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Veryalda cea Deranjat
Veryalda The Disturbed


Born under an unfortunate astral alignment in Silves, España the Lord’s
year thirteen hundred eighty-seven, Veryalda (the half-blood daughter of
Diego de Rada, a minor Baron of the Spanish courts, and Liara cea Litovoi
de Stravnos, an adventurous Rom woman (famous among her people for her
capricious nature and rather wonton tendencies when concerning men.)) was
doomed to a life of hardship and trauma.


In the summer of Veryalda’s fourth year the Baron’s lady wife, Sancha de
Rada de Leon, learned rather belatedly of her husband’s continued
infidelity and the dishonor of their family with a gypsy harlot, whom he
had secretly been keeping as a servant of the household, Sancha’s own
chambermaid, to be precise. Outraged by the betrayal and incensed by
Liara’s comeliness Sancha alerted the local clergymen to
certain “heretical acts” supposedly perpetrated by Liara and had her tried
as a witch.


Veryalda was little more than a toddler when she was made to witness her
mother’s choked screams as she was engulfed by the flames of a pyre in the
town square. After this point she was turned away from the de Rada and
sent into the world on her own. She was taken in by a public stable master
Martín de Lorrna, his degenerate grandmother María, and his two sons,
Raimundo and Martín. Her mother’s death affected Veryalda so greatly that
she lost her powers of speech and would drift through the next portion of
her life as a mute laborer and scapegoat in Martín’s possession.


At the age of thirteen, having been regularly beaten and used carnally by
Martín and the elder of his sons, Raimundo for many years some small
portion of Veryalda’s consciousness seems to have fractured. On a cool
spring evening after a particularly savage blow from Martín, who had her
cornered in the barn, Veryalda grasped for a pitchfork nearby and thrust
it into Master Martín’s chest, puncturing his lungs and grazing his heart.
As he gasped upon the fork and reached out for her, his face twisted with
rage Veryalda’s parting sentiment was whispered emotionlessly for the
dying man to hear “descompones en infierno.” Leaving her
deceased “caretaker” on a straw heap in the corner Veryalda took her time
in preparing to leave, she collected anything of value she knew to be near
at hand and readied two of the stable’s best stallions for departure
(fine, exquisitely trained warhorses of old lineage) and rode off quietly
through the crisp evening air into the darkness and unsurety of the future
she had made for herself.


After several nights of wandering and hiding, stealing to support herself
Veryalda decided to seek out her mother’s people, the clan of Stravnos. It
took several weeks, but eventually she located and joined up with them,
their leader, Vicol cel Rau, extending a generous welcome for the two
gorgeous Spanish stallions and the wild womanling with dead eyes who rode
them. Life improved vastly traveling with her kindred and she was well
cared for. She learned to dance, sing and let a piece of herself that had
been coiled so tightly for many years relax a little. Several years
passed, and over time Veryalda earned a reputation for her strange ways
and outspoken views on things. Veryalda cea Deranjat she was thusly dubbed
among her people.


At the age of nineteen Veryalda was stricken by the cruelest twist of fate
yet to befall her. She met and fell helplessly into the thrall of a
dashing yet slightly insane pirate captain in the port city of Carthagena.
Captain Joffrey DuMade of the ladyship Alderfaulcon swept her aboard and
first to Majorca, then Sardinia, and for a time they settled on the tiny
island of Malta among its population of the less-than-savory outlaws who
resided there.


Although she has found her safe harbour in the arms of Joffrey with his
eccentric crew she is, and will always remain Stravnos, and appreciatively so