landlesslord | (no subject)

Kate's usually the first one in the stables come morning. She's always been an early riser, whereas most of the others enjoy sleeping through the grey hours of dawn. Dawn is when the work gets done, before the sun gets unbearable.

She clucks at the stock, whistling softly, each with their own special greeting. And then she notices the figure outside the stallion's stall. It's no one she recognizes — certainly not Marian herself.

"Mornin'."

The footfalls he heard entering the stables might have caused him alarm once - but he is in Milliways now, and dead to boot. There is little threat here.

Still, it is only polite that he rises to his feet when the woman greets him.

"Good morning."

She's hardly intimidating once he's standing up. At a modest five-foot-one-inch, blue eyes even softer in the grey light, she looks deceptively nonthreatening.

Unless you count that sixshooter on her hip.

"You're out here early."

She gives him a suspicious once-over, and glances in the stallion's stall to make sure he's well.

"You've been out here before, haven't you?"

"Yes," Guy admitted answering both questions and smiling ruefully. "I couldn't go back to sleep and this fellow is a good listener."

The woman is wary, but understandably so.

After all, it is not quite usual to discover a six-foot-two-inch tall man, clad entirely in dark coloured leather, chatting to a horse.

Part of her guard goes down as he speaks. Her lips twitch.

"He can be. I'd avoid the mare three stall down, however — with her loose lips y'never know who might end up with your secrets."

She's teasing, of course.

"I'm Kate Barlow. I help run things 'round here."

"Thanks for the advice," Guy said, before nodding towards the stallion. "It's probably best that I stick to talking to him - we have a mutual friend.

"Though I can't say that the horse has ever offered any useful hints about her..."

The conversations have always been very one-sided.

"Guy of Gisborne. I...don't really do very much here."

The smile suddenly slips from her face.

Guy of Gisborne.

Sir Guy.

Her eyes narrow.

"Then y'know the Lady Marian? Well 'nough, as I understand it, t'burn down her house?"

It was bound to happen sooner or later and on some level, Guy is a little surprised that it's taken this long (though it's still hard to gauge exactly how far into his past Marian enters the Bar from).

"I do know Marian."

Burning down her home had been a rather impulsive, spur of the moment reaction to the explosion of anger he'd felt on seeing her again. Anger that he'd thought he'd tamped down into unfeeling by avoiding her for the weeks since the failed wedding.

Still.

That was well over a year and a half ago. There is nothing that can change it. He has accepted the responsibility for the things he has done.

"And yes, I burnt down her home."

He might say that you needn't know someone well to burn down their home, he's witnessed Vaisey and Prince John do it often enough.

Now's not the time though.

No, now's not the time.

It's not the time for much speaking at all, you see. As soon as the words clear his lips, a flash of anger rolls through Kate so hot that it spurs a rather unexpected reaction.

She clocks him.

Mightily.

Given the difference in height she comes from an unappealing angle, but let one not discount the ferocity of a cowgirl with a closed fist.

The difference in height may be the difference between now and the last time a woman punched him.

Admittedly, the last time he hadn't been expecting it at all and was knocked off his feet. How was he to know then, that Marian was the Nightwatchman or that she would react that way at their wedding?

Still, it's a pretty big punch and Guy staggers backward.

For a long moment, he just glares at her.

"I take it you've not considered the repercussions of your actions for Marian back in Nottingham?" Guy's a better man than he was.

It doesn't mean that he doesn't still have a malicious streak when riled.

"I could jus' shoot you now an' rid us both of the problem."

Kate's usually better contained than this, but sometimes a son-of-a-bitch just needs hitting.

Kate's solution earns her a short, sharp laugh from Guy. He can only guess when Marian comes from in his past by trying to figure out her mood towards him.

"If I came from the same time as Marian, you would surely condemn her to death then."

Guy's pretty certain that the Sheriff has not yet gone missing in her time and that Nottingham has not faced the threat of being razed to the ground. Neither does she seem to be aware that he knows of her secret identity.

While she might have remained undiscovered as the Nightwatchman for longer without him there, she would surely have perished when Prince John's troops came to destroy the city without him there to play his part.

And that doesn't take into account the times he had had to dissuade or distract Vaisey from doing more to hurt her.

"Perhaps it's fortunate that I am already dead."

Her eyes narrow.

"Funny sentiments comin' from someone who was once set t'marry her. Y'must be a vicious man."

She brushes past him, pretending not to feel the stone weight in her stomach at his words. You would surely condemn her to death. It sure as hell felt good, but it wasn't the wisest move to make. Now that it's done, she isn't about to give him an inch.

Not even given the revelation.

"You, dead? Shame."

"I was, at times, when necessary." Although perhaps more brutal than strictly vicious perhaps. "But you're mistaken if you believe I was the only threat in Nottingham."

Though in the end, it turned out that he had been the most deadly threat to Marian.

"And I would marry her now, if I lived and she would have me."

Guy turned, in part to keep his eye on her.

"A shame?" He snorted with laughter. "I got better than I deserved."

"You're damn straight y'did."

Her senses are keyed to every inch of his presence. The way the shadows shift, the sound, the silence — watching him even while her back is turned, ready to draw on him if he so much as breathes in a way she doesn't like.

"I know there's other threats in Nottin'ham. But none of 'em set fire t'my friend's house, or stand by while she's treated the way she is."

She turns, fixing her glare on him.

"What sorta man threatens a Lady in one breath, an' claims he'd still marry her in another?"

It's perhaps lucky that Guy does not breath then.

"I may have burnt down her home, but you're mistaken if you think I stood by and did nothing - though I take it you've heard all this from Marian?"

The question is half-accusation and half-statement. Kate could only really have been told any of this by Marian - Guy had not seen any other from their shared world for months before he died and not at all since.

"A lot went on she didn't know about - though I'm sure there was enough that she knew that she wasn't supposed to."

Guy smirked at her glare. "Once again, I was never the only threat in Nottingham. Do you really think the Sheriff wouldn't have left Marian to rot in a cell, or worse, without anyone to make him decide otherwise?"

She barks a laugh, sharp and high enough to startle one of the horses.

"What good's savin' her from a cell when y'take away her home? You're jus' esteemin' one cell t'be greater than another."

She looks at him, seconds stretching without her notice. She doesn't acknowledge his question, but his smirk pulls a scoff from her lips, face wrinkling in disgust.

"D'you honestly think y'deserve forgiveness?"

"It may be a cage, but at least it's a cage she has the ability to escape from." Though he had not know the extent of it at the time.

Briefly, he wonders whether she would have had less faith in him if she had been trapped in a cell and if that might have saved her in the end.

Too late for that now though.

"Forgiveness?" He snorted with a stifled laugh. "I expect the Door to open on the fiery pit when it arrives - it's what I had thought to see long before now."

She shuts her mouth. Slowly. Lady Marian isn't exactly forthcoming when it comes to sharing the details of her life in Nottingham, but Kate knows enough to find Guy repulsive. It's just that she wasn't expecting him to say these sorts of things.

She wouldn't mind hitting him a few more times, but he succeeds in quieting her long enough to think.

"Y'knew, then? That she could escape, if she wanted to?"

Edited 2012-05-16 23:46 (UTC)

"Not at first," he admitted. "Later, I had some suspicions."

Her father had been the Sheriff at one time though.

"She's lived there before, things happened that I couldn't quite explain without Marian being able to escape..."

Guy shrugged.

"...but I was always a little blind when it came to Marian. Later, after other things happened, I knew."

After he found out that she was the Nightwatchman.

"Looking back...well. It's always clearer."

It doesn't make a lick of difference, then. Looking back, things are always clearer. He did what he did with little excuse in Kate's mind.

"You regret it, then?"

Still, she has to ask.

"The things y'did to her?"

"Yes."

He sighed.

"If I had not come into her life, she would have..." Guy does not finish that particular sentence. He will not, unless Marian hears it first.

"I regret a lot of things, but most of all the things I did to her."

She narrows her eyes.

He has a lot to answer for, as far as Kate's concerned. But remarks that trail off like that hardly lead where you expect them to, in her experience. It makes her wary.

"Y'should."

Her voice is quiet, still. Harsh. As unforgiving as the sun-baked desert to a new sprout.

"She deserved better."

Guy's jaw clenches at the tense of Kate's last words. The woman cannot know, but it still hits too close to home.

He is silent for a long while.

And then.

"Yes."

Well, goddammit all to hell.

Kate was kind of looking forward to getting a few more shots in, but now he's gone and taken all the fun out of it.

She lets out a slow breath, lowering her angry eyes.

"You're from her future, then?"

He shrugged slightly. "As she is from my past."

Not that it really did much good, in the grand scheme of things.

"Does she know?"

That he's here?

That he visits her stallion?

"That you're dead?"

"Yes," he answered both. Mostly. "Well."

Guy shifted from one foot to lean on the other.

"She knows that I am dead," he continued. "Though I suspect only because she has physical proof of that."

The memory-sensation of her hand pressed against his chest where his heart used to beat still burns with the fire and warmth of her vitality.

"The rest...I do not think she is convinced of."

He can't blame her though. They have never really believed each other's word. They have never really spoken much truth to each other.

"Physical proof?"

Her anger is melting into wariness.

Lawmen are all the same. They get a taste for power, think they can do whatever they like, and have the gall to be surprised when folk don't take them at their word.

"What is it she needs convincin' of? That you're sorry?"

She scoffs.