There was mud, an endless watery bog that stretched out before him into the edging mists, and everything was grey and slow, a sodden push through the cold and marshy sumps of clinging grasses. He was sinking into the peat, the rank waters swallowing his ankles, his knees, and soon he'd be gone, the muck closing over him, the surface stilling again into the glassy unknown.

Will opened his eyes.

There was no marsh.

There was a black rain, a black tree, a damp hollow in the ground where he'd fallen, and he was wet and cold, the kind of bone-chilling damp that couldn't be wrung from clothes or driven out with fire. The cold was worse than the dark. Dark ended with the dawn, but the cold was endless, a miserable throbbing that spread and burned and made hands white and stiff and bloodless. Will had seen frostbite before, toes turned black in winter air, men hobbled, pitied, turned beggar for lack of fingers. Will stumbled up, the fear swelling a knot in his throat, a distant alarm in his skull tolling a bell, something about soldiers, something about camp that he couldn't remember.

He forced down a lungful of cold air, and the world was just trees and fog and earth and rain, and there was no reason to panic, not yet, not when it was spring, not winter; dawn, not dusk, and he couldn't die, not yet, not when he'd promised to see the summer and plant wild strawberries on her grave.

The bony fingers around his heart eased, and he could breathe again: he was alone in the forest, and it was cold but not so cold it'd take his fingers in the night. He'd had worse, winter nights when he'd walked to stay warm, the long, silent, desolate march to nowhere, to nothing, aching for the sun to rise and the day to begin because the cold wasn't nearly as terrible in the light.

He coughed.

Was that all he was now? One night in the woods and he'd gone to pieces? For what? His hands were fine. Or mostly, anyway, and he wasn't dead or frozen or bled dry. He touched the spot where the sword had nicked him, the blood crusted under his chin, and thank God he could run.

But in all honesty, he'd probably try walking for a bit. He was remarkably all right. No turned ankles, no broken bones. It hadn't helped that he'd slept in the damp, but there had been other mornings and other aches, and those had all been remedied.

But where was he? The air was dusky, the trees like black apparitions in the mist. He listened but there was no distant roll of the river, only the rain pattering on the canopy above him. Was he still in Sherwood? He lurched forward stiffly. Maybe he'd gone north and missed the edge of Sherwood without knowing it. If only he kept walking he'd come to somewhere eventually, wouldn't he? A house that could spare a bit of bread, a place by the fire, a corner in the stables. Or maybe he'd gone south and he was close to Woolwick and Ol' Jemma, and if this was years ago she'd have something for him to eat. He could almost see her now, hear the familiar rasp of her voice.

"I'll walk you home," she'd said, the last time he'd seen her. "You'll be a great deal safer with me by your side."

Will had almost laughed. "You'll walk me home?"

"Oh, hush, child," she'd tut-tutted him, as if he were still the little boy on her doorstep. "Respect your elders. And let them lean on you when they need it." She'd given him her basket of dyed wool and hooked her spindly arm into his, resting against him as they'd walked. "My legs," she'd said, by way of conversation and not because Will had asked. "They have their days. Not many, o'course, but every now and then they remember their old spirit." She'd been happy then, alight with the thought of brighter days. "Spring in the air and a handsome young man at my side. What more could an old woman want?"

"Better knees?"

He always could make her laugh, and she'd chuckled. "I've missed you, I have. Where've you been keepin' these days, Will-boy?"

"What do you mean?"

"Someone set the dog on you again?"

"No."

Ol' Jemma had stopped, looking him over. "Lor', those eyes. Too honest for this world. Your mother was the same way. Eyes as clear as a summer morning. And don't give me that look. If you weren't here, how else'd I remember her?" Ol' Jemma had cleared her throat, in the way that meant she hadn't any more patience for the subject. "You're coming with me today. You'll help fetch some herbs, and then you'll be staying for supper. You're thin enough to have me half-afraid the breeze'll blow you away."

"I've not blown away yet," Will had countered, "though maybe one of these days I'll go where the wind takes me."

"You have something up your sleeve?"

"Not really." Will hadn't met her gaze, only looked away, over the field, following the line of hills in the distance. "Just not sure there's much reason to stay." Truth be told, he'd probably filched one too many clean tunics off someone's line. Will had meant to go back to Woolwick again to visit, see how Ol' Jemma had fared when the Sheriff's men were like wolves in the forest.

But he hadn't.

Will slowed. The rain had stopped, the slow drip from the trees, and something rustled in the bushes.

He squatted slowly, ducking down to have a better look. There, just ahead—a rabbit caught in a snare, a loop of cord wrapped around its foot. It was wet from the rain, fur bunching in little tufts, and it had tried to run, the cord tangling in the stem of a slender sapling. Rabbits were all heart and no head, starting at the least noise, always running from danger that hadn't happened. Will edged forward, pushing aside the low branches and took hold of the snare, winding the leather cord around his hand. The rabbit started to life, thrashing against the snare, and Will waited until it grew limp, dropping back on the wet leaves, panting.

Slowly, Will.

He wound the cord one more time around his hand and grabbed the rabbit by the scruff of the neck, pulling it close to his chest, tight, tight, and he could feel it tremble, heart drumming wildly in its little chest. Will worked the snare free from its foot, picking at the knot until the loop came apart, and then—for no reason he could later recall—he let go.

The rabbit burst from his hands, a flash of white against the brown earth, and—

"Oy! Just what in the name of the good Lord's mother do you think you're doing?"

Will jerked at the voice, slipping so inelegantly on the wet moss he sat down hard, the pain slitting across his side and spidering up his chest, and someone was speaking far above him.

"That's my rabbit. When I set a trap, I'm not expecting to guard it from thieves. Now, I'll ask you again and you'll answer, plain as day—just what do you think you've done with my rabbit?"

John? thought Will in the confusion because it sounded like something he would say, and who was John to come here and find fault when he hadn't been the one to spend the night in a damp hole?

"Your rabbit?" Will snapped. "Are you king of the forest now to tell me what to do with rabbits?"

But of course, when Will looked up he found it wasn't John at all but someone else, a woodsman with an axe and a satchel, a stranger clearly as unhappy as John to be snubbed so early in the morning.

"What?" The man narrowed his eyes at him. "Sheriff got your tongue, boy?"

"No," said Will, hoping he'd find the words fast enough, "b-but he very nearly did."

"Well, he very nearly did mine too, but that's no excuse for stealing a man's rabbit right out of his trap."

"I wasn't stealing."

"Caught you red-handed and you have the cheek to tell me you're not nippin' off with my rabbit under your arm."

"I know how to steal a rabbit without letting it slip through my fingers."

"Then what were you doing? I have a wife and three daughters to feed. And what'll I say when I come home with nothing to show? 'I'm sorry, me loves. There'll be nothing for supper tonight because I came across the only thief in the world who stole from the poor and gave to the forest.'"

"I-I'll pay you back."

"With what?"

"I—" Yes, with what? "Robin Hood will pay you back."

The man laughed. "And why would the great Robin Hood pay for your transgression?"

"Because…" he's my brother. "I know him."

The man raised one eyebrow. "And I'm St. Edmund the Martyr. That's what I'll tell 'em back home—that everything is all right because I met one of the Merry Men, and Robin Hood himself owes us for the price of a rabbit pelt, and that he'll be coming around any day now with his arms full of gold coins."

Will flushed. Of course the man wouldn't believe him. Will didn't look the part. Not after a night in the woods. Maybe not ever. "But…I really do know him."

Something in the man's expression softened. "A boy like you ranging the woods and stealing what little there is to be had from those who should have it?" He reached down and grabbed Will by the collar and hauled him up. Will's legs had gone numb, and his side hurt, but he knew he had to run, had to try, because otherwise it meant the stocks again, or worse and—he didn't deserve this, did he? Other things maybe, but damned for a rabbit he didn't steal?

"There's the road," said the man and pointed at the trees at the bottom of the hill. "Go on then."

Will stared at him, not understanding. "What?"

"Back to Nottingham with you."

"Nottingham?"

The man sighed and took the leather snare from Will's hand, nudging him half a step down the slope. "Go down this hill. Keep right and stay on the road, and you'll come to Nottingham soon enough. You might find some solace in the church," he paused, regarding Will again with a mild pity, "while you wait for your…Robin Hood."

Will didn't have the chance to say anything before the man shook his head and walked away, and he was halfway across the clearing before Will understood what he'd meant: the man thought Will had lost his senses—another poor bugger who'd cracked under the Sheriff.

"Hey!" Will shouted after him. "I'm not a—" but the man was already out of earshot, and Will didn't suppose there was any use to trying to convince him he wasn't some wild man roaming the woods with no intentions at all of stealing another's man rabbit. At the moment, Will wasn't entirely sure he could explain it to himself, for who else would be drifting through the forests on a day like this, without pack or food or weapon?

Will sighed. Saved by pity. He supposed he should be happy with that. At least he wouldn't be cleaning rotten eggs out of his tunic or wrapping a bandage around a stump where his hand should be. Small mercies, Will. Remember that. Small, backhanded mercies.

He turned to where the man had pointed, the thinning line of trees at the bottom of the hill, and the fog in his head seemed to part. Will knew where he was: this was the road to Shropshire. If he went left there was Beckett, and beyond that Strindon and the mills. Woolwick. Shrewsbury, eventually. He'd been there before. No reason he couldn't go there again.

And Nottingham to the right. It seemed small now, when he stood here in the woods, alone and far from its walls and market and streets. What did it have that he couldn't find anywhere else? It wasn't like him to stay. Nothing good had ever come from staying. And the road was open again. No Sheriff, no soldiers, no dogs. Will could leave, go where he wanted.

His throat felt suddenly tight, and he hated himself for it. He'd gone soft. After all these months of having a bed and a fire—why hadn't he braced himself for the end? He hadn't been stupid enough to think things would last. But maybe he'd thought the end would be no different from the other days, simpler even: a quiet disbanding of the merry men when the Sheriff pulled too close. An easy goodbye.

Not this.

Not Robin Hood.

The knot in Will's throat hardened. There was no going back, not really, not when everything had changed. Not when Will had changed them.

.

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Hello all. An update, finally. This chapter has been sitting in my computer for a while now, in pieces that I hadn't bothered to put together. To be honest, I've been stuck on this story for quite some time and have turned my attentions elsewhere, hence the Long Pause in updating. That's not to say I won't ever finish this piece, but for now it's on indefinite hiatus. BUT just because this work languishes in limbo doesn't mean I haven't been writing. In fact, I've been working on another Robin Hood story, which you might enjoy if you enjoy my style of writing. It's a modern day AU, and before you turn up your nose at the idea, just know I've tried to faithfully reinterpret some of the themes of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves—fathers and sons, family, friendship, brotherhood—so if you're looking for something to read, I'd recommend my other story Shifting the Sun. (It's ten chapters at the moment, so there's your next few hours of entertainment.) Just go into my bio and find the story there. I can almost kinda sorta guarantee you'll like it.

If you liked this latest chapter of The Unfamiliar Shore, please leave me a review to let me know. I do so love reading them. And if you do decide to go read Shifting the Sun, do let me know what you think of it. It'd make my day.

Most sincerely,
ED