A/N: Hello everyone! I hope you are all well. This is just a short piece I wrote in the hopes of getting back into the writing groove. It's more introspective than plot driven, which is different than what I usually write, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone, so here we are. Thanks so much for reading, and I hope it proves as enjoyable to read as it was to write.

Summary: Expression, for Halt, had always been a tricky thing. He'd never been anywhere near exuberant by nature. And, truth be told, there was nothing growing up that would have encouraged him to be otherwise.

In which Halt makes two promises to himself: one he keeps and the other he cannot.

Expression

Expression, for Halt, had always been a tricky thing. He'd never been anywhere near exuberant by nature. And, truth be told, there was nothing growing up that would have encouraged him to be otherwise.

Halt had learned from a very young age how to cry without making a sound. It was simply a survival skill; as instinctive as moving about unseen through the drafty stone walls that had been his home in name only. Unseen and quiet was safest. Noise or true expression often brought nothing but pain. Fighting and raised, furious, voices were the familiar constant backdrop of his home. He had simply assumed, when he was younger, that this was just the way of things; that his experience was one that mirrored others.

It wasn't until he grew older and observed the people of the village of Dun Kilty around the castle that he realized the way his family operated wasn't normal or effective. And it wasn't until he met Pritchard that he actually experienced that difference himself, learned to let go of some of that pure instinct, and learned to actually put his trust in another person. Pritchard had taught him an entirely new way of living, of being.

But some things had become far too ingrained to change completely. Halt wasn't entirely sure if that seeming inability for free and open expression had been something he'd been born with or something he had learned. Perhaps, in a way, it was both. Regardless, it was who he was now as much as anything. However, the part of it that was learned was something he consciously intended not to pass along, a cycle he intended to break.

His defiance had been one of the few things left to him that hadn't been quashed by all that had happened. He'd held tight to it as if it was something precious to be cherished. And he intended to use it to make things different this time, in his new home if not his old. It was a silent promise he had made the moment he'd gotten an apprentice of his own.

~x~X~x~

Gilan cried without making a sound. And that, in it of itself, was a rare thing. Where Halt smiled too little, Gilan smiled too much—his expressions often erring on the edge of incongruent with the seriousness or pain of the situations that they faced. It was not to a point that it would be noticed, or worried about, by the casual uncaring observer. But Gilan was his apprentice, and Halt cared to look, cared to notice. And of the few times when Gilan did cry, it was in a way that was as painful to recognize as it was familiar; if it were not for the tears he could not hide, it would be almost unnoticeable.

Pondering the reason behind it worried Halt all the more because he knew exactly what that had meant for himself growing up in Hibernia. He had looked carefully, but Gilan's small blood family was not like his own. His father was not a man to lash out with rending words or actions, leaving destruction and pain in his wake. And Gilan did not have siblings to be strong for and defend… or defend from. But damage and pain did not have to come from those that were closest to have a deep effect.

Gilan had been raised in wartime. He'd spend much of his young life around and in the army. He'd taken up arms for King and country, and stood on bloody battlefields haunted by the screams of the dying before most boys his age had left their mothers' sides. He had seen the rise of a tyrant and the cruelty and disregard for life that warlord had inflicted in the selfish pursuit of power. He had known the weight of taking lives, the responsibility of leading men, of charging headlong into axe, sword, and spear to save the life of the man beside him with the survival of the kingdom in the balance. And it had all happened before he'd even been thirteen summers old.

Like Halt, he'd simply had to find a new way of being to survive; which could explain it all as it was. However, in his darker and more reflective moments, Halt couldn't help but wonder... wonder if a small part of it had been his fault as much as the war itself.

"Never let the men see you look uncertain… Get a grip!" He remembered once telling the boy in the lead-up to the battle of Hackham Heath when he'd been overwhelmed and nervous about his ability to guide the men to the ford successfully and had shown it openly.

Perhaps Gilan had internalized that lesson as well as he had any of the others Halt had taught him over the years—twisted it to an extreme out of necessity. The thought made him feel as if he had failed his apprentice somehow. Perhaps, in truth, he had let Gilan down as much as he had himself by failing to keep that silent promise he had once made.

~x~X~x~

His only solace was that Will was not like them. Will had grown up in a time of peace—when the battles and threats of Morgarath had become nothing more than scary bedtime stories and myths to those too young or too far removed from the war to have been scarred by it. Although he had lost his parents at a young age, Will had grown up in the safety of the Redmont Ward, looked over by Baron Arald and those he trusted.

Will expressed himself and his emotions with a freeness and an openness that was as honest as it was unapologetic. He was courageous but unabashed about showing what courage truly meant, feeling fear and pain but facing it anyway, holding ground and fighting despite it all.

Halt recalled the times when Will had run to him and his embrace: after the boar fight when he'd risked his life for Horace, after the battle with the Kalkara when he'd saved Halt, Arald, and Rodney's life, and after the skirmish with the Wargals when he'd stood his ground even after missing a shot. Will had wept openly in the aftermath, unashamed—not hiding behind a mask of grim coldness or the deflection of humor and the shield of a carefree smile. It was unfettered and unfearful, comfortable in just being.

It strangely gave Halt a measure of hope. Whispered that there were some places still left that hadn't been touched and twisted by the ugliness the world was capable of.

Perhaps this time he could get it right.

In hindsight he probably should have known the world would never be so kind. Morgarath returned to resume his war, resume the bloodshed and death. Although they finally defeated the warlord once and for all, their victory had not come without a price. Will had sacrificed himself to destroy Morgarath's bridge. His actions had kept the King's army from being flanked, giving them the victory. But he'd given Araluen back its freedom at the cost of his own. He was taken prisoner. And Halt had been seconds too late to save him, could do nothing but watch as Will was taken from him, hauled off to Skandia to be sold as a slave. He could do nothing but call out to Will that he would find him, that he would bring him back. Another promise, and this one, this one, he would do anything to keep…

And he'd done it. It had taken months and nearly cost him everything, but Halt had found him, found him, and brought him home…

~x~X~x~

After he returned from Skandia, Will cried without making a sound.

A/N: Thanks so much for reading. Feedback is always appreciated if you have the time or inclination to leave any. I'm hoping that since my schedule has finally calmed down a little, I will be able to get more writing done soon. I wish you all the very best until next time!

~ATGTJ~