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* ''The Tournament at Gorland'': Halt, despite having a well-earned distrust of royalty, still chooses to put his faith in Duncan based solely on [[VitriolicBestBuds Crowley's]] word. Doubly so even after they hear about atrocities being committed by "Duncan."
* In ''The Battle of Hackham Heath'', the seriously ill Queen Rosalyn smiles and sits up in her litter when she sees Crowley, calling him her favorite Ranger. She's grateful for his efforts to save her husband from Morgarath.
* Daniel's HeroicSacrifice, for a man he barely knew. Doubly so when one realizes that the man he died saving would be Will's other father figure.
* The beginning of Book One has some subtle but powerful ones in its discussion of the Orphan Ward of Redmont Fief (aka where Will, Horace, and Alyss grew up).
** Baron Arald takes in orphans whose families have died "in service" to the fief). They are raised in the castle, he pays for their upkeep, educates them, and when they reach apprenticing age, makes arrangements for them to be apprenticed in a profession of their choosing (provided they have the capability for it). If the orphan child isn't apprenticed to a craft, he or she goes to live with a farming family to work the land (it's mentioned that it happens very rarely and the craft masters do their very best to accommodate the orphans), so they ALWAYS have somewhere to go. For comparison, normally the possible apprenticeships available to a child are confined to said child's parents' occupation and what influence they may have with other craftmasters. But the children in the Orphan Ward are given the opportunity to go into any career they wish (provided they can prove themself to its Master). We don't know if this is normal for the Kingdom of Araulen and the other fiefs do this or if Baron Arald is the exception.
** Arald also knows the circumstances of the orphans in the ward, meaning he keeps apprised of their upbringing and progress. A senior baron, the most powerful person in the fief and one of the most powerful in ''the kingdom'', stays up-to-date on the education of a bunch of no-status orphans.
* Later in book one, during the boar hunt, Horace instinctively grabs a spear and stands in front of Will when it charges, and then Will saves his life in turn. This becomes even more heartwarming considering the last time the two saw each other, they got into a fistfight.
* Halt and Gilan greeting one another at the Gathering. They may no longer be master and apprentice, but they obviously still have a special relationship from that part of their shared past.
* When the three bullies who've been making his life hell for months beat him ''almost to the point of unconsciousness'' and announce they're going after Will, Horace immediately rises, grabs a training sword, and makes them pay for it--and for all the hell they've put him through so far.
-->'''Horace:''' Thank you, Ranger.
-->'''Halt:''' Thank you for taking a hand when they attacked Will. And by the way, [[FriendlyAddressPrivileges my friends call me Halt]].
* Combined with Funny: After Horace is carried into the healer's tent following his duel with Morgarath, Rodney [[AngerBornOfWorry storms up and starts bellowing at him.]] As a woozy Horace tries to sit up, Rodney immediately, and very gently, tells him to sit back and rest.
-->'''Rodney:''' Rest, boy. You've done well.
* In book three after Will and Evanlyn, aka Princess Cassandra, have been captured (at the end of the second book), Halt asks for leave to go and rescue them. When he's told no (the kingdom is in chaos after an attack) Halt basically goes and gets himself banished for a year ''ALL SO HE CAN GO AFTER WILL''. And partway out of the Kingdom he runs into Horace who tells him he's (Horace) gotten leave from Battleschool (Knight training) to go with him. That's right. Sir Rodney, the strict, letter-of-the-law Battleschool head, gave Horace leave and his unofficial blessing to them both.
** What Halt did to get himself banished has two punishments, death or banishment. After hearing this the King (a friend of Halt's) laid down the sentence of a year's banishment, using a loophole in the law ([[LoopholeAbuse while the law lays out the punishment it]] ''[[LoopholeAbuse never specifies any specific duration]]'', despite the implication of the law being banished for life). Notably even the Chamberlain, whose duties include advising the king on the law, goes with it.
** Additionally underscored by what happens when Halt gets back. It's clear the law still means a lot to him, since he initially protests returning to Araluen on the grounds that he still had around a month left on his sentence... and then [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure the king]] allows him back in anyway, at the slightest excuse.
** It takes a bit of thinking, but Halt calls Horace a member of the "Order of the Oak Leaf [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments (unless he said "Oak Pancake" by mistake)]]. The oak leaf is the symbol of the Ranger Corps. In other words, Halt essentially made Horace an honorary Ranger!
** Evanlyn reveals her true identity to Will, and apologizes "if I've been acting like a bit of a princess lately."
* ''The Battle for Skandia'':
** Slaygor drags an Araluen slave woman into the Great Hall, claiming that she told him Evanlyn's real identity (According to the apologetic slave, they beat it out of her.) Even then, she tries to claim that Evanlyn looked like Cassandra at a distance, but she doesn't think they're the same now.
** Evanlyn/Cassandra has been keeping her real identity under wraps since she and Will heard about Ranjak's vow to kill everyone in Duncan's family. What finally causes her to out herself? Slaygor threatens to beat an Araluen slave woman into identifying her.
** Erak seeing Will being brought low by warmweed, and instantly making up his mind to do everything in his power to help him and Cassandra escape.
* The sixth book.
** Will breaks the mind control on Alyss by telling her that he loves her. Note that this wasn't an attempt to break the brainwashing -- it was so Alyss would know there were no hard feelings once she came out of the mind control and saw that she'd killed him.
** Another occurs after what starts out as a downer ending. Will parts with the dog Shadow. Will isn't sure Alyss was in a state of mind to comprehend this declaration of love, and Alyss isn't sure if Will's declaration of love actually happened or was merely a dream. Will returns home, sad and alone with nothing going quite right, and after a few days he receives a letter from Alyss stating that she returns his feelings.
** A more subtle one is Horace listing, amongst his titles, "Personal Champion of the Princess Cassandra." When Will questions him on this, Horace essentially shrugs and says that while he isn't technically yet, he's sure it's only a matter of time. Set against the backdrop of Will and Alyss both dancing around the subject and over-thinking everything, it's very sweet to see that yes, Horace is that confident and comfortable with himself and her both to know that "it's only a matter of time." And he's not wrong, either.
* Madelyn making Will laugh. He hadn't laughed since Alyss died, ''18 months'' before the start of the book.
-->"[Will] began to laugh. And somewhere, the laughter turned to tears and he was sobbing uncontrollably--immense sobs that racked his entire body and floods of tears that coursed down his cheeks. And he knew the tears were the ones he had never been able to shed for Alyss. They were for her. And they were for Maddie. And they were for him. Most of all for him."
* The fact that Duncan knows perfectly well that Halt uses a forged copy of his seal, which would be a capital crime, and looks the other way because it's Halt, whom he knows will never abuse it.
* Horace has posed as a knight while traveling through Gallica, a major breach of etiquette. What do his superiors do? [[PromotionNotPunishment The]] ''king himself'' [[PromotionNotPunishment knights him,]] and appoints him to the Royal Guard.
* ''Halt's Peril'':
** Will and Horace (and [[PragmaticHero Halt]], after just a little convincing) delay their pursuit of Tennyson to bury some murdered Scotti farmers just because it's the right thing to do.
** When he hears that Halt is dying, Malcolm leaves his community and joins Will immediately. The interactions between the group as they treat their injured member also count.
* Will's graduation ceremony at the end of Book 7, crossing over with SugarWiki/FunnyMoments.
* In Book 10, when Cassandra, Will, Halt, and Alyss hear that Horace is in trouble, their immediate response is to rush halfway around the world to his rescue. And it's implied that Duncan gave his full approval.
* Similarly, George takes an arrow for Horace and even says ThinkNothingOfIt, and Horace's sincere gratitude to the NonActionGuy who took a shot for him despite not being at all used to it.
* Horace also comes to view Shigeru as a ParentalSubstitute, a sentiment which the latter returns in kind, even being a ShipperOnDeck for Horace/Cassandra.
* Shukin doesn't just go to the trouble and expense of giving Horace a new, Nihon-Jan sword: He "borrows" Horace's and has a perfect replica made!
** The latter's HeroicSacrifice is also very touching-he and the other volunteers know they're doomed, they know that their YouShallNotPass will almost certainly not stop, but only delay Arisaka, but all of them volunteer to stay behind and give Horace, Shigeru, and the others time to find Ran-Koshi.
** Shigeru's genuine interest in meeting and getting to know the ordinary people of Nihon-Ja. It's not an affectation or a cunning ploy to recruit soldiers against Arisaka. He just really enjoys getting to know his subjects and listening to their stories.
*** At one point in Book 10, one of his servants is sent to ask Horace to join him as soon as he can--and specifically notes that when he says "at your soonest convenience," he genuinely means that and not "right this very second."
* ''The Kings of Clonmel'':
** While challenging Tennyson, Halt impulsively signs Horace up to defeat Killeen and Gerard in a TrialByCombat, trusting that the young knight will be willing and able to handle the two bruisers. That's a lot of faith. And none of it is misplaced.
** Afterwards, Halt questions Horace in private about whether he's okay with this, saying that they can just leave if not and that this is really more Halt's problem than Horace's. Even though Halt never asked him specifically before the matches were set up, Horace assures him that he knew something like this might happen when Halt began presenting him as the Sunrise Warrior. Furthermore, it's his friend's problem, which makes it ''his'' problem. Halt wonders out loud what he did to deserve [[UndyingLoyalty this kind of loyalty.]]
* At Horace and Cassandra's wedding, Will spends ages working on a speech with loads of PurpleProse (to the extent that that's actually the title of the short story). But when the speech gets destroyed, he gives one which was improvised, but much more beautiful and heartfelt, and leaves even NotSoStoic Halt near tears.
-->"I can't imagine anyone better suited to Cassandra than Horace, or anyone better suited to Horace than Cassandra."
** Shigeru also comes halfway around the world, leaving his just-stabilized kingdom in the hands of a regent, because the man who's almost his son is getting married.
** Heck, the entire wedding is Heartwarming for everyone, in-universe and out, who's shipped them for years.
* Hearing that a nearly-extinct animal is preying on a farming couple's cattle, Maddie chooses not to kill it, but takes the much more complicated and riskier option of drugging it, healing its wounds, and setting it free to hunt back among the mountains.
* At first in Book 10, Horace's title of "Kurokuma" and that "it's a term of great respect" is a RunningGag among the Nihon-Jan. After he leads the Kikori in their first successful battle, though, this bit of dialogue occurs:
-->'''Will:''' I'd still like to know how he got that name.
-->'''Shigeru:''' However he got it, it truly is a term of great respect.
* And of course, the moment that most, if not all, of the fans had been waiting for: The small, simple, yet beautiful wedding of [[OfficialCouple Will and Alyss]].
* When Gilan quotes "one riot, one Ranger" to Duncan, the latter responds with "One daughter, two Rangers."
-->'''Will:''' Two and a half, your Majesty.
-->'''Duncan:''' (smiling) Don't sell yourself short. Two and three quarters.