Number of words: 3,159

Published date: December 2, 2012

Began chapter: December 1, 2012

Finished chapter: December 2, 2012


Chapter 17: The Forbearer

"Ow! That hurts! I told you not to touch me!"

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course it hurts. What did you expect from a fight?"

"I expected it to hurt, but it's not supposed to last! Pain is supposed to be temporary!"

Ms. Bradley ignored Envy's griping, letting his words become little more than background noise as she scooped a bit more of the ointment onto her fingers. She didn't understand what he was talking about and, tired from the fight that she hadn't even participated in, she wasn't feeling up to trying to figure out what he meant.

She reached out for Envy's face again, ready to rub another dollop of cream onto the quickly darkening bruise under his right eye. He glared at her hand as if it was a viper. Did he think she was doing it just to cause him pain?

"Oh, stop being silly. If you don't let me do this, it will only hurt more later," she chided with far less patience than she would have liked.

He scoffed and rolled his eyes, but allowed her to continue all the same, doing his best not to wince when her fingers put pressure on his cheek.

They were in the bathroom, Envy sitting on the edge of the bathtub and Ms. Bradley sitting on the little plastic stool that Selim used to climb up to the sink. The first aid kit was open on her lap, but aside from some alcohol swabs and band-aids, there wasn't much use in it. Neither Envy nor Greed was really hurt. A few scrapes, a few bruises, but nothing to be concerned over really. Envy had come off the worse but they wouldn't know until the next day whether the bruise turned into a bright shiner or not.

"What is this stuff?" he asked, trying to take his mind off the throbbing in his face.

"It's a cream with some herbs that are supposed to help with bruising," she answered. "King gave it to me a few years ago. I bruise so easily now that I'm older and he always did fuss over me whenever I hurt myself." She was too busy concentrating on Envy's cheek to see the odd look that he gave her. "It's hard to know how much it helps, but I'm sure it makes a difference."

"Alright, Ma'am, here's the shirt. Now what?"

Greed came in through the open door brandishing the shirt he'd been wearing, the blood spots standing out bright red against the white fabric.

He, at least, had obeyed her without protest. While she had led Envy to the bathroom to tend to his eye, she had offered Greed a clean rag to hold against his split lip and told him to remove the shirt. Then, when he'd immediately moved to do as told, she'd revised her order to be more specific: Go to your room to change, please. Call her old-fashioned, but tolerating Envy's state of half-nakedness was pushing her sensibilities as it was. She didn't need the young man to pull his shirt off in front of her when it wasn't necessary, even if he was good-looking. (And she much preferred men in uniform, thank you very much!)

Ms. Bradley was highly dubious of their being able to save the shirt – blood was the most difficult of stains to remove – but they might as well try.

"Put it in the sink and fill it with cold water. Just knead it a bit to work the blood out. If the spots haven't dried yet, that should keep any stains from forming. And if not, I'll need to see if we have any ammonia…"

"It's okay, Mother. If the stains won't come out, it'll be easy for me to remove them."

She looked up. "Oh, that's right. I'm always forgetting how useful alchemy is." She paused to draw her hand back when Envy made a sound of protest at his cheek being pressed too hard. "I'm sorry. Do you have the ice, Selim dear?"

The child nodded and offered the cold baggie. Twisting around to reach behind her, Ms. Bradley dug through the cupboard under the sink, pulling out a facecloth to wrap the ice in and then handing the bundle to Envy.

"Thank you, sweetie," she said to Selim. "Here you are, Envy. Just hold it against your face there and it will keep the swelling down."

He did as told and looked absolutely miserable doing it.

"Selim, could you do me a favour and go to the kitchen and start a pot of water boiling for the vegetables? And if you and Gluttony could peel a few potatoes too, that would be a real help to me…"

"Of course, Mother."

Without a backward glance, Selim left to do as bidden and Ms. Bradley began to clean up, returning bandages and cotton swabs to the first aid kit as Greed worked on his shirt in the sink.

"How long do I gotta' leave this here anyway?" Envy asked sourly.

"The longer, the better. You don't want a black eye, do you?"

He didn't dignify the question with an answer, but Greed chuckled.

"I for one think a black eye would look just great on-"

"Shut up, Greed!" his brother snapped, but before he could say more, Ms. Bradley briskly spoke up.

"Stop that," she said in exasperation, placing her hands on her hips and turning her green eyes from Envy to Greed and back again, giving the sternest look she could muster. "Honestly, how old are the two of you, to be fighting like little children?"

She had meant for her words to be a reprimand, but rather than embarrassed, Envy adopted a speculative look.

"What's the year again?" he asked.

"Uh, it's 1921," she answered hesitantly.

"Then let's see, that would be… 1743 from 1921…" He ticked off his fingers as he thought. "No, easier to go from nineteen hundred first, so 157 plus twenty one is 178… And those six years in between shouldn't count… So then that would make me 172 years old. Give or take the months."

Ms. Bradley stared silently for a moment. Without noticing, she reached out and grasped the door frame, suddenly feeling dizzy. She couldn't help it; she couldn't believe it.

"But that's not… I mean, you can't be…"

"There's no such thing as no such thing," Greed laughed.

"But you don't look a day older than twenty!"

Envy practically preened under her flabbergasted expression. "Please!" he said, placing his free hand (the hand not holding the ice pack to his face) to his chest in mock indignation. "Why would I settle for looking like some old, wrinkled geezer when I can be young and cute?" He gave her a sharp look. "How can you even be surprised? Isn't bringing dead people back to life a lot more surprising than us being older than we look?"

She could only shake her head, light brown ponytail swinging from side to side.

"I just didn't realize… And if Selim is the oldest among you, then-"

"What, Pride didn't tell you? He's got to be at least four hundred by now."

Four… hundred? That's not… That can't be possible!

She only noticed how close she was to fainting when Greed suddenly appeared at her side, his hand grabbing her arm as support.

"Whoa, you alright? Don't go passing out on us!"

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I just need to sit down for a moment."

Greed's grip was too firm on her arm and he didn't even think that the toilet might not be the nicest place for her to sit, but she could tell that he was trying his best, solicitously letting her lean on him as he guided her to the toilet seat cover.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I just didn't… I didn't know. I knew Selim was older than he looked, but I thought… I thought he was maybe twenty or thirty. Certainly I didn't think he was older than me… And by so much…"

How ridiculous it seemed to call him her son. If he was four hundred, he couldn't even be her father! Her great grandfather, maybe. This changed everything.

Greed seemed to guess at her thoughts.

"Hey, just 'cause he's older than you thought doesn't mean he's different. The kid's still a kid. I mean, look at Envy: Can hardly call him mature, now can you?"

"Speak for yourself! I'm plenty mature!"

"Which reminds me," Greed said, turning to his brother, "how old am I?"

"Why do you need me to tell you? Figure it out for yourself," Envy replied irritably.

"I can't. I don't remember my first life, remember? How'm I supposed to figure it out if I don't know what birth date to start from?"

"And you just assume I care enough about you to know when you were born? Like I'd keep track of something so unimportant."

"Fine, I'll just ask Lust. She'll tell me."

"No," Envy said, the start of a wicked grin forming on his lips. "I'll tell you. It's only fair to count the time you can remember, so if we count from your second birth and take away the years in between, you're not even scratching a year. So it looks like you're the baby of the family, Greed!"

"The hell I am! There's no way I'm younger than your scrawny ass!" And Greed turned for the door, quite prepared to find Lust or Pride and ask them how old he really was. Envy rose as well, still pressing the ice pack to his cheek.

"Hey, I'm telling the truth! So you'd better start showing me more respect, baby brother."

"Do you want me to give you a matching set?"

"Huh? Of what?"

"Eyes," Greed replied.

"Why don't you go ahead and try, you…"

Their voices faded as they continued down the hall, any concern for Ms. Bradley completely forgotten in their bickering. That was fine with her. She had too much to think about.

Selim wasn't the age she'd thought he was. She'd been behaving under the assumption that she was the older. How did this change things between them? Had he only been tolerating her childish treatment of him all this time, silently enduring the hugs and praise and bedtime stories and games and all the other things that she'd offered as a mother to her child? What about the advice she gave, the things she taught him? Were they lessons that he had already learned hundreds of year ago?

But, thinking back, she couldn't believe that to be the case. His behaviour had always been encouraging of her mothering.

Greed is right, she thought with some reassurance. Look at those two. At least Envy claims to be much older than he seems, but he still has the mentality of the teenager he looks like. Selim may be very old, but he's still a child at heart.

She felt a little stronger now that she'd had some time to sit down and think it over. Life was no less complicated, but this new knowledge wasn't something she couldn't deal with. With a sigh, she rose to her feet.

Dinner wouldn't make itself, after all.


She was pleasantly surprised and quite thankful to find that Gluttony and Selim had not only started the water boiling and peeled the potatoes, but had taken the initiative to continue preparing dinner without her. When she came into the kitchen to help, Selim shooed her away. With nothing to do, she puttered around for a bit and then decided that she could at least set the table for dinner.

When she came into the dining room, she found Selim and his siblings' artwork spread out on the table.

First things first. She gathered up the papers into a neat pile and placed them on a chair out of the way, then set about what she'd come to do. Only once the plates and utensils and glasses were all in their places did she sit down and study the drawings.

They were all quite unique and distinct depending on the artist. Ms. Bradley guessed at who had drawn what and found the exercise quite enjoyable. After all, before this, she'd only had Selim's pictures to study.

Gluttony's drawings showed a thick hand and were rather childish. Most were simple except for some details on foods and Ms. Bradley couldn't identify most of the objects that weren't food. She thought one of the drawings was Lust, but he had given her ridiculously long fingers and she couldn't fathom why.

Lust had focused on drawing men; her lines were crisp and sharp and they had the feel of anatomical studies, focusing less on faces and more on movement. There were a few men depicted that Ms. Bradley didn't recognize and a few she did: That one looked like Brigadier General Mustang, minus his moustache. There was a man with bushy bangs and a cigarette dangling from his mouth with piercing blue eyes that felt familiar, though she couldn't place him. Maybe he was a soldier she'd seen but never met. And there was a man wearing a jacket remarkably similar to the one Alphonse had made for Greed, with spiky hair and sunglasses and a crooked, sharp-toothed grin.

Envy had also focused on people, but where Lust's were more sketch-like and included the whole body, Envy had paid particular attention to faces and expressions. The details from memory were impressive. There was Edward, exactly as he'd looked six years ago, and she couldn't tell what Envy had changed to manipulate his age like that. He seemed sad and solemn, looking down slightly towards the bottom of the page. There was a serious looking woman with short black hair and a mole under her eye. There was a man with square glasses and light hazel eyes and a bit of scruff on his chin, who looked (Why had Envy chosen such an expression of all things?) horrified.

Greed's pictures were at least not as simple as Gluttony's, but he had no concept of perspective or composition or shading or… well, anything, really. It seemed he had tried to cram far too much into his pictures and they came out crowded, confused, and unfocused. She recognized his siblings only by their clothing.

Enjoying herself thoroughly, Ms. Bradley was somewhat startled when the others came to the table, not having realized how much time had passed. She hadn't heard Selim give the call for dinner. Greed had obviously tracked Lust down and asked about his age, for they were still talking about it, and none of them paid her any mind as they sat down.

Ignoring the conversation, she continued to flip through the papers and was near the bottom of the stack when she came across the picture that had started the fight in the first place.

Envy had departed from the style of his other drawings. The scene he'd depicted was childish and purposefully simple. There was a man, clearly Greed by the black ponytail, decked out in a pink, flouncy dress. There was Edward on his left in his red jacket and there was another man on his right who looked similar to Greed but was wearing a black jacket and white pants. They were all holding hands, and the background was of a brightly colourful meadow, with sun and rainbow overhead.

Who is the more immature? she wondered to herself. Envy for drawing this just to antagonize him, or Greed for being insulted by it? Maybe I should be thankful that Selim is as old as he is. Otherwise, there'd be even more children to take care of.

The next picture drew her up short. It was one of Greed's, so the details were poor, but they didn't need to be good to show what it was a drawing of.

It was a monster.

There was nothing to compare with on the page, but Ms. Bradley distinctly felt that the creature was huge. Huge, green, and misshapen. It had eight legs and a tail. It had a broad mouth and creepy eyes and black hair on its head, the way humans had. But the thing that really made her skin crawl was its shoulders and sides, where shapeless somethings crowded around.

Because they looked like faces. Faces and arms stretching out and it was absolutely horrifying and disgusting and why in the world had Greed drawn this?

"Mother, how much do you want of the-"

"Selim, what is this?" she asked, interrupting him and holding up the drawing for him to look at.

The others went silent and looked over to see what she was talking about and several things happened at once.

Envy stiffened in his seat and sent a murderous look down the table at Greed. Lust glanced at Envy with a worried expression. Selim turned to Greed and glared at him accusatorily and Greed shrugged as if to say that it was too late to apologize. Gluttony opened his mouth and Lust hastily put her hand across him, stopping him from answering.

She didn't understand their reactions and continued to wait on her son in blissfully ignorant curiosity, completely unaware of the dangerous waters she was treading.

Selim quickly turned from Greed and smiled at her disarmingly, answering in a breezy air that said it was of no great importance.

"Oh, you know, Mother, it's a… um…" His eyes darted a quick look at Envy, still stiff and scowling, and he seemed to pick his words with care. "It's a chimera. You remember, they were in Central a few years ago."

"You mean this thing actually exists? That's even more horrible than it just being imaginary. But what is it?" she pressed.

"Chimeras are creatures made with alchemy," he replied.

"People made this? That's awful… What a terrible way to have to live," she murmured with a tinge of pity.

Why did Selim flinch at that and look once again in Envy's direction?

And why was Envy's face growing darker?

"I- I don't think so," Selim said hesitantly, now not looking at her at all, instead watching Envy to gauge his reaction. "It looks really fearsome, don't you think? I bet a creature like that could take down anything it came across. I'd be scared of it, that's for sure."

"That's true," she agreed.

She couldn't imagine why, but the dark look left Envy's face. He nodded to Selim, silently approving the boy's choice in describing the creature as 'fearsome', and the group collectively relaxed again.

Maybe he'd been about to become mad because it had been his pet and he felt that she was insulting it?

Ms. Bradley didn't think that was the true reason, but she couldn't think of anything better and, once again, she had to accept that there were some things she was better off just not knowing.


Author's Notes:

Forbearer: The word 'forbear' means to refrain, abstain, withhold, or, as I wish to use it, "to be patient or self-controlled when subject to annoyance or provocation." Ms. Bradley must forbear much.