Kara Mei

Path of Beggars

He didn't know the history of the place he travelled through but he would before the night was over.

Stram approached her fire with his hand on his blade as her strange lullaby washed over him. He scanned the camp and the area around it looking for signs of a trap or signs of any other people, couldn't see any.

A small wooden wagon with reddish boards, stood to the side of a small fire. He had seen similar moving dwellings among the Atsigani. A house on wheels of sorts. Two large black horses were tied to a tree nearby, quiet and resting.

Near the fire a petite woman with long curly dark hair, sat humming the mysterious tune. She was dressed in flowing skirts of reds and yellows and a small hood that did little to cover her head.
She had luminous and mysterious, small, brown eyes, bony cheeks and a small sharp nose. Her lips were full and seemed painted red.

When she stood looking in his direction his heart skipped a bit. She moved a head over her lustrous hair, swaying her hips, moving her delicate naked feet in the dirt as if she was dancing to her own voice.
She was holding a long object in her hand as she moved into her wagon.

She smiled into his direction and he walked into her camp. Her song continued to build with lustful tones and the invitation in her eyes was clear as she stepped into her wagon.

Stram followed the beautiful woman no longer worried about any hidden dangers or the strangeness of the encounter.

That night while he laid on his back and Kara Mei rode his passion she shared with him a tale of violence and betrayal. How the goddess of Fate was forcibly taken by the Beast from the Deep in the time before her Chaining. How she gave birth to the Bastard, just before she was betrayed by her siblings for power.

Kara Mei had once been an Atsigani fortune teller. Before she found him in her dreams and visions. Before He showed her hedge powers and organ harvesting. Before he showed her the seas claiming the land back and wiping away half the Desert of Skulls.

Now she lures travelers to her wagon with lust and lies, she mystifies them with her arts that to allow her to harvest what she needs. She is in service to the Beast from the Deep, the Sunken One. And the killing of his Bastard offspring will unleash the Chained goddess and the waters will rush inland to purify the lands of the Ozainae and bring glory to the Zadrid once again.

Stram's mind did not truly comprehend what was happening to him before the last stroke of her blade carved through his chest and pulled his heart from its bloody cavity. Only then did his screams pierced the night and the lustful stupor he was in fell away, as his should was dragged away from his body into the sunken abode of the Beast in Hel's Maw.