Pre-Story notes:
I've just gone over the story again and made some adjustments with grammar, spelling and spacing. I'd love to keep this story up, so please, review.

Description:
In an early world of war, drafts, and poverty, it pays to be nameless. Duo Maxwell, a stranger and a man without a title, finds himself in a friendly village; confident that he can leave behind the warmth of friendship and forget the smiles and memories whenever he felt it right, he works to pursue a short-term lifestyle. However, love and friendship sometimes have strange ways of holding a man and keeping his soul a blessed prisoner.

Rating:
M for language and adult content, moving most likely to NC-17 later on. I will warn you a chapter ahead, just in case ' pay attention to the Author's notes from here on in.

Disclaimer:
Do I really have to keep making these? You know, and I know, that I did not create Gundam Wing or any of it's characters. So quit bitching and shove those lawyer's back in your pockets; I only have 27 cents in my pocket anyways.

Where the World Began

Crimson Release

Chapter 1: Weary Traveler.

All children are born with a sense of daring, and with a thirst that even milk from a mother's breast cannot quench; All of us dreaming a dream we could not sleep through. Adventure. Excitement. Mystery.
The children of my age were born with a wooden sword in hand, and a fairy-tale shield risen above us. The world was wide and ripe for the taking, in the eyes of our generation. At least, it would have been, if it could survive the abuse it was taking from our predecessors.

The world, as it always had, debated war and peace within itself. Boys and men alike had been lost to gunfire for years before and after my sudden appearance in this place. Orphaned at such a young age, and a wanderer soon after, no records of my name or birth date existed. While I had mourned my lack of identity in my early years, I had quickly learned to count my losses and began to appreciate my state of nothingness; it had saved me from the draft that cleared the fields and deadened the towns, as efficiently as the plague.

I had happened onto the main street that led past a painted post, welcoming travelers into OZ County's valley township, Sanc-Town, purely by chance. Sanc-Town, like so many others I had passed, had been hit hard by the draft. All of the poor village boys that had once worked together in the community fields that their fathers could no longer manage had been whisked away to fight a war that should not have touched them. It really was a sorry sight, I decided, while walking along the worn, dirt path. I could practically taste the emptiness in the air with each breath I took, but at the same time, I knew that the town's loss was my gain, and I had learned long ago not to feel any remorse in taking advantage of the situation.

Boys like me were valuable in places like these; young, strong, and nameless. I reveled in this fact as I trudged along the path, while whistling a cheery tune and stepping in time with the chestnut streaked braid that swung in an arc down past my waistline. With only those to young or old for a soldier's life, I was sure to be accepted. The work would be hard, and the days long, but I would have food, and a bed and bath water at ready whenever I needed, and when things went down in my adopted home- whether it be a result of the return of what was left of the town boys, or a regressive wave that came on occasion with the depression, I would steal what food I could and climb these valley hills, in reverse order of my coming.

"Well," I heard myself drawl over chapped lips, the accent I carried from the America's tailing my words nostalgically. "It seems as if I have wandered upon a new home!"

There were a fair amount of houses, all with their own designated smoke stacks, now standing empty because of the warm weather. Stray chickens wandered between the houses, some returning to nests made under the risen porch of the local Mercantile. It wasn't a terribly poor town, I supposed, and was probably more comfortable then most considering its size.

Before taking another step, I noticed a crooked figure in the distance, and called out a few short words of greeting and waved my hand in the air.

Ambling down the main road, an elderly man tipped his hat in my direction, and left it to hang over the glazed white of his right eye. He wore a dirty set up over-alls, and a plaid shirt beneath the grubby straps that clung to his shoulders. It didn't take much for me to catch up with the old guy, even though he had turned to continue on his way, past the townhouses. Once I had fallen in step with him, I smiled good-naturedly.

"Hey there, old man."

"Hey yourself." He replied, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"What can you tell me about this place?" I asked, right away. Maybe I sounded over eager, or perhaps my accent sounded strange to him, because he was smiling.

"This place, huh?" He said, a low chuckle escaping with his words. "This place is where the world begins, my boy, no matter where you've come from. And this," he continued, and nodded in the direction the town led, past the fields and north, towards the mountains. "This is where it ends."

What I was sure had been meant as a welcome sounded cryptic, prophetic even. With a late summer sun beating down on my shoulders, I felt a chill run down my spine, and shivered.

"What do you mean by that, Old man?" I inquired with more of a tremor in my voice then I would have liked.

"I mean what I said, son. All of the people that I've met, passing through, this place keeps them." He raised a heavy gray brow and winked, flashy a toothy grin that failed to relax me entirely. "One thing or another usually ties them to these old valley hills."

Shrugging my shoulders, I shook off the uneasy feeling that had overtaken me as best I could and flashed an infamous Maxwell grin. "Whatever you say, then. I'm Duo Maxwell," Offering my hand to the stranger, I winced when I felt the joints in my fingers grind together in his grip. "A pleasure. . ."

"Eugene Baxter. It's real pleasin' meeting you, Mister Maxwell!"

"Duo, Sir. Just Duo." I said over a wince after withdrawing my throbbing hand from his. "Nobody has added on any fancy prefix to my name before, and I should hate to think they'd start with that now."

"As you say then, lad. Call me Baxter, everyone does 'round here." Smiling as warmly as he had before, he folded his arms over a plush waist, and asked, after resuming his pace: "Tell me, Duo, why have you come to Sanc-Town?"

"By accident, really." I shrugged my shoulders and followed him. "I search out work in empty towns, robbed by the military."

"A nameless one, are ya?" I grinned in response and he continued. "We could use another like you. We've needed some strong youth for some time now. You understand we cannot pay in anything except food, shelter and kindness?"

"Yes Sir… Baxter… That's fine. I'm just looking for a place to get by."

"You'll find that here, sure enough."

"Where would I stay, S- Baxter?" Most times you came to a town like this, you'd find yourself in the spare bedroom of one of the larger town houses, or even sharing one with another. In my experience, I had learned to be wary. Sharing a bed with two sets of twins, both young and of opposite genders, had been compromising.

"Well, if you were the first I'd say you'd stay with me, but the others have taken the spare room. Aside from that, most everyone 'round here has their hands full with their own young'ens."

"There are others like me?" I said, my eyes growing wide. I hadn't met up with another who was nameless in quite some time. Two years, maybe, and he had been a few years younger than me, anyway.

"An Austrian boy and Asian boy. Neither talk much, and both stay with me."

"Huh." Folding my hands behind my head, thoughts of my sleeping arrangements slipped my mind in favor of the nameless boys. Both of them foreigners like myself, and all of us lacking a true identity.

"But then, I guess I'm forgetting the third." Baxter continued, "You'll have to beg my pardon, lad, he is barely familiar to any of us now." He rose a plump hand and counted off three knarled fingers. "He showed up not too long ago, and faced the same living problems as you are."

"Oh really? Well, how did it work out for him?" I tossed a sidelong glance towards the old man, curious as to whether or not he could really help my living situation.

"Well, the doctor's son took him in. He's a wealthy man, got everything of his fathers when the good doctor passed, rest his soul, and lived alone in the big house over yonder." He nodded his head in the direction of a large, modern looking house, which loomed above the rest of the town. "If you think that would be a good enough place to stay, I'll take you up there myself."

Good enough? I repeated those words a few dozen times in my head, keeping my slow smile hidden by keeping my head tilted in the direction of the wonderful house. "I guess that'll do for me." Was my answer and enough for the old man to slap me hard across the shoulder with a gruff laugh, before leading me past the town and up to the house on the hill.

Author's Note: Well, how is that for a first chapter? Kind of short. If the spacing makes this hard to read, please tell, and I'll work on modifying that. Anyways, I'm going to start on an update for this chapter right away. I hope you keep reading, because I can tell this is going to be a fun piece of writing.

Please, Review!