Notes: This chapter is a bit shorter, but there'll be a lot of chapters that are gonna be way shorter. Some will be a few sentences, even. I'm trying to keep with the whole, I don't know, captain's log thing? Ha. That's funny! 'Cause Roy's a captain in this story and, um...Hi! I'm Hope Wilson, and I hope you're all enjoying the story, and help yourself to a brochure.

January 20, 1907

11:33 P.M.

"It's nature!" Riggs proclaimed, his arms spread wide.

"Great," Mantel said and flopped down in the shade of a tree. "Can we get lunch now?"

"I dunno," Roy said. "It's kind of nice." The city lay behind them, and at the distance, it had the appeal of a ruin – appeal lost upon closer scrutiny. And the river had that miraculous quality that all water had, of somehow summoning up a breeze, of lowering the air around it even just by the margin of a few degrees that transformed it from unbearable to bearable. And all along the riverbanks were bushes, low trees – green things, flowering things, that blocked out the sun. And when Roy bent down to scoop up a handful of the loose black soil, just below the surface, it was cool. He straightened and let the soil filter through his hands. "I kind of like it."

"Thank you," Riggs said, leaning affectionately against a tree. His head, hilariously, rose above several of the lower branches. "See? The Captain knows the real value of things."

Roy smiled in spite of himself. Then he noticed that Riggs was looking just behind him, mouth open, and he started to turn around. Then he was pushed into the water.

He was afraid, at first – he wasn't sure what to do in the water, and he tripped when he was pushed and went in head-first, and there was the fluttering fear that Havoc and the others had brought him out here just so they could do that – that the whole thing had been a cruel joke. But after that first moment of fear, he noticed that the water was sluggish, and warm, and quite shallow, reaching only perhaps to his armpits; he touched bottom and surfaced a moment later, theatrically sputtering and outraged as they laughed – not cruelly.

"Sweet god in heaven!" he shouted to the others, slogging his way to shore. "The hell was that for?"

"Sorry, Captain," Havoc said, chewing on an unlit cigarette. "I couldn't resist. Probably the only time I'm ever gonna be able to do that to someone who outranks me."

"You're out of the army!" Roy declared. "Out. Dishonorable discharge for the lot of you. This was my good uniform!"

"They're all the same," Mantel shot back. "Hence 'uniform.'"

Roy groaned at that, and collapsed on the silty riverbank. Then he reached into his pocket. "You couldn't have waited until I took my money out?" Roy asked, pulling out the sodden mass. "I think it's ruined now."

"Well, now we won't make you pay for lunch, is all," Breda said.

"We weren't actually going to make you pay for lunch," Havoc interjected.

"That's a relief," Roy said, "since I only brought enough for myself, so if you'd tried..."

"Dishwash!" Riggs and Mantel shouted together, looked at each other, and burst out laughing.

"Inside joke," Havoc explained.

"I got that," Roy said, slightly envious, and covered by dumping water out of his boot. He hesitated, not wanting to be a jerk about it, since there was no harm done, the money wasn't actually ruined, and he actually felt quite good for having been dunked, but – "I can't really swim, you know."

Havoc furrowed his brow. "Sure you can. Managed in the river well enough, didn't you?"

"That's 'cause it was this deep," Roy said, holding his fingers a centimeter apart.

"How the hell did you manage to make it into adulthood without knowing how to swim?" Riggs marveled. Then he smiled. "No, this is great. We'll teach you."

"Uh..." Roy coughed slightly. "Really?"

Even laconic Breda grinned at the idea. "Really. 'Oh, where did you learn how to swim, Captain?' 'Why, Ishvar, the Land of No Water, of course.' The irony'll be intense."

"I don't think people generally ask where someone learns to swim," Roy pointed out.

"So you tell them," Havoc said. "Come on. It'll be fun."

"Uh, okay. Sure. I always did kind of want to learn."

"Not now," Mantel groaned; having remembered his earlier irritation, he'd flopped back into his prone position and resumed grumbling. "Teach him later. When I'm not around."

"You know you want to help," Riggs said.

"I know I want food," Mantel retorted.

"Food, then," Havoc said, shaking his head mournfully. Then, to Roy: "We always go to the same restaurant. Hope you don't mind routine."

1:22 P.M.

Said restaurant was tiny, a small door in the midst of a string of small doors on a dusty back street in the western city. It didn't even have a name painted on the canopy, just the word "restaurant" – misspelled. There were only four tables in the cramped interior, but each of the tables was large, as though this were a place to each with company, with friends. He liked that.

There was only a single waitress, who didn't give them menus. The restaurant didn't seem to have menus, but the others seemed to know what to order. Roy hesitated when she came around to him, partially because of the cacophony of the other four each advocating their particular favorites at the top of their lungs, and partially because of the striking character of the waitress's red eyes lingering on his.

As she walked away, Roy realized that she was the first Ishvaran he'd seen. It wasn't a bad beginning.

"See why we like this place?" Havoc asked, nudging Roy in the ribs.

3:53 P.M.

"They'll die, too, you know," Kimbley said as soon as Roy had closed the door behind him. Again dressed in nothing but a bare sleeveless shirt and his uniform pants, his stringy hair trailing down his back, his wide mouth stretched in the smallest grin, he sat like an ascetic, like an ancient Buddha searching for enlightenment in the book before him, in the reaction of the man before him.

"Excuse me?" Roy asked.

"They'll die too. The men you're surrounding yourself with," Kimbley said, matter-of-fact. "They're cannon fodder. They're mayflies, living quick, living brief, not knowing that their day's lifespan is nothing 'cause they're only living for the flesh, for the instinct; they can't transcend their instinct. They're base, and they'll die."

"What, and we won't?" Roy asked, sitting in his chair and running fingers through his hair, tangled in the muddy waters of the Messha.

"The tall one'll catch a bullet with his head," Kimbley said, his quiet voice almost a chant, "the blonde one'll take a knife to the ribs. They're steeped in mortality, Mustang. They reek of it. Do you honestly want to get involved something so transient?"

Roy shook his head. "They're not even going near the front lines." Havoc had explained that: each one of them had something wrong with him, so that they weren't to be sent to the front lines. That was why they were here. Second-rate, Havoc said, so they were given second-rate jobs which, thankfully kept them from danger.

"Not all death is in Ishvarana," Kimbley replied. "Not all danger is in Akarana." There was something in his manner that – didn't bode well.

"Are you threatening them, Kimbley?" Roy asked.

But there was something strange, almost sad, not threatening, as he said, "Don't get attached," and ducked back into his book.

Roy pulled off his boot and rubbed at his foot. It had gotten a little raw toward the heel, but there were no blisters. The heat of the desert had dried his clothing far to quickly to allow his sock to raise a blister.