Birthday Bios: Olive · 4:32pm Sep 13th, 2016
Gosh, darn it, Olive, you should be wearing a helmet!
Huh, I forgot that I’m supposed to draw my foal/teenage characters as adults. Oh, well, we’ll say she doesn’t look much different when she’s an adult, though she’ll be using proper equipment more.
Anyway, another member of the Flower-Wood family, and this time we’re covering the adrenaline junkie of the family. Girl’s got a need for speed and adventure, and given that she pretty much lives pretty darn close to a mountain range, you know she’s taking advantage of that (be it cart, scooter, sled, etc.). I don’t know if it’d be better or worse if she was a pegasus.
Pfft, the only way her name is fitting is if you look at it from the view of “olive trees are hardy”, instead of the actual symbolism of the olive and related things. XD
Anyway, let’s dive in!
Olive was born in Neighton, Salt Lick Valley, to March Redwood and Honeysuckle, the fourth foal after her older siblings: Flora Peace, Bananas, and Ash Tree. At first she was an easygoing baby, with a preference for sleep and cuddling more than anything else. Given that her sister Flora was mean and bratty at the time, everypony thought that she’d be the sweetheart.
However, it was soon learned that she had a fascination for gravity and found it a lot of fun to experiment with it. She figured out how to use her legs for things other than toddling pretty early, and she took to climbing and jumping off bookshelves, whether at home or the library. It was a good thing that both of her parents were a good catch, though they had to keep her on a leash at all times. Olive continued to mess with them, as she found their fear for her funny.
She also convinced Bananas to use a catapult—which he had accidentally summoned with his budding party pony powers—to take her flying. Even though Bananas would hold her during the flight and had a parachute, he still got in trouble for it. After that, he took to entertaining her with crashing the toy trains.
She has also bothered Ash Tree when he paints, which usually got paint on her. As for Flora, she has often tried to get her to do horsey-back rides on her, with the shout of “Giddyup!” Whether or not Flora complied depended on her mood. When she’s not bothering her siblings, she’s making a mess and stealing a wagon to satisfy her need for excitement.
Bananas was her favorite sibling for being the most fun, but when he got into an accident while Olive was at the doctor for shots (how she screamed when that needle appeared), he was moody and fearful for a couple of years (on the bright side, Flora was nicer). For a toddler, that seemed like forever, and she was not happy when he refused to play with her for a while, though she eventually forgot about Bananas’ pre-accident playfulness. Thus, at around three, she was surprised when her sad brother suddenly became happy, wacky, and had a picture of a banana on his flank. Flora had a mark on her flank too, and explained to her the concept of a cutie mark.
She also received a younger brother, Alfalfa, that year. She tried to take him on adventures, but always ended up making him cry because he was so scared. One incident where she broke a leg trying to protect him from a stunt gone wrong convinced her that she should be a solo act. As soon as her leg was healed, she was going back to adventure.
She was four when her parents had the infamous “Inn Fight”. She barely remembers the whole thing, only thing being that her parents were really mad for what seemed like forever for her. Given how scary the fighting was, she was packing up her favorite foods and toys in her wagon to run away. Flora stopped her from doing so, assuaging any fears she may have had. Soon after, their parents made up.
Her younger sister, Amber Waves, came along a couple years later. While Olive had fast-paced fun with her wagon down the mountainside, her activities with Amber were usually pulling her around town in her wagon and pretending to be a monster to chase her. These same activities were done with later siblings Willow and Kernel Grin.
When not with a baby, Olive was a show-off, showing neighbors her various tricks on a wagon or sled, depending on the season. She’ll always ride the roller coasters at the local amusement park, and even tried to ride those rides she was too short for. She started a trend at school to sled on empty chip bags down the hill during recess (it eventually got banned). However, her stunts usually ended in crashes that wrecked something and made her lose a tooth (once, it was one of her permanent teeth that popped out, leaving a very noticeable gap in her mouth).
It was often enough that her father got fed up with it and made her learn how to build and fix things. When she wasn’t allowed to do any stunts after doing something naughty, she was often working with one of her carpenter uncles. One even gave her a violin for a birthday present, and taught her how to play, saying that she can practice every time she wasn’t allowed to have her adventures. Given how often that was, she got a lot of practice on the instrument.
She was eleven when she was old enough for Neighton’s Mountain Derby. While her parents were worried that she would crash again, her Grandma Flower Power was eager to help her build her cart. Ash Tree painted a simple design on the cart, and she was ready to roll. Competing in the race with a bunch of other adventurous foals, she tried her best to keep from crashing the entire time. She surprised even herself with landing great jumps, dodging any wild animals that popped up in the road, and even doing the outright impossible feat of righting her cart when it was rolling. While she didn’t win the race, she still got a prize for being the most skilled racer. As a bonus, she earned her cutie mark that day.
She kept that cart, which she dubbed as her ‘lucky’ cart. She often uses it during celebrations. She’ll drive it in a fair, usually offering rides to ponies for a bit. She’s gentle with little kids, but she went as fast as possible when carrying an adult. However, due to her overall cockiness and recklessness, she’s not allowed to drive her cart in the Frontier Festival parade in Salt Lick City for fear of her causing a wreck. She instead has to play her violin while standing on one of Neighton’s floats. She tends to be pretty grumpy about it.
She gets annoyed that it’s usually not her parents telling her to behave, but rather it’s her sister Flora who takes the reins in nagging her. It doesn’t help that Olive is jealous that Flora is a beautiful mare that is renowned for her sweet and kind attitude, and is the go-to mare for a session in having peace of mind, spirit, and body. Often, Olive takes to getting on Flora’s nerves to expose that fiery temper of hers.
Olive resented having to work for her sister’s college fund, but when Flora went off to college in Manehattan, Olive missed having her bossy sister around. And soon enough, she resented having to look after her bratty cousin, Crème Brulee, with her other siblings. To escape that yellow terror, she often made excuses to go hang out with her many guy friends to go do sports. She’s often expressed her frustrations over Creme with those friends.
In adulthood, she has considered joining the military, but then decided that being restricted by all those rules just wasn’t her thing (her father had jokingly expressed disappointment in missing out on her getting extra discipline). As there was not much demand for any stuntmares, Olive just went into engineering and got a job in fixing carts in Salt Lick City, going out to do outdoor hobbies like rock climbing and skiing during her down time.
However, she ended up getting an itch to inject adventure into her career, and thus she started to work on building better engines for vehicles in Equestria. She would often test them herself, though she often ended up either crashing or lighting things on fire. A couple of times had her attaching a motor to Bananas’ unicycle, which ended up wrecking the neighborhood (and she had to clean it up). Still, she still worked at it, hoping to better transportation for her fellow Equestrians, even if it takes her years. Still, she enjoys the excitement that these things give her when she tests them.
As a matter of fact, she is a mare that enjoys excitement, period.
A daredevil engineer? Fascinating. She could revolutionize Equestria... or blow up a small part of it. Or both. I suppose it remains to be seen.
She needs to meet the CMC. Most especially Scootaloo. In the SWSV Olive would definitely wind up some sort of insane swashbuckling pilot, attack vehicle driver, or commando.