 EMILIA CLARKE FEMALE 23/08/1223 18 STRAIGHT WITCH PROPHETIC | For as long as I can remember, I’ve been on the move. It was always the same old wagons and more or less the same people, jugglers, artists, acrobats, we were a lively and creative bunch. One of the older males or none of them could have been my father, I don’t know. My mother died of winter fever when I was but seven years old, and I’ve been brought up by several ‘aunts’ and ‘grannies’, female members of the band. Even at that young age, I already had very scary and vivid dreams, but I tried to hide that fact from everyone, fearing they might call me crazy and abandon me – and then where would I be?!
Like my mother before me I became the juggler’s ‘prophetess’, the one who lured in the crowds with mystical shows of card and crystal ball readings. But what had been nothing but show with my mother – or so I think, I was not old enough to be her confidant yet before she passed away– became scary reality with me. At first I fantasized, telling them things I knew would get us money, but sometimes when I took their hands or looked into the crystal ball, I… saw things. I knew things. Like it was a foreign story playing before my inner eye, I knew what would befall them, and it wasn’t always happy things. Often I tried to overplay my fear and lie into their very faces, but sometimes, when the things I saw where too gruesome, I tried to warn them. But 9 times out of 10 they would become angry and leave, without giving any money and thus the others scolded me.
No one ever believed me I knew things for real, when I predicted something harmless about our own future in the following days, they called it luck when it came to pass. Fool’s luck. A lively imagination. You name it. I tried very hard to fit in, be the carefree youngster I wanted to be by all means – and believe me, my loose and cheeky tongue would have never given away how dark it sometimes seemed to be inside me – but the shadow always seemed to be there, like a curse. The curse of awareness that refused to give me peace of mind. One who least believed me and always watched me closely, sometimes so closely it became creepy, was our leader’s son, Cathal. He was our show fighter and fire eater and in the plays we staged always got assigned the villain part, because he looked it. It also didn’t take much acting for him to come across as ruthless and cruel, because he could be just that if he wanted.
I somehow missed the moment when it happened first that he made a move on me, but my tries to escape his often enough crude advances became a firm part of my life, at first all in good fun, but he certainly didn’t grasp the concept and meaning of the word ‘No’. Even had I liked him, I surely would have resisted,as for all we knew, he could have been my cousin, or even my brother. It went so far, that I started to be haunted by him even in my dreams, with nightmarish scenes of him turning into some sort of monster from which I desperately tried to escape, but in the end failed.
And then one night, just a few months ago, all my fears cumulated in this horrible nightmare-vision showing me the desolation and destruction of our camp by a group of shadowy figures in the firelight. The dream seemed so real that I awoke with horror-stricken screams, trying to warn my friends and family, but no one would hear me out. No one. I tried so hard to push it into the back of my mind, but as we made camp at the end of the day, I recognized the spot immediately. It was the spot of my vision. At this place we all would meet our end. But my desperate pleas and the frenetic fit I threw as I realized they would not believe me when it mattered most only served in them finally losing their patience with me. It was Cathal who caught me up violently and dragged me to his wagon where he shackled me up in the irons he usually used for his performance so I would calm down. He knew ‘ways’ that might make me shut up, he said, and he would try them later.
So there I was, raging in vain against my confinement, feeling the hour of dread creeping upon us with every receding sunbeam. It would happen, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. At long last I fell asleep,thoroughly exhausted and resigned to our doom, until I awoke in the pitch black darkness by the same terrifying, blood-curdling screams that had been my faithful companion through the last nights of fitful dreaming. Leaping to my feet, I found the shackles gone and my freedom of movement restored, therefore I wasted no time and dashed out of the door, nearly tumbling down the stairs of the wagon. All around me there was nothing but nightmarish chaos, burning wagons, distorted bodies lying on the ground and those who still stood running around like headless chicken, chased by dark forms moving at lightning speed, so it seemed.
For a moment I was immobilized in shock, giving an easy target as I stood in the middle of my own nightmare, unable to take in all the horror. Then suddenly, violent and strong hands caught me from behind, pressing me against a body from behind. When I found my senses again I joined in the omnipresent screaming and kicked back, but the hands were relentless. “Fly, little swan”, I heard a hoarse voice whisper from behind. Cathal’s voice. His breath so near my ear and cheek reeked of blood. “Fly… I’m in the mood for a chase. Let’s give you a headstart…” And with that he pushed me violently forward so that I nearly fell, but gathered my balance soon after.
And I ran. I ran faster than I ever ran before, blindly, frantically, and yet determined not to give up. Leaving everything I had known and loved behind in ruins, I ran, not to stop until I fell apart. Just away, away, and not to look back, lest I caught sight of Cathal. Not long after I started, I felt his presence behind me, slowly approaching and then falling back again. He played with me, I know he did. But I didn’t stop to think about anything else but running. When I couldn’t run anymore, my eyes searched for a place to hide, but my feet found it first. Nearly falling down a small declivity, I found myself in a hollowed-out space, just enough for me to crawl into and not be seen from above. My mind worked with a cold numbness at that time, long since past the thoughtlessness of panic and so I grabbed two small stones from the ground beneath my knees and threw them both forward, the first closer and the next farher away into the underbrush so it seemed like I was still running. After that, I closed my hand tight around the talisman my mother had given me on her deathbed and prayed for a miracle. Gladly Cathal fell for it, dashed after the sound and was soon out of sight.
As silent as I could, I crawled from hiding and took a horizontal line from my previous direction, running a little more and then climbing a tree with the last strength I had left, the horizon already turning faintly red with the new morning. Like this I rested for a short while and when it was broad daylight I continued to run. Cathal’s presence seemed gone and I faintly hoped he had lost me after all. For another day I kept running in the rough direction of the shoreline, hoping to find a village that might take me in, until I had figured out what to do with myself and to come to terms with what had happened.
I could not deny any longer that I had powers of prophecy, but I knew also that witchcraft was not exactly smiled upon in these parts of the world. I also had no idea what exactly had happened to the only people I had as a family, apart from that they were most likely all dead. Except for Cathal. His role in this horrid nightmare I also couldn’t dare to grasp yet. But that was for later. For now I needed such basic things as food and drink and a relatively safe place to hide so that Cathal or whoever had done this would not find me. At long last I came to a village surrounded by the forest I had just left behind, moorland, mountains and the sea. Friendly, though wary people of a nearby farm shared their food and roof with me for a night and did not ask too many questions.
They told me that if I was in need for work, I should inquire at the manor for their kitchen always could need a hand. So there I went, thankful for being taken on for the easy work and hoping that my days of terror would be over and that the nightmares would leave me. As I had had the cards on me as my most prized possession when I fled, I sometimes would read the cards for willing servants, mostly centering around love advice and I tried to hide my gift of foresight to my best abilities.
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