Kezia - The Outspoken Romani

[AnayaSilverfox]

Login: AnayaSilverfox
Character Name: Kezia

Kezia is nineteen years of age and stands at five-foot-two barefoot, with a slender frame obviously not built for heavy combat. Wandering through the mountains with her family has given her a toned physique, just enough to wield a short sword and small shield defensively but otherwise leaving her rather underequipped for any kind of offensive combat outside of encouraging her fellow party members and demoralizing her enemies. Her skin is a pale cream color, with a dotted tan along the tops of her shoulders and face from many years on the mountainside. Her name comes from the burnt auburn hair she usually keeps tied up on the back of her head. On the rare occasion she lets it down it falls to her mid-back in light waves. She has deep-set emerald eyes that oftentimes reflect her thoughts and emotions better than her words ever could; Kezia has learned to control her physical reactions quite well, but a keen-eyed outsider can usually gauge her thought processes with an observant meeting of gazes.

The only child of two hardened pureblood Romani, Kezia was raised with a very strong sense of pride for her people and heritage. Like most of her kind, Kezia is very protective of her beliefs and morals, and will not hesitate to defend them should someone place them under verbal fire. She’s quick to temper (as one of her age is prone to be), and has been accused of being “hotheaded” and “naïve” more times than she’s comfortable admitting. Kezia is as Romani as the day is long: she’s stubborn, quick-witted, and has a fierce sense of loyalty to anyone she deems worthy of her respect. Raised in the communal, everyone-support-everyone atmosphere of the gypsy camps, Kezia believes in giving freely and rarely expects anything in return for her kindness. What she lacks in physical strength she makes up for in character: Kezia’s charity and unwavering sense of honor and duty have earned her more allies in her travels than her talents with a weapon could ever hope to garner. A talented speaker from a very young age, her skills as a storyteller and saleswoman have thus far sustained her on her travels outside of the camps. Kezia speaks with the confidence and eloquence of a woman twice her age, and there is scarcely a moment when she cannot be counted on to have an encouraging speech or sharp-tongued retort. Despite her borderline arrogant exterior, she is rather skittish around stronger or larger travelers and usually resorts to a distant, almost aloof attitude when confronted physically. Her lack of weapon-handling ability is her greatest insecurity; she knows she’s physically weak, and has been reminded of it her entire life. Therefore any remark, even in passing, about her size or ability with a blade is usually returned with a scalding retort about the person’s mother or skills in the bedroom.

Kezia’s family was never very notable, even in the gypsy camps. Her father Mircea makes a living as a jack-of-all-trades, taking odd jobs in the camp and surrounding areas to make ends meet for his family. Her mother Aishe was a seamstress and leatherworker until her passing a few weeks after Kezia’s thirteenth birthday, leaving Mircea a very bitter and cynical man with no wife to come home to.

Kezia’s youth was spent with her mother in the family’s tent, helping her with the various repairs that came in as travelers passed through the mountains. She had a happy upbringing: Kezia, despite her slightly boisterous personality, was well-liked amongst the Romani youth and spent many nights standing on a rock retelling the wild tales of monsters and heroes that the travelers would regale to her mother upon arrival with a repair. Being the only child of her parents and a female, Mircea always regarded his daughter with a bitter eye knowing he would probably never bear a sword-wielding son. As much as he loved his child and would gladly give his life for her, he knew she would eventually marry into another family and would never be able to bring them the honor a son would be able to. Kezia was painfully aware of her father’s disdain, and from the time she could hold a blade worked her hardest to learn the ways of the warrior to no avail.

Aishe did her best to teach her daughter the ways of the household, but Kezia was always more interested in hunting and storytelling than any kind of house work, must to Aishe’s dismay. No matter where she turned, Kezia seemed to fall short of her parents’ expectations. She couldn’t wield a sword like a son, and she couldn’t be a proper maiden like a daughter. Despite her failures, Kezia never even began to think of giving up. If she couldn’t be the son her father had really wanted or the daughter her mother hoped she’d become, she decided in her adolescence she would make her own path and make her own destiny. No one was going to tell her how to live her life, and as long as at the end of the day she could lay her head down and be okay with her decisions she would die a happy woman. Aishe, despite knowing full well her daughter was a bit of an “oddball”, supported Kezia through her every venture and often took works-in-progress outside of the tent to work and listen to Kezia when she retold traveler’s tales under the moon to the camps’ eagerly listening children.

Four days after Kezia’s thirteenth name day Aishe fell ill. Later that same day it was discovered that a passing rogue had poisoned her with spider venom because he felt that his armor hadn’t been properly repaired and her error had cost him in a duel. She fought the sickness bravely, with Kezia at her side from the moment she became bedridden pouring every word of support and motivation she had in her vocabulary to keep her mother strong. But words and local medicine were not enough to save Aishe, and she succumbed to the venom fourteen days after being poisoned.

Kezia was inconsolable; she’d lost her best friend, her greatest supporter and the person she cared for most in the entire world in one fell swoop. The youth disappeared into the mountain pass for a week, desperate for some kind of solace and escape from the stark reality of her deceased mother. A small party, with Mircea in the lead, found her hiding in a small alcove two miles into the pass clutching a small bag Aishe had made her filled with small scraps of food and a bottle of mead she’d pickpocketed from a distracted paladin. Upon re-entering the camp with his daughter Mircea became a complete cynic, the guilt of not being present when his wife was poisoned leading him to place all blame of her death on Kezia’s small shoulders. After all, if she’d only been stronger she would have been able to save his wife, right? A son would have beaten the rogue to death with his bare fists and a proper daughter would have magically drawn the fatal concoction from her. Mircea spent the final years his daughter would spend in the camp nearly completely ignoring her, aside from providing her with a small meal at night. When he did speak to Kezia, it was to insult her inability to wield a weapon or remind her of her part in his wife’s death.

She could see his fury and disgust toward her in his eyes every time they were near each other. Kezia couldn’t escape her father’s anger no matter how hard she tried, and over the next six years her hatred of her father and contempt for herself only grew. By the time she was nineteen she could barely stand herself or anyone around her. The only relief she found was telling her tales, which still managed to captivate the youth she’d grown up with even after the thousandth retelling. It was during one of her drawn out, animated speeches that she found her escape: a visitor to the camp, a tall, war-torn general from the Norwick Militia told her of the city where he had come from and the opportunities that awaited a small-town traveler with the right work ethic and talents. Kezia packed two small bags with enough food and supplies to get her to the city that night and, upon managing to talk her way onto the cart of a passing Peltarch merchant before her father caught wind of her plan, left everything she had ever known behind and disappeared for the city of Norwick under the light of the full moon.

–

Kezia was convinced her backside was going to fall off if she had to go through one more day on that blasted cart. The owner, a kind-looking old woman from Peltarch, had been most amused by the Romani’s tales and the two had spent most of the journey laughing and exchanging stories. As kind as the woman was, Kezia could hardly wait to get to Norwick and explore her new surroundings. She’d never been as far as two miles up the mountain pass that led out of the gypsy camps, so the prospect of entering a new place with nothing but the clothes on her back and the food she’d brought with her from the camp was more than a little daunting.

Every time the old woman pointed out how far they were Kezia’s stomach fluttered a little harder. A week. Four days. Two days. Just over that mountain pass. Oh Gods, it was too soon! Maybe her decision to strike out on her own had been a mistake. But once she was there, what was she to do? She was a fortnight away from home, and had no money to get herself back home. And what if she did go home? Mircea wouldn’t welcome her back. If anything, he’d laugh at her for being a naïve fool and shut her out of the tent she’d spent her whole life in. She didn’t think she could stand the sting of being rejected from her own home twice. She’d already gone through it by just living there after her mother had passed, and returning there to only be shut out permanently was more than she could even think to bear. The juxtaposition of her building anxiety and the bubbling adrenaline the sight of the Norwick lights sent through her veins was enough to make the poor Romani girl nearly vomit her supper over the side of the rickety cart.

A hand subconsciously slipped to the center of her torso, clutching at a small crystal under her tunic that dangled on a leather strap around her neck. Her mother Aishe had worn it while she was alive, and upon her burial the pendant had been passed to her daughter. The weight of the crystal pressed into her palm as the gypsy’s fingers curled around it, the tight ball in her throat that threatened to turn her stomach inside out slightly unfurling as she managed to calm herself down a bit. She was going to be fine. No matter what happened, she was a Romani. She was tough, determined, and could survive any hardship just like her gypsy descendants had. Kezia swallowed hard, the audible gulp causing the old woman to break her silence to regard the girl closely. “You’ve never been outside of the gypsy camps, have you?” she questioned quietly, a knowing look on her wrinkled old face.

Kezia shook her head, her frog-colored eyes staring dead ahead of them at the growing city ahead. “Never, aside from one time when I found myself in the mountain pass.” Her pale lips retreated into a thin line, tension tightening every muscle in her body at the memory. The old woman seemed to read the girl’s emotions as clearly as if they had been written on a scroll and turned forward once again, giving the mule that was pulling the cart an encouraging tap with the leather reins in her knobby, spotted hands. Kezia was silent for several minutes, letting her mind slip out of reality and into the deep recesses of her thoughts. She needed a plan. When she got into the city she’d have to find somewhere to sleep first and foremost. There was a small pocket inside her bag that contained enough money for a meal and possibly a bed at a cheap inn, but other than that Kezia had nothing in the way of monetary support. Her father had never been a wealthy man, but living in a community where everyone gave freely to help their neighbor the family had never once hurt for supplies to survive. Kezia had managed to call on an old bet she’d won a few moons ago for enough money to get herself her first meal in Norwick, but she’d need to find a merchant in need of a selling voice or even a cleric who could use her talents with words if she could even hope to survive beyond a couple of days. She bit her bottom lip anxiously, hands wringing in her lap as she struggled to piece together any kind of feasible process to keep herself afloat once in the city. Not a lot came to mind, and the stark reality of her situation was beginning to turn her stomach again.

She was alone.

The old woman spoke again suddenly, jarring Kezia out of her pensive stupor with the sharpness of a gypsy insult. “Go to the taverns,” she said quietly, her quavering old voice cutting through the otherwise silent night. “Speak with the local bards and tavernkeepers. Someone will have an odd job for you. It probably won’t be an enjoyable one, but at the very least you’ll be able to keep food in your stomach.” She looked over at the gypsy girl next to her, giving her a kind, knowing smile from under her lace headscarf. “You don’t seem strong enough to wield an axe, but you look like an intelligent girl. You’ll find your way. Never fear anything but your own insecurity and your enemy’s hidden hand.”

Kezia stared at the old woman blankly, who let out an amused chuckle before turning to face the road once more. “We’re nearly into Norwick,” she continued, voice suggesting she hadn’t given the Romani next to her advice that had completely bolstered the girl’s quickly crumbling morale. “Go on and lay back in the hay bales and rest. We’ll reach the city by midday. I’ll wake you when we pass through the gate.”

The gypsy nodded and, silent as the night around them, crawled into the back of the cart to rest amongst the large pile of hay bales behind where they had been sitting. Kezia curled up into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest and staring out over the railing of the cart to look out over the fields and trees just past the cart path. The moon rose high above the canopy of the tree line, stars winking down like snowflakes amongst the inky black spread of the midnight sky. She allowed her weary eyes to slide shut, a cool breeze caressing her bare arms like Shaundakul himself was embracing, almost comforting her as the two travelers rattled down the dirt path into Norwick. Everything was going to be okay. She just knew it.

[Black Rider]

(snip)