Title: Flagging Questions
Author: Endaewen
Fandoms: Highlander and The Adept
Rating: G
Summary: Another MacLeod finds out about the theft of the Fairy Flag after the fact.
Disclaimer: Highlander belongs to Davis/Panzier and The Adept is the first book in a series belonging to Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris. I make no money off of this story whatsoever.
Note: I'm not overly happy with this story, as it came out of a very sketchy idea. However, I'm just glad to be writing again so I went with it.
The only reason Duncan had known to even look for the article in the first place was a call from Connor, venting his outrage at the insults to the clan MacLeod. Otherwise he would likely never have found out about the theft. He suspected that with the current chief of the entire clan in New York when it happened, there had been somewhat more coverage on their local channels.
It was two days later that the article even appeared in the local paper. Not quite on the back page, but close, in the back pages of the third section, just before the 'what's going on in the city pages'. By the time the article had even been written, the crime had been solved. Of course, what the article didn't say raised more questions than the article had answered in the first place. Questions such as why had the legendary artifact been stolen in the first place?
There was an interesting mention as well, although nothing more was made of it in the article: only a few days before the theft of the flag, another artifact with a mystical connection had been stolen – the sword of the 'wizard-Earl' of Bothwell. It came up because the writer of the article was wondering if they were connected and musing on what might be the next piece of Scottish heritage to go missing. The item caught Duncan's eye, simply because of his own interest in edged weaponry, making him wonder for a brief second if any Immortals were connected with it. Thankfully, I know that Amanda can't be anywhere near Scotland right now, as I saw her off onto a plane to Australia yesterday, or I'd wonder. It seems like just the sort of challenge she'd take up.
Of course, there's no way that any of the legends concerning either item are true. Despite his Immortality, Duncan had seen no evidence in favour of any powers linked to either the Fairy Flag or the sword. Even so, he was glad to see that it was another MacLeod who'd managed the recovery of both artifacts, just in case, and for some reason he found himself making a mental note of the other two names connected with it as well: Sir Adam Sinclair, and one artist, a Peregrine Lovat. An interesting team to say the least. Not the sort of people you'd expect to find connected in any way.
Being in the antiques business himself, Duncan knew that it wouldn't be possible for a unique and well known artifact like the Fairy Flag to be sold even on the black market without notice coming eventually. The one possibility along that line was that a private collector had commissioned the theft.
But that didn't make sense either, given the way the Flag had been found: less than a day later on a beach that looked as though a bomb had gone off. Surely if it had been a collector that had had it taken he or she would have taken better care of it. After all, the flag was one of a kind.
At least as much of it's mystique came from it's age as well as the legends surrounding the fragile piece of cloth. Duncan had grown up hearing stories about the Flag and it's reputed properties, although he'd not seen it, even though the item had been a part of his heritage for centuries. Nor had he seen it since, although the building it had been kept in was open to tourists and had been for several years. Perhaps now would be a good time to go. It might be fun to show Tessa around the country I grew up in now she knows about Immortality and I can tell her the stories without any questions about how I know what it was like in any particular period.
