It's a large ship. Larger than she has any idea how to consider. Especially given that they are still packed away into small amounts of space on it. Seeing people come and go from Ten Forward. More new faces all the time. Their officers, and their families. Even in the Sickbay. Enough that it always feels like a surprise, but, also, only like the steady early drip of rain starting. Holding back an endless cloud. The unknown. Outside of these spaces.

Today, at the least, they've been given room assignments outside of the place they'd all be keeping together as one mass of dislocated persons. Handed out a list. Perhaps, Marian could admit, to herself, if no one else, she was a touch envious her two friends had found themselves together. All she knew of the person whose room she had newly been granted to was a name: Darcy Lewis.






Which was how she founds herself, following a blinking line of lights on a black wall, computer, that talked and was leading her toward that room, which was all still quite strange thank you, with Caspian at her side.

Your name or online alias: Amanda/Wanderlustlover
Your email: wanderlustlover [at] gmail
Another preferred means of contact: AOL: JGPhoenix
Character's Full Name: Lady Marian
Character's Canon: Robin Hood BBC/Milliways
Character's Journal Name: QueenofMay
What would you like your character's tag to be?: Maid Marian

In 300-500 words total, tell us your...
Character's background (their past and present): Lady Marian, the Maid Marian character of BBC Robin Hood, was the high born daughter of the once Sheriff of Notingham. She had an idyllic childhood, aside from the death of her mother very early one, and was raised easily in the bosom of Nottingham, her peers, and her father's doting. But as the fairytale goes, that was not long in lasting.

Her betrothed, Robin of Locksley, left her to go fight in the Holy War. Her father was deposed and cast out by the iconic, and rather evil next Sheriff of Nottingham, Vasey. Marian, not content with the lot her life gave her and how little the poor thought she or anyone care about them, made the choice to stand against the Sherrif -- as The Nightwatchman. Who defend the poor, and brought them food, money, and medicine in the night as possible.

As per the legend, Robin Hood does return back home, and her life gets a lot more complicated -- as it did even more, because this is where Marian's history dove-tailed with her introduction to Milliways. She moved through 3/4ths of her canon in milliways, mingled with Milliways plots, and mingling Milliways with her surviving her canon (which is a feat, given her near death, and almost complete death).

Milliways is the reason she's alive now, and is continuing to live on. But it came at the cost of her own world, because she was supposed to die and the only reasons she didn't were because of Milliways time, the people coming there from her future, and the people there presently who helped her stay alive after the events of her death. It's been a rocky last while after it, but things are beginning to come around again.

Thus, the perfect introduction for a new Adventure (in Space *throws glitter*).

Character's personality:
Marian is generally a very easy going person. Gentile, polite, helpful, noble. But she does have a sharp, biting, temper and it's incredibly easy for her to take slight at anyone treating anyone else downtroddenly. She very passionate and incredibly loyal, but she does not put up with abuse to herself or her friends (especially since her death, and imminent rescue/exile from Nottingham).

Character's skills/abilities/powers:
Marian is a good politician and advocate, as well as reasonable fighter with swords, bow, staff, and throwing knives. Though she may not get much good use of it in space, she's an amazing horsewoman, too.

Any special equipment your character is bringing along? This includes weaponry, magic items, etc.:
Not currently. If she comes over without any preparations of any kind: she'll just have her clothes, a necklace with a lion ring and a glass caged four-leaf clover, and possibly a dagger and a set of hair stick daggers. (If I'm mean she'll come over holding things from her job, or Ambergeldar, or a tea cup. You never know. But nothing much important. She'll probably gather things as she moves between places much later on.)

Are you bringing your character to ten_fwd from another game? If you are, which game?:
Yes, Milliways.

If you answered yes above, briefly summarize how they were changed by and what challenges they faced in the climate of their previous game(s):

Marian was deeply changed by Milliways. She got encouragement and support to be a woman in power, who could protect people and make a difference, training with knights and serving on Security there. She's been through 5+ years of plots with character growth, has made friends and family widely across there, has traveled to worlds and times far from here. She has(/had) a job in The House of Arch, and when her world was cut off she lived there, Milliways and Ambergelder.

Why do you want to play this character in Ten Forward, and what do you plan to do with them?

Marian (and one of her cohorts) is being brought in from about a year and half post current-Milliways, and through a complicated (and really sort of dramatic-angst-death-not-death) plot that hasn't been written out. So we can play them after that point. I would love to play Marian at post this point because she's free of all the chains (figuratively, and very very literally) of all the worst parts of her canon.

She's free to go do things and be someone entirely new, and I'm really excited to get to play her from there.

Writing Sample #1:
Writing Sample #2 (optional):

[OOM:

Early she did not manage.

In fact, she came up on what could be any number of the dunks they might have already given Matilda. On the Sheriff taunting her from the re-erected dais, where he sat in his great chair. To the right of him, seated first Guy, and then Henry, whom she rode up behind. While the Sheriff all but laughed, telling Matilda to hold her breath and count to three, Guy raised from his chair stepping back toward her.

( Her eyes were long for that movement )

Time was up. More than up. She had make her way back as quickly as she could. She needed to cut him off. She had to reach the castle before he did.

She needed at least the allusion, if by seconds, she'd listened.

That she hadn't entirely blown through her first freedom.

Marian hadn't been far, fretting and not even able to pace, from the room where The Sherrif and his physican were, with the unconscious body of Henry of Lewes. She couldn't do anything about Robin's spy, but she had to keep an eye on The Sheriff's spy, and whether he relayed King Richard's information to him and The Black Knights.

Nothing was going on, yet, because she could still hear Vaisey's voice rising higher and higher every few minutes. Still not getting what he wanted. She'd had to shrink into the shadows when Mathilda, the old wise woman, was brought in cursing everyone up a storm, and saying something Marian couldn't catch about her daughter.

She'd finally managed to sneak up on the corridor walkway, catching bits of conversation, promises about getting to go, snippets of Matilda's warm snark, only to have to flatten herself against a wall when the door flew open again. Blight, The Sheriff's physician, stalking out, heading one way.

But the gaurds who followed him, had divided. Half of them following the man, and the other two headed toward her. Guy, right there, at the head of another. Barely twenty feet from her when she turned, trying to flee the walkway. Unable to run without looking even more suspicious.

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.

[OOM:

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere

Elsewhere;

Marian had been right about two things.

One. It was far easier to sneak out of Nottingham Castle the week prior with the serving girls, than it was to sneak in during the busy evening. Two. That now that time had sped up, again, her useful need as Vasey's Masochistic Scapegoat had been called back into existence.




Which was why the late evening, with all the candles nearly two-thirds burned down, found her standing in the corner of Vasey's Office. In the middle of the Bird Cages. Sinigng. The parallel not lost on her. Not even when hours later, her voice was raw. He was still fiercely angry. That he couldn't find her during the late morning or half of the afternoon, and he didn't believe she'd been in the market for all those hours.

It was not enough to threaten her father, or to say he would not eat this night, or the next, or until he was satisfied she had learned her lesson. To have her beg for her leniency that she be punished instead. It was to do both. To make her stand there. No water. No chair. No meal. No reprieve. To stand in the middle of his bird cages. The frail yellow birds flitting back and forth in their wooden cages chirping endlessly, as she sang.



Sang, whatever he demanded. As long, as many times, as he demanded. Sang, as lords made reports to him, and peasants pleaded, and was made to start over if she stuttered or tried to stop to say a single word against his decisions. Sang, and watched the sun sink into evening. Sang, and watched the candles lit. Sang, and watched them burn down. Sang, and worried, doing her best not to show it.




For Caspian was floors beneath her, and had been for hours. If they had decided he wasn't one of Robin's Men, he was safe. Or at least as safe as could be promised in a jail cell below Nottingham Castle. But if they had decided, being found aiding the villagers, that he was one of Robin Hood's Men...

Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V

~*~

He hadn't taken long to follow after her, though Marian already managed to find Little Jess and her mother by the time that Robin reappeared. There wasn't much time for talking as there were so many people to see to. They passed each other now and then, checking on completely different people, running between beds.

The cries that would suddenly go up when another person died. The moans of the children. The quiet sleep of the ones everyone had begun to fear the worst for. The weary settling of dread that kept all of their shoulders up and tight. As medicine after medicine that Djaw tried, whether theirs or her own, seemed to have absolute no effect on man, women, or child.

( Still they all pushed on. )