So, had that whole Thanksgiving Break to post something, but it didn't happen! How dumb is that?! Sometimes I really think I need more common sense. Ah! My birthday was over break so I just took it easy and chilled with the peps. Anyways, next chapter here for you. Enjoy!~~~

Urosia frowned, looking scornfully between the both of them, atop his horse. It sent chills through the air standing the hair on the back of Will's neck on end and his muscles tensed. Aaron proved the strength that had brought her through this journey as a man rather then a woman.

" Are you sure about that, Aaron? After all, my men and I have you and your friend surrounded." Urosia pointed out, rightly so. " I could kill you without lifting a finger."

That was pain stakingly obvious for the two young people at this time. Aaron, however,was smarter then that.

" You won't. You'll never get the message from my Master, and won't be able to get the message with me dead. You need me to get the message." she answered. placing a hand on her hip. Urosia tilted his head, mockingly at Aaron as his eyes fell on Will.

"Not you, but what about him?" he indicated Will with a nod of his head. Aaron glanced at Will whom looked back. " I can kill him, he's of no consequence to me. He'll just be one more dead boy in this world." Aaron's eyes moved out and around, beyond Uroisia's men to the trees. Seeking out someone, anyone, particularly Halt or Gilan. No one was there. They were on their own. Aaron's heart sank, slightly.

" You won't kill him," Aaron replied again, still as steadily as she had the first time," I know you well enough, Urosia, to know you're a humane person. A dead person is guilt in your eyes. I can see it, even from here."

To Urosia's dismay, Aaron had picked up on that. He never planned to kill Will or Aaron if he could prevent it. Urosia had found out long ago that each death by his command became another gray cloud within his eyes. Or wrinkle on his face, or shadow under his eyes, it didn't matter. It all showed on his face though he hid it from his personality. In front of his men, he would show none of this regret no matter what the cost.

However, Urosia grew a rather crooked smile. The gaze made Will and Aaron shiver, but Aaron repressed it to her spine.

" Maybe you're right," Urosia said, looking at the sky, as though wistfully thinking over what Aaron had said," then again, maybe you're not. You're correct about your master."

This had Aaron's full attention. She narrowed her eyes to glare at Urosia for this comment.

What was Urosia getting at?

" He's certainly a close mouthed kind of man. Won't say a word to us." Glaring still, Aaron noted the use of pronoun usage with present tense in Urosia's sentence. Then her eyes grew huge with understanding. She took a single step forwards.

" You mean-?" she began to say, but Urosia mad a gesture to a few of his men.

" Bring him forwards." Urosia said menacingly.

Aaron hoped. Wished with all her heart and soul, every fiber of her being that this wasn't whom she thought it was. For once in her life, she wanted to be more wrong then she every had been before in her life. All in vain, however.

Brought forwards was a man, lean and medium height. Taller then Halt, but a bit smaller then Gilan, was Will's best guess. His hair was cut sloppily and he had a short cropped beard that was also very sloppily cut. His hair had hints where several gray strands were visible, but not enough to be considered going gray quite yet. Otherwise, his beard and hair were a deep black. A pure black. The clothes he wore were extremely plain.

Black pants and brown shirt. A bit clashing, in an artists point of view, but nothing too exciting to see. His hands and feet were bond. He was slung over the back of a horse, led forwards by one of Urosia's men.

The man was an utter mess, Will could tell even from the distance between them and the man slung across the horse. Aaron's heart lurched in her chest. She almost moved, but then froze. A shout filled her vocal cords but was denied an exit. The man's head hung and didn't look up at first.

Then, slowly, his head came up and looked at Aaron and Will.

" Oi! Sunfonroy!!" Urosia spoke to the man, speaking loudly that Aaron might hear. Aaron involuntarily clenched her fists. Will noticed the action and touched Aaron's shoulder,shaking his head at her.

" The bastard," she whispered to Will, " in their language, Sunfonroy means 'Worst of Fools.'" she half spat half sobbed the words. Will gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile to her. Aaron steadied her breath as best she could. " Master . . ."

Will could only offer a shaky pat on the shoulder. They were all but captured at this point, there wasn't much they could do for themselves let alone her Master.

" Look up, Sunfonroy!! Do it now!!" snarled Urosia, tugging at the man's hair with a firm, violent jerk. This forced the dull eyes of the worn face up to see what Urosia wanted him to see. " Look who we found?" he smirked as recognition crossed the man's face when he saw Aaron. " A black stag-ling that ran off from his white coated Master." The worn face turned to Urosia.

" You might want to get your eyes checked." the husky voice finally spoke up. Urosia frowned at this. That wasn't the effect he'd been looking for in all of this.

" That's a rather odd statement to say of your student, Sunfonroy."he said, clearly unhappy with the answer given to him. The man looked at Aaron and Will, finally turning back to Urosia.

" What of my student? I don't see him." the crisp, cold reply hit the air like a slap in the face. Aaron drew on a carefully stoic face from now on. Will turned to Aaron, but found nothing there. Urosia became enraged, striking the man hard across the face. The man took the hit with an eerie, frightening calmness.

" Don't lie to me, Sunfonroy!!" Urosia commanded.

" What's to lie about? That isn't my student, simple as that." the man said again, and was dealt a crushing blow, then thrown off the horse. Tumbling a few feet, the man hit hard into a tree, unable to stop it with his bond hands. Hitting with a hard thump, the bonds on his feet were removed and he was yanked to his feet and set upright.

" Then maybe you need to get a better look at him!" Urosia hissed to the captive and the man was pulled forwards. Will and Aaron shifted closer together as Urosia approached with the man. Setting the man squarely in front of two young people, Urosia said to the man.

" Look at them, Sunfonroy. Look the boy in the eyes." Then, Urosia gripped the man by his short hair again, and was forced to glance up.

This close, the man's every detail was visible. If he were in his usual peak physical condition Will was certain the man would've been lean and strong looking. However, now he appeared gaunt and weak, swaying slightly from exhaustion was Will's best guess. He looked as though he'd been beaten brutally by the large bruises on his cheek and his black eye. More bruises on what of his hands and arms could be seen showed this to be true. There were cuts as both his visible body and his clothes. Dried blood stained his clothes and body too. The man's skin was covered in grim and filth, along with the intermingled blood that had dried from old and more recent wounds.

This man had been tortured, Will realized right away. Not just bodily either. The way he walked showed a lack of hope or enthusiasm that one who was alive had. His eyes were hollow, making him appear as a shadow of the man he had once been.

Then his eyes gave him away. From the deep hollow eyes of the shadow man, a flicker of hope twinkled for an instant. But just as fast as it appeared, the hopefulness faded to hopelessness again.

" This is your student, Sunfonroy. Look at him in the eyes and tell him that he isn't your student." Urosia told him, menacingly, cold enough it sent a chill through Aaron visibly this time. The man's eyes met Aaron's pleading blue eyes. For a moment, it seemed an understanding passed between the two of them, un-uttered.

" He? Him? No, sir, this is no black stag-ling," looking over at Urosia, he said, very plainly," this is a white dove." Urosia looked befuddled, looking between his beaten captive and the two young people that he'd just snared. The man gave a contemptuous laugh at Urosia, pointing at Aaron. " When did my apprentice become a girl, sir?"

Aaron flushed almost instantly. Urosia didn't take kindly to being laughed at, and punched Sunfonroy so hard that he fell back and lay still.

" Stop hurting him!!" Aaron snarled darkly at him, her tone dangerous though she appeared less threatening with the blush on her face. Urosia looked carefully from both Aaron and Sunfonroy, thinking this over. Aaron slipped off her shirt, crossing her arms under her breasts, shifting very uneasily at the critical gazes all around her.

" Yes, I'm a girl," she muttered, softly, then looked at Sunfonroy," how'd you know?"

Will, wisely, stayed quiet, though he was bursting with questions. Sunfonroy slowly sat up,
showing a great deal of effort in just this small action, but smiled at Aaron, looking like a grungy old man.

" I have my way of knowing such things." he answered back vaguely to Aaron. Urosia seemed unable to grasp the fact that Aaron was, in fact, a girl.

" You must be the student! I've been following you since the day after I captured this sunfonroy!!The trail led right to you back in Kuronvi!!" Urosia exclaimed, feverishly, red with fury as Aaron began to form her new lie without the need to take much thought.

" Kuronvi is where my master family lives. I'm a messanger girl, though I always dress like a boy," she puffed up slightly, as if annoyed, " my family even thinks I'm a boy, I'm sure of it. I was delivering a message to one of the mistress' friends when you attacked me for the first time!!" She gestured towards Will, explaining. " That's why I've got him with me. I needed his help, running away from you all the time, asshole."

Urosia couldn't figure it out. This explanation made sense, and truth be told, Sunfonroy's apprentice was purely male, he would know if his own student was a girl. Something within Urosia caused him to doubt the words being said and the looks between the girl and the beaten man. Was this a trick? It felt like a trick, even smelled like one, but he'd been here the whole time. They couldn't have come up with some sort of plan without talking about it.

Or couldn't they?

For all Urosia knew, Aaron had made the whole story up, and Sunfonroy had lied to them to keep his student out of harms way. That certainly made sense too, and it was very possible to pull off without talking.

Dismayed, Urosia knew this was a convincing lie, if it was, indeed a lie. It was possibly true, and he knew many of the men would protest holding them prizioner if the two young people were both just victums of a misunderstanding. Many of them didn't have the stitegeic thought that the higher officers had when dealing with enemy forces. The men would follow his orders indefinatly. However, if the majority disagreed with him, the man standing guard would most likely let them go anyways because they figured these people were victims.

Unfortunately, Urosia had to decide of the spot to either hold these two captive or believe their story to be true. It was all too obvious what choice he had to pick, inevitably, and if it was the wrong one, it was going to cost him much more then he could afford of give up.

" Trust me, that's the truth," Will added now to Urosia, holding out his oakleaf pendent for Urosia to see," I'm a Ranger, if I tell you it's the truth then it's the truth."

He hoped he sounded more convincing then he felt he was. Urosia looked at Will, quizzically.

Unfortunately, he had no way of knowing that what Will said was a lie. He had only the emblem that Will held out to show him to go by, and Urosia had no idea what it meant to be a Ranger.

" Fine then, I believe you," to Aaron, Urosia added," sorry for the inconvenience." he paused, tugging Sunfonroy to his feet with a swift yank of his shirt. Urosia considered everything and this seemed the best route. Right now, in strange new territory, he couldn't afford to have his men going against him as they might if he held the young people captive.

Despite that his better judgement told him to keep them under close watch, and after all the effort to catch Aaron had finally come through with the positive result, the circumstances prevented him from keeping him, er, rather, her now.

" However," he said, firmly," if I find out somewhere that either of you two lied to me," his voice had hardened to reinforce the threat he was trying to make, " I'll personally find, catch, and kill the both of you by myself." Aaron put a hand to her heart.

" Now, do you ever thin a woman like me would lie to a man like you?" she asked, attempting beyond hope to sound as soft and disarming as she could. (Note: This was a poor attempt because she still appeared very menacing, and Urosia reconsidered his choice for a second or two seeing this look.)

Urosia grunted.

" I suppose not," he said, pulling Sunfonroy away as the man dragged his feet," get to your feet, Sunfonroy!!" Sunfonroy groaned once and trudged on slightly faster this time.

" Bite me! I've been thrown over that damn horse all this way. You can't expect my legs to be in order after all that!" Sunfonroy replied, getting another hard hit to his face, and tumbling to the ground.

" Always got to get your two cents in, don't you, Sunfonroy?!" Urosia snapped and continued to drag the wrecked man away as if he were less a man and more a dog.

"But girl," he hollered over his shoulder to Aaron," I've never known a girl to call me an asshole either.
I believe you're crooked enough to lie to me."

All Aaron did in reply was give another attempt at a disarming smile ( which, again, failed.) It incidental, still looked rather sly and devious. With that said, Urosia and his men made their leave, with only the face of Sunfonroy looking back at Will and Aaron.~~~~

WWWHHEEEEE!!! There we go. Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!! Send any feedback by means of a review, and trust me, I take any and all reviews!! Thanks for reading!!!