Author's Note: Late in coming, really short, but hey. New job. SCII. Actually playing Oblivion. Go figure.
If you like the story, why not pop in with a quick little +fav or review? It's encouraging. Lets me know the story I'm actually working on is at least as interesting as the one I hammered out in one afternoon.
IODH. Don't own Oblivion, though I just downloaded all the official DLC.
Nobody Important
Chapter Seventeen: Slaughter
In which pain is only temporary.
By: N3k0
By some dark miracle, she found the strength to stand. This caused her feet to hurt.
It was painful, and she was fairly certain Sithis' Void would have been more pleasant. But she was alive, and she was standing.
The scent of blood was heavy in the air. Old blood. Dead blood.
She was starving.
Every instinct told her to feed – to sink her fangs into the first warm flesh she found: her pet. No, she told that instinct: he was half-dead already, barely a mouthful, much less a meal.
She needed a feast.
She slumped against the wall for a moment. That made her entire side hurt. Feeling her way along the hallway made her hands hurt. Resting for even a moment brought no real respite from those pains – but emphasized the agony of her hunger.
It took everything she had just to make it to the surface. If she'd still had tear ducts, she imagined she'd be crying, but no – they, too, throbbed with pain.
She felt her way along, almost crawling on the ground. It didn't take long for someone to notice her, in her wretched state. She could smell metal, and there was this … sense … of vitality. She'd feed well. He called for help. A healer. She could hear the yell, get the gist of his meaning.
To her, his words were simple: "More food."
She grinned. He screamed again.
Conscious thought abandoned her.
Well.
That wasn't quite an entirely unmitigated disaster.
Her burns were probably too extensive for a conclusive identification, though her ears were more or less in tact. If anyone had seen her and lived, they could guess she was some kind of elf. Or maybe an orc. Orcs had the ears too, but then they had the teeth – she had teeth, but her fangs were all from the top.
There'd been only one civilian casualty, and he was still alive. She vaguely remembered an arrow through her shoulder distracting her. Even that memory was hazy. If the arrow weren't still there – she grunted, ripped it out, and dropped it – she doubted she'd remember even that much.
Five guards dead, thirteen injured, and one civilian casualty. Inside her, she felt the blood welling up. Outside, her skin bubbled, and she peeled away grayish-black sludge that had once been skin. In places, her bones were literally showing. The blood rushed everywhere, repaired everything at once. She even felt shattered bits of bone rearrange themselves, fuse together.
She sat atop the city wall, naked as a newborn babe. The guard was too busy tending its own tonight, and humans rarely bothered looking up.
It was time to go.
She imagined Lucien would have work for her. Even if he didn't, she couldn't stay here.
Remaining in Cheydinhal was a guaranteed death. If not today, then the next, if not the next … eventually. They knew they had a vampire in their midst.
And much as she'd learned to hate killing, she refused to die.
((And another letter. I get the feeling she hasn't actually received all of them.))
Right now you're a pawn, Princess, and everybody's got their hands on you. They're right to do that, though it must make you dreadfully uncomfortable to be in the middle of it all.
Not all of them see what I do, though.
If you push a pawn far enough, she becomes a queen.
Signed -
Mrs. Sheo
P.S. - I tried being a woman for a day. I really don't know what you see in it.