Chapter 3 ...And Strengthen Man With His Own Mind

Daliha District, Ishval

Early Fall, 1908

Roy Mustang: Age 23


She stood before him. The girl who was always 'the girl,' the only definite article and definitely-decided thing in his brain. The only proof of definite, objective truth beyond alchemy.

Her ears were pierced. They hadn't been before.

Her lips were sun-burnt and chapped. They had been soft before, even in winter.

She looked too young to be wearing that uniform. She was still just a terrified girl, like she had been when she opened to the door to see him clutching her father's body. And yet the intervening years and the time in Ishval had aged her. Hard, malnourished lines defined what had once been the curve of her throat and jaw.

He had kissed that jaw.

As usual, when it came to Riza Hawkeye, he had no words.

"It's nice to see you again, Mr. Mustang."

Roy watched his future burn and char, like he had his victims. And, just like the corpses he could smell even in his sleep, he knew it was all his fault.

He heard Hughes murmur in confusion behind him. And, if Roy had been looking at him, he would have seen the shock, horror, and understanding flash across his face.

"Or perhaps I should address you as Major Mustang now."

Her eyes weren't terrified. They were dull. They were dead. They were empty.

"Did you forget me?

Roy awoke to the pain of something under his back.

Pale cotton, embroidered with colorful flowers and leaves, hung over him as a canopy.

He startled wide awake. He was in Riza's room.

Sheets, soft and white and warm, surrounded him. He was in Riza's bed.

The bed was warm. And it had protected from the phantom sounds that had haunted him every other night he had ever slept in this house. Somehow he knew he hadn't been asleep for all that long, yet the gray dawn was starting to make an appearance through the window to his left.

Riza lay besides him, still asleep.

Yes, he had slept here. Yes, he had done a bit more than sleep.

As he shifted, he felt the pain in his back once again. He moved, careful not to awake her.

A chess piece. The white queen.

She had won with that last night. Taken his king.

That's how it had started. They had played chess on her bed. And the pieces had gotten tangled in the sheets.

The thought that tormented him yesterday by the lake—it had been the white queen and her red king.

The king and queen. Sun and Moon. Sulphur and mercury.

All were allegorical couplings that symbolized the alchemical process. Each pairing represented the same union of an active catalyst with a passive substance. Some would reference the allegorical image of a hermaphrodite, others of a man and woman bearing a child. Regardless, the result of such a union of opposites was power and truth and understanding.

It seemed poignant that the most basic reduction of alchemy was a union, a marriage. Sometimes metaphorical and sometimes literal.

And he had been left with the disgusting realization that this may have been precisely what Berthold Hawkeye had intended. He had played them all as choice-less pawns in his game.

Besides him a shape stirred. Shapes shifted from the sea of white blankets until they emerged from the depths as bare limbs and tousled hair.

He watched Riza's eyes widen and fill with light and the miniature reflections of his smitten face. Was regret inside them as well? Memories flashed through her eyes. She smiled shyly as she pulled the sheets closer around her neck.

"Morning, Riza," he said, turning his blushing face away for a moment. Memories now flashed through his mind, his hand on her back, the candle, the kisses. The way he had looked at her in the candlelight.

"Roy," she began. But his thoughts distracted him from her words.

That's what the symbols on her back meant.

They meant the ultimate knowledge.

The intertwined serpents, that seemed to have nothing to do with flame alchemy at all, had everything to do with the most basic fundamentals of alchemy.

Basic fundamentals. What was more basic than equivalent exchange?

What if he used the formulas for the conservation of mass and energy as reverse ciphers? Surely one of them must appear on her back? He could use a known formula as the key.

"Riza, I think I've figured out the solution to the encryption. Let me grab a pen and paper." He dashed to his room, cursing the cold that nipped at his bare arms.

Once he was again in her bed, he asked her to turn around. She twisted unto her stomach with an exasperated smile. "This is why my mother always told me to never date an alchemist," she muttered.

Yes, that would work, he realized as he replaced the letters on her left shoulder with the simplest alchemical law he could think of: Non delenda non creada lux est. Energy can neither be destroyed nor created.

The letters fit. His brain burst with it all.

He looked at her back, and as he substituted letters, suddenly he no longer saw script, but the equations encoded within.

He scanned the phrases, and suddenly new Xerxesian phrases appeared. He translated them furiously. "Heat comes from movement," he muttered. And there were equations too. Instructions on colliding the elements of the air to form explosive gases. He could form materials more explosive than oxygen.

"It's the power of –there's not even a word for it, Riza," he breathed. "It's like the power of the sun. People have only theorized about accessing this power. It's the power realized from joining the elements that make up the gases in the air. And then that releases the amount of energy necessary to expand the fire…I'll need to use a pre-existing flame…"

"Because energy can neither be created nor destroyed," she supplied, sitting up. He smiled at her knowledge.

"But then I can use the energy gained from these reactions to enlarge the flame…and then feed it with the oxygen in the air. A part of your tattoo is just about creating the oxygen pathway for the flame, adjusting the content of the air."

He paused, inhaling deeply. "And the transmutation circle on your back sets up these reactions."

He leaned forward to kiss her. A wild, uncontrollable smile widened on his face, alighting his eyes before he closed them.

He now knew, like Berthold Hawkeye had known, that fire was a passion. That you had to let it consume you to understand. And it had consumed and branded him in a way that changed him forever. She had changed him in a way that would leave him aching for years.

He had said that alchemists are creatures who must seek the truth as long as they live.

And the ancient philosophers and alchemists were right. The truth was the child of the union of the Red King and his White Queen.

He spread his hands on her back and watched as the embers of the fire place burst into flame.

"How could I?"

He wished he could express something of the regret, of the endless, daily longing that had haunted him since she had waved farewell to him from the train platform some four years prior. She had chased after the train until it had vanished around the bend. He had leaned out the window into the shockingly cold air for just as long. Well, he had watched her until his eyes were too crowded with tears to see anything.

He wished he had the words to describe his sorrow at his broken promises, at the way he'd abused his Flame Alchemy from the moment he'd received the State title.

But he wanted to express also the nights he had spent praying she'd never know what he had become, or that somehow the intervening years had somehow merely been a cruel nightmare he'd wake up from, just so he could return and meet her eyes. Because, if this were real, if everything he had done in Ishval were real, he could never face her again.

So he averted his eyes from her wilted face and deadened gaze. No words came.

The desert had parched his throat and the shock of her surprise appearance had halted his thoughts. Even if he had been able to formulate or articulate his thoughts, Hughes' presence would have prevented him from sharing it. The least he could hope was that something besides the dull desert sun reflected in his eyes.

She wasn't saying anything

He turned away from her, shutting his eyes as if that made her disappear. But the sight of her silhouette, burned like a photographic negative to the inside of his eyelids, remained.

"Hughes, I'll join you later. Just give us a few minutes alone." He swallowed hard, feeling a lump in his scratchy throat. He couldn't even look at him.

"Cadet Hawkeye," he paused. These words were even more unnatural than if he had reverted to calling her 'Miss Hawkeye' like when they were young, before he had really known her. Back then there had been rules to uphold, the unspoken propriety expected by Master Hawkeye. Now there were more rules. "Would you join me for a walk?"

She nodded.

"I'll get you both some lunch from the mess tent," Hughes murmured, before withdrawing into the crowd. He had realized, before Riza had even spoken, that he had no place in this conversation.

Roy turned and led Riza away from the thronging soldiers, beyond the outskirts of the camp and it's rubble of buildings and carriages, and toward the sandstone canyon that rimmed the camp on three sides.

They walked in silence. No bird calls or leaves filled its emptiness.

The gulf had once again widened between them, all the years and distance and pain compressed into a double edged sword that wounded them both. He glanced at the rank on her uniform. He had known just how old she was, but that still didn't make it any easier. A cadet shouldn't be anywhere inside the Daliha District, with its constant guerilla fighting and total warfare that had decimated its once-grand cities. He hadn't heard of cadets being placed on a front line in over a century.

"Cadet Hawkeye." Again, the title tasted bitter in his mouth. He cursed the fact that the war had stripped even her name from him.

Her eyes flicked toward his, her only acknowledgement. He could reprimand her for not saluting. He could even order her to respond. But why would he ever? He asked the first question that worded itself in his brain.

"When did you get here?"

"I've been in Ishval since the spring, sir."

"What year are you? At the Academy, I mean."

"This would be my fourth year."

So she would have applied to the Academy immediately after he had left her. When had she decided?

"Why—?" he asked, before promptly shutting his mouth again. He gnawed at his lips, simply unable to figure out the question—any question. There were so many things he wanted to ask, wanted to know. Why did she join? Why did she accept the assignment? Why had she ever thought him worthy of flame alchemy? Yet none of those words made it out of his throat, which was parched and coarse with sand.

She paused, giving him a few moments to think, but seemed too impatient to humor him as she once had.

"Why what, sir?"

"Don't call me sir, Riza," he said, his voice dropping as it filled with a tender anger. "I'm never pulling rank with you. I'd barely be a Captain without you. I wouldn't even be here without you."

"I am well aware of that, sir." She still looked pointedly away, toward where the pale horizon joined the dusty sky. "Perhaps you would have been better without me."

Great, she was feeling the guilt too. It would have been better if she had let him die. Then there wouldn't be another hundred charred corpses on her conscience tomorrow. But there had to be some way to move beyond the war, to actually talk to her. Another thought chilled him in the blistering heat; maybe she didn't want to.

"Thank you for that shot." He didn't mean it. She should have let him die.

"Don't thank me for that." She paused. "That's what I came here to do."

"Why—why did you?"

"Why did you come?" she interrupted, her voice for more confident than his. He'd forgotten that power of hers, the ability to challenge and surprise him. She'd always manage to gain the upper hand when he'd least expect it, even in the simplest of conversations.

"Because I—it's my job to follow orders And my orders led me here." he looked away, feeling that that this barren place was a strange parody of that wintery graveyard. "It's just what I told you years ago. I had a dream. And I was young and foolish and stupid."

"I…I had a dream too." She answered. She looked away, and pain was in here eyes.

And he could tell, that if her time killing hadn't dampened her ability to emote, and the desert wind hadn't dried her eyes, she would be quietly crying.

He opened his mouth, silent and dry, as if to ask her what the dream was. To ask what Riza Hawkeye dreamed. What type of dream would drag her to such an inhuman place, turn her into a murderer?

She must have heard his unspoken question.

"I don't think I need to say," she swallowed, looked quickly up and added in a whisper, "Roy."

The thoughts came to him all at once.

Their first kiss, as the music soared. She told him the next day that that had been her first kiss.

The warm morning as the next day dawned. He thought of her soft skin, the chess board atop the mattress, the chess pieces lost in the bed sheets. He calculated the weight of her kisses on his naked skin.

In retrospect, the first spark that blazed in his outstretched hand seemed criminal. She had marveled at it, the way the fire leaped from the hearth.

It was momentous at the time, but he blocked the memory.

For a moment, they sat again at the table in the bright afternoon light. The long white expanse of empty years stretched between them, bleached and ironed, and, as before, maintained by Riza's daily care. He hadn't noticed the brass candelabra on the table before. It shone dully like fool's gold.

That's what the fire was turning out to be. An empty imitation of something valuable, weighing of hollow promises, promises they were too afraid to make

Because now that he had gained the fire, there was no longer a reason to stay. Not that he had a choice as to when he'd be leaving, but still, the future pulled him away.

"When are you leaving?"

"I'm leaving tomorrow, the first thing in the morning."

"Oh," she said. The single word seemed full of meanings and carefully-masked disappointment and an unspoken question. His chest ached.

"That's when my liberty expires." He clarified quickly, because she still wasn't saying anything. "I wish I didn't have to go. But I can't imagine the trouble I'd get into if I don't return on time."

"I know you have to go. I just thought we'd have a few more days. I thought we would have had longer. And if you were always going to have left tomorrow, I wish you would have told me sooner."

"Riza, I didn't—"

"You can trust me, Roy. I'm not a child. I can handle the truth." She stood up from the table and turned away from him to make dinner.

And then the night came. It fell early and fast, like snow in winter.

They had ran outside at some point and climbed atop the roof to watch the moonlight on the snow.

They had come close to fighting, when Roy asked what she'd do after he left.

"—Roy, I'm not an idiot. I know I'm all alone out here. And I know I can't stay by myself without a means of making money."

"But what will you do?" Roy asked. "I want to help you."

"You should be focusing on finishing up at the Academy. You're only making a small stipend until graduation anyway. It's not as if you could pay for my expenses."

"But—"

"I don't need your help, Roy. I'll probably apply to University, perhaps in West City, or in Central."

He pushed on. "If you go to Central, my Aunt can look after you until—"

She cut him off with a determination that flashed in her eyes. "Roy, if I don't find something by the time you graduate, I'll contact you in Central." She pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. "I promise."

He bit his lips, unhappy at his inability to find another argument.

"And if you don't hear from me, know that I'm happy in what I'm doing, and happy that you're moving closer to your dreams. I know I'll find you in time. I'll be thinking of you every moment."

"You can tell me if you've got something planned, you know," Roy said. "Or if you don't. I'm not going to laugh at you."

"Roy, focus on yourself while I take care of my own future for a bit. You've already done so much for me. I have nothing to worry about."

"Riza," Roy sighed. He shifted on the shingles, his numb fingers aching when they touched the icy surface.

"But if you're so insistent, there is one thing you can give me."

He exhaled and his breath hung like a golden cloud in the moonlight.

"You can make that dream of yours come true. Once you've done that, I'll hold you to all your other promises." She paused and met his eyes. Hers glowed like the stars. "I'll even let you make new promises then. But I want you to graduate first."

New promises. He smiled at the thought.

Then there had been their last farewell.

He trembled when she whispered those five words into his ear. Her breath was warm in the chilly morning air outside the train station.

She stood on her toes, her long woolen skirt shrouding his cold legs from the breeze. Each caress of the fabric against his pants warmed them, if just for a moment.

"I love you, Roy Mustang."

He wondered if he had just imagined the words. Even now he was unsure whether they'd been spoken or just implied.

He had opened his mouth to say something in response.

But he had never returned the sentiment.

His mouth froze as he stared at her.

He closed his mouth. He too would be crying. He stepped closer.

"I came to protect my dream."

"Riza," he breathed. Some sudden stoic conviction, or else the desert's unforgiving wind, wicked away the tears in her eyes. He brought one of his hands to his head, ran it through his hair. "I never wanted for you—I never wanted any of this—I wish I could—"

"It was my choice."

She had cut through his nonsense. And his heart. But she wasn't right. This wasn't her choice. He had manipulated her.

"And it was my choice, to give you that fire," Riza said, interrupting his thoughts. "I know this isn't what you wanted, either. As much as I want, I can't blame you."

"You were just sixteen, you—"

"—You didn't treat me like a child then. You will not treat me like one now."

He tasted metal. He had bitten through his lip.

"I was afraid of my father," she said, and she emphasized the fear. "I was afraid. He looked like a man possessed when he did his research."

Roy stopped his pacing. She had never talked about her father like this. She had always dodged the topic of her relationship with him. She had never answered questions about the tattoo. He watched her sit down on a large dusty rock. He remained standing, arms crossed and eyes staring.

"I fooled myself when I was a girl, because I wanted to believe I was right." Riza said, her tone emotionless and controlled. "When you came back after my father died, I was proud and foolish enough to believe that I had it all figured out. I told you that the text and the fear was all his own madness, all his own paranoia. Yet I also knew, although I just couldn't tell you, that it was all about her."

Her mother.

Roy had hypothesized in the intervening years that her mother must have died in an accident of fire. An eerie silence had always descended upon the mention of her death, and neither Riza nor her father ever seemed willing or able to elaborate on the circumstances surrounding it.

"And I thought he felt guilty about it. That his guilt and his grief were slowly driving him mad." She swallowed before continuing, her gaze still directed at the dirt below her boots. "And maybe his being so particular about flame alchemy was some twisted sort of way for him to atone. I thought that if he could just get it out of his mind, it would free him. I wanted to help him. I thought I could help him. But when he began to chant that day, I knew he had gone completely mad."

He looked away, ashamed. He had become the image of her father. A mad man too concerned with progress and power to see the consequences of his fires.

She crumpled onto the rocky soil. There was the shadow of the cowering girl in her figure. Yet something restrained him from going to her.

"Yet still, because he was going to such lengths to preserve and record it, I knew it couldn't be all bad. I still believed that this great power could be used…" she stopped, searching for words to fit into her gaping mouth, "for the benefit of people. I believed it had the power to realize people's hopes and dreams."

She looked at her hands as if they were someone else's. "I thought it was going to make mine come true. Because I thought it could make yours come true. And I really thought, long ago, that it could actually be used to protect this country."

"And then, and then I thought…" she tossed her head, looking up toward the sky as if she could keep her tears inside her head by force. She abandoned her train of thought. "It doesn't matter."

"But please tell me this, major," she said, her head falling downward and her voice slipping back into that military tone. "Because I've asked myself this daily, why are we killing citizens when we, as soldiers, should be responsible for protecting them?"

His stomach lurched sickeningly. His arms froze again.

"And why is alchemy being used to kill when it's supposed to help people?" her eyes sparkled with tears.

Tears burned in his eyes.

"I know you don't have an answer for that." She inhaled a shuddering breath. "But I think—I think my father did."

"Because now I understand all of it." Her eyes were fixed far away, as if she were recalling some past vision he couldn't see. "I understand all of it now." Her voice was breathless, almost possessed. "He wasn't just thinking about her. He wasn't just thinking about that day. He saw this."

Her breathing grew frenzied and rapid. Roy had never see her lose her composure so entirely and all at once. "He saw this, he saw now."

Her eyes widened in horror as her voice took on another tone, as if she were regurgitating the half-remembered melody of a song. "Dies illa, dies irae—He saw these days. And the fire. He warned me!"

Her eyes were unfocused, she rocked forward and back slightly, as if in a trance.

"He warned me then, that night after you left, that he never wanted you to have it. Sometimes he'd say if you returned, it would only be for the fire..." she trailed off, her mad whisperings barely audible. "…but he wanted you to…" And then her mumblings crescendoed again, her voice growing more distraught, more hysterical. "The crime is mine. He entrusted me with the power of the gods, and I gave it to you."

His heart stopped.

"Roy….what have I done?" She looked up at him, her eyes still wide and childlike and full of fear. She held out her hands in disgust, gazing at them as if they dripped blood. Her voice shook with terror.

And then her eyes slipped out of focus again, as if she couldn't see him. "Roy, sometimes I don't know why he'd done any of this. But then he'd tell me that—that if I did this, that you'd, that you'd—"

She would have sobbed, but, like him, she was empty. Empty of the feelings and fluids to spare. Her sobs came like dry-heaves, scratching at her throat, a silent wail escaping in between the drowning breaths.

He rushed to her, collapsing onto the ground besides her.

"Riza." He pulled her small, shaking frame into his arms, pressing her into his chest, toward his heart. He rested his head atop her hair. "My Riza," he whispered, pressing dry lips to her golden, sand-colored hair. Underneath the heavy cloak and the thick uniform jacket, she seemed thin. Thinner than she had been those years ago.

He had barely understood half her ramblings. But he understood that Flame Alchemy had not been her only inheritance. Her father had bestowed a manic anxiety upon her as well. And each of her words would haunt him until he had puzzled out their meaning later that night. And then her past and her loneliness haunted him too.

Holding her in his arms, he felt himself slip into the past. He saw the cryptic text. He heard her chanting those maddening Xerxesian words as he studied her back, as if she were trying to puzzle out a hidden meaning herself.

—Dies illa, dies iræ—

It had taken him a while to figure out what part of the text had been encrypted, and which had no hidden meaning. He had thought that the text in the small of her back, framed by the heads of the two crowned serpents hadn't held any deeper meaning.

Perhaps he was right. Its meaning was instead literal. Prophetic.

—calamitatis et miseriæ, dies magna et amara valde—

Her voice droned steadily, slightly musically. And she spoke with a frantic, growing rhythm, as if she was warding off some future evil.

—Dum veneris iudicare sæculum per ignem—

Roy found himself muttering the words to himself, some of them sticking in his mind.

"Dum veneris….iudicare….ignem"

And with each line of Xerxesian, his younger self had responded with the translation under his breath.

When you shall come to judge the world by fire—

And now the day had come.

Although Riza had offered her explanations those years ago, he'd wondered why Berthold Hawkeye had used the text of an archaic funeral rite, from traditions and rituals that preceded even the ancient origins of Ishval.

Now he knew. Because to use that power was to render the end of many worlds. And with each flame he killed not merely scores of victims but himself, a thousand times over.

He let her sob, let her mourn herself, let her mourn him too. Let her mourn the people they'd become.

He wouldn't be able to hold her for much longer.

After five minutes, when the unrelenting sun had seemed to burn through both his hood and his hair, he gently shook the girl in his arms.

"It's no good to be out here any longer. We won't have time for lunch before the afternoon missions begin."

She didn't answer.

"When's the last time you've eaten?"

Her voice was mechanical. "Yesterday, zero eight."

He sighed. She hadn't eaten since yesterday's breakfast. "Let's get you some lunch. You'll feel better after you get your strength back."

If only her could get her out of here. But even her distress would receive nothing more than a second glance in the med tents. Too many people had tried to defect. They even let people stay after unsuccessful suicide attempts, provided they still had all their limbs.

He had heard rumors that a suicide attempt would only earn you a spot in the next front line reconnaissance squad. The reasoning was simple. That way you'd get your wish. And the military still got the job done.

"Riza, you need to stand up. We need to get back to camp."

She stared at him, her eyes empty.

He could try another technique.

"Cadet Hawkeye," his voice shook at his command. "You are required to report back to the Sector 19 Daliha camp, where you will eat lunch, whether you like it or not. Do you understand?"

She flickered tired eyes at his and stood up. The military order seemed to have jolted some now-instinctual reaction, bypassing her confused brain.

She leaned in to him, letting him support him until they passed into the outer limits of the wreckage that marked the camp. And then she straightened, supported herself, and slowed her pace until she was a few steps behind him.

"I thought you said you wouldn't pull rank on me." Riza said plainly. "Sir."

White-robed shapes now appeared distinct from the sand. They were quite close to the camp, and it was better to be returning to titles and propriety. "You didn't leave me with a choice, Hawkeye." Her last name sounded too clinical, too detached to his ears.

"Touché, Mustang." He wasn't sure whether the words were real or an echo from a long-ago time.

Roy wasn't quite sure where he'd find Hughes, and so found himself retracing his steps back to the fire where first he had seen her. Hughes sat on a crate, glancing up when they approached as if he had been waiting for them.

He gestured with the bowl in his hand to the bowls he had placed on two nearby crates, as he swallowed a large mouthful. "They've served lunch already, so I grabbed some for you both." He studied Roy and Riza as they sat down around him. "I think the brown stuff is supposed to be beans, and the red stuff tastes like corn but the texture is completely off."

Roy glanced around. Several sergeants, another alchemist, and a few junior officers stood in the yard that had likely once been the interior of a house. An officer with a long ponytail lurked behind him. It must be one of the other State Alchemists. Only they were allowed to violate the uniform violations so egregiously. He just hoped it wasn't Kimblee, psychopath extraordinaire.

Riza murmured her thanks to Hughes after she took her first tentative bite. Roy watched her eat.

Hughes cast a few concerned glances at Riza, catching Roy's gaze as he did so.

Roy shook his head, frowning, as if to say, no, she isn't alright.

As usual, Hughes tried to lighten the mood. "So, Cadet, which Academy are you attending? East or Central?"

"East, Captain."

"So you're an Eastern girl?"

"No, sir. East offered me a stipend with the scholarship."

"Wait," Hughes asked, before pausing to think. "If you were at East, did you have McHenry for first year military ethics?"

Why would Hughes bring up ethics in a place like this? What was that idiot thinking?

She looked up and nodded.

"Does he still mispronounce stoicism as "stoyke-ism?"

Riza looked at him, utterly confused and completely disarmed by the question. "Yes, he still does, sir."

"I'll never forget all the times he told us that the future military leaders of Amestris needed to be 'stoykes,'" Hughes joked, a goofy smile on his face.

She revived for a moment, distracted by the lighthearted memories. "If I'm remembering correctly, Captain, McHenry started his lecture on stoicism with a story about some cadets that pranked him and left a full keg outside of his office the weekend before graduation. He told us that the devilish rogues who left it there had managed to simultaneously violate all four cardinal virtues of the stoic philosophy."

She stopped. "Sorry, stoyke philosophy," Riza corrected. "And that they lacked the wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance, to be honorable officers of the Amestrian military."

"No way." Hughes, said, leaning forward on his seat. "That must have been us, Roy." He punched Roy playfully on the arm. "Ah, you should have seen Roy in the Academy. It was his idea to move the keg, and he even got some third years to do it for him."

Riza smiled, her eyes growing unfixed once again.

"I had wanted to take his tactics seminar last spring, but then my orders came in and –"

Roy tuned out Riza's voice.

A radio was playing. He wasn't sure exactly where it was, but it was close. It played one of those sappy romantic war songs. A woman was crooning, about that day—that day, that day of wrath—that day that all soldiers look forward to.

"don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again, some sunny day…"

"Turn that fucking radio off before I incinerate it."

Some sergeant shuddered at Roy's command before quickly shutting the radio off. An uneasy silence descended. Hughes and Riza stopped talking and stared at him.

Roy had thought the radio had been the worst of it. But the silence crooned louder and louder until it exploded. And Hughes exploded with it.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Roy?"

"The music was irritating me, Hughes."

"Well you don't need to threaten to torch the place."

Roy seethed. "I'll torch whatever I need to so I don't have to listen to that bullshit."

Besides him, Riza collapsed, burying her face in her hands.

Hughes glared at him, as if to say, look what you've done to this poor girl.

"Captain Hughes is right," she whispered, her voice muffled between her fingers. "Why are you using alchemy to destroy? Why? And why are you using it to kill?"

She voiced her next question a bit louder and the sound carried. "How could we have fallen so low?"

Roy collapsed backwards, more disgusted by himself and his flare of emotions than he'd ever been.

And then the State Alchemist behind him revealed himself with his drawling voice. It was indeed Major Solf Kimblee. He had discarded his bowl. As he no longer had lunch, or the screams of dying men to feast upon, he entertained himself with their woes. He was quick to answer Riza's rhetorical question.

"Why? Because those are the duties of a state alchemist. Why do soldiers kill civilians? Because those are the orders we were given."

He glanced around, as if seeking affirmation in the uneasy glances of the soldiers leaning against the walls. "Correct me if I'm wrong." An empty smile tore his face.

Roy wished for the silence again. He wished even for the song. Anything but Kimblee's lies. "Are you asking us to rationalize this—this tragedy, Kimblee?"

"Why can't you see this as the job it is?" He hadn't even looked at Roy, he instead focused on the enlisted soldiers behind him. "What about you lot?"

A nervous corporal replied. "Sir, if we could, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Riza shook, her eyes brimming with tears. Kimblee focused on her. "What about you there, girl?" Roy shook with a growing rage. "Now let me ask you this miss, you don't seem to enjoy being here very much, now do you?"

"That's true. I don't enjoy killing."

"Really?"

Riza trembled as Kimblee continued to stare at her with a smirk and unsmiling eyes.

"When you drop an enemy, can you tell me in all honesty that you don't, for a moment, indulge in the satisfaction and pride of a job well done, Miss Sharpshooter?" Riza's eyes continued to widen. "Can you tell me you don't take some pleasure when the bullets find their mark?"

"Shut up! Shut up! That's enough!" Roy screamed, grabbing at Kimblee's shirt collar and throttling him.

She didn't enjoy killing. Success and murder were two separate things. No one could enjoy such a thing. He didn't take pleasure in the fire that erupted from his hands. She didn't take pleasure from the death fired from her rifle.

Kimblee stared back at him, unamused and unfazed by the assault. "I'm not the only one who's upset the poor girl, Major."

Roy stepped back, releasing Kimblee's collar as if it had shocked him. Kimblee continued, unperturbed.

"I just don't understand how you all need to rationalize your involvement in this war. Is it evil to kill with alchemy? Is it more virtuous to kill with a gun? Or maybe you were prepared to kill one or two people," Kimblee said, glancing at Hughes, "but not thousands?"

"The moment you put on this uniform of your own free will, you made your choice. You knew there was the chance you'd be ordered to kill another human being. Maybe more." He rolled his eyes. "If you're going to pity yourselves, then don't kill anyone in the first place! You joined the military, you put on this uniform. What did you think you'd be doing?

Kimblee still stared at Roy, but Roy's eyes had since turned downcast.

"You know, I've found something to be true in war. They say truth is in the eyes. So don't avert your eyes from death. Look at the people you kill. Because their eyes will be on you as they die. Don't forget that. Because they will never forget you."

A metallic clanging rent the air, a sound as unsettling as the taste of blood.

"Oh. It's time." Kimblee's voice was smug and irritating. He straightened his impeccable collar. "I need to get to work."

A growing cacophony of a crowd surrounded Roy. Soldiers were extinguishing their cigarettes and shouldering their rifles.

Hughes slowly rose to his feet, his hands on his knees. "Well Roy, we really should be heading out now." But then he turned around and wandered a short distance away, as if keeping watch. As if giving them privacy.

Roy was left with Riza. She had picked up her rifle. She glanced around, as if weighing the feasibility of escape without acknowledging Roy. He opened his mouth to say something.

But, after a moment of his halting indecision she vanished into the throng of white-hooded figures. Something about it reminded him of snow outside a train window. When was the next time he'd see her?

Well, see ya, Roy." At Hughes' words, Roy turned slowly to face him. "Starting today I'm in Sector 18."

"Hughes. Why do you fight?" Roy wasn't sure if he feared the answer. Nothing scared him anymore. But maybe he'd finally get a straight answer out of someone. Something that wasn't Kimblee's psychopathy or the guilt that surrounded Riza.

There was shame in Hughes' eyes. Shame and sadness. "It's simple," he said, stopping to look fully at Roy. "I don't want to die. That's all."

The next words he spoke haunted Roy, following him for the rest of the war. "The reason is always simple, Roy."

Roy nodded, ready to turn around and begin his trudge back to his assigned post. Hughes stopped him with another outburst.

"Alright then, if you asked me something, answer me this. Did you ask her why she joined? Is that why you needed to talk to her?"

He froze, the sensation of ice water drenching him, numbing his hands and setting them shaking.

"Roy, I've met quite a few of the Academy snipers. She's by far the best. And the youngest."

Roy tightened his mouth. The blinding afternoon light glared from Hughes' glasses. Roy couldn't tell where he was looking.

"Central Command only authorized the assignment of select fourth year cadets to active duty in Ishval. And the majority of those posts have been medical support, supply line, the auxiliary admin roster, or sniper positions defending the railways to the west. Not front line positions. All other cadet deployments to Ishval were voluntary."

"What are you trying to say, Hughes?"

"What year is she?"

Roy couldn't speak.

"When did she get deployed to Ishval?"

"This past spring." Roy muttered.

"McHenry left to teach at the Eastern Academy our fourth year. So she must have started that fall. And yet she also said she had to cancel a class this past spring." Hughes paused, his eyes still shrouded by his glasses. "Since Order 3066 took effect, Command has been recruiting snipers specifically to reinforce and protect State Alchemists. But that's a voluntary position. Not one filled by third or fourth year cadets."

Roy swallowed. How could Hughes possibly untangle all this from a few words and general troop movements?

"I don't think I need to spell it out for you, Roy." His voice grew soft, almost pitying. "She chose to be here. But then again, maybe you already knew."

He had. And in his heart, he had known as soon as he had seen her. It was just as Hughes had said, the reason was always simple.

More questions seemed to hang in Hughes' silence, but he didn't ask them, instead he watched Roy's reactions with a shrewd look.

"Don't tell anyone I know this, but I expect I'll be seeing more of you soon." Hughes shouldered his rifle. "And in the meantime, stay safe. But I have a feeling I don't need to be worried. I think you've got the Hawk's Eyes watching over you."

Roy still found that words weren't coming to defense. Hughes nodded a final wordless farewell and joined the soldiers marching north.

A million thoughts battered Roy like a sandstorm as he wandered, aimless and empty, away from Hughes and toward his assigned destination. He only knew he needed to reach some checkpoint at the Eastern sector of the camp to receive his afternoon's schedule. He was alone, yet utterly surrounded by the tumult of the troop rotation, the crowd of hundreds of identically-clad figures. It was uncanny. And he was alone.

And there she was.

She stood, shrouded in white and set apart from the crowd, small and indistinct against a wall. A perpetual sniper, always removed, always watching.

Her eyes were on him. Her killer's eyes.

And yet she was his beacon, she was his radiant polestar. Even though he felt he'd never have the strength to look at her, he felt the magnetic pulse always pulling him closer. He had no choice. As he walked toward her, he felt a pain in his back, like he had when he had woken up that morning. And what was it that he had found?

A wind tossed dust in the air. The sand sparkled. A sparkling halo hung behind her like a crown.

The white queen. Lodged somewhere underneath his heart.

"Riza," he breathed. And once again he found the sand, or the dust, or the ashes of Ishval itself choking himself and he couldn't speak. "I—"

She looked at him tenderly, as if she were forgiving him. Not for leaving her, not for the war, not for the fire, but perhaps just for his inability to talk, his inability to say the most important words he needed to say. She was Riza, the girl he had fallen in love with. The girl who loved him.

And then the look vanished. A deep disappointment replaced it. Her mask faltered, the stoicism slipping to reveal the pain, the betrayal, the raw disgust. It was the honesty of a human, surrounded by inhumanity. This look pierced his heart. She was his conscience. She was his judge. She was his executioner.

And then she transformed for the third time.

She straightened and met his eyes. Her look was intense and complex. And reflected a respect he had not deserved in years. She saluted. "Major Mustang, sir."

His rank. Not his acting rank of Captain, but the one had been given as State Alchemist. The one she had given him with Flame Alchemy. Her return to the world of rank and order guilted him. He was supposed to be the professional. He was the officer.

She blazed with an intensity he had only seen once before, in a memory he didn't dare recall.

He likewise straightened, returning her salute with a level of formality he hadn't mustered in Ishval. "Cadet Hawkeye."

Something passed between the two. It was less than a look, less than a subtle shifting of shoulders. But an indescribable understanding arose and dissipated, like a silent order heard and heeded by both.

Without words they acknowledged their mutual blame and guilt. They had both made choices. They had found themselves here. And until they died, the two of them alone would feel the matchless guilt of flame alchemy. They had both felt the heat of the flame like the unrelenting desert sun, and wished with all their might that they could extinguish it forever. But they recognized that desire was a luxury long-since vanished. The ensuing silence echoed with a certain finality.

Perhaps that acknowledgement of rank would have been enough to snap him out of his self-pity. But, if just for this one moment, a genuine emotion, a remembrance of and a hope for life beyond the war struggled into Roy's heart.

"Thank you for that shot."

"I only did what I came here to do. But it was my honor."

"Don't do anything too dangerous, Cadet."

"Nor you, sir."

In some ways, Kimblee wasn't wrong. She was a sniper. She was a soldier. And she was a damn impressive one.

For a second he felt he had been freed, from the isolation, from the never-ending fear of revelation. She knew. She finally knew.

The familiar words flashed inside his brain. It had been his prayer as well, his silent refrain ever since he had first used those flames to kill.

Libera Me.

And she had. If just for a moment.

He watched her vanish again.

He stood alone again, just as he had this morning. Before Hughes. Before her.

Roy Mustang, alone.

The isolation returned, this time as the bracing winter wind that buffeted his face as he ducked his head back inside the train. A conductor was speaking—something about the Daliha alpha squad—no, he was telling Roy to take a seat and show him his ticket. He blinked the tears back, he had a place to be, a duty to render. The sun was blinding on the snow.

The semester before him had never seemed so long, so—Ticket sir—and spring had never seemed such a distant prospect. And the expectation of his commission and service after graduation had never seemed so imposing, so constrictive–Hurry up, I haven't got all day—His life was planned out, and his future was stolen away. Yet he had signed it away himself, years ago.

Roy pocketed the ticket stub. It had been his decision. It was his dream–No ma'am, this train doesn't stop in Sycamore Junction, it's direct to West City. You should have checked before you got on—And how could he ever return to that dormitory and the single bed?—No Ma'am, I'm telling you, this train is going to West City, whether you like it or not—He had become another person. This single week, this single girl, had changed him irrevocably—Get your ass over here Mustang, what the hell is taking you so long?—the train steamed eastward away, uncaring. His head knocked against the window, each impact a frigid kiss on his temples. It was too late for regrets. But how long until he'd see her again?

The tears in his eyes burned, hotter than that first spark in his hands.

He let the words sour in his mouth, unspoken.

He knew he'd regret this for the rest of his life.

—Damn it Mustang, if you hold us up, just because you think the Flame Alchemist is entitled to his own fucking lazy-ass schedule, I will personally see to it that your watch billet doesn't include time for eating, sleeping, or bathing. Don't think I can't have you demoted. I will put what's left of you on the first train—

His mouth moved three times and no words came out.


A/N:

Riza gets a break down! And Roy gets a break down! But all's fair in love and war, you know. I sure had fun writing all the angst and am quite happy with how this chapter came out. Personally, I'm quite proud of Roy's final breakdown as the flashbacks overpower him so much that he's experiencing the past simultaneous with the present.
The song on the radio is Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again." It seemed a bit too perfect not to include in this fic. Give it a listen and you'll understand why it would bother Roy so much.
Riza's tattoo is largely based on the manga version, but I also used the anime version as well (yes, they're different). There are some great tumblr blogs and youtube videos that have done a great analysis of the tattoo, and helped me write intelligently on the matter.
Maika Rambles' video, found here: watch?v=sv4GiaOwanw
soterianyx's analysis: post/74925554706/soterianyxs-analysis-and-interpretation-of-riza
Yesterday I reread the Ishval chapter and realized I had missed a few details of how the Amestris military works and the timeline Riza's backstory. So I had to frantically readjust dates. And now I need to edit chapter one, because the story only works if Berthold Hawkeye died in the beginning of 1905, not the end.
And, on a personal note, I was just singing a Catholic requiem (basically a funeral Mass in Latin) and actually got to chant the Libera Me. I had sung Mozart's requiem in the past, which has the same text, but singing it in a funeral setting really inspired me and this chapter. It was seeing the text "Libera me" in the manga that had inspired me and my five years of Latin to write this fic in the first place.
See y'all next chapter! Thanks for the reviews, favs, and views, and as always, feel free to drop constructive criticism in the comments