Vixana Kitan
Stop! Thief!"
Oh, how many times I have heard those words uttered from the mouths of shop-keepers and fruit sellers.
Why am I always a "thief"?
Why can't they say "Stop! Poor hungry young woman who is probably only stealing my fruit because it's too high priced and her family cannot afford it on their small wages!"
It's a mouthful, and by the time people understand it….I'm halfway across the wasteland. That's why.
I was born while my family was being forced to migrate west, due to the rapid killing of our people. Once admired for out beauty and grace, now we are called witches and demons for those same things.
I grew up with my mother, grandmother, father and three elder sisters. I was the baby of the family and beloved for it. When I turned six my father died of disease. He had no money to his name, and for a long time we went without food.
My Family joined with another family of red foxes such as us. I learned all my best tricks from them. Their youngest boy, Hanné, became my best friend and eventually my fiancée when I turned twelve.
Because we traveled in such a large group, we drew far more attention to ourselves than was necessary. And only shortly after Hanné and I were wed, the authorities ambushed and killed half of our traveling pack. Now all that was left was my mother, grandmother, sisters, Hanné's mother and sisters, his baby brother, and two others I didn't know all that well. We had once been a troupe of 23, brought down to eleven. And after my grandmother died of pneumonia, we became ten.
When I turned thirteen I became pregnant with Hanné's child, and nine months later I had a baby girl I named Kaaza. Hanné and his family were separated from us while running from bandits, and sent to a concentration camp. Not a working camp like most of us who went there willingly thought it was. No. it was a death camp disguised as a working camp. We were killed by the hundreds there. And nobody was the wiser.
When my family and I settled again, we began forming alliances with other troupes. Our troupe became what we call the "main wagon". Or if you prefer the "royal troupe". Many other troupes knew of my father and who he was; even my mother hadn't known that he had been given the title "King of the scavengers" back when he was younger for saving three-thousand of our people from a death camp in a single knight.
That is how I gained my title of "princess". Sadly, I did not have to fight for it.
By now you probably have a good idea of who we are;
We are Gypsies. We are the ones who are born to suffer for other people's sins. And only in death can we truly reach our redemption.
I travel away from my family to seek a better future for us and our kind.
I travel to reach our redemption.