Title: See the Chains Around my Feet
Day: Whumptober 2023, Day 21
Prompt: "See the chains around my feet" Vows/Restraints/ "Don't Move"
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Word Count: 1174
Author: aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl
Rating: T
Characters: Riza Hawkeye, Roy Mustang
Warning: NA
Summary: All her life Riza Hawkeye has felt restrained by the chains of life and burdened by the vows she took. They've pressed in on her and kept her from her from going where she want. Maybe, eventually, she can break them and be free.
Notes:

See the Chains Around my Feet

All her life, Riza Hawkeye had felt chained down. She didn't feel chained to any particular place or even any particular person. Rather, she had always felt that she was chained to circumstances themselves. She felt as if her free will, her choices, no matter how hard she fought for her own agency, were always just an illusion that covered how chained she was.

As a girl, she had known that her home wasn't right. She had known that her father wasn't a good father and didn't treat her well. But she had felt chained to that house, for if she left, where else would so go? She was a child, with no other family and no other recourse. If she went to anyone else in town she would, eventually, be returned to her father. If she left the town, she likely wouldn't make it long, because she was a child. And although she had much freedom in roaming the land and teaching herself various things, she was always, always restrained by the knowledge that she had nowhere else to go.

Until Roy Mustang had come. With him had, eventually, come a hope. He had cared about her, had told her stories of his aunt and his sisters, had offered to let her come visit them with him when he went back for special occasions. Her father had never let her, but just the idea had made it feel like the chains around her feet were loosening.

And then Roy had joined the military, and her father and Roy had fought. Roy had been kicked out, but before he had left, he had implored Riza to leave with him. Her father wasn't in his right mind, he had said, and he was worried about what would happen to her. Riza had pointed out that if she left, she would just legally be returned to him. Clearly without thinking, Roy had suggested that they take vows, that they get married. Yes, there was a four-year age gap, but that wouldn't be as bad as they got older, and fourteen wasn't an unheard-of age for a girl to get married. Besides, it would be legally only, just so her father wouldn't control her. She could live with his aunt, and he'd go to the military.

It was a brash plan, and part of Riza wanted to say yes. But she could feel the chains closing around her feet again, and she shook her head no. Her father was crafty, and he'd find some way to break the marriage, like an annulment. Roy had left, and Riza had felt the chains tighten.

How, not much later, she wished she had gone with him. For within a year her father was laying vows of his own on her—vows of secrecy, marked in her skin. Vows for the secrecy of flame alchemy, slowly tattooed on her back over the course of a year. Even after her father died, and the chains that bound her to him and to that land were gone, the vows remained heavy on her back.

In an attempt to relieve them, Riza had unintentionally forged new chains. These chains bound her to Roy, and, although she tried to make her own way at the academy, she could feel the chains tightening around feet again as she heard, over and over, how she had broken the vows to her father. How Mustang was breaking the unspoken vows to her.

Still, she had tried to forge ahead, to find a way to break those chains and force them off. She had a way, to an extent, but even as she had Roy Mustang in her sights, she knew that she couldn't do it. She felt the chains of this place tight around her more, as with each shot she took and each burst of alchemy that Roy Mustang did, the chains of life grew up her more and more, until she broke instead of the chains.

She begged Mustang to rid her of her vows, of this one burden, and he did as she asked. Yet it did not relieve the chains, and Riza felt as tied down as before, if not more so. Even when she was not in Ishval, even when her back was healed, she felt restrained, trapped, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Except, once again, for Roy Mustang. He asked her, again, to take vows. To add something onto the chains that bound her feet. But this time, it was not a vow of marriage. This time, it was a vow to prevent what they had done. It was a vow to stop what happened from ever happening again. It was a vow to get him to a place where he could stop it, and vow to shoot him in the back if he ever strayed from those vows. She took them. She took those unspoken vows and added to her chains. She knew that it would never take away from the chains around her feet, but she also knew that this chain was, at least, one she added by choice.

For many years she walked around like that, feeling the restraints of the chains of life around her feet and the vows she had taken on her back. She bore them, because she had to, because she had chosen to, because she deserved to. It was the one choice life didn't make for her, because she had made it before life could, adding the burden of her vows to the chains of life.

And then she was told not to move. Oh, she wasn't told in so many words, but the implication was clear. Don't move, or we'll make sure Mustang is disgraced. Don't move, or we'll make sure you men are killed. Don't move, or we'll tighten the chains of life on you even further. The Fuhrer, Selim, and the council made that abundantly clear to her. Fortunately, the chains were around her feet, not her hands, and she could still do quite a bit while not moving. So that's what she did.

In the end, the chains of life never broke, and the burdens of her vows, were never lifted. Instead, through taking down a corrupt regime, rebuilding the government, rebuilding Ishval, initiating peace talks with their neighbors, and establishing trade deals, the chains slowly degraded away, and the burdens slowly eased. Yes, new chains and new burdens did take their place, but these were ones she had a hand in placing on herself. The chains of remaining in the military, remaining in the government. The vows that came along with serving in a position of power, of being the right hand of someone who is in power.

And now, as she looked across at Roy Mustang, who was standing in his dress uniform, Riza herself in a white dress, Riza Hawkeye finally chose a vow that did not seem like a burden and found a chain that did not seem like a restraint. And she willingly embraced it fully.