So I know that everyone’s headcanon is that George is the one who wrote down Will’s life, that the scribe, ever faithful to his old wardmates, was the hand behind the found manuscripts. That he was the one who preserved Will’s story in the Lost Stories, neat and orderly as really only George could manage.
But I will offer you two ideas here:
First, that George didn't write it all down, but Will did.
Will had watched Halt go through many waves of dementia in his old age. He saw the sharp eyes of his mentor dim, the stories fade from his memory, the names of old friends like Crowley, Gilan, and even Will himself -- slip away. He watched Halt get frustrated with himself because he knew his mind was deteriorating.
But Will refused to let the world forget.
So before Halt's final breath, Will came often, carrying parchment, ink, and a fierce determination, coaxing as much information as he could from the haze of Halt's head, and piecing together The Early Years.
And when Halt finally passed, something inside Will shifted.
He looked back on his own life-- not with bitterness, but with a sense of wonder. He had truly lived an epic. His life had been extraordinary. He loved deeply, fought bravely, and he had lost so much, gained so much, and through it all endured. Most of all, he endured. And he feared that one day, he too would forget. That silence would swallow it all, like it did Halt.
So Will started writing.
At 64 years old, he left the corps. Laid aside his bow and took up the pen. His friends thought it was a distraction. After all, he had always imagined retiring with Alyss, spending the last decade or so of his life traveling with her. Perhaps, he was lonely. Perhaps he was writing music again, the way he used to.
They had no idea.
For years he wrote in solitude, and when he died, Horace was the one who found the manuscripts. The hundreds and hundreds of written pages, the first being titled “A Ranger's Beginning” and the last being titled “A Royal Ranger.”
The second idea? a very slight variation of the first, very slight.
Will wrote the manuscripts-- but not alone.
When Halt died, grief shifted something in him, and he went to George--not the scribe this time, but the friend, the wardmate, the brother-- and Will asked for one last favor.
And so, for five years, four days a week, they met.
Will spoke. George transcribed. Together, they wrote thousands of pages, thousands of moments of friendship, love, laughter, tragedy, trauma, grief. All written in ink.
A record not just of one life, but of all of their lives.
Because the books weren't just for Will, they weren't just about Will. It was about all of them; it was ensuring all their legacies would be preserved.
Not as "lost stories."
But remembered ones.
