This is one of those stories that I just absolutely love. You can tell that I absolutely love it because it's 2,500 words long, which is seven pages on Word and it took me about my entire afternoon to write.

Then my dad came into my room and started tickling me and I didn't want him to read this story, and he made me accidentally close my laptop, which causes my laptop to turn itself off, so I had a brief panic session when I was worrying that it hadn't AutoSaved my seven page long story!

But it did, so it's okay!

Halt stared at his three apprentices, one eyebrow raised. The three were soaking wet and dripping water all over the floor of Halt's cabin. Their cloaks were torn in various places. Will's face was a bit scratched up, and Gilan had a slight limp. Other than that, though, they seemed relatively unhurt. Thank Gorlog for small blessings, at least. "So what exactly were you three doing?"

Will and Gilan looked at each other, holding a silent conversation with slight movements and facial expressions. Connery sighed and rolled his eyes, crossing his arms and turning slightly away from the other two, clearly deigning that one of them should answer.

After a few seconds had passed, Halt spoke again, "I did ask a question."

Connery rolled his eyes again and opened his mouth to speak. Seeing what was about to happen, Will quickly clamped his hand over the kid's mouth, effectively blocking any explanation the kid could give. Will smiled innocently at Halt. Then he yelped and jumped away from Connery. "He bit me!" Will yelled.

All of this caused Halt's eyebrow raise to get higher.

Seeing this, Gilan decided that he should probably step in. "Okay, you see Halt…" He paused for a moment. "We sort of fell off a cliff, but instead of actually falling, we more…Slid down it into a lake. So we didn't really get hurt that badly."

"That is not what happened!" Connery said.

"Yes it is!" Gilan said. Will nodded in agreement.

Halt closed his eyes. He thought that apprentices were supposed to get less annoying when they graduated. Not fall off of cliffs with his current apprentice. "I sent you into town to get more coffee because you two were drinking my entire supply. How did you manage to get sidetracked off a cliff?"

Gilan was silent for a moment. He looked at Will, who shrugged. "Well—" Gilan started.

"I'll tell you what happened," Connery said, shooting a glare at Will and Gilan.

"No!" Will and Gilan both shouted at the same time.

"You two will tell it differently to get yourselves out of trouble." Connery said.

"So will you! Don't act like you were entirely blameless!" Will said.

In a perfect world, all apprentices would grow up after they graduated and stop bothering the person who trained them. However, Halt didn't live in a perfect world. "Why don't all three of you tell the story, and you can add in bits that the others left out?" Halt suggested.

Will glared at Connery, who returned the glare. Gilan rolled his eyes. Children. "That sounds like a very good plan, Halt."

Will looked at Gilan. "Stop acting like you're so much more mature than the rest of us and can make decisions for us!"

Gilan raised one eyebrow at Will.

Will rolled his eyes. "Fine. We'll use Halt's plan."

"Right. So…It started when I got here and saw Will sitting in front of your cabin staring daggers into young Connery."

Gilan silently came up behind Will. "What are you doing?" He asked suddenly.

Will jumped slightly, then laughed. "How do you always manage to sneak up on me?" He said, turning around to face Gilan.

Gilan shrugged and-

Will interrupted, "I feel the need to point out that Gilan did not shrug. He said, 'Swag.' His response to my question was seriously-"

"Yes, all right Will, we get it." Gilan said, "Now, getting back on track..."

"So…what are you doing?" Gilan inquired again.

Will shrugged. "Watching Halt's new apprentice."

Gilan detected a hint of hostility in Will's voice. That was odd; the younger Ranger was usually friendly to new apprentices. And just towards people in general. "What's wrong with him?" Gilan asked, looking towards the sandy-haired boy who was practicing throwing his knives. He seemed pretty good at it.

Will sighed. "He's too perfect! He'll make a great Ranger one day; he's good at shooting, throwing, silent movement. The only area he's lacking in is maybe tracking. On top of that, he's extraordinarily well-behaved. I don't think he's ever broken a rule in his life!"

"So…What's wrong with that?" Gilan asked.

"He's going to become Halt's new favorite apprentice!" Will said.

Gilan raised one eyebrow at the younger Ranger. He thought it was great that Will cared enough to get defensive about the position Gilan held, but he didn't think there was any danger that this kid would replace him. After all, Gilan had been Halt's first and best apprentice. This kid just couldn't compete with that. "I don't think there's any danger of him replacing me." Gilan said.

Will gave Gilan a strange look. "Replacing you? Don't you mean replacing me?"

Now it was Gilan's turn to give Will a strange look. "No, why would I mean you? I'm Halt's favorite apprentice."

"No you're not. I am." Will said.

"No, Will, I am Halt's favorite apprentice."

"No, you're not!"

"Yes I am!"

"No you're not!

"Yes I am!"

Connery rolled his eyes again. "Can we skip this dumb argument please?"

Gilan and Will both glared at Connery. "No, it's important to the story."

"No it's not!" Connery said.

"Yes it is!"

"No it's not!"

Surely there were some Rangers with apprentices that weren't complete idiots. "Just skip ahead." Halt said.

"But—" Will started.

Halt glared at Will.

Will cleared his throat. "Okay…Gilan and I argued for a while before I pointed out that it wouldn't matter which one of us was your favorite if Connery became your new favorite. So we made up a plan…"

"So we need to think of something that will cause Connery to not be Halt's favorite…What can we do?" Will said.

Gilan was silent for a moment. "Well…The main reason Connery would be Halt's favorite is that he always follows the rules, right? I mean the fact that he could one day be a great Ranger isn't really important, I mean…We're already great Rangers."

"Right." Will said. "So we just need to think of a way to cause Connery to break a rule. A big rule."

Both of the Rangers were silent, thinking.

Finally, Gilan spoke. "You know how Halt gets mad when we try to kill each other?"

Will nodded.

"Well, what if we framed Connery for trying to kill both of us?"

Will was silent for a moment, thinking about it. "Yeah, that could probably work."

"When have either of you ever tried to kill each other?" Halt couldn't help asking.

"Please, Halt, we're trying to tell the story." Gilan said. "So we formulated a plan to frame Connery. The only thing that remained was to figure out a way for the three of us to leave the cabin together without you. We had no idea how we would manage that. Luckily, you solved that problem for us."

"Okay, if you two are going to be staying here, you need to buy your own coffee." Halt said, looking into his empty coffee container.

Will and Gilan looked at each other, then at their empty coffee cups. "Right…We'll just go get some then." Gilan said, getting to his feet with Will right behind him.

"Take Connery with you too. I want some quiet." Halt said.

Will couldn't help but burst out laughing at how much Halt sounded like an old man.

"Why are you telling the part of the story that Halt is in?" Connery asked. "He knows how it happened, he was there."

"Well, would you like to tell it?" Will asked sarcastically.

"Yes, I would." Connery said. "I was practicing outside when these two came up to me and told me that I was supposed to come into town with them."

"Why are we going into town?" Connery asked.

"We need more coffee." Gilan responded.

Connery rolled his eyes. "Really? It can't wait until we have to go for something useful?"

"Coffee is useful!" Will said loudly.

Connery raised one eyebrow at Will. He shook his head. "Fine. Let me just get Preston."

"We're not taking our horses." Gilan said quickly.

"Why not? Town is kind of far, if you hadn't noticed."

"The walk will be good for us." Will said. He started walking with Gilan to the edge of the clearing. When they got to the edge, he turned around. "Coming?"

"I have to put my bow away." Connery said.

"Then hurry up!" Will said.

They waited outside until Connery returned. Then they embarked into the woods.

"That was dumb. This is why you can't tell the story." Will said.

"It was not dumb! That's what happened!" Connery responded.

"You could've omitted the part where you put away your bow." Will said.

"No because then it would've been like, 'Is he seriously planning on carrying his bow all the way to town or did he just leave it on the ground somewhere?' So obviously I had to explain what I did."

"Anyways," Gilan interrupted their argument, "We walked through the woods for awhile until we came to a place where Will and I left the path and went into the actual…woods."

"Why are you two going that way?" Connery asked. Gilan and Will had all but disappeared into the thicker woods, but Connery was still standing on the path.

"It's a shortcut." Gilan answered.

Connery raised an eyebrow at the place the voice had come from, although he could only barely make out the man. "If it's a shortcut, why isn't it more worn? If you really use it all the time, it should almost be its own path."

Will rolled his eyes, but Gilan was impressed. This really was a smart kid! "It isn't worn because only Will and I really know about it and we don't come here very often. When we do, we usually ride our horses this way, and it's better to just ride them on the actual path."

Connery still looked uncertain, but when Will and Gilan started walking again, he really didn't have much of a choice except to follow them.

"I should've just stayed on the path." Connery muttered to himself.

"You know what? Just shut up!" Will said. "Gilan and I can tell the story just fine without your input!"

Gilan rolled his eyes, but he was smiling a little. Will was just a little ball of jealousy!

Giving Connery one last glare, Will continued the story. "So we walked through this forest for a while and then we came upon this cliff."

"Why are we at the top of a cliff?" Connery asked in a frustrated voice.

Will shrugged. Gilan looked down the cliff at the water. Geez, he really hoped Will and him didn't die when they 'fell' off.

Connery raised one eyebrow at the two older Rangers. They were standing really close to the edge of the cliff. If he wanted to, he could just push them over the edge.

So he did just that.

"No! No! No!" Connery shouted. "I did not push either of you!"

"Yes you did!" Will said, an accusatory tone in his voice. "But then you accidentally fell over the side yourself!"

"That is not what happened!" Connery said. "We came upon this cliff, and I asked why were at the top of cliff. Then Will turned around and, in a menacing voice, said

"This is where you die!"

Gilan grabbed Will's shoulder. "No, we're not going to kill him!" Gilan hissed in a low voice.

"What? I thought that was the plan!"

"No! We were going to sort of jump/slide down the cliff and tell Halt that Connery pushed us!"

"Oh. Aw." Will replied.

Both Rangers were getting a little close to the edge of the cliff. Connery didn't think they would fall off, though. How dumb would you have to be to accidentally fall off a cliff?

And then the patch of ground they were standing on crumbled and both Rangers accidentally fell off a cliff. Connery ran to the edge of the cliff and stared down. It wasn't a sheer 90-degree angle cliff. It was angled a little; enough that the Rangers were able to slide down the face of the cliff. Or, maybe they would have been able to if they hadn't been caught totally by surprise. At the moment, they both were sort of rolling down the cliff. That looked rather painful. At least there was water at the bottom of the cliff to break their fall. Connery hoped it was deep enough that landing on it wouldn't be painful. Unless—could the surface density thing apply here? Ooh—that would be really painful. Connery hoped both of the other two would be okay.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts he didn't notice the ground crumbling under his feet until it was too late. Then Connery was also tumbling down the cliff.

"There is no way you were that concerned about us!" Will said.

Connery looked at Will. "Of course I was worried, you both could have died!"

"Yeah, but you tried to kill us so…Wasn't that the point?"

"Are you seriously still on that? That did not happen!"

"I beg to differ."

Gilan decided to end the story while the other two were still bickering. "We managed to pull ourselves out of the lake and ascertain that we were all relatively unhurt. Then we didn't really know what else to do, so we just came back here."

Halt was silent for a moment, looking at the three with one eyebrow raised. After a few moments, Will and Connery noticed this and stopped bickering, looking at Halt rapturously.

"So you almost killed yourselves because you thought Connery would become my new favorite apprentice?" Halt asked.

"Yup!" Will said. "It would've worked too, if Connery hadn't ruined the plan by falling off." Will shot a glare at Connery.

Connery glared back. "Sorry for doing exactly the same thing you and Gilan did!"

"Will, stop acting more immature than the kid ten years younger than you." Halt said.

Will stuck his tongue out at Connery, who rolled his eyes in response.

"You're all idiots," Halt continued, "Everyone knows that Will is my favorite apprentice."

"Yes!" Will said, pumping his fist in the air.

Gilan's jaw dropped in shock. "What?! No! That is not what is supposed to happen!" Gilan looked at Connery, who had his arms crossed and a look of disgust on his face. Gilan turned back to Halt. "You're supposed to say: 'You're all idiots; I don't have a favorite apprentice.' Or something like that! What the heck? You don't tell your apprentices who your favorite is!"

"Well when they almost kill themselves over the issue…" Halt said.

Will appeared next to Gilan, grinning. His argument with Connery had been forgotten. "Are you jealous, Gilan? You are, aren't you?"

"It's just because you're an orphan!" Gilan replied.

"Oh, you did not just pull the orphan card." Will said angrily.

"I really did because that is the entire reason why you're Halt's favorite."

"No it's not! It's because I'm awesome and adorable and amazing and—"

"Seriously, you have ten and fifteen years of experience on Connery and he's still acting more mature than both of you." Halt said, effectively ending the argument for the time being.

After that event, you might be surprised to learn, relations between Halt's three apprentices actually got better. Gilan learned to deal with the fact that he wasn't Halt's favorite, Will basked in the glory of occupying the position, and Connery plotted for the way he might one day steal the position from Will.

Moral: Friendship Will Help You Overcome Any Obstacle (Just trust me, that's the moral.)

So…yeah. Friendship and all that!

Sutton out!