Crowley rode along the old rarely used path between two fiefs and sighed. If he had known that the journey was going to take this long he wouldn't have bothered. But then again it was one of his favourite parts watching the apprentices faces light up when they realised that they had made it this far and now held the bronze oakleaf in their hands.

This was the third apprentice this year he was off to visit. The second last one, the final being Will, his best friends newest apprentice.

It was odd. How did Halt manage to find another apprentice that was unusual in all sense of the word. And how did he manage to train him well enough in eight months to complete a mission successfully to kill monsters that even the best warrior in the land would have balked at.

But that didn't matter. He would have passed the begging test and after reading reports from Halt, he would have passed possibly the third year one as well in at least the practical aspect of it.

Rivers he might have had a few more difficulties with.

Being a ranger was a lonely life, and sometimes Crowley felt guilty with the way that he was sending normal people to a life alone, but other times he wonders what they might have been doing if they weren't rangers. The answer for most of them was that they would be farmers, and those lifestyles did not fit many members of the corps. There were the odd few of course that had wonderful veggie and fruit crops growing out the back of their cabin, but they weren't common.

Suddenly his horse (who I have forgotten the name of) reared up slightly, not enough to throw him off.

"You're right. I need to stop thinking about it. One day the wind will change and my face will get stuck that way."

This seemed a lot longer on google drive...

But anyway, I am dying in the heat. Australia is in the middle of spring (not even!) and it is summer temperatures at the moment. Considering that I'm also trying to deal with a sudden influx of work as I enter my last year of mandatory school work as well as everything else that school is deciding to throw at me...

Then again... I have a question for you all. Do you know anyone with Chondromalacia Patella? If you do know anything about it can you tell me.

Alyss Mainwaring