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.

---

‘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

[leydhen.livejournal.com]

Oh...

I have no words, cause you... you... I like a lot th structure, how you say soo much wint soo little...

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I have no words, cause you... you...

Keep breathing! Keep breathing! :-)

I like a lot the structure, how you say soo much with soo little...

Canonical drabbles force the words to work hard, which is one reason I like them so much. I can't be lazy and use an expression that's almost right or flabby with modifiers. (And, let's face it, keeping this one short prevents me from having to write about the mechanics of sex, which I can't do at all convincingly. Rule 1 of Half-Decent Writing: Play to your strengths.)

[leydhen.livejournal.com]

XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

I love how your mind works ^_______^ And I like a lot your fics (in despite of I must look up a lot the English-Spanish dictionary @^___^@)

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Heh. Even native English speakers find themselves reaching for the dictionary when they talk to me. True story: many years ago, I was ranting to a friend about another friend: "She says that when [third friend] and I talk, we're incomprehensible. I just don't understand that. I mean, do you think I'm incomprehensible?"

Friend [deadpan]: "I don't know. What do you mean?"

Game, set, match. :-)

[lalikaa.livejournal.com]

Very intersting.

You should right more little ficlets with young!Hoho. I too am intersted in his past. :3

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I have another one in the queue, about something that happened not long after he was given his name, but I need time to finish it. [wail] And classes start next week! Why am I still in school? [/wail] :-)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Lovely turns of phrases in this but it took me three reads to get it all understood. I think maybe if the quotes were not italicized, it would've made more sense to me the first read through. Just a thought.

But the poetry is gorgeous.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Lovely turns of phrases in this but it took me three reads to get it all understood. I think maybe if the quotes were not italicized, it would've made more sense to me the first read through. Just a thought.

Argh. I was fighting the punctuation/typesetting all the way through this one, wanting to keep the frame-dialogue separate from what was running very quickly through Hohenheim's head and to keep the stream-of-consciousness from tripping all over itself internally, despite the fact that it's tapdancing awfully fast. I'll mull it over again. Three weeks from now, the solution (very possibly yours) will look obvious to me. Right now, I want to hang Aldine's corpse from a lamp-post.

But the poetry is gorgeous.

Thanks. I fought the language a bit, too, but it hit the mat fairly quickly once we started talking economics. :-)

[lyricnonsense.livejournal.com]

Interesting...

I like it but can't help but think it's a little sparse, a little confusing. It's a nice snapshot moment, but the very nature of the subject seems like it could benefit from a slightly longer treatment.

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

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I like it but can't help but think it's a little sparse, a little confusing. It's a nice snapshot moment, but the very nature of the subject seems like it could benefit from a slightly longer treatment.

Hmm. The difficulty there is, that's all there is. I did feel uneasy, in a feminist way, about using Mechthild, one of the only identifiably female names in Hohenheim's list, in such a conventional fashion -- a love interest -- in order to comment, lightning-flash-style, on his experience of intimacy and, at a remove, the malaise of a society that treats people as commodities; the homunculus, bless his twisty little brain, sees that clearly enough to exploit it for his own benefit. But it does leave Mechthild herself something of a cipher. Harumph.

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. :-)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Economics can kill a scene dead. *grins*

[fractured-chaos.livejournal.com]

Beautiful piece. I had to read it a couple of times, myself. Partly because I was pleasantly surprised to see you poke a toe outside your comfort zone there ;)

Have I mentioned just how much I enjoy your use of language? *envies* ^_^

[plushabilities.livejournal.com]

I really like the natural feeling to it, keep up the good work ^_^

[artemisrae.livejournal.com]

*blush* for little old me?!

As for the fic itself well... Hohenheim is a mystery, but what I actually like about this little thing is not him and Mechthild (which is very tasteful, I know you don't often go there) but actually the conversation between him and the homunculus. We don't really see Hohenheim break away from his little vaguely dazed demeanor very often, and when we have it's been in relation to the homunculus, which makes him marvelously IC here.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Beautiful piece. I had to read it a couple of times, myself. Partly because I was pleasantly surprised to see you poke a toe outside your comfort zone there ;)

Just a toe -- no other, um, body parts. :-)

(I will leave a comment on your story, I promise -- this has been a harrying week. Being assaulted by a story, even a drabble, in the middle of it, did not help my time management, either.)

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Storytelling is an inescapable impulse -- I'm not sure I could stop without medical intervention. :-)

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

*blush* for little old me?!

But of course!

As for the fic itself well... Hohenheim is a mystery, but what I actually like about this little thing is not him and Mechthild (which is very tasteful, I know you don't often go there) ...

As fractured_chaos said upcomment, just putting a toe outside my comfort zone here, me. I'm fine with my characters canoodling; they're just going to have to hire someone else to do the play-by-play. :-)

... but actually the conversation between him and the homunculus. We don't really see Hohenheim break away from his little vaguely dazed demeanor very often, and when we have it's been in relation to the homunculus, which makes him marvelously IC here.

Yes: with other people in the present, he's always hiding himself. But I owe most of the good contrast in this scene to Arakawa: it's her dialogue in the frame, and I'm actually bending the scene away from its manifest content a bit (Hohenheim goes on to argue calmly that human beings derive a lot of joy from their relationships with friends and family, however weird that may seem to the homunculus) to focus on this one particular kind of relationship. It's still about the idea that human beings don't/shouldn't treat each other instrumentally, though, and we do see from what follows in the manga that Hohenheim's views aren't shared by all members of his society. Unfortunately.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's why Mustang demanded his change back from Ed in the manga -- to shut him up? :-)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha. Like that would shut up Ed.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

He should've known he was just going to get ordered to turn the country into a democracy.

[artemisrae.livejournal.com]

just putting a toe outside my comfort zone here, me. I'm fine with my characters canoodling; they're just going to have to hire someone else to do the play-by-play. :-)

I know what you mean. I always swear I won't go there and then Josie says, "But you know what you should do?" and the next thing I know I'm blushing furiously and threatening to delete the thing after every damn sentence. I'm terrible with peer pressure.

But I owe most of the good contrast in this scene to Arakawa: it's her dialogue in the frame, and I'm actually bending the scene away from its manifest content a bit (Hohenheim goes on to argue calmly that human beings derive a lot of joy from their relationships with friends and family, however weird that may seem to the homunculus) to focus on this one particular kind of relationship.

Ha - maybe I should go back and read some chapters that feature characters OTHER than Edward and Winry. I'd completely forgotton about the exchange and.... I still maintain that it seems like something you'd write. It totally works (for me, anyway,) and you just gotta wonder how much more of Hohenheim's backstory Arakawa intends to give us.

This is also nice because it's given me a nudge to go back and look at that other Hohenheim and Pinako fic I've been toying with. I guess I should post that at some point.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Obviously, he wasn't thinking that far ahead.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Hey, if you're going to be President, you've got to be able to think ahead. I may have to find another candidate ...

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

... you just gotta wonder how much more of Hohenheim's backstory Arakawa intends to give us.

I want to know what's in the letter from Trisha that Pinako gave Ed to deliver to Hohenheim. Arakawa does not, in general, put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it (thank you, Anton Chekhov!) and that letter looks like a fowling piece to me. I'm preparing to duck. (And then there are the land mines, literal and metaphorical, as we've seen in the most recent chapter ... )

This is also nice because it's given me a nudge to go back and look at that other Hohenheim and Pinako fic I've been toying with. I guess I should post that at some point.

[perks up and waits attentively ... ]

[artemisrae.livejournal.com]

I want to know what's in the letter from Trisha that Pinako gave Ed to deliver to Hohenheim

ASDSDFJKHF I FORGOT ABOUT THAT. GOOD GOD. The more I remember this stuff the more convinced I am that Hohenheim isn't gonna survive the series. *sigh*

[perks up and waits attentively ... ]

HA. It's giving me trouble, to say the least. I've never been doubtful of my ability to write shenanigans but this piece is giving me trouble. It's hard trying to strike the right balance between "Paiting a full picture of Pinako's Rush Valley life" and "Excess explanation and OCs." Not to mention I'm still not 100% sure of my characterization. *prods fic with sharp stick*

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's just ED. Who's going to pay attention to him?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I had the same thoughts about evil_little_dog with this one. And the chilling pure merchandise value of women at that time was just that, chilling. I could see the homunuculus' disbelief.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I had the same thoughts about evil_little_dog with this one.

I hope there's a syntax error in that sentence, or else I just learned an interesting new fact about your relationship. :-)

And the chilling pure merchandise value of women at that time was just that, chilling. I could see the homunuculus' disbelief.

It's funny how that evolved as I wrote -- at first inspiration, the drabble was just taking Hohenheim's rejection of the term "breeding" as not applicable to what he was about: too instrumental. Then I started thinking about what "breeding" could mean, besides the continuation of the species, in a patriarchal slave-holding society, and the economics of sexual relations seemed an obvious and interesting "push" against the emotional-relational "pull" of canoodling. Too many years of graduate literary analysis does strange things to the brain.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

The more I remember this stuff the more convinced I am that Hohenheim isn't gonna survive the series. *sigh*

I was convinced he was sacrificially toast up until the last chapter, when I was pleasantly surprised by the turn of events, and then began to doubt again, just because Arakawa doesn't always run with the archetype in the way you think she's going to. (I still think Scar and Kimbley will do for each other, though; Scar's got too many murders at his door to survive narrative justice.)

It's hard trying to strike the right balance between "Paiting a full picture of Pinako's Rush Valley life" and "Excess explanation and OCs."

Hear, hear. "Winry and Paninya go to the movies" has been giving me the same kind of trouble. It's the lure of world-building -- I created a whole upscale neighborhood and a culture of apprenticeship for Rush Valley, but I'm beginning to suspect the deer is teal. Oh, well. Finish 'fic first; edit afterward.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I suggest you look behind you -- or perhaps simply duck. :-)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

that'll teach me to work the flist while writing up my lectures. I mess up. That would be I agree with ELD of course

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Phew. (And yes, multitasking is dangerous. Except when it's me listening to anime whilst I catalog. That's just a matter of sanity maintenance.)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

He knows better. >;)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

i'm prety good at multitasking but last night working on two stories, three IM windows, LJ and my lecture probably overwhelemed me.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Ye gods. That's not multitasking; that's a Sulamid's normal workload.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I can't look. [hides eyes]

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

snort. I can usually add in watching TV too but my computer is no longer in the same room as the tv

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

That's it: I'm calling Area 51. One of their experiments seems to be missing ... :-)

[artemisrae.livejournal.com]

(I still think Scar and Kimbley will do for each other, though; Scar's got too many murders at his door to survive narrative justice.)

What I want to know is how Winry is going to be involved with those two - she's connected to both of them and she's right there and Kimbley specifically mentioned the photograph and arrrrgh. Damn you Arakawa! (Or maybe it's just me the silly fangirl, hopeful for protection angst? I'm not sure, but whatever she comes out with is sure to blow my mind, no matter what I suspect will happen.)

Hear, hear. "Winry and Paninya go to the movies" has been giving me the same kind of trouble. It's the lure of world-building -- I created a whole upscale neighborhood and a culture of apprenticeship for Rush Valley, but I'm beginning to suspect the deer is teal.

SEE, I WOULD TOTALLY BE INTERESTED IN THAT. But then again: look at Winry's popularity in fandom. *sigh* Then again, if you're ever lookign for someone to take a quick glance at the fic, I'd be more than happy to :D

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

SEE, I WOULD TOTALLY BE INTERESTED IN THAT. But then again: look at Winry's popularity in fandom. *sigh* Then again, if you're ever lookign for someone to take a quick glance at the fic, I'd be more than happy to :D

I never understood why Winry got such a negative rep in certain segments of this fandom, except that the clear narrative indications of Ed/Win interfere with people's preferred pairings (except if that's the case, why don't more people hate Hawkeye?). Maybe it's just one of those Dr. Fell things.

May take you up on the offer to look at draft material, once I have a complete draft. I keep meaning to write, and then being interrupted by local necessities, like plumbing.

[ghostfriendly.livejournal.com]

I didn't get this immediately either, but it's a great drabble, worth reading. There is a lot to be done with Hohenheim...

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

That's for sure. If I ever have enough time to get unblocked about it, I have another young Hohenheim story all plotted out that just needs to be written. I'm hoping maybe next month won't be as crammed full as the past two have been ...