Summary: Drabbles, vignettes, and shorts ala ROYAI (Roy x Riza).
Chapter 5 – Sentimental Letdown – "A little sentimentality isn't a weakness, chuii."
Beautiful Fighters: Sentimental Letdown (G)
by ShiroKitsune
There was a little tree outside of Central's headquarters. A little tree maybe 25 feet high and full of shade. And when the prospect of the noisy cafeteria and equally noisy coworkers seemed more hassle than it was worth, Riza would go to the tree and sit beneath it, contentedly eating her meal. The tree was a bit out of the way, across a rarely mown stretch of lawn. It stood alone and alone she sat in the shadows beneath it.
It was late spring, and sunny. The level of the cafeteria's noise, she decided, would be on par to a zoo at feeding time. So she gathered her lunch and slipped down the halls. There were salutes and polite nods exchanged as she passed down the corridor, down the back stairs, past archives, and out the door farthest back in the building.
She would cross the prickly grasses, seeds sticking to her legs. Then she would stop. She would stop because there was no reason to go any further. She would stop because the tree wasn't there. She could give you no true account of how long she stood on the edge of the field. It could have been seconds, or minutes. Were it not for the soft tread of approaching footsteps that startled her out of her daze, it could have been hours more that she would have stood there.
"Chuii," Roy said. He walked up to stand beside her. Farthest point on the property or not, Roy had followed. She wondered how he knew she was there. The pair stared at the mutilated stump of the tree.
"They cut down your tree," Roy said.
He said 'your' meaning 'her' when he should have said 'the' and when all he wanted was to say 'our.' He had good memories of them beneath that tree. A celebration in the field and a photo of him and her beneath the tree.
Riza said nothing. "We had our picture taken here once too, didn't we?"
"Ah," she agreed.
She shifted her weight backwards as though to go. A hand on her shoulder stopped her. It wasn't heavy or rough, but thoroughly immobile and the weight stilled her even as it made her nervous.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"It was just a tree, sir."
There she went, the perfect soldier. Emotionless and precise. The traits that he usually depended on her for now merely made him annoyed. He knew it wasn't just a tree.
Her tree. Our Tree.
"A person is just a mass of tissue and skin without memories. It's the memories that make something."
She stayed silent. Contemplating or ignoring, he couldn't tell.
"A little sentimentality isn't a weakness, chuii."
She remained like a statue and he sighed. His hand still lay on her shoulder. He began to run his thumb in small circles over her shoulder. Just the barest bit of pressure felt through the thick fabric.
"I'm going to miss that tree," she admitted finally in a soft voice. Roy lifted away his hand and put his whole arm over her shoulder instead. He nodded and walked back inside with her.
He never wished before that his alchemy could make things grow too.
A/N: I swear, I swear I will get to happier stories. Damn slave to cannon!
Current Slice or 'This moment in the life of Shiro Kitsune'
Instructor: Blah, blah, memory, blah blah, database.
Me (inside my head): Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! I'm trying to think of the right word! I don't want to make a freakin' database!