ANSWERS TO REVIEWS:
Daughterofapollo12345: haha thanks a bunch! I'm glad I managed to brighten your day a bit with that fic of mine :3 I'll be sure to write Royai a bit more often.
Penguin20: (considers ideas) (slowly smiles) ahh...I've gotten quite the ideas already...especially for the genderbent one...but Ed and Greed sharing the same body? Calamity ensues! :D
NOTE: Well...this made me cry...WARNING FOR THE WATERWORKS! T_T
UPDATE NOTE FOR GrumpyCatWriter101: T_T I was randomly reading profiles of my readers and authors I'm friends with and I looked at YOUR profile and I saw MY name on it and...(sniffs) being mentioned as having good stories is , at least for me, one of the greatest honors an amateur author can possibly receive! T_T (and here are the waterworks) So...thanks so much for mentioning little me in your author profile GrumpyCatWriter! :) To me, it means a lot so thank you :3
Things taken for granted
People take things for granted. Things that seem so trivial, so boring, things that we see or do every day of our life. But...once you lost something...it's a different story...
Edward Elric was at the tender age of ten when he had lost his arm and leg.
Alphonse Elric had been nine when he had lost his whole body.
Edward hadn't been especially materialistic before the incident, he had simple wants and needs as a child and hadn't asked for more than he needed. But after learning to adapt his life to his automail, learned to use them to his advantage, he had looked upon the vast world with different eyes.
Sometimes, it had been weird when he shook someone's hand with his automail hand and couldn't feel the warmth or the softness of the skin around his hand and other times he didn't feel the increased pressure he was inflicting upon the owner's hand in turn in his early years of learning to control his new limbs.
He still had his other hand, of course, but the alien feeling wouldn't leave him, one foot would meet the ground with a soft thud, while the other resonated with a loud, heavy clank.
He had long since accepted the fact that he wasn't normal, not with those limbs, not with his mind, nothing.
But despite himself, his thoughts kept coming back to his younger brother.
Alphonse Elric had lost his body as a consequence to performing a taboo in alchemy, without his body, he was unable of feeling warmth, another human's touch or even feel basic human needs like hunger or fatigue.
At night, when everyone would be lying asleep, he would be the only one awake and make himself comfortable by the window and stare out at the dark sky bathed in twinkling stars and the moon.
He would watch how night changed to day, the different stages from darkness to light, stars disappearing from view to give way for the clear sky at dawn, colors ranging from yellow, orange, red and even pink and purple. Those times, he often asked himself if he would have been able to see that if he still had his human body.
If he would be able to see night change to day, watch the displays of colors that greeted him in the morning and said goodbye at night, listen to how nature around him grew quieter and quieter until all he could hear was the occasional passing by breeze and his brother's soft snores.
He was able to view the world in a way he never could with his old human body, it was true, he missed feeling like a human being, but then again, he did feel after all.
Rage, disappointment, sadness, happiness, excitement, fear...he was able to feel all of them despite being a suit of armor. He didn't need a human body. When someone would place their hand upon his shoulder or touch his own one, he may not be able to feel their warmth, but he could envision it, picture it the same way he felt his mother's warm touch before the disease took her.
Whenever Riza would comfortingly place a hand on his arm and give a soft almost motherly look he was unaccustomed to see from the stern soldier, he would still be able to remember his mother's warm hand and even vaguely the large, heavy but welcoming warmth of his father's hand as it ruffled his hair.
He couldn't experience hunger, but his brother did that for him. Whenever they had the privilege of tasting new and exotic food from the culinary world on their journeys, he had made it a point to thoroughly interrogate his brother about what the food tasted like, it's texture and the feelings he associated with it.
Edward had taken to reading cooking books from time to time to accurately describe the food he ate to Al so he could envision them perfectly. Sometimes, it wouldn't work, because he hadn't learned of new tastes before the incident with his body, but other times it would be just fine and that knowledge only made him more excited to finish their journey and hopefully restore their bodies so he could taste that food for himself.
He had secretly kept a list, unknown to his brother, about what he would like to do once he got his body back. The list had been safely stored inside Al's armor, just at the inside of the shoulder plates where the metal was strongest and where not as many attacks were directed at.
Eat all the exotic food brother described
Run across grassy fields
Sleep in a bed
Drink water and all sorts of juices
Shake as many hands from friends as possible
Touch Mei's cheek and hands as often as possible
Remember all the different textures I explored and write them down
Pinch myself sometimes so I remember the pain
Kiss Mei
Taste Winry's apples pies
Hug brother
Cry
Breathe
Live
Edward wiped the tears furiously away from his eyes when he found the list stored in the night desk of his brother's bed.
"Well, Al...you can finally do everything that's on this list..." Ed sniffled, half chuckling, half crying to himself.
Many people take things for granted.
People that lost something decide to cherish life and everything that comes with it to its fullest
because they realize, if they lose another precious thing,
they lost a part of themselves and that is the biggest torture anyone can possibly experience.
Losing your voice, a limb, your hearing...anything at all...
it may bring forth an era of calamity but once that's overcome...
you feel you've missed out on life when you still had all those things.
And that's the truly beautiful thing here.
That, once you lose something, you finally get to cherish everything you still have...
GRUMPYCATWRITER101 I left a small note for you above! :) Thanks for reading everyone!