{"id":69,"date":"2005-12-13T12:51:52","date_gmt":"2005-12-13T17:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alltrees.org\/Branch\/archive\/?p=69"},"modified":"2012-02-09T19:41:31","modified_gmt":"2012-02-10T00:41:31","slug":"counterpoint-pick-up-sticks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.branchandroot.net\/archive\/2005\/12\/counterpoint-pick-up-sticks\/","title":{"rendered":"Counterpoint &#8211; Pick Up Sticks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lisa rolled her favorite pen between her fingers, smoothing her thumb up and       down the cool, green enamel. It had been a present, years ago, from her mother,       and she had never found another that weighed as well in her hand.<\/p>\n<p>Today it seemed a little heavier than usual.<\/p>\n<p>She rested her chin on her fist and stared down at the blank paper in front       of her.<\/p>\n<p>Roy would be in motion again, soon. He probably didn&#8217;t know it, yet, but she      was sure of it. She had watched him recovering from his physical injuries,      and the progress of the wound  that his discharge had dealt      him wasn&#8217;t all that different. He was still drifting; but he was drifting      closer and closer back to the current of pure idealism that had carried      his cold and ruthless manipulations along at such an incredible speed.<\/p>\n<p>And when that current took him again, it would take her, too.<\/p>\n<p>Lisa tapped a nail against the pen, each click firm and clear. She&#8217;d decided,       about a year into her tenure as Roy&#8217;s second, that her life would be far       easier if the reasons she loved him were different from the reasons she      followed  him. Everything would be simpler if she could separate the two.      But the brilliant,  wild, arrogant precision that had caught her intellect,      and the rage and  compassion that had captured her loyalty, were the same      things that fascinated  her heart. And that was that.<\/p>\n<p><em>Act like what you want to be to him.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It would be easier to follow Gracia&#8217;s very good advice if there were fewer       things she wanted to be to him.<\/p>\n<p><em>Act like what you want to be&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Lisa&#8217;s head came up, and she took a grip on her pen and pulled the paper toward       her. What she wanted to be was the kind of person Roy Mustang would be proud       to stand beside. Whether he ever noticed it or not was beside the point.<\/p>\n<p>She would be that kind of person because it was what <em>she<\/em> wanted.<\/p>\n<p>And if her own past could serve that goal, then she would use it.<\/p>\n<p>She lifted the pen her mother had given her and wrote down an address she      hadn&#8217;t visited since she was eighteen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TBC<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lisa chooses a new direction to move in. <span class=\"summary-meta\">Drama, I-3<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"teaser\">\n<p>Roy would be in motion again, soon. He probably didn&#8217;t know it, yet, but she was sure of it.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,16,507,508],"tags":[97,100],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fma","category-seishin","category-drama","category-romance","tag-fma-lisa","tag-fma-lisaroy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.branchandroot.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.branchandroot.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.branchandroot.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.branchandroot.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.branchandroot.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.branchandroot.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.branchandroot.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.branchandroot.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.branchandroot.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}