Disclaimer: BBC, Tiger Aspect own Robin Hood. HBO, Alan Ball own True Blood.

Characters: Marian(Nora), Godric, Eric Northman.

*Spoilers: Series 2 RH, Season 5 TB.

* Warnings: Much artistic license, including changes to parts of Eric and Godric's backstory. Some language - wth liberal, and likely incorrect, use of Swedish, including swear words.

A/N: The product of being a Robin Hood and a True Blood fan, when certain actors cross ponds - crossovers and mashups, and much twisting of existing canon to fit the fandom collision. (Claudine/Isabella fic, anyone?) Thanks for reading, and hope you guys enjoy this!

When the lights in the houses had finally dimmed, they stole out under the cover of dark and crossed the expanse of desert that stretched out beyond the edge of the town.

The sun had set hours ago, but in Eric's opinion, it was still too hot and stifling for anyone's sanity. And the sand, vad fan, the sand!

"I hate this place," he growled, but Godric merely nodded, maddeningly unruffled, and ushered him on.

They had little trouble locating the grave - the scent of blood and steel was strong for miles, and there was little wind to throw them off track. The grave was fresh; the sand was still mounded and freshly dark, and in the dead silence, Eric could hear the faint thrumming heartbeat coming from below them.

The prospect of having to excavate her grave did not please him, though he still got down to it in the end, with much grumbling. Sand, as it was wont to do, stuck to everything. By the time he had dug down deep enough to pull her body out, Eric was swallowing sand even with the cloth wrapped around his face.

"Djavla-" he cursed and coughed, standing to the side and spitting out as much dirt as he could, while Godric opened his wrist and pressed the red flow to the girl's cold lips.

She awoke, screaming, at the very moment he had gotten up to take a piss.

"Godric!" He called, as he pinned her to the creaking table that was her makeshift bed in the cellar, and was certain that it was going to collapse under them, when Godric appeared at the top of the stairs.

"Where am I?" The girl screamed at them, her hands grasping at her dress where the blood had left its stain long after the wound had closed. "Who are you?"

Godric came to her side and motioned Eric away. She was still crying, and shuddered at his touch, but she did not withdraw from him when he took her hand in his.

"My name is Godric." He said, and smiled gently. "I am your Maker."

Her first feed was going well enough. When Godric had told her of what was to happen, she had managed to chain herself to the pillar in desperate refusal. So now, Eric was on babysitting duty with the young Arabisk boy while Godric tried to coax her out to where her meal awaited.

The boy was staring through him impassively, eyes stuporous and jaw slack. Eric sighed, impatiently listening as the voices in the other room went on, and on. He toyed with the slender wrist, tracing the pulse point and feeling his fangs extend in his mouth at the blood thrill. If she was going to refuse this, well, he was not one for wasting food.

Of course, he had just stuck a fang into the vessel when they emerged from the room. She looked at him in disgust, but he merely grinned at her as he lapped up the spilt blood. Watched smugly, as her disgust turned to desire and her own fangs sprang from behind her lips.

Godric touched her shoulder and brought her to stand by the boy, before gently pulling taut the soft skin of the neck in the line of extension.

"Not here." He warned, tapping on the strong staccato pulse. Instead, he pointed to the other, slower pulse, with its double undulation.

She saw it, and felt it.

"We do not kill to feed." Godric explained.

And Eric watched as she fed, and understood.

The girl did not speak for a long time after her first blood-meal. But when she was ready, she came to them first.

"So it's true, the stories they used to tell us. About revenants. And dreags."

"We're Vampir," Eric muttered the correction, because he was nowhere as ugly or as stupid as those creatures were.

"We all share this world," Godric said, casting him a warning look to curb his insolence. "There are many others besides us."

"Why me? What makes you think I would... want to be - this." She asked. Eric was rather inclined to the same question himself.

Godric looked thoughtful, but Eric knew he had already formed his convictions; his Skapare did not choose his progeny by chance or accident.

"You gave your life for a noble cause," began his explanation, "and you fought for what you believed was right. There is now another fight at hand, a greater fight. And so, we need people- vampires, like you.

"This fight will go beyond kings and princes, dibarn. Some say this fight will be for mankind itself."

Marian was her name, she said. Had been her name, in her other life that she had now turned away from.

"I'm not Marian anymore." She told him. Eric shrugged; it did not matter to him who she was, or now wanted to be. But Godric, who obviously had a soft spot for his dotter, encouraged a new name that would convey to her strength and purpose.

She later told him that she had first thought of her mother, but that sat uncomfortably with her, and so instead, she settled for a regent's namesake: 'Eleanor.'

Eric pursed his lips.

"It's too long." He said. "I'll go with 'Nora'."

Fin