InsaneJournal

Slowly slowly slowly, Marian was trying to get back into a life that wasn't built around the Sheriff. She found herself angry at the lack of progress, at the walls she kept coming up against, at the ways he was still controlling her even though he was gone. (Guy had been quiet for a long time, and that made Marian anxious as well. Her entire existence had been spent with Guy, the Sheriff and Price John all sniffing around, and the only variables being which one would be the most obsessed at that moment and what form any obsession would take: would she be facing a cartoonish buffoon vying for her affections, or would she be facing a man who would send her to be tortured by demons until she broke? Depending on the decade, depending on the stories and the culture, all possibilities laid themselves out before her.)

But she'd gotten back into her gaming, replaying old games and feeling herself sink back into the familiar moves of a particularly challenging boss fight. Guy and the Sheriff, they were unpredictable, but in video games (no matter how hard) you could read your opponent. When this boss raised his hammer over his right shoulder, then there was about to be an area of attack and you needed to move back. When this boss sheathed his glowing sword he was doing a power up and you had a few open seconds to make your own attack or heal. Her real enemies had no such tells: they appeared from the shadows and they rarely fought fair.

What Marian really wanted right now was a job, but instead she was stuck in the horrible limbo of unemployment. Marian had never been very good at being idle, at not having some sort of purpose and reason to get up every day. She needed to be doing something: in Sherwood that had often been taking care of the camp and being everyone's mother, and in the modern world it came in the form of a career she could be proud of. She'd only just managed to drag herself out of the depressing 'lying on the couch all day using her breasts as a Cheeto shelf' period before the Sheriff had kidnapped her, and now she was back even further than Step One.

Which was why she'd invited Qebhet over, to avoid the lying on the couch all day and to try and remember what it was like to be a person, especially to someone who had reached out when they didn't need to. She and Qebhet had only met the once, and she'd never expected to even make an impression on the goddess. And yet the scarab was warm and real in her pocket.

When the text came through to say that Qebhet had arrived, Marian made her way downstairs. Spotting Art at the bar, Marian said, "she's here, be nice." But she also held up the sleep mask she'd brought down to show him - it was close enough to a blindfold but wouldn't catch in any of Qebhet's hair going on or coming off.

She unlocked the door open and smiled at the goddess on the other side. "Hi," she said and then showed her the blindfold. "Thank you for doing this." That part she said a little more quietly, not meant for Art's ears so much.