WHEN THE STORM IS THROUGH
Inspired by the song from Anastasia, At The Beginning…
Robin/Marian. The generic story, through the years, with a twist. Threeshot.
Because I LOATHE Isabella.
I.
We were strangers, starting out on a journey…
Summer didn't last long in England, but those summer weeks through July and August turned the courtyard at Locksley and the woods surrounding them into an infinite playground for the pair of them. Desperate for so much as even a taste of a freedom they could only dream about, at the respective ages of thirteen and fourteen, Robin of Locksley and his manservant Much had taken to tearing like wild animals around the grounds of Locksley manor, climbing trees, stumbling, falling and climbing back up again, and generally raising merry hell for the Lord and Lady.
It was one such summer day that they were called in prematurely by Jane, Locksley's matronly housekeeper, and despite complaints and struggles to get free of her grip, she marched the pair of them into the house, away from their wonderful, half-real world.
Much was bundled into the kitchen to help the servants, despite both their violent and innovative protests, and Robin's fate was far worse… as he was lightly pushed into his bedchamber the worrying sight of a tin bath by the fire met him. Jane scrubbed behind his ear, and trimmed his hair, and laid out clean clothes for him to dress in, and afterwards he looked almost respectable, maybe a little older than his age, even, and not so much the tearaway child that sometimes the local people would tut at and wonder if he would ever be strong and sensible enough to be the rightful Lord of Locksley… he looked like his father's heir now, smart and strong.
When he joined his parents in Locksley Manor's dining hall, they were joined by a man he didn't know… but a well dressed man, with a manservant at his shoulder, someone Robin wouldn't usually have been at all interested in. But Much wasn't beside him today, to whisper remarks to about the man's extravagant dress, and there was someone else sat at the table, in the seat beside his.
A girl, maybe a year or two younger than him, sat regally with her hands folded in her lap. The only girls he'd ever known had been the maids in their manor, and the odd village girl that had found her way into the courtyard on an errand with her father, if he was the butcher, or the blacksmith, and he was doing a service for the Lord and Lady. But none of the girls he'd ever met, not even his cousins in Kirkby, had been quite like this girl. She wasn't tall or short, or fat or thin, but her face had something about it that made him swallow. She had long brown hair, braided down her back, and she wore a simple white dress and a white headdress twisted through with gold thread… but it was her eyes he noticed. They were blue, the colour of the ocean he had only seen once in his life, and they were big, round and somehow sad… he had never seen eyes quite like it.
He didn't know she was the bane of her father's life, ever since her mother died, a tearaway child with infinite escape routes from their manor ending in Marian soaked in water, or mud, or worse, playing rough and tumble with the village children. He didn't know she still cried every night because she'd been the one to hold her mother's hand as the fever sapped her life away. He didn't know she was far more alone in the world, beside her grieving father, than he would ever be.
She caught him looking at her, and raised one eyebrow, making him grin.
"Robin, this is the Sheriff of Nottingham, Sir Edward of Knighton, and this is his daughter, Lady Marian." His mother smiled.
Robin gave a little bow. "How do you do?" he muttered, and his face flushed slightly pink as he took his seat beside the girl, flashing her a wide smile as he sunk into his seat, and then averted his eyes again. She merely nodded at him, her face unreadable.
It was then that his father spoke.
"You and Marian are to be betrothed, son."
II.
Unexpected, what you did to my heart…
"Beautiful, isn't it?" he said, stepping up behind her, a feather-light hand on her arm, darting away as quickly as it had come. She couldn't help flinching a little at the sudden contact, and he flashed her one of the smiles she'd become so used to in the last five years. She was standing on a hill, just outside Knighton, staring down at the forest below, the sun beginning to sink behind the tops of the tallest trees. She nodded slowly, not sure she wanted to break the silence with words just yet.
They stood together for a moment. That was something beautiful about their friendship, no silence was awkward, every moment was full. Since the day they'd been introduced words had hardly been spoken of their betrothal, and it didn't seem to matter, at least for now. Marian had slotted right into his life, first tearing around in the courtyard with him and Much, and then, as the pair of them grew older, grew out of the childish games, and away from pretences, she was intelligent to rival the boys, reading and writing, playing a small wooden flute her mother had bought her when she was a child, as well as learning to ride, fence and use her fists, learning quickly from the boys behind the church in Locksley. Their parents had watched, contented, as the two grew closer, until no one was as at ease with Robin as Marian was, and until he was the only person she truly talked to.
"I… I, uh… got something for you…" Robin muttered, and she turned to face him, their eyes meeting, and a small smile crept onto her lips.
"You didn't have to-" she started, but he shook his head.
"I wanted to." He pulled something out of his pocket and handed her a bundle, wrapped in slightly grubby white cloth. She began to unwrap it.
"It's not much… one of the village women down in Locksley made it from the stone that I found and…" he trailed off as she unwrapped the last layer of cloth, revealing the necklace. It was only simple, a blue stone threaded onto some string, but the stone was mottled and beautiful and the exact colour of her eyes.
She shook her head slowly, still looking down. "It's wonderful." She whispered, fingers lightly tracing the stone, as if testing its reality. Robin grinned nervously, and she looked up at him, a small, unfathomable smile touching his lips.
"Put it on, for me?" she whispered, handing him the two ends of the pendant and turning around.
She pretended she didn't hear his breath hitch as he looped the necklace around her neck, fastening the clasp at the back as she had one hand holding her hair out of the way. His fingers brushed lightly across the pale skin at the nape of her neck, sending a shudder through her. She pretended it didn't almost undo her when he leant forward to whisper, and she felt his breath on her neck.
"Beautiful."
Heart thudding in her ears, she was torn between running and turning, but his fingers, still light on her half-bare shoulders (it was the first time her father had allowed her to wear a dress with such a generous neckline), his fingers held her there. She was sure he could hear her heart thudding through her skin and her dress, she was sure the blood in her veins was racing at a speed that was almost worryingly fast, but she was frozen to the spot, on the very brink of falling or fleeing.
She let her hair go, falling around her shoulders, over his hands, and for a moment she thought the spell was broken, took a deep breath and turned to face him again. But his eyes had changed, there was something there that had never been there before, and suddenly she couldn't look away. She could feel a hand cupping her cheek, bringing their faces even closer, but she could remember how it got there, she couldn't remember at what point they'd gotten so near that she could feel the heat radiating off him in waves.
"Happy Birthday, Marian." He whispered, and touched his lips to hers.
She'd never been kissed before, and he'd never kissed anyone else. They came together with the clumsy grace of a first kiss, and it was wary, stumbled yet stunning. His hand cupping her cheek slid up into her hair, and his other hand rested lightly on her waist, mapping unmarked territory as he pulled her closer, lips still light and chaste. As she felt their bodies collide something awoke in her, and she slid her right hand around his neck, fingers curling in the back of his slightly-too-long hair, smiling against his mouth, and then slowly allowing hers to open.
Breathing fell to the side as their tongues duelled against each other, both of them tasting something they'd only dared dream about, and locked in the darkest, furthest recesses of their minds. It was then that she realised she was still holding the dirty cloth he'd wrapped her birthday present in, and with a small sigh, she released it from her fingers, bringing her other arm to join its partner around his neck.
The white handkerchief blew across the tops of the long grass in the wind.
III.
Life is a road and I want to keep going…
He traced her features lightly with his finger, as the sun lit a pathway across her sleeping face. He'd only just begun to get used to the feeling of her laid beside him all night long, their legs entwined, their bodies flush and warm against each other. It was two years since he had kissed her on Knighton Hill, and so much had changed. His mother had died, and his father was old now, and sick and frail… but he could survive. As long as he was with her, he could survive. Their wedding was in two weeks, she had planned it all, her eyes bright, with her handmaid Tess, and that night had been the first night she had snuck into his bedchamber. The servants turned a blind eye… there was nothing too wrong about any of it… there was no doubt that the pair of them loved each other, and with the date of the wedding set…
And here he was, waiting to burn all of those plans, all of that beauty down to the ground.
She stirred beside him, and endless oceans stared up at him. He fought with the demon inside again, for split seconds, but shamelessly decided he wanted the final memories to be love, not pain. He bent his head to meet her lips.
"Morning…" she murmured, curling a finger through his hair, smiling up at him, "What time is it?"
"Not late." He whispered, "I'm just… going to meet with someone." He forced a smile. "I'll be back before lunch time. Go back to sleep."
A lie have never hurt quite so much. He was a coward, and he knew it. She gave him a chaste kiss, her eyelids still heavy with sleep, falling back into the slow rhythm of unconsciousness.
Wiping a tear from his eye roughly, he slung his carefully concealed pack onto his back and left her lying there.
Later she would read a letter, left in her own room, in his familiar, scruffy hand.
My dearest Marian
It is with the greatest regret that I leave this letter as my farewell. It is purely for my own, selfish reason that I did not tell you face to face, and I know that it was what you deserved. I did not want us to part on bad terms. I have joined the King's army and am leaving this afternoon for the Holy Land on Crusade. I have thought about this forever, Marian, and although I am loathe to leave you I have to find some glory, some meaning in my life. I know you'll be angry, and rightly so, but never doubt that I love you, more than anything else in the world.
I will return to you, I promise you that.
You husband-to-be,
Robin
She would cry over the letter, and rip it into tiny shreds.
The next week, when she was as near to hitting rock bottom as she thought possible, she would regret tearing up the last thing she had to remind her of him.
Eight months later, a hooded figure carrying a baby would leave Knighton Hall, where the Lady Marian had been resting for the past weeks with some obscure and unknown illness. The young maid would carry the baby as far as Papplewick, where she would leave the little girl with a blacksmith and his family, with nothing but an embroidered handkerchief with the letter "M" sewn into one corner, and a whispered name straight from the lips of the child's mother.
"Ysabel."
A/N: This is the first part of three, and each part will be split into three sectors, each with a lyric, like this one. I hope you like it.
xx