"Outlawed"; an Old Love

I have always had a love for Robin Hood. Something about rogues always attract me, like flies to a rotten...peach. Yeah, gross, sorry about that. Anyways, rogues. I love them. Especially when they are the heroes, or help the heroes somehow. From Axel in Kingdom Hearts, to Jet the Hawk and Shadow from Sonic the Hedgehog, to Scipio the Thief Lord, they're all on my fan list.

So that's how Outlawed came about. It's not even really a work in progress; I haven't planned it out or anything. I've just been messing around with beginnings and different ways to tell the story of Robin Hood. In one version, I made the situation more personal to Marian and more desperate for Robin. In the second I went with a darker feel, with Robin being a fear-striking symbol to the people of Nottingham—one that Marian is completely terrified by.


BEGINNING 1:


CHAPTER 1

        He sat amongst the brambles and boughs of an old oak near his camp, drawing his blade over a chunk of wood. The sky was gray, signaling the sunrise was soon to come. His cloak provided some cushion from the rough bark, and even though darkness still prevailed he kept his hood drawn over his face. There was some comfort in it—as if wearing it made him a new person, an outlaw named Hood, when without it he was nothing but a young man with blood on his hands called Robin.
        He peered up through the leaves, pausing in his whittling to listen to the deep, heavy breathing of his comrades. Little John, Will Scarlet, and Mitch, all thieves or murderers of some kind, slept beneath him. For the one hundredth time, Robin wondered what on earth he was doing here, in Sherwood forest, with a giant, his best friend, and a boy not even old enough to grow hair on his face. What did he hope to accomplish with these three outcasts?
        Provide safety, Robin argued with himself, pulling the knife across the surface of the wood with sudden violence. We are outcasts. Outcasts stay together. His gaze drifted down at the young men below him. Besides...where would they be without me? Without each other?
        A sudden grisly image of nine-year-old Mitch, accused of pickpocketing and ‘murder’, hanging by his neck on a loop of rope made him shudder and slit his thumb with his carving knife. He rubbed the blood between his fingers with a sigh. That’s why I am here. He glanced up at the sky again; the sun was rising. Pursing his lips with a renewed sense of calm, he began to whistle the wandering tune of a morning songbird, carving out chunks of wood as his desired image slowly came to shape.

* * * * *

        Marian stared out of her window at the sunny gardens of her father’s mansion, face drawn with worry, confusion, and sorrow. Bags and chests of her belongings still sat in piles in her room from her summer-long trip—a trip she had spent walking the edges of forests and wishing she were back home in Nottingham with Robin.
        They had been friends for as long as she could remember; her first memory was one of a small, tousle-headed boy with bright hazel eyes, almost yellow in color, grinning at her from a freckled face. They had grown apart when Robin’s mother died, then his father, but she remembered him and visited him when she could, about once or twice a month. She had left for vacation three months ago with a goodbye she remembered all too well; Robin had been working on his garden, soaked in sweat and grimier than reasonable, but Marian still insisted on hugging him goodbye, and her father had been angry when he’d seen her filthy dress.
        That was three months ago. Three months ago, when Robin was a simple farm-boy with a knack for crafting bows that bent strong and arrows that flew straight, whom she knew better as a boy than a man. Now his name was plastered on every corner, along with the words ‘WANTED’ and ‘REWARD’.
        How could so much change in just three months? Marian thought, her fist on the windowsill. She could glean from no one what Robin had done to be outlawed...or wether it was a mistake or intentional. Robin had always been the brooding type, better accustomed to trees and wildlife than people. But would he really steal from someone, or even...kill a man?
        She shuddered and stood. What reason would he have for doing so? She sighed. There were too many questions...and she couldn’t find him. Anywhere.

BEGINNING 2:

PROLOGUE

        The rain pounded down, and he lifted his face to it, letting it cleanse his dirty skin and filter between his lips. Wiping his mouth with the back of his long, careful-fingered hand, he shivered and pulled his dark hood over his head. The house sat on a hill just near Nottingham, where the sheriff and lord, Roger de Laci, lived with his niece and countless guards and servants. It would be difficult to infiltrate the house and find his men, but there was no other choice.
        Even so, he knew he was waltzing into a trap. The sheriff had captured his right-hand man and a few others not to kill them, but to draw his real victim into his clutches. The sheriff knew that he would come looking for them. Because outlaws always stayed together.
        He frowned, the edges of his thin, poised lips turning down. He reached and took an arrow from the quiver on his back and set it on the string of his longbow. Then, lifting his face to the sky and closing his eyes, he set his teeth a released his most ear-piercing hawkish whistle.
        The pad of silent feet followed his call, and he smirked into the lightning that cut the sky.


CHAPTER 1

        Marian awoke.
        It wasn’t with a start, or a cry, or even a yawn. She just awoke, as if she had been awake all along and had just now realized it. It was the kind of awakening that you knew something was wrong, but couldn’t place what it could be.
        She rolled over, trying to ignore the feeling and go back to sleep. But something tugged at her heart and told her to move. Fast.
        She sat up and glanced around, suddenly feeling watched. Something moved in the corner, and she peered that way, pulling the blankets up over her chest. “Is someone there?” she whispered. “Susie?”
        Silence.
        She carefully moved her legs around the side of the bed and stood, taking her nightcoat from the stand nearby. Slipping it on, she stepped around the room, searching for the source of unease. But she found nothing.
        I must be out of my mind, Marian growled to herself. The middle of the night and I cannot even lie down and rest.
        She spun around, frustrated at herself, and was just about to climb back into bed when suddenly a shriek caused her to stiffen every limb. It came from down the hall, towards the slave’s quarters.
        Gasping, she tore out of bed and rushed to the door, lifting a lantern and lighting it before scrambling into the hall. “Susie?” she called. “Uncle?!”

SO, WHICH ONE DO YOU LIKE BEST? WHY DO YOU LIKE IT?