Alright, my lovely ducklings! I know it has been very, very long, but I decided I was giong to go back through and update one of my top stories... the Albus Potter and the Dark Lord's Heir, Blood on Olympus, Fifth to Charm and Last to Fall, or Little Red Robin Hood. So I looked at the view count and reviews and stuff, and I've actually had lots of people asking me about this one lately, so I decided to go back and do this one.
I ended up reading all the chapters because the time I wrote this was when I broke my arm and was basically on prescription pain killers 24/7, and had NO clue what I had written. And, I got rehooked on the idea, so I think I'm going to try to finish this one. The only problem is I have absolutely no clue where I had been planning on going with this, and because I haven't updated in two years I lost my plot outline.
I have, however, improved since then. I am not going to go back through and edit all those chapters to make sure all the spelling and weird little glitches are under control, because... ya know... whatever. That's like, 30 thousand words of editing. How about no.
I think I have figured out where I'm gonna go with this, though, so please enjoy the most requested update!
Will was the first one up that morning. The sun was just starting to peak over the horizon and paint the sky, and he prodded the fire to bring it back to life. He placed a pot of water over the flames to boil to make coffee later, and then sat back down, staring into the flames. He used these moments of calm and silence to sit back and think, wondering if he was really doing the right thing.
Robin had only been his apprentice for two weeks now, and she was a girl, and she had lied to him. Was he right about keeping her on as his apprentice? The girl had talents, he had to admit. She wasn't as good at moving unseen as he had been when Halt recruited him, nor was she as even tempered. But she was quiet on her feet, and had a gift for tracking that had taken him months to acquire. But she would never have the strength in her upper body that he had, so long bows would always be a challenge for her. And he wasn't sure how he would manage to curb her temper if she didn't try to curb it on her own.
And even if he was right about keeping her on as her apprentice, which he knew Alyss would approve of, was he right about letter her take on some control in this situation? After only two weeks, Halt was letting him wash his dishes, not letting him handle a diplomatic relationship with a Baron. Did Will even really know how to train an apprentice?
Robin stirred in her sleep, dragging his gaze over to her. Her side was bleeding again, but he didn't want to wake her up for it. It wasn't bleeding badly, anyway. As he studied her face, some of his fears quieted.
She was strong, and she was talented, and she had already proven she was a quick learner. She was just afraid, and he understood that. She was afraid that she wasn't good enough, she was afraid that she wasn't going to get to stay a Ranger, she was afraid that everyone would think she was weak. She was afraid. No, she was terrified.
He started to feel some sympathy for the girl. No, he was going to keep her on as his apprentice. It was about time that a girl joined the corps, and there was no reason it couldn't be Robin. And her plan for the moment was fine, so he didn't see why they shouldn't use it. If she started to get too crazy, then he could always take over, or he could have Halt or Gilan take over.
Everything was going to be okay.
She stirred again, and then rubbed at her eyes. The hiss of steam reached his ears and he looked back at the pot of water over the fire and saw that it was boiling. He rose and moved to the saddle bags, gathering clean mugs, coffee beans and honey.
By the time he had it all in hand and returned to the fire, Robin was sitting upright with her cloak wrapped around her shoulders. Halt was stretching, his old bones popping in his shoulder sockets.
Halt was not nearly as willing to let people wake up of their own accord as Will had been.
"Wake up, you sleeping beauties," he said, throwing the bag he had been using as a pillow at Gilan's face. Gilan snorted, waking up suddenly and rolling backwards into Little John. He promptly bounced off of Little John, who groaned and threw his arm out, accidentally smacking Mauch in the face. Mauch squealed and jumped, kicking Alan-a-Dale in the side, who mumbled and rolled over, out of Mauch's reach.
"Four for one," Will said, "Not bad."
"You will never obtain these skills," Halt said, his face completely still and serious.
"Oh, yeah," Robin chipped in. "Mad skills." Halt gave her a dirty look, then noticed that Will was dealing out coffee and lightened up.
"What time is it?" Alan grumbled, hugging onto his instrument case that he had been sleeping on but moments before. "Wakin' us up at the crack of dawn, you are..."
"Actually the crack of dawn was about forty minutes ago," Will said, passing Halt a mug off coffee with honey in it.
"Oh crap, really?" Robin said, jerking forward a little bit. "But we're supposed to be at that road in, like, an hour! And the road is a half hour away!"
"Yes, I know," Will said calmly. "Which gives us a half hour to drink some coffee, saddle our horses and start riding, doesn't it? Relax, Little Red Robin Hood."
As it turned out, Robin's need to rush was severely misplaced. Because they had no idea when the carriage was supposed to go by, only that it was supposed to go by today, they wanted to get there as early as the carriage could possibly go by... But it turned out that the carriage didn't roll by until three hours past noon.
And that wait was perhaps the most boring of Robin's very short life.
God.
So boring.
Just when she was starting to wonder if the carriage was going to come by at all, the distant clack of wheels rolling on an uneven road reached her ears. The others, who were about fifty meters up the road closer to the carriage than she was, had definitely heard it by now. She got to her feet and staggered out of the tree line then, waiting in the middle of the road for the carriage to come into view.
She knew her role, and she was prepared to play it well. She hoped everyone else was ready to do the same, and that no last minute morals would get in the way.
When the carriage finally appeared, there was no doubt in her mind that it was the carriage of a wealthy noblewoman. It was gilded with gold and shone white, and was pulled by four white horses. She could see six guards around it, two of them on horses to the front of the carriage and two on either side. There might be another two behind it, she didn't know. She didn't have time to look, either; she had to start acting, and start acting now.
Her flaming red cloak made her obvious in the middle of the road, and she started staggering towards the carriage. She held her side, the blood from the wound that she had reopened in her sleep was seeping through her fingers. She reached out, showing the blood on her hand to the soldiers, and staggered forward a few more steps. When the carriage was only ten meters away and even with the men hiding in the trees, she fell to her knees. Her bloody hand dug into the dirt on the road and her other hand wrapped around her, holding her side.
The horses of the carriage reared up, and the two guards in front called for a halt.
"What is it?!" an angry voice from within the carriage growled. A woman in her mid-thirties poked her head out the side, a huge frown wrinkling her already distasteful forehead and making her look like a young witch. "Why is there a girl in the road?!"
"She appears to me hurt, mam," the soldier on the right horse said in a heavy accent that was completely unfamiliar to Robin. Robin took the opportunity to cough for emphasis, and one of the soldiers on foot walked towards her. She reached a shaking, bloody hand out for him, staring up at him through her poorly bleached hair.
"Help... please," Robin said, in her best fake shaky voice. She really wasn't shaky at all and felt perfectly fine, but it didn't hurt to play up her injury.
The man knelt in front of her, and she saw in his eyes a sort of sympathy that gave her a twinge of guilt.
The woman's next words squashed any sense of guilt that Robin might have had. "Well, move her out of the way, then! We've got places to be, people to see!"
"But, mam," the soldier kneeling in front of her said in the same thick accent as the other soldier. "She is bleeding very much, and she looks very young. What happened to you, girl?"
"Move her ASIDE, and let us go!" the woman yelled. After a moment's hesitation, the soldier moved to get Robin out of the way.
That was when the first arrow went flying through the air.
Pwease pweeeeease review to tell me if you are still interested or not. :3
