Miss Bet tracked me down early this morning. I was barely half way done a few errands for some people in the Elddar Grove when she found me. She was still a bit ruffled by what happened in the Cove last night, and was very short about the whole situation with me.
The long and the short of it was this - there's a group of guards who have a distinct disliking of Feir`Dal in general, and gypsies, and they don't play nice about it. This Hollow Watch, as they call themselves, some how sneaks past the eyes of the Queen to beat lone Feir`Dal every chance they get. They don't beat non-Feir gypsies like that or nothing, but they are none to nice to them either.
What's got me all nervous is that they take the women - the fears and the schej - and make them bed-slaves and the like against their will. Down right pervert the teachings of Erollisi and make these women the get into their own personal whores; I am guessing if they don't do as they're forced, they just kill them and that's that.
Miss Bet says that if I don't tone down about being a schej, I'll end up pet to this Adym fellow who runs their lot. Said he was a horrible man, who would force me to make love to him even as he beat the life out of me - said he has a sick obsession with Feir and gypsy women; lots mistake me for coming from the Feir even though Grams was a Koada`Dal and mum was a Koada half-halfer. Well, papa was a Feir half-halfer, so I guess I get my colouring from him.
But the point is that I'm gypsy and I look like I'm from the Feir. Miss Bet said if they hear about me, they'll make something of it and take me away for their sick pleasures.
And she don't know who all of them are, just their seeming leader Adym. Makes me afraid of every guard I see, cus I don't know if they're just guards or if they're Hollow Watchers; I can't help but sneak around when I go into Qeynos proper now - and here Vargas wants to open a bar in the Harbor!
Needs to have a long chat with him about this, I do.
A long bit later, I was in North Qeynos, finishing up the last of the errands for the Elddar people, and I encountered this very pretty gajo woman - a human with long red hair, wearing this sparkling aqua blue platemail armour. Hate to admit it, but such shiny things catch my attention and I stared at her - which of course caught her attention.
She told me of lands I've only heard of in old legends, and what's become of them. How corruption has over taken the place that was once the Misty Thicket, and even the brave halflings have started going mad from it's taint.
Rabid halflings...oi! Makes me shiver thinking about it.
It was sad to hear from her that the lovely Jagged Pine had be laid to little more than arid wastes by the Zek orcs. I'd heard rumor that it was something depressing to see, and she told me exactly how bad it's got; makes me kinda sad to know that yet another beautiful forest was lost to the insanity that happened when the Gods left.
After a bit, two elves came and greeted this woman - I recognized them from the tavern the other night; the man was the knight who knew Tarack and the lady was his soon-to-be wife, from the announcement I'd heard them make.
Course, the woman in the armour had to explain what happened to the Thicket to them - when she mentioned it, they seemed to take interest as if it were a really important place to them. The pretty elf woman seemed so sad to hear of how it was now, and it upset the knight something good too. I didn't really understand why it was so important to them, they're not halflings so it made no sense to me.
I don't know why, but I felt this odd tug on my being and had to look to my right after a bit. To my surprise, I found Tarack calmly walking towards us, which made me smile despite the fact I was trying to hide behind the tree as a group of guards walked past.
Something weird began to happen then, and I'm going to write it down, cus I know it'll be important later. At least as far as Tarack is concerned, which makes it important to me right now too.
The knight was Sir Latharos D`Narin, and the lady his fiancee, Miss Diera Faeshadow; they had known Tarack back when he was a guard for this Promises place he mentioned. Sir D`Narin used to run the guard there, and seemed to know Tarack fairly well.
He had something for Tar, wrapped up in a rather lovely bag that he tossed to the darkie gajo. It was some sort of badge, with a rather ornate face to it that looked kinda familiar, but I couldn't see it too well; it was something very important to Tar cus getting it got him all emotional - well, as much as monks show, anyways.
Diera tried to explain to me about the badge, showing me this really pretty symbol she had tattooed on her palm and saying that people who had that symbol as a mark or a badge were good people; I followed that up until she showed me another pretty symbol she had tattooed on the other palm and said that more often than not, people with that symbol were bad people who should be avoided.
Made my head spin, it did.
Sir D`Narin, meanwhile, was basically knighted Tarack - at least, that's what it sounded like. He called him Knight Tarack and they got in a bit of an argument; Sir D`Narin basically ended it by saying he was still a member of his Order, and he could still knight people even though they were few now. There was no sword tapping ceremony like I'd seen done before, but all the words meant the same thing - Tar on the other hand is arguing with me about being a knight.
I'm gonna have to talk to Sir D`Narin and sort it out what he did, and hold him to it...then of course get that into Tar's head.
But after their little tiff, I asked Tar if I could see the badge thing - it looked really familiar. Out of being polite, I did my best not to touch it with my fingers, but moved as much of the bag away as possible to look at it.
Though it's all one piece, and shinier, without all the scraches and blemishes, it looked just like a trinket of Grams that my half-brother took with him when he left for the Commonlands. Was always told it was something Grams had thrown away, and one of the others who was sent to watch her after she left camp took it for mum; we really didn't ever know much more than that, at least not us kids anyways.
When I mentioned that, poor Miss Faeshadow looked like she was going to fall over; Sir D`Narin seemed to get all excited about the trinket, though I think he was a bit upset it was broken. They started asking me all kinds of questions that made my already swimming head swim more - I told them it was Grams, that my half-brother had it out somewhere in the Commonlands, and that Grams' name was Llydia but that's all I knew.
I tried to explain that she'd left mum with the gypsies when mum was a babe still, but there were guards about so I couldn't out right call us all gypsies. So I used what my kampania called itself, only in the gaje language - the Children of the Wind. But apparently there's something with that name in gaje, cus Sir D`Narin started talking about these Junoir Wind Riders or some such thing - they were the kids Tarack guarded, I gathered from their talking. I think he thinks that mum was left with them, which she wasn't so when I see him again, I'll need to find some place safe to set him straight.
By then my being scared of the guards got to Tarack, and since the Lady Faeshadow was all exhausted anyways, we took off. I felt a tiny bit safer travelling back to the Willow Wood through the Down below - a million putrid vermin were better than one single guard at that point. While familiar with slipping through Qeynos underground, Tar was confused by the choice of travel home.
We got back into the apartment in the Wood, and I told him about everything - how Bet told me Feir and gypsies had to fear this Hollow Watch, about what they did to the general populace and the women in particular, and about how Bet believed I'd attract their attention. He got really really angry when he heard all of it - he said the Hollow Watch were now better than the Dreadguard of Neriak, who he explained were cruel in the same manner but without having to hide it like these people seemed to need to.
He got this crazy idea in his head that regardless of what it would cost him, if a guard tried to do anything to me, he wouldn't let it happen - meaning he'd fight the guards which will only get his citizenship papers taken and probably land him an execution. Completely pointless considering I bought a vial of this strong poison stuff that the man told me was a near instant killer; if Adym and his crew get their hands on me, there's no more Rhana cus I'll take the vile brew right quick.
I'd rather die than be some human's bed time play thing against my will.
This got Tar even more upset, and he started going off about how just standing by and letting it happen was worse than anything physicall; he said that letting that happen, knowing what they'd do to someone like me and standing by would kill something inside that was far more important than having a roof over his head. He kept saying that, several times in a few different ways, though I don't know why - guess he didn't think I really understood him, and mostly I did.
With that kind of talk...aye, he's a knight, whether or not Sir D`Narin actually knighted him or not.
I gave up on trying to talk him out of it - while I was worried about the anger, I figured out that it was just how he was. Somehow, I found a way to change off the subject, putting it back on the badge and why it was important to him.
As Tar put it, he was the guard for a place where many brave heroes resided; day in and day out he watched their wards and children and defended their hall from wild animals and the near by goblin camps. Though it was a job no one wanted, Tar says he was greatly honoured to be in the position, despite longing to go with these heroes and save those who were in danger throughout Norrath. He learned their ideals, their noble codes, and tried his best to live up to them even though he rarely if ever left this Promises place at all.
This got me to thinking about things, and maybe a way to make him see he was really a knight like Sir D`Narin said - his damn humbleness and habit of putting himself down drives me crazy! Damn Tar.
So I made him give me his palm again. Its becoming like breathing to him, cus he hands it to me the right proper way I need it to read it. Tar's greatly fascinated by the ways of palms, and he asked if someday I could teach him the trick of doing it.
Course I told him I would the same day he was accepted by a Chivani as more than just a gajo - the same day he became a didikai at least or be granted Romipen.
I didn't really have to look at his palm, I was just doing it so that he would believe there was more behind my words - I knew what was there from the first few times I'd looked at it. While at the time I didn't feel the need to pursue talking about it, there was a line that while short was very deep which meant it was either very important or belonged to many.
For Tar to understand it, I called it a hero-line as it resided between the life line, the heart or emotion line, and within the lines of spirit. The long and the short of it was that people looked up to him or believed him to be a great man - and I told him that I bet these children he protected day in and day out thought of him as a hero maybe even more so than the distant ones who came in and out at random from this Promises place.
Surprisingly, he accepted that, for once acknowledging that he might actually be as noble as Sir D`Narin said he was.
Course, after how passionately he explained why he'd fight the Hollow Watchers, I knew he was every bit of a hero as Sir D`Narin might be.
So I told him that's what I thought.
This seemed to make him happy and embarassed all at once, so before he could spoil it and talk down of himself again, I gave him a kiss. It did its job, and got him to quiet down and not bother arguing the finer points of it with me - something I'll have to use in the future should he start up on something silly like that.
We settled down on the floor - I don't own a bed, and now that I've a house guest, I think I need to get one - for the night, enjoying each other. But again, to my surprise, this darkie gajo didn't try to bed me as most gaje try; I don't know if he just doesn't find me THAT attractive, or if he's still nervous over his three hundred year celibacy thing.
I do know that I have not an idea on how to take his seeming avoidance of such acts. Gaje men always wish to bed a gypsy lass just to say they did, while Baro take their women very seriously and let them know their feelings quickly by taking them to bed.
So why is Tar being different from either?
Oi...head spins over everything now a days...
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