Disclaimer: I own nothing.

INTO ABSENCE

Marion lost her father twice. Firstly, to the Crusades, King Richard's cause in the Holy Land. She'd mourned away from the De Rainault brothers, away from their false sympathy and desire for Leaford Grange, a home that would never be hers again. She had murmured songs to herself that he had loved as she had tended her bees and had imagined, just once or twice, that they had hummed along.

The pain and her father's absence had always been keen; the lack of him when she ate dinner or went out riding or thought of her lessons with the bow, it was all a deep sharp hurt. Her father should have been there but he wasn't. He had believed serving the King to be a great honour, to be his duty, as a soldier and subject. He had not wanted to leave his daughter behind again but he had done so.

Marion hadn't wanted to carry that pain forever, to feel others' pity and glee that it wasn't them who had suffered, or the open avarice on the Sheriff and Abbott's faces. Alone in her room, she had shed tears, her fingernails digging into her skin, her sounds as silent as could be. This was her grief. The De Rainaults had taken her home; they would not have any more.

That had been her choice then; to tear away the pain for all to see or to bury it closer still. It had been a choice swiftly made under the gaze of the De Rainaults. She'd held the pain deeper away from all eyes, so deep it'd eventually become part of her marrow, her bones. She'd found it'd helped her move when she'd felt listless. It'd become armour when addressed by barons and lords that the Sheriff was considering marrying her to. It'd given her a steady clear gaze and even polite speech. It'd become essential.

Robin had lost his father too, to blood, to a cause. As their relationship bloomed and grew, Marion felt the warmth of his understanding, his arms around her. He knew no words would help. How could they? Marion was happy, so happy, so free. But that did not take away her pain, and Robin knew it. He had lost two fathers after all.

They had gained each other, and their friends in Sherwood Forest. Marion was learning this new home, one that no sheriff or abbot could take from her, one that she could fight for. She gained Herne the Hunter. He called Robin his son and his gaze on Marion was a different kind of understanding. A weight but not a burden. A challenge but not a dismissal. He did not need to be convinced of her worth with a bow or sword, unlike her friends, unlike even her husband. She stood tall and steady under that gaze, but not just from pain.

"He doesn't make sense," Robin complained more than once.

"But you still listen," Marion pointed out.

He did. Marion had been brought up a Christian, to view the Lord as her Holy Father. She didn't forget that, sometimes she talked and prayed with Tuck. She had almost become a nun, to escape Nottingham Castle and a marriage she never would have chosen and because serving the Lord, a quiet safe existence, had sounded so comfortable, so peaceful, so welcoming, compared to the De Rainaults. She could not imagine that now.

Sometimes she left flowers on forest altars for Herne. Herne was a man and he was a god, just as Jesus had been. Her father had been killed in Palestine for a cause King Richard had claimed as a Christian duty; Robin's father had been murdered for leading a rebellion, for following Herne. Marion saw what Herne meant to Robin, to many people in Nottingham. She felt his blessing and saw the wonders he made real. She saw how he saw her. She agreed with his cause. She wanted to learn more.

Then, Marion's father was returned to her, by Prince John. And her father embraced her and accepted her marriage, vows given before a pagan god, nothing spoken before the Lord. The lack of him was gone for only a few hours and Marion saw in that time that he carried similar pain to her – the loss of her, the loss of her mother. Was it his armour too? Had it always been? How had she not noticed before? She could not ask, his duty soon called him away to King Richard once more.

Marion knew duty, even greater than she had done before – her duty to Robin, to her friends, to the cause Robin and they all fought for. But she still felt that pain as she waved to her father, floating away across the water, gone from her once more, his pain so visible to her now. Robin's arm was still around her, still warm, his words still silent.

It was shortly after her father had returned that Robin was murdered by the Sheriff. It was an entirely new kind of pain, the sheer agony. Why hadn't Herne protected him? Why hadn't God? There were arguments between Will and John that grew louder and louder. And Marion's pain was no longer armour that held her up, that gave her strength; rather it was dragging her under water, under waves that rose above her head. She could not speak to Herne anymore, not even when he stood before her, crumpled and tired-looking, a man not a god, a father grieving a son? Marion could not rage as she might have done before. Now, there was only pain. She turned away.

She did not resist when her father took her back to Leaford Grange. Home was theirs again at last. Her father did not attempt to marry her to anyone. He respected her mourning and spent many hours with her. Marion rode and sewed and lifted her bow to simple targets. All of a sudden, she missed her bees.

She dreamed of flaming arrows and Herne's lake. She dreamed of the Time of the Blessing, dancing with Robin by firelight. The sunset turning the sky red.

Her father worried about her, about her countenance, about how often she was alone, how she focused her bow. Marion could not put away being ready, her experiences in the forest. She attended church with her father, enduring the whispers and expressions on people's faces. Her armour was still present, there was so much pain and she forced herself to use it, for her father's sake. He had done so much to achieve a pardon, to keep her safe. She kept a dagger by her bedside and tucked beneath her skirts.

She shed tears in her room, her fingernails digging in, her noise not to be heard by her father. This was her grief and she would not worry him further.

When it was the Time of the Blessing, she thought about Sherwood, about her friends. She could not go even to Wickham, the Sheriff was sure to be waiting, watching for a reason to see her pardon taken, her father hurt and humiliated. Did she want to go into Sherwood? It made her breath choke.

So she spent a day in the gardens of Leaford Grange, working in the soil and shade, and thought of Herne and the Lord, tears running down her cool cheeks. Her face was dry when she returned to the house.

Robin, Robert. He was the Hooded Man now, Herne's son. Nottingham was full of excited talk once more and Marion had returned to Sherwood. She still believed in Robin's cause. And her father lived but she was a danger to him. The Sheriff would come for her again, he would break her father's heart, perhaps even jail him. Marion would not add to her father's pain; she would not see him taken under. She would choose the forest first.

Perhaps she would never see her father again. Robert bore the same pain; estranged from the Lord of Huntington, his father outraged by choices Robert had made. Marion watched the man chosen to be Herne's Son and felt his gaze. But he did not say a word to explain it. He didn't have to.

Marion didn't venture to where Robin had been buried. She was so glad and grateful that her husband's body had not become a hunting trophy outside Nottingham Castle. But she did not seek it out. Robin had once said that their friends who had been killed were now free in Sherwood. Marion felt the pain of loss still keenly – her father, her husband. She felt it wrapping about her throat but she did not fall. She also felt the wind through the trees, the sun on her face; she heard water running and the footsteps of deer. She could not hear any bees. She could imagine her husband, hunting deer, explaining a plan to Much, climbing trees, returning from seeing Herne, lying beside her – warm and happy.

She dropped a flower. Her tears weren't silent this time.

Marion followed Herne's guidance through Robert, she felt Herne's gaze. It hadn't changed but she looked at him differently now. His protection hadn't saved Robin, he still had a son but Marion didn't have a husband. He was a god perhaps but he was also a man. Robin had believed in what he'd fought for, that its survival was more important than his. Marion couldn't agree.

She did not leave Robin's cause though. She fought beside her friends, beside Robert who she was still coming to know. Another noble in the forest. She thought of him defending her in Huntington when no one else would. She saw him trying to learn how to live in Sherwood, to learn skills that the others had learned so long ago, to learn the forest itself.

Still he watched her and became friends with the men who had once followed Robin. He became the Hooded Man, not just in name anymore. And Marion found herself talking to him of dealing with the Sheriff, of what comforts she missed from Leaford Grange, of how she missed her father. She enjoyed talking to him. More than once he left space beside him. He did not ask for her company, he did not presume. It was many months before Marion chose to stand nearer. Her pain kept her close to the ground and not close to him.

"What do you suppose God thinks of us?" she asked Tuck one day.

She had missed her chaplain, his kindness, his honesty, his faith. Tuck was preparing dinner and didn't seem alarmed by her question. Perhaps he'd been thinking of it himself. Robin was training with his sword again, facing Nasir, Will and John watching. Marion watched too.

"He wants the poor lifted up, the hungry fed, those unfortunate cared for. We're doing his work," replied Tuck.

"By following Herne."

Tuck nodded as he stirred a pot hung over the fire. He seemed so content with it all. Did he carry any pain? Marion saw a battle unending, she saw Herne not caring who died, who hurt afterwards, as long as he had a son and feet enough to follow him.

Marion picked up the dagger that stayed so close to her, remembering lessons, remembering breath on her cheek, and continued to watch.

It couldn't happen again. So soon after her engagement to Robert, her heart warm and happy again, she saw Robert's still lifeless body. She could hardly walk, the pain was dragging her down so. Was this always to be her journey, a wife then a widow? She could not...she could not bear it again. Robert would be free in Sherwood, Marion could not live that life once more.

She could not look at Herne, let alone speak to him.

She fled to the abbey, barely staggered under overwhelming pain, to a different kind of protection. She said no word of goodbye to her friends, to Much who had been a brother to her, to Tuck who had been her truest friend. She took vows she should have taken many times over. The Abbess told her she was not the first woman to find such sanctuary in wimple and prayer. Marion thought of Tuck's contentment and wondered through the unending weight of pain if she would ever find that.

Then a visitor, then Robert, not dead at all. Sometimes a presence could be as hurtful as an absence. Marion had not known that until now. But the people of Nottingham would have a Hooded Man again, her friends in the forest would be granted their leader, Herne would have a son. He always would.

Nothing would be forgotten.

Later, Marion asked for word to be sent to her father. He would be pleased at her safety. She wondered distantly if her pain would now become a wimple and words, a nun's armour.

"He gave us a world so beautiful and plentiful," the Abbess stated when she found Marion sat by a window, contemplating the green land beyond. "He is there for us to see."

Marion was silent. She thought of flowers, fire, sunsets, festivals and lakes. They filled her dreams. Pain still punished her every footstep and silenced her words. She hadn't shed any tears. She thought, in the strange abbey silence, that she could hear bees.

-the end