Disclaimer: I do not own Ranger's Apprentice, nor the characters used in this story.
(A/N): Hey all! Yes, another story, lmfao. Since I couldn't fit the full summary in the summary box, here's the full one:
When Will and Evanlyn are taken by the Skandians, the original plan was to take them back to Skandia as slaves. When plans change, Erak is forced to take the two of them back to Morgarath, putting Evanlyn into the position of a ransom captive, and Will as a means to an end.
Years later, Will and Evanlyn-now Cassandra-have adapted into the lives they were meant to have. Will is a graduated Ranger, watching Redmont along with his former mentor, and Cassie is back at her father's side. When Redmont is attacked, Will is forced to confront his simmering resentments towards his time in the mountains, and risk it all to keep what happened to him away from his family.
So. Canon Divergence people, get used to it. I'm going to try to go for the long-haul for this one, not 7RATW level, but think of a longer ATU.
Another point of note: This is M/M. Because I'm like that. Have some Will/Horace.
Enjoy!~
Everything started when someone apparently overheard him trash talking the Lord of the Mountains of Rain and Night, Morgarath, while drunk off his ass.
Not that he got drunk often, but every once in a while, when things got too lonely, and the night too dark, Will sometimes picked up a bottle, and continued to pick up too many after the first was empty. He never did it in the company of his family, nor in public, because then they would know that he had lied about what had truly happened, and that he wasn't, in fact, okay. And, imagining their despair and concern, it would kill him with guilt—whether it was guilt over lying or not being able to pacify their consternation.
This time around, he'd been alone in his cabin as usual, but someone must've been eavesdropping or broken in, as he could think of nothing else that which could have provoked the actions of the coming week. As he had been drinking, the fire had begun to resemble someone he recalled from his time in the Mountains of Rain and Night. It had begun as a casual conversation with the hallucination, even though they were never friends, thinking back to the time together up in those mountains, despite the few times they interacted being none too friendly. Their conversation, however, had quickly devolved into Will spitting insults in whatever direction Morgarath happened to be in at the moment.
The hallucination just stood there, not reacting to his words at all, as far as Will remembered.
Before he passed out, though, he remembered seeing the hallucination clearly, which was odd, and watched as it looked away from him. It seemed to hesitate, but then walked around him, and exited the cabin with silent steps, the only sound of goodbye being the click of the door shutting.