The woman shivered as she huddled in the ruined building, rain pelting down outside and leaking seemingly everywhere through the damaged roof. She pushed uncooperative strands of wet blond hair from her face and sighed as she stared at her meager meal of damp bread and a small piece of moldy cheese. “Well, at least there’s plenty to drink!”, she said to the otherwise empty room, and let out a childish giggle. She’d been in a similar situation before, though. Her face contorted as those memories flooded back – waking to her leg pinned beneath the carriage as a storm raged overhead. Her father and their passenger, dead. Four days of eating only what food she had in her pockets, supplemented with some grass and twigs that were within reach. Oh, and the one apple her dear horse Grimwild had brought to her. Yes, at least Grimwild had somehow survived. Grimwild, her only true friend.
She closed her beautiful dark brown eyes. They were a gift from her mother, or so her father told her. Unfortunately the rest of her was a “gift” from her father, she laughed to herself, especially her bushy eyebrows and rather large frame, the same large frame that led to her mother’s death during childbirth. She knew her father loved her but she also knew her father harbored a resentment towards her for the death of her mother, a resentment that would sometimes flare up when he was mad and one that she found herself sometimes instigating during her teenage years.
She was always bigger than the other kids of her age. While this led to some minor teasing, it wasn’t until those same kids learned that her large size was what had caused her own mother’s death that the teasing became relentless. They took to calling her Olga “Wombsplitter”, a name that only the cruel minds of poor, downtrodden children could conceive. She retreated inside herself, adopting a quiet, unassuming demeanor in social settings even though she was quite adept at navigating them when required. This demeanor belied her acute awareness, and her keen intellect absorbed knowledge like a sponge. She particularly enjoyed eavesdropping on stories about local folklore, with many of her favorites being about The Great War Against Chaos.
The thought of The Great War jolted her back to her current situation and the scraps of food that lay before her. As she reached for the piece of cheese, several bronze pennies spilled from her pocket. "Bronze pennies, all", she lamented. Her mind drifted again. Olga had often accompanied her father in his work as a coachman, eventually gaining enough experience to take on a role of her own. The horses became like family to her, and they always listened to her innermost thoughts without judgement. She also learned her father’s savvy business skills and the value of money. Whether during good times or bad she found herself wanting more in life, always open to making a quick coin whenever the opportunity presented itself. In time some measure of success found its way to them, and life was good considering their still lowly station.
That was all before the accident, of course. She had been found by a monk and taken to a local monastery, where she was healed except for her shattered left foot which they had been forced to remove. Devastated by the loss of her father and her own disfigurement, Olga lapsed into a bout of severe melancholy. Fearing she might take her own life, the monks kept close watch on her by day and tied her to her bed at night. She became increasingly unstable. One night, after several days of refusing to eat, a “Vision of God” appeared to her and told her she still had much of His work to do in this life. Afterwards her physical and mental health seemed to return quickly, and she began dedicating her life to spreading the word of God.
Olga finished her meal focused on the present. “God will provide”, she mused, “even if I need to help Him out a little bit.”
No one was around to take notice of the slight touch of madness that flashed through her eyes.