In the End

by Triannakumira

"There will be a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning." A series of one-shots that cycle through characters and time periods concerning Edward Elric and the end of the series. Now with plot! Major spoilers

6. Part 6: Riza Hawkeye

Part 6

Word Count: 385

POV: Riza Hawkeye

10 December 1920

The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness, can be trained to do most things.

-Jilly Cooper

Point

The General has always been attracted to the wild things; or, rather, he has always been attracted to the taming of wild things. It's why he stayed with my father longer than any of his other students: flame is wild. Even when you control fire it is never truly tamed, simply restrained - a snarling dog at the end of a leash. It's why he aims for Fuhrership. His given motivations are true, no doubt - he really does want to prevent more meaningless slaughter - but running a country, controlling it, predicting the political currents; it's a challenge, something new to tame. That's where the initial appeal springs from. It's also why he's attracted to the Fullmetal Alchemist.

Ah, Fullmetal no longer. I'm sorry, it is hard to think of him a normal person, or at least as normal as Edward gets. The boy is - was - is like fire, a half-tame wolf on a leash. When he sat in my apartment, depressed and sipping tea, he seemed like a harmless kid in a world too big for him. It was only later that the feral glint returned to his eyes, tempered only by his brother and his odd form of morality. When we fought Father and Alphonse sacrificed himself, it was like cutting a leash. Ed's humanity…left. He was rage and pain and ferocity embodied, nothing but Id and fists and bloodlust.

The General sees this in the man who never followed orders properly and hungers for it. He wants to take this to his bed and feel its heat and fight and control it, make it submit, make Ed's animal wildness come at his beck and call.

What the General doesn't realize is that unlike his alchemy or his country, this person, Edward Elric, will burn him every time he tries to tame him - this Edward Elric will never be controlled, not in the way the General wants to. It's only a matter of time before the General gets set ablaze and realizes this, runs back to where I am holding a bucket of water and the right words to set him back on track.

It's quite amusing, isn't it? For all the General's penchant for taming wild things, he has yet to notice that he's been tamed by me.