Hello and welcome! This will be a multi-chapter fiction based around one night, just one. I promise angst, fluff and lemon. Let me know what you think : ) Hope you enjoy!

EDIT: Had to renew a few typos. Hope readers are enjoying this! 98 visitors so far and I only published this yesterday, so happy it seems to be entertaining people. It would be great to hear what people think : )

Nocturne (In The Night)

Chapter 1: Deep Breath

Marian

What shocked Marian the most was how very young she felt. It was an intense, unnerving sensation that hummed under her skin and invaded her veins, rushing to her heart with all the panic of a small bird fleeing from the attack of an eagle.

It was not a physical affliction past that feeling, however. Though it prickled icily under her cheeks, they were not as rosy as they had been in her youth. There was now a new strength that had come with those fine cheekbones. And though her heart did race as it had done when Robin has chased her through the fields in her childhood, her chest was now more prominent a feature. Marian did not have the wispy, tall figure that so many ladies at Court did. She filled her dresses with a figure that resembled an elegantly carved vielle, a stringed instrument she had seen played at great dinners.

And my did Guy play her that night- that, their wedding night.

Marian stood facing an oval mirror in a little chamber, wearing a cotton shift. There was a door, whose carpentry was nothing too significant and yet its role as entry to Guy's chamber seemed to make it pulse, shadow-like, out of the corner of her vision. She had not had the chance to compare her grown body to that of her contemporaries, so she did not know the norms of female flesh, was not acquainted with personal preparations. She certainly had some insecurities.

There was lines at her waist when she bent slightly from side to side, but when standing, the curve from her ribcage along her hip was pleasant enough. A soft, golden down of hair, covered her stomach and legs, almost imperceptible. She often thought her lips were too small, but this was a very rare thought, as vanity was not a notable vice of hers. It certainly was of Guy's...

Nonetheless, tonight was a night for appearances. She had no idea how many other women Guy had lain with and- in traditional Marian fashion- felt a responsibility to compete.

And win.

She bit her lower lip and licked it tentatively, nerves parading up and down her throat. She took a deep breath. She swallowed, watching her mouth burn redder than a rose once she released it. Flexing her fingers by her sides, her eyes darted over the lights and shades of her barely concealed body, shivering now. There had to be a fire ready in Guy's chamber... her eyebrows knitted together as she anxiously contemplated the other promised warmths. Judging by how hot Guy's hand as been at the altar, as he had held it before God this afternoon...

Marian's chest rose faster. Her toes scrunched inwards on the wooden boards beneath her feet.

She sniffed, inhaled through her nose, then more deeply through her mouth, swallowed...

And then repeated the process.

Again.

Then again.

Faster. Then she added a grit of her teeth to the routine.

Her eyes flitted from her glossy, tumbling hair, illuminated by the golden candlelight, to her slender knees, her strong thighs, her softly rounded tummy- which began to tighten in panic- and finally her sex.

Not wholly unexplored territory and yet not chartered either. Marian was curious, naturally, but she was scared too of the fierce sensations she had experienced alone but never fully pursued.

She was scared. And she hated it, hated the fear she felt and so glared at herself in the mirror as she panted. Terrified tears leapt to her eyes in an instant and she felt sicker than she could ever remember feeling. Knowing Guy was in the next room, she gasped quietly as she could and attempted to hold back her sobs.

She would lie with a man who had killed. A man who had tortured. A man who had defied the power of the human spirit time and time again for greed and selfish gain...

There was one place Marian had not dared to look, but did now:

The silvery scar above her right hip. The site of the stab-wound authored by her now husband.

It had been during one of her attacks as Nightwatchman... he had, Marian reminded herself, not known it was her; been protecting his home, his guards...

'Marian, please ~ let us start anew.'

Marian glanced at the scroll which lay on a table nearby, left for her there when she had arrived. Judging by the stature of the candles, that had been almost an hour ago now.

And Guy had not interrupted her. His impatience- predicted by Marian- had not reared.

She gripped her cotton shift in an attempt to dry her palms.