HI EVERYONE! IF YOU ARE WONDERING WHERE I HAVE BEEN THEN READ THE A/N, YOU YOU DGAF THEN SKIP THE FIRST A/N PARAGRAPH K THNX LUV YA BYE.

This is just a quick little update on what's been happening with me lately, basically, I am a lazy arse fuck. I have no legitimate excuse for not updating anything in foreverrrr (in some cases it has literally been years) and for that I cannot possibly say just how damn sorry I am. Life got in the way then it was the HSC and then uni and now it is my first big break from uni (4 MONTHS MOTHEREFFFERS!) but I am doing 3 units online in the break so I can't promise many updates, although I can promise like at least one for each fandom. I still get messages every couple of weeks from people saying how badly they need an update so I am really really going to try! Plus I freaking miss writing fanfiction! So I will try so very very very hard to substantially update my bigger fics. And to all those people who still keep messaging me and leaving reviews and EVERYTHING WONDERFUL AND SPECTACULAR LIKE THAT: thank you SO much. It's really overwhelmingly humbling to have people who still message me about updating and writing and everything years since an update. It's really great so thanks :)

Alrighty, this fic isn't even really one. I managed to snag a few files from a broken hard drive recently and found a lot of old stories from school and stuff, I'm working on getting my 'fanfic' file off there to see what is in there ;) anyway in like year 10 we were doing To Kill A Mockingbird in English and our teacher gave us like a prompt thing I guess 'if only closed minds came with close mouths'. I can't remember if it was an assignment or not, I hope not cause otherwise I would have done pretty poorly! But yeah. This is apparently what I came up with, a slight RA fanficy thin that makes no sense in the canon or anything, especially the timeline and I guess it's from Halt's POV but dark!HALT I guess? idk. I just though I'd shove it up..

As always, ENJOY! :D

if only closed minds came with closed mouths

It was the heat of the battle, the confusion that distracted him. Men fell all around him, swords clashing against each other violently, made for no other purpose than to kill. Chaos was everywhere. So it was not until the swords stopped that he noticed something was missing. He felt his body go numb where he stood. Every muscle, every tendon, every nerve ending was unresponsive and frozen in place. He wasn't sure if he was breathing, it didn't matter. He couldn't even feel the steady pulse of his own heart – but that made sense. Of everything, it had suffered the worst from this ordeal. Something deep inside him ached, a deep, piercing, agonizing ache that went beyond mere physical pain. It was a pain that made him want to drop to his knees and… He didn't know. He didn't know how to physically or orally express just what he was feeling. Something told him to scream, but he didn't. Stale air burned away in his lungs as the silence tortuously ticked by; his eyes, unfocused and wide with something like fear. He couldn't feel them, but the tears were already forming, threatening to fall. Unlike so many other times, he didn't care. He didn't care who saw him in his weakness, now. What was there to care about?

He looked desperately around for something, anything. What, he didn't know, but he knew he needed something. He never found it, and he knew that he never would find a replacement for what he'd lost. All he saw were more fallen soldiers, lying askew upon the blood soaked ground.

He didn't want to accept it, he wouldn't. But no matter how he tried to, he couldn't escape the horrible truth that had presented itself to him in the form of a sickly familiar corpse. Will was dead. His apprentice fallen to the ground cold and unmoving. Somehow it was so much worse seeing him than the other littered bodies. They were dead but Will...Will was lifeless. No more would he grace the world with his infectious smile, no more would anyone see the mischievous glint in his bright brown eyes, no more would he be around for him to protect.

And that was the worst part. It was his job to protect him, his apprentice, his son. It was Will who had wanted to fight. He wanted glory and heroics, to protect his home. And he couldn't let him go alone. Will had almost always been in his life, a constant presence to take care of, to love.

It would have been easy to blame the enemy, too easy. They had come and destroyed homes and lives, simply because they thought it was their right. He heard Will's voice in his mind, if only closed minds came with closed mouths. Will had always been a bit wise, although he never knew it. He admired him in a way. His courage and passion to fight for what he believed in. If it wasn't for Will, he would be nowhere near this war. He would have turned a blind eye as he had done for the last few years. His place was not in war anymore; the years had changed him and he no longer cared like he used to. But there was not anything that would have stopped him from protecting his apprentice, especially from something like a war. The enemies were ruthless and merciless and bloodthirsty. Yes, he thought, it would be so much easier to blame Will's death on them.

But he didn't, he blamed it on himself. He had failed Will. Let him down, and let him die. He took his eyes off him to fight, to do what Will came to do. And the moment of rage and mayhem when he stopped worrying about the boy was all it took for Will to be killed.

Fifteen years, he thought. No, sixteen, he corrected himself. Will had had a birthday, only days ago. A birthday spent at war, fighting and killing, witnessing things that no man should ever witness. His last birthday he spent living a life devoid of any semblance of love or home. Sixteen, he was still only a boy.

Too young to die.

There were no words, actions, thoughts or deeds that could ever begin to mend the damage that had been done. Nothing, for however much he wanted to believe otherwise, nothing would ever bring Will back to him.

He turned and forced himself to look at the horribly still form and found himself at a loss of what to do. His whole life had been spent protecting this boy from harm and now the centre of his world was gone. He had simply faded away, becoming another lost soul trapped to wander the battlefield for the rest of eternity.

And for the first time in years he wept, true tears of pain and love and loss.

I hope everyone sort of enjoyed that, or it at least satiated your need for an update lol.

ily you so much!

passion.