Hi, so here is another chapter and this begins a little three part arc within the story. I hope you enjoy this chapter and I will do my best to bring you the next one sooner rather than later.

Disclaimer-Nothing but the characters of Erin and Gisella are mine.

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Internal Displacements

Chapter 6-Flesh And Blood

Matilda is ducked as a witch after Robin's actions put her in danger. The Woman in Red makes another appearance further confirming Djaq's suspicions as she goes after her.

It was nice Luke joining the Outlaws camp Will decided. Granted he still snored, he was still lying through his teeth about what was going on but he was there and it was nice, to wake up in the morning and see him. Will was not going to admit it to anyone (except maybe Djaq if she asked him) but he had missed his little brother more than he cared to admit.

Luke needed all the help he could get though. He was skilled with a bow like most boys of the village and he knew the basics of hand to hand combat though it was clear even Much (who deeply resented the 'even' bit) could take him cleanly and he had never held a sword in his life. Like Will he was skilled with an axe but he was that great. That being said he was keen to learn and days were often spent with Robin who seemed to be thrilled at the idea of giving pointers with the sword and Luke was finding day by day that he was improving.

They filled him in with what was going on. Shocked though he was that people were plotting against the King, Luke privately agreed with Will and Allan which was that the King was slowly losing the deep affection of his people.

"Scarborough will stay loyal if they have to" he said to Robin who beamed his approval but then Luke turned to him and shrugged.

"Unless Prince John gives them a fair shake. There's no point staying loyal to a man whose grinding his people into poverty and death so he can stay away from the business of ruling. Especially with what is said about him"

"And what is said about him?"

Luke got a strange pensive look on his face and wouldn't say anymore.

Djaq rolled her eyes and went back to grinding up herbs against the flat stone that Will had made for her.

The plan as far as Will knew was for the hubbub around the castle concerning his Dad, the Sherriff being poisoned (abet by his own hand) and Robin escaping through a window to die down and then Luke would go into Nottingham town and present himself as an honest man come back home to work.

Considering most people had known his Mum and Dad, Will didn't think that story was too out of the realm of possibility and it also gave them an ear throughout the villages to see if any disloyalty was being spread.

That was Robin's main fixation as the weeks transpired. What was also becoming clear was Robin's fixation on the Woman in Red.

The fact that Erin had previous had interactions with her, the second of which had seen them face to face for a brief second (a fact that had made Allan all but hit the roof of the camp in fury), the fact that Marian had never seen her and the fact that she was continuing to evade both the castle guards and them was becoming the slow bane of Robin's existence.

There never seemed to be an agenda with her. The week after his Dad had died she had dragged Little Jess and Sarah from their home and had set the thing on fire not saying so much as a word. Two men had been killed walking home from a tavern and then just last week she had broken into the castle and had been sat in the Sherriff's chair when he had come in for breakfast only to leap out of the window and promptly disappear into thin air which had made the Sherriff even more paranoid, Gisbourne extremely nervous and half the castle staff convinced she was a witch from the realm unknown to curse them all for working for such an evil man.

As said Erin on one of those few afternoons that she managed to get out of the castle to do 'washing' or whatever it was that she told the guards. Will personally thought just a smile would do it but he was careful not to mention such things in front of Allan who was becoming rather testy everytime the Woman in Red got anywhere near what he thought resembled close proximity to the castle.

The final straw for Robin came when the route of a man who knew what port the king was coming back through (when and if he was coming back in Will's opinion) slipped through their grasp. Luke had pointed out that perhaps Marian and Erin's knowledge of the castle was not universal and that their main priority surely had to be not getting caught and therefore they might have heard the information wrong but Robin was in such a mood that when he heard the man had gotten to the castle with a high fever rendering him temporarily speechless he had gotten on his horse and ridden for the village.

"Bollocks" John said as they all watched him. "He's gone for Matilda. Allan give me your horse"

"What you're going to ride after them?"

"Allan I have been riding since before you were a young twinkle in the tavern wench's eye"

"Oh give over" Allan said passing the reigns to John. "Just don't do anything we wouldn't do"

John didn't even bother to look back.

"Well" Allan said clapping his hands together. "Anyone up for a large cool tankard of mead at one of the taverns that doesn't mind serving us?"

Which was a yes from everyone but Djaq who didn't drink though she was perfectly content with a mug of water. It was August and it was a very hot day.

"You've lost the plot boy. Didn't think it would take so long you being in those woods but I knew it would happen eventually"

"Matilda"

Matilda had been having what constituted to her as a good day. Well good enough until she had been rudely kidnapped by the Sherriff's soldiers and invited to save a man who was well on his way to greet the Good Lord in her opinion. Didn't this idiot realise she was about to become a grandmother?

Apparently he did. He just didn't care.

One had to give the Sherriff props for his honestly, one really did.

Robin and John had apparently followed. Robin only had eyes for the injured man but John gave her a small smile. Matilda who had not been having a good time of it lately didn't care about herself. In fact she was now a part of two treasonous acts. Robin who was now prepared to commit murder and the Sherriff who was now trying to find out where the King was going to land to try and have him assassinated.

Matilda who had seen poverty scorched on enough of her friends faces making them old before their time reminded herself sternly that a King was anointed by God and she was not going to go up against Him, especially not with an innocent grandchild still not yet born.

But she was also not going to see an innocent man condemned before his time because of Robin Hood either. A message that would become common knowledge soon enough was not going to be the death of this man—to be honest that idiot physician was probably going to be the death of him.

"I have to kill him Matilda"

Matilda wacked him over the back of the head. Sometimes the boy was more like his father than he wanted to admit and that idiot had been a law until himself regardless of the consequences and had trampled his way throughout two families simply because he could. Oh you could never say so publicly but Matilda had a brain her head and she was not afraid of forming opinions about those considered to be her betters.

"You'll do no such thing."

"What about giving him something to make him a bit mad"

That was John. Matilda shot him a long look and he amended his speech almost instantly.

"Not for the rest of his natural time I just mean temporarily. There must be some kind of powder. Something that the village boys used to get their hands on. Mushrooms, something, anything"

"Aye—mushrooms should do it. It won't change things though" she said to Robin. "At some point he is going to open his eyes and speak plainly. You must have a plan to get him out of Nottingham when that does because I won't help you save him now if your plan is to kill him eventually."

"I can send him to London. So long as he thinks the Sherriff got a message he shouldn't be in any danger"

Matilda thought about pointing out the flaws in that rather stupid plan but John coughed. She supposed he must be right they were running on borrowed time as it was. And also the last thing an extraordinary young man wanted to hear was a bit of common sense from a very ordinary old woman.

Well…gently aging.

"Alright" she said shoving Robin aside and nearly knocking him backwards into the table. "John go and makes sure my daughter is looked after, take her to your camp if you have to and Robin can take me there when I am done, Robin make yourself scare and I'll do what I can"

What she got was Robin making a spectacle of himself before he scarpered out the window and herself arrested for witchcraft.

Fucking fantastic.

Erin had been in the kitchens when she had heard the news. She had not stopped instead dropping her basket turning and running towards the stables. She did not think to try and get a message to Marian who was no doubt in a room with Guy and the Sherriff trying to figure out what the commotion that had sent them running from prayers had been, instead she got herself on the first horse she could find and then kicked it.

She had never really ridden before but a kick to the side tended to do it for most of them and she gripped the reins and found out to her absolute surprise that she was rather good at it. Actually it was a complete and utter joy to ride a horse and feel her hair blow out behind her though she did fear that she was on the wrong saddle because her legs were displayed up to her knees.

She found the well walked down rode that led her to where the Outlaws camp was but she considered what to do next as the horse pulled to a stop. Usually this was the point where one of them—usually Allan met her—she tended to only come once a week and usually it was around the same time which now she came to think about it was shockingly predicable. Even for the castle guards.

The horse trotted forwards and she bit her lip decided to do with what felt natural. If anyone asked she supposed she could say she was possessed. At this moment in time the witchcraft thing seemed to be popular though Erin personally thought it was utter rubbish.

She opened her mouth and yelled for the one man who she completely and utterly trusted with her whole body and heart.

"Allan!"

Djaq had been tending to Rosa when she heard the scream. It was close, far, far too close to the main road and she and Much had been trying to tend to Rosa but she was adamant she wanted her mother and nothing else.

Which was not very helpful at all in this situation.

Much was far better suited to this, John too though he would not admit it nor would he go near Matilda's daughter. Djaq was not sure why and the expression on his face was so frightening she was not going to waste time to ask a question she was clearly not going to get an answer for. But she could not help but feel irritated. She had helped soldiers on the battlefield she was trained to deal with people who had their guts ripped out of their arms needing to be cut off or who were riddled with the dysentery or one of the many unnamed fevers that took hold of a man by morning and took him to his God by evening. Childbirth was not something that happened very often during a war and even the whores had their own way of dealing with things that had not required a man and his son (even if said son was a girl) to come into their inner sanctum.

Much however had a gentler way of approaching a person and so Djaq was just about to tell Robin that was nothing more she could do when there was a cry in the air.

"Allan!"

Allan got to his feet staring.

"That's Erin" he said hollowly. "That's—fuck me that's Erin!" And then he was gone running so fast that it was hard for Will, Robin and John to chase after him.

"Stay" she said to Much and Luke and then she was gone too.

They ran down the embankment that led to the main road shaded with trees and Erin was on horseback. The horse was clearly desperate to go away and Allan nearly fell into the flank of the sweating animal and it was only Will steading him that prevented him from doing himself serious injuries.

"There ducking Matilda as a witch" Erin said gripping the reigns. " At the lake, Guy's taking Marian there personally and I've got to go before someone realises I've stolen a horse but…"

"We'll be there" John said firmly before Robin could speak.

Allan gripped Erin's hand kissed it and then Erin turned the horse around and rode for Locksley village.

And it was then that Djaq saw it.

The Woman in Red.

Only this time she thought she knew.

On some level she thought she might have always known.

The woman looked directly at her eyes meeting through the mask and the bushes and the trees and then she turned on her heel and was gone and thinking nothing about the baby, Matilda, the Outlaws, Will or anything really Djaq took after her.

She didn't even stop when she heard them call out after her.

She chased the woman through the bushes for what felt like half an hour and then stopped.

She was dead lost.

She was potentially dead anyway.

And she was alone.

"Gisella" she called into the silence waiting. If she was right then she wouldn't have to wait long and despite everything Djaq was sure she was right.

There was movement behind her. The Woman in Red was pulling of her mask and tumble of dark hair was falling to her shoulder blades, eyes that had once looked at her with love and joy were cold and dark now and the face was thinner, harder. Womanhood had crashed down hard on this woman's shoulders, she had learnt pain and suffering in ways that Djaq never would and finally after years apart she turned to see the face of her sister staring at her.

"Hello Saffia" Gisella said her head tilting to the side.

And then her hand came out, and she was aware of a sharp pain in her face as her sister struck her and all went black as Djaq crumbled to the floor and her sister stood above her for this one moment utterly victorious.

And there you go. I will bring you the next one as soon as it has been written.

Next Chapter-Gisella tells the story of how the Woman in Red was born and Djaq listens, and the two sisters attempt to hash out the pain of their past (Only Gisela and Djaq in this chapter)