Olivier Coyote

Olivier Coyote was a dark brown-furred coyote who served as the senior deputy of Sheriff Ricochet Rabbit of Bucktooth Creek. Born into a life of hardship and separated from his parents at birth, the coyote spent thirty years of his life as a slave, with seven of those early years not even having a name. When his old mistress died, his new master treated him horribly, resulting in a fight that led to a bounty on his head from purchasers. This firefight led to him crossing paths with one of the most renowned sheriffs of the day, Ricochet Rabbit, who rescued him, nursed him back to health, and helped him not only escape his horrible life, but get a job. The two became close friends during a time where it was illegal for rabbits and coyotes to have any kind of relationship, referring to each other as brothers. Olivier served as the older buck’s senior deputy until his gruesome murder at the hands of Red Scorpion’s leader, Abraham Newcomb, leaving behind his wife, his son, and his good friend. The laws of the land would result in his name being erased, but his widow would keep his spirit alive by passing down the story of his life to her family. This would culminate in his great-grandson, Droop-a-Long Coyote, meeting his best friend's great-grandson, Ricochet Rabbit, thus reuniting the families and repairing the bridge that his murder had destroyed. 
Introduced in the Blazin’ Trails Redux storyline, Olivier is one of several posthumous characters within the series, making cameos in flashbacks. He made his proper debut in Blazin’ Trails: Terror of the Rio Grande, where he served as the secondary protagonist until his death.
== Personality ==
Olivier was described as one of the friendliest people one could hope to meet, always offering up a word of encouragement or a smile to those who needed it. His wife nicknamed him “Soleil”, French for “sun”, due to his disposition—which, given his immense hardships and numerous brushes with death, should have been erased long before he met his longest and oldest friend. He possessed a “middle of the earth” personality, as Ric I describes him—calm enough to get the job done, yet fired up enough to pursue his cause with unreasonable passion. He was also was armed with a sharp wit that could shock even the smarmiest of lagomorphs in his day. 
As a victim of the animal trade and having been a former slave, he suffered terrible nightmares due to his experiences, often being up for days at a time due to them keeping him from sleep. Erasing animal trades and reuniting coyotes who were separated from their families became his sole mission when he was rescued, as he didn’t want them not suffer what he had or worse. 
== History ==
=== Early Life ===
=== Servitude to the Toussaint Family ===
==== Changing of Hands ====
==== Escape from Louisiana ====
=== On the Run ===
==== Unlikely Ally ====
=== Tenure in Bucktooth Creek ===
==== A New Mission ====
==== Brotherhood ====
=== Courtship and Marriage ===
=== Improvements ===
=== Death and Aftermath ===
One of the fearsome criminals of Olivier’s day, Abraham Newcomb, had been spotted outside of Hushed Fields. Almost a year earlier, Olivier had confronted him in Ricochet’s place, and managed to shoot off his tail—incensed, Abraham vowed to kill him the next time he saw him, and Olivier darkly warned him that he’d have a hard time trying. The sheriff, then a wizened old man, was no match for the rattlesnake and was killed almost instantly. Ricochet and Olivier were called to stop him, but Olivier didn’t want to leave Janice, who was heavily pregnant at the time and due to give birth any day. He feared that the rattlesnake might come after her or Ricochet’s wife, Reece, who was staying until the cub was born. Knowing how important the case was, Reece offered to stay with her until he came back in, promising to send for any news. Ricochet was returning from a case of his own and was due to meet with Olivier in town before they started their search for Abraham. The coyote, going off of a gut feeling, decided to leave a little later than he’d told Reece and Janice. 
His instincts served him well—the rattlesnake, having left Hushed Fields long ago, was camped outside of his home, and managed to break in through the back window to get to Janice. None of the Red Scorpion leaders had ever personally attacked a lawman’s family up until this point, making this a personal case. Janice barely escaped the attack, screaming for Reece, who got Janice to safety (albeit after throwing a bucket at Abraham to distract him) and shouted for help. Olivier heard the screams and rushed in, guns drawn, to see the rattler attempting to follow his wife. Furious, Olivier opened fire, but missed, giving Abraham ample opportunity to attack. Olivier caught him before he could bite him in the face, however, and a vicious fight ensued outside. He gave the rattlesnake the fight of his life to protect his family. 
Right before he could seize his knife to deal the fatal blow, Abraham wrapped himself around Olivier, and sank his fangs into the coyote’s neck, his trademark paralyzing venom quickly incapacitating him. The last words that Olivier heard, as he was constricted by the snake, were, “This was way too easy.” And with that, Abraham snapped his neck, killing him instantly and letting his body drop to the desert sands. He was 48 years old. 
Around this time, Ricochet, who knew Olivier wouldn’t abandon a meeting spot, came upon the scene. He arrived right as Abraham had wrapped himself around the coyote’s neck, and by the time he’d drawn his weapon, it was too late. It’d happened so quickly that Ricochet, who’d been blessed with super speed, was unable to stop it. He forced himself to drive out the utter horror and shock that took over at that moment when Janice, who’d also witnessed the murder, came running from the side of the house with a rusted shovel raised high, screaming bloody murder. Ricochet and Reece’s quick thinking kept her from being another victim—she dragged her back and he took the shovel, catching him in the side of the face with the flat of it and sending him flying into a cactus. Unfazed, Abraham made his exit, swiftly burrowing into the ground before Ricochet could stop him. Initially, this didn’t deter the buck, who was throwing sand left and right to get to him, but the sounds of Janice’s grief-ridden cries turning into pained screams stopped him. He and Reece helped her into the house, and after a grueling night, Olivier’s only son, Leroy, was born early the following morning. 
It was a bittersweet event—though a new life had entered the world, the one who’d wanted to see it the most was ripped away from them. Janice was unable to look at her son for a few hours, noting the boy’s uncanny resemblance to his father, and Ricochet had gone silent the entire time, a rarity for him. Not long after Reece reported that Janice had finally had the baby, he got up and left the house. His only words to her were, “I’ll be back.” He took off, blowing out of town and towards Red Scorpion’s old hunting grounds with only one thought in mind: revenge. During his hunt for Abraham, any outlaws who wronged him were dealt the same way as his deputy: without mercy, and although he didn’t kill them, they certainly felt his wrath. Word got around fast in Red Scorpion’s higher ranks, some of whom confronted Ricochet and lived to tell the tale, eventually reaching Abraham himself. Upon arriving in Heatstroke, Ricochet came across Abraham robbing the body of a young girl he’d killed. Dangerously calm, he told him that he had one chance to kill him. This resulted in a fight that ended with Ricochet brutally killing Abraham: he shot him, beat him up, and then took his hatchet and hacked him to pieces. Before ending the snake’s life, he told him, “Your daddy should’ve told you that this rabbit ain’t afraid of no snakes.” No judge dared stop him, knowing of the evils Abraham had committed and knowing that a vengeful Ricochet was one they didn’t want to deal with. 
Shortly after the case was closed, the new sheriff of the town Olivier lived in, who was irrevocably racist, forced Olivier’s widow to keep quiet about her husband’s murder, with specific instructions to "keep esteemed fellers like him (Ricochet) outta you curs' mouths". When Ricochet I attempted to stand up for her, the sheriff would force him out with a similar warning, threatening to harm his wife and children if he did, a move that made him a lifelong enemy of Ricochet’s. After the funeral (in which both had to stop Janice from joining her husband in the grave), Ricochet and Reece had to leave, never having contact with Janice or Leroy ever again. 
==== Legacy ====
Olivier’s death shattered Janice, who never remarried after her husband’s murder. She was barely stopped from jumping into the grave with him, wailing that she would never have a love like that again. Though a few friends came and went, she raised Leroy on her own after his death, a struggle that she recounted in her journal that she wouldn’t wish on even the worst of the Newcomb family. She took up journals to deal with the grief, and in many of them, she wrote letters to her deceased husband—a thing they used to do when they were first courting—and occasionally to Ricochet and Reece, lamenting that she wished they could see her “darling nephew and niece” (Ricochet II and Reba) again. She never remarried after Olivier’s death, noting that the rest of her life with another wouldn’t compare to Olivier. She worked hard to raise her son, Leroy, into a respectable man. Leroy became a rancher, and then later a lawman like his father, carrying the legacy that his father started. Though not one to rebel, she decided to keep her husband’s memory and legacy alive by telling her son about his adventures and the “renowned sheriff” he worked for, ensuring that Ricochet would also be remembered in some way without breaking the law. In her private journals that Droop-a-Long discovered years later, she mentioned Ricochet outright and mentioned how grateful she was for everything he and Reece did after the horrible murder that robbed them of Olivier. Olivier’s legacy would be key to inspiring her grandson, Drag-a-Long Coyote, Sr., and her great-grandson, Droop-a-Long Coyote, into becoming lawmen in their own right. 
As for Ricochet, Olivier’s death hit him hard. The two had always referred to each other as brothers, and to Ricochet, he didn’t just lose his best friend—he’d lost his family. Once he got home to Bucktooth Creek, he fell into his wife’s arms and sobbed for hours, the grief, shock and horror finally hitting him after days of blocking it out. According to Ricochet II, he stayed in bed for a solid week after Olivier’s funeral, something that he only did two other times in his life (the deaths of his granddaughter Fara and Reece, respectively). Even after that, the townsfolk noticed a change in him, as if the light had died in his eyes. Ricochet would regard Olivier’s death as the greatest failure of his career, and it gave him grief until the day of his death. Such was his grief that even mentioning his name made him sob uncontrollably—he hadn’t said his name since the day of the murder. He never hired another senior deputy until his later years, and even then, he kept Olivier’s badge, never pinning it on another man. It was one of his most prized possessions, and he never let it out of his sight, not allowing anybody aside from his wife to touch it. When he died, he was buried with the badge along with a few other items he deemed important enough for him to carry. In his own rebellious fashion, Ricochet I didn’t abide by the sheriff’s rule, by not only spreading his species blindness to other members of his family, but also telling his children and grandchildren of both his and Olivier’s adventures, and the harshness of the West they grew up in. Due to his grief, he always made sure to never mention him by name, instead referring to him as “the best deputy a man could ask for”, something he always called Olivier when he was alive.
Olivier’s death may have forced the Rabbit-Coyote families to split, but generations later, the families would be reconnected in a way. Olivier’s great-grandson, Droop-a-Long Coyote, would meet and become friends with Ricochet I’s great-grandson, Ricochet IV, in a similar (yet less dramatic) vein like their own friendship. The two were initially unaware of their great-grandfathers’ friendship until they did some digging on their respective family trees and Ricochet mentioned Olivier offhandedly—first by mispronouncing his name, which Droop-a-Long corrected, and then compared some family stories that started sounding eerily similar. Further investigation would lead to them uncovering the journals and letters, which revealed just half of the story. After much discussion, and tears, Droop-a-Long asked how Ricochet knew of his great-grandfather, and Ricochet told him that his grandfather, Rico, gave him the name when his great-grandfather wouldn’t tell him—Rico had visited Olivier since he was a child, and naturally, would have remembered his death. Although Ricochet admits that it was hard for him to say the name, he states he was happy that he could finally put a name to the man that his great-grandfather said was “the best deputy one could ask for”. Droop-a-Long expresses a similar sentiment, and notes that their great-grandfathers probably "badgered the Big Guy" to bring their families back together, which Ricochet agrees with.
== Powers and Abilities ==
== Relationships ==
=== The Toussaint Family ===
==== Madame Vivienne Toussaint ====
==== Lord Pierre-Georges Toussaint ====
=== Ricochet Rabbit I ===
Olivier’s friendship with Ricochet Rabbit was one of his most important and closest. In the days where any relationship between rabbits and coyotes were illegal, Ricochet I and Olivier Coyote would become the first prey and predator team that defied standards and became close friends and allies. The two met when Ricochet stumbled upon the coyote being beaten to within an inch of his life by would-be purchasers in a town where animal trades were outlawed. Upon witnessing such injustice, Ricochet intervened and beat three of the purchasers single-handedly, with the fourth one fleeing in the chaos that ensued. After arresting them and throwing them in jail, he took Olivier, then near death, to Sand Point, then known as a renowned town for the best doctors around. Despite his fame having reached the land, prejudices against coyotes were at an all time high there, and none of the doctors wanted to treat Olivier. Undeterred, Ricochet used his medical skills to nurse the wounded coyote back to health by himself; at one point, he even slapped him back to life claiming that he “didn’t fight this hard jus’ to watch you die so easily”. When Olivier demanded to know why Ricochet refused to let him die, he told him that he wasn’t allowed to do so until he lived his life to the fullest. 
Having been abused by rabbits for much of his life, Olivier had a mild distrust of Ricochet at first, and was even annoyed by his persistence, unwilling to believe that a rabbit would genuinely want to save him. However, he would come to respect the buck when he helped him achieve his freedom and saved him from the noose after he killed a purchaser who tried to get the drop on Ricochet. Any slave who killed their master or a purchaser were immediately executed, unless they were deemed a necessary asset to their community. Ricochet I pleaded his case before a judge, showing off his injury and noting that if it weren’t for Olivier’s actions, he would be dead. Although the judge hated coyotes, he had no choice but to obey the law that had been put in place, resulting in Olivier being hired as Ricochet I’s deputy. Though grateful for the buck’s help, Olivier warned him that if he were cut from the same cloth as the rabbits he’d dealt with, he’d make him regret it. Ricochet I, unafraid of death at this point, told him that if he were to ever turn over that he’d hold him to that promise, which made Olivier realize that he was a rabbit of his word. 
Slowly over the course of two years, Olivier would open up to Ricochet more, the initial distrust wearing off completely as they continued on their missions. Ricochet, who was seven years his senior, treated him as an equal, and outright referred to him as his brother in all but blood. This initially embarrassed Olivier, but once he learned that he had nobody else that he called close family, he softened his attitude—after all, he too hadn’t had family since his birth, and the one person who treated him well had long since died. He would eventually return the sentiment, noting that Ricochet had saved him from a literal hellscape. With the opening up that came from their friendship came Olivier’s new personality—he was a bit happier, though just as often he’d be the voice of reason when Ricochet I was a little adventurous. Olivier’s middle of the road personality bounced off Ricochet’s energetic one well, and they were so in tune with each other that Ricochet’s wife Reece joked that he had more chemistry with Olivier than with her. Ricochet would be the coyote’s closest confidant, particularly in regards to the night terrors that Olivier suffered due to his PTSD, and supported Olivier’s mission in ending the illegal animal trades that were happening in the settlements. Though he would hire several deputies alongside Olivier, he made it clear among his subordinates that Olivier would always be his senior deputy, and that they were to respect his authority. Due to their refusal to cooperate, he eventually fired all of them, leaving the coyote as his sole partner—something that neither of them seemed to mind. Ricochet would also be responsible for helping Olivier court and eventually marry his wife, Janice. 
Their friendship only ended when Olivier was murdered by Red Scorpion’s Abraham Newcomb, on the field.  
=== Reece Rabbit ===
=== Janice Coyote ===
== Trivia ==
* Olivier is one of many characters who were added to the Redux universe during its creation. He underwent several changes during his creation, as noted below:
** Olivier was first mentioned in edits made to Great-Granddaddy Ricochet’s page, but he was not intended to have much of a role, and it was unclear whether or not he was to have any relation to Droop-a-Long. Edits to Ricochet Rabbit I’s page, as well as Droop-a-Long’s, would clear up that confusion, and shortly after the creation of the Terror of the Rio Grande miniseries, the link to his page would be created on both Ricochet I’s page and on the Redux series page, hinting at his inclusion as a major player rather than a minor character. 
** Unlike his good friend Ricochet I, he was not mentioned at all in the original series or even named. His son, Leroy Coyote, was originally credited with having inspired Droop-a-Long’s father, Drag-a-Long Coyote, Sr., to become a lawman. This would be rectified in the Redux universe. 
** Originally on Ricochet I’s profile, it was mentioned that he was a resident of Shadybrook, which is Droop-a-Long’s birthplace. This would be retconned by iheartgod175 herself, who decided that his birthplace would be the state of Louisiana, which gives Droop-a-Long some French-Creole heritage. 
** iheartgod175 originally thought of giving Olivier the same personality as his great-grandson, but ultimately decided against it, deciding that it would be lazy writing to do so, and decided to make his personality a little more energetic than Ricochet I (who contrary to his great-grandson is more coolheaded, but a lot more stubborn). Traces of his personality would be present in Droop-a-Long, however, in regards to his determination to become sheriff and eventually developing a stronger backbone and sharper wit, hence his father noting that if Olivier had been alive, he might’ve been named after him.
* His birthday is five days after his great-grandson’s.
* Olivier is the second known character in the series to not have been named for several years of his life until he reached seven years old. The first person in canon was Lucky, his great-great-grandson, who was never named and ignored by his biological father, Drag-a-Long.