I'm home. I've finally come home, she thought, as she dug her nails into his skin in a fevered moment of frenzied desire. Just like in dreams, he fulfilled her every need. The man she always knew had to be waiting for her. Nothing could ever match this.

Later, when the Sheriff thought about it again, he knew she couldn't remember much. Maybe that was best.

Off a great distance to the North, a misty fog had settled over the hill near the Castle. He'd just come in from the dampness. He lifted the hood off of his face as he leaned over the basin on the washstand. He could see his hideous reflection in the water. His chain dangled into the basin obstructing his vision, so he removed it. The baby cried in the corner of the room in a cradle. He turned around.

"Ha! You think he'll help you child? Look what he did to me!" he remembered that day crouched to the ground on the scaffold, when the flaming arrow was shot.

"You think this is hell, child?" He said as he opened his arms wide. "I learned from the best, kid."

He once made a deal with him. He remembered being up close to his face once before. Now he had the cursed face of the Sheriff's infant as a daily reminder. He loathed having him here with him, but relished the idea of the one thousand gold pieces the Sheriff would supposedly bring him, though he highly doubted it. He went back to the washstand and reached in the basin to splash water on his face. He dried it gently, then began to chuckle. "The Sheriff of Nottingham. A father..." he said "Now - that's a good one!" He laughed.

He sat down on a chair absently fingering the chain that lay against his chest. He began to remember, the brief time he had a family. His brother, the last remaining family he had was only with him a short time before the Good Sheriff put an end to that too. And after the lynching of his brother and friends. He - the one who called himself the Fallen Knight, seeing no reason to remain in Nottingham County, began a journey that took him to the North. A wanderer. A Rebel. An Outlaw. Having nothing but the clothes on his back, a horse he inherited from his brother, and the chain around his neck from his father he was moving on. Though he would've liked to have stayed for the pleasure of paying a surprise visit to the Sheriff, and killing him. Revenge for the loss of his family. His father. His brother. His face. His dreams. He had already the potential for mixing with trouble before things came to a head three years ago. He lost all sense of himself completely and began a downward spiral that started him reaching new depths in self destruction, and self loathing.

Something had happened to the Fallen Knight, completely snapped inside of his brain. He was always rather lost and reclusive, and then his brother did much to anchor him. He filled the void which had been missing much of his life. It was all lost when his brother died at the hands of the Sheriff of Nottingham. There were rumours circulating that the Sheriff had changed a great deal since then. Especially since last autumn. He could've cared less. No amount of redemption on the part of the Sheriff would ever begin to make up for his sins and betrayal against him. The Good Sheriff of Nottingham would never be forgiven. Nothing the man could ever do, no words uttered past his lips would ever begin to ease his pain. Begin to quiet the rage. Or restore him at all to any semblance of the troubled but promising man he used to be. The handsome young man he once was.

Those days were gone. Dead. Like his brother. His father. His memories. Dead. Like all things good. And so, he lost everything, including any last remaining shred of human decency or compassion. Just about every facet of his former self was gone. Dead. Replaced by another so hideously unlike the man he used to be. The man who once made a deal with the Sheriff three years ago. Who watched in horror when the flaming arrow shot his way, soaring through the air, and knowing what the plan was. He was trapped. Tied down with nothing to do but wait helplessly for impact. His brother managed to come to his rescue, just not in time to save his face. And then, hours later...being told his brother had been killed. Stabbed with a sword by the ruthless tyrant, the Sheriff of Nottingham.

And that's when everything came crashing down all around him. When he realized he was infinitely alone. The Sheriff insured that, when his face became torched. Now he'd never be able to find himself a wife. He began to drown his troubles in anything that would soothe the pain quickly. He soon discovered that two large goblets of wine taken quickly in succession did much to quiet his thoughts. A third to follow would silence them completely, and resulted in blissful oblivion. Thus began his dependency. His collapse into self destruction.

He started by taking the Sheriffs two maidens, the ladies in waiting at Nottingham Castle. He knew of two of them who stayed there. Employed by the Good Sheriff to service his needs. That is where the Fallen Knight chose to start. Having been in the Castle before he knew the lay of the area and how to find them. He'd seen them before. After spending a tedious time pretending to charm them, he poisoned them. He carried the maidens off one by one and hid them for a time. They were the first to go. He'd heard the Sheriff was confused as to what had happened to his consorts, yet he didn't bother to initiate a search for them. And that just made the Fallen Knight more infuriated. Fueled him to continue.

Changed? The Fallen Knight had a good deal of difficulty believing a man like that could possibly be changed. And yet, he was proof. He too was changed, but his metamorphosis was the reverse version of the caterpillar to the butterfly. Unlike the Sheriff of Nottingham, who did change for the better and sought a better purpose in life, he was going in the opposite direction. And his mind was too completely clouded over with festering murderous rage to ever begin to identify it. His metamorphosis was complete. From somewhat noble, to finding a permanent residence on the dark side. And since he had nobody to challenge him about it, he quite enjoyed it.

The Fallen Knight, not satisfied when he touched his face, walked back over to the washstand in a obsessive ritual to finish washing what was left of his face. Then he placed the hood back over his head to cover it. He turned towards the cradle where the infant lay.

"Right. The Sheriff of Nottingham come for you? Are you jesting? He'll never come for you. He'd no more want you that I do! Your father has a black heart. Just like me. Sorry kid."

He thought himself invincible. A man whom he once feared - he now challenged, and took pleasure in taunting him. As the years unfolded since that day, he kept descending deeper and deeper into a dark abyss. With absence of all remaining discerning human qualities. With nobody left in the entire world to begin to care about, he didn't care. He cared for nobody. He cared not for himself. It didn't matter, and that's what made his plot for revenge all the sweeter. With the absence of fear - anything is possible. He believed it, and he lived on it.

He sat in a corner drinking his wine. One goblet after the other in his usual fashion, and continued to plot various ways of further annoying the Good Sheriff of Nottingham.

The Sheriff may have changed for the better, yet the shrewd, calculating man that everyone thought dead still hovered just below the surface. The Fallen Knight and his threats did nothing to instill fear into the Sheriff of Nottingham.

The Sheriff sat by the window at dawn gazing out into the distance. He held the scroll that the boy messenger hand delivered the day before in his fist. He crumpled the scroll into a ball and threw it to the far side of the room.

"Get ready." He spoke as if he were speaking to the outlaw. Then the remnants of the old Sheriff of Nottingham began to shine through.

"You are so. Very. Dead." he dragged the words out slowly in a hiss, the same way he planned to kill him.