Rangers Apprentice

•[14] People Talk

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3rd POV

Y/n shoots at the target, over and over again. Her arm aches with exhaustion, but she won't let it stop her.
Inside, Will and Halt watch as the young girl nocks and draws another arrow.
"When is she going to stop?" Will asked as he sliced rabbit and vegetables. "She's been doing it non-stop all day!"
Halts eyebrow twitched upward as he studied the girl. "She's annoyed."
"About the rumours, Halt?"
He nodded and switched his eyes to Will, watching him carefully put the rabbit in the boiling broth.

With a slam of the door, Y/n stomped in. Her clothes were drenched in sweat and her hair stuck to her face and neck.
"Overworked yourself?" Halt asked.
"Ran out of arrows," she muttered, looking through the stack that sits in the living room. It's where they make the arrows. "Where are they?" She growled. She couldn't find any arrows that were properly made.
Halt shrugged and Will watched silently.
"Where are what?" Halt looked up at Y/n from his papers.
"The arrows!" She yelled.
Halt shrugged again, and when she looked at Will, he quickly averted his eyes.
She huffed and sat down in a chair, her hands ran through her hair.
"I didn't even do much," she said to no one in particular. "We didn't even do much," Y/n corrected herself.
"I mean, it's not as if I thought it through and decided to do it. It just sort of happened. And after all, you killed the boar, not me or Will."
Halt merely nodded, staring fixedly at the leaping yellow flames in the grate. "People will think what they want to," he said quietly. "Never take too much notice of it."

Nevertheless, Will and Y/n were troubled by the adulation. They felt people were making too big a thing out of it all. Y/n would have enjoyed the respect if it had been based on what had actually happened. In her heart, she felt they had done something worthwhile, and perhaps even honourable.
But they were being lionised for a totally fictional account of events and, being an essentially honest person, she couldn't really take any pride in that.
She also felt a little embarrassed because she knew her and Will were a couple of the few people who had noticed Horace's original, instinctively courageous action, placing himself between the charging boar and the rangers apprentices.

Will had mentioned this last fact to Halt before Y/n stepped in the room. He felt that perhaps the Ranger might have an opportunity to appraise Sir Rodney of Horace's unselfish action, but his teacher had merely nodded and said briefly: "Sir Rodney knows. He doesn't miss much. He's got a little more up top than the average bash and whacker."
And with that, Will had to be content.

Around the castle, with the knights from the Battleschool and the various Craftmasters and apprentices, the attitudes were different. There, Will enjoyed a simple acceptance, and the recognition of the fact that he had done well. However, they barely nodded to Y/n.
Will and Y/n noticed that people tended to know their names now, so that they greeted them as well as Halt when the three of them had business in the castle grounds.
The Baron himself was friendlier than ever. It was a source of pride to him to see one of his castle wards acquit himself well, and his close friends daughter.

The one person Y/n would have liked to discuss it all with was Horace himself. But as their paths seldom crossed, the opportunity hadn't arisen. Y/n and Will has talked about it, but it wasn't the same.

They wanted to make sure that the warrior apprentice knew that they set no store by the ridiculous stories that had swept the village, and they hoped that Wills former wardmate knew he had done nothing to spread the rumours.

In the meantime, Will's lessons and training proceeded at an accelerated pace. In a month's time, Halt had told him, they would be leaving for the Gathering – an annual event in the Rangers' calendar. This was the time when all fifty Rangers came together to exchange news, to discuss any problems that might have arisen throughout the Kingdom and to make plans. Y/n had already been aware, but this is the first time she will be going as well.