"Con—stant," Lya said carefully, wrinkling her nose in concentration. The book in front of her was one of Al's (Xingese for Beginners! Learn to Speak the Quick and Easy Way!), and Riza could tell she didn't understand most of was reading, but phonics filled in where comprehension flagged. She had a good voice, loud and unwavering. Riza had a policy of refraining from one-upmanship with other parents, but oh, it was difficult sometimes.

If she found it difficult, Roy found it impossible. He had far-from-subtly ushered Winry and Edward into the prime seats, the armchairs facing the fire; Alphonse, despite Riza's protestations otherwise, had chosen a footstool beside them. Roy himself sat with Riza on the couch, but he was leaning so forward over his knees he might as well have been on the floor; when Lya looked up for assurance, he nodded and made and shooing motion with his hand.

"Go on."

"Both the constant and the vowel sounds are—"

Ah. "Consonant, sweetie." Riza made sure to enunciate the word, lingering on the correction. Roy shot her a hurt look, but she was not going to raise an illiterate child. "Like the first letter of your name."

Lya shook her head, the motion wiggling down her whole body; the coffee table creaked underneath her. She was really too big to sit on it anymore—but she had insisted, and it was a night to indulge her. Lya was, in fact, supposed to be in bed, but she had skipped into the midst of after-dinner hot chocolate (fruit juice for Riza, to Winry's delight) with her best pink skirt on over her nightdress, thumping a dog-eared book against her chest and demanding that she "do my reading, you're SO going to like it."

There'd been a moment of panic and hurried apologies when they realized the book was Al's—he had a habit of carrying priceless volumes in his suitcase—until Al assured them that it was a throwaway copy, and after three kids of his brother's he'd learned better than to leave first-century gilt work where sticky hands could find it. Ed looked rather affronted at the thought of his children being "sticky" before Winry whapped him in the back of the head and switched to looking sheepish instead.

"CONSTANT," Lya insisted, jabbing a finger into the page. "I can read."

"No one's doubting that," Roy assured her. He reached behind him to pat Riza's knee, missed, and turned it into elaborate flourish. "It's just that, your mother, she's absolutely always right."

He grinned. Lya was having none of it; she rolled her eyes and drew up her left leg to tuck it underneath her. "Constant."

"Let's take a look, then." Al knelt down next to her, craning his head over the page. "Where are you?"

Another jab. Lya pursed heir lips approvingly as he leaned down; clearly, he was her only ally in this roomful of idiots.

"Ah yes, here we go." Al cleared his throat. "From the above list, we can see that both the—huh." He squinted, tilting his head right and left, and then he smiled up at Lya, tapping her once on the nose. "It seems you're right, madam scholar. The word written here is 'constant.'"

Lya blushed and covered her face with her hands. She had been quite taken with "Mr. Alphonse" since she'd met him a year ago (Roy had been worried. Riza pointed out the existence of a very outspoken young woman in Xing, who was far closer to Alphonse's age and had already laid definite claim to him, and Roy had refrained from glaring holes in the front of Al's unsuspecting shirt). The book started to slip to the floor, so Roy lunged forward to catch it, sliding down beside Lya as well.

"Can't be," he said. "Normally I'd believe you, but your mother. Fact of the universe. That's the way it is." He turned the book right-side up and drew his finger down the page, pointing at a place near the bottom. "See? Right there it says—"

He stopped. Riza waited patiently as he narrowed his eyes, just like Alphonse had done, and then twisted his head around to stare at her.

"Riza Mustang," he said, in the voice of a man who had seen the divine, "This daughter of ours has achieved what I have been trying to do for twenty-three years. She has proven you wrong."

Riza met his gaze with the tranquility long practice, lifted her glass, and downed it in one go.

Winry was the first one to crack. She doubled over, laughing, slapping the back of the sofa with the hand that wasn't holding Ed's. Ed was next, and then Alphonse—he still laughed like he was shy about it, like it would still reverberate and scare off the neighbors—and then Lya, simply because everyone else was. Roy's eyes were crinkling and his cheeks were twitching and then he was gone, and Riza held out for a beat more of archness before she gave in too.

"I'm not surprised there's a typographical error," Alphonse said, wiping his eyes. "It's not exactly the most academic of books, that."

"Well, it has given me reason to be thankful on this fine day." Roy had Lya perched on his lap, ticking her stomach to make her shriek and kick her feet. He swept an imaginary hat off his head and held it to his heart. "Lya, because of you, I will always remember to keep my constants and my vowels."

He slurred the last word so it sounded like "vows" and looked pointedly at Riza. It was, without question, one of the ten worst lines he'd ever given her, and oh how she loved this man. Some of it must have leaked out onto her face because Ed started up an "Euwwwwwww!" in the background ("Ouch, Winry, what was that for?" "You know full well, you big sap"). Roy winked to the room at large and scooped Lya up underneath the armpits so he could settle them both back on the couch.

He tried to settle, anyway. Lya had always been enamored of the spotlight. "I was RIGHT," she crowed, beating her fists against Roy's arm; Riza smiled and caught them before she could do too much damage.

"That you were. I'm sorry I doubted you." She kissed Lya's hands, kissed her forehead, kissed Roy's mouth ("Ed I swear if you don't cut out that noise right now I will take the crib down from the attic and you can sleep in it for a week") and turned to ask Al what he'd been studying in Xing. Alkahestry, of course, but May was also having him read some of the Xingese poets, and (he mentioned with a glance at Winry) there was this special kind of ceremonial automail—

Riza used the cover of WInry's rapid-fire questions to scoot closer to Roy, leaning back against him and stretching her legs out the cushion before her. Lya hopped down from Roy's lap and scrambled up beside her, burrowing into the space between her side and the back of the couch. She was still vibrating from excitement; Riza recognized the symptoms of over-tiredness and wrapped her arms around her, holding her close so she could calm down. Roy threaded a hand under Riza's arm to settle on her waist, and the way his other came down to pet the top of Lya's head told Riza all she needed to know about how dopey the expression on his face had gotten.

Constants and vowels, she thought, as Al stared listing the percentages of metals in different alloys. Were a fanciful woman, she could make it a treatise of theirs; sleepy As and dropped-O kisses, a three-finger E through Lya's hair; the softly swooping U in the dip above Roy's collarbone and the never-ending I down the seam of his back.

But such contrivances were not Riza's way. She loved her family for what it was, and (as Roy's hand shifted slightly over her stomach) for what it was going to be; that was all the manifesto she needed.

Notes:

Based off the Royai Week 2014 Day Two prompt ("Constant")