I do not own Fairy Tail or Ranger's Apprentice


Lucy was excited, despite the misting rain currently soaking her three companions and herself. She had never traveled to another country before, worlds yes, but not countries. Now that she thought about it, it was rather strange that she had never left Fiore, but had been to not one, but two other worlds. The thought caused her to chuckle dryly to herself.

"If you have a joke, I think we'd like to hear it," said Gilan. "I think the boys need a little up."

She looked over to her companions who were both hunched over their horses, trying to keep warm despite the cold misting rain that was soaking them through to the bones. They looked up and towards her at Gilan's statement and Lucy shrugged a little sheepishly.

"It's nothing funny, really. I was just thinking about how cool it's going to be to see another country. I've never actually traveled outside of Fiore."

"Fiore? Is that where you're from?" asked Will, suddenly very interested in the conversation.

"Yes. That's the name of the country I'm from anyway," Lucy confirmed.

It was Horace's turn to chime in. "Wait . . . This is Araluen. If you're from Fiore, then how come you said you've never traveled to another country?"

Everyone was silent for a few moments, forgetting that Horace didn't know that Lucy was a mage from another world. They exchanged a few awkward glances, wondering how to approach this situation.

"It's . . . . a little difficult to explain," said Lucy. "For now . . . just think of it as a nickname for Araluen."

Horace just looked more confused and was about to start asking more questions when Gilan jumped in to save her. "So Horace, are we giving you enough adventure?" There might be a time for Horace to find out that he was basically traveling with a magic user that was literally from another world, but that time was not now.

Wiping the gathering mist off of his face, Horace responded with, "A bit less than I expected, sir. But it still beats a close order drill."

"I imagine it does," said Gilan with a kind smile. "You know, you don't have to have to ride in the back. We Rangers don't stand too much on ceremony. Come join us." Saying that, he nudged Blaze's side, causing the horse to sidestep to make room for the knight-in-training to join them.

"Thank you, sir." Horace said gratefully as he and Kicker joined the line of Rangers. Well, one Ranger and two Rangers-in-training.

Gilan gave Will a cocked eyebrow in response to the honorific. "Polite, isn't he? Obviously manners are well taught in the Battleschool these days. Nice to be called 'sir' all the time." The jibe caused both Lucy and Will to smile. Not a bad idea to have a bit of respect shown. Perhaps you could call me 'sir' as well," Gilan continued as he turned to face the tree line.

It was only Lucy who caught the barest hint of a grin as he turned away, while Will's smile faded. "Sir? You really want me to call you 'sir,' Gilan?" Gilan frowned a bit at that, causing to Will to quickly correct himself with, "I mean, sir! You want me to call you 'sir' . . . sir?"

Lucy was having difficulty stifling her laughter as she turned away, covering her mouth. Honestly, Will was far too charmingly gullible at times. Even so . . . her mirth quickly faded as Gilan's playful banter made her long for the rowdiness of the Fairy Tail. Even now, she could envision it perfectly in her head. Some minuscule slight would set Natsu and Gray against each other in a shouting match, then the fight would quickly turn physical, turning into an all-out brawl as other members were hit by them or something they had thrown. Some unfortunate individual would be thrown into Erza, causing her beloved strawberry cake to fall add meet its fate on the floor where it would likely be desecrated as someone stepped on it. The brawl would likely be put to an end shortly after as Erza beat them all to a pulp, and there Lucy would be with Wendy, Carla, and Mirajane, casually keeping conversation as they dodged all manner of thrown things, including bodies.

Thinking of this exact scenario that had occurred more times than she could count (considering it was a very near-daily occurrence within the guild so long as Natsu and Gray were present) made her chest ache and she found herself longing for the days when she'd come home to find Erza, Gray, Happy, and Natsu had made themselves at home, making a mess of her place and eating her out of house and home. Now she had to hide her face for an entirely different reason.

Keeping the act up, Gilan shook his head. "No. I don't think 'Sir-Sir' is suitable. Nor 'Sir Gilan'. I think just one 'sir' would do nicely, don't you?" The perplexed Will was having difficulty responding as Gilan continued, "After all, it'll do nicely to keep us all remembering who's in charge of this party, won't it?"

"Well, I suppose it-" Will started to say, still perplexed when Lucy interrupted.

"Don't you think you've teased him enough, Gilan?" she asked, her tone harsher than she had intended as the words she had been holding back during Gilan's last statement burst forth.

The three men turned to her, a little surprised at her angered tone, though Will was mostly embarrassed at not having caught on to the teasing. Even through his embarrassment, he was not blind to the hunched, despondent figure of his fellow apprentice. It was body language he recognized from the many times when she'd had a moment to herself between studying and training, when she was thinking about her friends that had been left behind when she came here.

"Lucy . . . are you okay?" asked Will.

"I'm fine," she said quietly, even though they both knew she wasn't. "I just . . . This rain is awful. Let's just keep going."

They exchanged worried glances with each other before continuing on in silence. The rain had stopped sometime in the mid-afternoon and traveled the rest of the day on sodden ground until they finally made camp at the first set of rolling hills. They all did their part to set up camp, but when Gilan began teaching Horace swordplay, Lucy took the chance to slip away, not without notifying Will and Gilan, to have some time alone to think and to train her magic, hopefully where Horace wouldn't see her. He seemed like a nice guy, but Lucy was trying to keep the whole magic thing on the down-low, as Halt had told her to do. Also she didn't fancy letting everyone in this world know and having them burn her for being a witch.

Focusing on her surroundings through her meditative training, she blocked out the distant sounds from metal on metal, and later, wood on wood as the boys trained. She trained till she had nearly exhausted her magic reserves before shuffling back to camp just as the others were getting ready to settle for the night.

"Glad you decided to join us again, Lucy," said Gilan with a raised brow as he took in her weary appearance. "Since you skipped out on all the fun, how about you take first watch?" he joked.

Lucy, on the other hand, was in no mood for jokes and fixed Gilan with a glare that would have sent the Kalkara running. " . . . No." she stated as she made for her bedroll. It felt gross doing so, between the rain and the sweat, but with no options for bathing or even to really wipe down, she had little choice but to suffer with it.

"Well then, in the interest of keeping my hide, Will, take the first watch. Horace, you take second, Lucy takes third, and I'll take the last watch."

Thanks to there being more people, their watches were made shorter, the group still continued their journey before the sun was able to crest over the horizon. There was less and less vibrancy and diverse plantlife around as the terrain became rocky hills, the earth becoming coarse, causing trees to become fewer and farther between and stunted in their growth, unable to derive the nutrients they needed from this soil as the forest shifted into craggy hills of hardy, rough grass that swayed in the seemingly incessant wind. What few houses they saw were made of stone and thatch.

When they stopped the next night, Gilan once again began training the two boys, and Lucy once again wandered off to train alone. Well, not completely alone as she had Capricorn summoned. This pattern continued for a couple more nights before Gilan eventually stopped her as she got up to do her training.

"No, you're staying by the camp tonight," said Gilan. Much as he knew she was likely doing training of her own, this was a skill she needed to learn as well. Besides . . . he found himself morbidly curious about just how well she could use that whip that she always had attached to her belt. "Let's see what you can do with that whip of yours."

"Huh? Why?" asked Lucy.

"Because I'm curious," he said as he stood. "Just how precise are you with that?"

Lucy shrugged a bit. "I don't know, I'm pretty good at using it to grab things . . . " she stated lamely.

Gilan grinned at that. Now they were getting somewhere. Drawing one of the knives at his belt and held it out in what could be considered a threatening manner if they didn't know that this was a test. "Alright then, try to take the knife out of my hand," he challenged her.

Lucy looked confused and a little nervous, "Are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked she was taking the spade-tipped leather whip.

"You said you were good at grabbing things with that whip. Were you bluffing?"

"No!" Lucy quickly defended, bristling.

"Well then, prove it."Gilan challenged her. He'd knew he'd gotten the reaction he needed when he saw the hard set in her eyes as she decided to do just that.

Before Gilan could really process what was happening, there was a blur of black from the whip and the next thing he knew, the dagger was torn from his hands and into the air, plummeting down to where Lucy caught it. Such a thing was very impressive in this world, but in her own, it would have been something anyone with a certain amount of grace and deftness was able to do, or at least that was how it was at her guild, and certainly nothing compared to what Erza or Bisca could do. She approached him and held out the knife to him, hilt first.

"That was very good. You can do this consistently?" asked Gilan. With a sure nod from Lucy, Gilan sheathed his knife and drew his sword. "Good, now put that away and take out your knives."

"Why?"

Gilan shook his head. "So many questions, but if you must know, I'm going to teach you the double-knife defense. Will has already been practicing with Horace while you've been out . . . doing whatever you've been doing, so I think it's time you learn as well . . . I'm assuming that you don't know it either since Halt would have taught both of you if he was going to teach one of you."

"Double-knife defense? What's that?" asked Lucy as she complied with his earlier request and drew the two knives at her hip.

On a side note, Gilan was still infinitely curious about that cylindrical object she always had on her belt, the one that was adorned with a star attached by a string. But that was for another time. "Well, at least you didn't pretend to know what it was," he said, throwing a pointed look at Will. "The double-knife defense is a technique where you use both your knives, hence double-knife defense, to defend yourself from a melee attacker. It works best when against a sword."

"I suppose it's smart to be able to defend against a swordsman if they get too close . . . " said Lucy in a not all-together certain tone.

Gilan threw another pointed look at Will. "See, she gets it. And yes, it is very smart."

The next few minutes were spent with him teaching Lucy how to use the double-knife defense, blocking the different types of blows and getting the stance and the hold on the knives down. After a bit, Gilan had Lucy switch to sticks and take turns practicing with Will and Horace. She'd had a little difficulty at first, but she had good reflexes and a good head on her shoulders, so once she started getting the proverbial swing of it, it came to her with increasing ease. Eventually though, everyone settled down for the night to get their rest between watches.


Hope you enjoyed! :)