Song
I - Introduction
Riza Hawkeye used to sing.
When she was small and didn't know anything of quietness and shyness and awkward embarrassment, she would greet every morning and evening and night with song, in high, warbling wails of baby-talk and meaningless sounds and half understood words.
Unfortunately, Riza had a voice that caused small children to scream, the neighborhood dogs to howl in pain, and passing birds to drop from the sky.
Not that Riza cared. Her father smiled when she squeaked out her mismatched tunes, and her mother laughed and tried to teach her real songs, which she would ultimately destroy and recreate with added lines, notes, and words. She was a creative child. "I'm a Little Tea Pot" had apparently been in dire need of the constant repetition of the words moose and flannel, and there was a high screech in the middle similar to a dying cat that most certainly hadn't been there before. Riza went through the first few years of her life with the assurance that she sang spectacularly, her opinion assisted by two parents who were as tone deaf as their child.
Riza doesn't know why she stopped singing. She doesn't remember when her mother got sick, and she doesn't remember how the drugs that took away her mama's pain also seemed to take away her self control. She doesn't remember the day that she snuck into her parent's bedroom to sing so that her mother would feel better, and she doesn't remember that her mother, delirious from the drugs and the pain, threw her pill bottle at the little girl's head.
Riza Hawkeye's memories of her childhood are memories of silent years. They are memories of sitting quietly in her room, careful not to disturb her father's work, studying her lessons diligently and hoping that if she is good enough, papa will smile at her once again.
II - Verse
It takes all of two minutes for her to realize that she loves him.
"Are you Roy Mustang?" she asks, clear and calm and expectant.
"Um . . . Yes. Are you Elizabeth?" he replies.
"Riza. No one calls me Elizabeth except for the ladies in town, and they pretend good, but they don't really like me."
So this is the girl. He hadn't really expected her to be this . . . forward. She was always a kind of half formed idea in a back room, someone he hadn't thought of as important, or even very present.
"You're my papa's new student."
"Uh, yes. Yes, I am."
"Are you going to stay for a long time?"
"Well, yeah. Until I've learned all your father can teach me."
"Can you make it better?"
"What?" he frowns.
She's embarrassed now, looking down at her bare toes, not meeting his eyes, mumbling.
"It's been so . . . quiet, since Mama left. I think you can make it better, but I'm not sure. You seem right, kind of, but I need to be sure."
She's lonely. He can see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice, and his heart gives a small, uncomfortable jerk.
"I… I can try."
She eyes him gravely.
"Promise?"
He answers just as seriously.
"Promise."
Her face breaks into a small, hopeful smile, she nods slowly.
"I knew you were the right one."
And Riza reached for the clasp of the gate and opened it to let the boy in who had promised to try, and who she knew would chase away the aloneness and the shadows and the silence.
She knew, and she loved him for it.
He didn't disappoint her.
III - Pre-Chorus
She remembers the bells. The church her father's funeral service was held at had bells. They were iron shadows she glimpsed, dangling in the steeple as she walked in, and when the short service had ended and her father had finally been buried, the bells had rung, booming out through the country village.
She remembers the bells.
The sights around her, the smells, the feel of the air, she doesn't remember any of it. Even the first shovelful of earth falling on the casket has blurred into the faintest image of half imagined memory.
But some nights she wakes in a cold sweat, the bells ringing, clear as day in her ears.
Her father is gone. It's both a horror and a relief. Him, protecting his secrets, carrying his burdens, that was what she lived for every day. What is she supposed to do now?
She doesn't remember the words he said, or exactly how his voice sounded. But she knows that Roy pulled her out of an impending pit that day. He gave her something to live for, something beautiful to dream about, something that didn't leave scars no one could see.
She doesn't remember what the church looked like, or if there were flowers on the alter, or if the sun was out, or if it was cloudy. She doesn't remember much about the village, nor the people, and she is hard pressed to remember even what she looked like.
She remembers every detail of the week it took to apply the tattoo. She remembers the words her father muttered as he worked, words about peace and honor and nobility and justice. She remembers the tone of the words, the way they sent shivers up and down her bare back, and she remembers the volume, the inflections, every hint and note of feeling in his voice as if she had experienced it the moment before.
She remembers Roy's calm, hopeful presence at her side, and his words about a dream. She remembers the warmth of his gaze, and she remembers smiling.
She remembers the bells, booming and ringing clearly through the fear and grief. She remembers their call to a new life, and she remembers the first hesitant steps.
IV - Chorus
Gunshots. She can remember gunshots clearly.
The first time she ever fired a gun was on a small field at the military academy, during basic training. The gun felt strange in her smooth, delicate hands, its weight ungainly and awkward, and strangely cold against her skin.
The first shot was an accident; her trembling finger slipped and she fired just before the order was given. The commanding officer yelled something she couldn't hear over the disorienting ringing going on in her ears, and her bullet flew wildly into space.
The second shot was a bad one. She was too shell-shocked to aim correctly, and the order to fire was given so quickly after the first she didn't have time to think, and her hand jerked. The bullet flew into the target two yards to her left.
The third shot was perfect. She ignored the next order to fire and collected herself, taking time to block out the ringing and shouts, and aimed angrily, determinedly. Sound seemed to blur into nonexistence, and she lived on a cold, empty, planet consisting of only a field and a gun and a target. She lined the sights up and pulled the trigger firmly. The gun jerked a little in her hands, but she held it steady as the bullet exploded with a muted boom. It was perfect.
A tiny, perfect hole appeared in the center of the target, and thus began Riza Hawkeye's love affair with guns.
Ishbal is a memory of gunshots. It's a dance of fire and light, and ill formed shadows surrounding the clearly defined bodies of children. She hated every second of every minute, and is constantly reminded of it whenever she hears a gun go off.
So she practices often, to remind herself of why she is still alive.
V - Bridge
Her voice has softened and deepened over the years, and she no longer sounds like a dying cat, but she knows of quietness and shyness and awkward embarrassment now, so she stays silent.
"This is middle C. Most songs start on this key, and it's at the exact center of the piano."
However, her mother taught her how to play the piano, which required absolutely no voice talent and only an ability to feel rhythm, count in patterns, and have a certain deftness of hand, so she is perfectly content to play in her spare time.
"Why is it C?"
"I'm sorry?"
Roy found out she could play the piano.
"Why is it C, and not A? I mean, if they wanted to name a key that most songs start on and is one of the cores of musical theory and major part of most cords, why not call it A? C seems kind of random."
He demanded lessons.
"I-I don't know, sir."
"You don't know? I thought you could play the piano!"
"I can play the piano sir. I'm just not very educated in the theory part of it."
She's going to shoot whoever told him.
"Well damn. I wonder why it's middle C."
"Because it is, sir."
"Lieutenant, that's the most illogical answer I've ever heard you give. I think you are lacking interest and knowledge in a valuable skill. Report to me on why it's middle C, by the end of the week."
"Yes sir."
"Now show me what the hell I'm supposed to be doing here."
"You play the notes sir."
"Well I know that."
At the end of a trying first lesson her patience is frayed and she's beginning to get a headache. The Colonel spent the entire time asking questions she didn't know the answers to, pressing random keys just to annoy her, and generally having a wonderful time fooling around. The fact that he was goofing off in her house seemed to be an added bonus.
It takes five months for his skills to progress from the level of a five year old to a level rivaling hers, and she wonders why she's surprised it took him so little time. She realizes with quiet, painful surprise that she is going to miss the lessons.
~ s o n g ~
The sun is glaring on the piano keys in dull yellow ivory colors. The black ebony glows with light, and she feels lazy and warm. They're sitting on the bench together, side by side. A slight breeze drifts through the open windows, and they reach yet again to stop the sheets of music from falling to the floor.
It's a new piece, a duet he enjoys, and sometimes he reaches over and covers her hands with his, guides them through the notes, and if his hands linger a bit longer than needed, she doesn't say anything, because he hasn't said anything about how she's sitting a bit closer to him then usual.
They don't speak. They don't need to. They follow the notes of a story written by someone they'll never know, and they understand.
They won't have lessons anymore, Riza thinks, but this is better. This is like the dance of battle they usually do, but softer, sweeter. She feels his fingers ghost over hers, and she hides a smile.
She never did find out who told him. She doesn't think that she wants to shoot them anymore.
VI - Collision
You don't laugh when people are burning. It's just not something you do. Soldiers are expected to be the strong, the righteous, the honorable, the morally superior. They are not supposed to become so horrified, so afraid, so utterly disgusted by themselves that they collapse in hysterical fits.
It's just not something you're supposed to do.
If they call him a reckless, lecherous, drunk, what does that matter to him? They don't know what happened in Ishbal. They don't know how it hurt, how many times he wanted to cry, how what he did burned in him so that he could barely get up in the morning and go on, instead of putting the gun to his head and squeezing the trigger.
Maes helped. Maes kept him rational, kept him afloat, kept him alive.
Riza helped him to feel. She gave him something to latch onto, someone who was doing even worse than he was, someone he needed to protect, someone who gave him a reason to live. He had always wondered what would have happened to her if he had died there.
Drinking helped the most. If you were half gone on liquor you could pretend that the laughter, the hysteria, and the drunken words were all due to something out of your control. You could pretend that you weren't laughing because of how fucking stupid and senseless the whole damn thing was, and the hysteria wasn't from blind terror at how much longer it would go on, and the words weren't pleas for forgiveness, or relief, or ending.
Unfortunately, drowning his sorrows didn't work on the people who had been there with him. Maes, Riza, and sometimes even Armstrong had often dragged him out of bars after he had a few too many and couldn't keep control over himself.
But Armstrong was in Central now. And Maes was gone.
He had been there only half an hour but was already on his eighth drink. He was beginning to loose himself, and that didn't matter, as long as the pain went away for a little while. He'd been singing with some of the other men, and old marching song about freedom and patriotism and mother country and such things. If he had been fully aware he probably would have shot himself rather than sing this kind of song.
There was a fight. He doesn't remember how it started, or who started it, or even when it started. The entire club went berserk and fairly rioted in the small, dingy room. His lip was bleeding and his eye was starting to swell up. There was a stench of blood in the room (someone had been stabbed) and he was leaning against the counter, laughing quietly to himself, and unaware of the tears sliding down his face.
Hawkeye was the one who broke up the fight. She had been waiting for him outside, and when she heard the noises she rushed in. So Roy sat there and smiled and laughed as he cried and listened to guns firing around his drunken head.
She stood there in the silent, smoky, empty room, watching him break. Since Ishbal, their roles had often been reversed. She still protected him, and he was always looking after her, but he didn't need to defend her anymore. She had little cause to shoot innocent people these days, but he was often sent out into duty, a mascot for military efficiency. She had to take care of him now.
"You don't need to do this," he slurred as she looped an arm around him and led him outside into the cool night air. "Look at me Riza. I'm not worth anything anymore. You don't keep worthless dogs. You put them down."
She pushed him into the car and closed the door, ignoring the tight ball of pain in her throat. She situated herself in the driver's seat but didn't start the car. He was gazing at her mutely, the weariness and pain insufficiently dulled by the alcohol.
"If I left everyone who was useless by the side of the road, I would have given up on myself a long time ago, sir."
He smiled slightly as she started the car and they moved onto the road.
"I told you that, didn't I?"
"Yes. When I needed it. You need it now. Don't turn into a hypocrite. It would look bad if people learned that the future Feuhrer doesn't even take his own words seriously."
"I don't know what I'd do without you Riza."
"Don't be melodramatic. But we both know that you would probably forget to feed yourself and starve."
He laughed then, low and without much actual humor, with tear tracks on his face, but there were no traces of bitterness or pain in the laugh, and Riza's lips twitched upward.
They would make it. Together, they would make it.
VII - Instrumental Solo
It was a flash at the corner of her eye, wine slung back in a crystal glass, reflecting off a ceremonial sword, and the next thing she knew she had a gun pointed at someone's head. She doesn't even remember who it was. She remembers that she was trembling, and it was deathly silent around her, and the man before her, a rotund old gentleman with graying hair and a broken nose, was standing with his mouth open, eye twitching, a gurgle of horror escaping his throat. She'd never even seen him before in her life, and she hasn't seen him since.
She doesn't have nightmares. As a child she had nightmares that were so constant she could barely go to sleep at night out of pure expectant terror. She puts this down as the reason why she's never dreamed about Ishbal, or had any dreams at all for almost twenty years.
She doesn't remember the newly appointed Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang prying the gun from her hand and then ignoring the outraged cries of fellow guests, in particular Basque Grand, berating him and yelling threats as Grumman held them off and Roy lead her through the kitchen, out a back door, and into a filthy, dimly lit alley. She doesn't remember him pulling her into a rough embrace, holding her close and stroking her hair, trying to snap her out of it. She doesn't remember him leading her semi-coherent self back to his car and driving her home, or tucking her into bed and watching her until she settled into an exhausted sleep.
Instead, she experiences what she has respectfully termed "day flashes."
She remembers finding him asleep on the floor the next morning. She remembers him telling her what happened. And she remembers crying as he holds her yet again, and murmurs to her that it's alright and that he's going to fix it, going to fix everything.
Usually she freezes, stunned and still, her body screaming to draw her gun and fire, her mind telling her it can't be, it's over, the war's over, she's not there anymore, she's safe, she's sane . . .
That's the day he asks her if she'll stand beside him, protect him, help him create that beautiful, glorious, dream.
She says she'll stand behind him, because someone needs to protect his back, and if they're both shooting so high, who's going to keep his head from swelling to the size of a watermelon?
And he laughs and kisses her forehead, and she forgets for a moment what she remembered that night.
Maybe, if she stays by him and helps him, her sins will recede a little, and maybe it will be easier to live with the weight of dead men on her shoulders.
VIII - Ad lib
"There's a letter for you sir."
"From Susan or Anna?"
"Rachel, sir."
"Rachel Smithson? I ended it with her two months ago."
"Rachel Levi, sir. The secretary they've put in charge of the election."
"Oh."
One minute later, the door closes behind her and he gazes out the window, eyes blank, while the letter announcing that Roy Mustang has been elected Fuehrer sits inconspicuously on the desk.
IX - Coda
The last box has been unpacked.
Finally. She breathes a sigh of relief and looks around. Everything, from the books, political and historical (shelved in alphabetical order by author), to the new (more comfortable, bigger, nap friendly) furniture, to the piano (which he had insisted was a necessity), are where they belong, how they belong.
It's late, and his eyes are tired, but triumphant. He stares about at the vision of perfection only he can see. He is Feuhrer now. His dream is within grasp.
Roy smiles suddenly, and before she knows what's happened he's wrapped her up in a tight hug, twirling her round and round, whooping with laughter.
"We did it! We did it!" he shouts to the echoing room, crowing in victory. She grips his shoulders tight and laughs, surprise and pent up joy overriding the usual protocol and propriety. She's happy, happy for him and happy for herself. It's over. They've reached the top.
He stops spinning and places her back on solid ground, still grinning widely. He kisses her on the forehead, loud and affectionate and joyous, and holds her against him, burying his face on her shoulder.
"We did it Riza. We did it."
He whispers it, sounding almost afraid of the words, and kisses her hair.
"Yes, sir," she replies quietly. "We did."
He's trembling in her arms now, shaking, the emotions coming out through his body because the words just aren't strong enough of an expression.
Slowly, almost hesitantly, he unravels his arms from around her and reaches to cup her face in his hands. They are both flushed and shaking, eyes over bright, and he looks at her with the shyness of a child and the love of a man who knows her soul, and he presses his lips to hers, gently, gently, as if he's afraid she'll break under something so long forbidden.
She doesn't break. She kisses him, soft and hesitant and just as shy, and they break apart looking more like love struck teens than thirty year old war veterans, with stuttering breaths and red faces and bashful smiles.
We did it. We did it.
The words echo in their minds, and this is their victory, and this is their song, and this is them, together, happy, and the scars have finally begun to heal.
It's beautiful, she thinks as she settles against him, suddenly grateful of the overlarge couch. Together they are a song of memories, experiences, moments, fleeting thoughts and pondered ones. They are two lives intertwined, and it really is beautiful.
"Beautiful," she whispers, and he understands and holds her tightly, and kisses his smile onto her lips.
Yes, she thinks, as his low chuckle adds another note to the song. Beautiful.
Hey. Uh, yeah. Nine parts. Not something normal, like 5 or 10 or 50 or 100. No. Of course not. Nine. Goodness, I'm random.
Anyways, yeah I'm obsessed. Completely, utterly, infatuated with Royai. And this is kinda fluff, but I'm still trying to get a really, really fluffy piece published. This is basically randomness stuck together with glue and duct tape. And staples.
If you review, please do me a teeny favor and tell me which section you liked best. Please?
On a different note of weirdness, I've been theorizing that the worst possible way you could die would be by spooking a herd of deer that then trampled you. Honestly. That's where my mind is going these days. Feel free to send me a note if I become too insane. I'll go sign up for the asylum today.
Go Royai!