![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
artillie.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
femgenficathonTitle: The Places You'll Go
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xskadi
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Prompt: 181. Women have had the power of naming stolen from us. We have not been free to use our own power to name ourselves, the world, or God. --Mary Daly
Summary: Hawkeye and Ishval, and the people she met.
During basic training, Riza Hawkeye makes up names for the classes she has to take. "Desert Survival," for example, becomes, "We Screwed Up Out There in Ishval, So Here's How Not to Repeat Our Mistakes." Advanced sharpshooting becomes "How to Kill a Man and Not Get Blood on Your Uniform," mandatory lessons in Amestrisian are "Assuming That Some of You Actually Survive, Here's How Not to Look like a Moron When We Stick You with a Boring Desk Job," and so on and so forth.
She keeps these names to herself—she's a good soldier. Her record with the instructors and drill sergeants is stainless. She takes all of their criticisms, from "get that rifle up, cadet, higher, this isn't the county fair" to "I don't like that look in your eye, get to the end of the food line, you maggot" unflinchingly. This has earned her awe from the rest of the cadets, who haven't yet learned how not to grumble or roll their eyes.
(Of course, two years ago, she wouldn't have had earned any sort of awe. At the beginning of the rebellion, Fuhrer Bradley gave moving speeches about Our Women at Home aiding the war effort. When it started becoming a PR nightmare, he suddenly had a lot to say about Our Women in Uniform. Social change in Amestris is always brought about by some combination of necessity and hypocrisy. Hawkeye doesn't care.)
*
On the train to Ishval, Hawkeye meets a talkative, bespectacled young man by the name of Maes Hughes. He shows her pictures of his girlfriend in Central and asks her all kinds of personal questions, such as, you wouldn't happen to be a lesbian, would you? Because I know some very good girls…
She likes that he doesn't notice that she hasn't said a word since he started talking, and if he does, he's more than willing to talk for the both of them.
There's something about the desert they're travelling through that calms her when she looks out the window at it, and it's a terrifying kind of peace. Turning away, she asks Hughes to show him his girlfriend again, and he sheepishly confesses that they're all candid photos, and he hasn't gotten the nerve up to ask her out yet. But I will!
With anyone else, this would have been creepy, but he can pull it off just fine.
*
"Riza," Hughes says, trying to entice her with familiarity, "you could put those guns together wasted, blindfolded, and with one hand tied behind your back. Come out and have some fun—we've got ladies!"
Hawkeye knows that the best way to argue with him is to say nothing at all. She studies the gun in front of her—Hughes is right, she could assemble it blindfolded. One-handed would be difficult, though, inebriated is completely out of the question.
One of Hughes' friends says, "Everyone knows that snipers are uptight. The only thing worse to have at a party would be an alchemist. Oh—sorry, Major Mustang, I didn't know you were there." She starts to take it apart.
"I went deaf for a moment there—did you say something?" a drained voice replies, and she would recognise it anywhere. That night, she doesn't go out drinking with them, but she breaks her personal record twice.
*
Two soldiers guard the supply tent. She calls them Wink and Blink, which delights them to no end. In return, they call her their golden goddess (as if such blatant flattery could move her. Hawkeye isn't a beautiful woman. When she tells them that, they tell her that, no, she's not, she's striking, and that's better than beautiful. Years later, she mentions this to Mustang, and he just smiles) and slip her chocolate and coffee whenever they can. All of it goes into the Shutting Hughes Up Fund.
*
Hawkeye names the first man she kills at close range Michael. A good, strong name, she thinks.
Michael, she imagines, has a wife, Sarah, whom he loves very much, though recently they've been arguing about his involvement with the rebels. Michael points out that he's putting food on the table, and Sarah worries that he's going to get killed running that very food across the army's lines. At the end of the argument, they embrace and he puts his hands over her belly, where his unborn child rests. They want three—one boy and two girls, two pretty little girls.
This story takes all of five seconds to compose, which is five times longer than it took for the man to die. She wasn't even supposed to kill him. But she saw red eyes, and her training took over—bang, bang, end of story.
But her training didn't prepare her for washing bloodstains out of her uniform.
*
After the war, Hawkeye falls out of touch with Hughes, but for the occasional letter, photograph, or phone call, though those are usually for the colonel. When he's waiting on the line for Mustang, Hughes asks her if she's met any nice women lately, and for a moment, they're back on that train.
She falls into touch with a number of people she can't name. The five of them plus Mustang, or Mustang plus the five of them, are eventually transferred to East, and Havoc, who's the kind of guy that says what everyone else is thinking, baptises it The Asshole of Amestris. Breda snickers appreciatively, and she, Fuery, and Falman pretend to not have heard him.
She toys with calling Breda "E4" after the square his king was on when he lost latest chess game to the colonel and Havoc "Buck," because he seems like a Buck, but she'd left her skill with the man in the desert.
And maybe, she thinks, watching Fuery and Falman try to teach Black Hayate (her latest failed naming attempt) how to sit, the latter giving the former directions out of a book, the names they have now are good enough.
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Author:
xskadiRating: G
Warnings: None
Prompt: 181. Women have had the power of naming stolen from us. We have not been free to use our own power to name ourselves, the world, or God. --Mary Daly
Summary: Hawkeye and Ishval, and the people she met.
During basic training, Riza Hawkeye makes up names for the classes she has to take. "Desert Survival," for example, becomes, "We Screwed Up Out There in Ishval, So Here's How Not to Repeat Our Mistakes." Advanced sharpshooting becomes "How to Kill a Man and Not Get Blood on Your Uniform," mandatory lessons in Amestrisian are "Assuming That Some of You Actually Survive, Here's How Not to Look like a Moron When We Stick You with a Boring Desk Job," and so on and so forth.
She keeps these names to herself—she's a good soldier. Her record with the instructors and drill sergeants is stainless. She takes all of their criticisms, from "get that rifle up, cadet, higher, this isn't the county fair" to "I don't like that look in your eye, get to the end of the food line, you maggot" unflinchingly. This has earned her awe from the rest of the cadets, who haven't yet learned how not to grumble or roll their eyes.
(Of course, two years ago, she wouldn't have had earned any sort of awe. At the beginning of the rebellion, Fuhrer Bradley gave moving speeches about Our Women at Home aiding the war effort. When it started becoming a PR nightmare, he suddenly had a lot to say about Our Women in Uniform. Social change in Amestris is always brought about by some combination of necessity and hypocrisy. Hawkeye doesn't care.)
*
On the train to Ishval, Hawkeye meets a talkative, bespectacled young man by the name of Maes Hughes. He shows her pictures of his girlfriend in Central and asks her all kinds of personal questions, such as, you wouldn't happen to be a lesbian, would you? Because I know some very good girls…
She likes that he doesn't notice that she hasn't said a word since he started talking, and if he does, he's more than willing to talk for the both of them.
There's something about the desert they're travelling through that calms her when she looks out the window at it, and it's a terrifying kind of peace. Turning away, she asks Hughes to show him his girlfriend again, and he sheepishly confesses that they're all candid photos, and he hasn't gotten the nerve up to ask her out yet. But I will!
With anyone else, this would have been creepy, but he can pull it off just fine.
*
"Riza," Hughes says, trying to entice her with familiarity, "you could put those guns together wasted, blindfolded, and with one hand tied behind your back. Come out and have some fun—we've got ladies!"
Hawkeye knows that the best way to argue with him is to say nothing at all. She studies the gun in front of her—Hughes is right, she could assemble it blindfolded. One-handed would be difficult, though, inebriated is completely out of the question.
One of Hughes' friends says, "Everyone knows that snipers are uptight. The only thing worse to have at a party would be an alchemist. Oh—sorry, Major Mustang, I didn't know you were there." She starts to take it apart.
"I went deaf for a moment there—did you say something?" a drained voice replies, and she would recognise it anywhere. That night, she doesn't go out drinking with them, but she breaks her personal record twice.
*
Two soldiers guard the supply tent. She calls them Wink and Blink, which delights them to no end. In return, they call her their golden goddess (as if such blatant flattery could move her. Hawkeye isn't a beautiful woman. When she tells them that, they tell her that, no, she's not, she's striking, and that's better than beautiful. Years later, she mentions this to Mustang, and he just smiles) and slip her chocolate and coffee whenever they can. All of it goes into the Shutting Hughes Up Fund.
*
Hawkeye names the first man she kills at close range Michael. A good, strong name, she thinks.
Michael, she imagines, has a wife, Sarah, whom he loves very much, though recently they've been arguing about his involvement with the rebels. Michael points out that he's putting food on the table, and Sarah worries that he's going to get killed running that very food across the army's lines. At the end of the argument, they embrace and he puts his hands over her belly, where his unborn child rests. They want three—one boy and two girls, two pretty little girls.
This story takes all of five seconds to compose, which is five times longer than it took for the man to die. She wasn't even supposed to kill him. But she saw red eyes, and her training took over—bang, bang, end of story.
But her training didn't prepare her for washing bloodstains out of her uniform.
*
After the war, Hawkeye falls out of touch with Hughes, but for the occasional letter, photograph, or phone call, though those are usually for the colonel. When he's waiting on the line for Mustang, Hughes asks her if she's met any nice women lately, and for a moment, they're back on that train.
She falls into touch with a number of people she can't name. The five of them plus Mustang, or Mustang plus the five of them, are eventually transferred to East, and Havoc, who's the kind of guy that says what everyone else is thinking, baptises it The Asshole of Amestris. Breda snickers appreciatively, and she, Fuery, and Falman pretend to not have heard him.
She toys with calling Breda "E4" after the square his king was on when he lost latest chess game to the colonel and Havoc "Buck," because he seems like a Buck, but she'd left her skill with the man in the desert.
And maybe, she thinks, watching Fuery and Falman try to teach Black Hayate (her latest failed naming attempt) how to sit, the latter giving the former directions out of a book, the names they have now are good enough.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}