He Is My King And I Am His Queen
This is my own take of what might have been going through Riza's head when she believed that Lust had killed Mustang. Taken from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood episode 19 entitled "Death of the Undying"
I draw my weapon, leveling it at the buxom, black-haired woman standing in the doorway we'd just come through. Barry the Chopper laughs. "So there you are, Miss Lust!"
I see the Ouroboros tattoo, the same as the fat one who tried to eat me earlier. So she's a homonculus too.
"Number 66, why are you helping the colonel?" asks the homonculus woman.
I tune out his answer, focusing on my enemy. The Colonel's orders to stick with Alphonse Elric keep me in my place.
Lust sighs. "Such a troublesome man." She turns towards Alphonse. "And what about you, armor boy? What brings you here tonight?" Her eyes close as she sounds petulant. "This is taking a heavy toll. To think......" Her eyes snap open angrily. "I'll have to kill two sacrifice candidates in one night."
Alphonse straightens. "Sacrifice? Two?"
"That's right, you and one other." Barry the Chopper yells for her to be quiet as he runs towards her, cleaver posed to chop her up. I watch as her fingers grow to impossible lengths and slice through his armored body like knives through butter. Barry bursts apart and in pieces, clattering behind her in a wide array of scrap metal.
Glancing back at the pieces, Lust groans. "I hate annoying men." She glances at me with a small smile. "Now, Miss Lieutenant, I'll be sending you after your superior, right away." She turns to face us and begins to come closer.
Suddenly I think over her words. 'Your superior'. Those two words bounce in my skull like rubber balls. 'Your superior, your superior, your superior'................
"Wait," I choke out. My arms are trembling, altering my aim ever so slightly from my target of her tattoo. "You said two sacrifices in one night, right?" She'd said that Alphonse was one, and Alphonse is an alchemist. By the same token.... "You can't mean........You don't mean......."
Her smile grows larger. A chuckle escapes from her mouth, gleeful and malicious.
No. No. No.
No!
"Why you - !" I barely hear my own scream as my finger pumps the trigger, unloading bullets into Lust's body. All I can hear is my heartbeat thum-thumping in my chest hard as a drumbeat.
He can't be gone.
He can't be gone!
The Colonel - Colonel Mustang - Roy -
Roy can't be gone!
My gun clicks. I've used all the bullets. I throw the empty weapon aside and pull out my other sidearm.
I promised to protect his back. And then that idiot dies on me! This bitch took him from me!
POW! POW! POW! One by one my bullets bury themselves into her skin. Again my weapon runs dry. Throwing it aside, I yank out my revolver and curse Lust with every bullet.
BANG! Damn you!
BANG! Damn you!
BANG! Damn you for killing him!
BANG! Damn you for stealing him away from me!
BANG! Damn you, bitch!
BANG! God fucking damn you!
CLICK!
My revolver is empty. I have no more weapons. I keep pulling the trigger, fillng the air with hollow clicks as Lust straightens. Her wounds crackle with red light as they seal shut. I'd forgotten - a homonculus can regenerate thanks to the Philosopher's Stone. Her voice is patient and smug. "Finished?"
I'm still shaking. I look at my gun, wishing for once in my life I could do alchemy so I could transmute more bullets to kill her. But some part of me whispers that I'll never be able to kill her. She can regenerate. Her wounds don't matter.
Roy is dead, and I can't kill the woman who murdered him.
The tears burn my eyes, robbing me of my voice. I fall to my knees, my legs turning to jelly from shock.
Roy was killed by Lust. Somehow the irony is laughable - a womanizing bastard done in by the sin of which he was guilty.
He lived through the Ishval Massacre, through thousands of firefights, and through my father's teaching. He survived horrors that leaves most men gibbering and broken, physically and mentally.
And yet he was cut down by a woman. Granted, a homonculus, but still, a woman.
It wasn't fair. That idiot.......he died before - before.......
"You truly are foolish and weak," Lust says, her forehead wound sealing in a flash of red lightning. "You poor creature."
Her pity is damning. Even false, it's damning. But not as damning as the pain in my heart.
Roy died without me at his back. I was supposed to protect him.
"Lieutenant, get up and run away." I hear Alphonse's voice, but the words don't compute.
Lust speaks next. "Do you want to die first?"
I hear a handclap, just like Edward, and then I see a lance transmute from the earth and into Alphonse's hand. Lust's voice becomes pleasantly surprised. "So, you opened the doorway?"
Then the sound of razors cutting through metal rings through the air. They're fighting. She stabs him through his helmet, commenting on how he'd be a good sacrifice. Another stab of her hands comes towards me - I can hear the lances of her fingers whistling through the air - but Alphonse's arm block the attack.
I can't let him die as well. I can't let Edward feel the way I feel now - the feeling that I've failed to protect the one person I care about. So I say, "Alphonse, leave me here and run away."
"No!"
The tears flow even harder. "Run away!"
"No!"
Doesn't he understand that if he dies, Edward will be heartbroken? "You, at least, have to - "
"I said no!" His echoing voice resounds with a strength and determination I'm used to hearing from others. "I'm sick of people dying before my eyes! I've had enough!" My tears hit the ground, puddling there as I cry. "I won't let anyone get killed anymore! I'll protect them!"
I look up as Lust rips her lances free. Pieces of Alphonse's armor go flying, hitting the ground behind us. The back of the suit of armor in front of me is strong, determined. He's not breaking apart. He's behaving......like me.
I flash back to when I came to save Roy when his ignition gloves had become waterlogged. I had stood in front of him while he had freaked. He must've felt this useless.
I've protected him so many times over the years, with my guns and my brain. I shot the people who were trying to kill him. I did paperwork to satisfy the people who thought he was a lazy slug of a colonel.
But I can never do that again. I can never protect that back again. Fresh tears blind me, making my head drop to cry at the ground.
Another voice suddenly rings out in the silence. "Well said, Alphonse Elric!"
My ears have to be tricking me. They have to be. I'm hallucinating.
He's dead. He's dead........right?
I hear Lust gasp. I hear Alphonse clap and transmute a wall into existance between us and Lust. I feel his steel arms wrapping protectively around me. I hear a snap - not the snap of fingers, but the snap of a lighter trying to catch a spark.
And then I feel the heat coming from the huge gout of flame that erupts on the other side of the wall.
I know this fire. I'd know this fire anywhere.
Alphonse hugs me in his arms, cold steel clashing with the heated air scorching my skin. Being frozen and burned at the same time is a strange feeling - like those times I saw Roy flashing his charm smile at whatever new girlfriend came around the office for him. I'd get hot with anger, but my heart would freeze because he'd never look at me that way.
"I've finally got you on your knees, huh?" God, he makes that line sound so dirty.
Lust sounds pissed off. "You used the flint as a starter, and drew a transmutation circle in your own blood?"
Blood? His own blood? What about his ignition gloves?
"How did you even get here with that wound?" Lust cries as another flame envelops her.
"I burned it shut. I nearly passed out two or three times too." Alphonse holds me tighter as more fire explodes in front of our shelter. "You said you still weren't dead, didn't you?" Another explosion makes Lust scream. Roy's voice, although rough with pain, also holds anger. "Then I'll just have to kill you until you are dead."
There's a thump as Lust hits the wall, then another blast of fire makes her scream. I start to struggle against Alphonse, trying to get at Roy's back. He's hurt. He can't protect his back if he's concentrating on burning Lust to within an inch of her existance. "Colonel!"
I have to be there. He needs me. Just as I need him - he needs me now! The Queen must protect the King, not the other way around!
Click. FWOOSH! Lust screams. The pattern repeats over and over. He's killing her. But is he strong enough to finish the job?
There's the sound of running footsteps. A wordless female scream of rage. Lust is attacking!
There's another click. Another FWOOSH of flames.
Suddenly it's quiet. I freeze, letting Alphonse get a good grip on me. I strain my ears, listening for a victor. There's a sizzling sound and the stench of burning flash. He must have fried her crispy.
"I'm beaten," comes Lust's sigh. My eyes widen in shock; she's still alive? "I hate to admit it, but being killed by a man like you isn't so bad. Those eyes, looking straight ahead, unwavering......I can't wait. The day when those eyes will be twisted in agony......is not far off......"
I peek around the wall to see Lust evaporating into a cloud of dust in front of Roy. His jacket is open, showing just what that woman had done to him. He's holding Havoc's lighter in his hand. On the back of his bare hand is that familiar transmutation circle. He's standing tall, like his wound is nothing.
And then he collapses. "Colonel!" I cry, running to his side. I hear Alphonse clanking behind me as I lean over Roy, trying to determine the extent of his wounds.
He smiles at me, relieved as well as cocky with his victory. "Are you all right?" he asks me.
That one sentance almost makes me fly apart. How could he worry about me when he's practically exhausted and almost pale with blood loss? This guy.......he is so completely hopeless! "Never mind about me, please, worry about yourself.....sir!" I stammer, almost calling him by his first name. Such a breach of protocol would not be smart in this situation.
He looks up to Alphonse. "Alphonse, thank you for protecting my man."
"Never mind that, let's hurry and get you to a doctor!" Alphonse says worriedly. I nod my insistance as well.
Roy says, "Yeah........hurry and call a doctor for Havoc......please....."
That is the problem with this man. He'll be close to death, but his first thought will always be for his subordinates. Even his names for us, our chess nicknames, speak of our importance to him.
Fuery is the Pawn - seemingly weak, but his expertise in communications make him invaluable in the endgame.
Breda is the Rook - a stock-still attacker and defender all game.
Falman is the Bishop - he's a diagonal thinker, much how like his namesake, and will go as far as it takes to get his information.
Havoc is the Knight - the most elusive and maneuverable piece, much like Havoc's own sly nature.
Roy is the King, who cannot move freely but whom we all serve to help him.
And I am his Queen, the most powerful piece, his partner, his shield, and his closest protector.
But sometimes, I understand how he wants to save us. I just wish he'd let me be there with him.
Maybe someday, I can tell him just how I feel about his reckless behavior.
Maybe someday, I can tell him how I feel about him.........
Maybe someday.
He is my King, and I am his Queen.
Maybe that'll be a reality.........one day.
But for today, I'm happy that he's alive and still with me.
And......FIN! Review please!