(no subject)
Title: In a Name
Author: yamikinoko
Recipient: cornerofmadness
Rating: T [mild cussing]
Characters/Pairings: Olivier Armstrong
Summary: Her father had always wanted a boy. She was going to be better than that.
Notes: I kind of feel like there's a story between the lines that I really, really should have written, but for the fact that the voice in my headspace didn't want it coming out... ANYWAY. I was totally sucked into your fourth prompt, 'cause Olivier is such a fascinating character, and so utterly complex. I picked an aspect of what may fuel her ambition [and you're right--she'd be pretty ambitious] and ran with it. Hope it's up to snuff--I think I rewrote the ending 'bout six times by now... Anyway, I'll stop blabbing. Please enjoy. :]
In a Name
When his first child was born, Philip Gargantos Armstrong was disheartened, to say the very least. The Noble Family of Armstrong required a male heir to carry on their great name, and this tiny little girl hardly matched his dreams of hearty, virile young men built like tanks, with Father’s strong features.
Despite it all, he bore his disappointment well. (After all, he contented himself, he and Mrs. Armstrong were young, and they would have many more opportunities for children in the future.) He did so want a son, but in the meantime, he resolved to dote upon his beautiful baby girl.
That’s what a good, loving father ought to do, after all.
----- A month later, the Armstrongs threw a lavish party for their extended family and colleagues in honor of little Olivier Mira Armstrong. The crowd boasted no less than five hundred guests, dressed to the nines, all eager to meet the latest addition to the Armstrong family. (Also to take this opportunity to ingratiate themselves with an up-and-coming power at Central.)
A few of the guests inquired as to the odd-excuse me, unique name for such a precious, doll-like creature. The official answer they received was simply that Olivier was named as a tribute to her great-grandfather, a heavily decorated war veteran. The answer was given in a completely blasé manner, as though this were accepted practice. (Never mind the fact that they had named a little girl after a man.)
In any case, this was but half of the truth: the Armstrongs had been so certain of a firstborn son that they hadn’t even considered alternative names in the event that Mrs. Armstrong gave birth to a girl. And when the midwife offered the tiny, bloodstained bundle to Philip Armstrong and asked warmly as to the baby’s name, he realized he hadn’t one for a girl. And through a mind murky with a weighty sense of disappointment, he discovered that he couldn’t think of a name either.
What do you name a baby girl? He had never considered it.
Thus, Olivier she was named. (Later, his wife suggested Mira, partly in blessing and partly in hopes that her daughter would be able to use this name instead.)
----- When Olivier Mira was three, bright-eyed and precocious, her younger sister Amue was born. Philip Armstrong hadn’t learnt much about choosing girl’s names, but as Mother explained to her, if Amue had been a boy, she would have been Amicus and weren’t they all glad that Father came up with something vaguely feminine this time around?
Olivier Mira didn’t say anything, only gazed down into the cradle at her sleeping baby sister, and reached out a chubby hand to touch the curly forelock resting against the prominent Armstrong forehead. And wondered why Father always wanted boy names for girls.
She received her answer two years later. (At that age, she was already far more intelligent and willful than any five years old girl had a right to be, in Philip’s humble opinion. She ought to have been born a boy.) This time, as she looked down into the cradle at Strongine, she clasped Amue’s hand in hers, which was nearly a feat and a half, as Amue’s handspan was already larger than hers.
Father was speaking to Mother, soothing words delivered in a resounding boom which, for Father, was a muted volume.
“My dear, how are you feeling?”
“As well as can be expected, husband,” Mother cast a glance over at the cradle, “I was so sure, since the baby kicked so hard in the womb that this time… this time,” And it appeared that the effort of continuing overcame her and she dissolved into tears.
Philip shushed her in a rush of air that sounded like a gust of wind and drew her weakened frame close for a hug, “Hush, dear. We’ll have a son someday. You’ll see. Shh, now-everything is fine. Do you know, I believe my aunt on my mother’s side went through the same thing? Six healthy daughters, one after another.”
Mother only sniffed into his shoulder. Father continued anyway,
“She was all but ready to give up after her sixth daughter, you see. But what should happen at that point?”
Mother finally lifted her face to Father’s and for the first time since Strongine was born, a tiny smile quirked the corner of her lips.
“She had a son.”
“She had a son, my dear-my cousin Louis, the best boxer Central has ever seen-a son.”
As Mother and Father embraced, they never noticed their two daughters slipping out the door. And consequently, when Strongine awoke and cried for sustenance, they were too busy searching for the wet nurse to look for their other two children. The nanny will have taken them in hand, in any case.
Amue was two, too young to understand much outside the realm of her nursery but…
That night, Olivier Mira went into her room and shut the door. She was six now, and most definitely did not need Nanny to tuck her into bed. Instead, she clambered onto the chair before her writing desk and pulled that afternoon’s sheet of sums that the tutor had given to her. At the top, where she had painstakingly written her name, she now erased it with quick, fierce slashes of her eraser.
When she took up her pencil afterwards, it was to write her name afresh.
Olivier
----- Not fifteen years later, following an exemplary stint in the military academy and a meteoric rise through the military ranks, Major General Olivier Armstrong was assigned to Fort Briggs. This most certainly was not her first command, but all the same, it was her first in charge of a military network as expanse as that of Briggs.
Never mind that Briggs was a backwater assignment, guarding a mountain passage between Amestris and Drachma, whose biggest reported threat was the abnormally large grizzly bear population rather than Amestris’ former enemy. The treaty between Amestris and Drachma, though tenuous at best, still meant that the border was kept mostly sacrosanct. She suspected that she was only being sent to Briggs because of damned military politics, in any case.
As a matter of fact, she’d almost told her smug, slimy, politics-oriented superior officer to shove his assignment up where the sun don’t shine (or Briggs) but for the fact that the bastard was looking for the perfect opportunity to court-martial her, and after the last incident (involving a few exceedingly impolite words and a trigger-happy finger) she really didn’t have the legal space to combat another formal investigation.
So to Briggs she would go. Little did those paranoid bastards in Central Command realize, they hadn’t sent her to Briggs to fade into obscurity, buried by the constant snowdrifts and humdrum patrols, no.
It was at Briggs that Olivier really made her name, and revolutionized the Northern Defense forever-she was the Northern Defense, the Ice Queen of Briggs.
It was the only appellation she ever allowed, the only one that functioned as a reminder of how she had been born female, not the son her father so desperately wanted. She was not Alex-foolish, weak little brother.
Just as she had made Briggs a household name, all of Amestris would one day know hers.
She was Olivier Armstrong.
Author: yamikinoko
Recipient: cornerofmadness
Rating: T [mild cussing]
Characters/Pairings: Olivier Armstrong
Summary: Her father had always wanted a boy. She was going to be better than that.
Notes: I kind of feel like there's a story between the lines that I really, really should have written, but for the fact that the voice in my headspace didn't want it coming out... ANYWAY. I was totally sucked into your fourth prompt, 'cause Olivier is such a fascinating character, and so utterly complex. I picked an aspect of what may fuel her ambition [and you're right--she'd be pretty ambitious] and ran with it. Hope it's up to snuff--I think I rewrote the ending 'bout six times by now... Anyway, I'll stop blabbing. Please enjoy. :]
In a Name
When his first child was born, Philip Gargantos Armstrong was disheartened, to say the very least. The Noble Family of Armstrong required a male heir to carry on their great name, and this tiny little girl hardly matched his dreams of hearty, virile young men built like tanks, with Father’s strong features.
Despite it all, he bore his disappointment well. (After all, he contented himself, he and Mrs. Armstrong were young, and they would have many more opportunities for children in the future.) He did so want a son, but in the meantime, he resolved to dote upon his beautiful baby girl.
That’s what a good, loving father ought to do, after all.
----- A month later, the Armstrongs threw a lavish party for their extended family and colleagues in honor of little Olivier Mira Armstrong. The crowd boasted no less than five hundred guests, dressed to the nines, all eager to meet the latest addition to the Armstrong family. (Also to take this opportunity to ingratiate themselves with an up-and-coming power at Central.)
A few of the guests inquired as to the odd-excuse me, unique name for such a precious, doll-like creature. The official answer they received was simply that Olivier was named as a tribute to her great-grandfather, a heavily decorated war veteran. The answer was given in a completely blasé manner, as though this were accepted practice. (Never mind the fact that they had named a little girl after a man.)
In any case, this was but half of the truth: the Armstrongs had been so certain of a firstborn son that they hadn’t even considered alternative names in the event that Mrs. Armstrong gave birth to a girl. And when the midwife offered the tiny, bloodstained bundle to Philip Armstrong and asked warmly as to the baby’s name, he realized he hadn’t one for a girl. And through a mind murky with a weighty sense of disappointment, he discovered that he couldn’t think of a name either.
What do you name a baby girl? He had never considered it.
Thus, Olivier she was named. (Later, his wife suggested Mira, partly in blessing and partly in hopes that her daughter would be able to use this name instead.)
----- When Olivier Mira was three, bright-eyed and precocious, her younger sister Amue was born. Philip Armstrong hadn’t learnt much about choosing girl’s names, but as Mother explained to her, if Amue had been a boy, she would have been Amicus and weren’t they all glad that Father came up with something vaguely feminine this time around?
Olivier Mira didn’t say anything, only gazed down into the cradle at her sleeping baby sister, and reached out a chubby hand to touch the curly forelock resting against the prominent Armstrong forehead. And wondered why Father always wanted boy names for girls.
She received her answer two years later. (At that age, she was already far more intelligent and willful than any five years old girl had a right to be, in Philip’s humble opinion. She ought to have been born a boy.) This time, as she looked down into the cradle at Strongine, she clasped Amue’s hand in hers, which was nearly a feat and a half, as Amue’s handspan was already larger than hers.
Father was speaking to Mother, soothing words delivered in a resounding boom which, for Father, was a muted volume.
“My dear, how are you feeling?”
“As well as can be expected, husband,” Mother cast a glance over at the cradle, “I was so sure, since the baby kicked so hard in the womb that this time… this time,” And it appeared that the effort of continuing overcame her and she dissolved into tears.
Philip shushed her in a rush of air that sounded like a gust of wind and drew her weakened frame close for a hug, “Hush, dear. We’ll have a son someday. You’ll see. Shh, now-everything is fine. Do you know, I believe my aunt on my mother’s side went through the same thing? Six healthy daughters, one after another.”
Mother only sniffed into his shoulder. Father continued anyway,
“She was all but ready to give up after her sixth daughter, you see. But what should happen at that point?”
Mother finally lifted her face to Father’s and for the first time since Strongine was born, a tiny smile quirked the corner of her lips.
“She had a son.”
“She had a son, my dear-my cousin Louis, the best boxer Central has ever seen-a son.”
As Mother and Father embraced, they never noticed their two daughters slipping out the door. And consequently, when Strongine awoke and cried for sustenance, they were too busy searching for the wet nurse to look for their other two children. The nanny will have taken them in hand, in any case.
Amue was two, too young to understand much outside the realm of her nursery but…
That night, Olivier Mira went into her room and shut the door. She was six now, and most definitely did not need Nanny to tuck her into bed. Instead, she clambered onto the chair before her writing desk and pulled that afternoon’s sheet of sums that the tutor had given to her. At the top, where she had painstakingly written her name, she now erased it with quick, fierce slashes of her eraser.
When she took up her pencil afterwards, it was to write her name afresh.
Olivier
----- Not fifteen years later, following an exemplary stint in the military academy and a meteoric rise through the military ranks, Major General Olivier Armstrong was assigned to Fort Briggs. This most certainly was not her first command, but all the same, it was her first in charge of a military network as expanse as that of Briggs.
Never mind that Briggs was a backwater assignment, guarding a mountain passage between Amestris and Drachma, whose biggest reported threat was the abnormally large grizzly bear population rather than Amestris’ former enemy. The treaty between Amestris and Drachma, though tenuous at best, still meant that the border was kept mostly sacrosanct. She suspected that she was only being sent to Briggs because of damned military politics, in any case.
As a matter of fact, she’d almost told her smug, slimy, politics-oriented superior officer to shove his assignment up where the sun don’t shine (or Briggs) but for the fact that the bastard was looking for the perfect opportunity to court-martial her, and after the last incident (involving a few exceedingly impolite words and a trigger-happy finger) she really didn’t have the legal space to combat another formal investigation.
So to Briggs she would go. Little did those paranoid bastards in Central Command realize, they hadn’t sent her to Briggs to fade into obscurity, buried by the constant snowdrifts and humdrum patrols, no.
It was at Briggs that Olivier really made her name, and revolutionized the Northern Defense forever-she was the Northern Defense, the Ice Queen of Briggs.
It was the only appellation she ever allowed, the only one that functioned as a reminder of how she had been born female, not the son her father so desperately wanted. She was not Alex-foolish, weak little brother.
Just as she had made Briggs a household name, all of Amestris would one day know hers.
She was Olivier Armstrong.