Halla’s parents, Jakob and Esmera, were an odd couple. Jakob was a farmer who had been born and raised in the area of the Long Lake, as his family had been there for generations. Esmera, on the other hand, was a gypsy – prone to dramatics and a desire to travel. They met when Esmera’s family and caravan were stopped at Esgaroth, and they were married only a month later. Jakob called Esmera his dancing faerie, and she called him Kobel. Their first child was a boy, Ronal, and Jakob loved him dearly. It wasn’t until nearly 11 years later that they had their second child, a baby girl. Ronal was already extremely tall for an 11-year-old, and Jakob and Esmera were both tall as well. Esmera couldn’t think of a good name for the little girl, but finally declared that “she will someday be taller than all the other girls, and the boys will love her.” So she was named Halla. Only two years later, however, Esmera tired of being a farmer’s wife and left – presumably joining up with a gypsy caravan that had passed through. Even when she was very small, Halla delighted in performing for an audience – usually her father and brother, who adored her. Halla was a spiting image of her mother, only much shorter. When she was five, Jakob tried to teach her to read, but she refused. It was much more fun to be outside playing pirates, or in the cellars playing captive princess, or in the stables playing warrior. For two years Jakob tried to get his daughter to learn her letters, but she refused, and picked up from his desperate instructions only how to write her name. After that, Jakob and Ronal were too busy with work at farming and (in Ronal’s case) carpentry to try to teach Halla anymore. Over the years, Halla tired of the monotony of her life – not even broken by a book to read, since she had never learned. She learned, from locals, how to shoot a bow; and, from a group of gypsies who passed through, how to fight with daggers and pickpocket. When Halla turned 14, she gave up on living on a farm and – like her mother before her – she left with the gypsies. It wasn’t just to have excitement, however, that she left. All her life she had asked “her Kobel” (as she called her father) about her mother, and what she was like. She was facinated by this mysterious woman she could not remember, save for a snatch of lullaby here and there in her baby memories. Halla was never angry that her mother had left, she understood the feeling of being pent-up all too well. She only wanted to meet her, and play with her, and show her everything her daughter could do. So she set off to find Esmera. She traveled with the gypsies for over a year, performing in small plays mostly, but also dancing and singing. Although she was not the best dancer or singer in the caravan, she was quite good, and by far the prettiest (the best was getting old and wrinkled), so the other gypsies (for she now considered herself one) put her on “stage” to draw crowds. Her fifteenth birthday was celebrated with a wild party while at a gypsy camp. There were three caravans besides her own, and all of them joined in the festivities. After a while, most of the men were quite drunk, and a group from one of the other caravans decided that such a pretty girl should not be 15 and a virgin (which she was). Taking her aside to “talk to her”, the five men raped her that night. They shoved a rag in her mouth so she could not scream, but she managed to spit it out finally and screamed. It was weak, but her gypsy “family” heard it and came running. On a vote from their own caravan, the men in question were all killed. Halla, though immensely traumatized at first, did not loose her cheerful nature. Within a few months she had put the incident in the back of her mind and rarely let it show its face. To Be Continued…