to the merry green wood.

        Nothing happens. Julia herself doesn’t even stand from her seat at first, though she is startled momentarily, both brows raised. She’s been expecting some kind of test and wasn’t sure when or how it would come, but she knew that it would. Whatever Robin is expecting, she doesn’t need guards pouring out of the woodwork to protect her. 

       “If you really wanna hurt me, it’ll take more than a carving knife.” Julia speaks calmly, though she’d be within her rights to shout. She offers a half-smile as she makes a point of snuffing out a candle with her bare hand, as though she can’t feel the flame at all, then reveals the unmarked palm after. “Stone skin. Very useful defensive spell.” She arcs a brow. “I’m willing to show a little faith, not stupidity.” 

        Julia takes another sip of wine, then shrugs. “If you don’t want to work with me, you can go. You’ll find your things hidden in a hollow tree to the East, just outside the grounds.” Letting Robin leave before she’s sure of him might be the only way to prove she’s serious. “Feel free to take as much food as you can carry.” 

     Rare is it for Robin to be met with something he does not understand. It isn’t the magic, he can wrap his head around the magic. She is, after all, a Child of Earth, and a Magician, and she wouldn’t sit here with him now if she couldn’t protect herself. That makes sense. It’s the rest of her that confounds him. 

     ‘ You’ll have none of your guards follow me, ’ he says, mistrustful still. She will just let him leave? She will return to him his things and allow him to walk out of the Castle, out of her reach, and to continue thieving and being so troublesome? He hardly believes it. 

       “Of course not.” Julia snorts—a sound that always seems to scandalize her advisers, but she can’t help it. (Though this is already going better than she’d hoped, all things considered.) “You’d have to be an idiot to just believe me, and you’re too good at evading arrest to be an idiot.” She sips wine from her cup, letting the honeyed brew sit on her tongue for a moment before swallowing, then gives a small shake of her head. 

       “That kind of trust is earned, not given. And it goes both ways. You’ll notice I dismissed the guards to keep this conversation private.” Julia can defend herself just fine, but why take the chance if not to show a little faith? “You don’t owe me anything, obviously, but this is about the people of Fillory. As for me—” Julia sighs, leaning back in her chair with her cup in hand. “…all my friends died freeing Fillory from the Beast. Is it so hard to believe I just want to go home?” She’s not convinced returning to Earth would be any better, but anything’s preferable to staying in Fillory and ruling it alone, without any of the people she loved. 

     ‘ You’re High Queen of Fillory. Why would you want to go home? ’ 

     There is no changing his mind from one meeting alone. Robin is not such a fool as to accept the word of a monarch at face value, to assume that she tells him the truth even when he knows how people from her world love their games and care little for their people. Perhaps she does miss her friends. Dearly, even. But what ruler is lonely when they are surrounded by their courtiers? 

     𝙷𝙴 𝙸𝚂 𝙻𝚄𝙲𝙺𝚈 𝚃𝙾 𝙷𝙰𝚅𝙴 𝚂𝙿𝙾𝙺𝙴𝙽 𝚂𝙾 𝚀𝚄𝙸𝙲𝙺𝙻𝚈 ,  𝙵𝙾𝚁 𝙻𝙸𝙿𝚂 𝙰𝚁𝙴 𝙰𝙻𝚁𝙴𝙰𝙳𝚈 𝙿𝙾𝚄𝚃𝙴𝙳 𝚃𝙾 𝚂𝙷𝙾𝚄𝚃 𝙵𝙾𝚁 𝙷𝙴𝙻𝙿 .    this is not what it looks like  - !  marian scoffs openly ,  fingers touching the doorframe .  it would take her no time at all to shout for the farmer  -  tom  -  and he would no doubt have the young man dragged out by his ears .  she squints when he mentions foresters .  a  poacher ,  then ?  hers is a frustrated whisper ,  dark brows knotted together over green eyes .    ❝ so you hide in an innocent’s home ?  they will be treated as  guilty ,  if you are found . ❞

@boldrobin​.     sc.

“HE  SEEMS  TO  LIKE  YOU,”     elethea  called,  a  little  breathless  from  chasing  after  the  mabari.  pulling  off  her  fine  leather  gloves  upon  her  approach.  the  hound  was  not  a  disciplined  enough  creature  to  devote  his  focus  to  the  hunt.     “the  great  traitor  he  is.  running  right  off  like  that,”     the  man  he’d  run  off  to  was  given  a  cursory  once  -  over  and  an  apologetic  smile.     “sorry  if  he  was  bothering  you.  he’s  too  curious  for  his  own  good.”

     It isn’t the dog that Robin minds so much -- just its owner, when she shows herself, and all the finery she wears. A Cousland, then, he thinks. One of his Friends had told him that they would be visiting, something about the hunting being better than in Highever. And she has the look about her of someone he served some years ago, back before Franderel cast him out. 

       “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re looking for an excuse to keep me around.” A pause. “Breakfast would be great, if you have any.” 

     ‘ Clara! ’ Robin is all wide, gleeful smiles, arms outstretched in welcome. He and the Merry Men have had a successful day of it and their spirits are all appropriately lifted. Clara has, as she always seems to do, arrived completely at random and when nobody was expecting her, but she is a friendly face and he will not be turning her away tonight. Stepping around the fire, he approaches to give her a proper welcome. ‘ Where is your Doctor? Never mind, come, drink, we are celebrating! ’ 

        ❝ oh, robin, it is good to see you! ❞ and so it is. the doctor’s still on the TARDIS — dealing with a problem in the something-or-other that brought them back here when they were meant to be a century later — but clara’s more than content to seek out an old friend by herself. ( robin hood is her friend; she can barely believe it to be true. ) and it is so…warm, here. that’s how it feels, fire or no.  ❝ i won’t say no. what’re you celebrating? ❞

        ❝ then i suppose we are the same, you and i. ❞ is she not an outlaw? perhaps not in the same way, but there are those who want to find her, and who would kill her if they found her. morgana has spent years acting against the law because it is right; if that does not make them the same, then what will?  ❝ these people…they are not just outlaws. helping them is a statement, maybe even a target. if what they say about you is true, you should know this first. ❞

        Marian laughs. She laughs and it is cold, and harsh, and wholly bereft of humor. It is the sound of sadness that has long since crystallized into a rage so deep it became an ocean to cross. She stops only to catch her breath and manages to stifle the madness before it can begin again. Too late, though, for any hope she might suppress the angry tears that have been threatening to fall, and Marian knows she will feel all the more foolish for it later, but now… 

        Now she’s feeling worse than insulted, and she would love to hate him for being capable of this. What right does Robin Hood have to judge her as he lives free and bold in the forest, beyond the Sheriff’s reach? What could an infamous outlaw know of a canny words or a subtle tongue? What does he know of what she has risked to scrape together what little influence she has? What she continues to risk? 

       “You think yourself so righteous.” Marian is smiling now, halfway to hysterical and hardly ashamed. “But you are as petty and small in your understanding of the world as any other man, convinced your view is complete, so certain you have known every hardship that you dismiss what you have not. You think my days meaningless for lack of nagging my keepers? You believe you could do more, and better than I? Louder?” She laughs again, though it is now a brittle sound, short and breathless. “Perhaps you would not be so sure by the fourth or fifth lashing, fool.” 

     Robin finds he cannot argue against her accusation: he is, indeed, the greatest fool of them all, it seems. He steps back, finds himself looking away, if only for a moment, as if he suddenly cannot face the look she is giving him. A frown presses at his own brow, and his hands find his hips as he takes a steady breath. 

     His assumptions have not flattered him, and he thinks to become defensive. How was he to know? Marian, so aloof and unfamiliar, from a world that is just in kind. But even now, with tensed jaw and furrowed brow, he cannot find the words to spit back at her. If Robin is to ask the world of a woman, he would at least have the decency to let her hate him for it.