The King in his Court

[gotgreedy]

Characters: Greed. You. (...Ling?)
Location: The Training Center, the Secret Area
Rating: PG
Open/Closed/Finished: Open.
Summary: Greed, having heard the news of Garden's independnce, ponders how he can tun this to his advantage.



Greed, especially of late, had fairly shamelessly declared the Secret Area to be 'his territory'. Physically, this amounted to little more than a comfortable chair he'd snuck out of an empty dorm before it could be locked up again, and maybe a few bottles of alcohol he shouldn't have. Those who came here were welcome to stay, so long as they respected his presence and what nominal authority he claimed over it.

Now, the homunculus sat thoughtfully in his chair, staring out over the lovely view of Garden with a frown that clearly showed he saw none of it. He'd been denied one chance at his desires already, but now...

"At least I did the right thing, joining up here. More than I knew at the time."

After a moment of thought, he grinned. "Guess my instincts are still sharp, huh?"

Comments

[rewritethis]

It seemed unlikely to Ed that he was going to tease out that particular answer just by giving Greed another hard stare, but it was worth a try.

After a moment, though, he relented a little, looking almost thoughtful. "Yeah... that's right. It didn't go the way you were hoping, either."

[gotgreedy]

"Yeah. Kind of amazing... I was so close to having the power to reshape worlds..."

He lifted a hand as if he were reaching for the memory of that power, unusually subdued. Then, coming to his senses once again, he chuckled and flicked his hand away from that imaginary point dismissively.

"Thing is, it didn't turn out bad either. A play like that is generally all or nothing, but everything went so crazy I didn't have any real fallout for trying to haul Tee Cee into myself. So nothing lost except an opportunity, and there'll be more of those."

[rewritethis]

"In other words, you're no different than him." He tilted his head to one side, looking away from Greed. "Makes me wonder why you bothered trying to stop him."

[gotgreedy]

Greed threw back his head and laughed. "Sure I'm different. He wanted it for himself. I wanted it for me! There's no bigger difference in the world!"

He dropped his hands back to the chair arms, cracking his eyes to regard Ed with a much sharper look than the amused grin on his face would have indicated. "Of course, you went for broke in the middle of it all, too."

[rewritethis]

Ed didn't return the look, although given how quickly he started to frown again he had to have noticed. "Is that what you'd call it?"

[gotgreedy]

"Something like that. You went for what mattered, and damn the consequences. Though I'm guessing you didn't even have the slightest idea what would happen..." Obviously he wondered what Ed had been expecting, but he felt asking would, if anything, make the answer harder to get.

[rewritethis]

He shrugged, pointedly ignoring the almost-question Greed had trailed off on - and pointedly not even trying to disguise the accusatory note in his voice as he said, "Call all the names you want. This isn't just some game with a prize to me."

[gotgreedy]

"Sure it is, Fullmetal. Think about it -- you're playing under an arbitrary set of rules to accomplish a goal. What else is a game by that? Your problem is you think a game isn't serious."

Greed steepled his fingers, smiling over them at Ed with a wicked, dangerous look in his eyes. "Games can be serious. Games can cost lives. But you're playing along with the rules for the same reason I am -- because playing along benefits us, as far as we can tell. It's all in the service of getting what we want."