Immortal
Disclaimer: I don't own FMA, and make no profit from this.
Summary: Reflections on the nature of immortality, and Edward Elric. Vague hints of Ed/Win.
Immortality.
Why is it that people feel the need for it? Perhaps it is fear of death. Perhaps it is to achieve notoriety. Perhaps it is due to that fundamental aspect of human nature: curiosity. Curiosity to see what happens next, curiosity to see if it can be achieved, if it is truly possible. Or perhaps it is simply because we always want what we do not have. After all, the homunculi, who are the closest thing to immortals, desired above all to be human.
Whatever it is, immortality is the reason behind the existence of things such as the Philosopher's Stone. The proverbial Holy Grail of alchemy that has claimed the lives of so many – for, of course, even the Philosopher's Stone is subject to the primary law of alchemy: Equivalent Exchange. Oh, it allows the user to bypass the law, that is true. But only because the price was paid in advance. Paid in blood and lives and souls.
And even then, sometimes the price is not enough, as Hohenheim found…
But there is another path to immortality. Of a kind less certain, and one that can never be fully enjoyed by the one who achieves it, but immortality nevertheless. This is the immortality of living on in the minds of others, the immortality of memory, and of books.
Flawed, of course, because humans are not perfect, and memory is fallible and books can be lost, and time changes everything, eventually. Gossip becomes exaggerated, and these tales are carried by travellers and retold again and again until they become legends. And people who hear of them can never imagine that the ones in these tales were as human as themselves, with human failings and weaknesses, because those qualities do not make good heroes, and so are cut out completely.
It could be attributed to Fate's sense of irony that the one who achieved this immortality best was one who desired it not at all. But then, he had never believed in Fate. The youngest alchemist ever to pass the State exam, who truly lived by the creed 'Alchemist, be thou for the people', the child prodigy.
The Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric.
Years after he vanished, when tales of his exploits reached as far as Xing to the East, some would doubt reports of his height, believing that he had to have been of a stature to fill his towering reputation; those who had known him would hide their sad smiles and imagine his (short) temper exploding.
He had never wished for fame, though he enjoyed the perks. He had never wished to be a legend. At times it was even a disadvantage. No one would imagine that he could be rash, stubborn, selfish, as easily as he could be noble and selfless. And no one would imagine that he had been intimidated by a certain female automail mechanic when he had fearlessly faced down dangerous criminals and infuriating superiors alike.
Customers of that same automail mechanic, when they found out that she had been his automail mechanic (as some did), would eagerly question her about the stories (Were they really true? Did he really do that? Was he actually that short?). She would merely shake her head and smile flippantly, because otherwise she might cry. "He was Edward," she would simply say, fingers tracing over the familiar dents that had been formed on her favourite wrench over the years. Remembering. He had always been hopeless at dealing with his emotions.
He was no hero. He had become a dog of the military in exchange for the doors opened for him. He had gone single-mindedly after knowledge of the Philosopher's Stone, not caring for any toes he happened to run roughshod over, hounded by his past. He cared nothing for wars, for politics, for promotion. He wanted nothing so grand as to change a country, merely to restore his brother, to find some reparation for his mistakes.
At the bottom of it all, he had only been a child wishing for his mother, and he would have traded all he had gained to have his family back.
But no one considered these things. Such was the nature of immortality.
A/N: Drabble that just wrote itself. Also somewhat influence by Mei Chang's first impressions of Edward in the manga.
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