Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart?

[ourselvesalone]

Here it is. Everything.

His own words come back to haunt Victor when he closes the door to his workshop behind him, his subject's body cooling in the bath of ice that will be her new home until he can harvest healthier parts to replace the diseased and decayed ones that plagued her in life, ones that he knows intimately well from his past. When he lifts his eyes to search his rough and abused quarters, he finds himself struck by the impossible. Though morphine is in his blood, it merely dulls the pain and not the awareness. Still, by all accounts, he has managed to find himself in the approximation of Sir Malcolm's library.

Chilled, he thinks of the weeks he had spent in this library, trapped while a demon held them hostage upstairs and another demon lurked outside his door. It takes Victor only a brief moment to realise that this is not Malcolm's home and Victor has found himself transported as if on the wings of some temporal being into a place of such wonder and such advancement that he can hardly say.

The lights, the lights, they burn with electricity unlike any he has ever seen and he wonders if this is how Proteus felt, if this is how his creations looked upon the world with such wonder, at seeing things for the first time and discovering in them the newness and potential of being.

"Fairy lights," he echoes to himself with bitter remorse, reaching out towards their luminescent glow before he retracts his fingers tight to his chest and thinks of all the heartbreak and the happiness that Proteus had not experienced because of his past sins and shames and mistakes.

Swallowing back that regret, Victor turns towards the door to summon forth courage of being, knowing there must be more to this world than a mere echo of a library he has come to know so intimately and with such despair. Still he searches each crevasse and corner, beholding wonders hidden in plain sight that he cannot rightly account for. Eventually, he strays far enough until he finds himself gaping upwards at the most wondrous chandelier powered by such electricity that he could power his laboratory a dozen times over with the power it seemingly contains.

"Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile," he murmurs Shakespeare's words to himself as he cranes his neck and turns his gaze upward, having already decided he must learn everything of this strange world that lurks behind the door of his laboratory. He very stubbornly does not think of the lines that come next.

Comments

[fullmetal_alchemy]

Ed blinks at the comeback. The name doesn't mean much to him. Sure, he considers himself well-educated. If the subject is alchemy. He knows that his knowledge is fleeting on almost any other subject. But he's gotten along well enough on that. His response reflects that: He shrugs.

This level of curiosity about his arm is a bit off-putting and only having gotten here before keeps him from retreating altogether. He doesn't come any closer, but he does pull his sleeve out of the way entirely, revealing where the metal meets the thick chunk of scar tissue that covers his shoulder.

"Connects to the nerves," Ed says. His knowledge of his automail limbs leave a lot to be desired. But that's what he has Winry for. (Being here weeks without his mechanic has made him tetchy though, aware that if anything goes wrong, he's in trouble.) But the nerves he does know all too well -- feels that jolt each time his arm or leg is put back on.

[ourselvesalone]

Victor is already drifting closer without invitation, aware that the presumption might come across as rude, but he hardly gives a damn. When there is something before him that is promising in his field, he would hardly hesitate. His eyes scan the scar tissue and he wishes that this sort of thing might yield some samples. "And your arm? Your flesh and blood arm," he clarifies. "Where is that?"

It would have been quite helpful to run samples on the severed nerve ends to give him a chance to understand how the replacement had come about. "What year are you from?" he wonders, awed. "And how did they do it? Connect it, I mean."

[fullmetal_alchemy]

Where is his flesh and blood arm? The question fills Ed with a familiar ache. I traded it to some guy who guards a gate that exists in between worlds so that I could seal my brother's soul to a suit of armor. He knows it's no use trying to explain where it is to this man -- not that he would bother with a stranger anyway. As it is, the notion's usually too much for people who know alchemy, let alone those who don't know how the exchanges work.

"Gone," Ed settles for. Doesn't see why it matters anyway.

"1905," Ed supplies, knowing that's earlier than when most of the others come from. "And I don't really know all the specifics," he shrugs, "There's ports in my arm and leg and it connects into there."

[ourselvesalone]

Victor's brow furrows and he feels as if he's been assaulted in the stomach with the ferocity of a shock unexpected, pushing the air from his windpipe and out in the form of a confused exhalation, tinged with a babble or two. "That's ... you're ..." He shakes his head, running his fingers through his hair. "That's only fourteen years from now and there's no indication that technology is going to leap like that." Perhaps the Americans have been sitting on this and hiding it, but that seems unlikely, given that he's yet to meet any of them smart enough to create such a thrust forward.

"I'm a scientist, myself, more of a doctor, really, and I'm very interested in knowing how on earth someone managed to do that in 1905."

[fullmetal_alchemy]

"It's probably not," Ed answers, shrugging. "Most worlds don't seem to have automail."

He doesn't know if it's somehow linked in with them not having alchemy, but he does wonder why they don't. Most of the people who have seen his arm and leg have been intrigued by it, seem to think it's a wonderful use of technology. But he's only heard a few people who have seen something comparable.

"I can't really explain it," Ed says. "My mechanic is the one who built it. She knows it."

[ourselvesalone]

"Automail," he echoes, fascinated and wanting to touch. He thinks, perhaps, that beautiful things of scientific purpose shouldn't be so appealing if they didn't want scientists touching them, but Victor is drawn as if a magpie to a silver plate. "Could you hazard an explanation as to what that is?" Since the mechanic doesn't appear to be there and Victor thinks that the boy can't be entirely useless, seeing as he's wearing the stuff.

[fullmetal_alchemy]

"What automail is?" Ed blinks, because he's never had such a request before. It's weird, this place, to constantly be explaining things he's always just known -- things in his world are taken for absolute granted.

"Uh, well," Ed starts, gesturing to his metal arm with his flesh. "It's metal prosthetics, usually steel. Connects to the nervous system, so it's powered by, you know, the body and stuff. Some people really upgrade them for more weaponized versions," he tacks on. Of course, his is easy to manipulate with his alchemy, but it's not like he's got a gun or chainsaw on his like some people.

[ourselvesalone]

It's a crude thought, but Victor's immediate desire is to fully take the boy apart and see how it connects. Unblinking, his gaze descends over him as he thinks about how he would go about it. Certainly it would require a great deal of anesthetic, though crudely, he supposes anything might do in a pinch. It takes a shake of his head to bring him out of the reverie, thinking that it doesn't do to have such thoughts about strangers. "And you?" he finally speaks, when he thinks he's got the sense for it. "Why not militarize yourself? It seems as though it might carry a benefit."

Victor's inner scientist is chanting with hope for change, to want to be a part of the new process, but he barely knows the man.

[fullmetal_alchemy]

Ed felt a prickle of warning along the back of his neck as Victor looked him over again. Not exactly danger, but something alongside it. A sense that, finally, Ed had learned not to ignore.

He scoffs when Victor asks, as if the answer is obvious. He crosses his arms almost defensively in front of his chest.

He might be labeled as a dog of the military, but well. He's not. He's different. He might officially work for them, but he's never been one to remake himself into something else just to please his superiors. Hates that word even. Superior. As if there's anything superior about Mustang.

"I don't need to," is what Ed settles for as an answer. Winry's work has always been clean and efficient, and that's always been what's suited Ed.

[ourselvesalone]

Victor furrows his brow, thinking perhaps he only doesn't understand because his mind is currently weak with the lack of drugs, is unable to understand the situation at hand. Still, it's an utterly helpless feeling he possesses and he wants to understand it, he truly does. "And why not?" he asks, shaking his head.

[fullmetal_alchemy]

He feels a tug that's become familiar since he's arrived here. He shouldn't show off his alchemy. There are a thousand and one responsible reasons in the hotel. He doesn't know these people. He doesn't know what they can do. He doesn't know why they would be interested in his alchemy.

Unfortunately, it's not like his humble side has ever won out much. Especially not here.

He claps his hands and a familiar blue glow crackles around his automail arm. He slides his flesh hand over the metal and the familiar jut of a blade appears over his wrist.

"I don't need to," Ed repeats.

[ourselvesalone]

Victor's awestruck look could likely be captured by a photographer and set down in the books to point to a definition of shock, delight, wonder, and curiosity. He leans in, with very little regard for what the blade might do to him, his eyes growing ever wider as he runs his fingers two inches above it. "That's magnificent," he says softly. "Was it fused in? By your friend?"

[fullmetal_alchemy]

He still can't get used to the reactions his alchemy and automail inspire here. Sure, he's used to people being surprised at seeing it. But those reactions were always more surprise at seeing something rare. Here, it was shock at seeing something that was considered impossible.

And this is even something a little more than that. It isn't danger sparking up his spine, but maybe ... wariness? Certainly not a feeling Ed is used to. He keeps the arm blade out in any case.

"No," Ed answers bluntly. It's maybe even stranger to hear him reference Winry so casually. She's never seemed so far away. Amusing, he admits, for anyone to think the alchemy is Winry's work if only because of how irritated she would be.

"It's called alchemy," Ed tacks on, but without any explanation.