Beyond the Horizon
by
Vesper Moonshine
"Beyond the horizon, behind the sun
At the end of the rainbow life has only begun
In the long hours of twilight 'neath the stardust above
Beyond the horizon it is easy to love"
Bob Dylan
Chapter One: Early Rising
It was very early in the morning that Roy Mustang heard the airy notes of a melody skip across the strings of a steel guitar. The instrument played a softly buoyant tune that bounced into his room as he rustled in his bed half asleep, let out a muddled grown, and regretfully opened his eyes.
He'd heard the song in his sleep, a happy relaxing tune worthy of any pleasant dream. Embarrassingly, in his dreams he'd been stepping out a soft shoe dance routine to the song down a grand stare case wearing a top hat and tails, but as fatigue fell away in the face of the bright streams of light stretching through the blinds he understood that it played not from his own subconscious but from somewhere in the Hawkeye house.
He shook off the strange dream as hunger pulled at the pit of his stomach, and the emptiness growled at him like a caged rott weiller. He pushed back the covers and reached for his night shirt, slipping it over his head and stumbling out of his room. He scratched the skin just behind his ear with an uninhibited yawn, and sleepily followed the music
As it would happen, the melody seemed to be coming from the same place his hungry coaxed him towards, and even through sleepiness - or possibly heightened by it - he was strangely enchanted as he rounded the open arch that lead into the kitchen.
What he saw when he entered genuinely surprised him.
Little Riza Hawkeye was standing up on a stool to reach a high shelf in the cupboard, her left leg hovering in the air just above the edge of the stool, which she periodically tapped with her foot in time with the music. There were a couple of eggs sizzling in a silver skillet on the stove below her that smelled as if they'd been seasoned with dill.
In her pale lemon hued dress and with her short yellow hair feathering back around her head she looked like the sun itself. Roy couldn't believe she was already washed and dressed, and cooking breakfast for herself at such an early hour, looking as perfectly in place as the sun's own position in the sky. She pulled out a floral design plate before she stepped down off the stool and spotted him, a startled expression dawning on her face as her feet settled on the cool, white tile.
"Oh, Good Morning. Mr. Mustang." she said with a polite, if somewhat bashful smile.
"Morning." he said, somewhat hesitantly.
It had been nearly a year since he'd been sent to study under Mr. Hawkeye, and he still knew so little about father or daughter. They were a quiet, serious stock with whom casual conversation was always pithy and scant, as hard to catch or hold down as a jittery jack rabbit. So, he didn't know the girl well and after their first cold meeting he really hadn't expected to ever know her. He could tell she was shy; a fortress of flesh and blood with a swinging sign hanging behind her eyes that read 'do not enter'.
Yet, now her silly little stool and her cheery appearance intrigued him. He walked over to her, his face scrunched in confused fascination.
"You're cooking for yourself?" he asked.
"I was hungry." she said simply, shrugging and setting the plate on the counter.
"But you're twelve."
"And you're fourteen." she said, flipping up a corner of one of the eggs to check it's progress with a spatula. " You know how to use a stove, don't you?" She looked at him, curiosity winning out shyness.
He started to defend himself but stopped, his mouth agape as he considered. Then he said, "I made mac and cheese once."
He didn't feel it would be necessary to tell her he'd burnt that meal, or that that was the last time he had tried anything of the kind after being ordered by his disgruntled mother to scrap the cheese off the bottom of the singed pot. An unsuccessfull salvage mission.
She lightly giggled, and it seemed to surprise her as much as it did him.
She poked at the eggs again, gingerly not looking at him, then suddenly, "We have no mac and cheese. We don't torture people here." she said artfully.
Her placid face was sparkling just under its serene surface like gold flecks in a fresh water stream. Dumbfounded, Roy gaped at her.
"Did you just make a joke?" he drew slowly. Maybe he had misheard, it was still very early.
"They don't have those where you come from?"
Another one! Roy certainly found it strange that she choose to be friendly and interesting now. He shook his head in astonishment, "You're kind of odd." he said in all his heavy-handed youth.
"I'm odd?" she said, stepping onto the stool and reaching into the cupboard once more, "You're the one who has his PJ's on in-side-out." she finished flatly with very little humor in her voice, but he could see amusement in her amber golden eyes.
He looked down at his baggy button down sleeping shirt and saw the pronounced seams running down the arms and alongside the buttons. He blushed furiously at the ridiculous sight.
"I was still sleepy when I put it back on." he said, running a hand through his hair, then letting it rest at the base of his neck. Holding the pose he looked away from her, his attention drawing back to the song, that he finally realized was spinning out of an old phonograph on a table in the corner of the kitchen.
"What is that song called?" he asked, avoiding his embarrassment as much as exploring his curiosity.
She stepped down off the stool, another plate in her hands that she proceeded to set on the counter next to the other one, as she said "It's called Red sails in the Sunset." She picked the pan up off the burner and slid an egg onto each of the waiting plates.
"I heard it in my dreams this morning." he said absently.
"Your dreams? What were you dreaming of?" She was starting to settle into a comfortable space, he noted, the shyness slowly slipping off her like a silk scarf.
Then he suddenly remembered the embarrassing content of his corny dream, and stumbled for an answer. "Ah, I just remember the song." he said, removing his hand from his neck and swatting the air with it.
She shrugged, grabbing for the salt and pepper before she handed him one of the plates. " Well, It's an old folk song from Acroiya. Something about a sea journey, or coming home from one."
He didn't acknowledge her comment, but looked confused at the dish she'd thrust in front of him. "Isn't this yours?" he asked.
"I'm sure you're hungry, and two is enough to share."
She was smiling softly like a wisp of white cloud stretching across the sky, and he was disarmed by it. Really, he had been disarmed since first opening his eyes that morning. Roy Mustang didn't dream of dancing, or weepy old folk songs, or put his clothes on in side out. Roy Mustang was a serious, disciplined young lad. Now, after just waking up one morning he'd suddenly become a slap stick idiot worthy of any nickelodeon? It was weird.
"Thank you." he said.
"Your welcome." she answered, taking her own plate and sitting down at the table.
He followed her, taking a seat next to her, and he continued to stare at her in between sending his fork on a vicious expedition through the runny sunny side eggs. She was pretty in a tom-boyish sort of way, he thought, and she did look queerly radiant with her pale coloring. She was odd, but she had given him part of her breakfast, and with that, he decided he would get up early tomorrow in hopes that early rising was her routine.
--
As Roy had hoped, fixing herself breakfast at dawn was her habit, and fixing extra for him soon became part of that habit. After several months he'd even gotten up earlier than her a couple of times to make the meal, but after nearly falling asleep during Mr. Hawkeye's lessons because of it, and after the fire alarm incident he'd figured he had better stop. She was still there every morning, though, waiting with a glass of orange juice in summer and a cup of tea in winter.
Some days Mr. Hawkeye would come out of his study and join them, reading his news paper or going over research notes. Those days Roy saw how different Riza was in front of her father, and realized that before that first early morning he'd only spoken to her with her father hovering over them.
During the mornings with her father she was quiet and reserved, but when he was absent they would talk of many things. Some serious, such as their child's grasp on the ongoing border conflicts or his alchemy lessons; some stupid, like neighborhood gossip or why female movie stars fainted when they fell in love, and why cowboys always road off into the horizon. The last subject became quiet a debate one morning that had started when Riza asked what the horizon was anyway, and what it meant that everyone wanted to ride off into it. The question struck a cord that they continued to play with through the remainder of their breakfast.
"It's Nothing." She said, "It keeps moving away as you get closer to it. It stands for relentless walking and a restless life." She took a bite of her buttered toast, looking wholly satisfied with her answer and not waiting for Roy's reply.
He did anyway, shaking his head as he scrapped his fork on the porcelain china to cut himself out a bite of his pancakes.
"It's the future." he proudly stated, feeling wise in his superior age, " 'I'm going to get to what's over that horizon' someone says, and when they do it's tomorrow." He plowed the pancakes into his mouth, grinning widely.
She rolled her eyes at his goofy display and said, "But you don't have to cross the horizon to get to tomorrow. I can sit her all day and that will happen whether I do anything or not."
He contemplated for a moment, swallowing his ridiculously large bite with a forced gulp."Okay, then it's like a goal. A goal for the future. Something to work for."
Her face scrunched, "Now you're just being silly." She said.
"No, I'm not" he retorted, petulantly putting his fork on his plate.
"Yes, you are." she said, also setting her silverware down moderately.
"No, I'm right. You'll see someday."
"No. I don't think so." She picked up her own empty plate and his half empty one, and he was too distressed over the tiff to care that she was taking away his breakfast.
"I'm sure." He obstinately crossed his arms over his chest.
"So am I." she said, in a confident sing-song, turning on the faucet and rinsing the dishes. Roy was facinated that she could play at nonchalance like any other girl her age would play at dress up. It was like finding a heightened level of intelligence and maturity in a furry kitten, finding out it could talk or something. It was disconcerting.
"Ooh you're..." He threw one hand up, clinching his fingers around an invisible ball in his frustration, then he pointed a rigid finger at her back. "You're stubborn!"
She whirled around to face him. "I'm stubborn!?"
"It would seem you both are." Came a stern voice from the the man standing under the Kitchen's entry way arch. Riza was visibly startled at her father's sudden appearance, straightening her posture when first she saw him, and Roy was rather unhappily enmeshed in the awkward situation.
When neither of the young people answered, Mr. Hawkeye went on, "What is this battle of wills about?" he asked.
Roy was the one to answer, noting how stalled Riza looked. "We were arguing over what the horizon is, and what it means in movies, and books, or... you know."
Mr. Hawkeye's face was as blank as a leaf of white paper, and Roy suddenly felt unutterably foolish.
"What point's have each of you taken?" Mr. Hawkeye asked slowly, and Roy explained the details.
"Your both incorrect." Mr. Hawkeye stated.
"Then what is it?" Riza hesitantly ventured, one of her hands raised to her breast, curling around the fabric of her blouse.
Mr. Hawkeye significantly looked at his daughter as he answered, and his eyes shimmered with a mystery that Roy couldn't even begin to understand; it was like a lost city at the bottom of the ocean, untouched for centuries, unreachable for turbulent waves.
"You'll know when you've long crossed it."
Mr. Hawkeye left without another word, leaving only confusion in his wake.
"What kind of answer is that?" Roy mumbled when his master was out of earshot. He let out a breath as the tension loosened in the room minus one patriarch.
Riza didn't answer, just turned back to the dishes, slipping her hands under the water she'd left running when she'd turned from the sink. Worried at her silence, Roy crossed to her, and put his hands into the water with hers, saying, "Let me do them. You cooked."
"I really don't mind." she said, not looking at him.
"I don't either." Roy returned, charmingly.
They did them together, her washing and him drying. It was a palpable kind of stasis that they moved into almost instinctively; a moment that bordered the stratum between discomfort and comfort. Roy wouldn't realize until much later in his life that that moment was one of his first encounters with the bittersweet taste life inevitably leaves in all who grow up.
