"Art"
A/N: Hey again. This one is not Ed/Winry-themed like the last two, but Riza/ Havoc (I call him Jean in this fic). It's implied Riza/Jean, at any rate. Hope you like it. :-D.
No, I am not affiliated with Full Metal Alchemist.
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It's in the smell of sweat, the squint of the eyes, the crook of the knee, the sharp nausea as the smoke curls thin and cloistering after the shot. It's in the twang of the target, or an exasperated curse, or the sickening recoil and a bloom of red. Riza sees her trade in the cruelest places and indeed men do not call it beautiful, this skill that has no other purpose but to kill. But though she hopes her heart is not as calloused as her hands, she cannot but help to find beauty in the movements of the sharpshooter, a connection, an art.
Jean knows what he does when his finger crooks final and sure on the trigger; he hates the sight of a wound and the odor of black gunsmoke. But it is his duty, and his calling. He knows how to find grace in this crudest of sports, how a swift drop to the knee and a sharp, accurate report can be worth more than all the gold in the world.
When they fight alongside their august commander, they fight close to the ground, kneeling, reloading, dusty. Vermillion fire roars overhead. They see every result of every shot. They know the continued renewal of that awful sense of balance, and again they drop to the ground to reload.
It's in the swoop of a knee and the bend of a neck, the wind-swept hair and the cup of a palm. It's their art.
They understand.