Hello~ I've been writing a lot lately, haven't I? I feel sorry for all those poor souls who have me on Author Alert XD
Anyway, this is set in the Middle Ages (therefore, completely AU) and features Witch!Ed :D
I tried to keep the language as old-fashioned as possible during this, since it's set in medieval times and all. :3 (That's also the reason Winry calls Ed 'Edward'.)
Disclaimer~
The carefully crafted wooden door of the isolated hut flies open, eliciting a familiar moan of wood as it hit the table haphazardly strewn on the wrong side of it.
"Welcome back, Winry," I murmur, glancing up from the cauldron momentarily in greeting. My face falls into a deep frown as soon as I make eye contact. Ordinarily, Winry would either be unnecessarily angry at me for some obscene reason or she would be smiling joyously and hug me as tight as someone of her stature could.
Today however, she looks positively deathly. Her skin is pale and a thin sheen of perspiration has formed on her forehead in, what I assume was, an effort to run the entire way here from the village. Her eyes are wide and panicky, and she is trembling terribly.
"What on earth is the matter, Winry?" I inquire, setting down the stirring spoon I had been using, temporarily putting concern for my lover at the forefront of my mind, ignoring the potion that was bubbling dangerously in front of me.
"They've found us out, Edward!" she shrieks, terror lacing the words with poison.
I immediately blanch, my own eyes widening in response to the one thing I had hoped never to hear. "Have they proof of it?"
"Yes! They raided our hut - they found the cauldron and cloak and Eye of Newt!"
I briefly hesitate, lingering with my next question on my bewitched tongue, wishing there was some spell in existence that could save my hide this time. "Are they coming?"
"Now. Somewhat south of the White Woods." It seems my luck has finally run out.
"We must escape, Winry! They will find me and they will find my things, and then what? They will accuse you! And they will not believe a word of the damned when I testify your innocence of the art!"
"I shall not leave, Edward! How in the Seven Hells could you expect me to ever betray you? I would rather die a meaningless death by your side than live out my life in terror and shame!"
"Winry, you-"
"No! I will not have it! You will escape with me, Edward, and they will not find us under the Invisibility Charm!"
"Fine, after all, what else is there to do?" I mutter, gathering my black cloths around me and draping Winry in another, sheltering our shimmering hair from the sun with hoods of witches as we sweep into the shade of the welcoming Woods.
"I spot them!" A churchman calls, and I hear the canters of two horses, each carrying one man and three more men beside them. They are each bearing flame - the fools, they think mere fire can outdo a witch? - that I am sure they will use to later light the stake to which I will be bound.
"Run, Winry!" I whisper, the wind carrying the sound away from the raging men. I speak louder when she makes no move to do so. "I said run, girl!"
Winry whips her head between her ally and the encroaching enemy and with a flurry of unwarranted tears and a meek goodbye and apology flings herself behind a thousand-year-old tree, the thick trunk concealing her body and its shadow concealing hers. I know she is safe there, and pray that she will trust in me and not betray me by an act of rescue that will make us both damned.
"He is here! The witch!" another speaks.
I lower my black hood and one man reels at my hair - after all, golden hair can only be the outcome of witchcraft.
"C-capture him!" The stutters do nothing to frighten me, and I stay straight-backed where I am, hoping that my trial will be quick and my death numb.
The first churchman - the one to spot black in the shadows - is the one who acts, grabbing at my arm and screaming when it is ice cold under his calloused touch. "Metal - this arm is steel! Proof of his dastardly ways!"
I cannot object - for it was, bluntly, true.
The men take me into the cursed village, walking their horses slowly to give the people time to react. After all - who else but a witch would be walking down this dust road, cloaked in black with golden hair and burning eyes and a limb of steel, led by five churchmen and their mules?
"The witch! The witch! They caught the witch!" I hear them cry; for my demise will be celebrated by many, and I hope it will bring them happiness, for it will bring me none.
Alas, the constant tides of fate cannot be blown in the other direction; and so my death is ensured.
We arrive at the foot of the stake, glaring at me form its high perch on the logs huddling together before it - lying so close, as if they were drawing away from the witch in fear. I would not be surprised if it were true.
"Burn the witch! Burn the witch! He will die tonight!" the villagers chant, and the churchmen mock me as they shove me to the post. I stand on the dense wooden ledge designed to take a man's weight, my eyes glazed over and staring onto the distance - for that is where the White Woods lie, now. Winry is still there; I doubt she would return to the hut or seek me out so soon.
The bulky men draw the rope around my wrists, my chest, my ankles, my neck; the ties are bound so tight the wood splinters against my aching back.
They laugh and jeer at me, yet I stand (can what I am doing now count as standing?) on my deathbed, meeting their eyes.
One shouts, "Cut off his hair!" So that is what they do.
Another younger man, drunk on euphoria, takes a dagger from his belt and lops at my hair as best he can manage with the back of my neck strapped to the stake. I can feel blood trickling down my throat - no - and my golden hair falls to the wood stacked below me, and oh god I can see it there shimmering molten lava in the firelight, seven inches long. I can feel rough tips scratching my jaw and I know those men are enjoying this. I am, when it all comes down to it, a witch - therefore I deserve to be punished, and mercy should reject me for my meddlings in nature.
I just hoped and prayed all this time it would be quick.
One of the five churchmen proceeds to throw his burning log at my feet. There are merry jeers, and I close my eyes as I begin to feel the light licking my boots. The feeling starts as a subtle warmth, almost pleasant. Then, I begin to feel the steel of my left leg heat up, and the flesh adjoined to it at the thigh begins to burn. I keep my eyes closed, the voices and faces now completely ignored; my focus is on the pain, because if I focus on the pain it becomes bearable. Streaks of fire light up the clearing as my cloak, still hunched over my shoulders, sets alight; how I wish I could put it out and return to my Winry. I feel - honestly feel - the fire on my hips as it crawls up the dry firewood at my back, and I jerk my eyes open, unfocused and unseeing as they are. Yet the rope at my neck chokes me, and I cannot scream if even I wished to. The foreign dancers leap closers, perfectly in time, and for a blissful amount of time I see myself objectively - my, what a mess I must look.
I open my eyes once more, unaware that I had closed them, and am faced with the glittering light, now agonizingly close as it whispers into my ear and strokes my cheek. I cannot see the faces of the men anymore; neither do I hear them.
I am numb - the pain is nothing, and neither are these visions. These visions and imaginations the afterlife is taunting me with; images of my love, laughing as I always wished her to be with me.
But as the flames draw sharper in my mind, her laughs do not fade into my imagination; they cry.
As the last of my sight is eaten by the flames, I catch a mere glimpse of one smudge of a colour that should not have been there - I will my charred and dead body to last until I see it; and mime a sorrowed laugh as I see her.
Winry is collapsed in the village dust, weeping.
And I wonder why this had to happen.
Aww T.T I swear I almost started crying when I cut Ed's hair! DX
Tell me how it was?
(By the way, I may have made up just a few of the words and a bit of some of the grammatical structures. Please don't criticise me on that XD)
Until next time~ 3