[Aug. 29] [Fullmetal Alchemist] Lines on My Face

[seta-suzume.livejournal.com]

Title: Lines on My Face
Day/Theme: Aug. 29, 2010 "without sense of time lost"
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Character/Pairing: Solf J. Kimblee
Rating: G


If I didn't look in the mirror, I couldn't even feel the weight of my time in prison. ...Or so I said. Actually, I felt a bit less spry going in than coming out, but I assumed that had something to do with the lack of fighting (in particular) and the lack of activity (in general).

So, if I didn't run and fight and get myself into any tight spots, I didn't feel the missing years at all. ...Except when I walked around the city and saw how things had changed in my absence. Shops had closed, shops had opened, children had grown, people had moved away. If I'd visited my hometown, the change would've been even starker. If I'd seen my parents, the change might've been too much. They were getting to be old now.

I myself had aged only slightly on the outside. There were lines on my face that told the time or my history- that I was older and tired and had served some time in prison. They were like the rings in a tree, more defined on the inside than the outside.

When I took back my belongings on the day of my release, I found the photograph still in my things. It was more than twenty years ago now that it had been taken. There we were. My brother and I. There we were both children, but that didn't stop me from looking at the photo and seeing him, a young man, in my mind's eye. He would never have these lines on his face.

I was a little vain, so I told myself to stop frowning and get on with life. There was a gap in my life, but I would treat it like a skip in a record. There were things I needed to do. My mission spread out before me. I would continue to fight the lines with a smile. I could go on living like I didn't feel the time I was missing at all.