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Odder Genealogies
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Pre-series. The firsts of a generation, and the roads that lay before them. Because technically, Hohenheim is the father and Homulculus the son and Pride the grandson. Technically.
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He is not the first slave master has, but he is eventually promoted to the best seat. He has no name, until Master takes his blood, to create a better, more obedient being. It gives him a name, 'Van Hohenheim' and calls him 'Father' - although he thinks he sees the dripping sarcasm at times. But it doesn't matter, because at the end of the day, he still Slave Number 24.
Not 'Van Hohenheim'.
And most certainly not a 'Father'.
So he does what slaves do best: work, and work without questions or complaint. The Homunculus (as he's taken to calling his 'son'-in-a-jar) often speaks to him, often pushes him to learn more (because it 'doesn't want an uneducated buffoon' as a 'Father' it says, and Slave Number 24 finds himself oddly touched) during his 'break' times.
Homunculus does not understand, cannot understand, how the 'Father' of his life can be 'happy' like this. Slave Number 24 tries to explain to him, tries to explain how humans have feelings and hearts, things that cause them to choose what may seem to be the less intelligent route, but in the end, actually win out more. Homunculus stirs, spins, and cannot comprehend inside its small jar.
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More, more, and more still. He is Homunculus and he has learned all there is to know about this world, and of all the things beyond and above. And there are still stronger powers, stronger forces, and he knows that the world is large and stretches out to unspeakable lengths. And all the same, he is excited, ambitious, perhaps.
He has read about families, about fathers. He has his own, and he takes pride in knowing that it was he, not 'Father' that got the two of them out of the dump and gutter which his 'Father' had called 'home' had called 'happiness'.
Homunculus is the son, is the betterstrongersmarter of the two, and he calls it a prison, a jail. Slave Number 24 - the man he referred to as his 'Father' - did not comprehend the words, and even when Homunculus tried to explain, fit the definitions to perfectly describe their current conditions, 'Father' did not understand.
But it's alright, he can bear no grudge against the person that created him from his blood, after all. Their's is a strong bond, he thinks, as he shifts and spins in his holding cell, his cage. He is planning, not just the freedom of himself, but the freedom of 'Father', of his blood as well. And he is the son, and he knows that all good sons must save their parents.
And so - when the trail is done, when everything has been constructed, and the flames go up and Van Hohenheim (the grand name which he chose for his father) finally realizes the 'surprise' which Homunculus has been devising, Homunculus expects thanks aplenty - thanks indescribable.
"What have you done?" Van Hohenheim shouts, bellows really. There are tears streaming down his face, and Homunculus cannot comprehend, cannot understand, because they are very obviously not tears of joy. "What have you done to our master, our king?" His 'Father' cries out. Homunculus wants to say that he has freed both of them from a cage, from the chains of civilization, but Hohenheim is in no condition to listen.
It will be better tomorrow, Homunculus thinks. Tomorrow, he'll tell his 'Father' about the reasons behind his actions. And perhaps 'Father' will understand, and then he will be able to learn some more alchemy - and everything will be fine.
He does not see it happen; it never happens, because the day after, Van Hohenheim leaves the gates of Xerxes.
Absentmindedly, he wonders what he did wrong, and then thinks about reading of the deadly sins. They brought people apart, tore them apart really, and if he just... tears them out of him, it will be all be alright, right? With ease, he produces a Philosopher's Stone (as the alchemists of Xerxes took to calling them), and then - pulls the 'Pride' out of himself.
'Father,' the little boy, of about five, with darkdarkdark eyes says.
'You are my Pride,' Homunculus replies. And he gives himself the name that Hohenheim had not taken. Father. And he likes the taste of the word of his tongue, and wonders if Hohenheim can feel - or knows at all - of the existence of another child - another 'Homunculus'.
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He is Pride; the original Sin, the first of the seven. Father has created more, destroyed some, and then recreated them, to better personify the world - the mind - that he desired. Envy, Greed, Wrath, Lust, Sloth, and finally Gluttony. Some were killed - by himself or Father - and some simply... died.
A hundred, perhaps even a thousand, years pass by, and he cannot possibly keep track of them all. He learns to harness the power of darkness, of shadows and dreams and desires and fears. And his 'siblings' as Father would take to calling them (his 'younger siblings' as Envy has jokingly called their 'family'), fear him. For he is the eldest, and he has seen them all created and destroyed and reborn. And only him - only Pride - stays strong.
Father often asks him to do tasks, tasks which Pride does - swiftly and steadily, and without any question. Because he has not been taught to love Father - he simply does. It is the first thing (second, really) that's he's learned to do in his time. The first of course, was a sense of entitlement. And it was well-deserved, of course.
There are a few things that he knows, first of which is to not - never - question Father. Once, when the syllable for 'why' had formed over his lips, Father had glanced towards his direction. He had read about parents disciplining their children, and he is not scared. He is not rebellious either (that is, naturally, the current 'Wrath's' responsibility). He simply stand strong.
And falls.
Because Father does not discipline using the human methods that he was naïve enough to believe the other to use. No - nonono - because the 'games' Father plays are in the mind, and in the mind alone. He falls to the ground, writhing in something like pain (except he's never felt pain, because the shadows are always there and the shadows are not here and - ).
Envy laughs as he hits the ground, and the smile the other holds is a laughable parody of his own, when Envy, Greed, Wrath, LustSlothGluttony themselves hit the ground. It's like watching a human show - nothing more and nothing less - just some entertainment.
And besides, it's not as if he's really hurt.
"I'm sorry," he says, and Father nods, allowing him to brush himself off, after he's gotten up from the ground.
"And do you know what you are being punished for?" Father asks.
"For questioning," Pride replies, and Fother nods - keenly.
"You are my Pride," Father sighs, "And the eldest and the first; you will not get as much leeway," and then he absentminded waves a hand. "You may go now."
"Yes Father," and so he leaves.
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When he first sets eyes on Trisha, the friend which Pinako-chan said she would introduce him to, he thinks that he's too old (some hundred-odd years or so) to swoon. But swoon he does, and he laughs sheepishly before dusting himself off and practically begging Pinako-chan to introduce him to the 'angle of his eye'.
Pinako-chan rolls her eyes, corrects him with 'that's 'apple of my eye'!' and then drags him over to meet Trisha.
It's love at first sight really, and while she is beautiful, it's really the gentleness, the sweetness, the sincerity of Trisha that attracted him to her. And he's delighted to know that she finds him amusing, charming, and perhaps even a bit of a gentleman. Goodness knows he's trying his best. All the same, when he's down on his knees ('Wrong!' Pinako-chan later grumbles, 'Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!') and reciting Danté, Mao, and even Cervantes in an attempt to woo her heart - and perhaps make her sway just a fraction of what she does to him - it's scary.
He's laughing through the tears (first time in years) when she takes both his hands, kisses them, and accepts.
Hardly a fairy-tale wedding, something simple and down-to-earth, something the two of them would appreciate. Trisha sweely calls him Hohenheim, and he, in turn, calls her Trisha. Her hands are soft, her kisses sweet, and the bed they slept on - he can still feel underneath his back.
And her breasts -
When Edward Elric is born, screeching and crying and bawling and screaming into the world, courtesy of Pinako-chan (who else, really?), he's outside, shaking and quaking and thinking a million and one things. He's had hundreds (maybe even thousands?) of years, and all the same, he cannot remember what to do, what to say.
Trisha later tells him that she heard him muttering 'I'm going to be a father - I'm going to have a child - it's going to be mine - Am I good enough, what am I going to do, what am I going to do?' right outside her door, even after Edward had been born. To that, he laughs (sheepishly, as per usual), and just hugs the two of them.
When he's kissing Ed on the forehead, watching Al break into his teeth, when he's nailing up the swing set and stirring one final cup of tea - he thinks. And it's not a traitorous thought, simply offhanded musing.
There is another child.
There is 'another' 'person' who calls him 'Father'.
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Homunculus - now never to be called that again - learns that Hohenheim (the man that he had named, the man that he himself called 'Father') had married and had children in the immediate vicinity. It had not been his intention to travel to Resembool, he preferred to stay in the inner city, but Wrath (King Bradley in this incarnation) had quite taken to the city.
It was in a royal wagon, but of course, and he had simply seen the happy family of four (mother, father, and two sons) playing in their garden. And Pride had looked at him curiously, asked 'Who is that?' and he had paused - to think of an answer.
He is old - a couple years younger than Hohenheim himself - and still, it is not enough. He has built walls and houses, castles and nations - and even children. And it is not enough. And will it ever be enough, he wonders - and does not know. And will it ever be enough, and when it is enough, what will happen then?
"He is the father of your father," Homunculus says in reply. "His name is Hohenheim; we share the same blood, the same image." And you would close your eyes, think of stories and older days, but the scene is quickly passed by while the two of them are in the wagon. Mrs. Bradley - the one Wrath chose - calls for a boy named 'Selim' (his Pride). Pride willingly goes.
Old and tired, he retires to the recesses of Amestris once more, sleeping for the first time in years.
Irony: it is when his father is barely fifteen years older than him, and his 'brother' (if their relations could be called that) is thousands of years younger than him - younger than his 'children' - said brother's 'nephews' and 'nieces' (going on a 'human' system, of course). And it is when, all the same, he still wishes for the light of eternity to shine upon him.
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