Ok, don't die of shock! Yes it is me, posting the final part of this story. Your eyes have not deceived you.

So, I posted the previous chapter back in February. I suppose that has got to be a record for me for updating, although life did suddenly get busy for me so I had very little free time, then I lost all motivation for writing. Anyway, I'm going to stop with this babbling and let you read this shoddy excuse for a chapter.

Ranger's Apprentice belongs to John Flanagan

Why Apprentices and Feasts Do Not Mix – Epilogue

It was now the height of summer, so Halt and Will had decided to make the most of the long, warm evenings while they lasted. However, Halt's definition of 'making the most' of something was to do some sort of work, which was why he was reading the latest report from Crowley, whilst taking measured sips from his ever-present coffee.

Will had just finished re-fletching a couple of his arrows and replaced them back into his quiver bringing up the total once more to twenty four. He pulled his Saxe from where it resided in its double scabbard hanging from his belt and looked at the weapon with a critical eye. The blade was too dull for Will's liking, and needed oiling as well. Before Halt could catch sight of the imperfect state of the blade, Will grabbed the whetstone from his pack beside him and started to run it along the blade.

He didn't fancy having a lecture from his mentor about weapon maintenance. He had already had two from Halt during his apprenticeship, and according to Halt, that was two too many, and not an experience that Will wanted to repeat again – once was bad enough, but twice was plain awful.

Will soon got into a rhythm, sharpening the blue-tinted blade of his Saxe, letting his mind free to wander.

The first thing his mind wandered to was Alyss. He was going to meet up with her in two days' time – his first day off in quite a while. The last time he had seen her was the morning after the feast, which had been a few weeks ago. Since that morning, Halt had kept Will extremely busy with a combination of training, menial chores and three patrols – two more than Will knew to be necessary. The apprentice had taken this as a sign that this was his punishment for his antics during that feast.

Thinking about that feast and his approaching meeting with Alyss, he was relieved that his battle wound (as he called it) had now healed, and all was left was a very faint pink mark, if you looked closely enough.

Suddenly, an image flooded his sight; an image of a clear starry night, the moon at its fullest, when without warning, the night sky tilted and the ground rushed up to meet him.

Halt took another sip of his coffee in mild celebration of getting through half of Crowley's report. He considered reading Crowley's reports to be an art form, since the Corps Commandant had a fondness of waffling as well as using the most poetic, flowery language known to mankind. In fact, Halt believed that some of these words were entirely made up and would not be found in any dictionary what-so-ever. Because of this, Halt had to read the reports very carefully in order to pick out the important information. The Ranger had a sneaking suspicion that Crowley only wrote reports in this fashion for Halt just to be annoying. As revenge, Halt would write his own reports as vague as possible, so that they could be interpreted in a number of ways, since he knew that this in turn would annoy the Commandant.

He finished decoding the next sentence and took another sip of his coffee, glancing quickly at Will as he did so. The lad was sharpening his Saxe, gazing at it intently as he did so. He was due to graduate in under a year's time, and would then have his own fief to look after. Not for the first time, Halt was silently amazed by how fast the years had flown by.

Halt settled back down to the report. The quicker he finished, the quicker he could set his mind to more useful tasks, such as ordering Will to make another cup of coffee.

He had just finished deciphering a particular tricky paragraph, and was about to make a summarising note in the margin, when out of the corner of his eye, he saw Will make a sudden jerking movement and dropped something, which sounded heavy by the noise it made.

"Gorlog's teeth!" he heard Will curse under his breath, before the apprentice launched himself out of his chair and into the cabin.

Concerned, Halt glanced about, and seeing no danger, he then directed his gaze at Will's now vacant chair. His eyes flickered downwards to where Will's Saxe now lay abandoned.

On it was fresh blood.

Letting the report flutter down to the floor in a mish-mashed pile, Halt pushed himself out of his own seat and swiftly went into the cabin, images flickering in his mind as to how serious the injury was.

However, once inside the cabin, he came across Will dashing about in the kitchen, making a mess and cursing under his breath. In one hand, he tightly held a scrap of material, which was raised up in the air. He was holding it with such ferocity, that Halt could see that the apprentice's knuckles had turned white, even though they were at opposite ends of the cabin. As Will ducked to look in a cupboard, hand still in the air, Halt noticed that blood was trickling down Will's arm.

"Sit down, Will."

Will quickly pulled his head out of the cupboard, narrowly avoiding bumping his head.

"But Halt, it's fine! I've got it under control."

"Sure about that?"

"Yes… when I manage to locate the medical kit."

"Isn't it in the same place that it's always kept?"

"No!"

"And whose responsibility is it to look after the kit?"

"Mine. I get the point; it's my fault the kit isn't where it should be."

"Sit down, Will."

This time, there was no argument as Will awkwardly pushed himself up to a standing position and deposited himself into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. He slumped onto the table, his face covered by his uninjured hand, while the other was still raised, clutching at the scrap of cloth. Halt marvelled at the stubbornness of his apprentice. Surely he would have sensation of pins and needles by now, but Will still held that hand up in the air, trying to stem the flow of blood.

With a roll of his eyes, Halt strode into the kitchen to find the elusive medical kit. He when straight to the open-doored emergency supplies cupboard, where food and other essentials were kept in case of an urgent mission. Looking into the cupboard, he immediately located the kit. It had been pushed to the side, hidden from its normal place. Halt could see how panic may have caused Will to overlook this, but he wasn't going to let Will get off lightly.

"Will?"

"Yes?" came the muffled response.

"Found the kit."

"Where?" asked Will indignantly.

"Right where it should have been."

Will gave a groan.

"Now let's have a look at your hand."

Placing the kit on the table, Halt sat into the chair next to Will's. He lowered the injured hand so it was placed palm up on the table, and gently removed the bloody cloth. Looking at the wound, Halt audibly sucked his breath in through his teeth. Will's eyes snapped to his hand, full of worry.

"Just as I thought," commented Halt.

"It's bad isn't it? What's going to happen? Will I be able to shoot again? Does this mean I won't have to go anymore chores? Am I going to be able to write?"

"Calm down, it's none of those things. This is the mark of an idiot."

Will scowled at Halt. "Hilarious."

"Yes, I know that I am," said Halt lightly as he started to wash the wound to see exactly what the damage was.

He was able to tell immediately that the injury looked worse than it actually was. That was the problem which hand injuries – even papercuts had a nasty habit of bleeding profusely for such a small wound.

After some perseverance on Halt's part, and gasps of pain on Will's part, Halt was able to see exactly how much damage Will had caused himself. Running from the fleshy base of the thumb over to the other side of the palm, Will was now the proud owner of a long, but thankfully shallow cut.

"What's the most important weapon that a Ranger has?" asked Halt suddenly.

"His mind," replied Will straight away, remembering one of his first lesson as an apprentice.

"And what's the second most important?"

"His hands."

"Why?"

"To be able to use his bow and Saxe. Halt, I know; I should have been more careful when sharpening my Saxe."

"You've never had any problems like this before," commented Halt, still meticulously cleaning the wound to ensure minimal chance of infection.

"Well, apart from a few nicks."

"Those are just minor inconveniences. What was so different about today?"

There was a pause before Will spoke.

"Remember the night with the feast, and I fell over, but I didn't remember?"

"Vividly," said Halt in the tone that he didn't particularly like the way the conversation was heading.

"I remember how I fell over. It just came back to me all of a sudden, and my hand sort of slipped."

"Sort of? It most definitely slipped. Good news for you, it's not serious, and I don't have to stitch you up."

"You're going to use that glue stuff, aren't you?"

Halt raised an eyebrow. "Would you like stitches?"

Will quickly shook his head. Lucas, the Head Healer at the castle, had developed a glue that could be used to help heal minor cuts instead of using stitches. So far it had been a success with the Battleschool apprentices, and he asked Halt if he would like to try it. Admittedly, both Halt and Will were sceptical at first, and were reluctant to use it, but after a mission where they both earned their fair share of cuts, and found the glue type mixture to be incredibly good stuff. But that didn't stop Will feeling like a guinea-pig whenever he needed to use the stuff since Lucas had recently admitted that it was still fairly early in its development.

As Halt deftly glued the edges of skin back together on Will's hand, he heard his apprentice take in a breath – the sure sign of a question.

"Yes?" said Halt, before Will could say anything.

"I don't just remember falling over. I remember the whole evening."

"Oh," said Halt, trying his hardest not to turn red at remembering some of the things that had been said that night.

"Yeah," said Will, his own cheeks turning slightly.

"So you remember how you'd mistaken a fox for a … how did you put it? Oh yes! A nefarious person," said Halt, trying to make light of the situation as he lightly bandaged Will's hand.

"Yes."

"And how you'd mistaken the moon for a big star."

"Yes."

"And how you'd thought you'd not only lost your bow and quiver, but also forgotten Tug."

"Yes, Halt. I'm sorry for that," said Will as he watched Halt tie off the end of the bandage before giving his fingers a bit of a wriggle, pleased to see that they all still worked. Satisfied, Will looked back to Halt.

"Halt, thank you."

"Well, I couldn't let you struggle, you would have made a bigger mess than you already have."

Will wasn't talking about Halt helping him to fix his cut, but he knew that Halt understood what he meant, and didn't want to embarrass Halt or himself any further. Although their father-son bond went unspoken, it was still very much there and acknowledged in the little things they done for each other.

Halt pushed himself away from the table.

"How about I make us some coffee while you tidy up the mess you made."

"Yes, Halt."

"And then, you can have the joy of deciphering Crowley's report."

Will groaned, and then stood up to clear away the medical kit. But before starting on this task, he turned to Halt.

"That minstrel never wanted to hear me play the Mandola, did he?"

That wasn't as short as I thought it would be - it's too long to actually be called an epilogue, but I'm calling it an epilogue anyway.

Once again, thank you to those who have reviewed/favourited/followed the previous chapter, and thank you in advance for this chapter - it is very much appreciated! Heck, thank you just for reading and putting up with me :)

So that's another story done and dusted!