Fic: Swirling Skirts and Flying Vegetables (Robin Hood) Robin/Marian, pg
Title: Swirling Skirts and Flying Vegetables
Author: lily_268
Pairing: Robin/Marian
Summary: There is a celebration after Turk Flu using the golden arrow the boy won for his village. Robin and Marian join in on the dancing.
Disclaimer: I do not own Robin Hood (2006) that's the BBC. Nor did I profit from writing this.
Word Count: 3000
Competitions in Nottingham are usually followed by a feast in the center of the victorious village. Nettlestone was praising the rising talent of one of its youngest sons who had just won the Sheriff’s golden arrow. After melting it down in the blacksmith’s there was enough coin to provide for his mother and to spoil the people in the village with a feast.
People from outlying villages swarmed in and Marian heard of the festivities as people passed Knighton Hall. Today was a day when she needed a distraction from what had happened in Nottingham and with Guy.
Sparkling stars and torches dotted the dark landscape, and the cool breeze off the Nettlestone pond made a shawl necessary to walk among the happy people.
“Care to dance?”
“Well, I can see you’re very pleased with yourself.”
“I freed a cart of slaves today, what did you do?” He smiled, linking his arm with hers.
“I saved my own life today, because someone,” she wanted to accuse him of being late, but the way his eyes darkened caused her stomach to flip“, was a little too idealistic for their own good. Honestly, where did that boy get his silly ideas of revenge?” When her heart had recovered enough, she dared look up at him, and luckily, he was still smiling at her, though without as much fervour as before.
“Well, I see you still breathing and standing here before me. You are quite the warrior with words Marion. I even believe you’ve grown.” He looked down appraisingly at her, his nose inches from her cheek,
“Or go on, tease me if you like, but I’m quite proud.” She tried to walk away to the tables of food, but he caught up, matching her pace and slowing her with the smallest pressure on the inside of her arm where he held her elbow.
“As you should be, I’m showing remarkable restraint for your sake. That boy pointed an arrow at your back, yet there he stuffs his face, just as alive today as the day before.” Robin had turned now, walking backwards in front of her path, beaming as he pointed to his chest, with a smug expression.
“Well, well, well. Now look at who is grown. Although, you know Robin, I could hardly condone killing an innocent boy.” She tried to inflect her voice with as much reproach as was in her power, but seeing him trip over unseen roots made it too hard to stifle her laughter.
He paused in front of her, “If he’d harmed you, he’d no longer be innocent”. He voice had grown lower and more gruff, a slight growl emerging from the pit of his chest as he eyed the boy across the clearing.
Worried, she took his hand, an act she regretted instantly as its warmth reminded her of her younger days with silly crushes. “But this is nonsense, don’t you see? We are supposed to be celebrating.”
He deftly grabbed two wooden cups from the nearest table, giving one to Marian, “To my good manners?” He raised it to his lips before realising they were empty and Marian giggled again. A small voice that lived in the deepest place of her heart told her it was all a plot to see her smile, but she knew how preoccupied and forgetful Robin was to believe it was all an act. She continued his toast with some weak wine that they had to double back to the table for.
“While your...restraint is an improvement, it’s still ill-placed. It’s not your job to protect me Robin. Besides, I’m more impressed that you’re still letting him take the credit. I wouldn’t have thought that your ego needed more glory.”
“The important people know it was me.” Marian looked across the clearing to where the young boy was being congratulated by his village, and thanked for his generosity. When she turned back, Robin’s eyes were still on her. Another cool breeze blew from the water and she tightened her shawl.
She rolled her eyes at his bravado and carefree attitude, “Honestly, Robin, it’s the same as when we were young. Your dangerous feats do not sway me.”
“You seem to be swaying right now.” His arms had slowly wrapped themselves around her waist, pulling her closer so he could whisper gently in her ear.
“You were put in danger today, and I couldn’t stop it. If anything happened to you Marian...” He paused, his hand in her hair, hesitant and slow. Her own hand hovered over his shoulder, afraid that to touch him would end the dream, that if he left this time the pain would be worse than before.
“Robin...” She breathed, her body not allowing anything more to come out.
She would have stayed standing like that with him until dawn if not for the hands of the other couples, who grabbed them apart, urging them to join in on the folk dance. Their eyes met and she felt his intensity as he constantly watched her as she wound through the sea of steps, her skirt whirling with every new partner. Soon she was panting for breath, desperately hanging on to the dancer she was attached to, hoping she wouldn’t be traded off and luckily, her feet placed her back before Robin, his face lightly flushed and his hair sweaty. They joined hands wordlessly, raising their arms for two dancers to skip through the long archway of bent arms.
The pixie light has returned to his eyes and his smile is so infectious, she can’t help but join in as her concerns of earlier in the day fade away. It’s their turn to skip down below the outstretched palms of the villagers and as Marians turns, Robin spots the stain of blood on her shirt. His face instantly falls, ashen and cold. He guides her along wordlessly, with just a firm pressure on her back. His left hand clasps with hers too tight so that she gasps and he lets out a petulant huff of air. His thumb lightly traces the bandage around her hand once they’ve stopped again, his feet too distracted to take up the dance.
“Robin, we can’t ruin their fun, everyone’s staring.”
He continues his trance, interrupting the dance. So she drags his rough hand away from the festivites, his boots never leaving the ground as he angrily shuffles behind her. Once they are covered by the moonlit foliage, she lets out an aggravated sigh. He still won’t release her hand.
“Robin-it wasn’t your fault, I was out as the Nightwatchman”
“Even more foolish then!” He murmured under his voice a string of profanities she could not follow.
“I shouldn’t have left you alone, I knew it was dangerous”. His eyes were heavy with worry and his sighs laden with guilt. He finally moved his eyes to look at her face and she missed the freedom of her thoughts without his piercing eyes distracting her. He bent down over her hand again, as if hearing her rapid heartbeat, and breathed over her palm, “I hate when you’re being reckless”.
She straightened her shoulders, tossing her hair back to fall down her back. She knew that she could not gently untangle her body from his hold so she forcibly yanked her hand away, rubbing at the wrist, where it felt like his fingers had burned her.
“It is my choice and my life.” She stared at the stars above, knowing that only by avoiding his face could she remain defiant. She had made her choice. No silly boy was going to shake her from it now.
“Surely you don’t believe that. The Marian I knew was empathetic to the pain around her. How would your father feel if you were lost?”
“When you left I learned that attachments can only cause pain in our temporary world. I have faith that in the Lord’s eternal realm, I will be reunited with my father.”
“But you would be condemning him to the hell of waiting for his own death to release him.”
“If it were an honourable death, I could not regret it.”
“Marion! You must see reason. This is…”
“Mad? Foolish? Insane? Yet when you do it in the Holy Lands, or even in the forest it is noble?”
“When I do it, I have men who help me. I am not the one with the bleeding arm.”
“No, it was your shoulder that I patched up, remember?”
“Marian, I am expendable, one lost soldier fighting a war against many. The world would not suffer with my death. I believe there would be much rejoicing in Nottingham.” “But the world should not suffer the lack of your beauty and kindness, even you stubbornness, just because your father is incapable of keeping you at home.”
Her eyes flashed with anger and she whipped around to face him, “when you were gone those five long years I feared I was forgetting. I tried to remember every little thing you’d ever said to me. I didn’t want to lose it. But now I don’t know how I could ever forget. It’s the same contemptuous tone. The same self-righteous words as before. You hide your insults underneath the veneer of caring, but luckily, I learned long ago that you are incapable of feeling.” She walked off, stomping her feet more than was necessary than to simply keep them warm.
Robin was left to shiver in the cold, slowly pulling his hood up around his face when the torches were put out. Marian didn’t know how he spent his time until she heard the familiar call outside her bedroom window. Wincing as her bare feet hit the cold floor, she grumbled, grumpy and sleep-addled on her way to the window.
Glaring at his face, she formed her face into a scowl, “I am more likely to die of exhaustion than anything you fear for me out in the woods”. Her voice was hoarse with sleep, but she did not want to correct it, hoping he would listen to her.
“I came to apologise.” His voice was soft and she had to lean in to hear it, breathing in his musky scent.
“I’m too tired to accept, Robin, come back to tomorrow.” She wanted to turn away and return to her warm bed, but his eyes pleaded with her and she paused.
“I can’t sleep, knowing you’re mad with me.”
Marian groaned, of course this would be about him again, “then it’s going to be a long night”.
“Please don’t be difficult.”
“You’re hardly tempting me to be easy. Do you always expect kind words from the people you continually beg for favours and smother with your good intentions?” She didn’t hold back the venom from earlier in the night, wrapping herself in her anger and spite, hoping the fury would keep her warm.
“So you admit my intentions were in the right place?” His eyes searched her face with something that looked like hope and it broke her to see it.
She sent him an icy glare, “that does not glaze over what you said.”
“I didn’t mean it Marian.”
“Don’t you see, that doesn’t matter now, this is just like when we were children, Robin-“
“Do you remember what I would do when you were angry with me when we were children, Marian?”
“Robin, are you really...” Her words trailed off as her lips curled up into a smile of anticipation.
He backed away from the window, back flipping off the window ledge where he picked up three yellow gourds. He began juggling them with ease, humming a rhythm for himself to keep the time.
Soon Marian was humming along with the old familiar tune, giggling freely at his one handed antics and even clapping at his big finale.
He had hammed it up for her benefit, flipping and falling, but always able to catch the vegetables in his perfect fingers, using as much precision as he’d shown earlier in the afternoon. By the end he was fully singing the nonsense song they had created together as children and Marion was drawn back to the times the leaves ripped past that as they ran through the forest to the fishing ponds, and stealing from the pastry chefs or to watch the sparks fly at the blacksmith.
They were lost in their memories but he snapped back to reality with the slightest shuffle in her house and with a wink, he hurriedly bowed down to her. He was grinning wildly while dashing into the forest’s leafy cover as Marian’s father came to the nearest window to check on the noise.
Marian, lying back on her bed, knew that her mind was certainly less troubled than before, but that she still could not sleep with the melody floating through her mind.
Rolling over, she cursed the day Robin had been born.
Author: lily_268
Pairing: Robin/Marian
Summary: There is a celebration after Turk Flu using the golden arrow the boy won for his village. Robin and Marian join in on the dancing.
Disclaimer: I do not own Robin Hood (2006) that's the BBC. Nor did I profit from writing this.
Word Count: 3000
Competitions in Nottingham are usually followed by a feast in the center of the victorious village. Nettlestone was praising the rising talent of one of its youngest sons who had just won the Sheriff’s golden arrow. After melting it down in the blacksmith’s there was enough coin to provide for his mother and to spoil the people in the village with a feast.
People from outlying villages swarmed in and Marian heard of the festivities as people passed Knighton Hall. Today was a day when she needed a distraction from what had happened in Nottingham and with Guy.
Sparkling stars and torches dotted the dark landscape, and the cool breeze off the Nettlestone pond made a shawl necessary to walk among the happy people.
“Care to dance?”
“Well, I can see you’re very pleased with yourself.”
“I freed a cart of slaves today, what did you do?” He smiled, linking his arm with hers.
“I saved my own life today, because someone,” she wanted to accuse him of being late, but the way his eyes darkened caused her stomach to flip“, was a little too idealistic for their own good. Honestly, where did that boy get his silly ideas of revenge?” When her heart had recovered enough, she dared look up at him, and luckily, he was still smiling at her, though without as much fervour as before.
“Well, I see you still breathing and standing here before me. You are quite the warrior with words Marion. I even believe you’ve grown.” He looked down appraisingly at her, his nose inches from her cheek,
“Or go on, tease me if you like, but I’m quite proud.” She tried to walk away to the tables of food, but he caught up, matching her pace and slowing her with the smallest pressure on the inside of her arm where he held her elbow.
“As you should be, I’m showing remarkable restraint for your sake. That boy pointed an arrow at your back, yet there he stuffs his face, just as alive today as the day before.” Robin had turned now, walking backwards in front of her path, beaming as he pointed to his chest, with a smug expression.
“Well, well, well. Now look at who is grown. Although, you know Robin, I could hardly condone killing an innocent boy.” She tried to inflect her voice with as much reproach as was in her power, but seeing him trip over unseen roots made it too hard to stifle her laughter.
He paused in front of her, “If he’d harmed you, he’d no longer be innocent”. He voice had grown lower and more gruff, a slight growl emerging from the pit of his chest as he eyed the boy across the clearing.
Worried, she took his hand, an act she regretted instantly as its warmth reminded her of her younger days with silly crushes. “But this is nonsense, don’t you see? We are supposed to be celebrating.”
He deftly grabbed two wooden cups from the nearest table, giving one to Marian, “To my good manners?” He raised it to his lips before realising they were empty and Marian giggled again. A small voice that lived in the deepest place of her heart told her it was all a plot to see her smile, but she knew how preoccupied and forgetful Robin was to believe it was all an act. She continued his toast with some weak wine that they had to double back to the table for.
“While your...restraint is an improvement, it’s still ill-placed. It’s not your job to protect me Robin. Besides, I’m more impressed that you’re still letting him take the credit. I wouldn’t have thought that your ego needed more glory.”
“The important people know it was me.” Marian looked across the clearing to where the young boy was being congratulated by his village, and thanked for his generosity. When she turned back, Robin’s eyes were still on her. Another cool breeze blew from the water and she tightened her shawl.
She rolled her eyes at his bravado and carefree attitude, “Honestly, Robin, it’s the same as when we were young. Your dangerous feats do not sway me.”
“You seem to be swaying right now.” His arms had slowly wrapped themselves around her waist, pulling her closer so he could whisper gently in her ear.
“You were put in danger today, and I couldn’t stop it. If anything happened to you Marian...” He paused, his hand in her hair, hesitant and slow. Her own hand hovered over his shoulder, afraid that to touch him would end the dream, that if he left this time the pain would be worse than before.
“Robin...” She breathed, her body not allowing anything more to come out.
She would have stayed standing like that with him until dawn if not for the hands of the other couples, who grabbed them apart, urging them to join in on the folk dance. Their eyes met and she felt his intensity as he constantly watched her as she wound through the sea of steps, her skirt whirling with every new partner. Soon she was panting for breath, desperately hanging on to the dancer she was attached to, hoping she wouldn’t be traded off and luckily, her feet placed her back before Robin, his face lightly flushed and his hair sweaty. They joined hands wordlessly, raising their arms for two dancers to skip through the long archway of bent arms.
The pixie light has returned to his eyes and his smile is so infectious, she can’t help but join in as her concerns of earlier in the day fade away. It’s their turn to skip down below the outstretched palms of the villagers and as Marians turns, Robin spots the stain of blood on her shirt. His face instantly falls, ashen and cold. He guides her along wordlessly, with just a firm pressure on her back. His left hand clasps with hers too tight so that she gasps and he lets out a petulant huff of air. His thumb lightly traces the bandage around her hand once they’ve stopped again, his feet too distracted to take up the dance.
“Robin, we can’t ruin their fun, everyone’s staring.”
He continues his trance, interrupting the dance. So she drags his rough hand away from the festivites, his boots never leaving the ground as he angrily shuffles behind her. Once they are covered by the moonlit foliage, she lets out an aggravated sigh. He still won’t release her hand.
“Robin-it wasn’t your fault, I was out as the Nightwatchman”
“Even more foolish then!” He murmured under his voice a string of profanities she could not follow.
“I shouldn’t have left you alone, I knew it was dangerous”. His eyes were heavy with worry and his sighs laden with guilt. He finally moved his eyes to look at her face and she missed the freedom of her thoughts without his piercing eyes distracting her. He bent down over her hand again, as if hearing her rapid heartbeat, and breathed over her palm, “I hate when you’re being reckless”.
She straightened her shoulders, tossing her hair back to fall down her back. She knew that she could not gently untangle her body from his hold so she forcibly yanked her hand away, rubbing at the wrist, where it felt like his fingers had burned her.
“It is my choice and my life.” She stared at the stars above, knowing that only by avoiding his face could she remain defiant. She had made her choice. No silly boy was going to shake her from it now.
“Surely you don’t believe that. The Marian I knew was empathetic to the pain around her. How would your father feel if you were lost?”
“When you left I learned that attachments can only cause pain in our temporary world. I have faith that in the Lord’s eternal realm, I will be reunited with my father.”
“But you would be condemning him to the hell of waiting for his own death to release him.”
“If it were an honourable death, I could not regret it.”
“Marion! You must see reason. This is…”
“Mad? Foolish? Insane? Yet when you do it in the Holy Lands, or even in the forest it is noble?”
“When I do it, I have men who help me. I am not the one with the bleeding arm.”
“No, it was your shoulder that I patched up, remember?”
“Marian, I am expendable, one lost soldier fighting a war against many. The world would not suffer with my death. I believe there would be much rejoicing in Nottingham.” “But the world should not suffer the lack of your beauty and kindness, even you stubbornness, just because your father is incapable of keeping you at home.”
Her eyes flashed with anger and she whipped around to face him, “when you were gone those five long years I feared I was forgetting. I tried to remember every little thing you’d ever said to me. I didn’t want to lose it. But now I don’t know how I could ever forget. It’s the same contemptuous tone. The same self-righteous words as before. You hide your insults underneath the veneer of caring, but luckily, I learned long ago that you are incapable of feeling.” She walked off, stomping her feet more than was necessary than to simply keep them warm.
Robin was left to shiver in the cold, slowly pulling his hood up around his face when the torches were put out. Marian didn’t know how he spent his time until she heard the familiar call outside her bedroom window. Wincing as her bare feet hit the cold floor, she grumbled, grumpy and sleep-addled on her way to the window.
Glaring at his face, she formed her face into a scowl, “I am more likely to die of exhaustion than anything you fear for me out in the woods”. Her voice was hoarse with sleep, but she did not want to correct it, hoping he would listen to her.
“I came to apologise.” His voice was soft and she had to lean in to hear it, breathing in his musky scent.
“I’m too tired to accept, Robin, come back to tomorrow.” She wanted to turn away and return to her warm bed, but his eyes pleaded with her and she paused.
“I can’t sleep, knowing you’re mad with me.”
Marian groaned, of course this would be about him again, “then it’s going to be a long night”.
“Please don’t be difficult.”
“You’re hardly tempting me to be easy. Do you always expect kind words from the people you continually beg for favours and smother with your good intentions?” She didn’t hold back the venom from earlier in the night, wrapping herself in her anger and spite, hoping the fury would keep her warm.
“So you admit my intentions were in the right place?” His eyes searched her face with something that looked like hope and it broke her to see it.
She sent him an icy glare, “that does not glaze over what you said.”
“I didn’t mean it Marian.”
“Don’t you see, that doesn’t matter now, this is just like when we were children, Robin-“
“Do you remember what I would do when you were angry with me when we were children, Marian?”
“Robin, are you really...” Her words trailed off as her lips curled up into a smile of anticipation.
He backed away from the window, back flipping off the window ledge where he picked up three yellow gourds. He began juggling them with ease, humming a rhythm for himself to keep the time.
Soon Marian was humming along with the old familiar tune, giggling freely at his one handed antics and even clapping at his big finale.
He had hammed it up for her benefit, flipping and falling, but always able to catch the vegetables in his perfect fingers, using as much precision as he’d shown earlier in the afternoon. By the end he was fully singing the nonsense song they had created together as children and Marion was drawn back to the times the leaves ripped past that as they ran through the forest to the fishing ponds, and stealing from the pastry chefs or to watch the sparks fly at the blacksmith.
They were lost in their memories but he snapped back to reality with the slightest shuffle in her house and with a wink, he hurriedly bowed down to her. He was grinning wildly while dashing into the forest’s leafy cover as Marian’s father came to the nearest window to check on the noise.
Marian, lying back on her bed, knew that her mind was certainly less troubled than before, but that she still could not sleep with the melody floating through her mind.
Rolling over, she cursed the day Robin had been born.