Have you ever watched someone so beautifully innocent walk directly to their death? Master Sergeant Kain Fuery hadn't, not until Ishval at least.
There had been a girl, a girl no more than sixteen, with steeled crimson eyes and a set jaw. She walked forward with a baby in her arms. It had seemed so out of place among the dying embers of what had once been buildings. She had reached a stopping point at the edge of the village where now only smoldering ashes took the place of what had once been cheery little houses.
She had noticed him standing on the crest of a dune, he standing there walkie-talkie poised to send some message back to Command Center Alpha. In the fading twilight he watched as she soothed the infant in her arms. There was some sort of look in her eye as the steel veil slipped, revealing some sort of penitent curve of her lips.
After a period of time she looked up, fixing her gaze upon the young man. She approached him, unhurriedly making her way up the dune. She seemed harmless as she looked up at him, her burgundy oculi placid. She seemed to be plucking up the courage to do something, Kain put his hand on his revolver as a precaution. Her sash, a thing of gold and claret, flapped idly in the soft caressing breeze.
Finally, she spoke. Her English was mediocre, but velvety and comprehensible. "Es-escuse me"
"Yes ma'am?" He took his hand off his firearm
"You…you will…remember us, yes?" She inquired, her head tilted slightly to the left, her silvery hair falling into her eyes for a few moments
"Yes ma'am" He nodded, studying her scarred hands and arms, the arms of a woman who had fought against a knife and lived
"I am Sarah" She smiled before nodding to the infant in her arms "Mohammed, he is…my son"
"It's a nice name" Kain stated warmly, feeling at ease with the young Ishvalan
"Like…like the…" Sarah struggled with her words for a moment, trying to think of the right combination, her eyes lit up as she found the word she had been looking for, "Like the prophet"
"Your religion?" He asked curiously, he didn't know much about religion, the people of Amestris were largely Agnostic.
She nodded, smiling gently, she rocked Mohammed in her arms "Ishvala is forgiving…He will…He will forgive you…and her too"
Sarah's hoary locks stirred in the light wind as the young Master Sergeant questioned the last of her statement. Transferring her son onto her hip, she kissed her index and middle fingers. Gently pressing them to his forehead, the sound of gunshots rang out. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. The adolescent stood there, eyes wide, coughing. Crimson coated her lips, matching her oculi so well. She smile was broad, revealing two rows of once perfectly pearlescent teeth covered in blood, thick like the strawberry syrup that the young man loved on his pancakes.
"Ishvala forgives you" She affirmed
Her fingers made their way over his thick spectacles, down the slope of his effeminate nose, to his lips, they wavered there before reaching his heart. It beat fiercely against her shaking palm. Slowly, Sarah leaned forward, as if to rest her head on his shoulder. He grabbed her forearms, where her baby, her beautiful baby boy, with the same piercing eyes, wailed. Taking Mohammed in one arm he slowly lowered the infant's mother to the ground. Her eyes gazed endlessly towards the moon, the wind tangling it's enticing fingers in her ashen tresses.
"Fuery, put the child down" A cold, effeminate voice ordered from behind him
"Will you remember them?" The Master Sergeant turned slowly, the child now clutched tightly to his chest. "Will you remember how you shot a mother and her child?"
The woman wavered for a moment, her blue eyes fixed on the offspring of the dead woman, after what seemed to be lifetimes she nodded, "I will."
He had seen a woman, with poor English and a voice like honey forgive him, he had seen a girl with candy-coated teeth smile and ask to be remembered, he had seen a mother with vast ruby eyes surrender her child, he had seen a self-assured young lady so beautifully innocent and at peace with the world, he had seen Sarah die.