Aftermath

Chapter Four: Robin and Marian

Robin had been keeping to himself more than usual lately. He even had been avoiding Marian. She was determined to find out why. She looked for him. She found him a distance from their camp, under the shelter of a large tree. He was sitting with his back against the trunk, and his knees drawn level with his chest. His arms were wrapped around his knees.

“Robin?” she asked, approaching.

“What?” he asked, not bothering to turn and look at her.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” she asked.

“Isn’t that what you want?” asked Robin.

“No,” replied Marian, “how could you think such a thing?”

Robin didn’t answer. He just hugged himself tighter.

****

Marian sat beside him. She gently touched his shoulder.

“I want to help you, Robin,” she said, “I want to help end your suffering.”

“Do you really?” asked Robin, dubiously.

“Of course,” replied Marian, “why do you doubt me? Can’t you see that I love you?”

“How can you love me, after knowing what I did?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” said Marian, “nothing you feel you did wrong at the castle could change the way I feel about you.”

Robin looked at the woman seated next to him.

“Do you really mean it?” he asked, hardly daring to hope it could be true.

****
Marian wanted to cry at the look on Robin’s face and the emotion in his voice. She wasn’t sure what precisely had caused this change in him, but she knew the Sheriff had something to with it. Someone had to make sure he paid for the vile things he had done to Robin some day.

“I truly mean it,” she replied, “I’ll always love you, no matter what.”

She enveloped Robin in a tight hug. He did not resist or push her away. Robin cried as he told Marian what the Sheriff had said about her not loving him anymore, while she just held him close and reassured him of her feelings for him.

****

“Ahh!”

Robin sat up and looked around. He was getting tired of waking up in the middle of the night from those damn nightmares. Marian was still asleep. At least he hadn’t woken her up with his screams this time. He felt bad about waking her up with his dreams. She didn’t deserve to be kept up at all hours of the night, listening to his cries of anguish. She was lying a few feet away on her back on her own bed roll, with her hands neatly folded over her heart. Her brown hair hung neatly down in loose curls. She looked very serene and innocent. He hoped she’d never experience any sort of pain remotely like the kind he had been through. He wished it on none of them, either, for that matter.