Tormented
His world had turned to ash. Sitting behind the sheriff during their mad ride away from the outraged outlaws Gisborne could only think of one thing. Marian with her gentle smile and passionate nature. Marian who always spoke up for the poor. Marian, the Nightwatchman, whose life he'd saved. Marian, the only person he'd ever loved. Marian, whom he'd, killed. Stabbed his sword into her belly when she'd said what he always deep within his mind suspected. She'd loved Robin Hood! How could it ever have been different? How could someone like her, Lady Marian of Knighton, ever love someone like him, Sir Guy of Gisborne? How could someone so gentle, who'd always strived to see the best in people even, as in his own case, when they didn't deserve it, ever chose a man like him; who already once had betrayed a friend when the sheriff swayed him, over someone like Hood who'd been willing to give up his status as noble to defend the poor?
Grief-stricken he let himself fall down from the horse and ran away into the desert. For days he wandered aimlessly around until one day he came to a small valley where several mounds rose against the sky. One of them was clearly new and when he kneeled in front of it he saw a sign saying:
Here lays Marian.
Beloved Lady of Locksley.
The sun was setting, turning the sky into a sea of flaming colours but he couldn't appreciate the beauty.
"Marian… I'm so sorry! If… if I could ever take back all the bad things I've done I would! But I can't! You're dead!"
Slowly it was getting dark, the stars turning up in the sky one by one. Was she up there? A star, blinking down to him and the man she loved? Surely she was! He wasn't a moment in doubt that she was in heaven.
"Look! A shooting star! Marian's sending us her greetings!"
True enough; across the sky shone a light, raising hope in those who'd lost it. Curious to she whom there had spoken he turned around and saw the young carpenter and the Saracen woman standing behind him. Looking at him with compassion.