Chapter Text
Spring 1890
Roy was almost five, and Mommy was cutting his hair.
Snip snip.
“In Xing, the women of the Chang clan treated hair care as an important ritual. Even letting someone brush your hair meant you loved and trusted them,” she said. “Once, I had a friend in the Chang clan. Her name was Yuan. She let me braid her hair sometimes.”
Snip snip.
“Will I ever visit Xing? Will I ever see your friend?” Roy asked.
Mommy sighed. (Even back then, it was Mommy. Not Mama.) “Don’t worry about that, okay? You’re my good little Amestrian boy. Focus on doing well in this country.”
Snip snip.
“I thought I was your silly Roy Boy!”
Mommy giggled. “That too.”
Snip snip.
“You know why I named you Roy?”
“Why?”
“Back when I was in the Han clan, my last name was Wang. Although it wasn’t really a last name, because it came first!
“In Xing, family is super important, so we put our family names first. Wang means king, and so does Roy. I named you Roy because you’re my little king.”
“That’s so cool!”
Snip snip.
“Just. . . don’t tell other people about my clan or my last name, okay? I don’t know who has connections to Xing and I don’t want any trouble.”
“Okay, Mommy!”
Snip snip.
“And we’re all done!” Mommy set the shears down. She led Roy to the bathroom, where he climbed up on the stool to look in the mirror. She pressed a kiss to Roy’s forehead. “You look handsome, my little king.”
~~~
Even if Miss Theresa yelled at Roy a lot, there were parts of school he loved.
Every morning, Kevin’s mom drove Roy and Kevin to school. Every morning, all the kids in the class would stand up, facing the green flag with the dragon on it. Miss Theresa would unfurl the big picture of Fuhrer Hetzer, looking all strong and impressive. They’d place their hands over their hearts, and recite in unison:
“I pledge my mind to bettering my nation, and my body to making it strong. I pledge my heart to Fuhrer Karl Hetzer and my soul to the dragon flag. I pledge my feet to our march of progress with the honor and bravery of a patriot.”
[Image description: Comic.
1: High angle shot of children standing among rows of desks. Their hands are over their hearts, chanting at the Amestrian flag.
2: Text: “I pledge my mind to bettering my nation, and my body to making it strong.” Closer shot of the children. Their eyes are blank.
3: The backs of some of the kids facing the blackboard, with Miss Theresa holding the flag. Text: “I pledge my heart to Fuhrer Karl Hetzer and my soul to the dragon flag.” 4: Silhouettes of the children, showing their feet, standing in a line. Text: “I pledge my feet to our march of progress with the honor. . .”
4: Roy smiling, Alina behind him. Roy finishes, “. . . and bravery of a patriot.” End ID]
Heart. Soul. Honor. Bravery. Patriot. Roy knew that those words were big and important, and he felt proud saying them with the rest of his class.
~~~
Most of the class had light skin and rounder eyes, but Kevin Zhang didn’t. He was Xingese, just like Roy was.
“Is your dad from Xing, too?” Kevin asked him once.
“No, he was Amestrian. My mom has a picture of him. He has lighter skin and hair, and his eyes look like Miss Theresa’s.”
“Then you’re half Xingese,” Kevin said. “Your other half is Amestrian.”
Roy imagined cutting himself in half, a boundary drawn splitting his eyes and arms and legs. The left side being Xingese, looking exactly like Mommy. The right side being Amestrian, looking exactly like his father.
~~~
“Hey, Kevin!”
Roy continued making his mini-house out of sticks. It was recess.
Alina Seversky tapped him on the shoulder. “Kevin? Hello?”
“I’m Roy, silly.”
“Oops. Well, you guys are both from Xing. So you look sim-i-lar.” Alina pronounced the last word carefully. Roy knew how to say similar. It meant they had some things that were the same.
From Xing? Roy didn’t really know what that meant, but it sounded right. “Yeah, we’re from Xing—”
“Anyway!” Alina continued. “We need more people for blind man’s bluff. Wanna play?”
“Yeah, sure.”
~~~
“I’m from Xing,” Roy told Miss Theresa, and the new kid Leo, and his fifth-grade neighbor Nadya. He didn’t know much about Xing or what being “from” the place meant, but it probably meant he was special.
“You’re telling people you’re from Xing?” Mommy asked.
“Yeah.”
“But you’re not from Xing, okay?”
Roy blinked, confused. “But Alina said I’m from Xing. Me and Kevin.”
She shook her head. “Maybe Kevin is. But not you. You’re from Amestris. You were born here, and you were raised here, far away from Xing.”
“So is Xing far away from our house?”
Mommy smiled like something was funny. “Yes. Xing is very, very far away. It’s a different country. Our country is Amestris, which is very big and powerful. We’re proud of being Amestrian.”
~~~
The river gurgled and Mommy held Roy’s hand firm.
“We were learning about rivers in class today!” Roy said. “Miss Theresa was talking about how water flows across continents. Like how alchemical energy flows across the universe! Do you know any alchemy, Mommy?”
“I’ve studied Amestrian alchemy,” she responded. “It’s so different from the practice we did in Xing.”
“Xing has alchemy too?”
“We call it alkahestry. In Amestris, alchemy is primarily studied by the government. In Xing, alkahestry is for doctors.”
“Doctors? Like Daddy?”
“Yes.”
“Was Daddy doing alka-stry for the soldiers he was helping in the war with Drachma?”
Mommy’s eyes grew sad. “No,” she said. “He wasn’t.”
Why was she sad? Roy should do something to cheer her up. He picked up a stick and crouched by the riverbank, drawing letters in the dirt. R-O-Y. “This is my name!”
Mommy smiled and crouched down beside him. “Yes, it is!”
She picked up another stick and started etching something interesting in the dirt: 王冲
[Image description: Digital drawing of Chong and a young Roy. She etches the characters of her Xingese name in the dirt while Roy looks on. End ID]
“What’s that?” Roy asked.
“It’s my—it was my name. In Xing.”
“What does it say?”
“Wáng Chōng.” She pointed to the first character. “This is my family name, Wang. Do you remember what it means?”
“It means king!”
Mommy smiled. “Yes!”
Roy brightened at the praise.
She pointed to the second character. “This is my given name, Chong. You see those two dots? They represent little droplets of water. Chong means to wash away. In Xing, we sometimes choose names to bring good luck to our children. My family was going through some rough times when they had me, so they named me Chong to wash away our bad luck.”
“What about Julie Mustang?”
“Mustang comes from your father. And I chose Julie because I just liked it.”
Roy cocked his head, thinking. “Why not Chong Mustang?”
She laughed. “Well, for one thing, everyone would pronounce it like Chah-ng. And that sounds exactly like the Chang clan back in Xing—I wouldn’t want to be mistaken for a noble, and in a different clan no less!
“But the important reason is that I’m in Amestris now, and I need to be Amestrian. I don’t look like them, but I need to follow their customs and their rules so that I can fit in as much as possible.” She stared at the river, seeing something that Roy didn’t. “I guess I needed to wash away what happened with my clan, the reason I had to come here. And I needed to wash away the foreign parts of myself so you can be a good Amestrian citizen with a good life.”
Mommy dipped her hand in the river, splashing water over the strange characters. Her name washed away.