#these lyrics got me thinking about riza and her perception of self-control

[tsaritsa]

brimstone in my garden

for royai week 2020 (day 2). mother mother’s song little pistol was a lot of fun to play around with. technically, this is the first part (with the latter being completed with old wounds for tomorrow’s prompt, but this can be read as a stand-alone).

and now i want brimstone in my garden i want roses set on fire

When she was a younger girl, in more tender and innocent years, Riza remembers reading an anthology of fairy tales. One story always stood out to her – a witch, a hag, a crone (the details never mattered, never mattered) asked three sisters three times if they would draw water from a well for her to drink. The first two were selfish and snobby and spoiled and refused to help every request, but the third (and it was always the third sister – the number three seemed to follow Riza wherever she went in her life) took pity and drew the water on the third, begged request.  

In return for her good deed, whenever she spoke, pearls and diamonds and gold dust would flutter from her mouth. The other sisters got gifts like toads and snakes. In theory, it sounded like a fair exchange. What could be more beautiful, a more just gift for one act of kindness than choking on precious gems and metals?

Riza wonders what the crone would give her. Did the sum of her life determine her gifts? Toads and asps wouldn’t be fitting for her. Would blood flow from her mouth like a river whenever she dared to open her mouth? Would it spill out, overflowing from her eyes, nostrils, ears? Would she be judged against the sheer want to make the world a better place? Or perhaps every act would be judged on their own merits: a thousand years of choking on blood for the sum of lived life she took away before its time.

Her maudlin moods are becoming more a common occurrence these days, in spite of her focus being pulled in what feels like seventy-three different directions. To her left, the Colonel is deep in conversation on the phone; the newly-instated Führer, she surmises, judging by the tone and inflections he uses. Both of them are used to playing the roles George Grumman has created and expected for them in his own little design of what the world ought to be. Is it the lack of apparent change in their circumstances that is rubbing at her, despite the very world heaving and shuddering beneath their feet just eight days before?

Perhaps it’s the renegotiation of their lives that has her off-kilter. She finds herself more distracted these days, more than she should be. Their recovery, both physical (and otherwise) should be as simple as it is on paper. More blood transfusions, more bandages, more bags of morphine. All little forms of equivalent exchange.

Her gaze refocuses, and she sees the Colonel staring at her intently. The phone is back in its cradle next to his hospital bed. Truthfully, she couldn't answer to how long she's been lost in her head. Perhaps part of it is the morphine she's on – the bag is replaced like clockwork every morning. She should be upset at her inability to focus on her raison d'être. She doesn’t want to contemplate about whether it is a lack of focus, or a change in focus.

"You're thinking again," he says.

"I'm always thinking, sir."

The Colonel hums. He's been doing a lot of that lately. Humming his thoughts. Watching her. Noticing her.

It's unnerving because she's the one who is meant to have her eyes squarely trained on his back. This scrutiny is not... normal from him. She is not used to it, and certainly not from him. She can think of two-hundred and thirty-two issues off the top of her head that should be taking precedence. People to contact, legislation to draft, connections and favours to call upon, years in the making. But instead, it appears like she's become his new default. It's unusual, and an unwelcome deviation from the plan. Their plan.

These things come in threes; she tells herself. One, two, thr-

"Riza."

No blood falls from his mouth when he says her name. No flames unfurl, like a dragon awakening from a deep slumber. Just her name, falling as delicately as pearls, or diamonds, or gold dust.

"Sir," she responds carefully, after a moment. There's a warning nestled in her diction. Another kind of pistol trained on him right now, to the right of his sternum and just a few centimetres down.

He shakes his head, rising from his bed, walking the scant steps that separate them. She liked that space. It gave her control, gave her power in a world where she was afforded very little to begin with.

"Riza," he repeats. His expression is plainer, more obvious. Begging? Perhaps. But she'd never give him the satisfaction of acknowledging this anymore than he already has, because then she'll be choking on bloodied emotions she's been repressing for well over a decade. Did she dream of this? A different kind of fairy tale, where the morals got all muddled in the beginning.

His bandaged hands grasp hers, his thumbs traversing the rises and dips of her knuckles. She's well aware of her trembling. She's done so well to refuse him so far. Before he left for the academy. Before he left for Ishval.

One, two, three.

and now i found brimstone in my garden i found roses set on fire

(diamonds and toads, most famously attributed to charles perrault, is the fairy tale that riza is alluding to. i wrote this out in full before actually bothering to fact-check the points of the story lol, so there’s a bit of a contextual difference in the morals here – but hey, amestris isn’t exactly analogous to western folklore so i’d say i’m off the hook for now).