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[queenofmay]

Marian scrambled out her door the moment she saw it, all grace lost with her plunge into the sea and barely regained with the lead from Will, hoping without any realistic expectation to out run the weight which crushed the inside of her being.

Hating him, as much as you could while utterly rejoicing you'd watched a love one achieve their final and best dream, that it was still there on the other side of the door. Everything was still there. The feel of the ocean on her skin and hugging him and of being sure this could not, would not be the end.

And the fact those things did not change grief.

Nor did it change the sea soaked gown and her father dictating, as she deftly avoided looking him in the eye for fear he'd see how stricken she'd been, to her about the tenant she needed to see.

She agreed, hastily and perhaps even part-rudely, grabbing the thick white cloak and thinking only one thing as she dashed out the door and into the attached stable.

Escape.

Lineave, going as fast as they could from the moment she was prepped and Marian was astride, took her in the direction, opposite of the tenant, toward Sherwood.

Her bower. Her safety net. Her endless home.

Her, first and last and best, Sanctuary.

Comments

[outlaw-bold.livejournal.com]

"Yes, but I don't want you catching cold."

Some hint of despair or longing or hurt in her eyes makes him drop his, and he moves his hands to her cloak, pulling it more securely about her. That look had shaken him, and not only because it was so strange to see, but because he isn't truly sure within himself that he was meant to see what he had. It discomfits him, not least because there had been an answering flash shooting through him and the sudden, wondering thought that he kills as quickly as it comes: if I had never come back, would this be my eulogy?

"There," he says, and meets her gaze again with the smallest of comforting smiles, his hands warm on her shoulders.

They are really very close. "Was there a shower? I hadn't noticed."

[queenofmay]

(Hi and Goodbye doesn't it sound so cruel)

"No, just my foolishness," she admitted, with the smallest graze of a smile. Though it did nothing to ward away the ache deep inside. The Hope was still there, somewhere, placidly shifting in waves.

Beat.

"Thank you." Marian ruffled the cloak only a little, pulling her arms up around her, wonder how it was they could be so close and yet still feel as though it was far. It would only take perhaps a step or two to be right next to him.

Had it only been a handful of days since he'd held her about the loss of another life?

Glancing at Robin, she wondered if any of this made sense to him and thought somewhere Caspian was laughing. Her voice was softer, this time, almost in lieu of apology. "I hadn't meant to intrude."

[outlaw-bold.livejournal.com]

He's shaking his head already. "It is no intrusion."

She's beginning to warm, and he smiles back, encouragingly, simply disregarding the idea that she might be intruding. If Marian wishes to ride into the forest, he surely would not bar her way, and if she is not being chased by the Sheriff's men or is without her watchdog Gisborne, so much the better.

And...it's good to see her.

[queenofmay]

How easily they shifted, she marveled as her hands peeked out slightly to hold the twin pieces of the cloak front. Her smile curled slightly and she stared up at him, even as his eyes and expression was shifting to something easily more predictable, if not certainly more complicated.

"You are alone?"

[outlaw-bold.livejournal.com]

He spreads his hands, and leans forward as though making a mocking sort of bow, but the smile on his face twists his mouth and sets his eyes laughing.

"As you see."

Still, they aren't far from camp; if she tried he's nearly sure she could smell the far off-fire over which Much was stewing some sort of meat and vegetables.

[queenofmay]

She almost rolled her eyes at his frivolous act display, but her expression settled somewhere along the lines of exasperation.

With a hint of amusement caught up in her still too dark eyes.

Which cleared space for what she'd run from originally: duty.

"Quiet day?" Marian asked with some hope, with a glance around her. 'Except for herself' didn't seem to need mentioning.

[outlaw-bold.livejournal.com]

"If you do not count Much's prattling on about being a lord or Alan's incessant nonsense, then yes, it is quiet."

What else can he say? That there has been a wary and tense truce in the forest since the day they destroyed the black powder? If it is quiet, it is only because Gisborne has been hunting them less fiercely than usual, and that worries him.

What are they up to, the Sheriff and his lapdog? He fixes his gaze on Marian, wondering. "Have you heard any news from the castle, lately?"

Of course she hasn't. If she had, she would have spoken sooner--and yet his curiousity provokes the question.

[queenofmay]

"There is unrest in the Council, being silenced or ignored, but that is not new."

It was quite like pleasantries, normal with rules and specific turns, if you removed the 'pleasant' part.

"The Sheriff is reclusive when not appearing to punish anyone who trips themselves up in the court yard. That was to be expected after he was denied."

His temper has become a tenement they were used to, but his recent temper tantrum few people understood. Robin Hood had a ledger only a handful of people knew existed.

And....Gisborne. Really she didn't want to thin of that. That brought back Milliways. And the confusing things he said. And what Caspian had said about marriage. Which cycled back into gray eyes and the scent of lilies.

"There's a tenant waiting for me." She said it with some rue, and no real dismissive nature, though mostly because she felt the lurch in her stomach from those thoughts.

[outlaw-bold.livejournal.com]

He watches as her eyes flutter away, wondering what on earth the connection might be, unless...

She couldn't still be upset over Gisborne's disappointment, could she?

A friend, she'd said. A friend she'd lost, and speaking of the Sheriff had reminded her, or else her face would not have fallen and her clear eyes would not have turned inwards...?

No, it couldn't be. He stifles the thought at once, setting it firmly aside to its proper place, nodding though he does not yet step away from the mare.

Once, their goodbyes would have been full of smiles and tender words and promises of seeing the other the next day. Now, they are simply reminders of business together.

He cannot dwell on it; this is not the time for sentimentality; still, his voice is a trifle more gentle than it might otherwise have been.

"I don't like it when it is this quiet," he says. "I'm sure they're planning something. You will keep a close watch?"

[queenofmay]

Silence was always pregnant with the next explosion in this world. Perhaps it was why quiet things made them all shy. Even the good ones.

Looking up into his face, as her hand reached out to stroke Lineave lightly, she nodded. "If anything happens you'll know. It might be a week or two. There's an emissary coming to Nottingham Castle soon, which will keep him busy and away from the people with peripheral plans."

Really that sounded as dull as she said it. He got guests often enough. This one wouldn't be all that different. Just another reason for a hunt or a dance or a long dinner which drug on as someone gave speeches.

[outlaw-bold.livejournal.com]

"It sounds as though you might have a party invitation soon." He smiles as he says it, though, reassured by her words and byt the knowledge that Marian would know, if any would, whether the Sheriff were up to something.

Just like that, her emotions and thoughts and worries are shunted aside, placed away for her to deal with later, and he is filled with admiration for her strength of mind, for her will.

"You ought to go and see that tenant."

[queenofmay]

Duty felt like a chain. But there really wasn't a place to run now. Robin was in Sherwood. Her father was in the house. And Milliways would feel empty. It was all there was if there wasn't somewhere for her to let it go.

Boosting herself up on her horse, she looked at him in a recondite fashion, ending her words with the smallest smile.

"My luck they'll be complaining about thieves in the woods."

[outlaw-bold.livejournal.com]

"You have to be careful," he says, seriously, holding on to the mare's bridle, and then his cocky smiles shines brilliantly up at her.

"I've heard stories about those thieves. Real bandits, by the sound of them.


"Marian..."

He searches her face, and what he sees there makes his eyes drop momentarily before he meets hers once again. "I'm sorry about your friend."

[queenofmay]

She looked down at here hands at the mention of Caspian before she looked back.

Robin was brilliant, green eyes like summer even in the shade of the trees, careless hair, and that smile, laughingly concerned, which had turned her knees to nothing for so much of her childhood.

She wasn't a child, not by a long shot now, and she still couldn't think he was anything less than brilliant. Maybe even more so here.

Picking up her reigns, she nodded before flicking them. Then she looked back, with the strangest bit of smile curling her lips.

"He would have liked you."

Maybe she said it for him. Maybe she said it for herself.

And maybe, just maybe, it was completely true.