Author's notes: Every time the humonculi go on about how Roy's flame alchemy might be the most (badass) annoying there is... I always wonder how in like three panels, Riza just entrusts this ultra-dangerous research to someone she treats so formally, like a stranger. So this is the mostly canon longer version of how Roy does earn up to the research, with all the bells and whistles of feels with Riza Hawkeye. Hope you guys stick around :)

disclaimer: don't own the characters except the ultra tiny ones, and some obvious spolier alerts !

As a child you'll try to wrap your mind around a concept.

Like: 'why can't I wear this shirt? It's as clean as all the others, and I like it, and there's no other reason why I can't.'

'No. No that's not how the world works son. People see you everyday and have no difficulty remembering the clothes you wear. If they see you in that same white shirt they will say 'oh that mustang child is so poor that his father cannot afford to buy him more shirts.'.'The father hands him a different shirt gruffly, and returns to business. It never occurred to the little boy to take notice of other people's dress. He only noticed what they said or if they had interesting stories, but he put on a different shirt anyway. Now he's told he has to look at people's clothes, decide if the clothes are nice enough so that person was 'to be respected'(?)

'That makes no sense.'

'People don't usually make sense son. But once you figure them out, we'll be fine'.

They shuffled out of the room, and they were. Roy had fun noticing this new found complexity, how grownups did wear elaborate colorful things to impress courts and what father called clients. It didn't matter if a rule was logical, as long as the world was consistent enough about following it. He liked knowing secret 'rules' and 'natures' and developed a keen eye on people as a young obedient child.

There was this one anomaly though, a caravan driver he always found helpful, who always wore this green shirt. Maybe there were more adult person rules he didn't know about, so that a helpful caravan man is allowed wear the same green shirt.

'Hey mister, you just wore that green shirt yesterday? in fact I remember you wearing it all the time, why is that?'

A drawn out pause.

'well roy, I'm not as rich as you. I don't have as much clothes.'

Roy felt the blood rush to his face as the driver then rushed to load goods. Well, there was another adult rule that he missed and he felt a special kind of terrible. You never point out to poor people that they are poor, it is both cruel and rude.

From then on, goodness, he followed all the gaddamn rules. Say you look lovely madame so and so when she is surely not, and give undivided attention to mr. that and that because even his jokes are half truths, and that might be helpful.

'Now Roy, for heaven's sake ! Again and again measure those limp green leaves in silent shadows away from police, because damn it roy my business is worth a ten of you, you worthless, worthless! child. that parcel is worth killing a man for.'

Roy always thought that part still made no sense. He's was the best representative opium dealers have seen for centuries and he can always find a 'diplomatic' solution, to trading deals and legislation -that would leave everyone happy and satisfied with their pieces of reality. He understood and learned well, like no one else, the illogical rules of human forces that made business so deliciously lucrative.

He'd like to think himself as someone who is very very important. Especially when he'd throw the opium at night into the ink blank river and watch it drift away just like all the other things in this world. It burns him, how he could run away from home and this terrible place, if his illogical mind didn't tell him that he wanted to love a father. That particular rule, made no sense at all.

In one of his assignments, Roy was traveling in a caravan with a hindu brahman, a christian priest and a muslim imam. Roy asked why is it that man can be so illogical(unreasonable, imperfect).

The priest said that man was once immortal, ruled by a logical God until Adamu sinned. Where 'a damu' were the hebrew words for 'the human.' His fall can only be redeemed with love.

The imam said that Allah himself is not perfectly immutable but changing: Allah had to create mercy to become a merciful deity: he created one hundred parts of mercy and distributed ninety-nine amongst His creation and kept one for Himself. Man similarly changes, reasonable in one action and unreasonable in the next.

The brahman said that man was too small to fully grasp dharma, cosmic law and order, and all of the universes. Such is dharma, such is life.

The three scholars were quite an interesting to watch, in their enthusiasm they all looked the same, waving their hands and spewing verses like beautiful literature. The littered jargon of the great religions meshed into each other as if they spoke of a single truth, from the conflicted soul of mankind. Roy thought that maybe all them can be true.

He heard the news in prison. It wasn't his first time spending a few nights in jail, and just like one of his cellmates said: it had food and shelter, which was a fairly improved state compared to most places these days, with food rations, without border conflicts.

It was uncomfortable there, packed like sardines in a damp unit, reminding him how suffocating it was to be in a faceless crowd. The bunk beside him was occupied by a petitw thief named Sam who was announcing the headlines from a crumpled sheet of news for the benefit of the rest of the convicts.

'War on North! and the South! war on all of us !' (like it mattered.) Dick who was a large man with a tear drop tattoo on his left fist preferred days when beautiful actresses were printed big and bold alongside headlines. His laugh came from his belly the type that would infect the rest of the prisoners.

'All the skin we get now are grimy state alchemists!'

'WAhaha!"

'Not THOSE again!' The cell now was in a synchronized state of whining and objection. It's a national past time to talk and not not talk, admonish such unlawful creatures. It was a topic that was already stretched inside out, over under and about like an exhausting hot day that beats you down exhausted. It's an odd fetish honestly. Or anxiety, enthralling and terrorizing injected with media frenzy that feeds dark dreams.

'The creatures were now hired by the military.. downright creepy. '

Dick has already killed a man. That's how teardrop tattoos go around in jails, but Dick still finds them alchemist pretty fucked up.

'They could end the wars' said a tall dark man in the corner.

'There's always a war' Roy quipped.

Sam hushed the cell with the latest bits. There was news of new alchemy that trumped all others before it, as if all others were not dark enough. Invented by a civilian alchemist that could instantaneously produce combustive explosions at a distance of 200 meters, and sparking a damage radius of a full league! Shit! curses from different regions drums across the prison walls yawah! infinite gun powder with ten cannons at an instant. fdg guhsho. obviously militarized it's obviously militarized. shit man what kind of devil shit could you-

'Wait! 'Sam yells, 'he doesn't want to be a state alchemist.'

'Then he's obviously not real' Dick announces.

'We're in Amestris boy, your wife doesn't grow hair without the fuhrer knowing it.' others sound their agreement. can't be real. Sam continues reading from the paper, he's called the flame alchemist. That's just sick. Is he God? you're an idiot who couldn't even steal a purse sam! what do you know of God?. maybe lucifer! (a man from the adjacent cell is shouting) that could work! I mean hell on earth isn't such a far cry-

Roy grabs the paper during the distracted tangle and his eyes dart through the articles, out of habit actually. The paper was thick in his hands, war obituaries, even hangings. His mind jumped at this father's name listed below bodies caught in line of fire in Dar- Dar es Salaam?. Mind jumping at the new consequences, thoughts like fish in startled water wondering what it's supposed to feel like to lose a father, or a life.

Soon he was issued his one phone call and he realized the sudden silence of a dial tone. He could dial no one. He wracks his mind for someone outrageous enough to bail out a convict. She calls him 'Royboy' but what does it matter to him right now, he dialed for madame Christmas.