"On the Banks of a River Down a Well-Beaten Path"
—-
Riza soon learns that her Father has taken on Mr. Mustang as an alchemical apprentice. He will stay with them two weekends out of every month, secreted in Father's study, learning all about the magical science that Riza knows she can never understand or really appreciate.
She learns to keep extra food on-hand for the weekends when he arrives, taking the train from Central and walking alone from town to their isolated estate.
Occasionally, Father and his pupil eat the evening meal with her, but more often than not, they work in Father's study until late into the night. Riza spends more time than ever out in the barnyard with the horses and chickens.
Once, when she is twelve years old, he brings a box with him from Central and presents it to her, along with a mischievous grin.
"I noticed you like to read," he says. "I asked my sisters, and they all donated some books for you."
Riza peers inside the box. On top sits the book he'd been reading the day they met, with its oddly-dressed woman staring out her moonlit window. There are other books inside, dozens of them, all shapes and sizes. She stares up at him. She can't think of anything to say. He shrugs.
"You're so serious all the time."
The jab feels unfair.
"So are you."
He laughs, then.
"Yeah, I know."
She glances back down at the treasure trove of books.
"Just don't tell your Father where you got them." He grins and races away.
She enjoys most of the books and hides them under a loose floorboard in her bedroom.
—-
"Miss Hawkeye!" Fifteen-year-old Riza turns towards the sound of her name as she steps out of the market
"Oh." She looks up so quickly she almost trips over her own feet and stumbles. "Mr. Mustang?"
She stops and waits as he hurries over towards her from the train station. He is wearing a white button down shirt with tan slacks and polished black shoes and carries a pack slung over one shoulder. Riza glances down at the dirty hem of her plain cotton dress. Her own shoes are worn nearly through the soles.
He approaches wearing a wide, warm smile, and Riza feels her own lips part with a curious urge to return the grin.
"Hello," he says. "How are you?"
"I'm fine, thank you."
They stare at each other for a long moment. It has been months since he last stayed with them, close to a year, and Roy has grown much taller in a short amount of time. His voice is deeper, too. It seems the boy she'd once known has grown into a young man.
Riza stares.
They look at each other for a long moment, then he clears his throat.
"Sorry, allow me?" he says, stepping forward and taking the parcel from the market out of her arms. "I hope you weren't waiting too long."
She tilts her head to one side.
"No," she says. "I didn't know you were coming."
Brainless.
"Oh." Mustang flushes faintly pink and rubs the back of his neck with one hand. "I thought Sensei was going to pick me up…." He trails off, then squints into the sun behind her and shrugs. "Well I guess we can walk back together, then?"
She nods and allows him to fall into step beside her. She's never known what to say to her Father's student. Silence settles, and Riza feels a slight chill, the wind whipping through the town, tossing up dust from the dirt road. She casts her mind about for something to say, wishing he would speak first. Mr. Mustang seems perfectly at ease, glancing around the countryside as they walk.
"You're here for a lesson? It's been some time," Riza asks when they reach the edge of town.
"Well yes," he says slowly. "Something like that. You know I'm staying the summer?"
Riza stops.
She hadn't known. Father is hardly forthcoming about personal details, and he doesn't confide in her, but this is a big lapse, even for him. She's had no time to prepare for Mr. Mustang's arrival as a weekend guest, let alone for the entire summer. Her mind races.
Air out the guest room. Wash extra sheets. Come back to town tomorrow for more supplies.
Mustang pauses a few paces ahead and shakes his head, waiting for her to catch up.
"He didn't tell you," he sighs.
"No. I-I didn't think you took lessons with him anymore," Riza mumbles.
Roy has been her father's pupil for four years, coming on the weekends. However, not long after the Ishbal War broke out in the East, he'd stopped coming altogether, and Riza had thought the whole thing finished.
"With everything going on further East, my Aunt started worrying about me traveling on the train. And I was busy with school. It just-." He shrugs. "I'm looking forward to really being able to put the time into learning flame alchemy by staying here."
The uneasy silence falls between them once again. As they walk, they pass over the dry riverbed and continue up the road towards the Hawkeye Estate.
"We're on Hawkeye property now," Riza says.
"Are we?"
"Yes, all of this used to be farmland. It belonged to my grandfather."
"Surprising Sensei doesn't rent it out- so much land could be put to good use," he muses.
Riza shrugs and keeps walking, trying to think of something, anything else to say.
Dense. Ignorant.
"Strawberries!" she blurts.
"Pardon?"
"There's strawberries, on the other side," she says, pointing, blushing again. "If I picked some now I could bake a pie or something, to, uh, celebrate your homecoming. I mean, coming…to our…home," she trails off lamely, but he doesn't tease her.
"I love strawberry pie." He smiles. "I missed your baking, especially those chocolate lemon squares you used to make."
An unfamiliar, warm sensation shimmers down her belly.
"Okay," she says. "If-if you don't mind waiting for me…" She sits down on the bank and starts to take off her shoes and stockings. The riverbed is still mostly dry, yet muddy.
"No, wait, I'll come with you," Mustang says, holding out his hand to her. She frowns. She can't let him cross the bank in those clothes. He sees her eyeing him and laughs, but it isn't an unkind laugh, more mischievous, almost as though they are about to become partners in crime- accomplices.
"Trust me," he says, and she hesitantly places her hand in his so he can pull her to her feet.
He sets his pack and her parcel on the ground, then pulls a small notebook and pen out of his back pocket. He looks down at the riverbank, frowning in concentration, then begins to sketch.
His dark hair and pale skin shine in the sunlight, and Riza finds herself enjoying the opportunity to observe him. He glances up at her from over the top of the little notebook, and she quickly looks away, embarrassed to be caught staring. He only smiles and sets the notebook on the ground before her, revealing he's drawn a small transmutation circle.
"What will it do?" she asks.
Mustang kneels down on the ground.
"Nothing," he says with a smirk. "It's just a piece of paper." Her face falls, and for a moment she thinks he is teasing her, trying to trick her. "It's me that'll do the alchemy." He presses his hands to the paper before him.
The earth around them glows brilliantly green, and before her eyes the bottom of the riverbed rises up to meet the surface. Now there is an embankment connecting one side to the other. As she continues to watch the wet earth dries before her eyes, creating a hard surface- just large enough for a person to walk across.
"Oh my!" Riza says. "That's wonderful. Thank you."
He grins.
"The least I can do if you're going to bake the pie is to supply the strawberries."
They both scramble across the bank. Riza kneels down to the closest bush, but Mustang glances around, brow furrowed.
"Um, what do you propose we use to carry them in?" he asks.
"Well." Riza frowns, then her eyes light up. "I thought you might have an idea, Mr. Alchemist."
He chuckles. "Let's see, surely I can think of something." He jogs back to the other side of the riverbed and holds up her package from the store. "May I?" She nods, and he opens the parcel to find a sheaf of blank paper, a length of white cotton cloth, and a small package of sugar cubes.
"Sugar cubes?" he asks with a smile.
"The horse," she answers, shrugging one shoulder. It's only Ranger now. Foxy died the previous year, and Father hasn't wanted to purchase a new horse. Riza has grieved the loss almost as desperately as Mother's, spending long hours in the barn with her face buried in Ranger's mane. She often thinks Ranger is the only living thing who understands her.
Mustang takes the length of white cotton cloth and examines it for a moment, then, pulls his notebook out of his back pocket again, and begins to sketch.
"You know," Riza says, "I could just hold the corners of the cloth together and use it like a satchel." He shakes his head and continues to draw his circle. He sticks his tongue just slightly out one side of his mouth as he concentrates. Finally, he looks up.
"Okay, then," he mutters. He puts the notebook on top of the cloth, and presses down again. Slowly, a basket begins to form, and as Riza watches she realizes that in addition to the cloth, he is using grass and soil from the earth to make the basket take shape. The cloth becomes a trim that weaves back and forth like a ribbon. A dainty wicker basket, with white ribbons, sits glinting in the sunlight where the plain cloth had been.
"It's beautiful!" Riza exclaims as he gathers it up and crosses back to her side of the river. "I almost hate to use it. It's only going to get stained from the strawberries."
Mustang laughs. "What do you think I made it for if not to be used? If you like it that much, I'll make you another!"
"Yes," Riza laughs, too. "Okay."
They kneel together then and start picking berries from the bush.
"It's funny."
"Yes?"
"I think I've known you for over five years now, and this is the longest conversation we've ever had. You're usually so quiet. I don't think I've ever even heard you laugh before."
She frowns.
Simple-minded. Witless.
"I suppose I don't have much to say."
"I know that's not true."
She sits back on her heels, looking across at him.
"What do you mean?"
He continues pulling berries from the bush, carefully placing each one in the basket.
"I watch your face sometimes when I'm debating something with Sensei, and I can see… I don't know. It looks as though you want to add to the conversation, maybe share your own opinion, but you're… afraid? You don't have to be afraid of me," he says with a shrug. "Debate is just that- it's a valuable source of discourse and learning. It's the best way to learn."
Riza looks down at his hands and notices they are growing red and sticky with the juice from the berries. Hers will, too. She starts picking again.
"What if you're not the one I'm afraid of?"
Roy frowns.
"Well…" he trails off, sitting back and frowning at her.
Riza takes a breath, and words pour from her mouth, more words than she can remember saying to anyone in a long, long time.
"It's not that I don't have thoughts and opinions. Dreams, wishes, desires- I do. I have opinions. It's just that with Father, I never know when I'm going to say the wrong thing. I never know when something I say is going to provoke him or make him angry, when something I might do will make him retreat into his office again for days at a time, and I won't see him even for meals."
Riza pauses, pulling at the next strawberry so hard it squishes in her hand. She takes a deep breath and wipes her hand on the grass, abandoning the berry picking. Mustang doesn't look at her directly, but he's not picking strawberries anymore, either.
"I finish my studies. I keep house. I take care of the animals. I hunt. I read books. I wander to town and back. I ride. But if I make Father angry, there's not much else for me to do. So it's safer to stay quiet."
Mr. Mustang nods slowly. He wipes at his brow with the back of one hand, and looks over to her, his head cocked to one side.
"So it's about keeping your Father's attention? What do you think you'll do when you're older? I'm sure you won't stay here taking care of Sensei for the rest of your life."
"I don't know," she responds. "I don't think about the future much."
"That's funny," he says. "I find it hard to avoid thinking about."
"Well, what do you think, when you think about the future?"
"I think a lot about alchemy." Riza resists the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean it's an opportunity, you know? To do something good, to use what I've learned, to find a way to put the knowledge to work. I even thought about joining the State Military."
Riza returns her attention to the berry bushes.
"Don't let Father hear you say that," she warns. The war with Ishval is entering its second year, and her Father is staunchly against all things military.
Roy chuckles. "Oh, don't worry, I know better than that."
"What made you decide to study flame alchemy? I mean specifically."
"It wasn't really my choice," he admits. "I expressed an interest in alchemy, told my aunt, and she found me a place to study. Here it was."
They continue to work in silence, but a silence that has grown comfortable, like the warm early summer air.
"I think we have enough," Riza says, sitting back. The little white wicker basket is full. She can even see little drops of berry juice starting to leak through the bottom.
—-
Riza knocks quietly on the door to her Father's study with one hand, the other carefully balancing a dinner tray. There's no answer, but she doesn't expect one and carefully twists the door open to slip inside. The men are deep in discussion, and Father doesn't even look up at her. Mr. Mustang gives her a quick smile, and Riza's stomach turns a somersault. His dark eyes flicker in the firelight.
Careful not to interrupt, she hurries back to the kitchen and eats her lonely supper at the kitchen table. She doubts if the men will even pause to eat the sandwiches she prepared for them.
She's had to spend part of her afternoon preparing a bedroom for Mr. Mustang, and now the strawberry pie she's made is still in the oven, probably also to be forgotten amidst the pull of alchemic discourse between the two scientists.
Useless. Worthless.
After she finishes eating and tidies up the already nearly-spotless kitchen, Riza pulls the pie from the oven. It smells wonderful, but somehow she doesn't feel like eating a slice on her own, so she leaves it on the kitchen counter. Maybe Mr. Mustang or her Father will find it and enjoy a piece before it spoils. Riza sits down again at the long, empty table, opening a book and beginning to read by lamplight.
Just as she is preparing to retire, marking her place in her book and reaching to turn off the lamp, Mr. Mustang rounds the corner to the kitchen. Oddly, he carries the tray she'd left with their supper under one arm, the empty dishes stacked in his other hand.
"Am I too late for strawberry pie?" he asks, smiling at her as he sets them on the counter.
Riza stands, her eyes going wide.
"N-not at all," she answers. She walks to the cupboard and takes down a plate. She doesn't know why her hands are shaking.
"Well, aren't you going to join me?" Mustang asks. "Doesn't sound like very much fun to eat strawberry pie alone on my first night home."
Riza narrows her eyes at him over her shoulder. Did he think it was fun for me to eat dinner alone?
Deciding not to answer, she retrieves another plate from the cupboard and serves a slice for each of them.
She watches as he lifts a bite, sniffing. He gives her a little sideways smirk before popping it into his mouth. She lifts an eyebrow when he gives an exaggerated groan, closing his eyes.
"It's good," Mustang insists. "As good as I remembered."
Riza flushes at the praise, utterly unaccustomed to it.
She glances down at her own plate and takes a bite. She smiles.
It is good.
When Mustang drops his fork with another satisfied noise, Riza rises and starts to clear the plates, but he surprises her again.
"Weren't you getting ready to go upstairs when I first came in?" he asks.
"Yes."
"Let me clear up, then."
Riza shakes her head.
"No, I've got to take care of this, too." She points to the tray and dinner dishes still lying on the counter.
"I've got it."
She starts to protest, but Mustang puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head.
"Now, look. I talked to Sensei, and since I'll be staying here for some time, I want to help out wherever I can."
"He-," Riza starts.
"He won't be angry. I promise."
She looks up at his dark eyes and crooked smile.
She believes him.
—-
When Riza enters the kitchen the next morning to start breakfast, she is shocked to find Mr. Mustang fumbling over the stovetop. She approaches him slowly, but he doesn't turn around.
"Shit," she hears him mutter, shaking out his hand. Riza covers her smile with one hand.
"What are you doing?"
"What? Oh!" He turns, startled, and gives her a sheepish grin. "Well, I'm trying to make breakfast. But I'm cooking myself more than the food." He holds out his hand to show her the tiny red mark developing on one thumb.
"I can make breakfast," she says.
"You've done all the cooking and cleaning every time I've stayed here," he replies. "If I'm going to stay for a while, I should be helping. I told you last night."
"Okay."
She moves to the pantry and starts pulling down ingredients.
"I just said-."
"I know. I'm making bread for later. Now I can get it done sooner and have time to go for a ride before it rains." She glances out the window, then back at him. "Thank you."
They work in companionable silence. The pancakes he produces have chunks of banana and cinnamon, and while they're slightly mushy- the pan was too hot, so he burnt the outside and left the inside nearly raw-they taste good. Father joins them for breakfast, something he hasn't done with just her in a very long time. As a child, she often resented Mr. Mustang for taking her Father's attention away. Now, it seems his actions might even bring them closer together.
That night, the men eat with her in the kitchen, debating intensely on politics and philosophy.
"No, no," Father says, shaking a finger at Mustang. "You put too much trust in the bureaucracy, boy."
Mustang shrugs.
"Who else can we trust, if not those that make our laws? Someone has to run the country."
"Perhaps, but when bloodthirsty fools like Bradley govern, the people allow themselves to be blinded. The people have no will in Amestris."
"I don't agree, sir. The people haven't been given a chance to exercise their will. That's why a democratic system, like the one they're adopting in Creta-."
"Ha! It'll fall through, mark my words."
"Even so, it's something different. Maybe change is possible."
Father shakes his head, and there's a long pause before Mustang speaks again.
"What do you think, Ms. Hawkeye?"
Riza freezes with her fork halfway between her mouth and her plate. She can feel Father's eyes on her, and she hesitates, mumbling, "I-I suppose…."
Father snorts when she trails off, clearing expecting nothing else of her.
Stupid. Idiotic. Foolish.
Then, a gentler voice sounds in her head.
You don't have to be afraid.
She speaks.
"I think people ought to have some type of voice in government affairs. Creta's system is overly simplistic, but there has to be a happy medium between that and complete lack of representation."
Silence falls thickly around the room. Then Father chuckles. He pushes back from the table and stands, ruffling her hair.
"Come on, Mustang, and I'll hear your recitation before bedtime."
"Yes, Sensei." They leave the kitchen, but Mustang glances back at her, and the smile he gives her makes Riza sit straighter in her chair, a strange glow settling over her.
Maybe I'm not so brainless after all.
—-
He stays longer than just the summer, and by the fall Riza can barely remember life at Hawkeye Manor without him. He cooks breakfasts for them several times a week (she shows him how to properly heat the pan for his banana pancakes), they have long discussions over dinner about current affairs (with her Father or without), and he finds ways to make himself useful around the old manor house, mostly using alchemy for the many light home repairs that Father never seems to have time for. He even helps her plant a fall vegetable garden.
When she finds out he's leaving again in October, she's embarrassed by the disappointment that eats at her gut.
What did you expect, he'd stay forever? Foolish.
"Will you come back again?" she asks. They're standing at opposite ends of the kitchen. He's cooking a pot of porridge while she kneads dough for a loaf of bread. She's grateful for the task, because focusing on the sticky mess gives her something to focus on.
"Yeah, for sure," Mustang says. "In a few weeks, probably." Her heart lightens. "Maybe a few months, I don't know exactly." It sinks again. "My aunt's been wanting me to spend some time at home before-." He breaks off, shrugging. "Well, she wants me to be at home, but I'm still determined to learn flame alchemy."
Riza drives him to the train station in the wagon that afternoon. By the time she arrives home, the little tear-tracks on her cheeks have dried, and Father is locked in his study once more, so nobody is around to see them.
Loneliness settles around her like a thick winter blanket in the high heat of summer. Riza can't quite define how she feels about Roy Mustang, but she knows she's going to miss him.