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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[the_seafarer]

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.

[queenofmay]

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.

[the_seafarer]

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.

[queenofmay]

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. 

[the_seafarer]

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?"

[queenofmay]

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.

[the_seafarer]

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?

[queenofmay]

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.

[the_seafarer]

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.

[queenofmay]

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.

[the_seafarer]

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."

[queenofmay]

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.

[the_seafarer]

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.

[queenofmay]

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.

[the_seafarer]

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.

[queenofmay]

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.

[the_seafarer]

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.

[queenofmay]

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.

[the_seafarer]

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."

[queenofmay]

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.

[the_seafarer]

Kiseki snorts, tugs again, and Caspian, finally, dazed and befuddled but no less grateful for it, begins to walk forward, though he stops by Marian to look over at her, gray eyes clear and questioning.

"Do you want to bring Lineave through?"

Perhaps not, but the mare would be safe here, far away from the Sheriff and his absurd desire to mete out punishmnet.

[queenofmay]

He already has one of her horses. He'll have escaped and have fled with three -- Except even as she's trying, her brain trying to jump hoops, plans, fall out, all her head is doing is nodding. Very quickly, with a breath in between her teeth at the concept.


She wouldn't be here. She wouldn't be in the castle. She wouldn't be nearby. Wouldn't be with her. But she'd be safe. She'd be with Caspian. And Kate. In Milliways.

[the_seafarer]

His smile widens, boyish and flashing white in the darkness of the two stables, and he tips his head towards the direction they'd gone before.

"Go on, then."

The door can't close with him standing in the middle of it, and all of sudden, there's time (though not much), and safety, and the relief is nearly overwhelming.

[queenofmay]

Marian looks at him briefly, a queasy combination of gratitude and guilt framing the the blue-grey of her eyes, before she takes off down the hallway. For how, completely out, fast she's going, how much like that first mad dash it is, it's amazing how completely quiet each of her steps is.






She'll return a few minutes later. No tack, no saddle, that part isn't important. She can get those later. Pieces not from this terrible place. Nothing taken with her. Lineave, with Marian's hand barely more than laid against her neck, actually following rather well at her side without lead, after endless years of habit with one.

If, by then, she caught on to the thought that she won't see Robin, again, for the second time today after expecting it, she's used to something always hurting, quietly, somewhere in her. She simply gave Caspian a small, rough, smile. "Thank you."

[the_seafarer]

He shakes his head. "I owe you thanks, Marian. Not the other way around."

She should not be forced to leave Lineave here, while he and Kiseki and the stallion return to safety.

He takes the steps, now -- the necessary ones to bring himself and the two horses across the threshold, breathing in deep the familiar scents of the stable.

The horses he ties to iron loops in the wall, before turning to Marian.

"Will you stay? Or return, for now?"