Flashbacks of Shu

[Shula Brighton]

(Taking place at South HQ, shortly after Shula joined when she was 18)

~The Sacrifice~

“I still don't think what you're doing is a good idea,” Gustav said with a sigh, crossing his arms over his chest. He knew that Shula hadn't been fitting in well at the South HQ base, well being at all. And he understood that she was frustrated, he did, especially after the tiny young woman had caught wind of how several people were taking bets as to how long it would be before she quit. That had, more or less, been the last straw that pushed her to do this. Teal eyes closed as he shook his head, looking up at the changing screen. “First the hair, now your clothes?”

“Gu-stav, we've been over this,” Shula replied with a groan, a small brown hand reaching up to hang her red sari over the screen's top. “You and I both know they'll never accept me or even see me as one of them unless I compromise.” It was racism and everyone knew it, but nobody really could or would say anything. When they'd heard that the granddaughter of the Eyes High alchemist would be joining South just as her grandfather had before her, there had been a small murmur about it through a few departments and a bit of interest. In his time, Ulrich had been a more than impressive alchemist and an exemplary leader; when she'd arrived and they'd had one solid look at her, reputation and skill stopped having any real meaning.

She had done her best to ignore it all at first, hoping that as long as she persevered and kept her good work ethic, eventually everyone would look past her being the token Ishvallan, After all, eventually the other kids in Meissan had accepted Aaron, and he kept getting into fights with them. Then again, she'd never gone to school like he had, and hadn't learned how to get along with people who hated you for no particular reason. Gustav looked at the changing screen, very curious and yet a little uneasy about the changes taking place before him. Since Shula had started at South, he'd been the only one who wanted to sit with her at lunch, or take the time to get to know her, and ruin everybody else's fun when they would try to prank her into wasting her time to find things that didn't exist.

The changes she was making, Shula insisted, were only cosmetic. She would still be herself, but if it was appearances that were the deciding factor in things, hers would have to change. But once you change the outside, how long until the inside starts changing, too, Gustav wondered. Tell a lie and wear a mask long enough, eventually you'll start to believe it as truth yourself. It seemed to be all happening so quickly, but Gustav had been finding out quickly that once Shula had made up her mind to do something, very little in the universe could stop her completely. She'd been there for three months, and he'd been her friend for all but two weeks of it. Now, in just the span of a day, he'd seen her pushed to her breaking point. When he'd gone to her apartment to check on her last night and found the tiny Ishvallan on her knees on the kitchen floor surrounded by large clumps of snowy hair and her thick braid on the floor at her knees, Gustav was worried she'd either lost her mind or hurt herself. But the first thing to go had been the white braid that had hung down to her knees and a little past them when it wasn't braided.

He'd had to help even it out, of course. Shula had never really had her hair cut and only trimmed the edges, and cutting the braid straight across had made it three different lengths. What was left a white mess of fringe that was a bit longer in the front than the back, and ended just at her thin shoulders. It was hardly enough to pull into a tiny, awkward ponytail that spiked at the ends slightly and tried to curl under toward her neck. The two longest parts of her fringe Gustav had braided in front of either ear to try and balance the somewhat choppy and uneven style. If that hadn't been enough, Shula had somehow talked her friend into sitting in the kitchen with her and dying her hair a dark honey-gold. He'd never tell his friend he'd tied off her braid and kept it.

“Well, what do you think?” Gustav looked up to the screen again as Shula stepped out from behind it, her eyes downcast. She was trembling slightly, as though she were anticipating the wrath of Ishvalla himself to come crashing down upon her for what she was doing. Short gold hair was pulled into its spiky ponytail, and she stood blushing rather darkly as her hands pulled behind her back. Gustav's eyes widened in shock at what he was seeing. The white pleated miniskirt barely reached to the middle of her brown thighs, honestly qualifying as just barely more than a glorified headband for her ass. The lady at the shop said they were all the rage and was sure to get her noticed. The pale pink baby doll t-shirt hugged Shula's lithe frame and almost augmented her rather inconsequential bosom. Slowly Shula looked up at her best friend, shaking slightly and looking positively ill. The overall look was very cute, but her more than obvious discomfort ruined it completely.

“It's cute,” Gustav started quietly, tipping Shula's chin up a little higher as he looked her over. “But you really don't look like yourself, Bright Eyes. Not at all.” Shula frowned slightly, folding her arms over her chest.

“Well, duh. Isn't that the point here? But dressed like this, will they like me better?” Gustav sighed heavily, running his hand through his own platinum hair.

“Let's be real here. You're not even comfortable with what you're wearing. How do you expect to keep up this kind of charade? And even if they do bite, then it'll still be empty because they're only liking you for being something you and everyone else in creation knows isn't true.” He looked his friend up and down again before reaching into one of the clothes bags and pulled out a pair of low-rise jeans and then the pale blue and silver choli top she'd been wearing earlier that day. “What you're doing now is too extreme. They'll never buy it and still shun you. But a smaller change that shows more compromise... That might work a little better for you and them.”

Shula took the offered clothing and vanished behind the screen again, sighing in frustration. “I know... But I can't let this go on, Gustav. They're rejecting me on the fact that I'm half Ishvallan and too traditional to be seen as one of them. Right now I'm just part of some integration program for all they care. So... I'll become more Amestrian, if that's what it takes. Then they'll see me as one of them, and eventually I'll be an equal.”

“Yeah... At the cost of yourself, though! You're sacrificing who and what you are for the approval of shallow idiots?” There was a small thunk as Shula bonked her forehead against the screen with a small groan. Dammit. When he was right he was right... Why'd he have to be right so often?

“Shallow idiots that we both have to salute and obey,” she grumbled as she finished buttoning her top. “So until then.... I guess it's a necessary sacrifice just to get a little closer.” Shula emerged from behind the screen again, looking much more at ease with her attire. Modern and traditional mixed, the finishing touch coming as Gustav tied the light blue scarf around her hip.

But don't you understand, Shula? You're just an empty cage if you kill the bird.