Chris Mustang stood next to her nephew in a bustling train station, puffing on a cigarette. "Your train should be here any minute. You have your ticket ready?" she asked, trying to glance past the crowd to glimpse the coming train.
Roy half snorted and patted his front pocket. "By the looks of it you can't wait to be rid of me," he quipped. Truth be told, he couldn't wait to take himself off her hands. She'd done so much for him in the last ten years. He figured now was as good a time as any to step into the world an work his ass off so he could give back to her and all the people that he loved.
"Are you kidding me? I've been dying for this day to come since that brother of mine kicked the bucket," she shot right back. As she spoke, the train finally chugged its way into the station, filling the station with steam and a new crowd. She took her nephew by the shoulders and turned him to face her. "Go make me proud, Roy-Boy. You've got a lot to learn," she said, blowing some of her smoke in his face.
The young man rolled his eyes. Neither of them was usually prone to this type of sentimentality. "I'll miss you, Madame," he pressed his lips to her cheek before turning to board the train. "Don't get into too much trouble while I'm away."
Roy pressed his forehead against the window and stared out, catching a last glimpse of his aunt on the platform as the train began to depart. The maze of buildings he was raised in slowly dissolved into rolling hills and wildflowers. Roy hadn't been outside of central city since his parents passed. There was some sort of poetry in watching his city disappear behind him as he stepped into the next chapter of his life and that appealed to the romantic, avid reader in the young man.
He hadn't ever been on a train for this long, usually relegating himself to a few city blocks in central, making it hard for him to know how to pass the time. He went from counting cows and sheep to burying his nose in a novel, to studying alchemy, to napping, and back to counting cows and sheep before he finally reached the station on the westernmost edge of Amestris.
When he stepped off the train the air... tasted different. He could actually breathe out here in the country, though when he was living in central it had never crossed his mind that he couldn't. When he had a military salary, he told himself, he'd have to take Madame Christmas and some of the girls on a vacation.
"Roy Mustang?" a voice asked, causing him to snap from his little fantasy. "Here to take you to the Hawkeye estate." An old man tapped on the hood of a shiny car.
"Oh!" Roy caught himself and tried to drop his voice a few octaves to seem more adult. "Oh, thank you, sir," he said as he climbed into the passenger seat. He'd never been in a car before. General Grumman had really gone above and beyond. His aunt's voice buzzed in his head reminding him to write the old gentleman a thank you for setting things up for him.
The Hawkeye estate was hardly what Roy imagined it to be. He'd pictured some kind of magical mansion where he'd learn all the secrets of the world but what his eyes fell upon when he arrived was quite the opposite. The home was dilapidated and overgrown, a remnant of something that may have once been beautiful but that had since fallen apart from neglect.
Stunned, he exited the car and passed the driver a few sens, thanking him breathlessly. He almost turned around to ask the man if the address was correct but he was a second too late, the car was already on its way back down the dirt road. Roy straightened his coat and held his suitcase close, taking a moment to compose himself before ascending the front steps.
"First impressions are everything," he reminded himself before rapping on the front door. He was faced with another surprise when the door swung open. Instead of the tall older man he was expecting, a girl a year or two younger than him stood in front of him. They just stared at each other for a couple moments before Roy regained his composure. His lips curled into a half smirk. "Probably safe to assume you're not Berthold Hawkeye."
She scowled at him. "Probably safe to assume you're not delivering our milk." Riza hadn't liked any of the young alchemists that had tried to apprentice with her father and this one had a particularly smug demeanor. The way she saw it this boy was just another arrogant alchemist around the house that she would have to cook for and clean up after.
"I'm Roy Mustang. I'm here to-"
"I know why you're here," she grumbled, finally stepping aside to let him inside the house. "You'll have to take your shoes off. I just swept."
He complied, laughing a little bit to himself and thinking back to when he was four and his mother would smack him in the back of the head if he tried to go inside the house before taking his shoes off. "And where's your uh... father?" he guessed that last part.
She narrowed her eyes, thinking he must be laughing at her. "He's under the weather. You'll have to wait until later tonight to meet him," she replied, tersely. Berthold had frequent bouts of "being under the weather" especially since the death of her mother. He would have days where he would be up and about, raving about alchemy and all of his findings which would then dissolve into weeks where he would hardly get up to leave his room.
He chewed his lower lip. "Is there a room where I could put down my bag miss?" he asked her.
She snatched his bag from him and started down a hall. "This way," she said, almost like a command.
"You don't have to-" he started, but gave up.
She unceremoniously dropped his suitcase at the end of the bed. "Room's right here, bathrooms across the hall."
Roy loitered in the doorway. She puzzled him, he hadn't met many girls who didn't like him. "Thank you, Miss. Er... Do you have a name I can call you?"
She'd been enjoying miss, actually. "Riza."
"Thank You Riza," he said, his lips tugging into a smile. Her indignant air was sort of cute, but he did hope he could win at least cordiality from her. As excited as he had been about learning alchemy he hadn't been thrilled at the concept of being stuck in a big house for years with no one but an old man. If Riza could be a friend that would be a hell of a blessing.
Riza could probably count the number of times someone had said "thank you" to her on one hand. She almost caught her face turning pink but felt stupid for blushing at what so many people took for granted. Basic pleasantry was no basis for a crush. "Was making myself lunch before. If you want some you can come to the kitchen."
Roy's eyebrows furrowed as he watched her rapidly cycle through emotions. "Sounds wonderful. I was so excited to leave this morning that I didn't have any breakfast."
She shouldered past him into the hallway. It seemed like the longer she looked at him the hotter her face got. "You can follow me," she almost barked at him.
He trailed after her, bemused. If he didn't know better he would have made a comment about it maybe being her time of the month but one of Madame's' girls had reprimanded him only a few weeks before for a similar comment- grabbing him by an ear and insisting that she wouldn't allow Madame Christmas to raise a male chauvinist. This time he chose to hold his tongue. "Smells good," he remarked they approached the kitchen.
"Sausages and potatoes," she oped a cupboard above the sink and pulled down two plates. She didn't look at him when she shoved one of the plates into his hands.
He watched her load up her plate with halfway narrowed eyes. "Do you have a problem with me miss Riza?" he asked.
She stopped for a second and stared down at the oven. "I don't have a problem with you," she started. "I just don't expect you to be here for very long."
He frowned. "I'm very serious about learning alchemy."
"My fathers taken on apprentices before. None of them lasted." She noticed the puzzled look on his face. "He's a frightening man who doesn't like very many people." It certainly wasn't untrue by any means but part of her just wanted to scare him.
He stood upright, "Well you'd be hard pressed to find anyone else with my tenacity."
His confidence was amusing and disarming, she couldn't help but laugh. His attitude hardly matched his appearance- baby-faced and only a couple inches taller than her. "Can't wait to see you prove it," she hummed, putting her plate down at the kitchen table and taking a seat.
He followed suit and started shoveling food into his mouth. "Has anyone ever told you that you're an amazing cook?" he asked through a mouthful of food.
There it was again, a hot flush to her face. "You'd be the first," she admitted.
"Maybe its because this is all I've eaten today or that my aunt isn't much of a cook but this is the best thing I've eaten in a long time," he grinned at her, trying to ease whatever had her on edge.
"Your aunt?" she asked, he was slowly whittling away at her distrust. Now she was genuinely curious.
"She's taken care of me since my parents passed," he explained.
"I'm sorry."
"I was barely five so it's almost always just been. I'd hate to be presumptuous but I have a feeling it's something you understand," he says, noting the lack of a Mrs. Hawkeye on the premises.
"A somewhat fresher wound but yes, I do." She breathed. It had only been five years since her mothers passing and she was much less at peace with it than Roy appeared to be. They ate for a moment in silence, reflecting on a shared but oh so different trauma.
"I'm sorry for bringing it up," he said.
She glanced up at him. "Do you miss them ever?" she asked. She didn't have many friends at school and Berthold was the antithesis of emotionally nurturing so she had never had anyone to process her emotions with regarding the loss of her mother.
Miss didn't feel like the right word. "How much of being four do you remember?" he asked. He noticed her face fall a little bit, he had been dismissive. "I uh- Actually earlier when you made me take off my shoes it made me think of my mother. She was fastidious about that kind of thing."
"That's nice," Riza hummed.
"My aunt once told me that grief is like a limp. It's an injury that never really goes away but you do become more integrated with it. That helped because there was a part of me that thought if I healed I would lose the pieces of them that I had left. You won't," he said.
Rizas lips curled into a soft smile. "I think I misjudged you," she admitted.
"How so?" Roy asked.
"I thought you were going to be a pompous ass," she admitted, her face cracking into a full smile.
He considered that for a moment. "Give me time Miss Riza, you might regret retracting that judgment." he mused with a smirk. "I'm very multifaceted."
She got to her feet and whisked the plates off the table, not wanting him to catch on to how much he was charming her.
"I can help you with those dishes if you'd like," he offered, scooting his chair out from the table.
"It's alright mister Mustang. You've had a long day and I'm sure my fathers going to be running you ragged by tonight, Get some rest."
"Roy," he corrected. "And as long as you don't make a habit of cleaning up my messes." He added before starting back down the hall to his new bedroom.
"Mhmm," she hummed. "See you later Roy."