Requiem, a Robin Hood BBC fanfiction
He had no idea why she'd done it. Maybe she'd seen something in him, something worth caring about. Maybe she'd simply decided to be contrary, when she chose to like him despite hating all men. Maybe it had been pity—but no, he didn't like the thought of that. It was closer to empathy than the derisive superiority of pity. It was like the sort that Marian had had for him, but without the bitter taste of deceit she had always left behind. Meg was…sweeter. Warmer. Kinder. Meg was a chance. Meg knew him as Marian had, but she'd forgiven him. She'd wanted to help him. Meg was a guiding light in the dark of the dungeons, a beacon, a hope, a dream. Meg he could have loved, loved better even than Marian. With pure, innocent Meg, perhaps at last he could have release, freedom, absolution. Marian had tried to change his ways without forgiveness for past sins. For her, to think was to act. To feel; that was nothing. But Meg had taken a chance with him, for whatever reason…and now she was just as dead.
Another woman destroyed because of him.
Maybe Marian had been right. Maybe he was beyond redemption.
But Meg…Meg he could have loved.
I've always quite liked you, you know…
By the light of the moon, beside the tranquility of an unnamed lake, Sir Guy of Gisborne wept.
Disclaimer: If I owned it, the characters would have been written consistently, and the plots coherent. The cool characters would have survived, and the shallow ones killed off. (cough-Kate-cough-cough). :)
Author's Note: I really, really, liked Meg as both a relatively realistic character and a plot device to get Gisborne to rethink his priorities. That episode may just have been the best of that entire season. And so, little bunnies nibbling my toes, my imagination escapes to drabble-land, and out spews Guy-and-Meg centric fics such as this one. They are mostly character studies, and, as always, as much for my own amusement as that of my readers. I thought Meg was, generally speaking, a more supportive character than Marian, and I think Guy would agree (though never allow himself to admit that Marian was abusive of his love for her)--I tried here to explore the guilt and longing Guy must have felt at the moment of Meg's death. I'm not sure how I did--I sense that he was distraught for the loss of her innocence, guilty for causing her death, lamenting the impossibility of deserving her love and the destruction of any possible future with her, but also mourning and raging against himself for wanting it, for believing even momentarily that he deserved it, furious with himself for destroying every possibility for redemption, for salvation at any woman's hands; his requiem is as much for himself as it is for her. Wow. Long sentence. :)
Please review and let me know what you think!
Owl-songs