Note: Roy has passed the Alchemy Exams- the position of State Alchemist is equivalent to a major.
Feburary 28, 1905
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Major Roy Mustang: 19 years old
Private Elizabeth Hawkeye: 18 years old
Private Maro Otori: 17 years old
Corporal Edwin Hawkeye: Died 18 years old, 1904
Maro Eleni Hawkeye: 6-7 weeks old
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Running a hand over the mostly flat stomach beneath her black skin-tight military tee, Riza Hawkeye cast a forlorn look over to the empty lavender crib in the corner of her room. Giving Maro up had been the right thing to do… hadn't it? The Centre would find her a good home and mother with less divided loyalties… because, like it or not, she had to go after Roy. If there was anything at all she could do, she had to help him- she couldn't let him die, liked Edwin had, just because she wasn't there to protect him.
"Riza, are you ready?" came Private Maro's soft voice from the door. She, too, had been assigned to Ishbal.
"I'm ready," said Riza, tearing her eyes away from the crib sadly.
"Are you going to be alright?"
Riza just nodded silently, hoisting the large pack onto her aching back- the pregnancy had been hard on it and she suspected there would be much she couldn't do for a while… but she still had her aim, and that was what had allowed her to be so quickly reinstated, though now only as a Private. They needed people like her in Ishbal- even people who had just lost their father, husband and child- people who had no reason to want to have anything to do with the military ever again… except that she did have a reason- him.
"You're a strong woman, Rize."
"No…" said Riza, "sometimes I'm very weak… but I try- and I'll keep trying. I have to."
"For Major Mustang?"
"For his noble goal."
"Then I wish you good luck."
Riza shifted her pack a little and the two girls embraced like sisters for the last time- from then on, they must be as comrades and comrades alone. The military didn't allow space for kinship.