Disclaimer: Robin Hood is owned by the BBC and Tiger Aspects. All of it's characters and past storylines belong to them. I am only borrowing them for the moment so that the characters can have a happier ending then the one they were given.

Not What It Seems

The sun began to set upon the group of men silently digging up the earth. They kept their eyes averted from the small figure lying on the ground beside them. They focused on their work, ignoring the cries of grief around them, taking solace in the hard labor. When the hole was finally deep enough the men put away their spades and turned to look upon the body before them. No one had touched her once her lover set her upon the ground, tears blinding him as he said goodbye.

The men backed away from the body, allowing a woman from one of the villages carrying a burial cloth to come closer. They bowed their heads as they waited, each feeling grief for a life cut short, a life that was only truly beginning, while the woman turned the body to lay the cloth beneath it. These silent men, warriors for many years prayed for a man already on his way back to England, the husband of the young woman's whose body lies before them. As members of King Richard's guard they all heard about how the man married this woman only moments before her death. They had watched from afar as he carried her to this spot and spoke words of grief and farewell that none could hear.

As they stand these men remember the face of the young man as he returned to camp. He did not say a word; his eyes held a blankness that made them cringe. The man listened to the king's instructions silently, and then just as silently left the camp. Two of his people remained the Saracen and a young man. The king, understanding their despair offered some of his closest guards to bury the body; it is because of this offer that these men are standing between a newly dug grave and the body of the Lady Marian.

The local woman slowly turned the body over, and prepared to cover the beautiful young face. The story of the tragedy that occurred today had reached her village, and she put a calloused hand on the lady's face, lightly cupping her cheek. Her thumb stretched out, resting just beneath the nose. She left her hand there for a moment and then suddenly she felt it, a fluttering of the hairs on her fingers, so soft that it barely felt real, but as the hairs on her fingers moved again, the woman knew that the impossible had occurred.