dust like sin
Characters: Llewellyn-family
Summary: They paid a high price.
Companions: till heaven knows our name, and this war's not over
Pride was a sin the lords and ladies of LionnenburgCastle were just too familiar with.
They had any reason to be proud of themselves, of their glorious achievements and the glittering decorations that adorned their uniforms. While they had never had a single state alchemist in their rows, they had had as many generals and other high-ranking officers as the Armstrong-family and this was what they were proud of.
Some people might argue that they had always chosen the easy way but this was wrong. There had been no one in the last three generations of their family who had had an easy life because all of them had walked the paths of sin to reach his or her goal – not that they minded. They had long accepted that everything in life came at a price and that only a man or a woman of firm resolve could reach his or her goal.
Jonathan Llewellyn had been the head of his family since he had been nineteen and his father had passed on after long and painful weeks of illness. The young man had just married the woman of his dreams, Cecilia, a née Mustang, and was at the beginning of a career in the military that would be unsurpassed by anyone until Olivier Mira Armstrong would start out.
Jonathan worked overtime, risking neglecting both his wife and his family, to gain the money he needed to ensure that everyone who carried their name and their blood would not have to worry about money. He was rewarded not only with money but also with promotions and so he was thirty-three when he was general and thirty-five when he was named Fuhrer of Amestris.
He was a kind man who tried to keep the wars his country waged on a low level even though he understand the worries of his generals and other high-ranking officers when it came to the Kingdom of Creta that had a powerful enough army to cause serious trouble for his country.
Thus, he was the one to sign the law about the state alchemists upon the suggestion of a young general with a rude and arrogant way to express himself and confusing purple eyes.
His only child, his beloved daughter Charlotte, followed her father's path. She was among the first women in the army who signed up for something but office duty or medical services. When someone suggested that she might be the one to organise the paramedic branch at the end of her career, she laughed at him because she had other, bigger goals.
Her career was amazing to watch because like her father, she rushed through the ranks, only stopping to marry and have two children, first a daughter and many years later a son. She was in her late twenties when she was promoted to colonel – first female colonel ever – and for most women, this might have been enough. But not for Charlotte Llewellyn. She might have missed her goal of repeating her father's career and had to accept that after her father's assassination a creepy young man called King Bradley was named Fuhrer but she continued to serve with everything she had and so she became Lieutenant General in her forties.
In the long years of her service, she had extended her father's work, the Western Special Forces that were unrivalled in the entire army, and she had helped to create both the strongest defence up in the North and the strongest offence in the East.
But like her ancestors, she had paved her way to success with smaller and bigger sins. Her biggest sin was the way she failed as a mother when her daughter ran away to marry some alchemist and her biggest regret was that she had never seen her firstborn granddaughter. But she did allow herself to care because she had a mission: she had a country to change and no matter what, she would never betray this goal for some childish regret.
Charlotte's son, the heir to the entire wealth, was a young man called Bendix Jonathan Llewellyn Grumman who was highly aware of his responsibility. He entered the army as well and served under his mother's command before he was transferred first to Briggs where he served two years as colonel under Brigadier General Olivier Armstrong and later on to South City where Lieutenant General Peter Hamilton was an as skilled as understanding leader.
Bendix' way to success, however, was not paid in sin. He had paid with a love he had denied himself, a love that would have made him the happiest man on earth. He had denied himself this love because he had not considered himself worth of a queen's love when he was still a knight. He had sworn that he would not return to her side before Brigadier General Llewellyn was Lieutenant General Llewellyn because he never strived to surpass someone he loved. He never intended to be more successful than his parents because he had not paid as much as they had and he did not want things to get unfair.
He cursed himself and his decision to hell after he realised how long his quest would take but he had inherited the stubbornness of his ancestors and he would not waver until his goal was reached – which happened a double-promotion after Bradley's death later because as a Lieutenant General, he could return to Central City to return to his queen's side and since the Armstrong-family had always admired unwavering loyalty and stubbornness, he was a married man only a few months later – and a father when he was thirty-two.
Looking back, no one who carried their blood ever claimed to regret their choices, their sacrifices or the sin they burdened themselves with because in the end, it had always been worth it.