Logogriph -
N. A word puzzle cryptic, usually an anagram.

Being a bartender of a particular calibre, Roy's foster mother, the Madame Christmas, had always been fond of idiomatic sayings and cynical life advice doled out in between long drags of her cigarette. And being a masterful informant, Chris Mustang was also partial to advising her foster son on the right sorts of choices to make. As she was often fond of reminding her dear Roy boy, contacts were assets, rivals were risks, but friends were liabilities.

So naturally, upon enrolling officially in the Amestrian Military Academy in Central City, Roy had gone about finding all three kinds of people. And in the case of Maes Hughes, all three types in one person.

It just stood to reason that that was Roy Mustang's bad luck.

"I don't know why you're acting like this is my fault somehow," came a harsh whisper from over Roy's shoulder. His eyes fluttered closed in annoyance, and Roy sucked in a breath, counting from ten before he turned to glare at the other cadet sitting behind him. Maes Hughes simply continued, as if he hadn't noticed the annoyance he was causing. "-if I hadn't have shown up and saved your cocky ass, you'd probably be in a lot worse trouble than our digging duties."

Roy snorted, and turned back to his desk, leaning back over the readings they were reviewing before class formally started back up again. "I wouldn't say I was being cocky. That would imply an overestimation of my abilities."

A low whistle struck up a note from behind him, and Roy felt the weight of Maes' feet push off on the back of his chair, as he titled back. "Two against one? They had you by the collar—"

"-And yet you were the one who drew a weapon. I've fought worse fights. But getting that much punishment this early into my military career wasn't what I was looking for." Roy said, tapping his open notebook with his pen. He looked out of the corner of his eyes back at Maes and then uncapped his pen. "-regardless."

"Regardless, if you're worried about me unseating your attempts at a pristine reputation for the Commanders here, don't worry. I'm not going to do it by getting you into trouble."

"That remains to be proven, seeing as how your unholstering a loaded weapon extended our punishment." Roy shot back, writing the date in the top corner of the left side of his notebook.

"We both went down for that one, didn't we?" Maes asked lightly, setting his chair back down on all fours as he leaned forwards again. "No, that's too easy. I'm just going to outscore Mister Top-of-the-Class. Beat you at your own game, like I've been doing."

That particular comment had Roy chuckling at the insistence of the Cadet behind him. True, Maes Hughes was good. Maybe he was the best damn cadet in their unit besides himself, but Hughes was not him. And while competition brought out the best in Roy's work, it was fairly clear in his eyes this was a place he couldn't be beat.

"By all means, if you weren't even trying before when you missed the perfect score on our last rifles session…"

"Hey," Hughes said sharply. "This is our intelligence class. My chosen speciality. Your ass is going to be soundly kicked."

Pen dancing across his page, Roy fought to keep amusement from his expression. Cadets weren't technically prepared to choose specialties, or even allowed, but Maes Hughes had made it clear he had a place he expected to be. A place that just happened to be in one of the most difficult sub-specialties to get into. Of course, his family before him had built up quite the rapport with their own military service. Hughes was as blue blooded Amestrian as a young man could get without coming with a blinding natural sheen and blond hair.

"I didn't know you had any intellect." Roy said calmly, wincing as Hughes kicked the back of his chair soundly in response. "At any rate, you think you can go toe to toe with me?" He ripped the page from his book, and passed it back.

It read: 'Arrive clutching darling, and enter the game. (7)'

It took the other man a moment to glance over the thing, before he looked up skeptically. "Pardon my Cretan, but what the fuck?" he said, tapping the edge of his desk in a show of the boundless energy Roy was beginning to notice he had.

"It's a word puzzle cryptic." Roy explained. The concept was easy enough, and if Hughes was all that interested in intel, the more codes he worked on, the better he would be at it. "Surely you can figure that out before the end of class. Seven's how to check the answer."

A huff of exasperation echoed back in response, and Roy smiled to himself as he leaned back over his paper.

"This is ridiculous. You're like my Nan and her crossword puzzles." Hughes complained.

"Well if you can't do it, don't bother. In the mean time, some of us are used to working on complex logical puzzles," Roy said, ducking his head down.

"I'll do it, if only so you'll stop being a prick. I'm amazed more people haven't tried to kick your head in." Hughes retorted, picking up a pencil.

"I could say the same for you." He said simply, before falling into silence for the remainder of the class break.

Returning to his own train of thought, he began to scrawl out a brief letter he'd been meaning to send for nearly two months now.

Miss Hawkeye, it began, under the date of '1903 Oct. 28th'. Roy bit his lip in thought, and began to write as much as he could manage in the small amount of time he had left before their commanders and instructors walked back into the room. You can't say I have been slacking on my studies, given that this has been the first moment of free time I've had to write a single letter. So don't worry about that. The pen hesitated, dripping ink onto the page as Roy wondered about the truthfulness of his statement. Technically, after the beginning hell week had been over, he did have free time, but that had been largely superseded by his punishment for having gotten into a fight with upperclassmen cadets.

He continued on, elaborating as best he could in a way that he knew would probably invoke Riza's normal look of exasperation as she read the letter. While Roy couldn't explain exactly what it was about that expression that got to him, it gave him the distinct feeling that she was putting upwith him for some reason. And yet…she seemed to enjoy that part too.

Thanks to the help of a Cadet by the name of Hughes, I've been pulling double duty on latrines and digging, as well as the mess. I won't bore you with the details, but the trouble we got into was to protect someone. Commander Oswin wasn't happy in the slightest, but he consulted with Srgt. Wells and we were let off with just punishment and a warning. Bad enough, in my book.

There was time, Roy was sure, to mention Heathcliff, the young Ishvalan cadet who seemed to be faring well now that his biggest bullies were nursing black eyes. But dwelling on the more gory details of the moment seemed like the wrong thing to say in his first letter back, so he picked up his pen, and moved on.

The other Cadet we were helping, Arbor, is a nice enough person. He's being punished too, unfortunately, but there was no getting around it. We all were, including upperclassmen Cadets Roswell and Eames. Aside from that mishap though, things here aren't too unusual. We don't earn leave until our second month is over, and even considering that, I don't think plans to go out are necessarily in my best interests yet.

Given that the only 'friends' of any sort he'd made so far happened to be Hughes and Heathcliff, he could only imagine the enormous amount of trouble he'd be dragged into given half the chance. It wasn't something he was wholly looking forwards to.

I'm sure you're having much more fun than I am. Not because I necessarily think Yvette and Octavia are more pleasurable company than I am, but because being miserable is, apparently, the character building portion of your military experience. I wouldn't say I'm miserable, but—

But he did feel a sense of nagging that hadn't quite left since he had departed the Hawkeye household.

—The food could be more pleasant. Don't you think Ursula is a sinister name for the head of a messhall?

The lack of excellent meals aside, I thought I would send you a little something. I know you're quite good at Xerxian translations, and I thought you'd enjoy other sorts of word puzzles. This one should be easy:

Del. (9, 8)

Though I knew they SAID I did it

It's a shame I wasn't ACQUITTED

Good luck.

— R. Mustang.

From behind him, a voice piped up. "I got it. You're on."

Welcome to the sequel of The Concupiscence Conjectures! (Which don't worry, you don't need to have read, necessarily, although this will be much more enjoyable if you do.) The entirety of this sequel is already completely written, and will be updated once weekly. Unlike the Conjectures, The Logogriph letters has a slightly different flare to it - besides having both Roy and Riza's POVs, each chapter will contain several word puzzles within the letters. These puzzles will generally be cryptics, and the answers to the previous chapter's puzzles will be posted at the beginning of the following chapter. They are written in such a way that hopefully you will lose nothing if you don't solve them, but if you do, feel free to guess the answers!

Here's an example of a Beheadment puzzle:

Behead something used to climb and get a viper. (6, 5)

The sentence is the puzzle. The numbers tell you the number of letters in the word answers.

The solution is: Ladder, Adder.

One of Roy's codes is marked "del." for a deletion puzzle, meaning that a letter must be removed from one of the solutions to reach the other, but does not necessarily have to be the first letter of the word like a beheadment. If this seems a little confusing, well, that's why it's a puzzle! If you feel up to it, read his letter closely, try your hands at cracking the puzzles, and if you need help with flats, I recommend the National Puzzler's League. As Sherlock Holmes would say, The game is afoot!

Edited to Add: Apologies for the lack of italicizing on the letter at first. Fanfiction removed all my editing from the body of the text somehow. If at any point something about the formatting seems off, please tell me, and feel free to read from Archive of Our Own in the meantime, which is always better formatted/edited, and easier to read in my humble opinion. I also post updates there about twenty minutes sooner. ;) This is rather frustrating as the letter is obviously the most important part and I originally wrote it in italics, so one should thing the uploads would follow suit...