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((Ok'd by Chance-mun and Lily-mun. Comes after this.))
Instead of returning to Hogwarts and the company of others, Robin and Chance had elected to spend time around the fire he’d built, not talking about anything consequential but simply enjoying each other’s company; but dusk was lowering and the fire was flickering and it was time to go in. Robin got to his feet and extinguished the fire carefully, dusting off his hands before wordlessly holding one out to Chance to help her up.
They walked in companionable silence to the walls of Hogwarts and then through an arch, a courtyard, and another arch before entering the castle proper. Robin looked around doubtfully. “I have not been this way before,” he said. “How do we go?”
For answer Chance indicated a statue of a fat, elderly man with an enormous feather headdress. “This is going to look undignified,” Chance warned, “but trust me, the statue doesn't mind,”; and, looking distinctly uncomfortable at the action herself, she twisted the statue's nose, whereupon the wall behind opened up, revealing a passageway.
Robin grinned. “Clever,” he murmured, and followed her in.
They came out between the stacks, shelves of books that climbed, it seemed to Robin, to the sky. Beyond the shelves were more shelves, all filled to overflowing with books. Robin had never been in an actual library before – the one in the convent at Ravenscar, and the one in Tuck’s old order, encompassed his experience. Here, he thought surely, was the sum total of man’s knowledge, all safely recorded in the written word. He looked at Chance in dismay. How would they find anything in this maze?
Instead of returning to Hogwarts and the company of others, Robin and Chance had elected to spend time around the fire he’d built, not talking about anything consequential but simply enjoying each other’s company; but dusk was lowering and the fire was flickering and it was time to go in. Robin got to his feet and extinguished the fire carefully, dusting off his hands before wordlessly holding one out to Chance to help her up.
They walked in companionable silence to the walls of Hogwarts and then through an arch, a courtyard, and another arch before entering the castle proper. Robin looked around doubtfully. “I have not been this way before,” he said. “How do we go?”
For answer Chance indicated a statue of a fat, elderly man with an enormous feather headdress. “This is going to look undignified,” Chance warned, “but trust me, the statue doesn't mind,”; and, looking distinctly uncomfortable at the action herself, she twisted the statue's nose, whereupon the wall behind opened up, revealing a passageway.
Robin grinned. “Clever,” he murmured, and followed her in.
They came out between the stacks, shelves of books that climbed, it seemed to Robin, to the sky. Beyond the shelves were more shelves, all filled to overflowing with books. Robin had never been in an actual library before – the one in the convent at Ravenscar, and the one in Tuck’s old order, encompassed his experience. Here, he thought surely, was the sum total of man’s knowledge, all safely recorded in the written word. He looked at Chance in dismay. How would they find anything in this maze?
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Date: 2007-03-12 06:42 pm (UTC)As she leads Robin through the narrow stacks, she wonders if this world even has the Aarne-Thompson index. Maybe in this world, Stith Thompson was stillborn, or Antti Aarne decided to become a dentist.
Unfortunately, a very large folio has been stuck sideways into the shelves, precarious and just begging to be dislodged. It falls to the floor as Chance brushes by.
"Oh, shit," she curses her own clumsiness, and the sound of her cursing only compounds whatever disruption the sound of the book's fall will have caused. Mortified, she looks around to see whether anyone's been disturbed, hoping to god they haven't.
And sees a familiar red head pop up from behind a large stack of books at one of the study tables.
She lifts her hands in an apologetic what can you do? gesture, and mouths "I'm sorry!" to Lily Evans.
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Date: 2007-03-12 06:50 pm (UTC)Recognizing Chance, though, the frown eased into a smile and she shrugged, waving her over. The woman was accompanied by a man Lily didn't know, but it'd been several hours since her last break, and she figured that this was as good a time as any.
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Date: 2007-03-12 07:54 pm (UTC)No, it was not she. It could not be, he knew that. She had found her happiness with Robert. She would not come back to him.
Even so, the resemblance was uncanny. His heart was racing, his breathing came strangely. He looked at Chance, trying to steady himself; but inevitably his hungry gaze was dragged back to the other woman, practically eating her alive.
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Date: 2007-03-13 01:07 am (UTC)Chance isn't finely attuned to people's body language, has never been what you'd call socially adept. She doesn't need to be, to discern what's just overtaken poor Robin. They've only just spent an afternoon talking about the people they've lost, idle warm pleasant nostalgic talk by the fire Robin built for them, Chance able to talk to this man who understands what she means. Not that no one else at Hogwarts has ever lost anyone, and Lily's got that in common with Chance too, the two women have even talked about it (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1191964.html); but there's something about the remoteness of Robin's past that somehow makes him a blank slate for Chance, a safe blank book to write her secrets in. That long afternoon flickering away and Chance not cold for once, and she's said things she's not sure she'd even want to tell anyone else here, not just narrative like the improbable story of how she met Deacon (though she's told Robin that too, at some point, smiling into the distance and shaking her head at the stupid nobility of Deacon's actions then and the way he'd shrugged them off), but the little details she's almost afraid to lose. Things like how he almost never got angry, so laid-back as to be near impossible to rattle. Like how he still carried the Bullwinkle keychain she gave him when they'd first started dating, six years and he still carried that goofy thing. Like how his eyes looked, green like Chance's but the resemblance stops there, muddy and deep where hers are clear, and how he had to wear black sunglasses in the Birmingham sunshine because of the headaches he'd get, the bad headaches that came and wouldn't go away.
And Robin's told her about Marian, the same way, those little details, and so Chance has a vague mental image of Marian, nothing like the clear sharp image Robin must have been holding in his mind when he described his lady to her, but enough to know what's shaken him now, and oh, shit, she almost whispers again, barely manages to hold her tongue.
She puts an arm out to steady him. "This is my friend Lily Evans," she says, and actually she doesn't really feel like she knows Lily well enough to claim her as a friend, wouldn't have described her as such to anyone if asked. The term just comes out because she's trying to make it clear to Robin that Lily's someone she does know. That Lily isn't a resurrection of someone else.
"Lily, have you met Robin of Loxley? He's new here. New as they come, still getting settled."
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Date: 2007-03-13 02:51 am (UTC)Of course, Lily completely considered Chance a friend, and so didn't blink at the introduction. "I haven't," she managed quietly, eyes never leaving the man's face. Who did she remind him of, then, that he was devouring her so hopelessly? Holding out one hand, she gave him a small, gentle smile. "I'm Lily. It's nice to meet you, Robin."
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Date: 2007-03-13 01:31 pm (UTC)His voice betrayed him when he began to speak, however, and he had to clear his throat before it would co-operate. "My lady Lily," he rasped finally, bending low over her offered hand. "Your name suits you."
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Date: 2007-03-13 01:46 pm (UTC)She's less certain of Lily's reaction. She can't tell anything other than that Lily might be uncomfortable and that Lily might be trying to set aside that discomfort in the interest of courtesy. So Chance says, as lightly as she can, "Medieval manners," as Robin bends over Lily's hand instead of shaking it the way Chance would assume Lily intended.
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Date: 2007-03-13 05:26 pm (UTC)Right. She babbled when she got nervous. And the look Robin wore had shaken her. Shaking her head, waving one hand to dismiss all that, Lily took a breath. "Sorry, I..."
I know that you're thinking of someone else.
I know how that feels.
I wish I didn't remind you of whoever it is.
"I'm sorry," she repeated ineffectually. It was easy to see she wasn't talking any longer about the rambling. Gaze scanning Robin's face, a clear question in her eyes, Lily gave the man another smile before looking over at Chance. "What brings you both to the library?" Because small talk was the only thing she could seem to manage at the moment.
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Date: 2007-03-13 06:44 pm (UTC)Lily. Her name is Lily. And she has no knowledge of Marian, or of any of it. And I am probably frightening her. So he gave her the best compliment he could think of, which was nearly as clumsy as the one he'd given Marian so long ago. You look like a May morning...
Chance was still there, and he reached for her gratefully, merely wanting to touch her hand, remind himself of where he was, when he was. Anything to break this spell of sorrowful fascination.
Lily's spate of words made him smile, a little. "I have spent too long in the forest to think of flowers as ladylike," he said gently. "Lilies grow wild there, and sometimes wilful; but always with a fragrance that lingers and lightens the soul." Robin turned to Chance, still struggling, but the burden was growing lighter. "What book do we seek, lady Chance? Perhaps my lady Lily can help us find it."
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Date: 2007-03-13 07:16 pm (UTC)It's with relief that she hears the word book. This she can talk about. "I want to find the Aarne-Thompson tale-type index," she says. "And actually I'm pretty sure where to go about looking for it in here, just not sure it'll actually be here." She gropes for the exact title. "The Types of the Folktale," she says, a little uncertain. Generally when she thought of it, or when it was referred to in class, it was always just Aarne-Thompson. "Robin's something of a legendary figure. We want to investigate the tales that've accreted around him, so he knows what the hell people are expecting from him, and maybe how to deflect it."
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Date: 2007-03-13 08:37 pm (UTC)Well, she'd rather that when it came to other people. Her own issues she kept tightly locked away; she was quite adept at keeping the focus far away from anything she didn't wish to talk about. Whether that was a byproduct of the war or simple hypocrisy was... Well, another thing that Lily didn't allow herself to think on.
All in all, she was relieved when Chance gave her something else to focus on. "Hmm..." Lily paused, thinking, turning in a slow circle as she scanned the library. Then, snapping her fingers as something clicked, she walked down a few rows and began searching the stacks, one finger trailing along the spines of the books. As she looked, she explained, "It's not often that I'm defeated by a book, but this one made no sense at all to me. And I can read Latin and Old English." She gave Chance a brief smile before she continued to hunt.
Voice still casual and light, her eyes darted to Robin. "Who was she?" Because Lily had to know. But then, finding the requested book, she eased it from the shelf with a triumphant grin. "Ah. Here we are." She looked up at Chance and Robin. "What do you mean he's legendary?" Not like she wasn't mentioned in books, herself. But a topic change might be welcome.
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Date: 2007-03-13 09:57 pm (UTC)Eight hundred years, it had been, so he was told, and although it had not seemed so long in the Great Forest, time was of little consequence there. He had let go of Marian, of his life, as she had asked him to do; had embraced the mantle of Herne's Son even after death, existing in the cool peace of the forest, waiting for his call.
But the day spent with Chance had shown him that returning to life was more than simply breathing. Their sudden, easy friendship meant that his heart was awakened too; and they had spent the day cementing that friendship by reliving buried memories, sharing the lives they had lived. And his life had been Marian. When a forest burns, life must eventually return to it; that is the way of things, and so it should be. But it does not mean that the forest was never there.
Lily's question was not such a surprise as it might have been. His reaction to her had been too marked for anyone to miss it. Robin sighed, deciding to dispense with the florid compliments of the nobility - he was not any good at them anyway. Better to settle for the simple truth. He shot Chance an apologetic glance; after all, she had already been through this today. "Her name was Marian of Leaford," he said. "She would have been my wife."
Topic change. Excellent idea.
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Date: 2007-03-13 11:48 pm (UTC)"May I?" she says, perfunctory, not waiting for an answer before she takes the book from Lily's hands, opens it, flips not to the title page but to the page that gives its publishing history. It's what she was expecting, Thompson's 1961 translation and expansion of Aarne's work (http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&CNT=10&CMD=10+records+per+page&CMD=lccn+%20%20%2062005252%20), and she hadn't remembered the exact year but it looks right to her. Except that her fuzzy memories of undergrad days are stirred by the familiar print, and she remembers now with chagrin that what she really ought to be using is the later work, the multivolume one (http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=1&hd=1,1&CallBrowse=3&SEQ=20070313182058&PID=21851&SID=4), and she'll be damned if she can even remember the name. "Fuck," she mutters, eyes scanning the nearby shelves.
Robin may be concerned with speaking like a nobleman. Chance, not so much.
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Date: 2007-03-14 06:52 pm (UTC)Lily barely noticed when Chance took the book, her eyes hardly leaving Robin's face as the woman swore. Swallowing hard, Lily waited for the story: His fiancee or wife or lover dying, him left alone to move on. And Lily would understand it, far too well, and there would be sympathetic glances exchanged and she'd have to say something about James. She wished the bloke would surprise her, say that he'd caught the tart cheating and given her the boot, but somehow Lily felt she might be beyond surprises in this particular situation.
She knew the look Robin had been giving her. It made her throat ache with an unwelcome rush of familiarity. She knew how this story ended. And yet, she had to hear him say it. For all that she wished she'd never looked up from her studying, she now had to know. Perhaps it was out of respect for the dead, perhaps it was because someone had to remember those who'd left, but Lily's green eyes scanned Robin's face, jaw set, and waited to hear how the love of his life had died, too.
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Date: 2007-03-14 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-14 10:50 pm (UTC)She's completely oblivious to the little drama unfolding, her embarrassment for Robin and concern for Lily long since receded into the realm of the relatively unimportant. When she winces, it's not for their sake, either of them, but because the one she's chosen is volume 5, and her eyes have fixed on the heading Thompson saw fit to give Chapter N: Chance and Fate. She flips past that quickly, finds what she wants, Chapter Z. Miscellaneous Groups of Motifs.
Z200-Z299. Heroes.
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Date: 2007-03-15 12:47 am (UTC)Lily stared at Robin. He wasn't the mourning husband. He was the dead spouse left behind. He wasn't Lily. He was James.
NO.
Shaking her head, Lily straightened up and backed away a step. "I don't understand." She tried to keep her voice steady, though there was a bit of a crack at the end. "I'm sorry."
She was reading too much into this. A breakup or a failed marriage or a million other scenarios would fit Robin's explanation. This was not a parallel to her situation, to the insane twists that her own life had taken. He was not James. She'd just been overly sensitive since she and Sirius had gotten together - trying to negotiate through the minefield of a new relationship with the baggage of their shared pasts - and now she was foisting her own point of view off onto this innocent bloke, who'd probably just come into the the library for a bit of quiet and to get some work done.
"I'm sorry," she said again with a laugh, waving her hand to dismiss her own discomfort. "Er, how can I help with the research?"
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Date: 2007-03-15 10:59 am (UTC)He addressed himself to her second question, blushing all the while. "We look for tales of Robin i' th' Hood, my lady. At my Sorting I was told that such stories exist. There were a number of people there who assumed they already knew me well from these stories, and I am curious to know what they say, that I might see what truth is in them." He smiled at her, trying to make amends for whatever he had said wrong before. "If any."
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Date: 2007-03-15 03:26 pm (UTC)to which her mun will stop trying to link, since the links keep expiring. "Yes and no," she says, almost abstractly. She's fully in academic mode now."We're looking for tales associated with Robin Hood. But, Robin, those tales aren't all about you. Some of them won't even have anything to do with you other than borrowing your name. Some of them might have originated in association with other people entirely, maybe not even real people. Maybe misrememberings or modifications of old stories remembered about gods or other heroes. That's what I'm hoping to show you here."
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Date: 2007-03-15 05:54 pm (UTC)Feeling like a complete heel for making Robin uncomfortable over her own personal issues, Lily returned his smile. Everything else she locked away tight, determined to not let it leak out again. Because...
Wait. Did he say Robin Hood? Like, arrows and Friar Tuck and Merry Men and all that? Merlin. Lily's eyes went wide and she struggled to think of something to say. "I'm in books, too."
Yeah that...had not been the intelligent conversation starter she'd been hoping for. Flushing slightly, Lily went on. "I mean, there are mentions of me in some books. In the Wizarding world. Mostly it's about my son, though. In any case, most of the facts are wrong." Which was what happened when all the witnesses were dead or thought guilty. "I wouldn't be surprised if most of the things written about you are less than true."
Right. That was enough babbling, now. Turning to Chance, Lily peered over the woman's shoulder. "What sorts of things are you finding?"
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Date: 2007-03-15 07:04 pm (UTC)He ran his fingers through his hair, hoping his blush was subsiding, and glanced at Chance, who seemed deep into the book she was consulting. "Do you find anything of note, my lady?"
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Date: 2007-03-15 08:38 pm (UTC)"We want to make sense out of the things that happen to us -- things that don't always make sense on their own. So we try to give them a comprehensive narrative, give them names and faces that resonate with us." She turns the book so it's upside-down from where she stands, right-side-up for Robin and Lily, and holding it open with one hand, uses the index finger of the other hand -- thin finger, nail clipped blunt -- to point out entries.
†Z254. Destined hero. (Cf. †M311, †T22.) Irish myth: *Cross; Jewish: Neuman.
†Z292. Death of hero. Irish myth: Cross; Jewish: Neuman.
Flipping back a few pages:
†Z20. Cumulative tales.†1 Tales arranged in chains. (Kettenmärchen.) **Taylor JAFL XLVI 77ff.; *Types 2000--2199; Irish myth: *Cross; Spanish American: Boas JAFL XXV 219ff., 292f., Espinosa JAFL XXVII 222ff.; Indonesia: DeVries's list No. 316; cf. Nouvelles de Sens No. 31.
"Each of these entries takes you to a different book," she says, knowing it won't forestall puzzlement. This is the kind of reference you need to be taught how to use, and she herself hasn't used it in years, her mind trying to conjure images of the notes she'd taken for those anthro courses long ago. "There's a key to which abbreviation stands for which book. And every book denoted is a collection of stories from a different place in the world, or a different time, or both. Spain, Ireland, the Middle East. And the whole point of this reference, the Motif-Index of Folk Literature, is that the stories from all these different places and times have common threads. Common themes. The names of the people in them will differ, but the stories are by and large the same, in part or in whole. For some stories, researchers have traced the spread over time, trying to find that story's genesis, or at least the locality where it started. For some of them we'll never be able to know. And when a story gets adopted, it gets changed. Familiar heroes put in place of the foreign ones, for instance. Or it's just forgotten who the story used to be about. Or a political purpose is served by making it be about someone else. Any number of reasons, or maybe no reason at all."
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Date: 2007-03-15 09:13 pm (UTC)Laughing a little at Robin's words, Lily straightened up. "And thank Merlin for that. I can't tell you the useful information I've managed to pry from some Wizard or another through the promise of a smile and a pint. Useful during a war, that human tendency to tell tales. You just have to learn to cut through to the heart of the matter, the common truth."
Eyes studying Robin subtly, Lily then turned to Chance. "So these tales of Robin," she nodded toward the man, "that have been handed down are quite likely twisted to fit archetypes or local sensibilities or common threads of heroes, yeah? He was just the face put onto the legends."
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Date: 2007-03-15 09:32 pm (UTC)He thought for a long moment, his gaze faraway. "I think I understand what you say, my lady Chance. Tales of Herne the Hunter, the spirit of the forest - they were based on myth, superstition, call it what you will - but were attributed to Herne, the man I knew. And the one had naught to do with the other. Folk believed what they would, to help them learn or give them faith in the old ways. It was never about history." He looked at Chance a bit doubtfully. "Is that what you mean to tell me, that these tales may have naught to do with me?"
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Date: 2007-03-15 11:14 pm (UTC)She returns Robin's doubtful look with one that's not doubtful in the least, perhaps reassuring in that. If there's one thing Chance is good at, it's being professorial, even when she's not completely an expert herself. She started leading labs and field trips when she was still an undergrad herself, and never forgot what her profs told her then: Doesn't matter if you don't know everything about a given subject, you still know more than your students know, and that's what you're there for..
"That's exactly what I mean to tell you. Among other things. I need you to know that this isn't about you, Robin. It's about what the people who told these stories needed to believe. Or just what they found entertaining. And I think you're absolutely right to want to know what these stories are, given that people are going to have impressions of you based on stories they've read or heard. Because even if they know those stories can't be all true, they'll still have a mental image that's hard to shake. But I also think you'd be unwise to make anything more of these stories than that. And --" The smooth confident lecturer's voice faltering for a moment, Chance lapsing out of professor mode as she looks into his face, face she's spent hours telling her secrets to -- "I don't want these things to hurt you."
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Date: 2007-03-19 05:25 pm (UTC)There was another after me.
Everything Chance said was lost. There had been another. With his face, living his life.
"This is not like James," she desperately tried to pull herself away from the image of someone else, someone not relevant to her life any longer. "This is not James, he is not James, this is not your life."
Eyes going to Robin's, searching for answers, Lily said, abruptly, "This other person, did people think he was you? Did he say he was you? And how did you know it, if you were dead? And how did you know she loved again?" All the questions spilled out of her, without provocation, without censor, and Lily visible winced when they shattered the tentitive peace they all three had created. Some part of her wished to apologize for them, to scramble to scoop them back out of sight, but she simply stood, stoically, and waited.
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Date: 2007-03-19 08:02 pm (UTC)Robin looked at Chance in surprise, deeply touched by her concern. He lifted his hand and placed it gently along her jawline, holding her gaze, a half-smile tilting just the corners of his mouth. Speech escaped him for the moment as he looked at her, studied her face: her eyes clear and verdant, her skin smooth under his callused hand. Her lips parted for a moment, pulling Robin's attention; perhaps she had been going to say more, but she did not. "Do not be troubled," he said softly, letting his thumb stroke her cheek gently before he dropped his hand back to his side.
Lily's barrage of questions startled him and he turned to her, his gaze intent. Something had given the lovely redhead unease, this Robin could see; he had thought he had said something amiss, but now it was clear her unease lay with something he had not said.
He inclined his dark head. "Aye, I expect some believed he was me for a time, though not anyone who truly knew me. We did not look much alike, from what I saw of him, though that was years before ever I became Robin i' th' Hood. I do not think he would claim to be Robin of Loxley, for I was simply a freeman and he a titled noble, and the protection offered by a title was not a thing to throw away. But the Hooded Man he was, as I was, and there were surely those who did not look past the hood."
Robin gazed beyond Lily, into the distance of memory. "How did I know? Marian told me. She called me back, called to me to ask me to let her go." He sighed. He had long forgiven her, had always understood... but it hurt no less for all that. "Herne walked the ways of magic; Marian could mourn for me no longer and asked him to call me back. Life beckoned her. She wished to love again, to love Robert, he who was now as I had been. But we had taken vows, of a kind, and she was torn by love and heartbreak. She could not rest or be happy until I had let her go." He refocused suddenly on Lily, his eyes dark as the shadows in the Great Forest. "I could not bind her to a life of grief."
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Date: 2007-03-19 11:01 pm (UTC)He won't break, she thinks, and is reassured by that thought as much as by the brief stroke of fingers to her face, that curious intimacy that seems so natural from him she hasn't even questioned it.
Not that she hasn't been wrong about people before, and that rankles, but it's not going to stop her. And if he does break ... well, she warned him.
Lily's questions unsettle Chance as well, shattering the strange communion, and she turns to watch the woman practically come apart, and watch Robin relive again what he's relived for her already earlier that same day.
It's as painful to watch as it is to tell, and is this what it's like for people to talk to her? Raw as she is.
Fuck, Kleenex ought to hire us three as spokesmodels.
She nods to Lily, underscoring Robin's tale she's already heard. "People ... have to let go. Like you and I talked about before," she adds, mindful of that conversation she and Lily had about Sirius and James around the time Ofelia first came to Hogwarts.
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Date: 2007-03-20 09:52 pm (UTC)Robin looked nothing like James. His voice wasn't similar, the cadence of his words wasn't even remotely the same. And yet, for a moment, James was all that Lily saw in front of her. Purposely closing her eyes, Lily set her jaw, forcing her face to remain impassive.
His wife had forced him to let her go so that she might be happy with someone else. A blind man could see the parallels to Lily's own situation. And while Lily held a firm belief that James would want her to move on, would tell her to move on, it didn't change the impact of being faced with a living, breathing example of the other side of the coin.
I'm so sorry. That echoed around her brain, and whether it was to Chance or Robin or James or even Sirius, she didn't know. But then it made it past her lips, a barely breathed, "I'm sorry," before Lily blinked, and focused on the two people standing in front of her.
Carefully schooling her features into something smooth and emotionless - though her eyes betrayed her, some deep guilt and grief in them - Lily swallowed hard, trying to get more words past the dryness in her mouth, the lump in her throat. "I just realized I have to be at work," she managed with a smile that barely curved her lips. "Please, excuse me. Robin, it was lovely to meet you. Chance, I'll chat with you later."
Turning, Lily all but fled the library, a quick summoning charm thrown over her shoulder sending her bag after her. She needed to go, to think, to clear her mind. Without conscious decision, her feet took her out towards the stables. A long ride, perhaps, in the cold wind would wipe away the sick knot of guilt and confusion in her stomach. At the least, she knew she wouldn't run into Sirius out on the moors. And for once, he was the last person Lily wanted to encounter.
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Date: 2007-03-20 10:27 pm (UTC)He turned to Chance. "I do not know what I have said, but I did not mean to upset her so. Will she forgive me, do you think?"
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Date: 2007-03-21 01:52 am (UTC)"You compared her to Marian. I think," Chance says slowly, "now she's probably comparing herself to Marian too."
She shrugs, and shelves vol. 5. She's shown him what she needed to show him in it. It's not the most logical place to start actual research on a specific single legend; it's geared toward comparative folklore work. "She'll get over it," she says, ever pragmatic. "And if she doesn't ... well, she can join the club." Not a little self-mockery in that.
A pause, as she tries to figure out how best to tell Robin You may want to work on being a little less ... intense ... in public. It's overwhelming to be the focus of that kind of attention, for a stranger, and for someone unused to it. Somehow the liminal space in which Chance met Robin made her open to that sort of interaction. The grounds are forested, they're more his element, and that probably helped too. She thinks if she'd met him in the library, or the common room, some commonplace indoors setting, it might have gone differently. She might have reacted more like Lily, instead of unfolding her mind to him.
She can't think of the words. She'll keep trying, but for now, she simply leads him into the stacks. Research now. Etiquette later.
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Date: 2007-03-21 11:41 am (UTC)Instead he added, "And what should I have made of her questions? I do not know the manners of this time, but - should I not have answered her with the truth? I asked nothing of her, for I did not want to pry. Was I wrong?"
On reflection it was clear to Robin that whatever it was that had upset Lily was the product of her own thoughts, since there was no reason for her to run from the tale of his life. And, after all, she had asked. But he was still sorry for her.
He shrugged. Time enough to mend things later, if mended they could be. With a sigh, Robin followed Chance into the stacks. "Where do we look, my lady Chance?"
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Date: 2007-03-21 01:18 pm (UTC)She's lowered her voice to proper library volume as they walk -- well, maybe a wee bit louder than proper, since if she whispers, he won't be able to hear her. They have to walk single file through the stacks.
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Date: 2007-03-21 01:34 pm (UTC)"I do not think I did voice any comparison until she asked me," he said, finally. "And I recall trying to change the subject. But as you say, I am still learning the ways of this time, so perhaps I did it wrong. And clearly I was careless in letting my reaction show so freely. I will be more careful in future."
He hesitated, looking at Chance's back, wondering if their bond, so strangely and wonderfully and suddenly made, had now been broken because of his foolishness. "Do you forgive me, then, if she will not? She was your friend first."
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Date: 2007-03-21 01:59 pm (UTC)"There's nothing for me to forgive," she says firmly. "There's just different ways of doing things. I'll help you figure it out as best I can." It's the least she can do for him, given what he's done for her. "Look, maybe this isn't the best time for research. You look like you could use a drink. I could introduce you to the little blue men who live in the bar. Now there's culture shock for you."
no subject
Date: 2007-03-21 02:11 pm (UTC)He then performed what would be called a double-take. "Little blue men? This I must see."