Linky's Fics

Of Dreams And Duties

The career form was laid out in front of her. Rinne stared at it, and it felt like the paper stared right back. It waited for graphite or ink to come into contact with it. To forge the words that created the idea of her very future.

“This is pointless”, she’d think to herself as she began to stare out the window. Wind made its way through the trees. She naturally closed off the chatter of the other students in her mind.

All the voices around her morphed into white noise, no longer something to distract her. It was almost like a form of transmutation of its own.

She continued to gaze outside with a sigh. Rinne would rather turn this paper right back to Minato-sensei. Her “career” was already laid out for her and etched straight into stone. It was one of tradition and duty. Thousands of years of history embedded in the craft. He knew this too, for he also was an alchemist. The one that taught her in secret no less.

There were no dreams or goals to be had when it was all predetermined for her.

That’s when her mind shifted to Fuga, her father— that traitor.

He was the reason why she wanted to do this all in the first place. To pick up the art of alchemy. To partake in thousands of years of a historic craft, one that breathed fresh new life into the world in various ways, and originally bring smiles to the world through it.

That man was the one who taught her the importance of following the rules. Words she took to heart, and held so close to it. Making it into her creed. A guiding light to follow and abide by. She made what he taught her become part of the very fabric of her being.

Only for him to spit on it all and run away.

Ever since that fateful day it left her in a crisis. What was the point of everything he’d taught her then, if he was going to not listen to his own teachings?

By that point she’d already invested so much into alchemy. It was past a point of no return for her she’d tell herself. She couldn’t give it up now. Not after all she put her heart and soul into it. But it all had now felt so pointless.

It used to be a dream alongside that sense of duty… But on that day a decade ago that dream was washed away.

So she told herself that was her duty before anyways, even when it was part of her dreams. And it would continue to stay as such. In the end she convinced herself to stay the course and hone her skills in alchemy.

Her eyes moved back to the paper. The part on the form that was marked for her to sign with her dreams taunted her.

As the school bell rang, she just shoved it into her bag. If Minato-sensei bugged her about it later, she already knew what to tell him. Besides, he already knew too. So what was even the point?

Rinne didn’t have dreams, not in a very long time. But she didn’t need them either. She wasn’t anyone anymore, but she didn’t want to be anyone. It was a conscious choice that she made for herself. Now she was just another alchemist.

To be so was her duty, and nothing more.

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