Disclaimer: the characters of FMA do not belong to me, but to Hiromu Arakawa.
Battlefield
It was a strange landscape. He had never seen something like that. He couldn't understand what was striking him so much. Something fundamental was missing but at first glance he couldn't say what. He felt sick while he forced sight and memory. Then, he understood.
He had never seen it so... happy.
He swallowed, looking at the grassy and blossoming hills, at the golden fields finally growing, at the houses, now rebuilt, from which childish voices were ringing happily.
He had never seen it without an army behind him, without the pressing rhythm of weapons in the background and the orders screamed without mercy. He had only seen it being a battlefield, arid and bleeding. He had only seen it through flames and bullets.
"It's really pretty now, don't you think, Major General?"
He watched for a moment the woman standing at his right, a strand of golden hair escaped from her clip dancing in the wind: "Yes. We're making it, in the end."
"I've always believed so."
He smiled. "The last time we were here, I was still a Colonel, and you a First Lieutenant. Doesn't it bother you that you're still my bodyguard, Major, after all these years?"
The woman turned to him, with the same fierce expression in her eyes that he had been used to see since they were children: "How many times do I have to tell you? I gave you my word and I fully intend to keep it. I will follow you until the end, sir."
He looked back at the panorama in front of him, rubbing thumb and index finger in a gesture that he didn't perform so often anymore; it was just like an habit now, and, in the end, he was grateful for that.
Filling out paperwork all day long maybe wasn't his highest aspiration, but at least he didn't have innocent lives on his hands anymore.
Another memory crossed his mind and pierced his heart.
He had never seen it without his best friend at his side.
"Do you think the Brigadier General would have liked this?" there was no need to add a name.
She relaxed her shoulders: "Oh yes, definitely. He would have been proud of you."
The Major General took a deep breath. The time for remembering was over. They still had to go on, to try and mend everything, to make sure it wouldn't repeat again. The road was still long.
He lowered his hat on his eyes: "Let's go, Hawkeye. It's starting to rain."
The Major looked up at the sky, ever so bright in that spring day, and then at her superior, nodding.
That tear that ran down his cheek was a symbol of remorse and wounds that would never heal; but it sealed the eternal and proud promise that, one day, he would have succeeded in fixing his torts, in an equivalent exchange.
Author's note
Well, first of all, hello :) It's my very first fanfiction I've ever wrote in English (it's not my native language so please forgive me for any mistake I may have made!) and about FMA.
It's set after the end of the original manga, when Roy is on the way to becoming the Fuhrer – and no, he doesn't have that horrible mustache LOL
It's the original translation from the same fic I've written in Italian for another website, so please let me know if there's something I need to correct. It was inspired by an assignment I had to do for my Writing Laboratory Class I currently attend at college. :)
Thank you in advance to whom is gonna read and review – it'll be greatly appreciated to have some kind of input!
Hypny