A short little one shot that I've now re-written. It's inspired by a prompt I found that just said 'A year after your death...' It's told from Little John's point of view after all of his companions have died. Rather melancholy.
A year after your death, my dearest companion, I went away. I could no longer face the tangle of unfamiliar woods that had once been the majestic forest of Sherwood. Sherwood, the home of our many notorious deeds. It now felt as unfamiliar to me as the sun does to the fierce snows of the north, and I found that I could not bear to linger here, all the while haunted by memories of what had been. It seemed to me that the very ghosts of our laughter dogged my footsteps, fuelling my grief, and so I fled. Left for a place that I had known as a lad, a place that called out to me more than ever now that the reign over the jubilant trees had ended. A call that I had tried to resist for a very long time.
My life had become one of stark solitude, defiled of purpose and I wandered the lonely trees, caught between dreams and discontented thoughts. For a long time I resolutely ignored the gentle pull of my childhood home, choosing instead to think of the place that held so many memories and whispers of the deeds we had undertaken in the valour of our youth. I visited the places I had known, unable to stop the tears from flowing, but eventually, even the woods must come to an end.
The time had come for me to end my mourning for those whose time was over, and move on from one life to the next, just like you and so many others had done. But your journey was easier than mine, you who peacefully slipped from this earth to a place of beauty and sunlight, free from fear and grief for those who remained. I, however, had to bear the pain of the passing years and mourn the loss of my life's companions, remembering times that could never come again. I had to witness the failing of the magnificent trees, and yearn for the joyous times we spent among them. I was left, the last relic of those years, to fight the onset of autumn alone.
I left the forest under the ashen light of the Hunter's moon, and found my way to the mist filled valley of Hathersage where my childhood friends still lingered. For a while, I was content in that place. The reunions with those who had stayed were numerous and filled me with joy, and sparked many a storytelling. Rumours of my adventures had reached my old companions, and they pressed me for details, all the while asking me if I really was the old emissary and friend of the legendary Robin Hood, about whom they had heard so many outrageous stories.
But as time went by, it was clear that I was not content. How can you return to pick up the abandoned threads of an old life after so many years and happenings? How do you go back to the mundane after the thrills I had found in Nottinghamshire? It is not possible. I found that I could not settle in my strange house, preferring to sleep encamped under the endless starry skies. Many times I found myself awoken in the dark hours by the ghostly note of a bugle, or a soft owl call, ready to spring to arms, only to find that the sound was an echo from my dreams. I would never again be called to fight by the winding of a horn, or alerted by the lingering whistle of a man concealed within the trees.
There I dwelt, in that land of lost content, plagued by the absence of my past. Every lone tree was a melancholy reminder of the lands that I had forsaken, every twig snap was a warning and every stranger appeared to be pursuing an adventure that I could not follow.
I could now see with clarity. I was not meant for this normal life. In leaving Sherwood I had tried to run from the pain of my loss, but now I realised that the best remedy was to face fighting, head on, as I had done with so many battles. I would never be content here, so I upped and left, an action undertaken in the spring of my youth now mimicked in the hoary winter of my life.
I journeyed for days, sleeping under the dark skies, and at last I found myself wandering along familiar paths once more, and I smiled. This was the life I needed, the life I had chosen. I was content now, under the ageing trees with whom I would spend the remainder of my days. My friends had not left me, they were here with me, hiding in the places we had once frequented, and their presence was comforting. I threw out my arms, breathing deeply the sappy smell of the greenwood. I was home.