As she walked from her post back to base to eat her lunch, Riza rubbed her eyes, trying to etch the most recent killings off her mind, at least for the time being. She ignored her comrades, marching on her left side, all in matching sand-colored cloaks and dark pants- the uniform of the snipers. She wanted as little to do with them as she did herself. Even after reminding herself these people would kill her the moment they saw her, and reminding herself that these people had betrayed the government , she was still thoroughly disgusted in herself and her fellow snipers.
Suddenly, she heard a "OhhWOOWAA!" coming from the sandy bluff above her. A familiar voice answered back, "W-What?"
She stopped abruptly, separating herself from the other snipers. "It's him," she whispered to herself. Roy. Her father's student. The one who she had crushed on for years as a girl, hoping he would notice her as she entered with their tea or as she weeded the gardens outside their window. The one who inspired her to join the military with the blind ideals of "defending the people" to be a "building block of the country". She couldn't help but bitterly wonder to herself if he still believed in those naive ideals now.
She watched the two men. The other man (who she did not recognize) gushed to Roy, "It's my beautiful future! Her name is Gracia. She's waiting in Central for me to come home! ...all by herself...all this time." His tone immediately changed from gushing to anger. "AHHUUUUH! WHAT IF ANOTHER MAN PUTS THE MOVES ON HER?!"
Riza smiled dryly. Even as the world around him crumbled, he stayed true to his... whatever she was to him. While perhaps it was naive to focus more on his girl than on life here, it was refreshing not to hear someone dying or screaming in pain, or crying.
Riza continued to listed to the strange man. She decided she liked him.
Roy interrupted him, "Hughes, a little word of warning. This often happens in movies and novels. A guy on the battlefield who brings up stories of his woman..." Roy moved his fingers into the shape of a gun, imitating a shot at the mans head. "...immediately dies."
Riza's face fell, disappointed. There was a part of her that had hoped Roy kept his optimism of survival on the battlefield.
The other man sighed, as he adjusted his glasses, glaring in the sunlight. "Now I can live until tomorrow."
Riza'sighed as Roy asked the question she couldn't. "Hm?"
"This letter is enough to let me dream about tomorrow," the man smiled to himself. "Here on this battlefield, where we don't know when things will end... it's true, I see no way out of this war..." Roy's companion mused, almost to himself. "No matter how much military force this country throws this way, the desert just sucks it up like water. "
Carrying her sniper on her shoulder, Riza began shuffling up to the pair of them.
"After trying so hard to gain control, what's left? All in all, it's just the sand, right? Yeah. This is more than comprehensive enough for bringing an uprising under control."
"Long time no see, Major Mustang," Riza interrupted their conversation. "Do you remember me?"
Roy looked at her for the first time in years, his war-tired eyes reflecting the same carnage she had experienced. His face fell. Not exactly the greeting she had hoped for, but she hadn't expected too much else.
After they had sat down and Riza recounted what had happened in her life since her father's death, a large pause ensued. They ate in relative silence, allowing Riza to remember the faces she had stolen the lives of. "Tell me something Major, why are soldiers killing citizens when they should be protecting them? Why is alchemy, meant to bring about good fortune, being used to kill people?" Her eyes began to water for the first time since she got to Ishval. She cursed herself silently for being so weak while the others remained stony-eyed and silent.
Excepting Roy. His eyes reflected Riza's very sentiments, if not more so.
"Because that's the job of a State Alchemist," a voice interrupted. Another man, this one in a long ponytail, and a dry smile sat not too far away from them, cradling an aluminum mug in his lap. "Because that is the duty placed upon soldiers." He looked up, his steely blue eyes piercing through the the surrounding desert, almost grinning. "Am I wrong?"
Roy's breath quickened and his pupils shrank drastically, as he turned to face the voice. "Are you saying we should accept this devastation as part of our job?" Roy asked, his pitch also rising.
"Well, now... let's say..." The pale, pony-tailed man looked directly at Riza, examining her. She squirmed in her seat. "Miss, you seem to be reluctant to be here. That's the face you're making."
Riza's eyes widened, at the unexpected address to her. Then she frowned and stared into her lap, almost angrily. This was not someone she liked.
The man's eye's shrank almost into little blue slits. "Can you tell me for certain that when you defeat an enemy, there isn't the slightest moment when you say 'I got him! Great!'?"
Riza's eyes widened in horror, her brows trembling with the guilt of the past months threatening to crash upon her.
The man continued, his loosed antenna-like hairs waving in front of him in the desert winds, his grin widening ever so slightly. "...take pride in your own skills, and feel a sense of accomplishment... Miss Sniper?"
Roy sprang to his feet, and grabbed the other man's crisp uniform collar, screaming, "Don't say another word!"
Riza sat there in horror, more disgusted in herself than she had ever been, and contemplated the bloodshed that she had indeed almost felt... accomplished... for having completed. The man rolled his eyes. "For my part, I can't understand you people. The battlefield is, after all, a place where you kill the enemy." It was Roy's turn to feel the horror. "Did you put on your uniforms without being ready for that?" the man asked, dripping with condescension.
Roy let the man go, as they both stood themselves up. "Don't avert your eyes from death," The man advised. "Look forward."
The man leaned into Roy, and Riza's keen ear could barely detect the words, not that she wanted to. "Look directly at the people you're killing, and then don't... forget them."
The terror she had inflicted on the Isvalans, and the feel the screams of the mothers and father and uncles and aunts and grandparents and friends whose lives she was responsible for destroying paralyzed her.
"The enemy isn't going to forget you, either."
The bell rang as a reminder for the soldiers to return to their posts. Riza returned, but didn't continue firing. Days later, the war ended. Not a single Isvalan remained.