Author's Note:
Rated M, for Money. I mean ... strong language, violence, and suggestive themes.
Insert Obligatory Disclaimer Here: If you recognize it from the game, it's probably not mine.
I don't own Eddy Izzard either.
Nobody Important
Chapter One: Sweet Teeth
In which Valen Dreth may or may not have consumed a celebratory bottle of skooma.
By: N3k0
She had killed more men than she cared to count - forty-two - and was imprisoned.
For picking a lock.
On a display case.
She was still kicking herself for getting caught in such a ... ridiculous manner.
She imagined her tombstone would read well.
"Alyssia the Bosmer: Nobody important, died of stupidity."
She waited for the guards to return to the cell. Maybe her life sentence would be delivered because of the nondescript, hand-written notes detailing her contracts.
Maybe it would be the inordinate amount of stolen goods she'd had in her possession.
Or maybe it would be the small book she carried, titled simply, The Five Tenets.
Whichever reason, she was sure she wouldn't live to regret her mistake for long - there wasn't much time before sunlight crept over the horizon and flooded the room.
She sat against the wall beneath the cell's only window, and waited.
There was a dark elf across the way, a Dunmer male who wasn't quite sure what she was, yet. Well, no. He knew she wasn't Khajiiti, nor was she an Argonian - her shape was all wrong, and she didn't have the tail required of either the cats or the lizards.
He could make out the basic shape, even tell that she had the long, pointed ears her kind was famed for - but she kept to the darkness of the cell, and the guards hadn't really mentioned her race. They had, however, commented on her eyes - they were apparently 'creepy.' She couldn't blame the men; her eyes were nearly the same crimson as those of the dark elf across the way. She could only hope the other prisoner would be so fooled. Her chalk-white skin was kind of dirty, after all, smudged with brown and gray.
It was her fortune, then, that he leered at her, eyes skimming her form with a hunger that made her skin crawl.
"I must surely be dead and in the halls of Azura to look upon such a vision." He grinned, pressing close to the bars of his cell. He hoped to get a better look at her - and against all her instincts, she had to let him.
Crawling skin or not, it'd work.
She looked at him, a predatory smile she hoped was seductive creeping over her face. "You are beautiful, my dear Dunmer maiden." So easy ... "One of the guards owes me a favor, you know. You and I could share a cell ..." She nodded, enthusiastic, crawling forward. The sack-cloth shirt was hardly the fuel for most peoples' fantasies, but she was betting he hadn't even seen a female in so long he almost forgot what they looked like.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? A little fun before the end?" Another nod. End? She had no intention of dying, particularly not if he pulled through.
"Such a quiet one. Rest well, my pretty lady. You and I will get much better acquainted soon." Lyssi hoped so, even if it wasn't in quite the way he thought.
Somehow she managed to fall asleep; somehow, she managed to dream. That was never a good thing. Tonight, she dreamed the walls were closing in - the confines of her cell pressed in close. She felt herself pressed between two walls, until she couldn't breathe; there was no room. Then the ceiling started closing in.
Slowly, but surely, she was crushed, ground into dust and aware for every second of it.
She woke, her mouth held tightly shut, hearing the inhuman whimpers before she realized she was the one making them. She rubbed her forehead with the sleeve of her shirt, smelling salt and just the faintest hint of copper.
She needed to feed. She felt her cheeks, the way her cheekbones protruded ever so slightly, the way her face was just a little gaunt. She probably looked just a little older than her bare twenty years. She was a child, compared to most elves.
She decided to look around. The world seemed just that little bit brighter, and she could see the heat, the life, in the other cells. Especially the one across the way, murmurs between her prospective cell mate and a guard were presumably what woke her. Maybe - maybe it was just her nightmare, though.
The cell bars squeaked, the telltale, signature sound many old iron gates made, then clanged shut. "Hey, now, is that any way to treat your old friend, Valen Dreth?" Lyssi kept her eyes shut, so she wasn't entirely sure what was happening to the Dunmer, but she could hardly care, so long as he was kept alive.
Her cell squealed open, her heart thumped just a little bit faster. It wasn't something she could help - the prospect of freedom, of escape from the tiny, claustrophobic space was incredible. It was only her need for sustenance that kept her calm, kept her guise of sleep intact.
A wash of scent - he was filthy, unkempt, unclean - and yet something about him smelled ... sticky-sweet. She could hear his heartbeats - fluttering, fast.
"Yeah ... yeah, you're a pretty one. We'll have fun, you and I." This, he murmured. His next words, he called out, probably to one of the guards. "You can watch, if you like! It's not my fault you're stuck in this rat-infested hole with me. It's even a prelude - you'll get to see what I'll do to your wife when I'm free!" Another clang - might have been a mailed fist against the gate, and then the tromp of boots walking away. They were rejecting a free show?
Strange.
A hand, rubbing her breast. He apparently felt like getting right down to business. Fine with her. She opened her eyes, suddenly, grinning ferally. Lunging forward, she clamped her teeth down on his throat. He froze in place, his fingers flexing. Every pump of his heart seemed to result in another squeeze. It made the whole thing obscene, but necessary, nonetheless. He passed out, a slight grin on his face, and she rolled him off of her, muttering a healing cantrip that came out more as a curse. The tiny pinpricks where her dainty little fangs had torn into his throat sealed over. She rubbed her own chest, repeating the chant. She would have had a bruise. Eugh. She shook her head, feeling the fizzy rush of power.
She looked down at the Dunmer, speculatively. There were bones about, and even an empty bottle. Hm.
Strangely, none of the guards really commented about the pale, drained-looking form of Valen Dreth, quiet for once, propped up in the corner. They also didn't really question the red bottle of 'wine' she propped up next to the corpse.
She, on the other hand, did question the presence of guards and a nobleman inside her cell. She tilted her head to the side, not really paying attention to the conversation. She was full, she was content. Something about some sons or something. She didn't kill no one's sons. Or at least, they didn't know if she had.
"Why are these prisoners in here?" Well, this prisoner did many bad things.
As have I. And what was going to be done about it? Well ... drink four Bloody Marys and you won't remember! She giggled, head thumping back against the wall. She was sitting, too. Like her Bloody Mary was sitting. Was she hallucinating? There were voices, and noblemen, and guards. She probably was. Had Dreth been on skooma? He'd tasted sweet, like sugar.
Sugar in the blood, under the moon - still shining down. Moonlight was what was filling her cell; that was important. For ... some reason anyway.
She poked Dreth, asking him if he'd been on skooma in a very general, quiet, mental sort of way. Unsurprisingly, she received no answer. Then again, if she was hallucinating, shouldn't the corpse have answered?
Something about a mix-up with a guard, and a cell to be kept empty. If they needed an empty cell, they could use Dreth's. He wasn't using it anymore!
"I ... I've seen you." The nobleman looked astonished. "Let me look at your face." His voice was quavering, like she was some sort of Messiah or ... some such thing. She grinned lazily, tilted her face back, and lit a ghostly light a little above and a little left of herself. It wavered a bit, as her concentration hiccuped.
"Sire, this one isn't ... isn't right. Leave her alone." The pretty female guard placed one arm, restraining, across the nobleman's chest. He shook his head.
"No ... no. I recognize her, Renault." He looked to the woman; the woman was looking scathingly at the waif who dared interrupt her progress. Apparently, the woman was named Renault. "I have seen her, in my dreams. Girl. What is your name?"
She didn't talk. She didn't. Not ever, not since ....
"L ... Lyshi. Lyssi." She nodded firmly, on the second try. She felt like it was important to answer this man truthfully. He was full of life. Pulsing with it, for an old man. That necklace of his did too. A giant ruby on a chain, an am-you-let. Amulet! It was pretty. And magic. She was pretty sure it was pretty magic. She giggled again.
"Lyssi ..." He looked thoughtful.
"Sire, we must go." The lady tugged at the noble's arm.
Someone did ... something, on her right. Lyssi stopped paying attention, looking up at the ceiling, eyes not really focusing. There was a thump, and then a grinding noise. Her head lolled to the side, she watched a gaping, black maw open. A door-thing. Crazy.
Then everyone filed out of her room but her, and her friendly corpse. The black man looked down on her with something like contempt. "Today's your lucky day, prisoners." And then he was gone too. Fortunately, the corpse wasn't getting up to follow, because then she'd have to kill him again. Zombies were just a little bit creepy, if you actually knew them before they died.
Or, Lyssi thought so anyway. Anyway, she didn't want to be left alone.
There came shouts, screams. Something about dawn breaking. Breaking what? Glass? She didn't like dawn, for ... because ... stuff. But she didn't think dawn broke very much.
"She's dead, sire. Let's keep moving."
And then no sound at all issued from the gaping maw that was also quite possibly a door.