Guy and Marian Acrostic Series: 2- "I is for Innocence"

TITLE: “I is for Innocence” (2nd in the Guy/Marian Acrostic Series)

FANDOM: BBC Robin Hood 2006

PAIRING: Guy/ Marian

AUTHOR: lexie aka lillianschild

RATING: PG

A/N: This is the second one-shot in the series and is set around the time of the opening scene of “Tattoo? What tattoo?”   I highly recommend reading the previous ficlet in the Series: "S is for Scars"

Special thanks to the lovely yelloweeee for her artwork.

I is for Innocence

No longer is the soul pure

Desperately seeking

Fervently searching for soul

Seeking warm sanctuary

Longing for answers

Shell of what was once living

Utter emptiness

Hiding from the sight of God

Yearning for a safe haven

Child of the shadows

Seeking ways out of darkness

Starving for the light

Innocence. A blessing easily tarnished by the cruel whims of fate and the imperfect nature of Man. A path I lost sight of twenty years ago and one I find myself wishing I could tread again whenever she breezes in or comes to me with a smile and a request my enslaved heart refuses to turn down.

For a short-lived and fragile moment I pretend the man who's standing at her door isn't the one whose cracked and blurry visage I see reflected in the water every morning. For a brief spell I can breathe, fill the cells of my fast decaying flesh with clean and pure oxygen, and cleanse my agonising soul of the acrid sulphuric fumes which surround me in the dungeons of a jailor whose claws grip me tight.

Innocence which sees beauty even in a soul tainted black such as mine and makes me believe in dreams I know myself to be unworthy of but that I still yearn to have and hold fast. I look up into the deep blue skies of the far away land which robbed me of a father and remember getting drown in her eyes. I tighten my grasp on the sword, tempted by the belief I see reflected in those pupils, and falter until the white tent comes into view and my eyes start burning again.

The redeeming path which has been beckoning to me like a mermaid in the middle of a raging storm gets suddenly swallowed by a big tidal wave, and I feel myself being inexorably pulled down. With each step taken against the blowing sand, which lashes against my temporarily deceptive Saracen black wrappings, I get closer to the blood-tainted land coveted by Christians, Muslims and Jews alike. With each step I get closer to the realisation of my long-standing plans to regain my birthright and further away from the land of hope and new life which cradled the innocent child whose birth, on a day just like today- twelve centuries ago- brought light to this world.

Innocence. The promise of salvation. A warm sanctuary for those seeking a way out of darkness. I part the tent fly while my co-conspirators silence the sentries protecting the man whose father mine served with honour. In the arms of Morpheus lies King Richard, the son of the monarch who turned a blind eye when his loyal knight died stripped of his lands, his title and his dignity. The blood of a king who died flanked by two sinners just like me would cleanse my tormented soul and give it rest, but the blood of this king would quench in part my thirst for revenge and put an end to the shame of living a life with a title that's just an empty shell, filling borrowed shoes on lands which still bear the name of the man whose adulterous love made orphans of Isabella and me.

I'm only a step away from plunging my sword into the palpitating heart of the lion which is sucking his kingdom and his people dry to fight an endless and bloody war on a distant and foreign land. And her visage suddenly visits me, a vision of purity calling to me, making my murderous hand tremble. I hesitate for a second time today and it's all it takes for the knight I stabbed on my way in to lunge at me and slash my upper arm with his sword.

Our eyes lock and I suddenly recognise in them the boy whose reckless showing-off almost ended my life on the noose. I fight my urge to laugh at the irony of fate and feel my blood boil at the thought of his premature return to England thanks to my blunder. The temptation to remove this roadblock on my way to property and marriage is really strong, but the thought of her ever finding it out stops me.

And I come back to her bearing a new scar, the physical reminder of a treason whose unveiling would kill in her that which was once mine too. This palpitating gash made by the same hand who robbed me of my heritage is hanging over me like the sword of Damocles; a blemish to be hidden from both the unscrupulous man I've tied myself to and the only woman whose life I wish to bind with my own for all time.

I come back to her like a pilgrim on his way to Jerusalem, starving for the light.

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A/N: The extract of poetry at the beginning belongs to “Metamorphosis” by ChandaPanda and Tim Drew .

Coming next: “R is for Return”