Danijela

Art by Vadvivon

**Danijela** is a main character from *Janissary*, created by Paul Shapera and voiced by Liel Bar-Z. She is Brija's mother and Bogdan's wife.

## Janissary

In the opening song, Danijela is introduced moments after the Vizier's soldiers took her baby from their home. Danijela pleads everyone around her to lay her body in the ground and says that life is not worth living without her child *(Taken)*.

During the hours after Danijela and Bogdan's child was taken, Danijela and Bogdan fight and Bogdan leave the house. He heads to a kafana where he swears to drink himself to death. However, that night he takes the path of vengeance and joins the Hajduk in the mountains, fighting the Ottoman rulers *(Introductions).*

Years later, Danijela starts hearing her lost daughter's voice calling out for her. No one believes Danijela and people start thinking that she is crazy, but she is certain the voice is real. Finally, she finds a monk who believes her. The monk tells Danijela that Brija indeed has a gift from the White God to see the saints who are dead. However, since Danijela is neither a saint nor dead, her daughter will not be able to see her, and Danijela will only ever be able to hear her child's voice from afar.

Danijela leaves the monk and starts fasting. She prays and fasts for three months until she is as pure as she can be. She then goes to a hospital and finds a room tucked away, where all the sick and dying children lay. There are ten children in the room and Danijela comes to each and kisses them on the lips, sucking out their deadly diseases. But by the seventh child she cannot go on and falls. She dies in an empty hall. A short while later Brija finds Danijela in her room and the two don't seem to mind that Danijela is dead. They talk and bond and Danijela stays with her daughter *(Danijela's Sacrifice)*.

When other girls in the Janissary plot against Brija it is her mother who warns her and keeps her safe. The same is the case when a big test for the Janissary girls comes. There is a trial by combat and all the girls agree that Brija must die first. But with Danijela's spirit by her side, Brija comes through the test, killing all the other girls and winning. The Vizier rewards Brija by making her his personal bodyguard *(Brija and the Test)*.

Danijela makes her last appearance years later when Bogdan is about to reach the Vizier's palace. He is weary of his journey and his mind is only set on revenge. He is in the service of the Black God and vows to kill the Vizier. Along the way, he sees ghosts from his past, but all of them disappear after a while. Only Danijela's ghost lingers with him. She confronts him just before he reaches his destination. She asks him where he was when she needed him the most. She reminds him of all his life's choices and finally, she asks him to look at what he has become. Bogdan begs her forgiveness and tells her that he is long lost on his ruin's road. He tells her that he was fiery and young and in love with his bleeding heart's blood. Danijela lets him go on with his journey *(Ruin's Road)*.

Even though Danijela does not appear or is mentioned in the final song, there are effects of her confrontation with Bogdan. When Bogdan slays all of the Vizier's soldiers and there are only Vizier, Brija and him left in the room, Bogdan stops and looks at Brija. Either directly because of Danijela's words of revenge or because he recognized his daughter, Bogdan does nothing and lets Brija kill him without resistance *(The Final Confrontation)*.

## Trivia

* This album marks the first collaboration between Paul Shapera and Liel Bar-Z. Her incredibly powerful performance in a fairly limited number of songs earned her the main role in Paul Shapera's later albums (*The Broken Cyborg* and *The Lost Fairy*) as Jane.