(Untitled)

[queenofmay]

This is not the face of a pleased Lady.

Marian comes in about an hour after this. Having been escorted home, then argued and been denied the right to even see her father. Perturbedness flashing across her face at the realization of Milliways existing at her

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[landlesslord]

If Guy has seen Marian (he has), he can only be studiously not looking in her direction (he is, sort of). Despite what he is told is the oncoming End of Days, he still nurses a hurt from his last "discussion" with her.

He is reading. He is reading about...something. With great intensity. And not aware of her out of the corner of his eye. At all.

[landlesslord]

"Yes." It doesn't make this easier. "I have done unforgivable things."

Guy looks at her then, as she was.

"I have done...will do something, Marian, to you."

[queenofmay]

"You already have." What sense was there in denying that.

He'd repaid her today in the way she should have expected him to.

Even unintended charity, met with dire consequences he would not stop.

[landlesslord]

What? For a moment, Guy is confused. Then realises she could mean any number of things. Which one does not really matter. The one that matters has not happened to her yet.

"Yes." He shifts uncomfortably. "But there is another, that you have not experienced yet."

[queenofmay]

"Because you could not stop with standing there doing nothing while my father was jailed?"

There's in her words the audacity to apologizing before doing something you'll do regardless. Asking for forgiveness or understanding for what has not even happened to her, and will anyway, no matter how she answers, no matter is she deigns to listen.

[landlesslord]

What did she think he could have done? The Sheriff had so often been a hair's breadth from cutting his losses and disposing of Guy.

"Did you think the Sheriff would listen to me when I had failed and humiliated him?" Nothing was so simple as being merely black or white. "That he would not simply execute your father and me with him for suggesting his course of action was not right?"

When had Marian ever really understood his position with the Sheriff?

[queenofmay]

Never.

Because the only year she'd been willing to stand by and do nothing while that man terrorized everyone -- she'd been seventeen. While Guy had done just that. Embraced it, fostered and carried out that reign of, still unending, terror for years. With a sneering smile at times.

How quickly he changed his tune.

"If I had abide by that same logic, you would have have drown," Marian frowned at him. Thinking of his lack of gratitude, or care, even then, even before. And. When had she ever not failed and contradicted Vasey? No matter what he took from her, he couldn't take what was right from her.

Even as a prisoner. Even with her house and her belongs gone, she had acted. Risked her life for Daniel, for Robin, for him. For the Kings' and Englands's and the people. Without thinking what it might cost. Not even her life, or her Father's position. Against the Sheriff and his ability to have more Damascus Steel.

[landlesslord]

"Perhaps you should have let me drown then, Marian." Guy is quiet and solemn. If he had drowned that day, then perhaps Marian would have lived. "By doing the right thing, how many suffered as a consequence?"

For all the time she spent at the castle, in council meetings and at other events, Marian seemed completely blind to the realities of his relationship with the Sheriff.

But then, why should she have cared about it?

[queenofmay]

She never understands his logic. Seriously. Because it's almost painful to consider. How many people might die or be hurt or starve or lose their homes, their loves ones, their parents or children, tongues or hands, because of what she did, too.

Only one today. Only her father. Roughly moved to a jail cell, after being frail for the last two days. "I will never choose to stand by and allow that to happen, to anyone."

[landlesslord]

Guy thinks about the reprisals ordered by the Sheriff after the Night Watchman or Hood had foiled his plans. He thinks about the servants punished for merely existing when the Sheriff was in a bad mood.

He is getting sidetracked.

He is running out of time.

"I will not argue with you about this now Marian." He pauses, to find the words.

[queenofmay]

Marian kept her arms crossed, tilting her head, at the outlandishness of him. "Yet you think you have the right to ask my pardon for things worse than it."

[landlesslord]

"I do not ask for forgiveness." His sin, his sins are far too great for that. "The things I have done...and to you especially... I do not think that I can be pardoned for them."

Nothing will remove the awful feeling he carries in his soul.

"Even so, I am heartily sorry for the things I have done to you Marian."

[queenofmay]

Marian's face barely changed. What was that even supposed to be? No forgiveness and yet apology, yet something he'd call remorse. And she was supposed to what?

Without an attempt to miss being trite, even in her clear high tone. "Should I assume you are going to apologize anew to me every single time I pass you here, now, or is there some new reason for this redress?"

[landlesslord]

"No," he does not know how much time he has left here and he assumes Marian must return to Nottingham somehow.

If he is to kill her.

"I don't think you would let me survive another attempt." It is not really a go at humour, merely honesty. "The End of Days comes to this place Marian. This is the last opportunity to do so."

[queenofmay]

Her brow furrowed, frown stealing her lips.

"The End of Days."

[landlesslord]

"So I have been told."

Guy assumes he will be finishing his journey to Hell, when Milliways is destroyed.