Triumvirate
A Fullmetal Alchemist fan fiction by Lady Norbert
Chapter Four: Conscription
Conscription: The compulsory enlistment of people into military or other national service.
For the first few days after Roy is gone, Riza wonders - frequently - if she is pregnant.
She finds herself hoping that she is. She enjoys the phantom stirrings of life, the belief that this baby who may or may not exist will create an extra tie between herself and Roy. If he is sent to war, and the rumblings that reach even her backwater corner of the country indicate that it's quite likely he will be, then perhaps the knowledge that he is a father will give him extra incentive to survive, to come back to her when it's all over.
She clings to this hope as she leaves the Hawkeye manor for the last time, abandoning it to the auction house. With a trunk full of clothing and a leather satchel full of books and papers, her coat over one arm and her hat on her head, she sets out for the inn of the next town over. She has no direction, and only Roy's card to provide her with a clue about where to go.
For the moment, she will stay in the inn; she has enough money for a week's lodging, and is able to persuade the innkeeper to stretch it into two by offering to work in the kitchen. It will be good, honest work, using her hands. She likes to cook and always had, and the clientele of the inn is effusive in their praise. She keeps to herself, placing her trunk in front of her door at night.
The evidence comes, as it does every month, to confirm that she is not pregnant.
She lets herself grieve. She genuinely did hope that she and Roy had, however unintentionally, started a family. But no matter; there will doubtless be another chance, someday.
Her mail is forwarded from the old address, including a letter from him. He has passed the exam; he is "the Flame Alchemist," and at the ripe old age of twenty he is the youngest State Alchemist in the country's history. She is proud of him, but dismayed; by the time the letter reaches her, inviting her to his graduation ceremony, it is too late for her to possibly get there in time. Worse is the postscript.
I am to be sent to the front lines, he says. They need me in this fight against the Ishvalans. If you aren't able to come to my graduation, I don't know when we'll see each other again. Something is scratched out, illegible. I think of you every day. You're always with me.
That he is so honest with her surprises her. He is normally a bit more reserved about expressing his feelings, at least in words. She thinks about how she told him she loves him. And she thinks about his dream, his beautiful dream of peace and security for the entire country. She is filled with the desire to help him achieve it.
She takes out his card and reviews it. The military academy always accepts cadets.
There is a little money left, after the auction, a tiny bit after all the creditors are paid and the auction house takes their own cut. It isn't enough to cover much of anything, but it will buy her a train ticket to East City. One way. One way is all she needs.
They accept her without much hesitation. She is nineteen, fully grown, in perfect health and fully capable to enroll. She has no next of kin to state, which is the only thing that makes them pause, and she briefly considers listing Roy. She decides against it, however, and truthfully explains that her parents are dead and she was an only child. Having no other objections, they send her for the physical and hand her uniforms and start her in basic training.
For the first time in her life, she's sharing a bedroom with someone. Rebecca Catalina is effectively Riza's polar opposite; the long brown hair is only the beginning of their differences. She is relentlessly chirpy (except in the morning before she has coffee), and more than slightly man-hungry. It seems like she dates an awful lot. Despite these huge divides in their fields of interest, however, Rebecca is also very kind-hearted and somehow takes to Riza immediately.
"I never had a sister!" she gushes. "That's what we're gonna be like!"
Riza is nonplussed by this, but she's never had a sister either so maybe this actually is what it's like. They do, at least, find common ground in reading (they both like mysteries, and the occasional trashy romance) and dogs, and in their unified speciality - as it turns out, both are proficient snipers, although it's Riza who has the best record. The other cadets kid her about living up to her name.
The one complaint she has about Rebecca, or Becky as she also likes to be called, is that she's constantly trying to lure Riza out on a double date. To be fair, she does offer to recruit some very good-looking men to be Riza's companion for an evening. But no matter how much Becky talks them up, they all have one universal flaw that simply cannot be overcome. They are not Roy, and therefore, Riza declines.
"Look," Becky says finally one day, "just tell me why, and I'll stop. Are you secretly engaged or something?"
She's not sure how to answer that, because to say no isn't exactly right but yes isn't the precise truth either. She tries, therefore, to achieve some sort of middle gray area. "Not exactly. But I'm committed to someone."
"Seriously?"
"You could say that."
"Who is he?"
She hesitates. "My oldest friend. Let's leave it at that."
Becky does, at least for a while. She stops asking questions and stops trying to arrange dates for Riza. But Riza knows that she still wants to know the whole story. Becky's own life is pretty much an open book, and Riza may ask all the questions she likes, so she worries that she's hurting her friend's feelings by not returning the favor and offering the same unrestrained view into her own past. But she just can't.
The closest she comes is when she takes out her earrings one day, in order to polish them. They're the same silver studs that Roy gave her two years ago, the night her father allowed his student to escort her to a school dance. She has worn them every day since, and touches them often as her only tangible connection to him.
As she sits rubbing one earring with a soft cloth, Becky picks up the other and examines it critically. "Are these your only pair? You know, I've got some little diamond studs you can borrow if you want to mix it up once in a while."
"Thanks, but I'm attached to these."
Becky studies her, then, with the same scrutiny she has been giving the little silver earring. "Oh, really? Can I ask why?"
Riza looks up at her, and she knows from the way Becky's expression changes that her own has given away too much. She is less guarded than usual, more honest. "I thought so!" Becky exults. "He gave them to you, right? Your mysterious sweetheart?"
Truthfully, Riza can't see any harm in admitting this much. "Yes."
"That's so cute! You wear them every day because they're from him." Becky puts the earring down again and wanders away, smiling. Riza can't quite fathom why this discovery makes her friend so happy, but it does.
She does send Roy a letter.
She isn't sure of exactly where he is, since by now he's probably shipped out. So she sends it to the care of the old address in Central, to his mother, and reasons that Madame will almost certainly forward it or, at worst, save it for when he comes home. (He has to come home. She has to believe that he will, or she will give up believing anything.)
I'm so sorry I couldn't make it to your graduation. I moved out of the family home not long after you left, so it could be sold as you know, and it took so long for my mail to be forwarded to me that by the time I received your letter, it was too late. But I'm glad to know that you did so well, Major.
I'm doing all right. (She can't bring herself to tell him where she really is.) I hope we'll see each other again soon. To use your own words, I think of you every day, and you're always with me. Please be careful.
She signs it, seals it, and sits with the envelope in her hands for a long time before walking to the post box and dropping it inside.
Riza is the top of her class in firearms, and it's decided that she's needed at the front. She will be a sniper, perched in high places to protect the soldiers below. Her graduation is processed swiftly, and much sooner than it rightfully should have happened; she doesn't even get to attend the ceremony, she needs to go to the front now.
Rebecca is near tears. "We barely even got to be roomies for a year," she laments, helping Riza fold socks into her trunk.
"Be glad you're not going too," Riza advises her. "Hopefully by the time you're done here, the damn thing will be over and I'll be home."
"I hope so, Riz, I really hope so. Write to me, okay?"
"Yeah, I will." Somewhat to her own surprise, she embraces her friend fiercely. "Thank you. You've been the first real girl friend I've ever had...thank you for that."
"By the time you come back, maybe I'll have landed a rich husband and gotten out of the military."
In spite of the gravity of the situation, Riza laughs. "I'll look forward to that."