Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters.

Citadel

Olivier Mira Armstrong stifled a growl as she peered through her binoculars. Damn them...damn those filthy bastards for daring to encroach upon her citadel once more. It wasn't even spring yet, and they were already marching through the worse of the snow. They hadn't the men, and barely the firepower, to keep half of the number below back; the full army would annihilate them, given the opportunity. However...she had other matters, nearly as pressing, to worry about as well. For one thing...that bastard, Christaan. He was nowhere to be found, and the Major General could imagine just the mayhem the worthless Drachman ambassador was likely trying to cause. Her second-in-command, Major Anthony Miles, was working hard to find him, but she'd given him an order to withdraw an hour ago; he still had not answered her call. On top of all of that, there was a storm building over Briggs itself, and nature had long since dictated matters up in the North; she was the only one Olivier truly bowed to.

"Captain Buccaneer."

"Sir!"

"Get the men under cover. The storm's getting ready to roar, and no one needs to get frostbite in a whiteout."

"Sir. You heard the Major General, men! Get yer tails inside, on the double!" His booming voice faded as he led the troops away, and she had to smile, just a bit. Buccaneer, once upon a time, would have led a coup to displace her rather than see a woman over him. However...when he'd been in Ishval, and a stray round of alchemic power hit, he'd been injured trying to save three young Ishvalen girls, losing his arm in the process. And when the army wouldn't pay for his automail, due to his...dishonorable actions, she had loaned him the money after hearing of his case, under the condition that he serve as her Captain. It was a higher rank than he'd had before, and he took it, first out of gratitude...now, he remained in that position because he knew that she could find more uses for a lower-leveled military man, and consequently, trust him with far, far more than many other men in the State Army. He knew that she trusted him with her life; in return, he trusted her with his honor. As he disappeared down the stair leading to their inner citadel, she stood carefully, drawing her fur coat tight around her body as she gazed out over the expanse of one small portion of the Drachman army.

"Damn them..." She whispered, anger pulsing through her veins. She couldn't count the many campaigns mounted against Briggs; easily ten or more each year, save only for the first beginning years of Amestris. Almost five hundred years of constant, draining attacks, led by commanders hellbent for the conquest of the lands stolen from right beneath their noses by one of their own lordlings, or so the tales went. Olivier had spent nearly fifteen years at this post, from the days of her training, to the present day. There was nothing that she did not know about Briggs, Northern Command, or the surrounding fifty kilometers...and that included the lands so often drenched in blood by the Drachman armies. She felt blessed that she'd lost a handful of personnel over the years; no more than ten, and most of those loner-types with few or no family members. The one man she had lost was the only Colonel she'd had, and the agony she had felt over the letter to his beloved wife and children had kept her awake for months afterwards. In the end, she'd laid the blame right where it belonged; on Drachma's inane commanders, and the five Emperors.

Ever since she'd taken command, they'd made extra special efforts to conquer Briggs, and Olivier knew why, though the idea still made her shudder and want to scream. Avalin Christaan had been quite forward in his reasons for the five Emperors' change in heart in regards to Amestris' supposed 'thievery'; the five leaders wanted alchemy, and at least three of them wanted Amestrisian wives to cement the incredibly binding treaty. And she was one of their prime candidates. It was sickening to read the 'appeals' to her 'feminine senses'; she would have rather married Mustang than be courted by one of those old fools. Olivier had been surprised, though, by the sanctions that they'd placed upon themselves, but it didn't mean that they'd keep to their bargains; Drachma could, and had, broken treaties before when a country didn't conform to precisely their ideals. And judging from what the Major General knew of her country, despite the fact that she had not been able to leave Briggs or Northern for more than a week at Eastern Command's training grounds, she doubted that Amestris would partake of a country-wide religion holifying the Emperors, nor would they agree to the strict laws, curfew...

"Major General!" She spun at the sound of his voice, her deep anger forgotten as a spark of joy burst within her. Miles came running up, his glasses gone, red eyes urgent and demanding, sliding just a little on the patch or two of ice around. "Forgive me, Major, I didn't hear your summons until I'd made my way back up and out of the pipeworks. Christaan is gone, wherever he is, though he did not take anything of significant importance with him-" She stopped him with a hand, and started walking towards the stairs, waving for him to join. It was nothing more than she had anticipated, and truth be told, she was a little bit more than relieved that the bastard had seen her soldiers' cold reception as the thin tolerance that it was. In any case, she had a warm sitting room and paperwork awaiting her, with the not unwelcome company of her Major.

"I am merely glad that he did not take you out." She replied, voice holding a touch of emotion as she kept her back to him, so that he could not see her eyes. "And you will not be reprimanded; it's no one's fault that the pipeworks are so loud. Now, let us get inside while we can, for the winter winds are about to crash down on those bastards below us-" Her words were cut off with a sharp gasp, and Olivier looked down to see a spear point protruding from between her left collarbones, dark blood misting in the rapidly cooling air before her. Suddenly, the point snapped out into a grappling hook, and with a sudden jerk, she was yanked clean off of the Fort's top, body being swiftly born on the massive steel rope secured to the hook's head. Miles watched in stunned horror, before his body reacted to the attack, and with nothing more than a grunt, he flung himself over the edge, folding his long limbs back so that he sped down the wall all the faster.

If he could reach her...his knife was out and ready from the sheathe on his arm, though it would do little good on the rope; at least it was a weapon. She hadn't passed into the stage of shock; that much he could tell from just glancing at her, but he didn't have long before she did, and as droplets of her blood fell slower than she did, they hit his face and shoulders like a crimson rain. She was falling faster now, and the ground was rushing up at them with a terrifying speed. Even with the twenty or so feet of snow from the past winter, it was enough of a fall to kill, easily, either or both of them if he wasn't careful...Indeed, there wasn't much to do about the fall, but at least their deaths would be swift...until Miles realized that she wasn't falling, so much as being pulled. He had caught up with her now, latching himself to her boots, and glancing down the rope, he realized that before they even touched the snow, she was to be hoisted into one of the tallest, and strongest of the fir trees. So, being her soldier, he smiled grimly, twining his arms and legs around her before setting to work on the head of the hook with his knife to break the small hinged components, hoping to sever the connection.

"Major General!" He snarled, most of his voice lost in the screaming wind. "Olivier, wake up! You didn't get this far being a stubborn bitch just to die at the hands of some Drachman dog, did you? Olivier! Olivier!"

"-vier!"

All this gray fog...what happened? Was she dead? She felt limp...and she couldn't move even a finger. It just seemed easier to close her eyes, and let the world go...

"Olivier!" Who's name was that? It was strange...pretty, but strange...and the voice...she knew that voice, though she couldn't say how. He was familiar...but not enough to keep her attention. She let her eyes slide shut, welcoming the darkness beyond blonde eyelashes, welcomed the dying sensation, and the oblivion promised when she stopped fighting the inevitable... When pain, bright, white-hot screaming pain, seared through her very nerves and woke her with a scream, half rage, half agony as she tried to claw at her shoulder, to wrench that terrible thing out, to free it from the ruined mess of her broken collarbones. A shout and a hand stopped her, and Olivier's eyes finally focused on the man holding her tight, his free hand holding onto the rope so that her weight would not cause anymore broken bones or damage to her shoulder. Miles held her tightly, his body supporting hers far more than she could have believed, and while he did all of that, he was breaking the hooks holding the spearhead into her body. Only one remained, and as he split it, the rope whipped away into the trees, tearing out of Olivier's back like a snapped wire, forcing another scream out of her.

They were much closer to the ground, and a little slower, but only enough that Miles could land and tumble without too much injury to either of them. He braced himself and wrapped all of his Major General into a ball, before curling around her and slamming into the soft-packed snow, spinning head over heels for several minutes before he managed to brace their stop with one boot and the harder packed snow of an old trail. The army, of course, had seen the whole damned fiasco, and was even now bearing down on them both. He staggered up, dizzy and almost unable to walk before he noticed the first of the runners, then snatched her up in his arms and fled through the trees, to the mountains themselves. As he sprinted across the frozen snow, whipping up even more now as the storm truly began to bear down with all the vengeance of a late winter whiteout, he blessed Olivier for forcing each and every man to learn deep winter survival techniques, and to scout the areas on both sides of the Fort. There was a series of caves near here, deep and shadowy, filled with fresh water and cold stores from the fall and summer seasons...And with any luck, the key to their further survival out of the hands of the advancing army.

Drachma didn't know about these forays during the warmer months of the year, of course, and what they didn't know would keep both of them alive just a little longer. In fact...the storm seemed to be a bigger boon than they all had first thought, for when Miles dared a glance back, the snow had started in earnest, and the men from Drachma's army were fleeing back to their fortified camp. He sent up a private prayer to Ishvala; Oh Lord, keep us safe and hale, and let us find our way back home...And hoped, against all hope, that he could remember the way through the labyrinth inside.