Welcome

[Jacqueline Fletcher]

Jacqueline Fletcher loved people. She loved to hear the clamor of voices, loved being jostled and jolted and kicked out of the way. She loved arguments, sharing jokes, visiting people (and leaving again). However, there were times that even she had to be alone. Even she needed to have the chance to hide somewhere and yell and scream without having to worry about insulting anyone. If she had a problem, she needed to be alone to talk it out to herself. She couldn't talk about certain problems to anybody, even Marian.

That was why she was now in one of the caves in the Sherwood Forest, pacing back and forth in one of the larger caverns. She'd been down here for nearly three hours, moving about silently, sometimes pacing, sometimes just sitting on a large slab. Once in a while, she would lean over the ledge to try and figure out exactly how deep the fall would be if she should drop a pebble into the deep lake below.

Today, she truly did have troubles. It wasn't that Frederick today, no -- she had recently noticed how the others were refusing to allow her to help them. She wasn't mad at them. She understood why they said such things. She did have a problem with saying the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was always a problem...it always got her into trouble. A lot of trouble. The last time, she'd nearly gotten arrested. She wasn't so sure that being an outlaw was such a good idea anymore. After all, it was like saying the grass was greener on the other side of the fence; when she was in the abbey, she'd always wanted out, but now that she was out, she found herself longing occasionally to be back in again. It was safe in there. She wouldn't have to deal with the Sheriff, except during dances and balls; she wouldn't have to deal with Frederick Clarke. And most of all, she wouldn't have to deal with being lost in a cave with nobody knowing where she was. A right scandal, that's what it was.

Jackie sat down on her platform again with a sigh. "This is absolutely, positively ridiculous," she announced to the roof of the cavern; she could hear it echoing loudly, and decided that now would be a good time to lower her voice, before the ceiling collapsed on her.

[Adam Thatcher]

It was logical. It was beyond logical, it was sensible, no, more than that, downright necessary for Adam to visit the caves. After all, they were an important storage space, and even a makeshift home in the weather got really foul or the Sheriff got unpleasantly close to the real camp. So what if it was the middle of summer, and there wasn’t a chance the outlaws would need to visit them before November, since the grain was being stored near Hollow Tree and the gold was stashed miles away in Gold Copse? It was important for Adam, as the newest member, to familiarise himself with the area, so that if they did need to escape to the caves in a hurry, Adam would know the way himself, and not be tied to Robin’s apron strings (now, there was an odd mental image.) it was all perfectly logical... No, no, no. It was hopeless. He couldn’t hide his real reasons from his own mind. Adam might have been trying hard to justify his visit to the caves, but he knew why he was doing it. He was Marian-spotting.

Had others known what he was doing, and perhaps more importantly, what he called it, they might have been worried for Adam’s health. After all, those showing an interest in Lady Marian other than Robin Hood had been known to meet unpleasantness now and again. But for Adam, interest was where it began and ended. There was nothing romantic in it, for all that she was undeniably beautiful. Marian was a friend, yes, a friend he wanted to understand and know better – if she wasn’t going to tell him all about herself, a choice that was wise and perfectly understandable to the outlaw, then he would have to find out himself. Much had been rather forthcoming, until Robin had strolled into camp, and Djaq had told him a thing or two, though it had been hard not to reveal he knew the woman, and already Adam felt he knew Marian a little better.

There was a second, more selfish reason for his exploits too. For all that he wanted to understand Marian better as a person through her past, as she had wanted to understand him when they had met, Adam also crucially wanted to know the story. Something told him that Lady Marian was more than a footnote to the legend of Robin Hood, a great and powerful tale in her own right even, if told well and convincingly. The best way to create a story was to be there, of course, but close to that was reconstruction and accuracy. Thus Adam was approaching the caves, which, according to Djaq, were the location of the most compelling part of the tale yet. It felt strange, certainly, to simply visit the place where the action had happened, but Adam supposed there was little difference between what he was doing and a pilgrimage to a shrine, excepting that he did not worship Marian, only enjoyed her company.

As soon as he was a few feet inside the looming dark mouth of one of the caverns, the sound of a voice caught his ears. Stumbling in the dark, Adam found himself moving towards it instinctively as a replacement for the light, and even when his eyes adjusted quickly, as any good outlaws’ should, he still followed the voice, vaguely concerned and amused by the irritation the tone of voice held, despite the echoes that surrounded him. It was undoubtedly a girl, though he wondered what one could be doing so deep inside the caves. Belatedly Adam realised he himself did not exactly know the way out, but he trusted himself enough to continue onwards instead of panicking and trying to find the exit at once.

As the last pronouncement reached his ears, Adam found the tunnel widening into a seemingly vast cavern with a dim, moving light, as if what little there was came from a reflection. It was oddly soothing, and contrasted heavily with the annoyed words that reached Adam and made his lips quirk upwards. He could not make out the shape at the centre as more than a blur thanks to the light, but he remained where he was, in case he startled her, or had to run from an enemy. He was overly cautious, he knew, but then Nottingham was an appropriate place for caution. “What exactly would be the matter? More importantly, what exactly is ridiculous? So ridiculous, indeed, that you burrow into the ground?”

[Jacqueline Fletcher]

Jackie stood again, her hands firmly clasping behind her back as she began pacing the cavern again. Her eyes had long ago adjusted to the dark; in fact, if she squinted, she could see her fingers wiggling away in front of her face! Oh, yeah, how exciting. She sighed heavily as she plopped back on her platform, resting her chin in her palms, her elbows digging into her knees. Who would've known that it was so boring in a deep, dark, mysterious cave? She should've remembered to bring a torch or something; now that would have made the experience more invigorating. The light from a glowing flame flickering eerily off the glistening walls, a steady drip, drip, drip that echoed spookily around, that feeling that somebody else is in the cave, just following her, step by step...ah, yes, that would make this adventure a lot more adventurous.

Unfortunately, this wasn't an adventure, she didn't have a torch, she had been lost in a cave for several hours, and she was sitting about three feet away from certain doom. How utterly boring. Why did she always get these utterly boring urges? She could have been doing something exciting right about now! Such as...hmm...mending split breeches. Or trying to learn how to shoot a bow. ...well, compared to the other options, sitting alone in a cave was actually a lot more thrilling than she'd thought. Especially if she got just a teeeeeeny bit closer to the edge of that ledge...maybe she could make a game out of it! She could call it 'see how close you get to certain doom before you are actually doomed'. Yeah, that rang nicely. It would give her something to do while she waited for a rescue, or perhaps for starvation to set in.

Jackie lifted her head to squint (and hopefully see the ceiling for once), then froze. She could very distinctly hear footsteps, thudding very loudly and echoing spookily in the large caves. If the echoes were any indication (and since they were echoes, they weren't), then the footsteps were getting closer. Closer and closer, inch by inch, step by step...She shivered, hugging herself and staring fiercely at what she hoped was the entrance to the cavern. Oh, there was no doubt about it. Someone was coming, and that someone should arrive in three...two...one...

“What exactly would be the matter? More importantly, what exactly is ridiculous? So ridiculous, indeed, that you burrow into the ground?"

...well, so much for a good scare. Jackie glared in the direction of the voice. "That is not funny. How dare you ruin what might have been a really good scare! If I knew where you were, I would knock you into the middle of next week. And I did not burrow undergro – " The realization that she was, indeed, underground struck her midsentence, and she ended it gracefully with – "...oh." Now this was embarrassing. Here she was, all alone with what could only be a man, in a cave where nobody knew where she was, and her only escape was to jump over the edge of the cliff here. Okay, maybe it was more than embarrassing – such as dangerous, for example – but right now, her mind was mostly fixated on 'embarrassing' and how hot and red her face was getting.

Besides, how could she know that this...this...person was dangerous? For all she knew, he could be a hapless wanderer who had gotten lost (like herself). ...then again, he could also be one of the Sheriff's men who had tailed her and, having determined that she was successfully lost, was about to take her prisoner and do whatever it was the Sheriff did with prisoners (she didn't know; she'd never been a prisoner. She had only been a captive, which was something entirely different). Well, there was one way to find out. She stood, moving toward the source of the voice, her hands held out and groping madly in the darkness. "Who are you? What do you want? If you're one of the Sheriff's men, I warn you, I won't hesitate to dump you over that cliff and watch you drown." Yeah, pretend she could see better than he could. Should get him nervous, right? ...yeah, whatever. Who was she kidding?