my fic-a-versary
is tomorrow.
happy 3 years of still being alive and writing on the interwebs!
robinhoodforever.
Maura’s Guide to Fanfiction
I first stumbled my way into fanfiction when I was home from college in December 2007, sick, tired, and almost-inert. My life was at a standstill and youtube only provided so much relief from boredom. The fan-written stories I found in the beginning unintentionally made me laugh so hard I cried. I thought it was a joke of our modern era, like the degradation of language into acronyms. Then I wrote a fic, received a positive review, and a whole new world opened up.
There are many sites that provide a forum for fanfiction. Some are tailored to certain fandoms like the brand new My Vamp Fiction; some have grown out of other internet enterprises like Live Journal. The site I have been using since 2007 is Fanfiction.net. They have categories for anything imaginable. Any movie, television show, book, graphic novel, or cultural phenomenon can spawn fanfiction, including cross-overs between works, just as any person with a word processor can make themselves an author, develop a following, connect with other writers, and find friends. It is endlessly entertaining.
The majority of people I have encountered in my experience with fanfiction have been female, adolescents to middle-aged women, from every corner of the globe. Since they added a function on Fanfiction.net to track Reader Traffic, I learned that my stories have an audience in 57 countries. It makes a person feel significant. Readers are as active and vocal as the writers themselves. In fact, many people prefer to be spectators to the art rather than artists themselves and they make the genre thrive. Before long, even the shyest reader becomes swept up in the slang and idioms of seasoned fanfiction enthusiasts. It is contagious. Occasionally these readers will take a tentative step and publish a fic. A flurry of responses will follow and they will probably never look back. It is rewarding to watch new writers find their voice.
Aside from the wonderful boost of self-esteem that comes from receiving feedback on a creative effort, there is one other undeniable reason to love this new medium. There are stories out there better than the original works. Time and again I find gifted writers steering fics that top 80,000 words, with hundreds of reviews, across months and months like it’s no small thing. Were the world ruled by true meritocracy, these writers would be plucked out of obscurity and paid handsome sums. Instead they play with copyrighted characters and settings in wholly original ways that can only be enjoyed via computer screen. While the people involved in the official source material (actors, writers, producers) are often astronomically popular and the fodder of trashy checkout-aisle magazines, the people writing fanfiction are nearly anonymous. Most are known simply by their pen names. It takes establishing a closer relationship, either through beta-reading (editing) or forum message threads, before real names, locations, and life stories are revealed. Since I created my own website for my writing and decided I was no longer afraid to have my name associated with my literary ramblings, I have been much more open with other writers and readers. The result is a barrage of lovely, amusing warmth from women (and a few guys) who are just trying to take a break from working hard, going to school, raising families, paying bills, and putting on a happy face. Even the most engaging best-seller on the most prominent table in a bookstore can’t match that.
My hope is that soon a few great authors from Fanfiction.net and other sites will find in their creative pursuits a source of income and a source of peace. With the proliferation of published works on Mr. Darcy and the well-established line of Star Wars novelizations, fanfiction has already broached an opening in the world outside the internet. It shouldn’t be hard to find a way to profit from what is already popular. So, a memo to all television show producers, novelists, and screenwriters: start reading! People are doing your job better than you are. And we just might take over.
Face Lift!
How do you like the new look of Read Maura??
In other news, a friend said the other night that they thought the show ‘True Blood’ had jumped the shark. People, let’s not bandy around that phrase. We need to save it for those television experiences that are so absurd and so desperate that they would be similar to watching the Fonz water ski over a shark. Now, ‘Robin Hood’ jumped the shark. They killed off all major characters.
‘True Blood’ on the other hand is still awesome and Alexander Skarsgard is super dreamy. So leave it alone.
The death of Robin Hood
Okay, okay, I know I said my Robin Hood days were over. But the thing you have to understand about me is that I’m in a constant state of second-guessing.
I just couldn’t put my fandom to rest. My curiosity got the better of me and I trotted over to youtube to see how they killed off Robin like they had announced they would do way back last spring. I didn’t care about knowing anything that happened in series 3. I didn’t want to know any of the context. I simply wanted to see the death scene.
And…it was…AWESOME.
Due to a “poisoned stab wound” (god I could SO write a fic about that) Robin says his goodbyes (like I even care, only two of the original gang members are there) and staggers out of view to die “alone.” Then Marian appears like Arwen and says the line: “The greatest adventure is yet to come.” They kiss and say some lovely but corny things to each other, there’s a shot of Robin’s hand reaching out into nowhere, and he slumps over and dies.
Now, here’s why it was awesome (if you can’t already tell):
First, I have never before experienced a show (besides my mom’s fave soap Guiding Light) in which a deceased character returned for a cameo. I thought there was some unspoken rule among actors that when you’re dead, you’re done. You’re required to move on. BUT apparently there is a loophole. When your character has been wrongfully and stupidly and absolutely unnecessarily liquidated to the dismay of every single viewer and even people who don’t watch the show but are familiar with the myth it is based on—well, then, they PLEAD you to take thirty seconds out of your day, put on a ghostly outfit, and give us the tear-jerk ending we all need.
Second, the spiritual overtones of life after death being better than life on earth really take the show’s message to a new level. Screw you, existentialists. I’m signing up for this philosophy. You get to have quote-unquote adventures with the person you loved most but lost? Um, why would I want to survive that poisoned stab wound? Seriously.
Third, Marian and Robin kiss! Something they did like a grand total of five times when they were alive and together.
Sigh. The show went a little berserk, but it’s okay now because all my favorite characters are dead (Allan got shot in the back with a bunch of arrows). And there’s something strangely peaceful about that. I mean, normally when a show goes off the air (I’m thinking Dawson’s Creek here) you get a last snapshot of a happy denouement. But if you really think about it, it’s pretty slim chances that those people who spent six seasons in angst over their relationships are actually gonna live happily ever after. If they all die, though, well then you know for certain, everyone is just fine. It’s a shiny, pretty dream from here on out.
There was a reason why Robin Hood was gone
ONE-SHOT I wrote on November 11, 2008.
Original A/N: With a line from one of my favorite authors on here as an epigraph, I return to you after quite a time away. This one-shot has been a long time coming.
“One true love for your whole life is all very well for pigeons and dead heroes, but the rest of us aren’t quite so stubborn”
– Scarborough Fair, Biancaneve
It was an odd confusion of fates that a miller’s daughter found herself a member of Robin Hood’s gang without ever having met Robin Hood. Mary Ann had seen him from afar, when her father was still alive, but since her flight into Sherwood and her accidental happening upon the camp-that-could-not-be-found, the namesake and leader of her friends was strangely absent. She dared not ask, for no one brought it up. Every night they ended their meal with a resounding cheer to the effect of “We are Robin Hood!” Mary Ann found it an uplifting affirmation of everything they fought for and wondered if perhaps she might one day be allowed to say it in the presence of the man who started it all. For the rest of the gang, it was a ritual cloaked in superstition. In the winter months, Allan would shout instead, to his own amusement, “We are bloody cold!” No one noticed that he whispered the real words under his breath, as if he were afraid not to say them. Without fail, they all repeated the phrase every night because every night, though Mary Ann could not have known this, they hoped Robin would hear them call his name and return. Much was the most steadfast in the practice, even starting each day with a little prayer that sounded more like a toast. He held out that Robin would surprise them all and come back unannounced when they least expected it. Until then, he would send a message on the air, a sigh of love and longing to be buffeted by the wind and carried to his wandering master’s broken heart.
Outside of Sherwood, no one had any suspicions that Robin Hood was not in Nottinghamshire. Even the Sheriff was sure the outlaw was still disrupting his affairs as always. He counted the fact that he had not actually seen him as a victory on his part.
Mary Ann liked to imagine that it was just a game. She looked expectantly behind every tree for the green-clad, weary rogue to appear with a triumphant tale of a great adventure. She soon learned that there was nothing behind the trees but more trees.
When she had been with the gang almost a year, when they had carried on without Robin Hood for almost a year, Mary Ann could quiet her curiosity no longer. She desired an explanation. Truly, where was he?
She pulled Much aside. He started sobbing at her question.
Will looked up from his work.
“What did you do to him?” he asked.
“Nothing!” she replied hastily, not wanting to involve anyone else in what was obviously her mistake.
“Much, don’t cry,” Djaq tried to comfort him.
He remembered those words said by another and cried even more.
Allan and John hurried over, having heard the commotion.
“Did she hit him?” Allan wondered.
“What happened?” John demanded.
“Really,” Will said again, “What did you do?”
“I just asked him a question,” Mary Ann finally admitted.
In their own way, they all understood what the offensive question had been.
Little John put his hand on Much’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, mate,” Allan said with uncharacteristic feeling.
Much sniffled and wiped his eyes.
“It’s all over,” he said. “I’m better, see?”
He smiled, but tears were still falling.
Will shook his head and grabbed Mary Ann by the arm, leading her away from the group.
“That was a really thoughtless thing to do,” he told her.
“I didn’t know,” she blurted.
They stood in silence as Will gave her a grave look.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she said softly.
“What?”
“Robin. He’s. . .dead.”
“Does it matter if he is?” Will responded quickly. “Does it change anything?”
She hesitated.
“No. I guess, it doesn’t make any difference,” she said.
“So don’t bring it up again,” Will snapped.
Mary Ann returned to the rest of the gang. No one said another word to her. She went to sleep in poor spirits.
Whispering in the next bed over, Djaq asked Will what he had told her.
“What she needed to hear,” he replied.
There was no more mention of it. Soon they celebrated the anniversary of Mary Ann’s joining the gang. The upsetting incident was all but forgotten. Much had made cake and everyone cheered their most recent recruit.
“Shall I make a toast?” she suggested.
They raised their cups.
“We!” she began. “Are Robin—“
She stood with her mouth open, the next word silenced in awe.
“Hood!” Much finished, not noticing the change on everyone’s faces.
“Don’t stop short on my account,” a familiar voice said.
Much spun on his heel.
“Master!” he exclaimed. “I knew you’d come back. I just knew it!”
“Much, shhh,” he heard as if it came from the sky.
He blinked.
The forest was dark and he was alone. Mary Ann was leaning over him.
“Where did he go?” Much asked, desperately.
“Shhh, you were having a nightmare.”
“It wasn’t a nightmare!” he countered. “It was wonderful! It was—it was—“
He looked around him.
“It wasn’t real,” she whispered.
Much frowned.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” Mary Ann took a chance saying. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
Much turned away from her and fluffed his pillow.
“It’s fine,” he mumbled.
Mary Ann returned to her bed, pulled the covers over head, and wept silently. If Robin really was dead, she thought, then why did everyone pretend like he was going to come back? Why would they not tell her what happened? Something must have happened. There was a reason why Robin Hood was gone. There was a reason why they pretended.
The day of her anniversary did come. And Much did make a cake. And as Mary Ann raised her cup with the rest of them, she reflected on that dark secret at the heart of the whole Robin Hood fiction as she knew it.
Dead or alive, he was only a story.
Darkness
ONE-SHOT I wrote on December 5, 2008.
Original A/N: This weekend marks one year since I posted my first story. And to celebrate, I have this. . .not celebratory at all and actually mostly depressing and somewhat confusing piece of. . . fiction.
She died?
And came back from the dead!
Sometimes I go to sleep thinking about it and my dreams find a way of changing things. Sometimes I go to sleep. . .
“Master! The alarm!”
“Hm? Where’s my bow?”
“Right in front of you! Come on!”
She said something to me one night. I remember it.
“Robin. . .”
I make her voice say it again and again.
“Robin, do you know what I thought?”
Tell me.
“I have died death.”
I have died death.
“This is an ambush!”
“No! No, no, you see. I am a friend of Robin Hood’s!”
Robin. Robin.
“Robin? Do you know him?”
“I’ve never seen him before in my life. Take his money. And his clothes. And his horse. Take everything from him.”
“Are, uh, are you sure?”
“Didn’t I just say it?”
When I yell, they listen.
When I yell, it’s quiet.
I have died death.
Yes, you have my love. Many times over. Many many times. Over and over.
“Death is dead for me.”
“What you mean is you’re invincible?”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
Not what you meant.
I know.
“When you close your eyes and never hope to open them again. . .”
“What shall we do with his clothes?”
“Hm?”
“His clothes.”
“Throw them on the fire.”
“Shouldn’t we give them to someone who needs them?”
“. . . you no longer need to wonder about that darkness.”
But I still wonder.
I close my eyes.
The cave.
I wonder.
The desert.
I wonder.
You no longer need to wonder.
About that darkness.
Sometimes I go to sleep.
Swallow a draught.
And go to sleep.
So I can feel that darkness too.
And be with you.
“Master, how can you be sleeping already? It’s still light out!”
Still light.
Light out.
Still.
Still . . .
RIP, Robin Hood.
All right. Thanks to a wonderful youtube user, I was able to watch, or more accurately, I was able to force myself to watch the first episode of series 3. My complaints are many.
First: WHO THE EFF IS WORKING CONTINUITY ON THAT SHOW???? Could no one keep track of the props from the previous season? Why was “Marian’s Ring” completely different in every way to either the original engagement ring or the ring Robin gives her when she dies?? Like, did they honestly think they could pawn off this fake on us? Are we really gonna care if Robin buries it symbolically at the end of the episode if it HAS NO SIGNIFICANCE? And wow, 45 minutes was certainly enough time for someone to grieve over the loss of their canonical love. Okay, yup, cried it out, let’s move on. And the fans–you traitors!! How many of you posted on those youtube videos about how excited you are for these new characters? Will, Djaq, and Marian are gone. If this was an American show, THEY WOULD NOT GET AWAY WITH writing off three major characters after only 26 episodes. That’s something that happens in like the 8th season. And how could you want Robin to fall in love with someone else? He has to be all shattered and destroyed!!
Anyways, just to prove that this is SO not the direction I wanted the show to go in, I’ve posted on the RH Fanfiction page the last two one-shots I wrote back in December. Consider it my swan song.
Aw, I hate goodbyes…
but I think I might have to say one to the BBC Robin Hood series. It returns on March 28. I’ll actually be in England a couple weeks later and might catch an episode, but will I want to? From what I’ve read it sounds like it’s going to be horrible. New characters? How about you just not kill the ones you already had. I owe the show a weird debt of gratitude, but it doesn’t go so far as to make me want to watch rubbish.
College is no Sherwood Chapter 71.5
Marian was the only person on the road until she heard suspicious steps behind her. She ducked into someone’s driveway to let the person pass by. Peeking out from the bushes, she squinted to see who it was.
“That’s not a very good hiding place,” a familiar voice said.
“Robin, what are you doing?”
“What are you doing?”
She came back out onto the road.
“Walking home. Obviously.”
“Then that’s what I’m doing too.”
Marian sighed.
“I think you should go to Paris if you want to,” Robin said without preface.
“What?”
“The study abroad scholarship or whatever. You should do it.”
“Robin, I’m not gonna just pick up my life and move to Paris for a year.”
Robin was a little surprised.
“But I thought you wanted to.”
“Yeah, eventually. Which I would have told you if you hadn’t changed the subject at dinner.”
“What do you mean, ‘eventually’?”
“Like after I graduate,” she replied.
Robin smiled in relief.
“Happy?” she said.
“Very.”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
“I thought I was gonna lose you.”
“Then why did you tell me I should go?” Marian asked.
“I was trying to be brave and selfless?” he suggested.
“Doubtful.”
He sighed.
“Okay, truthfully, I was looking forward to leaving this place and going away with you.”
She gave him a long look but didn’t say anything.
They walked together in silence until Robin said, “You might want to change your status to international student since you’re living in Canada now.”
“What?”
“Your house is really far away.”
“Yeah yeah yeah,” Marian muttered.
“I don’t think I’m gonna make it back alive.”
“How good are you at climbing in windows then?”
“I’m an expert, duh. Why?”
“You’re spending the night.”
“But I don’t have the supplies for my evening beauty routine!” Robin whined jokingly.
“You can use Guy’s,” Marian replied.
“Can I also accidentally knock his toothbrush in the toilet?”
“Be my guest.”
“Sleepovers are so fun.”
Marian laughed and kissed Robin on the cheek.
What happened just before Chapter 65??
Marian tried to hurry as fast as she could out of the student health center after her appointment with the counselor, but she ran smack into Guy. It was the first time she’d seen him in weeks.
“Oh hi,” she said.
He smiled.
She found herself smiling back.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said.
She raised her eyebrow at his strange friendliness.
“Uh, yeah.”
“How’ve you been?” he asked.
“Okay,” she replied meekly.
“All right, well, see you around.”
He continued down the hallway to check in with the receptionist.
Marian stood for a moment to collect herself before leaving.
She stopped by the library to check her e-mail and opened this:
Great seeing you.
Wanna get lunch sometime?
–Guy
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Marian laughed at the unexpectedness of message. Guy was still a tool—he had a blackberry after all, despite no need for it. But he was being nice. And Marian had a hard time being mean to people who were trying to be nice. She always believed that there had to be something good about them if they could manage to show some kindness some of the time. Not like Robin, who could write people off with one look. He could redeem them too, but there had to be a stronger case.
Marian was in a forgiving mood and typed off a cheerful response to Guy.
College is no Sherwood BONUS Will/Djaq
Djaq knocked softly on Will’s door and entered right away without an answer, like always.
He was at his computer, working on something that looked complicated.
“Programming?” Djaq asked.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “It’s like building, but I can’t actually feel the things I’m working with. It sucks.”
He closed the laptop.
“But whatever. So, how was your day?”
Djaq rolled her eyes.
“Let me guess, Marian trouble?” Will said.
“She makes things so difficult sometimes.”
“You’re a good friend to her,” he commented.
Djaq shrugged it off.
“I’m just like any other friend.”
She jumped up onto his bed and kicked off her shoes.
“No, I mean, you listen but you don’t judge.”
“I judge,” Djaq countered.
“But you aren’t fake with her,” Will tried to explain. “You genuinely care about her.”
“Well, yeah. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to knock her on the side of the head sometimes.”
“You’re not giving yourself enough credit,” Will said, a little exasperated that Djaq always refused to acknowlege her outstanding qualities.
“I love her and I look out for her, what’s the big deal in that?” Djaq said.
“Just like you look out for the patients at the free clinic,” Will added, “and the new international students, and that transfer student down the hall for you.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, you’re wonderful and you don’t even know it.”
Djaq blushed.
“And I know you’re bashful about it, but you really shouldn’t be.”
He got up from the desk and sat on the bed next to her.
“You’re incredibly remarkable,” Will said, wrapping his arm around her.
“Remember what I said about mush? You’re making me uncomfortable.”
Will laughed.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re not comfortable with compliments and yet, you’re very comfortable with—“
“Don’t even,” she interrupted, eyeing him.
“I’m just saying.”
“Yeah, well…”
She trailed off as Will started kissing her neck.
College is no Sherwood: Super Quick Update or Ch 63.5
Robin walked briskly up to the table where Guy, Vasey, and now Allan were seated.
“Ladies,” he said.
“And what the hell do you want?” Guy responded.
“Oh, you know, I never got a chance to applaud your effort at the golf tournament. Did you make any good connections?”
Vasey looked disinterested and said, “We already have all the connections we need.”
“Well, it certainly is nice having the Provost’s personal number programmed into my phone now, I’ll tell you that.”
Guy gave Vasey a worried look.
Robin caught it and grinned.
“Yeah, so Allan,” he said turning to him. “Wanna grab a snack inside? You’ve still got a valid student card, right?”
“No, I’m good,” Allan said, with just enough defiance for Robin to detect.
Undeterred, Robin came back with, “Then let’s make plans for dinner.”
“Aw, a date!” Guy tried to tease, but Robin didn’t pay attention.
“Fine,” Allan agreed.
——-
Once they had gotten their food, without talking to each other, Robin and Allan sat at a table tucked away in the back of the dining hall.
Robin cut right to the chase, “Hanging out with Guy and Vasey now?”
“No offense, Rob, but you have no business telling me anything. I seem to recall you punching me out.”
“So, first you betray my friendship by making a move on Marian, and now you—“
“I what?” Allan interrupted. “I’ve gone over to the enemy camp? Grow up, man. Not everything on this campus is defined by you and what you want.”
“But have a little pride, Allan. You know what those guys are like. You know what they’ve done,” Robin said.
“Pride?” Allan repeated. “That’s rich.”
“So you really want to go down that road then?”
“As long as its not the road you and your high-mindedness are on, I’ll be perfectly content.”
“Then we’re done here.”
“It’s already over, dude.”
Robin got up, leaving his half-uneaten food.
Allan reached over and grabbed a carrot off his plate, muttering, “stupid idiot” under his breath.
Scars Revisited Part 2
Author’s Note: So, I was watching the “Farewell to Marian” thing on the last disc of the DVD set and I was pretty annoyed to hear that they killed her because they thought it would be really “interesting” to the story line. Like taking away the happy ending people expect is somehow fascinating. Or like they’re going to draw more viewers who are intrigued to see Robin without Marian. I would just like to go on record saying I hope their little plot-meddling plan fails miserably. There. Now, to cope, and because I promised to amend this to include Allan, I’m updating this one-shot.
For heroes there is no path of least resistance. Everything is a struggle, every outcome a near-end. They learn not to look for green pastures. Allan wouldn’t have recognized one, anyways, if he were standing in the middle of it. He had so long gotten used to the murkiness he lived in. Having been baptized in youth as a ne’er-do-well, he put his faith fully in the trinity of lie-cheat-steal. It was only recently that he realized he could actually do some good. But old habits, cultivated by new motives, are still old habits. The problem for him was every scrape he’d just barely gotten out of left a marked impression on him, until before he knew it, he had a real chip on his shoulder. Perfectly acceptable for heroes, but Allan wasn’t the hero, now was he? And that hurt most of all.
Every step he took in black leather took him farther from what he truly wanted, but he hardly understood that it was the source of his pain. It rather felt like a thorn, stuck under fabric from a brush in the woods, a reminder that he had once lived there with people who loved him. And while the thorn cut away in tiny, pricking repetition, Allan learned that heroes aren’t measured by the length of their story, but by how enduringly they accept each little scar.
All one had to do was watch Robin to learn how. After a wound too real to survive stole his Marian, Robin bled, openly, always, and never noticed. New scars intersected the old until none of them seemed important. Everyone in the gang had their own cuts to mend, but above all else, they were to hold vigil over Robin, to stop the blood, to remind him of what had value, to help him heal. Followers to a leader who lost all feeling of pain, they performed the task thanklessly, certain that if they did not see him through to his hero’s end, he would not make it there at all.
You don’t earn your place in stories if you close your eyes when things get horrifying. You dig your hands into the gore and find that vein.
Scars Revisited
Scars aren’t the sort of thing you show off, like necklace-gifts you wear begrudgingly. Nor are they the kind of thing you hide, like an engagement ring given in a tree. They’re there. A reminder of pain, but nothing more than a mark, like scratches on a wooden tag—your membership in a collective of people who have been hurt in the pursuit of something bigger. Something of stories.
Marian has her fair share of bruises. She lives boisterously, unapologetically. If the Nightwatchman happened to get cut by Sir Guy of Gisbourne, it is merely a complication that Marian has to then wear a fresh bandage to an archery tournament. It wasn’t a problem. It was a complication. An occupational hazard. If you’re going to be a hero, then you have to be prepared to deal with that kind of thing. You have to not think that slicing your hand instead of the apple is difficult. In fact, you have to do it without thinking at all.
It’s the not thinking about the consequences, that’s the key. But rather seeing the necessity, bright, bold, flashing, urgent necessity. Like cutting off your hair to keep a part of you safe—Djaq’s own kind of scar. The scar of her womanhood as the world sees it. For herself it is guarded and intact, latent, waiting, but to anyone on the streets of foreign places it is erased, though the softness of her face and shape peeks through like writing not quite washed off, like cuts not quite healed.
See, to be a hero, you have to learn to walk with these unhealed blisters, you have to forget the raw rubbing and give yourself up to instinct, the animal identity. Like the fretting, scurrying squirrel Much becomes to cover over what can’t show, a bushy tail over precious acorns, memories, secrets, desperate moments. Someone has to be the keeper of them, has to carry them quietly, the silent bearer of others’ grief, others’ scars, others’ regrets.
For regrets only hinder a hero. Better to pack them up tightly and thrust them into a fallen log, the angry pain inside manifest in unnatural strength. John is the master of transforming what hurts into what heaves, hefts, and hoists, in impervious displays of scar-bred bravado. There’s no question where inhuman feats have their origin—it’s in the undressed wound, bleeding silently under the skin of meeting needs.
Because it always comes back to necessity. Examined with that strict lens, all the lovely trappings of life seem to shrink. Until even family disappears—a mother withering away without food, a father maimed and murdered, a brother gone to who really knows where, and for what? Which Will won’t let himself wonder, save in absolute isolation, a rarity for someone who lives for others. No private pain in a world dependent on unencumbered heroes. You can nurse the hurt when the battle’s won.
The battle will be won. Or else Robin Hood has been walking through life with barely-knotted bandages for nothing. And nobody has scars for nothing.