[roy/riza; pg-13] The Darkest Meaning of a Lie Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Title: The Darkest Meaning of a Lie Author:emilie_burns Theme: #9 - Floral scent; Musk; Citric Scent (30_Smiles) Pairing/Characters: Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye Rating: PG-13, for war violence, death. Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) is copyrighted by Hiromu Arakawa/Square Enix. This is a work of fanfiction for personal entertainment only. Jossed. Notes: The concept of this fanfic is based on research into the olfactory sense, which has proven that scent-evoked memories are by and large the most powerful, and the most emotional. Many thanks to agilebrit. Word Count: 2025 Summary:The wind brought with it the emotions first. Original LJ Post Date: June 27, 2005 @ 30_smiles
The Darkest Meaning of a Lie
"'Jas' in the Arab language is despair, And 'Min' the darkest meaning of a lie." - Charles Godfrey Leland
The wind brought with it the emotions first.
It was sometime after lunch before anyone noticed the change in the air. The day had started out as usual - brilliant sunlight, soaring summer temperatures, and air so hot and dry that most scents seemed to be roasted right out of existence. That changed, and within the span of a few short hours, the air turned thick with humidity. Overhead and stretching out into the distance toward the east, the clouds ranged from towering white, to low and dark. Rumbles of thunder, miles off toward the mountains, could just barely be heard from time to time, and usually drew a soft curse from the colonel as he shot the occasional dark glance out at the sky, as if daring it to try to rain there.
First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, adjutant to Colonel Roy Mustang, normally agreed with her superior about the rain, because its effects on his alchemy were undesireable. But now, she wished it would, if only to break the weather. The sporadic patches of rain in the distance was content to tease them. It was only the wind that made the humidity anywhere near bearable.
Most of the time, it came directly from the east, whistling past the open windows of the office, every so often curling around the corners and bringing in the more earthy, dank scent of rain. Every once in a while it would shift briefly, either to the south or the north, and the strong northeastern gusts would catch up and ruffle the paperwork on their desks, sometimes scattering a few pages which were not weighted down across the room.
But now and again, the wind carried something else, something so fleeting that it was gone by the time she noticed it, her attention pulled away from her work by the sudden tight sensation in her chest, and the sting in her eyes. Whenever that something would pass her, it left in its wake an inexplicable feeling of overwhelming fatigue and sorrow.
There was also a vague, unsettling feeling of having been in that place and moment before, skirting around the fringes of her memory. Her work forgotten, Riza focused on trying to place the cause of the déjà vu, taking a more familiar path of calm rationality to escape the threat of tears.
In her mind's eye, she saw the spring again.
***
Although the war was in their favor, the Ishbalites were attempting to fall back and regroup, and the Powers That Be decided to relocate some of the soldiers to a new base camp in easier range of where intelligence reported the enemy gathering. Their orders stated that they had to reach the new camp no later than nightfall. But it was a hard trek, and the few vehicles available to the unit were crowded with supplies and ammunition. Whatever riding space remained was granted according to rank, and even though she was an officer, Second Lieutenants were at the very bottom of the commissioned pyramid. So she and other low-ranked officers, including the two captains, walked with the enlisted troops upwind and alongside the motorized caravan.
The desert sun felt like it was burning away her strength, and from the way the other soldiers let their footsteps drag first along sand and later, the rock as they neared the mountains, she was hardly alone. By late afternoon, they stopped near the mouth of a ravine, water-cut through the rocky hills by conditional rivers brought in by cloudbursts. There was a bit of disagreement among the ranking officers which route to take - the shortcut through the wash, or another three hours added to their hike with a detour around the hills.
The brigadier general in command thought that the odds of an ambush were low enough to justify the shortcut through the wash, and many of the soldiers loved him then.
The misery of the shortcut was offset by the knowledge they would be at their destination in roughly an hour or so, instead of four or five. There was little air moving in the ravine, and the vehicles broke into two packs, taking up both the lead and rear in single-file, while the footbound troops shuffled wearily between, in groups of three abreast. The path held a slightly uphill gradient, not enough to be visible, but just enough to be felt.
She walked behind the leading cars, a bandana tied over her nose and mouth to filter out the exhaust and dust, and barely had the presence of mind to grab the arm of the half-asleep captain beside her when the vehicles abruptly stopped at a bend. The disgruntled murmurings and questions behind her had barely begun before something splattered and fell against her, the sounds of bodies dropping masked by the sharp reports echoing all over the cliffs.
The general had been wrong.
Riza shoved away the body of the captain and quickly crawled under the truck in front of her for cover, and the sharp scent of gunsmoke mixed with the heated, metallic stink of copper from the blood. Up behind boulders, she caught sight of white puffs, the black gunpowder giving away the Ishbalites' positions. Most of the soldiers were sitting ducks as they tried to find cover, returning fire up the rocky walls.
She leaned against the hot tire and balanced her gun, taking careful aim with the same skill which resulted in her being assigned to sniper duty more often than not. She watched for each puff of smoke, and drew a bead, waiting for them to reemerge for another shot. One by one, she picked off as many as she could before she saw a fire suddenly flare up in the dry brush in the cliffs, and the rocks themselves shuddered, erupting in walls that cut her off from her marks - and the Ishbalites off from the soldiers.
Over the roaring fire, behind the newly-constructed rock walls, she began to hear screams.
They were free to move again once the Strong Arm Alchemist broke away the rocky dam which had cut off their progress earlier, and the rear vehicles were abandoned as the soldiers moved out, helping first the wounded before moving the bodies of the dead. They located a spring-fed oasis not far from the ravine, and the wounded and living gathered there by the water, in the meager shade, while someone else drove on to the base for assistance.
A heady, sweet perfume permeated the air around the water, cloying in its intensity, and as she knelt by the water to wash the muddy blood off her hands and face, she found the source. Heavy vines of dark, glossy leaves sported clusters of small, white flowers tangled up the trees and snarled into thick brushes along the ground. The tiny flowers in number managed to mask the choking scents of blood and gunpowder, and she welcomed its thick scent.
Riza moved away from the water to make room for others, and stood by a tree, studying the vine clambering up to the branches. The white, waxy petals kept her eyes off her bloodstained uniform while their scent kept the world of the war at bay.
"They're called jasmine."
Amid the crowd of soldiers, she wasn't aware she was even being addressed until she noticed the officer leaning against a nearby tree with his hands in his pockets, watching her with eyes as dark and unreadable as the rest of his expression.
"Beg pardon, sir?" she asked, not certain she even heard his non sequitur correctly. A flash of silver caught her eye, drawing her gaze downward briefly to see a tell-tale watch chain leading from his belt to his pocket. A State Alchemist. Since she could easily recognize the Strong Arm Alchemist and the slight, dark-haired man definitely was not him, it was likely he who started the blaze behind the rock walls. So, it was the Flame Alchemist, more likely than not.
"I said, they're called jasmine. The flowers." His gaze left her to study the plant, a distant expression on his face.
Riza watched the major, wondering if there was a required response. It held the earmarks of a strange conversation, but then, it was a strange day. Perhaps a bit of completely mundane conversation was something they both could use. She repeated the name to herself, looking back to the small petals. "Jasmine. It sounds like a nice name."
"More like an apt name. I read the meaning once, some years ago. I almost forgot about it until now."
He said nothing more then, looking from the flowers out to the ravine's opening in the distance. She hesitated, then prodded him further. "Why? What is the meaning?"
"The first syllable means despair. The second means a lie. Such an odd name for a bright flower like that."
Riza arched an eyebrow, looking between the major and the flowers, before following his gaze to the ravine. Realization began to sink in, and she approached him, standing beside the tree to watch some enlisted soldiers carry out the body of one of their comrades, stacking the dead soldier with the others. She couldn't smell the blood or smoke where she stood, in a world within a world far removed for the moment from the reality of the war. The scent lied, masking the despair.
"You're right, it is apt," she replied.
They watched in silence as the soldiers continued to move the dead out of the ravine so the rear cars could proceed.
"They were lucky today," he said, abruptly breaking the quiet between them. "Normally their weapons cannot even match the kind of range ours have, and they don't believe in alchemy. They gambled we might go through there instead of staying to the scheduled route."
She heard the hardening edge to his voice, and a thought she left unspoken crossed her mind. The ambush could have been avoided. He glanced at her, and for a moment she thought he might say more. But he looked away, and they continue to watch the scene in silence.
As before, it was he who finally decided to break it. "Roy Mustang," he said, glancing at her again briefly. "Major."
It didn't escape her notice that he did not bring up his place among the State Alchemists. So she did not ask. "Riza Hawkeye. Second Lieutenant."
A slight nod of acknowledgement, and nothing more was said until the reinforcements from the base camp arrived, and separate duties called them both away.
***
"Lieutenant? How is anything supposed to get done around here if you take on my bad habits of procrastination?" The colonel's annoyed tone cut through her little flashback and she looked up as she tried to will herself not to blush, feeling ashamed for having been caught daydreaming.
"At least he's finally admitting it's a bad habit," Breya piped up from his desk across the room, "which is something of an accomplishment."
"I've always known it's a bad habit! Why do you think I want to become Fuhrer? I can have everybody else do my work for me."
"I thought it was to enforce the miniskirt policy," Havoc said.
"That too, of course. I'll be too busy measuring the skirts for regulation length - I mean, shortness - to bother with paperwork." Roy looked at her again, and relief flooded her seeing the hint of a soft and somewhat concerned look in his eyes, a contradiction to his supposed irritation.
"I'm sorry, sir. The humidity must be more distracting than I thought."
"Yes, the humidity." He leaned back in his chair and looked out the open window. "I noticed it too." When Roy looked her way again, the corners of his mouth lifted just a fraction as their eyes met. I noticed it too, but it's all right now.
The faint smile and unspoken words in his eyes cleared away the remaining lingering heaviness. Riza allowed a hint of the return smile to show itself through her eyes. A few heartbeats of time escaped as they lingered in the hidden warmth passed between them, then she returned to her work.