Sherwood Shenanigans, Part III of III

[queenofmay]

It takes all her will power not to run. Every faintly quickened, but not running, step toward her room. Which she knows anyone she passes will take as her running away from the Sheriff's hands. When it is far more directed in running to.

To the door of her room, which she locked without slamming. To the pile of clothes hidden under her mattress, the candles not even lit. To her Night Watchman costume, which goes on, as the dress gets thrown on the bed. It could be dealt with later. Coiling her hair quickly, as her mask dangled from a strap between her pressed lips. Her hair might end up far more knotted, but that could be dealt with later, too.


Then Marian was back at her door, beginning to push the mask up past her chin, as she looked down the dark hallway to the left.

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[queenofmay]

Even. Even as he says the words. Even as he drags that darkness from the ever-present whisper at the edges of her mind. She doesn't want him to know it. Doesn't want him to be holding it. If she'd had stillness in the darkness down leaving her door.

Even that moment had nothing on the stillness his question had brought her to.

She frowned, flickers of emotion chasing through the egg shell mask that was too easy to pull close to her after so many hours with Vaisey, the candle light casting shadows to chase it all. She reached up her free arm, the one he wasn't touching, to start pulling the pins from her hair, even as her eyes fell on his hand.

Because she couldn't. Because she was a fool. She can't say either, can't bare either in this darkness, or looking to him just yet. She starts with damning herself further. "This time, or last time?"

[the_seafarer]

His expression hardens. It's just a faint shadow, but it's there in the line of his jaw and the way his eyes study her so closely.

"It hardly matters," he says, a little clipped. "As I suspect you would have continued not speaking."

He feels a fool for not knowing, for not having tried to help because he was ignorant of the problem, but worst is the heaviness in his heart at the realization that even now, after everything they've entrusted to each other, she still chooses to carry her worries alone.

"He spoke to me in the dungeons. Truly, he is the reason I escaped. If Sir Guy had not come to bring him food, I expect I'd have hanged in the morning."

[queenofmay]

His anger, she expects. The way his voice is colder, more distant, more sharp, louder even when the timbre doesn't change. She can bare that. She just stood in a room for hours, her whole body is still singing with the aches, and watched far worse things said, about people's live, with glee.

But, even when the words about Guy are circling for confusion, she can't take Caspian last words. The snap went without thinking about it, because she couldn't believe he'd ever even thought. "I would not have let you hang."

[the_seafarer]

He doesn't flinch at the sharpness in her tone, and his hand remains on her arm for a moment longer before dropping to his side.

"Of course not, if you could have stopped it."

But he doesn't know how she could have, and he doesn't believe she knows, either.

It is not a thing he would wish to put to the test.

[queenofmay]

That single movement is almost worse than anything that could have words. She lives in a world of words. Her eyes had dropped, tellingly toward the movement, causing her mouth to stiffen, even as she shook her head and looked back up.

"I would not have let you die." Even for the edge of insult at not being believed, her voice is lower, firmer, and just the edge of raw from so many hours of use.

There was no part of her that could or would let him. She would not have slept. If she couldn't do it herself, she'd find the others that could. She could not lose him like that.

[the_seafarer]

There's a faint hoarse note to her voice that makes the shadow of a frown cross his face, but he nods.

Being locked in a dungeon couldn't shake his faith in her. "I know. But I am still glad that risks taken were not yours."

He could never stand for her to be punished just for helping him.

"Though we may yet risk even more. If you just tell me where the stable is, there will be nothing to tie you to either my arrest or escape."

[queenofmay]

Maybe if he were a different man, with green eyes, she'd scoff. Maybe if the weight of his gaze still didn't feel like an pleaded accusation in and of itself, maybe then. As it is his last words caused her eyebrows to rise. At the very least.



Her eyes narrow, unsettled in the half-light, voice faintly harder for the assumption, a note of something almost unnameable at the realization he came just to go. "You would have me not help you, now?"



"Then, you would what?" Her voice was a torn attempt at kindness and guilt. "Run away into the night, without any idea which direction you even came from to get here? Or where to go from here? You do not know my world at all."

And it was her fault regardless of whether it wasn't her choice.


Maybe if he was that person, she would have finished with You need me. Maybe if it weren't for everything else trapped, sharp and tight, smothering the air in her chest, with his one question.

[the_seafarer]

"Marian!"

He reaches forward to take her by the shoulders and meet her eyes. "This is not about wanting your help or not. You can not be caught with me. Do you think I would wish to leave without you? Do you think I would want to be lost in the woods? If you would not let me hang, I will not let you risk yourself for me."

It's impassioned, but she's stubborn, has been since the day he met her, and her strength and loyalty are things he respects and admires about Marian, but there are times when she needs to think as much for herself as for her friends, her family.

Taking a deep breath, he closes his eyes, frowning with a shake of his head before opening them again.

Whether she says it or not, it's a truth he knows only too well. He needs her.

There's no way out of here without her, risk or no.

"Can I be blamed," he says, his voice softer now, but he's lost this argument and there's no denying it, "for wishing to keep you as far out of any of this as possible?"

[queenofmay]

"No." It's not a snipe. It's so flat as to almost be apologetic, staring at his hair in the darkness as he shook his head, listening to a quiet desperation she hoped never to hear from him. Not here, and not for her, and not as necessity to himself.

Marian took a breath in, pushing it right back out her nose and making her shoulders, in the span of his hands, sink slowly down from ram rod straight. The exhaustion of hours wearing through, the shock of him knowing bleeding off it's first staggering blow. "You cannot keep me out of my own life."

Because they are calling it two different things, that it is, with only one foundation to their word now.

And if Robin and her father never could stop her?

And if it did involve her father so far below, a week unknown?

[the_seafarer]

It isn't as though he doesn't know Marian can handle herself. He'd never willingly try a test of skill with her; he might be taller, stronger, but her abilities demand respect.

In a fight, she can deal as well as anyone who might come after her, but the thought of her being caught, clear proof of her involvement with Robin's men, turns his blood to ice.

But there's nothing for it: this is her world, her life, and he is absolutely dependent on her to return home. His hands loosen but do not lift from her shoulders, and he meets her eyes with his own rueful.

"All right. We'll make for the stables, find Kiseki." He pauses, and when he goes on, his voice is not unkind.

"Is there anything at all we can do for your father?"

[queenofmay]

Her jaw tightened briefly, but she didn't go still even if her eyes left his. To his arm, to somewhere between. Somewhere. Else. She can't look at him. Can't. And it is struggle to make words work there, when it is a struggle to stand near him and speak.

The only related words to her father in a week have been pleading to a man who gets the greatest satisfaction in having a reason to have her grovel at his feet. To have her standing in a corner like a song bird, knowing she won't fight back. For that solitary reason. The price is too high.

Even when it only strengthens her resolve. And desperation.


"I cannot tell you every single time The Sheriff threatens to do something to me, to any of us." She doesn't care if she's talking his arm near one of her shoulders. If she can't look at him, she can at least try to give him something.

"Half the time it is only that. Threats. Greater and greater threats. The earned fear is a great motivator to his aims where it comes to most people." She. She -- they aren't most people, she doesn't say.


Nor that 'the other half of the time,' is all cut tongues or hands, and poisoned people, and dead men swinging. That Nottingham has no other other half either. Except. Except the ribbon of hope being cut by Robin through the center slowly.

[the_seafarer]

If she will not look at him, at least she'll speak, though the question she answers is not the one he'd just asked. His hands are warm on her shoulders, his eyes are on her face, watching the play and flicker of emotions as they cross her features.

No. She cannot always tell him; he has no right to expect that she'd tell him anything but what she wished to. How could he, when he is so completely cut off from this world and all it's troubles? Wishing to help does not give him the ability to make it possible.

And yet -- and yet this is not a threat against people he may sympathize for but will never meet. It isn't an idle warning, intended to terrorize villagers.

"This is not an idle threat," he says, gentle. "You don't have to tell me, but, Marian, neither do you have to be alone in this."

[queenofmay]

"It is my fault he's there."


The amount of effort and emotion in those very small words, means her shoulders draw in and she steps away from him. At least from his touch. But she doesn't walk anywhere. There's nowhere to go. There's nowhere she can outrun that.

[the_seafarer]

"It is not."

When she turns, he lets her go, and he might not go after her, but neither does he move away.

"It's the Sheriff's fault. He is to blame for all of this. Not you. Never you."

It's the Sheriff who hurts the people he's meant to protect and says it's in the name of punishment for their wrongdoing, the Sheriff who imprisons unfairly and doles out vindictive rulings where he will. Marian can't be blamed for his actions. She may be the reason, but it is not her fault.

Not that he believes she will ever accept that.

[queenofmay]

No, she made a choice. She took a risk. A direct stand against The Sheriff. For Robin's life. Even if she'll claim aloud it might have been for both men. She made that choice. To defy him, so openly, before the whole of Locksley Village. Trusting, idiotically and arrogantly, she was safe.

And maybe she was. Still untouched a week later. But he'd done well to slam his point home into her heart for choosing to correct him, for calling his choice a mistake. Her eyes when she looked back at Caspian were a riot of all those emotions.



"It was only an hour after it happened the time-" She nodded, barely, trying to mean the day it happened. Filing in, with only thing she can think to shove there instead. "-the day you arrived in Milliways, again."

"It's only been a few days since." As though each hour doesn't have more weight. She keeps forcing the words, as though it's not a knife cutting through her. Hard straight lines in her face, as she looks to her bed or her window, not crossing her arms, hands curled.

Harder yet. To not let her voice flicker for the last words.

"I haven't seen him since that day. There are orders against it."

[the_seafarer]

She doesn't need to explain herself to him, will never need to explain herself to him, but he listens anyway, because she seems to need to tell him.

Even if the look in her eyes makes his heart contract and ache for her.

"He seemed well."

It's all he can offer her, a tiny thing to cling to, but, mayhaps, something. Anything.

"As well as could be. And Sir Guy has been bringing him food."

[queenofmay]

She'd argue if he'd said that. The sound of his voice after her question. The way he'd pulled away. Even if she has now, she isn't. Contradictory, but true. All of it.



And Guy. Clinging to his first words even as they went unanswered, she frowned with a bitter, sharp edge thinking about his last ones. "He said he would two days ago."

Right there at that door where they came in.

"I hadn't thought to ask him since." She shook her head.

"Maybe some part of him actually feels remorse-" And, oh, but these word are icy ironic and almost mean, with no faith to them. "-for standing there and doing absolutely nothing while my father was carted off as the price for keeping his own life."

Two. Two for one. They were both alive. And he had walked away. Not even saying a single thing to her after The Sheriff turned on her.

[the_seafarer]

He won't presume to know what Sir Guy might be thinking or what his motivations are, and he's not inclined to better his opinion of the man though he'd helped Caspian escape. The hearts of men and what good or evil they might accomplish are nothing he has ever been able to understand, though he'd swear that most are capable of great deeds of both.

The bitterness in Marian's words, therefore, he does not argue or attempt to cheer away, but there is nothing they can do to help her father tonight, and they must be quick if they hope to avoid capture.

"Marian," he says, gentle, "I am sorry for your father, for you, and everything you've lost. But I fear the guards will soon discover my escape, and will begin searching. If there is nothing we can do to aid your father, we must leave as soon as we can."

[queenofmay]

It's easier for her not to pay attention to, or at least not to let in far enough, all the words he chooses to say first. Apologies she can't let in. Because he's right about the rest of it. They only have so much time.

She's had her room search for prisoners before.

One she was even hiding in her bed. Once.



He says we and she feels the snap. The taut line between herself and some spot so many floors beneath her. She can only go so far. But that doesn't have to be said yet. He'll probably realize it.

"To the stables. Kiseki should be fine." Should. She hopes. She can't know. These are things she's rarely had to think about, when she's concerned with people's lives first and foremost. She doesn't pick her mask back up, but she the skill half cover back up from where it's lain around her throat this whole time.

Turning to blow out the candle near her, even as she nodded him toward the door.

[the_seafarer]

He nods, doesn't say anything else or try to distract or deter her. He needs her guidance to reach the stables, to reach a door that will bring him back home again, and she needs to stay safely unsuspected.

At least she's wearing her Nightwatchman guise: no one would think it to be her at a single glance.

Luck seems to be with them as they creep silently out the door: he waits for Marian to check the hall before walking quiet as a cat along the stone flags.

If this quiet will only last, they may have a chance.

[queenofmay]

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.

[the_seafarer]

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.

[queenofmay]

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.

[the_seafarer]

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.

[queenofmay]

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.