long lay the world in sin and error pining
Dec. 5th, 2018 05:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kernsingFandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
Rating: Teen. Category: Gen, F/M, Other.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye & Roy Mustang, ambiguous Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang. Mentions of Riza Hawkeye & Winry Rockbell, Riza Hawkeye & Team Mustang, Rebecca Catalina & Riza Hawkeye.
Characters: Riza Hawkeye, Roy Mustang, Winry Rockbell. Mentions of Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric, Rebecca Catalina, Jean Havoc, Heymans Breda, Kain Fuery, Vato Falman.
Warnings: Discussions of death/suicide, nightmares, self-hatred.
Summary: March 21–April 25, 1915. Riza's convalescence in the hospital lasts a full month after the Promised Day.
After the coup, Riza spends most of her hospital stay unaccompanied.
Doctor Marcoh decides to mend the torn-up tendons and shattered bones of Roy’s hands in addition to his optic nerves, using (or freeing, she thinks, or killing) all of the souls left in the philosopher's stone. The freshly-promoted brigadier general is released from the hospital on March 30, around a week after the Promised Day.
Roy is to help organize the start of Central City's restoration until all members of his team are fully operational. When that happens, they are to visit Ishval to determine the condition of the land in preparation for reconstruction efforts.
Riza heals slowly.
When she is alone and cannot sleep, Riza traces by sight the grooves in the ceiling into angled words and sentences. It is an attempt to ignore the thoughts that wander in, the intruders sneaking through the half light that comes before dawn.
These are her own silent letters whispering reassurance:
It is more merciful to leave some things unsaid, to leave the hurt hurting. What if you find out the hurt can’t be cured? What if you realize there is no hope for yourself?
Mercy, it is mercy.
The moonbeam trespasser tells her:
It is less mercy than cowardice.
Roy, like clockwork, visits her every other day in the late afternoon. He always brings two cups of tea, each time from a different shop. It is a faint echo from their teenage years, from a promise to take her to Central one day and show her “what real tea tastes like, not this country dishwater.”
Out of all her visitors, he talks the least, telling her the bare minimum of news and work. Sometimes he doesn’t say a word at all after informing her the origins of today’s beverage, and the two of them simply sit in silence for an hour, for two.
Riza’s other visitors come in the evenings. At least five times per week during her convalescence, she is greeted by tired, smiling faces wreathed in the relief of victory.
Jean is the most frequent. He is located in a separate branch, but he is still in Central City Hospital, and he is allowed to be up and about. Jean hobbles over with his cane to Riza almost daily, and each visit he brings her a single rose of various colors to put in the vase on her bed stand.
Riza suspects he filches them from the many flower arrangements in the lobby. She says as much. He laughs nervously, and that is confirmation enough.
He does not stop. Soon, Riza has a smattering of yellow and red, white and pink sitting next to her. She misses him deeply when he is discharged two and a half weeks after the coup, even though he still drops by from time to time.
When they find out, the others start to give her roses as well. Edward—who is recuperating from surgery, who is not allowed to be up and about—sneaks her blooms of various shades of orange during the night. They are from a bouquet the boy anonymously received. He has told her, “I won’t cheat like Havoc, so sharing will have to do.”
He is released from the hospital along with Alphonse the third Friday after the Promised Day. Saturday, the two come back with a pumpkin-colored rose and settle it neatly in between Edward’s four from before. Tomorrow they return to Resembool, they say, thank you, goodbye. Riza whispers her farewells.
Heymans and Kain bring her pink roses. They are the ones who talk the most during their visits, about the progress in Central City, about the Fuhrer her grandfather, about the public’s reaction to the news of reconstruction efforts in Ishval scheduled to launch soon. Most Amestrians are not cold, not with Mustang, hero again, at the head of the matter. But they are not warm either. She will worry about that later.
Vato sends a rose, pink as well, by mail order the third week. Accompanying it is a letter penned in an elegant and looping cursive. They begin a written exchange, and Riza is meticulous with her replies, grateful for something to do during the long hours of solitude.
Rebecca gives her all sorts of yellow blossoms, hues ranging from solid gold to pure friendship to airy shades of summer sunlight. Once, Riza wakes up to petals softly brushing the side of her face. She finds a flaxen flower almost camouflaged in her hair, a mirror on the bed stand, and a note scrawled in Rebecca’s messy script that reads, stay beautiful, ri – your bestie.
Riza manages a weak, watery smile for all who come, hoping it will be genuine each time.
On his fourth visit the sixth of April, Roy begins to bring her roses black as charcoal.
These weeks, her nightmares do not feature the past few months. Instead, they go back to Ishval, to this one imagined moment.
This is how it begins:
It is night in the desert.
A blast of fire lights up in the distance, and it whirls closer, closer, closer. Sometimes it touches her; sometimes it does not. Either way, there is screaming.
The dreams seem to trap her far longer than the clock shows. Riza wakens to a silent, empty room.
It is two in the morning. She is alone and cannot sleep.
Roy is restless when he visits her. Riza can see the way his hands clasp and unclasp behind his back, his eyes wander toward an imaginary sunrise every once in a while. His true work cannot begin here in Central City. He tries not to show his agitation, but he is never good at hiding from her.
Riza thinks she knows why he tries anyway. They have not yet left because her own recovery has been slow, almost nonexistent, due to complications from surgery and blood loss and sheer mental exhaustion. Riza is consciously aware that having her throat slit had been an unwanted event beyond her control, as was living for months under the surveillance of shadows. Nevertheless, she still feels a twist in her gut familiar from childhood that whispers, your fault, your fault.
She knows she is not good at hiding from him, either.
But neither of them will speak, not about this, not about the tunnels, the desert, or the ink. They understand the shame and the guilt, the need for the satisfaction of self-loathing. They understand the fear.
They know these things will never leave them.
Sunday, April 11, the day Edward and Alphonse board a train to Resembool, a nurse comes into Riza’s room and frowns at the bouquet. She fingers an ink stain against the watercolor. “If you don’t mind me asking, who gave you this?”
“Oh,” says Riza, and her voice is scratchy still, “well, Jean Havoc—tall, blond, walked around with a cane—released only four days ago—I, ah, think he’d been taking random roses from the arrangements around here when he was hospitalized. He didn’t discriminate colorwise.”
The nurse’s frown lingers, but she rolls her eyes. “Right. We’d noticed that, of course.” “Why’d you ask?”
“Hm,” says the nurse, “it’s just the meaning of the flower color. You know. Goodbyes. Death. The like.”
The nurse chats about unimportant things the rest of the checkup.
Roy disrupts his usual schedule to visit Riza twice in two days on the fifth Wednesday after, April 21, the last day before she is to be released from the hospital. He brings two cardboard cups and hands one to her. A soft herbal-scented steam envelops her face. “From the place in the Xingese district,” he says. She nods her thanks.
Riza watches him settle his ninth rose in the vase before going to his seat. They ease into a silence. Roy has a leg crossed over his knee and is looking outside the window, so Riza looks outside too. The day is bright, and the sky is intensely blue.
Roy speaks. Riza doesn’t truly process his words at first. But in time they come through, clear as the spring season. “It’s not your fault, Hawkeye.”
Riza blinks and looks at him, but he is still looking outside. He’s set his cup of tea on the bed stand, and his hands are folded on his lap, fingers laced together, like he does when he wants to appear relaxed.
Cautiously, Riza says, “Sir. May I ask what’s not my fault?”
Roy looks down at his hands. “That you can’t help right now. That we’re not over there yet.”
She should laugh now and call him silly, but there is a sudden tightness in her body that feels like something angry, and Riza does not respond.
“Even if you believe it’s your fault,” Roy says in a hesitant voice, “even if it is something rightly your fault, I don’t think you should take it upon yourself to feel ashamed for it.”
Roy pauses as if she would talk now. She does not.
“I’ve read too much Cretan philosophy, Lieutenant,” he continues. “They say shame exists to tell us we’ve done something wrong we need to fix. But if it lasts longer than that, it can instead impede our efforts to right those wrongs. I think they have a point. And I also think there's no need to obstruct the good you can do. So, as long as you’ve admitted your sins, as long as you’re working to rectify them, then you shouldn’t—you shouldn’t—hate yourself, Hawkeye, need to—to—”
Roy takes a breath, and it’s like he’s a rambling teenager again, except now there is more weight to his words, weight like sandbags and a thousand empty water flasks. “My point is,” he says, slow and deliberate, “justice should be on the terms of the wronged. Shame could hinder or prevent that. It is not the same as penance. It is not the same as duty.”
Roy stops again. He looks like a photograph, sitting motionless as the sunlight lances across the room, shadows perfectly still.
He tightens his laced fingers together, and the image is gone. “I’m aware self-hatred cannot be easily reasoned away. I simply want to say I think the emotion should be considered an obstacle to our goals rather than a guideline.”
Roy lapses into another silence, but he still does not look at her. Riza tenses herself. The tunnels have been looming over them like the shadow of a basilisk, and he is about to stare it in the face. “Hawkeye—”
“I know what you’re going to ask of me, sir.” Riza looks down at her own hands, her voice constrained and clipped to suppress her ire. “I already have an answer. I can’t. Not without you. So I can’t promise anything. I’m sorry.”
Roy neither moves nor speaks for a while. Finally, he says, “Lieutenant. A word for you as your boss.” He takes a breath. “You are one of the most competent soldiers serving under me. You have been my surest confidante and advisor for the past decade. We just staged a coup, and damn me to the eighth circle if you didn’t contribute.” His voice grows quieter. “Hawkeye. A word for you as your friend. You are your own person. I trust you to be my judge because I believe your moral compass is separate from and stronger than my own. If I die by your hands, then it will be my fault and mine alone. So even if I fail, I believe you can do good. You can do good, if not for Amestris then at least for our friends. It already happens, yes? Pink roses for thank you. There must be something for which to thank.”
Roy shifts in his seat, sitting up straighter, she thinks, into that somber posture not affected. “Riza. You are human. Whether by man or by nature, one day you will die, alongside all the secrets of flame alchemy. I do not think your death will be made more just by your own hands. Please understand, I know what you feel. I do not ask you to promise me that it will not happen, or even that you will not try to stop it. But I must ask that you consider this, if you will promise me that you will not see it as justice, and I must ask for your answer. Please.”
Riza clings to her previous silence when Roy ends. Her eyes are burning, and she refuses to lift them. The clock ticks the seconds by, and a minute passes. She knows he is looking at her now.
“Brigadier General,” she begins, “why have you decided to discuss this? Your ideals—your goddamn ideals Roy—where have they gotten us before? What if you’re wrong? What if I actually think about your words and you’re wrong?”
“We are going back to Ishval,” he murmurs. “We cannot run around ourselves in circles any longer. We’ve told our friends and family that we are going to work towards true justice; we’ve told them that for years. But we’ve always kept for ourselves an obligation of self-loathing. We are walking on a path that requires us to discard that. We need to decide what we believe to be true justice if we are to proceed honestly and unselfishly. I’ve said my share now. If I’m wrong, you have your promise to keep.”
Riza crumples the blanket on her bed hard enough that her nails dig into the palms of her hands. She tries to blink the wetness in her eyes away, to count back from ten. She is breathing like she has been running for the past few months. She looks up and meets Roy’s eyes.
The man dares to give her a small smile, serene as the day outside. “Your verdict, Lieutenant. Am I a fool?”
It’s the damn smile, she thinks later, not the words but the damn smile.
Something in her uncurls for the first time since that day—she does not know which, the tunnels, the desert, or the ink—and Riza sighs into her tea, her breath gently making the steam go all aswirl for a brief second. She is sure the wetness is on her cheeks now, and she is sure she is shaking too, because Roy has gotten up from his seat to wrap his arms tentatively around her.
For a fleeting moment, Riza feels light in a way that is not lightheaded. It does not take long before a familiar dread settles along her stomach again, but the lightness is there, truly there, for a second, for two, and that is enough to know that she is not hopeless.
“You’re always a fool in my opinion, sir,” she says softly, “but perhaps the world needs fools like you yet.”
Winry visits Riza for the first time a few hours after Roy leaves, when it is evening and the sunset is bathing the room.
Riza gives Winry a weak smile and asks, “What brings you to Central? Don’t tell me the Elric boys got lost on their way home.”
Winry smiles back. “Thankfully, they didn’t. I’m here because I wanted to visit and offer my gratitude to all the people who’ve helped Ed and Al these past few years.” She slings off her satchel. “I heard something about roses for you, Lieutenant Hawkeye.” From her bag she procures a carefully wrapped rose, white as the first snow of December solstice season.
Riza cannot speak for a second. “Thank you,” she manages. “It’s beautiful.” She gathers herself together and says, “You can put it in the vase with all the others if you want.”
Winry laughs, and it sounds like the bells from Riza’s hometown. “It’s your rose now. I’ll put it in the vase if you want.”
Riza cannot help but smile again, less weak than soft this time. “Of course. I would like you to put it in there some place where it stands out. And please, call me Riza.” “Alright, Miss Riza.” Winry takes time to inspect the arrangement, currently quilt-like in its quality. She spies a cluster of three black roses, and tucks the white one between all of them.
“I didn’t know there were such things as black roses,” the girl comments.
“They’re either actually very dark red or artificially colored.” Riza waves her hand to a book on the table next to the vase. “I asked for a book on roses a few days ago. It mentioned them.”
“Huh. Does the book say anything about the meaning of colors? I hadn’t considered that while buying this”—she gestures to the white rose—”so I don’t know if it’s appropriate.”
Riza nods. “Color meanings are actually why I asked for the book in the first place. White is purity and innocence. I think it’s lovely coming from you.”
Winry beams at the older woman. “And black roses? There must be a special meaning, for people to want to create a color that’s not natural.”
“Yes. They mean goodbyes. Death. The like.”
“… Oh.”
“But…” Riza glances out the window. The light is gone from the sky. “Some people say that they stand for new beginnings as well. Hellos and hope. Like the concept of a phoenix: out of that which is old and gone arises something new and better.”
"Ah…! I certainly like that much better." Winry is quiet for a moment. "Do you remember who they're from?"
"Oh," says Riza, "well." She considers her words. "General Mustang has always had a dramatic streak, you know."
The sixth week after the Promised Day, they return to Ishval.
Riza cuts her hair the morning they arrive for the sake of practicality, so she tells everyone. She breathes in the sand and sun and gunfire of ghosts, sensations seared into not only her memories but also her skin and blood and bones. She knows these things will never leave her.
She inwardly salutes all the fallen she feels come her way. If it should be her duty to carry them among the living, then she will bear them with grace.
The first day passes.
She is alone and cannot sleep. Riza goes to sit in the open, where the desert dunes roll out like waves of white silk to the horizon, where the new moon leaves a thousand scattered stars across the sky, embers from some celestial fire, sacred and holy.
She traces them into her own private constellations, the faces of strangers and friends. No two are alike, except one. His she finds herself painting with the stardust over and over and over; she sighs something long-suffering and patient and kind.
It must be familiarity that she can see how well this cluster of light fits the curve of his grin.
Nothing comes to tell her otherwise.
Riza knows what the future will hold with a certainty burnt into her very soul.
One day she will fashion the world in his vision. One day peace, peace will not be just a simple greeting found in dying languages. One day she will write a staff of music in the sky set to his words, and all will gather to sing a hymn of stars over the sands that stretch to eternity.
This is how it ends:
It is night in the desert.
Notes: The title comes from the Christmas hymn "O Holy Night." I'm not sure if I'll ever be satisfied with how this piece characterizes or handles the topics it addresses. I hope it is at least adequate. This piece had been very important to me while I was writing it; I'd been struggling with intense feelings of scrupulosity, and I couldn't help but project myself onto characters that had committed some truly heinous crimes. I really needed Riza and Roy to find some measure of peace with their past actions.
