<div class="floatright">(http://orig08.deviantart.net/bbf4/f/2014/206/3/1/zero_suit_samus___12_by_sebastianvonbuchwald-d7s8879.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Samus Aran<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Skyrim - Solitude - Execution Camp<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Open (Samus might not respond immediately to others)<br/><strong>Doing:</strong>Calculating odds of imminent death.<br/><hr/><br/>Under normal circumstances, her hair would have been properly fashioned in her traditional ponytail and bangs, with the rest of her looking good to match and then some. Though any given person would agree, normal had gone out the window quite some time ago. Matted dirty-blonde hair, trussed up and tangled out of style, was her current appearance, owed to one of the captors having threaded his fingers through it, over her scalp, and dragging her into the cage by a handful. Two others had whalloped her with clubs, and all three had copped feels in places that Samus would have decked them for if she was physically capable.<br/><br/>She'd woken up this way on the first day of what looked like her final journey. Now it was the third day, and between then and now she'd not had even a brief respite. She was thankful, at least, that the captives weren't made to exhaust themselves by walking (and thus taking away energy to even consider an escape). The shackles were a surprise, between the constant pain pulsing into her wrists, bone-deep where they must have screwed them in, and the wide-eyed realization that her suit access was completely cut off from her. These weren't the bastards that took her down on her own gunship, but they were prepared and well-equipped all the same. Still, it felt like she was being handed down to another entity...like someone's dirty laundry they didn't want anyone to see. The Dynasty branded her a traitor and slated her for death. Should be an open-and-closed case. So why the isolation? What had turned her and these rather mouthy comrades (many of the group members were wisecracking one way or another) into a hot potato?<br/><br/>She made a mental note to try and figure out what the shackles were made of for later. If there was going to be a later...that much she was unsure on. As ironclad as her will to fight remained, the facts were still laid out in clear, cold clarity. She had faced dozens of monstrosities, killed terrible, terrible beasts on other planets, had practically saved her galaxy--and here she was, about to be cut down by a pack of barbarians, filthy little cretins free to act on their base impulses thanks to the leverage their roles offered them--she had been able to piece together some background based on what she heard them say. Character is what you are in the dark; these men should have been vampires for all the characteristics they showed. In all honesty, she wouldn't mind the execution as much as she did now if it were in the hands of people better qualified. But this was someone's dirty work, and that usually required someone equally dirty to do it.<br/><br/>Hindsight actually made these fuckheads look appropriate for this.<br/><br/>And all that did was further irritate the bounty hunter.<br/><br/>Samus parted her cracked lips for a moment, tasting air--and some foreign, foreboding tension around her. She had not had water or food for the past two days, her captors hadn't seen any point in feeding the soon-to-be dead. It had been offered to her more than once, yes...but under influence of strong ale and other alcohol, filled with lewd propositions, and never seriously. The last man to say he'd give her water for free when they'd refilled near a river (she did not ask, accept or refuse, only ignored him as she knew it was a joke with an incoming punchline), merely poured it on her head, then reached through the bars and crudely grabbed a breast to make a hearty laugh with the rest of the boys about how this was such a waste.<br/><br/>The shackles prevented Samus from reaching up, and mashing her fist into his nose like a hammer crushing an egg.<br/><br/>Now, it hadn't gotten any easier--many of the soldiers or mercs, whatever they were, found the Zero Suit coupled with the attitude to be enticing, and thus Samus never went long without a catcall or taunt of some sort.<br/><br/>Over the course of this trip, she hadn't said much more than about thirty words. That still held true; for now, the bounty hunter was not even close to giving up, but what energy she had left was channeled to something other than speech. Her eyes were tired, but with a cold vibrance that suggested a coiled, tense woman watching and waiting with an infinite patience. Actions spoke louder than words--and oh boy, did Samus have a lot to<em>"say"</em>to this rotten lot. They would probably put her head to the chopping block and make it roll just like everybody else--but not before she made some of these men hurt.