Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist and all of it's characters does not and never will belong to me.
Pale-colored
Irises
- chapter 1 -
Edward Elric frowned as he washed his hands slowly by the sink in his bathroom, still a bit irked at the last phone call he had just received. The military -- he still found it shocking -- had actually asked him to sculpt an officer a statue. As the one who called him said, the military wanted to grant the officer a statue in gratitude for his valuable participation during the last war. Said that the officer had actually managed to save this guy they called the head of the military. King Bradley, was it?
Usually, he wouldn't care what job his customer had, be it the president of a highly-esteemed company or a mere sidewalk prostitute. As long as they had money, then that was all that mattered to him. He wasn't poor, really. In fact, due to his skills as a sculptor, his fees were getting higher and higher by the months, but even so, the customers just kept coming and coming. It was a statue after a statue, that he barely even has the time to breathe, but he wasn't complaining. His earnings were enough reward, anyway. Plainly said, he was filthy rich.
Even if was rich, though, he lived in a medium-sized apartment, in a peaceful village slightly isolated from urban society. What he does with the money was his secret, that even his neighbors, the Rockbells, who have known him since childhood, and visits once a week to check up on him, doesn't know.
The phone rang again, and Edward ignored it, thinking that it was the military again, just to make sure he got the details right. It's been the third time they called today. He was slightly getting tired of the perky voice on the other side of the line. He hated the military. He hated it with a passion.
He was once an officer, though. That was two years ago. He's now twenty-one years old, and back in his days, he was very known for being a prodigy, being accepted in the military at the age of fifteen. Many thought that it would be impossible, but he managed it. At age nineteen, a horrible tragedy occurred, and he left the military due to his... defectiveness.
Ed snorted. It was more like uselessness. He splashed his face with water, closed the faucet and automatically reached for his right, where his hand came in contact with a fluffy, white towel. After drying his face with the towel, he looked up at the mirror in front of him... and saw nothing.
At age nineteen, the Ishbals threw an attack for the first time in a very long time to the military, and it was him who suffered the most.
He remembered fire, and screaming everywhere. No one died, except one.
His little brother, Alphonse Elric. Although Alphonse wasn't part of the military, he was always found beside Edward, and it just so happened that Ed was patrolling the military base when the attack happened. The last thing Ed saw was his little brother under a barricade of rocks, dead and lying in his own pool of blood, and burning particles going for his face, before he passed out.
Alphonse Elric died, and Edward Elric lost his sight.
After three weeks of treatment, Edward was dispatched, and was told to leave the military, seeing as he won't be able to do anything useful anymore with his eyesight. Of course, they didn't tell him that. The only thing they told him was that they were firing him for him to be able to get some rest, and some time to ease his trauma away.
Him losing his job didn't matter much to him, though. He hated the military because they wouldn't give Alphonse a proper funeral. That was explainable, but then again, the military also refused to merely help him give Alphonse a funeral.
His money were spent on his medication for his eyes, but it was spent by the military, without his consent. If he had a choice, he wouldn't care for his eyes and use the money to give Al a proper burial.
Overcoming his depression two months later after the tragedy, he started his new job. A sculptor. It was far-fetched, really, but Ed had been sculpting small statues when he was a child, using dried clay, using blocks of cement down by the street, or anything at all. He remembered the times he gave his mother and his little brother statues each on Christmas. It was just small, sculpted to look like it's recipient, and even though it was -- bluntly said -- horrible to look at, his mother and Al loved it very much.
After their mother died, Ed tried to actually do real sculpting. With real materials and such. Sculpting Alphonse had always been his favorite projects. Back then, sculpting with eyes closed, and relying on his hands only to feel the details was only just a game that he and his little brother had started. He never knew he would seriously need it in the future.
During the first few months of his new job, it was only a small business that started with a sign beside his door, and some newspaper ads. His first customer in the business had been a childhood friend of his and Alphonse's. Winry Rockbell. Ed was pleased to say that she liked it so much, she squealed for two hours straight. His neighbors merely tried it out out of pity for him, but as time went on, they went back and back, and new customers came, and they, too, kept coming back. Ed didn't really know what had happened, but he wasn't complaining.
He smiled, closing the lights of the bathroom and entering his bedroom. He was used to the structure of his house to know where exactly the walls were, where the doors were, where the stairs were that sometimes he didn't even need to think, because his body moved automatically for him. He settled in his bed, glancing slightly at his bedpost where a vase of slightly withered yellow irises stood, and beside it, a picture of him and his brother stood grinning, holding fishing rods and caught fishes, but of course, he saw nothing. Sighing, he lied down on his bed, and closed pale-colored eyes.
He fell asleep almost instantly, with his mind set on one thing.
Tomorrow, he would meet Colonel Roy Mustang.
KK: First of all, this has been in my mind for such a long time, but I was hesitant to write it. I only did, though, after I told it to silver windflame over the phone, and she... uh... kinda convinced me to write it, so here it is. X3 Go visit her! XD The title is kinda freaking me out. o.o Well, wrote this in forty-five minutes (-le gasp!-), and hopefully you guys'll like it! Please review!