Fanfiction: The Sweet Theft

[nebroadwe]

Title: Drabble: The Sweet Theft
Fandom: FMA (manga version)
Character(s): Hohenheim, "Father"
Pairing(s): Hohenheim/Mechthild
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 140 (I cheated a bit, but the original part of this drabble is exactly 100 words; the remaining 40 -- the framing dialogue -- are paraphrased from the manga.)
Warnings: None, really, but if you haven't read chapter 75, the context will elude you.
A/N: It occurred to me to wonder what those people whose names Hohenheim remembers meant to him before they were nothing but names. Here's one supposition, long-meditated but written at speed (where is the twenty-six-hour day I ordered?). Concrit welcomed with Chilean grapes. Crossposted from nebroadwe to Höllenbeck (i.e. hagaren_manga, fm_alchemist, fullservicefma, fma_het, fma_writers, and fma_fiction).
Dedication: For artemisrae, who is also considering Hohenheim's backstory.

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‘Tis no sin love’s fruit to steal; / But the sweet theft to reveal,
To be taken, to be seen, / These have crimes accounted been.
--Ben Jonson, "Come, My Celia"
      "It must be inconvenient, being human," mused the homunculus. "Your kind is forced to gather in communities and breed in order to survive."

      "Don't call it breeding," Hohenheim retorted, his face sunset-reddened.

      -- for he and Mechthild did nothing so profitable ("My masters, this lad's worth his weight in copper for the blood in him, out of a weaver by a stonemason, and all unformed yet: you may mold him as you like ... "), nothing so calculated ("She brings a fine dowry and court connections, but if she cannot bear sons, like her sister, then she's a poor bargain!") when they met on errands in the market and lay together behind Mayo's stall, skin chafing skin, transmuting time into pleasure, each moment forced to ripeness like an unseasonal hothouse fruit: hurried, surprising, and sweet --

      "If you say so," replied the homunculus.

---

[Acknowledgments: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) was created by Arakawa Hiromu and is serialized monthly in Shonen Gangan (Square Enix). Copyright for this property is held by Arakawa Hiromu and Square Enix. All rights reserved.]

Comments

Where's a Hohenheim icon when I need one?

[light-rises.livejournal.com]

First thought upon seeing who Hohenheim was paired with: "Hey! It's that name again!" XD

Gorgeous language, and the sensuous details/imagery come across as they should. I thought that mentioning Hohenheim's "sunset-reddened" face was a nice lead-in to the stream-of-consciousness section. Also, I can't fault you for the inspiration—it's intriguing, how much unspoken backstory that host of names from Chapter 67 suggested, especially in light of the Xerxes flashback.

On the other hand...I have to agree with the others about the slight confusion. It was the parenthetical dialogue that did me in the first read-through: the italicized section is already one long sentence (though a beautiful one), and placing those longish asides where they are forced me to relocate myself within the main sentence each time I passed an end-bracket. When I skipped over the parentheses on another read, the meaning was much clearer. I'd hate to cut out those asides altogether, though—they add backstory that, on a piece this short, I think is pretty much essential. So I agree with lyricnonsense's suggestion—maybe a double-length drabble, or something like that, would help smooth out the wrinkles.

That said, there's still the most important question of all, regarding Mayo: Did he, or did he not, know what those two were doing behind his stall er, take more breaks from his post than he should have? Inquiring minds want to know! :O

Re: Where's a Hohenheim icon when I need one?

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

First thought upon seeing who Hohenheim was paired with: "Hey! It's that name again!" XD

I wondered how many people would actually remember the name. I'm not looking forward to the hash Viz is likely to make of it (how many people have heard of Mechthild as a name these days?).

I have to agree with the others about the slight confusion. It was the parenthetical dialogue that did me in the first read-through: the italicized section is already one long sentence (though a beautiful one), and placing those longish asides where they are forced me to relocate myself within the main sentence each time I passed an end-bracket. When I skipped over the parentheses on another read, the meaning was much clearer. I'd hate to cut out those asides altogether, though—they add backstory that, on a piece this short, I think is pretty much essential.

You know, those weren't supposed to be character-specific backstory when I first wrote them, just exemplary, but I realized that the "he/she" structure was going to make them look like backstory anyway, so I've been staring at the second one cross-eyed ever since -- because one of the few things I do know about Mechthild is that she's middle-class, possibly the daughter of a well-to-do freedman. "Court connections" is still in there for the moment (because the middle class can have them), but it may mutate into something else at any moment, or disappear, because it's probably a touch deceptive hanging out there on its own.

For a first pass on the larger problem, I think I'm going to take evil_little_dog's advice and de-italicize the quotations, in the hope that it will help the reader situate them properly as asides. I'm a parenthetical thinker, myself, but I recognize that parentheses don't always work written down the way they do in my head. Must ponder this ...

That said, there's still the most important question of all, regarding Mayo: Did he, or did he not, know what those two were doing behind his stall er, take more breaks from his post than he should have? Inquiring minds want to know!

I suspect he's helping them out, or at least turning a blind eye and occasionally warning Hohenheim obliquely to be careful, if he can't be good. :-)