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Edward Elric names himself after reading yet another book he found in his father’s study. Edward is the name of an alchemist responsible for vast expansions in the collective Amestrian knowledge, and the name carved into multiple book covers in their bookcase.
“Edward Elric,” his mother coos, with a smile. “Elric from me, and Edward from your father. How lovely.”
Those words resound in Edward’s mind as he watches the house he grew in go up in flames.
He doesn’t think of it that way.
His name isn’t from his father, it’s from his absence, from the gaping hole that he left when he walked out the door.
The books with ‘Edward’ carved on their cover have no doubt turned to ash by now.
It’s a reminder of what allowed for the brothers to become this way, of what prompted the Elrics to play with life and death, of the cost of wanting.
It’s a reminder of who Edward is.
When the soldiers come, they do not ask for Edward Elric.
“The Elric siblings, Alphonse and—“
“Brothers,” the carrier corrects. “The Elric brothers. Alphonse has one brother, Edward.”
“Oh,” Mustang and Hawkeye say, in unison.
“What business do you have with two kids, anyway?” the carrier looks back at the confused faces.
“Kids?” Mustang snatches the files out of Hawkeye’s hands to look over them again. “It says here they’re thirty and thirty one…”
He rereads the erroneous papers over and over.
The carrier barks with laughter.
“They’re ten and eleven,” he explains, earning a grunt from Mustang.
“These files are filled with mistakes,” he groans, frustrated, as Hawkeye makes note of every detail she will have to correct.
Later, when Edward is given his certification, it is fully accurate.
The Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric.
“It sounds heavy,” he remarks.
Among the ever growing list of titles granted to him by others, he finds comfort in the notion that ‘Edward’ is a burden he himself chose to bear.
“Edward,” his father grants him his reality, standing at Trisha’s grave.
That name would leave that mouth again later, when it’s the son’s turn to grant his old man his reality.
“Edward,” Hohenheim says, with a somber smile. “A part of me is relieved, now, because I think you, all things considered, would understand more than anyone—”
“About your body?” Edward cuts straight to the chase.
Hohenheim nods after a moment of silence. He is seeking solidarity in being thrust into a body that brings him pain that the outsiders do not see, in searching of ways to right a wrong, in the injustice of his matter.
“I understand, in a way,” Edward concedes, looking down at himself – his mismatched hands, his tight chest, his heavy legs. “But I’m not like you.”
Edward looks up in time to see a part of Hohenheim break. A part of him feels bad, in return.
“I don’t hate my body, not in the way you think,” Edward continues, trying to put what he has been feeling his entire life into words for the first time. “Take my arm – the metal one – it’s a reminder of my biggest mistake, but it’s also the reminder that Al is here, with me, because I brought him back.”
Edward looks up, mostly to avoid eye contact, because no matter how smart, mature or wise for his age he is, he’s still talking to his father about things he never did before.
“I don’t hate my body, even when it brings me pain or makes others treat me differently. My chest, my voice, my figure – none of them are wrong, no matter how much I want to change them. They’re all reminders of who I am. My body isn’t a burden, it’s me.”
He stands up, glancing at his father before turning away, and, to his surprise, finding Hohenheim with a smile wider than Ed ever saw it.
“I don’t hate my body,” he adds, turned completely. “I wouldn’t be Edward Elric without it.”
He walks away, without letting Hohenheim say how proud he is. Even if it’s hard to accept, Edward knows it, anyway.
On a rare night in which the soft features of Ling’s face are returned to him and he reclaims his body from Greed, Edward sits next to him, leaving the sleeping Darius and Heinkel far behind, on the clearing next to the campfire.
They do not exchange words, but it’s a reassuring feeling, being in each other’s company and knowing who they are. Ling promised Greed doesn’t look or listen in, and Ed believed him, because it’s Ling, and they’re alone, the moment solely theirs to have.
“Can I ask?” Ling says, quietly.
“Yes,” Edward responds, without hesitation, despite being unable to predict what Ling will say next.
“When we went through the portal of Truth that one time,” the boy starts, sheepishly, not wanting to give too much power to the memory. “Why… why didn’t you get yourself a different body?”
Ed stares at him.
He said ‘different’. Not ‘right’ or ‘proper’.
“Why would I?” Edward says, bluntly.
“Doesn’t it…” Ling is still careful with his words, hesitant. It’s a rare sight. “Bring you pain?”
“I get headaches sometimes, doesn’t mean I want to get rid of my brain.”
Edward scoffs, but Ling looks confused, so he elaborates.
“This is my body. It’s the way it is, and I may not like it, but that doesn’t mean I wanna steal one that isn’t my own.”
Ling tilts his head, studying Ed’s face, but then averts his gaze to the night sky.
“Isn’t it unfair?”
“Justice isn’t a concern in the flow of life and death,” Edward retorts. “There’s nothing just about this body, but there’s nothing unjust, either. It just is, and I have to work with it.”
“Just… accept the pain?”
When Ling turns to the alchemist again, his eyes are filled with indescribable sadness, like nature itself is a live creature that wronged someone he loved.
“No,” Edward smiles, with the type of resolve and hope only Edward Elric can muster. “I said work. I may not choose how my body is born, but I can choose how it dies. And I’ll make sure I’ll die with a body that brings me joy.”
In the dim light of the moon, Ling’s eyes look far more awe filled but less saturated than they do the next morning, when Greed and Ed depart to replenish their supplies in the nearest town.
It’s small and obscure enough to safely buy everything they need without any particular disguises, as long as they don’t start any commotions they’re fine, and so they both stand in the isles of a grocery store, picking out cans and produce that wouldn’t get spoiled after a week of being stored in a backpack.
A fellow customer passes them, and his bag hits Edward’s leg.
“Sorry, miss.”
Ah.
That’s something he hasn’t gotten in a while.
With his reputation, stories of the Elric brothers and the youngest state alchemist Edward, the fact that he is male was an implicit assumption made by most. His figure was mostly concealed by layering and thick leather, and any feminine features were written off as boyish due to his age.
But now, with limited clothing, limited hairstyle options and limited public identity, the cover doesn’t work anymore.
In a split second, a familiar rage he’d almost forgotten over the years boiled in his gut, the same rage he felt when his school teacher latched onto the idea of the eldest Elric daughter, when he was told that girls don’t play in the mud at the age of 8, when a neighbor in Dublith tried to find out his “real name”.
Edward turns around, undecided yet whether he will express himself verbally or through his fist first, but, to his surprise, Greed beats him to it.
“You need to check your eyes, mister, that’s clearly a guy.”
Both Ed and the stranger stare at Greed, who’s still preoccupied with browsing the shelf in front of him.
“I’m not blind, lad,” the man finally says, frowning. He’s clearly upset about Greed’s jab at his eyesight. “Maybe you need to squint a bit more, but this here is clearly a chick.”
Edward is about to go for the jaw, but Greed finally looks up, and Ed freezes, because the purple eyes are locked on their target and suddenly the homunculus’ inhuman presence is much more reminiscent of Envy or Wrath than the idiot Ed’s been stuck with for the past few months.
“I don’t know why you keep arguing when you’ve been informed that you are mistaken and you’re looking at a dude.”
His tone makes it clear that he’s not avoiding making a commotion.
“I trust my eyes more than a couple freaks,” the man scoffs, eyeing Greed up and down. “If it didn’t want to be treated like a woman it could’ve cut its hair, or—”
And Ed’s not listening anymore, because he’s watching the unmistakable grey of the ultimate shield creeping up Greed’s skin, so he grabs the homunculus and drags him out as fast as he can before anything escalates.
“You can’t do that, Greed!” he chastises after they’ve walked far off of the premises of the store. “Picking fights with random strangers? Do you know how reckless—”
“Oh come on, don’t tell me you weren’t about to smack him too,” he gets in response.
“But I didn’t!” Ed accentuates his point with a pull on Greed’s collar, by which he has been dragging the troublemaker.
“Just barely! He was about to bring up your height!”
Edward stops and drops Greed with a loud thud.
He takes a deep breath in, and out. He mentally counts to ten.
“It was just a rude remark, Greed.”
“Bullshit!”
When Edward turns to face Greed again, he finds the purple eyes are filled with indescribable loathing, like the rude remark knocked down an object precious to him from the highest shelf.
“Why do you even care?” the question comes out more genuine than Ed meant it to be.
Greed groans and rolls his eyes.
“Because I’m Greed, it’s in the name, I care about the state of my—”
“How is calling me your possession any better than calling me ‘it’?”
Greed stares, blankly.
“Because,” he says quietly. “You’re not an ‘it’. But you are my— subordinate.”
Edward blinks a couple times, and then lets out a laugh, earning a frown.
“You really are an idiot,” he says, turning around before he can receive any protest. “Guess everybody in that noggin’ of yours cares for me in weird ways.”
“Wha—”
“Come on, we need to go to a different store now because of you. Hurry up.”
You will never be a man.
You are a woman.
You don’t have to see yourself as one, it’s just what you are, by definition.
Edward will never forget what it feels like to defend himself, as himself.
He is a scientist and a hothead, it is one defending alchemical theories and logical deductions about the world around him, but it’s a completely different beast to defend what is inside him.
He is a scientist, and using the jargon of logic, asserting definitions and observable facts is how he discusses his research and abilities, utterly defenseless when the subject of scrutiny is him.
He is Edward Elric, and he doesn’t know how he would go about proving that fact with the scientific method.
All he can do is mutter his own name under his breath, because no matter how many papers he presents, how many people he asks, it can be easily deflected as a very successful lie, because, after all, the source of all those claims is the alchemist in question.
It’s circular, all evidence coming back to him, to ‘Edward’, whose only claim to reliability is the sincere glimmers in his golden eyes as he swears on all that he loves that he is Edward Elric. Those glimmers can be dismissed as a trick of the light.
It’s much later, when his hands no longer hold the intoxicating electricity just beyond his grasp, that he feels he has finally understood the argument as fallacious.
He claps and presses, and nothing happens, even though his brain explodes with thought as he sees the molecules deconstruct and reconstruct right in front of him, the clear picture honed by years of practice.
He is not an alchemist, by definition, yet he undeniably is, and no matter how many papers you scour through and how many people you ask, the source of all those claims is the boy in question.
Looking down at his own body, he sees through it, because definitions are largely non-accurate, non-universal language games, in which Edward reserves the right to stop playing. He’s seen his own soul thrice, and he’s seen it change with him, grow and break and mend – as far as he was concerned, his hypothesis was proven.
He doesn’t need to prove it to anyone else.
In the light room of the hospital, two brothers aren’t arguing, but explaining things they only newly put into words.
“My body changes, every day, all the time, as the result of nature, as the result of my own choices, but it never ceases to be the ‘original’ one.”
“It sounds like your body is the ship of Theseus.”
“Well, who cares how many boards get replaced, as long Theseus stays captain, it will always be the ship of Theseus!”
“You make it sound simple.”
“You’re just complicating it because you think your life isn’t hard enough as it is.”
And maybe it is simple, Edward muses, looking at his new, scrawny arm, light without the burden of metal and all of potential scientific knowledge at its fingertips. It might have been complicated before, but now, eating breakfast with his brother who chugs milk like it’s nectar, it’s as easy as pie.
He looks down at his own body and revels in the fact that it might be complicated now, but one day, after pulling on the string for long enough, it will smooth out into a straight line, and will be able to reclaim his existence on his own terms.
Edward Elric stands, Edward now meaning much more than the name of an alchemist, and Elric meaning much more than a reminder of loss.
He stands, and his name feels as light as his arm.