Absence
"You want a day off?" Dante's voice was a mixture of incredulous and amused. "Why?"
None of your frickin business, he thought, but he was pushing his luck already and if letting his boss laugh at him would help him get away with this then- He swallowed a particularly biting retort and stared over her left shoulder like the good soldier he pretended to be.
"Put it down as a whim." He told her evenly, keeping his tone just short of insolence.
Dante snorted. "If you're bored go East, there's plenty of work to be done-and what would you do with an entire day to yourself? You can barely amuse yourself for a quarter of an hour-"
She never could keep her curiosity in check.
"If you don't let me go you'll never find out." He informed her with an irritating smile.
"You'll be back before noon complaining that there's nothing to do and begging for another mission." Dante predicted.
He decided to take that as permission.
-
Of course Dante sent people to follow him. Amateurs. The chimera were pathetically easy to spot. This new Lust was frankly a disappointment. The humans were just talentless, useless, bastards up against hundreds of years of carefully gained experience. It took him less than half an hour to lose them all. He did it without any real disguise, because there was no way civilian clothing counted as a disguise. She would have liked it anyway, how easy he found it to slip away without a proper disguise.
And he was feeling nostalgic.
It was stupidly easy to get into-well anywhere really. All you really had to do was wear the right kind of clothes, the right kind of confident expression. And you had to be able to talk everyone else in knots-not that that was hard when you considered the competition.
He'd never been inside the gallery before. There hadn't been a reason to. It wasn't an old building, not in the scheme of things, but they'd done up the inside to make it look as if it was. Trying to turn what they had left into the kind of palaces that had sunk under Central long before he was made. The place was packed even though the bloody exhibit had been open for about three weeks already so it would be hours before he got through to the right room-and he was thinking about her already.
It was funny, but sometimes it seemed as though everything he'd been taught, everything worth knowing anyway, he'd learnt from criminals. Which probably explained a lot.
But they'd been good people, in their own way. And there'd been so very few of them. Those brilliant, sparkling, occasional humans that made him think that may be, possibly it would be worth it to run away. That a life alone, away from Dante, away from that bastard, hidden among the seething mass might be worth it, might be better.
And then they died. Most of them went suddenly, painfully, and unmourned. When he thought about it the best of them had never had proper graves. And their own kind never seemed to notice their passing, the world moved on as if they'd never existed and he was the only person who'd ever known they were real.
She had been the last, the most recent, more than two hundred years ago, but walking into this gallery, with its cheap imitation décor, big rectangular windows and huge period portraits it felt like yesterday.
He didn't even know how she died.
He didn't even know her real name, not that that mattered as much. When you didn't have a real name you didn't value other people's as highly as they did.
She was Antony, because when he'd refused to give his name she'd named him after a classical figure and he'd returned the favour. Another inside joke that went too far.
They'd met because they were both watching the same man, the Duke of Some-Where-Or-Other, who had been a Brigader-(or perhaps a Major)-General back in the days before Amestris was unified and-
-
It had seemed like a good idea at the time. His mark had been paranoid; Dante wanted a look at his correspondence without the inconvenience of an obvious break in driving him underground. The mark liked women; it had seemed like the most logical thing in the world.
He'd been so sure his disguise, his form, was perfect. Young and curvy, with pale skin and big blue eyes, the way they liked women then. He'd been good at it by that time of course, used to the shifting centres of gravity, the different muscle tones, the different bones, the different lengths of limbs. When he was young it had taken weeks, re-learning to walk, fight, and speak between his disguises. By the time he met Antony he could make it across a room, changing half way through without breaking step. It would be another hundred years before he could do it at a run.
But he'd missed something out. The mark hadn't noticed but she had and that's how it started-
He'd known he was being singled out, but it had been so long since the last one he'd thought she was just another dumb human and it was a boring party and may be she'd had a few too many glasses of the Brigader-(or Major)-General's wine and-
And when she'd managed to herd him out of sight of the guests she'd laughed at him, the Duke didn't like boys she had said, not even boys in dresses as pretty as his, so he might as well give up now.
Antony had had a beautiful laugh.
He'd wondered if he should kill her, but the Duke was paranoid, he'd probably notice, and then it would be harder to get his letters, and then Dante would be upset. So he put on his best condescending smile.
"What did I miss?"
She smiled back, tooth for tooth. "Everything."
They'd gone back into the party as though nothing had happened.
And after he'd examined himself in a mirror, made sure that he hadn't missed anything he'd gotten curious. He'd changed, put on something slimmer and darker, changed his hair, and followed her.
She led him on for two streets before she vanished. She'd let him search for almost half an hour before she stepped out with a smirk.
"You really aren't very good at this are you?"
He'd scowled.
"What's your name?"
He hadn't answered.
"Do you drink?"
She had held her hands out to him. He was curious, annoyed, out-manoeuvred and- He took her hand without knowing why. She had a way of doing that, of letting you know she was manipulating you and making you want to go along with it anyway. Of making you hate her and fall a little bit in love with her at the same time.
Their arms linked. She took him to a hotel, the sort of grand overly-dramatic affair they still had back then. Where a single meal cost more then a sailor earned in a month. She had a tastefully furnished suite, and she left him in it for a good five minutes alone to snoop.
He didn't find anything useful.
When she came back she was still smiling, carrying a bottle of livid green liquid and two glasses.
"I hope you drink absinthe, because it's the only thing I have."
She poured out two doses, filling the glasses to the mark etched around them. They were tall, wider then wine glasses and-
He watched her stir in sugar, batter the drink drip by drip with water until yellow clouds swirled in it and the mixture in front of him looked more poisonous then deadly nightshade.
She perched opposite him, swept a glass up in her hand, raised it to her lips. She glanced across at him as though he was an after-thought.
"Drink."
He did.
A few centuries on and he still couldn't remember any more of that night.
He'd woken up on her chaise lounge feeling as though he'd re-grown his head at least eight times in the course of the night. Then he'd realised he'd been in a female form when she'd-
Which was about the time he decided that Dante was going to kill him when she found out about this. And then she came back in, still wearing that infuriating smile.
"You didn't tell me who you work for, why they want access to the Duke or anything of particular importance, Clytemnestra."
It took him a few minutes to make sense out of sound.
"Klee-tam-what?"
"Clytemnestra." She corrected.
He had tried to remember what that name meant, and failed dismally. So he settled for asking-
"How did you know?"
"You move like a man." She replied.
It wasn't a proper answer.
"What makes a woman, Clytemnestra?"
He hadn't liked her tone; it made him sound like a child. So he'd told her, in the crudest language he could think of.
She'd snorted. "No. What lies between her legs makes her female, what makes a woman is-considerably more complicated."
She'd started to teach him while he was too hungover to protest. It occurred to him when he finally made it out of her hotel room that Dante really was going to kill him when she found out about this.
And then of course it occurred to him that Dante had no real way of finding out.
-
It became an odd sort of ritual, spotting the other through shifting forms and disguises. Cutting through the layers of make-up and colouring, borrowed gestures and stolen voices to find a fellow imposter underneath. They would race each other to a mark's favour, a challenge that he usually won. But it was never as lasting as when Antony had time to properly cast her spell. He could charm them, twist their words, poison their thoughts, force their hands. He could make himself indispensible, be relied on. But not trusted. Antony- people trusted Antony, he never could understand why.
She was a liar, a spy, a treacherous two-faced murdering snake. Just like him.
"Perhaps it's because I don't lie about being a liar Clytemnestra." She'd suggested one evening over her absinthe.
He'd snorted. Told her she was talking nonsense, and why did she keep calling him that anyway?
"You talk about your family when you drink too much." She'd observed, carefully studying the yellow louche as she swirled it in its glass.
"Clytemnestra wanted revenge on her husband, not her father." He'd informed her.
It was the first mistake she'd made around him. A tiny, simple slip. She'd been born to a lower class then, he concluded, and not taught quite as well she could have been.
As a punishment he'd christened her Antony.
"For Mark Antony?" She asked.
"For Hadrian's catamite." He answered.
And Antony had laughed.
-
As time went by it had got worse. They saw each other all the time, every event, every mark, she was always there. And she could always tell it was him. And then they'd started drinking absinthe together in a cafe on the outskirts of the red-light district. She must have been playing him for something, because he wasn't young enough or naive enough to believe her lessons and her drinks were free.
And sooner or later he'd slip.
And Dante would make sure it was the last mistake he ever made.
When he finally cracked enough to ask her why the hell she was doing this she'd smiled.
"I don't suppose it's occurred to you that I might find it invigorating to associate with a like mind instead of making small talk with these," She gestured derogatorily at the people around them.
"You're lying."
She'd shrugged. "We're the same, Clytemnestra."
He'd rolled his eyes. Because how could they possibly be more different, when she was a human, woman, hundreds of years younger and-
"We've both been wearing masks so long we're no longer sure what is underneath them." She'd smiled, finished her absinthe and left.
Those words had haunted him for weeks.
-
The majority of people in a sane and stable country never have to stake their life on their ability to pass as the opposite gender. They never have to find out if they really are charming enough, quick enough, cunning enough, to worm their way into someone else's life, to become a different person so thoroughly that for a little while it stops being an act. Antony had been right. There was something incredibly......cathartic about letting it all slide away. In not having to constantly watch yourself guard against those tiny discrepancies which might make someone wonder- Not having to constantly listen in case your tone, or pitch or accent had changed. Not having to constantly check that your gestures, the way you walked, your body language were still right. To be able to let go of all those social pretences you depended on for survival, all those things people assume are static, shape, gender, personality.........
To have no scheme, no grand plan to work slowly towards. Just the moment.
And then there was the Marquis.
He breezed into their city a pack of rumours on his heels. He'd spent the past decade in an asylum for the mentally deranged. He'd been driven off his own estates in the country by a mob of the proletarians who thought he was a devil. He'd been ordered here by the King as a punishment for an incident involving the daughter of one of his mistresses. He was an atheist. He was a devil-worshipper. He was-
He had the kind of superficial charm that set alarm bells ringing. The kind of sharp stare that seemed to cut through disguises.
Neither of which were bad in themselves. At least not until it became obvious that he was important. Because Envy had been more than happy to ignore the Marquis, right up to the point when someone started to carefully unpick their plans. When the allies they'd been sure of vanished into rabbit holes. When Dante's human agents just vanished into the night. When all the trails went cold at the Marquis.............
He must have slipped up because Antony-
"I have a suggestion," She began cautiously. "An exchange of information-"
He'd sighed. "That's not a good idea."
She'd continued anyway, Antony never did take his advice. "The Marquis de-"
"What about him?" He'd snarled.
"Is he one of yours?"
"I-"
"Clytemnestra, darling, have I ever asked you about your business before? He's not one of ours."
"He's not-" Oh what the hell, he'd thought. "He's not ours either."
"I don't suppose you have any idea who-"
"None."
She sucked her breath in through her teeth. He stared at the ceiling.
"What do you think?" He'd asked.
"He's clever. He's been trained, but not well, he's over-confident-"
"You can tell he's a-"
"Of course you can, but that isn't through his lack of training, I was saying-"
"Cocky."
"Yes. He's also ruthless, vicious, and prepared to do absolutely anything to achieve his aims. Rather like you."
He snorted. "So he's interfering with your....projects as well."
"I wouldn't take it personally Clytemnestra, the Marquis seems to have made it his business to upset everyone."
"You want my help." He guessed. "You want us to work together."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Antony had smiled the widest and most sincere grin she had in her repartee. "Because I'm scared of him Clytemnestra."
He'd been glad to hear her say that. It made him feel like less of a coward himself.
-
And suddenly he realised that he was in the right room, that it was in here in one of the cabinets and he'd almost been swept out in the crowd. He cursed under his breath as he fought his way back through the throng.
He should have known that he'd end up jostled past it; it was as inevitable as-
-
It had been a few months later, August, sticky, sluggish and slow. He was surprised at how long he'd been able to put it off but finally-
They'd been drinking absinthe in her hotel room. And of course she'd known that something was wrong. Antony had had a talent for reading people.
Why had she asked? What on Gods-green-earth had possessed her to ask him what was wrong?
Why had he answered?
Why had Dante ordered him to-
"No." Antony had snarled. "You are not going."
"I-"
"NO." It was the only time she had ever raised her voice.
He had wanted to snap at her, tell her why it was so ridiculous that she wanted to protect him but-
He hadn't.
So she had broken the silence, her voice cool and calm.
"You are not going. The Marquis would eat you alive."
"But-" He started.
And of course by then it was too late.
Antony stood. She drained her absinthe. She set her glass down.
"Don't wait for me here." She told him. "Meet me in our cafe."
He never saw her again.
-
It was a sketch. An ink scrawl in a notebook of the man who would later be known as one of the greatest impressionist painters in the world. But of course back then he'd just been another penny-less artist, drinking absinthe in a cafe.
The couple at the table were in animated conversation, leaning close together over their livid green glasses. A man and a woman.
Envy couldn't stop his lips from curling up in disgust. He shouldn't have come here, he'd known that but-
It came to something when the best god-damned painter in that century couldn't see what was right in front of his eyes.
He stormed out of the exhibit. He might have caused a scene, he might have hurt some people, they might have called the police. He didn't notice. He didn't care.
He'd made it half-way round Central in a rage before he stopped long enough to take a deep breath.
Of course that bloody painter hadn't seen it-no one ever saw it. The reason you could pass so easily was that people never paid attention to what was right in front of them. Of course he'd seen a man and a woman.
He just hadn't bothered to notice he'd gotten them the wrong way round.
-
Envy had waited. There was no one to wait for. She was gone. And homunculus weren't allowed the luxury of pretending they could bring the dead back to life.
He'd done the next best thing.
It had taken almost three years to work backwards through a trail of alibis, hotel addresses, contacts, marks, to find the man....woman Antony had worked for. He should have guessed really. After all who was the most famous cross-dresser in the world? A spy, a soldier, a ma-a person who had at one time or another had access to every royal family from Drachma to Xing. The knight, the Empresses' maid, the exile. The only man in the country ever to be granted access on the condition he lived properly as a woman.
The Chevalier d'Eon.
She was-he was..........It was incredible to watch, to see this person whose voice, manner, gestures, walk, were changing every second so easily, so fluidly from man to woman and back again.
This was one person he'd never be able to copy. Not completely.
He never met the Chevalier, never talked to her, never. After all what would Dante have done when she found out?
But when the skirmishes on the Drachman border flared into full scale war the Chevalier had sent a letter to the King asking for permission to lead a division of female soldiers on the front line. It should never have been approved really- But Envy had influence in all sorts of places and somehow it had been.
Dante had found out of course.
He'd snorted and pointed out that she couldn't bank on alchemists trying to bring back men for her convenience. And it would give that damned Lust something to do. And maybe he was fed up of the fact that he had to keep changing gender all the time, back and forth between the military and society and-
And since he'd been complaining, she'd assumed it was another of his whims, something that would pass in a few years.
But two hundred years later no one would bat an eyelid at Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye's gender, or suggest that it made her unfit for battle. After all there was a precedent, there was history.
Look at the Chevalier d'Eon.
-
It was early in the afternoon when she sauntered into the bar. A few of the patron's noticed her, a slender, graceful woman, with her long dark hair curled and pulled up into a bun. She was wearing a bright green top with a high neck and a black skirt that cut off just below the knee. Her high heels had barely enough material to classify as shoes. She had the most incredibly violet eyes.
She slid onto a bar stool and leaned forward with her elbows on the counter.
"Two double doses of absinthe, and a pitcher of spring water."
The liquor was a bright May green, like a rainforest snake. She took a slotted spoon from her purse and three lumps of sugar. She laid the spoon and the sugar out over the glass with all the solemnity of an Ishbalan at prayer. She dripped the water slowly over it. One drop at a time falling with a noise to loud for mere water. Battering it, one drip at a time. Those bright violet eyes studied the drink as the sugar seemed to melt away and every drop planted bigger and bigger swirls of yellow into the green. Until she was left with a drink that looked more poisonous then deadly nightshade.
She sipped it, but it seemed to vanish quickly.
And when it was gone, she drank the second one.
Fin.
(On a historical note, I took a liberty with the hey-day of absinthe, which was closer to the end of the 1800s then the middle of the 1700s. Many absinthe drinkers did describe the process of adding water to liquor as 'battering'.
I also took a liberty with the timing of the impressionist movement, again closer to the middle of the 1800s then the 1700s, and with the sketches for Degas' 'The Absinthe Drinker'.
The Chevalier d'Eon (who was anatomically a man, revealed by autopsy after his death) was a French spy, exile and fencing champion who was so successful at cross dressing that during her lifetime there was a betting poll in London as to his true gender. I do not know what they gave as odds. Louis XVI officially recognised the Chevalier as a woman and even gave her funds for a new wardrobe. In 1792 she sent a letter to the French National Assembly offering to lead a division of women soldiers. She was rebuffed.
The famous courtesans of all periods from the Ancient Greeks to Hollywood were remarkable, witty and truly interesting women. I recommend Susan Griffin's book on the subject.
Clytemnestra was the wife of Agememnon, who murdered him when he returned from Troy because he sacrificed her daughter to the Gods for a fair wind.
The Emperor Hadrian loved a young man called Antinous, who died in Egypt. According to some sources an oracle had told him that if he died he would add the remaining years of his life to Hadrian's. So he threw himself into the Nile to drown. Hadrian never recovered.
Statues of in memory of Antinous can be found all over the Classical world.)