Greybeard Halt

My first Ranger's Apprentice fic. :D Halt's reaction when Will first sang Greybeard Halt on his lute… sorry, mandola. :P Enjoy~

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Halt sighed to himself as the sound of Will's wretched mandola reached his ears once again from inside the cabin. How was he supposed to concentrate on his reports with his apprentice strumming away all night? He wondered again, for the hundredth time, why exactly he let Will get one in the first place.

"Halt? Can you come here for a bit?" Will called to him now, stopping the music for a moment.

Halt raised his eyes to the heavens. What now? He got up and headed inside, adopting an uninterested, eyebrow-raised look as he faced his grinning apprentice.

Will grinned at him brightly. "I made a new song. Listen!" And before Halt could object, he started strumming on his mandola.

Halt closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, his expression painstakingly long-suffering. Don't break it…

Then Will started singing to a slightly familiar tune… only the words were different.

"Greybeard Halt is a fighting man

I've heard common talk

That Greybeard Halt, he cuts his hair

With a carving knife and fork!"

Halt's eyes snapped open and he stared at the youth in front of him with an expression that said he was two seconds from exploding. Will, of course, didn't notice the warning, and he continued his song cheerfully.

"Fare thee well, Greybeard Halt

Fare thee well, I say

Fare thee… well…" Will faltered now as he looked at his silently fuming mentor. His grin vanished to be replaced with a wide-eyed terrified look. "Um… Halt… what are you…?"

He didn't get to finish his sentence as Halt grabbed his arm and tugged to the door, snatching the mandola off him on the way. He glowered at the boy dragging behind him and growled, "I'm going to kill you."

Needless to say, Will wasn't so cheerful now. In fact, he was pretty terrified. "I was joking, Halt! Seriously!" His wide eyes trained on the saxe knife on the Ranger's belt. It glinted dangerously, almost mockingly, at him.

Halt let go of Will's arm and turned to face him, eyes blazing but face otherwise deceptively calm. "So was I," he said, and Will let go a breath in relief – too soon. "About killing you, I mean. But…"

"But?" Will gulped. He noticed his mentor eyeing a rather large tree and then nodding to himself, and wondered what he was thinking.

"You're spending the night outside. In that tree."

Will's eyes threatened to bulge out of their sockets. He blinked at Halt, then turned to gape at the tree, also noticing the fact that the sky was filled with heavy-looking clouds. "You can't be serious, Halt!" he protested, gesturing at the rain-promising clouds. "It's going to rain out!"

"Well, then, next time think of that before you make a joke that isn't funny," Halt told him, arms crossed in a way that said 'don't argue with me now unless you want your ears cut off'.

Will's shoulders slumped in defeat and he turned to start climbing. "I thought apprentices weren't supposed to think…" he muttered. (Which, in itself, is a contradiction).

Halt ignored him (or he didn't hear him, but I wouldn't advise you to tell him that; knowing Halt, he'd take it as a personal insult on his age), and swiftly strode back to the cabin, still clutching the wretched lute in his clenched fist.

Will stared after him as the door shut and settled back in the tree desolately, covering himself with his cloak and trying, in vain, to find a comfortable position in the branches.

It was going to be a long night.

Inside, Halt resisted the urge to snap the mandola in two and throw it outside. He placed it in Will's room then headed off to his own bed, muttering something about cheeky apprentices and unamusing jokes. He's learning off Gilan, I swear…

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A/N: Now THAT is a lot better! :D And less lame and stuffs… *goes off to put up the third chapter*

Review, folks. You know you want to…

~izzy :3