Asleep (Reader x Alphonse)

Petrification

I was sitting with Granny Pinako and Winry in the living room inspecting Winry's latest model of automail. I had admired automail for all my life. 

I guess now that I have you all reeled in, I might as well tell my story.

Automail was a sight to see to me. It had always been my escape. My safe place. I had loved the flawless creation of metal. It wasn't the metal so much that awed me. It was the way it had all fit together. The nails drove into the shine, the screws twisted into the spots just perfectly, the sizes of the different pieces of metal, the electricity that shocked through each inch. I loved the way it was arranged. 

Winry was my best friend. She was basically my sister. We had been through everything together. From birth, from childhood. When my parents were still alive, we had play dates every day at both of our houses. We took interests in automail when we were young, and had been working on it together ever since. We started by making simple metal. Putting the pieces together, sanding it down, that sort of thing. And as we aged, the more complex objects were created. Now, we were making arms, legs, feet, hands, you name it. We were closer than ever. 

My parents were killed in the Ishvalan war by unknown people of Ishval. They told me that my mom was accidentally shot by a man aiming at a Central officer, but hit my mom instead. The man was killed by a gunshot to the chest on impact. They told me my dad died from an explosion, also planted by the Ishvalan fighters. They both had a picture of me in their hands when they were found. It destroyed me. I locked myself in my room for days, not eating or drinking, and never talked to anyone. Not even Winry. My parents were very kind people, and they helped anyone. They weren't doctors, but instead fighters that didn't fight. They had guns at their hips, yes, but they never pulled them out to shoot anyone. They instead helped the injured Ishvalans, and rescued them to safety. They knew even then that this war was being fought for no reason and that something was wrong. I've never had any grudges or anger against the Ishvalan people like most of the people in Amestris for that specific reason. 

I had practiced alchemy when my parents weren't around with Edward and Alphonse Elric. Their father had practiced it, and they had the same fascination. They showed me a horse they made one day with alchemy they learned from books, and I wanted to learn to do the same. I had studied with them from their books in their house, and their mother, Trisha, came in to check on us to see what we learned. One day, we were going to do amazing things with alchemy.

This all was put on hold though, the day Trisha was diagnosed with an unknown illness. The doctors said it was a disease that spread... but being so far out in the country and around the same people continuously, I had doubted this theory. I could've been wrong, but I believed differently. She was bedridden for only a few days until she passed away. The funeral was detrimental to the boys. Edward had been extremely upset not only because of their mother's death, but because their father never returned to say goodbye to them or Trisha. This led him to hating his father and never wanting to see or hear from him again, Ed almost hoping that he had died a tragic death, just like his mother. Alphonse had been hopeful that his father simply had no idea that his wife had died, and that he didn't return with harm in his heart. Alphonse simply believed that his father had been innocent to the boys and made a genuine mistake. 

Trisha's death made them want to make her proud, even from the heavens up above. They stayed in their house, night after night, studying alchemy like their lives depended on it. Winry, Pinako and I thought it was a bit much how much they locked themselves away, but we kept quiet and figured that was the boys' ways of mourning their mother. 

I was with them one evening, and we had come across a woman named Izumi Curtis, and her husband Sig. Izumi had stepped forward to create a huge wall against an entire ocean using very advanced alchemy. We all reveled in her and her abilities, watching as she showed true power-- power we were dying to learn. We ran to her, pulling on her long shirt, begging her to teach us everything she knew.