Daughter of a Ranger

Chapter 10

The boat had landed, and the group were getting off, and setting off to Castle Araluen. They were going to meet Jenny, George and Queen Cassandra there.

As they made there way, the people around Alyss and Jemma were filling them in on what had happened since Alyss had been taken. Alyss congratulated Gilan on his marriage to Jenny, and congratulated Maddie in encouraging women to join the Ranger Corps and the recent engagement to her boyfriend, Henry. Alyss mourned the death of King Duncan.

After the strenuous talk, Alyss filled the group in with stories of Jemma's childhood and how she had stood up for some of the other servants.

The group laughed and enjoyed each other's company, happy to be together once more.

...

Eventually they made their way to Castle Araluen, to be greeted by a beaming Jenny and Cassandra running up to Alyss, giving her a big hug and crying, 'I missed you!', making Horace laugh and shout, 'Hey, what about your husband?'

Alyss pulled Jemma forward and introduced her to the two women. Jemma smiled awkwardly, but swiftly brought into a hug by them. Jemma smiled, feeling at home.

The fact that Alyss was home, made Will smile like he hadn't smiled in years, and he embraced the fact that he was going to have to act like Jemma's father, as he hadn't been their for her.

That night, when his daughter was asleep, Alyss and Will, as well as the others that had been on the trip, were in a room, talking about what she was going to do. They explained every little detail about the girl and Alyss explained that Jemma had wanted to be a Ranger ever since she was a small child.

So the group decided that she would be allowed to continue her training, even though she was underage to start, under Will, as well as practice with her sword and Gilan would check up on her skills at every Ranger Gathering and Horace would visit every so often to refine and check up on her technique.

In the meantime, she was extremely skilled, so Will was going to mainly focus on teaching his daughter hunting, tracking, mapping, and other essential skills.

The group was pleased with the decision and in the morning, explained the plan to Jemma, to be met with delight and excitement.

...

The next morning after that, Alyss, Will and Jemma left for Redmont, where Jemma was going to meet Baron Arald and his wife.

The entire way, Jemma excitedly chatted about what it was going to be like when she was a Ranger, explained ideas for various inventions she wanted to create and whenever Will found some tracks of various animals, he would try and teach them to Jemma, who would absorb the information with delight.

In the evening of the next day, they made it to the castle and had dinner with Baron Arald. Jemma chatted excitedly with the Baron, who responded with his own enthusiastic talk.

She eventually fell asleep on her father's shoulder and Will grinned up at Arald, who was smiling contentedly, and wrapped his cloak around the girl, before excusing his family and leaving for the evening.

Will put Jemma in front of him as they rode and Alyss smiled at the close father-daughter bond they already seemed to share. She was pleased that after all the years of Jemma talking about how eventually she was going to meet her father, it finally happened.

When they reached the small log cabin, Will lifted his daughter off Tug and carried her inside, laying her on the bed in the smaller room. He dropped her luggage on the floor next to her, ready so she could sort through it in the morning.

Alyss had out the horses in the stable. Tug had been pleased to be back with Alyss' horse in the stable and they had left Jemma's borrowed pack horse with the horses in Castle Redmont's stable.

Alyss walked through the front door of the cabin and breathed in the scents she had remembered after all the years.

Will walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. They swayed together, dancing to music they imagined and then lay on the couch, thinking to themselves.

As Will heard his wife's breathing slow, he looked down to see she was asleep, so he picked her up and laid her in their bedroom, before falling asleep himself.

..................

I wanted to show some family bonding time in this chapter.

In the story now, I may skip over some time quite quickly, but it is just because I don't have ideas for every day of her training.

I have plans for Jemma's future, which is going to technically be years from now in the story.

Anyway, I hoped you enjoy the story so far, and ... well, yeah.

See ya :)