The Fuhrer's Son

Selim Bradley knew when he woke up that morning that today was not a normal day. Typically, he was an early riser or his mother woke him up before 9 so that he wouldn't waste the day. Waking up at 10 in the morning never happened except on one day of the entire year. The black-haired boy glanced over at the calender on the wall across from his bed and his black eyes grew sad as he confirmed it so. It was March 15, 1923. It was the eighth anniversary of the day his father, the Fuhrer, had been killed during the coup d'état. The 8-year-old boy got out of bed, but didn't bother to dress yet. They would only leave the house once today, he knew, and it wouldn't be for a good long while yet, but he did make his bed. It was one of the many things his mother had drilled into his head. With that taken care of, Selim immediately entered the hallway and made his way towards his mother's room. He knew she'd be there, she'd been there every year on this day. He just hoped that- Nope, she was, Selim realized half-dejected upon opening the door a creak to take a peak inside. Mother was flipping through the photo album again and she was crying. He hated to see her cry. It made him feel awkward and extremely depressed, more so than usual on this day.

"Mama?" he asked quietly as he pushed the door open a little more and gazed at her worriedly.

She jumped at the sound of his voice, clearly startled, and then gave him a weak, shaky smile when she saw him standing there. "Oh, Selim. It's you, dear. Why don't you come and sit beside me," she suggested as she patted the bed right next to her.

Selim entered into the room and climbed up onto the bed, snuggling up next to her and peering at the photo album at the most recent page his mother was looking at. The first one he saw was the wedding picture. Father and Mother looked so young back then. It was before Father had grown a mustache, but he still had the eyepatch. Mother had told him that she hadn't known him before the accident that took his left eye when he'd asked what happened. Selim had also always found it funny that Father was wearing his military uniform and Mother was wearing a spring dress as opposed to the classic black suit and white dress tradition of most weddings, but Mother did say that Father had always been a little eccentric. He turned the page for her when he had had his share of looking at the photo. He had never met his father, he had been killed before he was born. These pictures and the stories his mother told were all that he had of him. And every year since he was two, he had sat with his mother and looked through all the photos of his father that Mother had. There weren't as many pictures of his father starting from about 1911 to the year of his father's death, the most recent one being from late 1913, and it made him sad inside. Nobody had any idea that he would be killed a little more than a year later. And they reached the end of the album.

They sat in silence together with Selim occasionally reaching over to wipe his eyes on his mother's shawl and eventually, Mother spoke. "Wait here a moment, Selim," she said gently as she shifted her weight forward and carried the heavy album in her arms, "I have to go get something."

Selim obediently waited for her, curious as to what she was bringing, but too numb with sadness to care too much. Mother placed the album back on its proper place on the shelf and moved over to her chest of drawers where she took a small, dusty box off the top and brought it over to the bed where he was sitting.

"I've been saving these until you were older and able to understand," she explained vaguely as she opened the box and pulled out an envelope.

She withdrew photos from the interior and gave them to him. Selim accepted them with care and took a look at them. They were more pictures of his mother and father, which he was thrilled to see, except that there was another person in every single one of the pictures: a boy who looked just like him, maybe a little older. He looked up at his mother with confusion, his black eyes begging the questions for him, the words lost on his tongue.

"This is not going to be easy to explain, sweetie, and it may be confusing, so please let mama explain everything to the best of her ability, alright?" Mother asked and Selim nodded in understanding. "You are the same boy in these pictures, but you weren't as you are now. Most of this I did not learn until the day your father died. I knew you as an orphaned relative on your father's side of the family and we adopted you as our son because we couldn't have children of our own. In those days, you were what alchemists called a 'homunculus', that is an artificially-created human through alchemy and you were called 'Pride'. You were the first of them and your body never aged because it was a container for the shadows that you controlled as your special power. On the Promised Day, March 15, 1915, your container was destroyed and all your memories up to that day were lost, but your true form, the humanity that had been slowly growing within you, was saved and you were brought to me. I've raised you from that day on even though everyone was opposed to it because they feared you. I knew there was nothing to worry about though and I've been right all along. I never intended to keep these photos from you, but I figured that if you saw them young, you would be confused and wouldn't be able to understand the explanation."

Selim stared silent at the top picture in his hands for a long time before he turned to his mother with a hint of trepidation in his voice. "So... I am a human now, right? I'm not a homunculus anymore?"

"Oh, Selim," Mother said with a warm smile and embraced him, "I loved you back then when you were one. And even if I had known you were a homunculus, I would still have loved you, for you are my son and that will never change."

Selim felt a lump well up in the back of his throat and tightly gripped her shawl as he hugged her for dear life. Mother still loved him. And though he could not remember it, he had known his father at one point; these pictures were proof. That they were not his blood parents did not bother him in the slightest. He doubted if a homunculus had any blood parents to speak of anyway. They were probably the closest he had ever come to having them and he was so happy to have been so lucky.

"Mama...?"

"Yes, Selim?"

Selim pulled away from his mother's embrace and held up one of the pictures still in his hands. In the picture, his father was sitting in a chair angled away from the photographer, his mother was standing a little behind the chair right by Father's side, and he was standing in-between them and leaning on the arm with his mother's hand on his head. "Could I have this one framed and put it on my night table?" he asked her.

Mother smiled down at him. "Certainly, Selim. I don't need to hide any of them from you anymore now that you know."

"Will we go out and buy a frame when we visit Father's grave today?" Selim asked hopefully. Normally, they didn't go anywhere but the cemetery on this day, but they had a special reason this time to go somewhere else and it was still in honor of Father's memory.

"We can make that happen, Selim," Mother said with a small nod of her head and Selim hugged her in gratitude.

"Great! I'll got get dressed!" Selim declared and dashed off to his room, taking the picture with him.

So he didn't remember the date it was taken. So he was a homunculus at the time. It was a moment in which all three of them had been together and he cherished it with all his heart. He couldn't remember anything specific, but whenever he looked at the picture, he felt such warmth and trust that he need fear nothing, not even his childish fear of the dark. His mother and father... he loved them and they loved him and he felt complete. They filled a void that had been empty for too long and made everything else unnecessary. That was what Selim felt when his eyes lingered upon his parents together in this picture with him, though the boy wouldn't have even begun to be able to tell you where these feelings arose from or why. Selim did come to the conclusion about one thing thanks to his mother's information and revelation of these pictures today; if there had been anybody else that he had known during that time when he was a homunculus, they weren't even half as important as these two people smiling in the photo with him.

Do not ask! I wanted to write some of the Bradley family from Selim's perspective and show the love that he feels for not only his mother, Mrs. Bradley, but his true father, Wrath! (I saw that scene in chapter 106 and episode 61, don't try to hide it Pride! The last people you thought of before your container was destroyed was Wrath and his wife!) lol, have I ever mentioned how much I love the Bradley family? XD Btw, totally made-up the actual date of the Promised Day. All I knew was that it was sometime in spring of 1915 and so I decided to go with the whole "Beware the Ides of March" saying (ie. March 15).