Lion Heart

It seems a precious thing, for someone to know the very worst part of you and love you anyway.

Sometimes it's harder to be bright when you feel the darkness inside you. Sometimes the very hardest thing is to let the pain go.

Stories are told to make you feel something, and they can tell ours over and over again, and every time it will be something different.

I will always return to him. I can deny it all I like," I told her in a whisper, "but when someone holds your heart, its impossible to stay away.

You see the world as fixed and finite, and it is not. It is liquid and ever moving, and one act can change everything.

David punched him across the face. Allan dropped like a sack of potatoes. I crossed my arms. "Was that necessary?" "I won't tolerate an insult to your person," David told me, straightening his tunic. "But no. That was more for my enjoyment." "Well, now you have to carry him, you know," I told David. He raised a grim eyebrow to me. "Worth it.

Our love filled the broken bits and made me whole again. There weren't a perfect time to love him, not ever, and it had always been with the threat of death and hurt hovering round us. And we'd love each other anyway. Sure, and true.

There's a funny thing about light and darkness--like hope, you can never blot out either one completely. They always exist, side by side, bright light making shadows darker, darkness making the light more beautiful, a tempting siren call. I can't hate the dark parts of myself. They are the things that showed me how special and rare the bright flames of trust, loyalty, friendship, and love were. My darkness showed me how to love Rob. But now I choose light and fire and love. No I choose freedom.

Rob sidled up next to me. "You don't have to come," he told me. "We can do it." Glaring at him, I said, "I'm coming. For Heaven's sake, I put on a dress and you lot think I'm a girl.

The heartwood," Rob murmured, looking at me. "You wanted to marry me in the heart of Major Oak." I beamed at him grateful that he understood. "And Scar," he whispered. I leaned in close. "Are you wearing knives to our wedding?" Nodding, I laughed, telling him, "I was going to get you here one way or another, Hood." He laughed, a bright, merry sound. Standing in the heart of the tree, he reached again for my hand, fingers sliding over mine. Touching his hand, a rope of lightening lashed round my fingers, like it seared us together. Now, and for always. His fingers moved on mine, rubbing over my hand before capturing it tight and turning me to the priest. The priest looked over his shoulder, watching as the sun began to dip. He led us in prayer, he asked me to speak the same words I'd spoken not long past to Gisbourne, but that whole thing felt like a bad dream, like I were waking and it were fading and gone for good. "Lady Scarlet." he asked me with a smile, "known to some as Lady Marian of Huntingdon, will thou have this lord to thy wedded husband, will thou love him and honour him, keep him and obey him, in health and in sickness, as a wife should a husband, forsaking all others on account of him, so long as ye both shall live?" I looked at Robin, tears burning in my eyes. "I will," I promised. "I will, always." Rob's face were beaming back at me, his ocean eyes shimmering bright. The priest smiled. "Robin of Locksley, will thou have this lady to thy wedded wife, will thou love her and honor her, keep her and guard her, in health and in sickness, as a husband should a wife, forsaking all others on account of her, so long as ye both shall live?" the priest asked. "Yes," Rob said. "I will." "You have the rings?" the priest asked Rob. "I do," I told the priest, taking two rings from where Bess had tied them to my dress. I'd sent Godfrey out to buy them at market without Rob knowing. "I knew you weren't planning on this," I told him. Rob just grinned like a fool at me, taking the ring I handed him to put on my finger. Laughs bubbled up inside of me, and I felt like I were smiling so wide something were stuck in my cheeks and holding me open. More shy and proud than I thought I'd be, I said. "I take you as me wedded husband, Robin. And thereto I plight my troth." I pushed the ring onto his finger. He took my half hand in one of his, but the other- holding the ring- went into his pocket. "I may not have known I would marry you today Scar," he said. "But I did know I would marry you." He showed me a ring, a large ruby set in delicate gold. "This," he said to me, "was my mother's. It's the last thing I have of hers, and when I met you and loved you and realized your name was the exact colour of the stone- " He swallowed, and cleared his throat, looking at me with the blue eyes that shot right through me. "This was meant to be Scarlet. I was always meant to love you. To marry you." The priest coughed. "Say the words, my son, and you will marry her." Rob grinned and I laughed, and Rob stepped closer, cradling my hand. "I take you as my wedded wife, Scarlet. And thereto I plight my troth." He slipped the ring on my finger and it fit. "Receive the Holy Spirit," the priest said, and kissed Robin on the cheek. Rob's happy grin turned a touch wolflike as he turned back to me, hauling me against him and angling his mouth over mine. I wrapped my arms around him and my head spun- I couldn't tell if we were spinning, if I were dizzy, if my feet were on the ground anymore at all, but all I knew, all I cared for, were him, his mouth against mine, and letting the moment we became man and wife spin into eternity.

A knife? A knife? You come at me with a knife? ... I may be a bastard, a princess, a thief, and a royal. But do you know what the other thing is that makes me more powerful than you?" I said. He curled his lip at me. I held up the knife. "With a knife in my hand, I'm unbeatable.

You used to be afraid to get so close to me," I told him, and he met my eyes. "That was a good instinct.

Ireland?" he said. "I'm from Ireland! Why do you think I came here?" he said. "Nothing good in Ireland." He frowned. "Except the ale. The ale is fine.

Small men will always hurt things that are weaker than them.

Rob came to me and I stood, his body fitting against mine so easy, my shoulder tucked under his, his hip against the curve of my waist. I looked up at him, and he ducked his head to give me a soft, gentle, easy kiss. It were a husband's kiss, I rather thought. It weren't the first kiss, a thing of hunger and new tastes. It weren't all our sad kisses of leaving and coming back, full of desperation and scared. It were just a kiss. A kiss that felt like he'd done it before, a kiss that knew he could do it again. Then again, it also sent lightning crackling down my back, and I remembered there were ways we weren't husband and wife just yet. I felt a blush running up my face and he stroked my cheek, kissing me again.

You need to think!" he snapped. "No!" I snapped back. "You need to think. Like a thief—like a girl. Like all the people that get their power and their choices taken away from them. I won't be one of them.

Allan sighed, lying down in the grass. "Fine. I'm too pretty for all this serious business." "I can make you a little uglier, if you wish," David said. Allan lifted his head. "So you agree -- I'm pretty." he said smiling.

Every day we lived, and every day it felt like we had a little less to live for.

A knight," Allan muttered. "As if I would ever be a knight. I'm far too handsome to be a knight.

A fighting man will die without something to fight for." "And a woman?" I asked her. She drew in a slow breath. "Everyone needs something - someone - to fight for, Marian.

Christ on a cobnut!" he yelped, ducking behind the horse. "Lady thief, stop this madness!" "Allan?" I cried, stopping. "What in God's name is going on?" He peered around the horse. "Good Lord, you're even scary when you're dead." "I'm not dead!" I shouted. "Well, I didn't know that before!" Allan shouted back.

I wouldn't fix a broken thing only to see it shatter before my eyes a moment later.

I think life becomes a fabric of choices, interwoven, all related... I split my life into these two things, thief and lady

I won't go with  you," Allan told me. I scowled. "No one asked you to come." He looked offended in a rather dire way. "Who will entertain you?

Boy," David said, pointing. "That's not our horse." "Of course it isn't," Allan said, coming out from the inn with a wide stretch and a yawn. "It's mine." "Christ Almighty." David sighed. "I thought we got rid of you." "You don't mean that for a moment," Allan said, mounting his horse. "Besides, did you really think to go to Ireland without one of her favorite native sons?" "Clearly a foolish hope," David muttered, mounting as well. I swung up onto the horse, feeling my body ache as my muscles settled into place. "Play nice, boys.

Come let's go inside. I'm sure you and your men are hungry." "Yes," Allan said, grinning. "Shameless," I heard David grunt. "There is no glory in shame," Allan said back.

We could leave him here, fair thief," he confided in a none-too-quiet whisper. "If you can forgo your penchant for big, strong men." "He is required protection by the queen. And it has nothing to do with my penchants, Allan—I just send to be in the same business as big, strong men, only they need to be twice as tall and twice as heavy to do what I can in half the time," I snapped.

I look terrible in this," Allan whined. David scowled at him. "The great trickster. I thought you could pretend to be whatever you wanted. Having difficulty being me?" "But I look so much handsomer as me," Allan said.

The man who told me had no reason to lie." Kate frowned. "Every man has a reason to lie." "Not when he were planning to murder me a moment later.