Once upon a time, nestled in a valley, lived a clan of gypsies.
They made their living entertaining locals with their magical performances. Every infant born is greeted by the Grandmother, she is the oldest and most powerful gypsy in the clan and is said to hold mystical powers. It is our tradition for the Grandmother to be present at all birth's; to cleanse the infant and brand them. This is done in a ceremony that only the elder's of the clan attend. The branding is an inked design that the Grandmother bestows upon the infant. The pain felt by this 'branding' is to cleanse the child of all evil. we all have them and during certain points of our lives receive more, it is our tradition.1
My name is Skye, I am a gypsy. We have many beliefs and our magic very powerful. We do not care for outsiders in our village and keep to ourselves; the only time we venture away from our village is to perform and earn money. Otherwise our village is self sufficient. We are not allowed to leave the camp until we reach the age of sixteen, are taught the ways of the clan and are fully protected by our inked art.2
I have three pieces of art and am almost ready to help provide for the family, This is an honor amongst us. My first one is a circle with an eye inside of it the 'all seeing eye' the Grandmother says, everyone in our clan has this one. The second is a circle with a hand inside 'the healing touch', the third is chosen by the elders and is unique to each recipient. Mine has a crystal ball with a skeleton hand holding it up 'the ability of foresight' to see into the future. Everyone has them it defines our special powers. 3
Our next monthly performance was coming up and the elders felt I was now ready to start making my way. I designed and put together the dress and headpiece I would be wearing. It is tradition to keep these clothes separate from our everyday clothes.4
Twelve of us from the clan packed up the wagon to go into town. No more then twelve went at a time. That was enough, the grandmother decided. We would stay for a week; hold the festival and return. Six men and six women would set out on this venture. It was a two day trek to the town, we would perform earn our money and purchase supplies. Then we would return home until next month. 5
When we got there we set up our tents and goods and then rested until dawn. We started the festival the next morning, it was a fabulous turn out and we earned a lot of money. They loved when we came because they could purchase our homemade goods and have their future's told at the same time. The last night we had a huge turn out and things went well til we were packing up. Six large men came in drunk and wanting to cause trouble, I was frightened. Why was this happening? I asked myself. They beat up on Marco, one of the men and dragged Giselle into the woods. You could hear her screams as the men ran to defend her. They dragged her back to the festival, her clothes all torn and her face red with blood. I threw up, I was physically ill. The large men returned as we were packing up and warned us if we came back the rest of us would receive the same treatment, they then proceeded to burn down the last standing tent and left laughing. They chanted things like 'frauds and witches' as they walked away.6
Packing what we could, we left. Hurrying back to the village as fast as the horse would carry us. Some of our men met us half way they had seen the smoke from the distance and feared something had happened, with their help we made it back. The Grandmother attended to all the wounds. The villagers prepared for the attack, we all knew they were not finished with us yet.7
The next morning brightened with the men and a few more they had gathered emerging from the forest. We had no weapons, but our magic and were prepared to stand our ground. We summoned our magical powers drawn from our ancestral ink and focused all our anger at them. Our mystical powers took control and fought the battle, we were victorious. Even without weapons our faith kept us strong.
Dragging the men's left over corpse's we piled them on a wagon and sent them into the forest. Someone would find them and warn the towns people. 8
Grandmother then consoled us saying "It will be along time before they mess with us again. I have seen this many times, you have done nothing wrong, but protect yourselves and your village, be proud my family." she surmised as she retreated to her tent.9
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Author notes
Sorry it took so long to finish
The morals in this story :
'Faith conquers violence' also 'Do not judge something you know nothing about'
A contest entry
- Dark Fairy Stories! by MoonRoseWolf.
210 points, ended April 3, 2008, 5 entries
Honorable winner
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
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I enjoyed your band of Gypsies and the ink woven into your tale. I can see sequals to your story of Skye's travels. Perhaps there is more to be had. Wonderful write and of course I love the title of the story...lol -
I really love this, and the morals you put in-you had two!
You must really have done your reasearch as well, and I love how you've linked so many ideas into their 'ink', I really think thats such a magical idea.
This was very well written, and it was so easy to get into-I'm supposed to be going out, but I haven't noticed the time as I was reading this! I love how you managed to convey the characters very clearly, even though we don't see much of them.
One tiny point I would have, is that the scene where the six drunks come in, it seems a little more rushed than the rest of the story, it would be nice to see it slowed down a bit, and lengthened a little bit.
But that was the only point, and overall I really loved this story! Well done, and good luck in the contest!
~Mirry xxx
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