Cold and alone, Calandra twisted upon the hard pallet serving as her bed, trembling violently, nothing but the endless darkness to comfort her.
Anger, dark and menacing from somewhere within the dark battled anger.
She twisted again and curled up. Hoarse utterances, both Romani and foreign escaped her fevered lips in whispered urgency.
She was floating, ripped away from the anger. Fear and overwhelming sorrow struck deep. Fear for her, fear for someone else… Sadness for someone dear to them….
Horrified, she stared weak-kneed and frozen, her eyes fixed upon an image of utter chaos. Blurred, confused figures outlined by fire, her throat and eyes burned from the thick smoke and the symphony of shrieks and yells were all but drowned by the roar of the flame.
“go… now!” A long forgotten voice, a figure crumpled at her feet, rough hands shoved her towards the underbrush. Confusion, then pain, blinding. She sank to her knees where she stood… but this time it was different. There was no darkness to follow the pain. The fire and confused cries melted away leaving her with only the limp form of a man strewn carelessly upon the forest floor… Tyralor... Burnt, lifeless, and cold. She shivered, tears sprang forth as the mocking image burned into the back of her mind and faded as a voice echoed for her arrest.
Then the darkness.
“You and Sill have been charged with the murder of Tyralor McDougal”
“We didn’t do it! We found him like that... I don’t know what happened!” Urgency filled her voice. Fear returned. Inescapable it reared up, grasping at her and another, Sill, with its hateful touch enclosing them both within its merciless grip. Darkness faded again. This time the stage was set. Upon the town square a sea of unfamiliar faces jeered at the pair of them despite their innocence, mocking the Gypsy’s’ grim fate, the gallows to their backs.
She woke abruptly with a gasp, damp tangled locks of dark hair fell across her face. Fear and confusion seized her again barely able to force the panic out of her breath as cold, gray, blurry light greeted her. Voices whispered from somewhere, but her brain would not focus enough for her to place where it came from. Then realization hit her... Her breathing came in sharp gasps now, involuntarily as the gypsy’s gaze fell upon a pair of guardsmen gawking at her from the outside of her small prison. “Go away!” she regained enough of her wits to shout at the gawking pair, her untouched bowl of cold gruel flung in their direction, emphasizing that she did not them there.
Point taken, they left muttering about their gruel-splattered clothing. Breathlessly she sank back against the wall, closing her eyes, shutting out the world. She didn’t belong there. Sill didn’t belong there. No one cared. Forgotten, alone, she shivered.