Author's Note: So yeah. Here's the fourth chapter. There's a lot more to go, but we're finally ... more or less ... out of the starting zone. That's something.

So ... yeah. I could post more, or I could, y'know, not.

It really depends on if there's any interest - if I'm the only one lookin' at my stuff, and that to make sure it's not a total eyesore ... why bother posting it? I could share it with the friends who've read it already.

Read and review - I'll even take flames if you're into that kind've thing. I'd prefer honest critique - if it helps me become a better author, I'll take what I can get.

This is a Disclaimer: If you recognize it from the game, I probably don't own it. Except possibly in alternate dimensions that have no bearing on our own.

Nobody Important

Chapter Four: Bloody Mess

In which everything falls to pieces.

By N3k0

What?

The old man, the Emperor, was offering her his amulet.

She was clearly hallucinating.

She'd thought the tainted blood had worn off by now. It seemed she was wrong.

"You, alone, must proceed." The Emperor pressed the amulet into her hands, wrapped her fingers around it.

"You, alone, will stand against the Prince of Darkness and his mortal servants." She shook her head. No, no, he had it all wrong. The Emperor became insistent, his features hardening, urgency filling his voice. "He must not have the Amulet of Kings!"

Lyssi pulled her gaze from the Amulet long enough to realize its blinding light hid another, more vibrant aura - a young man, advancing on their position though a wall of solid stone separated them. Her eyes narrowed, she grabbed the Emperor's arm in her free hand. If she failed, she would do as he asked. She had no intentions of failing.

The Emperor the Amulet. Give it to Jauffre. He alone knows where to find my last son. Find him, and close shut the jaws of Oblivion." She nodded once, sharply, but kept her gaze over his shoulder. "I have ... faith. You will do the gods' work, before the end." Actually, depending on one's stance on Sithis, it could be argued she already did the gods' work ....

Behind the Emperor, the sound of stone grinding against stone, a 'secret' door sliding open. The young male held his conjured weapon in a two-handed grip, waiting only for the door to stand open completely. He lunged forward suddenly, planning to run the Emperor through.

Her left hand was free - she dragged the Emperor aside in plenty of time to get skewered herself. That hadn't actually been the intent, mind. The flare of white-hot pain wasn't enjoyable, nor desirable, and probably rendered her right arm useless. The assassin grunted in surprise as the frail little girl's blood splattered him. She heard, more than felt, the jarring thump that marked a boot into her stomach, breath escaping her lungs. Another loud thump reached her ears before the pain registered, before she quite realized she was suddenly sitting down. She pulled herself to kneeling, choking back a scream of agony. Her right arm was useless.

The assassin hacked into the Emperor's form, again and again, his strikes wild, frenzied, his expression behind the mask seeming to be one of fanatic glory. The remaining Blades were both still busy fighting. They didn't even know their leader was dead. Maybe it was the futility of it all, or the fact that she'd actually liked the old man, in what time she'd had to know him.

Maybe it was the scent of blood on the air. Later, that was what she'd think. So much blood had been spilt. That was what spurred her on - the unreasoning instincts her condition graced her with. Nothing more.

No matter the source, though, rage filled her, washed over her. It numbed the pain in her shoulder, flooded her form with strength. She leapt, shoving the cultist into the wall, hearing his bones crunch with a sick sense of satisfaction. She ripped at his throat, tearing into him with her fangs. Within seconds, the conjured armor vanished in a cloud of yellow vapor that smelled of rotten eggs. She absently realized she was slamming the man into the wall, and, more importantly, the wall was cracking under the onslaught.

"He's DEAD." One of the guards - she didn't know which, she didn't much care. Probably about the Emperor. "Let him go, girl." Meaningless words.

"Lyssi!" The voice belonged to Baurus. She turned to look at him, blood running from her mouth, her fangs bared. She gave something of a hiss, turning back to her victim, to her prey. "Stop this madness." His voice was even, level. Like she was an animal. She knew that tone of voice. After all, she'd heard her own people talk feral beasts down. It was supposed to be calming, soothing.

It was bullshit. The Emperor was dead, and this nothing had been the killer. This prey.

"If you don't stop, I'll have to treat you as a monster." His words were measured, his bloodstained sword still held at the ready to cut, to kill. "That's what you are, isn't it? Vampire?"

She pulled away from her prey, almost as though the corpse himself had been the one to slap her. Not that there'd been a slap, at least, not a physical one. She was behaving like a creature, like a thing. No better than prey. Her … Vicente … had taught her to be ... better.

She hung her head, regaining her composure. She tasted the sweet, sweet nectar on her lips, felt the warmth of it spilt down her chin, wasted. She didn't need to feed anymore. She hadn't, probably since she'd killed Dreth. She looked back over at Baurus, unsure what he would read in her expression. He sucked in a breath, looking, at the very least, quite startled. Not scared, exactly. Just...surprised, somehow.

"Not all of us are monsters." It was one of the longest phrases she'd uttered in a very long time. Her gaze remained fixed on Baurus. She was practically getting chatty. She felt her right shoulder, the limb seeming to become worthless once more, now that the threat was gone. Was the threat gone? The Other Guy, the guard whose name was never really mentioned, was circling behind her, quite likely to attack, and her with one arm hanging limp.

Well, not totally limp. She had somehow kept the Amulet clenched in her palm, holding the powerful relic so tightly that she thought she might have burnt away some of the skin there. She looked down at it, opening her hand to inspect the treasure for what it was.

"The Emperor give you that?" At her nod, he looked thoughtful. "He wanted you to do something with it." Her gaze met his once again. "In all the time I knew him, Emperor Septim never once did anything without a good reason. Sometimes, I swear, he knew what I was going to do before I did. It was eerie, but I trusted him. I still do."

Her voice felt scratchy. She didn't use it this much. "His son."

"The Emperor's sons ..." Baurus winced. "They're dead."

Lyssi shook her head, slowly. "Jauffre."

"What, him? He's the head of the Blades." Baurus nodded, rolling that idea around in his head. "Yeah ... if the Emperor did have another son? Jauffre's the one to talk to. He lives at Weynon Priory now, near Chorrol."

"We're going to trust her? First, a prisoner in the Imperial City Prison - what was she even in for? Might have been murder, might have been treason!" The Other Guy's voice held accusation. He clearly thought she was a monster. "And now this?" He gestured at the fallen corpse of the assassin, the throat torn almost completely out, a pool of blood under the man. "She's a monster, Baurus. Put her down and take the Amulet to Jauffre yourself."

Baurus turned on The Other Guy. "You know as well as I do how short-handed the Blades are. How many have been killed this night alone - how many more will be before this crisis ends?" He pointed at Lyssi now. "This girl, this creature, whatever she may be. Notice the way she favors that right arm? See the gaping wound? Whatever else she is, she took a blade for our Emperor. What Blade wouldn't?"

"She's not a Blade, Baurus! She's a monster! And maybe you'll notice that the Emperor's dead, and she isn't?" The Other Guy took this opportunity to point down at the mangled remains of the old man as evidence. Lyssi couldn't bring herself to even look at the carnage.

Her kills were clean. By Sithis, her kills were clean, in comparison.

"Look at her. She's hardly a threat to us, at least right now." Baurus began his argument on a very convincing note.

"And later? What of the rest of the Empire? She's a creature. A blood-drinker, a monster." Said monster wondered if they were going to address her in person, or if they were simply content to discuss her as though she weren't there. She thought she might be going into a little bit of a shock. Did vampires even do that? "She was high as a kite when we met her. She's irresponsible at best, dangerous at worst! What happened to her cell-mate?" He glared at her. "I'll bet he's dead! Killed to fill that appetite, no doubt!

"The Emperor himself charged her with this task. Don't you trust his judgment?"

"The Emperor is DEAD!" In a sudden flash of logic and wisdom, Lyssi realized that The Other Guy might be having a tiny bit of a breakdown.

"Listen, girl." Baurus, at least, had apparently decided she was a person enough to actually speak to directly. "This thing the Emperor has asked you to do is very important." On the other hand, he spoke as though she was slow. Having gotten past her diseased nature, he'd decided that her lacking interpersonal skills indicated mental problems. "Will you do it?"

She nodded, once again. Of course. Satisfied with her answer, Baurus sent her into the sewers beneath the city. Not feeling especially paranoid, Lyssi still would have sworn she felt the Other Guy's eyes, like daggers, piercing her, long after his ability to actually see her should have failed completely.