Theory of Mechanism
by Kurama-Sweethart
Character: Winry, Ed
Words: 378
Spoilers: None
She was amazed by everything and anything mechanical or technological, things that were precise and kept orderly with methodical precision. Her whole life was like a dance; practiced and perfect and set up flawlessly.
Which, she had finally decided, was why she loved her machines so much: she could relate to them.
But he always managed to ruin everything that she had engineered so carefully; to come in and ruin it with his impulses and impromptu way of doing everything so painfully sudden and unexpected and yet somehow beautiful all at once.
It puzzled her, his whole destroy-and-build-again mentality that seemed to be everything that she had promised herself she wouldn't be.
The more she tried to classify it, to try and give it a pattern to fit or a mechanical system of wires, steel and gears; the more he'd stump her with his otherworldly theories on a science that always seemed to contradict itself.
She supposed it was inevitable, that a man who dedicated himself so much to tangibility and things that could be proven, predicted and controlled be as opposite as was physically possible. Because that's just who he was.
He had told her once, while he and Al had been staying with them, that everything in their natural world had a parallel, like droughts in the rainy season and sun in a storm; a conflicting opinion, of course, if you really believed in contracts of opposite forces.
But it was oddly appropriate, that she love him so much. Oddly appropriate that he be her opposite in every way. Oddly appropriate that where he was messy and involuntarily loud, she somehow managed to be polite and respectable enough to make up for it. Oddly appropriate that where he was stubborn and rash, she was compliant to everyone but herself and sometimes it made her wonder when she got so sensible.
"This isn't like you," he'd said, once, when she'd demanded to be included in yet another of their unpredictable journeys.
She'd been surprised, at first, before smiling genuinely and noticing for the thousandth time that day the way his face had somehow lost its childhood and had grown into the face of an adult. "Maybe I don't want to be me anymore." She'd answered matter-of-factly, marching off ahead of them and realizing for the first time that what she had said was true.
Maybe her fascination with machines went deeper than she thought.
End.
My little tribute to Winry. I don't usually write her, so I decided to challenge myself with her character. I'm very pleased with the turn out!