Cassidy forgot how many times she'd been hanged to death, but this was at least the sixth time this month.
The wooden gallows in the center of this particular town were in a sorry ass state for sure. The planks beneath her feet were a little too wobbly, and the overhead beam a little too rickety.
The crowd of people to watch the hanging didn't look particularly amused, which struck her as odd. Most towns made an event out of a fae being on trial. The last town Heath and her pulled this in had people selling, throwing tomatoes in the crowd to throw at her.
She sighed and looked down at her red-stained brown button-up.
'Sorry, sad sacks have probably seen five hangings this week,' She thought as her eyes grazed over the crowd. She supposed they didn't have much entertainment 'sides hanging and drinking.
She squinted against the noon sun as she looked over the crowd again. She frowned as she noticed a particular person was absent. She looked up at the rickety gallows, her white locks of hair blocking the majority of the sun from her eyes. She blew some of the strands out of the way as she wondered what was holding Heath up so long.
'If his ass is passed out drunk again before noon, I hope he gets trampled by a valley snake-'
The town's mayor sauntered up the side of the gallows' steps. The old and portly man made the wood creak too loudly as he stepped. Cass wasn't sure how the whole thing hadn't come apart by now.
The old man addressed the crowd. Some no good speech about the souls of the corrupt finding peace in death and all that. She knew it was bullshit, he knew it was bullshit, and everyone else knew it was bullshit.
She tapped her booted foot as she furrowed her brow, still scanning the crowd for her friend? Partner? She didn't know what Heath was to her, and honestly, she tried not to think about it.
All she knew was he was late, again.
The old man's bullshit eulogy whimpered out like an old dog. With his speech done, he wasted no time and walked over to the far left side of the gallows. Where the old lever switch to the floorboard beneath her feet stood.
The two men accompanying Cass on the gallows couldn't be more different than one another. The man on her left was gruff and old, and a steely look of hate was the only expression on his face.
Cass knew that look all too well. 'Definitely a bounty hunter of some kind, wonder how many Bounty Points he's worth'. Her opportunistic train of thought was cut short as she remembered the noose around the man's neck.
Her eyes looked to the man, more so the boy to her right. He'd been crying and sobbing ever since they were brought out of the jailhouse.
She figured he'd been caught stealing, probably because he had too, but she didn't pay too much mind.
Despite the situation she was in, despite the noose, and even though Heath was probably passed out drunk somewhere, she was mostly calm. The tap of her foot showed she was a little annoyed, but she was as cool as a southern breeze on a winter morning.
She'd done this gig dozens of times before, and this one would be no different. She would hang for an hour or two, the crowd would disperse, and Heath would get her down and they'd ride out of town.
Cass let out a sigh to steady herself and held her breath as the mayor's wrinkled hands gripped the lever. With one swift pull and a loud crack, the floor beneath the accused dropped.
The cries from the boy on her right slowly became stunted and choked as the air left his lungs. Even the bounty hunter couldn't keep himself from gurgling as the noose crushed his windpipe.
Cassidy, however, didn't gurgle or cry out as she hung.
She stayed motionless like hanging meat in a butcher's shop, but she wasn't dead. There are many ways to kill fae, or half fae like her. You could shoot 'em, stab 'em, or set them on fire.
Hanging, however, was not one such way.
The fae didn't need to breathe air as regularly as humans did. They were able to absorb latent energy from the air surrounding them through their skin. A rare full-blooded fae could do this for days, but Cass could manage a few hours at best. Fae also have slightly more durable bones and muscles, which kept the rope from snapping her neck in two.
She supposed she didn't need Heath to be there for the hanging, only to get her body after. She would never admit it, but his being there put her at ease. In one of the last towns they'd visited, a group of mercenaries had wanted to take what they thought was her dead body.
She tried not to think about why they'd wanted it. Luckily, Heath was there, and he spun some story about her having some form of syphilis. She was thankful for the big lug most of the time, but this was not one of those times.
She typically kept her eyes closed and her head down while hanging. It helped her focus on the flow of energy into her body. Under her sheet of white hair, her face twisted, showing how much effort this really took her.
Typically this is the part where the crowd would begin to disperse, as the show was over. This time, Cass could still hear them all standing there chatting softly. Their soft chatter slowly turned into a combined chant growing louder and louder.
One word repeated over and over: burn.
'The hell is wrong with these people-' Her thought was cut off as her keen sense of smell alerted her. She focused all of the energy she'd absorbed into her nose only for a moment. The smell of burning kindling coming from below hit her like a brass knuckled uppercut.
Her eyes flew open, and she lightly thrashed, seeing what lay below her feet. A blaze of kindling that was slowly growing larger and would surely consume her.
"S-shit!" Her focus began to wane as shock and fear set in. The flames only grew higher and higher, as if it were a molten monster opening its maw.
Her legs thrashed upwards, trying to keep the growing flames from consuming her boot tips. The crowd erupted into gasps and yells as they'd assumed her neck had snapped from the drop.
"Fae witch!" A child in the crowd cried out from atop the shoulders of his father. She lifted up her head as she tried to steady her energy to keep herself from suffocation.
"What...kind of psychopaths hang AND burn people?!" Her bound hands grabbed at the noose as she tried to loosen it. Her fingers, while small, couldn't even worm their way under the tight rope.
Her hands dropped from her neck, and she stopped thrashing. Going completely still, she tried to calm herself and think. She looked up at the rickety wood where the rope was suspended.
With her eyes still on the rope, she reached her bound hands to her side. Her brand glowed with a fiery orange energy that snaked down her arm and coalesced into the form of a large silver revolver in her palm.
The mayor of the town stumbled back from the lever at the sight of the constructed firearm in her hand. His eyes were wide, and his brow was covered in sweat.
"Shoot the damn witch dead!" The mayor cried out for somebody, anybody in the crowd, to put her down. Cass didn't pay any mind to the townsfolk as she eyed the taut rope and swung her legs forward.
Using the momentum, she swung herself backwards and aimed up at the rope. For just a second, the keen-eyed among the crowd could see words etched into the barrel of the gun as it glinted in the noon sun.
'Truth~Teller'
With her last breath in her body, she gurgled out the words, "I...really wish Heath was here.." and the etching on her pistol began to glow. The energy coursed down from the handle across the cylinder and down the barrel.
The blast rang out, cutting through the rope in an instant.