...because I could not stop for death - ronance

chapter 3

July 20, 1424

Château de Blois, France

            Robin often wonders if dying is painful.

            Pain is a feeling they are well acquainted with. Robin fights often, whether it be in gladiator pits, wars or simply bar brawls, and they find that while they have been injured many times, they have never actually died.

            Robin wonders if dying is painful, or if it is more like a dream one slips into as one’s soul passes from this world to the next.

            Then Robin laughs at them self. Robin doesn’t have a soul. Perhaps mortals do, their life like a burning candle that flares and then dies in a matter of seconds, but an immortal? They can’t. They are privileged with the ability to experience every aspect of life on Earth, but the price is that there is no life after.

            All the same, Robin sometimes wishes they could die. Just so they could know whether or not it was painful.

            The third time Robin sees her, it isn’t chance. No, the third time they see her, Robin is brought to her.

            Robin is living in a small cottage in the forests of France when a party of royal guards rides up to meet them. Robin sets down the ax they were using to chop wood, but keeps it at a close distance in case they need to fight their way out (it wouldn’t be the first time a situation had turned on them).

            “Are you the hunter, Romy?” one of the guards asks, his armor clinking as he looks around, making sure no one else is in the clearing.

            “Aye, that is what I am called.”

            “The people in the village say that you tend to their sick.”

Robin shrugs. “When they are brave enough to bring them to me.” The people of the village thought them to be a witch and they rarely made any attempt to approach Robin. However, Robin did get the occasional desperate mother with a sick child or hysterical daughter with a dying father. Sometimes, Robin even gets children and those are by far their favorite. They are the only ones who aren’t terrified of Robin.

            One of the guards jumps off of his horse and approaches the immortal, grasping the beast’s reigns tight in his hand. “They say that you ease the passing of the dying.”

            “I am a hunter,” Robin says simply. “I know the way to calm a beast before it dies, to spare it most of the pain that would otherwise be inflicted.” Robin's eyes dart to each of the guards before they continue, “Humans and beasts are surprisingly similar.”

            There is silence for a moment, then the lead guard tilts his head and says, “Seize her.”

            Four guards immediately step off their horses and move towards them, but all freeze when Robin's hand wraps around the handle of their axe and they swing it up to rest on their shoulder. Robin slowly studies each of the men before them before saying, “I think that you had better tell me what’s going on. I’d hate to harm any of you…brave soldiers.”

            There is silence. Then the same guard, sitting high on his horse, seems to slump a little in his saddle and says in a soft voice, “The queen is dying.”