Title: A Moment by the River
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Much/Marian, Much/Eve, Marian/Robin
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Still.
Summary: An awkward moment by the river recalls some long forgotten memories for Marian.
The Nightwatchman has lost her touch. This is the second time in a month Marian has been injured during one of her nighttime flights and she is quite disgusted with herself, and with the blood seeping into her shirt. The cut on her side is not a bad one, caused by nothing more sinister than a sharp rock she had collided with when fleeing the scene, but it is bleeding heavily and she must find a stream by which to rinse the wound and get the worst of the blood stains out of her outfit.
Unconsciously, maybe, she follows the road until she is near where Robin is now making his camp. The stream there is cold and clear and as she tethers her horse to a sapling she is already shivering, anticipating the iciness of the water.
She is still sheltered by the trees when she realizes she is not alone. The sound reaches her first – short pants and soft moans, the rustling sound of bodies moving over dead leaves. Even though she knows she shouldn't, knows that she should gather her mount and move on further downstream, she moves forward.
She sees them there, on the river bank, with his shirt riding up in the back and her dress bunched at the waist and, even though a blush rises to her cheeks immediately, can't help but wonder what it would feel like to be that girl there under him. Can't help but wonder what it would feel like to have his hands at her waist, on her thighs, or his mouth at her neck, above her breasts.
Can't help but be jealous.
He was her first kiss. Robin doesn't know this and neither of them will ever tell him because, worse than making him embarrassed, it would make him laugh and the memory is not one that Marian wants to have belittled.
She was fifteen when it happened, so awkward and insecure and willing to fall in love with anyone. She hadn't quite made up her mind to love Robin then, still finding him frustratingly selfish and insincere, and so it had been his shadow that she had chosen to adore.
She wasn't obvious about it, she didn't think. Apparently she hadn't been quite clever enough, because he had known, had smiled at her, the kind smile of an adult dismissing an annoying child. That had smarted worse than any of Robin's insults.
He had been twenty four (he thought), nine years older than Marian, four years older than Robin and infinitely more mature than either of them. His hair had been brighter then, burning a red gold in the autumn light. Marian thought he looked like Prince Richard, who she had seen once in France at court. She imagined that maybe he was the Prince's lost brother, forced into a life of servitude after being tragically separated from his parents, the King and Queen, during a hunting trip and subsequently adopted by a cruel peasant couple.
She'd told that to Robin once, when she was small, perhaps ten, and Robin had laughed for ages. His parents were not royalty, Robin had clarified, they were tenant farmers in Locksley. The father had died when the boy was only seven and the mother had sent him to Robin's father, thinking that the Earl could save at least one of her children from starvation.
This is not quite the story Marian had hoped to hear, but she is happy when Robin tells her that no one starved, because Robin's father would never allow such a thing to happen on his lands, and that everyone lived happily ever after.
Marian wonders if he thinks his ending is happy, a life spent trailing after Robin, indulging the younger man's every whim while no one gives a thought to him and what he might want from life.
Robin had been sick the summer Marian was fifteen, nothing serious, but a cold that kept him inside for much of August. Marian had visited Locksley several times and, even though she had arrived alone, he always walked her home.
They hadn't talked much, hadn't had much to talk about really. The only thing that had ever tied them together had been Robin and previous conversations had generally revolved around him. Marian thought Robin would probably have been pleased to hear this; of course, Robin probably assumed this already.
Strictly speaking, she had kissed him. They had stopped to watch a robin (suiting, since there was always a robin at the centre of their lives) trilling in an orchard near Knighton and once the song had stopped, neither had moved on. They had been standing close together before and all it took was a half step for Marian to pivot so they were facing. Then, before he could say anything, she was on her toes, one had on his chest for balance and her lips were on his, soft so soft.
To her amazement, and to his probably, he hadn't moved away, hadn't pulled back stuttering apologies that would only make her angry. His hands had moved hesitantly to her waist while his lips had responded, not so hesitantly, to hers.
When Robin kisses her, only a month later, she will think how sloppy he is. How Robin's lips seem stiff and stupid in comparison to her last partner's. How Robin's tongue, when it eventually finds its way past her lips, tastes foreign and disgusting, not at all like a different tongue a month previously.
Everything in the orchard is over very quickly. He pulls back eventually, remembering where they are, who they are. There are no apologies, only a sad smile, a soft touch of his hand to her cheek and then he is gone. When they meet the next day, they do not discuss it. Five years hence they have never discussed it.
And now she is here, watching him kiss another woman on the riverbed. And even though she loves Robin now, she finds herself hoping that the other woman gets bitten by a tick or perhaps develops a rash from lying about on beds of wet leaves. These are unchristian, uncharitable thoughts and she knows she should be ashamed to think them, but she isn't. Perhaps she is as selfish as Robin.
She leaves quietly, not waiting until they are finished, fearing discovery. She has her own lover she can meet (although she prefers midnight visits in her clean, warm chamber to wet, dirty riverbanks) and even though she is happy with her choice, since Robin can be sensitive and passionate and, on occasion, unselfish, she wonders what it would be like with him.
And then, almost as in answer to her question, she hears the girl cry out his name and, yet again, Marian finds herself blushing deeply.
Several nights later, instead of waiting for Robin to come to her, Marian appears at the camp and if Robin is perplexed by his lover's insistence that they make their bed by the riverbank, he doesn't complain.