I'm so tired!

Crowley rode into the town casually. It wasn't the first time he had come here, that being a few months earlier, but it was certainly the first time since he had instigated the changes within the corps. Vaguely knowing where he was going, it was only as he reached one landmark that he remembered how to get to the next one. It was strange realistically, he wouldn't have been able to describe his journey to another person, or even tell them the paths he took to get there.

That didn't matter thought because he was never really planning on telling anyone about it. The recent changes in the corps would have highlighted who was loayal to his cause, however non of them had turned out to be. He had known that without his leadership they had organised a series of leaders to take over from him, he had even allowed it. However, as non of them had come to tell him about it, he was making this journey alone.

And after all, if the group were going to take to comand out from under him, they needed the resources that only he had access to.

He reached the next land mark and nodded to himself; he was still going in the right direction. The next landmark would be the clearing that they had planned on meeting in, he realised.

"Finally," he told his horse who didn't say anything in response. The horse he was riding on wasn't Cropper, instead being a normal castle supplied one, and he mourned the difference. After his first meeting with the witch, Cropper refused to go any where near him, trying to bite him the whole time. With a sigh of frustration he continued on his way.

Another ten minutes and he had reached the spot. Now he had only to wait until she arrived.

Horace was annoyed to say the lest, Not only had he been told to spend the night working on the chores because they were expecting someone the next morning, he had been told that next morning that they were going to meet the person. He was able to see in her eyes that their guest had never planned on coming straight to them.

Now he was jogging alongside the witch's horse. Whilst it wasn't a trained battlehorse, and it certainly wasn't a Ranger's horse, it was still a horse. And he was still only human. There were a couple of times when he got shocked for being too far away from them. Occationally it was because he had managed to pull a head in a paticularly difficult patch of land that the horse had to pick its way through, which the witch didn't let it have its head on, often it was due to the fact that he had fallen behind.

Just as he was recieving the shocks and trying to pull himself to go faster he was told to stop, and stop he did. The shocks directed him, rather clumsily, towards a bush, which he was then expected to walk inside and hide within. All he could think about was questioning the reason behind the bizare actions.

Two seconds later Crowley walked into the clearing.

Horace wasn't able to stop the shocked and betrayed feelings from busting forth. He would have thrown himself out of the bush and tackled the Ranger commander if knew the man didn't have as extensive training as he had (Horace having gone against him in practice at the castle), and if he had been able to move. As he was struggling against the bonds that held him in place, the witch turned around to him and hissed.

"Stop moving!" she told him. Truthfully, if Horace hadn't stopped moving, the struggle of keeping Crowley and Horace in the same place was draining her. The spell wouldn't have lasted much longer. To save on it, she dragged Horace out of the bush, whilst dropping the control over Crowley to the lowest she felt she could afford.

"What are you doing?" Horace asked Crowley with loathing. Crowley just raised one eyebrow. The younger man started forwards, surprised he had to ability to go right up until right before Crowley's face.

"How dare you claim Will of being insane when we are right here in front of the witch herself? You planned to meet her!" Horace hissed at him. A small section of this managed to break through the spell on Crowley and before she could stop it, he spoke.

"I didn't declaire Will insane. I wouldn't without good reason," Crowley stated honestly. Had it been Halt who had watched the exchange, or even another one of the Rangers, they would have been able to see the difference between the two; between the Crowley responding under the spell, and the Crowley not under. Unfortunately for everyone involved in this, Horace wasn't that familiar with Crowley, just knowning that he was the commander was enough for him.

"But you did. Why?"

"He saw a witch," by which point he was back under the spell properly. Horace's mouth opened in shock before it closed again, along with his eyes. He nodded once, sharply before walking away, towards his originial hiding place.

"Shame on you," he spat, before literally spitting on the witch's feet.

For the next hour there was silence in the clearing. Horace had sat down in a fairly comfortable spot and just gone to sleep. There was nothing for him to do here and so it wasn't worth it staying away for the silence. Somehow, the witch and Crowley didn't need to talk to communicate, so anything said would have been useless for him to report on later.

Realistically, the witch was standing there making adjustments on the spells enclosing Crowley. Half of them were about to fade, possibly proving disasterous to her plans and the other half were statisfactory. Small adjustments were also made, making Crowley less likely to snap and other such things.

Eventually the witch woke Horace up sharply before nodding at Crowley. The Ranger got back on his horse and began to ride away, not saying anything to Horace who watched him go with a stoney expression. One thing he did notice that was strange, was that it wasn't a Ranger horse.

"Back to the cabin now, Sweet," she muttered, getting on her horse and riding off. Horace swore as he tried to catch up.

Wrote this on a train going into uni and literally fell asleep writing it, so if it has major typos or whatever or sounds even more stupid than normal, have at it. And it was yesterday's update!

And Crowley was mentioned 16 times in 1000 words. I think that has to be a new record for him.

Aly