Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters etc in this story apart from Jasmine. I assume people to have read this so I will not put a disclaimer on every chapter so this applies to all the chapters. Thanks to Amye for beta-ing, and also for correcting my awful punctuation.

Rating pg-13 but may go up

Again please review.

People say that when you are dying you see a light. By now I was very sure I was dying, so where the hell was the fucking light? I had been in the dark for going on two weeks now with only minimal food and water and unlike Gwen I had been at the whipping post for nearly the entire time. I suppose it was because they were angry at me for killing their friends. I had tried to stop them from getting Gwen, and the rest of her family and had killed a guard and a priest. Which I think might have pissed them off a little - and I have the lashes to prove it.

I kept ranting to Gwen about the oh-so illusive light and she was obviously trying to decide between laughing and thinking that I had gone completely off my trolley. She seemed to think that while I was still joking around there was still hope; so I just kept on joking. Every so often one of us would check on Lucan, who apart from the broken arm was doing better. This was simply because after the priest had broken his arm he had had an attack of conscience (if you can believe it) and given him a proper meal.

The priest soon became tired of and annoyed at my rambling and dragged me up to the post. They stripped my top off and started to drone on at me about my insolence, depravity, paganism blah, blah...but as soon as they actually started the torture, I could tell something was different. This time, they were actually going to try and kill me. I soon as I could between the necessary screaming I turned to get a look at the whip, and saw to my disgust they had gone and attached nails onto the end of it. Damn. Now the cuts they were making were deep, and I could tell I was losing a lot of blood. Slowly my vision turned to grey...and then to black. I slumped down, hanging from my hands.

I came around again about dawn, and found myself still hanging there. I kept losing consciousness, going from the chamber, which now for some odd reason was full of mist, into blackness, and then out again. It was suddenly ever so cold.

Later, in one of my half conscious periods, there was a huge commotion outside, followed by a load of banging, and suddenly our homely little torture chamber was full of people. I heard someone gasp "Oh Jesus", and thought Damn. More Christians. I wonder how long it will be till they join in? One of the priests started mumbling on about 'The work of God'. I would have rolled my eyes if I hadn't gone back to puzzling about the amount of mist and how cold it was indoors these days. However, I was very interested when a man retorted emphatically,

"Not my god."

Ah ha. Pagans. This was what Gwen and I had been secretly hoping for, but had given up, thinking it not at all likely.

One of the villagers who had come in with whoever it was must have caught sight of me, because he promptly threw up. So very flattering. At that point everyone must have started looking at me because there were a load more muffled exclamations, along with the sound of someone being physically restrained from knocking the priests heads in. I could commiserate. I wanted to knock their heads in too. One of them threw his cloak over me, and cut me down. I fell on my back and promptly passed out from the pain.

Guinevere watched Gawain carry out her friend and hand her over to Dagonet, who seemed to be now acting as a healer. Guinevere hoped she would survive. She had made friends with Jasmine as soon as she arrived in their little village. She had tried to protect them when Marius' soldiers had come for them, and had kept her hopes alive in that miserable chamber. She was paying dearly for her kindness. She called out to Jasmine but got no answer.

"She's going to have a rough time of it" Arthur declared. "She's lost a lot of blood."

Guinevere turned back to the knight holding her, whom she had completely forgotten about in her concern for her friend.

"She deserves to live. Even in there she managed to make me and Lucan laugh, but they made her pay for that."

"She made you laugh?" the Knight asked, shocked.

"Yes," Guinevere smiled grimly. "And she yelled at the priests. She even killed one before we were put in there."

Gawain listened to this in silence. He hoped they hadn't broken her. He couldn't connect this description with the shivering, bloody little girl he had carried out of that hellhole. He found himself wishing she would survive, just so he could see if what the other girl said was true.

I started to drift in and out consciousness again once she was in the slightly warmer wagon. She awoke once to see a very interesting exchange between Gwen and Arthur, which for some reason ended up with Guinevere crying onto his shoulder. It's a long time since she did that, I thought. Good for her, though. I also learned in this bit of wakefulness who had rescued us, and was shocked. Roman army people, North of the wall. They must be either very brave, or deeply stupid. Although judging by Arthur and Gwen the Sarmatians weren't in any danger. From the Woads, at least.

Another time I woke to find Dagonet bandaging my back, which was close on as painful as it had been to get the wounds in the first place. I had to bite on leather to stop myself from screaming

As promising as all this seemed for Jasmine, she started to shiver even more violently, and trips into the world of consciousness became more and more infrequent. She became very pale, and even her lips started to go blue. Dagonet split his time between trying to keep Lucan cool and Jasmine warm, and while Lucan slowly threw off his fever and cooled to normal temperature, Jasmine slowly got colder and colder. At night, he made regular trips into the wagon to check on the injured, and while Dagonet could report good progress with two, he said he would be amazed if Jasmine was still alive tomorrow.

"I just can't keep her warm enough," he confessed to Gawain, frustrated. "She's going to die, just because I can't find a way to keep her warm!"

"No she's not," said Gawain decisively, stripping off his outer clothing as he spoke

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Warming her up," he said sliding in beside her. Dagonet's face brightened.

"That might actually work."

For the first time in several hours Jasmine moved, snuggling up to the newfound warmth beside her, and laying her head on Gawain's chest.

"That definitely might work," said Dagonet, suddenly sounding a lot more cheerful.

Gawain lade his head back on the furs, the fast pace of the ride to Marius' house and the shock of what they found there finally catching up with him, and finally fell asleep. When Bors next poked his head into the wagon he nearly fell off his horse.

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