A/N: Do you ever get the feeling that you are an utterly redundant person? Well, I have finally found a niche that NO ONE seems to occupy—I will be this forum's first and only Robin Hood/True Blood crossover fanfiction writer. There was no reason for this to be a thing that someone does with their life UNTIL Lucy Griffiths (Marian) showed up on the season premiere of TB last week. She plays a vampire named Nora, another one of Godric's progeny, i.e. Eric's "sister." Eric is a thousandish years old…the last we see of Marian is her being laid next to a grave 800ish years ago…even though I whined about how killing Marian was stupid, I'm obsessed with writing about it…and…here we are!

Contains scenes from RH S2 and 3 finales.

The title comes from two lines of Lord Byron:

He stood a stranger in this breathing world/An erring spirit from another hurl'd

Prologue

Something had happened to Robin's stable sense of reason when he had his first nightmare coming home from war. Everything in the world had always felt solid and tenable. If he fired an arrow, it hit its mark. But then the threats and torments of life turned intangible. Arrows didn't work on them. What his mind created could only be struck down by what he made that same mind say in the face of it, over and over: "This is not real."

Its effect was temporary, enough to allow him to wake up and greet a new day in a realm unpopulated by shadows and fantasies, where living, breathing, struggling people needed him. The thrill of being their hero could take over as a distraction and he wouldn't have to keep repeating his mantra, which he was too clever to believe fully anyway. The visions might not be real, as he wished he could convince himself, but what he felt was. And feelings aren't slain by something as simple as a wish. So the phrase was never more powerful in altering the true state of things than any other unspoken thought.

Once voiced, though, it changed everything.

Acre

"Djaq, leave me with her. One last moment," Robin whispered.

Djaq slipped out with a silent nod and Robin was left alone with Marian in the room where they had taken her to prepare the body.

He stared at her, unaware that he was wearing her blood, wondering how someone who had just kissed him could be so rigid, empty, and white. Seeing her lying like that seemed familiar—was it a memory or a dream—yet nothing about it felt sound and sane.

So he said it, quietly at first.

"This isn't real."

And then again, louder.

"This isn't real!" he roared.

"Then change it," a calm voice said.

Robin spun around. A small young man was standing assuredly in the corner where no one had been a moment before. A taller blond companion hovered just behind him, watching intently.

"Who are you?" Robin demanded.

"Death," the man said. "Or life. I think for you, it is life."

"I don't understand."

"She's very lovely," the man said, walking over to Marian's body.

He gazed at her serenely.

"Let me save her," he added finally.

"Save her? How?"

"I can give her new life."

Robin glared at the man's impassive face. It was inscrutable; he scoffed in doubt.

"I fought in a holy crusade—I'm not going to believe in a false Christ. So whoever you are or think you are, leave me."

The man gestured to his companion and they began to move towards the door. Robin forgot them and turned back to Marian.

"This isn't real," he sighed again, without thinking.

"But it is!" the man replied quickly and vigorously, flashing back into the room. "This is all there is, all you have to hope for in your petty life. Loss and pain. Anguish. An abyss between you and what you love. Until your own end, which you will seek all the sooner. This is real. This is life for you."

Robin swung with rage to hit him, but the man dodged effortlessly.

"Who are you?" Robin asked again, bewildered.

"The only creature who survives in a world like this. Wouldn't you like her to survive?"

Robin glanced around him.

It was too much. Hadn't he just been rescued from the desert, full of hope? And moments before that, he was laughing in Sherwood with the lads. The day before that, he swore, he had been lord of Locksley. And now he was in this strange realm of hell. It was too much.

"This isn't real," he muttered one last time and left the three figures in the room, not a heartbeat among them.

He never saw her rise from the sand.

Sherwood Forest

Godric and Eric had only half-heartedly agreed to accompany Marian on a journey back to England. It was a necessary compromise—their new companion was frightfully resilient in the face of opposition and, they had to admit, the crusades had grown tiresome. War is a tidy place for death to hide. But not forever. Eric had seen it was the king's ring on Marian's finger and understood with natural ambition that kings were good company to keep. There was power for the taking in England, so they agreed to return, although with no real intention of fulfilling Marian's aim. The men doubted Robin had even survived.

He had, however, as Marian soon discovered upon their arrival in Nottingham. So much had changed, but she knew where to find him. She went to the forest to wait.

Waiting for Robin was a familiar pastime. In her heart, though, she knew he had been waiting for her too.

Godric had told her this was foolish, that seeing him again would prove pointless. He insisted she understand that her beloved's weak human senses would never accept her.

"He will doubt and reject you. Your disappointment will be infinite," her maker warned.

Marian, however, was never one to heed warnings.

So she went to the forest without them. And when Robin was finally before her, slumped in exhaustion against a tree, she spoke without a second thought.

At the sound of relief and not fear in his first words to her, it was she who doubted. Happiness couldn't possibly be so painlessly within her reach.

"I knew I would find you again," he sighed.

In an instant, his arms were around her once more, yet almost just as instantly—

"Master!"

Marian pulled away and imperceptibly dashed out of sight. If anyone could ruin the unreal ease of their blissful reunion, it was stuttering, stumbling, skeptical Much.

She did not anticipate what she next witnessed. Robin collapsed, lifeless, and his gang carried him off with grave expressions of grief.

She went to scream and stop them but Godric and Eric, out of nowhere, restrained her.

"I warned you, now come away," Godric gently yet firmly urged her, his grasp tight on her.

"No!" she resisted. "Turn him! Like you did for me, save him! Please!"

"I can't."

"You can't or you won't?" Marian snapped.

"His friends have taken him away—"

"Easily remedied," Eric jeered, showing his fangs.

Godric eyed him sharply.

"It will not happen," he commanded.

Beholden to her maker in this new, strange life of death, Marian was powerless.

She never saw Robin go into the ground.

Epilogue

Eric surveyed the carnage.

"I like you when you're wrathful, Marian," he said with a grin.

"Don't call me that," she replied, wincing. "Don't ever call me that again."

i secretly want to write a whole series on this...if anyone would read it...well?