Welcome To The Monster Factory

Welcome To The Monster Factory

Royai Week Day 1- Letter

This is the only fic that I have written for Royai Week (thus far.) I may post even more rushed goobledegook or may not. 

I hc that Riza and Roy grew apart, especially after Berthold died, but the horrors of Ishval brought them back together and bonded them with that unbreakable Royai superglue.

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Roy fell onto his cot and sobbed. He couldn’t believe that Riza Hawkeye had ended up in this shithole. When he’d seen her, his head had filled with a blinding and deafening buzzing. Not only had he perverted the flame alchemy she’d given him, but he’d also poisoned her with his naive vision of the military. She should be in Teachers College or Nursing School. Even married, not that he liked that idea. Anywhere but here.

He stood up and paced rapidly. He would never excuse himself for what he was doing, but he really wanted her to understand, even a little. He was gutless, but he knew right from wrong. He wanted to do the right thing. He was just too afraid. He needed her to believe that he was not a bad man. Or, at least, he did not want to be a bad man. 

But he couldn’t face her. He felt like he was drowning in shame. Choking on guilt. He threw himself back down on the sand-coated cot, nearly injuring himself on the stuff beneath. He sat up, and pulled a metal box out from under it. The box held his writing implements and paper, and also served as a writing surface. He lit the gas lamp. 

How should he even address her? Not Riza. He’d been a terrible friend to her. Not Miss Hawkeye. Cadet was too impersonal. Shit. Finally:

Miss Riza,

I didn’t think that there was anything that could have made me feel sicker than what I have been doing to the Ishvallans, but then I saw YOU HERE. 

For me, you being here does make one thing easier. I don’t have to explain to you what I’ve done with the gift you gave me, with your father’s life’s work. You’ve seen it. You know that there was no way that any confession I made to you would communicate my travesties. Seeing is worth a million words. 

I have no excuses. If I were the man that I thought I was or hoped to be, I would have disobeyed orders. Maybe deserted. Maybe killed myself. But I’m no hero. I am a weak shadow of a man who can’t stand up for what is right. Maybe I’m not a man. I’ve turned into a monster. 

I have a lot to answer for, especially to you. Your father asked me to look after you, and I never even checked up on you after he died and we buried him. I never asked if you needed anything. That’s no way to keep a promise or treat a friend. We were friends. I do think of you as a friend

I hate being a monster, but I don’t know how to stop while this “war” goes on. I’m trapped like the rat I am. 

Miss Riza, I still want to help people. When this hell is over, if I still exist, I am going to try again. I understand that you must hate me, and you should. I hate myself. I do not expect forgiveness. 

I just need you to know how sorry I am and that I will try to do better in the future. 

Yours, 

Roy Mustang

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Riza read the letter again. It had been slipped into her tent as she slept. She had no tears. In the short time she had been here, Ishval, with its punishing sun, had already dried her up. And, in the short time she had been here, she was already aware that she was in the process of a hideous metamorphosis. Major Mustang… Roy was wrong to put so much blame on himself. This was a monster factory. 

No wonder he was afraid to rebel or run away. The repercussions would be devastating. The choices they had were really no choices at all. 

When she had first arrived and seen what he had done, the emotion she had felt burned through her. It could have been hate. It most certainly was the most scorching anger she had ever felt. When her father had told her about the tattoo, her reaction had been one of numbness. Her father hadn’t been her friend. Roy’s actions were a real betrayal. He hadn’t been a good friend lately, but he had when they lived together. She felt connected to him, even though he was no longer the silly confident boy she had known. 

He didn’t ask for forgiveness, but she might need to give it almost as much as he surely needed to get it. It was now close to her time to kill. Then she’d sleep on how she wanted to deal with him. 

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He looked up at the sound of the knock on his tent support. “Enter… Miss Riza?” He stood. 

“I don’t hate you, Major. I’d like to talk, if you would.”

So, that’s how it would be- ranks. But he was relieved that it would  be, that she would talk to him. He gestured toward his cot. “Please have a seat, Cadet.” 

woman yelling at cat meme but make it ancient greek red figure pottery

It took 11 days for my ballot to be recorded, and I mailed it at a post office. Please vote in person or take it to a drop-off location.

But seriously, please vote. Many states are not accepting ballots that arrive past November 3rd, and the postal service isn’t guaranteed to deliver on time now that it’s less than a week out. Here’s a fun article giving the lowdown on ballot deadlines! Whether it’s in person (with a mask!) or by absentee ballot, please make your voice heard! My website – My Instagram

“A fox’s teeth are very sharp.” (2013-2019) Silk filament on silk-hemp blend with hand-dyed silk chiffon scarf.  Text is Sandman: The Dream Hunters by @neil-gaiman, design inspired by illustrations of Yoshitaka Amano.  Dress by L.L.K.  Photo credit to Kenneth Williams.

Six years ago, my unbelievably talented wife decided to undertake a ridiculously long and complicated project: to embroider a story onto a dress.

We live in a very casual college town where no one ever dresses up for anything, so we began a tradition of throwing formal New Year’s Eve parties, and L being L, she made a dress every year. In 2013, she decided to take it a step further: she would create a dress inspired by Neil Gaiman and Yoshitaka Amano’s Sandman: The Dream Hunters and then embroider the entire story onto the dress. The dress itself was the work of a few weeks and looked beautiful on her at the party, and then the real work began: planning, mapping, embroidering and embroidering and embroidering. She estimated it would take approximately ten years of doing needlework an hour or two each evening, leaving plenty of time to take nights or even months off. She finished in under six.

I can’t summon words to describe how proud of her I am right now. I mean, I am always proud of her, as she is an exceptionally kind and caring human being as well as a polymath (seamstress, carpenter, baker, programmer, naturalist, and tenured professor of biology), but she has created a true work of art and I hope it ends up in a museum somewhere to immortalize her talent, skill, and patience.

She’s currently trying to figure out her next project.

Royai Week 2021 is just under a month away, and we’re happy to present the prompt list! (Thank you all for the whopping 100+ song submissions!!)

The week will run from Monday, 7th of June, until Friday, 11th of June.

We will be tracking the tag #royaiweek21, so remember to put that in your first five tags when the week begins so the mods can find and reblog your creations!

Day 1 - King’s Gambit/Queen’s Gambit

Day 2 - Serene

Day 3 - Valediction

Day 4 - Communiqué

Day 5 - [Song prompt] illicit affairs, taylor swift

I love Maru so much, sometimes even more than I love my cat. (I don’t think that my cat even likes me.) 

“Maru’s new safety helmet”

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