Guess what guys? I'm going to tell you how they met. It's interesting, I assure you. Anyway, thank you to Neimo17 for the one and only review!!!! In response to the review: Yes, Marian is mad, of course she is! Robin didn't tell her, when he should have. Oh, and I'll thank jjane for Favoriting this story. I like it when people do that; it means they like it.

Robin couldn't forget the way Marian's hair had felt in his fingers. It had smelled nice, he knew that. What was it? Lavender? Rose? It had been floral, that was all he knew for sure. Flower scents had never been a strongpoint for him, but he wanted to find out what that smell had been. His mother kept roses, he would go smell them and see if it matched Marian's hair.

"Why are you sniffing roses?" Will had come up behind him, as he had decided that it was lavender, not rose.

"Why are you following me around?" Robin shot back. He was annoyed that Will had caught him. His nephew enjoyed nothing more than annoying Robin to pieces. "And it's none of your business why I'm smelling flowers."

"You can tell me why you have an interest in these blooms, or how you and that strange girl, Marian, met."

How did this come up? But then, Will had been pestering him about Marian since the fiasco with the outlaws, so it wasn't a surprise. He didn't want to tell Will how he'd met Marian, it was embarrassing. At the same time, however, it would be more embarrassing to tell him about his slight obsession with her hair. He also had a thing for her eyes, but Will didn't know that yet.

"Come on, Uncle, it has to be a good story. How you stumble on a rebellious girl who doesn't care what people think. I mean, really, this has to be interesting." As soon as Will said that, Robin wanted to laugh at him. Interesting? Yes. Stumbling on a girl? No.

"All right, then. But if you laugh at anything or anyone, you won't hear the rest, that's a promise."

"I wouldn't do that, Uncle," Will said in an innocent voice. "How could you think of me like that?" Will was so dense sometimes.

"Very easily," Robin said with a smirk.

I didn't believe in luck. Luck wasn't a part of the world, one had to create what one wanted, and leave everything else behind for it. However unfair this truth was, I used to believe it.

I stopped believing that truth when I found Sherwood's heart. Well, that's not entirely true. I didn't find it. No, the day I came to it started with me being lost. Dreadfully lost. Ten year old me didn't know where I was going, except that if I went south, I might find a stream that I knew would lead out of the forest towards home.

"I'm not lost," I told myself. "I know where I am. I'm in Sherwood." Oh yes, the vast forest that goes for miles. My mind went frantic at the idea of being lost. I had heard stories of the outlaws who kept themselves in this forest, and was none too keen on meeting one of them.

I stumbled along, each passing moment bringing with it a drop of water to feed the plant of fear growing in my stomach. I felt genuinely stupid as well, I should have known where I was. See, I thought I had known every corner of Sherwood. I was senseless to even think it.

I carried with me a longbow that I had only two years before started attempting to use. It did little good at helping me find my way home. It did help relieve stress though. I discovered this when I stopped altogether and realized how hopeless it all was. Arrow after arrow I shot at that dead stump, precious few hitting it.

An hour was spent that way, until I heard a sound. A faint rustling, in one of the trees above me, too large for an animal. I looked, and at first didn't see a thing through the dense leaves. Then I saw him. A boy, younger then me, staring down like he knew something I didn't.

"Is that all you're going to do?" he asked. "Shoot an old stump?" The boy was too young for an outlaw. If he was one, or an outlaw's son, he didn't intimidate me.

"Until I find something better to do," I lied.

"I could show you my oak tree."

"Your oak tree? You can't own one of these trees. They belong to the king."

"I'll show you, and then you can tell that it's not mine" he said in a haughty tone, as he climbed down from his tree, a young beech, not yet old enough to equal the giants around it.

The boy led me through Sherwood, seeming to know exactly where he was going. I envied him that he knew his way while I didn't, especially since he was younger. But still, he knew where he was going.

When I saw his tree I instantly wanted it for myself. It was huge, rising from the ground, high into the sky, it's roots protruding from the dirt making all sorts of places to sit. Even better, it sat in its own clearing all by itself. The perfect place for anybody at all.

"See? This is my tree." A sense of pride came from his voice, as if it really was his.

"No, it's not," I said without thinking.

"Well, whose else could it be?" There was a challenge in his voice.

"I want to fight you for it, and whoever wins will claim the tree."

"Fight? Why don't we make it easier and just race to the top? Ready! Go!" Since I was caught by surprise, he got the head start. But climbing trees wasn't something I hadn't done before, and this one was extremely easy to get into with its branches so low. Even with all these advantages, the other boy somehow was still ahead of me. He seemed to know every foothold by memory, while I had to look twice. Not fair.

"Told you it was mine," the boy crowed at the top, laughing. I was furious, angry that I hadn't beaten a boy smaller than me.

"I have to know your name then. Give me at least that." I was confused by the strange grin that started to grow on his face. "What?"

"You want my name?"

I nodded, not sure why the boy thought it was so funny. "All right then. I'm Marian Fitzwater, daughter of Sir Collin Fitzwater." A girl? He was a she? I had been beaten by a girl? This was too much. My pride had been wounded, possibly beyond repair.

Her dark hair had been cut boyishly short, barely reaching past her chin, and I wondered how she had gotten away with it. As if answering my thought, she said. "My mother cut it short for me, but I'm not aloud to after this. Father pretended not to notice. He loves Aelfleda too much for that."

"She's Saxon? But you look so Norman." Her eyes suddenly went flat, glaring at me like I'd insulted her in the worst way. I think I might have even backed a bit away from her, to escape that glare.

Marian looked away, sparing me from her deadly green eyes. She dropped down, decending nimbly down the tree. Quickly, I followed, not sure what I had done.

She was faster than me, as she had proved earlier, and was already walking away by the time my feet hit the ground. I had to run to catch up. "Wait!" I called, hoping that she wasn't really leaving. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you." She kept going. "Please, don't leave."

I then realized what she was: half-breed. Fitzwater was a Norman name; Aelfleda, a Saxon one.

She still hadn't responded to my apology. Fine then! She could be that way! "Stupid half-breed!" I told her.

Her fist hit me squarely in the eye. "Don't ever call me that, you sod! If you dare do it again, I'll hit you harder, and more than once! As if I expected you to be any sort of a friend. I should have known."

"Known what?" I asked, probing under my eye, and wincing. I was sure I'd have a black eye in an hour or so. "I wouldn't mind being your friend."

"Oh? Then explain why you called me that." Her malignant glare had returned.

I stepped carefully when I thought of my answer. "I was angry, that's all. I'm sorry."

"Good, you should be. What's your name?"

"Robert of Locksley. If you still want to be my friend, though, you can call me Robin."

"All right, Robin, you should know that I'm not sorry I hit you. And that my threat still stands that if you call me half-breed again or insult me in any way..." She threw me a mocking smile, and raised a fist. "Just so you know for the future."

"Losing to a girl and being hit by one in the same day? You are pathetic, Uncle." It was easy to tell that Will was trying hard not to burst out laughing.

"Shut up, Will."

Well... I'll say that I worked pretty hard at this scene, since I rewrote it at least three times. I like this one the best and want to know whether or not you readers like it at all. (hint hint) Anyway, I have BBC Robin Hood Season 2 (yes, yes, I know what happens at the end! And it kills me as well as her!! My favorite character of the whole legend... gone and dead...) on DVD from the library so I'm sneaking away now. Review! Please??