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It is perhaps, unsurprising, that Major Mustang initially believes that it was because of him that she signed up for service. His idyllicism is perhaps the most enduring trait she has to remember him by: a young man, proudly wearing his blues and speaking of the way he would coax the country in a better, grander, position than where it started. His inherent paternalism – and it is that, he wants to make the country into his image and nothing less – is inherited from her own father. He too, believed, understood, proved that he knew the way forward.
It is a bit of a joke now how personally he seems to take this new knowledge – this was not part of his plan. Perhaps he thought he would return after the war, a decorated hero with new depths to those dark eyes and sweep her off her feet like so many of her dorm sisters have been in recent years. What few letters that do make their way to the estate – and subsequently, months later to the front – are notices of marriage, and once, an invitation to attend herself. Laura had been one of the kinder girls, and a small part of Riza that’s been tucked away between the notches on her rifle would’ve liked to see her in white, watched the celebration with a distance that Laura wouldn’t have questioned or assumed was rude.
But Riza is unable to entertain such fantasies. This country would rather look the other way than acknowledge the cost of this war, the amount of people being flung into the sand just to keep the effort justifiable. There are rumours that another train line has been taken out, and necessary supplies that were already months late will now never arrive. It’s a wonder any letters managed to find their way to her at all.
Major Mustang has a peculiar habit of finding her no matter where she is in the encampment. At first, she pegs it down to coincidence, but later it becomes clearer that he is seeking her out in some fashion, even if most times he refuses to engage with her at all. Perhaps he thinks he can protect her in this way, a careful eye watching from a distance. It is laughable. The distance Riza is able to set between herself and any unwanted target easily outstrips his distance for accuracy. She can and will limit her damage. He razes through it all as if the end result is the only thing that matters. Perhaps that’s true. The reality of bending a land, a people, to your will is never as simple as her superiors make it out to be.
Part of her resents this treatment, resents the hovering that the others in her unit have picked up on. They’re snipers, after all. They’re meant to look at the wider picture, notice small, subtle shifts in the landscape. It takes them a little longer to deduce who he’s trying to shadow, but after another few days of watching him not-wander with not-purpose, her spotter nudges her, faintly tilting his head towards 11 o’clock.
“Perhaps he’s never seen a woman with short hair before. I hear he came from Central – fuckwits, the lot of them.”
Her spotter, Dylan, is a stout young man, with a face that had not lost the fat of his youth until very recently. He, like her, was pushed through quickly, at the pleading of higher-ups who were wholly unprepared for their theatres of war. The two of them are well aware of the incompetence that has resulted in their posting. This knowledge is what protects them more than the briefings they receive.
A tense smile pulls at the edges of her lips. “I have the unfortunate pleasure of being acquainted with him. I would hesitate to paint him with the same brush as the soldiers from the last tour though.”
Dylan scoffs, picking at the cervidae meat the cooks managed to scrounge up. It’s probably a sacred animal in these parts. “Does he think you don’t belong here?”
Riza hums. “I think he envisioned a different future for me. I think I’ve ruined the fantasy.”
The man introduced to her briefly as Maes Hughes seeks her out some weeks later. He is an interesting man. Riza thinks he is like the prisms that fracted light in her Father’s study: she spies different fragments of him, personalities and idiosyncrasies that layer over one another if you view him just so. He is canny and shrewd, and Riza is not surprised that Major Mustang has made his acquaintance. His ability to seek out power and bend it to suit his whims is perhaps the most crucial thing to understand about him. It does not necessarily matter what the substance of the power is, it only matters in how he can exploit it for his personal use.
“Hawkeye,” Maes Hughes says shortly, deliberately stepping into pace with her as she moves through the camp. She had been seeking some rest. She knows now that that will be difficult to do unless she plays his game.
“Captain Hughes,” she responds, dipping her head in acknowledgment. It is perhaps a little ruder for a greeting than other superiors would allow, but Riza surmises that Maes Hughes doesn’t care much for inane rules and pageantry out here. He is not thriving in this environment, merely surviving like her.
“This isn’t about Roy,” he begins, and Riza appreciates the bluntness. “Well, not from him. But I thought we could talk.”
Riza inclines her head to the outer encampment, the side that overlooks into the valley. It’s never as busy here, particularly in the afternoon as the sun sinks down over the mountains and the desert chill begins to set in. “What about?” She will make him work for this conversation. She is well aware of who could – would – be privy to it.
Hughes is quiet for a moment as he leans against one of the tent poles. “I confess I’m curious about the two of you. Roy is fiercely protective of you. Others are beginning to notice.”
“He’s stubborn like that.”
“Is there a reasonable explanation for his behaviour?”
Part of Riza thinks it would be rather funny to divulge her secrets again. Make his power and devastation inert by granting everyone the same ability that he wields so selfishly, covets even more so. But it’s a passing fancy, a fantasy she’ll never get to fully realise, much like the goals she imagines he had in place for her. Hughes has already played some of his cards by investigating what he’s already identified to be Mustang’s weakest link, and Riza feels it’s only fair to work within the estimation he has already formed of her. She will never let her back be used against her again. Major Mustang put paid to that lesson for her.
“His alchemy apprenticeship was a few houses down from where I lived. There weren’t many young people in the village. We were… acquaintances, I suppose,” she begins, testing the words on her tongue. Dylan hadn’t needed a story to assess Major Mustang. He didn’t need to be convinced of anything he couldn’t already surmise from looking at him.
“Perhaps he was sweet on me; I confess I never paid much attention, as my father was a sick man and required almost all of my attention. It was strange to realise that one of the soldiers I saved was someone I knew –” the parapraxis isn’t lost on her but Hughes’ face is impassive, waiting. Either he was a good listener or what he was suspicious of had not been confirmed so far. “ – Maybe it is strange for him too,” she concludes, rubbing the muscle that connects her thumb to the fleshy part of her palm.
Hughes appears to mull over her words. “He must be very sweet on you, then.” There’s a warning nestled in that sentence, an acknowledgment that he caught her use of tense just as he corrects her on which is the truth – what he knows is the truth.
Riza rolls her shoulders slowly. “I wouldn’t assume to know his feelings on the matter. He hasn’t talked to me since our last meeting. In all honesty, Captain, I don’t think there is much to talk about either. We’re just ghosts in each other’s pasts.”
“He doesn’t treat you like a ghost.”
“My spotter has come to calling him that. He always seems to lingering like some forgotten shade.”
Hughes pushes himself off the tent pole he was leaning against, shoving his hands into his pockets. Riza was right, he is a clever man – knows better than to needle someone continually for information they’re not willing to part with yet. His patience would undoubtedly be tempering some of Major Mustang’s worst impulses. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t approached her again.
“I just felt warning you would be the right thing to do,” he says. “Considering I’m now not alone in my understandings.”
Riza blinks slowly. “Thank you for the warning, Captain Hughes,” she replies. He probably thinks he’s being kind, extending a hand to the young ingénue who’s out of her depth in a horror that’s only halfway done. Maybe Major Mustang had crafted that story for Hughes as well; of his role in this story he still seems to be writing. He is the hero. They are the supporting cast as much as the sand they stand on.
I thought you’d wait for me; he had hissed over the campfire at their first meeting.
I thought you’d help people; she had taunted as the embers sunk into the ash.