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𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒉𝒔

Let’s pretend it’s still RoyAi Day 😂 I've always wanted to draw Riza's tattoo and I wanted to be unique somehow, hoping I managed to achieve that! (+ Roy’s scars as well) Many thanks to @theizzypeasy for pushing me to draw a more dynamic pose (as always x)

This was also supposed to be a contribution for @royaiweek, with the prompt Old Wounds 🔥

@royaiweek day 3: Old Wounds

“You’re asking me that now?”

@royaiweek day 5: Picture prompt

(and my terribly late entrance. hope you enjoy anyway!)

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.”