Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He was greeted with such a comically devastated look that, although Halt was not one to laugh easily at the silly face of an interlocutor, he struggled to suppress the smile that pressed to his lips at the mere sight of it. He had received no help in getting inside the chamber, but the momentary reaction to his arrival was too fascinating for him to be angry about it. Crowley, however, was usually happy to see him. Now he actually wrung his hands.

“You can’t be serious,” the usually so cheerful, bright-eyed man was now looking at him in such a hurt way that probably only a kicking his horse would merit a similar look.

To make matters worse, Halt was completely serious. It was obvious, even if he wasn’t saying anything yet. The risk of smiling was still too high. First he had to put down the luggage he had lugged into the chamber.

“Well no,” Crowley, seeing his lack of reaction to the initial slump, continued. “After all... No, Halt, no way. Really? I literally just managed to get the floor out from under all those papers. And you’re putting up with new ones for me now? Are you amused by my misery, or what?”

“A little bit,” Halt digressed as he couldn’t help admitting he was right about that. “But uniquely it’s not just about what amuses me.”

Crowley returned to his seat behind the desk, casting a reluctant glance at the stack Halt had brought. The papers were indeed quite a lot, he got tired a little as he carried it across the castle courtyard, up the stairs and into his chamber. He wouldn’t disdain an appreciation of his efforts.

“Will you tell me why you need this? Keep it at your place.”

“No, it’s for you,” Halt pointed him to a pile of papers, books and folders of other papers tied together. “You’ll find a place. If you need to, we can nail down a new bookcase out of a couple of planks for quick reference.”

“Well, all right,” Crowley must have realised that he was unlikely to get rid of the books too quickly. “What for? What is this archive? From whom did you take it?”

“You immediately assume I took it, well that’s very nice,” Halt sent him an offended look and, taking his time to explain what he was actually planning and what the books were for, first took an interest in the still warm jug of coffee on the table.

Crowley must have been tempted to barrage him with further questions; he was watching his friend intently enough that if Halt had been more sensitive to it, he would almost certainly have choked on his coffee from the pressure that had just been exerted on him. Halt, however, dealt with the pressure perfectly well when it happened to be exerted on him by an irritated, confused Crowley. He rarely managed to surprise him so much. Since he had succeeded, he let the moment last. Crowley, on the other hand, remained silent expectantly, although the way he tapped his fingers faster and faster on the desktop showed that his patience in this matter was at an end.

Halt took pity on him only after a moment.

“This is for you, all the books of military theory, essays on the subject, notes, jottings, even one abridgement of the diary of one of the generals from Arrida. These are the ones you don’t already have in the collection,” he waved a hand at the cabinets next to the desk. “Most are translated, the two Gallic ones have translations on the side. With the Old Hibernian I’ll help you; I couldn’t find a translation.”

Despite receiving a really wide-ranging explanation, Crowley lost none of his earlier astonishment. If anything, it surprised him even more.

“You... organised an archive of texts about wars?” he slowly made sure he understood correctly.

“On the conduct of wars, the grouping of armies, training, war and battle chronicles, a bit of military theory beyond what you surely already know from Araluen history,” Halt furrowed his eyebrows, still not receiving any understanding from him. “Well you’ve been railing over my ear constantly about what theoretical deficiencies you have and have no way to get further training, so I’ve written to a couple of places and collected material for you over the last few weeks. You’re welcome.”

Crowley’s hitherto amusing amazement was already beginning to irritate him slightly. The Commandant was still staring at him with wide-open eyes, whose gaze every now and then fleetingly snagged on the books and papers he had collected and laid by the bench, before returning again and fixing itself on Halt.

“So you… you just collected all this because of this?” Crowley finally spoke up, although the pile on the floor answered him overtly.

“As you can see,” Halt raised his eyebrows eloquently. “Oh, and the two of them are to be returned, I’ve marked them with string on the backs. These are some awfully rare ones, in three copies only. So you better read those first, take notes and we’ll send them back.”

“How did you...? How did you get it, Halt? What did you actually do to-”

“I wrote some letters; I already told you. I wrote that I was collecting some books, reforming the country, things like that, and a few different things.”

“And just like that... they lent it to you, huh? Books of which there are three copies in the world?” Crowley became more suspicious already than surprised.

Damn it, he’d given a number unnecessarily. Halt excused himself, however, without much eagerness or nervousness.

“I got on with it. People like to help me, somehow, I’ve noticed they are generally very nice when I ask them to do something for me. There’s nothing to worry about, you won’t have problems anywhere. I’ve sorted everything out; I’ll be sending the books back too. And you... you sit and study.”

He couldn’t explain it any more clearly, and if it still didn’t get through to Crowley, Halt was going to seriously consider whether the books themselves could have helped anything here.

Fortunately, the next look was no longer so confused. Crowley shook his head slowly, still looking at him, then at the books.

“Were you really so fed up with me complaining that you organised a damn complex operation to obtain terribly rare books so I could read them and educate myself?” he barely concealed a smile as he said this, and Halt shook his head immediately.

“No, I just wanted to help.”

“I... I’ll be honest, I feel a bit silly about it now. I secretly resented you not commenting blandly on my ranting about it... and you’ve illegally arranged for a number of books-” Crowley went silent on his own, at a very convenient moment for Halt.

“There was no talk of illegality. I didn’t say anything about it.”

“Halt, jokes aside.”

“Well I’m not joking. I don’t know anything about any illegal conspiracy. You don’t know anything either and as if even, hypothetically, there was one, you wouldn’t find out. You have the books and read them, that’s what it was all about, it worked out. No worries,” Halt hesitated for another moment before, no longer seeing the point in standing at his desk, he found himself a seat on the bench, moving aside the reports that Crowley had finally sorted to the end there. “And as for not commenting... I don’t know, sorry? Like... it wouldn’t do you any good for me to nod at your grievances.”

Crowley was already smiling openly, having forgotten all about the books, just looking at his friend, amused by his approach to the subject.

“I see.”

“Sometimes talking helps you, sometimes it doesn’t. If it would help you now, then my bad, I misunderstood,” Halt pondered for a blink of an eye at most, before admitting it with calmness, seeing no reason to make up some excuse here.

He already knew that when he admitted it, he would not be met with laughter. Crowley did not laugh at his misunderstanding of the nonsensical rules of talking to people, with some even sharing that attitude. He had a much better knack of hiding it when they were talking to people, but Halt, having learned from him about it, was quick to catch a few moments when the same process must have been going on in Crowley’s mind as it was in his. Only Crowley did it faster, more efficiently and was less likely to get it wrong. In addition, with his pleasant appeal he often saved the situation even if he misread the circumstances. People understood it as a joke anyway, Crowley was very good at navigating conversations so that even the less apt of his remarks were not taken seriously.

It actually surprised Halt a little that he himself had not come across this so far, and in a way he had simply assumed for a long time that Crowley thought, felt, and acted exactly as other people did. He already knew that he was wrong at the time, but he discovered this gradually. It fully began to come to him somehow during the return from Warvic to Castle Araluen. Then they had time and opportunity to talk with each other without the pressure of sudden actions, risks and with the shadow of past events fading more and more.

So they talked. They talked a lot, and Egon didn’t particularly disturb them, mostly removing himself to the side so that the two of them could talk peacefully. While Halt had already been under the impression that he knew quite a lot about Crowley, those days and the first weeks after the conquest of Castle Warvic had reassured him on some of his opinions, brought up new ones and completely refuted some of his earlier impressions about Crowley. Among other things, it was precisely that he had no right to understand how Halt thought when he himself thought like other people.

Crowley thought and acted in his own way, neither like other people, nor quite like Halt. But there were common elements, there was room for conversation, there was an option for understanding each other that Halt had never experienced before.

Over the following weeks he settled into the news. He learned more things, remembered them, assimilated them, and looked at the world differently through their prism. Weeks turned into months, and they continued to work together because of their work at Castle Araluen and in the surrounding area. Whether in the forest or at the castle, they spent whole days with each other.

Crowley had recently been invited more and more often to confer with the barons and King Duncan. For the general good, Halt did not attend these meetings. He used that time for his own work, which sometimes equated to his forays into the forest, sometimes getting involved in some pressing crisis from around the capital to relieve Crowley of his duties, and sometimes Crowley would leave his notes for him to check, asking for comments on changes he was considering. Halt didn’t contribute much creatively at first, explaining that since Crowley knew little, there was already a lack of scale for himself. He needed a few weeks to get used to it and to the fact that his opinion was wanted and valued here.

The theoretical knowledge he had from his schooling did not relate to the Rangers’ training itself and their organisation, but he was fairly well versed through this in general military theories and tactics to quickly prove a really valuable voice in the debate. Crowley did not seem surprised by this. Nor did he ask once how Halt actually knew all these things.

Instead, he asked how he had scrounged the books, and here Halt reckoned with the Commandant’s little investigation. He made sure that in such a case it would not show results.

“Thank you,” Crowley didn’t quite know how to address the very matter of commenting or not commenting, and now Halt was sure by only one look on his face that this was exactly the kind of reverie he was facing.

He really had learnt a lot about Crowley over the last few months. The glances, the moments of thought, even the words and facial expressions that he had once taken sceptically or even considered hostile were now familiar and understood enough for him to navigate the conversations without fear. Even if they didn’t always think the same thing, the mindset was too similar not to take advantage of how much easier it made life.

“No problem.”

“You’re not going to tell me where you got the books, are you?” The amusement in Crowley’s eyes only slightly masked the curiosity, and Halt couldn’t pretend he wasn’t proud of how quickly he’d read it, judging by the look in his eyes.

“I’ve already said, I’ve written some letters.”

“And just like that...”

“Yes. Leave it.”

“Well then, all right,” Crowley had also learnt a lot, and he must have understood here already that, for his own and the general sake, he should sometimes let the mystery remain it for good.

The books were here for him to read and that was what mattered.

All that remained was for him to say thank you and get on with the reading. He had intended to get on with it only at his leisure, but Halt had declared himself ready to deal with letters and reports. In view of this, Crowley sat down to the books barely having returned from a short meeting.

On his return, he found a meal prepared for him on a plate and a selection of one of the books that Halt had evidently deemed worth reading first. In response to his thanks for taking care of it, Halt merely returned an unhappy glance to the report at which he had just been sitting, mumbling something about being happy to tear himself away from it on any pretext.

The book was old, one of the two that Halt was supposed to send back. Written in an intelligible but different language to their contemporary Common Language. He was afraid to turn the pages too abruptly, lest he tear them.

“How did you even know something like this existed? I’d never heard of this book before, it’s...” Crowley furrowed his brow, only after some thought deciphering the title in old, iconic letters, in the fashion he remembered it had been and gone. “This is ... some kind of didactic treatise?”

“On the art of wielding weapons and striking blows with them, and on the instruments that have served the purpose of the same for centuries,” Halt did not even lift his gaze from the report. “A bit old, but the Gallicans haven’t changed much in their military culture since it was written. What’s different is the Toscana, there the books of last year will be mostly out of date. In one chronicle you will find the most important summaries of war tactics and battles, up to date you would have to look in the reports. When you get there, you can always ask the King if he would make such reports available to you for comparison.”

This sounded sensible and at the same time blandly answered his question.

“There is no author...”

“He wrote for the glory of his homeland. But the chapter on the Celtica suggests that he either came from Araluen or was very familiar with any of your old war strategists,” Halt hesitated, and although his gaze was still lowered to the sheet of paper, it was clear that he was no longer reading the entries on it. “That’s what I’ve heard, at least,” he added with a little too much delay to come off as credible.

“I’ve never heard of it,” Crowley looked carefully at the cover and first pages, leafing through the later bound volume. The engravings were neat, the text was plentiful. He was not surprised that no more copies of the book existed. “Then how did you hear about it?”

“I don’t remember.”

He didn’t need to say anything; they both had to be aware of how insincere that sounded. Crowley continued to look through page after page, suspending his gaze on the text and drawings.

“I used to be interested in military stuff in general, theories and history,” Halt only spoke up after a long period of silence, during which he was clearly not concerned with the report, but merely looked at it to avoid eye contact with Crowley, who was sitting across the table from him. “I once broke into some library of some nobleman or magnate or someone like that. There was a list of books on such subjects, some titles I wrote down, some I remembered.”

“Breaking in to read... I didn’t know you from that side,” Crowley smiled slightly at him, glancing up just as Halt lifted his gaze to him too. With his eyes alone, he could do a lot. He could ensure that such an explanation was enough for him.

Halt did not return the smile, but neither did he give the impression that he was worried about it any longer. The message had arrived. Crowley could go back to looking at the book.

Whoever had written it had stuck to describing each country in terms of the subject matter as much as possible. Crowley curiously flicked through the book until he reached the chapters on the far-flung sides and the countries that they may not have been in danger of war with, but he also knew the least about.

He paused for a moment at the history of Toscana, appreciating the almost chronicle-like description of the events of the conquests of Coltonus the Great. He had not encountered such an accurate account of this history before.

“It’s a chronicle based on facts only, are there any authorial elements?”

“More like facts,” Halt smiled slightly. “While there are moments in some when the author wanted to shine with his creativity, there are no dragons or magical items giving power to kings chosen by deities in ‘The Treatise’. The author, or the authors, because some believe it was written down by several people, relied on the chronicles of various countries, obtained information at the royal courts, and then worked it out... that’s what I’ve heard,” this time Halt hesitated shorter before he added it, but the pause was still noticeable.

Crowley glanced at him hesitantly. He could simply tell him that he respected his secrets and would no longer ask how Halt knew all these things. He could also pretend that he hadn’t noticed. This dilemma resolved itself with the turning of the page. One drawing caught Crowley’s attention enough to make him forget any hesitation.

“Halt?” he pointed to the engraving inquiringly, saying nothing more.

There was no need. Halt looked at the engraving carefully, visibly chagrined at the sight of the diagram of the crossbow’s construction and the figure wielding it, clad in a dark cloak.

“I don’t think so,” he muttered after a moment’s thought, knowing full well what Crowley’s thoughts had come to.

“It was dark, so it’s hard to tell. But the Baron said he had hired them,” Crowley reluctantly returned his thoughts to the events at Warvic Castle.

“Still, it’s quite doubtful,” Halt shook his head. “We wouldn’t have gone so easily with the Genovesans.”

Whether they had actually gone easily then was a matter for debate, but Crowley understood the point. Interpreting in his mind that it didn’t matter anymore anyway, he turned another couple of pages.

He looked through the book in a cursory manner before sitting down to read it carefully. He had prepared his note cards in advance, and it turned out to be a very good idea. Barely had he started reading, he found it engaging enough to make him completely forget about the outside world.

In places, he struggled to understand anything of the words written down, while in other passages he ran his eyes over it, absorbing further information. Already skilled at paperwork, he took notes almost without looking at the text written by himself. He read. He moved his eyes over the figures, redrew a few diagrams and, cutting himself off completely from the rest of his surroundings, sank into the rows of letters.

It was getting dark, and he wasn’t quite aware of when it had happened. Had it not been for the fact that Halt had pushed his mug almost under his nose a couple of times, he would not have pulled away from his reading at all. He also owed it to Halt that he hadn’t passed the night and probably another day like that.

Halt lit a few candles and a torch when the sun went down, he also aired out the study, as Crowley usually did before night, for they were both too used to airy places to endure in the castle’s dampness. This they discovered by chance when Halt began to sleep in the castle as they worked late. The musty stuffiness between the walls was much more unpleasant than the cool draughts. One could always cover oneself with a second blanket. Fresh air, cold and refreshing, let into the chambers before bedtime, helped to combat the feeling of being trapped in the castle.

Usually it was Crowley who dealt with the shutters. That evening he barely noticed Halt roaming the chamber. Then tea was served to him again. At dinner he tore himself away from the book, not wanting to damage it accidentally. He took the opportunity to summarise to Halt everything he had written down so far. His enthusiasm clearly appealed to Halt. He watched contentedly as Crowley immediately went back to reading, hardly had Halt offered that he’d already taken care of the dishes.

Reports finished, Halt folded up his share of the work and straightened his stiffened back on the bench beneath the window. Laying there, he glanced at Crowley, lost without memory in his reading. The approaching evening had also escaped his attention.

Halt smiled in spirit at his own thoughts and, after a moment’s rest from looking at the rows of letters, succumbed to the unspoken pressure of his surroundings. He picked up from the pile one of the books written in Old Hibernian. He took Crowley some blank pages, lit more candles and sat down to translate.

It had been a couple of hours since they had exchanged even a word with each other, but the atmosphere between them had not broken down. Quietly they both worked, not expecting the other to break away and ask anything. Crowley was sunk in his work completely, oblivious to the passing of time. Halt did not allow himself to lose himself in this way. He also monitored the passing hours.

Only the blowing out of the flame of all the candles except the torch drew Crowley’s attention enough to tear himself away from his reading. In the unexpectedly surrounding darkness, he could no longer see the letters. He raised his head and blinked his eyelids hard, in the next moment only noticing the pain in his stiffened neck.

“I was reading-” he began with a slight reproach, finding Halt with the remaining torch in his hand.

“Yes and it’s almost midnight. Off to bed.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows, and then, with a slightly exaggerated grimace of displeasure, muttered something about Halt being able to give him another moment to read, since he wasn’t tired.

“No. You’re going to sleep. Your eyes need to rest. Tomorrow’s the day too,” Halt categorically shook his head and having left the torch on the windowsill, headed first for the door leading to his room. He stopped after a few steps and sent his friend a very determined look. “If the light isn’t out in ten minutes, I’ll be back here. And if I catch that you are still reading, an hour before dawn I will wake up with the playing of the trumpet not only you, but half of this castle’s wing. And no one will ever believe it was me and not you.”

Crowley heard his own laughter before he had time to consider the fact that here he was just being blackmailed into framing him for disturbing the night.

“You don’t have a trumpet,” he remarked with amusement, already getting up from the table too and gently closing his book. He put his notes back in the drawer. Tomorrow was also the day, indeed.

“Do you really want to take that risk?” Halt sent him an expressionless look.

Crowley replied with a broad smile.

“Okay, I’m going to bed. Thank you.”

He received a satisfied nod.

“Good night?” Crowley chuckled still behind him, a tad late in thinking about whether his voice sounded too soft.

Halt, however, replied with a tiny nod. The darkness hid his smile, if there was one, but his voice also sounded softer than before.

“Good night, Crowley.”

Yes, he definitely smiled. Crowley was most certain of this, having thought the matter over again as he cleaned up in the study and went to his room too. He didn’t need to see it, just as he didn’t always need to know everything. No one would persuade him to change his mind on this.

Satisfied with the day that had passed, he opened the shutter in the room, letting the cold air of the coming winter inside. Probably a few more weeks and the weather will have cooled down enough to start looking out for the first snow.

By then, Gorlan Castle will have been demolished. So far, the question of whether demolishing the castle was a good idea has been debated, but with winter approaching, King Duncan has decided that preserving it was too great a risk to leave a seat for Morgarath should he decide to come out of hiding for the coldest months. If the castle was not there, there would be nothing to guard it either. Weapons, left-over documents, and precious things had been taken from it during this time. Gorlan was barely an echo after the tournament, the attempted takeover by the Baron and all that it entailed. Many in the country were pleased to hear that it was to be destroyed.

Crowley insisted on working out the details of the operation, fearing that such a symbolic gesture might attract the interest of people potentially sympathetic to Morgarath. They did not want a repeat of Warvic. He became sufficiently involved that Duncan eventually appointed both him and Halt to deal with it. The miners had already arrived on site, the Rangers were due to arrive in a few days when the final talks with the barons were completed.

They would be wrapped up before winter. They had to. After a brief effort, Crowley pushed away thoughts of what was not up to him. He wouldn’t be digging the tunnels. He shouldn’t be worrying about that. He should go to sleep. In the morning he needed to tell Halt about what he had read in the book. The thought filled him with a calm that allowed him to forget about worrying on behalf of other people.

* * *

“I’m not going to tell you anything, leave me alone,” Halt sounded threatening enough that any person not fully devoided of common sense would have already complied with this demand.

Crowley, however, was no stranger to risk and even managed to like the thrill it brought with it. In addition, he was currently really enjoying himself.

“But after all, I didn’t ask for anything!”

“But you mention significantly, and you know perfectly well that I know that you are waiting for me to add something from myself!”

“That’s slander,” Crowley only reigned in his laughter for the sake of Cropper, who must have listened to a lot of their conversation and had recently become particularly pinched in that regard.

“I’m not going to tell you about any embarrassing stories from my life and I don’t care how many people you've extracted such confessions from!” categorically pronounced Halt.

“Okay, it’s okay, I didn't ask after all...”

“You only asked not literally.”

“So I didn’t ask, it’s just your interpretation,” Crowley laughed and in response Halt sent him a grave look, watching for a good moment his efforts to contain his amusement. “I was just saying that I found it very amusing how easily people can be tricked into saying things about themselves that they later regret. By the way, it’s fascinating how many people suspect us of witchcraft when in fact the thing comes down to skilful conversation-making. Over time, people themselves forget that they told you something.”

“Mind control by the method of remembering everything a tipsy baron says,” Halt smiled in his own devoid-of-smile way, shrugging his shoulders, he added a little more gently. “I remember, Pritchard told me about it.”

“Oh yes, Pritchard was a master at it. When he was training me, we once had a situation where we were literally thrown out of one castle because a certain baron realised that he had blurted out about his affair with a rather.... um, hard-to-forget details. Best of all, he only realised because Pritchard pointed out to him that he should spare said details, pointing out that there was a fifteen-year-old sitting with them, that’s me. The Baron was furious, confused, indignant and kicked us out of the castle as if we were going to bludgeon him,” Crowley stopped laughing for a moment, for context, adding. “Of course he then sent letters of apology, actually begging Pritchard not to say anything to anyone about that conversation.”

“But he said it anyway,” as far as Halt had known Pritchard, the vision of him keeping the baron’s secret seemed unrealistic.

“Yes, but he did it in such a way that nobody knew it was from us. The news spread on its own, as gossip does. To this day it is still circulating around the country. I guarantee you’ll hear quite a story once you ask someone about the baron and a certain-”

“I don’t want to know,” Halt interrupted him in advance. “Really. I don’t want to know. I’ll tell you an embarrassing anecdote, just don’t finish that sentence.”

Crowley really wasn’t going to tell him at the first objection, respecting that as a person endowed with a lush imagination and guessing that Halt might have had the same problem. However, since he had received a bribe, he wasn’t going to altruistically give it up.

“Alright. I won’t say another word about the Baron. And you tell...”

Halt was a man of great civil courage. He could no longer back down. Crowley was not going to let him go. He looked at him expectantly for a long moment, taking advantage of the fact that they were riding quietly along the route from Castle Araluen to Gorlan.

He had to wait a long moment, and he was prepared to wait until he did. Halt must have realised this and spoke up at last.

“But this is supposed to be an anecdote from my training?”

“Anything,” Crowley smiled encouragingly.

“But you’ll tell a story too?”

“Sure thing. A story for a story, how about that? You talk, I talk.”

“You can speak first, once you’ve picked something out.”

“I’ve got lots of stories like that, but you go first,” he wasn’t going to be so easily fooled.

Halt glanced at him briefly, disappointed that his plan had come to nothing.

He had little choice in the face of this. He was well aware that if he backed down, Crowley would be bothering him the rest of the way. He could, of course, have seriously ordered him to stop asking, and that would certainly have been respected by Crowley, but in truth Halt saw no need to do so. If he feared the consequences of saying it, he wouldn’t have instigated it in the first place.

Besides, getting stories out of Crowley about himself was worth the momentary anguish. Beyond that too, Crowley was already laughing at him anyway, little difference it would make.

“I don’t have any anecdotes from my training... but... well, it’s more not an anecdote, but a fact like that about me,” he suspended his voice expectantly and Crowley immediately nodded vigorously.

“It can still be. Anything, as long as it’s funny.”

He didn’t have many amusing anecdotes. One, however, he suspected would have amused Crowley.

“So be it,” he nodded with dignity and, without losing his seriousness, confessed. “I am not able to sail a ship. I have terrible seasickness.”

He didn’t hear any laughter; first Crowley raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

“No...”

“Yes. I’m literally a walking corpse.”

“But... after all, you ride a horse perfectly well, and that rocks too.”

“That’s different. The ship sways completely differently.”

“I know, but still... oh dear, but to reach Araluen you had to-”

“Well,” Halt cut into his words in an indifferently calm tone. “It wasn’t the nicest journey under the sun, either for me or my fellow passengers.”

Crowley stifled a snort with the back of his hand and shook his head.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t be laughing. Actually... I’m sorry, I really feel for you. I’ll remember not to get you involved in any missions on water if possible, okay?”

“For the general good.”

“Yes, if only,” Crowley quite successfully stifled the amusement in his voice.

It wasn’t so bad. He’d expected to be made fun of, and instead he’d been given preliminary arrangements that were to his liking.

“It’s your turn,” he reminded, recognising in his spirit that this game might have been quite good after all, though of course he wouldn’t say it out loud for anything.

Crowley pondered for a moment.

“Well, you already know about my fear of heights, so that’s out... then I might tell you something about training. If it’s okay with you,” he added, between lines asking what he might have been afraid of with such a topic.

Maybe it was just his interpretation, he didn’t care. He was sure he knew what Crowley meant. And he was grateful to him for the question, too.

“Sure, tell me,” a while ago he probably would have preferred not to hear about anything involving Pritchard, but at the moment he didn’t feel particularly bad about it.

In fact, he would have loved to know more about his former master and his relationship with Crowley. They hadn’t had the time or strength to talk about it before.

“Well. So you’re probably familiar with the rule that Pritchard probably hammered into your head in training, to keep your bow in your hand and not on your shoulder when jumping from a height?”

Halt turned in the saddle reflexively to look at Crowley intently.

“Yes,” he admitted in a slightly confused tone. “He said so. He told me not to dare, under any circumstances, to jump off a tree, or a rock, or a roof, or anything, with a bow on my back or my shoulder.”

He didn’t quite understand what was funny here. Crowley nodded with a bit of confusion, but also considerable amusement.

“Well, I’m the unofficial reason why this rule was established.”

He was glad he didn’t manage to turn around again. Probably then he would have turned his head so suddenly to look at him that something would have crunched in the back of his neck. Intrigued, he urged Crowley with a movement of his head, not taking his eyes off him.

“What did you do?”

“Well, I jumped off once with a bow on my back. It was probably the first week since Pritchard let me carry a bow with me. We went for a walk in the woods, watching the tracks. I’m sure you did that too. And there was this slope with rocks on one side. I climbed it because Pritchard told me to examine the tracks... and then I didn’t want to make up the road and go back around, so I decided I’d jump off this sharp cliff. And I had a bow on my back,” Crowley was clearly amused enough by his own tale to break off at this point and wait for Halt to get involved.

“You broke the bow,” guessed Halt after a quick thought. “You broke your bow in the first week of field training...”

“No, much better,” Crowley gleefully shook his head, as if it was someone else’s story he was telling, or as if he really, from the perspective of a few years, couldn’t seriously quote it. “I knew how to jump from heights. I just forgot the bow. I didn’t break it. I stuck it in my calf.”

“The bow? You stuck the bow in, but.... oh no,” Halt imagined it enough to understand what might have happened.

“The very tip, yes. I landed on bent legs, but that day Pritchard gave me a long bow to carry, not a practice bow. The tip, where you hook the string, turned out to reach further than I had assumed. What am I saying, I didn’t assume at all. I didn’t think. I just jumped off. And I stuck the bow in my calf.”

Halt sympathetically nodded, cringing at the thought.

“Nasty,” he admitted, seeing nothing funny about it.

“Yes, there was a lot of blood and I still have a scar there. But to see the look on Pritchard’s face. He was horrified. First he yelled at me about what the hell I was doing and then he embraced the fact that I couldn’t move because I had a bow stuck in my leg... poor man, it shook him up so much that he literally came up with the rule afterwards, wrote out the rationale and sent it to the other Rangers. And then he passed it on to you,” Crowley shrugged his shoulders, he accosted the story. “At the time he didn’t yet know how I’d inhibit his life and that it was only just the beginning.”

“Well very glorious and, um, bloody beginning... I sympathise,” Halt sent him another shaken look. “And it was not a funny story at all.”

“Being perfectly honest, neither was yours,” Crowley smiled a little.

“What’s wrong with us?” Halt frowned his eyebrows. “We must have at least one funny story.”

“Well, the floor is yours,” Crowley encouraged him with another smile.

He had a few stories that would certainly not have amused any of them. A couple of the funnier and less frightening ones, on the other hand, required too extensive an introduction to the subject that would give too much away. He had to find something else. He had to have at least one funny story about himself.

“Got it!” he was pleased to find something in his memory that he could tell him. “Just in advance... I’d prefer it if you didn’t ask about the people who appear in the story.”

“I won’t ask anything,” Crowley nodded with seriousness, understanding that the request was neither a joke nor an attempt to confuse his vigilance.

“Okay. I was a little kid, right? As a little kid... well, you might associate from various jokes that quite a few children get a shock when they find out that their parents have some names and aren’t just ‘mother’ and ‘father’,” Halt suspended his voice and waited for his nod before continuing, though it seemed to him that Crowley’s gaze was still too serious for the topic of conversation. That, however, could change soon enough. “My shock was a bit different. I knew their names. Quite quickly I started to recognise people by their names, to match them. What I couldn’t match was a certain name that my father had mentioned over and over again.. I didn’t understand for the hell of it what all this Lir did to them and why they always shout at him when something happens.”

“Isn’t he by any chances-”

“He’s a mythical god according to Hibernian legends and ancient beliefs, yes, my father, well... he liked traditional things, myths, that sort of thing...” Halt swept his hand, dismissing this digression. This wasn’t the matter he wanted to talk about. “So they’d call on him when something was going on. I didn’t understand what he did to them and why it was always his fault... during one, um, celebratory event in the family, I couldn’t stand it anymore and asked quite, um, loudly what was going on and where was this Lir. Once again, it was a very important celebration and yes, surely everyone heard it.”

By this time he had already heard the quiet laughter. Crowley shook his head weakly.

“You can’t be blamed if they didn’t explain to you who it was.”

“They explained after that. I was forced to listen to all the myths that could be found. I knew the pantheon of Hibernian deities before I learned to sign legibly...” and here he knew he had to finish speaking, as this anecdote was about to become completely unfunny too.

“But I think they left out the gruesome details?” Crowley fleshed out the rest for himself, becoming completely serious again. “Since you were just a child... I know the mythology of most of the surrounding lands and... Sorry, I wasn’t supposed to ask. I’m not asking. I forgot myself. I’m not asking anymore,” he grumbled so nervously that Halt couldn’t take it in silence.

“Don’t apologise. Thank you,” a weak smile assured him that everything was fine.

Crowley remained silent for another moment, reassuring himself with a glance that he was definitely not exaggerating, and that Halt still wanted to talk to him at all.

“Is it your turn now?” Halt prompted him quietly as the silence dragged on.

“Yes, yes... I... um, since we’re talking about childhood, I’ve got something too. Here, I didn’t do myself much harm.”

Crowley was no longer as amused as before and Halt realised with a slight sense of guilt that something that amused him personally, less sad than most of his childhood memories, must not have been amusing to his friend who had experienced a better life after all. He should watch himself more when he joked...

“I applaud you.”

“But I still traumatised someone else,” Crowley smiled slightly. “As a young child I took a very quick liking to horses. My father had several of them, so I necessarily knew how to ride, how to look after them, from an early age. Being somewhere around ten years old, I felt I was the best rider in the world because of it. There were other horses grazing not far from our pastures and I was always warned not to go near them. On one occasion, however, I made an attempt to make friends with one horse that I particularly liked. He seemed nice. He took a carrot from me, let me stroke him... so I got on him. And then he wasn’t nice anymore.”

“You became the first flying kid in the area,” Halt couldn’t hold back a smile. “And it wasn’t even a Ranger horse?”

“No, a regular horse. He just didn’t want to be friends with me. There was a commotion as my little rodeo frightened the rest of the herd. A neighbour came along with a pitchfork, shouted at me, and dragged my sore being into the house. I took a bashing then... but that’s not the end of the story,” he immediately stipulated, guessing that he would again receive expressions of sympathy. “Then a lot of things changed. My father was killed on a hunting trip. My mother and I had to sell the horses and land; I grew up. Well, and I became Pritchard’s apprentice. I used to write letters home, telling my mum what was happening at training. Then came the wonderful day when I got Cropper. I was over the moon. I described it... a bit chaotically because I was way too joyful and amused about… well, you know, the password situation. Although, as I said, a lot has changed, my mother was left with a grudge after I tried to ride someone else’s horse at the time, and it ended in a neighbourhood brawl. I got such a scolding in the letter... She assumed that I had gotten on a horse without permission and dared to be amused by it. I was given an ultimatum that I had to be responsible for myself and somehow make sure Master Pritchard gave me a second chance or go home in a hurry because she’d be embarrassed to send me anywhere.”

“Damn,” Halt listened intently, not laughing at all.

“But, my mother also wrote a letter to Pritchard, explaining to him in very broad terms what an insufferable, vivacious, and perpetually curious kid I’ve been since I first opened my eyes. At the end she asked him to let me get it right somehow, though, and not to throw me out so immediately... which I had no idea about. I wrote to my mother that the horse was mine and that was standard procedure. At the same time, Pritchard wrote back to her, understandingly explaining that he had already had occasion to notice all these traits of mine too and had no intention of throwing me out of the Corps. I only found out about this because my mother got the letters mixed up and sent another one the other way round. I got an essay about my hyperactivity and how I’m actually a good kid, and Pritchard read himself a sermon in the morning into his coffee about speaking clearly and to the point, annoying people, and stuff like that.”

“But the addressee...?”

“My mum wrote simply ‘dear’ to me at the time, and to Pritchard she wrote ‘sir’. I realised after half the letter that something didn’t add up. Well, and Pritchard only did so at a ‘hugs and kisses’ in farewell. It was, um, quite an awkward conversation when I went to him, to explain everything.”

And by now Halt was laughing, silently, barely a shoulder shrug, but he was laughing.

“There’s no doubt about it, you’ve had an interesting start to your training.”

Crowley couldn't argue with that. Still, he was not even a little bit as amused as he had been some time ago before Halt had told him about the Lir thing.

“That was moderately funny too, huh?” Crowley was the first to speak up, breaking the silence after barely a moment.

“Better than the story of getting stabbed in the leg, but still, I can't help but sympathise with you,” Halt admitted slowly. “You wanted to tell about something you were really happy about, and in return you found out... well, like you said. I imagine it must have been upsetting.”

“Not so much,” Crowley looked at him carefully, listening to him. “I knew my mother didn’t fully mean it. I knew that if it came down to it, she would have fought to get Pritchard to give me a second chance. That’s what she did, by the way. I... Halt, I’m sorry, but I think this is where you might see it as something more terrible precisely because of the fact that you and your parents.... well...”

He didn’t finish, and for a moment Halt was sure that that was the end of the subject. Crowley, however, was still looking at him, forcing himself to be silent, but his expression was very clearly grim.

“You’re angry about what I told you.”

“More... upset,” Crowley shook his head. “But I won’t ask, I promised that-”

“You can say what you think, as long as you don't ask me for details. But what you think is your business, you can talk about it,” Halt granted him that right after some thought, frankly just a little curious as to what he would hear.

Crowley looked him straight in the face making sure it was for real. Seeing the certainty in his friend’s calm gaze, he nodded.

“Okay then. I think it was cruel. You were just a kid. Children ask questions. That’s normal. That’s what being a child is all about! A child asks to find out.... how could you possibly know? Halt, you say you couldn’t write yet.... how old could you have been in view of that, seven?”

“About five,” Halt shrugged his shoulders impassively. “That is to say, I wasn’t such an entirely small child. It doesn’t matter either...”

“Five years old. Halt, by the gods, after all, mythology is strewn with such horrible things, murders, rapes.... Lir’s history alone! I don’t know all of Hibernian mythology, but the imprisonment of Lir and-

“Yes, it's quite a bloody story,” Halt nodded calmly. “But well, I asked about it myself, so-

“No. You didn't ask about the history of murder and betrayal, just who the hell Lir was. And your father... I just don’t understand how someone can.... you were a child, Halt!”

“I doubt my father had ever seen me as a small child,” Halt smiled pale, bitterly, trying to soften the words. “I had to... well, not to disappoint the hopes he had placed in me. Every time I was too... something... to achieve it, he was becoming more and more sure I was, well, unsuitable for the role he wanted to give me.”

“Who did that man think he was?!” Crowley raised his voice unexpectedly enough to make both horses’ ears snap.

Halt moved his hand reassuringly down the side of Abelard’s neck. It was an unfortunate play, for by doing so he had shaken himself out of his parsimonious pattern of acting while talking about the past enough to start thinking.

Tell him, Abelard moved his ears again. How should he know? Maybe this will change everything? He will judge it differently.... right now there’s no way.

“I can’t,” Halt categorically pushed such an option away in his mind.

Because what?

“No,” he thought in such a terrible whisper that if he had said it aloud it would surely have scarred both horses to the core.

Because he wouldn’t understand? Why? Or perhaps you’re afraid that he would then admit they were right...?

“I’m sorry,” although he could not have been aware of his conversation with the horse, Crowley noticed the change in the silence that fell. “I have no right... I’m not saying anything, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you dwell upon it.”

“You didn’t do anything,” Halt smiled bitterly at him, not moving his lips, just with his gaze alone. “We have... well, different views of the world, different experiences. I understand you don’t understand that.”

In a way, he wished he didn’t understand it as much as Crowley did. He’d like to be indignant, like him, to feel anger, to feel regret, to feel reproach for the people who were supposed to teach him all about life, but instead only taught his brother the sense that Halt never deserved what those few cursed minutes granted him.

It was only Pritchard who also made him realise this when they once discussed what had happened. As he listened to Halt talk about his family, he very vulgarly referred to the man who wore the crown of Clonmel at the time. Noticing Halt’s shock, he looked him in the eye very seriously and said something that Halt only managed to think about at all sometime later.

“No child of sixteen tries to kill his own brother unless he is either completely devoid of feelings or someone teaches him that this is what he should do. It doesn’t excuse his actions. But you are... Halt, people don’t think that way. Someone made Ferris realise that there was such an option as killing you... someone made him so sure of it that he took it upon himself to do it. He believed in it so much, at such a young age. That doesn’t happen, Halt, not without outside influence. From what I’ve found out so far, it’s that kind of influence.”

And he really wished he could say he didn’t believe it to be true.

Just as much, he wished he didn't understand why Crowley was so indignant about it.

“I’m sorry...” Crowley looked at him again, as if any of this was his fault. Or maybe he just didn’t know what to do now.

That would be fine, though, because Halt had no idea either.

“Don’t apologise,” he asked more than he forbade. “Nothing happened after all. And that was many years ago. Anyway... well, I guess I’d better not tell any funny stories again. Unless something comes to mind,” he forced himself to curve his lips in a smile, as he assumed someone who wanted to comfort someone should be smiling at the moment. “But if you have something you want to tell, I’d be happy to listen,” he immediately added, already a little more sincere.

He didn’t ask him for a story. Crowley didn’t need to tell him anything. Maybe he shouldn’t even. Maybe as long as Halt didn’t know there was an alternative to what he himself had experienced; it would hurt less after all. Without knowing there was an alternative, it was impossible to feel wronged.

And yet he would have preferred, really preferred, to hear something more before they reached Castle Gorlan and were faced with the choice of whether to pretend that Pritchard’s grave was not there at all, or whether to go there separately or together. One of them will have to mention it. Halt would prefer that by then they had already forgotten that he had ever said anything about his family.

“Something funny?” Crowley looked at him with a sadness that made Halt question whether he would be able to say anything funny now.

Someone should say something about that very sadness, about the fact that Crowley for some reason felt so involved in the story, to suffer even though it didn’t affect him at all. Halt, however, could not. He wasn’t able to talk to him about it.

“Whatever you want,” he could only hope to deflect the looser atmosphere at least infinitesimally with this when he added. “Well, maybe not about the Baron’s affair, but beside that, say whatever you want.”

“Okay, no scandalous stories,”. Crowley gave his best effort, though his eyes betrayed how far from amused he was.

“I appreciate it,” Halt didn’t mean that part of the conversation and could only hope....

“No problem,” Crowley smiled gently at him.

He understood.

He seemed capable of understanding absolutely anything. Halt, however, could not risk losing the only person who cared about him.

Coward, Abelard moved his ears.

“Yeah, I know,” Halt resignedly acknowledged him in thought.

There was nothing more he could do.

Chapter Text

“Well, all right, then, if you were to do a juxtaposition starting with the most disruptive environment...”

“And what collection should I consider?”

“Hm, water, high altitude, castle and tunnels.”

Crowley mused for a moment, taking the subject very seriously. The concentration on his face was further compounded by the increasingly chaotic movement of the straw he had been chewing on in his teeth for some time now. The falling dusk had not yet fully covered his face, but the shadows were already clearly lengthening. Night was fast approaching, bringing with it an autumnal chill.

“After all, altitude still comes first,” Crowley finally pronounced. “Then the damn tunnels, the castle, and the water. I mean, it also depends what kind of water, I have nothing against lakes, but over a mountain river I’d consider.”

Halt had already been staring at the darkening sky for quite a while, lounging on his back on the grass, which had not yet been completely killed by the upcoming winter. It was chilly, but in truth they were both enjoying the chill after coming to the surface that day. One more inspection of the tunnels awaited them. One more and it will be done. Though then they would have to go deeper underground... to see everything, to be sure.

Halt honestly preferred not to think about that for the time being. The piercing chill of the crisp air helped, as did this game created by Crowley, which exceptionally didn’t involve much noise. Just talking.

“Right, my turn... the hardest part of training in your opinion, was?”

“But for me?”

“Yes, as you see it.”

Now Halt also had to think before he could answer. He was in no hurry. He was resignedly accepting the fatigue that the day-long patrol around Castle Gorlan to make sure that everything in the area was as peaceful as they had hoped it would be, and then the whole trip three metres underground, had cost him. At least he was comforted by the thought that he wasn't the only one who didn't like the tunnels that much.

“I think the hardest thing for me was learning to stay still in hiding when you want to escape,” Halt admitted this, frankly, having also considered Pritchard’s opinions he had once heard on the subject. “It’s not specifically about patience, it’s more about... I don't know, being exposed to the blow for that length of time, that kind of passive, helpless waiting for someone to do something so I’m only going to do something.”

“I’d never guess,” Crowley glanced at him thoughtfully.

It was nice to hear something like that from him, as Halt was aware that, of the two of them, it was Crowley who was much better at hiding, camouflaging himself and staying hidden. It was all the more absurdly contrary to his nature, but Halt had seen enough evidence of it with his own eyes to be sure.

“I’ve unlearned some of that. But well, that was the hardest part,” he nodded slightly to himself in agreement. “I return the question.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m returning it... well, now you answer the same.”

“No, no, that was my question, now you ask yours. Those are the rules,” Crowley shook his head almost categorically after a moment’s thought.

“You made those rules up.”

“All rules are made by someone at some point, so in a way they are all made up,” Crowley philosophically stated.

“I didn’t expect you to adhere to such chaos theories,” Halt smiled in spirit, satisfied with the heavy sigh he elicited.

“Just because they’re made up doesn’t mean they’re senseless.”

“Depends.”

“Halt...”

“Well, answer me the question then, rather than dragging out a digression,” Halt urged him without particular enthusiasm.

The horror that his approach to standards invariably elicited from Crowley was genuinely amusing. He didn’t mind if the day ended with at least a little bit of fun.

“For me, I think it was learning patience, but with shooting,” Crowley must have seen the pointlessness of baffling him about it, and he was able to find an answer to the reflected question fairly quickly. “With hiding it’s easier, you have to sit quietly and wait.”

“Oh yes, it’s very easy for you,” agreed Halt under his breath, loudly enough for Crowley to hear, however.

Judging by the grave look he gave him, he heard very clearly.

“When hiding, I reckon on waiting. I have to keep still and sit quiet. When shooting, on the other hand, when I have to extend the moment of aiming... that’s been the hardest thing for me to master, to not let go of the string too quickly, just to be over that shot,” he waited for Halt to nod in reply and not a moment more. “Now ask your own question, don’t steal mine.”

“Another made-up rule.”

“You were saying, then?” Crowley probably didn’t have the desire or the strength to have a heated discussion about social rules and rule-setting at the moment. Well, another time.

Halt pondered for a moment.

“The place you’ve always wanted to see in the world.”

“To be honest, I’m not sure. I haven’t been anywhere far... For a while I wanted to go to Gallica, however.... well, it worked out differently.”

Crowley was no longer looking at him and it occurred to Halt that he had taken note of this because he was watching him intently. For a brief moment he hesitated to ask him when specifically Crowley had thought of a such travel. It might have coincided with the time of their first meeting and Halt’s proposal to set out from Araluen specifically to Gallica. It might or might not have.

He probably didn’t want to know, though.

“It would befit to visit the neighbouring countries, though. Someday I might make it under some diplomatic pretext,” Crowley finished his thoughts and shrugged his shoulder slightly. He then looked at Halt questioningly. Without wasting even a blink of an eye on reflection, he asked. “Favourite colour?”

“What?” Halt’s thoughts were still wandering through the memory, and he stopped so suddenly in the process that he reflexively furrowed his brow.

“What’s your favourite colour?” nothing in Crowley’s voice indicated that he was joking.

Halt mused but failed to focus seriously on the question.

“I don’t know, I have no idea. I’ve never thought about it.”

Crowley had a sceptical look on his face.

“Green?”

It took him only a fraction of a second to realise he was right, and he nodded even before it occurred to him that yes, he had clearly just learned something about himself.

“Green.”

Satisfied with his accurate deduction, Crowley smiled broadly and turned his gaze again to the increasingly night sky.

Halt smiled as well, only a trifle. He would never thought he might actually enjoy games that contained so much talking. He probably wouldn’t if it weren’t for how clearly Crowley liked it. There was something strangely calming and pleasing in seeing that chatterbox excited about various subjects of their talks.

However, he did not devote more thought to this fact.

“One more question each and we’re going to sleep?”

No Ranger used to go to bed late. There was yet another trip underground and probably another patrol waiting for them. And a visit to the grave, but they hadn’t discussed that yet. Anyway, with nightfall they planned to go to bed, taking turns keeping guard despite the proximity of the miners’ camp.

So Crowley agreed to the idea immediately, secretly surprised only that Halt had assigned them one more round of questions.

“It’s you now.”

In a way, Halt surprised himself where such a question had come from. It wouldn’t have surprised him if Crowley had only laughed in response.

“Any fact you believed as a child that you wish was true?”

For a moment Halt feared that as well as being quite understandably amused, he might also have triggered a serious and heavy topic of conversation with this. Crowley thought the matter over and smiled broadly, dispelling these concerns.

“Flying horses.”

“What?” Halt caught the shadow of laughter in his own voice in disbelief.

“Horses with wings. They were in some fairy tales I heard as a child. If they really existed... can you imagine a squad of Rangers on flying horses?”

He really didn’t understand what was amusing him, but at the same time he was quite comfortable with the amusement, so he decided not to worry about it. He just shook his head slightly, accepting such news that he had learned in an unexpected way.

“I won’t stick my neck out for it, but I think the Skandians have such flying horses and warriors on them in their mythology...”

“Oh, that means I’m not the only one who likes it, that’s great.” Crowley smiled at him, not hiding his satisfaction at the reaction he received. “And you?” he hesitated only after the fact and immediately added, in an assuring matter. “That is, if you want to. You don’t have to answer, the question was to me. But I’ll return the question if you like...”

Halt nodded briefly, at the same time thanking him for the disclaimer and accepting that they were now waiting for his answer. Since they were joking, he should keep that tone of conversation. So he pushed aside all the pithy answers that were racing through his mind. Something funny...

“Laechonnachies,” he finally stated.

Turning his gaze to Crowley, he did not contain his jollying. The Corps Commandant’s eyes were wide open.

“Who?” he asked very slowly. "Or what?"

“Such nasty little fairy-like creatures with a mean sense of humour-”

“Oh, the Little People!”

“Yes, that’s what they’re called too.”

“But they... I mean I only have a vague association, but... well, they were really mean,” Crowley held back his amusement, still looking at him in disbelief.

“Yes, very mean, and should be avoided,” Halt shrugged his shoulders. “I’d get along with them.”

“Stop it!” Crowley raked him with a look. “That’s not true. You may be small and mean, but-”

“You’ve got ten seconds to run.”

“-but you’re a long way-”

“Only seven now.”

His visiting, murderous expression was met with a very moderately elegant snort. Crowley had lost the battle with his laughter. Looking at his defeat, Halt smiled in spirit, too, while still maintaining a grave expression.

“That’s my question now, yes?” tactfully waiting until, despite the passage of time, the unstated threat was not met, Crowley raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“Yes.”

“Well... what’s your favourite story, legend, tale, something like that?”

He couldn’t remember anyone ever asking him so much about what he was interested in, what he liked, what his favourite thing was. It was surprisingly nice of Crowley to take an interest in the subject. Halt wasn’t sure why, but there it was, nonetheless.

“I can’t remember the title, but I once heard some legends about a headless horseman who some people thought was the awakened spirit of one god. It was quite dark and creepy, but somehow it particularly appealed to me.”

“Sounds a bit scary,” Crowley wasn’t laughing anymore, but he wasn’t concerned in any more pronounced way either.

He must have noticed that Halt recalled it without regret, perhaps only with a melancholy that he did not conceal well enough.

“And yours?” he returned the question after a moment’s silence.

“I could get off on a tangent here, looking for some good, clever and impressive story, but I think we both know that-”

“Flying horses?”

“Yes,” Crowley nodded with dignity.

It was actually quite understandable. Halt was still amused by that thought, and the calm that this amusement produced was nicer than the stillness to which he was accustomed. Even if it required talking, spending the evenings in this way appealed to him, and he liked it a lot.

He maintained such a cheerful mood enough to throw Abelard an amused glance a few moments later. Crowley was the first to go to sleep; Halt would wake him in a few hours for the changing of the guard.

“Would you like to have wings?” he thought, watching the resting horse.

Abelard did not share his momentary frivolity.

You’re falling.

“What?”

You’re falling by the wayside.

“Not at all.”

Yes, at all. It’s a slippery slope.  Now I’m just waiting for you to start giggling.

For such a response, Abelard was glared with an offended look. Halt returned to the small campfire, not intending to ask for further comments. Even that, however, did not spoil his mood.

The night was already not so much chilly as cold, but hidden under his cloak, Halt did not feel it very acutely. The cold had begun to settle on his palms, and until a while ago he would have been completely unconcerned about it, as long as the cold was not life-threatening but merely unpleasant. That night, however, he crouched closer to the warmth of the campfire, turning his palms over the flames until the cold had been completely drained from them.

Tucked away at the edge of the woods, they had an excellent view from the encampment while remaining hidden. This was how Halt observed both the nearby scrub and the dark patches of forest ahead of him, preceded by thinning grasses cut pale between the blackness of the trees. No mountains were visible in the night sky. Nor could he see the details further than a few paces from the campfire. The shapes of the forest themselves merged picturesquely further into the blackness of the star-splashed night sky in places where clouds did not loom. The forest-covered hill bowed at his feet, and the darkness of the forest became indistinguishable from the darkness of the sky at one point. The horizon was somewhere out there, it just wasn’t visible.

Halt found the sight strangely reassuring. The blurry blackness of the night on the wilderness might have frightened someone else, but to him it had been enchanting for some time. He had noticed it a few months earlier and still didn’t know what to think about it. Whenever any thoughts escaped his mind, busy observing his surroundings, Halt would see details that had previously completely escaped his attention. This night, if only, this night was beautiful, though cold, and so quiet that only the howling of the wind rustled the bushes around the two tents from time to time. The fire almost didn’t crackle, too small. The forest around was dark, terrifying, and so peaceful in its majesty.

Momentarily, he might not have understood why he noticed it at all. He noticed similarly the beauty of the last of their sunbeams of a given day and the first of the next, noticed how even lines could be drawn with his finger across the sky, linking the individual stars together, how far one could reach with one’s gaze from the hill, sitting on a horse’s back, and how Crowley tended to close his eyes slightly, laughing uncontrollably. All these details made no sense, there was no need to notice them. And yet he noted them. As long as he wasn’t threatened by any of it, he decided to just let them exist. Maybe in time they would make sense.

At the appointed time, he woke Crowley, not needing to make any particular effort. Accustomed to changes in guard, they naturally slept shallower around this time. Halt merely looked into his friend’s tent and quietly called him by name.

A weak wave of his hand and a sleepy mumble was enough to reassure him that he had woken him up.

Crowley left the tent in no particular hurry, yawning but also without lingering. They respected their bedtimes and that everyone should get as much sleep as possible on any given night. Therefore, Crowley would certainly not have puzzled him with conversation in that moment.

He was also surprised when Halt did.

“It’s beclouded a bit, but maybe it won’t rain.”

Crowley was still yawning, so he just nodded. He stretched his arms, fully awake before he sat down by the fire. If he didn’t rouse himself, there was a risk he would go back to sleeping sitting up, in the warmth of his cloak and the proximity of the fire.

Preparing water for himself to brew, Crowley threw back the hood of his cloak. In the wobbly glow of the fire, his face cut off clearly despite the semidarkness in which he twisted open his pannier. Reflections of sparks danced gently, and when he was in their glow again, Crowley with his red head seemed an extension of that brightness.

“Are you alright?” a concerned whisper jolted Halt out of his musings so suddenly that he twitched in his seat.

He realised that he was standing a step away from his tent, staring at his friend, who had finally noticed it and now they were both looking at each other. Crowley, however, was not thoughtful, more concerned, looking for a reason why Halt had not gone to bed.

“I... yeah, sure,” Halt had already shaken himself finally, in spirit thanking fate for the darkness that enveloped him, keeping secret the embarrassment that must have been painted on his face.

“Will you go to sleep?” Crowley asked softly, watching him carefully. “If you don’t want to, you can sit by the fire with me... we can talk about something, anything you want.”

Blaming his delay on sleep problems would be very convenient, and Halt hesitated for a moment over such an escape. It would, however, add to Crowley’s worries. Things had been much better lately with his constant worrying and apologising. To put him through that just to avoid admitting that he had mused would be a scumbaggery. Halt didn’t give a damn if the whole world thought he was a douche. He didn’t want to be that way towards Crowley.

“No, it’s fine. One thought escaped me and... I just got lost for a second,” he shrugged his shoulders weakly, saying it as naturally calmly as he could.

Crowley nodded with understanding because he knew the feeling. He reassured himself, finding no cause for alarm in Halt’s reply.

“Good night, then.”

“Good night, Crowley,” he replied quietly, and immediately tucked himself into the tent, not understanding why he actually felt... well, he didn’t even know what he felt like.

He knew he had to go to sleep, because if he was noticeably sleep-deprived in the morning, Crowley would surely return to the subject. And Halt would then have no idea what he was supposed to tell him. Maybe if he found out for himself what he was about, he’d know what he thought. He just didn’t quite know how he could find out.

Annoyed with himself, he insisted on stopping to think hard enough to fall asleep.

Despite his earlier reassurance, Crowley had to make a mental note anyway that Halt hadn’t wanted to go straight to bed because he didn’t wake him at dawn, even though that was what they had agreed he would do. This was how they had always agreed when camping and worryingly often, having a second watch, Crowley found himself forgetting that he was supposed to wake Halt with the sunrise. It didn’t matter how many times Halt got angry about it, not wanting any special treatment for him just because he couldn’t sleep through the night often. He had also been much better with this lately.

Nonetheless, Crowley had not woken him up and only it was only done with the wind-born noise of a nearby camp of miners gathering again to work on the tunnels. The incomprehensible excerpts of raised voices, the noise of preparing tools and conversations was sufficiently distinctive so that even immediately after waking, Halt distinguished it and remembered by it where he was. Only the light shining through the canvas of the tent was more intense than he had expected.

The day was well underway when he emerged from the tent. Crowley was sitting by the fire, bent over one of the military books he had taken with him in case he was bored sitting by the castle waiting for the miners to do their job.

“What on earth do I have to do to get you to wake me up at dawn?” Halt muttered in greeting, resigned to find that the day had already risen at least three hours earlier.

His voice snapped Crowley out of his deep reverie. He twitched, turning over his shoulder and, despite the grim tone he heard, smiled his usual smile.

“Give me a logical reason why I should do this,” he replied calmly. “Good morning. Coffee?”

With this rhetorical question, they usually greeted each other whether at the castle or in the field when a new day was rising.

“Have you had it yet?”

“No, I was waiting for you,” Crowley smiled wider, so he must have known perfectly well that he had just knocked the argument out of his hand to return to resentment about why Halt hadn’t been woken up at the right time. However, he was measuring himself against someone who already knew him quite well and was getting better at playing him on his own terms. “As you’re up, you can brew it.”

Another great play, finding him occupied before he could start complaining that Crowley had split their duties unevenly and messed up the whole chic of the day for those three hours of delay. Halt just sighed in spirit and was left with nothing to do but capitulate.

“And what, did it pour during the night?” he asked after a while, sitting down by the fire as the water for the coffee was already boiling.

“Just a bit, luckily it cleared up in the morning. Today should be clear as well,” Crowley glanced at the horizon and the mountains visible on it. “The tunnels weren’t flooded either, the miners are back at work. We’re not supposed to come today though, they don’t see the point in it.”

“So it’s patrolling again.”

“We’ll make a loop around the castle,” Crowley raised his eyebrows questioningly, hearing a slightly derisive snort.

“The villagers must really like us. We’ve been circling like such two ravens over the target for the last few days. Another week and they’ll chase us with pitchforks.”

Crowley squirmed at these words, having also previously remarked on the unease they caused by hanging around.

In any other fief they would not have been received with hostility, perhaps even friendliness, at worst with a superstitious timidity that would have amounted to helpfulness and arriving at their every call, just to get them away faster. However, Gorlan has been on everyone’s lips in the kingdom for the past few months. During the tournament, the Rangers were unequivocally pitted against Morgarath’s soldiers. Although after the disappearance of the Baron of Gorlan Fief, Duncan allowed the soldiers who had stayed to return to civilian life, not accusing them of treason just for the fact that they served the lord of these lands, many residents feared for their fate. If Morgarath would not be found, someone eventually had to be punished for all that had happened. It was easier to burn villages and execute some soldiers than to chase a traitor through the mountains.

The two Rangers who had come to provide security for the demolition of the castle were therefore greeted in Gorlan fief as one greets the harbinger of imminent disaster. People were reluctant to talk to them, and on several occasions they even caused panic by appearing between the buildings. Apart from this, however, the area was quiet. No one tried to disturb the miners, no army was lurking in the surrounding woods, and no one was preparing to fight. After the first day’s observation, Crowley decided that they would camp out in the woods so as not to further inconvenience everyone these few days. They would not be refused a night’s lodging if they demanded it in some inn, that’s for sure, but they had no purpose in scaring the locals.

They had to do something for the day, though.

“We can circle the villages through the woods this time... we’ll make up the road, but we’ll check any access routes. Well, and we won’t cause unnecessary confusion.” Crowley waved his hand around, not taking the map out of his pannier. They both knew the area quite well after everything that had already happened here. “And then...”

“Then, yes...” Halt must have been thinking the same thing because he spoke up, barely Crowley had suspended his voice.

That gave him confidence. Maybe they wouldn’t have to call it outright.

“Would you rather go alone... or for us to go together?” Crowley asked slowly, weighing the words he’d rather not say, but he didn’t really have a choice.

“And you?”

“I asked you first.”

“So what?” Halt raised an eyebrow, looking at him with inscrutable eyes.

“The decision is yours.” Crowley remained unruffled mainly because he had planned in advance how he would conduct the conversation.

Halt did not like this explanation. However, he was unlikely to like the truth either. The truth was that for Crowley it was all the same on this issue, but he had no idea how Halt feeling about it. Without asking personal questions, it was hard to determine. Although they had recently been talking about Pritchard again, Crowley was aware that Halt had lived through his death far more strongly than he would like to admit. He might as well not have wanted to see that grave at all. He might not have wished Crowley beside him at that moment. He might also not have wanted to be left alone with it. He might also not have known it himself. However, that still did not entitle Crowley to decide for him.

“How am I supposed to choose, if I don’t know what you think?” Halt looked at him almost in resentful way.

“I’m fine with either option. Just choose as you prefer.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Well,” Crowley took his time with answering that, aware he had to make it very clear for Halt to not doubt his intentions. “I don’t think it would be right if I’d just tell you what to do about it. I’m not against any option. It’s your choice. You don’t have to do it now. We still have that patrol to do.”

Halt didn’t seem convinced by any of his words.

“Why do you assume, I’m not fine with either option, as you are?”

“I’m not,” Crowley assured calmly. “That’s why I ask you to choose. I don’t assume anything. I’ll take what you tell me and won’t ask if you won’t allow it. I said my part: I’m fine with all the options. Now it’s your turn.”

Not so long ago he would surely have heard a few more hostile words in reply. Maybe Halt wouldn’t have said anything more to him, maybe he would have stepped aside. Certainly, he would not have understood. But it had been many days that they had spent together, getting to know each other enough to understand each other much better than before.

Halt did not answer him immediately, absorbing his words through a long moment of silence. When he spoke again, there was no hesitation in either his voice or his gaze. Crowley made sure about it, looking at him carefully.

“Let’s go there together.”

So they did.

* * *

The grass on the grave was trimmed. There were no fresh flowers on it, but they found it without difficulty. Someone from the locals must have remembered, looked in here occasionally.

Crowley picked out a trampled trail between the grasses. In places the grasses were broken, bent the other way. Someone had walked this way occasionally, not often enough to trample a path, but they had left a trail and cared for the grave. Crowley wasn’t sure if Halt had noticed it either. They had been silent since arriving at the site.

The patrol had consumed a fair part of the day, which was about to end when they arrived at the grave. They did not stop talking until they saw the grove in the shadow of which their master was sleeping forever. They had not agreed with each other that from now on they would ride in silence. Somehow the silence naturally fell of its own accord between them.

Whether Halt was also reminiscing of the funeral at that moment, Crowley also did not know. Perhaps, however, he was reflecting on the moment when he had found Pritchard’s body. Perhaps he recalled their first meeting. Perhaps the last words he had received from him. Or maybe he wasn’t thinking about any of those things. Crowley wasn’t.

His mind wavered against him again. Instead of recalling things he no longer had any control over, he imagined things that were never going to happen. If Pritchard was still here... the very thought filled him with both bitterness and such senseless warmth. He knew him so well. He could imagine his figure beside them, his laughter and his words, his weary glances, and the amused raising of his eyes to the sky. How would he have behaved if he had been here, if he had seen what had happened so far?

How would he have reacted if he had learned even more? Crowley could talk to him then. He would have probably told him... He would have finally told someone, and he might have heard what someone so much wiser than him thought about the matter. He could have just come clean. Someone would have judge whether he should be condemned. Someone would have understood him.

Yet Pritchard was not here. Crowley was alone.

No, not alone. Halt was standing beside him, also hidden under his hood. What was he thinking about? Did he want anything to be said to him? Would he have preferred to stay here alone after all, and regretted the choice that had cursed him with Crowley’s company?

He had no way of knowing that either. So he remained silent. He did not move away from the grave as long as Halt stood by him. If his presence was distressing to Halt, would Halt have pushed him away? Or would he force himself to put up with him, tolerating with pain the fact that he had to put up with him?

Crowley didn’t know which would hurt more in such a case, and the thought that he might face a choice between the two finalities poisoned his soul more acutely than the grief of someone he could no longer help with his sorrows. Maybe it wouldn’t be his choice. It won’t. It couldn’t be. He will accept the decision. He won’t make it. It wasn’t his choice.

In the face of Crowley’s silent waiting for the next movement of anything around him, Halt finally noticed it. He couldn’t help but notice. It was only a matter of time.

“Do you want to stay here longer?” he asked quietly, and his voice sounded quite ordinary. Only his eyes were much sadder than they normally were.

“As you prefer,” Crowley replied just as quietly.

Halt didn’t try to argue this attitude anymore. He was the first to move away from the grave, having sent it one last look. Crowley followed him. In silence they returned to the horses waiting by the trees.

It was there that Halt spoke again, though Crowley would not have been surprised if his silence had lasted longer, until they returned to camp, or perhaps even until nightfall.

“Do you think he would be mad at us about Warvic?”

The question was so ordinary, and yet so shocking. Crowley mused over it for a moment before answering with a weak smile.

“Hell yeah.”

Halt responded with a smile by the sheer change in his gaze. The sadness disappeared from his face, giving way to thoughtfulness.

“We’ve kind of spoiled the reputation of the Rangers,” Crowley joined in the reverie, glad that none of their voices rang with the old bitterness and regret.

The grief was still there in them, but so was that strange, warm, disjointed memory of a loved one, too dear to be remembered only with pain.

“About that...,” Halt suspended his voice and glanced at him from under the shadow of his hood. “I’ll tell you something, but you have to promise not to get angry.”

That sounded interesting. Very interesting. Crowley raised his eyebrows high, taken aback. He nodded weakly when the expectant stare didn’t ease despite the passing seconds.

“Okay. I promise.”

“In terms of Rangers’ reputation... it was you who spoiled it for me.”

“What?”

“Wait, listen,” he received an offended snort in response to his bewilderment. “Pritchard told me about you guys, about the Corps. I’m going to sound like one of those yokels who think we’re warlocks, but to be honest, I was impressed by the stories. I expected a horror-shrouded, legendary unit of grim warriors murdering people from the darkness of the wild woods. And I met... well, you.”

That being so, Crowley already understood that caveat about not being offended. He wasn’t offended, though. He laughed quietly, unable to stop himself from spreading his hands helplessly.

“I... am sorry to disappoint you?”

Halt snorted, sending him a threatening look, though he had seemed amused just a moment ago.

“Shut up. You haven’t disappointed me at all.”

And at that Crowley didn’t know what to answer anymore so he just muttered something under his breath. He didn’t say anything meaningful for the rest of the journey until they reached the camp and naturally found some other, safer topic.

* * *

“Do you also see no point of waking me on my watch?” a quiet, exasperated voice rang out behind his back so unexpectedly that Crowley sprang to his feet, resting his hand on his bow.

His movement was less visible in the darkness, but Halt noticed the instinctive grip on his weapon anyway. He immediately took two steps back from the campfire, rather awkwardly raising his hands in front of him in an apologetic and reassuring gesture at the same time.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered even quieter.

Crowley breathed deeply, so loudly that even those few steps away from him, Halt could hear it perfectly. He shook his head weakly, and yet frantically.

“Damn, you stalked here so quiet,” he laughed evasively, as the nervousness in his voice was very clear.

“I wasn’t going to, but it’s past time and-”

“I lost... I got thoughtful and, um, lost track of time, sorry, yeah, you’re right,” Crowley glanced at the sky, estimating the hour after a brief hesitation. “You’re right. I missed it. Damn...”

He was agitated, as Halt pronounced after yet another moment of observation. Strangely agitated, as if he was simultaneously upset about something, but also completely pulled with his mind out of the present moment. Like a man plucked from a very deep sleep, though at the same time there was no indication that he had fallen asleep by the fire.

“Are you all right?” Halt threw him a critical glance. Trusting that he wasn’t going to get hit with an arrow or a knife, he walked back closer, not taking his gaze off Crowley. “You look like you’re shaking...”

“I was thinking,” Crowley tried to smile, which failed so nightmarishly, that Halt stopped, concerned.

And then Crowley nervously took a step back, no longer looking at him. His breath wheezed through the night’s stillness. His restless gaze stopped neither on Halt nor on the campfire. It was wandering, almost desperately searching for something.

“Crowley?” Halt lowered his voice, inwardly cursing the fact that he probably still sounded too sternly despite his efforts. He could try all he wanted, but showing support in a gentle tone was not something he could boast he knew how to do. He could only try, relying on the fact that Crowley already knew him quite well. He had to try. “Crowley, slowly... do you know where we are?”

“In Gorlan, yes, yes, I know, I just-”

“We’re in the camp. We’re perfectly safe here. We’re in no danger.”

“Yes,” a nervous gaze lifted to him quickly. “Yes, Halt, I know, I know. It’s... it’s not that...”

“Okay, fine,” trying to sound as gentle as possible, he held out one hand towards him. “Whatever it is, you need to breathe anyway. Right? Slowly. Just slowly... may I?”

Crowley’s gaze lifted on him again, and this time it stayed that way for a while longer. Halt guessed he was looking dazed, though the darkness and the unexpected situation might have weakened that shot.

“What?” The voice, however, could no longer confuse him. Crowley was stunned, surprised even.

“Can I come closer?” Halt waved the hand extended towards him.

Crowley’s gaze dropped to it slowly, hung for a brief moment and then returned to his eyes again. Ever so faintly, his movements seemed to be slow as he nodded.

“Slowly.” Halt stepped closer and his hand reached for Crowley’s shoulder. He didn’t squeeze it. Resting his bent fingers on his shoulder, he slowly raised his eyebrows inquiringly once more. “May I?” he repeated when he received no response. The next movement of his head was a little more confident, but still very nervous.

He could feel a tremor under his fingers as he closed his hand on his shoulder. Crowley clenched his muscles so tightly that they were shaking. Halt took his arm carefully, still not applying any firmer pressure.

“Slowly, yes? Just slowly. There’s nothing happening. There’s nothing to worry about. You’ve got nothing to worry about. There’s nothing here worth being afraid of.”

The stifled laughter was so quiet that it almost hid his despairing note. Halt tried to look him in the face, but Crowley looked away from him again.

“Sure. Nothing worth fearing,” he whispered dimly.

“Nothing that can’t be destroyed, killed, defeated, captured, culled, or whatever you want to call it.”

He was not met with understanding on this point, but at least Crowley looked at him again. He had calmed down somewhat by now, his gaze expressing more resignation than before.

“There are some things that can’t be killed.”

“What kind of things, for example? When something bleeds, you can kill it.”

“Thoughts, Halt. Thoughts don’t bleed.” Crowley looked at him briefly, with strange regret. He breathed once more, more deeply, closing his eyes for a moment. His arm no longer trembled. He got himself under control. “Thoughts cannot be killed.”

“Mostly they die by themselves,” Halt comforted him without particular cheer. “As humans we are lucky because we know how to forget. Not today, not tomorrow, but in a few years you won’t even know what tormented you today.”

Crowley answered him with a small, very pale smile, even though he already seemed more confident. He did not, however, mask the confusion with which he muttered.

“I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay; it can happen to anyone to forget what time it is."

“Not for that.” The quiet tone killed his efforts. “For that too, but more so... for, well, you see...”

Halt looked calmly at his face, still paler than usual, a look escaping from him that was only filled with a horror he didn’t understand. He looked at a man who did not seem to know the feeling of fear of anything threatened by his enemies. Only his own head, his thoughts... himself alone could match him in battle, he alone could terrify himself.

“I see that you could use a cup of warm coffee.”

The laughter that answered him was so weak and noiseless that it mirrored his own in a way. Crowley didn’t have the strength to be his usual self, to laugh and joke. And he still hadn’t put those thoughts out of his head.

“So, simple choice, do you go to bed, or do you sit with me by the fire and drink coffee?”

Simple choices killed panic best. They gave control. They took thoughts away from the pace of the roaring waterfall of despair and senseless running away from everything and everyone. Simple choices were sometimes all that could be made. Sometimes they were enough. They were enough here too, for a start at least.

Crowley gathered his thoughts and nodded weakly.

“Coffee. I won’t fall asleep anyway.”

“Will you add to the fire so I can find the mugs?” Halt took his hand from his shoulder only when he was sure that the request had served its purpose.

Crowley took care of the brushwood. Halt found the mugs. Crowley went for a bucket of water, which they always left just in case the one of them guarding happened to want to make himself a coffee to keep his mind awake. Halt took the coffee out of the pannier. Crowley poured water into the cauldron to boil it. Short, simple, instinctive actions that required no thinking.

They sat side by side by the fire, waiting for the water to boil. Crowley was hunching over more than usual, bent over in a reverie that was clearly clinging to him too tightly to be ripped out of his head by only few words.

Halt was unsure what to do about any of this. He could have helped him with questions. He could only have made things worse. He could have started another topic, or he could have just sat by.

“I hate this,” Crowley spoke up quietly, only after a very long moment of heavy silence.

“Thinking?”

“Yeah, it’s my thoughts. They should be listening to me. My hands listen to me. I do what I want, what I tell myself to do. I should be able to rule my thoughts that way too.”

“In some you are,” suspending his voice for a moment Halt looked up at him from his already prepared coffees before finishing the thought. “They don’t come from nowhere. They draw from what you give them. They only arise from what you give them.”

Crowley laughed weakly, so bitterly and so unhappily that Halt felt a coldness around his neck. A shiver ran through him. He had never heard laughter so despairing.

“I know it. I really know that I’m doing this to myself. It’s my fault. My control... or lack thereof. My choice. I must have had some at some point, right? My fault. My head. My thoughts. My problem.”

Halt stared at him, listening to word after word strained with such bitterness, such hatred, that Crowley could only speak like that to himself and about himself. He would not tolerate such a tone towards anyone else. He respected other people too much, sympathised with them too much. He had too much understanding for them. Even for Halt...

However, he only needed another brief moment to deny himself even the right not to understand what was going on. He shook his head, mumbling nervously again, but without raising his eyes to Halt.

“I’m sorry, that was out of the line.”

He thought he was all alone with this. How would he know...

Even if he wasn’t about to learn all the truth, some of it may have helped him. Halt gathered his thoughts, looking at them closely before he made his decision.

“I don’t want to trust you,” he spoke up quietly, because he knew that if he started shouting about it, he wouldn’t be silent until his heart bled out with that shout. There was no need to shout, anyway. Crowley twitched under the blow of his words and looked at him, devastated. “I didn’t want to from the very beginning. In a way I still don’t want to. I’m afraid of it. Whenever I trust you, I have a vision of the millions of ways you could kill me. I turn my back, I sleep, I eat what you have prepared, I go ahead to scout... each time the thought arises... what if I’m wrong this time? What if everything has changed this time? Maybe you’re not here anymore. Not the one I know. Maybe I never knew you. Maybe you’ve just been waiting for this one moment all along...”

He fell silent, yet Crowley didn’t use this moment to barrage him with reproaches. He just watched. He didn’t say a word. Halt would not have been surprised if he had not been given another word because of what he said.

“It used to be like that every step. Every action. I didn’t even particularly hide it somehow... now it’s better. The thought comes up less often. It’s still there. It's still mine and it’s still there only because I can’t kill it. It’s my thought, my head. My problem. The thought that used to never go away. No it’s easier for me to chase it away. I remind myself...” he hesitated and fell silent for a moment.

“You remind yourself of something we shared so far,” Crowley spoke up this time, not taking his eyes off him.

“Yes. I have several such moments. Evidence that contradicts that thought. Because it’s just a thought. Whether I listen to it is up to me. It can’t do anything of itself. It’s just a stupid, dark thought that I can’t kill. Because it doesn’t bleed. Because it is already dead. It never was not dead. It’s not here, it can’t be seen, it can’t be heard. Someday it won’t be in my head either, I hope so...” he smiled weakly, forcing the corners of his mouth to listen to what he commanded them to do. He had control over this. Maybe someday he would gain it over his head too.

“I... Me too.”

“It takes time for that. But one day... someday it will get better. At least that’s what Pritchard once told me. I prefer to believe that the old wise guy was right about that too,” he lowered his tone even further, and his smile became gloomy with his last words.

An agitated look watched him, as sad as he himself felt at the moment. Crowley nodded very faintly, clearly searching for the words that would be most appropriate.

“For whatever it’s worth, Halt, I swear I will never be your enemy.”

And that was so very much Crowley’s style, to believe in fine words and grand promises, as if they could build the world anew even after the worst cataclysm. Perhaps they could? Halt no longer knew for himself. Since he had received the words, he accepted them.

“Likewise, my friend,” he replied quietly, smiling again, this time, however, letting most of that smile be expressed by his gaze.

Crowley must have known by now that it was how Halt smiled most of the time. He looked into his eyes, searching them for that very smile. Having found it, he responded with a smile of his own. It was still a rather pale, hobbled smile, but it was the most they could have at the moment.

“Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?” He wouldn’t have offered it if it wasn’t for the sadness he could still see on his face. Crowley might have wanted the conversation, needed it, but was afraid to ask. So Halt decided to meet him halfway.

He was wrong, however. That agitation returned to Crowley’s eyes, and even that shadow of fear that made no sense at all.

“No. I’m sorry. No. I don’t want to tell you about it.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to. Everything is all right.”

“You told me, I should now-” Crowley took a detour into a well-known alley of his thoughts to both of them, and this time Halt stopped him in advance.

“No. You don’t owe me anything. We’re not playing now so you have to give me a question and I give you a question. There are different rules here. You don’t want to, you don’t say. And I won’t ask. I promise,” he added the last words after at most a second’s hesitation.

Halt could clearly see the moment when Crowley had mastered those thoughts enough to believe that he had heard a serious declaration. He managed to stop the fear invading his mind. He only nodded, however, when he had digested his words several times.

“Thank you,” he whispered, and Halt really didn’t know what to answer.

His voice was so soft that the slightest sound could have destroyed it. So instead of speaking unnecessarily, Halt just touched and squeezed his hand, reaching out for it in a calm motion. This time Crowley did not tremble, nor did he flee, nor did he sink into his thoughts.

He returned the embrace only after the moment he seemed to need to fully convince himself that he had really received it.

Halt understood the feeling perfectly. And perhaps that might have been enough for now.

Chapter Text

Winter came quickly, and with it many things changed. The cold banished them from the forests even before the first snows fell. Many days of icy downpours both urged them to stay in the castle and increased their anxiety to go exploring. In such weather, only those who had to travel were leaving their homes. The deserted mud-covered roads were impassable in places. For the people moving around in cover, it was a dream situation.

For the first few days of inclement weather, the Rangers doubled their patrols, especially around the access roads to the castle. They got so cold, wet, and windblown that the lack of illness was due to either luck or weather-hardening. In a way, probably both. Their wandering in the rain had little effect. Apart from a few minor, almost routine incidents, the following days passed quietly.

Routine was what Crowley called them and, if challenged on that term, he had a wealth of anecdotes to support his approach. Halt found this out twice and that was enough for him not to start this discussion again unless he wanted to hear an abbreviated history of the Corps. Abbreviated for Crowley’s reality, as such a conversation lasted several hours. He did learn some interesting things in the process, gained new facts about a few of the Rangers he knew, but he ruled that two such lectures fully satisfied his curiosity on the subject.

They also had to leave themselves something to talk about on the long winter evenings. Winter robbed them of bits of daylight, lengthening the dark and cold hours.

For the first few days, reaching a fortnight, Halt wriggled out of sitting in the dimness for the evening hours, which a few months ago were still daytime and one could work, but in winter even a few lit candles and a torch didn’t always provide enough light, and everyone had to occupy themselves with something else. The inhabitants of the castle usually gathered during such evenings to amuse themselves with conversation, to play dice or chess, to spin storytelling or to listen to bards singing both about beautiful things, adventures and romances and making the gathered laugh with silly chants.

Halt had no intention of engaging in any of these ways of spending his time. Most of the time, the work of reorganising the Corps, sorting through paperwork, collecting, and analysing reports or, more recently, revising Ranger training plans, consumed him enough that he didn’t need to make excuses. Once one called out to both of them if they would like to join a gathering in one of the main halls of the castle. It was not the proudest moment for Halt.

Crowley only realised he had left the castle when he tried to find him in their rooms and there was no sign of him in the corridor either. Of course, instead of minding his own business, he went in search of him. Halt sometimes really did not understand this man. Crowley was able to be both unbearable at the same time for teasing him and worrying about him. In any case, he found him quite quickly, heading for the stables in the first place.

Halt was finishing saddling Abelard when he was startled by a quiet, understanding voice promising him that he didn’t have to force himself to spend time at the castle with all that crowd, some excuse was bound to be found.

It did find itself, or rather it was found by Crowley. Suitably directed with half-worded responses, the Corps Commandant assigned Halt the function of evening patrols around the area, with no specified area to check. The guards were not reduced, throwing the responsibility on him. He was simply to look around, and so he did for the first few days. A couple of times Crowley took off with him, but soon stopped.

It only came to him after a few days of solitary excursions that his withdrawal must have been due to Halt’s more sullen than usual silence. He really sometimes had neither the strength nor the patience for this man. Instead of simply saying outright that he had noticed something and... well, Halt was rather the last person who should lecture others about honest communication. Still, he allowed himself to grumble about it when he brought up the subject during a break from paperwork the other day after understanding why he was going out on patrols alone.

Fortunately, this time he was not apologised to in advance for everything. They may have been getting along ham-handedly, but they were learning some things. They didn’t make it easy for each other, but they learned. After all, they had plenty of time.

And so the next change began. They started talking to each other. Of course, they had talked before, necessarily during their travels and even quite a lot after Warvic. But then, more often than not, something triggered their conversations. They talked about important things, difficult things, sometimes even the terrible ones. They tried to riddle these topics with unserious conversations and jokes, teased each other and engaged both of them to some extent in Crowley’s lectures on various subjects. In the winter, however, they started talking because there was nothing better to do. There was no topic to talk about, no fear to quell with jokes, often no excuse to start talking. Topics, however, somehow found themselves.

Crowley had in a way initiated this during their trip to demolish Castle Gorlan. Asking each other all sorts of questions undoubtedly became the first step in the conversations they learned to have with each other that winter. Often there was nothing to talk about. And yet, one of them would start and the topic would find itself. It was almost always Crowley who started the conversation, although on a few occasions Halt too happened to strike it up.

At one time, he even did so in an unselfconscious manner, thus starting a habit which was to become a tradition one day.

Determined to read as many of the books Halt had acquired as possible, Crowley often sat over them even when darkness had fallen. After some protests and disapproving chatter, he agreed to arrange for better lighting for the study. They carried a second candlestick over the desk, casting a strong enough light to make working after nightfall possible. This lengthened their days considerably, although Halt still insisted on considering midnight as the limit of sitting over books.

Able to sleep through the night as people should, Crowley tend to sit down to work several hours late relative to Halt, who was already able to sleep fair to middling in the castle, but usually woke before dawn. Clogging the crack under the door to Crowley’s room with a blanket, he would turn on the light and get down to his share of papers even before anyone else in the castle was awake. Crowley, on the other hand, would sit over the papers for longer, once Halt had stopped seeing the letters and started the strange scribbles and finished reading for the day.

They didn’t bother each other with this routine, and it suited them both, although secretly Crowley never ceased to be disturbed by how short Halt slept. He tried several times to persuade him to go to bed earlier in view of this. Halt, however, was sure that this would not prolong the sleep itself, he would simply wake up even earlier then. One week passed in this way, then the second and the third, and Halt got used to the way their evenings were now. Sometimes he still set off on a patrol around the castle, but more often he was content to let everything around him calm down for those few excess hours of darkness.

Crowley would finish reports and paperwork around dusk, and then read until Halt reminded him that it was time to go to bed. Halt sometimes read then too, sometimes dozing around the chamber without much purpose, not handicapping Crowley’s reading by how quietly he moved, but also feeling like he was still doing something. Over time, however, he felt less and less reluctance to simply rest.

With a cold draught of frost-scented air over his head, Halt always sat in the same place by the window, usually wrapped in his cloak. Sometimes he would lie down, straightening his back that had been hunching over his desk all day. Crowley would then read, sometimes forgetting the whole world, and sometimes the opposite, interrupting his reading to share a fact he had just read and found particularly interesting. He had his own ideas, thoughts, and comments, and wanted Halt to have his say too. Sometimes, this came out funny, when Halt happened not to be up to date on the topic Crowley was reading about.

On one such evening, something occurred to him that seemed so obvious that he wondered why he hadn’t actually come across it before. Letting his eyes rest from concentrating on the letters, enjoying the coolness that drove the mustiness of the old walls out of the chambers, he waited until Crowley had pulled away from his reading again to say something to him.

“You can read aloud if you like,” he stated half-heartedly.

Crowley lifted his gaze from the book, surprised in a quite understandable way. The last thing Halt could say was that he was missing someone’s voice around him. Crowley often talked when they were both working on the same thing. When they weren’t working, he talked even more and more often. He honestly wasn’t surprised that his friend sometimes just had enough of him.

“It won’t bother you?”

“As long as you don’t pause to whistle, shout or sing any parts, it won’t.” Halt lifted his eyelids to give him a brief glance devoid of a trace of hesitation. Then he closed his eyes again and nodded to himself, as if he had just won a mental debate on a subject.

Crowley stared for a moment, smiling slightly. Halt’s face was smoothed with a calmness, if it weren’t for the fact that he had just spoken, one might have thought he was deeply asleep. The moderately comfortable bench didn’t seem to bother him. Crowley made a mental note to look around for some blankets, furs, or cushions for the bench anyway. Maybe then Halt could actually snooze, resting after a long day?

“Well, are you reading or staring?” Halt muttered, still not opening his eyes.

Crowley’s gaze escaped to the text, and he struggled to contain any comments or apologies. The best he could do about that particular matter was to keep quiet. He traced the beginning of the thread he was currently reading.

“Urban fortifications in the western countries. Would it be okay?”

“Yes, read.”

“But will you tell me if it’s too loud?” This was something Crowley knew even if he had not read anything longer aloud to anyone for many years. When he was engaged in something, he would forget the necessary pauses between words, throwing them out in a tirade like a waterfall with successive waves of water. On top of that, he would raise his voice and cut off the ends of words.

Halt would surely be quickly annoyed by this.

“If you start reading...”

Crowley nodded slowly, understanding the matter-of-fact remark, the tone of which was a little stronger, with an emphasis on making him think about his own words. He returned his gaze to the text again and, after a brief hesitation as to how big a breath he should take, simply began to read.

Two paragraphs in, he realised that he had been reading a little too fast. Having just reached passages that were new also to him, he slowed down naturally, taking longer to read some of the more ornately written or time-faded words. Over a few he even had to pause. Saying the foreign names aloud was much more difficult than simply moving his eyes over them. Halt prompted him quietly a few times, but otherwise he did not interrupt him and had no objections to his reading, or at least he did not voice them.

Turning the page, a few long moments later, Crowley glanced at him with the intention of asking if he was to read on.

Not much had changed, yet he got the impression that Halt was already swaying on the very edge of sleep. Smiling slightly, he went back to reading, without changing anything in his tone of voice. Halt no longer spoke at the brief hesitation over the name of some town. He breathed deeply, as Crowley made sure with a quick glance after another moment. If he wasn’t asleep, he was feigning sleep. Either way, Crowley read on...

He read like this another evening, and another, and another too.

* * *

“Stop stabbing me.”

“Come on, come on, don’t whine!”

He may have stopped being poked with her elbow and knee, but he lost the right to have his arm exclusively. Her head, heavy from drowsiness, rested on his shoulder. He had to push her hair aside a little to be able to see the letters at all. Dark curly hair spilled over his shoulder as her head moved again, searching for a more comfortable spot.

“Maybe a pillow after all?” he suggested, poorly suppressing his amusement.

“I’m very comfortable here!” his opinion was met with support from the other side of the bed.

“No, here!” the head from his shoulder wasn’t going anywhere.

With anybody else he would probably have argued. But they had had enough nerves that day, all three of them wanting a break both from the raised voices and from being chased from corner to corner. The little one must have been most tired of it. She had already stopped crying, but she clung to him so tightly...

Halt didn’t have the heart to fight to get his arm back. He leaned more comfortably against the headboard of the bed. He was given an exasperated sigh because of this. Oh, yes, he shifted her a little. Holding back his remarks, he waited until she was more comfortable again, snuggled sideways to him and supported by her cheek against his shoulder.

“Are you okay now?”

“Yes,” she nodded confidently.

“Do you have a blanket?”

“Got it.”

“Just read finally...”

“Wait, I’m not going to interrupt every five minutes if-”

“It’s not the blanket!”

“There it is,” Halt sent a meaningful glance at the other bed. “Could you?”

“But I’m really comfortable here,” a disgruntled mumbled to him, and only another call from the little one settled the matter.

“The blanket stayed!”

“Gods...”

The blanket had to be found, and she had to cover herself with it. Only then did she lean against her brother again, and now in a truly inexorable voice she pronounced.

“Now you read!”

He had not set himself up for a leisurely read and he was not mistaken. He had barely reached halfway down the page when the little one lifted her head and, looking him straight in the eye, asked one very important question.

“But why?”

A heavy sigh answered her from one side, and for a moment Halt really wanted to answer exactly the same. All too clearly, however, he remembered that day... in spirit, he just sighed heavily and, smiling with understanding, asked.

“Why what, Cattie?”

The question was about the actions of the knight about whose fate they had read the tale. It came back four more times before Halt managed to turn the page. He answered each one.

The concentrated expression on her face and the attentive gaze kept turning towards him. When she didn’t ask, she leaned her head against him, and Halt really couldn’t be angry about that.

So he read on as the night was slowly falling over their heads.

* * *

“Alright, now you lost me.”

“What? Why?”

His misunderstanding of Halt’s seriousness was extremely satisfying. If only he didn’t have a reputation to protect, he’d be laughing about it by now. Hiding his amusement, he glanced at Crowley’s stunned expression and spread his hands slightly.

“I don’t follow. I don’t understand. You were talking about changes in training and here I am assimilating what you mean, but then you went into the subject of coloured cloaks and-”

“Not ‘coloured’, but white-something ones.”

“Well, meaning deviating from the normal green camouflage Rangers’ cloaks. I don’t understand. Why do we need white and something? Let’s get red ones for the set straight away.”

Crowley sighed as heavily as the people who taught him as a child and tried to get him to sit still and quiet for more than two blinks of an eye must once have sighed.

“No red and no sets of colours. Just... look around, Halt, and tell me what you see.”

A disgruntled glare from beneath his head did not discourage him from the subject at all. Seeing no corresponding eagerness, he stopped his friend in the middle of the forest, lightly grabbing him by the half of his cloak. The dark green cut clearly against the snow that covered the thicket.

“Can you see? We are visible. To hide, you’d have to build a shelter. In the snow, we’re visible from a distance, as if we’re carrying a flag above our heads that says ‘oh, here’s a Ranger, shoot!’.”

Halt not very readily heeded the call and took a critical look at their surroundings and then their coverings. In fact they were somewhat conspicuous. The bare tree trunks broke up the utter whiteness, but that didn’t change the fact that the usually invisible Rangers were now cutting themselves off with the colour of their coats.

“It’s hardly the first winter the Corps has faced,” Halt suspended his voice, sending him a thoughtful look. “How have you guys been coping so far? Hasn’t anyone thought about this?”

Crowley thought for a moment before shrugging his shoulders, losing his earlier conviction in his approach.

“I don’t know. Turns out they didn’t care about it. I haven’t heard anything about other cloaks. There’s nothing in the papers. Maybe they figured we had enough conifers in Araluen to always find something green... or they were simply relying on the reputation of the Rangers, who you don’t have to not see to be afraid of them.”

Both explanations sounded plausible and, frankly, neither convinced Halt. They walked in silence for a while through the snowy forest, not wanting to unnecessarily risk riding on the slick terrain. Stones and tree roots piled up under the snow, which the horses could not see in advance.

The Rangers’ boots were slipping on the glaciations and every time one of them saved themselves by reflex, they more or less consciously reassured themselves that it was a very good idea to walk this section on their feet. Besides, they were in no hurry to go anywhere.

A heavy frost had been blanketing the countryside for days and even getting the sun out from under the clouds didn’t help. The towns froze, people hid in their homes. The crowd at the castle had become unbearable for Crowley too, so this time they went on a day-long patrol around the woods surrounding Araluen Castle. It was a little warmer in the woods than in the open spaces of the great fields. The snow had become gritty, the floes on the rivers were too shaky to risk crossing them. But the cold still settled on faces and hands, turning breaths into white clouds.

“But you’d want to come up with a solution for that,” Halt finally concluded.

“Yes. Even if we were to use such capes only two or three months a year, that’s still two or three months of normal Rangers’ work. The cape is the basis. If not that, then what? Some special training on how to keep yourself safe in winter when you are visible even in the forest?”

“The winter version of the cape sounds better,” Halt admitted after another moment’s thought. “Now that you’ve got an idea, there’s nothing stopping you from going for it.”

“So I found you back?” Crowley smiled broadly, glad of the support for his idea.

Which didn’t change the fact that Halt had already been thinking about something for a while, and now was the perfect opportunity to ask him about it.

“And if I didn’t support it... you’re going to do it, anyway, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. But do you support it?” Crowley furrowed his brow, stopping for a moment.

Halt also stopped and looked at him with seriousness. Some detail here was arguing with his overall picture, but he fought the distraction and focused only on how more cautious his friend now seemed.

“I do. But if I didn’t support it, you’d still do it. Right?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, because if you support-”

“Crowley. I’m not the oracle of the god of magic for you to be entirely reliant on me, yes?”

“It would be interesting if you were,” Crowley laughed lightly, and seeing the grave look, he added. “Well, yes, I know. If you were against it, then, I don’t know.... I’d probably try to convince you. I’d talk about it until you’d had enough of me, and you’d just snap your fingers at it.”

“I imagine so,” Halt croaked tartly. “But why? Can’t you just recognise that we disagree and that’s it, you do your thing because you know you’re right?”

“Well,” Crowley hesitated visibly, and his shrug of the shoulders came off very awkwardly. He must have realised it himself because he moved on first.

Halt’s eyebrows went up, but he didn’t try to stop him immediately. He simply caught up with him and, having stuck an attentive gaze into him, waited for an answer.

“Well, I value your opinion,” Crowley finally admitted quietly.

“Thank you, but that’s no explanation.”

He was appraised of it with a look, more attentive and serious than if they were simply joking around. Crowley shrugged his shoulders again and after a moment looked away from him. Something was different about this... something was really odd with it and Halt looked at him intently, searching for it. Finding no answer, he shook his head in mild exasperation.

“It’s great that you value my opinion, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re also my boss.”

“Well, you could say that.”

“It’s true.”

“Speaking theoretically,” Crowley didn’t let himself be persuaded, nodding, he stood his ground with a stubbornness worthy of a better cause.

Pity he didn’t defend his own ideas so categorically.

Halt glanced at him and once again ascertained that there was something different about his friend’s face itself.

Perhaps he was pale or something? Was he being laid out by some illness? No, he didn’t look miserable; he seemed perfectly ordinary. Something, however, was different. Halt could see it only now, in the full light of a sunny but cold day. Before, the darkness of the walls obscured it for him. Or he had not been close enough to see clearly. He could see now, but he didn’t know what he saw. And he didn’t like it very much.

“And what about practically speaking?”

“In practice, I’m not going to order you what to do. I respect your opinion.”

“So you don’t respect the other Rangers?”

“Stop picking on me,” Crowley sighed with resignation. “Of course I respect them all. That’s different. Enough of that. End of topic.”

“Even if I don’t agree that this is the end?”

He received a dignified look and, taking the opportunity to stop again, looked at him once more with great attention. Bloody hell, what had changed? Something had changed!

“Yes. You want to keep talking about it, do so. I just won’t.”

Crowley didn’t really get angry. He wasn’t furrowing his eyebrows. However, he wasn’t smiling either. And something... Halt really had no idea what was wrong.

“What?” His intrusive stare couldn’t escape someone who worked watching people. Crowley noticed it after another moment of silence.

Halt sent him an almost offended look. He still didn’t know. He didn’t like not knowing, in fact he hated not knowing. Even more so when he had all the data at his fingertips, he just didn’t understand how to put it together to decipher the answer.

“What have you done to your face?” he asked at last, in his usual threatening tone.

Crowley opened his eyes wide before he very slowly and expressively replied.

“What?”

“Well that’s what I’m asking, what? What have you done? It’s... different.”

“I...,” Crowley seemed confused, but also slightly amused at the same time by the sheer abstractness of the question. “I didn’t do anything.”

“No. Something is different. What?”

Crowley hadn’t laughed yet simply because he was too lost in outrage at him for something he didn’t understand. He shook his head weakly.

“Well, nothing. I... ah... maybe, um,” he fell silent, barely a thought had crossed his mind. Of course, he couldn’t share it directly, it would be too easy.

“So?” Halt tilted his head expectantly, not intending to let it go. “No,” he stopped him with a movement of his hand as Crowley took half a step further into the woods. “I want to know because I can’t concentrate to talk to you. Tell me what you did.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Crowley muttered quietly, increasingly visibly abashed, and shook his head once more. He smiled weakly, for some reason adding even more quietly. “It’s not me, it’s winter. Freckles usually disappear for winter. There’s not as much sun, so they fade.”

Of course! That was what was missing from the usual picture of his face! Halt nodded with satisfaction, glad to have the matter cleared up.

“Okay, thanks.”

He moved further into the woods, expecting Crowley to do the same. He walked a few steps before it occurred to him that Crowley continued to stand in the same spot. He turned over his shoulder, sending him an expectant look.

“Well, are you coming or not?”

A moderately intelligible mumbling answered him and Crowley for some reason adjusted his hood, pulling it over his head before moving behind him. Halt, after a brief hesitation, decided that he probably wouldn’t come up with what was going through his head anyway, so there was no point in trying very hard.

Barely had he decided that he heard a much stronger clatter behind him, a footstep so loud that no Ranger would feel comfortable walking so loudly. He turned around again, partly disturbed by the noise and partly by the fact that Crowley had not yet caught up with him.

A shaky recovering of balance was a very obvious explanation for what he had just heard. Now this really surprised him.

“Did you tripped over a root?” Halt blurted out without thinking, looking at him in disbelief.

Crowley sent him a threatening look, but he was so obviously confused that it didn’t help him at all to maintain the right impression.

“No. Bug off.”

“Well, I’ve seen it.” Halt suppressed his amusement, now more curious about his friend’s immense confusion, which was still clearly visible.

Crowley hid his face in his hood, which only confirmed this conclusion.

“Be careful now,” Halt nodded understandingly and pointed to the trees in front of them with his hand.

The exasperated murmur was out of the shape of words. It really took a lot of effort for Crowley to lose the ability to form intelligible sounds. Halt was already laughing sincerely in spirit, proud and amused at the same time. A beautiful moment of his triumph.

Only the slap on the back he felt spoiled this second of glory.

He turned away, surprised by how weak the blow was, which belied the threat. Abelard walked, moreover, completely calm. Crowley shook his hands off the snow and only then it dawned on Halt.

“You did not just-”

A familiar smile flashed in the shadows of his hood and Halt pointed his hand indignantly at him.

“Don’t you dare!”

Another snowball whistled past his head, as Halt did a swift dodge.

“Well, that’s very mature!”

A third attack prevailed. Halt looked around him.

“How old are you, eh?” Shaking his head with resignation, out of the corner of his eye he traced a suitably large cap of snow by a tree whose branches could give him good shelter.

“Older than you!” Crowley recovered his voice and felt no guilt.

He hadn’t expected an attack and bent down to pick up the snow without a trace of suspicion. Halt smiled under his breath.

A startled half-scream blended with the sound of snow splashing on the front of Crowley’s cloak. Halt didn’t aim for his head, as he hadn’t been that annoyed with him yet. Crowley took the counterattack with great amusement and aided by Cropper as a shield, dashed to the nearest tree.

Halt was just waiting for it, with his supply of ammunition at hand.

Gods keep us from war, hunger and Rangers’ games, Abelard shook his head with great disappointment.

If it wasn’t for how much he wanted to laugh, Halt would probably have taken offence. Currently, he was a little too absorbed in the quite demanding task of getting the snow right so that it flew to its target and hit where it was supposed to hit.

He would most likely have joined in the grumbling if only for the fact that he had won the skirmish. The clash lasted a long time, as both Rangers had a fairly highly developed sense of competition and neither wanted to be indebted to a single blow. Chasing around the trees until they were out of breath and hurling snow at each other, they only considered the finale of the battle to be a clear surrender. Halt managed to reach Crowley’s trenches behind the branches and when he was snowed in, landing on his back in the snow one time, laughing hard he articulated a request for an armistice.

Halt laughed too, silently, shaking his cloak out of the snow and pleased to see that Crowley was even more snowed in.

“That was... interesting,” he admitted with amusement.

The frost was biting into his face again and reaching his lungs with every breath, but at the same time he was pleasantly warm after that battle.

That warmth quickly evaporated, however, and by the time they had calmed down and cleared the snow from their clothes, the Rangers felt the surrounding chill more acutely, barely moving on. Perhaps they had gone a little overboard with the acrimony of the battle. In his defence, Halt had a few facts. Firstly, it was Crowley who started it and really got on his nerves at times, so the opportunity to whack him with snow could not be missed, that’s secondly. Thirdly, something he wouldn’t admit to though, he was really enjoying himself.

“I don’t know about you,” Crowley glanced at him as they tore through the woods to the path leading to the castle in one direction and the town in the other. “But I’m really damn cold.”

“Because you’ve been given a rumble.” Halt successfully hid the jawing of his teeth for a moment longer, before adding tersely. “Well, okay, I’m cold too.”

“Are we going back?”

“We’re going back. And winter cloaks must be insulated and waterproof.”

“Of course,” Crowley smiled at him and added in a tone of final resolution to any fight. “I’ll make you some coffee when we get back.”

Halt nodded, ready to agree to such terms.

Slippery slope, Abelard snorted at him with resignation. But if you like the slide, then it is what it is.

He hadn’t thought about it before, but if you looked at it that way. He had brighten, as if permission on the horse’s part changed anything. As if it was also his own.

* * *

He blamed the pleasantly crackling fire, which spread warmth throughout his body. The fireplace now seemed a much more wonderful invention than anything else. At first he was terribly cold, but at the same time he didn’t feel bad about it. He was haunted by the memory of the laughter that had shaken him in the forest. Unwelcome and at the same time so wonderful that at the very thought he felt the urge to laugh like that again in spirit. He didn’t think he would ever experience such a silly state. He didn’t think it could be so pleasant.

When they finally warmed up enough to talk again, Halt could only fight not to smile when he got the coffee mug in his hand. He didn’t even have to get up from the fireplace. He gave his thanks almost unintelligibly, inhaling the familiar scent, the warmth of which now reached his face. Leaning over his coffee, huddled under the fur by the fireplace, he glanced out of the corner of his eye at Crowley, who sat very similarly next to him.

He could actually blame it all on just how pleasant the warmth turned out to be once it enveloped him. He didn’t think it could be that warm in any castle.

Apart from the warmth, what defeated him was the relaxation that had set in. They didn’t have much to do for the day. They had ventured out of the castle to get away from sitting with the rest of the castle’s inhabitants and to get some rest from the four walls of the Corps Commandant’s office. Since they returned sooner than planned, they had a few hours to spare, which they took advantage of, warming themselves by the fireplace. They didn’t talk much, enjoying the warmth and the coffee.

Later, however, something had to be done. Crowley took out the book he was currently studying and only raised his eyebrows questioningly. He had been reading aloud every night for the last couple of days, so he expected that Halt would want to listen this time too.

Barely finding a comfortable spot against the wall, wrapped in the fur and within reach of the waves of heat from the fire, Halt nodded, encouraging him to read. So he could blame the habituation he’d managed to make for himself. A familiar, calm voice relaxed him, reassuring him of the safety of his surroundings. He secretly hoped Crowley didn’t know about this, but there had been a few times when Halt had taken a nap while listening to him read in the evening.

However, never yet it happened during the day, without him being injured or exhausted.

So he blamed the warmth, the relaxation, the familiar voice, the lack of activity and finally, perhaps even more importantly, Crowley.

Crowley, after all, must have quickly realised that Halt was not listening to him at all. He must have noticed his slumping head, his closed eyes, his drawn-out silence. As much as he might even plead that he hadn’t noticed, he had no way of denying that he had moved him slightly away from the fireplace and found a more comfortable place to sleep. He’d even gotten a bloody pillow from somewhere.

Lastly, he had to know that Halt was sleeping at his best, since he finally woke him up. He did it very gently, which was some mitigating element in the matter, but still only proved that he knew. He knew and did nothing about it.

Resting a hand on his shoulder, he whispered words of explanation over his head that he would be right back in the room, just going quickly to the kitchen. Halt was not fully awake, but he accepted and understood his words. He only muttered something as a sign of agreement.

The rapping of the door did not alarm him, nor did the silence that followed for some time. Crowley had gone, but he was about to return. There was no need to wake up.

The fact that he was asleep reached Halt slowly. Sitting up slowly, still tucked in his blanket and fur, he didn’t quite grasp it. He swept an unconscious glance around, noted his familiar surroundings and, yawning, came to absolutely no conclusion.

It wasn’t completely improbable that he would have passed a few more long moments of thought, or would have gone back to sleep altogether, had it not been for Crowley’s return. At the sight of his friend's still blurry, sleepy look and his relaxed face, Crowley smiled broadly.

“Good evening,” he chuckled, having lowered his voice not to snap him out of his blissful state too soon. “I’ve gone down to the kitchen to get dinner for us. You can sleep on, and we’ll eat later, or you can get up and eat and go back to sleep, or... well, whatever you want.”

He had to realise that Halt wasn’t really in touch with the world yet. He set down a cloth-covered platter and some sort of packet on the desk. He approached Halt slowly, smiling even wider.

“How did you sleep?”

That was, for the moment, all he understood. He nodded, rubbing his eyes in a slightly uncorrelated motion. Another yawn and a moment’s thought, and he muttered, not recognising his own voice.

“Good.”

“I’m glad,” Crowley watched him with a smile even as they fell silent for a long moment.

Long enough for Halt to wake up. With a sharper glance he surrounded the room, Crowley, the dinner on the table and finally looked at the fur he was wrapped in.

“What the hell.”

Crowley laughed, seeing his devastation.

“Nothing happened. You made up for the lack of sleep.”

“I fell asleep...” Halt glanced at the window and, seeing the darkness beyond, quite doubted the world. “What... for how long?”

“I don’t know exactly, but a couple of hours. Are you going to eat now?”

“Why did you let me sleep?” he hissed reproachfully at him, once he’d added up all the facts and made sure Crowley could be blamed for it too, or perhaps most of all.

“And why shouldn’t I?” Another smile was backed up by a reassuring pat on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about a thing. I won’t tell anyone you took a nap after your walk. We officially worked hard all day. So hard, in fact, that we were excused from sitting down and eating dinner with the others.”

“Why?” Halt noted with exasperation that he was still finding it much harder to gather his thoughts. Some part of his mind was still asleep.

Crowley didn’t stop smiling and just shrugged his shoulders lightly.

“You once told me that when you’re tired, people annoy you even more than usual. For the sake of the general good and both of us, I’ve arranged for us to have dinner in peace.”

Such a sly use of facts that he knew from Halt deserved to be resented. However, he only thought so in the first moment. He assumed that it would somehow be much easier to carry on with the day if he got pissed off now and reversed any meaning of the moment. Crowley wouldn’t keep his guard up for too long. He’d start apologising, they’d talk a bit and part ways in a tense, not yet hostile, but much more ordinary to Halt atmosphere. He would then know what to do...

“You didn’t have to,” he muttered quietly, partly just to start it.

Crowley still sat facing him, smiling warmly, and nodded without a moment’s hesitation.

“I know, but I wanted to. You slept well, there was no reason to spoil it. I’m glad you rested.”

The confidence in his eyes was disarming. He smiled, not so much proud of himself as just happy that Halt was awake and resting. He’d brought them dinner because he remembered something where he’d heard from him once. And before that he had moved him from the fire, laid him down and given him a pillow. And now he sat, not waiting for any explanation or thanks. He only wanted one thing from him.

“Are you going to eat now, or I don’t know, I shall wake you up in an hour or two?”

Was it possible to shout at him while having any human reflexes? Halt had never suspected he would be faced with such a dilemma, but here he sat, watching and disbelieving. He could not reproach Crowley, growl at him, or tell him to go to hell. His smile was too bright, his eyes too sincere. Crowley was too much himself to be pushed away.

“We can eat now,” Halt quietly stated. The remnants of anger fled from him as he watched those eyes brighten when he said anything. He couldn't... “Thank you,” he added even more quietly.

Crowley smiled on the verge of breaking that smile into a warm laugh at the very fact that he felt good about something. Somewhere near Halt’s ribs, the frostiness that hadn’t been melted earlier by the heat of the fireplace and coffee loosened. It was only then that he really got warm.

However, he was still too sleepy to think about it any longer. Maybe someday.

Chapter Text

Crowley smiled, tired but genuinely glad to see a familiar figure on the threshold of the chamber. The gaze with which he was instantly appraised was so attentive that he didn’t even delude himself into thinking he’d managed to hide the signs of sleeplessness on his face.

Nor was he surprised that the first question he received was how he was doing. The tone of Egon’s voice also betrayed that whatever Crowley was going to tell him, he already had his opinion about it anyway.

“I’m doing tolerably well, thank you.”

“So I can see,” the sceptical look might have seemed hostile to someone who didn't know him. Crowley, however, had been working closely with a certain Halt for many months, so all the grim faces of this world were not threat to him.

“I even sleep sometimes!” he boasted with amusement. “Halt chases me off to sleep. He’s offended that I would start sleeping the least of the inhabitants in the castle. As the current front-runner, he must have felt threatened.”

Egon shrugged his shoulders with an inscrutable grin, which Crowley knew well enough to know was a grin along the lines of “I didn’t want to know that, but fine, so be it.”

“So much for me, now it’s your turn.”

“You’ve got the news in the report.” Egon served himself, pouring himself a coffee and finding a place to sit at the table. Crowley tried to move the papers aside from the tabletop, but a reassuring movement of his hand pre-empted more efforts in that direction. Egon realised that this was not achievable.

“Have mercy, I can’t look at the letters anymore. Tell me.”

He had, of course, already reviewed the report from Egon, the instant he had sent a report from Seacliff, briefly describing the situation on the coasts there, which was already under control. That way he also knew when to expect him.

He didn’t want to use the word Halt had used on the matter, but if he had to, he would have said that the ‘heavy-handedness’ introduced by Egon on Seacliff had great effects. A few showy actions on the spur of the moment, a bit of broadening of some rumours and suppression of others, and calm reigned again on the island. From the island this quickly spilled over to the surrounding coasts.

In agreeing to Egon’s return to his earlier fief, Crowley secretly hoped precisely that the experienced Ranger would somehow cope with the confusion and remnants of the Morgarath actions. He had a good knowledge of the area, an old network of contacts and, above all, like most Rangers, was stubborn to the bone. It had taken a long time to sort out the problems at Seacliff, but now they were both confident that Egon was free to move on, and that the order he had brought to the island was not just a temporary appeasement.

Few Rangers enjoyed chatting when further work awaited them. Crowley was sometimes felt very painfully this very thing during the other Rangers’ reporting and exchanging stories. He usually received a few factual sentences. Years of experience were making their presence felt, and Rangers were aware that no one cared about their personal hardships and efforts. What mattered was the result, the report told how it was achieved and this too they explained when asked.

The fact that he personally was heartily fed up with such dry, formal schemes devoid of the human aspect was the least important thing here. This time, however, Egon’s economical storytelling was not dictated by officiousness. He summarised what was most important so as to get to grips with the subject more quickly. Then he glanced carefully at the Corps Commandant again.

They hadn’t seen each other for a few months since Egon had set off for Seacliff after returning from Warvic. He wasn’t sure if he liked the changes he had noticed on his return. Certainly Crowley had grown considerably more serious, fatigue was very much evident in him. It wasn’t crisis exhaustion after a battle, sleepless three nights, or the shock of a terrible experience. He was chronically tired, like any busy man who has no chance of rest anytime soon and must simply come to terms with this pervasive fatigue.

“How are you?” asked Egon again, as he adjudged in his mind how much he disliked Crowley’s fatigue. “How’s the situation at the castle? You’ve only been writing a little. I’m guessing you have quite a mess here.”

“Officially I deny it,” Crowley laughed quietly, almost like he used to. “But unofficially... oh yes, hell, what a mess we have here!”

“Too much work, not enough people...” he grimly suspended his voice.

“Yes, in a nutshell, exactly.”

Egon wrapped his gaze around him as carefully as if he wanted to know the answer before asking the next question.

“But Halt helps you, yes?”

“All the time. He’s currently on the outskirts of the fief, smashing up some roadside bandits there. He’s already got rid of three, he’s tracking two more. He wrote to me about it. I don’t know the details and he said I don’t want to know,” Crowley smiled slightly, and although he didn’t lighten up completely, it was a nice change.

He had to be aware that he would know all the details anyway, and when Halt returned he would get a report on the whole incident. Momentarily, however, he was glad that someone else had taken care of everything, relieving him of at least this one task.

“Something serious?” Egon didn’t take his eyes off him, asking.

“It doesn’t look like it. We’ve had a rash of minor attacks, now that the snows have gone, and travellers are moving again. The King has instructed us to take care of it, since guests are due to descend on Araluen Castle any day now, the roads should be safe.” Crowley hesitated for perhaps a blink of an eye before adding an informal explanation. “Besides, Halt recently insulted one of the lords, so I thought it safest to give him something to do that didn’t involve sitting in on debates. Now we have deliberation after deliberation anyway. And then there’s the paperwork...”

“You could build yourself a trench out of them if you needed to.” Egon allowed himself to broach the subject, although to be honest something else caught his attention much more.

Crowley was already smiling more brightly, and far less ostentatiously, than he used to when explaining where his friend and deputy was currently.

“Halt had an idea involving a bonfire...”

He didn’t even have to make the effort to return to Halt in conversation; Crowley had done it himself again. Faced with this, Egon only canted his head slightly and not expecting indignation, perhaps only shock, or confusion, he threw in calmly.

“And how is it between you two?”

Crowley’s smile faded immediately. His eyes opened wider. Shock, then. Zero confusion. Perhaps more disbelief?

He couldn’t have been wrong. Perhaps he had anticipated the facts a little.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.” Crowley’s confusion didn’t faze Egon, however. He continued to speak calmly, seeing no reason to get nervous here about anything. “It’s been a couple of months. I assume you’ve moved on a bit though. Or not...? Not too much, though?”

Crowley intertwined his hands, forgetting the pen he held in one of them. He put it down in such a measured, rigid movement that, although his hands were not trembling, the nervousness that came over him was quite obvious. He raised his eyebrows in perfectly forced clear incomprehension.

“Moved on what?”

If only Pritchard could see him now, he would not have contained his laughter. Egon was absolutely sure of it. He only held back because of the sympathy he sincerely felt for this damned lost young man with a difficult job and few confidantes.

“I’m talking about your relationship, that I remember from Warvic.”

“I... I’m not sure...”

“Shall I draw it out for you?”

“No!” Crowley went pale, which ruined all his efforts to feign composure. “No, I just... I don’t think there’s anything here... that could go forward or move on in any way possible. I don’t understand what you’re talking about. But there’s no need to explain it. There is no-”

“It is what it was then, yes?” Egon decided to help him out.

“Yes,” Crowley lied to him so unsuccessfully that he himself grasped it even before Egon raised his eyebrows again. “I don’t know. A bit. Depends on someone’s point of view.”

“I’m asking about yours.”

“But where did you get the idea in the first place that... that it’s something to ask about, that I would-”

“I don't know, maybe the fact that you’ve mentioned Halt several times in the course of one speech. Maybe some kind of hunch. Or maybe I just have eyes,” Egon frowned, shrugging his shoulders. “There are many possibilities.”

Crowley was silent for a long moment before he shook his head. The apparent calm on his face did not extend to his eyes, where the bewilderment was less distant than Egon had feared, but far more fear-lined than he had expected.

“There’s nothing here that you can intuit, notice, or anything else. I don’t know what specifically came to your mind, and never mind that, because there’s nothing like that here.”

“How do you know there isn’t, if-”

“Egon. There isn’t. There isn’t and that's the end of it,” he was interrupted by a firm, albeit heavily hushed voice. “And that’s the end of the subject. Okay?”

It didn’t look like he was joking or trying to get Egon to ask more clearly by doing so. He had no reason to run away, at least Egon didn’t see any. He raised his eyebrows, wanting to ask it directly, but Crowley preceded him, in a sharper, almost warning whisper.

“There’s nothing to talk about here. You’re in the wrong, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

Faced with such a turn of the conversation, Egon realised that it had been a long time since he had been right as much as he had been in this case. However, if Crowley was so keen to remain stubbornly in this quagmire all alone, who was Egon to seemingly forbid him?

“Fine. If you ever wanted-”

He was his friend and wanted to protect him.

“No.”

“Fine. I just want you to know that you don’t have to be alone with this.”

He was someone who understood and who really wanted to help. Someone who thought he knew how to help him.

Crowley furrowed his brow in an afterthought that was much grimmer than the previous ones.

“There’s nothing here that I would be alone in.”

Egon nodded briefly, very calmly, and even smiled, changing the subject without any problem.

“Okay then. So what’s going on up there at the castle?”

* * *

The look with which he was appraised betrayed at once that Pritchard was awaiting his arrival. He had expected the former apprentice to come, sooner or later, and tradition had been done. There was nothing Crowley could do to surprise this default, supremely intelligent man, whose gaze reached the bottom of his interlocutor’s soul.

“This may sound awkward, but you’ve grown up over the years,” a gentle tone started the conversation as Crowley merely sat down next to the master, not saying a word at first.

Pritchard could not content himself with the pale smile he received in reply. His impenetrable gaze followed closely the movement, too nervous for the circumstances, with which Crowley looked around. Though they were among friends, he lost none of his tense vigilance. Pritchard must have seen it. He had always seen such things.

“Can’t sleep?” Crowley spoke up only after a moment’s silence.

The middle of the night always seemed the most appropriate time for conversations where no other witnesses were wanted. Even if those witnesses really couldn’t pose a threat to any of the Rangers sitting around the campfire.

“I’m repeating the plan in my mind,” calmly admitting he was somewhat right both emboldened Crowley and also took him a little off guard.

In the past, Pritchard would have brushed off the question with an excuse, not wanting to share his own dilemmas or worries with his pupil unless he felt it was absolutely necessary. However, they were no longer just master and pupil. And this was the aspect that still frightened Crowley.

“Maybe we should give up on dramatically interrupting the tournament and just arrest Morgarath?”

“On what charge?” Pritchard canted his head, waiting for Crowley to refute his own idea when he felt it was unlikely to succeed.

“I don’t know, suspicion of anything we suspect him of?”

“He’s got more people. There would be fights.”

“So we would expose both the baron, and the Prince, and then even the King...”

“And the twelve of us,” Pritchard added calmly.

“You’re not helping.”

“Come on, that’s not why you came here. I’m the one thinking about the plan and that’s why I’m awake. The question is why you’re awake. It’s not your watch.”

“I swapped with Farrel.” Crowley chose the most convenient extract of a statement to which he wanted to actually respond.

“I saw,” Pritchard nodded. “Then?”

Crowley shrugged his shoulders, taking advantage of the darkness around him to safely avoid his master’s gaze. For a while, at least, he succeeded.

“Just like that. I haven’t seen you in a long time and-” he paused, shaking his head on reflection, adding. “I don’t need an excuse to sit with you.”

Pritchard smiled gently at him, nodding.

“You don’t, of course.”

“So, I came just like that.”

“I’m glad of that,” the suspension of his voice was so pronounced that Crowley lost all illusion. “Then I’ll just like that ask what’s new with you. I left you here as barely a full-fledged Ranger... on my return I found the commander of an illegal gathering of alleged ex-Rangers outlawed.”

“You can assume, then, that I’ve let myself off the hook a bit in my service to truth, honour and such.” Crowley smiled broadly, mainly because at these words Pritchard laughed quietly.

“Impeccable, the last fallible knight.”

“Thanks, master, thanks a lot.”

“That had its charm. Without people like you, the world would become dark,” Pritchard was looking straight at him, so he had to catch the moment right away when Crowley stopped smiling. He nodded his head slowly and now it was he who glanced out of the corner of his eye at the sleeping surroundings before asking, without making an excuse, why he was asking. They didn’t need excuses. “How are you then? How is your mother?”

“All the same.”

“Will you tell me more?”

“I haven’t seen her for a while. Things haven’t been great around here; I’d rather not risk someone associating us and getting her in trouble.” He didn’t like thinking about it, so talking didn’t appeal to him either. And yet, in a small way, he was relieved to be able to mention it to anyone, if only in such an evasive form.

“So over the years, what, you’ve wandered off on your own?”

“Most of the time, yes, I tried not to get into anything. I wanted to find you, but as a Ranger-”

“It’s a good thing you stayed,” Pritchard nodded understandingly. “You can see for yourself.”

“We haven’t won yet...”

“But something is starting to happen that way. It’s good that you stayed. Though I’m guessing it wasn’t easy for you.” Pritchard was clearly waiting to see if he would get anything from his former pupil on the subject and, having received nothing, came to his own conclusions. As usual. Crowley didn’t need to tell him anything; he always guessed everything himself anyway. It was a pity that he was actually the only such person in Crowley’s life. “You managed it. Was it hard?”

“Sometimes,” Crowley smiled pale once again. “Surely both I and the whole country will be more at ease now, that you are here.”

“How nice.” Pritchard sighed heavily but laughed so openly that even without hearing the actual laughter, Crowley was sure of it. “So, here goes nothing about my retirement.”

“I mean, of course, if you-”

“Just kidding, Crowley. In no way am I going to leave you alone with this. I’m not going to leave you, especially you, Crowley, alone with this. As long as you need any advice or help, I am and will be around. And I will always have some time after that to retire...”

No matter how many years passed, the calmness in that voice was so infectious that Crowley couldn’t lose himself in thought, hearing it.

“Thank you.”

“Do not, that’s my role. Just as well to ask again ... what’s more with you? You’re not going to tell me there was nothing going on. What have you been up to? Do you want to talk about it? Was there something bad going on, something wonderful? Did you find someone?”

“There was a lot going on, politically, but you already know that you were getting letters and.... found, but what? What do you mean?” Although the explanation suggested itself, Crowley furrowed his brow and quite successfully put on a face of complete incomprehension, just as his tone did not betray from him that he had grasped anything from his master's words, or at least guessed them.

His eyes, therefore, must have betrayed him. Pritchard gave him only one brief glance, assuring him that he was perfectly aware that Crowley had understood his question correctly.

“Of course not.” Crowley shook his head as soon as he realised that if he didn’t answer, Pritchard wouldn’t be reluctant to elaborate on what he meant.

And then they would have already started talking about it.

“Why ‘of course’?” Pritchard raised his eyebrows.

“I had some more important matters to attend to, and besides-” he paused, deciding that the first explanation should be just enough.

“Besides what?” It wasn’t enough for Pritchard. Of course. He needed to know. “You said ‘of course’ as if I were asking something extremely improbable.”

“Because, in a way, you did.”

“Why?”

“Master... with all the respect I have for you, please, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“It’s okay,” his tone immediately became so gentle again. “We don’t have to. You’re under no obligation to confide in me, but also for some reason-”

“Master...”

“You’ve been calling me by my first name for years.”

For years, too, he had known that such a desperate escape from a subject was doomed to failure in advance. He was starting to get nervous, and Pritchard picked up on it straight away. Adhering to the principle of talking about problems rather than letting them eat people up from the inside, he would drone on about the subject until Crowley got stressed enough to tell him everything. It always then turned out that by doing so they found a solution. Pritchard listened to his concerns without judging them, inquired about the reasons, nodded, and then began to talk. As he spoke, Crowley himself usually realised that his seemingly hopeless situation was not so tragic after all. There was how to help, there was what to do, there was a way out of the problem, a solution, a way to survive. Pritchard always found one, and in the end it was always to Crowley’s advantage that he told him about it.

There was only one subject that was governed by different laws.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Pritchard broke the silence only after a moment, speaking more quietly and softly still. “I’m sorry, I assumed that in a way that’s what you wanted to talk about and that’s why you waited until it was just the two of us to talk about it.”

Crowley immediately shook his head.

“No. It just worked out that way... earlier Halt wanted to talk to you, but I don’t think he quite knew how to go about it, so I wanted to give you two time.”

Pritchard nodded after a brief consideration, getting visibly serious.

“Thank you, that was very default on your part.”

“It happens even to me.”

“Just give yourself some damn credit once in a while, okay?”

Crowley laughed briefly, hearing the well-known tone of his voice. He really had missed this, their talking, Pritchard’s default and understanding, even the gaze that reached all worries he never told about at loud.

“Is it easy for you to guess when the thing involves Halt, or not necessarily?” Pritchard took him completely by surprise with such a question and Crowley made no attempt to hide it.

“I hadn’t really thought about it ... I don’t know... I guess in a way both. I don’t know him very well yet, somehow,” as he said this, something occurred to him and touched by this sudden thought, he looked straight into his former master’s face. “You... didn’t tell him, did you?”

Pritchard could not miss the seriousness, almost fear, with which his answer was now awaited.

“About what?” he asked quietly.

Crowley didn’t say a word, and his expression on his face must have made it clear that he wouldn’t say anything more aloud on the matter. In view of this, Pritchard must have understood.

He shook his head calmly but also categorically.

“Of course not. Why would I tell anyone?”

“I don’t know, I preferred to ask.”

“Crowley, I gave you my word. I rarely give people my word. When I do, it’s when I know it means a lot to them. I don’t break it. I’ve never broken it.”

The seriousness with which he spoke made Crowley look away again. He nodded his head weaker than before, much quieter too, mumbling.

“I know, master, I’m sorry.”

A heavy hand rested on his shoulder in a familiar gesture. Pritchard didn’t make him look at himself, he calmly shook his head, knowing he was being watched out of the corner of his eye.

“Don’t be. It’s not a reproach, but an assurance. It just so happens that I’ve made more than one promise in recent times. I will keep both of them. My own opinion on whether it is necessary to keep something secret has nothing to do with it. Since it means a lot to you, I won’t say anything. Which doesn’t change the fact that you can talk to me about it. Anything you say is also covered by secrecy.”

“Thank you,” he murmured more boldly already.

“Don’t thank me.”

“Will you forbid me?” he smiled weakly, glancing at Pritchard.

“Maybe.”

Thoughts of what he had just heard came to him slowly. Crowley let them linger, and only when he was sure of his conclusions did he speak again.

“Two promises, you say. Halt...”

“I’m not going to tell you what the promise is about.”

“I know, I’m not asking about it. But it’s about him, isn’t it?”

Pritchard didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to say anything at this stage. Crowley was sure he had guessed correctly.

“Something happened to him,” he added more quietly, recalling all the time such a thought had occurred to him as he looked at his new friend.

“Yes. Something that I won’t tell you about unless he himself tells you about it. And similarly, I won’t say anything to him about what you want me to keep quiet about.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ve already said-” Pritchard broke off, as if it had occurred to him that Crowley had purposely steered the conversation in such a way as to get away from that subject again. He sighed heavily, so he must have fully understood what his former pupil had just been doing. “That doesn’t change the fact, though, that we’ll have to talk about it at some point.”

“Why?”

“Why, you’d rather agonise on your own with all the thoughts it will eventually trigger... or has been triggering for a long time, only to be persistently told that if you pretend it’s not there for long enough, it will go away?” Whether he was betrayed by something in his gaze or his expression, Crowley wasn’t sure, but from somewhere Pritchard already knew. “Do you really believe it will disappear?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think about it.”

“And what, does it work?” Pritchard raised his eyebrows sceptically.

He took no offence at the grim look that was thrown at him.

“I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine. But someday-”

“Maybe that ‘someday’ will be far enough away that I won’t have anything else to think about it for?” He honestly didn’t hold out much hope for this delusion, but it was how unconvinced Pritchard still seemed that made him a little sick. “Maybe it will. We don’t know that.”

“True... But I say again, what would you rather do, worry about it yourself, or sit down with me once and just talk?”

Well, okay, with that it was hard to argue. Crowley really wouldn’t want to be left completely alone with this. If he was ever going to stop running away from thinking about the subject, he would rather not have to face it alone. Pritchard was the only person who could understand, listen to him, help him... the only one who knew and who had no problem with it. Crowley nodded grimly, seeing no point in denial.

“I’d much rather sit down with you and just talk.”

“I’m glad. So can I take that to mean that you will come to me yourself when you are ready to talk?”

“It certainly won’t happen for the next few days,” Crowley stipulated with a weak smile. “I’ve got some more important things on my mind right now.”

“Of course. But remember.”

“Oh, it’s hard to forget, I vouch,” he laughed bitterly at the thought.

“Then why do you still pretend not to remember?”

“I... don’t know,” the matter-of-fact question stabbed him straight in the certainty that surrounded his attempts to protect himself. “But that... then we’ll talk about it when we talk about it, okay? It taps into that theme. The time will come, we’ll talk about it.”

“Of course,” Pritchard smiled gently at him, as he used to smile, proud of the progress his pupil had made, even if it was only a tiny step forward. “So remember at least this much, you will not be left alone with this.”

The thought was far more heartening than he thought possible, to support someone with an unmade promise that existed and was valid to both of them anyway. Crowley breathed more calmly, which Pritchard must have felt, still resting a hand on his shoulder.

“So, now you’re going to tell me what you’ve been doing for these almost four years?”

* * *

The death of King Oswald, exhausted by illness, changed quite a lot, although after all, everyone expected it to happen. The inhabitants of the castle were expected to behave appropriately during the period of mourning and, though it would probably sound extremely tactless, Halt admitted to himself that he was fine with it.

All the commotion, the partying, the holding of meetings and enquiries as to why everyone was not attending ceased. Everyone concentrated on work, or at least that was the impression they wanted to give. With the end of the last of the coldest days of the year, the Rangers moved out into the fields anew, even though the snow still lingered for weeks. In a few villages they encountered something worthwhile, in others they just lost some time.

News had recently been circulating on the coast of unrest caused by a gang calling themselves the ‘Moondarkers’. Crowley had heard of them before, and this information clearly added to his worries. Torn between organising the forces of the slowly recovering Corps and moving into action, he changed his mind on the matter several times.

His and Halt’s first two expeditions proved moderately fruitful. People had heard something, of course, everyone had heard of Moondarkers, but somehow almost no one was able to provide even mediocre useful information. A few patrols, lots of conversations with villagers, hundreds of hours in the cold on the coasts and they still had no concrete lead. So they returned to the castle, only to get news a few days later that the Moondarkers had sunk a merchant ship sailing from Gallica to Araluen.

Faced with this, Crowley contacted the few Rangers still on field, moving them as far as possible to the coastal area. After investigating the confusing leads and rejecting several hundred suspects, they could again only throw up their hands. Moondarkers only appeared when they were attacking. It would be necessary to wait until they did so again, but no one had any intention of sacrificing another ship.

At the risk of weakening the protection of the fiefdoms to the south, Crowley sent two Rangers to the area of the latest disaster. A larger troop could not be afforded. Reports of a Skandians’ raid on one of the coastal villages on the other side of the country had spoilt the impression that they had the situation at least temporarily under control.

Not having enough men to send them there as well, while maintaining security in at least some of the fiefs, Crowley turned directly to the King for help. It didn’t take long to persuade him to make Royal Scouts troops available to help the Rangers. Quite a few similarities between the units made the job much easier. Halt offered to lead this unit and head for the coasts, but grounded for the time being in the castle, Crowley appointed someone else to do the job.

The next few weeks were difficult for everyone, even those remaining at the castle. Perhaps even especially so. Mail pigeons and reports delivered by couriers either arrived all at once or did not appear for days. They waited for them, at the same time not having time to seriously worry about it, but also not being able to stop worrying.

For other residents of the castle, the end of winter and the period of mourning for Oswald could be a rather lethargic, bleak period of stillness. For the Rangers, however, it was a difficult, exhausting time and alternately seemed to pass by at lightning speed when there was a lack of time, resources, men, and strength for everything, only to drag on inexorably at other times as they awaited news or the results of further actions. What’s more, they were not increasing.

During this time Crowley had barely recruited two new people into the unit. These were former apprentices who were not far away from receiving the silver oakleaf before, as a result of Morgarath’s intrigues, one of them was expelled from the Corps and the other resigned himself. The future of several more was in question, but Crowley was still discussing the matter with their masters to determine whether they were ready to assume full duties. And then Farrel broke his leg and they again lost one person fit for action.

In the last days of winter, however, one of the Rangers who had previously left the Corps wrote to the Commandant. Unfortunately, he had no information about others of his ilk, but after some discussion he decided to return to the unit. The only thing he didn’t like was who they had for a commander, but that was something Crowley had grown accustomed to. The most important thing was that, for the time being, the Corps no longer numbered twelve daredevils, but twenty.

“There’s no point in counting on more of them arriving.... it’s been so many months, whoever was supposed to be back is back,” Crowley pronounced rather grimly. Forced to break down the tasks for the individual Rangers, he pointed out that each had been given at least twice the area to protect and a plot of work to do than they should have.

Watching his former enthusiasm and optimism slip away at times like this absolutely did not please Halt. He once thought he would have enjoyed it, maybe even a lot, if Crowley had finally got serious and realised how hideous the world around him was. He changed his mind, juxtaposed with the changes brought about by weeks full of work that often didn’t produce the expected results. So what if everyone was trying. There weren’t enough of them. People were still distrustful, remembering the wave of usurpers that had swept through the Corps. Fearing war, everyone was looking out for themselves first and foremost. Someone who was supposed to take care of others was therefore increasingly forgetting himself.

Previously, Halt had secretly amused himself by having to urge Crowley on and remind him to get some sleep. When successive crises consumed the Corps Commandant’s time, strength and concentration, such situations lost all traces of ridicule. Crowley lost himself in his work because he had no other option. Even with Halt’s help, even with the support of the other Rangers, he was unable to organise many things in time. Stealing hours from the night, he struggled with the time running away from him when so many people around him were simply bored.

With the beginning of spring, Halt persuaded him to approach the School of Scribes for help. It didn’t take them long to find someone proficient in the law, paperwork, able to take notes faster than any of the Rangers and keep them in order. Therewithal, Farrel, who was slowly recovering, insisted on being involved in administrative work. He declared to them that if they moved his desk closer to his bed, he would even take on some of the organisational work, even if it had to come down to sorting the letters they received.

Despite the lack of manpower, they somehow managed. Halt, on the other hand, took it upon himself to keep an eye on Crowley so that he didn’t get completely lost in it all. It wasn’t an easy task, or so he thought at least at first. Then he devised a few tricks and a system of directing the conversation so as to get through to him and plant his idea in such a way that Crowley thought he had come up with the revolutionary idea of taking a break himself, for example. As long as he wasn’t getting the scariest parts of the paperwork, this arrangement suited Halt just fine.

And so they made it until the arrival of warmer, longer days. With them, life claimed its own, waking up the world and the people all around.

With spring, Halt found himself with a new job, which was assigned to him after several conversations about it. Someone had to get rid of the bandits disturbing the area, who attacked carts, hid in the forests, and sometimes terrorised the villagers as well. A Ranger with an easy ability to resolve conflicts, who at the same time did not hesitate to occasionally punch someone, was the ideal person for such a mission.

Crowley joked that he was assigning him not only to get the job done properly, to scare off potential new bandits, but also so that Halt could use up any frustration and anger that the aristocrats at the castle had caused him. There was a bit of that. The change from sitting in the castle and constantly running away from intrusive people was very nice. He may have lacked a bit of a companion for these activities, but the mission was also too short for him to feel it fully.

He wrapped up in a few days, having the support of the Royal Scouts. They circled the castle and checked the access roads, looked into a few villages, found some delinquents, and knocked them out of further robbery operations. The last job went out to them quite close to Araluen Castle and Halt, after some thought, ruled that if they hurried, they could already spend another night at the castle. They all wanted to rest, sleep, and wash off the mud that had accompanied them for the last few days. Another night in the forest might not kill them, but the return was enticing even for people accustomed to the hardships of the road.

Evening had already fallen when they arrived, handing over several prisoners to the sentries. Now it was no longer their concern. They had already done their job. The suitably precise actions of a group of excellent trackers and archers led by Ranger had created some publicity in the villages. They also caught everyone they knew was hanging around the area and one naïf who just wanted to try his hand at raiding transports. He picked a very poor time to start his career.

Halt instead took to the Scouts, having previously been rather sceptical about their supposed support of the Corps. A squad of battle-experienced archers was always useful. They were a little too loud, but they dealt with the threat more easily and quickly together.

Tired, he didn’t even try to blend in with the shadows in the castle corridors. Everyone knew him here anyway, at least by sight. Most of the inhabitants were probably just sitting in the dining hall anyway. Crowley should have been there too. Halt, however, was not getting his hopes up.

“The lunch hour has passed; the dinner hour is about to pass. The papers won’t go anywhere, what are you doing here?” he greeted his friend, entering the study after a brief tap of his hand on the door.

Crowley tore himself away from the papers at the sight of him, smiling broadly, though it did not hide his weariness.

“Halt! You’re back now, is that what the commotion downstairs is about?”

“A bunch of dingy guys dropped off the prisoners and threw themselves at the food.” Halt raised an eyebrow, then sent his friend a threatening look. “And when was the last time you ate? Do you know what time it is?”

Crowley frowned just a little, without stopping to smile. He shrugged his shoulders weakly, excusing himself.

“We’ve lost the sense of timing; we were about to go...”

It was only then that Halt noticed the other person in the office, but seeing a familiar face, he wasn’t too concerned.

“Hi, Egon. Is Seacliff still standing?”

“Hi. Well, they said goodbye to me with great relief,” Egon smiled out of the corner of his mouth and then returned his gaze to the papers, making it quite clear that they did not need to include him in any further conversation.

“We were supposed to go to the dining room. You can come with us, and you will tell us about the task,” Crowley prompted, again looking only at Halt.

“I’ll change first,” Halt hesitated before assessing his appearance. “We’ve had a few muddy adventures. It’s nightmarishly waterlogged in these woods. I didn’t even know,” he went on, heading to his room where he kept spare clothing.

“Were there any problems?” Crowley sat back down unsteadily, continuing the conversation since Halt hadn’t interrupted it himself.

“There will be a report.”

“I know, but I’m asking as... beyond the report.”

“We handled it,” Halt exclaimed to him from behind the wall.

“How?”

“Well, keep one thing in mind, Commandant. Those who don’t ask, receive no lies.” Halt was silent for a moment, as if, without even seeing him, he was sure Crowley had just adopted a reprimanding expression and wanted to enjoy the moment. However, that impression was dashed the next moment. “Did you see my other jacket somewhere?”

“On the back of a chair?” Crowley thought for just a moment.

“Nope.”

“Then it’s behind the panniers. You stitched the sleeve last time and-”

“Oh yeah, right. Thanks.”

Crowley shrugged his shoulders awkwardly, but a slight smile wandered across his face. It widened, as Halt returned to them, in clean clothes and a frowning expression.

“Let’s go,” he commanded his immediate superior. “We’ll talk while eating. I’m not even asking when was the last time you slept, because-”

“I slept last night!”

“I’m so impressed,” Halt nodded without a trace of appreciation, theatrically inviting him to the door. “Now have a bite to eat, I’m going to be generally enraptured.”

“An enraptured Halt, gods, that would be spectacular,” Crowley laughed under his breath, moving to the exit without discussion.

They remembered about Egon only when they were already on the threshold. The older Ranger, however, made no comment, with a nod of his head he assured them that he was following them. The shadow in the corridor hid the slight smile on his face well.

In the crowded dining hall, the three Rangers had more trouble hiding unseen than if they were surrounded by the greenery of the forest. Although, watching Halt and Crowley immersed in conversation, Egon could clearly see how forcibly they both handled their surroundings. Even Halt, keeping off the multitudes, moved confidently through the crowd, manoeuvring to reach the spot they had previously spotted slightly off to the side.

Crowley, on the other hand, followed Halt, not looking around, not speaking to anyone and not even particularly paying attention to what was going on around him. They sat down, and Egon didn’t even have to particularly try to hide the fact that he was watching them. For the first few minutes they didn’t pay any attention to him at all, absorbed in talking about Halt’s completed task. The topic was very often interspersed with remarks regarding the fact that Crowley should manage his time better, rest sometimes, or even more often than sometimes, let himself be helped and take better care of himself. Halt was unrelenting in this regard.

A ricochet of one such tirade was hurled at one of the lords, who thought it a good idea to riddle Crowley about something, hardly had the man sat down at the table. Egon’s jaw dropped slightly when he saw Halt’s reaction. The intruder was chased away with a sharp glance. Halt lifted himself slightly from the table to look at him and, with a stern tone of words full of politeness, asked that the lord to return in an hour, as the Corps Commandant was now on break and not working.

“Was that absolutely necessary?” Crowley with confusion tried at first to apologise to the lord, but Halt’s gaze effectively got rid of him and there was no one to apologise to.

Halt looked at him seriously, absolutely nothing in his expression betrayed amusement, mockery, or satisfaction at banishing the intruder.

“Yes,” he replied firmly. “A break is a break. Eat.”

If only Egon had known that at one time Halt had been angry with King Oswald for commenting on Crowley’s age, nothing would have surprised him now. Unaware of that situation, he was instead cheered by the categorical concern that Crowley should eat his dinner in peace. Halt sat back, tense and calm at the same time, ready to fight for everyone to give them a moment’s peace now.

Crowley’s abashed look moderately hid his wide smile. Halt didn’t seem to notice that, but instead kept a close eye on his surroundings and, even in the midst of an engaging conversation, was mindful to make sure Crowley remembered to actually eat the dinner.

Egon smiled to himself as the two completely ignored him. He, in turn, had the perfect opportunity to gauge how focused on Crowley was Halt’s seemingly so impassive gaze. The grumpy Ranger sat like on guard, separating his friend from the crowd in the hall.

“You are lost,” Egon thought with amusement but also relief. “You are irretrievably lost.”

* * *

“What a crowd!” Halt’s voice, even muffled by the commotion of the people around them, sounded sufficiently grim for Crowley to sense resignation in it.

He slowed his stride as quickly as possible, waiting until they were level with each other. With that, after a few efficient manoeuvres through the crowd, Crowley separated Halt from the people with himself, allowing him to slide along the wall of the huge hall.

“No wonder,” he chuckled quietly, though he understood his friend’s reluctance. “Great news from the king and queen, then, and everyone has descended.”

“After all, the reports are going to be sent anyway...”

“But now they need to show up, meet all the descendants, gossip.” Crowley surrounded the colourful gathering of aristocrats, lords, barons, their wives, and children with his gaze.

Even without minding the presence of people around, one could get heartily sick of this crowd. And the ceremony itself had not even begun yet. Many hours awaited them in the hustle and bustle, among strange, noisy people.

“How about here?” Crowley pointed to a relatively less crowded spot against the wall.

Halt didn’t need to be told twice. The two Rangers occupied the vacant corner as quickly as one takes up a strategic position before an attack. Their appearance quickly chased away several others eager to move away from the gathering.

“There couldn’t have been any more of them, could there?” Halt rolled his eyes around the room, disgusted and probably still a little offended that he had been instructed to come here at all.

Knowing very well by now his stance on official gatherings, conventions of great magnates, royal speeches and such solemnities, Crowley did not ask him the reason for his brooding mood. He nodded with understanding. Halt was not fond of crowds per se, disliked aristocrats and hated official events. He received an accumulation of all these aspects. On top of that, it had been a long time since he had had coffee. Crowley made a mental note to look around for some as soon as King Duncan announced what he was about to announce, and the feasting part began.

“We just have to persevere until the talks. Then there will be dancing, more talking, eating and talking again. We can get away from that,” he consoled Halt quietly.

“Will you find me something?” a seemingly indifferent look turned on him with confidence in his ability to improvise.

“There may be an unexpected immediate need to check something behind the castle,” Crowley smiled broadly at him.

Halt nodded solemnly.

“May whatever you believe in, reward you with whatever you need to be rewarded with, good man.”

Crowley stifled a laugh a few seconds too late, which caused a few of the people standing closest to him to take an interest. He apologised with a raise of his hand, clenching his jaws to maintain silence. Confused, he peppered his friend with a glance as he caught his amusement. The lord with the large moustache looked reluctantly at Ranger, who was just laughing right behind his back.

This seemed to lift Halt’s spirits even more. He didn’t say a single biting comment to those gathered the entire time Duncan spoke. He even joined in the applause after the good news of Queen Rosalind’s pregnancy was announced. The reluctance did not quite disappear from his attitude, but he even looked at the waving, multi-coloured crowd in front of them with a slightly derisive amusement.

He also broached the subject of possible official Rangers’ attire. Uplifted, Crowley continued the conversation as long as Halt answered him. Even his penetrating gaze returned to the Commandant every now and then as they talked, which was the best evidence that Halt was doing well. If the crowd made him very tired, he certainly wasn’t looking anywhere with concentration. Time and again, however, Crowley found that his gaze was neither blurred with weariness, nor sharply focused, nor even gloomier than usual.

Amused by his protest at the design of the Rangers’ visiting uniforms, Crowley was optimistic about the vision of surviving like this until the end of the ceremony. And then a familiar figure appeared on the horizon around the many colours, voices and laughter, and Crowley gained even more confidence that things would turn out well.

Baron Arald and Lady Sandra were among the few people who could be spoken to here. Besides, Halt liked them, though of course he would never admit it, a poser. Crowley, however, knew his own. Driven by a sudden hope, he looked around, on the lookout for one more person whose appearance might determine the course of this grand, boisterous, and crowded celebration.

Spotting a slender figure in bright colours in the crowd, thinking little of it, he nudged Halt with his elbow.

“You poke me again, I’ll kick you,” he received a darkly whispered promise.

“I’m just making sure you have new friends,” Crowley smiled innocently, but kept his elbows closer to himself.

“Thanks. Get lost,” Halt hissed on one exhale.

So he had to detect amusement under the tone of his friend’s voice. Crowley may not have mentioned anything about the nightmarishly embarrassing scene from more than a year ago, but the amusement in his gaze dispelled any impression that he might have forgotten it. The unspoken threat in Halt’s eyes was only silenced by the fact that, at that very moment, Baron Arald spotted the two Rangers standing by the wall.

This, however, did not mean that Crowley had stopped laughing in spirit. He caught the change in Halt’s demeanour with as much amusement as satisfaction. He may still have been far from the soul of the company, but Halt had clearly made progress over the past year.

Pritchard would have been proud of him. Crowley may not have been sure he had the right to admit it, but in a way he felt that way too. He didn’t discount his own contribution; certainly, a lot had been given to Halt by time alone and familiarity with his new surroundings, and a few months living at the castle. However, a perpetually chatty companion could also have made a difference here. That was also probably what Halt himself thought. Crowley noted a few glances in his direction as they separated for a moment while talking.

Baron Arald inquired about the changes to the Corps, understanding the enormity of the work involved. Halt had been carrying on a conversation with Pauline quite efficiently during this time and Crowley apologised to Arald in spirit for this, but really the other conversation interested him far more. He was pleased to hear a short, quiet laugh right next to him.

Glancing over his shoulder, he met the amused glances of both Halt and Pauline. This gave him the strange impression that he had just become the unwitting victim of some anecdote. He raised his eyebrows questioningly, which amused them even more clearly.

The gloomy emptiness in Halt’s eyes disappeared, as if it had never been there. He was still quite tense, his accent sounded more clearly, but he was doing very well. They had come so far already... Crowley struggled to play down his thoughts to look at the Baron again and focus on his words.

He met an understanding, equally amused gaze. Arald squinted his eye slightly in agreement, which came off as moderately conspiratorial, at least in the perception of someone who was second to none in hiding himself and various things. Crowley, however, appreciated even such efforts.

Lady Sandra did not, her devastated look was cruelly judging her husband’s efforts at being tactful. Crowley hid a smile only with great effort. The conversation drifted to Farrel’s accident and leaving the Redmont fief without a Ranger.

When he thought about it later, in the silence of the four walls of his study, Crowley could not shake the feeling that he had let himself be fooled into this conversation, like a child sitting down at a chessboard for the first time. From the very beginning, Baron Arald was only aiming for that one moment in the conversation. Even later Crowley realised who was to blame for that.

The broad smile still had a conspiratorial note in it. Arald looked at him so expectantly, like someone just about to execute an unholy plan of great magnitude and looking forward to the moment of his triumph.

“I was hoping you might give us Halt.”

And it was all just his own fault. Arald knew this. Arald had stuck to the plan, rejoicing in the confidence placed in him, besides, as he himself had explained earlier, he had grown to like Halt.

It had been so long ago that they had established this, it seemed. In Gorlan, hours before Pritchard’s funeral, when Crowley realised that, apart from him, Halt knew no one privately in the country and he probably thought he had no one he could count on. The warm-hearted Baron, who Halt seemed to like, himself hinted that he wasn’t going anywhere after all. No words of promise were spoken. And yet Crowley was quite sure at the time that if something happened to him, Halt would not be left all alone in Araluen. Even if he wouldn’t stay in the Corps.

Crowley, however, was fine. Arald, too, by the way. Halt seemed to be doing better than before. He still only knew few people and stuck only to Crowley. He had worked with Crowley for the past year, spent time with him, helped him, trusted him. He was the only person Halt knew well.

Baron Arald saw the chance, the sense, and the opportunity, so he did exactly the right thing. It’s just that Crowley didn’t realise it until a few days later.

In that moment it made no sense to him what he had heard. Arguments began to appear in his mind, shifting one after another. They had too few Rangers for two of them to stay in one fiefdom. Redmont was too important fief to be left without a Ranger. Baron Arald was an important member of King Duncan’s council, he needed someone equally important to operate in that fief. Halt was one of the best, he had already gained a lot of experience, he had learned a lot, the last year had cost him a lot, but it had also made him a full Ranger. No one would dream of seeing him as an apprentice anymore.

The arguments kept coming, and he didn’t accept any of them into his thoughts at first. None of them made complete sense.

Crowley turned his gaze to his friend, expecting a reaction from him that would make him understand his own bewilderment at such a vision. Halt always responded, no matter what was going on. Even if they didn’t always agree... even if he wasn’t supposed to say anything, just to look, not to frown, not to give any sign, his look alone said so much. Crowley had learned to understand it.

He looked for it now, expecting at least the faintest sign.

He searched and found none. The room did not go dark, the crowd did not cover them, their eyes were not closed, no blood was pouring down, no blows were being struck. Nothing disturbed them. He did not, however, find his eyes.

Halt was not looking at him at the moment.

Chapter Text

Crowley Meratyn had something in his laughter that made other people want to laugh. His direct, hearty nature lightened the atmosphere more brilliantly than any attempt to riddle the tension or change the subject. All it took was for him to flash an amused glance or to throw in a few well-chosen words and the mood was instantly set for all those around him.

No wonder, then, that Baron Arald reacted with a sincere smile when, after a brief hesitation on the part of the Corps Commandant, he received a conspiratorial, amused look from him. Crowley raised his hands a little theatrically, as if defending himself against the decision that was expected of him.

“I’m still fairly new at this, but let’s just say I have no aspirations to become famous as a Corps’ tyrant piece of... ladies forgive me,” he restrained himself and finished differently. “As a bully with no regard for other people’s opinions. It’s true that every now and then someone threatens that he doesn’t like the job of chasing rumours through the fields, but what can I do? Here, however, as with most assignments, I also rely on the opinion of the Ranger, whom I would have sent somewhere.”

All those assembled nodded their heads in a more or less engaged manner. It was only Halt who still stood unmoved and silent. On him, however, all eyes turned when, after a pause for breath, Crowley glanced at him and, in a tone of friendly consultation rather than command, asked.

“Halt, what do you think?”

For everyone else, the while between that question and the moment Halt lifted his gaze to the Commandant was barely the blink of an eye. For Halt, however, it lasted for hours. For Crowley, years.

When at last they looked at each other, they were both simultaneously tired of the wait and disappointed that it had nevertheless come to an end. As long as it lasted, there was still some chance, even a shadow of that chance, that something would interrupt their conversation. Someone would turn up. Something would happen. Someone will call out to someone. The conversation will be put on hold, their gazes will never meet. The question will hover over them and only later, after the feast, when everyone has dispersed, will the two Rangers talk about it quietly, alone, as best they could.

Nothing happened. The world remained bustling and colourful, cruelly indifferent to any cries for it to take pity and somehow interrupt what was happening, saving them from what was yet to come. The cries passed; the hearts fell silent. They understood the inevitable.

Halt lifted his eyes on Crowley, met his gaze, and he was the only one who knew even then how falsely jubilant it was. Crowley’s amusement was brilliantly played, so convincing so that even interlocutors who knew him quite well must have been fooled. Halt would certainly have been fooled too, if only the anticipation had been shorter, if only it had been less bitter.

He tore his gaze away from Crowley again when it occurred to him that he had been looking too long, in complete silence and only at him. He shifted his gaze over the rest of those assembled, the Baron who was smiling broadly, the slightly amused Lady Sandra, and stopped with it at Pauline, serious and looking intently at everything that was going on around her. She was the only one not staring at Halt in the way everyone else was. Like they all already knew what he was going to say and now they were just waiting for him to pass this test, correctly responding to the expectations of everyone around him.

“I think that’s a very good idea,” Halt replied, belatedly realising that he should be smiling while saying it.

To those gathered, however, his belated little smile seemed more like a sign of understandable abasement. Baron Arald glanced happily first at Lady Sandra, then at Crowley. He had received exactly what he had hoped for.

Crowley exchanged glances with him and no longer returned his own to Halt. He silently clapped his hands, quantifying the whole issue.

“It’s settled, then. Just give me a moment, I’ve got to dig out the relevant papers in the study...”

“Do not worry and or hurry,” Arald laughed with complete understanding. “Papers like that can be life-threatening.”

“Still I stand, but for how long I can only guess,” Crowley was still smiling broadly.

Only his eyes had lost their earlier amusement. Now that his interlocutors weren’t looking at him so intently, Crowley could afford a less painful version of playing suitably cordial and cheerful to the world.

He felt Halt’s gaze on him, but only after the conversation had dragged on. He gained a few precious seconds, laughing at something Lady Sandra had said. He wasn’t sure what she had said. However, it was enough for him to wring out enough strength for a joyful gleam in his eyes.

Halt looked methodically into his face with a focused gaze as soon as Crowley allowed him to. The gaze stopped on his eyes. It was looking for a lie.

Nevertheless, Crowley had been lying for so long, that he could calmly bear the burden of one more evening full of talking, laughing and later even dancing. Only breathing was much harder for him with the lump between his ribs inhibiting his movements, growing to life-threatening proportions. Or maybe it was the room that got stuffy, from the crowd, the food, the conversations, the twilight and so many stares?

Either way, he knew how to cope with that too. He had been coping for so long. This was nothing new. It shouldn’t be.

Some things were so enduring and inevitable, that he should just get used to them by now. Wars broke out, people died, not everyone could be saved, quite a few people resented the fact that he wasn’t an old bitter man, and suitably broad smiles had brilliantly concealed the crackling of broken hearts for years. That was the way the world was set up. Crowley understood that. He had no other choice.

* * *

“Talk to me,” the voice was so calm that, although it was probably meant to be a request, it sounded like an order.

Crowley stopped on the stairs, turning a perfectly natural surprised look on his companion.

“And I foolishly thought you were annoyed by my talking! And here’s a surprise!”

“I am, very.” Halt nodded briefly and added without a trace of amusement. “But what annoys me even more is when someone thinks I’m an idiot.”

He looked into Crowley’s eyes with a force that the latter had not expected at all. He looked... and oh gods, what a look it was.

Even a perpetually snow-covered mountain would bend under the power of his gaze. The sea would be mantled with frost or rise and hide behind the edge of the world. Crowley therefore did not blame himself for his legs trembling slightly beneath him. Trying to mask the nervousness growing within him, he shrugged his shoulders and ordered himself to stay put. However, he wanted so badly to throw himself running up the stairs, just to get further away from the gaze of the dark, impenetrable eyes that were poking under his skull.

“Who seems to think you’re an idiot?”

“Currently, not many dare to. You, on the other hand, seem to have something mixed up,” Halt said quietly and calmly. He didn’t need to shout to scare people.

Not that Crowley currently felt scared. More like... trapped. He stood and knew he wouldn’t move an inch if that gaze was still fixed on him. He wouldn’t have enough strength for that.

They stood in the deserted stairwell of the castle, in the darkness and comfort of as much privacy as possible, and Crowley felt like his whole world had narrowed and squeezed at his temples. A thundering gaze rose on him from below; Halt was not only shorter, but he also stood two steps below him. And yet Crowley could not recall ever looking into more terrifying, and at the same time so majestic depths. The darkness of his eyes dislimned the night.

Never before had Crowley lost his breath from looking into the darkness. And here he stood, here he was looking at it... and he felt that he would never be able to stop looking at it.

“I don’t think you’re an idiot, Halt,” he quietly opined, fighting the diverging thoughts to manage to answer him somehow.

He didn’t get an answer because he hadn’t yet given a satisfactory one himself. It reached him as he continued to stare into the abyss of a gaze that fixed him in place, calm, unmoving and unrelenting.

“I never thought you were an idiot. For a time, I was under the impression that you already had me for an idiot,” Crowley admitted tersely, forcing himself to smile.

It didn’t work out for him this time. He had managed to play the part in front of the Baron, in front of all the guests, all the stares, the questions, the smiles. He had forgotten how to lie when he was standing only in front of Halt and there was no one else around. Just the two of them. Him and that look, so beautiful and so frightening.

Halt thought over his words for a brief moment. His eyebrows drew together in concentration. The gaze kept drilling into Crowley, and he remained silent, unable to escape it. The farthest of the dark corners would not even reach half the abyss that his eyes concealed. The sharpness of his gaze, so chilling and so urging the heart to pathetic attempts to gallop, to flee from him, though there was not enough willpower to tear his gaze away.

That look, that was the way no one had ever looked at Crowley and he never thought anyone could look that way. No one had ever seemed so dignified, so unyielding, looking merely, calmly confident in his power, without shouting or threatening, without proclaiming his strength. Just looking, the most powerful of all men.

Crowley breathed hard, too shallowly for the air drawn in that breath to be enough for him. It must have been, however, for Crowley watched at the expense of his breath, he watched this miracle that was revealed to him, stealing all the phenomenality from each of the beautiful nights and the terror from each of the great men.

Of what use is air?

He would continue to stand here like this, waiting to see what the world would do to him, if only Halt wanted him to. If he left him here like this, Crowley would go nowhere. He would be left forever with the memory of those eyes burned into his mind and soul. In his heart, the mark of it had dwelt for a long time.

But Halt thought about it, glanced around the empty corridors, and came to some conclusions that he didn’t share, but they must have oscillated around the fact that anyone could appear here any minute.

“Let’s go,” he stated, and Crowley followed him into his study without saying a word.

Halt closed the door behind them. Crowley lit a few candles, trying not to look at him. This soon became impossible. Halt crossed his arms over his chest, stopping at the window. He did not sit down. He did, however, indicate Crowley’s chair with a glance. With speaking he waited until Crowley was seated.

“I don’t think you're an idiot. Maybe an annoying man who has taken fewer punches in life than he asks for, but that’s rather a good thing,” as he spoke, his gaze softened slightly, and Crowley breathed more deeply. “I also have, perhaps a mistaken impression, I don’t know, correct me if so, but I do have the impression that I know you a bit already.”

In the half-light cast by the few candle flames, his gaze remained the darkest point in the room, and perhaps in the entire world as well. Crowley watched, listened, and forced himself to get out every single word he dared. He had to talk. That was what conversations were all about.

He had to talk, otherwise Halt would surely have finally felt the way Crowley was looking at him. He would have felt and understood. Crowley therefore had to speak matter-of-factly, he had to think.

But how do one think when they are trapped in the unexpected beauty of something so terrifyingly wonderful?

“And it seems so to me,” Crowley nodded slowly.

“You know I don’t often understand what people mean.”

“Yes, you said-”

“And I know that you don't know sometimes either.”

“Yes.”

“So let’s say I understand your premise. But you were wrong,” Halt said matter-of-factly and without hesitation, as if he didn’t need his part in the conversation at all.

Crowley, on the other hand, stared, not understanding, and not having the strength to look away. He only managed to mutter quietly, like someone weighing a big, risky act.

“What are you talking about?”

Halt did not hesitate in continuing. He was in perfect control of everything he was saying and thinking at the moment. Although he made no discernible effort to do so, he was also in control of Crowley’s thoughts.

For the first time in very many years, there was complete silence in the Corps Commandant’s head. All he was left with was that look. And that night-shadowed, calm face, proudly devoid of any struggle to earn the reputation of being so proud.

Halt’s familiar facial features now seemed painted with darkness, sharper in some places, softer in others. Surrounded by darkness, Halt looked harsher than when they sat together by the fire in the middle of the night. His straight back and naturally folded arms over his chest only added to the power of that calm, so certain that it lacked a shred of effort to show that certainty to anyone.

He did not lift his chin to outline his position more firmly. He didn’t furrow his brow, didn’t wave his arms dramatically. He didn’t need to. He silenced the whole world with his gaze. Even that world of thoughts over which Crowley had no control, though it was born in his head. Halt silenced it all. Halt existed above it all.

And Crowley stared as if nothing else in the world was worth looking at.

“I’m not sure.” If someone else had said it, Crowley would have accused him of a downright absurdly nonsensical train of thought. But Halt was still so sure of his words, so there had to be a point to it, an explanation, a question for him, perhaps a demand, or perhaps a request. “And that’s the thing I want you to understand. Even when I don’t know what it’s about, sometimes I know it’s about something. The better I know someone, the easier it is to sense that. And you, Crowley, I already know pretty well.”

He nodded because there was nothing else left for him.

“Therefore, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t know yet. You tell me. Talk to me, tell me what I’m talking about. What changed?”

“But with what?” Crowley wanted to laugh, for a moment he truly believed he had the strength and courage to do so.

This conversation was so strange, so disturbing, and so much of a concern to him that he could only laugh or lose himself in worry about what made it so. He didn’t want to think, he couldn’t, he shouldn’t. He could only laugh. It was an absurdity. He had always been amused by absurdities, jokes that made no sense, sayings that did not translate into reality.

So it should amuse him that he himself was becoming the point of a joke so absurd, shouldn’t it?

Somehow it did not. Nor did he have the strength to laugh. Not while he was still looking at Halt.

“With you. I saw... I saw exactly what I’m seeing now. I don’t know what I’m looking at, but I see that things are different. Normally I would ask you if you wanted to talk about it-” Halt paused, his gaze going gentler but only for a brief moment. Then he regained his certainty again and firmly explained. “However, I was under the impression that whatever it is, it’s related to me. Therefore, I want to know.”

Taking his gaze off him and lowering it was one of the hardest things Crowley had ever done so far. It had also taken enough of his strength to keep him silent for another moment, trying to find the remnants of it. Now he had to speak up. His whole life could depend on what he would say.

The only strategy that came to mind, to a mind still deserted after that bewilderment, and one that seemed sensible, was to play for time and to duck the subject for as long as he could. He knew from experience that it sometimes worked.

“Why did you seem to get the impression that it was about you?”

“Because I have eyes,” Halt answered him immediately. He didn’t even ponder about the answer.

“That literally explains nothing.”

“All right, have it your way,” the calmness in his voice sounded ominous, or maybe it only seemed that way to Crowley. He immediately lifted his gaze to Halt again. He encountered a look that would shake the whole world if he only wanted to. “Over the last year I’ve watched the way you talk, the way you stand, the way you look. I know your reactions, even if I don’t understand them, they make sense to me in context. Tonight you clearly had a problem with something about me. You were looking at me, but you didn’t want me to look at you. You were joking so ineptly that no one who even slightly knows you beyond the mask you present to the world would be fooled. So? What is it, Crowley?” He asked the last question less categorically now.

Had he caught in his friend’s attitude the effect his gaze had had on him, his tone, his relentless demand for an explanation? Crowley prayed in his spirit that something else would prompt Halt to soften his tone. If Halt already knew... if he had guessed... if something had caught his eye...

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to give you that impression,” trying to sound calm, Crowley began to talk just to disguise the anxiety that was already beginning to devour the last remnants of calm in his mind.

If Halt already knew...

“Was it accurate, though?”

“In a way, only in a way. I have no problem directly related to you. I was just reflecting; I got a bit caught up in it. Besides, there were actually too many people. Bit by bit I was worried that, if it bothered me, it must be an ordeal for you and just-” he talked as much as he could, as long as he didn’t let either Halt or his own fear start speaking.

Halt, however, did not need to interfere. He waited until Crowley had run out of air. Then he shook his head calmly and, without losing any of his breathtaking impression, quietly remarked.

“I told you that it annoys me more when my intellect is undermined.”

“I don’t undermine-”

“Then don’t lie to me.”

The tremor in his chest was so close to his heartbeat that Crowley only distinguished the two rhythms then. He heard his own breathing and then it also occurred to him that he was clasping his hands one on top of the other with all his might. Halt’s gaze rested on his heavily cupped fingers. His eyebrow rose.

“Shall I now explain to you why I think you are lying?”

There was no need to do so. Halt’s gaze said everything for him that he had not said to Crowley’s face. There was still not a drop of hatred in it, however.

Therefore, he could not fully understand everything...

To Crowley, in the face of all this, there was still one move left to make, a risky one, but also the one that seemed absolutely inevitable at the moment. He laughed nervously, nodding his head several times, wryly in just a hint of insincerity.

“All right now, all right. You’ve won. I thought I was better at acting... I once had aspirations of becoming an actor, but I gather from your reaction that it worked out better the way it did, because I’d rather not make a fortune from my acting.”

“Rather not,” a slight amusement shone in Halt’s eyes and tone.

Crowley waited gleefully for a moment longer, until Halt relaxed his shoulders and sat down slowly on the bench beneath the window. The questioning gaze no longer contained that determination; it was ordinary, and hence familiar. It did not take away his thoughts or his strength.

“So?” Halt already knew that this time he would receive an answer close to the truth.

Crowley breathed a sigh of relief. His last desperate attempt in creating his last role was the most outstanding he had ever played.

“Yeah, well, you’re right. I was a bit taken aback by Baron Arald expecting me to send you to Redmont. Constantly reminding me how few people we have to work with doesn’t help too much either.”

“So, it’s about Redmont,” Halt extracted from his reply what suited him best. “Why?”

He didn’t know, then. He couldn’t. Crowley could still survive.

“Well... I didn’t think... I don’t know, it seems like I’ve kind of gotten used to you here already?” Crowley dared to fly way too close to the sun, smiling weakly.

This time the sun wasn’t going to incinerate him. Halt snorted quietly, shrugging his shoulders.

“Likewise.”

“Only, well, Arald was right to ask... more like expect me to send him someone, and since he wants you... and you... Halt, do you want to go there?” he asked directly, before coming to his senses that he should never have even thought of that question.

Halt, however, did not laugh or take offence. He croaked slightly, shrugged his shoulders, and said something Crowley hadn’t considered at all.

“I wouldn’t say ‘want to’, but I understand it’s the best option.”

“You mean...?”

Halt didn’t share his approach, that was already known, and it didn’t surprise Crowley at all. It was only Halt’s calmness, now so casual and familiar to him, that strangely didn’t match this conversation. It was possible, however, that this conversation meant anything more only to Crowley alone. Halt could therefore be calm; he had no reason not to be.

This impression broke as soon as Halt began to speak, explaining his point of view. Crowley knew that tone of his voice very well. The same matter-of-fact tone explained the plan of action so many times, listing specific features, opportunities and threats, facts, and conclusions, and sometimes even encouraging words that overcame all thoughts.

“Well, you’re going to have to assign me somewhere eventually, right? I can’t sit here until I retire. Honestly, if I have the option to choose, I prefer Redmont, where I know a few people. It also doesn’t snow there for ten months of the year and rains for the rest. It’s close to the Castle Araluen, so I’ll be able to turn up regularly and help you. Letters will come without any problem. I prefer this to something like Seacliff, no offence to Seacliff. I’d rather not go back to Warvic either. I don’t even know all the fiefdoms. But I’ve been to Redmont before, even more, I know the way there from here. It couldn’t be better.”

If it weren’t for the fact that he still had a trace of composure, Crowley’s jaw would have already rumbled impetuously against the desktop. However, he contained his shock to opening only his eyes wide, listening to Halt’s factual argument.

This, however, was enough for Halt himself to understand his silence adequately. He raised his eyebrows, looking at Crowley intently, without his former firmness, but instead with increasingly poorly concealed disbelief.

“So, are you going to say something, or do I have to start guessing?”

“I...” Crowley broke off and shrugged his shoulders awkwardly. “Well... now that makes me feel like an idiot.”

Halt squared his shoulders with an emphatic nod.

“It’s a good thing you said that and not me.”

All it took was to make way for a joke of this supposedly so deadly serious man for him to abandon suspicion. There was a good chance that if they pulled this thread of conversation long enough, Halt wouldn’t ask him what Crowley was thinking in that case, or what he had assumed, that the explanation had provoked such a reaction from him.

That was the hope and Crowley believed that sometimes clinging to hope could be enough. At the moment, it had to. So he played on, smiling broadly, confused enough for Halt to understand it without hesitation, but also not ostentatious enough to provoke more questions with it.

“Oi, you should tell me now that I’m not an idiot at all.”

“Well, I don’t see you as an idiot. But if you feel you like one, then maybe something is going on...” Halt laughed at him with his stare, and under the waves of that laughter the tightness in Crowley’s chest eased as much as if he hadn’t been there at all that evening.

“Wow,” he stated bitterly. “Thanks, Halt, it’s so nice to know.”

The corner of Halt's mouth twitched a little, and he restrained himself, but narrowly missed smiling. Crowley nodded with exaggerated bitterness accepting this presentation of the facts.

“Well, that’s explained. I feel I’m an idiot, and you could melt any armour with your gaze. That’s enough news for me for today, how about you?” He only grasped the totality of his own words as Halt’s eyebrows rose again.

“I do what now?”

“Well... You’re staring like you’re going to melt my brain,” Crowley laughed nervously as there was nothing left for him to save himself apart from the joke.

Halt, however, didn’t take that conversational tone. He mused and really sounded sincere when he replied more gently than before.

“I’m sorry. I don’t always want it to be that way.”

“There’s no need. It’s quite, um, impressive.” Crowley knew very well he should just shut up at that point. So he finally did.

Halt sent him a look full of disapproval, which he usually pierced in response to jokes he didn’t particularly like. It wasn’t that look, however, and Crowley could still breathe. It even started to seem like he would emerge unscathed from the conversation. Sometimes life surprised with its bitter mercy.

“Then you’d better go to bed. It’s been a long evening. There’s no point in sitting here and… well, unless this conversation has another thread you want to talk about?”

“Not at all,” Crowley immediately assured him with conviction and, seeing his eyebrows raised again, specified, again struggling with his loudly beating heart. “There is no such thread, I meant.”

And this time Halt let himself be lied to. He nodded slowly, more over his own thoughts, as again his gaze wandered somewhere far away. Crowley gazed at it, marvelling the relaxation that was slowly softening Halt’s face.

He had seen this expression on his face many times before, but he still semi-consciously noted almost everyone. Halt relaxed, allowing himself to maintain a seemingly indifferent expression, but which in fact simply expressed freedom. Concentration disappeared from his gaze and its place was not taken by thoughtfulness. Halt unwound, his gaze softening, a smile wandering at the bottom of his gaze which he did not allow himself to put on his face.

Crowley could not remember the first time he had seen him like this. However, he counted every such time since Warvic. So it was possible that it had started then, or at least then it had returned, having disappeared earlier just after Pritchard’s death.

Now Halt was no longer driving his gaze into him. He was looking at him calmly, as he had during the many nights spent under the starlit darkness of the sky, by the sparkling fire, in the midst of the wind, sometimes the rain, and sometimes by the warmth of the fireplace in the castle.

Before he got to know Halt, Crowley had never imagined that there could have been so many kinds of calmness that a person could display. From the frightening, crisis-ridden, threatening one, to the pensive, sometimes sad calm full of resignation, and sometimes just turning into such a warm, soft calm. A stillness that smelled of forest and campfire, smeared with drowsiness, orange from the fire and soft as the wobbly glow of the flames fighting the night.

Such a beautiful calmness...

“Then I think it’s time for bed. Tomorrow we’ll look for those papers and work out when I’m off to Redmont, okay?”

“Sure, whenever suits you.” By this time he could already smile at him quite sincerely.

He might even have laughed lightly when he caught Halt muttered under his breath something about dumb thought-turns and people who never say anything they mean, just play messed-up guessing games. Halt made sure his mumbling was loud and intelligible enough that Crowley was sure to grasp who it was directed at.

“Well, give me a break already,” he muttered askance. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. Sometimes my head has enough on it too.”

Halt looked up at him from the candle that had just been blown out.

“Then give that head of yours a rest sometime, eh?”

“Of course,” Crowley smiled broadly at him. “Then good night.”

“Good night, Crowley.”

The obnoxious, overtired head received another blow that day. As he closed the door, Crowley reflected on himself, it occurred to him that he was still smiling unconsciously, rather goofily. The memory of the theatre of embarrassment he had put on that evening was burningly fresh. Halt’s gaze and the force of it, the effect it had had, too.

“Gods, why?” groaned Crowley in whisper, banging his forehead against the closed door.

It hurt, but the thoughts went nowhere. They seemed to have taken up residence in his head for good. And he had no idea what he was supposed to do with them.

* * *

Crowley was up earlier than he had ever been when they lived at the castle. Halt was sure of it, speaking from the position of someone who usually got up too early to say he was up at dawn.

If anything, Crowley either stayed up all night once something was bothering him, or slept decently, at least until dawn. Not counting, of course, the nights when he had nightmares. At the castle, Halt had little way of knowing if the dreams tormented him, as they sometimes did when camping in the woods. He had never heard Crowley scream at night. On the other hand, he had never heard him shout when he was injured, afraid or in pain. He might as well not have been screaming because of any nightmares. If that was the case, Halt so far had no way to guess it. Crowley did not leave his room before dawn.

That day, however, he sat in his study even before the day had properly begun. He did not burn many candles, read, or work. He was sitting by the open window, on a bench, in the place where Halt usually sat in the evenings. Leaning out a little, he rested his head against the shutter and stared out into the darkness on the horizon. It hadn’t even started to dawn yet.

“Oh, please it’s way too early to talk,” Halt muttered in thought.

Usually by the time he got up, he had a spare couple of hours of solitude and complete silence. He would appreciate a similar state of things on this day too. The previous day had lasted until the wee hours of the night, stretched out with celebrations at the castle, noisy and tiring. Struggling to sleep, Halt felt as tired as if he hadn’t laid down at all. The vision of talking about anything with anyone was so repulsive that he shuddered unknowingly. He only realised the nervous movement of his shoulders after the fact. Surprised by his own reaction, he furrowed his brow.

A few precise blows aimed in such a way that no bruises were left behind had taught him many years ago that even if the whole world was the most tiresome, noisy, crowded, and awful place, he must not flinch. Furrowing his eyebrows was equally inappropriate, but only when he was talking to someone of higher position than himself. No one lower than him in the hierarchy would dare slam him in the face for such signs of disrespect. It had been a few years since anyone had dared.

He didn’t flinch because he was so used to it by now. Wincing in the darkness of the hood was much safer. He hadn’t flinched in years. At least he couldn’t now remember if he had. The thought that he did so now because he thought of talking to Crowley was upsetting. It was bitter from anger. He brushed it away in his mind, like some rubbish that needs to be trampled on before the flames digest it.

Maybe his arm just got stiff because he slept badly. Yes, that explanation was better. Despite that, Halt didn’t go back to his room to sit in silence and solitude until dawn anyway. If it hadn’t been for that shudder, he probably would have done so...

The need to prove to himself that this was not at all about the only person that Halt somewhat considered to be his, was far more bitter than the previous anger. Stepping deliberately to the threshold of the room, Halt stopped on that one looser board.

Crowley did not move at the sound. Perhaps he was even asleep.

Nothing was preventing Halt from returning to his room. Nothing but himself.

He stepped at the plank again and carefully placing his steps so as to elicit small sounds, moved across the room towards the window.

“You’re up early,” he remarked quietly as Crowley twitched, snapping out of his reverie, and glanced over his shoulder.

The eyes with dark rings under them, looked at Halt less consciously than usual. In view of this, the conclusion was self-evident.

“You didn’t sleep at all...”

“I did,” Crowley muttered in a slightly hoarse whisper. He coughed and rubbed his eyes, then shrugged his shoulders. “I was a bit short of sleep today, but I caught about two hours of sleep.”

“It’s still about two too few...”

“You say so?”

Halt replied with a shrug of his shoulders and by the time they had exchanged those few short sentences he had reached the window. He opened the shutter all the way, thus making more room for himself. He sat down on the bench next to Crowley, following his example by looking out over a world still plunged into sleep.

“And you? Are you always awake by this time, or did you get up earlier than usual today?” Crowley was already awake enough to glance up at him intently.

Halt could clearly see the tiredness on his face, especially now that a smile wasn’t covering it up. For some reason Crowley didn’t even try to smile pale.

“That’s more or less how I usually get up.”

“Ghastly.”

“One can get used to it.” Halt croaked slightly.

“Have you thought about going to a healer or an herbalist or something?”

“For a while...” He admitted without hesitation, whether he could have told Crowley that.

“And?”

“I won’t go. I don’t like healers. I manage. Nobody’s going to mess with my head. I do it satisfactorily myself.” A quiet snort startled him, for he was still speaking when Crowley shook his head grimly.

“I feel you.”

Halt didn’t ask if he was sure about that. He had seen what he needed to see to have his own opinion on the matter. Crowley said nothing more, nor did he look at his friend. He kept looking at the asleep world outside their chambers.

The pleasant chill of the last hours of the early spring night tugged at the wind through his loosed, tousled hair. The grey gloom was close to dawn, but still contained nothing but shades of grey. Crowley’s red hair was the only speck of colour in the gloomy, dreamy world around them. Halt smiled in spirit at the thought but said nothing.

For a moment, in complete silence, they both simply looked out over the far-reaching fields and woods beyond the castle grounds. They could not see the village from this window, nor could they see the courtyard. They could, however, see sentries walking around the walls and by the tower. Further beyond the castle and the road leading to it, the woods stretched on, black in the darkness, thick and wild. Grey fields punctuated their gloom, and Halt had done enough patrols in the area to know by heart the layout of clearings and scrubs, and further afield most of the backwoods.

The silence and stillness continued, and he rested, looking away, which soothed the burning of sleepless eyes. Crowley did not disturb him at all.

Thankful to himself that he hadn’t returned to the room but had come here to join him, Halt glanced at his friend only after another few moments of silence.

“Coffee?” he asked quietly and settled for the brief nod he received.

Rising from the bench, with an excuse of keeping his balance, he rested a hand on Crowley’s shoulder. He did not feel the shudder of his muscles under this movement. Instead, he felt Crowley’s gaze on his back as he retreated deeper into the room to find mugs and coffee.

When he turned around a short while later, Crowley was again looking out of the window. Regardless, Halt was sure it had been different just a moment before.

He was similarly certain that Crowley had been watching him every so often for the rest of the morning. He had done so in such a similar way to the evening before that Halt’s explanation finally occurred to him that Crowley himself was not quite aware of how often he was looking at him. Since there was supposedly no problem, he shouldn’t be looking that way either. He looked, however, and looked all day long, whenever he thought Halt had not seen it.

The day passed quickly for them, paradoxically faster than the previous ones.

Shortly after dawn they determined that there was actually nothing to wait for. Halt might as well have set off for Redmont the very next day. He had no task to complete at Castle Araluen; they had previously closed everything that could be closed. Of the current business, nothing pressing enough to assign to him emerged.

Returning to Redmont in the morning, Baron Arald had already been informed in advance that Halt would probably set off the following day. The papers had been signed, the letters had been sent out, and all that was left for him to do was to pack up.

Deliberately or not, Crowley had given him nothing else to do that day, so Halt had plenty of time to pack. Circling around their rooms, he gathered his things unhurriedly, in passing watching Crowley seemingly working through the time.

A poor night’s sleep would be a good explanation as to why the Commandant was having difficulty concentrating on his work. Still, there was no explanation for the way he kept glancing at Halt every now and then.

It had already become tiresome after only an hour of such escaping glances, because hardly had Halt lifted his gaze, Crowley returned his own to the sheets of paper. He would wait a fraction of a moment and then return his gaze to him again. If he had said something, it might have been less puzzling. Meanwhile, he remained silent, and that so far happened perhaps only a couple of times since they had known each other. Each of these situations from the past had been difficult and upsetting, understandably taking away their desire to talk.

Now, albeit, nothing of the sort was happening. Nothing threatened them, nothing happened. The night’s conversation had supposedly cleared everything up. Crowley had no reason to sit in silence like that, staring and pretending not to stare.

Thence Halt tried to start a conversation, not getting any initiative from him and not being able to bear the tension of waiting so long for something that probably should have happened. At least that’s how it seemed. How Crowley understood this was something Halt didn’t even try to guess. Although he did get the impression, which was hard to dispute, that while he was a little irritated by such an atmosphere, Crowley was pretty damn stressed.

He never saw the point in shallow conversations about the weather and things that everyone had seen for what they were. This topic simply seemed to be the safest to start talking about anything. And even it outgrew their ability to talk to each other at that moment. Usually so adept at holding conversations on all sorts of topics, Crowley only muttered a few words and that was it.

The day was a strange one, and although he didn’t actually do anything, it passed very quickly for Halt. He didn’t have many things to pack, so he got through it quickly. He managed to persuade Crowley to share the paperwork one more time, one last little sacrifice, as he tried to joke. In response, Crowley smiled as insouciantly as the man his own enforcer was making fun of. He gave him the reports to review and continued to say nothing.

Until noon, Halt stuck to avoiding the issue; since Crowley didn’t want to talk to him, he didn’t try to force it either. Later, he couldn’t stand it.

“From tomorrow you will sit here and keep quiet. Today you still have someone to talk to, then talk,” he half-seriously demanded after he had counted over two hours of complete silence between them.

Crowley lifted his gaze to him, this time not waiting to look at him until Halt had averted his gaze. The confusion on his face was subdued by something Halt couldn’t name.

“What, do you want to be farewell pissed off?” the attempt to sound ordinary was completely failed by Crowley.

It was weird. Halt didn’t know what exactly, but it was certainly strange, unusual, different from anything he’d seen so far. The silence didn’t suit Crowley or the day. It was so out of place that it tired even someone accustomed to quietness.

“In a way,” Halt muttered grimly, raising one eyebrow, however. “Just on the off chance, after all, I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”

"True." Crowley didn’t even try to smile at his words. He only did so under the onslaught of the attentive gaze he must have felt on him. The smile was pale and artificial; to Halt it even seemed similar to his own. “You know, I can always… um, annoy you by letter, too?” Crowley sounded unexpectedly more ordinary, barely the thought about smiling had entered Halt’s mind for good.

He would smile like that when he had absolutely no desire to do so, but he knew that otherwise he would bring trouble upon himself, and he had neither the desire nor the strength to do deal with it. Crowley was far too cheerful a man to smile like that.

“I mean, of course, if you’d like…” The suspension of his voice in such a cautious manner had not happened between them for a long time.

It effectively shook Halt out of his reverie. He must have been silent a moment too long for it to go unnoticed by Crowley. Paradoxes always made him curious.

“Read letters from you?” Halt nodded without hesitation. “Sure, if you can find the will, strength and time, then write as much as you like.”

Crowley smiled a little more confidently, a little more like himself.

“And if...” he hesitated and finished, seemingly only because of how closely Halt was looking at him. “Will you write back?”

Promises so easy to make should not become commitments so difficult to bear. In that moment, however, Halt didn’t think at all about what it might cost him to correspond with anyone. He thought only of how a shy smile was already wandering across his friend’s face, just waiting for the final encouragement to appear.

“Of course.”

The realisation of how letters differed from reports and dispatches was only going to dawn on him later. Comprehending fully all that was involved, associated, and implied by this declaration was, in turn, to consume much more time and flow down to him even later. That, however, was yet to come. At that moment, Halt was only slightly pleased to see Crowley had already smiled.

“In view of this, tune in for a stack of letters complaining about work, essays reflecting on the world, digressive poems and other such creations of my humble authorship!” He promised much more vividly, and his eyes finally remembered how to shine.

Halt shrugged his shoulders without betraying his thoughts.

“At least I won’t have to worry about kindling.”

The theatrical indignation on Crowley’s face banished everything from his eyes that Halt had not known well.

The conversation continued on its own along a familiar trajectory. Crowley exaggerated, and Halt countered every word he said that could be countered.

They agreed on a ban on song lyrics in letters, and later extended it to include poems too. Halt ruled that if an unexpected craving to learn more about poetry came upon him, he would be sure to let it be known, but so far he somehow sensed no such urge in himself. Pretending to be heartbroken by this fact, Crowley therefore began to negotiate around the expected length of each letter. They agreed on a minimum of half a page, despite Halt’s initially fierce protests. Fortunately, Crowley did not come up with any idea about a standardised letter size, so Halt was always left with the fallback solution of writing a few words in large type for a full page.

The day passed on, despite their awakening from silence. Crowley continued to stare at him, now both openly, while talking, and surreptitiously, which Halt continued to see and do nothing about. Midday turned into evening before they could realise the passing hours.

Dusk had fallen and Halt was about to mention that, since Crowley had not slept the night before, perhaps this one they would lie down earlier. He was even prepared to promise that, in view of this, he would not set off at dawn without saying goodbye but would wait until Crowley woke up.

He did not want to leave without a word. He did not want Crowley to realise only later that he was gone.

No. He didn’t want to go anywhere at all...

This thought had been lurking at the bottom of his mind all that day, but he only found it in the evening. It terrified him.

He didn’t want to leave.

The thought was simple and that struck him most about it. Had he hesitated, it would have been much more complex. Easier to challenge, less real, less serious. Just one of many dark, meaningless thoughts.

This thought was too transparent to be dismissed. Too logical not to understand it.

He didn’t want to leave again.

He said nothing about the fact that maybe they should go to bed earlier. Nothing about waiting until Crowley woke up in the morning and only then going to Redmont. He was overcome by the realisation that in a dozen hours he would be all alone again.

He will ride away. He will get on his horse and ride away. A silent forest will surround him. He will leave everything behind. He will not turn around to say goodbye. He will say nothing to anyone. He will leave. He will run away, as he swore to himself he would never run away again.

Just in the morning he will be left alone again.

This thought crushed his heart with a vice, also taking away his breath and all words. No other thought was strong enough to overcome it.

And it was then that Crowley started to talk.