Cainea Favored Son

Caine’a Favored Son

In the trees Our sons stand naked Through the walls Our daughters cry See their tears in the rainfall U2, “Mothers of the Disappeared”

We are renowned for our storytelling. It is, perhaps, the only point on which my people and the gaje agree. For the Ravnos, storytelling serves a variety of purposes. Stories have always been the greatest entertainment, something to stir the imaginations of young and old alike. Telling tales can be a last resort to score a quick buck, as few guje won’t part with their money for a good story (or even a poor one, as attested to by the dreck the gaje call “bestsellers” and “blockbusters”). And most importantly, storytelling serves as a secret form of communication, a way to relay important information in a fashion not easily interpreted by the prying ears of our enemies.

The stories that my people tell are epic in their scope and even more epic in their contradictions. Each family is sure to have adifferent view of each event; each kumpunia tells the tale with a different hero. In fact, listening to the same story told by different Ravnos, it might seem as though my clan is entirely populated with liars and braggarts. It might seem that the stories we tell exist for no other reason than to satisfy our pride.

Well.. .perhaps, but look to your own annals, 0 my Kindred!

It matters little. For the Ravnos, knowledge of the past does not serve the same purpose as for the gaje. The truths of an event - its hero, its villain, its circumstance - these are not so important as the meaning of it, the lesson to be learned and shared.

Greatest among these myths is that of our creation, the story of our founder. It is one of the first legends a young Ravnos learns. And just as the tale was told to me by Jhienv6, I shall tell it to you.

Caine’a Favored Son In the ancient days, after our people were cast out of the First City, they wandered in the wastes for many years. Living off of the foolish guje and relying only on themselves, that first kumpunia flourished. But as they flourished, they grew numerous, and it was not long before the buros found their feet followed different wm. So the kumpania split apart, and the families of Rom went their separate ways. Thus were the first vestiges of the Phuri Dae, the Urmen and the Ravnos formed.

Their departure was like the flowing of water away from the source, and there was no ill will, for even then they were the Rom, and such has always been our way.

Now in those times, our family was not known as Ravnos. We were called the Powara, and we lived with the sons and daughters of Sarrath in our midst. Motivated by both the natural wanderlust of the Rom and the objectives of their Lupine brethren, the Powara became a widely traveled family, even by the standards of our people.

It came in time that the baro of the Powara was a man called Tshurka. He was well loved by the kumjmnia, for he was as insuperable as the Rom themselves, and he spoke with certainty and wisdom. He led the Powara with fiery eyes and an arrogant smile that put fear and bewilderment into the gaje, for he had learned to show them just the slightest hint of the power in his Blood.

Tshurka’s brother was called Pujinka, and he was eldest among the children of Sarrath who traveled with the kumpania.

For every reason that made Tshurka the bar0 of the Rom, Pujinka was the chieftain of the Lupines. In response to Tshurka’s flashing smile, Pujinka displayed a fearsome scowl.

Instead of Tshurka’s gentle compassion, Pujinka was overfilled with the impassioned anger of his kind. He sometimes led the Lupines away from the kumpania for days, even weeks, only to return with but a handful of their number. Because of this, Tshurka favored him little, and a burning rivalry slowly smoldered between them as the kumpania roamed the land.

One night, as Tshurka and his people cooked their dinner around the fire, a stranger wandered from the darkness and stood at the edge of the camp, leaning on Tshurka’s wurdon. The dogs in the camp ran toward him, barking and growling, but he calmed them with a sweep of his hand and a few gentle words; the hounds bowed their heads and crawled at his feet, their bellies dragging on the dusty earth.

The Powara stared at the stranger, for never before had they seen their dogs pacified so easily by thegaje. And a gajo he was, this stranger, for his bright eyes and pale skin were as plied, smiling strangely at the young Romani girl. foreign to the dark-skinned Rom as the full moon is to the noonday sun. For a moment, the Powara were held by the same vague fear with which the gaje viewed the Rom. Pujinka, however, smelled the taint of the tumnimos upon him, and angrily leapt from the fire to drive the intruder away.

No sooner had Pujinka risen to confront the stranger than a second figure appeared beside the gajo and tenderly reached up to take his cold hand. And the Powara watched in astonishment as Laetshi, Tshurka’s youngest daughter, led the man into the camp and, smiling, askedhim to sit with them at the fire. Snarling, Pujinka immediately confronted Tshurka, saying that he would not share his fire with the man.

Whether Tshurka was swayed by the stranger’s power, or he held faith in the trust his daughter had shown, or he simply meant to anger Pujinkathis is unknown. But with an even gaze, the bar0 told his brother that to turn the stranger away was not the way of the Rom. Watching Pujinka’s face darken, Tshurka added, with a smirk, that perhaps he would be so kind as to sit down again, before he brought dishonor upon the soul of their father.

The gajo watched Tshurka and Pujinka with interest, but said nothing as the brothers fought. Finally, Pujinka stormed away from the fire, hurling curses at the mysterious stranger. Several of the Lupines rushed after their leader, but soon the camp grew quiet again. For the second time, Laetshi asked the stranger to sit with them, and he comFor a moment, silence reigned over the assemblage.

Then Tshurka asked the gajo to speak to them of his travels.

The stranger sighed deeply, but nodded, and began to tell his tale.

The stranger told the Powara of the destruction of the First City, of the deceit and treachery that had laid waste to the accomplishments of the gaje. He told them of his flight from the city shortly before its destruction - how he had been cast out by the other men, and bore his solitude like a beast of burden. He spoke of it with a distant sadness, as a condemned man recounts his crime.

The Powara asked the stranger why it burdened him so; they too had been cast out, but in their divorce from thegaje they had found pride, not regret. The stranger could only shake his weary head, for he had experienced nothing hut guilt and contrition since his earliest memories. He was a monster, he said, a murderer who was cursed never again to walk among the children of Eve.

Tshurkadismissed these abuses and invited the stranger to travel with them for as long as he liked. After all, the bar0 concluded, you are so like us, save that you have no kumpania.

The man gawked at Tshurka, for he had never thought he would find people who could accept him in his disgrace.

With a broad smile, he accepted Tshurka’s offer, and the stranger was welcomed into the Powara. Among thegaje, he was called Caine, son of Adam and brother of Abel. But to the Powara, he was known as Kaen.

Of course, Pujinka was not happy with these developments. However, at the urging of Tshurka’s bride, Pujinka remained with the kumpania, though he vowed never to share his orurdon or his fire with Kaen. And this vow he kept, even as the months rolled by.

As they traveled together, Tshurka came to know what Kaen truly was: a shilmulo, one of the cold dead of myth and legend. Though Tshurka did not turn Kaen away from the kumpania, the bar0 forbade him to take nourishment from any of the Powara. Kaen agreed, but in his heart he had already begun to betray that promise.

Kaen grew to be well liked among the Powara, though Pujinka and the other werewolves still showed him nothing but scorn and aversion. Among the Rom who most admired Kaen was Ravnos, Tshurka’s eldest son. He was considered a brash youth, with too much fire in his eyes and too many dreams clouding his thoughts. In time, they said, he would be an able baro, hut not until the passions of his adolescence faded into the confidence of an adult.

Ravnos spent many nights with Kaen in his father’s vurdon, learning what he could about the shilmulo and their ways. Tshurka grew uneasy at the way in which his son’s eyes gleamed while Kaen spoke of his endless life, but he trusted in Kaen’s vow. In his na’ivete, Tshurka had unknowingly guaranteed the birth of our clan.

One night, as the kumplnia camped outside one of the hamlets of the guje, the Powara were startled by a distant cry for help. Knowing that Tshurka and some of the other men had not returned from the village, Ravnm led a p u p of Rom toward the town, fearing in his heart for the safety of his father. When they arrived in the town square, Ravnos’ fears were confirmed.

The Powara, it seemed, had not been the only nocturnal visitors in the town. A group of shilmulo had also come that night to feed off the sleeping guje. When their feast was interrupted by Tshurka and his men, the mulo fell upon them like crazed animals, so drawn were they to the power in the Romani Blood. Though they fought with all their strength, Tshurka and the other Powara soon fell to the might of their undead attackers.

As Ravnos and his followers approached, the shilmulo rose from their victims and licked their bloody lips, anxious to drink more from the hearts of the Rom. One of the mulo held Tshurka’s lifeless body in one hand, while the buro’s dark blood still dripped from the shilmulo’s teeth. The mulo laughed at the terrified Powara men, and tossed Tshurka’s body at their feet. “This is the fate,” the shilmulo said, “that awaits all of you wandering dogs.”

Seeing his father lying still on the ground, Ravnos wept, and through his tears hurled a frightful amria upon the mulo.

The mulo had never seen such a display of wrath, and they backed away, unexpectedly frightened and confused. Perhaps they sensed Kaen’s mark upon the boy, or perhaps they saw the power in his Blood, but the shilmulo fled, fearing that the curse of Ravnos would blast them into the lowest hells.

Ravnos lifted the corpse of his father from the road, and slowly walked back to the camp. He walked with a set purpose, and his steps led him to the door of Kaen’s vurdon.

Kaen was waiting for him, for he had foreseen what had transpired that night.

Ravnos pleaded with the shilmulo to give his father the tumnimos, but Kaen already knew that Tshurka’s corpse had grown cold, and his soul was gone, beyond even the beckoning of the eternal Embrace. Ravnos seethed in his futile rage, and then turned his fiery eyes toward Kaen. No words needed to be spoken between them; Kaen simply nodded and wrapped the youth in his arms. Kaen wept blood as he heard Ravnos’ heart beat mightily inside his chest, then lowered his lips to the young man’s neck.

When Ravnos emerged from the uurdon, he found Pujinka waiting. He wearily greeted his uncle, and told him of Tshurka’s death, and of the new life granted him by Kaen.

But Pujinka had already sensed the change in his young nephew, and he could contain his fury no further. His body rippled with the change, and he charged forward, claws bared for the attack.

In a swift rush of motion, Kaen interposed himself between Ravnos and Pujinka. Feeling the monster’s teeth and claws tear into him, Kaen lifted the man-beast as if he were a child’s toy and flung him across the camp. Pujinka howled in pain as he crashed to the ground. The other Lupines yielded to their rage and shifted into their monstrous forms. They turned their snarling faces upon Kaen, and murmured of his death as they began to approach the wurdon. Ravnos, still weak from the tumnirnos, was unable to summon the strength to act.

However, it was not Ravnos who halted the charging Lupines, nor was it the undead strength of Kaen. It was Laetshi, still just a child, who stepped between the angry werewolves and their shilmulo prey. It was Laetshi who barred the Lupines’ way. And it was Laetshi who spoke then -of her visions, of her Sight. She spoke with a wisdom and grace belying her young body, and even the Children of Sarrath could not deny that they feit her power.

Laetshi told them of the dreams that had plagued her sleep: dreams of monstrous men who would destroy the Powara as they slept, drinking both their blood and their souls. She told them that she had seen Kaen in her dreams, and that she had sought him out, so that he might bring his blood to the Rom.

Ravnos had been chosen, she said, to lead a new family, to protect the Rom from all the other shilmulo. Without Ravnos, Laetshi continued, the Powara - and indeed, all the Rom - would come to serve the mulo as so many of the gaje did. Just as they had taken Tshurka, they would descend upon all the Rom, trying to capture the powers of the Blood.

Only by accepting the blood of Kaen, she said, could Ravnos lead his new family to stop them. She begged Pujinka to put away his anger: They were all Rom, and as surely as he was her uncle, Ravnos was still her brother.

Pujinka was deeply moved by Laetshi’s passion, and he - 1 backed away from the wurdon. But his anger did not abate entirely. With a cruel tongue he damned Kaen and his blood, and he gathered his people around him as he spoke.

The sons and daughters of Sarrath, he said, would not travel with the shilmulo anymore. If it was destiny that Ravnos lead a new family, so be it - but it was the ending of the Powara.

And indeed it was.

Pujinka led the werewolves away from Kaen and his childe, away from Laetshi, away from all the other Rom who chose to remain. He called his new family the Lupinos, and to this day they will not speak of the Powara. Though they know us to be their cousins, their anger is still strong, and their fight against their enemies has never ceased.

The remaining Rom looked to Ravnos as their baro; Ravnos, in turn, looked to Kaen. But Kaen had shared in Laetshi’s vision, and he knew he could no longer travel among the Rom. He taught Ravnos to use the powers to which we have grown accustomed: to commune with the wild beasts, so that our horses would not fear us; to find the stamina to endure the punishment of the skmglo with an unnatural resilience. But the greatest gift, our Chimerstry, was unknown even to Kaen, the sire of all the shilmulo. It was Laetshi who would teach this gift to Ravnos, and it remains our most closely guarded secret. After Kaen had disappeared again into the desert, the young bar0 and his family continued their endless wandering. But from that day onward, we called ourselves the Ravnos. away From him as fx ap e stlence that