Hi guys.
...
Just... don't cry, okay?
Disclaimer: I can only dream of owning Fullmetal Alchemist, nor do I own anything written by Walt Whitman.
Read it. Don't come crying to me if you burst into tears.
O Captain, my Captain...
His golden hair, splayed in rays- so like the sun!- around his face. He is the color of the sun, bright, alive.
...our fearful trip is done...
Scars adorn his right shoulder, scars and metal. However, he has his arm. Finally, he has his arm.
But O heart! heart! heart!
His skin is pale. Ashen skin. Dead skin. It doesn't fit him at all. It's... unnatural. It's not right.
O the bleeding drops of red...
A trail of blood crawls out of his mouth, another one tracing its way down his cheek, like a tear.
Where on the deck my Captain lies...
Golden eyes, glowing eyes, reflecting the light, open, staring at nothing. There is no fire in them now.
Fallen cold and dead.
Ed. Brother. Captain. So very cold. So very dead.
And then come the tears. Tears because Ed was only sixteen. Only sixteen when he faced Father. Only sixteen when he gave everything he could possibly give to regain his brother. Always prepared to give everything so his brother could have a body once again. And he did, just now. Al has his body. He knows where his brother's body is. But Ed has the opposite of the problem Al used to have. Instead of having a soul with no true body, his brother's body has no soul in it anymore. Not a soul in a tin can carrying case, a leather bag that lost its soul. The golden eyes are glassy; the fire has gone out. So there are tears. From Mustang and Hawkeye and Havoc and Breda and Falman and Fuery. From Ling and Lan Fan. From Mei. From Al.
Somewhere far away, in a little town called Risembool, a girl called Winry Rockbell feels something move inside her. Something is torn away, violently, without warning, and without knowing why, she begins to cry, crying as though half her heart has been torn out of her chest, leaving her nothing but a bleeding hole and tears. Granny Pinako comforts her, but can feel, just as Winry does, that something is missing. Something is gone. Still, no one can feel it like Winry does. Even Al cannot feel it the way Winry does. Al loves his brother, but Winry's love for Ed is different. And now he's gone.
Blood and tears.
Ed is still very much dead. His body has cooled. His chest doesn't move; no breath stirs. What lies before the crowd is a shell. Blood and tears cannot change this fact.
Ed was a scientist, after all. He dealt in facts. If he could see himself, he would conclude that he was perfectly, unarguably dead.
The silence in Central is punctured only by the wails of mourners that night, mourners who cry for the boy- no, for the man- who gave his life for his country, for his friends, for his family. For his brother.
And Al desperately wants to see his brother one last time, to see his smile, to see the fire in those golden eyes that means his brother lives... but he can't. He knows the risks. He's seen the consequences, the result of the desire to see someone you love one last time. And what would it accomplish? Nothing. Nothing but another dead Elric boy. Nothing but more blood. Nothing but more tears.
So Alphonse Elric stands, trembling in his borrowed clothes that engulf his emaciated figure, and painfully drags himself into the procession, tears still carving tracks in his cheeks.
O Captain, my Captain...
Fallen cold and dead.
.
.
.
Deeper in the city, down an alley, far from the mournful crowd, there sits a young man. He is shirtless, shivering in nothing but leather pants and a thin blanket. He was close to death before something entered him, something that changed him into someone new, from a nearly dead boy to someone who is alive, very much alive. He smiles sadly at the sorrowful cries of the group. His eyes flicker. Something in them glistens.
Behind a wall of tears is a soulful fire, lighting up unfamiliar gray eyes, turning them into melted gold. His hair, once brown, once short, catches the light as it grows, turning to spun gold, matching his eyes. A dead man, turned into the captain they mourn.
Edward Elric is reborn.
But he cannot reveal himself. To do so would cause great repurcussions. He was only allowed this chance so he could protect the world. No one can know.
So Ed turns away from the grief-stricken crew, his own heavy heart making every uneven step painful as his automail clanks against the ground. Incomplete once again. His metal appendages weigh him down, yet he will not turn around. He cannot face his brother's heartbroken face or he will break.
His heart has been ripped to shreds. One for every person he must leave behind. One for himself, the man he was, the man he still is, who he must try to forget.
No one knows, though. No one has noticed that the body they laid on the funeral pyre is now gray-eyed and brown-haired. The fire gives the illusion of glowing golden locks burning away at its center. Thus the nameless boy who was already dead is given an honorable service while the man they truly mourn walks on, alive. The flames encompass an unknown youth, but they tell no one the truth. What do they care, so long as they have fuel?
Alphonse Elric and Winry Rockbell can both feel half their hearts burn away as well. One knows it's happening. The other is unaware. Both feel pain. The whole country feels pain, for the Captain is lost to them now.
Edward Elric still walks away. They cannot know. They will never know.
Truth always screws everyone over.
*tears streaming down face* I really am fucking crying. I wrote a shorter version of this in class. Like, a WAY shorter version. It was just a journal exercise. Then I realized that it would make a beautiful story. We had just looked at the poem, "O Captain, My Captain" by Walt Whitman earlier that day, and it was so perfect for how everyone would have felt if Ed had died after fighting Father and saving Amestris and getting Al's body back... I couldn't help myself. I'm wishing I did, now... But I added the end bit because I COULDN'T FUCKING KILL ED! I COULDN'T DO IT! So I made that really crazy nutty thing that made no sense to me whatsoever.
But that last bit is true. Truth really does always screw everyone over.
So yeah. Review, Follow, Favorite. RFF. Yay.
I'm still fucking crying.
The word of the day is... screw it. I can't do this right now.
Love ya... lulu.