[Slovenia] Hangwoman [open to anyone]

[Slovenia]

The only thing Danica really hated about this situation was that the shackles hurt her legs and arms. They were bound tight, and they were starting to cut through her skin a little. Not enough to draw blood mind you, but enough to make her uncomfortable. Also, since it was nighttime, the shackles were very cold. The townsfolk didn't have the decency to give her a coat or a blanket for the night.

Of course, the townsfolk also think she's a murderer. And they were going to hang her in the morning. But really, it was the shackles that got to her.

She sighed. "This is boring." She muttered to herself, not tired enough to fall asleep like the rest of the town. She peered into the distance. There was absolutely nothing interesting to look at, no people, nothing. Ugh. Couldn't it be morning already and get this over and done with?

Surprisingly enough, Danica did not fear death. Not even in the way she was about to go. She wasn't suicidal either I'm never doing that again, she had accepted her death a long time ago. But there wasn't anything she could do. She wasn't some sort of super human who could break through shackles. She peered up into the sky, which was beautifully lit by thousands of tiny stars. Countless times had she seen this sky; breathtaking and so very, very lonely. She shivered from the cold.

She looked around the town, tapping her freezing fingers against her leg. It was very quiet and dark. Hundreds of footprints still indented the dirt surrounding her that belonged to the mob that had taken her. She recalled what the mayor had said to her before they left, "May God have mercy on your soul." Danica couldn't help but laugh at that.

Mercy? There was no such thing. She wondered if the mayor could sleep peacefully, knowing he had said that. It was he who convicted her and decided not to give her a trial. Although, he was undoubtedly distressed, as one of his children was one of those who had disappeared in the last few months. At least, that's what it looked like on the surface.

But Danica knew. She knew the reason behind the missing people. It was a cruel and dark truth that no one wanted to hear. But was there any other kind of truth than that?

She sighed. It was extremely annoying to have to die in such a way, being blamed for something she did not do. But that's just the way life works out. She grinned. "I guess I'll just have to come back as a ghost and haunt you all for the rest of your lives." She chuckled; the eerie sound echoing through the air.

[Arthur Kirkland]

Arthur was annoyed. Actually, he was more than annoyed - he was just a few steps away from truly pissed off for a few reasons. The first being that this was another one of his Queen's odd pick up missions, this time to find a doctor out in the back end of nowhere in Eastern Europe. He couldn't quite understand her reasoning - actually, he didn't understand it at all. First there was Feliks, who was annoying and yet completely innocent of being a crazed criminal like she claimed he was. Now it was a doctor whom he'd never heard of before, whom he was supposed to take in because "she was dangerous."

What business did the United Kingdom's monarch have with a Slovenian doctor? This niggling question bothered him the longer he was on his mission. Which brought him to the next reason he was so annoyed. It was bone chillingly cold as he stood out in the shadows of the inn where he was supposed to be staying. Why was he outside and not inside, trying to enjoy what this village claimed to be decent beer?

Because the men and women inside seemed overly excited over an execution that was to happen in the morning. Not just any execution - but the hanging of the woman he was supposed to take in. When he'd first arrived at the village, he'd spotted her, chained up outside like some sort of animal. Arthur understood that to a degree - if she really was a dangerous criminal like he was supposed to believe she was, then locking her up was for everyones safety. But not like that.

He'd asked around and the people seemed very eager to tell him that she was to be hanged for the disappearances of some of the villagers. But at the same time, people whispered that she was a witch and that she'd used them for spells to contact the devil. Logically he knew that they were just being mean-hearted bastards, joking around about something that they clearly didn't believe in. But it sure struck a cord in him. After months and months of practice since his old cook had shown him that he had magic, he was considered a sorcerer. Not fully trained in any shape of the form, but to hear the people make claims about things they didn't understand...

Well. He had two reasons to keep the poor woman from being executed. First to ask her if she knew anything about why someone so high up in his government would be after her. And second - he wasn't going to let these ignorant backwater pillocks get away with killing her after what he'd discovered.

And that was; after three nights out in the cold and much sneaking around and investigating, that the doctor didn't do it. Arthur had used the magic that these people scorned so much to search for them. He'd found the bodies buried miles away out in some rather innocuous scrubland that was nearly frozen over.

Which brought him to now, just before dawn and approaching the freezing figure chained out in the cold.

[Slovenia]

Danica didn't notice the stranger approach her imprisonment at first; she was lost in her thoughts and memories. When did this sorry downhill journey through bitterness and scorn really begin? It must have started in that orphanage. No... that was not it. Before even that. Her eyes narrowed and the mocking grin she had on her face vanished. No. It started with the fire.

A child too young to understand what had happened died in that fire. And from the flames a new human was born. One that could never call itself innocent nor evil. It was foreign and could not understand kindness, and only showed a cold, uncaring stare. Had it truly lived these past twenty years?

She sighed. So annoying. What absurd junk the mind dragged out when it was about to perish!

She recalled the day she was old enough to leave that orphanage. She was fifteen years old, two years short of being able to leave legally, but her caretaker had lied about her age to set her free. Not to set Danica free, but herself. It was alright by Danica; by then she was so tired of the place that she was perhaps close to burning the place down. Only to start that cycle all over again. Her fifteen year old self turned to give that place one more look, her withered caretaker standing there.

"Did you forget something dearest?" she had asked. Her eyes were unchanged and cold, using that fake sweet word as she always did. Her caretaker had never called her by her real name, it was always 'dearest' 'sweetie' and the like. Danica knew she felt absolutely nothing for her. The feeling was mutual. She had said nothing, and turned to walk away from that place forever.

Danica peered into the distance. It was almost dawn. A small smirk formed on her face. It was almost time. Her eyes rolled around the town lazily, to get one last look. But her eyes stopped at the lone stranger who stood there. She blinked, trying to recall if she had met him before. She couldn't remember.

Her grin grew, in all its mocking and bitter glory. "Why, hello there dearest. Is there something you wish to speak to me about? Or are you too eager to wait for dawn?" A disgusting giggle escaped her cold lips.

[Arthur Kirkland]

Hands tucked firmly under his arms and shivering despite the thick coat he was wearing, Arthur approached the woman and felt all the colder just watching her and seeing that she wasn't wearing anything warm at all in the frigid air. Her words washed over him and he paused, contemplating the best answer for getting her and himself out of this damned village fastest.

"I'm not sure about you, miss. But I'm quite thoroughly tired of being in this hole and listening to these people and I've only been here a few days." Which was the truth. The people here and the weather... it was like picking up Mathias all over again except he wasn't pleasantly drunk this time. "My name is Kirkland and I was assigned to rescue you, if you so wished to not be executed for a crime you did not commit."

He would say nothing about how he'd been assigned to bring her in as a criminal of some sort. To be entirely correct, he was planning on doing exactly what he'd done with Feliks - making her disappear, either onto his crew or somewhere else of her choosing and claim that, in this instance, she'd been executed before he'd managed to rescue her.

Now all he needed to do was get her out of here without killing all the murderers in the village that were accusing her of the crime, and he'd be fully prepared to spend the next two months down in the caribbean.

[Slovenia]

Danica frowned and raised an eyebrow at what Kirkland had said. Someone sent him to rescue her? She severely doubted that. She chuckled.

"Haha. You'll forgive me if I don't believe you, dear. Who sent you to rescue someone like me? An alleged criminal convicted of killing three young men, two young women, and seven children?" Her head rolled to the side. "Not exactly rescue material, if I may say." She stroked her hair behind her ear. "Although you claim...I am innocent. How did you, pray tell, reach such a conclusion?"

Looking at him closer, he did seem somewhat familiar. Not in the sense that he lived here before, he made that very clear, but a time...much farther back. She blinked back those thoughts. Tch. Who cares if she had met him before?Slovenia does.

Honestly, she was much more curious about who sent him, that is if was telling the truth. Danica was certainly not world known, the idea that someone outside of this place and that orphanage knowing about her was preposterous. And yet, there he stood. Perhaps he had traveled here, not knowing what was going on. He heard about her and considered himself to be a knight in shining armor? But he claimed she was innocent....what sort of person ignores the sentence of a judge just to rescue a...She frowned.

A damsel in distress. Ugh. He probably had a reason to believe she was innocent. Or maybe he was just insane.

Danica chose to believe that above all.

[Arthur Kirkland]

"I can understand you not believing me outright - it would be highly foolish for you to do that, considering I'm from no where near here. But," he paused, looking around the area and checking for anyone insane enough to be wandering about in the frigid air. Thankfully the square was empty, not a rustle or a shadow to indicate watchers. "it's part of my job to listen and to investigate. I found who did it. And I found the remains."

Stepping up onto the platform next to her he reached out one gloved hand and tapped the chain manacling her hand in the air. "So if you're as done as I am at you being framed for murders you didn't commit, shall we be off? I would much rather we be somewhere warmer and without the chance of being killed at any moment, if it makes any difference to you."

[Slovenia]

Her eyebrows raised slightly at him. So, he had found the bodies? That confirmed her own suspicions of what had happened to them, even though she was already very certain of their fates. But she had never actively pursued the evidence, so her suspicions had remained a theory. Until now.

It honestly wasn't a surprise to her. She clearly knew what these people were, how they thought. She knew that desperation and conflict could distort and destroy even the strongest mind. Not that it was an excuse. But, there was no rest for the wicked, as the saying goes.

"My, my, I had no idea you were such a capable detective." She chuckled. "Congratulations. You uncovered the dirty deeds of the corrupt and stupid. Not a very charming truth, is it?"

When the Englishman stepped onto the platform, she instinctively flinched slightly away. She didn't like it when people got that close. But she kept up her mask, God be damned if she ever let it slip. She let out a long, dramatic sigh. "Well! I suppose living is the more favorable alternative. Although I must confess, coming back as a ghost and haunting them is very tempting." She laughed her usual eerie laugh and closed her eyes, letting Kirkland use whatever device he intended to get the chains off her. She assumed he somehow managed to steal the keys, after all that was the smartest way. And she severely hoped the man was in fact, smart.

[Arthur Kirkland]

Arthur reached into his pocket, pulling out a small, delicate roll of fabric and laid it out on the freezing ground with a quick, well-practiced roll. On the inside there were a variety of long, small and otherwise elegant picks, a simple one with a hook on the end the one he slipped from it's ties and shifted until it fit comfortably between his fingers. Then, reaching for the icy metal that surrounded the woman's wrists, he got to work, sliding the hook in and prodding around until he heard the faint 'click' that meant the lock had given way.

"There we go." he mumbled as he opened the manacle and freed her hands. "Are your arms going to be okay?" he had to ask, after all, all the blood rushing back into her arms had to be painful. Ever the gentleman, he unbuttoned his jacket and tossed it over her shoulders, ignoring any protests as he shivered in the even colder temperature. A sweater wasn't going to cover it for long, but he 'd be damned if he let her freeze any longer.

"Do you need anything before we get out of here?" So long as the words 'revenge on the people who did this to me' didn't show up, he was perfectly fine with the idea of skulking about for a few minutes. Not too much - it was getting ever closer to dawn.

[Slovenia]

Admittedly, Danica was somewhat relieved that for once, there was someone who cared enough to help her out. It never happened all that much, as the only other person who ever helped her in any way was the elderly retired doctor who lived in her home until he died. He passed only a few months ago, and she was certain he was the only reason that the town had left her alone for so long. The man had been losing his mind for years, but he still retained his skill as a doctor, and taught her all he could. She assumed he just forgot who she really was, because he would call her by his late wife's name, but it didn't matter to her. She obtained her most treasured knowledge through him, and that was the extent to their relationship.

She didn't flinch nor change her expression as he unlocked the shackles, even though it was painful as the blood rushed back into her fingers. She rubbed her wrists as if it would help, and said quietly, "They are fine." She didn't even protest at the jacket, as she was lost in thought. She hadn't even considered what she would do if she had survived. Revenge was so very very tempting, but honestly it would probably just result in the same situation once again. So, what now?

She blinked at his next question. She was going to live.

So she would continue to do what she always did.

"Yes, there are some things I need at my house." She said briskly, while walking towards her home. It was several blocks away, but this was a rather small village, so it did not take a long time to get there. "Be right back." She said absently, not thinking about him at all. There were so many ideas running through her head, so many opportunities that she weighed. Many of them she had to discard, because they required someone that she wasn't at all.

She quickly went up the stairs and into her room. She pulled out a suitcase and packed only a few dresses, and used the rest of the space for dozens and dozens of her research books and notes. Packing only that she can't leave behind. When she finished, she went to the door, but hesitated. She turned slowly around, staring at all the medicines and chemicals she had made over the years. She couldn't bring them along. It wasn't fair, all her hard work being left behind, probably to be used for the cretins who wanted to hang her.

It wasn't right. No, no, not at all.

She walked towards them, picking up one beaker. She popped the top open, and poured the contents out onto the floor slowly. She did that several times with a few more, noting that some of these were highly flammable.

She went to her desk and took out a package of matches.

As expected, the chemicals flared up immensely. She stepped back, only looking for a few minutes. It was beautiful.

She grabbed her suitcase and her coat and walked briskly down the stairs, the smell of smoke getting stronger and stronger.

Kirkland was standing outside her door still, worse for wear due to the cold. She handed him his coat back. "Thank you dear, but I don't need it anymore. I believe it's time to go now." She wondered what her expression looked like briefly. Did she look happy, sad, or crazy?

It didn't matter which.