I've always wondered if Lust had more than meet the eye. I am aware that her story in the FMA03 is one of the best thing of the series, but I had to try something and this... chimera is the result. Her last line in the live action is to blame for this.
For those wondering; yes, there is a reference to The Witcher in the story.
Disclaimer: I do not own FMA.
Concupiscence; from Late Latin noun concupiscentia, from the Latin verb concupiscere. Noun, meaning sexual desire, lust, but also an ardent longing, usually sensous. In Catholic theology, its widest acceptation is that concupiscence is any yearning of the soul for good; in its strict and specific acceptation, a desire of the lower appetite contrary to reason.
The neat surface didn't cast any reflection back to her; it didn't matter how many times her violet eyes scanned the mirror, she simply couldn't see anything. A gloved hand caressed the glass right in the spot where her ouroboros tattoo should have appeared; yet again, nothing came back from the object.
Lust have held the same ritual each night —when she had the time to— for 250 years. At the beginning it was a sense of pride that drew her to the water pond near where she opened her eyes for the first time; she, the one who would make humans kneel before her, should be such a sight… only nothing arised. And nothing had happened for two centuries and a half either; each time she tried to have a look at her reflection, the mirror or whatever surface she was asking for it would negate her right to do so.
She told herself that she didn't care, why should she anyways?
Then, one day, Wrath joined them. He was such a brat, and everyone seemed to forget that before being Wrath he was a damned human without even a name. Bradley —Father didn't only gave him almost everything but also a name— carried himself through all the halls and rooms with the certainty only someone who had received the world as a gift would had. Lust —she had no name nor needed it— walked the streets, dark alleys and sewers with a slow cadence and spoke with a breathy voice only because it came natural to her not because she'd ever rehearsed in front of a mirror like her new brother did.
The truth is, Lust started to care. She caught herself many times asking both women and men how she looked to them and still, it wasn't enough. Pride found her roaming the same empty halls as his fake father and looking through the windows with a longing gaze. She knew she had black hair, a pretty face, violet eyes, full lips and perfect eyebrows but most of those features she wasn't able to see them. They deemed her perfect yet the brunette wanted to be flawed and the only way to check that was a mirror.
"You want to know, don't you?", he asked her after an especially tense day between the two of them. Bradley had never been particularly chatty, and she appreciated that since she hated mouhty men; even though, she managed to not look surprised at his sudden approach. Didn't he have a country to rule?
"Know what", her voice held the same boring tone as always, with a subtle pinch of irritation. Lust turned towards him only to be greeted with his sword blade, showed right at her face. A gasp dies in her throat at the beautiful sight of the sunset reflect on it.
"Know why you don't have a reflection". She rose one of those perfect eyebrows, a silent question to him. "Pride told me". Oh, of course. The spoiled big brother. She's grateful when the sword disappears from her sight.
"I don't need your pity, Wrath". The snarl in her voice could have melted Hell itself, only if she didn't falter at the end of the sentence. "Pride may tolerate your… mortal", she almost spat the last word, "antics, but I will not".
"You are full of yourself, sister, thinking this is about you", Pride reached his father in a few steps after turning around the hall's corner. "Father needs us focused at what will happen in Ishval", he glared at her. "And in this shape you are to no use", the dawn had cast his shadows and Pride took advantage, reaching to her with his own shades.
Even when he opened her chest, exposing her core, she did not hesitate to smirk at him. "I am too old for you, Selim", she mumbled while looking at Wrath. "I suggest you hurry up, I don't want Gluttony to see this mess, it is a pain to calm him afterwards", somehow she managed to take a strand of her curly hair and play with it absently. "Well?"
"As a creation, you don't possess a soul. And even if you have one, the ones contained in your philosopher stone are prioritized over your own". Bradley looked through the window, was that melancholy she heard in his voice? "And you know what they say: a reflection is an image of your soul. Have you one or not, your core won't let you see your reflection ever". Pride let her go suddenly, her hand going to the side table beside her for better support.
She could see Wrath's Ultimate Eye glowing in the dark. Pride was nowhere to be seen. "Everybody thinks you are perfection embodied and still, you long for flaws. What kind of sin are you, Lust?" The woman looked at him for what could've been ages until Gluttony's call for her broke the spell. "We are done here, Wrath".
People… mortals, even their own siblings thought that Lust and every one of them was perfect, though Bradley knew better; there, with her back turned to him, he could see that the shoulders are not at the same level, and before that he saw how her lips were also unequal. However, that was something she shouldn't ever know.
It was the only way she could live with pride in being a homunculus.
Moreover, it was the only way she could die with pride.
She burns, but not with desire for something unreachable. She is on fire, on and on again, mercyless snaps raising hell between the two of them.
She will kill him, and then she will throw his corpse at that Lieutenant of his.
The only desire she holds is the one to end his life; it is what makes her make her move despite the flames, the burns and the emptiness she starts to feel in her chest.
Only that when the flames are gone, she sees a woman reflected in his obsidian eyes. She is pale, way too pale in fact, has brunette hair, and violet fierce eyes. She is her, and for the first and last time in her long-lived existence, Lust is able to see how she looks.
She is perfect, like a homunculus.
And she's dying, like a human.
She loves how cold and focused his eyes are. She loves what had just seen in them.