I Have Saved All My Favors for Thee - Royai, royalty AU, ~1.5k, rated T
Riza is the newly named heir to the throne. Roy is an unimportant knight, just like he's always been.
Luckily, one of them doesn't care.
written for @ficwip's Valentines event
on AO3 or below
The crown suits her better than he thought it would. The king's crown, her grandfather's crown, is the same shade of gold as her hair, but the crown princess's is a paler shade, set with light blue gems and inlaid with mother of pearl. It suits her coloring beautifully. She's dressed simply otherwise, at least by court standards: a deep blue gown embroidered with flowers in a paler blue and yellow at the collar, cuffs and hem. Her wide girdle is green brocade with a pattern of Amestrian dragons and black foxes, the symbol of House Grumman. With her hair down to her shoulders and a simple necklace of pale gold links around her neck, she's the picture of royalty, and royalty also suits her. The woman Roy remembers, whose armor was plain steel without sigil or ornament, her hair cropped as short as a man's and her face as often bruised from battle as any of his band of hedge knights, looks very different below the throne room dais.
Roy knows he's looking at Sir Riza Hawkeye, even if her name and title have changed. He isn't going to do her the disservice of assuming the change in appearance is accompanied by a shift in personality. But he can't help feeling a trepidation he never has before. He watches the ceremony that officially makes her heir to the throne with a sinking feeling. Whatever comes now, things between them will never be the same.
When it's his turn to swear to uphold her place as rightful heit, he does as he's supposed to without reservation for once in his life. He takes a knee, he kisses her ring without brazenly staring her in the eye. He's her man, in a way he'll never be her grandfather's, but as high as he may yet climb beneath this new king, he'll never be her equal.
Princess Elizabeth Grumman does not do as she's supposed to. When a hedgeknight who was of no particular importance before the civil war and who has no particular power afterward kisses her ring, she puts a hand on his cheek, almost cradling his face in her hand. And Roy looks up at Riza, just for a moment, and sees the same affection in her eyes he saw when they parted months ago.
Maybe they're not done yet. Maybe.
Roy is in one of the grand corridors of the castle, looking for Lord Raven, the third of six men he needs to make sure he impresses in the next week. Those are the only lords he's willing to attach his band to. If he can't entice an offer out of any of them… well, he had been planning to set out for foreign lands with whichever of his men wanted to join him. He's pretty sure he's made enough of an impression on the Xerxian ambassador that he could get them a contract there, though it's hard to tell with Hohenheim. But that plan had come before the crown princess looked at him like she was still his closest companion, like they were still sworn to each other. That single look shouldn't be enough to make him so unsure. He should investigate, yes, but where could this even lead? To a place as her personal guards, probably. He doesn't think he could stand that, to be so close to her but so far apart in rank and status. Besides, the required oaths would lock him out of the kind of political power he wants. But he'd need to put the question to the others. It wouldn't be right to unilaterally deny them a comfortable post if it was offered.
Which it hasn't been. She looked at him and touched his cheek. He doesn't know what that means yet.
"Roy."
Her voice stops him in his tracks, but by the time he's turned to face her he has on an appropriate expression: respectful, but not actually neutral. He doesn't know who he is to her now, but the crown princess of Amestris has acknowledged him, and her entourage will expect a reaction.
Except there is no entourage. There's just her.
"Your royal highness?"
He doesn't mean for it to come out a question, but it does.
"Is what all I am to you now?" she says, and there's a hint of her old dry humor in her voice, and also a fragility he isn't used to.
He should reply. He should tell her that it's her decision, but do it in a way that suggests how useful he can be, maybe evokes their time together. Or he should say something witty that emphasizes how useful he's been to her grandfather's cause since they were separated. Or he should tell her no, how could she be? She could never be 'just' anything to him.
But he doesn't do any of those. He stands stock still, and he looks into the eyes of the woman he once thought he would spend his life beside, one way or another.
"Are we allowed to be anything but what we are now, Riza?" Her old name feels sweet on his lips, and he wonders if it will be the last time he speaks it.
And suddenly her gaze is steel and her fists are clenched by her sides. Her necklace and rings catch the sunlight streaming in through one narrow window. Even with her crown safely stowed away, she's wearing jewels worth as much as Roy's arms and armor put together. But her expression is familiar. It's the same one she always wore when she was waiting very, very patiently until they were alone, rather than chewing him out in front of the whole company.
"I'm the heir to the throne, Roy. The only direct descendant. I think I have some agency here."
She had been standing several paces away, maintaining the appropriate respectful distance. She closed that distance in three steps, and he had to hold himself back from laying a hand on her shoulder, or clasping her arm, or, gods help him, touching her on the cheek the way she had him only an hour past. He held still, but he held her gaze.
"Marry me," she said, and the words might as well be a guantletted fist to Roy's face.
"Don't be ridiculous." It came out without thought, and it came out angry, through clenched teeth.
It was the two things he wanted most in the world. As the crown princess's husband—as king consort, gods help him—he would have real power, be able to make real changes in Amestris. And he would have Riza. It was a possibility they had only ever whispered to each other once, the night before the battle that had separated them.
It was impossible, and she knew it. He turned away from her, protocol be damned, and started down the corridor.
How dare she? How dare she pretend we could—
She caught him by the wrist, tugged him back toward her.
"Don't walk away from me, Roy Mustang," she said still holding on to him. "I'm not an idiot. I know what I'm saying."
"Do you? You'd be throwing away the strongest diplomatic bargaining chip you have. A strategic marriage—"
"Roy. Do you really think I haven't thought this through?"
He didn't know. He wasn't letting himself consider it, or any other context, because the more closely he examined the offer the more it would hurt to walk away from her.
"The rest of my life is going to be dedicated to Amestris. Every decision I make from now on has to be for the good of the country. I want something, one thing, that's not for everyone else. I need one thing that's mine. I chose my marriage. I choose you."
And then she took a step forward and pressed her lips to his.
There were two things Roy Mustang wanted most in the world, bur in that moment he couldn't have told you what the first one was if his life depended on it. He leaned into the kiss, raised his hands to cradle her face. Her hand on his wrist dropped away, reappeared on the back of his neck pressing him further into the kiss. She parted her lips under his, an invitation he answered without hesitating.
When they finally pulled apart, flushed and breathless, he kept his hands on her face.
"Does the king know?" Roy said.
"He knows. This was one of my conditions for becoming his heir." She smiled at him, tucking an errand strand of hair behind her ear. "It will take some work to get him used to the idea, but I'm sure you're up to it, sweetheart."
She had never called him anything like that before. It has been a long time since anyone had.
"Sweetheart," he repeated back to her. "Riza."
And he pulled her close for another kiss.
