Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist.
002. Gunshot
Riza Hawkeye fires her first gun at eighteen years old.
Her father is dead and gone - and Roy Mustang might as well be - so when she finds it in her mother's old room, she doesn't hesitate.
It isn't a surprise to find it there. Both of her parents came from military lines, though they had both refused to acknowledge it.
She wraps her fingers around the pistol, and a sense of unsettling familiarity falls upon her. She picks it up and her pointer finger naturally finds itself on the trigger, her palm ready to steady the aim. She has seen the male children shooting often enough to understand the basic idea behind shooting a gun.
It is dark and heavy in her arms, painted matte black to, she assumes, conceal it from enemy eyes.
She pads quietly through the house, eager to make it outside. A creaking echoes through the house, and she tightens the grip on the pistol in her hand. (what's the point? she wonders, a cynical laugh parting her lips. she's the only one left alive.)
When she finally makes it to the meadows behind her house, she cocks the gun back and pushes violently at the trigger. Nothing happens.
Her brows furrow and the tips of her lips twitch down.
She glares furiously at the gun in her hands. She knows it is loaded, she had checked earlier, but she remembers once reading about the so-called "safety" of modern guns.
The next time she presses the trigger, the gun goes off with a satisfying explosion, and it is with chilling dread that she seals her own destiny.
She swears she can see blood on her hands for days afterward.
Roy Mustang bolts upright in bed, the sound of a gunshot resounding through the barracks.
The image of Riza Hawkeye, dead and in his arms, never leaves him.
It is only half a year later when they meet again at Ishval.
AN:
Didn't really expect this one to be written so quickly, but I'm not complaining.
etione