The next several days passed by relatively peacefully after the hunt. Will was glad for it. The last week had been such a whirlwind, and the last months before that so full of life-altering events, that having a few days of quiet was wonderful.

Crowley's injury, although by no means serious, was enough to put him down for a while. He sent a message to Castle Araluen the next morning after the hunt, describing what had happened and telling them that he would be unable to ride back until his leg was fully healed. Then he settled into Halt's cabin to recover.

Since Crowley needed to keep off his feet for at least a week or two, Halt gave Crowley his bed. He still refused to leave his own room - perhaps stubbornness on his part - and had his bedroll put on the floor. It could not have possibly been that comfortable, but for some reason Halt preferred it over Will's bed or even the couch. Unsurprisingly, the sleeping arrangements only made Halt grumpier than usual.

Now that the aftermath of their fight was over, Will began to finally ease back into his training routine. Halt oversaw most of it, but Gilan still taught Will unseen movement every day, as well as the double-knife defense that Will had been getting so rusty at. Like most things in Will's life, it went pretty terribly at first. Will was still far from peak condition and he had lost a great deal of muscle memory in the past year. It took several days for Will to start getting the hang of it once more.

Still, Will was making progress. Halt was being careful not to overtax Will's body, gradually adding back portions of his training and focusing first on strengthening Will's muscles and stamina. Will could feel it paying off. Every day he felt steadier and more in control of his body.

Additionally, Will couldn't help but think back to the wolf hunt. A warm feeling of satisfaction, if not pride, came to him every time he did. It was his first combat situation since Skandia. Will had been worried that something might go wrong - or rather, that he might go wrong. Yet he had kept his head and fired several decent shots.

When he shyly confided this to Gilan one night, a week and a half after the hunt, Gilan agreed. They were both sitting on the roof of Halt's house (don't ask), swinging their legs off the side. Thickening twilight glimmered through the clearing and around the trees.

"See? Not so bad of a Ranger after all, are you?"

Will let a flicker of a smile run across his face. "Not a Ranger."

Gilan rolled his eyes. "Semantics."

"Bold of you to assume I know what that means," Will said dryly.

"...Do you seriously not know what the word 'semantics' means?"

"Do I look like I know?"

"Well, I thought you did, hence the question."

Will groaned. "You are way too much like Halt."

Both of them laughed.

"You know..." Will started slowly, after a few seconds' silence. He hadn't yet mentioned this to anyone. Once, the idea of someone not knowing something had been thrilling. Now it was just lonely. It was truly horrible, Will thought, how much about himself - how many of the thoughts and experiences inside his mind - would never be known by another human. The mortifying ordeal of being known? No - the horrifying ordeal of being unknown.

It was times like these he most loved the existence of God.

"Hmm?"

"Our medical kits," he said, stumbling a little over his words. "Rangers' medical kits, that is."

"What about them?"

"They have, um." Will paused. Somehow he had expected Gilan to realize. He hadn't thought he would have to spell it out. "Their contents? It's, um. They have a pain-relieving salve in them, yeah?"

Gilan tilted his head, confused. "Yes...?"

Did Gilan actually not know? "Well, the salve. It's, um. There's...warmweed in it."

"It has what?"

Will nodded. He stared down at the ground, a mere fifteen or so feet below him. He idly wondered when Halt was going to get back. He'd been gone a lot, lately. "Yeah."

"I had no idea," Gilan said. "Wait. If I didn't know, how did you figure it out?"

Will sighed. "The hard way. I smelled it when Halt was using it on Crowley, right after the hunt. It...that really sucked."

"I can imagine."

Will stared at his hands. They were shaking, but not as bad as they normally would. "I didn't freak out. It was close, but I didn't. I'm...I'm glad. At least I can stand smelling it without going mental."

"You should tell Halt to take it from your kits," Gilan said. "It's not like it's necessary. It doesn't clean the wound or anything, just helps with pain."

But Will was already shaking his head. "You know as well as I do that that's a bad idea. I can't control what I might come across on any given day. I might run into it anywhere, at any time. At least now I'll be prepared whenever there's an injury to treat. If we get rid of it entirely, that's not going to help me at all. It's just going to be postponing the inevitable. I will run into it at some point, it's just a question of when. Shouldn't I try to be prepared?"

"Not if it's going to hurt you."

Will shrugged. "The training I'm doing right now - all those muscle exercises, all the stamina building stuff - is hurting me. I wake up every morning sore and tired. But it's making me stronger."

"There's a difference between pushing yourself and breaking yourself."

Will considered that. "You're not wrong, I guess. But still. I think that incident proved I won't be breaking myself. I can't baby myself all the time, Gilan. We're Rangers. We're needed on the battlefield. We need to be reliable in life-or-death situations. If warmweed could hinder me from acting well, then I need to make it so it doesn't anymore."

Gilan didn't try to protest again, but Will could see he wasn't happy. Will honestly wasn't happy about it either, but he was convinced of his idea's correctness.

"At least bring it up with Crowley," Gilan said.

Will frowned. "Crowley? What's he got to do with this?" He'd been expecting Gilan to say Halt.

"Well, it's not like I know that much, but he's got more experience with this sort of thing than the rest of us." Gilan shrugged. "He might be able to tell you if that's a good idea or not. Run it by him, will you?"

Will doubted it would do much good, but why not? He nodded.

"In the mean time..." Gilan grinned. He nodded at the forest. "I can't wait til Halt comes back."

Will grinned back. "He's gonna be so mad."

Halt was, indeed, quite pissed to find his front door booby-trapped with molasses that hit him full in the face the moment he tried to open the door. Will and Gilan perched on top of the roof, watching with glee. Halt stood motionless for a long second.

Then he said, very very quietly, "Will and Gilan."

Will swallowed. He exchanged a quick glance with Gilan. Gilan's gleeful smile had wavered slightly. Obviously they had known Halt would be pissed - that was the whole point of the prank - but actually seeing Halt pissed was a different matter from knowing it.

"...Are you sure this was a good idea?" Will whispered very, very quietly to his friend.

Gilan gave a strained smile. "No?"

Of course, because Halt apparently possessed preternatural hearing, he heard. His head tipped up, and then his gaze met the nervous ones of both Will and Gilan.

It was just to their luck that the proverbial "people do not tend to look up" did not to apply to Halt.

"H-Hi, Halt," Gilan said, valiantly attempting courage. "That's a...weird situation you've gotten yourself into, huh?"

"Yeah, it sure is strange how something like that could've happened," Will added, laughing nervously.

"It is, is it?" Halt asked, very calmly. He looked down at his Ranger's cloak, completely covered in the sticky residue. "This wouldn't happen to be something you two had known something about?"

"Oh, no!"

"No, of course not!"

"Mm." Halt grunted at them. "You mean to tell me, then, that Crowley did this, I suppose?"

"Uh..." Will threw a glance to Gilan.

"Well, not exactly..." Gilan said, rubbing the back of his neck. "It must've been someone else."

Halt raised an unimpressed brow. "Someone else?"

"Yeah!" Will said, quickly coming to Gilan's defense. "Yeah, definitely! One of the village boys came by earlier this afternoon and set it!"

Halt nodded a few times. "I see," he said. "And you saw this, I suppose? And must have watched it, given how clear the details of the matter seem to be in your mind?"

Will gave Gilan a frantic look. Gilan just offered him a helpless shrug. "Well..."

Halt sighed. "You really are terrible liars," he told them. "Especially you, Will. How you managed to lie to us all for months, I really don't know."

"Well I-" Will closed his mouth, cutting himself off abruptly. He didn't think it'd be a good idea to say anything to that.

"You're clearly the ones who set this up. You left your cutting knife down here, Gilan. Right next to the trap."

Gilan's shoulders sagged. "Shit, really? I could've sworn I-"

"No, you didn't." Halt eyed him with an air of triumph. "But now you've admitted to being near it."

Will and Gilan exchanged glances of resignation. Slowly, they uncurled from their spots and descended down to the ground to face their consequences.

"Well, you got us there, Halt," Gilan told him ruefully.

"Yeah," Will agreed, rubbing the back of his head. He sighed defeatedly, and Gilan echoed him. They came to stand in front of Halt, shoulders drooping guiltily. The thrill of a good prank was always in the possibility of getting caught. Unfortunately, Halt was smarter than they'd thought - although looking back, Will wasn't sure how he hadn't thought this would happen. Halt always saw through his pranks. After all, it's not like some random village boy would be brave enough to prank a mystical Ranger - especially not one as forbidding as Halt.

"So, uh, any trees in our near future?" Gilan asked a bit nervously. Will swallowed.

There was a beat of silence.

Then Halt sighed. He seemed tired, Will noted, exhausted in a way that surely couldn't be simply from the prank. Halt waved a hand dismissively. "Just clean up this mess."

He took off his cloak, thrusting it towards Will. "That includes this. It better be spotless, you hear?"

"Halt," Will said slowly. "Our cloaks are mottled."

Halt blinked. "Oh. So they are. Well, whatever. Just clean the damn thing."

Turning, he strode into the cabin and shut the door behind him. Unlike usual, it shut with a slight click.

Frowning, Will and Gilan exchanged looks.

"I thought for sure he'd string us up, or at least give us a bunch more chores," Will said, staring at the shut door.

"Yeah. Is it just me or is Halt acting...different?"