Riza tugged her boot onto her foot and yanked the laces. The chaos of the past two days had enveloped her like a fog, the hours and minutes thick and ephemeral at the same time, and that had only broken when she had awoken that morning and realised she had not received a wake up call.
Every muscle in her shoulders tightened. The General would be on his way out of the hotel, and she would miss him because these silly, expensive hotel rooms didn't have alarm clocks, because those were for the working class. No, in hotels like this, a maid or butler was supposed to wake a guest with the comforts of a hot towel and breakfast in bed, or, if someone had an early start, with a telephone call to the room. Somehow, they had overlooked her.
Not somehow. The General had been insisting for days that she take the morning off while he oversaw the State Alchemist exams. He must have overridden her request to the front desk. No one else had the temerity to—
A rapid knock sounded at the door as Riza shrugged on her uniform jacket, so she opened the door and a tall woman who smelled of oranges and cinnamon pulled her into a tight embrace.
When she had caught her breath, Riza said, "Rebecca?"
Rebecca pulled back and held Riza by the shoulders. She looked her up and down and frowned at the blue military uniform. "What are you wearing?" she said. "Put on something normal." Then she pushed past Riza and into the room and threw open the wardrobe.
Riza turned to watch Rebecca pull out various garments and hang them up again. "What are you doing here?"
"It's your birthday," Rebecca said. "Where else would I be?" She put her hands on her hips. "Did you bring anything that wasn't brown, black, or white? Oh, never mind." She pulled out a cardigan and held it up. "This is grey."
It was her birthday. In the chaos of the last few days, Riza had completely forgotten. Besides, birthdays seemed to matter less the older she grew. There were always more important things. "I have to work."
"No, you don't," Rebecca said, and she shut the wardrobe and popped open Riza's suitcase. "Mustang just told me you have the whole day off."
He had threatened her with time off, but she was meant to take that time later, after they had left Central. "I told him—"
"You lost," Rebecca said, and she examined the only other pair of shoes Riza had brought—a pair of black heels. "He's already gone." She shrugged and grabbed Riza's arm with her free hand. "Come on. I've got the whole day planned, and I didn't pencil in time for you to stand here looking x ."
Rebecca pulled her out of the room before Riza had time to ask where they were going or change out of her uniform. They travelled down the hallway and onto a lift where Rebecca directed the attendant to one of the higher floors where the more expensive suites were located.
There were many competing thoughts in Riza's mind. How could the General go so far, leaving her behind when she had insisted she had not wanted to be left? Had he thought she needed it after the events of several days earlier? Had she been a callous person for not wanting to have the Führer in her life, in spite of his condition? Did Rebecca know about his condition? Why had Rebecca, who had never been a particularly wasteful person-extravagant, maybe, but not wasteful-come so far and booked a suite in a fine hotel instead of staying in Leo's flat?
She took a breath, ready to ask the last question, but Rebecca gasped and said, "We forgot your nylons."
Riza blinked as the elevator stopped and the attendant opened the gate. She hadn't considered her nylons in days. "I threw them out."
Rebecca hummed and pulled Riza into the hallway. "You can have a pair of mine." She unlocked a dark wood door, led Riza into a cream and gold sitting area, and disappeared into an arch leading to a connected bedroom. "I checked in this morning," she called behind her.
Riza nodded and followed Rebecca into the bedroom, but she paused when she saw three suitcases stacked on a padded bench. No one brought three suitcases for a weekend away. "Rebecca," she said.
Rebecca ducked out of her own wardrobe with a mauve dress draped over her arms. "Try this one."
"Rebecca," Riza repeated with more sternness.
Rebecca rolled her eyes and held the dress up to Riza's collarbone, then she smiled. "You'll look amazing."
Riza sighed. She would have to wait until Rebecca was more willing to let her control the conversation. In the meantime, she would submit to Rebecca's pampering. She let Rebecca button her into the dress, fuss over earrings and necklaces, and plop her down at a vanity to twist and pin her hair into an elaborate bun. Rebecca chatted the whole time.
"I was thinking we could get breakfast at this café I know by the river," Rebecca said. "They have the best crumb cake in the city."
Riza nodded. She didn't have enough knowledge of Central cafés to compare crumb cakes—she had lived in Central for only a few months, and nearly a decade had passed since then. Rebecca had spent several years in Central, working as Führer Grumman's personal aide until her marriage had pulled her into the South.
She looked at Rebecca, combing and rearranging Riza's hair, in the mirror. Did she know about the Führer? Had Vogel decided she was allowed to?
"Then we can walk to the fair." Rebecca dropped her hands on Riza's shoulders and smiled at her work. "I've heard it will be open through October this year—the madness of it! But we can ride the wheel, gorge ourselves on different sweets—" She stopped herself when she saw Riza's face. "What's wrong?"
Riza wondered if she could say. Rebecca had known the Führer for years, was closer to him than Riza had ever been or ever wanted to be. And she didn't want to be, and she clenched her fists when she thought that Führer Grumman expected that she would want to be. He had made no efforts to contact her when she had been a child in Amlingstadt—though he would have known where she was and he would have known when her father had died. He had kept his distance during her adulthood, had let certain suspicions fall on her and the General in the aftermath of the coup to secure his own hold on power. How dare he grant her such a level of clearance—as if he were waiting for her to walk through his door, with a smile and a ready embrace, simply because he had opened it!
"Riza?"
She looked up at Rebecca. Perhaps she was being selfish. The Führer was ill, and he needed people around him who cared about him.
That wouldn't be her, though.
She did not know what Vogel would say if she were to tell Rebecca. She didn't care. She knew Rebecca to be trustworthy, so she told her.
She started with the General's frustrations regarding the Führer's prolonged absences and finished with the tumultuous day in the residence.
By the end of the story, they were both sprawled on the coverlet. Riza traced patterns in the embossed velvet, and Rebecca ran her fingers through her bobbed hair.
"Poor man," Rebecca said after several minutes of silence. "I'll have to see him while I'm here."
Riza looked over at the three stacked suitcases. She was certain then that Rebecca intended to stay beyond the weekend.
"He's such a dear," Rebecca sighed.
Riza snapped her head back to stare at Rebecca, because of all the adjectives she had ever heard Rebecca use about the Führer, that was not one of them. "You used to get furious with him when he smacked your ass."
Rebecca held up a finger. "I don't think—"
"You called it 'harassment,'" Riza said. She remembered every complaint about it, always delivered to Riza over lunches and coffees but never officially filed. Though, given Grumman's influence and authority, Riza doubted anything would have come of a formal complaint.
Rebecca pushed herself to lean against the mountain of pillows against the padded headboard. "It was harmless."
Riza's position of higher authority meant that she had rarely been the recipient of unwanted sexual attention in the office, at least not from the men in their little unit. Never from the General. She was lucky, but she was not stupid. She was a woman in the military. "Was it?"
Rebecca rolled over and grabbed the telephone off the bedside table. "Forget everything I had planned. Let's order something to eat." She dialled and read off items from the room service menu, and then she hung up and fell back against the pillows.
Riza glanced at the full wardrobe and stacked suitcases. It was time to return to her earlier question. "Rebecca."
Rebecca hummed.
"You brought three suitcases." She looked back at her friend, who sat upright and fidgeted with a ribbon on her blouse.
After a long silence, Rebecca said, "Leo's scheduled a meeting with an automobile manufacturer." She shrugged, but the gesture was stiff and mechanical. "He'll be here on Tuesday, and we'll talk then." She gave Riza a tight smile. "Try to compromise."
Riza's stomach sank, and she reached across the coverlet and took Rebecca's hand. It seemed to her that it wasn't an issue that allowed compromise. One either had children, or one didn't. There would not be a resolution that left both Rebecca and Leo happy. Before she could say as much, Rebecca waved her free hand.
"I don't want to talk about that. Let's talk about you." Rebecca scooted forward and squeezed Riza's fingers. "How's Killjoy Mustang?"
Riza glared, but Rebecca pretended to not see. So she looked at the ceiling and considered. She had already told Rebecca about the Führer, and she knew Breda and Fuery were gone. Then there was Alphonse Elric's inopportune return from Xing, the death of Black Hayate, the Amestrian Freedom Army...And the General. Always, everything came back to the General.
She recalled the conversation between the General and herself on the train, and she decided that out of everything, that was the thing on which she most wanted Rebecca's opinion. "He brought up a promotion to lieutenant colonel the other day."
"Hey!" Rebecca beamed at her.
Riza shook her head. "I don't know if I want it," she said, and she let out a breath and let her shoulders drop.
Rebecca was less enthused by the admission. "Why not?" She slid to sit next to Riza, their feet dangling over the side of the bed. She nudged Riza with her shoulder. "You'd be a lieutenant colonel at thirty-four, which is practically unheard of—"
"Thirty-five," Riza said. The General had made lieutenant colonel by twenty-five, but he was a unique case. She looked at Rebecca and explained, "It might not go into effect until next year."
Rebecca raised an eyebrow. "And you're upset about the wait?"
Riza lay down and stared at the paper mâché ceiling medallion. That was hardly the reason, but all her real reasons crammed together in her head. "It's so close to the election," she said.
The General would become the Führer, and she would either serve as adjutant under his replacement, which was less than ideal, or she would have to take her own office and her own command, which she found almost more distasteful. If she stayed in the military while he continued to dismantle the stratocracy, she would be of less and less use to him, or, at least, she would not be useful in the capacity she was at that moment. She was supposed to be his protector, his conscience—whatever he needed her to be—at all times, not only when his duties as Führer would overlap with hers as an officer.
No, there was only one way forward for her. There always had been.
"I was talking to Vogel," she began, and then she stopped because bringing up the position of Minister to the Führer suddenly seemed silly, grandiose. She felt like a schoolgirl announcing she was going to be a great painter before growing up and realising she had no eye for colour or line.
"Oh?" Rebecca said. She lay down next to Riza.
Riza had read the legislation Vogel had given her. It was dense, and he had said that there was more to his job than was included. She had spent so many years preparing the General for his role as Führer, and she wasn't sure how to prepare herself.
"Oh," Rebecca said again. Then she jerked upright. "Oh!" She grabbed Riza's arm and shook. "Oh, Riza, you'd be so good at it!"
Riza's stomach twisted. "There's so much more to it than I anticipated," she whispered.
"So?" Rebecca rubbed her hands together. "I remember from when I was Grumman's aide. It's basically what you do now, but more of it. And bigger."
Yes, more and bigger. The idea of taking on more responsibilities that would play a direct role in the entire country's governance was a daunting one. Even when she had served under Führer Bradley as his aide she had been removed from politics, both by the nature of the former government structure and by the unique nature of her position at the time. She wasn't afraid, but it set her head spinning.
Rebecca balled a fist under her chin. "You'd have to acquaint yourself with Parliament, of course. What they do and how they do it."
Riza eased upright and nodded. She would be in Central for a few more weeks, and they would return to the city for debates and other events. She would have time to observe Parliament sessions, and Rebecca had worked with a Minister to the Führer during the first years of Parliament's acquisition of legislative power. She knew what it would require, and she could help Riza prepare.
"Vogel was the one who handled all meetings between Grumman and different Parliament members," Rebecca continued. "I remember people would say that one can always tell that things are bad when the Führer himself shows up to the Parliament building." She counted on her fingers as she said, "And there was a lot of agenda pushing, and of course managing the ministers, running the staff—" She stopped and looked at Riza with a frown. "I'm not putting you off, am I?"
She shook her head. "Not at all." She felt calm soothing her chest, soothing her stomach, soothing her perpetually-tense muscles. It sounded so right coming from Rebecca. Riza had been right to voice her thoughts.
Rebecca grabbed Riza's knee. "Oh! Mustang's single, so he'll need somebody to act as First Lady." She waved her hand with each new responsibility. "Plan events, entertain foreign heads of state, organise charities, maintain some sort of socially-bent passion project..." She smiled. "You know, that sort of thing."
Riza nodded. Rebecca was not the first to suggest that the General would require a First Lady, though she was the first to imply that he wouldn't have to be married to the woman.
Rebecca tilted her head. "Mrs Bradley was doing it for a while." She shook her head. "I don't think anyone has taken over since she stepped back." She nudged Riza with her elbow. "And you won't be able to if you're Minister to the Führer"
And though Rebecca was not stupid and had not been stupid for fifteen years, Riza said, "I wouldn't be First Lady anyway."
Rebecca pressed a hand to her chest. "I'm talking about me! I'd be perfect for it!"
Riza smiled. They could be working in the same building again, living in the same city again. "That would mean moving to Central."
That statement shocked the smile off Rebecca's face. She pulled away and folded her hands in her lap. "Right."
Riza's chest constricted, and she felt cold. She hadn't meant to imply Rebecca would move without Leo, as Leo couldn't relocate his entire enterprise to Central. She opened her mouth to say so, but a knock at the door stopped her.
Rebecca let in the butler, who arranged plates, cups, and covered dishes on a table in the sitting room. When he had left, Rebecca and Riza sat on the settee with their backs against the armrests and bare feet planted on the cushions. They spoke of lighter subjects while they drank lemon ginger tea and ate fruits, breads, and little crescent-shaped walnut and vanilla biscuits.
Rebecca set her teacup aside. "You look good in that."
Riza brushed her hand across the mauve dress skirt. It was a lovely colour and made from a soft, cool cloth that felt like water against her skin. It was certainly finer than anything she had ever owned. "It's nice," she said with a smile. "It's very comfortable."
Rebecca pushed her shoulders back and subdued her expression like she did when she was about to tell a lie. "You should keep it." When Riza set her cup on its saucer and placed them both on the table, Rebecca said, "It's more your colour, and it doesn't fit me right—"
"Rebecca," Riza said as she propped one elbow on the back of the settee and rested her chin on her fist. Of course, it didn't fit Rebecca well.
"Riza," Rebecca said, mimicking her posture. Then she leaned back with a wide grin. "I'm not taking it back." She nudged Riza with her toe. "Oh, you like it."
Riza did like it very much, so she smiled back and said, "Thank you."
But after a few moments, Rebecca's smile fell, and she looked out the large, heavily-curtained window with an almost mournful expression.
"What's wrong?" Riza asked, worried that she had introduced more stress into Rebecca's life with her confiding about the Führer or with her asking about Rebecca's marriage.
Rebecca shook her head. "I'm just thinking about—" She stopped and pressed her lips together, then she jumped up and brushed off her skirt. "You know? I could…" She put her fists on her hips and looked around the room as if in search of a distraction. "I could really…" She looked at Riza. "Do you want to shoot something?"
Riza realized she had been aching for just that for days, to feel the adrenaline pump through her veins as she emptied magazine after magazine, to unleash anxieties and anger on a cardboard silhouette. She nodded. "The fair sounded nice. And I'm sure there will be a shooting range." It wouldn't be quite like the military ranges at which she trained, but at least it would be open to Rebecca. There were other benefits, too. "Between the two of us, I'm sure we'll clean out the prizes
Rebecca's grin spread across her face. "Are you suggesting a hustle?"
Riza shrugged. "It's only a hustle if we lie."
David rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. Grading was hell.
Not all papers gave him headaches: those written by upper-level and graduate students tended toward the coherent. But papers by first years were torture.
First years themselves were torture. They came to class to complete their core requirements, made no efforts in their coursework, and didn't care if he knew about all of it. He wasn't insulted by it—he had been a first year once and had sat through his share of classes he'd rather not have been in—but dealing with the results of their apathy was gruelling. He'd give each of them a passing grade if they'd all promise to never submit another assignment he'd have to read and mark.
He looked back at the pages in front of him. A tick here, a comment there…He sat up straighter and reread the first sentence of one paragraph.
"Radicalisation, therefore, is a process that preys upon the questioning of the world by providing mundane problems with extreme, and often unrelated, solutions."
It sounded familiar, alarmingly so. So did the following sentence, and the one after it, and the one after that.
David turned in his chair, pulled a book from the shelf behind him, and flipped through the pages until he found the section he sought.
"'Radicalisation, therefore,'" he read to himself, "'is a process that preys upon the questioning of the world by providing mundane problems with extreme, and often unrelated, solutions.'"
He snapped the book shut and rubbed at his temple. That was why it sounded familiar. He had written it.
He turned back to the essay. He didn't want to turn the kid in, because that would mean dealing with the Ethics Board, a panel of over-pious martinets who found the action of more interest then the motivation. David felt he understood the student's motivation. He had once invoked the writing of professors in his least favourite classes.
Of course, David had paraphrased in those days.
The other option was marking a six, the lowest possible mark, and failing the student. That would mean dealing with him for another term.
So he flipped back to the first page and wrote "see me" above the title.
He'd endure office hours to teach the kid how to cite sources or, at least, how to reword them.
He shoved the essay to the side and stood up. There were seventeen more to mark, but he was out of coffee, and he was hungry. If he were quiet enough, he could even slip out and purchase a sandwich and some pastries from the nearby bakery. Mariya would appreciate something with cinnamon.
When he left his bedroom and walked into the kitchen, he found his concerns unnecessary.
Mariya sat at the table, her eyes closed, her cheek pressed against the red cloth, and a mug in one hand.
"Are you alive?" he asked.
She groaned.
The night before, she had completed the final performance of Keller's newest opera to rancorous applause, and then she had been required to attend the closing night gala with one of her more odious patrons. It was there that she had succeeded in becoming prodigiously drunk, as was her proclivity in such distasteful circumstances, before stumbling through the door at four in the morning, waking David, sitting on the floor of his bedroom, and ranting about the night in a blend of Amestrian, standard Drachman, and her native dialect until he had hefted her upright and dragged her to her own bed.
It had been exhausting for both of them.
Still, he was happy she had managed to wake up, even though it was late and even though she had yet to change out of her nightgown and diaphanous silk robe..
"More coffee?" he asked.
Mariya mumbled something and used one hand to push up and support her head. "You are loud."
He walked to her and lowered his voice. "I'm going to Schell's to grab lunch. Do you want anything?"
She hummed and said, "Can you buy…" She clicked her tongue in thought, leaned back in her chair, and held up her index fingers. "Long and skinny bun with cinnamon and honey, ah?"
He was going to assure her that he had anticipated her request, but the telephone rang. Mariya swore in her native Belkovian dialect—he did not speak it, but he could discern it by its rounded vowels and rolling "r's"—and she dropped her head to the table again.
He pulled the receiver from the box and was surprised to be greeted by the theatre manager. Mariya would not be performing again until the start of the winter season, but when the manager asked to speak with her, David said, "It's Scarlatti for you."
Mariya held out her hand.
"Masha," he said. "The cord doesn't stretch that far."
She swore again, reciting a long string of Belkovian at him as she stood, walked toward him, and snatched the receiver from his hand. She leaned her head against the wall and said, "Hello."
David slipped out of the flat and down three flights of stairs. Theirs was a newer building, constructed since the start of the Eastern Economic Boom—as his friends in the economics department called it—five years earlier, but it was in the heart of one of the older districts, surrounded by theatres and tiny shops and an assortment of cafés and bakeries frequented by artists and academics. Mariya had been trying to convince him to move north of the Marl River for months, as it would be closer to the opera house and closer to the university, but he liked the crammed streets and disjointed architecture. Uptown was too big, too quiet, and too clean.
Mr Schell knew him and anticipated Mariya's order, and he slipped a few ginger and anise biscuits into the paper bag as he wished David a good afternoon and farewell.
He bought a copy of The Eastern Tribune on his way back, and he read as he climbed the three flights of stairs. There was climbing tension in the North, and there were riots in the streets of West City following the worst smog the city had ever seen.
He pushed open the door to their flat and stopped. Mariya no longer sat at the table but on the floor, her legs sticking through those of the piano bench while her feet tapped against the piano pedals. She had flipped the seat up and rummaged through her more favoured pieces.
"What's going on?" he asked as he passed her to drop the pass and newspaper on the table.
"I have job," she said, and she squinted at a sheet of music before scoffing, dropping the piece next to her, and fishing another one out of the bench.
David dumped the contents of the bag out. "You already have a job."
"This is short job in Central," she said. She rolled her head to the side to look at him. "I think it is good. We can go together. You can go to conference, I can do job…" She ran a hand through her short, dark curls and said, "Easy, ah?"
He narrowed his eyes. She was selling it to him, and that meant he wouldn't like whatever favour the theatre manager had asked of her. "What do they want you to do?"
She rolled her eyes and said in a flat tone, "Juggle." Then she redirected her attention back to her music.
David walked over to her. "You know what I meant." He closed the bench and ignored her little noise of protest. "What's the job?" She had sung on occasion for local administrators, sometimes at the private parties of various industry tycoons, once for a military propaganda film—they had fought over that one for weeks.
Her mouth twitched, and she said, "Party for Cretan Ambassador."
He dropped onto the bench. It was much worse than the film. It was dangerous. "What?"
She had the temerity to look offended. "I need to pick song."
He rubbed the stiffness in his jaw. She would be walking into a room filled with the most prominent government and military officials in the country, like it was nothing, like she had nothing to hide from them. "Is that wise?"
She poked his knee. "Move. I need to prepare."
He shook his head. It was stupid. "It's—" Then he stared at her because she must have considered all of that, and that meant something else had made her agree. He chose his next words with care. "Shouldn't they have already reserved entertainment?" When she did not respond, but picked up a discarded piece with new interest, he knew he was correct. "Masha," he said, and he grabbed her arm. "Who are you replacing?"
She clicked her tongue and sighed. "Edie Braun made controversial statement about Cretan—"
"Edie Braun?" He jumped up and his gut tightened as all air fled his body. "You're taking a risk like this to score a point against Edie Braun?" He laughed and slapped a hand to his forehead because it made sense. Mariya hated Edie Braun, the "silly coloratura" who had become the darling of the Central Opera, who had managers scrambling to commission and produce shows featuring her vocal type, and who had forced Mariya to move to East City where dramatic soprano roles were still favoured. And she was risking everything over a feud that had lasted seven years. He threw his arms out. "What happened to not drawing attention to ourselves?"
Mariya shrugged as if it were an absurd thought. "I am famous opera singer." She pointed to herself and added, "Attention comes. Nothing bad happens." Then she turned back to stacks of music and tossed her head from side to side. "And I do not need point, ah? I know I am better."
He scoffed and shook his head. It wasn't about attention, not really. They were living normal lives, as they had been advised to do. Purposefully putting themselves in a room full of people who might ask questions and might be able to do something about the answers, putting themselves in situations where inevitably they would be vetted and all their secrets would be aired—that was another thing entirely.
She jabbed a book of songs at him. "Besides. You are one with friends in military."
He held up a hand. "That is a very liberal use of the word." He had begged his mother to not take the job for Mustang. "He's a murderer, Ma," he had said. "You can't go work for a murderer." He had offered to support her, to let her move in with him and Mariya if she wanted, even though the nature of their marriage would have become readily apparent and they would have had to tell her what they were doing. In the end, the offered salary had beaten his pleas.
His past aside, Mustang was arrogant and so confident of his own charm and intelligence. His reticent aide, the former sniper, was so ready to defend him, and David was sorry for it. Of course, there wasn't much difference between shooting Ishvalans from the shadows and burning them en masse. She lacked the Flame Alchemist's airs, though, so much so that he could almost believe she was penitent, not that it made up for anything. Two rides home and cautious pity were not friendship.
He would be content if he never encountered either of them again.
That brought another point to mind. "Masha," he said, and when she didn't respond, he repeated, "Masha."
She peered at him over the top of her songbook.
"The more involved we get with these people," he said, "the more they will ask questions."
Mariya shrugged. "So we give them nothing to ask, ah?" She waved her hand as she continued, "One hotel, one bed, one week. This is not so bad."
He turned away and rubbed the back of his neck. He needed a moment, just a moment to parse his argument from his mounting anxieties.
"And maybe I am tired of waiting," she said, and he felt a hand on his shoulder jerk him back around. She had stood up to challenge him. "Six years, David." She poked him in the chest. "Six years we are trying and waiting and nothing!" She poked him again. "Your mother has connection, I say use it, you say no! Because you are scared!" she said and she shoved him hard.
He rubbed the spot where she had pushed him as his pulse quickened. "I don't want to go to fucking prison!"
"Ha!" Her lip curled. "You have been before."
"That's completely different!" And then it had been for only a few months at a time. He ran a hand through his hair. "And I'm not exactly eager to go back." He reached forward and grabbed her shoulders before she could turn away from him. "We're talking years, Masha. Decades."
She rolled her eyes.
He shook her once because she wasn't understanding. "And what about you? If they find out, you get sent to a woman's prison here if you're lucky. But they could send you back to Drachma. And what then?" It was cruel, he knew, to threaten her with the possibility of forced starvation in her native Belkovia or, worse, an angry Prince Vasilly.
She pushed his hands away. "It was your idea to do this!"
He turned and went to the kitchen table, where he pressed his hands against the wood and took deep breaths.
Mariya followed him and put her left hand on his. "Maybe we need friends in military and government," she said in a calm voice. "Maybe we can use connections." She slid into a chair and squeezed his fingers. "And I can make good friends," she said with a smile. "One general has regular box. Another has brother who is patron. I can use this."
He dropped into a squat and squeezed his eyes shut.
She shook his hand. "I can get information to keep us safe."
He opened his eyes and leaned his head against one arm to watch her.
"I can do it," she said. "You know this."
Unfortunately, he did know, for her ability to sniff out dirty secrets was the reason she had come from Drachma to Amestris in the first place.
She leaned forward. "If we keep waiting, we will be here forever."
She was right. Part of him had always known that she was right, though he didn't want to admit it. There had been no progress for years, and they had no reason to anticipate that things would change if they weren't proactive.
It was time to make and use connections.
He sighed. "'The' military."
She cocked her head to the side. "Ah?"
He shook his head. "'The' military, 'the' government, 'the' right friends."
She considered him with pursed lips and narrowed eyes, then she reached into the centre of the table and pulled her bun toward her. "Thank you for conceding."
"I'm not," he said.
"Is that why you correct my Amestrian?" she said. "Because you are hiding excellent point?" Then she snapped her fingers and said, "Oh. 'The' excellent point."
David closed his eyes. "That's not—" Then he stopped himself and took a breath because he knew she was goading him. Instead he said what he always said in similar moments, as it was something of a joke between them. "I want a divorce."
Mariya clicked her tongue and grabbed and shook his chin. "Oh, vieta menoya balvoya, chetnavka." My poor, little monkey.
He smacked her hand away. "Don't do that."
She used her other hand to pat his cheek. "So do I." Then she turned her attention to her food. "I think you will be happy. I think university will not pay for lodging like theatre, ah?"
It was true that whenever he spoke at academic conferences he ended up in hotel rooms that were less than appealing. On one trip he had found himself bunking with a large rat. On another, his bunkmates had been a family of roaches.
Mariya took a bite and moaned in exaggerated ecstasy.
David pushed himself to his feet and walked around the table to sit in the opposite chair.
"Maybe now you use your friend," Mariya said.
"She's not—" David reconsidered his rebuttal as he unwrapped his sandwich. "'Friends' are people you like."
She shrugged. "I do not like half of my friends."
He leaned forward, his concerns for the moment alleviated by the familiarity of banter. "Then they're not your friends." He bit into his sandwich.
She snorted. "You are my best friend and I hate you."
He almost choked. He covered his mouth with his hand while he chewed, coughed, and tried to swallow. When the coughing had subsided, he looked up and nodded. "That's something to consider."
Mariya grinned and flicked one of the ginger and anise biscuits across the table, hitting him on the shoulder. Then she threw her head back and laughed as if she hadn't known worry in all her life.
Mustang rubbed his jaw while the hopeful alchemist before him bowed with an awkwardness that betrayed his embarrassment. An attendant came forward to lead the candidate out of the practical testing room, and Mustang lowered his pen to write his score and thoughts. Another examinee, another disappointment.
"Did anyone get a passing score today?" asked Duncan Vandergraff, the Voltaic Alchemist.
Mustang shook his head. The highest mark he had given that day had been a six, and even the admittedly talented young lady who had earned it had not presented anything original to himself and the other board members.
"I am inspired by their perseverence and courage," said Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong, the Strong-Arm Alchemist.
"Well, of course, you are," said Vandergraff, and a few other board members chuckled.
Armstrong held up his hands. "Even you must see the beauty in their courage. Coming forward to present the best of themselves to a panel of the harshest critics!"
Mustang capped his pen and leaned back. "Courage?" he asked. "Or delusion?" The entire morning had been a waste of time, in his opinion. He should have anticipated another dry year. It seemed that alchemical research outside that of the existing State Alchemists had stagnated.
He looked down the long table where the seven members of the State Alchemist board sat. He was the highest ranked and longest standing State Alchemist amongst them, and although they maintained an emphasis on equality—in the name of those alchemical ideals all students learned—he had assumed a sort of management role. "Are we all agreed, then?" he asked. "No one passes this year?"
Vandergraff dropped his pen on his score sheets and held up his hands in defeat. Clara Gaspar, the Prism Alchemist, nodded. The Life Blood Alchemist, the Polarity Alchemist, and the Landslide Alchemist followed suit.
Mustang slapped his hand on the table. "Great." He pushed his score sheets into a stack and tapped them on the table to straighten them.
"I wanted to thank you," Armstrong said over the chatter of the other panelists and the scraping of chair legs, "for letting me borrow Major Hawkeye later this month."
Mustang tucked his pen into his jacket pocket and smiled. "She was flattered to be considered." Armstrong had been placed in charge of security for the Cretan Ambassador's welcome party, and while Hawkeye's actual response had been more dutiful than enthusiastic, it seemed the best response to cut the pleasantries and leave. Rebecca had given him a brief overview of her plans before he had departed that morning, and if he were quick, he would be back at the hotel in time to intercept them for dinner.
Armstrong glistened in return. "I need only the best to secure the building."
After he became the Führer and he was no longer her superior officer, he would take Hawkeye on a real date, the kind with flowers and fine meals. She would narrow her eyes at him and bite back a smile the entire time.
"With all the trouble brewing, I can't be too careful," Armstrong continued.
Mustang, his attention drawn back to the present, looked at him. "Are you expecting something?"
Armstrong shook his head. "No, but with the unrest on our borders and with everything on the radio…" He looked up at the ceiling. "My dear sister was not too pleased about that."
Mustang grunted. He was acutely aware of General Armstrong's displeasure over the events of the previous month, though he would not have used the same adjective her brother used to describe her.
"Eh, Mustang?" called Vandergraff.
Mustang leaned forward to look around Armstrong's massive form, barely contained in his tight blue uniform.
Vandergraff pointed to Gaspar. "We were just talking about Edward Elric's examination."
Mustang clenched his jaw. It had been twelve years to the day since Edward had stood in that room, on the tile floor surrounded by the gallery and every State Alchemist the military boasted—for no one wanted to miss the practical of the twelve-year-old who had passed the written exam on his first try—and performed alchemy of which Mustang had never conceived.
Gaspar nodded and tapped her chin. "I remember. Transmutation without a circle. I'd never seen anything like it."
"He teach you to do it?" Vandergraff asked.
While under any other circumstances Mustang would be affronted by the thought that Edward Elric could teach him anything, his thoughts went in another direction. His hands twitched, the scars burning like he could still feel Führer Bradley's swords driving through his flesh, pinning him to a transmutation circle and sending him hurtling into that timeless void where he had stared into the malicious smile of Truth standing before those black doors. His heart pounded in recollection of the terror of emerging from those doors, from the place where all the knowledge in the universe was stored, and finding himself unable to see. He met Armstrong's eyes for a brief moment and looked away. "No," he said. "He didn't."
"He was so rash!" Gaspar said. "Remember how he almost attacked the Führer?"
Mustang checked his pockets to ensure he had all of his things in order, and he stood and prepared to announce his departure.
Before he could, the attendant threw open the doors. "Sirs! There's a last-minute applicant."
Conversation in the room stilled, and Mustang glanced at the other alchemists and found they were all looking at him, waiting for his response. How last-minute? The written exam had concluded the day before, and only those who had passed were admitted to the practical. The "last-minute applicant" hadn't sat for the exam, then. He took a deep breath, annoyance rising up his neck, and said, "Who authorised this?"
The attendant read a sheet on his clipboard. "The Führer, Sir."
Mustang narrowed his eyes. He wondered if Grumman was having a laugh at shaking up the examinations by exercising his right as the head military power to push any applicant through, or if Vogel were getting too used to his new position. "Did he?" he said through gritted teeth. Then he dropped back into his chair.
The attendant shuffled his feet, said he would deliver some blank score sheets, and left again.
He pulled out his pen and glared at the table, as if it were the fault of the wood grain that he might not have the night he had anticipated.
The other board members grumbled as well, and all of them wondered aloud who the applicant could be.
"I remember his brother too," Gaspar mused. "They were both so talented."
Talented, and a constant thorn in his side. Though, he admitted, neither Elric was as big of a thorn as this surprise candidate who was keeping him from a very pleasant evening.
"Do you think either of them would be interested?" Vandergraff asked Mustang. "I, for one, would be willing to hold a special examination to get the Fullmetal Alchemist back. Even if he can't perform alchemy, to just have his mind working with us again…"
And though Edward had brought up reenlistment only a few weeks earlier, Mustang said, "No, I don't think so." He wouldn't be able to stomach overseeing Edward Elric a second time, seeing his smug face and listening to his obnoxious voice and narcissistic ramblings.
The door opened again, and the attendant returned and passed each board member a blank score sheet. While Mustang filled in his name, title, rank, and identification number, the door opened again, and even footfalls echoed through the room.
"State your name for the record, please," said the attendant.
"Um," said a familiar voice that made Mustang's heart thud against his ribs. "Alphonse Elric."
Mustang raised his head, and there, in the middle of the room, as if he belonged there, stood Alphonse Elric. Mustang wanted to leap over the table and strangle the sheepish smile off of the boy's face, but all of his limbs had gone tense. Alphonse was supposed to be the responsible Elric. Alphonse was supposed to be the likeable Elric. Getting himself exiled from Xing was one thing, but applying to become a State Alchemist—it was preposterous.
Because he would pass. Of course, Alphonse would pass. And since he was a resident of the East, he would fall under Mustang's jurisdiction. Mustang would spend the rest of his career—the rest of his life, maybe—cleaning up Elric-made disasters.
He folded his hands in front of his face, leaned forward, furrowed his brow, and seethed.
"Ah, young Alphonse!" Armstrong called with a joviality that made Mustang's eye twitch. "How long it's been! Are you well?"
Alphonse caught Mustang's glare and his smile fell. "Fine," he said.
"You've just returned from Xing, correct?" said Gaspar.
Mustang leaned back, crossed his arms, and bit the insides of his cheeks.
"Yes," said Alphonse, looking at the floor, at the other alchemists, at the ceiling. Anywhere but at Mustang.
His pulse pounded. He wanted to call a stop to it, to grab Alphonse by the ear and drag him from the room and throw him into the river outside. But even the Flame Alchemist would not defy an order from Grumman's office—not publicly, and not with his reputation and his campaign looming overhead.
So he sat in stony silence while the other board members encouraged Alphonse to begin. He dug his fingers into his arms when Alphonse asked to borrow a pocket watch and one of the other board members made a joke about street magicians and disappearing personal effects. He limbered his shoulders and neck when Alphonse clapped and, to the delight of the other observers performed a transmutation without a circle—which was in its own way ridiculous and uninspired, as Mustang could do it, and Edward had done it as his own exam twelve years earlier. He cracked his neck from side to side when Alphonse transmuted two knives with long, thin blades like trench knives from the tile floor, flexed and curled his fingers when a board member made another joke about weapons and just how similar to his brother Alphonse was.
Alphonse looped the pocket watch chain around one blade and drove the knife into the wooden wainscotting on the western wall, and then he walked to the eastern wall and drove the second blade in. He looked at the board members and said, "I can repair the holes when I'm finished."
Vandergraff waved a hand. "Don't worry. Please, keep going." On the other side of him, Gaspar pressed a hand over her mouth with a giddiness Mustang hadn't seen since she had presented her findings on using alchemy for skeletal healing.
Next to Mustang, Armstrong gleamed with something akin to joy and dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief. "He's grown into such a fine, young man," he said.
Mustang decided that, the Führer or Vogel be damned, he wasn't going to sit through another second. He would put a stop to it. He jumped up to say that they had seen circle-less transmutation before and that there would be no need to finish the exam if all he could produce was a copy of his brother's research—
Alphonse had the audacity to clap his hands and press his palm flat against the wall, just below the knife. A flash of golden light surrounded his hand, and threads of electricity radiated along the knife's blade. Worst of all, the reaction was mirrored on the opposite wall, with the current travelling down the chain of the pocket watch.
It was a long-distance transmutation, something Mustang had seen the Xingese princess do on multiple occasions, and something he was not surprised Alphonse had managed to learn. But the implications of revealing that technique to the military, of handing it to an organisation that Alphonse knew produced and deployed human weapons—
The reaction ended, and instead of a pocket watch, a tiny mechanical bird swung back and forth on the chain, flapping its wings and chirping.
Several board members applauded, and all turned to look at Mustang who realised he was still standing.
As he looked at the other Alchemists, Mustang met Armstrong's now hardened glance, and he knew the other man had come to the same conclusions. He too had imagined explosions detonated by Alphonse from miles away, acts of horrendous violence that neither of them would wish him to commit. How easily would Bradley's militarized Alchemists have levelled Ishval with this power?
They may have restructured their military, may have found some moral stability and assurance in a new government and an evolving constitution, but that would not matter. War was unchanging.
Armstrong nodded.
They were in agreement then: Alphonse must fail.
Mustang cleared his throat. "Let me see it."
Alphonse scurried to the opposite wall, removed the chain from the blade and returned with the tweeting automaton, but he kept his head low like a child caught thieving sweets. He dropped the bird in Mustang's outstretched hand and shuffled back.
The bird, to Mustang's dismay, was a marvel. Its beak opened and closed with every sound, its wings flapped with an almost natural rhythm. Every tweet set his nerves on edge. Every beat of wings pushed his temperature higher. He should not have been surprised. He had known both Elrics for years, and while Edward had always been bombast and raw power, the sort of alchemy that astounded with its breadth and might—though not with its garish and sometimes offensive execution—Alphonse had been precision, flawless technique, and quick-thinking.
He held the end of the chain and let the bird drop and swing. Then he held the chain out to Alphonse. "Turn it back." If the exam had to continue, then Mustang would ensure it continued long enough for Alphonse to mess up.
Alphonse stepped forward again, but as he did, something in him changed. His shoulders pushed down and back, his chin lifted, and there, in his eyes, was a fire with which Mustang was too familiar.
The Elrics did not look the same. Over the years, people who thought Mustang would care to know had informed him that Edward looked like their father—and Mustang had to accept this as true, for while he had met their father, he had never seen him—and Alphonse looked like their mother. There were certain similarities, like the shape of their noses and their jawlines, but there the resemblance ended. Their personalities were so disparate, it was hard to believe they had grown up together.
But that look, that defiant glare…The way he clapped his hands and touched the watch Mustang still held, the way he never broke eye contact, the way he pulled it away when the transmutation was complete, the confidence with which he pushed it across the long table to Vandergraff…That was all Edward.
Mustang lowered his hand to the table and took deep breaths. He had known Alphonse to be outspoken—headstrong, even—but this new attitude bordered on recalcitrance and stupidity.
"The time is wrong," Vendergraff joked. "It's off by about an hour."
Alphonse turned his head and smiled. "I can adjust it if you like."
"Your knives," said Gaspar. "Do they have a special construction?"
"No," Alphonse said. He continued as he walked, pulling each blade from the wood wainscoting and, as promised, repairing the holes. "They could be anything, really. I'm just creating focal points that mirror each other." He bent down and returned the knives to the floor, dispersing the elements in the tiles so that, other than those telltale lines of a recent transmutation, there was no indication he had done anything. "It helps the energy—" He stopped and brushed his hands on his trousers as he stood. He rubbed the back of his neck and mumbled something in Xingese. Then he said, "I'm sorry. I'm having trouble translating it into Amestrian."
That all but knocked Mustang back into his chair. He braced his hands on his knees and dug his fingers into the skin.
Gaspar held up a soothing hand. "It's very impressive."
Alphonse nodded at her, but he looked at Mustang again when he said, "Thank you." He didn't wait for the attendant, but turned on his heel and strode toward the exit.
As Alphonse left, Vandergraff called, "Make sure you schedule a time for the written exam!"
No sooner had the door closed than the room erupted into excited conversation and praises that made Mustang's head pound and his blood run hot.
Armstrong leaned in with his arms crossed and said, "They're all going to pass him."
Mustang watched the other board members talk amongst themselves with animated expressions and gestures. The decision did not have to be unanimous. Alphonse needed only a majority of the board to give him a passing mark, and they were willing. Part of him could understand their excitement. Part of him thought he was being ridiculous. Alphonse was three years older than Mustang had been when he had become a State Alchemist.
The saner part of him knew that it didn't matter. Even with three extra years, a man like Alphonse would never be ready for what the military would ask of him.
Mustang pushed his forms into a pile and placed Alphonse's, still blank, at the bottom. He would forego the vote. Alphonse would pass with or without his score sheet. Then he got to his feet and said, "See if you can do something about the exam. I'm going to convince him to withdraw."
He left the room without waiting for Armstrong's assent, but when he ran into the hall, Alphonse had already disappeared.
Mustang did not see him in the Central Headquarters entrance hall, and he could not see him in the courtyard. Alphonse had either run or transmuted himself to a safer location.
However, Alphonse was still in the city, and he would be taking the exam the following day. As long as he remained in Central, Mustang had time to find him, but he would need to begin searching immediately.
He ran to his rented automobile and slammed himself inside. He drove faster than Hawkeye would deem advisable, especially during a high-traffic hour, and when he reached the hotel he threw the keys at a valet and pushed his way into the lobby.
He knew from Rebecca that they might be in the lounge before dinner, so that was where he went.
The women were sitting around a table with a few others, one of whom was quite tall and blond. Under normal circumstances, Neumann's proximity to Hawkeye would have made Mustang's anxiety climb further, but there were other things to preoccupy him that night. Not least of those things was how Hawkeye looked.
There was something divine about the new developments in women's fashion, in those high collars in the back that swooped around into lower necklines, almost as if Cretan fashion designers had collectively decided to cater to the dressing needs of a woman who might not want to show her back, but may want to accentuate other features. On any other night Mustang would delight in sitting and appreciating the curve of her collarbone and what the colour of the dress did for the flush in her cheeks, but just then he needed her in another capacity.
She had an uncanny ability to sense when he was near, and she looked up from her group and met his eyes.
He smiled to let her know he was sorry, but it was urgent. She nodded once in return, and he turned away and stalked back to the lobby where he asked a concierge if he could bring two telephones and a directory of all nearby hotels to the sitting area in the corner. Then he went to one of the armchairs and sat.
He waited for only a few moments before he heard the click of her heels against the tile and saw her lower herself into the chair next to his. "We need to find where Alphonse Elric is staying," he explained. "I want to know by morning."
She sighed and folded her hands in her lap and said in that patient way of hers, "He's in Resem—"
"He's not," Mustang said, and he darted his eyes toward the ground and back to her.
She furrowed her brow and deflated. "Oh."
He jerked his head toward the lobby door. "The exams just ended."
Hawkeye's eyes widened. "No."
The concierge arrived with the directory and busied himself connecting the two telephones to outlets in the wall.
Mustang flipped open the leather-bound directory and scanned the first page. There were hundreds of hotels in the city. Their search would take hours. "I'll take odds," he said.
"Is everything alright? Our table is almost ready," Rebecca said from behind them.
Hawkeye turned in her chair to look at Rebecca while Mustang continued to flip through pages and pages of hotel addresses and telephone numbers. "Alphonse Elric applied to be a State Alchemist today," Hawkeye said. "And I assume it went well."
Mustang snorted. What a word to describe how the younger Elric brother had done. "Now we have to find him and make him withdraw his application before the military extends an offer."
Rebecca huffed and turned to the concierge. "Can we take all this up to my suite, please?" After the concierge assured her that it would be no trouble, ma'am, she shrugged at Mustang. "What? There's a telephone in my room. I can help."
He and Hawkeye looked at each other and back at Rebecca. Neither of them had known her to take a personal interest in the lives of the Elrics.
Rebecca pulled Riza to her feet. "I'm not letting you work alone today, on your birthday," she added with a sharp look in Mustang's direction, "and I doubt I can convince you to not work at all."
Mustang stood. "Three can get it done faster."
"Good." Rebecca linked arms with Riza, and the three of them walked to the lift. While they waited, Rebecca added, "Besides, I'm hungry, and they won't deliver room service to the lobby."
Hawkeye looked at him then, and he avoided meeting her eyes. As was often the case, he had, in his haste, forgotten about food.
The lift attendant opened the gate, and when they began to climb, Rebecca said, "You know, you should really consider setting up auxiliary campaign offices in other regions."
He understood her meaning. How dare he pull Hawkeye away on her night off, and he did feel remorse creep over him, but he didn't have a choice. If he had an army of telephone operators at his disposal who could place calls for him, he would have used it. Then again, finding Alphonse was not relevant to his campaign effort. "There are rules about using campaign resources for military and government purposes," he said.
"Sure, but I don't mean for this," Rebecca said. "You won't reach many in the South, or anywhere, if you camp out in the East."
He looked at Hawkeye to see what she thought of such a proposal, and she smiled at him.
Yes, it might be a good idea. He would need to discuss the cost of such an operation with Charlie in the morning, but finding Alphonse would come first.
Ok, so the Great FireWall sucks. But in August that will be gone and everything will be fine. Just gotta...Hang on until August.
Thank you for continuing to stick with me!
I have been considering doing a series of posts on my Tumblr about the historicity of this, where I'm pulling for campaign effects, why I chose First Lady as the title over something like Madame Führer (and how there were, according to historians, anywhere between two and five First Ladies of the Third Reich—or Erste Dame der Deutsches Reich/Erste Dame der Großdeutsches Reich). If you'd be interested, drop me a note. Tbh I'll probs do it anyway because I am an archaeologist by trade and I do my due fucking diligence and I talk about it. I TALK about it.
Drachman is also not a real language. But I am just winging it far more than I'm winging Xingese. Because I do speak Mandarin, and a few other languages, but Russian is not one of them.
Leave me a comment if you're having a good time, or hit me up on Tumblr for a chat!
(To answer a question, yes this is cross-posted on ao3, ffn, and Tumblr)