Author's Note: Honestly, if Lyssi was a better fighter, maybe she wouldn't get into this kind of situation. She's really not. "Pointy end goes in the other guy, try not to get filled with pointy things yourself" is about the extent of it. On the other hand, she's really good at sneaking around and being invisible.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this chapter are not medical advice and should not be used as such.

Nobody Important

Chapter Twenty-Five: Patient

In which breathing is harder than it looks.

By: N3k0

The entire world was washed in blood. All around her, she could smell it, but whenever she went to try and drink, her stomach rolled and heaved. She was hungry ... she thought she was hungry, anyway. Pain and nausea warred with confusion.

There was an odd weight on her chest, and she pushed feebly at it, exhausting herself again. She drifted off into a fitful sleep, filled with demons and worse.

A woman's voice pierced the bloody haze, high and angry. "Of all the gods-cursed stupid - it's like that boy wants to die, Roth!" The voice was vaguely familiar, in the sense that Lyssi thought she'd heard it at least once before. She would have rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, except for the weight on her chest, which kept her from rolling over.

A man's low rumble followed the woman's exclamation, but Lyssi couldn't hang on to whatever he was saying.

"Look at him!" Something shifted, dragging the weight off her chest. She tried to inhale, but something was wrong with her lungs. It was a good thing she didn't really need them. She'd been warm, before they dragged the weight off her - now she was cold. One red eye cracked open, and she tried to puzzle out where she was and what was going on. There was a tent over her head. That was ... important.

This time, the man's voice was audible to her. "The heir yet lives." A man of few words. Lyssi could respect that.

Everything was crimson, as she opened her eyes. Red tent poles, red tent, red people - three bodies, that she could tell. Two of them worked to settle in a third beside her. She tried to sit up, and was laid flat by some of the most intense pain she'd yet felt. A wheezing whine escaped her. At least when she'd burned alive, the nerves were destroyed first.

She hadn't gotten her left arm to move at all.

"Oh, you're awake." The woman's face suddenly filled her entire field of vision, and she blinked a couple of times. "You're very lucky to be alive."

Lyssi had a strange urge to laugh, but she couldn't breathe to force the air out.

"... Yes, well. It ... By the Nine." The woman's hand scraped across Lyssi's chest, and she was suddenly aware that she was essentially naked, save for the blood. "... Roth, is this ... ?" A flash of pain, as though the woman was poking at Lyssi's very heart with her fingertip. By Sithis, she would bite the finger off if it was poking her heart. Right when she got the ability to breathe and move back. No ... wait, it was just the edges of ... a very large hole? Leading to her heart?

She strained to try and look down at it.

The world rolled, and she struggled to turn over, gagging.

The woman helped her. Blood leaked from her mouth and open wound, covering the ground under her. The wheezing whine escaped her again, she fumbled to try and hold herself off the ground, out of the sickly, brown-black mess.

"I would like to ask you some questions about your involvement in ... all this. But I think they can wait." The woman's voice was conversational, a man's strong hands took over with pulling Lyssi up to sitting at least. She had to rest most of her weight against him.

Her back hurt, too. She felt like a limp ragdoll, one whose every stitch was made of raw, unrefined pain.

Lyssi lifted her right arm up, the fingers poking gently at the edges of the gaping abyss where skin should be. Every touch drew new agony from the wound. She didn't have enough magic left in her to try and mend it, even if she knew what all was wrong. Her eyes were fixed on the bottom edge, which was somewhere near her navel.

She made gasping, questioning noises. No, actually, she couldn't speak yet. Instead, she looked up and back, head rolling on a neck not able to support it. The Nord was pretty in a food sort of way, rather muscular with longish blond hair and hard features. He didn't seem phased by the damage. She made a quiet, whining noise instead. He didn't respond.

"It ah ... it looks like you were ... stabbed ... through the back. You're very injured, and the only healer in the camp with any juice left looks to have just passed out." The woman's voice was gentle, kind. It was almost maddening.

Lyssi had to get up, had to get to Anvil, there was - she had work to do. She couldn't be dying right now. She had to ... it was useless, she couldn't move on her own. Even as she tried to fight to get up, her body failed her completely. The man's hands gently lowered her back onto the bedroll. Even sticky and covered with blood, it was probably better than bare dirt.

She made feeble grabbing motions for her backpack - they'd brought her backpack at least.

The woman glanced at it. "We haven't gone through your things yet - I'll check later to see if there's anything we can use to help you. I'm ... Roth, do you have any idea what to do with ... this?" She gestured at Lyssi, helplessly. "I never ... I mean, we learned basic first aid, but ... she should be dead."

She drifted for a moment, losing her hold on the conversation thus far. Her dozing was interrupted by rough, calloused hands opening her eyelids for her, then opening her mouth and poking at her teeth. One of her fangs grazed a fingertip, and she sucked weakly on the digit trapped in her mouth. That was kind of humiliating, actually. "Such injuries do not kill the undead as they should," he seemed to be explaining. "This one is a vampire." The woman made a quiet noise that she couldn't be bothered to identify, and the man pulled his finger from Lyssi's mouth.

"It makes sense, I suppose ..."

They were going to kill her now, then. That was okay. She was okay with that. She let her eyes slide shut, and that was the last thing she knew.

She tried to sit up, some time later. Once again, she failed. She found that she'd been wrapped in bandages again, and her stomach had settled a bit.

A small child and a stuffed bear entered her field of vision. Everything was red, still. "Hullo. They say you're the Hero who stopped all the demons so I wanted to say thank you." The girl stared down at her with wide, innocent eyes. Lyssi tried to speak, to say anything. A soft puff of air escaped her. It wasn't enough. "So um, thank you then."

Lyssi tried to use her right arm to drag herself to sitting. "I confess, I hadn't expected you to wake, or I might have discouraged the child." The man's voice was familiar, a little bit. The healer? "You really must rest."

"What's wrong, why can't the lady talk?" The child left her field of vision.

A silence fell over the tent, and Lyssi lost consciousness again.

"We should put it out of its misery," the woman's voice hissed. "You can't prove it isn't affiliated with the Dawn, Martin. And it's not getting better. We can't stay here!"

She decided they probably didn't know she was awake. She pretended not to be.

The man sighed, keeping his voice level. "She saved all our lives, Ariel."

"It could be a ploy to gain your trust, Martin."

A third voice, the Nord, Lyssi thought. "We should question her, once she recovers."

"Why allow it time to recover? It's a monster, and I mean that in every sense of the word! You saw the notes, you saw the knives - even if it isn't affiliated with the Dawn, it's a hired killer and a vampire!" The woman paused to regain her composure. "We can't afford to stay in one place for very long, you know that."

She wanted to speak for herself, but she couldn't. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she let her mind drift again.

If they were going to kill her, she'd rather they just got it over with.