queenofmay | Sherwood Shenanigans, Part III of III

No one ever does. Even when she's standing right in front of people who saw her during the day, when she's standing in front of men who think they know all that she is and can be. They have to be shown.

The second candle goes, and the room instantly inky black. A space she knows by its paces already, because she crosses it, and heads for the door. Letting dim light stream in, before she's nodding and leading him actually back the way he probably came form.

She's incredibly quiet. She's done this before. Knows where to stop, to look around. To hold up a hand, pausing for a passing person around the corner, walking down a hall. Seeming not even to breathe as she listens to foot steps slowly, boredly stomping away from them.

She's silent as a shadow, a dim shade slipping easily over the stones, and he tries, but it's fortunate that here there are no twigs to break, no horses to spook, no men to startle and yell. Still, he can be reasonably quiet, though his boots are heavier than hers and his steps nowhere near as soundless.

They pause to listen as someone walks near, then away, and when Marian moves forward, he follows, as closely as he can.

It's not a short trip, really. They have to cross the castle, and they need to end up two floors down. At least the fact it is morning, means it's really easy to slide through the darkness. If she were alone she'd go faster. If he was any more certain than isn't, than he has no reason to be, she'd go faster.

If he were Robin. Who'd several times chased her, careless and young, through all of these halls. But he isn't. This is No Man's Land for him. And he isn't all that bad. Even though she could probably tell he was coming at her from a hallway away if they weren't together.

He was careful, though, and well meaning. He didn't bump her, and anything else in the hallways. He could really be a whole lot worse, in ways he wasn't. In some part, she's incredibly glad he isn't good at this. Shouldn't be. Never should need to be.

If she can get him home. She'll have to send him back to Robin. Take him? Direct him? Trust Much to speak for him, if she doesn't go herself? Sit up half the night, worrying about where he ended up in the wild of Sherwood, that he only knew by one late summer's day light.

She paused on the bottom of the steps, looking down one of the more used hallways. It was quiet. But she learned not to trust even the quiet in the last six years.

Even in the midst of all this pressure pushing down on them, magnifying every sound and deepening every shadow, he can't help but be impressed by the way she moves, the confidence in every step. She really does know this place like the back of her hand; she knows how to move silently, quickly.

If he weren't here, he imagines she'd be at the stables already.

They hesitate at the bottom of a flight of stairs, pressed close against the wall, cold seeping through his clothing from the stone, and he waits, watching her, eyes flicking back and forth between her and the hall they're paused at.

Like a shadow with a tail. There are places she could duck if she were alone, she can't right now. But it's fine. She keeps telling herself that as though every nerve isn't heightened by the danger to Caspian. The fact she needs to make this right.

Before it can get any worse than what she's already gotten him into in less than a day.

She waited. Ten second. Thirty second. For something, that in the end, she doesn't end up hearing, so she edges out with a look back to him and nod to which way she's going. Which will be straight across the hallway, toward another corridor. She hates open spaces alone.

Marian actually feels a spike of fear hedging them with another.

But it panned out. No sound, no sudden footsteps. Of all the nights to actually end up getting lucky for there not to be people posted. Or who might have fallen asleep or wandered off. Lucky, regardless.

Then it's another corridor, and out on to walkways that are opened on the sides, headed toward the stables. The scent of warm summer air, mixed with hay reaching them before the last turn even. It's not a front entrance. It's for stableboys, coming to and fro, but she can guess it won't be watched given the hour.

They wait for a long, long moment -- it may only be thirty seconds, but it feels like five dragging minutes when nerves are as sensitive as they are right now -- but finally, Marian nods, and he follows her, moving as quietly as he can, down the corridor and along another and then out once more, into open air.

He can smell hay and horses; it makes him think of the tour he'd taken with Kate, when all of this would have seemed impossible.

They move quickly across the square, uneven stones, and duck into the warmth of the stables, where horses move sleepily, making soft noises and lashing their tails in lazy half-circles.

He's looking for the bay with the white star on its forehead.

She knows, moves slowly through one side of the room. It's about as large as Milliways. Horses for work, horses for show, horses for riding. Horses enough for the entire guard retinue to ride out without inconveniencing any of the first three.

It's only when she spots a familiar enough colored nose, dark and irritable snort, as if to ask what took her so long, that Marian quickened her pace. Her feet siding faintly harder on the stones, as she hissed, a quiet, non-description noise for Caspian's attention.

Because the tack beside the stall with her unnamed brute, had a sword hanging with it.

He's searching, looking along the stalls for a familiar brown nose and a wicker he knows well when a faint sound from Marian catches his attention.

Joining her, his eyes follow her nod, and he steps forward, a weight lifting from his heart as his fingers trace lightly over the lion's head of the pommel, the hard leather grip. He'd know the sword Gimli the Dwarf made him out of a thousand such blades.

Thank the Lion.

It's no use taking the tack before they find the horse meant to go with it, but he hears a heavy body shifting in the stall across the way, and when he goes to look, it's Kiseki's mild eyes that he meets, looking at him reproachfully.

"My apologies, old friend," he whispers, relieved and smiling.

How they'll get him back to the bar is another problem, but at least this first is solved.

Marian spun about suddenly, facing the direction of another line of stalls, shoulders instantly rigid even for the fast follow and slower flutter of her cloak after her. Eyes, blue-grey, wide right over the dark swath of silk covering half get her face, scanning the space.

She thought. For a moment. That she heard.

Edited 2012-03-30 19:49 (UTC)

He hears her turn, and looks over his shoulder to see her looking around. Frowning, he lifts his eyebrows in a silent question.

Next to him, Kiseki nudges at his arm; he turns back to lift the latch, carefully, quietly, testing it.

It's heavy, but quiet enough, and he leaves to step next to Marian, still near Kiseki's tack.

"What is it?"

Edited 2012-03-30 22:16 (UTC)

She doesn't wave him off or shush him, but she doesn't answer. It's like the room suddenly has too many noises, even for how quiet it is. Even for how few voices but how many warm bodies, moving, swishing. Different registers though.

Nothing. Horses. Nothing. Caspian. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Marian stepped toward the center of the aisle, head up, if all of her still concealed, by the long cloak, by the mask. Steps nearly silent. Until she made a small clicking noise with her tongue, against the top of her mouth. Something that Caspian would quite recognize from the morning even. The unnamed horse behind her does, even, stirring and stamping irritably.

Her shoulder still frozen, head tilted for --

And then she was off. Across the small passage between rows of stalls, to another one. Where and It can't be colliding with equal force, neither enough to stop her steps from being very much just this side of a mad running dash, a shadow fleeing into further shadows.

He can't shout, so he does the next best thing, gives chase through the neat labyrinth of stalls.

She'd clucked, like she was calling her horse, but the unnamed stallion and Kiseki were right there.

What did she hear that he did not recognize?

He isn't expecting it. He has a horse with an open gate. He doesn't know where the halls twist. He isn't anymore near her first thoughts in this second.

And what he'll find when he does, might be an image he should keep tucked in his book for all time, of things Marian does not do, does not show.

A woman, wrapped in the colors of a shadow, with almost every inch of herself plastered against a stall door, as though by her force of will she might go straight through, head driven against the cheek and jowl of a white mare, shoulder tucked under her great head.

Having still not made a single sound, even for how tight her face in pressed, and how one of her arms is thrown about as far as she can reach over the stall door, across the neck and white-beige hair. Not even her breath races in this silence, as she breathes one of the most known scents in her world.

Not once has Milliways seen her throw herself at any horse, even her own.

Or maybe, it is simply the other way around. Maybe it is Milliways, in five years, that has never once seen Marian with her horse.

Edited 2012-03-31 00:21 (UTC)

He's well behind her, and she's so silent and so quick, dressed like a forest shade, that for a moment he despairs of ever finding her, but that's before he sees a ghostly shape and the small dark form next to it.

There'a a long moment where he simply stands at the end of the interlocking corridor and watches them: the girl with her cheek against the white coat, the horse that nuzzles at her shoulder.

It gladdens his heart in a way he would not have thought possible only moments ago.

Soft steps follow her, and he looks up at the white mare, reaching to touch her soft nose before he looks to Marian, gray eyes dark in this dimness but full of quiet happiness.

It's a reunion he's happy to have witnessed.

The first look, when she has to look up (Because his steps have stopped, because he must be just behind her or beside her) is nearly possessive, catching the hand brushing the pink-edged white nose.

But it's also quickly swallowed by a remorseful wave for it. He isn't doing anything. He doesn't know, again. That Marian had assumed her lost with the house, and stop letting herself kill herself with definitions for what that word might mean.

She's nearly embarrassed for the display, maybe she even actually is, and she knows they have to go, he does, they can't tarry, but she can't convince herself to pull away from the mare just yet. Her hood has fallen back across her pinned curls, and the silken mask has slipped down around her own chin, and she leaves her temple against the horse looking at Caspian.

It's not even a secret, so many people here know it, but it feels as important as one here, in the dark, in this place. "Her name is Lineave."

The ownership and the reverence in those four words alone.

He nods, hand falling back to his side. The mare looks at them with wide, mild eyes, but he's watching Marian, the look on her face.

It's something he's never seen before.

"She's beautiful."

Marian nodded. She was. Soft, demur, and the horse she hadn't wanted when she was young. Not once an inch like Sorely. A Lady's horse, and yet she'd grown to loved her so. Marian simply nodded, and leaning her face against the horse for another second before steeling herself.

She had to step away, keep doing things, getting them, him, away. But if she had to pick one thing to have saved that night, one thing beyond her father, one thing just for herself. Marian reached up and stroked fingers down the pure white broad space of the wide forehead, long nose.

Beautiful was not even enough of a word for her.

"I'll be back for you," she promised. The softest, fierce whisper.

She stepped back, settling her shoulders. It's almost as though she has to regroup something. She does not have skirts to settle as though the last two minutes were a fluke.

"We have to get you out of here," this time to him. A reminder, an apology.

Edited 2012-03-31 03:19 (UTC)

He feels, for a moment, like an intruder, stumbling onto this moment he ought not to have witnessed: it's something private, something just for her, a precious friend returned.

(There are so few things Marian has had for herself -- she gives all to the people she loves and protects and fights for. This is something that is finally, finally, hers.)

Even now, she doesn't allow herself long, doesn't linger, except to stroke her palm down the long nose before stepping back, and he nods to her statement.

Kiseki's stall isn't far, and the bay is nosing curiously at the gate when Caspian returns, nodding to the tack hung by the unnamed stallion.

It's impossible to saddle silently, but they've no choice.

That last part doesn't even enter into Marian's thoughts. Maybe because it is the unwritten end to every sentence, every plan and step she has to take in a day here. No choice, but it is the only one she can take.

They are as quiet as they can be. Even if they both seem to leave shuddering silent seconds after the loudest of the things they do. As though daring to breathe and listen to hear if anyone else had heard was hard enough.

In nearly half an hour she's only said eight or ten words, and only over by Lineave. Only because she'd had to say something to explain her sudden unexpected disappearance into the dark. That she speaks, is only because it's important.

Somehow it always strikes her as weird to do so dressed this way. And yet it's easier, to speak in a whisper to him, across the stable walls.

"I'll take you back. I won't be able to stay long, if I'm to make it here before dawn, but I'll do my best to see if I can get away soon. It might not be today." She'll be watched today, especially, she may even be tasked to stay in the presence of her guard, Guy, or The Sheriff for her vanishing act.

She'll have to turn for the second time in hours from two more things she loves with bare seconds to hold them. Part of her, no matter how much it makes her heart ache, almost hopes that she can convince herself to rouse Much and not Robin in depositing Caspian to safety.

Except she'll want those seconds.

His willingness, and mutual frustration.

Even with no choice but to fly back after them.

Edited 2012-03-31 14:21 (UTC)

He nods, straightening the saddle blanket, lifting the heavy saddle up and onto Kiseki's back as quietly as he can. Leather creaks and metal jangles, small sounds that he never notices in the stables at Milliways, because it never matters there whether someone can hear him or not.

Every motion of an impatient hoof, every muffled clink of stirrups moving, every rustle of straw is something that can give them away. He remembers another night, long ago, in another cold stone castle: Destrier had been saddled and ready for him then, and now he offers up another long-deserved thanks for Doctor Cornelius' forethought.

He may be older now, wiser, more able to take care of himself and not fleeing without a plan, but that does not make the consequences of being caught any less severe.

Saddled and ready, he checks the sword in its scabbard, and leads Kiseki out of the stall, clucking gently, as soothing as he can. The gelding is nervous: he can feel the tension in the air, in his master's hands, and Caspian forces himself to take a deep breath, calm his mind.

"I'll watch for you," he promises. Of course she can't stay, of course she must come back to this place, but now that he knows the truth of her world, he'll not rest easy until he sees her again.

Marian tried to breathe in calmly, but each step of Kiseki being led out first falls like slamming door on her ears. She's gotten herself alone out of, and back into, here several time. But not with a horse, or two, or an extra person.

There'll be no way but knocking the guards at the gate cold out. Fast, and silent. It will help with there not being a castle search for long, too. She just has to be findable before that search gets too far along and anyone realizes she's missing, too.

Dawn. Dawn. Everything before dawn.

Marian led the great horse out of his stall, too. Adding to the noise, while trying to make her heart slow. She nodded, and started leading them down the passage she'd originally taken a run down. Headed for the exit that didn't lead to the main courtyard.

She was brave, and there was no choice, but she wasn't stupid.
She would risk as little of his life as she could manage.

They're both intent and aware of every sound: each movement of horses in stalls sounds like it could be the footfalls of a man rounding the corner. There's nothing for it, though: at least they might be able to rely on surprise if caught, and with him armed and Marian disguised, they might well be able to quell a small attack.

Of course, that would only attract attention.

Best if they can sneak out with no one the wiser, and he follows Marian, heart pounding, wishing these stables had straw on the floors, or at least wood, rather than this hard stone that echoed back every step taken on it.

They reach the closed doors at the far end, down the second set of stalls. Each sound, each step, tightening the muscles between her spine and shoulders. But she didn't speak anymore. They were past words. It might go well, it might not. But it was all about actions now. About following through and getting him to safety.

Marian held out the reigns for her brute to Caspian, waiting until he took them to reach the doors. She had to grab the handle with both hands, as it is a huge, heavy door, to slide it back and give them an opening. Which takes a lot of focus, especially when you're trying to do it silently.

Thus, Marian would not be the first one of them to notice that when the door slides open, it's not a dark courtyard they are looking out into, but the late night shadows of a completely different set of stables. One Caspian would find far more familiar.

Edited 2012-03-31 17:02 (UTC)

The stallion tugs at the hand holding his head, but though he dances, impatient, heavy hooves clattering on the stable cobbles, he gains no purchase, only a soft shush from the man.

Kiseki stands quiet, though his ears are pricked, and when Marian opens the door, it's Kiseki who starts through while his master stands astounded. He's forced to pause when the reins tighten -- Caspian hasn't moved, not even when the gelding turns to look at him, expectant, tugging towards the smells and sounds he knows so well.

Caspian, on the other hand, is almost entirely flabbergasted.

"Marian," he says, above a whisper for the first time in what feels like days.

"Look."

She's nearly to sudden, irritated, panic that he's daring to use a normal speaking voice now that they are going to be closer to where people could be, open spaces where people looking down might see them, hear them, which caused her whirl sharply toward him.

But he's looking out the door, and her gaze shoots there.

And her heart can't tell whether it stops completely or shoots through her chest. Oh, thank The Lord. And The Lion. And everything ever anywhere. Milliways.

Edited 2012-03-31 17:20 (UTC)

Sherwood Shenanigans, Part III of III

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