A/N: This fan fic is meant to be compilation of one-shorts, like a short story collection. Each chapter/story stands for itself, each one tells the story of different character and their experience of Ishbal war, and each one is inspired by and named after a certain song about the war.

As always, LovelyWeather was indeed lovely to edit this for me. In that name, I send her the green heart!

Reviews are welcome :)

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA or its characters. Some lines are quotes from Damien Rice's song "Lonely Soldier" and therefore I don't own them as well. I am not making any money of this.

I - Lonely Soldier (Roy Mustang)

song by Damien Rice

His steps were as hard as the ground he was walking on. With his back hunched and arms that uselessly hung beside his body, he tramped down the narrow pathway. The steps he made seemed like the steps of a man going to the slaughterhouse.

Ironically, he was coming back from it.

His breaths were sharp and he felt his every sigh cutting the air like a knife. It wasn't cold, but he was shivering. It wasn't too hot, but he was sweating as well. He wasn't tired, but each step was draining.

It was a terrible, long day.

It wasn't just this day, he reminded himself. Yet it all seemed like it could fit into a day. All of the destruction, all the flames, all the explosions and the shootings – it all seemed almost imaginary now, only a few hours after the declaration that it was over. Was this path this still during all that time? While, not so far away, people died and got killed like rabbits during the hunting season, this path was so peaceful, so green, so steady.

It seemed impossible that there was life waiting for him somewhere.

It seemed impossible that there was still life at all.

He guessed it was because he befriended death so dearly for all that time. She was his best companion on the battlefield, the one that was always there; the one that would always blow the last shot. It was so horrible. Yet, over there, amongst what became the ruins of an old city, it seemed so natural – so natural that he felt unsettled when he was in the nature, the nature that was so serene and so alive.

He was still wearing the blue uniform, with fraying hems and with traces of mud, but otherwise unharmed. It felt glued to his body. He would have to change; he would wear something different soon. He would take off that uniform, put it aside, put on normal clothes, those without any signs of blood, flame and death on it. A small chuckle dared escape his mouth – what a funny thought. It was all so simple. Outside of the war, life is just so simple and easy and that was funny to him.

Only then did he notice the child from the corner of his eye. A little boy, no more than eight years of age, was standing at the road alone, looking at him. He did not know for how long the boy had stood there, watching him drag himself in wooden steps. There was curiosity in the boy's eyes and he noticed the boy looked like he was struggling to say something, though the words came hard to him, as they always do when you are inquisitive eight-year-old child. The boy was already in the far right corner of his vision and he would soon pass him by, leave him standing on the dusty trail, wondering.

As if he had heard his thoughts, the child let out a tiny voice that was perfectly resonating at the stillness of a day like this. "Is the war over… sir?"

His heavy steps finally came to a halt, though did not turn. "Yes," he breathed out, "it finally is."

"Are you going back home?" the boy continued, encouraged by the answer.

"Of course."

"Are you happy to be back, sir?"

Only now did he decide to turn his head. He looked at the boy, at his smiling face, and the happiness he showed because the soldier was alive. The boy did not know him – he had never seen him before – but seeing him returning alive and well home was what made his day. He knew this because he had once been just like the boy. He had even had similar trousers.

He nodded without a word, managing to push out a smile over his gloomy face. The youngster brightened up even more and mumbled how he hopes the soldier will have a good trip back to his mother, before he turned and ran to his own mum to tell the story of a most peculiar lonely soldier he met.

Lonely soldier. Yes, that name suited him well.

He was exactly that, just one more lonely soldier returning home, alone, from the war, ready to step back into his past life. He did not lie to the boy; he was indeed happy to be back. But being back did not mean returning to the spot where his life at home had stopped – oh no! There were too many changes and he knew as well as anyone else that he would never again have one boring, normal day of life as before. He probably knew that when he joined army in the first place. Or even before, when he picked up his first alchemy book, when he drew his first circle, when the first sparkle of flame came out of his fingertips. However, maintaining the illusion that he was at peace, that he was returning to somewhere and something - that was what he was happy about. Good feet feel good giving up good boots.

Only the path stands still. Everything else has changed; even the little boy has been affected by the war happening in a far city where he might never go. They all have been, and now he could understand how a death of one man affected a million.

And they… They killed a million people. They changed history.

He was far from being proud. Lowering his head, as if it could change anything, he remembered that he did not want to kill anyone, although there was no memory at all in his brain when exactly did he know he was going to be killing people. Good eyes see nothing to shoot. Why did his see so many targets?

Only after so long, after so many deaths, he felt the floaters in his eyes. There was no wind he could blame them on. At least he did not need to excuse himself from anyone as he was all alone on this small path and he could cry for days if he wanted to. No one could see or hear him here, at least not anyone who wasn't supposed to. Taking advantage of that fact, he raised his head to the sun and let it dry his soaked cheeks; he was hiding the evidence.

The steps of the boy that had run to his mother a little while ago still echoed in his ears. He knew that, somewhere, he left a boy who could not run to his mother.

And it was his fault.

He did not mean to kill her! True, he did not mean to kill anyone – nevertheless he especially never planned on killing her. So many nights he stared at the dark trying to make a list of excuses, even though he knew none of them were good enough. They were all lousy excuses of a desperate man too selfish to admit it was his fault alone.

The whole situation was ridiculous! If the world had more taste for black humour, people would tell jokes about a silly alchemist who felt bad for killing a woman during a war! And not only that, they would all laugh at how he could feel bad about her after he killed at least ten others, her fellow citizens, only that day alone!? How hilarious it was, how silly the human conscience was!

Yet, he could not find anything amusing about it.

There was a trick. A simple trick, like a magician's one, trick that resembled a child's game "If I close my eyes, they won't see me." The trick was not to be there. The trick was to walk, aim and shoot, but not to be there, not to feel a thing. The trick was to pretend you are standing aside watching the killing happen, but not be a part of it, even when you are. You are just following the orders the man who knew what he was talking about advised him and he used that advice over any other. It wasn't his fault; it was his life or theirs. He was following orders. On that battlefield, he is not a person, he is not himself, he has no name, no surname, no family. He is nothing other than just another man in a blue uniform, a number that will rise on the scale of casualties if he dies. Whenever in doubt, whenever he felt a twitch of embarrassment, he remembered no one would spare him. Even though he was the side of the force, he was a potential target as any other. The chances of him dying were equal. And if he would die – he shivered – would anyone even find his corpse? Would they send it home? Would they recognize him or would he be put in the mass grave to become part of the fallen heroes who were nothing more but mere bones without names. He would always ask himself that before the shooting. And it would make him feel better.

And yet, that one time he did not dare comfort himself. Was there no time? He simply skipped the monologue in his head and pulled the trigger. After the shot was heard, there was no time for any comfort or self-manipulation. He clearheadedly saw what he had done. He actually saw death, all bloody and sweaty, for the first time, because for the first time he was there, he was in the game. He let himself participate, he let himself, the very Roy Mustang, kill someone and not blame it on a nameless number, a man in the uniform with no face or name.

And she was a civilian. She was a person. A mother. A wife. She was – and the thought of it would always stab him like the coldest dagger – around the same age his late mother was when she passed away. He needed no psychologist to realize what shattered him into a million pieces there – he knew the corpse of the woman reminded him too much of the corpse of the person who gave him life.

For the stable, coldhearted and stoic Roy Mustang it was impossible to make such a stupid, beginner's mistake like that. A soldier must know never to recognize himself in the victim, never to see his mother's eyes, brother's hair, father's hands. Once he does it, it is over; all that is left is a scared, crying, shattered man, on the verge of madness, and who needs anyone like that on the battlefield?! But not even Roy was without a mistake. He made a mistake more stupid than anyone, since the woman did not even look like his mother. Her skin was darker, she was taller, her eyes were red and she was the enemy. Still, the helpless state she was in after she fell down – that was what came over him in his nightmares.

It was in the way her arms were stretched out beside her body. It was in the way how thin she was, the way her hungry mouth was opened, stopped at the verge of a frightened shout. It was in the way she looked at him full of doubt when she saw him for the first time, when she asked him with her eyes if she could cross the road with her sons. Back then he had nodded, he could swear he even smiled at her, trying to reinsure her he was not dangerous, that he would not harm her. What a filthy liar he was!

"Civilians are not to be shot." - that was the rule that the military forgot with the first step into the battle. Even so, it was the rule that he tried to play along with. And now – now he broke it. He shot a helpless woman, a woman whose only mistake and sin was that she dropped a jug. Anytime now, the pair of small feet belonging to her kid would run into the room, rushing for a hug, before his frightened eyes would see the still mass on the floor that had once been his mother. The scene was overly familiar, because once upon a time he was in it. He was the boy rushing into the house, his little feet ran, his eyes cried afterward. This was the exact same scene- he was just playing the wrong part. For a few long moments he tried the explain to himself why he had been in the wrong place, shouldn't he be at the door of the house, why is he holding a gun, why do his hands tremble, why does he feel guilty…?

He killed. The thought of it finally sunk in his mind before he let the gun fall on the floor. He was the one who took a life. The woman that had her own life, thoughts and emotions just stopped existing, all of a sudden, and it was his fault. Ever since he let those thoughts invade his mind, he stopped being immune to them. Throughout the whole war he had never felt so vulnerable, not even when he was the target; however, in that moment, he felt as if someone skinned him alive.

His muscles strained at the very thought of that. And how could that be, that while a powerless and fragile woman lay dead by his hand over there, in Ishbal, the path he was walking on now was as still and sunny as ever? Shouldn't it be raining at this moment, at least? If it were raining it would feel better, the rain had that smell of sinister. Anything, anything would be better than the plain, happy sunshine! The sunshine just did not seem right!

He was still carrying that woman on his back. He could not put her corpse down and leave. Still, did it mean he would never live normally again? He had never found it so hard to walk before in his life. For all the time he had spent among the bodies and ruins, all he wanted was to be back home. He dreamed of this, he wished and smiled at the thought of feeling the sun of a free land on his face again! But now that he was living it, he felt bad. He felt as if he was slowly forgetting the victims, and a part of him wished to carry them forever – if he doesn't do it, who will?!

Was it all because he saw her before the shooting? Yes, it could be. There was some of it as well. Was it because she reminded him of his own late mother, who left him orphaned as this woman did to her son? Certainly. But it was more of what made him this bitter aside from this woman alone, he knew. She was a symbol, his own personal symbol of all those victims who were killed by his own flame. There was something that triggered off that voice in his head that hasn't stopped whispering since. And all the voice could say was "Why? Why? What is a good enough reason? Why?"

He could not admit that he knew no answer to it.

He could not admit there was no reason for it at all.

She startled him! Her jug fell, it cracked, and all he could think of was that it's over, he's dead, he has been shot down! Before he even realized that he was alive and well, before he noticed the noise had nothing to do with the noise of a gun, before he thought any of it, he saw her last look of horror, her life leaving her body, heard her silent scream.

He killed her. He watched her body fall down to the ground, he could not stop staring at her before he realized what he was doing, what he had been doing all this time. Killing. Death. Murder. Words were too simple for that very moment, the moment of disappearance of a person.

The trick was not to be there. Yet, finally, he was.

And a part of him was grateful for that. He did not cry over each and every victims of the war, he did not cry for all the bodies that burned down in his own fire, he did not cry for the whole Ishbal race that nearly vanished in blood and alchemy, but he did cry for her. For a simple, common woman that did not have to die. And when he cried for her, he was crying for the hundreds.

Where did he get these cuts on his hands? It seemed too blurry now. He instinctively looked at his palms with the small bruises on them. It was a miracle that he could see, suddenly he realized, it was a miracle he was alive. As if he needed to be assure himself of that fact, he finally stopped dragging his feet; he stood in the middle of the road and looked around. Now he was aware of the fact that he got out alive. The goal was accomplished. He looked at death every day, he summoned it, he played with it, but he was still alive. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing the leaves around, and there was even child's laughter somewhere in the distance. All these simple observations made him realize a magnificent fact - He was truly alive and well! He wished to share the miracle of it with someone, he wished to say to them how satisfied they must be to never know why sometimes someone just wants to die!

He was a simple soldier. A lonely soldier returning from the war where he met a thousands of people, where he was constantly surrounded by people, where he could not sleep from people yelling or running, laughing or crying, where he was never alone and, yet, he was so terribly lonely. He had killed so many people, even though he did not know them, he killed them and whenever he would add one more victim's blood on his hands, he felt lonelier. Death was a lousy companion; he had known that ever since he was a child. Why did he befriend her so dearly among the pale, old houses of Ishbal city?

Good eyes see nothing to shoot. And he still pulled the trigger.