Bel Niente nella Guerra

"Beautiful Nothing in the War"

A/N: So I'm going to try to update this fairly regularly, if at all possible. Many thanks to JoJoDancer for the review. Encouragement is always helpful. I hope you enjoy the story as it unfolds. As far as I've been able to uncover, there's no real area that Noin is supposed to be from, except that she's considered to be vaguely Mediterranean. I decided she was Italian. Lombardia Province is in the northern, mountainous part of Italy.

AC 190, August 15
Outside Bormio, Valle dell'Adda
Bergamo Province, Lombardia, Italy

The valley in which the Noin estate was situated had been a peaceful place for years. The Noin family was, while not well loved, tolerated and respected. They were good landlords to those who lived in the town, peaceful people who preferred to raise their children and tend their farmland rather than show off for the sake of the 'importance' of their title. Barone Ottaviano was the latest of the Noins to inherit the title and the lands that belonged to it. He was fortunate enough to have a son to entail the estate onto, and three daughters to soothe his wife as the son grew up and was sent from home.

It was unfortunate, perhaps, that the Barone was such a tolerant man. He was fair, and his tenants enjoyed having him as a landlord. As his family grew, he strengthened his ties with the people. As his children aged, he became more loved than his predecessors.

But it was his son who was the family's saving grace, and not his tolerant father. An uprising in another valley was causing some unrest, and Antonino Eusebio wanted troops sent to the valley to look after his family's lives and interests. He and his father quarreled on the subject several times. Ottaviano did not see the need for a military presence near the family. He did not mind that there were demonstrations going on, the villagers assured him that it had nothing to do with the family or the title.

Antonino abided his father's wishes uneasily, but finally when a friend relayed to him the severity of the danger involved in the situation, he defied his father and asked his friend to dispatch troops to look after things.

The orders were well delivered. The Alliance unit in charge of extraction was right on target when they were deployed to the Barone's estate… but they arrived too late to save either the inhabitants of the marble palazzio or the building itself. The rebels, the guerrillas, had made the governing noble's home their first target, and there was rubble strewn around the entrance, blocking it. The breva whirled about the ruined structure, casting sand and stone about the ruined, smoldering structure. The air was crisp, and the smoke was sharp as the soldiers approached it.

If the soldiers had been local, they would have understood why there was no one about the mansion's grounds or in the valley that day. The servants and hands were preparing to celebrate Ferragosto. What an unfortunate holiday it turned out to be.

The Barone and his family had likely not even known what was happening when the missile had blown the building in two, and what remained of the first and half of the second floors were little more than charred rubble, smoldering and smoking in the heavy rains that had started shortly after the attack on the city had begun. The unit commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Ahrme, surveyed the scene with his mouth set in a grim line. The rain was not improving his mood, which had turned sour as soon as he realized they had arrived too late.

The orders required a thorough search of the rubble that was the Barone's estate.

The Barone's son had ordered his family returned to him, alive or dead. He held sway with the star of the administration, Captain Treize Kushrenada, and so his wishes were carried out, even though his family was not so important to Romefellor as others. It was through the influence of that Kushrenada, and the loyalty of the soldiers to the leaders of that name alone that the Barone's youngest sister survived. The Alliance soldiers dug her out of the gun cellar where she had been putting away the weapons she had cleaned after her morning ride out to practice shooting in the forest. A bit of mortar had knocked her unconscious and kept her from blundering up into the force of the rocket's path. Otherwise, her older brother would have been truly alone.

Lucrezia Catarina Noin, the youngest child of Barone Ottaviano Noin, woke to find herself in a dimly lit tent on the edge of the low mountain ridges that ringed the valley where her family had lived. Her first sensation was that of disorientation, and then panic. Her head throbbed, pulsing with pain. She reached a hand up to find it bandaged, became aware of her clothing still on her shoulders, and her eyes moved around the tent wildly.

Her father's hunting jacket was draped respectfully across the back of a nearby chair. Getting up slowly, she reached for it, and pulled it onto her shoulders. Her head throbbed, colors swimming in blackness at the edges of her vision. She grasped the jacket. The worn in gray leather would protect her from the weather outside, even though she didn't have the hat she normally wore with it to keep the rain off. A quick twist of her hair into a braid and she was able to tuck it under the collar of the jacket.

That did not help the devilish headache she could feel, and even the comfort of the jacket did not manage to fend off the encroaching sense of disorientation. Logic over-rode pain. Whoever's camp she was in would probably notice a woman… girl… wandering around. A gray figure with non-descript black hair would be less easy to identify. If only her father hadn't insisted she wear skirts when riding, perhaps this little escape she was planning would be easier. Somewhere, in the distance, there was thunder, and she could smell smoke on her clothing. She lifted the sleeve of the jacket and inhaled. She had to snatch her arm away as she was struck with an almost violent fit of coughing.

Her throat was raw, angry. She needed to get something to drink, something to eat… some water… some anything to make it stop. Her head was dizzy, spinning. She had to sit down, and she made sure to, on the cot, before she pitched forward onto the floor. After a moment or two of breathing carefully, her coughing subsided and she could breathe normally again, on her own.

Footsteps neared the tent. The slap of boots on damp earth alerted her, echoing against the tent sides. Her heartbeat thundered in her chest, and another fit of coughing threatened. There was a voice, but it sounded vague to her. She got to her feet with a wobble and hid next to the opening of the tent, tense and waiting.

She was the Barone's daughter… how dare someone…

In the distance there was more thunder.

A curious man pulled aside the tent flap and leaned in. His eyes widened and he turned to look. She timed her movements properly, pulling back her arm, and thrust her fist as hard as she could into his face.

The soldier, as she could now see the intruder was, tumbled forward into the space of her tent a shocked expression on his face. There was water on his uniform jacket, and a hat on his head. For a moment, as she dragged the body into the tent as quietly and best she could without falling over, she felt bad about what she was doing. And then she thought about… what she had heard before she had fallen. The shouting and screaming… the loud noises.

Her ears still rang. Her expression hardened into a grim one, and she debated, for a moment, taking his uniform. Her temples throbbed. Her body kept up with its reminders of her physical condition. It would take a lot of effort to disrobe the soldier. A lot of heaving, and some embarrassment…

Maybe just his jacket and hat…

And then she saw his sidearm, and decided against taking the man's clothes entirely. The weapon would be more than enough.

Stealing into the rain was easy. She tugged the back of the tent up. She didn't know how long until someone noticed that the soldier was absent… or until he woke up. Her punches, though formidable, were still the blows of an almost fifteen year old who learned to fight in the stables of her father's estate, and not the blows of a trained soldier.

For a moment, her vision threatened to blur from the wealth of emotion the thought of her father brought up, but she forced the sorrow down, biting back on it against her raw throat, and forced her dizzy, throbbing head to send the proper signals to her limbs. She moved quickly, or thought she did.

It was not long, or very far, before she ran into someone. And it was decidedly the wrong someone to run into. But thankfully, as her vision blurred, again, that someone decided to be merciful, and her body was kept from falling to the wet ground when she swooned. "Now where did you come across this, I wonder?" a calm voice asked.