I Resist the Muses

The look on Miss Howard's face when she'd realized I'd managed to transmute her skirt to the chair.

Not surprisingly, we were asked not to come back to school the following year.

Mom died in the fall. I'll always remember it if only for the apples spilled across the floor, juicy and ripe and just picked from a neighbor's farm. She was almost cold to the touch when we found her, but she was still breathing. Still alive. She hung on for a little while ... was it that night, or a few nights later that she died? I honestly don't remember. It's all so mashed together in my mind. I made Al go get Granny Pinako. He didn't want to, but I made him go. I didn't want him to have to be there if she died right then. He had only just turned eight, he didn't need to be there for that. Didn't matter that I'm barely a year older than he is, I'm the older brother. It's my responsibility to see things through. Mom didn't die right then, though ... she hung on.

She hung on a little bit longer so we wouldn't find her dead and she hung on just long enough for the doctor to say that there wasn't anything he could do, and then she just kind of smiled at us and died. I've never understood why. Some sort of sickness, I get that. I don't even know what she died of and really I don't want to know. If she was sick why didn't she get help? Why did she just let her body shut down like that? I don't understand, I can't understand...

Mom left just like dad did. No explanations. Just gone, almost overnight. Abandoned. The only consolation we had was that mom didn't want to go. We held on to her until the life left her body and the doctor gave a time of death and Winry was crying and Al was crying and ... fuck. Resembool's a small town, the wake was held in our house and it was almost a week until the funeral. It had been rainy for a few days after she died and they wouldn't be able to dig a grave that wouldn't collapse. She stayed in our house for a week. Granny Pinako forbade us from going home while her body was there. Alphonse couldn't stop crying. Winry cried a lot too, almost more than when the soldier came to tell her her parents weren't coming home. The house, when we went back to it, smelled like death for a long time. I don't think Al quite knew what the smell was, and I'm glad for that. I hope he's forgotten it by now. I never will.

I didn't care what Granny said. I went every day and looked at her in her coffin. She looked so peaceful, like she could just sit up and laugh and say 'wasn't this a horrible joke?' It wasn't a joke. It was real and that Sunday they buried her. That day, still in our Sunday best - it was the first time Granny Pinako had tied our ties and not mom, mine was a little crooked because I kept playing with it since no one told me not to - I told Al what I had been thinking about all week. I told him the plan I had concocted while staring at her face, now forever buried under our feet.

It seemed so perfectly innocent. We wanted to see her smile again. We wanted another hug, another laugh, another story before bed. So who cares if we break a few rules here and there, we're kids! We just wanted our mom back, how wrong could that be?

Who am I? What, are you people writing a book or something? I get that question a lot these days. Well, in varying forms. Lots of "who's that brat?"s and "who the hell are you?"s. It's totally a power rush that I can emasculate an entire room full of soldiers just by pulling out that dingy old watch. Watch'em grovel then, ooo look at me I'm a major. What a bunch of fucking losers.

HAH, there was this one time at ... oh, shit. What was the name of that place? Yoswell, I think it was. The mining town. Grungy little place, the people were right assholes too when they found out I was military. They don't like State Alchemists there. Didn't matter, they all saw the light in the end. There's a reason I'm called the alchemist for the people! Anyway there was this simpering waste of humanity known as Yoki who was being a right fucktard to the townspeople. You know the bit, corrupt military official, taking all the land and raising the taxes so people couldn't eat and had to work until they dropped. Well, I turned that ass on his head, pulled a couple of fast ones on him and actually got him to give me the town on a silver platter.

Signed the entire mining town over to me. That's right, I am a genius. I don't remember what happened to that waste of space after that. Arrested I'm sure. I bet some big guy named Bubba made him a bitch in the military prison. Sweet, sweet justice.

So yes, I'm a State Alchemist. The youngest ever licensed by the military, too, at twelve years old. Had my little brother been able to pass his physical he would have been the youngest, but unfortunately he had to withdraw his application. My "official State Alchemist's Title" is the Fullmetal Alchemist, because for some reason State Alchemists have to have some kind of code name or something. I dunno, I never really was much into military shit so I don't really care. I certainly prefer "Fullmetal" to being called "Major Elric" though, so I'll stick with it.

Hah. "Fullmetal." What a fucking joke. You know, I'm willing to bet the Fuhrer gave me that title because he knew Alphonse would be traveling everywhere with me, so everyone would mistake him for the Fullmetal Alchemist. Given the whole suit of armor thing and all. I bet that's it, too! I'm so going to figure out a way to deck him and not go to jail for the rest of my natural life. Or I might just deck him and make a run for the border. I heard Xing's nice.

[x-posted to alchemicbean, totally open to comments & RP]