28: Gossip (fanfiction)

Nobody Important
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Gossip
In which not much happens.
By: N3k0
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"What was that about?" Ariel raised an eyebrow, eyes flicking toward the tent flap.
Martin sighed, disgusted with himself. And for what? He hadn't actually done anything wrong. "Nothing."
"I see. It looked like something, to me." She folded her arms, watching him with a level expression. There was ice in her pale blue eyes. "Tell me about it."
The Nord pushed open the tent flap. He was a towering bear of a man, and he had to duck to fit inside the tent that fit its other occupants more easily. "The vampire is leaving the camp." He fell silent again after making the report, somehow making the half-hunched pose look almost dignified.
Ariel glanced back at the Nord. "Ah." Her eyes returned to Martin, and she waited for him to speak.

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She knew she was being followed. It had started sometime after midnight, she thought. Worse, the person - or people - trailing her made better time than she was. They kept out of sight, but every so often the wind would shift, and she'd catch a sound or a scent to let her know they were still there, just around the bend.
There wasn't really much she could do about it though - placing one foot in front of the next took all of her strength, and she saw gray, flickering shadows at the edges of her vision almost constantly. Despite that, the roads were empty, save herself and her tail. Just before sunrise, she found herself at a little inn. Anvil stood proudly, just down the road, but she couldn't make it if she tried. She felt like she had lead in her bones, weighing her down. Every movement was sluggish, and she rested her forehead on the door briefly, before opening it.
The door creaked loudly, and her ears pinned back.
"Oh, hello!" A woman in a blue velvet dress walked up to her, smiling a predator's smile. Lyssi matched in kind, waiting for her eyes to fully adjust. "Are you a, ah ..." The woman caught sight of her bare toes. Even her feet had been more-or-less covered in bandages, though they were a bit dirtier than they'd started out, now. Her gaze skimmed up Lyssi's form, apparently trying to read her. For her part, Lyssi closed the door and leaned back against it, watching for any wrong move from the too-friendly stranger. "Hm. Are you a traveling merchant, perhaps?" The woman seemed like she didn't believe that possibility, though her eyes lingered on Lyssi's heavy-looking backpack. Lyssi glanced down at the thing, herself. Once inside, she'd dropped it to the floor.
She nodded anyway, despite herself. A traveling merchant, maybe one that fell on hard times, that would be a passable cover, anyway. "Oh, you are?" The woman's eyes lit up, and suddenly the lie seemed ill-advised. Lyssi would need to watch this woman. "Aren't you worried, what with all of the attacks?"
Attacks? Lyssi raised an eyebrow. "You haven't heard? There's a killer on the loose, one who targets helpless merchants traveling the road to Kvatch. I would be ever so afraid, were I you."
Oh yes. The woman had heard it.
Lyssi tried to think of a way to express her need for a bed - preferably in a room with a strong lock, maybe a dresser she could use as a barricade - without using language. The woman continued speaking, oblivious. Apparently she didn't really need any input from her prey. "If you really want to stay here, you can talk to the publican, he's sleeping downstairs yet. Be careful now!"
She took the woman's appearance in, so if she happened to come across her in the road, she'd be able to steer well clear. A bad liar, this woman was blonde, and much taller than Lyssi was - probably an Altmer, given the ears. If she was an Altmer, then she'd be magically inclined. The woman didn't have the muscles or calluses from weapons-work to be anything else, and the high elves did, as a rule, prefer magic, didn't they?
In order to purchase a room, Lyssi first had to wake up the publican, which involved poking him in the side a bit. Then she had to get him to understand what she wanted, which involved a small game of charades and an exchange of coin that took more time than she wanted it to. Especially since she had to point out that she was literally incapable of speech ... though she left the exact reason out, not that he'd be able to guess unless she outright showed him the injuries.
By the time she was done getting the room, she was wrung out and exhausted. She closed the door, setting her pack down beside it, and slid down to slump against the solid wood. The last dregs of her energy went to finding a potion in her packs, pulling the cork out with her teeth, and drinking it. Setting the vial aside, her eyes slid closed. Probably, she should have stayed back at the camp.
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A flash of pain, white-hot and searing, through her chest.
It was a stirring, half-waking, half-sleeping. She bit into a delicious chunk of meat, stolen from a nobles' feast, but the insides were crawling with maggots. The maggots crawled into her mouth, and ate her way out of her stomach.
A flash of pain.
She held a single septim in her hands, her last coin. As she watched, it turned to ash. Her hands hurt, throbbing and sore, until her fingers began to rot away.
A flash.
Digging, clawing her way up through a grave, the coffin collapsed in under the weight of soil. She inhaled dirt, coughed and choked, her chest heaving with gargantuan effort. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe - she forgot she didn't need to, thrashing wildly at earth that may as well have been stone for all she could move it.
Pain.
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Lyssi woke, dotted with sweat, some time later. Her eyes fluttered open, and she felt herself struggling, once again, to try and breathe. She'd kept herself in the habit, so if she needed to, she could talk. Now, the effort made her entire chest throb with pain. She hadn't slept very long, but no one had entered her room, for once. She let herself drift, eavesdropping on the conversations downstairs.
She could distantly hear voices. A male voice, familiar, chatted softly with a female - the woman in blue velvet. The woman laughed at something or other, and it sounded polite rather than amused.
That woman would be a problem. Lyssi would eat someone's boot - since she didn't currently have any of her own - if that woman was genuinely concerned for her well-being. That meant she was probably the attacker, which meant that Lyssi would have to deal with the mage one way or the other, preferably before she headed to Anvil. Her ideas basically boiled down to 'wait for the mage to sleep, then drain her.' She'd probably leave the woman alive - did she still have any disease-curing salves? She didn't want to create a vampire mage ... it might be safer to just kill the woman.
She didn't have any particular qualms about doing so, but ... some part of her wanted to prove she wasn't really a monster anymore. That she could be a good person, now.
Of course, she had no idea what a 'good' person acted like. That was a bit of a problem, but she was fairly sure good people didn't kill others just because they were inconvenient. Maybe just a sleeping drug? She was hungry, ravenous even, that was part of the problem.
"... hear about Cheydinhal?" Lyssi's ears perked up a bit at the mention of her home. Sithis save her ...
A male's response, too soft to hear.
The woman continued. Her voice carried well, piercing the thin wood walls easily. "I heard that an entire clan of vampires stormed the city. They killed several guards and a few civilians, and then they got away. Nobody has seen them since, but everyone is on alert for suspicious, nighttime activity. They've even called on professional vampire hunters. Did you ever hear of such a thing?"
The man said something else, but Lyssi still couldn't quite make it out, nor did she care to.
She wouldn't be able to sleep now. What would happen if she was caught by vampire hunters in her sorry state? She felt drawn and tired.
Part of her wondered, dully, what it would be like to die, as she let her eyes drift closed.
The next pair of voices were much closer, tugging her awake before she'd properly fallen asleep.
"Roth, you didn't." The woman sounded genuinely worried, and there was a rustle of chain armor, a thump. Then, a sloshing, liquid noise. The woman heaved a heavy sigh. "That girl isn't one of your strays, you have to know that. She'll savage you, just like the wolf did that one time, just like the falcon did."
The man's rumble didn't seem terribly concerned. "You cannot blame an animal for its nature."
"You nearly lost your eye!" There was a pause, and vague sounds Lyssi couldn't quite make out. "All right, all right. I can accept the animals. And you did take care of the housecat, even if it turned out to be a Khajiit in disguise, whatever! The puppies all found decent homes. But this girl had a choice. She - it - chose to be a killer. It chose to be a monster."
Lyssi liked animals, too. The Nord rose even higher in her estimation. She'd never been able to keep a pet, but she wanted to. Maybe after this last job.
"Did she have a choice?" Roth's voice held a challenging tone. She didn't really understand why he was defending her, though she appreciated it. It was futile, of course. Ariel was right, and more importantly, she believed she was right. "Do you know her so well?"
There was a long silence. Lyssi found herself drifting off, before the woman's quiet, almost haunted voice brought her back.

"You know what her kind did to my family. You - you've seen my scars."
Suddenly, Lyssi didn't want to hear any more.
"That girl has scars of her own."
Another silence, though not as long.

"I don't trust her."

The man sighed. "I never said you should."

"I'll take first watch. That potion should return some of your strength, but try to get some rest, all right?" The sound of a door opening, then closing again.

The man's voice rumbled through the wall. "Good night, little one."
Had he known she could hear them?