Title: Dust claimed him
Rating: K+
Word count: 2980
Characters/Pairings: Guy, Marian, Guy/Marian
Summary: "She only sees how the man gradually fading before her will become part of it all. And as the last remnants of his life linger at the tips of her fingers, she knows there is nothing she can do about it."
Warnings: Character death. Spoilers for S2 finale.
Disclaimer: Robin Hood belongs to legend and this particular version to the Beeb. All Rights Reserved. No copyright infringement is intended, and no money is being made.
A/N: I haven't written fic in a looong while (apart from that little drabble I posted a while ago and I'm not sure that even qualifies as fic) so I'm a bit unsure of how this has turned out to be. Anyway, I've wanted to explore this AU ending to the S2 finale since quite a while, so here we go.
Also, tons of thanks to my beta, Ladykate63 who is made of awesome. Quite literally.
"-and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"
-Hamlet
She doesn't see how, beyond the rows of battered houses, the sands of Acre stretch out as oblique mounds. How they slumber in a suffocating sleep. How they have doused human fires buried beneath them. How lifeless and godforsaken they are.
She only sees how the man gradually fading before her will become part of it all. And as the last remnants of his life linger at the tips of her fingers, she knows there is nothing she can do about it.
oOo
The warmth of Acre oppressed her. It covered her like an unwanted mantle, one of countless prinpicks of sweat from which there was no escape. Like other forces of nature it was impervious to any exercise her mind could offer, and this lack of control both annoyed and alarmed her. Only a while ago fortune had shackled and chained her all the way from Nottingham to the Holy Land.
The Holy Land. Marian scoffed.
The place had always dwelled as a romanticised arena in her mind. A chessboard of thundering hooves and legendary strategies where the black and white was so clearly defined.
Not this endless expanse of sand dotted by an occasional cluster of clay buildings.
Not this presence that was as enigmatic and aloof as death itself and played tricks on her senses.
She idly wondered whether the men who fought stayed here because they had lost their minds to its spells.
A distant clamour jolted her back to reality and she tensed against the wall. She had to focus, she told herself sharply. Robin may have whisked her into the confines of a dilapidated house for her safety, but she would act if she had to. Protect a king. Save England.
And then all would be well. All had to be well.
As she peered carefully around the corner of the building, the sun assaulted her eyes and all became a surreal spectacle of dazzling brilliance. She closed her eyelids. The image was shattered.
oOo
Heat and sweat wrapped him in a constricting embrace. He ignored it like he would any other restraint and edged ahead.
As he made his way through the ruins of the adjoining hut, a cobweb swayed in his path. Dead insects hopelessly trapped in an unexpected trap brushed his face and for some reason, it sent a shiver down his back.
A little more of his conviction disappeared. A little more doubt returned along with the question of whether it wasn't better to succumb to an exhaustion which was far more overwhelming and real than his goal.
He didn't have long to think. A shout of pain slashed the languid air and like a barbed arrow, refused to leave things as they had been before.
His steps quickened.
oOo
Marian shovelled a bit of sand with her foot for the fifth time over the wasted body of a rodent which lay in the corner of the hut. The deceased thing looked so helpless as she buried it deeper and deeper in its eternal bed of sand, vacant eyes looking nowhere. Poor dead thing.
As time elapsed, the stuffy air of the ruin grew more and more unbearable. The white linen of her dress seemed to constrict even further. Agitated, she thrust her head out of the remains of the doorframe and swept her gaze across the courtyard.
The courtyard stared back at her in a flaxen monochrome.
Yellow-tinted rows of clay huts, peering windows in their walls.
A yellow-tinted fountain where water ceaselessly dribbled into its base.
Yellow-tinted sand.
They regarded her like an aged wayfarer and gently drew her in an embrace which slowly shut out the rest of the world.
She would have let them. If Richard the Lionheart hadn't bellowed a shout of pain in that very moment.
The King of England emerged out of an alley leading to the courtyard, sagging precariously over his horse. An arrow was protruding out of his back.
At the centre of the courtyard, besides the fountain, he fell down. A whisper of dust rose and gently covered him.
Marian watched from the other side of the square. Her heart grew large in her chest.
Protect a king. Save England.
She ran forward.
Maybe fortune had been benevolent in depositing her in the Holy Lands after all. Maybe it had also been benevolent in making her a female who had an uncommon; a stronger spirit.
For from the same alley the Sheriff of Nottingham appeared, diabolical glee branded on his face. Until he saw her, sword drawn and approaching him with determination.
"Perhaps I will be able to kill you after all", she said.
"As self-assured as ever, aren't we?"
Her response was a thrust from her sword. He took the invitation. And then both let the clashing metal obliterate words to insignificance.
oOo
He knew the direction of the king's shout. Or maybe he didn't and his limbs were mechanically moving to where he surmised it had come from. His steps were fast yet dragging, and his breathing heavy. But he ignored it because nothing but the task of killing a king mattered now. Because killing a king was the only anchor in a world strewn with the hum of madness. And because that's what men do when they hook their hopes on a last thing which they believe might divinely uproot all growing cankers.
They only forget that at times the anchor is fitted in loose and treacherous sands.
oOo
"I thought your precious Hood cared more about you."
Vaisey let the sardonic comment linger and jab, gauging what response it elicited.
Marian - piqued by his indefatigable raillery which even the desert sun couldn't even stifle, and vexed by the fact that Robin wasn't there yet - swung her sword wildly at him.
"He does."
She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. Even though something of a chill had started coursing through her veins.
"But that is something-" she deflected the whisk of metal near her shoulder "-scum like you wouldn't understand."
"Just as you couldn't understand why my lieutenant chose me over you?"
She stopped. The water of the fountain pattered on. The acrid smile on Vaisey's face grew.
Guy. She wondered why he wasn't here at the side of his master, the vermin he had favoured over her. For a moment she wondered whether he hadn't already fallen at the hands of one the gang, and was now lying dead somewhere. Face pushed in the sand. Covered with smears of blood. All alone.
She straightened, sword at the ready, and put away these thoughts which had nothing to do with her existence anymore. To convince herself as much as the sheriff, she spoke with venom in her voice.
"Robin will be here in a moment and you will have failed."
Vaisey's laugh danced with mockery, making her bones heavy and breathing cumbersome, telling her she wasn't sure herself. That she wasn't sure at all.
Yet she noticed he was growing increasingly disturbed at her success in thwarting his attempts to reach the king, and then, finally, he let out a tired huff and his swordsarm drooped a little. The desert air returned to its meditation; no more little blades to disturb its sullen quiet. Grateful for the moment's respite, she edged closer to the wall.
"Oh, I do know someone will die here today," he said.
She looked up at his remark and retorted "How observant-"
The sand in her eyes came suddenly. It faithfully clung to the moisture of her eyes and then her tears. Tears which were not there for the hopelessness, the realisation that he would gladly kill her (for it would take only a second) rather than run to finish the wounded king first. Tears, only because of sand.
With her heart beating dum-dum.
And Vaisey's voice triumphantly saying:
"And it is your pretty head I wouldn't mind having amongst my skull collection".
oOo
He was nearly there. From the narrow, claustrophobic alley where he was staggering on, he saw the thin strip of beckoning gold which indicated the courtyard.
He thought he could see someone lying on the ground.
Suddenly, with the madness of his pumping heart, he thought of the monarch lying dead there. King Richard the Lionheart, invincible Crusader, unscathed by the Saracens but slain by his own countrymen. His blood spilled in the deserts of the Holy Land.
But the surge of relief crashed when he heard the screeching of metal in hollow air- the unmistakable clanging of swords. Solid and real, tugging him back to reality. Tightening his grip on his sword's hilt, already clammy with the sweat of his perspiration, he broke into a run and let his fleeting thoughts of Marian slip away.
As he came nearer, the blurry picture of the courtyard came into focus, and now he was certain he saw a figure with Crusader regalia fallen on the ground. He had been too close to killing a king before not to recognise who the man was. Close enough for-he paused. Marian would never forgive him again. Suddenly, his mind felt trapped in a web of choices.
But then there were voices- two voices- one of which was distinctly female, and his tumbling thoughts were again arrested by the task that lay before him. One that now had begun to daunt him.
Hood's Saracen, he muttered to himself, even though he knew he wasn't convinced. Amidst the clanging of metal, he heard it again, more perceptible now. A tremble of its pitch pulled on his heartstrings. A few paces were left before he would round the last house and see the people it concealed. It couldn't be.
When he turned the corner, he saw it was.
Marian was cornered against the clay wall of the hut. Her sword lay discarded in the sand. The sheriff, vicious elation set on his face, was a mere moments away from plunging the sword in her. He saw no shimmer of fear in her eyes because they were closed and she rubbed at them with a desperation he had never thought of seeing in her. All of a sudden she scuttled to the right closer to where he was standing, and when Vaisey parallelled her movements and made to stab, he could do nothing but move before her.
Every night, at the brink of sleep, he had pushed his anxieties and regrets aside to let his heart thud in the warmth of his dreams of protecting her.
oOo
She hears the sound of sword penetrating flesh before she sees it. It feels irrevocable, like stones sinking in a sea.
Drown drown, deeper deeper.
Nothing to be done.
It is strange, because she actually feels nothing.
But then, to add to her confusion, she hears a strangled gasp as well. And though nothing touches her, she now feels the shelter of two arms around her; one on each side.
Many of the dust particles (little lickspittles of the desert which rendered all her faculties useless) have already washed away with her tears, and she finally manages to open her eyes. A bit. Enough to see Guy hunched over her, sweat glistening on his brow, breaths momentarily swept to nonexistence.
He has, on his face, the look of a man who knows it's over.
Nothing to be done.
A dark blossoming spot on his dark tunic. Spreading wider, like the warm chill that pools over her bowels. The tip of the sword is still protruding out of him, crimson streaks matting its shine.
It is pulled back and he gives a shuddering whimper (he doesn't have the voice to scream). Behind him, she sees the sheriff looking stupefied for a moment before something like disdain passes over his face. Then there is the sound of running feet in a blurry background, the unmistakeable shouting of Much and the gang, and the disdain contorts into a rage. To the back of his lieutenant he accusingly mouths 'lepers' before running away.
The king is safe. England is safe. But the thought of rejoicing never occurs to her as Guy falls at her feet.
oOo
There is the explosion of shouts, the clamour of running, the panic of people knowing something has happened but not knowing what it is, but for her they only enter as blots edged on a wide, wide pool of water. Almost wholly insignificant. Not entirely, because they have jostled some of the suffocation of the air (of everything) away.
A bit. Not enough to have the yoke of What Has Happened loosen. Not enough to strangle the free flow of Guy's blood.
She hears them, their shouts of Marian and King Richard, and after a while they are close enough to see her. See him, on the ground, death hovering about.
A silence falls.
She says nothing. Her mind has been battered by an understanding (not new, not old) that burned but never set ablaze her conscience until now.
Because now the understanding has become flesh and blood. The red blood of a man with a fatal love.
An understanding she is the cause he'd give (has given) his life for.
She spots Djaq and there is a spurt of hope born from her personal experience of the woman's medical skills, of which the king currently is recipient. When she has found strength to move, she nearly drags Djaq away and with an uncertain nod towards Guy, says:
"You can do something-can't you?"
Her tone mocks her question. Djaq glances at Guy uneasily. Marian knows the answer before she hears it.
"I-I don't think there's anything I can do."
She sees her return to the side of the king, sees how the whole gang is engrossed in ministering to a man whom they have only ever known through hearsay; a man who had nearly killed them based on hearsay.
Robin stands close to the king, but he is looking at her and there is an odd expression on his face, as if he is wondering what her next step will be.
She only stands and watches them all keep away from Guy, watches them tend to a monarch whose non-fatal injuries require no more than a pair of hands- anything to avoid the unease which brands an air when something has happened and there is no idea how to handle it.
For her part, she realises, it's not unease alone. There's dread and a perturbed consience too.
Seeing him lie there alone, she is reminded of something. When she was little, a pack of wolves attacked several sheep from the herd of her village, and after the men had with shouting and pitchforks chased them back, she saw that one of the beasts had been left behind, and was lying on the snow. Its fur was stained with red and it writhed and whimpered. No one but her noticed when it died.
The present suddenly splashes over and her feet cover the few steps towards him. Her knees sink into the sand besides him.
He looks at her. He has a fathomless sparkle in his feverish blue eyes. A bead of half-tenderness, half-vulnerability which shatters her self-control. Which reminds her of all the moments when he came to her with his heart in his hands and showed her the infinite ways she could command its living and dying.
There is suddenly dirt in her throat and water in her eyes and a choking anger at herself. At that moment, she wishes he would show hatred and not this soft agony of his love.
But he doesn't, and she slowly lifts her hand to his face. She lets her fingers ponder over his cheek as if it would somehow help her understand him a little, and then asks him a question to which she knew the answer the moment she saw his crimson blood. Possibly even long before that.
"Why?"
His mouth twitches in a melancholy smile.
"You mean everything to me."
A party in Locksley (far away, very intangible). An engagement ring with green stones. His white fingers clutching hers. A nervous lick of his lips. A touch of adoration and relief.
You mean everything to me.
She can only swallow.
He lets trembling fingers touch her knee and passes a glance to where Robin stands.
"It would never have been me, would it?"
The look he has in his eyes is one of a fear he knows to be true- a look which burns into a memory and settles as a layer of dust over the remaining days of her life.
His blood slowly seeps on the hem of her white dress. His breath sounds like a fabric hitched and pulled across rivets.
She can't lie. She can't confirm. Therefore, she lets her words form from the swelling emotion inside.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
She speaks them as though she's beseeching him, over and over, and then kisses his forehead as a last mark of her tenderness. She is stopped moving back by one shuddering hand which touches her cheek.
"Marian".
And as his fingers linger on her face in a last farewell, she sees that her name, coming from his lips, is not just a word but an object of worship, a temple of hope and unrequited love.
Her eyes moisten and she lets her tears flow. His hand drops by his side. His breaths cease.
When she looks in his eyes, she sees they have lost their reflection of life.
Through the glaze of her tears, she sees the sand of the desert absorbing his blood.
A lifetime of things done and not done succumbing to dust.
A passing to where there are no more lies, no more betrayals and no more false hopes.
Nothing to be done.