<span class="fixed-color" style="color:#99ccff">She was not one of them, yet they had accepted her with mostly open arms from the beginning. They themselves were considered thieves and vagabonds, witches and misfits, all the things that dwelled on the fringes of society; barely tolerated on the outskirts of civilizations for the mysteries that they brought with them from across the world. Ill trusted, yet sought after by the inquisitive. Like the young who snuck from his village under the cover of night when they came to town to seek a potion for a love story of his imagination’s making. Or a wife from the city who sought the band of travelers that approached a decrepit old woman who claimed to be a healer with her infant son cradled close to her breast who had been born with a cough that would not fade. Even lords and ladies found their way among the wagons lined up together to glimpse their future wealth or misfortunes.<br/>
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Within the encampment itself, there was a man who swallowed fire after he had danced to its rhythm named Jiles; there was a man who called himself Dorio who sold fetishes that he claimed had magical powers that he was gifted by one of the tribes in the Southern Isles; there was Marisela who enticed men with lascivious curves into her own private wagon once dusk had settled; there was a traveling man named Piero who spoke, oftentimes, in tongues and wore a mask on his face at all times. Then there was Tomasin, who was the son of Risha who maintained order in their caravan. Though renown to be money hungry, each of them had a task to perform when it came to the caravan. His was the master of beasts, in which he kept the hounds, the horses, even the chickens that pecked the ground in hopes to finding a juicy worm pushed to the surface after the rains had fallen. The lads and some of the girls helped him, of course – and if they resisted his demands, he cracked the whip meant to encourage the mules against their backsides to send them scampering at attention to do his bidding for him. And many more.<br/>
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Despite being sun-baked and tanned from the sun, she was still pale and washed out in comparison to the swarthy-skinned folk native to whatever lands they had been borne from. Even the old woman who sold potions and healed the sick could not remember where their home had once been. It had been the appeal of the gypsy kind for the girl who called herself Clio, who claimed to remember nothing more from her own origins than a name. Even that she still was not sure was even her own, but claimed it just the same, along with devised surname gotten from someone else's story. The gypsies had not been her first stop in her new journey, but they had been her last.<br/>
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She proved useful to the caravan by being a proficient cook, skilled with medicines and herbs, as well as a practiced scribe. Not only could she forge the handwriting of any who challenged her, she also had beautiful penmanship, and was often commissioned by the less literate to write letters, or even poems to old lovers, or heartfelt apologies to scorned friends and wives.<br/>
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She also Dreamed. The Sight was not something she disclosed at first to her newly acquired family nor was it her only gift or penchant into the arts. It was something that was exposed later by Tomasin himself, who already frowned at the dark eyed girl being welcomed so readily into the makeshift family. She saw what was already there and what had been there; she saw the parts of people best left hidden in their shadows that stretched behind them on the path. She dreamed of events happening through someone else's eyes, as a witness, only to wake up feeling disoriented by the events that occurred in her sleep. Once, it had been the caravan leader's son, who had murdered his own father in cold blood. And why. That much was her own secret that she kept harbored close to her heart, while she skirted the advances of the man himself.<br/>
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They were in their second week of a great festival that stretched for miles in the vale nestled up against one of the wealthiest kingdoms on this side of the sea. Tyrael clung to the ocean's skirts from one side, while its legs stretched out over a vast expanse of fields ripe with the season's crop while it's head was crowned with lush, wild forests. Centered like this, it was a land of resources. The caravan simply provided one more exhibit among the many that crowded there for the festivities. It was during the summer's gathering that the gypsies made their wealth. Even so late at night, strangers wandered, or stumbled, or danced through their campsite under the flickering light of torches and the occasional pyre lit up. In the distance, flame licked in a dazzling display over the wagons around Clio in the shape of a hundred wild horses running rampant. Followed by raucous cries and the scattering of hand claps before the next spectacle bloomed from the smoke. Hers was a narrow, but deep, tent spangled with stars and a winking eye spinning around a crystal that hung over the entryway. It indicated that she was a fortune teller or a mystic. For the right amount of coin, she would either read your palm or read your fate as they were told in a handcrafted deck of cards.<br/>
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It was mostly love-struck couples that ducked beyond the tent flaps, giggling as they knelt at a circular table doused in candlelight, glancing expectantly at one another as they awaited to know their happily ever after with clasped hands. Or the occasional nervous merchant, or gambler, or grifter that wished to know that fortune was returning to them on the horizon. Or the one lone man, old and stooped, that placed his coins with trembling hands on the table in front of the shrouded girl who looked out at him through the thin veil she used to cover her face. One look into his eyes and she shook her head, pushing the coin back with a murmured sentence.<br/>
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“You need to go back to your family now, Arlas Domedres. You will need every coin you have to reach them again. Water has proven time again that it can be worth more than blood.”<br/>
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The old man looked shocked that the collected voice that paired with the barely discernible features of the young woman had guessed his name. No, knew his name. The words that followed pierced him through like a knife in the gut. If he had been younger, and of a sounder mind, he might have kept her from further clients for hours to puzzle out the mystery that was this woman. For all the can-trips and cheap promises that she offered here in the tent, there was something that pierced through the veil to penetrate the truth. With a bobbing head, he left the tent more fulfilled by receiving nothing more than a heeding than any other curious soul had that night.<br/>
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“Fare thee well, Loremaster,” she called after him right as the tent's flap opened to let the breeze waft through the stifling air.<br/>
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It was another hour before she felt the breeze roll through again. The smile that curved her lips before she lifted the veil was now there out of habit. Bright eyes glanced up through a thick fringe of lashes and the obscuring presence of fabric that fell across her features like a second shadow. Dressed in silken robes, she was the epitome of mystery and expectation of what her spectators knew to be a fortune woman. The crystal ball no more than glass spun with oils, so that if the light caressed its smooth surface the right way, it lit up with a myriad of colors. The only genuine prop she used were the cards; her own personal treasure.<br/>
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The tall figure that ducked into the room wiped the smile, slight as it already was, right from her features. Tomasin himself fumbled his way through, teetering and hunched over as he lurched over to her table. The reek of alcohol fumigated from his very pores. Black eyes burned with the scorned pride of someone who had been rejected when it was not customary for him to be. He leered at her in the dim lighting.<br/>
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“Tell me how my night is going to end, slut,” he slurred, one hand lashing out to knock the deck of cards and crystal both off the table.<br/>
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Clio jerked up at the abrupt motion and started to rise to her feet from where her legs were tucked underneath her. The words, when they came, held the barest tinge of fear. But it was enough to set him on the scent. Bloodshot eyes jerked up to her face as she started to get up. He lungs, arms outstretched, missing his chance to grip her around the throat, but not failing to knock her back down before she could get fully to her feet.<br/>
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“Tomasin—stop this-- You are dru--”<br/>
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The last he cut off before it could leave her mouth, replacing it with a shrill cry as he snatched a handful of dark hair from underneath her veil and using it to jerk her upright. Tears pricked her eyes, then blinked away fast. The next shout was intentional – loud enough to break the sound barrier of the tent, this time cut off too late by his calloused hand over her mouth. Sinking teeth into the meat of his palm, she managed one last scream, bolstered by the fact that she twisted in his grasp enough to buck a knee up between his legs.<br/>
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His grunt was followed up by a curse, then an enraged look. This time, he did wrap his fingers around her throat while his other released its hold on her hair to deliver a swift swipe of the back of his hand across her face.<br/>
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