Olivier fell in love for the second time.
Her son was the center of her existence. She lived, ate, slept, and breathed him every day and night. He followed her, clung to her, cried for her, and only fell asleep in her arms. His first word was Mama.
Olivier had named him Buccaneer Miles Armstrong, but nobody called him that. The soldiers who played with him and babysat him while she was at work called him Little Bear.
"Come here, Little Bear. Time for your snack."
"Time for bed, Little Bear."
"Hey, Little Bear! Wanna go see Mama?"
"Does Little Bear need to be changed?"
Olivier had frowned upon this and tried to discourage it, not wanting him to be stuck with something so silly and demeaning. She ordered them with a stern look on her face to call her son by the name she had proudly bestowed upon him for a very important and serious reason, but it seemed that was the one command nobody would follow. One of her men pointed out that Buccaneer was too heavy a name for such a little guy and that Little Bear was a bit more reasonable for now. Besides, they argued, his father probably would have liked it and it wasn't like the kid couldn't choose to go by something else when he got older. Olivier disagreed, but when her son started responding only to Little Bear and nothing else, she finally gave up. She had to admit, it did suit him.
Just like he had in the womb, Little Bear grew quickly. Olivier was amazed at how soon he was sitting up and saying semblances of words. He became active and wanted constant attention. Olivier had thought playing with her son would be a chore since she wasn't one for games, but surprisingly, it wasn't. All she had to do most days was sit on the floor and roll a ball back and forth, doodle on a piece of paper, read him a story, or just sit and watch. It filled her with a sense of purpose and contentment that kept her smiling for hours.
But Olivier worried too. Little Bear was as much of a daredevil as his father and Briggs was a dangerous place. But more than that, she had this apprehensive feeling that what she had with her son was too good to be true, that he was too good to be true. She knew, deep down, that all good things came to an end.
She didn't have to wait long.
Little Bear had just had his fourth birthday when Drachma invaded. Normally that wouldn't have been a problem for the Briggs army, but this time Drachma had come prepared with a secret weapon: They now had their very own state alchemists.
She had known that Drachma had some alchemists, but for the most part the country frowned on the practice, saying that it was nontraditional and a crime against the natural order. In fact, most parts of Drachma forbade even learning about it and burned all books related to the subject, so she had never worried about that as a potential threat. What she hadn't known, however, was that the new king who had taken the throne was very interested in the impact alchemy had on Ishval and how much damage it had done. So much so that he had spent years secretly creating an army of human weapons and was now unleashing them on the fort.
They had started out as spies who arrived under the pretense of a peace treaty, skirting around the frozen wasteland until they were close to the fort. Olivier had to hand it to them, they were smart to only send in a few men instead of an entire army that the scouts would have seen a mile away. Then, with one transmutation circle and a clap of their hands, the entire wall came crumbling down. A whole section of the northern wall was gone, and with no more barriers, the snow came pouring in. The soldiers rushed into battle, but guns and tanks that had to be carefully loaded and fueled and aimed were useless against people who had the power to make the ground cave under their feet and the ceiling crash to the ground in mere seconds.
For the first time in her career, Olivier had no plan. No backup strategy, no last resort, nothing. Ashamed and scared of what might happen next and angry with herself for not seeing this coming, she snatched up Little Bear, sheathed her sword, and ran for her life.
It went against everything she believed in to run from a battle, but her fort was gone, her weapons were a pile of rubble, most of her men had either been killed or had already fled. And now that they were in chaos, the actual army was showing up right behind the alchemists. If it had just been Olivier, she would have fought to the death no matter how fruitless it was. But she had a child to protect, and she needed to get him out of this hellhole. His life and safety were more important than her pride.
Little Bear screamed from the cold, tears freezing on his face. He didn't go outside very often, and when he did, he was bundled up as much as humanly possible. But there hadn't been time for that. He'd never been anywhere near the battlefield, but now he was seeing the people who had taken care of him die before his eyes. Olivier held him close to her and sprinted through the snow, trying to see past the blur of white and desperately searching for a cave, a shed, something.
"Here." She stopped, set him down for just a moment, and stripped off her Briggs coat. "Put this on." Little Bear struggled into it and she wrapped it around him and picked him up again, pulling the fur hood over his head. It was much too big for him, but it would warm him up a bit. Olivier shivered without it and wished she had her baby carrier. It was a nice little seat that went around her shoulders and allowed her son to ride next to her middle; it would have helped with body heat and kept her hands free. But there was nothing to be done about it now, and she couldn't possibly expect Little Bear to keep up on foot, nor could she expect him to handle the blizzard as well as she could.
"Mommy, you're cold without your coat!" Little Bear exclaimed fearfully as her shivers jolted him.
"I'll be fine." She pressed her frozen lips to his forehead. "We'll be all right."
"Mommy, I'm scared! I wanna go home!" Little Bear wailed, wrapping his arms around her neck and burying his head in her shoulder.
"You remember what I promised you, right? I won't let anything happen to you. I'll get us somewhere safe."
"You're not going anywhere." Olivier froze. Somehow even over the roar of the icy winds, she could still hear that voice. Her heart sank at the Drachman accent and she instinctively held Little Bear tighter. She squinted and her fears were confirmed. A gun was pointed directly in front of her face. She backed away only to find another one. And another. And another.
"What do you want?" she demanded, hating the pleading tone in her voice. She spoke in Drachman so Little Bear wouldn't understand. "You've already destroyed the fort and killed my men; what more could you possibly need from me?"
"Mommy, what are—"
"Hush!" she warned. "Let me handle this."
"We plan on taking you prisoner so we can have some negotiations with the Amestrian government." The man who was in front of her, the first one she'd seen, held out his hand. "But first give us the boy."
"Never!" Resisting the urge to spit at their feet, Olivier supported her child with one hand and moved the other to her sword. She had carried this baby under her heart for nine months. She would die before she gave him up.
"We don't intend to harm him. He'll be kept in a holding place while we deal with you, that's all. Either hand him over or we'll take him by force."
"Over my dead body, you scum." She withdrew her sword and heard the clicks of the safety being removed from the guns. Little Bear whimpered.
"If you don't give him to us, then we'll just shoot you both. One sword is no match for six guns." She could hear the smirk. "Face it, Northern Wall. You've lost."
"My son has nothing to do with this," Olivier insisted, trying to buy time. "Leave him out of it. Do what you will with me, but leave him alone."
"As I just said, we mean him no harm. But he could potentially prove useful to us. He's young enough that he won't remember you after you're separated."
That wasn't true. It couldn't be. Four years old wasn't too young to remember. She could remember being four. Vaguely, barely, but she could. She looked around. There had to be a way out of this.
"She's not going to give him up." One of the other soldiers spoke up, and Olivier could tell it was a woman's voice. The storm was beginning to let up, and by now Olivier could see the faces of her attackers. All of them were men except for this one, and all looked stern and gruff. But the woman…Olivier noticed how she was looking at Little Bear with the slightest hint of sorrow, how her belly curved slightly and her breasts were a little larger than average. Her body was eerily similar to the way Olivier's had looked in the days after giving birth, and her eyes were compassionate. This woman had kids. She was sure of it.
"I can see that!" the leader snapped at her. "We're going to have to shoot them—"
"Wait," Olivier said. She kept her eyes on the woman, who met her gaze. This was her absolute last resort, a humiliating plan and it probably wouldn't work, but she would try anything if it meant keeping Little Bear safe. She took a deep breath, summoned up a few tears, and made her voice as pitiful as she could.
"Please don't take my baby," she said. "He's no threat to you. You can have anything else. Anything, just not him. I'll give you whatever you want if you just let me keep him and don't hurt him. Money, military secrets, anything you want, it's yours." The Olivier of five years ago would have had no respect for anyone who said something like that. The Olivier of now didn't care. "Please. He's my baby, and he's the only one I've got. The only one I'll ever have." They didn't look convinced.
She looked the woman straight in the eye. "I know you understand." Olivier swallowed hard and this time a tear really did escape as she hugged Little Bear and kissed his cheek. "His father died before he was born. I'm the only family he has. Surely a mother can understand that."
The woman hesitated, then turned uneasily to the leader. "Sir, children that young can't make very good soldiers—"
"I've heard enough!" he bellowed. "Give him to us now."
"Mommy!" Little Bear sobbed at the harshness of the man's voice.
"I'm your mommy now," the leader jeered in Amestrian.
Olivier started, surprised and angered that he would say something like that. Then she knew why.
The grey clouds moved on. The winds died down. The angry whirls of ice turned to a gentle snowfall. The sun peaked out, illuminating the glittering white land. It was then that Olivier saw the scar on her attacker's temple, the ends of a mustache peaking out from underneath his mask. She held back a gasp.
It was Koschey Vlaas.
He had made headlines even in foreign newspapers. Accused of rape, sexual assault, battery, he'd been one of the worst military criminals in history, even in a chaotic country like Drachma. But due to "lack of admissible evidence" (meaning he had bought off the courts), he was only convicted on two counts: child abduction and child molestation. Even then he had gotten off with only a few months of jail time and, because of his connections with the royal family, he had been reinstated in the military despite protests. The children that he got his hands on often didn't speak for a long time and required surgery on their genitals. Most had contracted horrible viruses and diseases that killed them, and girls as young as nine had been forced to have his children.
Olivier barely held back a scream. Just the thought of this monster anywhere near her son made her want to throw up.
"I can see you mean business," she replied in Drachman, trying to keep her voice from shaking. She was about to do the hardest thing she had ever done in her entire life. "All right. You win."
The smile Koschey gave her made her insides tremble. He holstered his gun and held out his arms, moving closer to her. "Excellent. Now just put him in my arms nice and easy."
"As you wish." She shifted Little Bear, who was looking up at her tearfully, and moved her hand to her left side. "As you wish, sir!" She emphasized the last word by whipping out her sword and sending it right through his arm, just as she had with General Raven all those years ago. Before he could finish his scream of pain, she darted through the gap he had created for her when he'd moved and sprinted toward the shelter of the woods she knew so well. Bullets fired, but only one managed to graze her shoulder. When she reached the tree that had a hollow opening in the bottom, she stopped, checked around her to make sure the Drachmans hadn't caught up with her yet, and carefully set Little Bear inside the tree. Olivier pushed the snow close to the opening with her hands and held back her tears.
"Mommy, you're bleeding." Little Bear pointed to her shoulder. He was shaking so badly. She wrapped her arms around him one last time.
"Don't worry about me, I'll be all right. I need you to listen to me."
"O-okay."
She held his shoulders and looked into his fearful dark eyes. Faintly, shouting could be heard from the edge of the woods. "I need you to stay here and be completely quiet. You hear me? Don't make a sound and do not leave this place. Hold onto my coat and keep warm. I'll come back for you as soon as I can."
"You're leaving?" he whispered, clutching her.
"I have to. Those people want to hurt us. I can fight them, but I want you to be safe. Promise me that you'll stay here and be quiet." He nodded. "Good boy. Now I need you to follow these directions very carefully, just like a soldier would. Can you do that?"
He nodded slowly. "I guess so."
"If I don't come back—"
"No!" he latched onto her even tighter and burst into tears. "No, Mommy, you have to come back! You promised."
"I'm going to try as hard as I can, but there is a chance that I may not be able to." Olivier swallowed hard. "This is just in case, okay?"
"Okay, but please come back!"
"I'll try. Now listen. Do you see that the sun is almost going down?" She pointed to the sky.
"Yes."
"I want you to wait here until the sun goes down. Do you understand? Every once in a while if you're sure no one's around, look out and see what the sky looks like. You should see the sun go down and the moon go up. If you see that and I haven't come back, then I want you to walk down the mountain and get help. We're very close to North City, so all you have to do is walk back the way we came, and then go down until you see houses. Watch out for cars and be very careful. Find a woman with children to help you and take you to the police. You remember those men in the uniforms?" Little Bear nodded. "Good. Ask her to take you to those police officers, tell them what happened, and tell them your mama wants them to take you to Grandma and Grandpa's house."
"The really big house in Central?"
"Yes. Now can you promise me that you'll remember everything I've just told you?"
"Yes, Mommy. I'll stay here and go to North City when the sun goes down."
"That's my brave soldier." Relieved, she hugged him close. The voices grew louder and she panicked a little. "You remember what I told you to do if a stranger grabs you, right?"
"Yes. I fight!"
"That's right. You kick, punch, bite, spit, do whatever you have to do and run away as fast as you can. And remember to scream. Scream as loud as you can so the people around you will notice. If you can find a woman, try and get her to help you." Olivier remembered that Drachman woman and hoped she could rely on her. "You remember the weak spots?"
"Yeah. The tummy and the neck."
"Good. You're a very good boy, Little Bear." She hugged him and kissed him fervently. "There's only one more thing I want you to remember, okay?" Her voice choked a little.
"What?"
"Remember I love you and I would do anything for you."
"I love you too, Mommy."
She set him down in the tree again and covered up the entrance with snow, just enough that he wouldn't be seen or noticed, but not enough to smother him. "Remember to be very quiet, don't let those people know you're here. I love you and be safe." She turned and ran as fast as she could in the other direction, hoping to draw the Drachmans' attention away from Little Bear. She knew he would try to follow her directions as best he could, but he was still only four years old and it was easy for him to forget things or make mistakes. It was best to keep the Drachmans from getting anywhere near him.
A task that would be much easier if she could only see through her progressively blurring vision.
