comprehend. Equivalent exchange is more than just a life for a life (priceless); because Life is an opportunity for growth and experience and I want that…but not for myself. It's never been about my life.
Matter is Energy.
They are both, and both are one, and as I am Matter, I am also Energy, and the combination of both (potential) lights that spark (thermal) and each clap of my hands (kinetic) carries so much more meaning to me now.
This understanding is what makes it possible. This reaction will be the last, and also the most important. I know what I must do. My last thoughts are of Al, healthy and whole, and maybe things haven't gone full circle, but it's as close as I can manage right now. There's still time.
I clap my hands, and this time, the payment is wholly mine (Or is it—?).
...
What is the price of death? What is the cost of a life? What does the World gain from birth, or lose from death?
...
It's like a circle.
Short, but succinct. Haven't ever written for FMA before, but after watching the anime finale again... questionsquestionsquestions, which usually means story. Share your thoughts with me!