*Jacklyn's POV*

I stood frozen as I looked at the sight before me. Gilan, the great Ranger who took down Foldar, was standing before us with a look that could have rivaled the Kalkara.

The look however was somewhat ruined by the fact that Dr.Pepper was dripping down his hair and face onto his jerkin and staining his cloak. Easing back to the truck, I rummaged around till I found a small towel(don't ask, my truck is like the bag belonging to Marry Poppins. Or Hermione Granger, take your pick) and held it out to him.

"You uh...um...you have some...yeah it's all over you. You might want to uh, try to clean up now. That stuff can leave a pretty tough stain...." I said quietly. I knew we where in for it this time. His intense gaze left me wondering if there would be smoking holes in my dress-not that I really cared for it-by the time he would be done.

"Back to the castle. Now," he said in what I took to be a very controlled voice. Unfortunately, Avis and I pushed out luck even further. Avis went back to the truck to retrieve her phone and charger while I opened the passenger door on the drivers side and did some quick packing.

Grabbing my back pack, which was empty except for some summer homework-stupid AP classes-and my band binder and flute, I shoved some food into it, my jacket, purse and as a last minute thing, my sketch book. Leaning back out with the back pack slung over one shoulder, I tossed another bag to Avis which contained two weeks worth of cloths, and a little extra in case of emergency.

I closed the door then closed the drivers door after taking the keys out of the ignition and locking the truck. Just as I was about to close the door I remembered that after the accident my glasses had fallen off and I had been to much in a daze to pick them up. Reaching down by the gas pedal, I patted the ground to find them and once I did, I picked them up and then closed the door. A quick inspection told me that they weren't broken and I put them in my face, happy that I could see at a distance once again.

Surprisingly, Gilan didn't object to us bring these things back with us, and another surprising thing was what time it was. The sun had long since sunk behind the hills and now the moon stood as the ruler of the sky. Gilan was riding Blaze as me and Avis walked close together to his right and slightly in front of him. If I had been shocked by the stars before I had swerved off the road, boy was I shocked now.

Hundreds upon thousands of stars shine in the perfectly clear sky. It must be nice to always see the stars like this. "What do you mean?" I jumped a bit as Gilan spoke. He was looking at me and so was Avis. I blushed a bit as I realized that I had spoken that out loud. Upon realizing that he was still waiting for an answer, i gestured up to the night sky. "The stars. It must be nice to always see them this clearly." He looked down at me with an almost curious expression, thankfully temporarily forgetting his anger at us. "Doesn't your home have a night sky just as clear?" I grew a little sad at the mention of home but shrugged in response. "No, I almost never see the stars at night back home."

He didn't reply to that since he remained silent. Guess he went back to being angry at us.

All to soon where we back at the castle and I gave a silent thanks that there weren't many people out. The sentries at the drawbridge have us the strangest look and the few people we did pass in the courtyard stared at us before whispering furiously to themselves. Gilan handed Blaze off to a stable hand and led the way into the castle. You know your in trouble when a Ranger doesn't take care of his horse personally.

The two of us followed behind him with little to no energy and on more then one occasion he had to tell us to pick up the pace. That's when things start to get a little out of hand. We round a corner and low and behold, guess what? We come face to face with none other than Denise. "Ranger Gilan! Oh thank heavens I ran into you. Two of our wards have gone missing! I've already talked to Ranger Will, he says that he'll talk to the Craftmasters to try and determine when they went missing and go from there, could you please help him in the search.

Oh shizzle are we in trouble.

Avis and I quickly exchange horrified looks before going back to the two adults. She brought Will into this? And he's going to bring the Craftmasters into it? Oh man.

"No need for that Denise, I have them both here with me, safe and sound." He stepped to the side a bit to reveal us and I gave what I thought to have been an innocent smile while Avis waved shyly. The anger on Denise's face made her turn so red that she look like a cherry to me. "Girls. You two are nothing but trouble," then to Gilan, "Oh thank you for finding them. I'll make sure that they are properly taken care off." Don't know about you but I don't like the sound of that. Just as she was about to reach forward and grab Avis by the arm, Gilan stopped her and spoke in a quiet tone, so much that I hardly heard him.

"Actually Denise, I was hoping to take them to the Baron. I'll send them straight back to the ward after. I'll even escort them myself." Translation: I'm taking them to the Baron to be properly punished and when he's done I'm going to make sure they go where they are supposed to go.

In all honesty.

I never knew being a trouble maker would be this much fun.

With that, Denise leaves us and we are back to following Gilan to our doom meeting with the Baron. On the way there, my stomach rumbles, reminding me of the fact that we skipped dinner. An idea pops into my head and I shrug the back pack off my shoulders quickly while still walking before putting it in front of me. Keeping it that way I unzip the larger pocket and rummage around a moment before I pull out what I was looking for. A bag of Hot Cheetos. It was unopened yet so I opened it as quietly as possible and starting munching on the delicious chips. Avis looks at me and I hand the bag over to her. She takes it and starts to eat a few while I put the back pack behind me again before taking the bag back, tipping it now and then in her direction so she could get more.

"What are you eating?" I look up to see Gilan looking back at us, his quick pace slowing down so he was beside me as we continued walking. I looked at the bag before looking back at him. "Chips," I say a bit bluntly. "Spicy chips," Avis puts in. I continued to stare at the bag and his pace slowed even more till he just stopped. I glanced at Avis before reaching in and grabbing one of the dark red chips and offering it to him, "Want to try one?" He stared at it before slowly taking it from me. He inspected it very closely before flicking his blue eyes back to mr and Avis. "This isn't poisoned is it?" I had to try and hide a grin at that. "If it was poisoned, we wouldn't be trying to eat a whole bag of them." He seemed to accept that and popped the little chip into his mouth.

At first there was no reaction then his face twisted and he started coughing up a storm. He grabbed his throat and for a horrible moment I thought he had swallowed the chip whole and hadn't bothered to chew and was now choking. Then he removed his hands and looked at us with such pain in his eyes that tears were forming and spoke in such a hoarse voice that you would think he had gone weeks without water. "Good God, what is that? It feels like my mouth and throat are on fire!" I couldn't help it, I laugh out loud. While I try to get myself under control, Avis try's to be nice and explain why his mouth is on fire. "It's the powder on the chip. It gives the chip a flavor but also a spice to it. The more powder, the redder the chip, the redder the chip, the more spicy it is." By now Gilan had gotten control of his facial expressions but seemed to try very hard to not breath through his mouth. "Let's get going," he said, walking ahead of us, his voice still very hoarse.

I was still chuckling to myself when we reach the Barons office. Avis had so kindly put to the bag of chips back into the back pack and now we had fallen back into a nervous silence. Despite the dark, night sky outside, Martin was still at his desk and look up as we entered the anteroom. Gilan gestured to us, then to the Barons door. Martin got the message and made a signal to wait as he got up from his desk and tapped lightly on the door. A muffled voice came from the other side and Martin opened it and stuck his head in to no doubt tell the Baron if our Arrival.

Leaning to the side a bit, I caught a few glimpses of movement in the room when it finally hit me. There where a lot of people in that room at the moment and they were all of the Craftmasters. My suspicions were confirmed when in the gap I saw Will standing in my line of sight, talking to someone I couldn't see. At that moment Martin stapled to the side and motioned for Gilan to go in. He did and he also made a gesture for us to follow.

"Gilan, I suppose Denise told you of the two missing wards?" Will said as his colleague walked through the door. Gilan nodded, tried to say something, failed, cleared his throat and tried again. "Yes, though I hardly doubt their missing." Will went to speak, then stopped when his eyes landed on us. "Oh, seems that you found them already." And Que all eyes being turned to us. I felt my body heat up as it normally does when I'm the center of attention and a quick glance told me that the same thing was happening to Avis. Movement caught my attention and I made the mistake of looking up. Baron Arald had risen from his seat behind his desk and had both of his hands on his desk, his eyes darkened with anger. "Where have you been?" The question wasn't yelled, but that didn't mean it wasn't as intense. The tension in the room was suffocating, yet the only thing I did was drop my eyes to look at the floor. This, did not go over well with the Baron. "I said, where have you been?" This time, he did yell, somewhat. When we still didn't reply, he turned to Gilan. "Where did you find them?"

"By that...thing...she was found next to last night," he said gesturing to me. "Both of them where going through it and what looked to be taking things from it." My head snapped up and before I could stop myself, I spoke in an angry tone, much to my surprise. "It's called a truck." It was the most intense silence I had ever heard. More intense than the time Mr. Mathews had put the whole marching band in timeout like little kids on the field(true story). The Baron looked at me and this time I looked right back at him. "What did you say?" "I said, it's called a truck. A Chevy 2010 four-door white model with an extended bed and a tano cover." They just stared at me. Then once again, the Baron broke the silence.

"I don't care what it's called. Nor do I care what it is. What I do care about is that two of my wards think they have the right to go off on their own without letting anyone know off the slightest idea to their whereabouts!"

"Well it wouldn't be sneaking off if we had told someone now would it? And who says we're your wards? We never asked to be your wards!" That seemed to have crossed the line. Baron Arald was about to say something when I quick knock was at the door when it suddenly opened to allow in none other than Halt the Ranger.

Great. Just great.

He cast a raised eyebrow at the scene before him then he addressed Arald. "I assume these are the two that snuck off?" "Yes and this one," he pointed a finger at me-I do have a name you know-"thinks that it's smart to constantly talk back." I glanced at Avis and just shrugged. "Well," said the old Ranger, "let's fix that."

Before I knew what was going on I was jerk backwards as Halt pulled on the handle of the back pack and attempted to tear it off me. I managed to free myself of the straps before he could send my flying backwards. He held it with ease and just as quickly as he could fire an arrow, he was by the window, which was opened and held the back pack out. "Agree to corporate and maybe I won't drop this down to the cobblestones below. There's bound to be something in here that's expensive and breakable."

Oh no he just didn't.

He just threatened my flute.

Of course he didn't know a flute was in there but he had fussed correctly that something expensive was in there- and there was no way that it would survive the drop. Apparently he took my silence as a way to rebel and he let go of the pack.

"No!" I took a pace forward only to find that Halt had snatched the handle agin before the pack could hurtle to the ground. "What was that?" He questioned. I looked down, defeated. "I'll corporate," I said meekly. And he brought the back lack back in, tossing it to the ground.

I winced, but I must admit. That's better than a three story drop.