Title: Preserved Against Thy Coming
Author: Tiamat's Child
Rating: G
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist, Patrick O'Brian
Disclaimer:Not mine.
Summary:Scar meets a strange little child on the road.
Notes: Written as a present for Mhari.
Preserved Against Thy
Coming
The girl was little – the kind of small that only came from malnourishment – and ragged enough that he expected her to be skittish. She wasn't. She stopped him, stepping in front of him and holding out her open palms, a peach and a roll cradled in them.
"Thou art hungry," she said, her child's soprano rich and thick with the marks of languages he had only heard approximations of, rolling off his brother's tongue as he tried make his way through distant poetry. "Wilt thou break thy fast with me?"
He looked down at her, a long way down to her unscarred skin and singled, old length of cloth for clothing. She had a wild face, sweet and fierce, and she was smiling. "That's all you have for today, isn't it?" he said.
"It is thine as well, if thou wilt," she answered.
"No," he said, "Eat it yourself. You need it." And she so clearly did – her arms were thin, her eyes full with the hungry look he'd learned too well during the last days of his homeland.
She shook her head, offered him the food again. "Thou art hungry," she said.
"No."
Her face changed, turned, and before he could quite react – he had not been expecting it, he was not certain how to respond – she was tugging at him furiously, the food transferred to a single hand. "Thou art hungry," she said, hot and sharp, "Thou art holy and thou art hungry, thou must i eat /i !"
He crouched, and reached out to brush her hair out of her face. "I don't want to take your food, child," he told her, trying to remember the gentleness he'd had once, before everything broke apart and faded. "I've seen too many children starve."
She snorted, but didn't pull away from him. "Thou ought not be hungry. I have food." Her free hand came up and rested on the arcs of his brother's tattoos. "Thou hast been touched. Thou cannot die yet."
He looked steadily at her, at her large dark eyes, not her small dark hand on his arm. "I have been touched?"
"By the god," she said, nodding, "By the Mother, who loves the burning ground." He could feel her tracing the lines of the tattoos, smooth complicated loops. He knew them well enough to see her hand without looking.
He did not shudder, nor look away, nor reach to stop her hand. "Child –" he said, though he didn't know what he meant to say after that.
"Thou art touched," she said again, and brought the hand with the roll and the peach up between them. "Wilt thou eat with me?"
He stared at her, and did not close his eyes. "No, I will not. Feed yourself first."
She watched him, her head cocked in puzzlement to the side. "Thy heart is a burning ground," she said, "Please share what I have."
"No. No," he said, and stood.