nebroadwe | Fanfiction: The Honey of Earthly Joy (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Title: Ficlet: The Honey of Earthly Joy
Fandom: FMA (manga or Brotherhoodverse)
Character(s): Miles, Scar
Pairing(s): Set post-series, with all the spoilage that implies.
Rating: G
Word Count: 250
Warnings: None.
A/N: This 'fic ended a nearly year-long writing drought and also won first place in the weekly FMA Fic Contest for the "sugar" prompt. (Talk about positive reinforcement!) Concrit welcomed with an ISO standard cup of tea. Crossposted from

nebroadwe to

hagaren and

fm_alchemist.
Dedication: For Katie, by whose recent success it is dwarfed. :-)

How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
-- William Shakespeare, Richard II

~*~
The nameless man takes his coffee black; Miles, with a spiral of cream. Yet beside pot and creamer on the tin tray sit a box of sugar cubes and a jar of honey. The man frowns, nodding at them, and Miles blinks. "Ah," he admits. "Habit."

The strain of their long task reveals itself only in such slips. For the nameless man, the revival of Ishbal is an atonement; for Miles, it is a taste of exile. Even out of uniform, his accent betrays him, as alien in his ancestral homeland as his complexion in Amestris. Neither of them remarks the irony. "The honey, too?" the man asks.

"My grandfather sweetened his coffee with nothing else." Miles stirs his own, then sets the spoon aside. "Is that common?"

The man shrugs. "Old-fashioned."

"Sugar had no savor for him -- no more than sand, he'd say. And then he'd sing, when my grandmother couldn't hear. 'Her mouth has robbed the bees and left bare the hives.'" The words are Ishbalan; the tune wavers, a boy's memory of an old man's reedy croon. "'Sweeter her lips than honey, than honey from the comb ... '"

A warrior-priest should disdain such stuff, but he joins in. "'Come, come and drink with me -- '" (his father sings to his blushing mother). "'Sweeten my cup with your lips -- '" His throat closes, choking him briefly silent. "I don't ... remember any more."

Miles sips his coffee. "Someone will."

The nameless man bows his head. It is all he hopes for.

[Acknowledgments: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) was created by Arakawa Hiromu and was serialized monthly in Shonen Gangan (Square Enix); two anime of the same title were produced by Studio Bones. Copyright for these properties is held by Arakawa Hiromu, Square Enix, Mainichi Broadcasting System, Aniplex, Bones, and dentsu.]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

enemytosleep

I really liked this. There had to be countless awkward moments like this as they worked to rebuild Ishbal. Scar and his moral baggage aside, it had to be so foreign for Miles, who'd have only known his heritage through anecdotes. His singing the song about the honey reminds me of pépère and all his little diddies and sayings - this definitely rang true for me.

Welcome back to the world of fanfic (I've had a recent revival myself!).

And a random technical note:

You can post LJ comms here by using the following code (instead of hyperlinking):

[user name=fma_fic_contest site=livejournal.com]

by replacing the [ ] with < >. There is a space between the user name and the site name. :D

nebroadwe

One of the things that bugs me juuuust slightly about this one now is that I didn't really have room to develop more of an ironic turn from Miles and his not-quite-fitting-in-anywhere (cultural loss) as the story problem to Scar's consciousness of the death of his family and friends (personal loss). I might have to revisit that idea in a longer 'fic -- it's subtextual here, but the question of which of them is going to cope better, psychologically, with their joint task is an idea that intrigues me.

Thanks so much for the technical assistance, too! I knew there was a way to do that, but I couldn't remember where in the help I'd seen it and just gave up and hyperlinked.

Those word counts can be killer. I'd certainly be interested to read more of these two from you if you do decide to explore that more. I spent a minute trying to see if I thought one might feel less foreign than the other, cope better with coming to rebuild as an outsider - but they're both resilient things. Interesting stuff!

And no problem. I've been busy digging around here and making myself at home. On that note, I'll spam you with some stuff I've been compiling for my flist: