Riza had spent longer than intended in the grocery store, and now there was a vicious chill in the air. She gripped the stuffed grocery bag extra close as two young girls came bolting out of a house into the arms of a man parking his car on the street.
"Daddy! Daddy!" one of them shouted excitedly. "Grandpa said it's going to snow!"
"He said his nub was tingling and that means SNOW!" The other exclaimed desperately. The father smiled indulgently but never told him what he knew to be the truth: snow was a rare occurrence in East City. Flurries would fall but would never last on the ground for long.
She kept walking, her legs on autopilot, and a chill settling deep in her bones. Once she got to the door to her apartment she heard Hayate whining on the other side and she let a smile reach her face.
Planning to take a long hot bath to get rid of the chill, Riza first needed to find a match to light the water heater. She thought they were on the dresser, she could have sworn she had used them to light a candle last. But they weren't there. Before long, Riza Hawkeye's apartment was torn upside down and she still didn't even feel flushed.
Resigning herself to ask her neighbors for a match, Riza lit the heater, and began to fill the tub, at least two hours after she had originally planned. As she stripped, she caught sight of the scar on her back. The tattoo and the burnt flesh melding together as she felt hot tears run down her cheeks.
If she knew her father's alchemy she wouldn't have needed a match. She rubber the heel of her hand across her eyes, such a silly thing to think. She would sound so selfish if she ever spoke the thoughts aloud.
But she felt betrayed by her father. He entrusted the flame alchemy to her back, but he never trusted her with it. Except in mirrors after the tattoo had been applied, Riza had never even seen the horrible formula for so much devastation. Her father never trusted her with his secrets. The only one he ever thought of giving them to was Roy Mustang. Never her. He never cared to indulge her thoughts of snow in an impossible climate; or share the one thing that kept him alive.
Once he finished his research he hadn't even bothered a goodbye before he died in someone else's arms. Someone else's child.
As Riza let the hot water melt the ice that had formed in her core, she didn't know that outside her window, snow had begun to settle on cars and streetlamps. All she knew at that moment was her father hadn't even given her the knowledge to keep herself warm, no matter how much he knew about it.