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daily writing (FMA)
756 words. Part of an ongoing revision of Alchemy and Other Lies, archived on AO3.
The medal didn't surprise Roy. He'd already gotten a few, and so he understood that the government's philosophy was to hand them out as encouragement of all the acts one most hated doing. Since Roy hated himself quite a lot, he probably had a half dozen medals due to him.
The promotion did surprise him, though. Roy had somehow let himself forget that they owned him, had thought he could be discharged like an enlisted man, or shuffled to some desk duty like an ordinary excess officer. But Roy was a State Alchemist, and one didn't--couldn't--resign from that. (Although, years later, Fullmetal seemed to think so, and Roy never disabused him of the notion, certain he could persuade Fullmetal to reclaim his pocket watch by less blunt means before it became a pressing issue. Fullmetal always treated the pocket watch as if it were the office itself. Roy hadn't even been issued a pocket watch until Marco had brought in his red stones.)
Roy was a State Alchemist, and that meant the State owned him, owned his alchemy, owned his research, owned his fire.
Before he went in to receive his chains and become the State's property again, Roy burned everything he'd been working on since he'd gotten home. He didn't want anyone to know what he'd been doing, or demand he do anything else with it. He created a special array to burn the notes, that mapped the course of the flames and wrote that map into a jewel--a ruby, that looked almost like one of the incomplete Philosopher's stones but wasn't, that hid in the rattlesome collection in his pocket watch. It wasn't a record of his efforts, to be read by anyone who knew it was there--it was only a record of how to reconstruct the record of his efforts, this bit of ash fits to this bit of ash, the most insane jigsaw in the world. And it was a useless record without the ashes themselves, which Roy filtered into half a dozen stoppered vials and hid in various places--under the loose stair halfway up to his apartment, in the heart of the elm tree in the park down the street, behind a fifth edition copy of Hasholles's Fasciculus Chemicus that hadn't been checked out of the Central Library since 357, in the base of the fountain in front of the Capitol, among assorted urns in the Kessler mausoleum, and on the spice rack in his kitchen.
If anyone besides Roy ever found all these vials of ashes and figured out how to use the ruby to return them to their previous form, they would still have to deal with Roy's code. All the women who'd thought they were sleeping with a war hero were in it, and Gracie, too--Gracie stood in for the incomplete Philosopher's stones Roy had been trying to purify, before he had abandoned that idea as unworkable.
Roy was fairly satisfied that his research into human transmutation was safe. Part of him wondered if he ever really meant to use it, if it had been worth it to make it possible to recreate it at all, or if he should have just burned it cleanly with a snap of his fingers and let the ashes fall to the wind. He still had that option, even now--to take out the vial nestled between dill and paprika, crush it, wash its contents down the drain. A sixth of the material gone would make the rest unreadable.
It would have been a waste of a truly inspired method of hiding information, though. Roy fingered the ruby, its flaws a secret code, and felt a certain pride in his ingenuity. It had been a while since alchemy had made him feel that, feel clever. His alchemy was usually about brute force, and control of brute force. It could be fine work, but not clever.
Roy liked feeling clever. As a result, he probably seemed unnecessarily cheerful when he finally went into to HQ to claim his medal and promotion. He probably managed to convince his superiors that he enjoyed his career in the milatary and would be a gung-ho lieutenant colonel, fulfilling his duties with zeal.
The idea of putting one over Grand and the rest was all that kept him from shuddering with disgust at the idea of himself as a model officer. Of all things. Zeal.
The medal didn't surprise Roy. He'd already gotten a few, and so he understood that the government's philosophy was to hand them out as encouragement of all the acts one most hated doing. Since Roy hated himself quite a lot, he probably had a half dozen medals due to him.
The promotion did surprise him, though. Roy had somehow let himself forget that they owned him, had thought he could be discharged like an enlisted man, or shuffled to some desk duty like an ordinary excess officer. But Roy was a State Alchemist, and one didn't--couldn't--resign from that. (Although, years later, Fullmetal seemed to think so, and Roy never disabused him of the notion, certain he could persuade Fullmetal to reclaim his pocket watch by less blunt means before it became a pressing issue. Fullmetal always treated the pocket watch as if it were the office itself. Roy hadn't even been issued a pocket watch until Marco had brought in his red stones.)
Roy was a State Alchemist, and that meant the State owned him, owned his alchemy, owned his research, owned his fire.
Before he went in to receive his chains and become the State's property again, Roy burned everything he'd been working on since he'd gotten home. He didn't want anyone to know what he'd been doing, or demand he do anything else with it. He created a special array to burn the notes, that mapped the course of the flames and wrote that map into a jewel--a ruby, that looked almost like one of the incomplete Philosopher's stones but wasn't, that hid in the rattlesome collection in his pocket watch. It wasn't a record of his efforts, to be read by anyone who knew it was there--it was only a record of how to reconstruct the record of his efforts, this bit of ash fits to this bit of ash, the most insane jigsaw in the world. And it was a useless record without the ashes themselves, which Roy filtered into half a dozen stoppered vials and hid in various places--under the loose stair halfway up to his apartment, in the heart of the elm tree in the park down the street, behind a fifth edition copy of Hasholles's Fasciculus Chemicus that hadn't been checked out of the Central Library since 357, in the base of the fountain in front of the Capitol, among assorted urns in the Kessler mausoleum, and on the spice rack in his kitchen.
If anyone besides Roy ever found all these vials of ashes and figured out how to use the ruby to return them to their previous form, they would still have to deal with Roy's code. All the women who'd thought they were sleeping with a war hero were in it, and Gracie, too--Gracie stood in for the incomplete Philosopher's stones Roy had been trying to purify, before he had abandoned that idea as unworkable.
Roy was fairly satisfied that his research into human transmutation was safe. Part of him wondered if he ever really meant to use it, if it had been worth it to make it possible to recreate it at all, or if he should have just burned it cleanly with a snap of his fingers and let the ashes fall to the wind. He still had that option, even now--to take out the vial nestled between dill and paprika, crush it, wash its contents down the drain. A sixth of the material gone would make the rest unreadable.
It would have been a waste of a truly inspired method of hiding information, though. Roy fingered the ruby, its flaws a secret code, and felt a certain pride in his ingenuity. It had been a while since alchemy had made him feel that, feel clever. His alchemy was usually about brute force, and control of brute force. It could be fine work, but not clever.
Roy liked feeling clever. As a result, he probably seemed unnecessarily cheerful when he finally went into to HQ to claim his medal and promotion. He probably managed to convince his superiors that he enjoyed his career in the milatary and would be a gung-ho lieutenant colonel, fulfilling his duties with zeal.
The idea of putting one over Grand and the rest was all that kept him from shuddering with disgust at the idea of himself as a model officer. Of all things. Zeal.
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I liked the insight into Roy's views of his alchemy and the idea of fire being used to create rather than just destroy.
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Roy: *snoozes in office until Hawkeye demands that he signs something at which point it's clearly time to wash all the windows!*
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