A/N: Do I look like I could possibly own the awesomeness that is Olivia, Scar, Mustang, Mei, Hohopapa, and the Elric brothers? Let alone any of the others? Woof, I'm a cow. See, it doesn't work...
In terms of where this is going: I have two more Third Life bits prewritten and another one or two in the planning stages, and I'm hoping to get a couple more First Life mini-ficlets to go between them. So far, I'm up to two completed. Will they ever intersect? Um... It's like two fics for the price of one! If you've got Scar, Armstrong, Miles & family, Lust, and SexyHoBro requests, throw 'em out there. I might work them in, I might not, but my plotbunnies can't attack me with concepts I've never pondered. Unfortunately, even as fast as the bunnies are attacking me, I'll be on vacation the next couple weeks, so there may or may not be any updates during that time. Which means you lot will have plenty of reviews for me when I get back, right? ;) It'd be equivalent exchange.
As for names, I've got to give props to Dalienna once more for Sherry Miles's maiden name. The other doctor's name comes from a family that's been performing alongside the likes of a certain S. Tucker at the local airshow for generations. (FMA is a gateway drug on so many different levels of nerdiness...)
"Major Miles. Dr. Wendle-Miles." The months in Ishval since their last visit here melted away as both of them straightened to parade-ground-worthy attention at that voice, saluting as their names were called. Even the girls perked up, Katarie attempting a formal salute of her own. "I'll see you for debriefing in the usual room at fifteen hundred, but first, I see you've brought me some new recruits." The woman smiled, and I felt my spine stiffen under the cool blue gaze.
I wondered what had possessed me to follow the family to this frozen bear's den. Mustang and his cadre were in Ishval, examining farmland and leaving us equally bemused as whether to applaud one another's progress or hide the children before the other alchemist got out of control. The brigadier had been bogged down in paperwork when his men came to look over the railway and ironworks, and I'd been busy with my students when Miles left to consult the Eastern military on the crop rotations and trading goods. Dr. Marcoh had declared his office off-limits to both of us until Mustang and I stopped this "silly" dance of unspoken evasion. The brigadier-general denied it was happening; I kept my mouth shut. I could read Marcoh's ruined face too well to outright lie to the older man.
After a week of such careful avoidance, I'd been more than happy to receive a request mailed from Mei Chan. She'd been asking for any older volumes I might have on the Sage of the West for purposes unmentioned, but I suspected it had to do with a certain tall, blond, golden-eyed alchemist who was much more awkward and humble in the Xingese court than the ancient Sage had ever been in the books. Reading between the lines, a man might suspect that our Xingese princess was trying to perform a much different type of rentan-jitsu with Alphonse Elric than anything they'd asked me to translate into plain Amestrian. The younger Elric brother was kind to my young former traveling companion (though she was no longer quite so young; just because I still pictured Mei as only a few scant years older than Katarie now was didn't mean that the little Xingese alchemist hadn't grown into a young woman in her time back home) and he at least was no more formally attached to the military than I was, which made it easier to accept his friendly overtures, but despite the bravery I'd seen from him during our former lives, the boy was still a bit of a coward when it came to acting on his feelings for a lady of Mei's high rank. Fortunately for her, Mei was no shrinking violet when it came to accomplishing her goals, either, and the true history of the Sage of the West would quickly eliminate the last of Alphonse Elric's reasonable protests.
It had seemed like no trouble to retrieve a few items from my elder brother's hidden library for her and accompany Miles, my red-eyed brother-in-arms and his family back to Briggs until Mustang's dogs had finished their tour. Better to be a guest of Armstrong's bears than their prisoner while in the north, since the major-general looked less kindly upon unannounced visitors to her lands than I did upon Mustang in Ishval, even when I expected him. It had seemed almost a luxury to stay in Fort Briggs instead of sneaking into Brother's tiny, remote hideout from a barren and hostile wilderness where even the local bastion of justice was out to destroy me. Even when revisiting my previous lives, I couldn't deny that things had changed since the Promised Day, mostly for the better.
I had not counted on Major-General Olivia Mira Armstrong.
The tall blonde knelt to look the girls - my goddaughters - the little ones who could call me "Uncle Scar" and put no fear into the sound of my second name - in the eye. "The law of Briggs is survival of the fittest. If you want to eat, you'll have to prove yourselves worthy. You'll have to be smart, strong, and sometimes, just plain lucky." She glanced up briefly, focusing well above Katarie and Millie's heads. Amestrian women, in my experience, might sometimes demonstrate kindness, but there was always a cost to it. Whether reality worked on the flow of chi, Elric's theory, or simply according to the whim of Ishvala, these women lived on equivalent exchange, and they had a long memory that allowed them to extract their tolls at the most disconcerting times. "You'll have to work to earn your keep. Are you up for whatever task I set for you, or should we send you back to the desert you came from?"
"We're ready." Katarie stuck her chin out, and Millie bobbed her head in agreement, wordless in awe for once but just as adamant as her big sister.
"Are you sure you want to let her do this?" I tried to keep my voice down as I bent to whisper in their mother's ear. Miles was wearing that distant expression that I couldn't quite read, and around his general, I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to.
"Although 'godmother' is technically not the right term, Miles and I had decided that should anything ever happen to the two of us, there was no one we'd rather raise our girls than General Armstrong and Captain Buccaneer. This was before we'd met you, of course," Dr. Sherry Miles said. Unlike her husband's shades, her thick, clear lenses did nothing to hide the mischievous gleam in her eyes.
Miles and Sherry had certainly weighed heavily on the side of physical defensive capability when choosing godparents. Sherry's extended family was located mostly out west, but naming the Northern Cliff of Briggs as a potential guardian for the girls… Certainly they hadn't picked us based upon all-around polite behavior. "I'm almost afraid to meet this Buccaneer."
"You'd have liked him. The man ate Drachman artillery shells for breakfast and polar bears for dessert. Protected you even if he was stabbing you in the back. Always sang my praises when he came in to get his automail changed out, too." A bear of Briggs with automail… I might have heard of this Captain Buccaneer, after all. Mei had written me about a funeral she'd attended shortly after returning home, for a Yao clan guard who had dealt quite a blow to King Bradley on the Promised Day. Apparently I'd had him and a chainsaw-wielding, automail-armed northerner to thank for weakening Wrath enough for me to destroy the homunculus.
"We're ready, what?" Sherry prompted her girls in an effort to cover for her own lapse in protocol.
"We're ready, ma'am!" the elder, dark-skinned, blue-eyed daughter sounded off.
Millie was still uncharacteristically tongue-tied, but at least squeaked out a "Ma'am!" a second behind Katarie.
"Good." Armstrong drew her sword, placed the naked weapon point-down in front of the young girls. "The defense of this fortress is of the utmost importance to Amestris. If we cannot maintain our line in the snow, Drachma will draw a fresh one with Amestrian blood." There was a soft scrape of metal on metal; the point of her blade made contact with the iron beneath the snowdrift in the doorway as she made her point very literal to the girls. "And it is not simply a matter of the area of the northern border on the map. Briggs has already seen its share of bloodshed, of all types. We are the northern crest in the circle beneath this country. If we cannot hold it, there is no guaranteeing that the next alchemist to activate the Amestrian circle will have as noble a cause as…" She paused to look over the major and me, as if wondering just how much we'd told the girls about the Promised Day and our roles in it. "The Ishvalans."
There was one circle that I hoped could never activate again. With Father draining the energy of the crests and Hohenheim's lost souls freed with our transmutation circles, there was nothing left but a tunnel around the country, a primitive railroad circling Amestris underground that might be a convenience to travelers and border guards with a little more work, but nothing to create homunculi, nothing to destroy the country for something little larger than a human. But leave the knowledge and the architecture available and someone would find the means to reactivate the crests… even if they had to be carved again.
I would share Brother's research with Mei, Alphonse Elric, and Dr. Marcoh, if the elder former State Alchemist wished, but his books stayed hidden in the frozen wastes beyond Briggs. I would take no apprentice. I had time to instruct the next generation in either philosophy or alchemy, and learning alchemy's harsh lessons on the human condition was difficult enough with enough faith to see them through. Brother's research contained the secrets of philosopher's stones and nigh-immortality. Best if our "Ishvalan fusion" passed into the history books, then, with only Mei Chan and the Elric brothers to carry it on because they were too stubborn to let it go. I had no doubt that alchemy could be useful, but this right arm of destruction had ruined too many lives with a "noble" motivation. It should not be spread beyond me, and I trusted that Mei, Alphonse, and Edward Elric had seen enough to appreciate why this was so, even if Mei and the younger Elric boy kept conspiring to insure that I did not completely abandon the art.
Armstrong held her silent gaze as she rose smoothly from the floor, sword still held before her in a low guard, and Katarie and Millie glanced between her, their parents, and me to gauge the adults' reactions. I looked away first. As once and future bears, neither the major nor the doctor blinked. "This is why we need a solid wall of snow around the back of the fort, to insure that no one sneaks in through our rear."
"Uncle Scar might be able to help, ma'am…" Katarie offered tentatively. She knew that I did not perform much alchemy in Ishval. "He's good at building things."
The general's smile was terrifying. "Oh, I have plans for your 'Uncle Scar.' I believe that I owe you a test of your best ephemeral cold-weather defenses, however, and I can't tell you how to improve if I've never seen you in action."
This took a minute to sink in, and then Millie's face lit up like a violet-eyed firecracker. "I'm going to make lots of snowballs!" she declared, turning to rush for an exit.
Miles absently caught her by the shoulder. "Wait for dismissal."
"They may go, major. You, too. Take forty-five to settle in; you've had a long trip and I know Wendle will want to put Younkin back in his place," Armstrong dismissed us. Millie took the opportunity to dart, though Katarie dragged her feet a little, as if reluctant to leave her heroine's company.
"That pansy gear-head's still up here?" Sherry laughed in response.
"With you gone, we needed some sort of medical officer. He hasn't frozen off all our limbs and replaced them with automail yet, so he'll serve," Armstrong said, sheathing the blade. Partway down the hall, Katarie's eyes followed her every move.
Miles did not like to discuss former comrades, and even Sherry typically wouldn't share details, but I gathered that she and the automail specialist had gotten off to a rather vitriolic start. "I'm just surprised that he hasn't frozen his own hands off, honestly."
"Go see for yourself." Armstrong dismissed her much more casually than they had arrived, and the rest of the family departed towards their quarters. I could just make out Katarie's half-whispered questions as she tagged along somewhat reluctantly at her father's side.
"Daddy, is it really okay to go play snowballs? General Armstrong sounds really busy and I know Briggs was important, but it's… It's really, really important, isn't it?" Even Katarie's vocabulary was failing her. Although the elder Miles girl generally attempted to copy her father and me in stoicism when not explaining things to her sister, I knew she usually didn't struggle for synonyms quite so much.
"That it is, but we have to keep the men prepared for anything, including being hit with a snowball by a superior officer." Major Miles sounded as if he were contemplating tossing a few handfuls of his own. "If it makes you feel any better, General Armstrong and Briggs aren't alone when it comes to guarding the crests…" I started to follow them, half-curious and half-worried to find out how much Miles would tell her and what sort of further questions these answers would bring up.
Then I heard my name. My first full name, upon a woman's lips as it had never been spoken to me since the day my mother had died. I turned and faced the general. "I don't believe you were dismissed. I'm not done with you yet."
Of course. She had bribed the girls, and they had charmed the village elders and written in with their success. By my will or not, Armstrong would discover exactly what she wanted to. "There is still quite a lot of reconstruction going on down in the sub-basement, and an alchemist would speed the process immensely."
Still feeling as if I had suddenly been transported back in time some twenty-odd (if not nearly forty) years, I bowed rather stiffly, hands automatically coming up to adjust my sunglasses and subtly determine that my namesake scar was indeed still there. "I am a teacher in Ishvala's service, madam. My brother is -" Was. I had died twice. Brother was not so cursed. We each had made our choices. "Was the alchemy expert."
She pulled my hands away from my temples, at least refraining from pushing my sleeves up as she caught the wrists in one strong, gloved palm and wide-stretched fingers and used the other hand to tilt my chin up. The shades slipped down my nose, leaving me to stare directly into those frozen-summer-glacier-blues. "I do have the right name, don't I? The girls tried to give me the elder brother's name at first, but further research suggested that he wore glasses for more than obscuring his eye color." I nodded as far as I could into her fingertips without appearing to dip my face into her palm. Brother had always been more concerned with finding the truth than hiding it, even when it might cost him his life. "They call you Scar. May I no longer call you what I wish, Ishvalan? The old name suits you better."
I pushed her hands away and stepped back. I needed breathing space if I was going to look Olivia Armstrong in the eye. "I would appreciate it if you stuck with 'Ishvalan.'"
She nodded her consent - at least for now. My birth name had become a weapon on her lips and she would save her weapons for opportune moments. "If you are a teacher, then, Ishvalan, I would appreciate if you would give my men a lesson in your style of unarmed combat. Even without the alchemy, I've met few faster fighters."
"I suppose I could give a short demonstration while I'm here…" I allowed. Like alchemy, the way of the warrior-monk was incomplete without the morals behind the methods. There were quite a few young boys back in Ishval eager to begin to walk the path, but more than half of them dropped out before they had even begun the physical training. For Armstrong and her bears, I had little doubt that they could handle the physical side of things, but as kind as she might be at times, I knew there was a pure seam of ruthlessness fueling even her most generous actions, and she'd trained her men to be the same. Miles aside, I was not sure how well Ishvala's teachings could combine with the unbending rule of Briggs: unapologetic survival of the fittest.
"Good. You can meet me for sparring practice at seventeen hundred, once you've completed work on the generator downstairs." She pointed the way towards the sub-basement.
"No matter what Mei Chan or the Elric boy may have told you, General, I really do not perform alchemy these days." Not often, God willing.
"Then you'd best get moving. I don't care how you fix it, but don't expect any sympathy if the water heater still isn't working after our match. I haven't had a good sparring partner in nearly three and a half years, and I intend to make use of you to the fullest, Ishvalan." She was practically purring. I watched her leave, feeling as tongue-tied as Millie Miles. As I watched the general saunter off, there was a chill down the back of my neck that had nothing to do with the climate.