![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Sinfic part 3! Now with MASSIVE SPOILERS for FMA volume 7. And warnings for blood, but, er, with the Sins what can you expect?
He can hear the gunfire in the west from the graveyard. On his way back through town, he purchases some bread and some milk and some canned things expecting the store will probably be boarded up the next day. The roads are empty, save an old wooden cart pulled by a shaky old donkey, heading west in brisk uneven jolts and hoof beats—fast, fast, faster. He sixteen, he walks fearlessly. He can still hear the echoes of bullets as he opens his door, where home and a woman in black has been waiting for him by the window, and one of these things makes him drop his groceries.
The woman gives no jump at the sound of the cans clattering, but she turns her head, there’s no breeze—the air outside is stagnant—but her hair seems to drift anyway, black against the red skies. Black hair, black dress; which has a glossy, living quality to it, he notices when she moves towards him, like the shiny back a beetle or the scales of the garden snake he’d come across just two mornings ago.
“You’ve grown,” she says. She sounds a little put off by this fact.
“Who the hell are you?” he answers. He’s been taught to be more polite to a woman, but she is a stranger and a trespasser and he assumes exceptions are allowed. She stops a few steps from him, raises an eyebrow, and laughs, nearly in his face. Temper, temper.
“Family,” she answers, with a wide sweep of her arm: Isn’t it obvious?
Which it isn’t, at all, he informs her. They’re gone, she is a fraud, get out of his home whoever you are, you’re from the city aren’t you? The city? A soldier’s girl, or a spy maybe. He has no family. They’re dead—
“--August Sixth. Eighteen fifty-seven in the field north of here. Or do you mean the old woman? In which case, July Fourteenth, nearly a year ago, I believe.” He stares without words and she smirks at the accomplishment. “/Dead/.” She sounds amused. “I suppose when you find a boy under a pile of corpses that’s what you’d tell him.”
They’d told him he was a miracle, too. Six years old and not flinching when they, the townsmen—too ratty to be considered soldiers with their rusty firearms--pulled him out, swearing when they saw him covered in blood, swearing louder when they realized none of it was his own. A miracle. A damn miracle. Not a scratch on him, not a bullet wound or a broken arm or a skinned knee—
“And I suppose,” the woman in black continues, as though they’re holding the conversation over tea like it’s said to be done in the west. “You think you’re human.”
She slides closer and looks up and smiles at him again and suddenly he hates her, and has never hated anyone so strongly. “Get out.”
“Father did well with you then,” she murmurs, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “But you aren’t.”
“Get out.”
She is nearer and he is backing away. He has always been fearless but he is afraid now. He says it again, louder. Get out. Get out. /Get out/. She laughs and seems to approve. Temper. Temper.
“You’re not human,” she tells him, and his back is at the wall, and she is a head shorter than him but with his knees bent she looms, raising one cold hand to his face, touching his cheek.
“Leave me alone,” he hisses, batting it away, curling his fingers over her bare white shoulder, meaning to shove her. It has the opposite effect: suddenly she is pressed completely to him, with a strength that startles him, and her eyes—red eyes, he realizes, red like the twilight pouring in, with pupils slit like a some wild creature-- are half lidded. The expression is nearly tender.
“…I’ll prove it to you,” she whispers, gently. Her fingers are on his jaw. “I’ll show you,” she promises, brushes his left temple, and stabs a fingernail through his eye.
He doesn’t die. He hears the thump of the nail’s point hitting the wall through the back of his skull but he doesn’t die. There is blood in his vision and on his lips but he doesn’t die. His body twists desperately but doesn’t die. It hurts but he /doesn’t die/. She steps back from him, arm stretched, and dimly he can see her, the odd tattoo on her chest, he can hear her, barely, over the throb of his pulse in his ears.
“…this is the truth,” she says. “Do you like it?” She twists her wrist, and he gags. “Father made you like this. He made us all like this. You understand, don’t you?” She twists it again, and his pulse rises, drowns her out, staggers, and—as she steps back, as she releases him, as he slides to the floor along the wall—stops.
“You’re not human,” she says into that silence. “And you’re done with this place, I think.”
He doesn’t die.
By dawn the woman in black is gone. The blood has dried on the wall and the flesh has knitted back together very nicely. He inspects the wound in his bathroom mirror—the eye’s come back together too, but it’s different from before, strange, and sharp, with the pupil resettled in an odd shape. The skin around it still feels a little raw, and there will be a scar. He finds gauze and bounds it up.
He can hear the gunfire in the streets. On his way out of town, he carries little more than a burlap bag and a wooden sword over his shoulder, a toy for lack of a rifle. The old store is boarded up. The streets are busy, full of screams and soldiers belonging to some army—one of many, this day and age—running in every direction, their boots loud in the dirt. Fast, fast, faster. He is sixteen, he walks fearlessly. He feels the heat of the bullets passing close to his ear, but he doesn’t flinch. They won’t hurt him, and he won’t die. He’s a miracle, he’s always been told so, and anyway there’s somewhere he needs to be.
He can hear the gunfire in the west from the graveyard. On his way back through town, he purchases some bread and some milk and some canned things expecting the store will probably be boarded up the next day. The roads are empty, save an old wooden cart pulled by a shaky old donkey, heading west in brisk uneven jolts and hoof beats—fast, fast, faster. He sixteen, he walks fearlessly. He can still hear the echoes of bullets as he opens his door, where home and a woman in black has been waiting for him by the window, and one of these things makes him drop his groceries.
The woman gives no jump at the sound of the cans clattering, but she turns her head, there’s no breeze—the air outside is stagnant—but her hair seems to drift anyway, black against the red skies. Black hair, black dress; which has a glossy, living quality to it, he notices when she moves towards him, like the shiny back a beetle or the scales of the garden snake he’d come across just two mornings ago.
“You’ve grown,” she says. She sounds a little put off by this fact.
“Who the hell are you?” he answers. He’s been taught to be more polite to a woman, but she is a stranger and a trespasser and he assumes exceptions are allowed. She stops a few steps from him, raises an eyebrow, and laughs, nearly in his face. Temper, temper.
“Family,” she answers, with a wide sweep of her arm: Isn’t it obvious?
Which it isn’t, at all, he informs her. They’re gone, she is a fraud, get out of his home whoever you are, you’re from the city aren’t you? The city? A soldier’s girl, or a spy maybe. He has no family. They’re dead—
“--August Sixth. Eighteen fifty-seven in the field north of here. Or do you mean the old woman? In which case, July Fourteenth, nearly a year ago, I believe.” He stares without words and she smirks at the accomplishment. “/Dead/.” She sounds amused. “I suppose when you find a boy under a pile of corpses that’s what you’d tell him.”
They’d told him he was a miracle, too. Six years old and not flinching when they, the townsmen—too ratty to be considered soldiers with their rusty firearms--pulled him out, swearing when they saw him covered in blood, swearing louder when they realized none of it was his own. A miracle. A damn miracle. Not a scratch on him, not a bullet wound or a broken arm or a skinned knee—
“And I suppose,” the woman in black continues, as though they’re holding the conversation over tea like it’s said to be done in the west. “You think you’re human.”
She slides closer and looks up and smiles at him again and suddenly he hates her, and has never hated anyone so strongly. “Get out.”
“Father did well with you then,” she murmurs, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “But you aren’t.”
“Get out.”
She is nearer and he is backing away. He has always been fearless but he is afraid now. He says it again, louder. Get out. Get out. /Get out/. She laughs and seems to approve. Temper. Temper.
“You’re not human,” she tells him, and his back is at the wall, and she is a head shorter than him but with his knees bent she looms, raising one cold hand to his face, touching his cheek.
“Leave me alone,” he hisses, batting it away, curling his fingers over her bare white shoulder, meaning to shove her. It has the opposite effect: suddenly she is pressed completely to him, with a strength that startles him, and her eyes—red eyes, he realizes, red like the twilight pouring in, with pupils slit like a some wild creature-- are half lidded. The expression is nearly tender.
“…I’ll prove it to you,” she whispers, gently. Her fingers are on his jaw. “I’ll show you,” she promises, brushes his left temple, and stabs a fingernail through his eye.
He doesn’t die. He hears the thump of the nail’s point hitting the wall through the back of his skull but he doesn’t die. There is blood in his vision and on his lips but he doesn’t die. His body twists desperately but doesn’t die. It hurts but he /doesn’t die/. She steps back from him, arm stretched, and dimly he can see her, the odd tattoo on her chest, he can hear her, barely, over the throb of his pulse in his ears.
“…this is the truth,” she says. “Do you like it?” She twists her wrist, and he gags. “Father made you like this. He made us all like this. You understand, don’t you?” She twists it again, and his pulse rises, drowns her out, staggers, and—as she steps back, as she releases him, as he slides to the floor along the wall—stops.
“You’re not human,” she says into that silence. “And you’re done with this place, I think.”
He doesn’t die.
By dawn the woman in black is gone. The blood has dried on the wall and the flesh has knitted back together very nicely. He inspects the wound in his bathroom mirror—the eye’s come back together too, but it’s different from before, strange, and sharp, with the pupil resettled in an odd shape. The skin around it still feels a little raw, and there will be a scar. He finds gauze and bounds it up.
He can hear the gunfire in the streets. On his way out of town, he carries little more than a burlap bag and a wooden sword over his shoulder, a toy for lack of a rifle. The old store is boarded up. The streets are busy, full of screams and soldiers belonging to some army—one of many, this day and age—running in every direction, their boots loud in the dirt. Fast, fast, faster. He is sixteen, he walks fearlessly. He feels the heat of the bullets passing close to his ear, but he doesn’t flinch. They won’t hurt him, and he won’t die. He’s a miracle, he’s always been told so, and anyway there’s somewhere he needs to be.
no subject
Wow. This is... this is INCREDIBLE. It's seriously BREATHTAKING.
You do the BEST portraits of the sins I can imagine, you really, REALLY do. God. You get the denial, fear, acceptance ,and just -
just.
....[applause.]
no subject
God, the descriptions and the emotion just take my breath away (and my coherency with it).