Title: Collateral Damage
Author: Karina
Rating: PG
Pairing: Duo + Milliardo
Notes: Challenge 204. Baby Series 4 #69. Takes place following Of Potential and Prospects.
Spoilers: None
Warnings:
Many thanks to ShenLong Deb for her work betaing this set of fics.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the Characters from the series but the baby is mine.
Title: Collateral Damage
Long fingers moved over the ornate edge of the frame. The gilded frame sported a heavy layer of dust and the painting would need to be carefully cleaned, but it was clear the work was of exceptional quality. A pastoral scene; high, snow capped mountains and in the foreground children played at the edge of a stream. In the centre a hay wagon drawn by two Shire horses was piled high and being stacked by men wielding pitchforks. Men and women gathered the cut grass, bundling it into manageable stacks for the pitchfork team to toss onto the wagon.
It was a rural idyll and spoke of a more genteel age. Looking closely at the painting Milliardo noticed a hunt taking place in the spread of forest clothed hills behind the pasture. The painting was only one of the treasures his night with Duo ratting through the attics had seen brought to the newly furnished suite of rooms.
He wondered where it had come from. It did not strike him as being a Sancian scene, the mountains were wrong and the hunt did not have the air of other representations of Sancian hunts.
"It would have been back breaking labour."
He glanced over at Duo standing in the doorway, head tilted slightly to better enable him to see the work of art Milliardo was studying.
"Not an easy lifestyle, no, but in many ways healthier than that of those who flooded the cities of the time. Wars drove the country folk off the land and they sought a future in the cities which had no chance of handling the flood of displaced humanity. It was end of the world stuff. There was really no reprisals or naming of war criminals. Nothing was thought of massacring bystanders to the conflict."
"Collateral damage, eh?"
"Something like that. This is from... perhaps the 1700's."
"Is it Sanc?" Duo moved to join Milliardo, perching on a stool and leaning his elbows on the bench top.
"I don't believe so. The countryside is not quite right for it to be Sanc. Central European, I think, would be as close to a specific location as I would dare to suggest."
"I can't really get over the variety of stuff up in the attics. It all just seems to have been dumped there with no sense of order."
Milliardo leaned the painting against the wall, securing it so that it would not slip. They had hunted through the attic, restraining themselves admirably, he thought, only bringing half a dozen items out from the attic, one of which was the portrait of a particular Chinese Princess who well might have an influence on modern Sanc.
"The man is dead, but I wish he was alive so that I might question him. Somewhere there must be an inventory, but until we can find it, we must simply do the best that we can. It makes returning what essentially amounts to national treasures in some cases, extremely difficult."
End
Karina Robertson 2013