His head ached. Truly ached and so Robin immediately knew, the moment he woke up, that opening his eyes would be a bad idea. So he groaned instead.
Instantly, cool, slender, fingers brushed across his forehead. They were so soothing that he moaned again.
"Shh, try to lie still..." A feminine voice that he recognised instructed.
"Princess..." He murmured as her fingers continued to stroke his hair lightly. "...What are you doing in my room?"
"Everyone was looking forward to your birthday feast. So I volunteered to keep an eye on you when I arrived for it," She answered lightly, omitting that actually, she'd been so incensed that his friends had only felt it necessary to come up and check on him every once in a while that she'd barred them from the room and suggested that they go and enjoy the the feast uninterrupted since it appeared so much more important to them than the welfare of their friend.
But Robin didn't need to know that.
He made a noise of derision, nonetheless guessing part of it. "So everyone is too busy getting drunk you mean," He stated, listening to the raucous shouts and muffled laughter issuing from the Great Hall below.
"Well, yes." Maria admitted, "But in your honour of course,"
"Oh, of course. I get injured hunting for my own birthday feast, which, naturally, everyone goes ahead and enjoys while I'm potentially on my death bed. Sounds about right," He said sarcastically.
"Well it would have been a shame to waste all the hard work and preparation that went into it. And it's nothing serious. You just got knocked out," Maria reasoned, but, once again, her mild tone and nonchalant words were completely at odds with her real feeling on the matter.
"Then why does it hurt so damned much?" But Robin immediately regretted this complaint when it resulted in the soothing fingers that had been carding though his curls withdrawing and movement as Maria stood up from where she must have been perched on his bed.
He was about to open his eyes to see where she'd gone, and risk all the pain that would come with it, when his mattress dipped again. "Here, drink this," She said, pressing a cup to his lips. The drink tasted herby and slightly bitter but he recognised it as something that would ease his pain.
"I hope that wasn't made by Loveday. She used to always over do it and knock me out for hours," He muttered.
"I was hoping I wouldn't have to resort to that," Maria sounded amused.
"Actually, maybe you should. Then at least I'll maybe dream I get to attend the feast..."
"Go to sleep Robin," She replied, her voice still bemused. Her fingers resumed stroking his forehead, gently winding into his curls and he drifted off back to sleep.
-Dream-
There were no soothing fingers brushing his hair away from his face the second time Robin awoke. The muffled noise from below had ceased and he wondered if Maria had left, since it had to be very late if the feast had finished and his clan had all finally passed out.
But when soft lips brushed lightly against his own, suddenly he wasn't convinced he'd woken up at all.
"What was that?" He asked in a quiet voice when they drew away, far too soon for his liking.
"A distraction," Maria whispered, her breath whispering across his lips. He could feel her leaning over him, still only inches away.
"You've never distracted me that way before," he murmured.
"Well, now I have you at my mercy," Her fingers started tracing down the side of his face.
"I'm always at your mercy," He told her, suppressing a groan at the effect those delicate fingertips were having on him.
She let out a slight breath of amusement, ceasing her ministrations, "Go back to sleep Robin," She said softly.
"I am asleep." He answered, his voice now a low hum, "This is a dream. Why else would you be kissing me?"
"Perhaps so I can insist you're delirious and no one will believe you if you tell anyone..."
"That is very under-hand Princess." He accused, "You know some might say you were taking advantage of me while I'm unable to defend myself,"
"What can I say? Perhaps I've spent too much time with you De Noirs,"
"We're not underhand," He disagreed, "We say what we mean and act on it. We like to keep things simple..."
"Then let me simplify things again," she whispered, closing the distance between them once more. And as he slowly wound a hand into her long hair, deepening her gentle kiss, he let all thoughts beyond that moment vanished from his mind. For getting knocked out and suffering an aching head suddenly seemed a very small price to pay and Robin found that he didn't care he'd missed his own celebration at all. In fact, delirious or not, it had ended up a far better birthday than he could ever have imagined.
Fluff. Pure fluff. But sometimes a fluff fix is just what you need right? I hope the ending isn't abrupt again. Seems to be a problem of mine.
Also, as the tags says, this was the result of listening to Evenstar, which is possibly my favorite piece of music ever. I hope it translated okay into a Robin/Maria moment, as I was in no way trying to undermine or rip off the epicness of Aragorn and Arwen's romance and story. Just the scenario and certain elements of that scene from LOTR inspired this. And the birthday bit because it was my birthday yesterday I suppose. I have the day off today, which I intended to use to make some real headway and progress on another piece. But ended up with this instead... But hey, I write in creative bursts, so have learnt just to go with that rather than trying to sit and force myself to write on something else and risk accomplishing nothing. That's why I'm sticking to oneshots!
If I ever post any of my other ideas (I know i've said that twice now, and then posted stuff, but I don't like to promise anything as life happens, and sometimes creativity fizzles out), this isn't likely to be the last Injured!Robin, nurse!Maria you'll see from me. Maybe using the same plot device is super lazy, but this one is just too tempting and satisfying to write about. Especially Maria with magical Moon Princess healing abilities, which is sort of a personal headcanon of mine, and I've no doubt of others too. So sorry in advance for the possible repeated scenario! There's also a follow up idea to this of Robin afterwards in the forest of seeing Maria, marching up to her and kissing her not caring that his friend see, and being all 'For the record I'm not delirious this time', because it was pretty naughty of Maria to take advantage like she did. Maybe i'll get round working it up, or not. But if I write any other random, relatively short (plotless) oneshots (maybe halfshots is better description?), I might just turn this into a multi-chaptered collection of unrelated pieces. If I do, i'll probably re-title it 'Moments' or something else vague like that.
Anyway, sorry for the rambling, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and as always, your thoughts are very welcome :)