Innocence and Blood
-
A half dozen years ago a Rom Family moved on from the Camp. A dozen gaily painted wagons, numerous horses, thirty adults and unnumbered children. No-one thought to count. And when one of those children turned out to be missing a few days later when one of the families finally tried to bring all their offspring together for a family meal, they looked hard, but didn't think to look so far behind them. Eventually they mourned and moved on, another traveller lost to the eastlanders or other bandits.
And the child was damaged. Not that this stopped them looking. Blood is thicker than that, but the girl wasn't right in the head. She seemed well enough, played well enough, laughed and smiled well enough. But she didn't talk. Couldn't. Well, could, but so badly that others always spoke for her, filled her silences, stopped the pained expression on her face as she tried. So she gave up more often than not, making do with pointing and the occassional sign.Star was lost. Ten years old, and lost in the deepest parts of the forests around the Gypsy Camp. She cried for a while. She wanted to call for her mother, her father, anyone. But to call for someone she would have to speak, would have to fight and stumble her way even to a single word. She did, not to do so would have been foolish, but noone heard her efforts or came to find her. She was well trained, a Rom child and capable of looking after herself. So that's what she did. She roamed far and wide within the woods, scavenging, hunting, always hunting. She rarely managed to build a fire so more often than not she ate what she brought down raw, but she never forgot she was human, Rom, not an animal.
It may seem hard to believe, but those woods are big, and they link to other woods, and as time went by she became more nervous of the other people she sometimes saw. For six years she lived wild, forgetting much of the little childhood she'd had as she lived day by day, hunt by hunt. And then she saw it. Something that triggered a vague memory. So she followed the narrow trail and emerged on the edge of the Camp. People again, she shied away, but found herself drawn back, again and again. Eventually approaching and moving amongst them. Few remembered her. But the Oathtaker did. She remembered everyone, but how could you forget a girl that takes over an hour to swear oath.
The child, Star was her name, untutored, untaught. Not without skills but so unlearned. So naive. So nervous. She runs the hills and forests of Narfell now. Happy to have found her family again, though nervous even of them. She still tries, now and then to answer when people ask her questions she has no sign for, but only the patient ever hear her responses. She delights in the the things she discovers anew, and in the things she learns as she wanders. Things most take for granted. The coldness of marble, the wetness of rain.
She has survived, she is home, and the world is a beautiful place when it is so new to you.
Game Login: Katebush
Character Name: Star
Home: Gypsy Camp
-
Reviewed, XP pending.
