In the hazy early hours of the morning teenage Joseph and his younger brother Jory were walking a small beaten game trail through the woods. The young men were on their way to check on traps their father had set. They had already checked some smaller game traps and Joseph had been teaching his younger brother how to resnare them.

"Hey Jo?" The younger boy had been using a stick he found to smack at particularly tall grass and bushes along the path. "I didn't get those jongleurs in trouble did I?" Joseph looked back him.

"I don't think so." Joseph said. "I'm sure if they feel like they're in danger they'll skip town." He pulled back a branch and let Jory walk through, then walked past it himself.

"But then if they do get got we won't know." Jory said smacking a low hanging tree branch with his stick. "I'd like to say sorry before they go you know?"

"I don't think they're mad at you Jory." Joseph tried to keep him from worrying about things beyond his control. "But if it'll make you feel better we can stop by the inn and you can talk to them."

"Yea let's do that." Jory said. "Then we can get pancakes" Joseph laughed.

"If you can convince Barley to make them sure." Joseph looked off to his left and saw something stirring in the bushes off the trail. He grabbed the younger boys shoulder to stop him and when he opened his mouth to speak the older boy put his finger to his mouth for silence. "Stay here." He whispered as he stepped off the trail, his hand on the hilt of his hunting knife. As he approached the movement he noticed it wasn't an animal, it was a person.

Now that he was closer, Joseph could make out the shifting fabric of the cloak the man was wearing and he recognized it instantly. It was a Rangers cloak. "Run back to the house and go get Pa." The younger boy opened his mouth to protest but Joseph said again. "Go get Pa. Now."

~

The morning air was cold. They could both feel it. The two Rangers sat next to each other in a tree stand amidst the early fog. They weren't exactly hiding but they weren't supposed to be. They were watching.

"How did we get roped into this?" The man asked. He was sitting on the edge of the tree stand with his legs hanging over the side. "I thought only senior Rangers did evaluations." He leaned on his elbows as he scanned the tree line.

"I guess they got tired of critiquing first year performances." The woman said. She was sitting behind him cross legged, her cloak a tent around her body. Leaning against his back she scanned the forest in the other direction. "Aside from Will, me and you are the only other Rangers that haven't had apprentices yet."

"Don't forget Gilan." She looked back over her shoulder at him. His hood was down and she watched his amber eyes scan the tree line. In the early morning light they shined like gold. He looked back at her slightly and she went back to scanning her part of the forest.

"Well Gilan had me and Will too. He taught us a lot when Halt wasn't around." Under her cloak she was turning a smooth stone over in her hands absentmindedly. "He taught us the double knife defense."

"Did he really?" The man clicked his tongue and she heard the scratching of pencil on paper making her chuckle. "I was looking right at him and he moved."

"Don't be too harsh on them." The woman said, smiling under her cowl. "Not everyone can be a prodigy like you." He scoffed.

"Do people really still say that?" He sounded upset. "I wasn't anything special. You and Will were the special ones.."

"Well even despite our wealth of experience," She was slightly sarcastic. "You really were always ahead of us." The last part was genuine and she felt him shift in place. "And you're definitely still ahead of me" She pushed against his back slightly and heard him laugh. "Halt still insists he would of rather had you as an apprentice." She marked down something in her own notepad as she watched an apprentice move between trees. "He's joking of course, but sometimes it didn't seem like it."

"Well" Ansalon sighed and looked back at her. She turned her head to meet his gaze and she saw a smile. "Even if we're doing a boring examiner job. There's no one else I'd rather do it with than you Lea."

~

"Lea!" The Knight hissed out in a whisper. Horace was tied to a support beam. Where? Well he wasn't one hundred percent sure. Somewhere in the forest. In an old building. They couldn't be too far from town, they were only walking an hour or so. But now the early morning light was peaking in through the holes in the ceiling and he watched his Ranger friend stir across the room from him. He didn't see what that masked man had done to her but he could tell she wasn't injured, so that was one good thing. Horace himself only had a few bruises. He had held his own as well as they'd expected against the larger man, Horace now knew his name was Roald. Just as he was about to win however that masked man, they called his Salem, called his attention. Zoning out of the fight he saw the tall man holding his friend up by the cloak, a knife to her throat.

Horace looked over at her now, tied up in the same fashion as him, to the support beam across the room. He called her name again but this time she didn't stir and he leaned back again. He tried to struggle against his bonds, cursing to himself. These rebels knew how to tie a knot, that was for sure. Unable to free himself he let his gaze wander around the small worn down building he found himself in. Now that it was morning he could actually see. They were in the front room of a worn down cabin. All furnishings had been removed aside from the kitchen counters near the back of the cabin and a few dining chairs scattered about the room.

Horace tapped the heel of his boot against the floorboards impatiently. This Salem figure seemed to have a flair for the dramatic and Horace wasn't a fan of it. When they had arrived last night Roald had tied him to the beam while the skinny one, Baz tied Lea up across the room. Their leader didn't even come in the cabin. Once they were tied up they left without a word, Horace watched Salem and Baz leave down the trail but Roald stayed in the porch all night. He could still hear him snoring.

Horace let out a long sigh and leaned his head back against the wooden beam and looked up into the rafters watching the dust fly around in the morning beams. "Will had better hurry up." Horace thought to himself "I don't exactly want to find out what they plan to do wit-" There. In the rafters. A flash of something yellow. Horace had managed to pick up a few things from the Rangers. Picking out small movements was one of them. Staying inconspicuous was another. He kept his gaze roaming around the ceiling and eventually worked his way back around to where he saw the movement but by the time he had, whatever he had seen there was gone. He sighed and let his gaze fall back down to Lea, still unconscious across the room.

The Knight found himself thinking back to a conversation the three of them had had a few weeks back. "Just like old times huh." Horace said softly to himself. He looked out the window to the porch where he could still hear Roald snoring. "Then eventually one of us is going to have to cause a ruckus."