The grit of the poorly graveled road crunches unevenly under his boots, an irregular staggering tattoo. Somehow it feels like it should be sharper, should be the steady march of doom, of inevitability. Something more... or less, perhaps. Less feeling, less doubtful, less regretful of ever saying yes. Through the bloodstained days in Ishval he didn't even breathe a word of regard to her. It would have been entirely too dangerous. Never mind the risk of court martial, the whims of battle can hard to ignore.

Even to a confirmed atheistic scientist as himself.

Don't leave an argument unsettled, don't call a fight over until you are well off the front lines, don't trust a gun to ever be out of bullets.

Don't let the fates know you care more than you ought.

Still - days, months, seasons, years have gone by, and that doesn't mean he loves Riza Hawkeye any less than the last time he told her, before he knew that his master, her father, was fast headed toward his grave.

And he promised to burn the last research of Flame Alchemy.

Mustang roundly curses himself for a fool as he trudges up the path, his pack heavier with every step.

Damn, this place looks even more like shit than it once did.