Disclaimer: I don't own FMA. It belongs to Arakawa Hiromu
Notes: This is a little bit AU. And there's a roundabout spoiler for the identity of manga Pride. Ignore it, if you want to.
"Trust in Me" by Dailenna
He had been travelling all afternoon, and was covered with the dust of the day. The heat overwhelmed his senses – warmth of the sun's reflection off the sand, and the body heat of the crowd gathered in this palace of sorts. He had been drawn to it. The gathering was wide and varied enough to look like the buyers at a bazaar had all been herded into the room, just as he had.
Persian rugs adorned the walls, and pillows of brightly coloured silks were placed here and there on animal furs, where some sat and conversed loudly. The cacophony of noise was distracting him from his curiosity. Where was he supposed to go from here?
He pushed his way through the crowd, trying to find some way out. A way out, or a way to a less hemmed in space, anyway. Somewhere where he could think. Finally, he tumbled out into a corridor.
Why was he here, again? To assassinate the Emperor. That was right. How had he forgotten that? Was his day really that bad that his goal had been driven from his mind?
He was dressed to fit in – it wouldn't do well to be dressed in military uniform here, for two reasons. One, because he would stand out well enough that the Emperor's bodyguards would pick him out right away, and be able to take him out. Two, because the heat was drastic enough that his military garb would only suit to stifle him. So now, he wore lighter clothing, much cooler than his previous set of clothing. His ignition gloves had to be stored somewhere, so he had tucked them into his cummerbund. They didn't bulge too much – only to make him seem a little fat around the edges.
He wondered once again why he was here, doing this. The relationship between Amestris and Xing had still been good, the last he had heard. Maybe it was best to let things stay as they were. But, his mind reassured him, if the Emperor was allied with the Fuhrer, not everything could be as well as it seemed. Should he succeed, maybe the successor wouldn't be so foolish as to ally with a homunculus.
Patting his concealed gloves to be sure that they hadn't slipped and fallen out, he stalked down the hallway, silently creeping up the stairs. He had roughly a half hour before he needed to be out of here and on his way back to Amestris. No time to sleep. Not when the Emperor's guard would be on his trail.
If he ran into anyone at this stage, he wouldn't be able to pass himself off as having gotten lost on the way to the bathroom. He was now on the fourth floor, and getting too close to the Emperor's rooms for the guards to let his trespassing by with a laugh and directions.
Finally, he found himself outside the doors he wanted to be at. He listened carefully, and heard the rattling of a tambourine. A reed flute was sounding in the background, keeping a wild melody. The Emperor was watching a musical performance, then. Opening the door a crack, he saw a few noblemen – by the quality of their clothing, he merely assumed – standing around the Emperor, and a few servants off to the side, watching the performance while they didn't have to run for drinks. One man waved a giant tree frond over the Emperor to keep him cool on his seat.
The dancers who weren't performing stood over to the side. He could see definite groups forming within them, not only from who they were standing with, but by their dress. Different dancers for different acts. The current group seemed mainly to form their performance around different styles of leaping. The Emperor watched with a basic interest, but nothing more.
He slipped inside, moving over to a servant who kept shaking his head in order to stop his eyes from drifting shut. After convincing the man that he was there to relieve him – and the man was relieved, indeed – he joined the other servants. His garb seemed closest to theirs. There didn't seem to be a uniform livery, for which he was glad. Instead, they had a lower quality to their clothes than the noblemen by the Emperor's chair. No ornamentation to it other than a basic pattern sewn in.
As the music wound down, the dancers gracefully moved off the dais that they had performed on. A new group came on, scattering themselves over the stage until the new piece of music started up. This piece was a little less lively, but seemed to interest the Emperor more. He listened to something one of the men by him said, and laughed, but still kept an ear pricked towards the stage, and watched the dancers from the corner of his eye.
He only had twenty or so minutes before the guards circling the palace would come round to where he had tied the camels he had hired for the trip. If they saw them there, they would question its presence and search for the owner. He had to be done and out by then. When was his chance going to arise?
He took a tray and refilled a drink, serving it to one of the noblemen. Best that it seemed he was doing a job, rather than just standing there for the whole time.
Almost as swiftly as they had come onto the stage, it seemed, this performance was over, and the dancers exited the stage. This time, they were replaced by a single dancer.
Her eyes were downcast in an alluring manner, and when the music started, she slowly moved about the stage, her hips swivelling and undulating in an almost hypnotising way. The filmy material that most of her outfit was made of did just enough to pretend it covered her while only hiding what was necessary for decency. He found himself drawn to watch as she shuffled over the stage, but soon shook his head, and seeing that the Emperor was just as fixated as he had been only moments ago, he fetched another drink. Coming close to the group of noblemen, he instantly noticed that not a single one was paying attention to him.
He put the tray down on a table and patted his cummerbund again to be sure of his gloves – they were just a precautionary item, really. In case something went wrong. He didn't specialise in firearms, but he could still manage to shoot one straight when it mattered.
It happened in a matter of seconds. The shot was fired, and screams were heard. The Emperor slumped forwards, and the gun was discarded. Some ran – to the other side of the room, or towards the Emperor to check if he lived. But it seemed that no-one had actually seen him. How had they not? Were they that transfixed? He didn't blame them. The girl from the stage had disappeared. Yes. It was time for him to do so, too.
Calling back that he would run for a doctor, he exited quickly, and made his way out of the palace, yelling frantically. Even one calm man in the middle of this felony could cast doubt, and he didn't want his face to be remembered as the one man unaffected by this travesty. Down two flights of stairs, no one seemed to have heard yet, and he stopped creating a fuss before it got him caught any quicker.
Outside, he reached the camels with time to spare.
"It took you long enough," she said in the business-like way that he was more used to seeing her in.
She already sat on her own camel, and had his at the ready for him. He climbed up awkwardly, grimacing. She had had to dye her hair to fit in – blonde was most definitely not a Xingese colour – and he couldn't say that it suited her as much as her natural colour. Shaking those rogue thoughts from his head, he set his camel's pace to catch up with her before they made their speedy getaway.
The journey was quiet, but for the sound of soft hooves on the sand. When they finally slowed down, they rode in an awkward silence, neither knowing how to approach what had just happened.
"It wasn't completely necessary that you came along."
"You would have been caught and executed if I hadn't distracted all of the others there. That is, if they don't discover that you aren't actually Xingese and find you and execute you anyway. My being there gave you a better chance."
It was true, in a fashion. The possibility of his being caught was still quite high, if they thought to look so far as across the desert for the murderer. He was just lucky that the retort of the gun was too loud for the other men to realise which direction it had come from.
"You didn't have to go so all out with the disguise," he finally told her.
"What, and risk being caught?"
Well . . . "Or the dancing, either."
"You're just jealous that I don't do that sort of thing for you."