Ranger's Apprentice One Shots

Frozen Hatred (Part Five)

They stared at each other for a count of five seconds. Will tried talking several times, failing to find the words.

"The – uh – stew is spilling," Gilan said, pointing at the fallen pot.

"Oh!" yes!" Karina said, finally coming out of the daze. At the same moment, so did Will. Gilan bent down to help Karina pick up the stew and Halt simply watched. He raised an eyebrow at will, confused as ever. Will shook his head, unsure how to explain.

Once Karina stood back up, she laid the tray safely on the table. "So it really is you," she said. "I can't believe it."

"Neither can I."

"Will someone please explain how you two know each other?" Halt interrupted, annoyed.

Karina smiled at him. "I'm sorry. I'll explain. When Will was a slave here, I also was. He got assigned a job from my master and I helped him by giving him food."

"You did more than that, Karina," Will said, "you gave me hope and love."

Karina smiled softly. "But I also gave you food."

"I didn't disagree," Will laughed.

"Mom?" a boy, perhaps sixteen called, "mom, i accidentally blew up–" he stopped as he realized his mother was talking to customers.

Will saw the boy and looked back at Karina. "You... he..."

"Yes, he's my son. I married a Skandian."

"By will or..."

Karina kept her smile. "Yes, by will. I loved him and he loved me. He was one of Erak's crewmates actually."

"I'm happy for you."

"Hal, come here," Karina said, waving a hand at her son. Hal came, a little confused. When he saw Gilan, his eyes widened in recognition.

"Gilan!"

"Hal!"

They clasped hands, grinning ear to ear.

"And how do you two know each other?" Halt said, still annoyed at this new exchange.

"We went to Socorro together. Last year," Gilan explained. Then, back at Hal, he asked, "how have you been? Still have Heron?"

"So now I'm the only one who doesn't know anyone. Great," Halt muttered angrily.

Karina and Hal joined their table for a few moments, catching up after the years. It felt so good to Will, to talk to someone that he remembered with good memories, here. At least some good came out of this place, he thought.

A kitchen staff called for Karina, and she left, a little hesitantly.

"How long are you staying for?" Hal asked.

"About a week."

"Do you have somewhere to stay?"

Halt answered this time, hoping to be somewhat interactive. "Actually, Erak is providing for us."

Hal nodded, satisfied. "Well, I'd be happy to show you around, if you'd like."

"That'd be great," Gilan answered immediately, "thank you."

Hal left, leaving the original three again. Gilan and halt bombarded Will with questions, and to the best of his ability, Will answered back. He was still dazed, all the memories and moments coming back to him. Suddenly, the whole mission seemed better to him. And, he surmised, he owed it all to Karina.

THE END!

okay, okay, you have total rights to be mad at me. But please don't be. See, I've had this annoying thing called school and in the school they give us something called homework. It takes a while. So that's what I've been busy with. I know I know, you're going to say, "why can't you do both, then?" and you'd have a valid point. Very valid. And at that point, I'd probably ignore you and pretend I didn't hear you because I don't have a very valid answer. But also (just so i can have another excuse), I have been working on my own novel that i hope someday I can publish. So, you know, I wanna get rich. And me working on my novel will hopefully achieve that. If I get costumers. But to have costumers, I need readers. And to have readers, I might need to have platforms. Wattpad is a platform. So I should probably publish more on Watt... dang it, I messed up. 

Alright, alright. I'll try to publish more. happy? but you gotta help me out and share my stores so i can actually see that people want to read my stories? because if you share my stories, I'll see that people are interested, and then they'll come to my Wattpad platform and then they'll want to read my future novel and then I'll get rich. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. ;)

HAVE A GREAT NIGHT AND WEEK!