There are so many stories I could tell of Robin Hood. Grand adventure after grand adventure. And even after I had crossed the waters out of our country to enter foreign lands, an eager audience finds me.
But as the night shadows fall and the fires wane, it doesn’t seem to matter how many tales I weave. The daring escapes. The stolen kisses. A few yawns enter the crowd, and my own tongue grows weary. One man shouts and then another. “So, how does it end?”
“End?” The question takes me off guard at first. Why would they want the story to end? I hold them off. I tell them to come again tomorrow. But that only works so many times before I realize no story lasts forever, and I have been given this one chance to pick my own ending before I lose my audience entirely.
What shall it be? A death seems grisly, even in self-sacrifice. I want my hero to live. So I try that one first. He frees the land. He gets the girl. And many happy years lay before them. But even as I receive a few nods and approving smiles, I see the folly of my words.
Staying home, laying down his arms to rest, was that ever in Robin Hood’s nature? Had I not just given him another death, empty of everything that brought him life in the first place? Shouldn’t he keep riding, keep fighting, and have an end like quicksilver?
I purse my lips at this new challenge, the distance that has grown between the creator and the thing I had created. A tale that has grown far beyond my control. I want my hero to live.
But he might have other plans for himself.
