"You want me to take her?" Roy looked over at the young girl—only ten—sitting on his friend's couch. She was slouching, her long hair, silver in colour, hiding the bright crimson eyes Roy had no doubt were giving him some secret side-long look. "What am I gonna do with her? I'm heading on a recruitment mission in two days; am I supposed to just drag her along?"
Maes sighed, running his fingers through his hair as he looked over at the child. "I can't leave her alone. I asked her brother if he could come look after her, but he's out of town and can't even make it to see her, let alone stay."
"So why don't you just skip your trip?"
"I thought of that, too, but Gracia and I have waited so long after our wedding, and…" Maes gave his friend a meaningful look, and Roy knew it was something he didn't want to say in front of the young girl. Roy didn't press him.
"Okay. Alright." He finally gave in with his hands held up defensively in front of him as he leaned back. "I mean, I guess I expected this. I wouldn't have come all the way out to Central if I actually meant to spurn you. What's her name again?"
"Khana." The answer came from the girl herself, and now she looked up with eyes that showed experience beyond her years. Of course, growing up in the midst of a war couldn't have been easy. Being carted around, passed from military official to military official just so her brother could become one of them had to be even harder, especially after seeing all the damage caused by State Alchemists in her first home. "My name is Khana. It's been a while, though, so I won't hold it against you—Ishiya'bo."
He knew the term: Hellhound. It was what Ishvalans called him for what he'd done to their homeland—to them. They'd named him after a beast that was fabled to come from the center of the earth to devour with fire … and once it started, it never stopped. Fitting, honestly. He couldn't blame her for bringing the name up again here.
Maes chuckled at the epithet as he turned to face Khana. "I'm not judging, but I thought you said you weren't going to bring that up."
Khana shrugged. "He can handle it. Can't you, Ishiya'bo?"
Roy shared a quick glance with Maes, who smirked at him—that same smirk he used to give him when he knew Roy was being challenged and he wanted to see what he would do. It pissed him off sometimes, but at the moment the look actually made him chuckle. Roy leaned back, his hands in his jacket pockets as he narrowed his eyes at the girl. She was only ten—and talking to him like she wanted him to fight her. What was her game, exactly?
"You're within your rights to hate me," he told her plainly, the smile slipping from his face. Looking at her now, he couldn't help but be reminded of all the faces he'd burned into his memory—all the faces who stared at him with righteous anger right before… No. Not now. He took a breath and turned away from her. It was all too vivid. "Call me Hellhound. Call me the Flame Alchemist. Call me a monster, I don't care. I've heard it all—and the thing is, you're not wrong. And I know your situation right now isn't fair, but right now I'm the only option you have."
"It's only for a week or so," Maes added quickly, smiling at the girl. Her expression softened a bit when she turned her attention to him—great. So at least she wasn't always like this. "I'll be back soon, and then my wife will be living here too. You remember Gracia, right?"
"Yeah." Khana sounded more or less distracted, but given her circumstances, Roy couldn't blame her. Her right arm crossed her body to cradle her left elbow as she looked down and out toward the hall. Maes squeezed her shoulder when she did that, and she offered a small smile—though honestly it seemed more for his sake than hers.
"It'll be okay," Maes said, as if reading the girl's mind. "And Roy is a good friend of mine, so be nice, okay?"
"Me?" Khana smirked, a devious glint in her eye. She glanced at Roy, who gave a light huff of amusement. She reminded him so much of his own sisters, and the way they seemed to always be plotting something. "I'm always nice."
"Sure you are," Maes shot back with a weary grin. "Go on, get your stuff. You already packed, right?"
The girl just chuckled as she turned toward the second, smaller bedroom in the apartment—the same apartment Maes had picked for the purpose of building a family with his new wife. The girl's tone suggested she had never actually unpacked. As she closed the door behind her, Roy turned to raise a brow at his old compatriot.
"So what's it like? Really. Having her here, I mean."
Maes turned back to Roy with a frown—something he honestly didn't expect—and removed his square-rimmed glasses to clean them. "Honestly? I'm worried about her. The few times we've been out, there are always people staring at her—like they're afraid of her. She goes out on her own sometimes, but she always comes back with a split lip or a bruise somewhere on her." He put his glasses back atop his nose and shook his head. "I don't think she goes out looking for fights, but… people in this city are still so engrossed with propaganda from the war. Most of them think Ishvalans just kind of disappeared and they're happy with that kind of ignorance, so when they see her they tend to get either nervous or angry. When I'm with her it's fine, people don't really say anything, but if I'm honest I get a bit nervous when she goes out alone."
Roy let his gaze drift toward the door to her room, and a new weight settled on his chest. Her pain likely wasn't new, and it definitely wasn't caused by Maes. She was a child who'd grown up submerged in war. She'd lost her whole family to it—her friends—everyone she'd ever loved. Roy couldn't imagine that kind of loss, and what that must do to a kid.
"She's small, but she's tough," Roy muttered. "It might be good for her to see a new setting for a bit. What about the orphanages in this city? I'm sure they have a ton of Ishvalan kids. They'd get what she's going through."
Maes sighed and dropped his gaze. "That's the thing, Roy. They do have a ton of Ishvalan kids—and maybe it would be good for her to get to know others who've been through something similar. But David doesn't want her going into one of those. He says he's looked into them before, and the kids there were being actively abused. I mean, usually kids are abused in those places, but the Amestrian workers seemed to be making it their job to harass the Ishvalan children." Maes' jaw set, and a shadow came over his face. "I couldn't do that to her. Hell, if I could take them all in, I would."
Roy nodded as the reality of the situation set in. So many Ishvalan children had been displaced during the extermination. So many were suffering, homeless, without families or friends, or anyone like Maes to take them in, or like Doctor Marcoh to free them from a horrible situation in the first place. And it seemed the military wasn't willing to pick up the slack and make right what they'd done. What Roy had done.
Providing some semblance of shelter and food was the least any of them could do. Maes had even volunteered his apartment because of all the space. It had seemed like the perfect place at the time. Now, maybe it was comfortable inside, but out there in the city streets, it seemed it was a bit harder for the girl.
"You'll be a good dad," Roy told him. "You know—when you get around to it."
Maes' cheeks flushed at the compliment and he scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Aw, come on, Roy, she's not my kid. And you know I'll be getting around to it on my honeymoon, if you know what I mean."
"People halfway across the city know what you mean," Roy replied with dry humour. "Still—I'm happy for you. You're probably going to be the only one of my subordinates getting any action for a long time, and my men always get so pissy when they're alone for too long. I've tried hooking them up at a brothel, but a lot of them are just too uptight about that." He shrugged, shaking his head.
Maes raised a dubious brow at him. "Maybe if you actually gave them a day off."
"And what, do my own paperwork? No thanks. I've got enough on my plate without having to sift through hundreds of pages just to sign on the dotted line." Roy huffed back. "Besides, if they had any charisma at all, I'm sure they'd all be knee-deep in—oh, hey! That was fast!" He quickly switched gears as Khana re-emerged from her room, carrying a surprisingly small travelling trunk with her. Maes snickered as Roy's face darkened in colour at the idea of her hearing what he had been about to say. He cleared his throat.
Maes asked her, "Is that going to be enough clothes for a week?"
"I'll be fine," Khana replied easily. She raised a brow at Maes. "You know, you don't have to just take a week because of me. If you're going to be with your wife, you should go a little longer. I've been on my own a lot longer before."
Maes offered the girl a soft smile, a hint of sadness in his eyes when she said that. He bent down to her level as he set a hand on her shoulder and said, "Yeah, but… you shouldn't have to be."
A strange, blank look came to Khana's face as he said this, flavoured with a twinge of pain behind her big red eyes. After a moment she looked down, and nodded, replying quietly, "Okay."
In spite of the cloudy day, Khana put on a pair of dark glasses when they went outside. It was a sad thing, Roy thought to himself, for a child to be so acutely aware of how much the people of her own country despised her for no reason other than the vibrant colour of her eyes. In spite of this, he knew that asking her to take them off would be as much a violation as someone commenting on her eyes in the first place—especially after what Maes had told him. She wasn't safe here; that much was true.
Roy flagged down a cab and Khana held her travelling trunk in her lap as they climbed in. The driver stared at her obviously, as if trying to find a way to see past her glasses, but Roy didn't let it go on for too long. He called to the front, "To the train station, please—when you're ready."
The man cleared his throat, his cheeks reddening slightly as he turned back to face the road. Roy noticed Khana glancing at him in his peripheral vision, but she didn't say anything before she turned back toward the window. Their ride to the station was a quiet one, but not with any sense of hostility. He sensed more nervousness from the young girl than anger toward him—though somehow that seemed worse. He'd rather fight her tooth and nail than have to coax her out of her proverbial shell. Was that a thing he'd have to do? Maes seemed to have done it to a degree; she was talkative around him. She felt safe there, but not only was Roy someone she barely knew, he was also … Ishiya'bo. The connotation of the word sent chills down his spine—especially considering how accurate it was.
Images of fire and the sounds of explosions still kept him up at night—not to mention the screams of the people he'd killed. It was often ten at a time. Thousands altogether. He often just tried not to think about it, to brush it to the back of his mind like it was some distant memory he could flush out with good deeds—but her presence made them so much more real. Her eyes, flush and vibrant as rubies, brought back so many horrible memories. Maybe this was a bad idea after all.
The train ride back to East City was about a day and a half, with a two-hour layover so they could get something to eat, and maybe stop in at his apartment and shower before they headed off to their next destination. As he explained this, Khana frowned up at him.
"You mentioned before you have a recruitment mission. Do you mean for a new State Alchemist?"
Roy unlocked and held open his apartment door for the girl to enter first. "This one is just looking into a rumour I've heard. We'll be meeting my subordinate there—do you remember Lieutenant Hawkeye?"
Khana nodded. "You look into rumours? I would have expected just your minions to do that—unless you are a minion yourself."
Roy chuckled at her term. "I guess we're all just minions of the Fuhrer if you think about it. But yes, I look into rumours myself to confirm them, and then if I find they're true I give them a number where they can reach me and tell them we're always looking. That's how this works. This particular rumour is interesting; apparently there's a man in this tiny little farm town who is incredibly talented. I think there might be some merit there."
As he threw his jacket over the back of a chair in his small kitchen, Roy caught Khana taking off her glasses to stare at the ground, her eyes unblinking. "So … if there was another war—another attempt to wipe out another race of people … this man would be put on the front lines. Like you were."
Roy's hand froze on his jacket. His hands curled until his knuckles were white as her statement hit him where it hurt—but he could only sigh. He'd accepted a long time ago he was a monster. He'd accepted that he'd made this choice … and maybe it was a mistake a long time ago, but now it couldn't be counted as such. He'd stayed with the military to pursue his own goals … no matter what that might look like to her.
"Yes," was his simple answer, his tone dark. He couldn't think of anything else to say. Neither could she, evidently, because she simply sat down, staring down at her glasses as he headed to the bathroom to get cleaned up after so much travel.
What a messy situation.