literature

Rise and Shine

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Tonight the darkness stirred more than usual, a cool, black apparition in the wake of the moonlight. The shadows throbbed; the night air fanned across her face from the warehouse window like a cooing breath. She could sense his presence by the sheer change of atmosphere as he neared, and in the evening haze she allowed a smile to crease the ruby red of her lips.

Oh, him, she realized, and her smirk began to tighten. How amusing.

Her guess was answered when a man, grinning with mischief, emerged from behind the entryway stacked with crates: Greed. His words rung out unhindered by modesty, and he smelled of alcohol and cheap perfume.

“Ah, so the Miss Lust is all done tracking Fullmetal.”

Even though they were still separated by the expanse of the small room, her nose crinkled. “Hm. And all that’s left is the work of the rest of our brothers and sisters.”

“You sound almost as though you had been expecting me.”

She couldn’t say she hadn’t been expecting him at one point or another, though perhaps their meeting was unlike either of them in hindsight.

She quieted, but her eyes and smile sneered at him through the dim. In his own naivety, his response was bordering on a challenge: his eyelids lowered with a cool, perceptive determination that made her laugh in soft hums.

“How pathetic,” she mused aloud, “the man who wants it all has acquired his next point of desire.”

There was a certain kind of satisfaction in watching Greed’s smile fall blank to surprise, as she normally thought his smug behavior wretched and childish, and indeed his sentiments were produced out of some willingness to attach himself to the dregs of society. His connections to this world were both strong and weak, and as she saw this in the swift recovery of his grin, she had the remote feeling that he would abandon their cause for his fantasies.

He put on his sunglasses, setting them on the bridge of his nose, and started to pace in a subtle circle – as if he could escape under that mask! “Well. I didn’t think you’d figure it out so quickly,” he said, turning his head away.

Once more she laughed. “You’re forgetting my name.”

In her statement, however, she recognized a discrepancy due to this particular situation: Lust was her entity, lust she could detect, but it did not apply exactly for Greed’s needs, and so the illusion of it all lingered hidden in the air between. It would be ridiculous for Greed not to know the same as well.

“So how about it--?”

So easy did she step away from her lean against the wall to extend her sharp fingers towards his forehead. His quick-acting “shield”, of course, prevented her weapons from stabbing through his skull, but the act was sudden, unrelenting, and just the attempt – with her knowing his powers all the same – wounded a little of his dignity.

“Playing hard to get, are we?” he sighed. He stepped away from her claws and pushed up his sunglasses.

Games rarely bothered her. Games were one of the few ways in which she knew the Homunculi could toy with the emotions of a human life, and she appreciated what such methods could achieve. But this game she would not participate in, much less allow to continue against her.

No, this is not a game of love for you, is it, Greed? You don’t desire that at all.

“You’re going to leave me be, Greed,” she told him. No anger or firmness entered her voice, but rather, her words gained a meandering, curvaceous tone – prying, asserting his efforts were futile.

“Now why would I do that?”

You wouldn’t want to bog yourself down with the idea of romance, would you, Child?

“This is a power-struggle you’re going to lose, Greed. I’d just rather not have you come to any harm: our caretaker would be angry.”

There: the lie exposed, the hidden comments in their conversation lying bare like bones.

I’m not going to succumb to your sentiments, whether you think I will or not. I will not give over control of my wits.

“That so?” he ventured, sliding his foot back into a lackadaisical battle stance.
Furthermore, I could not benefit in any way from submitting to your possessiveness.
She stood chock-still, staunch and statue-like in her dress, but the gleam of her eyes spoke her blood-lust. Her fingers, now lowered and returned to normal, threatened to twitch.

Greed, much less any other Homunculi excluding her, was incapable of lust. Lust served as the illusion under which he may take all he could and call it his own, whether person, place, or thing, whether he knew the extent of this or not.

The both of them stood in stalemate a moment longer, bodies poised, ready to begin a silent dance of death in which no one could lose. She awaited his move with anticipation that showed only in the wicked smile on her mouth, and he cracked his knuckles on the brink of action, grinning despite having not yet made his attack.

Then, with the same ease he used to ready himself for a fight, he withdrew, straightening himself and turning on heel toward the darkness. He ventured into the shadows again, leaving her behind to quell the disappointment of an uninitiated fight.

Before he left, she heard him say, “Sorry, don’t want to ruin your pretty face.”

He always took the coward’s way out.
Ohh, and I promised myself no more fanfiction. But, I suppose I could deal with minimal fanfiction-writing while avoiding pummeling myself in the middle of the night.

Yeah. This...Greed and Lust thing. From Fullmetal Alchemist. Actually, it was submitted to the fma_fiction_contest com on LJ. It was pretty fun.
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