Who: Roy Mustang What: Roy hadn't had that dream since he was eight. When: Mid-April Where: Home Rating/Warnings: None Status: Complete
"Auntie Chris! Auntie Chris!" The eight-year-old pounded down the stairs to where his aunt was making breakfast, and skidded to a stop in front of the island. He hadn't even bothered to change out of his pajamas.
"Hmm? What is it, Roy-boy?" She poured the last of the pancakes that would fit on the griddle, then turned to give the child her attention.
"I had that dream again! The one with you, and the ladies, and the old cars, and the weird books." The little boy nodded emphatically. "I drew you a picture before I forgot." He produced a piece of paper, sketched in crayon. "This is you, and this is Mary, and this is Greta, and this is me." He pointed at the smallest figure with the messy hair, surrounded by a pile of books, and screwed up his face, trying to remember the details of the dream. "And I was drawing something only I can't remember what," he said shamefacedly. "Only it was a circle with squiggles in it, and it glowed."
"Is that so, Roy-boy? You've got a very active imagination," she said gently, though if he'd looked up from his intense study of his drawing, he'd have seen the worried look in her eyes.
"Yeah, but then it went bang and the paper disappeared and nothing happened," he pouted. "And it doesn't work. I keep trying and trying but it doesn't work." The reverse side of his page held an abstract circular drawing, with squiggles and arcs and poorly-formed strange lettering.
"Sweetie, things don't work like that in real life. No one can do magic. It's all sleight of hand."
"It wasn't magic, Auntie! It was real. There are rules!"
She leaned over to kiss him on the forehead. "Yes, sweetheart. But one of the rules is that dreams are just dreams. We can do all kinds of special things in dreams that we can't in real life."
"Awwwww." He folded his arms petulantly. "I am too gonna be able to do this someday."
She chuckled softly. "Whatever you say, master magician. Now eat your pancakes."
Five months later, Christine Mustang and her young nephew moved from Anaheim to Alameda.
*****
He was eight years old in a white shirt and knee britches, perched at a small table in the back of a well-worn but classy "lodging house", with a handful of books that he'd managed to extract from the library, on his aunt's promise that he was a responsible child.
He was ten years old, and that stack of books had grown, the new ones paid for out of his own pocket money he earned by taking care of Madam Christmas's place — sweeping, cleaning, washing the dishes, helping the ladies when they needed their laces tied or food and drink fetched.
He was twelve years old, and painstakingly drawing circle after circle after circle, until his hand hurt and his eyes ached from the flicker of the gas lamps and the bright flashes of blue.
That was where the dream stopped. Roy had had that dream at least a dozen times as a child, and it had always stopped there. He hadn't had it since he was eight, or maybe nine; it was oddly nostalgic and yet blindingly clear. It was so precisely what he remembered that he expected to wake up any moment. Half-lucid, he rolled over —
It continued.
He was fourteen years old. The best of those circles got folded into envelopes, along with letters he'd revised repeatedly before he felt satisfied with them, and he took them to the post office one day, without his aunt knowing — or so he thought.
He was fourteen and a half, and came pounding into the lodging house as if he were still eight, wild with excitement, and a letter clutched in his fist. "Aunt Chris!"
"Hmm? What is it, Roy-boy?" If he weren't so blinded by his enthusiasm, he'd have seen the surprise, and then the gentle humor and resignation in her eyes.
"I'm going to apprentice!" He waved the letter at her, then dashed over to set it down in front of her triumphantly. "I'm going to the East. I'm going to be an alchemist!"
Master Roy Mustang, the letter read, I am pleased to accept you as a potential apprentice. If you can prove your dedication and skill in the field, I will train you in alchemy. You will arrive at my residence no later than midsummer of this year for my examination. Do not be late. — Berthold Hawkeye
It was signed with an address and an alchemic crest, one the boy had never seen before but would immediately research as soon as he could hit his books.
Or he would, if his aunt had not sucked in a breath as if she'd taken a blow. "Auntie?" He looked up at her, worry etched all over his face.
She shook her head with a soft, sad smile, and ruffled his hair in a way she hadn't since he'd grown taller than she was. "You're just like your father, Roy."
He was fifteen, and he was on an eastbound train, alone, with that acceptance letter in his pocket, looking out towards the horizon ....
*****
He was thirty. And wide, wide awake now, sitting up abruptly in his bed as the memories of his childhood poured through him for the first time in years.
Instinctively, he reached for the cell phone on the nightstand, and punched the first number on the speed-dial, even though it was early on a Sunday morning.
It rang twice before she answered with a sleep-fogged, "Hello?"
"Aunt Chris?"
"What is it, Roy-boy?" She was somewhere between half awake and worried that something had gone wrong, he could tell.
"I had that dream again." Now that he said it, it felt stupid. He'd worried her for no reason. He could have just waited until she was awake; it wasn't like he was hurt or dying. "Do you remember?"