[winry x sheska; pg] Chrysalis Title: Chrysalis (2/2) Author:emilie_burns Pairing: Winry x Sheska Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Theme: #2 - news; letter Rating: PG Word count: 924 Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) is copyrighted by Hiromu Arakawa/Square Enix. This is a work of fanfiction for personal entertainment only. Anime continuity, spoilers for full series. I also exercise my right to completely repudiate the existence of that Mary Sue'd, cracktastic badfic which is the FMA movie, tyvfm BONES. These are also being written chronologically; the number in parenthesis by the title indicates which order. Summary:She could never go back again to who she was before; too much time had passed in the world she followed them into, and too much had changed. Original LJ Post Date: September 12, 2005 @ 30_Kisses
Chrysalis
Winry Rockbell remembered the first time she rode a train into Central alone. Nervous, her stomach twisting in knots, excited by the prospect of her visit becoming reality, and terribly frightened of what the reception would be. Nervous, and clutching a letter, crumpled and well-read, the paper damp from her palms.
It was a lifetime ago. A lifetime before, when she never stared a monster in the eye, or tasted the bitter fear of certain death. Before she saw things and beings which should never exist, a killer with the kind face of a woman she had once loved in the wake of her own mother's death. Before she knew that the hand which robbed her of her parents was not a hand deserving of her hatred, the hand of a man caught up in the gears of a machine far bigger than he realized, a machine he tried to stop.
A lifetime ago, when Ed was still alive and Al was still in armor, and they were both still here.
A lifetime ago, long before she ever dreamt that someday, she might again feel the same shy, nervous flutter of butterflies inside at the prospect of seeing someone's face, the way she once felt on that first trip to Central. Before she ever dreamt that the face would, or even could belong to someone other than Ed or Al.
Growing up in Rizenbul, where people were buried within a half-day's walk from where they were born, it seemed in her young mind back then as a given. Someday, she might marry one of the Elric brothers. It was just the way of things in the country, in the small, familiar town. From generation to generation, things remained sleepy and slow, like the summer afternoons when they would race through the fields by the lake, or explore the rocky shore of the river, dozing in the hot sun, lulled to sleep by the buzzing insects. People knew each other their whole lives long, and families married families, intertwining the lives of the town into a coherent whole, creating home that stretched beyond one's front door.
That was the way of things in the world where she had once lived. But her walls had grown wider, perhaps torn down might be more accurate, and her world was bigger. She understood now what it was that Ed had hidden from her, the reality beyond their sleepy hometown. She could never go back again to who she was before; too much time had passed in the world she followed them into, and too much had changed.
She had changed. Like a caterpillar transformed by a chrysalis, she had grown up, and discovered a life beyond the script put before her in her hometown. A life which broke rules, with feelings not socially correct. But that was part of what she had uncovered, in finding reality. Life itself was never socially correct. It was raw, unpredictable, chaotic, and uncertain. As uncertain as she felt now, looking down at the sweat-damp envelope she clutched like a talisman.
After Sheska had to return to Central, she promised to write. As letters flew back and forth as quickly as pens and trains would carry them, Winry realized how much she missed the other woman. Sure, she had her ditzy moments, and that obsession with books, and she could be infuriatingly scatterbrained, but in her absence, Winry realized that she had felt more whole than she ever remembered feeling with anyone when she was with her.
She knew Sheska missed her -- most of her letters were peppered with things from her day, things she remembered to share and tell, things which made her think of Winry. It was Sheska who asked her to come out to visit, tossing in the reminder that Al was in Central too, studying the way Edward once did, and that Gracia was asking about her. But Winry didn't tell Sheska that she hadn't needed the extra leverage, that with each letter, it was on the tip of her pen to ask if she could visit. Winry tried to tell herself that it was because her grandmother taught her manners, that she didn't invite herself places, but she knew that wasn't true. She invited herself along plenty of times.
It was not until she was packing for her trip that she realized why she didn't. Sheska made her nervous in a way even Ed never did. It wasn't a bad sort of nervousness, but a desire to tread as carefully as possible, an awareness of being on the edge of something indescribable.
The only three things left to discover were to find out if this was something real, or merely just a crazy twist to her emotions amid an equally crazy time. To find out if perhaps, despite the odds, Sheska might feel the same. And last of all, if everything was true and real, to find out if they could and would be able to live a life that was not socially acceptable.
Provided she had the nerve to find any of the answers.
The conductor shouting the train's impending arrival at Central Station snapped Winry out of her thoughts, and sent a fresh flurry of butterflies loose in her stomach. She swallowed hard and looked around to gather up her belongings. She started to slip Sheska's letter in her pocket, then looked at it. In an effort to quell her nerves, she closed her eyes and pressed the paper talisman to her lips.