The reason why Will died.

AN; wrote this during an English exercise years ago. Please review!

Mourning. That's what they said I was doing. They were wrong. I was remembering.

The vibrant eyes that were once filled with laughter, enthusiasm and endless endless questions clouded with pain as the poison seeped through his system.
"Not... not your fault!" he struggled as he was pulled into white fog by the poison. Halt knew Will was lying for his own sake.
As young Will's eyes stared out at stars hidden from him, he closed his eyes carefully, with the tenderness he could never express during life. A tenderness between father and son not master and apprentice.

Halt stood, his face set; fire burnt in his eyes and the part of his heart he had temporary let soften with the presence of the youth hardened into a ball of ice. He was a reaper, death with ancient eyes that seen too much, seen one small body too many join the ranks of the fallen.

Out of the hundreds of promising candidates only Gillan had survived Halt's apprenticeship. All the rest had made some fatal mistake when defending the kingdom to their last breath and had pain-filled deaths because of it. Halt forges his apprentices in fire and their flaws are either burned out or themselves destroyed.
The rangers only force him to take apprenticeships when they need the best, when the situation is worst. He knows they wouldn't survive so he never drops his mask of Halt the cruel master.

But he had been softened by Will, had dropped some of the barriers between him and the rest of humanity. The other Rangers had seen the effect this new quick minded apprentice was having on the sullen master and quietly marveled on how much trust and loyalty there was between them.

There is a reason why Halt never takes apprentices – he teaches them too well.
And Will was one of the best.