Robyn Hood ; Queen of Thieves

Chapter 1 ; Roseline

It was bright. So bright it stung her eyes and hurt her head. Or perhaps it was the water stinging her eyes and the stone floor of the river than did all that.

She was being tossed around, her limbs twisted violently behind her back and along her side. The light vanished and something rough, wood, more stone, she didn't know, smashed into her back. What little air was left was forced out of her chest, making way for water to invade her mouth and nose.

Fire flickered in front of her face when another blow sent her hurling upwards, towards the surface. Her hair. Fitting, for a Rose.

Rosaline fought against the current, tried to make her limbs obey her to no avail. With the loss of her last breath the break in the way, so close and so far, was a torturous promise of life that her thick skirts were ripping away from her.

Her dress weighted her down, soaked through, making it impossible to fight back as it tangled with her legs until they wouldn't move.

Another flip, another blow to her brow and she was no longer sure if the red was her hair or her blood.

The light of the surface was turning hazy and dark. Blackness crept into the edges of Rosaline's vision. Her chest was screaming, her nose and throat burned for air that she could not give them.

Rosaline was starting to lose the feeling in her finger tips. Her toes. Was her hand clenched into a fist? Did she have her thumb inside or outside? She coughed out water to bring more in, allowing a few bubbles to explode in front of her eyes.

Something sharp stuck her leg, ripped into her skirt and yanked so hard it snapped her neck around. Very far away she could hear a groan and a splash. The water around the girl surged until she found herself expelled, thrown out of the water in a great gushing wave until her body, weak from water and hunger, slapped wetly against stone.

Rosaline coughed. Vomited water and coughed again. Her eyes were glued shut with pain and tears that mingled with the water. Her throat was raw yet she hacked further, expelled more water. A puddle of it, warmed by her body spread out around her head.

She was too exhausted to feel disgust.

There was just enough room cleared inside of her chest to make way for air, blessed air that blasted painfully with the water she was still heaving out of her body. Her limbs would not lift to assist, her mind, traitorous as it was, tried to drag her into darkness.

Death or sleep she could not be sure.

She did not want to find out.

The girl struggled, fighting to move anything. An arm, a hand, even a finger. Her body was unresponsive.

Terror gripped hard at her heart, squeezing it with an icy grip. She couldn't die now. Not after all that had happened.

Her fate, in accordance with the priest, was a pyre. It seemed now that God had decided water would work just as well for a witch.

Rosaline could no longer tell if she was crying or just shuddering with expelling water and cold. At least her body moved some, even if it was not of her own accord.

Darkness pulled relentlessly at her mind, offering a horrible, frightening, comforting embrace. Just slip in and she wouldn't have to worry about the water or the fire or the lack of food in her belly anymore. Just relax...

Something small scuffed by her head. Near silent. When nothing else happened right away she was sure it had been her addled mind playing cruel tricks, tempting her to the outside world rather than the bliss of her inner shadowed sanctum.