Title: To Live Another Day
Author: Kate's Master, aka Emma
Summery: Obligatory response to the end of series two. Will be followed by some form of angsty oneshot, no doubt. Ten ways she lived. Many crossovers, verrry odd. Read at your peril. Spoilers galore.
Disclaimer: Despite numourous attempts at blackmail, bribary and all out pleaeding, they still won't give it to me. So no, alas, I'm yet to own Robin Hood and all it contains…
Author's Notes: One day, I'll get back into the habit of regular updating. Until then…sorry. Although it should get better for while, since my Uni apilication has gone through the system fully, and I've had all my replies and stuff. No more mad post checking. Bristol, here I come!
Eternal love and thanks to BeckyScarlett, AngelsShadow816, LoonyLover and SpiritOfSherwood for their reviews – they were much appreciated!
Ten Ways That She Lives
5. She was wearing a special vest – mirthrial, perhaps – which means she's just winded. Very badly winded. Hence the lack of blood.
His face was grave, and Marian's first thought was that the parcel in her father's arms contained some latest gift from Guy. The words he spoke, however, did not quite tie in with that scenario.
"I cannot say I always agree with the choices you make, or the path they are taking you," he began, grave and sombre. "But you are my daughter, and I will not see you harmed. Gisborne will no longer protect you, and I am an old man. This has been in our family for many generations…it belonged to your grandmother, and, when she had only sons, she bestowed it to me to pass on to my daughter."
Frowning, Marian took the package and opened it. A shirt of what appeared to be fine silver chain mail tumbled out.
"Oh…" she gasped, holding it up. "It's beautiful…"
Edward smiled. "It is centuries old, I imagine, although I have no idea how it was made…or, indeed, what it is made of."
"Not silver, then?"
"Watch."
He lay the shirt down on the table by the window, and picked up a knife he had bought up from the kitchens. Smiling slightly at his daughter, Edward plunged the knife downwards. Marian gasped, horrified at the sudden destruction of such a beautiful thing, and then again, when she realised the shirt had simply deflected the knife, leaving not even a mark.
"How…?"
"It's the metal, apparently. My grandfather gave it to several blacksmiths and metalworkers to examine, and none of them could even discover what it was. Some form of alloy, possibly. You should wear it at all times; it is very light."
Marian smiled and nodded, and he left. Edward had kept the shirt for many years, in a box in his room, and, occasionally, he would take it out to examine. He had long ago noticed how it had been designed – definitely a shirt for a woman, for it would fall most oddly on a man – and it made him smile. His daughter was obviously far more like her ancestors than she thought.
Marian slipped the shirt on that afternoon. She was wearing it days later, when Gisborne and his men came to burn their house down. And she was still wearing it months later, when, in the Holy Land, he attempted to stick a sword through her stomach. And, for the first time in it's long and colourful history, the shirt appeared to have failed. Immense pain…a sword, sticking straight up from her belly…Djaq shaking her head in sorrow…the effort of pulling the shaft of metal from her body…darkness…
Tears blurred his vision as Robin of Locksley laid his wife down besides the freshly dug grave. It was late afternoon, for bodies did not last long in the scorching desert heat, and it was custom to bury them as quickly as possible. The ring on her still-warm finger caught the sun, reflecting a red tinged over her already blood stained shirt…blood stained…blood?
Grasping the distraction, the opportunity to not think, for a few moments, of the future currently lying before him, Robin looked at the still body, his mind, for the first time, coldly clear of grief.
Something was not right. Something was missing…something important…
"Djaq!"
She was at his side a second later, automatically responding to the order in his voice.
"Blood!" he cried, sounding slightly manic.
Djaq looked at him blankly.
"Blood!" he cried again. "Why is there no blood?!"
Confusion took over the Saracen's face as she digested his words, followed by a sudden flurry of movement.
"A knife, quickly." she demanded, taking the pro-offered instrument and quickly cutting through the still woman's clothes. The material was already roughly ripped by the sword, which appeared to have caught the loose clothing several times over. The half of Djaq's mind not occupied with examining her friend chose to marvel at how the shirt had stayed on at all.
Moving fast, and yet with an amazing delicacy, Djaq removed the remains of the shirt. And gasped.
For in place of the large, bloodied wound that she should have found there was a layer of shimmering metal. Unbroken, shimmering metal.
Unconsciously holding her breath, Djaq picked up the noblewoman's arm and pressed two fingers to her wrist. A steady, determined, wonderfully, beautifully strong pulse almost seemed to almost resonate through her fingers and up her arm.
"She lives!" she cried, leaning backward and staring down at the still body in shock. "The shirt…whatever it is…it is a miracle! She is very, very badly bruised, I think, perhaps a few broken ribs…but praise Allah!"
The silence that followed was broken only by Robin's trembling breath as he reached out to grasp his wife's hand.
"I thought…I thought I was imagining it. When I was carrying her. The pulse." He quavered, falling back into wondrous silence.
Unconscious, battered, bruised…it did not matter. Here, in the hot lands of some foreign country, his Marian had died. And here, in the hot lands of some foreign country, she lived. That was far more than enough.
Hopefully will have the next one out within the week…no promises, but I'll do my best!