AN: I read about half and hour worth of the Romany culture, commonly referred to as Gypsy.
(I read somewhere that this is kind of a derogatory name, but sorry! This is what I will
call them, though the correct name is Romany). I'm going to use some phrases and words
from different dialects, but bear with me please. I will try to use them correctly, but
if I don't please don't flame me. There were different spellings and some of the words
are different. And, FINALLY, I have writer's block. I can't continue my other stories so
I cooked up a new one to help me.


father= dadro
mother= baj
brother= prala
sister= pena
raklo= non gypsy boy
gajo= non gypsy adult male
tzerha= tent, house hole
vurdon= wagon

And bokoli us just a thick pancake with meat inside.



Gitana
by Oyuki


The street was crowded with people. Many of them just passing by, and some of them
actually there to see the shows put on by the traveling gypsies. Prince Milliardo
Peacecraft rode his black stallion to the side of the throng of people. He was careful
to avoid any accidents that might occur. The gypsies were a band that came annually at
the same time of the year. They had do so for many years and this year was no different.
Perhaps he would stop and see one of their performances when he had the time before they
gathered their tents and their people and rode off. He smiled a little at that. He had
always enjoyed their tricks and foods, since he was a child. A scowled marred his handsome
face. He remembered how she used to enjoy the gypsy people. She had smiled brightly at him.
A fake smile that would soon bring him pain. She hadn't been punished for what she did,
but she should have been. They had thought of that afterwards, but they had not been able
to find her again. It was as if she had vanished.

Milliardo shook his head to clear it of those thoughts. He glanced behind him to see his
escorts. His best friend and brother-in-law, Baron Heero Yuy rode beside him.
"Why do you look so glum?" he asked, bringing his horse to a light pace directly
beside the prince. "Are you perhaps remembering those days?"

"You can read me too well," he said quietly, looking at his best friend.

"They are not worth your thoughts. She's not worth your thoughts, Milliardo.
What she did--"

"Don't, I made it clear I never wanted to speak of this-- of her-- again!" he hissed.

"I apologize," said Heero not looking at Milliardo anymore. So much time had passed
and he still could not kill the love he'd felt for that... woman. A woman who had betrayed
him with his own cousin.

"I am sorry for snapping at you like that, Heero. It is just that this is not a pleasant
subject. It will never be."

"I do not mean to intrude, or to tell you what to do, but you know you have to find a woman
to make your wife. Look for one, I am sure that there are plenty of young women out there
who will be happy to become your wife. And besides, you need an heir. Forget her, she did
not deserve your love."

"I know," said Milliardo. "But I love her, I can't forget her. My heart is stubborn and it
still holds her memory, but I thank you, Heero. You are the brother that I never had, and
now even more so since you have married my sister."

"And you know I consider you my brother also. Please forgive me, I did not mean to bring
back old memories." He waved his hand to clear the air between them. "It looks like the
gypsies have brought all their family this year. They have many more tents and carriages."

Milliardo smiled. "Yes, look we have come to the end of the carnival tents," he said
pointing to where two girls where standing. The two girls were selling 'bokoli', a kind
of pancake with chunks of meat in it.

"Are you hungry, Heero?" asked Milliardo pointing to the table and the two girls.

Heero smiled. "I wouldn't mind bokoli if you're willing to pay for it."

"I will. Let's get closer."

The two girls were talking in their Romany dialect, they did not notice the young men
that approached. "Nadja, when are you going to accept Renzo?" her companion giggled.

"Nata! Don't say things like that! You know Baj and Dadro--"

"Oh Nadja, you know they would love for you to marry him! Stop making excuses."

"You know it is not just that, Nata, also..." she trailed off. Her blue eyes downcast.

"Oh we have customers. And they are handsome, Nadja!" she said to her younger sister.
She smiled at the young men. Nata looked at her sister whose profile was to the young men,
her black bangs obscuring her features.

"Welcome!" said Nata loudly and with a heavy accent. "You want to buy bokoli from Nata
and her pena?" she asked.

"Yes, we'll have two," said Heero. He looked over at his friend who was looking at
the girl's sister. All they could see was that she was tall, and, from what escaped her
bandana, she had violet-black hair. Her bangs hiding her face from them. "What are you
looking at? Milliardo?" asked Heero.

"Look at her! She looks like..."

"Is there something wrong with my sister, my lord?" asked Nata, looking at the young man.

"Your sister? What is her name?" asked Milliardo in a hushed voice.

"You can ask her, she can speak your language," she said nudging Nadja forward.

Nadja felt strange talking to these men. Her baj would tell her not to talk to them,
they were gajo, they were not to be trusted. She lifter her eyes and turned her head
towards the young men.

The blue flash of her eyes startled both men. Milliardo's eyes got wide, his breath caught
in his throat. He was staring at the face of Lady Lucrezia Noin. The woman he had been
searching for the last ten years. The woman who had betrayed him.

"My name is Nadja, my lord," she said in his direction, not looking at his eyes.

"You! What are you doing here?" yelled Heero. The outburst making both young women jump.
What was going on?

Nadja's eyes moved wildly. "What do you mean? I'm traveling with my family!" she said.
A pounding started at her temple. 'No, not this again!' she thought.

"Lucrezia, why did you come back?" said Milliardo hoarsely.

"My name is Nadja, not this Lucrezia. I have never met you before," she said
defensively.

"You're lying! I could recognize you anywhere. Look me in the eye and tell me that
you do not know who I am! Look at me!" he commanded.

"My lord, why are you doing this? Leave, please or I will call our father!" yelled Nata.

"You are both lying! Do not try to protect her!" said Heero and moved towards her.
Nadja had not time to react. Her daner's reflexes not quite fast enough for the young man.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. "Stop it!" yelled Nata. "Dadro! Dadro!
Nicolae!"

Milliardo stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists. Before him was Lucrezia,
the one person he hated, and loved, the most in the world. He saw the genuine expression
of fear on her face. She was scared of Heero, he was shaking her. It didn't register.

******

Milosh heard the distant yells of one of his daughters. He had been giving a show
with their animals. He motioned to one of the men around him and ran to his son, Nicolae.
"Do you hear that?" he asked of his oldest child.

"Father, it is my sisters!"

"I know, let's go." Both men ran to the where the last of the tzerha were.

*****

Nadja's headache had gotten worse. Now the pounding was not only in her temple but in
the back of her head and between her eyes. She fought against the stranger that had a
hold of her shoulders. She was scared and that didn't help her pain at all.

Nata had a hold of the man's shoulder, trying to push him off her sister. A larger figure
loomed behind her and grabbed the slightly shorter man from the shoulders and
pushed him off.

He kneeled in front of Nadja, hesitating on whether to comfort her or beat the crap
out of the man who had dared to touch her. He decided against touching her, men were not
allowed to touch women of they were not part of their family or if they did not intend to
marry, and Nadja had not yet given her consent to marry him. Renzo turned to the stranger
in a fury. "How dare you touch her?" he shouted.

For the first time Heero doubted his actions. He had heard somewhere that the women
were not allowed to touch, or be touched by any man unless they were family or ready to
marry. "She-- she's not who you think she is!" he said.

"I apologize for my friend," said Milliardo, speaking for the first time. He looked at
the man. He was tall, strongly built with long, black hair and sky blue eyes. His gaze
was intense as he looked from one to the other. His large fists were clenching and
unclenching. He looked over at the woman, the woman Milliardo was sure was Lucrezia.
She was sitting on the floor, her sister kneeling next to her. She was holding her head,
her face was a mask of pain. He didn't know what the hell was going on, but he was damn
sure that girl was Lucrezia and she had changed her name to Nadja. He heard footsteps
approaching and turned to them. Two more men approached and a crowd had begun to form.
"Nata, Nadja, what happened?" asked the old man who approached. He was followed by
another young man with jet black hair and grey eyes.

"Renzo, go back to your duties!" Milosh said sharply before turning to his daughter again.

The tall young gypsy obeyed his king and reluctantly left the place.

"Dadra, we were selling the bokoli and that man attacked Nadja," explained Nata in
Romany dialect. Milosh kneeled in front of Nadja. "Are you okay, Nadja?" he asked.

"No, my head hurst so much, dadra!" she moaned.

"You will be alright. Nicolae! Help me get your sister to our vurdon!" he called to
his son.

Nicolae was staring at the man with the long platinum hair and icy eyes. They stared
at each other.

"She is the daughter of Milosh?" asked Heero to no one in particular.
Milosh was the gypsy king.

"Nicolae!" said Milosh sharply. "Nata, go get your mother!" he said turning to his
oldest daughter.

"Yes father!" said the girl running to the vurdon.

"Why did you attack my daughter?" asked Milosh, his voice, like Nata's and Renzo's, was
thickly accented.

"She is your daughter? She is Lucrezia, Milosh," said Milliardo.

Milosh, for the first time, looked at the young men. "Prince Milliardo, what are you
saying? This is only my youngest child, Nadja. What are you talking about?"

"Don't lie, Milosh. Just because you covered her hair and dressed her like a gypsy does
not mean that she is one of you! That is my wife, Lucrezia!"

"Is your wife gitana, like my daughter?" asked Milosh. "I tell you that this is
my blood daughter."

*****

Nadja was swimming in pain. She had constant headaches, but this one was like no other.
She was going to pass out, she could feel it. Her hearing was very fuzzy, like she was
under water and she could hear her heart beat clearly in her ears. Her vision swam,
she couldn't make out the figures around her, though she was sure one of them was her
father. Her breathing was labored. She closed her eyes to better withstand the pain.
She couldn't take it anymore. She gave in to the pull of unconsciousness, the
endless darkness.

"Nadja!" exclaimed her mother, Pesha. "Milosh, what has happened?" she asked looking
at her husband.

Miosh looked up at the young men then at his wife and said, "Nothing, Pesha. Nadja
had another one of her headaches. Nicolae, help me get your sister into the vurdon!"
he ordered again.

Nicolae moved to where his sister was on the floor. He bend down and picked the young
woman up easily in strong arms. He followed his mother and Nata into the vurdon.
His father stayed behind with the young lords.

"I don't want you to ever say that about my daughter again," he said to Milliardo,
his grey eyes flashing. "Do not speak to her, do not even look at her if it is at
\ all possible."

"We are right in assuming that she is Lady Lucrezia?" asked Heero, looking directly
at the old man.

"She is Nadja, youngest daughter of Milosh and Pesha, sister to Nicolae and Nata.
That is who she is and no one else. Leave us be!" he said harshly.

"Not when I've just found her! I want to know why she betrayed me!" said Milliardo.
"I will not rest until I have found out the truth."

"What truth? She is nothing but a gypsy child! She was born a gypsy, and she will
marry a gypsy, and she will die a gypsy, do you hear, raklo?" Milosh said
breathlessly. 'May I be forgiven for lying,' he thought. 'I do this only to
spare her any more pain.'

"She is my wife! I have every legal right to take her from here!"

"Prove to me that she is your wife, gajo! Prove to me she is who you say she is!
Was your wife a gypsy dancer? Did she have memories of growing up in a gypsy camp?
Nadja is my daughter and nothing more, leave her be!"

"Then tell me the truth! Is she Lady Lucrezia Noin?" yelled Milliardo.

Milosh sighed. He had never wanted this day to come, yet he knew that someday it would.
And while Nadja did not remember anything, the rest of the tribe knew the truth.
"I will tell you her story, but not here. Follow me into my tzerha." The old man
walked swiftly to the tent. The young men followed quickly. Once insice he sat
in a cushion in the middle of the tzerha and motioned for them to sit down also.

"We found Nadja ten years ago. It was raining, she was sitting against a tree trunk,
chilled and wet. Nicolae and I had been searching for some herbs Pesha needed for
something or other and the storm had come unexpectedly. Nicolae spotted the poor child,
she was shaking so hard she could hardly breath. There was a large wound in the back
of her head, I am sure she was hit from behind." Milosh stopped waiting for the the
information to sink in before he continued.

"But you knew who she was, Milosh! She had come to--" started Milliardo, only to be
interrupted by Milosh. 'And a wound in the back of her head? That's not true,
nobody had gone after her!' Milliardo thought to himself, frowning.

"Yes, I knew who she was, but what happened later helped me come to the decision I came to.
She almost died, Milliardo, somebody attacked her and left her out in the storm to die.
She had lost a lot of blood, and she developed a high fever with coughing. She didn't
wake up, and after two days she started coughing blood. I wanted to tell you, I did, but
I didn't know what was going on and I still thought that you loved her, I didn't want to be
the bearer of bad news if she died." Milosh paused for a moment, closing his eyes at
the memory of the young girl who had become his daughter. "She had no memory of anything
when she awoke," he finally said.

Milliardo sucked in his breath. It was true, then. She didn't know who he was.
"How did she become your daughter?" he asked quietly. He looked at Heero who was
looking at everything indifferently.

"Believe me, Milliardo, we were going to tell you, but she was so scared.
She didn't know of what, or how she knew that she had to be scared, but she was.
And not knowing who you are can add to the terror. We waited two whole months, by
that time we had moved on, but Nicolae and I were going to come back with Nadja."
Milosh shook his head a little before he continued, "Then we decided that maybe it
would be better if you didn't find out and she stayed with us. Something had obviously
happened and she had been hurt. When she was well... when she was completely well,
we told her she had fallen and... and basically we made up stories about her
life with us... before her accident. She believes that she is our blood daughter,
and she is. She has gone through the ritual."

Milliardo shook his head, not wanting to believe any of it.
"I don't-- I can't believe this!" He was quiet for a few moments, he didn't
know what to say. "And the headaches? What causes them?" he asked for lack
of anything else to ask.

"Those she's had since the accident. They come and go, but she usually doesn't pass out.
She stays in bed for a couple of days, you must have caused her anxiety. And that
is why, I don't want you to ever come near my daughter again."

Milliardo sighed deeply. "I... I don't know what to say. This is all too far fetched.
I can't believe this. Give me proof, Milosh, that your 'daughter' is no longer
Lady Lucrezia Noin Peacecraft, Princess of Sanq, that she is Nadja."

Milosh scoffed. "What can I say, what can I do, that will prove this? Anything we
say will look like we are lying to you. What can this old gypsy man do to convince
you that Nadja is what I say she is?"

"Let us speak to her," said Heero, speaking up for the first time.

"Out of the question! Neither of you will be speaking to my daughter! Do what
you want, Milliardo, Heero, I don't care, but you will not be coming near
my daughter again!" said Milosh getting up from his place and stalking out
of the tzerha.




tbc...




AN: Okay, so that's all you guys will get of this one for a while! Please R&R,
then maybe I'll feel up to writing. Maybe that'll make me feel better...