Author's Note:

So, this is my first official fanfic, a project I did some years ago in Freshman Honors English after our class finished reading Great Expectations. I recently dug it out of an old box, whilst cleaning and getting ready to leave for college. I spent some time reviewing and broke it up into chapters...This, obviously, is chapter one. If I recieve substantial reviews (meaning one or two, as I've noticed not many people frequent the GE pages, haha) , updates will come, as, technically, this story is completed. I just want to hold you all in suspense and not post all the chapters at once (insert evil laugh).

Hobey Ho, let's go!
_______________

I punched her, hard. She had taken my husband, my lover, the father of my daughter, and had brought about in him a change I never could. She would pay. What an affront, an insult, her lust after my husband. I would deal with him later, for he had sparked my anger at least as much as she, the naïve Marian. If Compeyson wasn't really behind this entire scheme to split us up, I would kill her. And if I could find him, that malevolent scoundrel who used and betrayed us, I would offer him the same courtesy.

"Ugh," she moaned from her spot on the straw covered ground, roiling from the beating I was delivering. Dark, slowly rotting wooden walls enclosed us. There was a hole in the roof of the barn revealing a starlit patch of sky, veiled by dim clouds and a streak of London fog. It shimmered, almost as an opening to heaven. Grim mosses of grey shades and ivy grew between bricks and mortar, feeding on whatever sustenance short of sunlight they could find, for it seemed to me that this place was interminably dark and dimly lit. My eyes were blinded and I realize, now, my blood lust for her pain and pleading, and I see, now, how the accident happened. I had never meant to kill her.

Exacting my revenge was beginning to have an obvious effect upon her. Marian, at least the gypsy woman I remember, was stronger and younger in body and mind than she appeared that night. Maybe the combination of my fury and our shadowy surroundings sapped her tenacity. Maybe deep within, she knew she was guilty of unforgiveable wrongs. Maybe her emotional remorse put a stopper to her physical strength. Whatever the case, she gasped for air and groped at the ground.

I stood there, panting before her, watching her pathetic attempt to gain some footing against me. I was reaching the end of my limits as well; this fight was coming to an end, I knew, and soon. She had, already, a broken arm, at least, and was bleeding from several gashes. From her labored breathing and the obvious toll her wounds would cost to heal in the coming months, a toll to be paid in sleepless nights and pain filled days, I could tell my compulsion had been sated. I could depart and rest assured my vengeance was complete. I turned to leave, rotating my back to the whimpering silk clad figure on the floor.

A sudden swish of fabric alighted in the air. From behind me, Marian grabbed my wrist, sinking her gypsy nails deep into my skin.

"Ahhh!" I cried loudly, cursing myself, knowing it would be overheard and draw the attentions of unwanted eyes and ears. I sobbed as her fingers and nails cut at my tendons and veins. I bled profusely and fell to my knees, tears soaking my linen uniform. I kicked her chin behind me. She fell back once again, momentarily disabled but still not conceding defeat.

She kicked and punched at the air, aiming for me but hitting only the flies that buzzed over the pools of sweat and blood left in the wake of our scuffle. I stood from bended knee, walked over to her and grabbed her by the neck, subtly choking. I had enough knowledge to discern what would be deadly from what would not, and enough control to hold her as close as I could to the edge between.
She leered repulsively at me with her amber eyes, either deep pools of sorrow and regret or cesspools of lust, thirsty to take my life by her hands. Which she was feeling I still could not decipher, though I leaned toward the latter.

Her dark black, slightly graying hair was woven in tussles and strands, flowing haphazardly across her face and down her neck. She appeared aged here, not the woman I had begun to fight twenty minutes prior, but an old woman, fit for an old man. Abel was not old, at least not in spirit; of that much I was certain.

Her dark skin, glistening with blood and sweat, turned white where my hands were clutching it, likely from the pressure I exerted. She stared daringly and gasped again, a desperate clutch at a sustaining breath.

"Stay 'way from my Abe, ou' daughta', and ma'self as well, or on any honor I've left in me, on the blood we shed 'ere, I swear to kill you." I released my grip on her and allowed air to once again flow through her neck. I put my other hand to the back of her head and grabbed her hair. Pulling her up to face me, spit in her face, then threw her to the ground.

I stumbled away, leaving the barn and leaving my blood lust, my anger, my resentment, hate, and rage to float away into the night air. It took all I had to keep from falling to the ground. Of course, that made it easier for Marian to rise and lunge at my backside as I stepped away.

I fell on my face, gripping my torn wrist as she pummeled my back, using her last reserves of energy. I rolled over face her as we wrestled and I threw her off to my right. Somewhere in the few seconds between throwing Marian off and her landing back to the ground, I realized, with dread, where her head was to fall.

A rock, some slate dyed obsidian black, sat sharpened, pointing up from the floor. Most likely a left over tool, I had no faculty for its intended use, though I may say with unquestionable certainty I never intended for it to kill Marian.

With a thud slickened by blood, the point found her left temple. Marian's eyes opened wide in a shocked, glazed over but nonetheless piercing stare that held my irises prisoner. The light brown had drained and the left over shade that filled her once lively eyes was only that color something turns when it knows it is dying. Her limbs fell limp and still. Her hold on my eyes relaxed.

She went cold.