As Will approached the cabin he sighed. He would much rather be having dinner in a comfortable environment with Alyss by his side right now, but instead he was here.
Alone.
And that was the thing that really broke his heart. He wouldn't mind being in his cabin, even if he wasn't expecting any visitors in the next few days, the thought that Alyss would eventually come always sustained him. Now they were gone.
Will walked inside and felt the anger well up inside him. What was he able to do? How could he change to be better suited towards her? A vase that had only been bought the week before in an attempt to make the cabin warmer for Alyss was the closest breakable object within reach when Will started to swell with anger and he picked it up and threw it to the opposite wall. It shattered into many pieces and was irreparable.
Just like her love for me, Will thought bitterly and reached over and found the reports that he had been working on. Those too were destroyed along with anything else that Will knew could be replaced easily and without too much conscious thought. (The reports were mandatory once every two months ones.)
Eventually though he ran out of things like that so he picked the next most effective objects.
The frying pan.
He threw the small one at the wall and it left a hole in the plaster and a dent in the pan. With a nod Will picked it up and placed it on the lounge. Something for him to deal with when he wasn't too focused on wrecking everything in sight. A few more objects were smashed/dented before Will calmed down slightly and realised that none of this was helping him in the slightest. Now if he had been aiming his throws at something and testing the weight of the objects so that they would cause the largest dent in the wall with a certain side, then it would have helped his training, but as it was he hadn't been. He was too swallowed up in self pity.
Instead of uselessly throwing things again that he would only have to replace or fix/make anew, Will grabbed his bow and his practice arrows (the ones that couldn't be salvaged when the tips had been dented and weren't sharp enough to pass but didn't affect his practice), and of course his real ones, and walked over to the targets.
His real arrows went off to the side so that they wouldn't be mixed up and the first set of practice arrows strung across his shoulders.
The sun set with the constant thudding of the arrows hitting the targets at regular intervals. Will exhausted his supply and then went onto collect them and start all over again. By the time Halt reached the cabin, ready to calm Will down and help him to stop thinking about it enough to sleep, he was surprised instead to see his former apprentice practicing his archery. At 9 in the night. With a few lamps lit around the clearing, surrounded by broken arrows that had been the target of his anger.
"Are you alright Will?" he called out.
"Just practicing," Will replied strangely happy in nature, then walked off to go and collect ten arrows, having given up on getting all of them. Some were just too far into the target to worry about in the dark.
"At nine in the night?" Halt continued.
"Is it that time only?" Will asked looking slightly forlorn at the knowledge. He turned around and shot some more and Halt watched as all of them, having been directed all at the same target, went to the left. Now that he noticed, all of the shots that Halt could see were clustered away from the centre of the target.
"Where are you actually aiming, Will?" Halt said walking over to the younger ranger and inspecting the arrows that were littering the lawn under his feet. Most had been snapped in half brutally or the heads were broken off.
"In the middle. But there are two targets right next to each other that I don't remember setting up and I always manage to miss the centre of both. I don't understand what's happening? Maybe I need to practice more! Is that why Alyss left me? Because I was slack and can't shoot?" Will started to get hysterical towards the end of his one sided conversation with himself and randomly broke into sobs.
Halt took half a step back at the sudden behaviour and then realised that there was no need to be scared of Will and took a step and a half forwards.
"Have you had anything to drink?" he suggested, trying to prompt Will's brain into realising what was going on and stopping now before he did anything stupid.
"A bit," Will admitted. "I was thirsty and then I decided that I didn't need to remember anything so I had the alcohol in the cabin. I don't know what type it was though."
Halt sighed and reached out to Will. He placed one hand on top of Will's back hand and the other to the front of the bow guiding where it was aimed. He pointed it towards the middle of the target and then stood back allowing Will to fire. The arrow flew true and landed in the dead centre.
"There you go, you made it, now it's time to rest and do something else," Halt said and dragged Will away from the targets, much to his protesting. "I promise to let you get up really early tomorrow so that you can work on it even more." Will sloppily nodded his head and Halt wondered how his ex-apprentice even managed to hit the targets in the first place, especially considering that he wasn't even walking straight.
"How many glasses did you have?" Halt asked. He wasn't angry, there was nothing he could do now anyway to be angry, there was no way that Will was going to remember any of this in the next morning.
"I lost count," Will said. "They smashed really easily though." Halt at once got worried and quickly checked Will over for any injuries, after finding a fairly decent gash along his arm and smaller ones on his hands, he decided that Will was going to need a full look over.
That was if they could get inside the cabin without getting any more injuries.
Halt led his ex-apprentice and opened the front door. He had to pause to work out what was going to happen next as there was glass all over the floor.
"How many things did you end up throwing?" Halt asked. Will looked at him drunkenly and swayed. His eyes then sid from Halt's face to the cabin floor.
"I don't want to clean that all up," he said. Halt rolled his eyes and then grabbed the broom that was mean for the porch. He leaned Will up against the door frame then cleared a path to Will's room.
"Walk," he said simply and gently shoved Will in the right direction. He watched sadly as his ex-apprentice stumbled drunkenly to the opposite door frame. "Go sleep, I will make sure that this place isn't broken into."
Halt sighed and started sweeping everything into a pan. It took him three hours but he finally managed to right everything aside from the odd dent in walls and frying pans. Unfortunately `he didn't trust the lounge enough to sleep on it. He had already pulled out five shards of glass from it. It was going to be a sleepless night.
The next day Halt rose at his normal time and sat up from where he had found a trustworthy section of floor.
"I'm getting too old to do this," he said and stretched. As soon as he did however the aroma of coffee assaulted his nose. He lifted his head up to find Will half asleep at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of him.
"Are you trying to inhale your cup?" Halt teased gently. Will looked up and jumped.
"When did you wake up?" he asked confused.
"Just then. When did you return to the land of the living? Last night I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to get sober ever again," Halt replied and got up. When he did however he managed to find that one piece of glass that you are only ever able to find using a body part and swore. Why him?
"Two hours ago. I woke and threw up." Will said without smiling.
"Arms hurt?" asked Halt. Will looked up sharply and his eyes narrowed.
"How could you tell?" he asked and then got up and poured a cup of coffee for Halt.
"All you did for the afternoon yesterday was shoot. I don't even want to know how many you broke or have lost."
Will groaned at Halt's statement. He remembered starting to shoot arrows so that he didn't wreck the cabin any more but didn't remember coming back in and making it to his room.
"I didn't do anything stupid... did I?" he said. Halt shook his head and then sighed in appreciation at his first sip of coffee.
"Drinking the real stuff?" Halt asked and shifted on his seat to pull out yet another piece of glass.
"I needed it," Will replied and looked away.
Two hours later and the rangers were emu bobbing around the targets (and sometimes far away) to search for salvageable arrows. So far Will had come up with thirty and Halt had found forty, Halt having searched on the left hand side of everything.
"I didn't realise that I had missed this much," Will admitted sheepishly. Halt simply smiled and patted him on the shoulder.
"You were roaring drunk though and possibly right out of your mind." Will nodded and returned everything to the proper sections. He was busy concentrating on not throwing up and sorting through the arrows to find the broken ones.
"Thank you for that, Halt," Will said.
Halt looked up with a smile. "You're welcome."
Most of you might not know anything about it but one of the states in Australia are suffering from massive bushfires. All the schools were closed in the area, people were evacuated and those doing their HSC got told to complete it in other places. My grandma was caught in it and other people I know were close to losing their houses.
Please keep the people now without homes and those at risk of losing everything in your prayers to whatever you believe in. Even if that's just your thoughts :)
Alyss Mainwaring