Disclaimer: I do not own Robin Hood, as it is the property of the BBC

Madeline

Madeline always loves the winter; and everything in it.

She loves snow, loves seeing the world covered in glittering whiteness, loves being outside when it's freezing and there's no one else around.

People who notice this for the first time just think she's being the crazy girl she's been for several years, but it started so long before that.

It's just part of who she is.

Her first memory, her strongest memory of her mother involves snow.

She was small, around three or four, when her mother taught her to make snow angels, in the back yard of the manor.

Then the sweetness of the memory is ruined, some of the boys from the village run by, and end up trampling it.

That is her first memory, at all, and she dislikes the ending.

Fast-forward a few years later – she's seven now.

She's alone this time in her memory, but she's not lonely.

It's a few weeks after Christmas, and half a foot of snow covers the ground.

Naturally, she is quite happy about it.

It's still snowing, and she goes out and dances in it, reveling in the cold whiteness.

A few more years pass.

She grows and begins to look like the dignified Lady the her family hope she will be one day.

She's fourteen now, so unsure of nearly everything, but she knows there are people who care about her, that she belongs where they are.

She's not alone this time; her friends are near her, having a snowball fight.

Though they know that she's watching and doesn't want to get hit, one of them misses and throws a snowball at her face.

She acts like nothing's happened, the way she usually does, and makes a comment about her brother's aim.

Inside, though, she's fairly angry that, another of her memories of the snow, is made not very nice.

Over the next couple of years, everything in her world changes.

Maddie is now 16, very nearly 17.

It's New Year's Eve, and she's at a party in Nottingham Castle and wishing so badly that she could leave.

Oh, there are lots of people she knows, but none she especially likes. And Marian, her best friend, is no-where to be soon - no doubt in a deserted corridor, with her betrothed; Maddie's brother.

Out of desperation, she slips out the room and debates whether or not she could leave. She goes to the courtyard.

And it starts to snow. The cold slices through her thin dress, but she stays put, a human statue reliving the best and worst things that had ever happened to her.

"Are you okay?"

She feels a hand on her shoulder, turns around, and sees her good friend, Much - the current object of her affections.

She hadn't realized that he was there. Her heart leaps.

"Fine," she replies, turning to him with a slight smile. ' I didn't know you were still here. '

"I was about to leave," he says.,' Robin told me I could go. But what are you doing out here alone?"

He's curious, and she knows that he doesn't want anything to happen to her - they're close, and Nottinghamshire is a perfectly safe place, in any case.

"Debating whether or not I should stay," she says, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I really don't see why I'm here; there's no one our age any-where in sight - Marian and Robin have gone off and left me. '

He looks at her carefully and starts to worry.

She looks paler, more fragile than she usually does, as though the cold has affected her.

Not knowing what else he could do, he reaches out with one arm, and wraps it around her shoulders, pulls her close to him and holds her safely.

She smiled to herself, and leans her head against his shoulder.

She has now got a new memory, a good one involving two of her favorite things – snow, and HIM.