Olive's Ordeals

*29th of Virgil, 840*:

Olive had been eagerly watching her father putting together another shoe in the little shop. She had always looked up to her dad, he always did his best to support her and her sister as well as he could.

Her father put down the finished shoe on his work table and sighed. He turned to look at little Olive and smiled.

“I think that should be the last one for today,” he said beleaguered. “I’ll get you and your sister some soup for dinner then I think it’ll be time for some shut eye.”

Olive pouted a bit, her dad always wanted to go to sleep right after work. “Could we play tonight dad? You never have time to play with us!”

Her dad thought this over for a bit, with regret and wistfulness in his eyes. After a moment he said “We can play catch outside if you’d like.”

Olive beamed at the opportunity, and ran to the bedroom to get her older sister Grape. It had been so long since they had gotten to play with their dad!

*16th of Harpsicorn, 869*:

Olive sat her in trench, cleaning her rifle. She had been fighting with her comrades since the revolution started back in the early spring, and now the winter had begun to set in. The attacks from the reactionaries had slowed as both sides prepared themselves for the winter ahead.

Olive hadn’t been feeling very well the past few days. Perhaps it was the snow, perhaps it was the mud or the stress of the artillery. Whatever it was, she wished she could just go to sleep in an actual bed for once.

As Olive lit herself a cigarette, her sister Grape sat beside her. The two had been inseparable since their respective militias had made contact back in late Toran, when the Red and Black armies were still making gains day by day.

Grape was older than Olive, but everyone thought she was the younger sister. She always carried an optimistic, almost naive, energy about her. She had fought in the trenches and the streets, lost friends and loved ones, and yet the world could never bring her down. Olive admired that about her, not that she’d ever tell her that of course.

*29th of Virgil, 840*:

Olive pulled Grape outside to the small little garden they had in front of their building. Their dad was waiting for the two of them there, ball in paw.

They spent about half an hour just throwing it back and forth to one another. Olive had missed these sorts of times, just the casualness and simple pleasure of it made the world feel a bit more right.

The sun started to set, and they headed back inside. They still needed dinner after all.

*16th of Harpsicorn, 869*:

Grape handed Olive a can of soup. “You gotta keep your strength up Olive, we don’t know when the bastards will try and storm our lines” she said with a smirk.

Olive noticed she only had the one can of soup “do you have anything to eat tonight Grape?”

“I’ll be fine Olive, I already had lunch today! Just don’t fall asleep on watch again, you dolt.” the two shared a quiet laugh together, and the world seemed a bit better for a brief moment.

*29th of Virgil, 840*:

Dad tucked Olive and Grape into bed and wished them both a good night and sweet dreams. He hoped that they would achieve greater things than he had. Shoemaking wasn’t fit for badgers like them, he thought to himself.

He left their bedroom to go to sleep himself, and Olive and Grape soon fell asleep. It was a nice night and their dreams were truly magical and bright.

*16th of Harpsicorn, 869*:

Snow filled the trenches. It was going to be another harsh night, but thankfully that meant that there probably wasn’t going to be any trouble from the other side tonight.

Grape and Olive were on watch together tonight. It promised to be a rare, quiet night where they could just talk about small things and forget about the troubles of the world for a little while.

The conversation soon turned to the future, and Olive asked Grape “What would you like to do, once this is all over?”

“I think I’d like to write novels,” Grape said, and after a moment she added “and maybe make some shoes.”

“You making shoes?” Olive said back, with a look of amused confusion on her face. “Like dad used to?”

“Yeah, call me nostalgic or whatever, but I think there’s just a lot of subtle craft and creativity that can really go into it. And after we’re all free of the chains of the past, we can just spend time making really nice things and not slaving away the days making crappy shoes like dad had to.”

Olive lit her cigarette and helped Grape lit her own. They both shared a quiet sigh as the wind began to pick up.

*30th of Virgil, 840*:

Olive and Grape awoke to the sound of a gunshot.

It wasn’t terribly unusual to hear a gun go off at night, growing up in the Elder mountains, but this came from just outside the house. Olive and Grape didn’t know what to do, outside of just panicking.

They held each other tightly and waited for dad to come to their room and tell them that everything was okay, that they were safe now and that everything could be okay again. But he didn’t come, and his absence grew ever more frightening by the minute.

Grape knew what she had to do, as the older sister it was her job to make sure Olive and their dad were safe. She got out of her bed and went to open the door and see what had happened.

Olive was terrified to be alone, and she ran up to her older sister and clung to her as she went forward.

Grape opened the door, and the house was quiet. A dreadful and piercing silence hung in the air as the two little ones walked slowly towards the front door.

The two would spend years trying to forget what they saw when they opened the door and looked outside. Their father had been brutally murdered, slain by some unknown killers the two sisters would never track down. Afterwards, they thought it might have been bandits, thugs of the Empire, or maybe some drunken stooge who got a bit too angry after a night of drinking. But in truth, it really didn’t matter who had killed their father, all that mattered was that he was gone. The chaos and violence of the Mountains had ripped him away from the two sisters, and left them alone together on the cold and quiet night.

*17th of Harpsicorn, 869*:

It was just after midnight, and the winds and snows had slowed. Grape was on watch while Olive took some time to rest. Grape always took more time on watch and took less of the supplies they were both given. She was very protective of her sister, and would be damned if anything happened to her.

Grape missed their mom. And their dad. Olive was the only family she had left in this world of chaos and war. She sighed, and kept her watch on the enemy lines.

In the distance, she heard the rumble and fire of artillery begin. It wouldn’t be a quiet night after all, she supposed.

Olive awoke quickly to the sound of a shell landing just a mile away from their position. She quickly found her bearings and shouted to Grape over the sound of the artillery barrage, “are we ready for another push from them?”

“We can hold out, but if they make a push I don’t think we’ll be ready!” Grape shouted back to Olive, “I don’t think we have enough supplies if they decide to assault us head on! You need to go back to the supply depot and get some more supplies for us!”

Olive clearly saw this for what it was, Grape wanted to keep her safe and away from the barrage. “Grape, I doubt they’d attack us in this weather, if we both get back to the safehouse we’ll be safe!”

Another shell landed with a roaring boom, half a mile away from them this time.

“We can’t give up on the watch! Just go back and get us some more supplies Olive! I’ll be fine!” Grape shouted to her little sister.

Olive was scared, and she knew that Grape was scared as well. Grape just wanted to keep her safe, Olive knew that, but she was always so fool-hardy about it. Olive knew her sister faced the world with a false sense of bravado just to protect her sister. They had had conversations like this many times before, and Olive knew that she wouldn’t be able to shake Grapes resolve to send her to the relative safety of the supply depot.

Olive started heading towards the depot were the spare rounds and rations were kept. She started running back as fast as her legs could carry her, barely holding back tears of fear.

Grape knew that Olive was terrified for her, heck Olive was probably right that they could wait in a safehouse for the barrage to stop, but she didn’t want to have any fall to harm on her watch again. Not after what happened that night so many years ago. She couldn’t bear it if she lost her sister or anyone else on her watch. And so, she stared down the enemy trenches as shells fell around her.

Olive ran back to their part of the trench, hoping to catch her sister and tell her to come back with her to the safehouse, that what she was doing was fool-hardy and reckless. She ran down the lines and saw her sister a hundred feet away from her.

Another shell fell with a terrible, howling roar into the trenches.

Olive was crying now, she didn’t want to believe what she had just seen ahead of her had just happened. She ran forward, tears streaming down her face as she called out for her sister “Grape! Grape! Please tell me you're okay!”

She found her sisters mangled body sprawled before her. She had been thrown back against the trench wall from the blast of the artillery shell.

Olive clutched Grapes body and began to cry. “Please… Grape, you can’t go, you can’t be gone!” Olive stuttered out through it all. “You can’t leave me alone, please!”

Olive wept into Grapes corpse as the artillery continued to rain. She was all alone now, completely on her own in the world that had taken her mom, her dad, and now her only sister from her.

"Please, don't go…"