HEART OF FLAME – Chapter 1.
Roy Mustang was sitting in his office at Eastern Headquarters. One of his usual days, bending over his papers, filling them out, signing; piles and piles of official data passing under his hands. He carefully looked up from his work to examine a mug resting in front of him. Filled with hot tea, steaming restlessly for a few minutes now, it seemed very inviting. Actually, he wasn't even able to recall about when the mug was placed there. He was so busy with paperwork.
'Must have been Hawkeye' he thought, as he lifted up the cup, allowing himself a small break. He slowly sipped from it just to throw it back at the table in the next second, with a painful hiss and a hand quickly lifted to his mouth.
'Be careful, Colonel' said Breda grinning up from his own work 'That tea might be hot.'
'Thank you very much for pointing it out, Lieutenant.' snapped Roy 'But if I were you, I would be working on my papers before I might accidentally set them on fire.'
With that, the Second Lieutenant returned to his work with the grin frozen off his face.
Roy kept looking at his subordinate, eyeing him for another useless joke. But when nothing of the sort happened, he returned to his own job, with a death glare at the innocent tea cup.
'Sir, I told you it's still hot. And please, don't glare at the cup like that. It's not the tea's fault.' said Hawkeye as she stepped into the office.
'I don't know what you're talking about.' said Roy, hiding behind his work.
Riza sighed. 'Did you finished the papers I gave you in the morning, Sir?'
'Yes' replied Mustang tiredly. 'It's the pile over there.' he pointed to a pile of papers on the edge of his desk.
'Good,' said Hawkeye. 'because there's more' and with that, she added another pile of papers to the desk.
'WHAT?! You've gotta be kidding me!' Roy looked at the new stack of papers in front of him. No matter how much he worked, there just seemed to be more and more. It was simply endless.
Riza gathered together the finished papers and left with them, not even caring about Mustangs sudden outburst.
Roy glared at the papers and wished he could set them on fire, right there, right at that very moment. The higher-ups from Central never seemed to be satisfied with his works. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much extra hours he spent at work, how many nights he sacrificed for his job - it was never enough.
* * *
By the end of the day, as often before, he had to spend some extra hours in his office. The setting sun dressed the room in orange and red colours. He was the only one left there. Roy was just about to finish when the phone rang. He let it ring for a while but in the end, he picked it up with a tired sigh.
'Colonel Mustang speaking.'
'Still working, still working, eh?' asked a familiar voice. In the background, Roy could hear the joyful laughter of a little girl.
He rubbed his eyes. He was very tired. 'Good to hear you're already finished...'
'You should head home too. It's late you know.' replied Hughes.
'I know, I know... but I had these papers to finish...'
Hughes grinned as he spoke into the phone. 'You know... if you would have somebody waiting for you at home, you'd probably hurry with work even more.'
An annoyed expression appeared on Roy's face.
'Listen, if you called me to say that, then...'
'Of course not.' interrupted Hughes.
'Well, then?' Roy was getting a little impatient. Now he really wanted to head for home.
'I just wanted to tell you to be careful. Central has his eyes on you.'
'As I noticed...' said Roy as he looked at his desk, covered in papers. 'Somehow, I feel they want to keep me busy. Or that maybe they are testing me...'
'To see how much you can take? That's an option too. But surely they don't like how quickly you climb on the ladder right before their eyes.'
Roy sat on the edge of his desk and looked out the window as he listened to his friends voice.
'You made many enemies. Be careful. No matter how much you do, it won't be enough for them.'
Mustang chuckled 'Not enough you say? Why... funny you say that...'