He felt a split second of panicked embarrassment as she shed her top, and allowed it to fall to the floor, at which point all coherent thought left him. Later, he would look back on this moment with no small amount of shame, as his first thought upon seeing the array was that it was beautiful. A true work of art, crafted by a master hand. The array was perfectly balanced, intricately detailed, expertly rendered. For but an instant, he marveled at the dedication, the skill, the steady hand required to create such a thing. Until his brain caught up with what his eyes were actually seeing, and the realization that this master work was etched into Riza Hawkeye's flesh knocked the breath from his lungs. He choked on this revelation, stunned into stillness, caught between a desire to cross the distance between them, and the state of cold shock that left his feet rooted to the floor.
How? Why? This couldn't possibly be... He wouldn't... He wouldn't.
When Riza had first offered to show him her father's research notes, Roy had imagined several scenarios in his head as they made the trek from the graveyard back to the Hawkeye home. A hidden panel in his master's study, perhaps. A thick stack of notes written in some bizarre, unpredictable code. Roy couldn't deny the slowly mounting excitement as they walked, his mind racing with possibilities. This was, after all, what he had long desired to know. The main reason he had traveled back to his master's house as quickly as he could put in for some leave time, after receiving Riza's letter about her father's failing health. Since then, absolutely nothing had transpired the way he thought it would. In the days that had passed since Master Hawkeye died quite literally in his arms, Roy had resigned himself to the fact that the secret of the flame had died with its creator, and so too had his dream. As he assisted Riza in making preparations for her father's burial, he couldn't bring himself to ask her about Master Hawkeye's work. Regardless of why he had originally come, he now felt that his sole purpose was to support his friend in her time of confused grief. He didn't really mind terribly much. Though he wished the circumstances were different, he was enjoying just being in her presence again after so long. He had missed her, after all. But when Riza revealed that her father had indeed left behind research notes of some kind, he could all but feel his dream resurrecting, just beyond his grasp. It was a good feeling, as the past few days had been extremely emotionally trying. But as the two of them had neared the dilapidated old house, Roy sensed a change in his master's daughter. Subtle, like everything about her, but Roy had learned to read her fairly well in the quiet moments the two spent in one another's company over the years. Although he couldn't quite put his finger on it, he felt a chill settle in. All the excitement and anticipation of moments before had vanished, and suddenly, Roy had absolutely no desire to see what Riza was going to show him. He had dismissed such thoughts as nerves, but now, he was beginning to think it a premonition.
Several agonizing seconds ticked by as Roy struggled to comprehend the implications of what he was seeing. When did this happen? How did he miss this? His mind screamed at him, don't just stand there, do something! Say something! He opened his mouth to comply, but all he managed was a small, horrified exhalation. He stood there gaping for what felt like a small eternity. Eventually, Riza shifted uncomfortably, peering slightly over her shoulder, her expression betraying nothing of the torrent of conflicting emotions inside. His eyes caught hers briefly, and instantly the spell was broken. His body no longer immobilized, he took slow, tentative steps toward her, stopping an arm's length away. Riza returned her gaze to the floor, awaiting his examination, stalwartly refusing to regret the decision she'd made.
Up close, the array was even more perfect, and even more unsettling than it had appeared from a distance. The red lines seemed to Roy at once both graceful and angry. Magnificent and disturbing. Almost unreal. Out of some desperate need to solidify the truth of what was before him, slowly, almost reverently, he reached out a hand, hesitating a breath away from her skin, before touching his fingertips to the salamander in the center of her spine. She flinched at the contact, and Roy immediately retracted his hand, ashamed and horrified. The raised texture of the marks under his fingers spoke of an act even more depraved than he could have perceived. He recoiled from the very thought, but the truth was undeniable. This was no mere inking, although that would have been gruesome enough. These marks had been painstakingly carved into her flesh, with an impossibly sharp, precision tool. He swallowed thickly, fighting down the sudden urge to vomit. Quickly, with hands that only shook slightly, he removed his coat, and placed it over her shoulders, covering her.
With the array out of his sight, and the full implications thoroughly sunk in, a new emotion took hold of him. Pure, unadulterated anger. There would be many times in his life when Roy would lose himself to a white hot rage, seemingly harsher and more consuming each time it manifested. This was the first. At that moment, Roy Mustang wanted nothing more than to turn around, march back to the gravesite they had stood at a mere hour earlier, dig up Berthold Hawkeye's corpse, and tear it to pieces with his own hands. In an effort to quell his sudden rage, lest he lash out at Riza unfairly, he settled his hands on her shoulders, anchoring himself to reality. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he finally spoke.
"Wha… What did he do to you?" It came out as a harsh whisper, as he struggled to reign in the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. She left his question hanging in the air between them for a few long moments, and Roy used this time to take several deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself.
Quietly, she responded, "It was my decision, Mr. Mustang." Despite everything, her voice was calm and controlled. This fact unsettled Roy perhaps even more so than her actual reply. Heart pounding almost painfully, he tightened his hands on her shoulders slightly, steeling himself.
"Riza, don't lie to me." She tensed under his hands, and he immediately regretted his choice of words. But it was all he could do to form an actual sentence at the moment.
His use of her given name had startled her as much as the underlying truth of his accusation. Quickly fighting to regain both her composure, and the confirmation that she had indeed been acting of her own free will, however little of it she had been granted, she straightened her back, raised her head slightly, and fixed her gaze at a point on the far wall. A focusing technique she would come to rely on in her later years.
"I'm not lying, Mr. Mustang," she said with conviction, although she did not turn to face him. "My father requested my help in preserving his research, and I agreed."
So that was it. Well of course she agreed, although Roy knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she had no idea just what she was agreeing to until it was too late to back out. In the time that Roy had spent in the Hawkeye household, one thing was made painfully obvious to him; Riza craved her father's affection. Regrettably, Berthold Hawkeye was a man with little to no affection to spare, and what capacity for such a thing that he did posses, was lavished entirely on his alchemy research. To put it bluntly, Master Hawkeye was, for the most part, single-mindedly focused on his alchemy. Anything else, including his neglected daughter, was beneath his notice. Even focused on his own studies, Roy was non-the-less a silent witness as Riza continually bent over backwards to serve her father in every possible area. While Master Hawkeye frequently became so embroiled in his research that he forgot the time, Riza made sure dinner was cooked, dishes were washed, household chores completed. She brought her father tea during the day, and Roy will always remember the way the slightly hopeful look in her eyes would dissolve, as Master Hawkeye instructed her to set the tray on the desk, without so much as glancing in her direction. In retrospect, Roy could scarcely remember a time when Master Hawkeye spoke directly to his daughter, as opposed to at her, or even called her by name. And yet, she continued to work, ever the dutiful daughter, without so much as a complaint, even in private. Fruitlessly believing that if she could just make herself useful enough, her father would take notice. This, Roy would one day come to realize, was the foundation upon which Riza built her entire perception of her own worth.
Although Roy wasn't always around to see it, he knew she took on much more demanding tasks as well, in the absence of her father. She ran errands in town, a three mile journey away. She chopped firewood in the winter, and hunted small game in the nearby woods with an old rifle found in the attic, when money was too thin for groceries. She would climb that rickety old ladder to the roof to patch that persistently stubborn leak, time and time again. She had been doing these things most of her life, her childhood sacrificed to her father's ever fading concern for anything unrelated to his work. It came as no surprise to Roy then, that Riza would agree to just about anything her father asked of her.
Roy learned a great many things studying under Master Hawkeye. A firm foundation was laid upon which he would build his legendary alchemical abilities, good study habits were enforced, patience and persistence ingrained. All things that would serve him well in his chosen profession. Roy Mustang would forever stand by the notion that Berthold Hawkeye was the most intelligent and most skilled alchemist he had ever met. The man had a mind for alchemy that Roy was both awed and intimidated by. But as he watched his teacher hunched over his desk, day in and day out, seemingly oblivious to the state of his household, both literally and metaphorically, Roy was struck by an unsettling feeling that he couldn't quite place in his youth. Years later, he would understand that the most important thing he learned from Master Hawkeye, was what kind of man he did not want to become.
As the silence stretched on, Riza's hold on her composure began to crack. She clutched onto the lapels of Roy's coat and pulled them tightly across her chest, suddenly feeling very exposed. Still, she refused to back down. She had made her choice, although once again, it was really the only choice she could possibly make, and she was going to see it through. Regardless of the events that had lead her to this point, regardless of her feelings on the matter. Her father was dead, and she was now responsible for his legacy. These were the facts, and there was no use in bemoaning them. Repeating this thought in her mind like a mantra, she had nearly regained control of herself, when Roy's voice broke her concentration.
"I can't." His utterance was but a whisper barely heard and as such, Riza thought she must have heard him wrong. Surely he wasn't refusing her. This had been his end goal since he first came to study under her father nearly 6 years ago.
"What do you mean?" She asked, turning her head slightly, brushing her chin over the knuckles of his hand still resting on her shoulder.
"I can't," he repeated, voice catching. He cleared his throat, then continued in a much clearer voice. "I don't want it. Not… Not like this. I can't accept it. I won't. I refuse to build my career on your suffering."
Roy had long dreamed of possessing the secrets of the flame, an as yet completely unheard of form of alchemy. A form with the potential for untold power. For most of his apprenticeship under Master Hawkeye, Roy had been chasing this goal. With flame alchemy mastered, he'd be assured swift entrance into the State Alchemist program, a surefire path toward his ultimate goal, the perfect tool to make his dream of a better country a reality. Without it, Roy had to admit that his path in life wasn't quite so set. He'd still do everything in his power to achieve his dream, Roy Mustang was never a quitter. But he'd spent so much time envisioning how he could change the world with a new form of alchemy, that he regarded the thought of rethinking his methods with a bitterness born of youthful pride. Three years and a war later, Roy would curse the childish naivety that made him think he could circumvent the law of equivalent exchange. The foolish idea that he could obtain such unknowable power without paying an equal price. But for all his planning, ambition, and all his effort, here in this moment he wished he could take it all back. The power of flame alchemy had lost its luster in his mind. How would he ever be able to wield the flame proudly and freely, fully knowing the sorrow and pain it was born from?
After a tense moment of silence, Riza turned around completely to face him, shrugging his hands off her shoulders in the process. Roy felt his face heat slightly, but he needn't have worried about his eyes wandering anywhere inappropriate of their own accord. He couldn't have looked anywhere but into her suddenly piercing eyes if he tried. For the second time that day, Roy found himself rooted to the spot, unable to move or speak, caught this time in the gaze of the hawk.
Most people who would come to know Riza Hawkeye, be it professionally, casually, or otherwise, would assume her infamous piercing glare was a trait she picked up in Ishval. The months of endless bloodshed in the scorching, unforgiving desert where nothing could live or thrive, least of all the human spirit, gradually hardening her gaze into steel. Giving it a tangible weight, a sense of power that she would wield to great effect in her military career. But Roy Mustang knew otherwise. The shade of the Hawk's Eyes had always been there, lurking underneath the shy, unassuming demeanor of his master's daughter. He had caught glimpses of it from time to time during the summers he spent at the Hawkeye residence, but now in this moment, he felt the full force thereof. Looking back, Roy thinks this might be the moment when he really began to understand the enigma that is Riza Hawkeye.
Holding him fast with her gaze, she straightened to her full height, holding his coat loosely over her chest with one hand. And for once, the emotion was easy to read in those caramel eyes; anger. "You have to," she said, voice quiet but no less strong. Not a waver to be heard. "You have to, don't you see? You're the only one who can."
"I can't!" He exclaimed, voice thick and quaking with emotion. "How could you expect me to-"
But she didn't let him finish, easily silencing him with the sheer raw emotion on her face. She cut him off, raising her voice for the first time since he'd known her. "Don't give me that, you have to! There is no other choice here! You are the only one I can trust with this."
Stopping herself from losing all control, she turned her gaze to the floor for a moment, breathing deeply. After a few breaths, she looked back up into Roy's confused face, determined to make him understand.
"Roy, listen to me," she began, feeling the coming confession too intimate to keep up formalities. "This alchemy on my back is my father's legacy. It's all that's left of him. It was his life's work and he sacrificed everything for it. His time, his attention, his wealth, his home, his family and relationships. His marriage." Here she paused, the first glimpse of tears visible at the corner of her eyes. She blinked them away and continued with only a slight change in her tone.
"In the end, he even sacrificed his sanity and his life for this alchemy. His entire being went into what is on my back. And not just him. I have been sacrificed for flame alchemy as well. My childhood, my innocence, my sense of self worth… And now, the very flesh of my back.
"I have nothing, Roy. My father is dead and he left me with nothing. I can't afford to fix this house, not with the debts he left behind. I'll have to sell it, along with any possessions of worth. I have no family. I have nothing, except the burden of my father's work."
Her voice, which had been steadily rising throughout, cracked at the end. She cleared her throat harshly, frustrated with her own show of weakness. She had promised herself she would hold strong through this. Still, she held Roy's gaze, which was slowly melting from confusion to sadness. Regaining the strength of her conviction she continued.
"My father entrusted me with the secrets of flame alchemy, the culmination of one man's entire existence. But he did so under the belief that I would pass it on to someone who I felt could be trusted with it. I can't do anything with it, Roy. I'm not an alchemist. I couldn't even begin to understand it. In my hands, it will never be used for anything, and all that sacrifice will be for nothing. All of my suffering will be for nothing.
"Roy, please. I'm begging you. You have to take this alchemy. You have to take it, and use it to make your dream a reality. You have to do something good with it. You're the only one I can trust. If you don't do this, then it was all for nothing. Please! Something good has to come from this. Please."
Her soul laid bare, Riza continued to lock eyes with Roy, silently imploring him to understand how important this was. As his face twisted with sorrow, an uncomfortable ball of guilt settled in her stomach. This was her burden to bear yes, but only now did she fully realize that she was incapable of bearing it alone. She had shifted part of it onto Roy that day, and without any fair warning at that. But what's done is done. All she could do now was believe in Roy Mustang. That at least, is something she would never have a problem doing. She just hoped that he wouldn't hate her afterwards.
Looking into the eyes of the young woman who had somehow become his first real friend, he could clearly see the pain therein. A pain that had always been there, masked behind polite mannerisms and buried under an endless tide of busywork. Like the underlying shade of the Hawk's Eyes, Roy too had glimpsed this pain many times before. In his first weeks studying under her father, Roy thought Riza to be an odd child. Too quiet to be as young as she was. There was something distinctly adult about her, a maturity that Roy fumbled to understand, even being a few years older than her. Riza Hawkeye always had a way of making him feel like an idiot without even trying. Something that would remain consistent throughout their years together. But as he got to know her, he began to recognize in her a loneliness that he was all too familiar with. They were both outcasts in their own ways. Neither of them had many friends growing up, they both felt the pain of absent parents. It was in this shared loneliness that the two of them first reached out to one another. From then on, Roy tried his best to be a good friend to his master's daughter, in between his studies of course. Master Hawkeye did not approve of his spending too much time with Riza, but Roy could never be sure if said disapproval was a father's over protectiveness, or simply a teacher instructing his student to forego distractions. Regardless, what kind of friend would he be if he denied her now?
Decision made, he softened his gaze and offered her a small smile of reassurance. "Alright."
Her relief was palpable.
