Author's Note: Whoo, long pause. Back now, though. Life happened, what can you do?

This one's longer than it was originally, but not by much. I'm actually going through and rewriting parts of it, adding and subtracting words – in short, editing something I wrote maybe a year or two ago.

Might as well get this out of the way here: I don't plan for Lyssi to fall in teh loves with anyone, certainly neither Vicente or Lucien. (It's a Dark Brotherhood fic, it's a female original character, I felt this needed to be said.) It might happen later on, but … well. She looks at Vicente as a Sire, or a father figure: someone she puts on a pedestal, but certainly not a romantic interest. And she looks at Lucien with a mix of fear and gratitude – fear because hey, he's damn scary, and gratitude because she wouldn't have her Family if he hadn't given her the invitation meant for someone else.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Elder Scrolls franchise. I would be much, much wealthier if I did.

Nobody Important

Chapter Six: A Father's Love

Not that way, you sick, sick people.

By: N3k0

She woke as the sun set, and for a moment or two, she stared blankly at the far wall of the tunnel.

It had been so long since she had bothered to remember the entirety of the incident, though it was always there, in the back of her mind. Little flashes of it, a reminder of what she used to be – what she was, now.

The hunger hit bare moments after she woke, a gnawing thing that twisted her insides, forced her to her feet and out into the open. The night was still warm, a remnant from the heat of the day. She looked around at the water, and the Ayleid ruin across the way. There might be bandits in there to feed from, and the blood would speed her healing.

Or, there might be ghosts, skeletons, or worse - a group of vampires who'd see her as competition, and rip her apart more certainly than if she were just a living mortal.

What would Vicente do?

It was a stupid question of course; she wasn't him, and she didn't have his centuries of knowledge behind her. He wouldn't have gotten caught, and if he had, he would have slain the guards quickly and quietly, instead of coming along meekly like a small child. Assuming he had let himself be caught, he would have planned his own escape, and been gone long before morning.

She needed his guidance. She looked up to him as she imagined she would to a father. He had taken her under his wing, taught her how to live with her condition after she had arrived, half-dead, at the Sanctuary.

She owed everything to him.

That was why, when she finally reached the road, she took it east to Cheydinhal, not west to Chorrol.

She thought about the Amulet, and the Emperor who'd given it to her. Again, she inspected it, the ruby jewel that called to her predatory nature, tempted her with the impossible.

A wash of guilt ran through her, and she felt, with her free hand, the wound on her collarbone, still healing. It would leave a thin scar, but she didn't bother to heal it. The blood would restore her soon anyway, and even if it didn't, some stray part of her thought that she deserved more than just some simple scarring.

She cast a simple spell over the thing, to make it invisible. Naturally, it didn't stick.

She knew what she really probably should do. What she'd sworn to do. She had to get this thing to Jauffre; he'd take care of it for her, apparently. But ... she wanted to ask anyway. It felt better to her, to follow Vicente's advice, to heed her Sire's commands. It had even been distressing to her when she was promoted. When she'd been told to obey Ocheeva, instead. She liked the Argonian, but ... he had told her to do as Ocheeva instructed as though she were him, so she did. It felt different, though. Not that the contracts were any easier, or the people she killed were any less dead. Maybe it was just that, under Ocheeva, she found herself doing it for cash, for magical trinkets, more than anything.

It just wasn't the same.

Lyssi made her way uneventfully to her destination, ducking her head habitually, letting the thin, blue-black braids fall into her face to help obscure her visage when she passed a patrolling guard. She looked enough like a normal Bosmer at the moment, if a little worn. Really, anyone with reason to travel the road so late at night probably also had a reason to be haggard. She decided not to take chances, especially with her recent jailbreak.

She wished for the dark, concealing hood she wore while she worked. It, like the matching shrouded armor, was stuffed in a small trunk she'd claimed for her own, in the Sanctuary. She felt fortunate that no one really looked her way, with her face so exposed. Before long, she arrived.

The city guards looked askance at her – a little thing, traveling alone, of course they found it odd. She thought maybe the taller one had been working the night she'd left for the Imperial City. Had he just not expected her to return? The littler one looked like he was falling asleep at his post. He probably wasn't used to working the night shift. The taller one, though, he walked up to her, acting imposing … what was she supposed to do? She reached up, her hand darting out, and brushed his cheek with her fingertips. The man blinked, owlishly, and for a moment his eyes seemed … reflective. Unseeing.

He shook his head, and motioned her inside the gate.

Her feet fell unerringly, taking her past the church – a massive, stony monument to the implacable will of the Nine Divines, and an occasional feeding ground – to the boarded-over, locked door of an abandoned building. No one would be looking her way; the guards made it a point to ignore the abandoned house, and many of the townsfolk did the same. She flicked open the front door's lock, the work of mere seconds, then padded down the stairs to the basement, pausing at a bloodied picture.

Its haunting words gave her only a slight chill now. "What is the color of night?"

Lyssi took only a moment to eye the mural. A brilliant white hand, a skull. A woman, and three dancing skeletons, with a dominant color of red. If anyone had been here who shouldn't, she wondered if they would have any trouble at all discerning what this place was. "Sanguine, my brother." The mural slowly creaked open, and quietly welcomed her home.

She walked inside. The Argonian woman wasted little time in approaching her.

"Sister, I have a matter of some urgency for you. I received this note from Lucien Lachance." When Lyssi went just that little bit paler at the mention of the Speaker who ruled their Sanctuary, Ocheeva nodded slightly. "It is gravely urgent. You must read this as soon as you are able, and obey whatever is written."

Lyssi opened her mouth to speak, then decided against it, and simply nodded. Surely the letter wasn't for her? But, looking down at the envelope the Argonian had pressed into her hands, her name was written clearly. So, instead of wondering if the parcel was in fact for her, she merely wondered if Lachance had lost his mind. She was unworthy of such an honor. Looking back up at the woman's inscrutable face – lizards weren't really known for their expressions, though – she nodded, once.

She secreted the letter away in her pouch of ill-gotten loot and padded to the room she sometimes shared with her Sire. She had, quite a while ago, all but begged Vicente to let her place her bedroll on the ground next to the stone slab he called his own. He seemed surprised - even flattered - but agreed readily enough.

He was reading, as usual, so she paused in the doorway to watch him. She smiled softly, seeing his catlike face, the frown just slightly apparent. He disagreed with whatever was written in his book. She could tell by the furrow in his brow, the way he shook his head slightly as he flipped the page to the next. He didn't like it, but he would still read it to the bitter end.

She really supposed she should be scared. He was very clearly Vampire, old and powerful, his face showing his inhumanity quite clearly. But then, she had - according to Antoinetta - the 'biggest crush' for him. She thought the whole idea was silly. Of course she loved the man she chose to call her Sire. She didn't have romantic feelings for anyone, though, much less for him.

"Ah ... my Daughter. What is it that brings you to me?" He smiled, kindly, up at her. When she held the Amulet out for him to see, the golden chain still wrapped around her wrist, his expression … changed. "The Amulet of Kings! How did you come to possess such a thing?" There was awe in his voice.

It took her a second to respond. She rarely spoke. "The Emperor. He's dead."

"Surely you didn't ..."

She shook her head.

"Red robes, conjured armor. Couldn't stop them." She pulled her shirt to the side to show the pink, barely-healed scar where she'd been skewered through the shoulder.

"And his guards just let you take that?" He eyed it with the same hunger she herself felt. It pulsed with life, with energy. That was what drew both of them. That was what they fed on, after all. "It is integral to the safety to the Empire."

She tilted her head to the side. She'd known it was important, but ... Integral to the Empire? That seemed excessive.

"It is something few are even able to comprehend. The true Emperor uses that amulet to light the Dragonfires and preserve the barrier between worlds." She continued to eye him expectantly. "Truly. You've heard of Daedra? Demons? That necklace keeps them from swarming this world."

Lyssi nodded, still not quite understanding how lighting up some bonfires kept the whole world safe. She decided it was better not to ask. She thought perhaps he guessed she didn't quite get it, because he sighed.

"Ah well. One day, you will understand. You've had a long trek. If you need, you may sleep out the day here." He smiled, patted her on her still-bare shoulder. She pulled the thin black cloth back up over her scar, and nodded, relieved.

Her dreams remained unpleasant.

In her mind, she stood once more before the Emperor, her eyes caught by the multifaceted ruby, by the awful brilliance of the thing. She couldn't touch it, could never wield the power held within, but she could crave it, nearly taste the dragon's blood.

She could see the life behind his, the other human. She pulled the Emperor away. A flash of pain - the conjured sword pierced her shoulder. The thump of his boot to her stomach, the crack of her head against stone. Then he advanced.

She felt something new, then. Where before she'd sat helpless, now, somehow, she felt herself backed into the wall, felt each jarring slice as her flesh was rent asunder, as she herself was chopped to pieces. Blood, everywhere, blood. A sea of it, and her to blame. The Emperor's death was violent, perhaps more so than necessary, and that too was her doing. And then ....

She saw him rise, the pieces of his body held together by thin strings of blood. He opened his mouth, fangs - to her it looked like every tooth was a fang, and bit down on his attacker, draining the man to a withered husk, the tortured, jarring cries chasing her from sleep.

Lyssi woke, screaming wordlessly. Vicente was there in seconds, arms wrapped around her. She buried her head in his shoulder, sobbing. He petted her hair, calming, reassuring.

In reality, the Emperor hadn't risen from the dead. She knew that. He had already died before the disease in her veins could have saved him. She couldn't stop herself from drinking the cultist dry. Should she have? Would it have been any better?

Didn't he deserve worse?

"Shh ... sh." Her Sire smiled down at her, and she slowly stopped shaking. "Your mind needs to adapt, my Daughter. That is why every day you're plagued with these dreams."

She looked up at him, nodded softly. It made a certain sense. She was becoming something else, something entirely alien to her nature. She'd been prey – now she was predator. Eating had been simply a matter of picking an inn to rob, or a waste bin to dig through. Now she had to be so much more careful. They couldn't be diseased, or she might do serious harm. Worse, she could spread whatever illness they had, as well as her own curse. She shouldn't feed off the same person two nights in a row, because they'd already lost so much the first night. She had to take just enough to sate her hunger, but never too much ....

Maybe it wasn't any wonder at all that she was having nightmares about her victims, about that dark part of her that regarded everyone who was human, or a close facsimile thereof, as prey, and anything vampiric as competition.

It was strange, the way this caused nightmares, but her murderous profession did not. Then again, how would she know the difference? She hadn't killed anyone before she'd become a vampire, and she hadn't been a vampire before her first kill. Maybe the two were intertwined.

She pulled away from Vicente after a moment, glanced at her pack. The amulet seemed to glow brighter to her. More tempting, even though she had no way of using the thing. Vicente caught the direction she was looking, gently guided her to look back at him with only the thumb and forefinger of one hand. "My Daughter, the Emperor surely instructed you to accomplish something with his Amulet." Lyssi nodded solemnly. "I think this takes precedence over whatever contracts you have undertaken."

"But ..." He put a finger to her lips, shook his head.

"No. Even assassins can be loyal to the Empire. If the world fell to demonic rule, after all, how would we get payment? We are only human. Or nearly so." He smiled, patted her on the head when understanding dawned. "Go on. It's night out - the sun cannot harm you."