A/N: Staving off boredom and MC writer's block... For those of you who have seen Conqueror of Shamballa, you'll recognize this scene. This is one of my favourites in the whole movie, so I decided to write it down and elaborate on the thoughts and reasoning, alongside adding in some things going on at the same time. It says RoyEd and HeiEd in the description, but both are very vague. If you understand all the symbolism, then kudos to you! (But feel free to ask me if you don't get it.) I've been beyond busy this week, but I'll try my haardest to update Manifest Content soon, and maybe get off my ass and finish 'You're Welcome'. xD When I said I'd try to update Manifest Content weekly... I tried. xD I'm really in more of a HeiEd and AlWin mood, though. So, yeah. Enjoy.
Scrawl
"But why? Alchemy's not supposed to work on this side of the gate…" His head is hung, like he's ashamed of himself for speaking aloud the most painful of the few truths he has left. He looks to the right, to the left. The chalked lines are faded into a deceiving pattern, enough so to fool even his alchemical genius into believing them to be nothing but occult garbage. "the circle's not done. It's worn down." The sound of his voice seems forbidden in this chamber of brown silence. In his mud-coloured jacket and fading body, he could so easily become a part of this place forever. The gold had been tarnished, he was just another shirt for the world to wear, one that had been washed almost to the point where it was no longer any different from the millions of lifeless rags tossed into a netherworldly pile. He sees it then. The chalk is no more than a stub, a tiny chipped off piece lying beside it in foreshadowing of the midnight hour. It was nothing to the person who so carelessly tossed it to the ground, to him, it is everything. He plods over to it, pupils still dreamily dilated. Picking it up, he drops to his knees, coat making a soft whoosh with his fall. The impact should have stung, but two years had made a thin shield into a thickly congealed mass of metaphysical padding. Scraaape goes the chalk across the floor as he scrawls over the fading lines of the array, painting life onto a carcass. He strikes down again ad again, stillbirthing the symbols, flesh shaking enough for itself and the metal both.
From above, she watches the boy, mask of ice carved into a sneer, for the moment. His rythym is the anti-clock, the lack of cadence challeging the march of time to assign it a semblance of order and definition. Time does not take the challenge, but she does, hearing each scrape of chalk as the boy's plea to the past to create his future.
A soft grin graces his downturned features. Though he has fought many times in this world, this has been the most taxing exercise he's performed. He straightens his spine to observe his dead masterpiece. A small chuckle escapes him. "What am I doing this for?" He asks the runes, half-hoping they can give him an answer. "Finished or not, it won't make a difference." He's playing reverse psychology now, fishing for the complement of a return to something he can call true and real. He bows his head and buries it in a gloved hand. "Guess I'm just a sucker for nostalgia." Slowly, the portrait of his face is unshrouded, chalk smearing over the grey skin to create a mockery of the floor. Blood from his cut finger creates a tiny smudge, a mockery of a mockery, its faded crimson alluding to the bold colour he'd once worn the way no other could. Hesitant hands travel the body of the air with a weary prostitute's touch, another beam of irony for his castle of rust. They meet the floor, caressing it tenderly, hesitantly, almost willing to believe the dreamscape until they remember there is no feeling. The final press of his hand's heel makes a soft shfff, muffled entirely by the shining noise that echoes from further and further away down the halls of his memory. His face is cast in a blue light, not for the first time in this world, yet this is the only time he has noticed. He gasps, the exact same hitch to his breath as his reaction to that other blue.
"Still just a puppet, aren't you, pipsqueak?" That androgynous voice echoes around the chamber of his head, dripping poison-laced honey. He stands shakily, eyes wide with terror at this new vantage point of reanimation. The squiggling lines above his head take place and form the dragon's body—how did he not see it before?
"Envy!" His voice comes out hoarse, but at the same time childish, disbelieving. The only response was the implosion of darkness over the blue, hell erupting forth from a hole in heaven. He looked up just in time to see the suits of armour rain down from the sky.
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Meanwhile, the blue lay in bed, almost asleep, interrupted only by the red coughs that shook his frame and ripped him apart inside out.
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Meanwhile, the red stood in snow, almost asleep, interrupted only by the blue melancholy that shook his frame and ripped him apart inside out.
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And the tarnishing, fading gold, Edward, stood in a dream world coveted by heaven and hell, yet even purgatory was out of his reach.